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Well, this evening, you may be surprised to find us in the Book of Numbers, but the passage
that we’re looking at this evening is referenced in chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews, and so we’ll
take this week to hop back to the Book of Numbers in Chapter 13 and take a look at this
story in greater depth before returning to Numbers in the coming weeks. We’re reading
this evening from Numbers Chapter 13, Verse 25, and through the end of Chapter 14. Please
give your attention to God’s Word.
At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land, and they came to Moses
and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of
Peran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed
them the fruit of the land. This is the spies he’s talking about. And they told him, We
came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its
fruit. However, the people who dwell in this land are strong, and the cities are fortified
and very large. Besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the
land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country,
and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. 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. Then
the man who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against this people,
for they are stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report
of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone to spy
out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of
great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak who come from the Nephilim,
and we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them. Then all the congregation
raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled
against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the
land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing
us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey.
Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, Let us
choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before
all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun
and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their
clothes. And they said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, The land which we
pass through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in 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. Do not fear the people of the land, for they are
bred for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear
them. Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord
appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses,
How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite
of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit
them. I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they. But Moses said to
the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it. For you brought up this people in your
might from among them, and they will tell of the inhabitants of the land. They have
heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face
to face, and your cloud stands over them, and you go before them in a pillar of cloud
by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this people as one man, then the
nations who have heard your fame will say, It is because the Lord was not able to bring
this people into the land that he swore to give them that he has killed them in the wilderness.
And now, please let the power of the Lord be as great as you have promised, saying,
The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.
But he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children to the third and the fourth generation. Please pardon the iniquity of this people
according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people
from Egypt until now. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word. But
truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none
of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in this wilderness,
and yet have put me to the test these ten times, and have not obeyed my voice, shall
see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me
shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed
me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess
it. Now since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set
out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron
saying, How long shall this wicked people, this wicked congregation grumble against me?
I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
Say to them, as I live declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do
to you. Your dead body shall fall in the wilderness. And of all your number listed in the census
from 20 years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, no, not one shall come into the
land which I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua
the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said will become a prey, I will bring
in and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead body shall
fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness for
40 years and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in
the wilderness. According to the numbers of days in which you spied out the land, 40 days,
a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity 40 years and shall know my displeasure.
Aye, the Lord has spoken. Surely this will I do in all the wicked, to all this wicked
congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall come to
a full end and there they shall die. And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land who
returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about
the land, the man who brought up a bad report of the land died by plague before the Lord.
Of those men who went out to spy the land, only Joshua, the son of Nun and Caleb, the
son of Jephunneh remained alive. When Moses told all these words to the people of Israel,
the people mourned greatly. And they rose up early in the morning and went up to the
heights of the hill country saying, here we are, we will go up to the place that the Lord
has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, why now are you transgressing the command
of the Lord when that will not succeed? Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you,
lest you be struck down before your enemies. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are
facing you and you shall fall by the sword, because you have turned back from following
the Lord, the Lord will not be with you. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the
hill country, though neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out
of the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and
defeated them and pursued them even to Hormah. This ends the reading of God’s word. Let’s
pray. Father in heaven, we ask that you would open up your word to us this evening, that
we would hear from you, that you would feed your people. We pray this in Jesus’ name,
amen. Do you ever get nervous taking tests? Who doesn’t, right? Well, I was never a great
test taker in high school or college or even seminary. I would get nervous and then I would
inevitably perform worse on my test than I might have done otherwise. In high school,
I took the SAT twice and the second time I was able to improve my score by 90 to 100
points in all three areas. It’s not because I’m so smart, it’s because I had become comfortable
with the test and was much more relaxed the second time, while I certainly wouldn’t rule
out the role of lucky guesses. I wasn’t stressing about the format and I could better understand
what was going on, what was asked of me. A lot of my friends who did well the first time
was because they had taken the practice SATs, something I didn’t think of at the time, but
it probably would have helped me. When I read about Israel’s failure in this passage to
pass God’s test and enter the promised land, I’m inclined to offer them the benefit of
the doubt at first. Maybe they got nervous and didn’t understand what was expected of
them. What if they got a second chance? Maybe they could get a do-over and try again. But
if we look carefully at our passage, we see they didn’t just get a second chance. They
got chance after chance after chance. And then when God issued his judgment, they went back
and proved again that they were lacking what God required.
Scientists like to have great certainty and have a very high standard for what they call
a mathematical proof. Presenting many cases in which the statement is true is insufficient
for a mathematician. It must be demonstrated that the statement is true in all possible
cases. What we have in our story this evening is this same type of situation. God is proving
beyond the shadow of a doubt that this generation of Israelites were truly without faith.
We’re going to see this first in their negative cowardice and fear, but then confirmed by
their presumption. So we’ll look this evening at first the cowardice of faithlessness, second
the presumption of faithlessness, and third the reward of faithfulness.
So first the cowardice of faithlessness. We come to the point in the story of Israel,
which ought to be the pinnacle of the whole Pentateuch. This was the whole point of coming
out of Egypt. God had come to Abraham centuries earlier, told him to journey hundreds of miles
away from his home to another land, which he then promised he would give to his descendants
in the future. This was meant to be that moment of fulfillment when the promise to Abraham
was finally fulfilled as his numerous descendants set foot in the land that God had promised.
This should have been the pinnacle of the story, but instead it was the moment of failure.
Moses had told them in verse 20 of chapter 13, the spies, when they were going into the
land, he said, be of good courage. He knew that courage was going to be necessary, but
the spies came back full of cowardice. The goodness of the land is overshadowed by the
difficulty in capturing it. And when we look in chapter 14 verses 2 and 3, we see that
the congregation is convinced that death is certain. Death is inevitable, and they’d rather
die in Egypt in slavery than die conquering Canaan. Now this might look a little strange,
irrational, but that’s exactly what cowardice does. Freedom always requires courage. Patrick
Henry famously said, give me liberty or give me death. The Israelites here are saying give
me slavery and death rather than require courage and faith. Cowardice prefers slavery, while
courage prefers freedom. And they’re so adamant about this, they’re ready to murder and revolt
in order to return to slavery in the service of their cowardice. We’re going to see two
things about cowardice. Cowardice prompts action, and cowardice blinds us to what’s
transcendental. Cowardice prompts action. While we might think primarily of cowardice
as a failure to act, it’s only a failure to act in the direction of courage. Avoidance
is an action as well, and cowardice that the Israelites demonstrate is full-scale outright
avoidance. It’s not a neutral stance. It runs in the opposite direction. Israel didn’t say,
well, kind of scared, let’s wait on the edge of Canaan. Camping’s not that bad actually.
We kind of enjoy our tents. No. They said, we’re not going into Canaan. We’re actually
going back to Egypt, into slavery. In this case, it led to full-scale outright rebellion.
Fear is a powerful motivator of failure, fear of exposure, and it can lead to extreme action.
When we talk about cornered animals who are injured, they’ll often act aggressively and
irrationally. And this is how cowards get. Cowardice that comes from faithlessness is
cowardice. Cowards are insecure. They think that everyone is their enemy. The Israelites
turned on Joshua, Caleb, Moses, Aaron, and God. They were ready to kill them. It distrusts
those that it ought to trust, and so God calls it despising him. In verse 23, none of those
who despised me shall see it, this land that I’m giving. But cowardice also blinds to what
is transcendental. We talk about the good, the true, and the beautiful, but especially
in terms of God. God is the good, the true, and the beautiful, and cowardice blinds Israel
to this reality. They blinded Israel to the truth. God was in their midst. He had delivered
them from slavery. It was farther to travel back to Egypt. They were blinded to the truth.
Giants are no match for God. God had conquered the Egyptians. It blinded them to all these
truths that should have been very clear. It also blinded Israel to the good. They couldn’t
see the land as good. All they could see was Canaan as dangerous and ominous. They couldn’t
see God as good. They thought that he was planning to kill them. They couldn’t see freedom
as good. They preferred slavery. They couldn’t see their leaders as good. They wanted to
stone them and choose someone else who would take them back to Egypt. And it also blinded
them to the beautiful. The land was beautiful. They brought back the fruits, the produce,
the cities, the pastures, the vineyards. Freedom was beautiful. Israel’s on the edge of entering
their own land. They’re about to become landowners. God’s glory is beautiful. God comes and brings
his glory. He stops the stoning of Moses by the glory of the Lord appearing. God’s glory
is particularly beautiful in an enormous take your breath away kind of way. God stops Israel
and he comes and appears to them. But they had been blinded to the good, the true, and
the beautiful. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 39 through the beginning of chapter 11 talks
about this shrinking back, this lack of courage that Israel had. And it exhorts us to not
share in that cowardice. It says, we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but
those who have faith and preserve their souls. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation.
And we find in Revelation 21 that there is God excluding people who are not saved from
his holy dwelling place. And he says, the one who conquers will have this heritage and
I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable,
as for murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, adulterers, and liars, their portion shall
be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. The first thing
he lists is cowards, because cowardice comes from faithlessness. But second we see the
presumption of faithlessness in this passage. Faithlessness has a two-sided coin of cowardice
and presumption. Though they seem like opposites at first, they really come from a common root,
losing sight of God. Cowardice has lost sight of God as powerful and forgotten his promise
to help. It fails to believe that God is willing and able to help. It doesn’t trust him. Presumption
has lost sight of this as well. It’s a misplaced faith, a trust completely in oneself. When
Israel was commanded to go in because God would whisk them, they refused. Their lack
of trust manifested itself in cowardice. They were too afraid to obey because they
didn’t believe it mattered whether God was with them or not. They still couldn’t defeat
any giants. And yet, when they were forbidden to go in because God was not with them, they
rushed in anyway. Their lack of trust manifested itself in presumption. They recklessly disobeyed
rushing in because they didn’t think it mattered whether God was with them or not. Their presumption
confirmed what their cowardice had already demonstrated. Their faithlessness was proved
beyond the shadow of a doubt. It’s no wonder they were so fearful and cowardly. We can
see by their presumption they clearly didn’t think it made a lick of difference whether
God was with them or on their side. They believed that God’s promises were insincere
and they thought his presence was irrelevant. God warns his people again and again throughout
his word against presumption. Presumption in regards to God never ends well. Presumption
is the opposite of trust since instead of begging for God’s mercy, it assumes everything
is good. It assumes you don’t even need it. But God delights to be asked for mercy as
Moses did and he detests to be presumed upon. As the people of God, we need to be on guard
against sinful fear. Many times we can think of fear as something that happens to us, a
reflexive action in response to circumstances or situation. But I think we see in this passage
a fighting fear with fear. There are some Christians who recognize the danger of fear
and it’s incompatibility with faith in God. But the solution they propose looks more
like the Israelites’ presumption. They might treat Jesus’ name and his blood as more of
a talisman that can ward off evil spirits. If you say the right thing, if you cover yourself
in the blood of Jesus by all these different, almost, mantras, rather than the words of
God, rather than bowing in awe at God’s power and presence and letting your reverence of
God squeeze out the fear of lesser threats. To fear the Lord is not merely to quake in
terror at the Almighty, but to reverently esteem him, to be worthy of all glory, honor,
and praise for his power and his character. When you see God in such a way that you fear
him with holy fear, all other terrors begin to fade. It’s so easy to think in our own
lives that the solution, the alternative to cowardice, is presumption. Maybe we’re too
scared to confront a person about some sin in their life and cowardly hold back from
godly confrontation. But then in an effort to overcome cowardice, begin confronting the
slightest offense that comes across our path. The solution to cowardice is faith, not presumption.
And the solution to presumption is also faith. Neither Joshua or Caleb were suggesting that
the Canaanites weren’t strong or that Israel wouldn’t be able to take them on their own.
They weren’t naive about the challenges that lay ahead. They were honest about the difficulties.
But they put their confidence in God, in his strength to overcome these enemies, and
in his promise to do so. Israel gave into cowardice and fear when facing their enemies
at first. But then in an effort to compensate for their disobedience, they rushed into battle
despite being warned that God was not with them. In both cases, they displayed a heart
that believed they did not need God. It was now demonstrated in a double way that they
lacked faith. They had neither confidence in nor reliance on God. Israel was tested
by God, and they failed the test. In fact, they thought that they ought to put God to
the test. In their test from God, their lack of faith was revealed. The Bible says Moses
tells the children in Deuteronomy 8.2 of these very people that the Lord tests his people
to see what is in their hearts. In Deuteronomy 8.2, Moses says, and you shall remember the
way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might
humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. But this works both ways. Testing
also brings out the faith in those that have faith. When Caleb was put to the test, it
became clear that his reliance was on God. He knew God would keep his promise, and to
his eyes, the land was as good as theirs. Which brings us to our third observation,
the reward of faithfulness. Now, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that Jesus
said, now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for
our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. Clearly, this story about the Israelites
failing to enter Canaan is more than just a historical event. We are meant to see this
pivotal moment in redemptive history as a lesson for us as we look forward to entering
heaven. The problem we saw in the Israelites was they had never fallen out of love with
Egypt. Our problem is more serious than merely entering the promised land, since the promised
land is but a picture of heaven. We stand in danger of failing to enter eternal life.
All of us naturally are born slaves like the Israelites were in the land of Egypt. No
amount of hanging out with good people, coming to church, keeping up with Christian things
can change us on the inside. The Israelites were part of the community, the covenant community
of God, but they had never had changed hearts. You can go through a lot of motions, look
a lot like a Christian without a changed heart. Every one of us needs a new heart. The old
heart that the Israelites had was in love with Egypt. There was only one solution, the
heart has to die, has to be killed. The other ten spies, they were still in love with Egypt.
They wanted to go back and die there. Faithless, blind, rebellious hearts that we’re born with
have to be killed and replaced with a heart of faith. I’ve heard people say sometimes
that faith and sight are opposites, and we do sometimes see those things contrasted,
but there’s another sense in which faith is really the way to see what is truly there,
to see reality. And we’ll look briefly at what faith sees and what faith receives. Joshua
and Caleb saw the giants just like the other spies, but they saw things in proper perspective.
They could see giants, they could see challenges, but those paled in comparison to God. Compared
to the giants, the Israelites were like grasshoppers, but compared to God the giants were food for
the Israelites. Because they saw God as more powerful, as on their side, they could see
the good land. What did Joshua and Caleb focus on when they encouraged the people to enter
the land? If we look in Numbers 14, verses 7 and 8, they tell the people, the land that
we pass through to spy it out, it’s an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he
will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.
Caleb and Joshua were looking ahead with eyes of faith, believing that the promises of God
that what lay ahead was far better than anything they had left behind in Egypt. The Israelites
who lacked faith were acting like God didn’t exist and certainly didn’t think that he rewarded
those who seek him. They thought he had simply invented a more painful way for them to die
when Egypt or the wilderness would have done just fine for them. Hebrews 11, 6 says, without
faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe
that he exists and he rewards those who seek him. Faith sees God, it sees the promise that
he made to bring them into Canaan. It believes God is there and that he rewards, that he
fulfills his promise. So we see what faith receives. Faith believes that God will keep
his promise. Faith honors God because it assumes he both can and will do as he has said. Have
you ever been doubted or disbelieved? It’s hurtful, it’s dishonoring. But God doesn’t
require faith just because his feelings are hurt. Faithlessness is in fact sin. John Piper
has given a definition of sin before. He says sinning is any feeling or thought or speech
or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure God over all things. At the bottom
of sin, the root of all sinning is such a heart, a heart that prefers anything above
God, a heart that does not treasure God over all persons and all other things. Sin is the
glory of God not honored, the holiness of God not reverenced, the greatness of God not
admired, the power of God not praised, the truth of God not sought, the wisdom of God
not esteemed, the beauty of God not treasured, the goodness of God not savored, the faithfulness
of God not trusted, the promises of God not believed, the commandments of God not obeyed,
the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished,
the presence of God not prized, and the person of God not loved. Is faith then atonement
for our sin? No. Faith is simply the instrument by which we receive the promises of God, precisely
because it excludes reliance upon ourselves. Now our passage that we’ve looked at in the
evening has a lot to say about those who are unfaithful, the whole nation of Israel it
seems, at least that generation. But what about those of us, maybe here this evening
who have followed the Lord and are still following the Lord, seeking to enter that land, but
feeling beaten down and weary? I imagine Caleb, when he came back from spying
out the land, was full of hope. He tried to stir up his fellow Israelites to enter
the land, but they tried to stone him. Maybe he began to wonder if it was true. Maybe he’d
looked into his own heart and saw that it wasn’t pure, and heard God’s pronouncement
that the whole camp would die in the wilderness, and began to wonder if he had an evil, unbelieving
heart as well. This might be why, at verse 24 of chapter 14, God gives him this encouragement.
He says, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit, and has followed me
fully, I will bring into the land which he went, and his descendants will possess it.
But there’s still a question. God had just sentenced the community to wander in the wilderness
for 40 more years. Some of you, including me, have not been alive that long. Caleb was
already 45. He wasn’t going to get to enter the promised land until he was 85. So much
for enjoying the promised land. He’d be 85 and then have to start fighting giants. But
yes, he’d get to go in. But he’d be so old, maybe he wouldn’t even be up for fighting
giants at that point, which would have to happen before he could start enjoying the
land. Would he even get to see his children and grandchildren enjoying that land that
the Lord had promised? Maybe he’d be too weak to enjoy his reward.
Well, if we turn over to Joshua 14, verses 6 through 14, we see how the story ends. I’ll
just read a few verses here. Joshua 14, starting verse 7, is Caleb talking. He said, I was
40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spread
out the land. And I brought him word again, as it was in my heart. But my brothers who
went up with me made the heart of the people melt. Yet I wholly followed the Lord my God.
And Moses swore on that day, saying, Surely on the land on which your foot is trodden
shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly
followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive just as he said
these 45 years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked
in the wilderness. And now behold, I am this day 85 years old. I am still as strong today
as I was in that day that Moses sent me. My strength now is as my strength then, for war
and for coming and going. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke to me
on that day. This is what he did for Caleb. This is what he does for all his children.
The trials of this life are not worthy of being compared to the glory that awaits.
Brothers and sisters, God keeps his promises. You can bank on that. Caleb entered fields
that were planted, houses that were built, vineyards and orchards ready to yield fruit.
But Christ has gone to prepare a place for you better than any Canaanite could build
for the Israelites to claim. Christ has gone on ahead of us to do it. Caleb and Joshua
had eyes of faith. They could see God’s promises. They were certain they were a reality. They
were able to trust God with far smaller promises than we have today. In 2 Corinthians 1.20,
Paul says, all of the promises of God find their yes in Christ. Jesus is the one who
makes those promises come to fruition. Every promise that God makes to us is fulfilled
through the person of Jesus Christ and in him. The promised land still exists for the
people of God. It’s found in Christ, in who he is and what he has done. It means that
we can rest from our work of trying to earn our own way to heaven. And you don’t have
to wait for it. Brothers and sisters, this begins now. We begin entering this rest now.
You enter this rest if you embrace Christ by faith. There is a promise coming that is
beyond anything you can imagine. But what we have now been given is beyond your imagination
as well. You’ve been given Christ, the son of God, the very image of God who is invisible,
the glory of God himself, the firstborn of all creation, the founder and perfecter of
our salvation, the one who upholds the universe by the word of his power has been given to
you. Embrace him by faith and receive the promises of God for you. Amen. Let’s pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you have not left us without hope, but you have
given us great hope to embrace you by faith, to find that reward, that promise of God,
that you have promised to those that follow you, that hear your word, believe your promise,
that you have promised to be faithful. We ask, Lord, that you would work faith in our
hearts. Keep us from cowardice, faithlessness, or presumptive faithlessness. We ask that
you would work faith in our hearts. Keep us from cowardice, faithlessness, or presumptive
faithlessness, and give us that reward of true faith found in Jesus Christ. We pray
this in Jesus’ name. Amen. In response, we’ll sing Hymn 477. If you would, please stand
as we sing Hymn 477, by grace I am an heir of heaven.