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Good morning friends,
Let’s begin this morning with this important question:
“What’s the price someone should pay, for giving such bad advice or counsel, that it ruins a person’s life”?
Today we’re in that famous story found in Numbers 13. Moses and the traveling refugee city have reached at place called Kadesh, in the Desert of Paran. The land of promise which God has told He would lead them to is just over the next ridge or two of sand dunes.
In Numbers 13 God gives Moses an instruction which initiates a very strategic decision… rather than the cloud of God’s Presence leading the people directly into the land, God wants them to decide… do they want to move in to this land He has promised as their inheritance, and are they ready to follow God into the land?
It’s time for a question for all of us. . .what are the marks of good, reliable, trustworthy, honorable LEADERSHIP?
America has been increasingly embroiled in this debate for many years, and this election year it’s leading our society into an ugly mud pit of vulgarity, slander, maliciousness, division and even violence.
Numbers 13:1 says “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe, send one of its leaders.” What do you hear in what God said to Moses? Do you hear the repeated promise that God owns this land of Canaan and is ‘giving it to the Israelites’? Do you hear God instructing Moses to select men, who are already viewed as “leaders”? Can you envision their assignment and God’s expectation, of the integrity with which they will do it?
You’ll likely be tempted to skip over the names of those entrusted with this history making scouting trip, but I suggest these are names which should be carved into a marble pillar at Kadesh Barnea, to be remembered for all time. Not as heroes but as failures, whose bad advice cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives!!
Moses instructions to these 12 men are very clear in Numbers 13:17-20. Their exploratory trip was to be extensive and thorough. But I have an important question: Why bother with this expedition?
What difference would their report make IF, and I say heartily IF, the people were firmly committed to following the cloud and God’s guidance into the land, AND following exactly whatever instructions God would give them for taking possession of this land of promised inheritance? AH… but God knew their hearts, and several times already they had been outright opposed to how God was leading them. Remember the Golden Calf of Exodus 32, or the rabble in Numbers 11?
NO, because the people had shown the true condition of their fearful, skeptical, idolatrous hearts, several times before, God was doing a very wise thing here… God was inviting the men this people viewed as their leaders, to go and make an extensive tour of the land, and return to give a report. Then let the people decide what they want to do.
There’s an important God principle here friends: God will not impose His will upon you or me! He will lead us, He will counsel us, He will provide for us and enable us to follow Him, but if we choose to say “NO”, or choose to turn and follow another path, God will not wrestle us to the ground and put shackles on our feet and force us to follow Him. We are free to roam…even away into the wilderness, away from God, if we so choose! That is why it’s so vital that you and I “walk with Jesus” carefully, faithfully and daily!
Now consider with me, all these people had ever known… slavery and the desert of Egypt, and now for the past year a daily menu of manna and the sands of the desert, as far as you can see in every direction. But for 40 days, these 12 leaders toured a beautiful land. The phrase “flowing with milk and honey” refers to abundance. Milk, of course would be goats, camels, cows and other such animals giving milk for good nourishment of children. Honey, was bountiful and represented sweetness, delight for adults. A single cluster of grapes so large it took two men to carry it, represented agriculture like they’d never seen before.
Did you notice one of the places mentioned in 13:22? “They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron…” Does that ring a bell in your mind? Genesis 49:29-33 says that Jacob, with almost his last breaths, gave these instructions to his 12 sons: “I am about to be gathered to my people.” [that means he was dying], “Bury me with my father in the cave in the field of Ephron, the Hittite, which Abraham bought as a burial place… There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah…” And Jacob’s sons did so. This place is the town of Hebron. Even today, this burial site is a sacred place.
Now these Hebrew slave leaders would have heard that story from their grandfathers, who had heard it from their grandfathers, but no living Hebrew had ever seen Hebron…until now, Numbers 13 and the spy expedition. Have you walked through older cemeteries and seen large sections dedicated to one extended family? Does your family have a historical burial plot place! I would imagine as soon as they saw it, these leaders found themselves overwhelmed, with the privilege of their Hebrew ancestral heritage and God’s faithfulness to His promises to Abraham.
But sadly, it wasn’t enough….
Somehow in those 40 days, their courage drained. Their hope turned again to fear. Their vision of what could be if they followed and trusted God, turned to cowardice. Has that ever happened to you? God brought you to a place and opened before you an opportunity to follow Him, with great faith steps, and your knees buckled, you saw only darkness, and you turned away from what might have been if you had followed God and His vision for what He wanted to do with and through you?
So these 12 men returned, after 40 days of thorough investigation of the land of God’s promise. Look carefully at their leadership report: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. BUT the people who live there are powerful and their cities are fortified and very large…” (13:27,28). Can you hear the gasps, the murmuring rumbling among the people as they imagine what the words are describing?
One of those leaders stood up, Caleb…”Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘we should go up and take possession of the land for we can certainly do it.” I wonder if as he said that Caleb pointed to the cloud above the “Tent of Meeting”? The “we” Caleb was referring to was God and them. The other 10 leaders, however, were pointing at themselves and each other, with their backs to the Cloud of God’s Presence! Do you see the contrast my friends?
Here’s another important principle: God gets no glory when we can do it on our own, without His help. It’s when what we accomplish is ONLY possible with God’s help, that our lives point the watching world to Jesus! Do you and I understand that? But my friends, that means we have to live out on the thin ice of depending on God, relying on Him for everything … that’s FAITH living! That’s “walking with Jesus” living!
As I look at the scene in Numbers 13, I see several of the other 10 leaders jump to their feet and out-shout Caleb, perhaps even one or two pulling him back down to sit, while others shouted: “We can’t attack these people, they are stronger than we are…the land we explored devours those living in it…we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes…”
Now as you look around the scene what do you see? What do you hear? Fear spreads like wildfire doesn’t it? As those present ran back to their tents, to tell their families and friends what they had witnessed, as the leaders had given their report, how much exaggeration do you suppose took place in just the next few minutes? By the time evening had come, can you imagine the near riot in the camp? That’s chapter 14, and we’ll look at that tomorrow.
You know what powerful verse comes to my mind? “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14)
In closing, let’s look very closely at ourselves my friends, and our reaction to ‘bad news’, or to gossip? How easily do we turn away from the Cloud of God’s Presence… the miracle debris we have in our homes, the memories and evidence of God’s great work in our lives in the past? How quickly do we allow our minds and hearts to run… away from God, and into the despair of “oh my… what if…”?
My dear friends, this is critical stuff here. What have we taught our children and grandchildren, about standing firm in their faith, in the midst of the storms, especially the storms of public opinion turning away from God?
Oh God. . .
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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