The Story Of The Whoaer's And The Goer's

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.