Unclaimed Riches

The people refused to enter the pleasant land, for they wouldn’t believe his promise to care for them. Instead, they grumbled in their tents and refused to obey the LORD.

Psalm 106:24-25

As the Israelites arrived at the border of the land God had promised them, Moses sent in twelve men to get a feel for the situation. When they returned, ten of the twelve reported that there were giants in the land and that the Israelites would be like grasshoppers to them. The people decided to let their fear direct their decisions. The Israelites did not wonder whether or not God had led them to the land or whether or not God was telling them to go into the land. That was a given. But they did not have faith in God.

Listen to them whine: “The whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. ‘If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!’ they complained. ‘Why is the LORD taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder!’” (Numbers 14:1-3). Here is unbelief—choosing to believe their own perceptions and intentionally choosing not to trust God. Refusing, intentionally and rebelliously, to obey God because they did not have faith in him. They aligned themselves with the enemy’s lies and agreed with fear. They had faith—but not in God. They put their faith in fear and trusted that failure would be the result of obeying God.

Unbelief will cause you to intentionally dismiss God’s power in favor of your own abilities. Read in Hebrews 3:19 the effect of unbelief: “We see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief” (NIV).

God promises that when we line ourselves up with him and his truth, no giant will stand in our way.

Lord, I believe. I will not choose to believe what I perceive with my senses over what you have promised.

Surely scripture is right when it makes the sin of sins that unbelief, which is at bottom nothing else than a refusal to take the cup of salvation. Surely no sharper grief can be inflicted upon the Spirit of God than when we leave His gifts neglected and unappropriated.

Alexander Maclaren(1826–1910), British preacher and Bible expositor