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“And they returned from searching of the land after forty days. And
they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation
of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh;
and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and
shewed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said, We
came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with
milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people
be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very
great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites
dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites,
and the Amorites, dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. And
Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once,
and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that
went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for
they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the
land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The
land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth
up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are
men of great stature. And there we saw the giants. The sons of Anak,
which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
(Numbers 13:25-33)
A committee of twelve men was sent from the camp of the Israelites in
the wilderness of Paran “to spy out the land of Canaan.” This was the
Promised Land that God had said He would give to the nation that had
descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 6:6-8). When He
delivered them from bondage in Egypt, He re-affirmed this promise, and
sent them to conquer the land of Canaan from its inhabitants, which
had been marked for divine judgment. The idea of sending spies to
search the land before the invasion originated with the people,
according to Deuteronomy 1:19-24, but God approved of it, as we can
see from Numbers 13:1-24. Now we think God approved of the plan in
order to test the resolve of the nation to obey His orders.
The Bible does not treat the concept of group decision-making very
kindly. The council of seventy that was formed to relieve Moses of
his heavy responsibilities in Numbers 11 eventually became the
Sanhedrin that plotted the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And the
twelve spies that brought back a discouraging report to the children
of Israel were another example of a misguided committee. Normally the
God of the Bible works through a godly leader like Moses, guiding and
enabling him to fulfill his duties.
We meet the spies in verses 4 through 16. They were Shammua, Shaphat,
Caleb, Igal, Oshea (re-named Jehoshua, or Joshua, by Moses), Palti,
Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi, and Geuel. Two of them, Caleb
and Joshua, came back with words of faith to encourage the people to
go forward with God’s plan. The other ten brought a recommendation
that gave doubt the benefit of the doubt, and motivated the people to
give up on God’s plan.
Many of the issues Christian people face in their lives and in their
churches boil down to a choice between faith and doubt, between
believing God and deciding not to believe what He has said. The
children of Israel faced at least six trials of their faith before
this one, and they failed every one:
- 1. At the Red Sea (Exodus 14),where the people despaired when the
Egyptians overtook them;
- 2. In the Wilderness of Sin (Exodus 16), where the people murmured
because they hungered;
- 3. At Rephaim (Exodus 17), where the people murmured because of their thirst;
- 4. At Mount Horeb (Exodus 32), where the people despaired when Moses
did not return;
- 5. At Taberah (Numbers 11), where the people complained and angered
the LORD; and
- 6. At Kibroth-hattaavah (Numbers 11:4-35), where the Israelites and
the mixed multitude lusted for flesh to eat.
Their seventh trial was the big one, at Kadesh-barnea in the
Wilderness of Paran, and their failure there led to the tragic
extension of the Wilderness Wanderings, and the deaths of thousands in
the desert who never completed the journey to Canaan.
No less tragic is the failure of Christian believers today to believe
God, and of churches to fulfill His plan to bless the world through
their witness. The results of this unbelief in believers also include
wandering and death, the aimless wandering of Christians and churches,
and the eternal death of the multitudes we have left unwarned in the
darkness of sin. What shall we do with the promises Jesus made just
before He went back to Heaven?
“But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
(Acts 1:8)
What shall we do about the promise of the Spirit? What shall be do
about the work of evangelism? What shall we do about our Jerusalem?
What shall we do about the evangelization of the world? Will we
believe what Jesus said about our part in His plan? Can we believe
Him about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and empowered to be His
witnesses. Can we believe Him about our role as evangelizers? Can we
take Him at His Word about the possibility of taking the Gospel to the
uttermost part of the earth? The issue is still, “Will we believe
God?” Unbelief is still the great obstacle stopping the churches and
individual Christians from fulfilling their role in the world. And
the report and recommendations of the Kadesh-barnea committee still
haunt us with assertions of doubt. Here is what they said.
Although the committee found Canaan to be a land that “floweth with
milk and honey,” and brought back a huge cluster of grapes to prove
its fruitfulness, they also reported with great sorrow that there
would be obstacles to conquering it. “Nevertheless,” they said
(verses 28 and 29), the Canaanites are “strong,” and the cities are
fortified, and giants live there, along with many more antagonists!
Yet God had already told them about these obstacles (Exodus 15:14-17;
23:20-33). The whole idea was that God was going to help them
overcome the difficulties, and give them a supernatural victory. But
the “nevertheless” argument is still used by our enemy to discourage
us from going forward with God’s plan. Did we know that not everybody
in town will appreciate the evangelistic efforts we make? Did we
think about the expense of reaching the world for Christ? Did we know
that religious people are hard to win? Did we know that some of the
opposition to our plans would come from within the church, and not
just from unbelievers? The voices of unbelief say, “Acts 1:8 is a
good idea, but there are going to be real problems.” Caleb’s great
response ought to be ours.
“Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”
Victory in Christ is by definition a matter of overcoming obstacles.
And faith is the victory that overcomes the world. By faith we “are
well able to overcome,” and to see God glorified in the fulfillment of
His promises. The problems should not stop us from believing God.
2. “Not able…”
We might be stunned by how the ten responded to Caleb’s inspiring
words. “We be not able to go up against the people; for they are
stronger than we” (verse 31). He said that Israel is “well able” to
do what God told them to do, and they said that Israel is “not able.”
It reminds us of the Devil’s bold words to Eve, calling God a liar.
She said, “God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it [the forbidden
fruit],…lest ye die.” Then Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die”
(Genesis 3:1-5). Satan is a liar, even the father of lies (John 8),
and whenever we entertain denials of God’s promises, we are listening
to the voice of Satan. One of the most disturbing developments of our
time is the propensity of preachers and teachers to explain away plain
statements in the Bible. Liberals simply deny statements in
scripture, but evangelicals and fundamentalists explain them away.
Let us have the discernment to detect the perversion of unbelief
(Matthew 17:17-20), even when we hear it from good people.
3. “As grasshoppers…”
The next objection from the committee to going ahead with God’s plan
was that “the land…is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof,”
that “all of the people” there are “men of a great stature” so that
“we were in our own sight as grasshoppers” (verses 32-33). The
invasion of Canaan was sure to be a disaster, they were saying.
Terrible consequences were sure to follow if the people would go
forward with God’s plan. Of course, this way of thinking arises out
of the pit of unbelief. John R. Rice used to preach against what he
called “grasshopper religion,” drawing from this passage. Fear must
be answered by faith, and not embraced by unbelief. Jesus said to His
disciples,
“Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew
8:23-27)
Paul reminded Timothy that “God hath not given us the spirit
of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (II Timothy
1:7). It is interesting that the fearful, faithless majority report
of the committee spoke of being eaten, and yet the minority report of
Caleb and Joshua said that the Canaanites would be “bread for us”
(Numbers 14:9). In unbelief, men thought they would be eaten, but in
faith men knew they would eat the enemy! The outcome would be
determined by the prospective of God’s men. When another generation
did invade the Promised Land in faith, they found the Canaanites
cowering, even before the first city fell (Joshua 2:9-11). The
outcome will be determined by the perspective of God’s people. Will
they go forward, believing God, or hold back in unbelief?
4. “Let us return…”
The outcome of the whole debacle was horrible. God’s judgment fell on
those who would not believe Him. But it did not happen until one more
recommendation was presented to the nation. Numbers 14:1-4 tells us
how the whole congregation turned against their godly leaders and
determined, not only to abandon the idea of invading the Promised
Land, but also to go back to Egypt. It would be “better for us to
return unto Egypt,” they said, planning I suppose to ask forgiveness
of Pharoah and beg to be made slaves again. “Let us make a captain,”
they said, “and let us return.” Unbelief always sends people back to
bondage. We either progress or regress on the journey of faith. We
do not stay in the same place. The Devil wants us to believe that if
we refuse to take the step that God wants us to take, we won’t be any
worse off. Again he is lying to us. The Christian life is a journey
of faith, and if we refuse to go forward and believe God, we will go
back, and lose the freedom we have enjoyed in Christ. Of course, the
people did not get a chance to go back to Egypt. They suffered
serious consequences because of their awful unbelief while still in
the wilderness. The unbelieving ten spies who gave the majority
report for the committee “died by the plague before the LORD” (Numbers
14:36-37). The whole generation of adults that concurred with the
faithless conclusions of that committee wandered for forty years in
the wilderness, and died before ever getting to Canaan, with their
carcasses falling in the wilderness (verses 22-35, and Hebrews
3:17-19). Many Christians, and many churches, have wandered for years
after making a decision based on doubt, and those who have not
awakened to their unbelief have seen their lives wither to the point
where they remind us of carcasses fallen in the wilderness.
So much hangs on the decisions we make about whether or not we are
going to believe God. Faith is key to finding God’s will, answering
God’s call, doing God’s work, and fulfilling God’s plan. Unbelief
blocks usefulness, wisdom, and success in the service of the Lord.
Revival in lives and in churches is blocked by unbelief.
We can be thankful that the story in Numbers 13 and 14 does not end
with bad results for everyone. Caleb and Joshua were rewarded for
their faith, as anyone who decides to give God the benefit of the
doubt will be. We read of Caleb in Numbers 14: 24 that “he had
another spirit with him,” and followed God “fully.” To believe God in
the time of trial is simply to follow Him fully. Follow Him “all the
way,” even when the way of obedience looks frightening or hard,
believing that He is with you, and will always do what He has
promised.
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