Looking Back on the Journey Through the Wilderness

Kadesh-barnea was the southern gate of the promised land. Israel arrived there shortly after leaving Sinai, and Moses gave the order: "Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 1:21). The people asked to send spies first. The spies brought back fruit and confirmed that the land was good (Deuteronomy 1:25), but the report came loaded with fear: a bigger people, cities walled up to heaven, the sons of the giants (Deuteronomy 1:28). The result was a refusal: "Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God:" (Deuteronomy 1:26). That generation stayed in the wilderness, and Moses himself does the arithmetic: from the departure from Kadesh-barnea to the brook Zered, thirty-eight years went by (Deuteronomy 2:14). A journey of eleven days (Deuteronomy 1:2) became forty years.

No, and Deuteronomy 1 is precisely the proof of the opposite. The parents had used the children as an excuse not to obey, saying they would become prey. God answered with grace: "Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it." (Deuteronomy 1:39). The ones left out were the generation that refused; the ones who went in were the next generation. The principle is stated in so many words elsewhere: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." (Ezekiel 18:20). The children suffered the consequences of growing up in a wilderness they did not choose, and that is real and it hurts, but the promise was not taken from them. On the contrary: it was handed to them. No family is condemned to repeat the failure of the generation before.

No. The Bible distinguishes fear, doubt and unbelief, and we must distinguish them too. The Lord Jesus Himself said "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour." (John 12:27), and He did not sin. The psalmist asks his own soul: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." (Psalm 42:5). A distressed father said to Jesus, "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." (Mark 9:24), and he was answered, not rebuked. Anxiety, depression and grief are real sufferings; they call for care, prayer, support and, very often, treatment, never accusation. What Deuteronomy 1 condemns is something else: a people that had seen Egypt fall and the sea open, received a clear command and a clear promise, and decided not to believe: "Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God," (Deuteronomy 1:32). Fear that is brought to God is not sin. Fear that is fed among the tents until it decides for you is the road to unbelief.

No. The command to go up and take possession (Deuteronomy 1:21) was a specific order, given to Israel, about a specific land that God had already promised to Abraham. It is not a technique for the believer to "declare" a car, a house or money. And Isaiah 1:19, "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:" (Isaiah 1:19), is a call to a rebellious people to return to obedience; the next verse speaks of judgment on those who refuse. Biblical faith is not a tool for getting things from God; it is trust in God Himself. Moses, the man who obeyed most in that whole story, did not enter the land. If "taking possession" worked as a formula, he would be the first exception.

Because it was not repentance; it was remorse. After the sentence, the people said they had sinned against the LORD and, in the same breath, decided to go up and fight on their own (Deuteronomy 1:41). God sent word: "And the LORD said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight; for I am not among you; lest ye be smitten before your enemies." (Deuteronomy 1:42). They went up anyway, were defeated and only then wept: "And ye returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD would not hearken to your voice, nor give ear unto you." (Deuteronomy 1:45). Paul gives the key to understanding it: "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (2 Corinthians 7:10). Repentance changes course and submits to God; remorse laments the consequence and tries to fix things by its own strength. God never despises the broken heart; what He does not accept is the "we have sinned" that keeps doing things its own way.

The New Testament answers that the warning is for the church, not for outsiders. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." (Hebrews 3:12). "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." (Hebrews 4:1). The author writes to brothers and says it is possible to harden the heart and depart. This is what we believe: grace is real, it enables and sustains, and the believer can resist it. This is not meant to cause panic in those who struggle with weaknesses; it is meant to produce watchfulness and mutual care. The same text commands: "But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." (Hebrews 3:13). Those who worry about not being left behind are usually not hardened; the danger lives in those who think it could never happen to them.