Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1498
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, October 5, 1879
“How long will it be before they believe Me?” Numbers 14:11.
THE children of Israel were very prone to unbelief. They wanted something visible to worship and to trust. They could not learn the lesson of faith in the one great Invisible and, therefore, they were one day bowing before an idol and the next they were murmuring against the true God. Their life was according to the flesh, after the sight of the eyes and the hearing of the ears and so they praised God when Pharaoh was drowned and when manna lay round about their camp, but the moment they were in need or difficulty and saw no supply or relief, they could not trust in God, but began to mistrust and murmur. With what wonderful longsuffering the Lord bore with them! His mercy seemed to outrun their unbelief!
They cried for water and they doubted God’s power to give it to them in the desert sands, but lo, the smitten Rock poured forth a crystal stream! Then they cried for bread and charged the Lord with bringing them into the wilderness to kill them with hunger—and yet, in answer to their murmuring—the heavens were opened and there fell a shower of angels’ food for them to feast upon! They then clamored for meat and they had not long began their unbelieving murmuring before a strong wind brought them up quail till they fed, even to the full! Such liberal answers to their vexatious murmuring ought to have silenced their fears and they should have exhibited confidence in their great Friend! Yet they did not do so, but for 40 years they provoked the Lord.
The incident before us relates to that great and terrible provocation in which the longsuffering of God came to a pause. They sent spies into Canaan and when they were informed by 10 false-hearted men that the giants were in the land and that the inhabitants of it dwelt in walled cities which they could not hope to capture, they then began to accuse the Lord according to their former manner, denying His power to fulfill His ancient Covenant and give them the land that flowed with milk and honey! This time the Lord lifted His hand and swore that they should not enter into His rest.
Let us be warned by this fact that there is a limit to the longsuffering of God and especially when it is tried by distrust. He may bear with unbelief for a time and, blessed be His name, for a long time, for He remembers that we are dust. But when it comes to willful perseverance in unbelief, the Lord will not forever be thus provoked. It behooves us to listen to the words of Paul—“Let us, therefore, fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” This morning my one subject is this sin of unbelief which I desire to deal with in the fear of God and in the power of His Holy Spirit.
I. Our first head shall be the sin of Israel is here DEFINED—“HOW long will it be before they believe Me?” Observe that God’s account of all the murmuring, discouragement and fear which these people felt was simply that they did not believe Him. They doubtless said that they were naturally afraid of their enemies—the Anakim, the sons of the giants— these would overtop and overcome them. They seemed like grasshoppers in the sight of such gigantic beings and, therefore, they might well tremble. Had the Anakim been ordinary men, however numerous their bands, Israel declared that they should not have been afraid. But these huge monsters created a natural and unavoidable fear.
“No,” says God, “that is an idle excuse! No fear of giants would enter their minds if they believed Me. How long will it be before they believe Me?” If these sons of Anak had been 10 times as tall as they were, yet the almighty Lord could vanquish them! And if their cities had been literally, as well as figuratively, walled up to the skies, yet Jehovah could smite them out of Heaven and cast their ramparts into the dust! Gigantic men and fortified cities are nothing to Him who divided the Red Sea! When the Omnipotent is present, opposition vanishes. This was so clear that if the Israelites were afraid, the real reason was that they did not believe their God.
So, my Brothers and Sisters, let us strip our discouragements and murmuring of all their disguises and see them in their true character and they will appear in their own naked deformity as discrediting God. It is true the difficulty before us may appear great, but it cannot be great to the Lord who has promised to make us more than conquerors. It is true the circumstances may appear unusually perplexing, but they cannot perplex Him who has promised to guide us with His counsel! And since we are well aware of this, it is clear that the true reason why we are so dismayed is not to be found in the difficulties and the circumstances, but in our misgivings of God.
“Ah, but,” these people might have replied, “we fear because of our weakness. We are not a trained host like the armies of Egypt. We know not how to fight against chariots of iron! We are only feeble men with all these women and children to encumber our march. We cannot hope to drive out the hordes of Amalekites and Canaanites. A sense of weakness is the cause of our terror and complaint.” But the Lord puts the matter very differently. What had their weakness to do with His promise? How could their weakness affect His power to give them the land? He could conquer Amalek if they could not! Caleb had told them, “If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land.” They knew that their feebleness had not prevented the Lord’s bringing them out of Egypt, despite the pride and power of Pharaoh—and they must have known that He could, with equal ease, overthrow the Canaanites and their armies. Their weakness could only be a foil to the Glory of the Divine power, so that it would be made the more conspicuous!