When I was growing up in upstate New York, in the summer we would go to swim in an icy glacial lake called “Green Lake.” Deep … almost 200 feet deep … and crystal clear. You could drop a quarter in it and tell if were heads or tails when it hit the bottom. And cold!!
They had two diving boards there. A regular one and a “high” dive … 12 feet high. I loved to dive off the regular diving board. I’d try to get as much spring as possible and fly as high as I could … and then splash into that icy-cold water. So that high dive spoke to me … called to me.
One day, when I was 12 years old, I answered that high dive’s siren song. I told my brother and some friends that this was the day. I was going to do it! I was going to climb that high dive and take the big plunge … something my brother or my friends had ever done before.
Now … from the ground looking up, that high dive didn’t look all that intimidating … but when I reached the top and walked out to the the end of that diving board and looked down … Yeow! It seemed like it was a mile above the water. It felt like I was in the clouds looking down … and the water was a long, long, l-o-o-o-o-n-g ways down!
My loving, supportive, encouraging brother began yelling “Common! Jump!” My friends took up the chorus: Jump! Jump! Jump!” I think even the lifeguard and the people on the beach were chanting “Jump!”
I stood there. My toes tightly curled over the edge of the all-too-springy diving board … my brother and friends watching and waiting … the whole world shouting “Jump! Jump! … me, staring down at that clear glacial water a thousand feet below …
I wanted to jump … Lord knows. But …
Such a small word … just three letters … b-u-t. A small word that we use a hundred times or more a day. “But” … it’s a word that can have dire consequences. Imagine getting hard labor for 40 years for one word … “but” … “b-u-t” … and not just for you but for your whole family too.
The Hebrew people moved to Egypt during a time of severe famine and fell under the protection of Joseph. You know … Jacob’s son with the “techni-colored” robe. Joseph had become Pharaoh’s right-hand man … his “go-to” guy. Under the protection of Joseph, the Hebrew refugees put down roots and prospered.
Fast-forward 400 years. The Hebrew people find themselves forced into economic slavery to the Egyptians, making bricks that were being used to literally build the Egyptian empire. For hundreds of years, the Hebrew people prayed for God to deliver them. Generation after generation labored and died under the crack of their Egyptian task masters’ whips … until … one day a crazy old man wandered in from out of the desert, walked right up to Pharaoh and his advisors, and demanded: “The Lord, the God of Israel, says ‘Let my people go’” (Exodus 5:1).
Thus began an amazing display of power. Our God beats down Pharaoh and the Egyptian empire and their gods over and over and over again … to the point that the Egyptian people beg and plead with Pharaoh to let the Hebrew people go. And when the Hebrews leave, the only things they take with them are a little food, some clothes, and some of their Egyptian neighbors’ jewelry. That was it … period. And they set off through the desert to a place they’ve never been to before … a place promised to them by God.
It is at the Red Sea that God destroys the Egyptian army … without a spear, a shield, an arrow, or a chariot … just water.
God had a new land and a whole new life planned for His people. He was going to lead them to Canaan … the Promised Land. He would guide them and take care of them until they got there. Over and over He displayed His power to them. He made bread appear on the ground. Meat to fall out of the sky. He brought water out of a rock. They saw His glory surround a mountain and then descend upon the Tent of Meeting … a sign that His Presence was with them and traveled with them in the wilderness. He protected them from marauders and bandits. And then, true to His word, He brought them right up to the edge of Canaan.
Like me on that high dive that day, they were right there … right on the very edge … looking across the Jordan River … ready to plunge into the Promised Land … but …
God commanded them to wait. “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan,” God explained to Moses, “from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send men.” One of those 12 spies was Caleb, from the tribe of Judah.
For 40 days the Hebrew people watched and waited on the edge of the Promised Land … looking … waiting for the spies to return and give their report. The spies were gone for 40 days because they had been commanded to return with a pretty thorough report: “Go up into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country, and see what the land is like and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns they live in are unwalled or fortified, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Behold, and bring some of the fruit of the land” (Numbers 13:17-20).
And then, praise the Lord! The spies return and give their report. They start out with great news. “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey, and this is the fruit” (Numbers 13:27). Now … when the Bible describes Canaan as a land that flows with milk and honey, it doesn’t mean literally. It means that the land was filled with good pasture for cows and goats … who produce milk. And there was so much fertile ground for crops and flowers that the bees were able to produce huge amounts of honey.
Think about how that might have sounded to a bunch of people who were slaves in Egypt just a short while ago … who go from making bricks, marching through a dry desert … and then stand on the edge of a land that promised lush pastures and the potential to grow any kind of crop you want … and everything that you grow and produce is yours! I would imagine that it would be too much to wrap their hearts and their minds around … even with the evidence right before their eyes … stretchers loaded with fruit and vegetables … bunches of grapes so large that the Bible says that they had to be carried on poles by two men. I’m surprised that they didn’t pack up right then and there and start marching across the Jordan into Canaan. Everything sounded too good to be true … beyond anything they could imagine … and yet, there was the proof … piles of delicious looking proof. Everything appeared to be exactly as God promised, and then some … but …
Verse 28 starts out with the word “yet” in some translations. As it is used in this case, “yet” or “but” mean pretty much the same thing. “Yet … but the people who live in the land are strong and the towns are fortified and very large,” the spies report. “And besides, we saw the descendants of [the giants] Anak there. The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan” (Numbers 13:28-29).
We should not make light of their concerns. The people living there are indeed powerful. The Amalekites will be the first army to attack the nation of Israel. The Hittites and the Jebusites will control Jerusalem at one point. The Amorites live in the strategic hill county, their towns heavily fortified with thick walls made of large stones with sentries stationed on top. The “descendants of Anak” were giants. One of their most famous kin was Goliath.
To be fair to the Hebrew people, the spies’ report is a lot to take in. On the one hand, the report is very promising. The land is everything that God promised. But … on the other hand, the scouts are saying that they cannot go against the people who are already living there because they are too strong.
Instead of moving forward, the Hebrew people are paralyzed with fear … except for … Caleb. “But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it’” (Numbers 13:30).
You see … here’s the thing about fear. It not only paralyzes, it breeds more fear. Did you know that? Fear breeds more fear.
As if the Hebrew people weren’t frightened enough, the men who had spied out the Promised Land with Caleb and Joshua added to the people’s fear. “The land we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants” (v. 32) … “and all the people that we saw in it were of giant size. There we saw Nephilim and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (v. 33).
Fear paralyzes. Fear breeds more fear. And fear magnifies the problems and obstacles that we face. Listen carefully to how the spies’ report got more and more scary. Canaan went from being a land flowing with milk and honey to a land that will devour them. The Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, and the Canaanites went from being “strong” people with a few giants living among them to ALL of them being giants … and the bigger their fear made their challenges and their obstacles, the smaller the spies appeared in their own eyes: “… to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers” (v. 33; italics added) … and so they assumed that that that was how they appeared to the inhabitants of Canaan.
Fear breeds fear … then it paralyzes … it magnifies … and then it strangles your hope and your faith. When the Hebrew people heard the spies’ report, the Bible says that all the people “raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night … ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or that we died in this wilderness. Why did the Lord bring us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt” (Numbers 14:1-4).
Everyone was griped with fear. Everyone but … Joshua, son of Num, of the tribe of Ephraim and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, of the tribe of Judah. Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and said to the people: “The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them” (Numbers 14:7-9).
The people’s reaction? Rather than being encouraged, they began to look for rocks to stone Joshua and Caleb. That’s what fear does to people.
These people had developed a “grasshopper complex.” They thought that they were insignificant and allowed their insecurity to influence their faith. What they failed to see … and what they are about to learn in a very painful way … is that their fear caused them to doubt God. The problem with fear is not fear itself … sorry FDR. The problem with fear is what it reveals about our concept of God and how little or how much we truly trust Him. Standing on the banks of the Jordan river, refusing to cross over into the Promised Land, God saw right to the heart of their fear. “As I live,” says the Lord, “I will do to you the very things I heard you say” (v.28).
“You think it would have been better to die in this wilderness? Well, guess what? Rather than go forward into the Promised Land,” says God, “you will go back, all right! Back into the wilderness. Your dead bodies shall fall in this very wilderness, and all your number, from 20 years old and upward, who have complained against me, not one of you shall come into the land which I swore to settle you, except …” everyone except … Caleb of Jephunneh and Joshua, son of Nunn. According to the number of days in which you spied the land, forty days,” says the Lord, “for every day a year, and you shall know my displeasure” (Numbers 14:34).
When the people hear what God has to say about it, when they hear God’s judgment, they snap out of it and do what we usually do. They ran around and tried to avoid the consequences by bargaining with God and doing the “right” thing. The Bible says that the Hebrew people rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Look … here we are, God … we’ll be good … .we’re ready to march into Canaan now and take the land … you know, the “Promised Land” … the land You promised us … we get it now.” And God responds: “Ah … that’s nice, but … too little, too late.” And they are attacked by the Amalekites and Canaanites and are driven back into the wilderness.
As for the 12 spies … all of them are stricken with a plague and die .. all of them except Caleb and Joshua.
Caleb was just an ordinary person like you and me … but he chose to trust in an extraordinary God and God praised him for this. “None of the people who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness …” (Numbers 14:22). Now … let’s just park here for a second. Listen carefully to what God is saying here: “None of the people who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and the wilderness” (v. 22, italics added). Caleb’s faith is not based on supposition or theory. It’s based on what he “saw” God do over and over and over again with his own eyes: send an old man to terrorize the most powerful king of the most powerful kingdom in that part of the world … turned the Nile into blood … rain down frogs … sent swarms of flies and locusts, plagues and sickness … turned the day into night ... defeated all of Egypt’s gods and then drown Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea … led them personally through the wilderness to the Promised Land … fed them … protected them.
For Caleb, his trust and faith was a no-brainer. But … here’s the deal. As God Himself just pointed out. All … ALL the other Hebrew people saw the same miracles, witnessed the same demonstrations of God’s power as Caleb did, experienced the same protection and care, and still let fear take over their thoughts, their hearts, and their lives.
How does God perceive their fear? “None of the people who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors …” here it is … “none of those who despised me shall see it” (Numbers 14:22). “None of those who “despised” God. They chose not to go into the land that God promised them because their fear of the five tribes or kingdoms that were already there was greater than their faith and trust in God. Their fear was so great that they chose to disobey God rather than face the reality that they saw on the other side of the Jordan. And now their disobedience has consequences … dire consequences.
“None of the people who have seen my glory and the signs I did in Egypt and in the wilderness shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors” (v.22) but … “my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly; I will bring him into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it” (v. 24). What a difference a word can make. All of the Hebrew people have been doomed to wander in the wilderness, never to enter the Promised Land, except for Caleb and Joshua. They will not only get to enter the Promised Land but conquer it, occupy it, and make it a land, a kingdom for generations of Hebrew people to come.
What can we learn about faith and fear from an ordinary guy like Caleb? After 400 years of serving the Egyptians, Canaan was to be a place of peace and rest … a place where these former slaves could live in peace because they lived in God’s Presence … and God wants the same for us. The promise of the Kingdom of God is given to every believer … but …
How often do we get right up to the edge of God’s peace … right there … staring at the fruit of His rest … only to back away because of the giants living there? How many of us, like the Hebrew people in our scripture lesson, come right up to the edge of salvation … get a glimpse of the joys other express … feel the conviction of the Spirit in their heart … but pull away because the giant of “this world” beckons to them? How many come right up to the edge of walking in total obedience to God, like Caleb, seeing the blessings of a consecrated life and the rewards of servanthood, desiring to be committed to that life, only to decide that the price is too high and the time too demanding.
It is the giants in here [head] and in here [heart] … it’s the giant of unbelief … it is the giant of fear … it is the giant of complacency. It’s not the Anak or the Nephilim but the giants of unbelief, fear, and complacency that really keep us from enjoying God’s peace and presence here [head] and especially here [heart]. You see, every Promised Land, every Canaan, has its giants. Every blessing has its challenges.
The first Anak we face is the giant of “unbelief.” When you think about it, God simply said “go and explore the land” … not go and look at it and take a vote and decide if this might be some place you’d like to put down roots. God already knew that the land was good … that it was the right place. Why else would He have had led them there? He told them to “go and explore the land” so that they could see with their own eyes the what the “promised” land looked like for themselves. He had promised them the land, which means He had already given them the land … you know, “promised” it to them. He said so before He even called on them to send spies into the country. “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan,” said, God, “which I am giving to the Israelites” (Numbers 13:1; italics added).
So, if God “promised” the land to them … if God said He had already given it to them … then they had no reason to doubt God, amen? They had both God’s promise that the land would be bountiful … flowing with milk and honey ... and that this bountiful land would be theirs. They not only had God’s promises but a history of God’s protection and providence to back up His promises. As I pointed out earlier, God had already done the impossible and delivered them from centuries of servitude to the Egyptians, guided them through the wilderness, fed them and watched over them very day, made His Presences known to them through a column of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night, as well as travel with them in the Tent of Meeting.
We too live by God’s word in scripture and by our own experiences with Him. So … how does the giant of unbelief find its way int here [head] and here [heart]? I mean, trusting and believing God would be a whole lot easier if it weren’t for all those giants, all those challenges and obstacles, am I right?
What if I told you that the giants are a necessary and important part of developing our faith and our trust in God? These giants, these obstacles and challenges that we face in life, help to mature our faith. “Consider it pure joy,” says the Apostle James, “whenever you face trails of any kind; because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2). The truth is that our faith never grows in comfortable surroundings. Our faith never grows when life is easy … when there are no giants around.
When life challenges us, when we are faced with giants, who should we turn to? God. And when we overcome those giants … when we persevere because we know that God will be there and will give us the strength, the endurance to not only carry on but to overcome those giants … our faith grows. Not in ourselves but in Him because we already know going in that we are no match for the giants in our lives. Not now. Not ever.
Look … you can go ahead and doubt God’s ability to fulfill His promises in your life … and you wouldn’t be alone. You can assume that this church is doomed, that there is nothing that “we” can do to save it … and you would be right. The Hebrew people, standing on the banks of the Jordan River didn’t believe that there was anything “they” could do either … and they were right. The problem wasn’t that they lacked faith in themselves but that they lacked faith in God, amen? Unbelief … the lack of faith … will always blind you to God’s greatness and magnify your own weakness.
The second Nephilim, or giant, that we face is “fear.” For the Hebrew people, the fear of giants and fortified cities outweighed the blessing of the fruit they saw. The element that contributes the most to fear in our Christian walk is that we measure the obstacles and challenges that confront us against our own strength and recourses instead of focusing on God’s power and resources. The Israelites saw themselves as “grasshoppers” in the eyes of the giants when they should have seen the giants as “grasshoppers” in the eyes of God, amen?
The third Goliath we face is the giant of “comfort and complacency.” The Hebrew people heard about the challenges and obstacles that confronted them on the other side of the Jordan and suddenly everything was fine on the wilderness side of the river. It wasn’t so bad … in the wilderness … just wandering around … no nation … no homeland … no place to settle. After all, we had gotten use to eating manna … every day. The stuff kind of grows on ya, you know? In fact, looking back, Egypt wasn’t all that bad and we know where they are and we know that they will take us back, right? We could take up our old trades. Sure, they’ll be hard on us for taking off like that but at least we’ll have access to fresh vegetable and meat again.
Have you ever noticed how fear and unbelief … what comfort and complacency … do to your Christian walk? Even though the fruit that God promises is beautiful and bigger than life there are these giants to contend with. The land may flow with milk and honey, but we’ll stay here where it’s safe and predictable and bearable. I mean, mediocrity has its own rewards too, right? Just holding on to the status quo. Well, it might not be challenging and exciting but it is certainly safe and predictable, right?
I would be more obedient, but …
I would come to church more or get more involved with the church, but …
I would tithe, but …
When God opens a door in my life, I would walk through it, but …
I know that God wants me to forgive that person, but …
I know that God is with me, but …
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but … I hate to tell you this but where there is no risk there is no opportunity for growth. The aim of comfort and complacency is to avoid taking risks. Complacency avoids risk at all cost. And, whether you know it or not, there will be a cost. Lack of growth … lack of reward … lack of confidence. Complacency holds us back, keeps us in our “comfort zones.” Now, in case you haven’t noticed, God wants us to get out of our comfort zones. He knows the reward and the benefits that we will receive if we do. He wants us to grow stronger in our faith and in our trust of Him.
Joshua and Caleb took a big risk siding with God and going against the fear-driven wishes of their countrymen and women. “Do not go against the Lord,” they pleaded, “and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them” (v. 9) … and the Bible says that the “whole congregation threatened to stone them” (v. 10). Out of all the Israelites present that day, these two were the only ones that God would eventually allow to enter the Promised Land. Because they trusted God and were willing to take a risk and face the challenges that awaited them on the other side of the river, they and their ancestors would overcome those challenges and take possession of the land flowing with milk and honey.
So … there I am … standing on the edge of the diving board … 12 feet up … scared. What you think I did? I jumped! I intended to “dive” in … you know, head first … but that was a little too much. I figured that a belly flop or a back flop from that height would probably hurt … a whole lot … so I jumped feet first. And it was awesome … a rush! I went right back up and did it again … and again … and again. Each successful dive increasing my confidence until I was able to dive head-first.
But …
There have been other giants in my life that have scared me away. I think of all the accomplishments I missed out on because of doubt and fear … all the glory I could have given to God. And I doubt very much that I’m the only one here this morning who has those regrets. How many of you have wandered around in the wilderness because you were afraid to enter the promised land? I know I have …
Ten of the spies who explored the Promised Land, who brought back proof of the land’s richness and bounty forgot the richness and power of God’s promises. They forgot God’s work on their behalf to free them and provide for them. They forgot His faithfulness. All they could see were the obstacles and the challenges. All they could focus on were the giants. And they took their eyes off the solution … off what they knew to be true.
My brothers and sisters … I don’t want that for you or for this church. In the short time that I’ve been here I feel that this church has been standing on the edge of God’s leading for some time and that all you can see right now are the giants and the challenges. Yes … we are facing some serios challenges … financial challenges, resource challenges, size challenges … yes, we are facing some serious motivational and desire challenges. Sadly, right now, I feel that in some ways that the giants of unbelief, fear, and complacency are winning. Instead of seeing the challenges before us as opportunities to demonstrate our faith, to put our trust in God … His proven ability and desire to lead us, provide for us ... and yes, prosper us … we have become focused on the problem and not on the solution.
The exploration is over. The report is in. How will you cast your vote? Will you be one of the ten? Or will you be one of the two? Will you reap the blessings of God’s rest? Or will you waste them by wandering in the wilderness.
The time to vote is now! Do you trust God? Do you believe that He will keep His promises? Do you have faith that He will be with us as we move forward from here? Do you trust that He will provide, that He will give us what we need to prevail? Then stand up right now, stand up as a sign of your obedience and repeat after me:
God … I yield myself fully to You. I will do Your bidding without delay. I will refuse You nothing. Here I am … send me.”
And seal your pledge by saying with me: “In the name of Jesus, make it so. Amen.”
