Numbers chapter 14 and verse
1. And all the congregation lifted
up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel
murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and the whole congregation
said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt,
or would God we had died in this wilderness, And wherefore hath
the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword, that
our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better
for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another,
Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt. Then Moses
and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the
congregation of the children of Israel. and Joshua the son
of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them
that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they speak
unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which
we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then
he will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land which
floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the
Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred
for us, and their defence is departed from them, and the Lord
is with us. Fear them not. But all the congregation
bade stone them with stones, And the glory of the Lord appeared
in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. And the Lord said unto Moses,
How long will this people provoke me? And how long will it be ere
they believe me for all the signs which I have showed among them?
I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will
make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.' And
Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it,
for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them.
and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, for
they have heard that thou, Lord, art among this people. But thou,
Lord, art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over
them, and that thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar of
a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if thou shalt kill
all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard
the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was
not able to bring this people into the land which he sware
unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now I beseech thee, let the
power of my Lord be great according as thou hast spoken, saying,
The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity
and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity
of this people, according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and
as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I have pardoned
according to thy word. But as truly as I live, all the
earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all
those men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I
did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these
ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice, Surely they shall
not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall
any of them that provoked me see it. But my servant Caleb,
because he had another spirit with him and hath followed me
fully, him will I bring into the land wherein he went, and
his seed shall possess it. And then just over in verse 31,
for a couple of verses, But your little ones, which ye said should
be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land
which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcasses,
they shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall wander
in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms until
your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness. and the number of
the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each
day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years,
and ye shall know my breach of promise. Amen. May the Lord bless
this rather solemn word to our hearts. It's a long chapter and
I had to miss out one or two things, so if you have a care
to re-read it for yourself at another opportunity, it is an
important chapter as well, and interesting, because the New
Testament tells us that it was expressly written for our example. But I want us to think about
the unbelief of these people once again today because it is
the unbelief of the children of Israel that is largely before
us at this time. We might say that there are two
kinds of unbelief. There is unbelief that rejects
Christ and God's word and God's way of salvation. And there is
unbelief that doubts God's promises. And I want to distinguish these
two things at the outset here. Certainly, all unbelief brings
loss. and there is great loss in rejecting
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Saviour
himself says, for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain
the whole world and lose his own soul? This unbelief, this
unbelief of rejecting God and despising the Lord Jesus Christ
and seeing the cross of Christ to have no value and no interest,
this unbelief betrays the wickedness of the human heart and confirms
men and women and boys and girls in their sin and their guilt. It leads to hell. It leads to
separation and to everlasting punishment. But also, the Lord's own blood-bought
people often exhibit unbelief, and unbelief for us too brings
loss. It robs us of opportunities to
enjoy God's blessings, receive God's favours, and it brings
us into times of coldness in our souls and the loss of fellowship
with our Saviour. When these 12 spies returned
from Canaan, they brought a divided message. Caleb and Joshua spoke
of God's promises and his faithfulness and the blessings that lay before
the people. But the other 10 spies, leaders
from amongst the children of Israel, from the tribes of the
children of Israel, brought back a message of fear and unbelief. The people were standing on the
border of Canaan, the promised land. Before them was the land
that God had promised to Abraham and his children. They had travelled
a year and a half from the captivity of Egypt, from the slavery and
the bondage that they were in. They had seen countless evidences
of God's goodness and glory. They'd crossed the Red Sea on
dry land. They had seen Pharaoh's army
completely destroyed. They had enjoyed deliverance
from their foes and their enemies. They had eaten manna and drunk
fresh water in the midst of the wilderness where there was no
food and there was no refreshment. And now God's promise lay before
them. God had given them his law to
use as their structure and framework for their society in the land
to which they came. He had established his dwelling
place amongst them by giving them the tabernacle that we have
been thinking about. and he had promised to dwell
with them. They had every reason to trust
the Lord. But they could not and they would
not. And we're told that the people
wept all night when they heard the account of these ten faithless
spies. This history of Israel in the
wilderness I think is as fine an example of man's hard heart
of unbelief as one can find anywhere in the whole of the Bible. On
the outside, these people seemed to be God's chosen, blessed people. The Egyptians thought so, that
was Moses' argument. The Canaanites thought so. The
two spies, Caleb and Joshua, told the children of Israel that
the people of this land know who you are and they fear you
because they know God is with you. But the people in their hearts
doubted. They feared and they were ungrateful. And they accused God of bringing
them into the desert to slay them. They even went so far as
to say that they wanted to return to Egypt. There they were on
the very borders of the promised land. They looked over their
shoulder at the wilderness that was behind them and they said,
let us make us a captain and let us go back to Egypt. They knew, of course, that Moses
wouldn't lead them there, nor Aaron go with them. So they planned
to choose a new leader. Later in the scriptures, it actually
says that they did choose such a leader. I wonder how they thought
they were going to make that journey. I wonder who they thought
would supply them with water and with manna and with quails
to eat on that journey back to Egypt. I wonder how they thought
they would cross the Red Sea again. or make their way through
the deserts and the valleys and the mountains without a pillar
of cloud to guide them and fire by night. The Lord said to Moses, these
people have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkened
to my voice. And God resolved to slay the
people of Israel for their rebellion and their ingratitude. He would
make Moses instead a great nation and he would give the land of
Canaan to Moses and to his children. But what do we find here? We
find that Moses once again intercedes for the people. He calls upon
the Lord, he calls upon the glory of the Lord and the name of the
Lord and he refers to the shame that would follow if God appeared
incapable of bringing the children of Israel into the land. It's
as if he says, Lord, don't give these people any credit because
they are weak and hopeless, but it's your glory and your honour
that is at stake here. And of course, we've seen already
that Moses in this role is a beautiful picture of Christ's intercession
for us. But what it reminds us is that
Christians still sin, despite all that God has done for us. they still exhibit unbelief. And yet God is faithful. For
the sake of his name, for his own glory upon the merits of
Christ's blood and for the love that God has for his Son and
us in his Son, he remains faithful. faithful to his promises and
he grants pardon for sin. This is a great encouragement
to us to confess our sins before the Lord and to cast off our
baseless doubt and unbelief and return to him. Moses' appeals
prevailed with God And here we see God's mercy and grace, and
yet we discover that none of those who rebelled against God
would enjoy the blessings of life in Canaan. God turned the
whole nation around at this point and he caused them to wander
in the desert for another 40 years. One year for every day
they waited for the spies to spy out the land. During those
40 years, all the rebels would die. All of those who wanted
to go back to Egypt would die in the wilderness and their carcasses,
their bodies would be left lying at the side of the road. All those who were above, who
were 20 years of age and above, would die during these 40 years
except for Caleb and Joshua, the two spies that told the truth. Only the children and the young
people, the teenagers, would enter into Canaan. Here are three quick lessons
that I think we should take from this passage. Let us remember that God has
proved himself faithful in the past. Let us trust him for the
future. The point about the future is
that we don't know what is going to happen. At least no man or
woman does. but God does, because the future
is all in his purpose and under his control. We will definitely find the future
to be challenging. We will sometimes find the future
to be hurtful. We will find it to be a cause
of fear and uncertainty. but we can trust the Lord for
all that will happen and we should trust him. The Lord is faithful
to his word and he is faithful for his own glory's sake. He will do his people good. Trust in him, he will be faithful. Here's another lesson. There
is great loss in not trusting the Lord. I began by saying there
are two kinds of unbelief, but really there is only just unbelief. And because of God's particular
grace and Christ's intercession for his people, there are two
outcomes for unbelief. There's the unbelief of the reprobate
that is never healed and never forgiven. They remain dead in
their sins all the days of their lives. This unbelief results
in hell and everlasting separation from God. And such unbelievers
have no saviour and no forgiveness of sin. Hell is a real place
of loss and darkness and sorrow and regret. May God save us from
going to hell. but there is also an unbelief
of the elect of God. This unbelief has already been
punished in the Lord Jesus Christ and it is pardoned for us. This unbelief is a continuing
effect of living in the flesh despite being people of faith
who trust in Jesus Christ. It is the old man's struggle
for restoration and supremacy and it has to be opposed, it
has to be wrestled with, it has to be suppressed and challenged
constantly. This unbelief brings a lack of
peace to the Lord's people. It brings a loss of joy. It brings
a strain of fellowship with the Lord and with our brothers and
sisters in Christ. Because God loves us, it will
be chastened and it will be corrected in our lives. It will be disciplined
in order to steer us and guide our conduct. But this is important. This unbelief will never remove
us from his love or prevent us from entering into his presence.
God cannot deny himself and he will not deny his word or his
promises. And finally, take this as an
application and a lesson too. If you find it hard to trust
the Lord, and you will. Ask him for his help. Did you
notice what the scripture says here concerning Caleb? It said,
the Lord is speaking, My servant Caleb, because he had another
spirit with him, hath followed me fully. Caleb, and we assume
Joshua too, were blessed with a spirit of faith. They saw God's
purpose in all the things that they saw in Canaan, and they
were content to follow where the Lord led, even if the way
looked hard. What was it that made Caleb different
from the other 10 spies? God gave him another spirit with
him. So let every child of God, let
every believer ask the Lord to strengthen our faith. Do you
remember the man to whom the Lord spoke, whose son was unwell? The man said to Jesus, Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. That was in Mark chapter nine
and verse 24. And these are seven of the most
important and enabling words in scripture for God's people
who are weak in faith. May the Lord grant us faith that
grows and give us a spirit to trust him more in spite of our
baseless and our inexcusable unbelief. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Amen.