Numbers 13-14 | The Sin of Unbelief | Alex Culpepper

Church, you can open up your Bibles to numbers chapter 13. That's where we're going to be this morning, numbers 13. And then as you open there, I'm just gonna. Before I ask you a question, those of you who are thinking about coming to the joint church service with, with the Spanish speaking churches today, I just want to give you a fair warning because there's been just a little bit of confusion. We will be eating food, but the food will happen after the service.

And, you know, it's uncertain when the service is going to end. But I would just say if you're like, should I wait to eat lunch until after that service? I would highly recommend not waiting. Think of the food that we're going to eat, like an early dinner and not a late lunch. So that's just my advice.

Otherwise you'll be very hungry during the service. And. Yeah, anyway, so that's just information for you as you. As you plan for later in the day. Numbers 13 is where we are this morning.

And I just want to ask you a question.

Do you trust God? Now? What's your first impulse of a response to that question? Some may think, well, I don't even know if I know God. Right?

Like how? Like, and so this might be a journey of discovery for you this morning. I want to encourage you towards that. Some of you may be like, well, okay, yeah, I trust God to get me to heaven when I die. Like, I trust him for that.

And some might think, well, like, I trust that God will stay faithful to his word. Right? Okay, so those are all things about God that you might believe about God. But there are categories of trust beyond that. So maybe we ought to ask a different question.

Maybe the question is, to what extent do you trust God? And so maybe it's a bit like a trust fall. I have a video to share with us this morning. And we're just. It'll be an exercise in building trust between one another.

So, Harrison, if you don't mind going first step up here on this chair and close your eyes. All right? And then everybody fill in and we're going to ask you to fall, and then they will catch you. So you have to trust us. I'm going to count to three.

Just relax and fall, okay? One, two, three. No, I don't fall. And we'll just.

So.

So the guy, the guy in the video trusted the people for something, but it was not something that those people had promised to provide to him. Right. The video gives us a message about something, though. It gives us the idea, like Are we willing to trust God to the extent that we surrender, to the extent that we may not totally understand what's going to happen when we take the step of obedience that he calls us to take? You may.

You may trust God enough to agree with him that certain things are true. But do you trust him enough to submit to him when you disagree with Him? You may trust that he loves you, but do you trust that, like his way for your life is better than your way for your life? You see, when God encourages us to trust him, to believe in him, that word trust and believe are the same word. When God encourages us to trust him, the command he gives us is not empty or vacuous.

Unlike the video, God has been very clear for the things that we can trust him for. He has told us what we can trust him for. And the question that we have to answer is, do we take God at His word or not? So we're continuing a series called Wanderings and Warnings. And we've been kind of walking through this series.

The purpose of this is we've been looking at the Book of Numbers and the stories in that book is we've been asking God to search us. Because we watch God's people come into the midst of situations where their brokenness, their sinfulness, is on full display. And it causes so many problems for them. And the same is true for us, too. Our brokenness causes so many problems for us.

And so we're asking God, as we read these stories of his people, lord, would you reveal in us anything that you want to renew, anything that you want to renovate in us, to redo in us? And so one of the things that we've noted is a pattern in God's people of discontent, of complaining, of wanting things that God has not given them. And then last week, Pastor Michael, he came up here and shared with all of you about jealousy in God's people, particularly in the leadership, Miriam's jealousy that she had for Moses, leadership. And you receive this call to trust God with whatever position that he's given you. And today, what we watch is all of these patterns that we've been seeing along.

They culminate to a point. And so in numbers 131 and 2, it says this. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. Notice what he said. Send men to spy out.

I am giving you the land. I'm going to do this. I'm going to give the land to the people of Israel. But you're going to send men to spy out from each tribe of their fathers. You shall send a man in each one, a chief among them.

So this is a group of 12 men from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. God is sending them to do recon, but the recon is on a land that he has already promised to the people that he calls his own. So in terms of the progression of the story, we are kind of on the verge, like, on the. Like the very edge of God's people walking into a promise that has been hundreds of years in the making. Like, God has been working out this promise and this process for generations.

And right now, these people are on the very edge of taking that promise. So verse 17, if you jump down in numbers, it keeps the story going. Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, the land that they had been promised, and said to them, 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 they dwell in is good or bad. And then he says, this, be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land. So this, for these people who are going in, this is an information gathering mission.

They're going to collect some information. This is the kind of mission that you go on in order to formulate a plan of attack. And so Moses says, hey, there are some things that we need to prepare for. We need to know what to prepare for. And so the last thing that Moses describes as he sends them on this mission is, hey, you need to have courage.

You need to look for fruit. And so this thing about courage and fruit, it's telling us something. When he says, you need to have courage. You need to go in being certain that God is going to bring his promise to fulfillment. You need to trust that God is going to do what he said we would do.

So the question. We need to know what this means for us. The question is, never God will you come through. God always will come through. The question is, never God will you come through, but always God, what are you up to?

Right, so they're going in to look at the land to figure out what's going on so they can go, okay, what is God's victory in this circumstance going to look like? What is God going to have to do? What is this going to require of the Lord? And so in verse 21, they went out on their mission. They went up and spied out the land, and they came to Hebron, Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Descendants of Anak were there.

Now, this information is helpful to us. It's filling in some of the blanks that Moses was trying to figure out. What kind of people are there? Are they strong or weak? This is going to help us understand the meaning of that courage question, right?

Because there's a reason Moses had to tell them that they needed to have courage. So what will God's victory need to look like? And in this case, it's worth saying God's victory is going to need to be pretty significant, because some of the people in the land are Anakites. They're sons of Anakin. And we're going to figure out what these Anakites are in just a little bit.

But I just let you know ahead of time. The Anakites are a frightening people, right? They're the kind of people who crush their enemies, right? Who cause every enemy that they come against to tremble. That's who the Anakites are.

But remember what Moses told them. Be of good courage, right? It's like Moses anticipated that when they crossed over into the land to look at and to spy out and to see whether it was a good land or a bad land. He anticipated that they would see formidable challenges. He saw it coming ahead of time.

And so he's essentially saying, whatever your eyes show you, don't let your eyes betray the truth of who you know God to be. Right? You know who God is. You know what he does for his people. Don't let your eyes betray that truth.

It's a little bit like this. So we went on family camp. I want to say, those of you who have been praying for us and our family, I'm really grateful after the car accident that we got in. We all are really grateful for all of your prayers, the support that all of you have given us. Thank you so much for that.

That car accident happened at the end of a week of family camp that my family got to be a part of. And part of family camp was that Autumn got to go on a zip line with her dad. So she got to go on a zip line with her dad there. She's all the way in the corner over there. And then I'm up here.

And there is. There's something about standing, you know, 50ft above ground. I mean, that's all the higher we were. Maybe it was 60ft. I don't know.

There's something about standing up that high that even though I know that the hook has me, like, connected to the steel rope, and even though I know that, like, if I Were to trip and fall, like, there's nothing that's gonna go wrong. There's nothing. I'm always stuck to the. Even though I know that my body is sending me all of these signals that my life is in danger. Like, I step out on this platform, and I'm like, this is not a good situation.

But I can't look nervous because my daughter's over there, and she's. You see, she's staring at me to see how I respond to this circumstance. Right? And so there is this. There's this idea of courage that, like, there are things that you know to be true.

No matter what your eyes are telling you, the danger is, gosh, if God's got you, you're safe like that. That harness has got me. The steel wire has got me. The hook that it's. That's connected to it has got me.

I know that it' breakable. I tested it several times before I walked up there. So, like, I just know that that's trustworthy. And it's the same with God. When you know your eyes are going to tell you to be afraid.

But you got to remember that God's got you, that that's who he is. And so the information regarding courage is related to, hey, when you see those people, you need to remember who God is. But then he said, be of good courage, but also go in and bring some fruit from the land. So they came to the valley of Eshcol, and they cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes. Okay, you're, like, a big deal.

Well, a single cluster of grapes. Who cares about that? Here's the thing about the single cluster of grapes, though. It was so big that they had to carry it on a pole between two of them. And they also brought some pomegranates and figs.

Now, here's why we have this little detail in the story. It's telling us this to show us that the land that they had just walked into Was indeed a plentiful land, that it was producing so much fruit that they were able to just walk in and find this fruit and bring it back. Meaning that God's word, God's promise that he had given to them time and again over all of these years. God is trustworthy. He's keeping his promise.

He's doing what he said he would do. This is the land that God had promised them. This is the future that they have to look forward to. And so they bring this fruit back, and they come back to Moses, these spies come back to Moses. And their people, and they are ready to give their report.

And so this is what they said. They said in verse 27, we came to the land to which you sent us. And they said, it flows with milk and honey. That whole idea of it flowing with milk and honey is just saying, it's an abundant land. It's full of all of the things that we could ever need to provide for us.

And this is its fruit. So this is the bounty that we brought back.

However. And when you see that word however, that's really big. It's like double emphatic, like, hey, there are these good things. But let's kind of ignore all of those for a second because I have something else to tell you. 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 also the Amalekites and the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites and the Canaanites. So take note of what these spies who were sent into the land are doing. Their eyes are on the obstacles. Their eyes are on all of the potential problems. Their eyes are not on God's faithfulness.

Their eyes are not on God's character. Their eyes are not even on God who goes with them. What they're doing is that they are telling a story about the obstacles, right? They give this report. When they give this report, they share this report not only with Moses, they're sharing their report in front of the whole congregation of Israel, all of the people.

And the manner, the way that they were giving a report apparently caused quite a stir among the people, because in verse 30 says this, Caleb. Caleb was one of the people who was sent into the land. One of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, were sent into the land as well. Caleb, one of the people who was sent in as he heard the stir that was being caused by their report. It says that he quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and occupy it in his mind.

He's like, God gave us this promise. This promise is hundreds of years in the making. Like generations, God has been working to bring us to this point. Let's go. Like, what are we waiting on?

Now is the time to be where God told us to be. And he said, for we are well able to overcome it. So I just want to say to you, if you don't have a Caleb in your life, you need to get yourself a Caleb in your life. Because as the people get stirred up, their grumbling and in their anxiety, Caleb is speaking out to them. Words of faith believe God.

Don't you know who it is that goes with us? Don't you know that that promise that he has made, that he has been faithful to keeping over all of these years, that he gave to us by his word, which has always been shown to be reliable, they might be fortified. They might be strong. They might be scary. But I am the God who calls Himself.

I am is our God. And he doesn't fight for them. He fights for us. That's what Caleb is saying. That's what Caleb is looking at.

And despite his efforts, fear won out.

So these other spies speak back up. It says, the men who had gone up with him said. He said, we are able to go in the land. They 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.

This whole thing about a bad report is about reputation. They were speaking of the land in a way that was meant to give the land a bad reputation. They were trying to give the land a bad reputation in the eyes of the people. That was what they were trying to do. At this point, they began speaking out words to give the land a bad reputation.

And so what did they say?

The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants.

So first of all, the land is not the thing that presents danger to these people. The land is flowing with milk and honey. The land is plentiful. The land is God's gift that he has promised to this people. They are.

I mean, they are saying these words as they hold in hand the fruit that they brought from the land. So it's like the irony of the situation is apparent because all of the fruit is sitting right there. And they're saying, the land is a land that devours its people.

They say. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. And we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to them. So this is the main thing.

This is the thing that makes them more afraid than anything else. It's the people. So this is who the Anakites are, the sons of Anakin. They compare the sons of Anak with the Nephilim. Or they say that they are descendants of the Nephilim.

So the Nephilim were mentioned in Genesis, chapter six before the flood. And these guys, they were like strong giants. They were Goliath like figures. In fact, in all of the Ancient Near East. Not just in Israel, but in any of the other countries around Israel, there were legends told about these people called the Nephilim.

They're like, think of them like we think of comic book superheroes. Except for the people in the ancient Near East. They weren't like comic books in some fantasy. They were for them. They saw these people as actual historical figures in their history.

That's who the Nephilim were. And these were very powerful. They had, like, a supernatural size, supernatural strength and ability to. Now, all of that. That's who the Nephilim were.

Now, if you hear me say any of the things that I just said and go like, whoa, what the heck? I just want to say to you, welcome to the Bible, right? It's got stories of giants and dragons and angels and demons and miracles and all of these things. And at the end, there's this guy with fire in his eyes and a sword coming out of his mouth, and he wins. So that's just kind of the story of the Bible, right?

And we don't know how many of these Nephilim, these people, these Anakites, we don't know how many of them were in the land. But the idea is that these, like, supernaturally strong giant people are working together with the people who live in the land, the tribes that are in the land. And so these guys, as they're giving the report, they're like, so, you know, we don't stand a chance. If that's who's in the land. We don't stand a chance.

And so I want you to just notice with me here, the close connection between fear and anxiety and unbelief. There's a really close link. Now, I don't say that to shame you if you're struggling with fear or anxiety. I'm just drawing out the. The connection that Scripture makes between fear and anxiety and unbelief.

Does anybody in the room know what God's most common command in all of Scripture is? Do not be afraid. God's most common command is do not be afraid. And then he always follows it up with this statement, for I am with you. Don't be afraid, for I am with you.

The reason that God says this time and time and time again is because he knows our frame. He knows who we are. He knows that we are quick to look at the obstacles, that we frequently look at the challenges, that we're quick to find reasons that things might not work out, that we're prone to refuse the comfort of his presence. And all of that produces Anxiety and fear in us, and anxiety and fear. They actively inhibit our ability to trust God.

The bad report of these spies, as they spoke it out, it increased anxiety and fear in the people and actively combated belief in God's people, like their belief in their God. It actively combated faith in them and in God and his promises. And so this is. Oh, there it is. Don't be afraid.

I will be with you. There you go. Don't be afraid. I will be with you. So this is what happened.

Numbers 14, 1 and 2.

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry. This is after the report. There are big giants, scary giants in the land. We have to look out. They're working together with the people.

We can't go up and take the land. So this is how the congregation responded. All the congregation raised a loud cry. And the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

And here's what they said. Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness. So remember the journey that they've been on so far. First you had the rabble, right? And the rabble spoke to them.

They encouraged them to not trust God, to look at the problems that they had. They encouraged them towards discontent. And then you actually had their discontent manifest in significant ways, that their desires were very strong, that it ended up killing some of them as they were in the wilderness. And then you had Miriam and her jealousy. And now when fear and anxiety enter into the picture, like all of these people, it's culminated to a point that these people are ready to abandon God's plan that has been generations in the making.

And so I just remind you of this. We looked at this a few weeks ago, but this is the progression of sin at work in the midst of God's people, right? There's the external trigger. Remember, the external trigger is not a bad thing. It's just a thing that's there.

The problem with the thing is what we do with it. It, when we look at it, when it exists outside of us, that becomes like an internal wanting, a noticing, a thinking about, a considering, a contemplating. And then after a while, if you stay in that place long enough, then it moves from your head down into your heart, where you actually start to love and want and desire the thing in a deep way. You become intimate with that thought and that produces an external action. And if you stay in the realm of producing external action long enough, it comes out in death and destruction.

This is why we take sin seriously. This is why we cannot afford to let sin stagnate. This is why we strive to be quick to repentance and quick to receive the gift of God's forgiveness. Because James says that sinful desire always grows towards death. And so just listen to what the people are saying.

Oh, that we had died in the wilderness. It would have been better for us to die in this wilderness than it is for us to try to go in and take that land.

So then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces, and Joshua and Caleb. So Joshua and Caleb are the two spies who actually saw things the way that they were and believed that God could do this. And so now you have got four guys. You've got Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb. And as they hear the people respond in this, they start mourning.

That's what it means that they fell on their faces and that they tore their clothes. They. They're like, guys, God has been promising this to our people forever. Like, this is our opportunity. And so they said, the land, that which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.

It's. It's saying it's a good, good land. It's a. It's the goodest land that has ever been. That's what they're trying.

The point that they're trying to make to the people. They say, if the Lord delights in us. And that word, if is not like, I wonder whether or not God delights in us. They're saying, since God delights in us, he's called us his people. He said to us that we are his treasured possession.

If he delights in us, then he will bring us into the land. Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the Lord is with us. So get this. This is the promise that God has given to these people, is the most amazing promise that God has given to any people in all of scripture, right? He says to them, hey, you are my special people.

I'm going to take special ownership of you. I created the whole universe. But you are the people that I'm picking. And I'm going to establish your borders and I'm going to provide for you and I'm going to give you a better land than anybody's ever had. And I'm going to fight your battles for you and I'm going to show up for you like I've been showing up for you.

And these four men are here trying to convince. There are hundreds of thousands of people that right now, they are trying to convince that the Lord is trustworthy to keep his promises. They're saying, don't you realize who he is? Don't you realize what he's promised? But these people have given their hearts over to something else.

So verse 10, then all the congregation said to stone them with stones.

These people who have been led by God and Moses and Aaron are right now prepared to murder the people who have led them out of their slavery. And then it says, the glory of the Lord appeared to all of the people of Israel. I don't know why it's doing that on top. That's such a strange thing, but you'll get used to it. The Lord said to Moses, how long will this people despise me?

So this is what happened. God shows up. They're getting ready to show him. God shows up in the middle, and he literally interrupts them the moment before they murder the four people who are advocating for God in the midst of this situation. So the Lord.

The Lord shows up to stop the people from stoning them. But the Lord does not speak to the people. The Lord speaks to Moses in front of the people. So. So the people can hear the Lord speaking to Moses.

And this is what the Lord said to Moses. How long will this people despise me? And how long will. Will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? Here's the problem.

These people have let fear and anxiety tell them to trust in what they understood. Right? They trusted in their own reason. They trusted in their own experience. They trusted in what they could put together based on what their eyes were.

Were telling them. But here's what God has wanted for human beings since the very beginning. You have to learn that God's word is more reliable than what you think you know. You've got to learn that God's word is more reliable than what you think you know, right? What happened?

The people of Israel cried out to God in their slavery. And what did God do? God was gracious to them. He loved them. And so he sent Moses to confront Pharaoh, and he sent plagues against the people of Egypt.

And then they got to escape from Egypt. And when their backs were stuck up against the Red Sea with the Egyptian army pursuing them on the other side. And they were like, oh, no, what are we going to do? God split the sea in half so that they could walk through the sea on dry land. And so then they get through the other side, and the Egyptian army pursues them.

And God closes the sea on the Egyptian army and destroys what is literally the strongest army in the world. And then they get into the desert. And when they had no food in the desert, God gave them manna every day. And when they had no water in the desert, God made water come out of a rock. And God showed them his authority at Sinai and gave them a law to help them structure themselves as a people.

And God forgave them when they sinned. And now they think that there are these giants in the land, and that these giants in this land, that they are so powerful that somehow after all of this time, that they're. That these giants are so powerful that they will finally show God to be a liar this time. That's what the people are thinking. That I have no other conclusion for what they must be thinking.

Like, God hasn't lied to us yet, but he's lying to us this time.

And so why can't we just take God at His word, right? It is our refusal to take God at His word that ultimately brings forth death. It not only leads us into death, because it does do that. It's what happened with Israel. It leads them into death.

It not only leads us away from God's desires and God's designs, but actually this kind of unbelief deserves death, because this is what it does. Unbelief, at its core, is about stealing glory from God. It says of God he can't be trusted.

That's what the core of unbelief is. It says of God. Not only does it say of God that He can't be trusted, but it says that he can't be trusted when he has been nothing but good and kind and gracious and faithful and powerful for the sake of his people.

And so this is God's.

I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them. And I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. So this is what he says to Moses. I'm done with them. I'm going to start over with you.

God is ready to give these people what their persistent unbelief in him deserves. But I want you to watch what Moses does.

Verse 13. But Moses said to the Lord, then the Egyptians will hear of it. He's saying, don't do that. Right? The Egyptians will hear of what you've done.

And then the nations who have heard of your fame will say, it is because the Lord was not able that he has killed them in the wilderness. See, Moses, unlike the spies in this situation, Moses is all about protecting God's reputation, right? He is learning that elevating the reputation of God is to be the paramount calling of his life. And so the 10 bad spies, yeah, the 10 bad spies. They tried to give God's promise a bad reputation.

They tried to give the land a bad reputation. But Moses, remember that whole thing last week about Moses was the meekest man on all the earth. He shows himself to be pretty meek here because God says, hey, I want to kill them and start over with you. And Moses says, but think about how the world will see your reputation, right? And so he is all about protecting God's reputation.

I just wonder, like, what. What would our lives be like if that was the primary calling of our life? So verse 17, it goes on. It says, and now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, now what Moses does is he quotes to God something that God has already quoted to him. These are God's exact words.

When Moses said to God, lord, show me your glory, God replied, if I show you my glory, it will kill you. But I'll let my goodness pass in front of you and like, you will see kind of the trail, right? That's essentially what he's saying when he did that. This is what the Lord said to Moses. The Lord essentially told Moses his identity, the core foundation of his character.

And this is what he says. 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. So Moses quotes God's words back to him and says to him, would you please pardon the iniquity of this people?

So the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word, which is actually God's word, right? He said, I'll do what you say. The point of this whole exchange is that Moses is the only one who actually takes God at his word.

It's showing us the people would not believe God's word. But Moses here is quoting God's word back to him as a way to pardon the people. Moses takes God at his word.

But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, this is now the Lord saying, I've pardoned them. But I need to be clear that that pardon does. There are some stipulations to it. There are still consequences for their unbelief. So verse 22, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers.

So he's saying, this generation, these people who are here in the wilderness now, they will not be able to go and see the land. They will not take the land that I have been promising to them for generations.

And skip down to verse 28. So God tells Moses, say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. You remember when they said, oh, that we had died in this wilderness? God says, okay, you can have your way.

What you have said in my hearing, I will do to you. Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. And of all your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me, except Caleb and Joshua. So he kind of marks them out of this curse, right? So this is what God's going to do.

God is going to relent from the pestilence and the disinheritance that he said I was getting ready to do. He's going to relent from that. He's going to pardon their iniquity, which means significant things for them. It means that God is still going to call himself their God. God is still going to call them his people.

God is still going to go with them where they go. But those people, this generation, who trusted their own fear more than God's word, they will spend the rest of their years wandering in the desert, yes, in the hand of God, yes, under God's protection, but just on the edge of receiving the promise that God had been making for generations. And then verse 31. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, right when they were, like, all scared of going into the land, they're like, they're gonna kill all of our children. This is what God says to them.

Your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring them in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead body shall fall in the wilderness. This is what God essentially is saying. Your kids are going to watch you and they are going to learn from your mistakes, right? Because they will know that I'm God.

And when it comes time for them to take the land and to trust my word, they'll know to trust my word because they saw what happened when you didn't trust my word. And I'm going to do mighty things, and I'm going to conquer giants, and I'm going to make them inheritors of the promise. So verse 36, the men who brought a bad report of the land died by plague before the Lord. Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the Son of Jephunneh remained alive. So here God reveals His justice, his holiness.

Because it's one thing not to believe God, but it's quite a different thing to encourage God's people not to believe Him. And God needed his people to see the threat of trusting anything else above His Word. And so, church, our main point this morning is this unbelief. Is your trust in another voice more than God's? Time and again, he's trying to get his people to see, my word is reliable, My voice is trustworthy.

I am. I am trustworthy. Would you lean on me? Would you depend on me? Okay, so now you're like, okay, the people.

The people of Israel, they've got the point now, right? They okay, it's time to trust God's word. So I just want you to see how this story. Because this story is not quite over yet. This story still has an ending to it.

And I want to show you this ending. Verse 39. When Moses told these words to the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. They were very sad that they weren't going to get the land. Verse 40.

They rose early in the morning and they 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. So they're like, we made a mistake. We didn't take the land. We're going to go take the land that God has promised, right?

So what is their sin? Remember their sin. Their sin is unbelief, right? Their failure to take God at His word. God just spoke words to them, but they are not taking him at his word.

So verse 41. Moses said, why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord when that will not succeed? He's like, you think that going into the land, like, you're going to get it now, that somehow you can believe God now, but you couldn't believe him before. He's saying, do not go up, for the Lord is not among you. The reason God is not among them is because he has spoken words to them already.

The point is not like, hey, can you fix this? Can you figure out some way to work yourself out of your own bad situation? That's not the point. The point is, will you listen to God's word? Will you take God at His word?

Moses is like, we're missing the point. Stop trusting your impulses. Your impulses lie to you. Just take God at his word.

Verse 44. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country. And then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and they defeated them and pursued them. The people who went up to take the land failed and they were killed. They were defeated by that army.

The point is not the reward or the loss or the challenge or the obstacle or the consequences. The point is getting us to become people who trust God's voice more than any other voice.

Proverbs 14:12 says it like this. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Will you turn away from the way that seems right to you and trust God's way? So what do we do with this story? I just want to say, is there something that God has told you to do or something that God has told you to not do?

And you are right now at odds with him about that thing that he has told you, right? You don't agree with him about it. I just tell you, like, if that's where you are, then you are trusting your own way more than God's way. And at the very least, those are the seeds of the sin of unbelief. And so if you continue, you are forfeiting a blessing that you don't realize you're welcoming consequences that you might have to live with.

And the call to anybody living in unbelief is, we need to repent. The point is that he is God and we are not. And we need to decide, will we allow his voice to lead us or some other voice. So what number one disobedience accumulates, stop feeding it. So they lost their chance to be the first generation to inherit this promise that had been given.

And this is one point on a road that was already leading to this point, right? This is just the end of the road. But there were many steps along this road. So in verse 22, if you were to go back to numbers 14:22, it says, 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. Now, that whole thing about 10 times, it was not that they have disobeyed God 10 times.

That's like a figure of speech of God saying, this is a pattern of behavior that they have been continuing in time and time and time again. This is God's way of saying, like, there were there were places to interrupt getting to this point, but now they've gotten to this point. And so I Just like to let you know, no small. There's no such thing as a small disobedience, right? No.

Small disobedience is merely a small disobedience. Every time that we're at odds with God and He shows us we need to recognize that if we continue to stay there, then what we're doing is we're playing an addition game. We're creating the opportunity to multiply sin in our life and for it to lead us down a path that would go towards our destruction. And so the last so what that I would ask you is, do you actually trust God?

For those who believe in Jesus, the question is, are you willing to. To do what God says quickly, despite your anxiety or your fear or whatever it might be, despite how difficult or impossible it seems? But the, the answer to this question for somebody who may not trust Jesus is simply, hey, would you start by trusting him for your salvation? Would you believe that he is good and he is right and that he loves you? Right?

So his goal is to make humans who will take refuge in his voice above anything else. And so do you trust Him? I'd just like to draw to our attention. Hebrews chapter three reflects on this story and encourages towards this. It says, take care, brothers.

Least there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. Verse 15. As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? The point of all of this is that he is trustworthy, right? He is more trustworthy than your impulses. He is more trustworthy than what you think is right.

He is more trustworthy than the pieces of the puzzle that you can put together in your own hand. And so will you just simply trust Him? He is the Lord, gracious and compassionate, abounding in steadfast love. He is the Lord, just and true. He is always faithful and always good.

And what he is waiting for all of us is that we would simply trust his voice. And so would you pray with me towards that end.

God, we're grateful for the opportunity that you give us to trust you and to know you. Lord, we're grateful for the stories that you give us time and again that show us that you are reliable, that your Word is reliable.

But our hearts are prone to wandering and sometimes we have a hard time setting aside what we know and understand and trusting you, especially when it's in competition with what we know and understand.

And so, Holy Spirit, as I just pointed out, this sin of unbelief in us, what I also recognize is without your power, the sin of unbelief cannot be overcome.

And so, Holy Spirit, we are here acknowledging our need for you. May you lead us to the place of confessing and releasing any place where we're at odds with you.

And Lord, may you captivate our hearts and our minds with the goodness of who you are and your character that we would learn to trust your voice more than any other voice. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.