The Fruit of Distrust

Numbers 14

Deuteronomy 1:22, 23 recaps the factors that led to spying out the land. God promised possession (Deuteronomy 1:21). Insecure with the idea of a blind invasion of an unknown, the people asked for an intelligence operation (Deuteronomy 1:22). Moses consented (Deuteronomy 1:23), and God commanded the method of gaining reliable knowledge (Numbers 13:2). The odyssey of fact-finding became an occasion for unmanning fear and aggressive rebellion. A bad report of the ten led to the intention of stoning the two, Caleb and Joshua, who pled with the people to receive the gift from God of a country in which the entire nation would thrive. Disobedience led to desert wanderings and death for the entire generation of rebellious promise-disbelievers.

I. Absolute and aggravated rebellion (1-10).

A. After hearing the whining fears of the skeptical ten, the people showed a determination to return to Egypt (1-4).

Their moaning is truly pitiful. These children of the great deliverance, of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:7), of the Tabernacle, the manna, the quail, the cloud by day, the fire by night, the glory of Sinai, and the giving of the ten words: they say it would be better to have died in Egypt, or even in the wilderness, than to try to take possession of the Land of Promise. They decide to oust Moses the deliverer as a leader and to choose a leader who will epitomize their sinful capitulation of surrender to pagan captors. So it is with all of us who fear that the “race set before us” holds too many threats, sacrifices, and difficulties.

B. Moses and Aaron responded.

In astonishment and in the position of repentance, Moses and Aaron fell before the Lord. This blatant aggression against the blessings and the command of the Lord prompted them to a position of intercession (5). Also, Moses spoke reminding them of God’s powerful interventions on their behalf to this point (Deuteronomy 1:29-31).

C. Caleb and Joshua responded.

1. 1. They tore their garments. This is a symbol of utter despair concerning human faithfulness, righteousness, and strength. It symbolizes abandonment of hope in oneself and the need to be sustained by God. They saw the shameless rebellion of their fellow scouts and the consequent abandonment of all hope on the part of the great throng.
   2. They spoke in defense of the purpose of their mission. They said that the land in itself was “exceedingly good.” It was highly productive of delightful provisions—“A land which flows with milk and honey.” That should be motive enough to proceed.

1. 3. Their success was promised by the God who delivered them and had chosen them as His own above all the nations of the earth. “If the Lord delights in us”—that is, since the Lord had loved us with a special love for purposes of His own—“He will bring us into this land” (8). You will not have to win it with superior force and skill, but with faithfulness for the Lord will “bring us into this land and give it to us.” Paul said, “We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
   4. They summarized their defense of advancement in an appeal of several facets: they should not rebel against the Lord; they were not to fear the inhabitants of the land; they were to embrace the promise of God’s presence; the Lord removed his protection from the present inhabitants. The time had come for His judgment to fall on them. Banish, therefore, any fear of harm or of defeat for this is the Lord’s battle.

D. The crowd called for stoning.

Their fear, prompted and intensified by their unbelieving hearts, led them to call for stoning Caleb and Joshua. We see this same kind of captivity to rebellious hearts in the stoning of Steven when at the end of a historical survey Israel’s unfaithfulness when he pronounced them as people who were “stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” (Acts 831).

E. God’s glory deterred this murderous action.

The same glory that hovered over them all during their preparatory wanderings now descended into the tabernacle and put a stop to this lawless, defiant, faithless, and godless plan to kill the righteous and faithful witnesses.

II. God tests the fidelity of Moses (11-19).

God used this disaster of unbelief to bolster and solidify the faith of Moses in the unchanging faithfulness and eternal purpose of God.

A. God speaks.

1. 1. The people deserve to be abandoned and left to die. They have spurned the God who rescued them and promised to make them into a great and independent nation in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, and they spurned Him. He did not leave them without evidence that He was more than adequate to perform every promise. For this unceasing rebellion and disbelief, God told Moses that He would destroy and dispossess them.
   2. God will raise up a new nation from Moses. He would begin again with Moses to produce an even greater people who would respond to His favor with faith and gratitude.

B. Moses responded.

1. 1. Moses appealed to God’s reputation. He first appealed to the past, that is, the Egyptians who already were defeated. Though the Hebrew God used His power against us, so would they say, yet His patience, power, and plan were not sufficiently knowledgeable to handle those unruly slave people themselves. Their God surrendered His plan to their recalcitrance. Then he appealed to how other nations would respond. They would conclude that He had neither the power nor the consistency of character to fulfil His oath to them. These nations will conclude that you are only one of the gods and perhaps not even the most powerful one. If you destroy this people that you have guided by the brilliance of your presence, the nations will infer falsehoods.
   2. Moses appealed to God’s character. Moses placed before God His own revelation of the way in which He carries forth His plan with demonstrations of just wrath as well as tender mercy (Exodus 34:5-7). God has the power, wisdom, and character to deal in mercy without clearing the guilty. Moses asked God to demonstrate His greatness of character in punishment as well as preservation of this people. Show the way, Moses pleaded, of covenantal mercy and forgiveness that is consistent with perfect justice.
   3. Had God’s proposal to start anew with Moses, the prophecy of Deuteronomy 49:9- 11 would not have been possible. Moses was not of Judah, yet the lion of the tribe of Judah was to rule and redeem.

III. Divine Integrity Intact- This principle has been operative in the divine economy since the fall of Adam and Eve.

A just punishment is inflicted, but an act of grace highlights God’s covenant of redemption (Genesis 3:15). Eventually this principle has its matured and perfect manifestation in the cross. In Romans 3:24-26, Paul argued that the action of the Father in the cross of Christ, renders Him righteous in all else that He does. Though all these actions of saving power are pure grace to us, each of them is a demonstration of God’s perfect rectitude in the manner by which He saves transgressors of his law. He has declared that in forgiving transgressions He will “by no means clear the guilty” (Deuteronomy 34:7). Yet by the death of Christ, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). In justifying us and then fitting us for the holy and joyful employments of heaven (Romans 8:32), he is both gracious and just.

A. God will not relent from punishing the sin of the people.

God will show His just anger at the sin of the people and yet maintain the nation in its revelatory and redemptive function.

1. 1. The entire nation above 20 will perish in the wilderness (22, 23). It would happen to them as they feared (28, 29). They would wander and die in the wilderness. A year for every day of exploration they would wander with their promised home just a short journey away (34). One by one they would perish and be buried in soon-forgotten graves, carcasses scattered throughout the wilderness (33). The land for which they had been rescued in such a powerful manner from Egypt, would remain for them as formidable as the faithless report stated. They believed the lie and reaped a life in accordance with it. They were excluded from the land that flows with milk and honey.
   2. The faithless spies will die immediately (36, 37). God is not obligated to show patience with sin. These men directly contradicted the promise, power, and command of God. Justice may be immediate or delayed; it will be done.

B. God will, nevertheless, perpetuate the seed of messianic promise.

Their children would inherit the land (31). God still would pursue the redemption of a people promised to his Son (John 17:2, 6) through the perfect obedience of His Son (John 17:19).

C. Human contrivance is vain (39-45).

Some people sought to contravene the judgment of God after it was announced. They sought to overcome the sentence after it had been issued. They were warned by Moses not to go and were told with unvarnished clarity, “The Lord will not be with you” (43). They went anyway in another blatant act of disobedience and were struck and beaten down.

Poem

Infinite wisdom, justice pure
Crown God’s eternal perfections.
Vessels of mercy gain forgiveness,
And vessels of wrath just rejection.

The wages of sin is death
But God freely gives salvation.
Those left in sin and unbelief
Will earn their condemnation.

Rebel hearts are fond of bondage,
Hate the price of freedom’s call
Trust the Lord of sovereign power;
In granting life, He has done all.

Hide within your own resources,
Gather all your useless woes;
Praise the death that rots your spirit;
Reject Him who defeats your foes.

For those who mourn for sin and flee
To the fount where mercy flows
Will find God’s wrath is satisfied,
A saving God has interposed.

We cry to God for His rich mercies,
Even though our sin is great.
His glory shines in perfect justice,
Both wrath and grace propitiate.

When wrathful grace engulfs the wicked,
The utmost farthing must be paid.
To God, the just, the righteous one
Christ has full recompence displayed.

God pursues redemptive purpose
Judging sin while working grace,
Shows His glory by just anger;
Remove the rebels, save the race.

Seed of the woman dwells within
This people in the wilderness.
From them the God of covenant oath
Will grant His world true righteousness.