An Example of False Repentance

When Moses made known to the people the divine decision, they knew that their punishment was just. The ten unfaithful spies, divinely smitten by the plague, perished before the eyes of all Israel; and in their fate the people read their own doom.EP 273.3

Now they seemed sincerely to repent; but they sorrowed because of the result of their evil course rather than from a sense of their ingratitude and disobedience. When they found that the Lord did not relent in His decree, their self-will again arose and they declared that they would not return into the wilderness. God tested their apparent submission and proved it was not real. Their hearts were unchanged, and they only needed an excuse to occasion a similar outbreak. Had they mourned for their sin when it was faithfully laid before them this sentence would not have been pronounced; but they mourned for the judgment. Their sorrow was not repentance and could not secure a reversing of their sentence.EP 273.4

That night was spent in lamentation, but with the morning they resolved to redeem their cowardice. When God had bidden them go up and take the land, they had refused; and now when He directed them to retreat, they were equally rebellious.EP 274.1

God had made it their privilege and duty to enter the land at the time of His appointment, but through their willful neglect that permission had been withdrawn. Satan now urged them on to do the very thing in the face of divine prohibition which they had refused to do when God required it, leading them to rebel the second time. “We have sinned against the Lord,” they cried. “We will go up and fight, according to all that the Lord our God commanded us.” Deuteronomy 1:41. So terribly blinded had they become! The Lord had never commanded them to “go up and fight.” It was not His purpose that they should gain the land by warfare, but by strict obedience to His commands.EP 274.2

“We have sinned,” they confessed, acknowledging that the fault was in themselves and not in God, whom they had wickedly charged with failing to fulfill His promises. Though their confession did not spring from true repentance, it served to vindicate the justice of God.EP 274.3

The Lord still works in a similar manner to glorify His name by bringing men to acknowledge His justice. God sets counteragencies at work to make manifest the works of darkness. Though the spirit which prompted to evil is not radically changed, confessions are made that vindicate the honor of God and justify His faithful reprovers who have been opposed and misrepresented. Thus it will be when the wrath of God shall be finally poured out. Every sinner will be brought to see and acknowledge the justice of his condemnation.EP 274.4