God had been leading Israel every step of the way—parting the Red Sea, dropping food from the sky, guiding them with a pillar of fire at night—and still, when twelve spies came back from the promised land, ten of them said it couldn’t be done, and the crowd went with them. Numbers 13 and 14 ask a question we face too: when the majority says no, does that settle it?
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Well, don’t you love that? I love that music. And you have that last low. Wow. I wish you guys didn’t notice that. Did you? Well, welcome to Little Hills. And tonight I get the privilege of bringing God’s word to you in Numbers.
The Old Testament is very difficult because everything kind of brings them with us. And if you don’t know your history, you don’t know what’s really going on. So I spent a lot of time learning the history of what was going on here. And I couldn’t think of a name. Usually, we like the title stuff and it was either “Spy versus Spy” or “I Spy with my Little Eye.” Then I came up with “Does the Majority Rule Really Make the Final Decision?” And I think that’s what I’m going to rest upon. As we go through this, we’ll see what happens when we go by the majority rule, when the majority does rule.
So I’m going to give you a brief history because I actually got two chapters to cover instead of reading the whole two chapters, and you guys might fall asleep and maybe we may need some more music or that upbeat music. So I’m just going to do a brief summary of the whole two chapters.
God promised Abraham that he and his descendants will be a great nation. We all know the story. The Lord tells Abraham to check out the land, as we find in Genesis 12:1-7. Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, is facing a famine and returns to Egypt, Genesis 42, 46.
I’m glad I didn’t read all this kind of stuff; it reminded me when I used to teach Sunday school for the four and five-year-olds. It was easy because you didn’t have to worry about details that adults need to know. So, anyway, adults…
Then God raises up Moses in Egypt, leads the Israelites out of Egypt, who are Jacob’s descendants. That’s found in Exodus chapters 3 through 14. The Israelites leave Egypt to the promised land that God has promised them. So here we are in Numbers chapters 13 and 14. You can also find this in Deuteronomy and some of the other books.
It took them about two years to exit Egypt, out of the Red Sea, and into where they are now. So that’s the brief rundown.
I’m going to read Numbers now, just to give you part of Numbers chapter 13, verses 1 through 3:
“The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. For each tribe of their fathers, you should send a man, every one a chief among them.’ So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord. All of them were men who were heads of the people of Israel.”
As you see, God told Moses to do this to show them what He was going to promise; here’s what I’m going to give you. So then he listened to the people, all of that. That’s how we get the twelve tribes of Israel; you all understand all that.
God wanted to show them what was going on—to see what this land is like. God gave them a list found in Numbers 13:17-24, which I didn’t put up there. Are they strong or weak? Like we always get a list when we go out some place. I’m getting somewhere. Are they few or many? Is the land good or bad? How do they live? Do they have Rolls Royces? No, I’m kidding.
Open camps in four to five cities. How is the land? Is it fat or lean? In other words, does it have hardly anything out there? It’s got a lot of cattle, a lot of grapes, milk and honey, stuff like that. They bring back some fruit from the land. After 40 days, they reported back. I thought it was interesting, 40 days, and 40 years wandering, and all these other 40s.
Numbers 13:25-33 says they report—they come back and say, yes, they are strong, but we look like grasshoppers compared to them, like little short people. But I think they were big. These people were like eight feet tall. It wasn’t just that they were all six feet, but they were really big.
They came from a group of people, and I’ll explain the group they came from later. Yes, the land is filled with milk and honey. Yes, they lived in cities that were fortified. Ten spies believed it would be foolish, and only two spies were ready because it is what God has promised us.
That’s where I’m here in Numbers, and we will see what happens.
So that’s where we begin our sermon. That’s why I was like, does the majority really rule over things, or can we say the majority rules but is the majority wrong? Are the two right? Let’s see what we came up with here.
Numbers 13:30-33 says, “But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us go at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’ Then the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go against the people for they are stronger than we are.’”
So they brought the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land which we have gone to spy out devours its inhabitants and all the people we saw there were of great height.” That had a lot to do when you’re going to attack, or when somebody is going to attack you—how high they are. And they saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. If you know me, I’m bad at pronouncing words, so just carry on. I don’t have that skill yet, I guess.
And we seemed to be like grasshoppers in their sight; so we seemed to be like grasshoppers.
So anyway, here is the rebellion: these people are big, and a lot of times, you know, “I’m going to lead this, these people are big. I don’t think that we can do it.” So they start—this is their rebellion.
Moses pleads with them and tells them that this is the land God has promised us. God has given us promises. They still did not want to take what God has promised them.
God let them. So God told them because of their fear, that they would die in the desert. They feared dying by the sword of these big people. So God said, “OK, you’re not going to enter the land.”
So God said, “You’re still going to die. This time you’ll die by plagues.” Ten guys first died with plagues right off the bat, and other people, as they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, died of plagues because they were fearful. So if you aren’t going to trust me in the promised land, then you’re not going to see it.
So that’s where we’re going to begin. Let’s all bow our heads and pray, and then we’ll begin the sermon. Thank you all.
My Father, I want to thank You for Your word, and I thank You for the things I’ve learned through just studying this. Lord, I’ve never really—I think I’ve done this in my life before. Lord, bless this message. May Your Spirit tell us what we need to hear, or may You be here for us, Lord, and give me the words and the right ways to explain what I need to explain to Your people. Bless us in all we do, in Your wonderful name. Amen.
All right. To steal the phrase I always hear Pastor Tim say, “Well, what do we have here?” In Bible study, it always says that after we read a passage, he always will say, “What do we have here?”
It’s funny because after I got all that history done, I said, “So what do I have here? Like, where did I get that from?” So anyways, it’s questioning.
The first point is questioning God’s ability to carry us through His promise. The promise was that since then, the Israelites knew that the promise was to be a nation since Abraham was around when He promised them. The promise was the parting of the Red Sea to be safe from the Egyptian army. He’s protecting them already in the manna and the quail He gave daily. Here is God taking care of them all the way through these couple of years.
God gives them guidance, which is better than GPS, probably a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But yet, the whole time they were still grumbling because, I guess, they wanted a five-star hotel or they wanted nice cushy beds at night or wanted steak or whatever they could eat back then. But the whole time they just weren’t satisfied.
Sometimes I think that’s where we are on our own journey, just not satisfied with everything. So we want more. Nevertheless, let’s look at Numbers 13:28: “Nevertheless, the people dwelling in the land are strong.”
Numbers 13:28 says, “Nevertheless, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified.”
We even saw the descendants of Anak there. So who is Anak? Have you ever looked up who these people Anak was, or did you just say, “Oh, it’s just a word”?
Anak refers to the Anakim or Anakites, the “m” means the father of. They were a formidable giant race of warlike people. They were huge, bigger than Thor probably. You know how Thor was, “Oh, nobody can get him”? Or probably, let’s think of the Incredible Hulk. Probably really big like that, maybe not green—I don’t know.
So these people occupied the whole area that God said, “Go and take these people in, and you’ll be fine.”
A lot of times I know when we face trials or whatever, we see these things and say, “I can’t face that. That’s way too big.” “Lord, I know You brought me all this way, but look at this.”
So ten of the spies focused their attention on the physical things, not the spiritual things. God did not deem them to be afraid of these people.
The stuff we face may seem bigger than we can imagine. We begin to fear and stay where we are comfortable, but they are never too big for God to carry us through to the end. We see that a lot in life.
Just like Caleb in verse 30 said, “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, ‘We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it.’” What did Caleb do? We even sing it in the song. He trusted God. He trusted God and said, “Well, God says I can carry this through, so I might as well just trust and carry it through.”
We need to look at that in our own situations and our own problems in life.
God said He will help me through this. So, “OK God, let’s see what You can do.” It was amazing that my brother read this in our opening service today—Proverbs 3:5-7: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.”
Do you see that where the majority were being wise in their own eyes? Sometimes I say the majority may not rule because all these people said, “No, no, no, no,” and they ended up suffering the consequences.
So this whole thing turned into a test of faithfulness toward God; what God has been directing them from the beginning all the way through, right up to the end. They failed. It’s like going to the master exam to get your license or certificate and deciding, “Oh, this test is too big, I’m walking away from it.”
Would God fail them at the end? I don’t think so.
The next thing is reaping your decision. We don’t like that, do we? “God, I’m sorry, I messed up. Can I just go ahead and carry on?” Or, “Hey, alright, just give me the promised land. You were right, I was wrong. Nothing’s going to happen.”
I believe we have some trust issues here. When we sing songs about trust, and Pastor Tim talked about it, some people have trust issues. The people of Israel leaned on fear as a decision and not on God for what He had done for them in the past years of their journey and for the promise that He kept long ago in Abraham. For all their time in slavery, He still kept that promise. So why would God in a split second change His promise?
God was ready to smite them down. “I’m tired of you guys grumbling, tired of you complaining.” Yet, you’ve got all these big giants; have I not carried you through all this far?
Moses, being the leader, in Numbers 14:11-12, says, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, despite all the signs I have performed among them? I will strike them with a plague and destroy them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they are.’”
We run into Deuteronomy 28:21, “The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land you are entering.”
It reminds me, I wish I could remember more, when I was doing the minor prophets, God said to the city of Nineveh, “I am against you.” Basically here it is: “I am against you; you complain, complain, grumble, complain.” So fine, you’re not going to be struck by the sword, but you will wander for 40 years with plagues and diseases and suffer death.
God wanted a younger generation that would trust Him more to enter the land. I think we do that a lot with ourselves, too.
Numbers 14:13 says, “But Moses said to the Lord, ‘The Egyptians will hear of it, for by your strength you brought these people among them.’”
Despite all the Israelites’ experiences and what God had done for them, they sided with the ten spies who rebelled against God’s promise of the land fulfilled with all they needed. Can you imagine the scene? Let’s say 10 of us go out to look for a new building or something, and 10 come back saying, “No, we can’t do it, we’re too small.” But two say, “It’s a beautiful building and they’re going to give it to us.”
That’s how it is sometimes in life. We make decisions that don’t listen to what God says, but to what our own thoughts say.
Here they are. Yes, God forgave them, but they still faced punishment because they failed the test. Do you not think we have done the same thing many times? I know there are some things I’ve probably failed the test for and had to reap the punishment.
God has brought us so far out of our sinful desires and sin that kill us, but sometimes we stop in our tracks and say, “I can’t do this no more,” and go back. Sometimes we find that people try to quit smoking or drinking but get tired of struggling because they’re doing it on their own and not in Christ. Then they say, “I give up, I’m going back.” Then they wander around in the same things over and over.
God told Israel to move forward, not backward. Joshua and Caleb understood the importance of obeying God, and we should, too. They are going to reap the blessing God promised, because they faced this fear. So let’s go forward because God said we can do it.
God has all kinds of promises in the Bible that we can figure out. The others should never have let the short-sightedness of what God can do cause them to fall back into their own understanding.
God’s judgment on the people is violence, but He forgives them without removing the consequences of their sin. This is found in these 14 verses and the last verse of Numbers 14. God’s forgiveness does not always cancel His punishment. He’s going to forgive you, but there is still punishment.
Sometimes when kids are in trouble, or we are in trouble, someone will say, “I forgive you for what you did, but here’s your punishment.” And a lot will do that.
Let’s go to something happier. I think I’m going to bring it all down; I don’t want to be the preacher who only brings negative things. So let’s go with today’s promised land.
This goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. We all know the story of Adam and Eve. They had to accept the consequences of their sin as well. They were removed from paradise. Why didn’t God just forgive them and let them go back in the land? OK, you did something wrong, but nothing’s wrong.
You know, you spit out your food, go ahead, you can eat the plate the food came from. But now, the world was corrupt by sin; staying in paradise was not an option. Paradise would be spoiled by the corruption, and if men ate from the tree of life, they would live forever as slaves to sin.
Instead, God’s plan of redemption kicked in. Adam and Eve had to endure the consequences of their sinful actions, just as the Israelites saw the wondrous miracles God was doing for them, but still grumbled along the way to their final destination.
They got there and chose the wisdom of ten spies and the wisdom of the majority. You have to ask yourself: where did this wisdom filter through that the ten spies had? Did it filter through God, or did it filter through man? Did the wisdom of the ten spies edify God’s kingdom, or did the two spies edify God’s kingdom? How did the wisdom of the ten spies affect their relationship with God? It didn’t go well, did it?
Just like God promised them victory, He has promised us victory over our sinfulness. The land He commanded them to take was already theirs; salvation is already there. All they had to do was trust and obey, but they did not.
God sent His one and only Son to pay the penalty of my sins and our sins, cleansing us from all unrighteousness. All we have to do is ask for forgiveness and believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, and we are safe from the punishment of death.
All they had to do was believe that God was going to take them to the promised land, and they would have been fine. But no.
And I think a lot of times we do that. We can’t believe that Jesus Christ is the one. God would never leave us or lead us to where His grace cannot provide for us, His power cannot protect us. His power cannot protect us from where His power cannot protect us?
Indeed, the Israelites saw the powerful hand of God at work during the plagues and the miracles of the Exodus, but they still didn’t think He could do this one little thing.
Have you ever seen God say, “Well, I can’t do that. Sorry, guys. Thanks for following me, I’m going?” It doesn’t work that way.
Many people walk by sight, not by faith. And without faith, it is impossible to please God, as in Hebrews 11:6. It says, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”
What did the two spies receive? They sought God. What were they rewarded? They sought God’s promise. They sought Him. The other people, like, “I don’t know, God. I’ll go this far with the church, I’ll go this far with my belief, but I’m not putting my whole faith and trust in Him. I’m not going there. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Well, that’s what faith is mainly about—it not making sense. It’s not supposed to be our wisdom here; it’s the spirit of God that brings us.
But where am I at? Oh, and without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.
And when you seek Him, what is your reward? It’s paradise. It’s living in paradise.
The failure to trust in the death, burial, and resurrection of God will result in us not entering into that promised land of heaven, but being lost in the torment of hell, otherwise known as the lake of fire.
Yes, sorry, that’s how it goes. You can’t tell me any other way, and I’ll believe it. I’ll stand here firm and say, “If you don’t trust in God, there’s always another alternative.”
So you have to ask yourself, have you become like the person of faith wandering in the wilderness, not willing to repent of your sins in your life, not trusting God to carry you through to the end?
Come on, He has brought everybody all this way with His promises in the Bible. Why would He just change His mind?
Never know what I’m doing, I can’t find it anywhere. So don’t ask God, “Why God, why is this happening to me?” No, you’re making it happen.
Or maybe because you are being punished by God, and you need to repent and move on.
So let’s keep our focus on God, not on the obstacles in our lives, like Joshua and Caleb kept their focus on what God has promised them. May we also keep our focus on what God has promised us.
When the problem looks big, something I have on my three-by-five card that I go through a lot: Where did this wisdom filter through that got me here? Is it godly wisdom or worldly wisdom? Does the use of this, whatever I’m going through, edify God’s kingdom, or does it edify myself or the world?
We’re here to edify God’s kingdom, to build it up.
The third question is, how would this affect my relationship with God? Am I going to do something that’s going to make God not want to have anything to do with me? Am I going to live that sinful life that God doesn’t want to have anything to do with?
No, I don’t want to reap His punishment.
Even though I’m saved, I’m still going to get in trouble. You know, I’m still going to reap. If I go speeding on the road, I’m going to get a ticket. If I do something wrong or mess up a marriage, I’m going to get in trouble. So that’s how it goes.
So I decided to close with this one verse, Hebrews 6:10-12:
“For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for His name in serving the saints. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
It’s good to find people to imitate, not because you want to be like them, but because you see Christ in them and you want to be like Christ.
It’s just like when we…
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