Dangerous Doubt

Passage Introduction

Turn in your copy of Scripture to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 1. We’ll be taking the rest of Deuteronomy 1 this morning, so our text is Deuteronomy 1:19-46. A longer chunk today, but it’s all one account and makes sense to keep it together.

As Moses continues to make his way through his history lesson, reviewing what he sees as the most significant moments of the last 40 years of their history, he has now wrapped up the important events that took place before Israel left Horeb. As he begins the next portion of his history, he now turns to a rather … uncomfortable memory. What we’re about to read is a retelling of one of the darkest moments in Israel’s history, so I have to imagine that the people hearing Moses recall this event are squirming at least a bit. But as I know you all know, sometimes uncomfortable memories are good for us.

And lest you be glad that this wasn’t you, always remember as we read, but for the grace of God, there go I.

Let’s pray.

Sermon Introduction

I have a terrible working memory. Good long-term memory, terrible working memory. Rebecca has learned to ask, “How are you going to remember that?” if she needs me to do something.

I also tend to forget when I’ve tried something before and it hasn’t worked, particularly when it comes to remembering, or getting organized.

Need someone to tell me, “You’ve been here before, you’ve tried that before, and don’t you remember what happened last time?”

Israel needs the same thing. Because they’ve been here before. They’re at Kadesh-barnea, and they’ve been here before, and they’re facing the same decision: should we trust God, and go in and take the land? Or is it too difficult, too terrifying?

And Moses is here to remind them what they tried last time, because last time they didn’t believe God. They doubted, and acted out of their doubt.

And it is vital that Israel make a different decision this time. That Israel not go down the road of doubt again.

Because, as Moses makes clear to them here, doubt is dangerous. If there’s one lesson to take away from this passage, it is that doubting is dangerous. And I see at least 5 reasons in this account that show you the danger of doubt.

Doubt makes you forgetful.

First of all, doubt is dangerous, because it makes you forgetful. Doubt makes you forgetful.

The first movement of doubt is to loosen your grip on the truths of God’s character and God’s promises. The foundation of all that you know, of your whole pattern of thinking, must be that God is true, and that you can take him at his Word. But the essence of doubt is to begin to lose sight of that, to not be so sure of that anymore.

When you lose that bedrock of confidence in God and his Word, you lose clarity of thought, which brings on a sort of amnesia, amnesia concerning the ways in which God has proven himself true, the ways in which he has demonstrated his character as a God who makes promises and keeps them, as a God who loves his people and loves to do good to them.

And that seems to be where Israel’s problems begin in this passage. It’s not the first thing to appear, but it's the root of the problem. That is, after all, one major reason that Moses is going over this history in the first place—it’s a reminder, yes, of Israel’s sin, but as you’ll see as we go forward, also of God’s goodness. In fact, you see it right here!

Multiple ways, but most directly, once the people had made clear that they no longer believed that God would give them the land, how does Moses seek to persuade them to turn from their rebellious course? Starting in verse 30, he reminds them that God has already fought for them, has already carried them like a father carries his son, has already gone ahead of them in fire and cloud to guide them and bring them into the place that he had chosen.

Moses turns to these reminders, because Israel’s problem at this point, is that in their doubt, they have forgotten God’s past faithfulness.

And such forgetfulness is so common, isn’t it? When you’re facing something difficult, especially if it’s something you haven’t faced before, but even if you have, it can be so hard to remember all the ways that God has shown that he can and will carry you through it!

This is why it’s so important to rehearse frequently both the promises of God, and his works that show his faithfulness to his promises.

You have to know the Scriptures! Know the explicit promises, know the true stories of God’s faithfulness, and remember that you serve the same God who did those things!

Speak them to yourself frequently, especially the promises!

And of course, in addition to remembering God’s faithfulness in the Scriptures, remind yourself frequently of his faithfulness to you in particular. To your family. To this church. Make a point of thanking God for everything good that he gives to you and does for you, and set aside times to remember all the good that he has done in the past.

Find ways to fight the forgetfulness brought on by doubt, so that you don’t make the same mistake that we see the Israelites making here.

Doubt makes you fearful.

Because the forgetfulness of doubt contributes to the next danger of doubt, and that is fear. Doubt is dangerous because it makes you fearful.

And it’s not hard to understand how fear flows from forgetting, because the reason Israel is fearful is that they’ve forgotten all the reasons they have not to fear.

Of course, the fear feeds the forgetfulness, too, but if you don’t forget you won’t fear!

But because Israel forgot the faithfulness of God, their doubt made them fearful. You see, their spies went into the land, and they saw that it was a really good land, just as God had promised! But instead of focusing on that, instead of seeing the land through the lens of God’s faithfulness, they just focused on the obstacles, on the reasons it seemed to them that God couldn’t fulfill his promise to give them this land. They focused on what their eyes told them, on the giants and heavily fortified cities, and they doubted what God had promised, forgot what God had done, and feared to do what God had commanded.

And don’t we feel that same sort of fear all the time? Fear that leads you to think that something is too big for God to handle, or that leads you to just take God out of the equation, is an excessive fear, a sinful fear brought on by doubt.

But that’s exactly the kind of fear that we so often experience.

When we suffer, or might suffer, we focus on all the reasons that make it seem impossible that God could turn it to good, or at least to something sufficiently good to justify the pain.

When we’re called to some specific act of obedience—whether a certain act of sacrificial giving, or inviting a stranger into our home, or confessing our sins, or forgiving someone else, or going to the mission field, or having a hard conversation—whatever it might be, we focus on all the potential negative outcomes, all the reasons things could go sideways, without stopping to consider that, if God has called us to it, then he’ll take care of any obstacles or consequences there might be.

This is where it’s so important and powerful to remember both the example and the work of Jesus.

Because Jesus did know fear. That becomes so clear as you see him in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading with God to let this cup pass from him. His real fear, of course, was the wrath of God he was about to suffer, which is the most legitimate thing to fear in all the world. But even that fear didn’t stop Jesus. But, it did send him to his knees, in prayer, faith-filled prayer. Real, faith-filled prayer is about pleading with God according to what he has promised, and according to who he is. And we know Jesus remembered God’s promises even in his darkest moments, because at the end he was yet able to say to the thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” and he said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” and, “It is finished.” All words of faith, but it started in the garden of prayer.b

And it was all rooted in the true fear, the fear of God, that led Christ to say, “Not my will, but yours, be done.”

And did God not hear the prayer of Jesus? Was he not faithful to Jesus? Didn’t he send his angels to minister to Jesus even in the garden (Luke tells us that)? Didn’t he sustain Jesus’s courage to the end? And didn’t he raise him from the dead on the third day, just as he had promised?

And didn’t he do all that, not just for Jesus, but for you? If God has already done so much for you in Christ Jesus, showing his power, his faithfulness, his unfailing love, what could you possibly have to fear? If that God is for you, who or what can stand against you?

Christian, you have no reason to fear! But if you let doubt fester, it will make you fearful.

Doubt makes you hateful.

But there is yet more that doubt does to you, that makes it so dangerous. When it makes you forgetful, leading you to become fearful, doubt then makes you hateful. Hateful toward God.

I’m focusing here on what the people say about God in verse 27: “The LORD brought us out of the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites in order to destroy us, because he hates us.”

In their forgetful fear, the people have become God’s accusers, making him out to be a spiteful, hateful, even sadistic deity.

But what has really happened, is not that God hates them, but that they have become hateful toward God, for bringing them to something that now so clearly see to be terrible, something destructive, something they can’t handle.

Of course, even the most cursory review of Israel’s history makes it so obvious that that isn’t true! God has done so much good for them, destroyed an entire army for them in one fell swoop!

But fear has twisted their thinking and distorted their vision, so they just can’t see it. And they’ve released their grip on the foundational belief in God’s absolute truth and faithfulness, and so suddenly this ridiculous notion has become plausible to them.

In the move Batman Begins, the villain’s plot is to tear the city of Gotham apart through fear, by dispensing a hallucinogenic nerve agent throughout the city that plays on people’s fears to turn everything they see into something monstrous and terrifying, which would ultimately lead them to turn against even family and friends and neighbors.

But really, fear doesn’t need a drug to distort your view of reality. It focuses your attention on what’s wrong, on the danger, and makes you see danger where there isn’t any. That’s why Israel took little notice of just how good this land was, and instead came to see it as something more terrible than the great and terrible wilderness through which God has already carried them. But they know it is God who has brought them here, and so they point the finger at him and commit one of the worst forms of blasphemy imaginable, by accusing him of hating them.

Not even Job went that far—and he had far better reason to! He did accuse God, and God rebuked him for it, but his deeply rooted trust in God kept him from going nearly so far as the Israelites do.

And once again, the Israelites are not unique in this.

Do you know how many atheists reject God because of some traumatic event that leads them to say that they can’t believe in a god, because if one exists then he must be a monster? That’s the logical conclusion if you don’t have that overriding trust in God and his Word, that tells you there’s a rhyme and reason to all the chaos.

But even you and I have the same problem; we’re just more subtle about it. But in our doubtful fears we grumble, not even always outwardly, but we do grumble, we complain, we cry foul, and whether we realize it or not, we’re doing it against God.

Samuel Rutherford understood that. He was a Scottish pastor expelled from his church for refusing to conform to the practices of the Church of England, and he was sometimes bitter about his exile and his being forbidden to preach. But when you read his letters, you find line after line about how he has had to repent of his complaining, had to repent of his accusing Christ of being unkind, unfair to him, of his complaining against the Christ who has done everything for him!

It’s not that Rutherford just learned to count his blessings, and stop complaining, because things could be worse. Rather, when he remembered all that Jesus had done for him, all that Jesus was to him, it forced him to realize that such a kind and loving and gentle Christ, would never allow him to suffer without good reason, would never do anything just to cause him pain.

That is what you need to remember when you’re tempted to grumble against God, in your suffering, or in the face of some difficult obedience.

Doubt makes you rebellious.

Because if you persist in being hateful, then doubt will bring you to the 4th danger: it makes you rebellious.

I thought multiple times about putting this at the beginning, because it’s what’s most on the surface of the passage. Rebellion is clearly what we’re dealing with here. Moses explicitly says so in verse 26. But I waited until now to talk about it to show you the progression that starts, not directly with rebellion, but with doubt.

Not least because doubt is, itself, a form of rebellion.

And let me be clear, here. The sort of doubt I’m talking about at this point not just the sort that asks questions, but the sort that is truly disbelieving God.

Moses tells the people in verse 21 not to be afraid or discouraged—that’s a call to belief. And he specifically indicts them for failing to trust God in verse 32. And expanding out our scope to the rest of Scripture, we know that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin, Romans 14, and without faith it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11.

But then, of course, doubt is also the foundation of all outward rebellion, of all sin.

Israel disobeys God twice here, first in refusing to take it, and then in refusing not to try.

And doubt lies behind both. First, doubt that God really meant it when he said he’d give them the land. And then, doubt that he really meant it when he said he wouldn’t!

Faith has to take God at his Word, whether we’re talking about positive promises of blessing, or negative threatenings of curse! That’s why there’s no real repentance without faith. If your “repentance” over your sin is just sorrow at the consequences, and then you focus most of your efforts on trying to undo those consequences, that’s not real repentance!

So the important thing for you to see here is that, if doubt is at the root of all rebellion against God, then one of the questions you need to ask of yourself when you sin, or when you’re struggling to obey in some specific way, you need to ask, where have I failed to believe God? What truth about God, or what promise has God made, have I let slip? What command am I treating as though he’s not serious about it? What consequence do I think I don’t really deserve?

And know also that sin is the inevitable end of doubt that is allowed to persist. It may take a long time, but it’s true.

Doubt makes God wrathful.

Which is why the fifth and final point is also true: that doubt makes God wrathful.

Two clarifications:

Again, talking about full-blown doubt, doubt that has matured into outright disbelief, not every question that is raised, or every wondering about your own salvation. If you’re a Christian struggling with assurance of salvation, that evokes God’s compassion. But he is wrathful against full-blown doubting of his Word.

Second, the change is in you, not God. You can’t actually make God anything.

But I think the point is clear enough, and once again obvious from the text.

God hears the hateful and rebellious grumbling of the people. And he is angry. And, I mean, who wouldn’t be? He’s done everything for them, and they say he hates them! And he’s their Creator and Redeemer, but they won’t obey him!

And so God swears an oath. Normally that’s a good thing, because it’s an oath of promise, an oath to save and bless, but not now. He swears this oath in wrath, and it is an oath of curse, an irreversible declaration that none of this evil generation save Joshua and Caleb will enter the land of promise.

Even Moses, their leader, shares their fate, though personally guiltless.

Now, Moses is actually, most directly, kept out of the promised land for his own sin on a separate occasion, when he struck the rock to make water come out rather than speaking to it like God had told him to do.

Moses isn’t denying that, though; he’s the one who wrote the book of Numbers that tells you that!

But he is emphasizing here the heaviness of what Israel has done, they guilt that they have brought that is so great that he must share it.

And this curse of God is terrible!

The land is everything to Israel, even though they temporarily forgot that. It’s more than a promised home or fertile land. It’s the place of GOd’s blessing, where all his other promises are to be fulfilled, where he is to dwell with them forever as their God! It’s like when Adam and Eve sinned and got kicked out of the garden of Eden, except Israel is kept out rather than kicked out.

The Promised Land was an intentional foreshadowing of heaven! That’s why they’re so upset when they realize what they’ve done!

But, there’s no going back. God is deaf to their cries of sorrow, their cries for help. Not because he’s heartless. God is not cruel for refusing to give them another chance to take the land. I mean, God has already given then second, and third, and fourth, and I’ve-lost-count-of-how-many chances! They are continually rebellious!

And you have to know that there is a point of no return. With Israel and the promised land, that’s right here. With us and salvation, at the very latest it’s death or when Jesus comes back, but it may come sooner, if God hardens your heart so that the gospel cannot penetrate it.

This is the end of doubt left unchecked. Kept out of heaven, with only one alternative destination, which is hell.

You have to take this seriously, if you’re not sure you believe! God’s call is to believe in, to trust in, Jesus Christ for salvation! Do it today, deal with doubts today, before it’s too late!

Believer, I’m not trying to make you feel like a terrible Christian for every doubting thought. No one trusts perfectly, without any doubt at any time, because we’re sinners. We ought to, but we don’t.

But I do want to push back against the idea that doubting is normal, even healthy. Some people say that. That doubting is a sign of a healthy faith!

Again, doubts and questions are not the same, but if you’re truly doubting, that’s not healthy, and you shouldn’t just get comfortable with your doubts. Don’t let your doubts sit and fester. It’s like cancer, the earlier you detect and address it, the better off you’ll be.

Take them to God in prayer. That’s the biggest thing! “Doubts” that drive you to pray harder, to dig into the Word for answers, that’s what I would classify as questions, not doubts.

Conclusion

Because, dear Christian, God has given you every reason to believe. He has spent the last however-many thousands of years working to save you, and every other person he has chosen. He has spent thousands of years, working to make sure his promises are fulfilled. Thousands of years before Christ, making sure that Christ came at the right time, and lived perfectly and died and rose again, so that you could be saved. And then 2,000+ years after that taking care of each and every one of his people. And I know you’ve felt his personal care.

So even as you see the danger of doubt, that’s not what I hope you focus on, day in and day out. This is not a call to fear, but to faith, in the God, in the Savior, Jesus Christ, who is worthy of all your trust.