The Anatomy of Unbelief
Introduction: The God Who Gets Angry
We live in a soft and sentimental age, an age that has tried to domesticate God. The modern god, the god of popular evangelicalism, is a therapeutic deity, a cosmic butler, a divine affirmation machine. He would never get angry, not really. His wrath is explained away as a metaphor, his judgments are softened into learning experiences, and his holiness is traded for a squishy, all-inclusive tolerance. This god is a projection of our own flabby sensibilities, and he is, consequently, no God at all. He is an idol carved out of marshmallow.
The God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not safe. He is good, but He is not tame. And here in the plains of Moab, as Moses recounts the history of Israel's rebellion, we come face to face with the holy intolerance of the living God. This is a foundational lesson. If we do not understand the righteousness of God's anger, we can never understand the glory of His grace. If we do not see what our sin truly deserves, we will never be astonished by the salvation He provides in Christ.
This passage is a divine autopsy of a faithless generation. At the border of the Promised Land, on the very threshold of blessing, an entire generation flinched. They heard the report of the ten faithless spies and exchanged the promise of God for the fear of man. Their grumbling was not just a momentary lapse in morale; it was high treason against the King of Heaven. It was a vote of no confidence in the God who had split the sea and rained down bread. And God heard them. He always hears. This passage details the covenantal consequences of that unbelief. It is a record of God's righteous judgment, but it is also a stunning display of His discriminating grace and His unbreakable covenant faithfulness to the generations to come.
We must read this not as detached observers of ancient history, but as those who are addressed by it. The apostle warns us, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God" (Hebrews 3:12). The wilderness is not just a location on a map; it is a spiritual condition. Let us therefore attend to this word, so that we might understand the anatomy of unbelief and cling to the anatomy of true faith.
The Text
"Then Yahweh heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and swore an oath, saying, 'Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed Yahweh fully.' Yahweh was angry with me also on your account, saying, 'Not even you shall enter there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; strengthen him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it. Moreover, your little ones who you said would become plunder, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn around and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.'"
(Deuteronomy 1:34-40 LSB)
The Divine Oath of Judgment (v. 34-35)
We begin with God's reaction to the faithless report of the people.
"Then Yahweh heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and swore an oath, saying, 'Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers...'" (Deuteronomy 1:34-35)
The first thing to notice is that God hears. Our words are not empty vibrations in the air. They are weighed and judged. The grumbling of the Israelites was not mere complaining; it was slander against the character of God. They were accusing the God who delivered them of bringing them into the wilderness to kill them. This is the essence of unbelief: it attributes evil motives to a perfectly good God. And God's reaction is not disappointment; it is anger. This is not a petty, human tantrum. It is the settled, holy, righteous opposition of a perfectly just being to sin. God's wrath is the active outpouring of His holiness against all that is unholy. To wish for a God who does not get angry at sin is to wish for a God who is not good.
And this anger is not just a passing emotion. It is sealed with an oath. A divine oath is an unshakeable, unbreakable covenantal declaration. Just as God swore an oath to Abraham to give him the land, He now swears an oath to bar this generation from it. The same covenantal power that guarantees blessing for obedience guarantees cursing for disobedience. God calls them "this evil generation." Their evil was not primarily in their external actions, but in their heart of unbelief. Unbelief is not a small thing; it is the root sin from which all other sins grow. It is a refusal to take God at His Word. And for that, an entire generation was disinherited.
The Faithful Exception (v. 36)
But the judgment is not indiscriminate. God's grace always makes a distinction.
"...except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed Yahweh fully." (Deuteronomy 1:36)
In the midst of a sea of unbelief, Caleb is an island of faith. And what is the commendation he receives? He "followed Yahweh fully." The Hebrew is about being "wholehearted." This is not a description of sinless perfection. It is a description of radical, undivided loyalty. While the other ten spies saw the giants and forgot God, Caleb saw the giants and remembered God. His faith was not based on an analysis of the obstacles, but on the character of the God who made the promise. He had a different spirit, a spirit of faith that saw the giants as grasshoppers and God as the giant.
Notice the result of his faith. The promise is not just for him, but "to him and to his sons." Faithfulness has generational consequences. The land he "set foot on," the very ground he scouted in faith, is given to him as an inheritance. This is a beautiful picture of how faith works. Faith steps out on the promise of God, and God confirms that ground as a possession. Caleb is the great exception, the forerunner of the faithful remnant that God always preserves for Himself. He is a living demonstration that one man, with God, is always in the majority.
The Representative's Fall (v. 37-38)
Next, Moses includes his own story, and it is a hard and humbling one.
"Yahweh was angry with me also on your account, saying, 'Not even you shall enter there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; strengthen him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.'" (Deuteronomy 1:37-38)
Moses, the great lawgiver, the man who spoke with God face to face, is also barred from the land. Why? He says it was "on your account." This refers to the incident at Meribah, where Moses, exasperated by the people's constant rebellion, struck the rock in anger instead of speaking to it as God commanded (Numbers 20). In doing so, he misrepresented God's character before the people. He acted as though God's provision came through human anger and power, rather than by God's gracious word alone.
This is a stark lesson in federal headship and the responsibilities of leadership. Moses, as the representative of the people, bore the weight of their sin and was affected by it. His sin was his own, but it was provoked by theirs. And because he was the leader, his sin was more serious. He was held to a higher standard. God's judgment on Moses shows that no one is above the law, and that leadership is a terrifyingly holy trust. But even in this judgment, God's plan does not fail. The mission is bigger than the man. Moses is to "strengthen" Joshua, his successor. The baton of leadership is passed. God's purpose to bring His people into the land will be accomplished, even if the first leader falls at the border. God's work is never dependent on one man.
The Ironic Inheritance (v. 39)
Now we come to one of the most profound and ironic twists in all of Scripture.
"Moreover, your little ones who you said would become plunder, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them, and they shall possess it." (Deuteronomy 1:39)
This is a masterful rebuke from God. What was the excuse the faithless generation gave for their rebellion? "Our wives and our little ones will become plunder" (Numbers 14:3). They used their children as a pious-sounding shield for their own cowardice and unbelief. They pretended to be concerned for their children's welfare as a reason to disobey God.
And what does God do? In an act of breathtaking, sovereign irony, He takes their excuse and makes it the very instrument of His promise. He says, in effect, "You were worried about your children? Fine. They are the very ones who will receive what you have forfeited. The inheritance you threw away, I will give to them." The generation that knew God's power and rebelled will die in the desert. The generation that had "no knowledge of good or evil," the toddlers and infants, will grow up to possess the land. This is a stunning display of covenantal grace. God's promise is not ultimately dependent on our faithfulness, but on His. He secures His promises for the children of His people, often in spite of the failures of their parents.
The Sentence of Regression (v. 40)
Finally, the verdict is delivered to the rebellious generation.
"But as for you, turn around and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea." (Deuteronomy 1:40)
The sentence for unbelief is regression. They were on the edge of the promised land, looking forward. Now the command is to turn around. Go back. Retrace your steps into the barren wilderness. This is the logic of sin. When you refuse to go forward with God in faith, the only direction left is backward into bondage and wandering. They are sent back "by the way to the Red Sea," the very place of their initial, glorious deliverance. It is a reminder of the grace they spurned and the judgment they have now embraced.
For forty years, they would wander until their carcasses fell in that wilderness. Their lives would be a living sermon on the consequences of refusing to take God at His Word. The wilderness is where you end up when you believe the giants are bigger than God.
Conclusion: The Better Joshua
This story is our story. The book of Hebrews makes it clear that the offer of entering God's "rest" is still open. We, like Israel, stand between the memory of our deliverance at the cross, our Red Sea, and the promise of our inheritance, the New Heavens and the New Earth.
The great warning of this passage is that it is possible to be delivered from Egypt but never enter the land. It is possible to have tasted the goodness of God and then to shrink back in unbelief. The sin of the Israelites was that they heard the good news but did not combine it with faith (Hebrews 4:2). They had a "grasshopper" complex, seeing themselves as small and their enemies as large. The faith of Caleb is the faith we are called to, a faith that sees our enemies as small and our God as very, very large.
But the ultimate comfort of this passage is that God's plan was not thwarted. A new generation did enter the land, and they were led by a man named Joshua. And this is the great gospel key. The name Joshua is the Hebrew form of the Greek name Jesus. The first Joshua, the son of Nun, could only lead the people into a temporary, earthly rest that was fraught with battles. He was a type, a forerunner.
But the second Joshua, Jesus the Son of God, is our perfect leader. He is the ultimate Caleb, the one who followed the Father fully, even to the point of death on a cross. He is the better Moses, the perfect representative who did not fail, and who by His obedience secures our entrance into the true promised land. Because of the unbelief of the first Adam, we were all sentenced to wander in the wilderness of sin and death. But because of the perfect faith of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, all who are united to Him by faith are guaranteed an inheritance.
Therefore, do not be like that evil generation. Do not look at the giants of our secular culture, the giants of personal sin, or the giants of fear, and conclude that God is not able to fulfill His promises. God's promise is to give the whole world to His Son as an inheritance. He is doing it, and He will finish it. The question is not whether God's people will win. The question is whether you will be a Caleb, who follows Him fully and receives a share in that inheritance, or whether you will be one whose bones bleach in the wilderness of unbelief.