Reader, once more survey the numbered people. You are inclined to say that this band will safely reach the promised land. Surely their willing steps will ever run in the appointed way.
Alas! two, and two only, steadfastly adhere. The multitude distrust the Lord. They willfully provoke Him. Therefore just indignation dooms them to exclusion from the promised land. Their corpses strew the desert. One by one they line the sand with graves. They fall, a dreadful proof, that outward privileges alone do not save. Unbelief nullified their many means of grace. It poisoned their cup of blessing!
Ah, unbelief! It is the sin of sins, the misery of miseries, the hopeless malady, the death of souls, the bar which shuts out Christ!
Reader, is this vile viper lurking in your heart? Oh! drag it to the cross, and slay it there! Implore the Spirit, by His mighty sword, to hew it into shreds! If it survives, you die!
Can he be healed, who scorns the only cure?
Can he reach home, who leaves the only homeward path?
Can he be cleansed, who flees the only cleansing stream?
Can he escape from the fast-sinking wreck, who spurns the life-boat?
Who can reach God, who puts aside the Mediator?
Who can be saved, who tramples down the only Savior?
Unbelief rejects the Gospel, and so perishes. It turns God's truth into a lie, and it goes hence to learn its folly, where faith never comes.
[Henry Law]
✞ ✞ ✞
Numbers 14:11 … And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?
Hebrews 3:19 … So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
John 3:36 … He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.❤
