The Israelites went ahead of God by organizing an army, planning a strategy, and striking out on their own. But when the enemy saw them, they chased the Israelite soldiers “as bees do” and destroyed them (see Deuteronomy 1:44).
The Israelites went ahead of God by organizing an army, planning a strategy, and striking out on their own. But when the enemy saw them, they chased the Israelite soldiers “as bees do” and destroyed them (see Deuteronomy 1:44).
“The hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them . . . until all the generation of the men . . . were wasted out from among the host” (Deuteronomy 2:15, 14). Here is some of the strongest language in all the Bible regarding unbelief.
You may say, “But that isn’t the language of grace. God doesn’t deal that severely with unbelief today.” Not true. The Bible says that today, under grace, “without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
Jesus came as a prophet and a miracle worker to His own house, Israel. Yet, “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). What an incredible statement. Unbelief limited even Christ’s power to work.
God’s word wasn’t enough for the Israelites. The Lord had given them incredible promises, yet in the midst of their crises, Israel never trusted Him. In spite of every promise, they rendered His word useless. How? By never mixing it with faith. “The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it” (Hebrews 4:2).
Kadesh-Barnea is a place of in-your-face impossibility. The name itself comes from a Hebrew root word meaning “fugitive, vagabond, wanderer.” In short, if you make the wrong choice here, you’ll end up wandering through a wilderness all your life.
Moses described the tragic mistake Israel made at Kadesh-Barnea (see Numbers 13-14). It happened shortly after the Red Sea crossing. God had commanded Israel to go boldly into Canaan and He had given them this powerful word of assurance:
In the message of Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy, Moses showed us the danger of unbelief. And he warned that unless we take heed, we will suffer the same awful consequences as those who fell before us: “Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Hebrews 4:11). He is saying, in essence, “It doesn’t matter what impossibilities you face, or how hopeless things may appear. You are not to fall into the same sin of unbelief. Otherwise, you’ll end up in a terrible wilderness, as they did. And you’ll wander through it for the rest of your life.
The entire book of Deuteronomy consists of a single speech by Moses, delivered just before his death. This speech was a review of the forty years Israel had spent wandering in the wilderness and Moses delivered it to a new generation of Israelites.
I didn’t realize how guilty I was of the sin of having defiled ears until I was on a preaching trip to the British Isles. My son Gary and I were being driven to a preaching event by a pastor who politely asked how our meetings had been going. When I tried to answer, he interrupted me to talk about his own preaching. This happened several times and each time, he “one-upped” me with stories of having bigger crowds and visiting more countries than I had.