What is the price of disobedience?

For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel." - Deuteronomy 32:52.

What is the price of disobedience? Moses broke faith with God when he did not speak to the rock, but struck the rock twice (Numbers 11-13). What seems like a tiny disobedience (sin) resulted in Moses not entering the promise land. He was not able to finish the race set before him. Why was this a big deal to God? God explains to Moses, “Because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel.” Moses failed to recognize God as holy. In Isaiah 6, we hear the seraphim say, 

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

Concerning this text the late R.C. Sproul said, “Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that he is holy, holy, holy that the whole earth is full of His glory.” So, to a holy God, there are no insignificant sins. When you draw your attention away from God, you fail to treat God as holy. In other words, without outside help, we face the same fate that Moses faced. He cannot enter the promise land. This is exactly why Jesus had to empty himself and became a substitute for you and me. As we remember Jesus’ saving death and resurrection during this Lenten season, let us not forget that God is holy; let us not forget that Jesus became sin so that we can be justified; let us remember that God is holy and he demands us to be holy. As it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).