Fear, Faith, & False Repentance: God Keeps His Promises

Fear, Faith, & False Repentance: God Keeps His Promises

We have come to the last post in this series on Numbers 14. I have shown you Israel’s sinful fear, their lack of faith, and their false repentance after God confronts them. But Numbers 14 also gives us a positive picture of courageous faith, God’s merciful character, and Christ’s mediation. In this final post, I want to answer the simple question: Has God rejected Israel for their disobedience? Will God keep His promises to bring them into the land and bless them?

God will still keep His promise because He is faithful

Numbers 14 ends in a depressing place. Israel attempts to enter the land by their own strength against the advice of Moses. What happens? Complete defeat. The last verse in Numbers 14 has the Israelites routed by the Amalekites and the Canannites. At this point, you might say to yourself “Israel is hopeless! How is God going to stay with them? Will God continue to be faithful when Israel is unfaithful and disobedient every single step of the way?”

Numbers 15:1-2 comes with an answer:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land you are to inhabit, which I am giving you,

Numbers 15:-12, ESV emphasis added

Not if Israel comes into the land: when Israel enters it. At this point your mind should be blown. God is still going to give Israel the land He promised them. After all Israel’s rebellion, after their false repentance, after they tried to claim the land without him. What kind of God would respond in this way?

A promise-keeping God. It is who God is fundamentally.

After all that happened in Numbers 14, after all the sin Israel committed, God is still committed to keeping His promises. God is a promise-making, promise-keeping God. Even human rebellion cannot thwart God’s sovereign plans. Paul explains this truth in 2 Timothy:

If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2:13, ESV

God cannot deny Himself. Even when His people are faithless. Why is God so faithful to you time and time again? Why is His covenant love, his steadfast love, so inexhaustible? It isn’t because Israel is great. It isn’t because you and I are great. 

God’s love is great because God Himself is great.

There is of course discipline when you sin. You saw that in Numbers 14. God does not let the guilty go unpunished. But He is rich in forgiveness, in faithful love. When you are tempted to believe God will give up on you or that He will not fulfill His promises in Christ because of your unfaithfulness, remind yourself it isn’t about you. It is about how great God is.

Numbers 14 and the Gospel of Jesus

In 2 Timothy Paul says Scripture can make one wise unto salvation in Jesus Christ. So how would someone reading Numbers 14 anticipate Christ? I would say there are at least two ways.

1. The New Covenant is necessary

Israel had the law, had a mediator, had God among them, but they still rebelled. Why? Because of unbelief. Even though Israel had the law:

  • They didn’t have the power in themselves to keep the law
  • The law didn’t produce faith in God
  • The law was still outside of them and it didn’t bear the fruit of trust in the Lord

And if you keep reading the Old Testament, this lack of fruit and faith continues. God sends prophets again and again to call out Israel for their unbelief and disobedience. The law does not fix either problem.

That is why the promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 is so amazing. God says it won’t be like the covenant He made with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt: God promises to put His law within His people, on their hearts.

In Numbers 14, Caleb and Joshua had faith in God’s promises and begged Israel to believe too. In Jeremiah 31 God says that won’t happen anymore:

  • “No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother saying “know the Lord””
  • Why? “Because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.”

Numbers 14 should cause you to ache for the New Covenant. And how is God going to bring about this new covenant? 

Matthew 26 gives us the answer: “Then Jesus took a cup and after giving thanks gave it to them and said “Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood that establishes the New Covenant, it is shed for the forgiveness of sins.”

God is going to establish a New Covenant. But establishing it will be costly. The price: the blood of His own son, Jesus Christ. The New Covenant wasn’t free. If you are a believer and have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, if you are set free from the curse of the law, and if you know the Lord, realize that all that came with a price.

Jesus had to bring it about. Through His blood alone.

2. Only those who believe enter God’s promised rest

Hebrews 3 and 4 looks back on Israel’s history, including Numbers 14. The author sees Numbers 14 as a warning for people who read it. The author of Hebrews saw that even though this generation of Israel was redeemed from Egypt and saw signs in the wilderness, they still rebelled. The result? God swore in His wrath, as we saw in Numbers 14, that Israel would not enter His rest. The promised rest in the promised land.

The author of Hebrews in 3:19 gives the same conclusion you saw in Numbers 14: Israel was unable to enter because unbelief. Then Hebrews turns to us and gives us a warning.

If you hear about the rest promised in Jesus Christ, the rest from having to earn your standing before God, do not harden your hearts. Don’t be like Israel who stood at the edge of the promised land yet did not enter because of unbelief.

You can hear the gospel a hundred times but if you never actually believe it, you won’t enter the rest Jesus promises.

Let me say it again because it is a crucial takeaway from Numbers 14: You can be as close to the promises of God as Israel was, but if you don’t believe them, they won’t do you any good. You can be around God’s promises, you can hear the gospel, you can even be an upstanding member in a Church but unless you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, you will perish outside of God’s promises.

Conclusion: Flee from unbelief, have faith in God’s promises

So, by way of summary, let me remind you the main point from this series: Israel did not enter the promised land because of their unbelief in God. And as I just explained above: you can be as close to God as to see His miracles, and yet still perish because of your lack of faith, your rebellion, and your false repentance.

I think Hebrews 4 gives us the best ending word: “So, let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall into the same pattern of disobedience.” Let us pray the Holy Spirit would work in our hearts so that you and I behave like Caleb. He was loyal to the Lord and His promises. Israel was fearful of men, but Caleb feared God. And in the end, Caleb, through his faith, ended up entering the promised land.

If you missed a post in this series, click here. If you want to listen to a sermon I preached on Numbers 14, click here. Subscribe and share below. Be sure to follow The Average Churchman on Instagram so you can get more content.

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