Fear, Faith, & False Repentance: Unbelief in God
Unbelief in God and His promises is often your fundamental problem in life. It keeps you from the happiness you desire. Unbelief can lead to sinful fear of man. It is based on feelings rather than revealed truth. And in Numbers 14, unbelief in God is the sin that ultimately keeps Israel from entering the promised land.
In the last post of this series, I discussed the progression of sinful fear in Numbers 14:1-4. Israel started out weeping out of fear. Then they started complaining. And finally Israel fell into outright rebellion against God. Israel declared it would be better for them to appoint their own leader and return to Egypt, the place the Lord just freed them from.
Then, God shows up. God declares His take on Israel’s situation. How does the Lord interpret Israel’s rebellion?
11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”
Numbers 14:11-12, ESV
Israel’s problem is unbelief in God
There are two parallel statements in Numbers 14:11-12. The first is “how long will this people despise me?” and the second is “how long will they not believe in me?” The primary question you must ask as a reader is what is Israel not believing about God? The answer from the text: Israel isn’t believing God is powerful enough to keep His promises.
Israel thinks the problem is the nations in the promised land are just too strong. But that isn’t the main problem.
God declares that Israel’s problem isn’t nations around them or their circumstances. It is a wrong theology, a wrong view of who God is.
God goes as far as to say Israel has despised Him. That is strong language. How has Israel despised God? By their unbelief. God says Israel has no excuse for their unbelief because He performed plenty of signs and wonders among them.
As my Pastor always says, unbelief in God is not an intellectual issue. Israel did not need more signs or more evidence of God’s power and ability to keep His promises.
What belief in God looks like
It is interesting to contrast Numbers 14 with what happened in Exodus 14.
29 But the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. 30 Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
Exodus 14:29-31, ESV emphasis added
This text details Israel’s reaction after they cross through the Red Sea and God destroys the Egyptian army. The text says God saved Israel from the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead. Israel observed this great act of God on their behalf. What was their response?
- They feared the Lord
- They believed in the Lord
- They believed in His servant Moses
There is a connection between seeing what the Lord has done and fearing Him and believing in Him. In Numbers 14, you see the opposite of this.
Instead of fearing the Lord, Israel is fearing the nations. Nations not any more powerful that Egypt who God defeated clearly and decisively. Instead of believing in God and in His servant Moses, Israel is ready to rebel and go back to slavery.
God looks at this fear and lack of faith and calls it for what it is: Israel is despising Him. Rejecting Him.
The high cost of unbelief in God
God does not deal with Israel’s unbelief lightly. In Sailhamer’s excellent commentary, he points out that all Israel is going to face in the rest of the Pentateuch is a consequence of their unbelief in God. They are going to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. Not enter the promised land. A whole generation is going to die.
Why? Because of something Israel did in the past? Because of a battle they lost?
No. All these consequences are going to happen to Israel simply because they failed to trust in the Lord.
Unlike their behavior in Exodus 14, Israel is not properly fearing the Lord and believing in Him. If you read through Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers up to this point, Israel has seen even more miraculous signs than they had in Exodus 14. But as I said before, unbelief isn’t based on lack of evidence. Israel had plenty of reason to believe God was powerful enough to bring them into the land.
How awful a sin is it to not believe in God? God is prepared to destroy Israel because they are not trusting Him. Is this too harsh? I mean, the nations in the promised land really are strong. Doesn’t God know trusting Him in spite of circumstances is difficult? Is unbelief in God really that big of a deal?
The answer God gives is this:
Lack of faith in God is equivalent to rejecting God
Without faith it is impossible to please God. The righteous will live by faith. Walk by faith and not by sight.
Israel had the promise that God would bring them into the land. They had seen the power of God displayed. They knew God had brought them out of slavery. So why are they fearful? Why are they rebelling?
Unbelief. Lack of faith in the promise of God. It might not sound like such a “big deal”. But unbelief in God is a rejection of Him. It is trusting in something other than His word as truth. Israel was walking by sight, not walking by faith in God and His promises. The consequences of unbelief are severe because God is so incredibly great and powerful.
Application #1: Your specific sins are fundamentally based in unbelief in God
This text should shape our thinking of what sin is. Fear and sin are related fundamentally to unbelief. You might fight and struggle with a myriad of different sins. Different people you know might fight different manifestations of sin. But everyone’s fundamental battle is against unbelief. It is a fundamental sin.
God is a promise-making, promise-keeping God. He doesn’t ask us to fulfill His promises; He asks us to trust Him (think Abraham). Simply believing in Him and His promises pleases the Lord. Therefore, not trusting in the Lord displeases Him. Unbelief in God and His promises is never a neutral thing.
A lot of times in my own life, I treat trusting in the Lord as something I can either have or not have. It becomes like a cherry on top of the Christian life.
It is also very easy in the Church to talk about trust in Lord very casually. A situation or a trial comes up and you here something like “Oh I just need to trust the Lord”, or “I’m struggling to trust in the Lord.” This makes it sound as if belief in God is a part of the Christian life rather than essential to it.
Believing & trusting in the Lord is not something you can choose to do or not do depending on your circumstances. It is the essence of the Christian life.
And belief in the Lord’s promises is essential when things get difficult. Often times, you and I have a very superficial view of our problems. So, we end up going after very superficial solutions. When you are faced with a difficulty, or problem, your first question should not be “how can I fix this problem?” Or even when faced with your own sin, your first question should not be “What can I quickly do to stop feeling guilty?”
When faced with a problem or your own sin, your first questions should be: What promises of God am I not trusting? What am I actually believing to be true?
What promises of God should you have trusted to avoid this situation? What are you functionally believing to be true about God? Are there things you say you believe, but you aren’t living in light of?
That is what Israel needed to do in Numbers 14! To say “Wait a minute, we are fearful because we have forgotten God’s promises!”
Application #2: Know and trust in God’s promises to you
God promised Israel the land and that He would defeat the nations currently living in the land. A very specific promise, God explicitly gave to Israel. You might think that you don’t have any promises like that.
But you have to understand God bathes his people in promises.
If you read the New Testament, you see just as many promises (if not MORE) than the nation of Israel had at this point!
- We are promised if we suffer with Him we will reign with Him!
- We are promised if we are faithless, He is faithful because He cannot deny Himself!
- We are promised all things work out for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose!
- We are promised God will make a new Heavens and a new earth where JESUS will reign forever!
- We are promised that the sufferings of this present time are not WORTHY to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us!
- We are promised that God has given us EVERYTHING we need for life and Godliness!
- We are promised if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead you WILL be saved!
- We are promised Neither death nor life nor ANYTHING in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Promise after promise after promise. Most of your problems in life are because you aren’t believing the promises!
Just like Israel. The next 40 years wandering in the wilderness comes simply from not believing and trusting in the Lord’s promises even though God has proven Himself again and again.
So next time you are faced with a problem, a sin, a difficulty, the first question you should ask is “what am I actually believing? What am I trusting in here? Am I trusting in God’s promises or is it not?”
- When you are disciplining your children and it doesn’t seem to be working what promises should you trust in?
- When there are difficulties in your marriage and you feel bitter or discouraged what promises aren’t you trusting?
- When your career isn’t going as you wanted it to or you get passed up for a promotion you feel you deserve, what promises do you need to run to?
- When you are single and you can’t seem to find contentment as you wait on a spouse, what promises aren’t you trusting?
The Bible says God is sovereign and has declared the end from the beginning. So stop and consider before the Lord what promises you are not believing
You are not in control of your circumstances. But in your circumstances, you can choose to trust the Lord and His word.
Always remember: unbelief in God is a sin. It is not a neutral issue. Personally as I have studied this text, I have found myself praying more “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” May we all grow in faith in God’s promises.
You can listen to my whole sermon on Numbers 14 here. You can find a tools I used to meditate on the application of this text here and here. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to make sure you never miss a post or a new tool.