Viral Unbelief | Sunday, May 3, 2020

We turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the way of the Red Sea, as the LORD spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days... And the time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of the Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the midst of the camp, just as the LORD had sworn to them... Rise, take your journey, and cross over the River Arnon. Look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it, and engage him in battle. (Deuteronomy 2)

How God uses our wilderness wanderings to provoke us out of unbelief and into the life He has promised.

The Flesh Exposed in Quarantine

I have believed for a long time, and have shared many times before here at the church, that our true nature—what is commonly referred to as the flesh—shows itself most clearly when we are sick, tired, hungry, and stressed. We tend to default to who we really are in our flesh in those times. This is when our impatience, unkindness, irritabilities, and anxieties really come to the surface.

I think we can add another item to that list: quarantined. Quarantine for a week or two is one thing, but we are, as of today, at day 45 of the shutdown in California. Quarantine can certainly bring out our flesh—maybe you've even had to apologize to your family a few times in all of this. I think God often uses challenging things like quarantine to bring our flesh to light and expose it. These things are His tools for pruning, purging, and purification.

Israel's Forty-Year Quarantine

Ancient Israel spent a significant period of time on shutdown, in quarantine. They were separated from the land God had promised them for 38 years. For four decades Israel wandered in the wilderness south and east of the promised land, in and around what is known today as the country of Jordan. They remained under this extended quarantine to deal with a virulent problem—a deadly strain that infected an entire generation.

The author of Hebrews identifies this dangerous and deadly contagion. In Hebrews 3:19 he wrote:

So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

So dangerous is this contagion that the author of Hebrews prescribes in verse 12:

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.

Those are incredibly strong words. I would go so far as to say that an evil heart of unbelief is ultimately more deadly than any other condition, because unbelief is the root cause of an eternal spiritual death—which is far worse than physical death. Israel's deadly strain of unbelief manifested in the symptoms of murmuring, rebellion, disobedience, and the occasional debauchery.

Why Moses Recounts the History

Most of the second chapter of Deuteronomy summarizes this period of Israel's history, and Moses's summary has some important lessons for us. But the first question we should ask is: why was Moses summarizing the previous 38 years for his listeners?

The simple answer is that Moses's listeners were about to be tested for this highly infectious contagion called unbelief. Their parents and grandparents had a very deadly strain of it; the entire generation died under quarantine. By summarizing and recounting their history, Moses is working to inoculate the new generation from the deadly unbelief that killed the previous one. I want to make four observations from this text that teach us toward the ultimate point of the passage.

First: God Will Let You Wander

Moses has just reminded his listeners that their parents' generation failed to possess the promised land because they were fearful of the fortified cities and the giants that occupied it. In light of the obstacles, they were filled with fear and unbelief, and as a result they wandered and died in the wilderness by their own choice. They did not trust that the God who brought them up out of Egypt could bring them up into the promised land.

So the first thing God allowed His unbelieving people to do was to walk in circles. "We skirted Mount Seir for many days"—an indeterminate period of them. As much as we may not like this, I have found it to be true: God will allow you to meander aimlessly so that He may accomplish His ultimate ends, even if that means allowing you to wander for decades. God has a lot of time, and He is more than willing to wait. I'm pretty impatient, but God isn't.

I call this waiting on us God's "anti-blessing." I say anti-blessing because it isn't exactly an active curse from God, but it's also definitely not His blessing. It is a kind of judgment—but one that Israel chose for themselves.

Conditional Predictive Prophecy

This leads us to one of the most important forms of prophecy in the Bible, which we'll see much more of in the later chapters of Deuteronomy. I call it conditional predictive prophecy. It is predictive in the sense that it foretells what is going to happen, but it foretells only so far as it recognizes cause and effect: if you do X, then you will get Y. A-squared plus B-squared always equals C-squared. It is effectively the principle of sowing and reaping.

So I am awesomely prophetic when I tell a promiscuous young couple, "If you don't stop what you're doing, you're going to get pregnant." And then when they get pregnant, they say, "How did you know?" Well, I'm a prophet. So Israel turned, journeyed into the wilderness, and walked in circles many days. If you feel like your life is going nowhere, ask yourself: did I choose this wilderness myself? Am I experiencing the anti-blessing of God? And if you're wandering—are you done yet? Are you tired of it?

Moses continues: "The LORD spoke to me, saying: 'You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward.'" It's time to stop wandering in the wilderness.

Second: God Will Let You Long Jealously

Not only will God allow you to meander aimlessly, but He will also allow you to long jealously for the life and possession of others, to provoke you to move into the life He desires for you. That may seem counterintuitive. Some of the real Bible people are thinking, "That's crazy—God would never be okay with us being provoked to jealousy. Jealousy is wrong."

Now, jealousy as an outgrowth of covetousness is not a good thing; just a couple of chapters from now we'll see that covetousness is a transgression of God's law. We should not covet what our neighbor has. But God certainly intended for Israel to long for the possession He had created for them. If you still feel it's off, go and read Deuteronomy 32, where God says in verse 21:

They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation.

Like it or not, God will allow you to long jealously as you see the life and possession of others, so that He might provoke you to move into the life He desires for you. The descendants of Esau, Moab, and Ammon were distant relatives of Israel, living in their own land, with their own cities, farmlands, cattle, sheep, and goats. As Israel wandered for thirty-eight years, they got to walk through those lands and see their distant cousins living in their own homes and cities. There is no possible way that didn't drive Israel crazy—as well it should have. If it drives you crazy that you're not where you feel you should be in life, and someone else seems further along, it might be worth asking: am I where I am supposed to be?

Third: God Will Let You Witness the Victory of Your Enemies

The third observation is that God will allow you to witness the victory of your enemies to highlight the discomfort of your defeat. The descendants of Esau, Moab, and Ammon weren't exactly Israel's enemies, but they kind of were. As Israel wandered through their lands, we read in verses 10 through 12 about the Emim and the Horites—peoples as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim, regarded as giants—whom the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed, dwelling in their place, "just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the LORD gave them."

Did you catch that? Why did Israel not inherit the promised land under the exodus generation? Because they were afraid of the giants in the land. But what did their cousins, the descendants of Esau, do? They dispossessed and destroyed the giants. Verses 20 through 22 say the same about the Zamzummim—a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim—"but the LORD destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place."

Israel failed to possess their promised land because there were giants in the land. But their cousins defeated the giants—and not only that, God helped them do it so they could possess the land. Wouldn't He have helped His own people Israel to do the same? Sometimes God allows you and me to witness the victory of our enemies to highlight the discomfort of our defeat. He didn't want Israel to become comfortable in their wilderness wanderings, so He allowed them to see their defeat in relationship to their cousins' victory. Apparently a little rivalry is sometimes not a bad thing.

Fourth: God May Require You to Fight

Finally, at verse 24: "Rise, take your journey... Look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it, and engage him in battle." The fourth observation is that God may require you to engage in battle to take the possession He has promised you. That means it isn't going to be easy. Everything worthwhile is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you or selling something.

God's aim from the beginning was to position Israel in their own land because His redemptive plan required it. The exodus generation failed, but He allowed them and their children to meander aimlessly through the wilderness so that they might be provoked to jealousy, be discomforted by defeat, and be stirred up to move into the land He had prepared for them.

Salted Oats and a Hard Run

There's an old saying: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." That's actually not quite true. There are at least two things you can do to make him drink—run him really, really hard, and salt his oats. He'll get thirsty really quick. Some of you this morning have been eating salted oats and running really hard, and God is going to keep you running until you are ready to yield to and trust in Him.

In more than twenty years of pastoral ministry, I've never met a person who regretted yielding to God and trusting in Him. But I have met quite a few people who wish they had not wandered through the wilderness for decades before they finally did.

A Call to Trust Today

Hebrews tells us: "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. The nation of Israel, thirty-four hundred years ago, hardened their hearts and rebelled. They did not trust and follow God by faith when He sought to lead them into the promised land, and as a result they failed to enter the fullness of His blessing.

God wants to lead you into the fullness of His blessing in Christ today, but that's only possible if you will yield to Him as Lord and trust in Him for salvation. Some of you recognize right now that you need to do just that. It's time to stop wandering and meandering through the wilderness. It's time to put your trust in Jesus and ask Him to come into your heart and life.

Receiving the free gift of salvation is as easy as A-B-C. First, admit that you are a sinner and acknowledge that you need Jesus. Second, believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin and rose from the dead. Third, confess Him as Lord and ask Him to come into your life. Prayer is simply talking to God, and we believe He hears and answers the prayer of faith that calls out to Him for salvation. If that's you, pray with me:

Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I believe that You died in my place on the cross. I believe that You rose from the dead. Please come into my heart, be my Lord and my Savior, help me to turn from my sins and to turn to You in faith. Save me from my sin, in Jesus' name. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer today, please let us know by going to commit.lifeinconnection.com and filling out the form. We would love to be in contact with you, and maybe send you a Bible if you don't have one.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we thank You for the good things that You are doing, and we ask that You would continue to help us to trust in You in the midst of these challenging times. Sometimes we can feel like the children of Israel in this passage, walking in the wilderness. But God, I pray that You would use this time to transform us by the renewing of our minds, and help us to trust in You and worship You through it. We look forward to the opportunity, hopefully not too far in the distant future, where we can gather together as Your body to worship You. Until then, would You continue to cause Your word to go out to the uttermost parts through the media we're using right now. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.