By Dennis Pollock
After being liberated from slavery in Egypt, the children of Israel found themselves across the Jordan River from the land of Canaan, God’s promised land for them. Moses sent 12 spies to investigate this new land that would serve as the Jewish homeland forever. The spies sneaked around this land for a while and came back impressed with the fertile soil and its amazing possibilities. Moses gathered them together to share with their brothers and sisters exactly what they saw. It started out positively, as they announced: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.” (Numbers 13:27). So far, so good. But it did not take long for their report to turn negative. They went on to say: “Moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there…” Anak had been a famous warrior, a huge man known as a giant. And in this new land gigantic men, descended from Anak were frequently seen, and the prospect of fighting such men was entirely unappealing to these Israelites.
There were two spies who saw things differently: Caleb and Joshua. Caleb spoke for them both. The Bible tells us: “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.'” The other ten spies were not having any of this and said: “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we… The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature… we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” (Numbers 13).
Soon all Israel was crying and feeling sorry for themselves, utterly unwilling to enter this terrible land and be slaughtered. They challenged Moses’ authority and were ready to replace him with another leader who would take them back to slavery in Egypt. God responded strongly, killing the 10 rebellious spies and announcing that the entire adult population of Israel would die over the next forty years wandering in the wilderness, and then and only then would their children be allowed to enter their promised land. These Israelites paid a very high price for their disobedience. It cost them their promised land. Paul writes about these fearful, disobedient people, saying: “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5).
Were They Just Cowards?
When we read this story, we could see the Israelites in several different ways. We could think of them as cowards, insufficiently brave to go into Canaan and fight their enemies. Or we might see them as rebels, unwilling to obey God’s command to take the land He had promised them. And both of those concepts would be true. But there is another way in which the Bible pictures them.
Thousands of years later, the New Testament writer of the Book of Hebrews puts it this way:
And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief (Hebrews 3:19).
So what was their problem: was it disobedience or unbelief? And the answer, of course, is YES! They were certainly disobedient. They refused to go in and conquer the land God had said He had given them. They did not obey God. But behind their disobedience was the insidious virus of unbelief. They could not enter that land of milk and honey because of their unbelief.
Why was Caleb Different?
And when Caleb insisted that they should enter the land immediately and that they were well able to take it, this was not because he was such a brave man, or that he was such a powerful warrior. No, the difference between Caleb and the 10 rebellious spies was a matter of faith or the lack thereof. Caleb trusted and believed God and the ten neither trusted nor believed. And when the people of Israel heard their whiny, cowardly, sniveling, fearful words, they became rabid unbelievers as well. And thus, to quote from Hebrews: “they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
In this verse we see the powerful and unbreakable link between disobedience and unbelief. Disobedience and the rejection of God’s commands is always related to unbelief. You cannot find one without the other. Where there is disobedience there is unbelief and where there is unbelief there will always, always, always be disobedience.
In Jude’s epistle, he says the same exact thing, writing: “But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude v5). He does not say that God destroyed those who disobeyed Him and refused to enter the promised land. He states that God “destroyed those who did not believe.”
Ultimately – A Lack of Faith
God had told these people that He had given them the land. He had told them that He would be with them and fight their battles and give them complete victory in their new homeland. But Israel responded, “We cannot do this. They are too big, they are too tough, this is a land that swallows up its inhabitants. We will not do this; we cannot do it.” This was their attitude. But behind that attitude was something far more sinister than simply an unwillingness to obey God. What they were really saying was: “God, we do not believe You. We do not trust you. Sure, You have told us you would help us, but we do not believe that for a second. Therefore, we will not go.” Their unbelief created their disobedience.
It is not any different today. We Christians tell the world, “If you will receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you will live forever. God will become your Father, and you will be provided for all your days. But if you do not receive Jesus you will die in your sins and you will then go to a miserable place of darkness where you will pay for each and every sin you committed while in your body.” And yet most people refuse to come to Jesus and receive Him. They go on in their meaningless, secular life, without God and without hope. They disobey Jesus’ command which says: “Come unto Me.” Why are they disobedient? Why do they refuse Jesus? Why do they go on in their selfish, carnal, immoral lifestyle? And the answer is simple. They do not believe. We tell them about Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection three days later. We tell them about heaven and hell and God’s holy laws and commands. We tell them that without Jesus they are lost and without hope. But most refuse the gospel, and they do so because they do not really believe any of these things. They may say they do, but their wicked lifestyle emphatically demonstrates that they most certainly do not believe.
And so the word of the gospel is: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” And with your belief will come obedience, because these two concepts are divinely and unbreakably fused together. If you have truly believed in Jesus, you will begin to obey God. Or as the apostle John puts it: “By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” (1 John 2:3-4).
