THE STORY OF THE WHOAER’S AND THE GOER’S
Numbers 13:30- 14:4
Intro: "A young man was appointed president of a bank. Intimidated by his new responsibilities, he nervously sought the advice of his gray-haired predecessor: "Sir, what has been the secret of your success?"
"The secret, young man, is two words: right decisions!" replied the older man.
"But how do you make right decisions?"
"One word: experience."
"But how do you get experience?"
The old man smiled. "Two words: wrong decisions."
. This morning, we will see in our scripture that the children of Israel had a decision to make.
. They faced the same decision that our church and many other churches in our world face today.
. Do they/we trust God and His promises or do we try to lean on our own understanding and follow our own path or in some cases retreat from what God wants us to do.
. I read one time that there are two types of people in the church today.
. There are Whoaer’s and there are Goer’s.
. The whoaer’s are the people who always have a reason why things can’t be done to expand the kingdom of God.
. When the church or leadership has a vision and want to act on that vision, they are the ones who always find a reason to say whoa there folks, we can’t do that.
. The goer’s are the ones who can see what God expects and wants and get busy doing God’s work.
. Just like in our churches today, there were whoaer’s and goer’s in the congregation of the children of Israel.
. I’m going to tell you the story of the twelve scouts of Israel and highlight the goer’s from the whoaer’s this morning.
. This story is found in numbers chapters 13 and 14.
. The children of Israel had arrived at mount Sinai two months after they had fled from Egypt. There they had been given God’s instructions on how to live and serve Him.
. They had moved to an area called Kadesh in the wilderness called Paran.
. They were finally there. They were on the edge of the promised land. The land that God had promised them through their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
. They had went through a lot in the past year but now it was all going to be worth it.
. The Promised Land was in sight.
. Moses called the leaders of the twelve tribes together and chose one from each tribe to go and scout out the land.
. He sent them off with these instructions.
. He wanted to know what kind of people lived there. Were they weak or strong? Were there a lot of them?
. He wanted to know if the land was good and fertile.
. He wanted to know if they had fortified cities or if they were nomads.
. He wanted a sample of the crops if they could get them.
. He was sending them out on what we would call a community survey today.
. The scouts go out and are gone for 40 days
. During those 40 days they find answers to all of Moses questions.
. They come back and this is the report tat they give to Moses and the people.
. We find it in chapter 13 starting in verse 25,
. After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned26to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land.27This was their report to Moses: “We entered the dland you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. 28But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!29The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”
. The report was back, the land was there for them.
. They were at the edge of fulfillment.
. The edge of the Promised Land. The land that flowed with milk and honey.
. There they were, living on the edge. Ready to be the people that God had called them to be.
. They had done all the research necessary.
. They had all the information they needed.
. The problem was that in their congregation there were whoaer’s and goer’s.
.They all had the same report, the same information.
. As usual, the whoaer’s looked at things differently than the goer’s.
. The goer’s looked to the future. They looked at what God could and would do if they would trust Him.
. The whoaer’s looked at things from a different perspective.
. Our scripture this morning tells us that the whoers looked in the past.
. In chapter 14 vs 1-3 we see this.
. 1Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night.2Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in Egypt, or even here in the wilderness!” they complained.3“Why is the LORD taking us to this country only to have us die in battle? Our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”4Then they plotted among themselves, “Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt!”
. Here we go. We can’t do this. They started complaining about the leadership that God had put into place.
. We have to remember here that these are the same people who had seen God’s mighty hand at work. It wasn’t like they had not experienced this first hand. They were just a year out of Egypt.
. They knew that God had been with them.
. They had a pillar of cloud that traveled with them during the day to keep the hot sun from beating down on them.
.They had a pillar of fire when they camped to keep them warm at night.
. They had manna or bread from heaven.
. When they complained about that God gave them meat in the form of quail to eat.
. Form the very minute they had left Egypt, God had provide for them.
. Still they couldn’t look anywhere but in the past and how good it was way back then.
.Folks, our churches today are living on the edge of the Promised Land.
. God is ready to bless and protect His people if they will only trust Him.
. The whoaer’s would have us look to the past and long to go back to the security of the past.
. The farther we get from events of the past, the more we forget about the hard times and only remember the good things about the past.
.The children of Israel seemed only to remember the security that the life in Egypt had provided for them and forget about the slavery.
. Many times our churches want to go back to a time where they remember that everything was going fine. There was security and protection but they never ventured toward the Promised Land that God wanted them to enter.
. Folks we can’t live in the past. We must move forward in the work that God has for us.
. We are on the edge of the Promised Land; we must choose not to look back and long for the Past.
. Next the whoaer’s looked at the present.
. Those looking in the past were the majority of the nation but there was a group just looking at the present.
.There were ten of the twelve scouts who were looking at the obstacles that faced them right now.
. They were saying whoa, we can’t do this because :
.Look at chapter 13:31-33 here
. 31But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!”32So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge.33We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
. These guys are saying look, this is too hard.
. These guys are too big.
. The task is too hard for us.
. We are getting along pretty good right where we are. Yes God is providing for us with bread and meat. Let’s just stay right here.
. We don’t really need the additional blessings that He has promised us in this new land.
. We are like grasshoppers among giants.
. The task is too monumental. In comparison to these guys, we are like bugs to be squashed by them.
. The whoaers are always saying that the task is too big. We can’t do this.
. Things are going pretty good. Let’s don’t rock the boat here.
. They want to walk up to the edge of the promised land and look over and maybe dream but that is as far as they go.
. The whoaer’s can’t seem to muster enough trust in God to believe that He will fulfill His promises to them.
.Over in ex 3:8 God had told them that He would deliver them the land that was flowing with milk and honey.
. They just couldn’t put their faith and trust in Him enough to step out or to cross over into the promised land.
. Folks Jesus commanded us to make disciples.
. We can’t be content just to show up on Sunday and keep things just the way they are.
. We must trust that if God/Jesus commands us to do something, then He will empower us and give us what we need to accomplish that task.
.while in Philippians 4:13, Paul is talking in context about his personal needs, the words that he penned will apply to us in this situation. He writes:
. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
. We follow the commands of Jesus. He is the one who will bring us through.
. We cannot look at the present and be complacent and content.
. If we do that, we are not fulfilling God’s purpose here in.
. We can’t be whoaer’s, we need to be goer’s.
. In the midst of all this nay saying and crying and complaining, there were at least two goer’s.
. There were twelve scouts sent out and ten of them were whoaer’s but two of them were goer’s.
. Caleb and Joshua had seen the Promised Land and they were looking to the future that God had promised them.
. They realized that God had been with them all this time and they were trusting in His promise that they would possess the Promised Land.
. Look at what Caleb said here in 13:30:
. 30But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
. Caleb says you naysayers need to listen. Stop being whoaer’s.
. God is with us. We can take this land that God has promised us.
. All we need to do is what He has commanded and place our trust in Him.
. Sadly, the Whoaer’s won out. The people didn’t trust God enough and they wouldn’t go and take possession of the Promised Land.
. Let me tell you the rest of the story.
. The people rebelled and wanted to replace Moses and Aaron as their leaders but the two goer’s Joshua and Caleb again reiterated that God had promised them this land and if they would only trust Him, they could possess the land.
. The people continued to rebel and God was going to send a plague to punish them for their rebellion but Moses interceded and God only sent a plague to kill the ten scouts who had stirred up the people.
. God didn’t take their lives of the children of Israel right then but because of their unfaithfulness He told them that none of them 20 yrs old or older would be allowed to enter into the Promised Land. The only ones who would enter into the land were Joshua and Caleb.
. He took the whole nation and had them travel around in the wilderness for 40 years while all those who were 20 or older died off before He would eventually allow them to take possession of the land that He had promised them.
. Many of our churches today are traveling around in the wilderness.
. They have not trusted God nor followed His commands so He lets them flounder around in the wilderness until He can raise up a new generation who will trust in Him and do what He has called them to do.
. Folks, we are on the edge of the Promised Land here at Mountain Creek.
. We can either look back and long for what was.
. We can look around right here and see that things seem to be going ok right now and say why don’t we just leave everything just like it is.
. Let’s not rock the boat. OR
. We can be the church that God has called us to be and look to the future and trust that God will lead us into the Promised Land.
. Here in 3 weeks we will start our vision casting. I encourage you to attend this time of sharing and seeking Gods will for our church.
. The question is will you be a whoaer or a goer?
. In order to place this trust in God, you first must place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior.
. As lord of your life.
. It’s impossible to be part of a movement for God if you don’t know Jesus Christ.
. Will you place your life in His hands today?
