The Faithful Spies
Bible Study Time 4-9-06
Church links:
Bible Study Time 4-9-06
When the children of Israel left Mt. Sinai, it took them 11 days to reach Kadesh Barnea on the border of the promised land. As we see in Deuteronomy, Chapter 1, and verse 21, when they arrived at Kadesh Barnea , Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:21 (NKJ)
21 'Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.'
Well, after seeing God part the waters of the Red Sea and after seeing the awesome signs of God’s presence at Mt. Sinai, you would think that the children of Israel would be filled with confidence in this God who had promised to protect them and give them the land of Canaan. But such was not the case. In verse 22, Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:22 (NKJ)
22 " . . . everyone of you came near to me and said, 'Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.'
Don’t you such kind of have to wonder where this is coming from. God said, go, and now they were saying, wait a minute, first let’s send some spies to spy out the land. This was not God’s idea.
Actually, this venture was doomed to bring failure and disappointment to the children of Israel because they were sending these spies in to see if they could conquer the land, and God never told them that they could conquer the land. God said, I have set the land before you. I have given you the land. The children of Israel needed to rely upon the strength of the Lord. Sending these spies in was only going to reveal their own human weaknesses unless they were willing to look through the eyes of faith.
The fact that the children of Israel wanted to send in spies to view the land was not a bad idea in and of itself. If they had said, we know that God is willing and able to give us the land. God has promised us the land, and what He has promised He will do, but let’s just send in some men to take a look so that with God’s help we can come up with the very best plan of attack. If they had said this, I am confident God would have been very pleased. God does not want us to be foolish as we walk by faith. That’s why Moses said in verse 23:
Deuteronomy 1:23-25 (NKJ)
23 "The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.
24 "And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out.
25 "They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, 'It is a good land which the LORD our God is giving us.'
Then Moses reminded them of their rebellion and said:
Deuteronomy 1:26 (NKJ)
26 "Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God;
Here we see what was really in the hearts of the people. Their hearts were full of doubt and fear, and that’s why they wanted to send in the spies. They were just looking for an excuse to keep from going into the land.
Now let me just stop and ask you this. What excuses are you making to God today? What excuses have you made that are holding you back from all that God has called you to be and all that God has called you to do. Excuses like these are all based on the lies of the devil.
The devil was deceiving the children of Israel to keep them from going into the promised land. It is sad how susceptible they were to the lies of the devil. But that is the way human nature is. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to see through the lies of the devil.
All that the children of Israel could see was the danger ahead. They could not see the powerful deliverance that God provided for them when they left the land of Egypt, when all the firstborn sons of Egypt were killed by the death angel because they were not covered by the blood of the Passover lamb. They had forgotten about the fact that the Egyptians loaded them down with all kinds of gold and silver and clothing before they left Egypt. God had revealed His awesome power not only in Egypt but also at the Red Sea and then again at Mt. Sinai.
Satan’s deception is also made evident by the fact that the children of Israel really had no viable alternative to going on into the land of Canaan, but still they refused to go in. Did they really think they would be safer in the wilderness? Where would they get water? What would they eat? But for the power of God, they would die in the wilderness. Satan had truly blinded their eyes to the glorious power of God.
All they had hoped for was at their fingertips. While in Egypt, they had prayed for God to deliver them, and God sent Moses. They had hoped to return to the promised land, and now here they were encamped along its border. All they had to do was go and possess the land, but did they go? No. They rebelled against the command of the Lord their God. Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:27,28 (NKJ)
27 " . . . you complained in your tents, and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28 'Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, "The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there."'
This provides a great lesson for us today. How many people today are blinded by the devil to the great salvation which God has provided for us? All of the joy and all of the peace and all of the love that people are desperately seeking, God is offering through Jesus Christ. All we have to do is reach out and take it.
All we have to do is look back at the mighty works that God did for the nation of Israel to know that the God of the Bible is the true and the living God. All we have to do is look at the great miracles that Jesus performed, and we can know that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. All we have to do is look at the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and we can know that all of the Old Testament scriptures were given to lead the world to Jesus Christ. All of these things God has provided, but still people shrink back in unbelief, and Paul says that:
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 (KJV)
3 . . . if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So people today are blinded to the truth of the gospel just as the Jews at Kadesh Barnea were blinded to the kingdom which lay before them, and like the Jews at Kadesh Barnea people today have no real alternative to Jesus Christ. There is not another religion on the face of the earth that offers forgiveness for sin. All other religions are religions of good works. Just do the best you can and then hope for the best. They do not offer forgiveness for sin because they have no means of forgiveness.
Jesus Christ offers forgiveness for sin because He died on the cross for our sins. He made atonement for all sin. Therefore, He can offer forgiveness. No other religion comes close. People who try good works for salvation often end up frustrated, and they turn back to their old ways. This is like turning back to Egypt with all of its misery and despair.
Jesus Christ is the only real alternative when it comes to hope for the future. He offers forgiveness for sin and the hope of eternal life. If you find yourself being paralyzed by sin, and you’re afraid of dying because you don’t know what monsters you will face on the other side, turn to Jesus Christ and believe. Paul wrote to Timothy and said:
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJ)
7 . . . God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I spoke to you a moment ago about Weldon and Doris Rightmer who served the Lord faithfully at the Liberty Heights Chapel for so many years. Recently, Doris Rightmer was in the hospital for some surgery, and she was such a source of encouragement to everyone who came to visit her. When people came to see her, she would quote this verse:
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJ)
7 . . . God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
What a beautiful testimony! Whenever we find ourselves experiencing a little fear, we can turn to the Lord and trust in Him. That’s what King David did. He said in Psalms 53:
Psalms 56:3 (KJV)
3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
The Jews were afraid of the giants on the other side of the Jordan River, and if you find yourself being afraid of the giants that are on the other side of this life, you can put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you believe that He died for your sins, He will forgive your sins, and He will give you eternal life. When the children of Israel shrunk back in fear because of the giants in the land of Canaan, Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:29-30 (NKJ)
29 . . . Do not be terrified . . . of them.
30 'The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
Moses did not try to deny that Israel’s enemies were real. He knew they were going to have to face many strong enemies, but He also knew the power of God. He knew that God was going to fight for them with the same power that He had revealed in Egypt and the same power that He had revealed at the Red Sea. He knew that if God be for us, who can be against us?
Now before we close I’d like for us to look at Joshua, Chapter 1, for just a moment, where God speaks to Joshua after the death of Moses and, of coarse, after Israel has wondered in the wilderness for forty years. In verse 1 we read:
Joshua 1:1-3 (NKJ)
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying:
2 "Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to . . . the children of Israel.
3 "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
Joshua 1:10-11 (NKJ)
10 Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
11 "Pass through the camp and command the people, saying, 'Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.'"
Then Chapter 2 says:
Joshua 2:1 (NKJ)
1 Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there.
Of coarse we know that God spared Rahab’s life because she believed in God, but here we see that Joshua sent out spies before leading the children of Israel into the promised land. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not a lack of faith to gather information so that we can make plans for the future. It’s not a lack of faith, that is, if we do it believing in the power of God and trusting God to lead us in His perfect will. God does not want us to be foolish in our approach to the future. He wants us to be wise and to walk in wisdom.
Did you know that God gave us the Bible so that we can make good, solid plans for the future? He didn’t want us to go into eternity without knowing the means by which we could be received eternal life. The Bible is God’s way of providing us with the information that we need.
If you don’t know Christ as your Savior, the question for you today is this. Will you be willing to make your plans for eternity based on the information that God has provided in His word. The Bible says that:
John 3:16 (KJV)
16 . . . God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure being with you, and I’ll look forward to being with again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Deuteronomy 1:21 (NKJ)
21 'Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.'
Well, after seeing God part the waters of the Red Sea and after seeing the awesome signs of God’s presence at Mt. Sinai, you would think that the children of Israel would be filled with confidence in this God who had promised to protect them and give them the land of Canaan. But such was not the case. In verse 22, Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:22 (NKJ)
22 " . . . everyone of you came near to me and said, 'Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.'
Don’t you such kind of have to wonder where this is coming from. God said, go, and now they were saying, wait a minute, first let’s send some spies to spy out the land. This was not God’s idea.
Actually, this venture was doomed to bring failure and disappointment to the children of Israel because they were sending these spies in to see if they could conquer the land, and God never told them that they could conquer the land. God said, I have set the land before you. I have given you the land. The children of Israel needed to rely upon the strength of the Lord. Sending these spies in was only going to reveal their own human weaknesses unless they were willing to look through the eyes of faith.
The fact that the children of Israel wanted to send in spies to view the land was not a bad idea in and of itself. If they had said, we know that God is willing and able to give us the land. God has promised us the land, and what He has promised He will do, but let’s just send in some men to take a look so that with God’s help we can come up with the very best plan of attack. If they had said this, I am confident God would have been very pleased. God does not want us to be foolish as we walk by faith. That’s why Moses said in verse 23:
Deuteronomy 1:23-25 (NKJ)
23 "The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe.
24 "And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out.
25 "They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, 'It is a good land which the LORD our God is giving us.'
Then Moses reminded them of their rebellion and said:
Deuteronomy 1:26 (NKJ)
26 "Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God;
Here we see what was really in the hearts of the people. Their hearts were full of doubt and fear, and that’s why they wanted to send in the spies. They were just looking for an excuse to keep from going into the land.
Now let me just stop and ask you this. What excuses are you making to God today? What excuses have you made that are holding you back from all that God has called you to be and all that God has called you to do. Excuses like these are all based on the lies of the devil.
The devil was deceiving the children of Israel to keep them from going into the promised land. It is sad how susceptible they were to the lies of the devil. But that is the way human nature is. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to see through the lies of the devil.
All that the children of Israel could see was the danger ahead. They could not see the powerful deliverance that God provided for them when they left the land of Egypt, when all the firstborn sons of Egypt were killed by the death angel because they were not covered by the blood of the Passover lamb. They had forgotten about the fact that the Egyptians loaded them down with all kinds of gold and silver and clothing before they left Egypt. God had revealed His awesome power not only in Egypt but also at the Red Sea and then again at Mt. Sinai.
Satan’s deception is also made evident by the fact that the children of Israel really had no viable alternative to going on into the land of Canaan, but still they refused to go in. Did they really think they would be safer in the wilderness? Where would they get water? What would they eat? But for the power of God, they would die in the wilderness. Satan had truly blinded their eyes to the glorious power of God.
All they had hoped for was at their fingertips. While in Egypt, they had prayed for God to deliver them, and God sent Moses. They had hoped to return to the promised land, and now here they were encamped along its border. All they had to do was go and possess the land, but did they go? No. They rebelled against the command of the Lord their God. Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:27,28 (NKJ)
27 " . . . you complained in your tents, and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
28 'Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, "The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there."'
This provides a great lesson for us today. How many people today are blinded by the devil to the great salvation which God has provided for us? All of the joy and all of the peace and all of the love that people are desperately seeking, God is offering through Jesus Christ. All we have to do is reach out and take it.
All we have to do is look back at the mighty works that God did for the nation of Israel to know that the God of the Bible is the true and the living God. All we have to do is look at the great miracles that Jesus performed, and we can know that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. All we have to do is look at the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and we can know that all of the Old Testament scriptures were given to lead the world to Jesus Christ. All of these things God has provided, but still people shrink back in unbelief, and Paul says that:
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 (KJV)
3 . . . if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So people today are blinded to the truth of the gospel just as the Jews at Kadesh Barnea were blinded to the kingdom which lay before them, and like the Jews at Kadesh Barnea people today have no real alternative to Jesus Christ. There is not another religion on the face of the earth that offers forgiveness for sin. All other religions are religions of good works. Just do the best you can and then hope for the best. They do not offer forgiveness for sin because they have no means of forgiveness.
Jesus Christ offers forgiveness for sin because He died on the cross for our sins. He made atonement for all sin. Therefore, He can offer forgiveness. No other religion comes close. People who try good works for salvation often end up frustrated, and they turn back to their old ways. This is like turning back to Egypt with all of its misery and despair.
Jesus Christ is the only real alternative when it comes to hope for the future. He offers forgiveness for sin and the hope of eternal life. If you find yourself being paralyzed by sin, and you’re afraid of dying because you don’t know what monsters you will face on the other side, turn to Jesus Christ and believe. Paul wrote to Timothy and said:
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJ)
7 . . . God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
I spoke to you a moment ago about Weldon and Doris Rightmer who served the Lord faithfully at the Liberty Heights Chapel for so many years. Recently, Doris Rightmer was in the hospital for some surgery, and she was such a source of encouragement to everyone who came to visit her. When people came to see her, she would quote this verse:
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJ)
7 . . . God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
What a beautiful testimony! Whenever we find ourselves experiencing a little fear, we can turn to the Lord and trust in Him. That’s what King David did. He said in Psalms 53:
Psalms 56:3 (KJV)
3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
The Jews were afraid of the giants on the other side of the Jordan River, and if you find yourself being afraid of the giants that are on the other side of this life, you can put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you believe that He died for your sins, He will forgive your sins, and He will give you eternal life. When the children of Israel shrunk back in fear because of the giants in the land of Canaan, Moses said:
Deuteronomy 1:29-30 (NKJ)
29 . . . Do not be terrified . . . of them.
30 'The LORD your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
Moses did not try to deny that Israel’s enemies were real. He knew they were going to have to face many strong enemies, but He also knew the power of God. He knew that God was going to fight for them with the same power that He had revealed in Egypt and the same power that He had revealed at the Red Sea. He knew that if God be for us, who can be against us?
Now before we close I’d like for us to look at Joshua, Chapter 1, for just a moment, where God speaks to Joshua after the death of Moses and, of coarse, after Israel has wondered in the wilderness for forty years. In verse 1 we read:
Joshua 1:1-3 (NKJ)
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying:
2 "Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to . . . the children of Israel.
3 "Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
Joshua 1:10-11 (NKJ)
10 Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
11 "Pass through the camp and command the people, saying, 'Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess.'"
Then Chapter 2 says:
Joshua 2:1 (NKJ)
1 Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there.
Of coarse we know that God spared Rahab’s life because she believed in God, but here we see that Joshua sent out spies before leading the children of Israel into the promised land. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not a lack of faith to gather information so that we can make plans for the future. It’s not a lack of faith, that is, if we do it believing in the power of God and trusting God to lead us in His perfect will. God does not want us to be foolish in our approach to the future. He wants us to be wise and to walk in wisdom.
Did you know that God gave us the Bible so that we can make good, solid plans for the future? He didn’t want us to go into eternity without knowing the means by which we could be received eternal life. The Bible is God’s way of providing us with the information that we need.
If you don’t know Christ as your Savior, the question for you today is this. Will you be willing to make your plans for eternity based on the information that God has provided in His word. The Bible says that:
John 3:16 (KJV)
16 . . . God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure being with you, and I’ll look forward to being with again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
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