1. "Whatever we face and whatever we go through, unbelief is really the one who's after us. He is subtle but persistent and can be powerful."

2. "Unbelief is eager to believe anything but the truth."

3. "Brothers and sisters, if you are a Christian here today, rejoice because he who began a good work in you isn't waiting on you to bring it to completion."

4. "When we get to heaven, there will be no applause, no rejoicing, no celebration for how we got ourselves there. It is called the wedding supper of the Lamb for a reason. Because He alone has secured His bride and brought her safely home."

5. "Stop looking at yourself and look to Jesus. The longer you stare at yourself, you'll never find strength. Because there's none of it there. Our strength is found not in ourselves, but in Christ alone."

6. "Rebellion like this doesn't just happen overnight. It's a slow drift. It's a subtle fade. It's time and time again instead of denying the lies of unbelief, listening to them, flirting with them, coddling them until you're so far out to sea it's so difficult to return."

7. "Unbelief causes parasitic thinking. It corrodes our minds and it blinds our eyes where we're unable to see God in the way forward."

8. "The size of the men in Canaan weren't the problem. It was the size of Israel's doubts."

9. "Faith in God leads to rest and rejoicing, and rejection of God leads to suffering and wandering."

10. "Often the real fight for faith begins after we have sinned. The moments after we have sinned is where the real fight for faith begins because you will be tempted to be defensive, to despair, or to dive back in and go deeper into your sin to find comfort and relief."

Observation Questions

1. In Numbers 13:1-2, who initiates the command to send spies into Canaan, and what does God say He is doing with the land?

2. According to Numbers 13:27-28, what two contrasting pieces of information do the spies report about the land of Canaan?

3. In Numbers 13:30-31, how does Caleb's response to the situation differ from the response of the other spies who went with him?

4. What does the congregation of Israel propose to do in Numbers 14:3-4 after hearing the spies' report?

5. In Numbers 14:17-19, what three aspects of God's character does Moses appeal to when interceding for the people?

6. According to Numbers 14:29-33, what specific consequences does God pronounce upon the generation that grumbled against Him, and who will be exempt from this judgment?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that the spies say "the land to which you sent us" (Numbers 13:27) rather than acknowledging that God sent them with a promise? What does this reveal about their spiritual condition?

2. The sermon describes the ten spies' report as containing "two lies and a half truth." How does unbelief distort our perception of reality, even when we have witnessed God's faithfulness?

3. In Numbers 14:8-9, Joshua and Caleb say, "If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land" and "the Lord is with us." How does the presence and favor of God change the way believers should assess difficult circumstances?

4. Moses intercedes for Israel by praying God's own words and promises back to Him (Numbers 14:17-19). What does this teach us about the nature and basis of effective prayer?

5. God says He has "pardoned" Israel (Numbers 14:20), yet He still imposes severe discipline (Numbers 14:29-35). How do pardon and discipline coexist in God's dealings with His people, and what does this reveal about His character?

Application Questions

1. The sermon states that "unbelief is eager to believe anything but the truth." What specific lies are you currently tempted to believe about God, yourself, or your circumstances that contradict what Scripture says? How can you actively counter those lies this week?

2. Joshua and Caleb provided godly counsel through encouragement, admonishment, and reminders of God's character. Who in your life speaks these kinds of truths to you, and how can you make yourself more known and accessible to receive this counsel?

3. The Israelites' rebellion did not happen overnight but was a "slow drift" of entertaining doubts. What early warning signs of spiritual drift should you watch for in your own life, and what specific habit or practice could help you stay anchored to God's promises?

4. The sermon emphasizes that "the real fight for faith begins after we have sinned." When you fall into sin, do you tend to become defensive, despair, or dive deeper into sin? What would it look like for you to instead confess your sin and willingly submit to God's discipline?

5. Israel's children suffered forty years in the wilderness because of their parents' unbelief (Numbers 14:33). How does recognizing that your faith or unbelief affects others—your family, your church, your community—change the way you approach your daily walk with God?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 32:1-14 — This passage recounts the golden calf incident and Moses' similar intercession, showing the pattern of Israel's unbelief and God's response to faithful prayer.

2. Hebrews 3:7-19 — The author of Hebrews directly interprets the Numbers 13-14 narrative as a warning against unbelief and hardened hearts for New Covenant believers.

3. Hebrews 4:1-11 — This passage continues the Hebrews 3 warning and points to the greater rest that remains for God's people through faith in Christ.

4. Isaiah 11:1-10 — As referenced in the sermon, this passage reveals God's ultimate purpose to fill the earth with His glory through the Messiah's reign.

5. Deuteronomy 1:19-40 — Moses recounts the spy narrative from his perspective, reinforcing the lessons about faith, obedience, and the consequences of unbelief.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Universal Battle Against Unbelief

II. Choose Obedience (Numbers 13)

III. Listen to Godly Counsel (Numbers 14:1-10)

IV. Pray the Promises of God (Numbers 14:11-19)

V. Embrace God's Discipline (Numbers 14:20-45)

VI. Christ Alone Overcomes Unbelief for Us

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Detailed Sermon Outline

If you were to look over the course of your life, what is one of the hardest things you've ever had to do? Can you think of that thing right now? Maybe it was something athletic, like a hike, or going on a run, a 5K, a 10K, or you're one of those interesting people who do those things called marathons. Or maybe for you it wasn't so much athletic, it was academic. It was pursuing a degree and just stretched you in ways you didn't know you could be stretched.

Maybe it was something in your career and getting a certain piece of legislation done seemed overwhelming at the time. Or maybe it's something with your own health right now. It's been difficult and hard, but you've continued to press on and it's stretched you in ways and pressed you to your limits in ways you didn't know that you could be pressed. Regardless of the hard things that we go through and we face in life, we're really up against the same opponent. And his name is unbelief.

Whatever we face and whatever we go through, unbelief is really the one who's after us. He is subtle but persistent and can be powerful. Maybe you've experienced that in the heat of the battle, in the thick of the project or in the thick of the race, when you were weak and most vulnerable, the voice of unbelief just spoke up and said, Look up. And look around you. The circumstances are far too great.

Safest bet is to quit and turn around and run away. The subtle whisper of unbelief can be a paralyzing thing. Maybe you as a Christian, you've experienced that in your own life as you journey towards heaven. There's been many times that you've been tempted and fallen prey to the cunning ways of unbelief. And you believe that the fleeting pleasures of sin are better than following Christ.

Or maybe in the heat of affliction and a trial, you found that unbelief was a more sufficient counselor than the Word of God. You began to trust and believe that God really wasn't for you and he really didn't love you. How do we overcome unbelief? Well, I think that answer to that question, the answer to that question is found in our passage this morning. So if you have your Bible, I invite you to go ahead and grab them and turn to Numbers chapter 13.

We will be in Numbers 13 and Numbers 14 today. If you have a red Bible beside you, it's on page 121. Page 121 in the red Bible beside you.

And as you turn there, I think there are four things that we see in this passage that we can do to overcome unbelief. There are four things, and they are this, and this is my outline. Number one, choose obedience. Choose obedience. This is all of chapter 13.

Choose obedience. The second thing is listen to godly counsel. Listen to godly counsel. This is verses 1 through 10 of chapter 14.

The next is pray the promises of God. Pray the promises of God. We see this in verses 11 through 19 of chapter 14. And the last thing is embrace God's discipline. Embrace God's discipline.

This is verses 20 through 45 of chapter 14. First, we're gonna see to overcome unbelief, we must choose obedience. Must choose obedience. Now, in this section, we're not gonna read all of chapter 13. I wanna highlight a few things.

You'll read and explain and I'll highlight and we'll kind of move on. So now look at your Bibles to chapter 13, verses 1 and 2. This is coming immediately on the hills of Miriam and Aaron, their opposition to Moses. Miriam receives the punishment and they're waiting and now it's time for them to finally set out again for the Promised Land. It says this in verses 1 and 2, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.

So the Lord is sending spies into the land. He instructs Moses to go and instruct these spies from the 12 tribes of Israel to go into the land. God is about to give the people the land. Notice he doesn't say for them to go and take it. He says, I will give it to them.

The earth and its fullness is the Lord's, and he gives it to whomever he pleases. Which is the Lord is about to do here. We see in verses 3 through 16 that Moses lists the leaders, the chief leaders of the tribes that were to go and to spy out the land. The most notable of the two were Caleb and Moses' assistant, Joshua. Note those names.

It'll come up several times later. Let's look now in verse 17 through 20 and see the instruction that Moses gave to these spies before they headed into the land. This is verse 17 through 20 of chapter 13. Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and he said to them, 'Go up into Negeb, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities they dwell in are camps or strongholds, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. ' Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.

Now, the time was the season of the first ripe grapes, basically meaning it's probably in July when they're going to do this. So Moses gives them instruction for what they're supposed to do. Go into these places. Here's what you're supposed to be doing. And ultimately, he's saying, go get a clear lay of the land.

We need to know what we're up against. We wanna see who lives there. We wanna see what the cities are like. And ultimately, the reason that Moses is doing this is to give the people encouragement. What encouragement?

That the land is as good as God has promised. That was their primary responsibility to come back and say, it is surely a good land. You thought that life was good in bondage to Egypt. Imagine what freedom will be like in God's promised land. Their responsibility was to give the people encouragement to continue to press on towards the land.

I want to skip over and I want to highlight something in verse 22. I'm not going to read all this section, but I want you to notice something here. In verse 22, Moses lists that they came to Hebron. Now, why would that be significant to us in terms of understanding our Bibles? Well, if you were to go back to Genesis 13, verse 8, you don't have to turn there now, you can just note it for later, verse 18, this is where Abram finally settled after he left his family.

He settled there in Hebron. And then in Genesis 17, this is where God appears to Abram and makes a promise that I will make you a great nation and peoples will come from you and kings will come from you. And this is the very place that God gave Abram the covenant of circumcision. This is where the patriarchs dwelled and this is the very place that they were all buried. Hebron was where Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah.

This is where they were all buried. And so as these spies go into the land, these tombs, these lands represent that God is still faithful to his promise. Though it has been hundreds of years, God is about to complete what he had promised to Abraham in their day. What encouragement. For years, Israel had been hearing of these promises, reading of it, and now they are the ones who get to experience it and live in the land that God had promised.

So we're going to look down now at verses 25 through 33 and that's going to give us the report. The spies have been in the land 40 days and now they are going to share what they have found. So look down in your Bible, verses 25 through 33.

At the end of 40 days, they returned from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, We came to the land which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

However, The people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. And the Amalekites dwell in the land of Negeb, and the Hittites and the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, along the Jordan. But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.

So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. And we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seem to them. Well, first as they come here, they give them good news. The land is as good as God has promised.

It flows with milk and honey, and they bring this fruit and they see how amazing this place is.

Now you might wonder why the continual references to milk and honey. What was the Lord who first spoke this to them in Exodus 3 when they were in bondage? He says this in verse 9, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Milk and honey simply represents the abundance and goodness of the land. That's what that means, that this is a prosperous, a good land that the Lord is giving them.

He is taking them from bondage to abundance. That's what he saved them for. And these men say, the Lord was right. This land is actually really, really good. But then they say, However, can you just feel the weight of disappointment right there?

However. And they go on and they share that though the land is good, it's a difficult place.

And they shouldn't go. Just notice even in verse 25 here, as they give the report, excuse me, 26, it says that they brought to them a report, and this is what they said in verse 26, excuse me, 27, and they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us. But who sent them into the land? It was God who sent them into the land. And it wasn't just any land, it was the land that God said, I'm going to give it to you.

He sent them with a promise that this would be their home. And yet they were timid and overwhelmed and you can sense the dejection and the disbelief and the sense of defeat in their tone. Caleb even notices it too and he quiets the crowd and he quiets the leaders and he begins to speak up and he says, Let us take the land now at once. Caleb's faith had not failed. He knew that God was able to do what he had promised to do, but he was quickly quieted by the urgency of unbelief.

And notice what these leaders begin to say. Notice their excuses, and I'm calling it two lies and a half truth. Their justification for not going into the land were two lies and a half truth. The first is this, they say, They are stronger than we are. Which may be partially true.

However, God is with them. So it's false. And they say the land devours its people, which is simply hyperbolic language where they're just trying to say, this seems to be a scary place. They say it devours its people. However, this comes right on the heels of them saying, the land's a good land and it flows with milk and honey.

It's already caught in their lie already. And the last thing they mentioned, they said, We saw the Nephilim. Well, who were the Nephilim? Well, it goes back to Genesis chapter 6. Supposedly there are these giants who were living before the flood.

But what happened to the Nephilim? They were killed in the flood. This is why Moses goes on to call it a bad report. Other translations call it an evil report. They were being deceptive and they did not want Israel to take the land because they feared it was going to be too costly for them.

They were blinded by their own fear.

What these leaders show us is that unbelief is eager to believe anything but the truth. They show us that unbelief is eager to believe anything but the truth. And they justify their disobedience in verses 32 and 33. They say, We are not able. We are not strong enough.

Our opposition is too big and too strong. They justify their disobedience. Because they felt inadequate. They did not see the strength in themselves. And their fear had blinded them and caused them to forget that they did not start their salvation and they would not be the one who finished it.

Brothers and sisters, if you are a Christian here today, rejoice because he who began a good work in you isn't waiting on you to bring it to completion. When Jesus says, come to me, he doesn't say all who are strong, all who are confident, all who are unable to or all who are able to overcome the burdens of this life and I will give you rest. No, he says, all who are weary and weak and heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest. When we get to heaven, there will be no applause, no rejoicing, no celebration for how we got ourselves there.

It is called the wedding supper of the Lamb for a reason. Because He alone has secured His bride and brought her safely home. He is the victor and He deserves all the praise.

What lies in this very moment are you tempted to believe to justify your disobedience?

That you're too weak to go on, that the sin is far too great for you to overcome it, or you're alone in this fight.

Brothers and sisters, if that's you today, if you feel weak and frail, I want you to listen to my counsel today. Stop looking at yourself and look to Jesus. The longer you stare at yourself, you'll never find strength. 'Cause there's none of it there. Our strength is found not in ourselves, but in Christ alone.

He is the one who began our salvation, and he is the one who will bring it to completion. Look back at the cross and see that Christ purchased your salvation and look to the resurrection to know that he will complete it and will return one day. The strength that we have in this life to continue to press on is not found in us, it is found only in him.

Our obedience cannot be based on how we feel or what we see within us. Our obedience must be based on who Jesus is, what he's called us to, and what he is saving us for. That's why we continue to press on. That's why we continue to do the hard things that Jesus calls us to. We do the hard things for Jesus now in this life, for we will rest for all eternity.

Jesus calls us to do the hard things. But he promises he will be with us. And he promises us, promises us like he did here with Israel, that he's giving them a land, only they must be obedient and continue to walk in faith. Brothers and sisters, in the face of doubt, in the face of unbelief, choose to be obedient even when it's hard. Which brings me to my next point.

If we're gonna overcome unbelief, we must listen to godly counsel. Listen to godly counsel, which we'll see this in verses 1 through 10 of chapter 14. Let's look there now. This ultimately is just the response of the people. Let's read verse 1.

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. When all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, the whole congregation said to them, 'Would that we have died in the land of Egypt, or would that we have died in this wilderness. Why is this the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?' and they said to one another, Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into the land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us.

Do not fear.

Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. It's almost difficult to read. And it really is hard to put into words just how dramatic this scene actually is. Instead of Israel rebuking their leaders and saying, no, what you're saying is false.

It cannot be true. God is faithful. We've seen how good he's been to us. And reminding them of all that he's done and reminding them of their promises, they crumble into utter pieces. And they weep and wail simply on the words of 10 men who gave a bad report and on the words of the Lord who had been faithful to them.

It's hard to understand how unbelievably forgetful Israel is and was. It's difficult to comprehend. I mean, reading this is almost like watching a horror movie where those people keep going into the place you know that danger awaits them and you just like yell, like, what are what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Don't go there.

This bad report of the 10 spies caused not just a few to rebel, but it is a national uproar and rebellion. It says all the congregation weeps and wails against the Lord. They had forgotten God's provision and they had gone back to Egypt in their hearts. And not just in their hearts, look down at verse four. They said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.

Let's fire the leaders we have so that we can go back into bondage and slavery. It's kind of like this. You've probably heard Mark Dever say this before several times. If we as elders begin to preach a false gospel and lie about God's Word and God Himself, you should fire us all, which is true. Do that.

However, imagine doing the opposite of that. Firing the elders who tell you the truth to hire elders who will lead you back into sin and bondage. That's exactly what they were trying to do here.

They were saying, Enough of these men who tell us the truth. Let us run back into our sin. Let us run back into bondage and slavery. Unbelief causes us to believe and do foolish things. This might seem absurd to us, but there is a reason the author of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 3 called those first century Christians who were struggling.

He said, Look back at that moment. Stare at it. For some of you are thinking about doing something just as ridiculous as Israel did in that day. Some of you are considering turning away from Jesus who will bring you into the promised land for slavery and bondage to your old life. How could this happen to a people who had seen God do such mighty acts, who had seen God work in ways that no one else had ever seen.

It was because unbelief causes parasitic thinking. It corrodes our minds and it blinds our eyes or we're unable to see God in the way forward. We can often be shocked, as we should be, how people who've known the Lord and his goodness can fall away into grievous and gross sin. It's a hard thing to watch and to witness. We always ask ourselves the question, how does this happen?

And the answer is simple really. Rebellion like this doesn't just happen overnight. It's a slow drift. It's a subtle fade. It's time and time again instead of denying the lies of unbelief, listening to them, flirting with them, coddling them until you're so far out to sea it's so difficult to Return.

Rebellion and rejection of God, it doesn't happen overnight. It's like termites that slowly eat away a foundation. Lead us to believe that God is no longer good and that our former life is better. Haven't we seen Israel throughout numbers do that? Slowly but surely say maybe it's better back in Egypt, maybe it was better back in Egypt, maybe it's better back in Egypt and now they've come to the promised land and they now believe the lie that it was better for them to go.

Back to Egypt. This subtle drift of Israel is now a full blown pursuit. They're convinced that their wives and children would become prey and they believe that they would be safer under the watchful eye of the Egyptians who not many years ago sought to kill their infant children than with God. How backwards is that thinking? This is what they've done.

There's a whole new level of rebellion and rejection for Israel here. And notice how Moses and Aaron respond. It says they fall on their faces. They can't believe what they're seeing in their hearing. And ultimately what this means throughout Numbers is when Moses and Aaron fall on their face, they believe that divine judgment is about to come.

They believe, and for good reason, that God is about to come and bring justice. However, God doesn't. Not at least in this moment. Joshua and Caleb, they began to speak and make one final plea with the people to turn from their sin and trust the Lord. And they give them three things.

And here are three things that you need to listen to and look for in godly counsel. When you're struggling in unbelief and you're tempted by sin, you need people around you who will tell you these three things and do these three things to you. First, look at verse 8, they encourage them. First thing they do is they encourage them. They say the land is exceedingly good.

It flows with milk and honey. They're essentially saying, just keep going. You can do it. Just trust God. Keep going.

Don't give up. And if you're going to overcome unbelief, you need to surround yourself with people who are going to encourage you. More times than not, I find with Christians, they often know the right thing to do. They just need encouragement that it is the right thing to do.

Find people who will continually encourage you to continue to press on towards Jesus, who will remind you that it is worth it to press on towards him. So in verse 8 we see they encourage him. The next thing we see they admonish them. Verse 9, basically they're rebuking them in their sin. They say, It is a good land, but don't fear and rebel.

Don't go back to your old patterns. They're telling them the hard truth that Israel cannot see about themselves. That their problem isn't without, Israel's problem is within. Their own sin was the problem. Their own sin was keeping them from experiencing what God had saved them for.

The size of the men in Canaan weren't the problem. It was the size of Israel's doubts. Joshua and Caleb rebuked them in their sin and say, do not give in to those things. Brothers and sisters, we're being tempted by unbelief. We need people around us who will tell us the truth about ourselves.

Who will lovingly say and call us out on our sin when we begin to wander and choose the way of the world. Our unbelief clouds our judgment and it keeps us from seeing ourselves clearly, causes us to lack self-awareness. And we need brothers and sisters, members of this congregation, to say, hey, I love you enough to tell you that you are drifting and you are wandering away. That's what Joshua and Caleb do. And the next thing is they simply remind them, They remind them, we see this really in 8 and 9, they remind them of who the Lord is.

The Lord delights in you, the Lord is with you, the Lord will keep you. We all need to be reminded on a regular basis of who God is, what he saved us for, and what he will do in the end. Sometimes the most basic things are the things we need to hear the most often. And that's simply what Caleb and Josh were trying to do. I'm just going to make a quick note of this.

All these things are important. And if you're a member of this church, praise God, or a member of another gospel preaching church, that's a good thing, but that's not everything. You have to be intentional about pursuing relationships where these kind of conversations can happen. See, unbelief is going to tempt you to hide, to live in isolation. And just because you're a member of this church doesn't mean we know you well enough to call you out on what's going on in your life or to encourage you or to remind you.

So make it your aim to make yourself known so that other peoples, members of this church can strengthen you in your time of need and bear your burdens. Israel here, they had no ears to hear though. Look at verse 10. After this speech, after this final plea, what does Israel do in verse 10 of chapter 14? It says, Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones.

These men spoke the truth of God's Word to them, and Israel was about to treat them as criminals, to take them out. Brothers and sisters, let us pray that God would always grant us ears to hear. Let's pray on a regular basis for the members of this church that God would grant each one of us ears to hear so that none of us would be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. See, Israel had gone so far into their sin, they no longer had ears to hear, had no ears to hear the good, godly counsel that they had been given by these men. So if we're going to overcome unbelief, we need godly counsel around us, we need to make ourselves known, and we need to seek to have ears to hear and apply the counsel we receive.

The next thing we see is this, we need to pray the promises of God. You need to pray the promises of God. We see this in verses 11 through 19 of chapter 14.

Let's read that now. Verse 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 I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you've brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of the land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of the people, for your, O Lord, are seen face to face. Your cloud stands over them, and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Now, if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of your fame will say, It is because the Lord was not able to bring the people into this land that he swore to give them, that he killed them in the wilderness. Now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.

Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love. Just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. See in verse 10 that it says that as these men were seeking to stone Joshua and Caleb, that the Lord appeared. He came down for all of Israel to see. And the Lord then speaks to Moses and he says, why don't these people despise me?

Meaning, why did they continually reject me? How long will they not believe in me despite all these wonders and mighty things that I've done for them? How long will they continue to turn from me in their unbelief? I've been nothing but faithful, but they have been nothing but faithless. And the Lord says something that may be startling to some.

The Lord says, let me kill them all. Let me wipe them all out and I will start over with you and I will make you a greater nation than they are. This whole scene is identical to Exodus 32. It's the golden calf scene where Moses is on Mount Sinai right after they received the law or part of the law, made the covenant with the Lord and the law and the Lord says that the people have crafted a golden calf and they're down there worshiping it saying, Behold your God who brought you out of Egypt. And the Lord is hot with anger.

He says basically exactly what he says here. Now for many of us this is a concerning and sobering response from the Lord. And as we read it, I think the natural question sometimes is, Would God quit on his people so quickly?

Has he forgotten his promises. And I just want to encourage you as you read the Bible, especially difficult passages, you always need to have in your mind that God does not change. He doesn't change. He is eternally the same. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And God's response to Israel is actually him being faithful to do what he had promised. You see, he had made a covenant with Israel at Sinai. And it depended on their obedience, them remaining faithful to him. That was his end of the deal. If you go back to Exodus 23, you can just highlight this, verses 20 through 21.

This is what the Lord tells them. Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I prepared. Pay careful attention to him. Obey his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression.

For my name is in him. God made it absolutely clear. Follow me, trust me, remain loyal to me and you shall live in the land. Reject me, turn away from me and you will experience my wrath. Israel was not naive when they signed the covenant with the Lord.

Exodus 24 verse 3 says this, Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord. And all the rules and all the people, not just the leaders, not just the elders, not just Moses and Aaron, all the people heard all the words of the Lord, and they said with one voice, All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. This is what they had signed up for basically a year before they had rejected God in the wilderness. They had committed to follow the Lord. They had committed to do what he commanded.

They had committed to enter into the covenant. God had not changed. He was not unfaithful. The people had changed. They were the unfaithful ones.

And even if God had wiped them out and started over with Moses, he still would have been faithful to his promise to Abraham because Moses was the seed of Abraham. He was going to be faithful with his promise. The question was this, would these rebellious people be the ones that God would use to fulfill his promise? That's the question. God had not changed.

The people had changed. And what does God owe a rebellious people anyways? Nothing but his judgment. That is all he owes a rebellious people. Brothers and sisters, I think this lets us get a glimpse of the seriousness and the significance of the sin of unbelief.

The Lord hates it. Unbelief is a lie about who God is and what he has saved us for.

If you're a non-Christian here today or someone who doesn't consider themselves a follower of Jesus, we are so thankful that you're here. You're welcome at any one of our services. And maybe for you, it's kind of an interesting thing for you to kind of peek into Christianity and hear about judgment. Maybe you've not heard about it or you've not really encountered God's judgment before.

Maybe you have a background that taught you that if you're a good enough person or kind to others or maybe you go to church and you partake in the sacraments that in the end you should be good, should be fine before God. But the most loving thing that I can do as a pastor today is not only tell the truth about you but the truth about all humanity. This is not something that I've come up with, this is what the Bible teaches us. The Bible tells us that we are all born into sin. And not just that we're born into sin, that we love sin and we want to pursue sin.

And because God created the world and the world is his, he calls us to live according to his standards and to be like him. But because of our sin, we cannot live according to his standards. And so we deserve his good and right judgment. For all eternity, we deserve to be punished for our sins. For God to be a just God, he must punish sin.

But there's good news. God has made a way for us to be made right with him. And it's not a covenant of works where God says, if you do this plus this, if your good deeds outweigh your bad, you can be made right with me and not experience my judgment. No, it's something far better than that. God has provided a way based on the works of another.

That person is Jesus Christ. Jesus came and lived a perfect life, pleasing to God. He was crucified on the cross. He experienced God's full judgment on the cross, not for his sin, but for all those who would repent and believe and trust in him. And God raised him up for our justification that those who would repent, meaning turn away from their sin and follow Jesus, put their faith in him would be saved.

Would not come into judgment, but would experience eternal life.

I would encourage you today, your greatest need is to turn from your sin and trust in him. Turn to Christ. Don't experience God's judgment. Experience the grace and mercy that he has offered to us in Jesus. If you wanna know more about what it means to be a Christian or how to follow Jesus, you can open up and read your bullets and read the gospel there.

Start considering what that means. You can come to the south room. There'll be people afterwards drinking coffee and cookies. We'd love to talk to you. There'll be staff at all the doors.

But afterwards, I'll be in the back door right there. We would love to share more with you about what it means to follow Jesus. How to know Christ. So here we see that the Lord is angry, but there's an intercessor. Moses responds to the Lord.

And again, this is very similar to Exodus 32, almost identical to what Moses said there. And Moses pleads on behalf of the people, praying three things. He intercedes and pleads that God would be merciful based on God's glory, God's promises, and God's character. He praised these three things. First, see God's glory in verses 13 through 16.

Moses says, the Egyptians and all the nations who've heard your fame, they will hear of what you've done and they will say you are not able to do it. So Moses' primary concern about God not cutting off the people was God's own glory. He prays and says, God, protect your name, protect your glory, keep these people for the sake of your name. Then he prays God's promises. Moses repeats God's words back to himself.

And what Moses says is almost identical in Exodus 34. He says this in verse 17, Now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised. And he says, the Lord is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children in the third and fourth generation. How did Moses know this? It was because God had promised that this is who he is and this is who he would be for the people.

Moses pleading for the people, praise God's promises back to himself. And the last thing he does is he prays based on God's character. He prays based on God's character. We see this in verse 19. He says, pardon these people according to what?

Pardon the people according to what? To the greatness of your steadfast love. Well, to praise the greatness of God's steadfast love is to praise the greatness of God himself. Steadfast love isn't something that God does, it's something that he is. He is love, he is mercy, he is compassion, he is all those things.

He's praising God and saying, God, this is who you are in your own nature. He pleads with them. Brothers and sisters, in our fight to overcome unbelief, there will be times when our faith will temporarily fail. Where we will believe the lies that unbelief offers a better life than the Lord does. I imagine there's some of you that are here today that are experiencing that right now.

Maybe you've been fighting with your sin for a long time. You found victory, but recently you gave in and you feel the weight and the shame of what you've done. It was a temptation to grumble, or to lie, or to gossip, or to give in to greed, or to give in to sexual sin. For a moment, the fleeting pleasures of sin sounded like a better life than fellowship with God. So what do you do in these moments?

There's two things I want you to do today. I want you to consider Jesus, and I want you to confidently approach the throne of grace. If that's you today or will be you in the future, consider Jesus and confidently approach the throne of grace. Because when we consider Jesus, we see that he is a better intercessor than Moses. Moses points to the glory of God.

Well, Jesus is the glory of God. He is the radiance and the glory of God. He isn't just praying God's promises back to himself. Jesus is the promise of God. And all of God's promises find their yes in him.

And he is the very imprint and nature of the glory of God. Consider Jesus, your high priest in this very moment is praying for you. What confidence should that give us as we consider and how we pursue to fight unbelief in our lives? So if you're weak and frail today, consider Jesus and the next thing is confidently approach the throne of grace. Because Jesus has done these things for us, and this is who he is, we can go to God in prayer with confidence.

This is what the author of Hebrews says in chapter 4:15-16, he says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in times of need. Go to God. And pray his promises back to himself to overcome your unbelief. When you've given into sin, rejoice that in who all God is for you in Christ Jesus.

Pray the promises of God, rejoice in that and find strength and comfort there. Know that Jesus has secured and offers a better covenant to you today. We can go boldly before him and pray because of what Jesus has done for us. So it brings me to my last point. If we're gonna overcome unbelief, especially when we sin, we need to embrace God's discipline.

Embrace God's discipline.

We're going to see this in verses 20 through 45 of chapter 14. 20 through 45 of chapter 14. We're going to read that all now.

The Lord now responds to Moses' intercession. It says this, Then the Lord said, 'I have pardoned according to your word. But truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. None of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despise me shall see it, but my servant Caleb.

Because he's a different spirit and has followed me fully. I will bring into the land to which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and said to Aaron and Aaron, saying, how long shall the wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumbled against me.

Say to them as I live, declares the Lord. What you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead body shall fall in the wilderness, and all of your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land that I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become prey, I will bring in.

And they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in the wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness. Until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the numbers of days in which you spied out the land, 40 days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity 40 years. And you shall know my displeasure.

I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this I will do to all the wicked congregation who gather together against me in the wilderness. They shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.

And the men who Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land, the men who brought up a bad report of the land died by the plague before the Lord.

Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive. When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. They rose early in the morning, went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed?

Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down from before your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you've turned back from following the Lord, and the Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country. Although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.

Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them even to Hormah. Again, it's a devastating scene. God responds to the people's sin and to Moses' plea. There's kind of three sections we see here. We see God's pardon, we see God's punishment with promises, and we see the presumption.

See God's pardon, we see that in verse 20. God responds, and in his kindness, he honors Moses' petition. He says, I will pardon their iniquity according to your word. Well, what word? All Moses was doing was repeating God's word back to himself.

So the pardon that the people received wasn't because of Moses' eloquence, it was because of God's word and God's goodness. That's where the pardon comes from. He is going to do what he promised to do. Next we see the punishment with promises. We see this in verses 21 through 38.

We see here initially in 22 through 25 kind of an initial pronouncement of judgment. Verses 26 through 38 is kind of a fuller picture of what that judgment is going to look like. We initially read that God won't wipe them out, that he'll remain faithful, that he will keep this people, but he will execute judgment and discipline. And what is this discipline? Well, we see it in verse 22 and 23, that none of the people who had seen his glory and put him to the test these 10 times and not obeyed his voice, all those who despised him, they shall not see the land.

For the rest of their days, they would dwell in the wilderness for their sin. They will be fallen, they'll be disciplined because of their unbelief. But did you notice how God qualifies the discipline. He makes an oath. Look back at verse 21.

He makes an oath to the people. He says this.

And the Lord said, I pardon according to your word. Verse 20, but truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. So this discipline, the Lord makes an oath and says, this is going to happen for two reasons. One, as surely as I live. Surely as my existence, as I am here, as certain as my existence is, so shall their discipline be also.

It will happen. And then he makes another oath. And it's almost like we're not supposed to hear this just yet. As all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. What a promise and what a revelation.

It's like we're not even supposed to hear this yet. It's almost like you're at your grandparents house and you walk by their room and you hear them talking about their inheritance and for the first time you realize the rich. And soon you will be too. It's like, I don't know if we're supposed to hear that yet. I mean, just stare at this for a minute.

God has now revealed his purpose for the world. God has revealed what he is going to do in all the earth. Though Israel may reject God right here, they cannot thwart his ultimate purposes. His glory will fill the earth. This world may be beat up and broken down as we see it now, but one day it will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

As you read about disasters and famines and droughts and plagues, grieve for those who are grieving because of that, but rejoice for the day is coming when that will cease. When God brings his glory to the earth. When will this happen and how will it happen? Well, my assignment for you is to read Isaiah chapter 11.

At lunch or this afternoon and get a glimpse of when it will happen and what it will look like.

So we now see in the rest of the verses that God is laying out the full extent of their punishment. Though God makes this wonderful oath, it's at Israel's detriment. They have sinned and will not experience the good land that God had saved them for. We see this in verse 26-38 that God disciplines those whom he rebels or who have rebelled against him and we see how he how he picked their discipline. We see it in verse 28.

He says this, you have said in my hearing and I will do it. What have they said in his hearing? We'll go back to verse 2 of chapter 14. This is after they received the report. It says all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation said to them, would that we have died in the land of Egypt or would that we have died in this wilderness.

The Lord says, you want to reject me? I will give you the desires of your heart and you will die in the wilderness. God is simply just giving them what they had asked for. They had rebelled against God and now they'll experience their judgment. The Lord just continues to lay this out through the rest of this chapter.

We see this in verse 29, that those older than 20 will not see the land, but they will die in the wilderness. We see it in verse 32, in verse 33, and in verse 35, the Lord is clearly communicating, you will die for your disobedience and your rebellion against me.

In verse 35, he says it in the most frightening terms. He says, you, shall know my displeasure. What a frightening thing to hear. They had rejected God, and they shall know his displeasure. We see that most clearly when God judges the Israel leaders who gave them the bad report that they died immediately by a plague.

But not all would die in the wilderness. Not all would die, who would make it? Well, Joshua and Caleb, they would survive because they were faithful unto the Lord. But then also, did you notice? Verse 31, the people were worried about taking the land because their children, their wives and children would become prey.

And the Lord now says, you, little ones who you were worried about, who you thought I couldn't protect in the promised land, I will now preserve them and protect them in the wilderness. I will keep them to the end. This must have been a sense of relief for the parents, but it's short lived. Because if you look at verse 33, the Lord says this, you, kids are going to live, they're going to be shepherds in the wilderness, but they will suffer. Why will they suffer?

Because of your faithlessness.

It grieves a parent to see their kids suffer because of the kids' sin.

But it's almost insufferable to see and know a child suffering because of the parent's sin. And for the rest of their lives, as they wander through the desert, they will have to look their children in the face and say, the reason you're suffering is because of me, because I did not believe that God was good. I did not believe that God was faithful to bring you into the land. What a horrible scene. And this is what unbelief leads to, just pure suffering for people.

They rejected God. And the message is simple: Faith in God leads to rest and rejoicing, and rejection of God leads to suffering and wandering. So turn to the Lord and live. Find grace and mercy there. Here the Lord lists out the 40 years.

It simply represents the 40 days that the spies were in the land. Now the But the English Bible translates the title for this book called Numbers. But the Hebrew title is probably more appropriate. It's called In the Wilderness. Because from this point on, for 40 more years, it will cover their wanderings and their strays in the wilderness because of their rebellion.

It's what it means, what it represents, because they chose to rebel against the Lord. Instead of leaving, so here we see in verse 34, excuse me, 39 through 45, we're going to see their presumption. This is the last thing we're going to cover. We're going to see their presumption. Despite hearing all of these things, despite hearing God's judgment because they did not believe, but chose to rebel, the people again act foolishly before the Lord.

We see this in 40 through 45. Instead of saying, God, we praise you for your mercy, we deserve to be wiped out. We will submit to your discipline that you've given to us. They don't do that. They do the opposite.

God tells them to leave the wilderness the next day. And they do the opposite and they offer, they say we've sinned but their simple lip service doesn't grapple with real repentance. Real repentance is willing to submit to God's discipline. Moses warns them if they do this that God will not go up with them. It is foolish, it is a foolish thing to think that they will be successful.

And this is what unbelief does to us. It makes us believe lies so we pursue falsehoods. And just think about this, the day before they would not follow the Lord into the land, though the Lord was with them, and now the day after they're gonna go take the land even though the Lord is not with them. They were so deceived by their own sin. They had ears but could not hear and eyes but they could not see.

Brothers and sisters, often the real fight for faith begins after we have sinned. The moments after we have sinned is where the real fight for faith begins because you will be tempted to be defensive, to despair, or to dive back in and go deeper into your sin to find comfort and relief. None of those are the appropriate response. The way in which we respond, the way in which we're going to overcome our unbelief after we sin is to confess our sin, to acknowledge that we failed, to acknowledge that we've done wrong and then say, Lord, I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to make this right. I'm willing to submit to your difficult discipline, no matter how hard it might be.

So how are you doing submitting to the Lord's discipline in your life? Do you confess and own your sin? Are you eager to bear the consequences for what you've done? Or do you seek to condone what you did?

And be defensive and still follow in unbelief like Israel did here. If you're going to overcome belief, unbelief, when you sin, don't run or hide from the Lord, but run to him and trust that he is good. This is what the author of Hebrews said. What we read earlier, the Lord, he disciplines. Well, this is what happens later in Hebrews 12, but it says the Lord disciplines those whom he loves.

Israel there, the believers there were struggling with their sin. It was difficult to continue to pursue the Lord. They were suffering and struggling because of their sin.

He reminds them of Proverbs 3, My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves whom he loves as a father delights in his son. It is the goodness and kindness of God to discipline us when we fall into our sin. He's simply seeking to remove the bad things in our hearts to give us more of the good things in our life, which is himself. To regain our fellowship with him and continue to walk in holiness towards him as we journey towards heaven. If we're going to overcome our unbelief, we must bear well under the discipline of the Lord.

So this morning we have seen that to overcome unbelief is hard. It's difficult. And this isn't just a battle that we face, right? We see this is something that Israel faced and this is something they dealt with and they fell under. And it goes even further back than Israel to the garden, to the paradise of God where Adam and Eve, our first parents, they had the opportunity to fight for faith but chose to disbelieve and follow after their own sinful passions.

But there is one, though tempted in the wilderness, his faith did not fail. And when he was in the garden, he did not fall away.

That one is Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, our God, our Savior. He is the true and better Israel. He is the better intercessor. And he has secured and mediates a better Covenant.

If you come to Jesus, he will never cast you out, even after you've sinned and fallen and given into unbelief. Continue to come to Jesus and if you do, unbelief may sting you, but it cannot stop you. You will be His and He will bring you safely home. For He is surely able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before His glory with great joy. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we come before you in the name of Jesus Christ to praise you as the God who not only saves us, who starts our salvation, but as the God who will finish our salvation. Look, Father, we pray that you would forgive us for when we've doubted that truth. For when we've trusted in unbelief more than trusting in your Word. Oh Father, I pray that you would keep us and sustain us, keep us near you, keep us trusting in your promises, keep us near believers who will tell us the truth about who you are and about our sin. And Lord, help us when we sin.

Help us to bear well under the weight of your discipline because you love us as your children. Oh Father, rid us of unbelief. Help us to to wait well for you as we seek to be with you for all eternity in heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.