3:12 Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;
Throughout the book of Hebrews the writer’s primary purpose is that his readers should take to heart the lessons to be learned from the ancient Israelites. These stories are not merely history, to be learned as an academic study. Nor are they written simply for the present generation to shake their heads (as we so often do) in disbelief at the behavior of their forefathers. Rather, they are object lessons from which both the readers of the first century and we today should learn for our practical Christian lives.
So, “take heed”. The fate which befell the ancient people of God, their exclusion from His rest, may also come upon His people today if they demonstrate the same heart attitudes.
… an evil heart of unbelief …
As they stood at the edge of the Jordan, the unbelief of the people was demonstrated not only in their response to the spies’ report, but in the very premise on which they were sent in to spy out the land of Canaan.
God had already promised them two things: firstly, that He would give them the land; and secondly, that it was a “land flowing with milk and honey.” When God told them to send someone in to explore the land, it should have been simply to find the best route by which they could do what God had said they would do: go in and possess it.
Instead, Moses sent the spies in with this mandate: “See what the land is like; and the people living there, whether they are weak or strong, few or many; and what the land is like where they live, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they live in, whether in tents or in strongholds; and whether or not the land is productive; and whether there are trees there or not.” (Numbers 13:18-20)
God had already told them it was a good land. In telling the spies to check out its productivity, Moses was expressing a lack of belief that the land was really as God had said it was. God had already told them that He would give them the land. In telling the spies to check out the strength of the people and their cities, Moses was expressing a lack of belief that God was indeed able to take them in and enable them to conquer.
When the spies returned, the seeds of unbelief that had been sown at the beginning of their mission were reaped as a harvest of rebellion. We need to take great care about the seeds we sow in our hearts, and in the hearts of others.
It should also be noted that there is a difference of degree between a lack of belief and unbelief. Lack of belief may be simply an uncertainty, an inability to rise up and take hold of the things that God has said. Unbelief, on the other hand, has become a positive assertion that what God has said is not true. Moses’ lack of belief – his uncertainty about the promises of God, which had been expressed in the framing of their mission – had been, by the time of their return, hardened in the people’s hearts into a positive unbelief. They believed God could not do what He had promised, that He could not or would not give them the land. They believed that if they were going to take it they would have to do so in their own strength, and they believed that their own strength was not enough to stand against giants.
The reason God calls such a heart attitude “evil” should be obvious: the people were, in effect, calling Him a liar. It is a very small step from “lack of belief” to “unbelief”. If we do not embrace God’s promises as absolutely true, then it is easy to move to the place where we see them as positively false.
… in falling away from the living God
After their lack of belief had moved to positive unbelief, the people very quickly moved to rebellion. Once their hearts had moved away from God, their actions quickly followed. Once they had departed from His grace, it was easy for them to depart from His command.
It has always been this way. In the Garden of Eden, it was not rebellion that came first, but unbelief. In accepting the doubt planted by the devil’s “did God really say?”, our first parents chose to believe that God was not truthful and therefore not to be trusted. When someone is not to be trusted, it is natural for us to refuse to obey that one.
We need to take care that we do not follow this same route. Every time we fail to positively believe the Word and the promises of God, we set ourselves up for unbelief – a heart attitude that says that God and His Word are not true and not to be trusted. And every time we move into unbelief we set ourselves up for rebellion. Truly, a heart of unbelief moves us away from the living God.