Living for God

when the pressures of work, family commitments,

the pressure to conform to those around us in society,

when all of that stuff starts to build,

will we trust our God?

Will we still place our faith in God?

Will we demonstrate that faith by the way we live,

by the decisions that we make day by day?

I think sometimes the biggest problem that we can face as Christians

is our own unbelief.

That we can, not that we doubt that there is a God,

not that we doubt intellectually that these things are true,

but in the way we live, we demonstrate unbelief.

We demonstrate unbelief anytime we fail to live as we ought to live,

because we don't really believe that God is there watching

and that God cares about what we are doing.

Or we demonstrate our unbelief every time we fail to speak up for Jesus,

because we are concerned that it will affect our friendships

or we are concerned about what people think about us.

We don't really, in those moments,

believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation,

that anyone who doesn't know him can never have an eternity with him

and instead must face judgment.

What happens is that we tend to fear man rather than fearing God.

And this can be a problem for all of us.

Perhaps even today you're wrestling with a decision in your life,

something that you know will have lasting consequences,

and you have to decide, are you going to live for God

or are you going to live for yourself or go your own way?

Are you going to allow other things in this world

to kind of take your, to make you afraid of them

rather than fearing your God?

Or maybe you're still struggling with the consequences

of an ongoing decision that you have made.

Or maybe today you're not a Christian yet

and the decision that you're wrestling with

is whether or not you will make a decision to follow God at all.

The people in Numbers 13 and 14 also faced a crucial decision.

They had to decide if they were going to trust

in the promises and faithfulness of God

or if they were going to go their own way.

In verse 1 of chapter 13,

they arrived at the promised land.

They're on the border, ready to conquer it.

This is what everything else, the promises of God,

have been leading to from when God first started to deal with Abraham.

God promised that they would have this land.

They had to go through the difficult times in Egypt,

but God promised them that he would bring them back to this land

and that this would be their land for their possession.

The promises have started to reach fulfillment

because the nation has grown massively.

Two people become two million people.

God has been faithful in his promise that he would grow the nation.

He's also faithful in the fact that he describes this land

as a land flowing with milk and honey,

a lush and fertile land.

The spies who go to the land in verse 23

find that that is true.

They go to the valley of Esko

and they cut off a branch there

which bears a single cluster of grapes

that's so heavy that it takes two people to carry it.

So the land is a lush land.

It's a fertile land.

God is being true to his promises.

Incidentally, that's actually the image used by Israel's

ministry of tourism today to represent Israel,

the carrying of that massive bunch of grapes

because they still want to give this image

that Israel is this lush and fertile land.

So the spies come back

and in verse 27 they begin their reports

and all of the spies agree

that the land flows,

does indeed flow with milk and honey.

So all of the spies,

even those that will go on to be unfaithful,

agree with this fact

that God is being faithful up to this point.

But then there's a but.

But the people who live there are powerful

and the cities are fortified and very large.

We even saw the descendants of Anak there.

The mood can change in an instant, can't it?

This should have been the moment

when the people were ready to conquer the land.

They should have been excited

that finally they're going to enter this land.

And instead the mood changes in an instant.

I was recently in a planning meeting for an organisation

and we spent the morning

coming up with these great ideas

of what the organisation was going to do to advance.

And then in the afternoon

we invited in the member of staff

that was going to have to carry out most of these plans.

And suddenly the mood changed in an instant.

All of the enthusiasm was gone

and he just put a dampener on everything.

Well at the end of the,

at the end of the,

at lunchtime we felt excited about the future.

By the end of the day

that was no longer the case

because the mood can change in an instant.

And that's what the spies do here.

The ten spies come back,

the people are ready to take the land

and they give the but.

They change the complete mood of the meeting.

Basically these ten spies who give this report

are overwhelmed by the fear of man.

But there is a minority report.

Caleb silenced the people

and he demonstrates his complete faith in God.

He silences the people

and tells them that they can.

We should go up and take possession of the land

for we can certainly do it.

And he's not alone, Joshua,

as we see later in the passages with him.

These two men demonstrate their faith.

They demonstrate that they fear God rather than man.

Now tragically we've read the passage

and we know that the people followed the majority.

And one commentator describes this

as snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

They got so close and yet fell so short.

And then afterwards God appears

and of course he's furious with the people.

And we read then his judgment

that comes as the consequences

of these people's unbelief.

So as we look at this passage this evening

we want to see what lessons can we learn

when we come to face difficult decisions in our lives

where we have to decide if we're going to follow God

or if we're going to go our own way.

We need to decide like the people here

are they going to trust that God is faithful

and keeps his promises

or are they going to be afraid of people

and the situations around them.

So I want to look at this under three headings this evening.

First of all we'll look at the fear of the people

then the faith of Caleb and Joshua

and then the fury of God.

So let's start with the fear of the people.

The people are essentially sent in these ten spies

to do market research

to prepare the people for the conquest of the land.

Now from the first verse that we read

this is the land that God is giving to his people.

They're not meant to come back

and say oh I don't think we should do that.

They're not meant to come back

and question God's plan.

They were meant to go in

and find samples of the fruits in the land

to find out about the land

in order to really encourage the people

that this is the land you should be going to.

That's why they were to bring back this fruit.

But of course the ten people

the ten spies come back

filled with the fear of the people of this land.

They describe just how powerful and strong

these people are

and they see these nations

as an insurmountable obstacle

that they cannot conquer.

They say they cannot win

they think they will die if they go to it.

And then they're so worried

because Caleb speaks up

and gives a more positive report

that they start to exaggerate the claims

in order to deter the people

from following Caleb.

So they basically engage in fake news

which is so popular at the moment.

Or what is also always been known as propaganda

where they take a grain of truth

something that is true about it

and they exaggerate that

to basically discourage the people.

So the ten spies come back

and they say in verse 32

they spread among the Israelites

a bad report about the land they had explored.

They said the land we explored

devours those living in it.

All the people we saw there

are of great size.

And they go on to talk about the Nephilim

that they saw there.

Now that is true.

The people they saw there

some of them were of great size.

The Nephilim are the ones

who Goliath was one of.

So he was the giant that David would later face.

So there are some people in this land

that are large.

That are scary people to engage in conflict.

But the races that have been described earlier

there's more than just this one race.

So to say that all of the people are very large

is this way of propaganda.

It's this way of creating this image

that this is unsurmountable.

They then go on to give even more propaganda

when they say that we felt like grasshoppers.

A grasshopper was basically

the smallest edible creature in this time.

So to say they feel like grasshoppers

is a bit like us saying they felt like shrimp.

They felt like utter nothing.

You can see how this is designed

to create fear amongst the people.

This is pure propaganda.

So instead of encouraging them,

instead of doing what their job was meant to be,

the spies tell them

the land is too difficult to conquer

and that they will die in the attempt.

So the spies look at the nations

as an insurmountable obstacle.

But their fundamental problem

is that they have given in to unbelief.

They don't believe that God is able

to conquer these people.

But it should never have been this way

because there's a little detail

in amongst the account

that just gives a hint of this.

They went to the Negev

and they came to Hebron.

Now Hebron is quite an important place

in the history of God's people

because Hebron is where Abraham and Sarah are buried.

It's where Isaac and Rebekah are buried.

It's where Jacob and Leah are buried.

This is a place that should have reminded

the spies of their history,

of these great people in the past,

the patriarchs that God had been at work with,

had made promises to

and those promises were coming true.

And God was faithful to these people in the past.

So they come to a place like Hebron.

They were meant to remember what God had done.

Instead, what we read about

is that when they came to that place,

they were more preoccupied

by the many people that live there now.

They were focused on the people,

not what God had done in the past.

So the people start to rebel.

And in chapter 14,

we start to see this rebellion.

Shockingly in verse 3,

this rebellion is even against God,

not just against Moses and Aaron.

It says,

Why is the Lord bringing us to this land

only to let us fall by the sword?

Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.

Wouldn't it be better for us

to go back to Egypt?

The people who have been enslaved

for 400 years in Egypt

want to go back to that

rather than going into this land.

They want to go back to the oppression

and the slavery.

Now these are the people

who have seen firsthand

what God did to free the people from Egypt.

They've seen the plagues

that God brought against Egypt.

They saw God part the Red Sea,

which seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.

These people saw these miraculous displays

of God's power

against Egypt,

which was probably one of the strongest nations

in the ancient world.

And now they say that God cannot defeat

these small city-states in Cana.

They're completely rejecting

God's plan of salvation,

of redemption.

They're completely rejecting

that God can actually save them,

that God can actually defeat these nations.

They're saying he's not powerful enough.

This would be like a Christian saying,

basically, I wish Jesus had never died for me

and that I just remained in my sin.

That's how much they're throwing this back

in the face of God.

So they're demonstrating

that they don't believe God is sufficient.

They're denying his power and his presence.

Essentially, this shows so clearly

their unbelief.

And there's this shocking sinful tendency,

isn't there,

that to always go back

to the former ways of life.

Something actually we experience

in our own life sometimes as well,

that we always go back

to the addictive ways of sin and despair,

even after we see God working

on our behalf.

Because here's the thing,

their unbelief is irrational.

We know that God has defeated Egypt,

that they should know

that he can defeat these nations.

But if we're honest,

so is our unbelief irrational at times.

We know so much about

what God has done for us in the past

and what he has promised to do in the future.

And yet we still demonstrate

by our actions our unbelief.

So we proclaim that God is the one

who created the universe out of nothing.

Yet we don't think he has the power

to help us with our problems.

Or we believe that God directs

the course of history

and kings and nations.

And yet we find it hard to believe

he can help our friends

come to faith in him.

We believe that God entered history

as a baby in Bethlehem.

And yet we find it hard to believe

that God is active

in our own personal history.

We believe that God and Jesus

suffered on the cross for our sins

and rose again triumphantly

to free us from our sins.

And yet there are some sins in our life

that we think maybe God can't forgive that.

Or maybe he can't help me

with that besetting sin in my life

that I can't get rid of.

Our unbelief is just as irrational

as the people's.

We know what God has done in the past.

We know his promises.

And yet we still sometimes refuse

to fear our God.

And inevitably when that happens

we fear people rather than God.

And the circumstances get in our way.

We start to get anxious.

We get worked up.

And we get too easily stuck

inside our own heads.

We're like a drowning man

clinging to a heavy stone

and we refuse to give up

that unbelief.

But there is hope in this passage.

And there is hope for us.

Because there are people

who demonstrate a different attitude.

A different spirit as God later says.

Caleb and Joshua present

the minority report.

Like so many committees

the committee who is sent

into this land is not unanimous.

There are two people

who have a different version

of the facts.

Well, actually not a different version

of the facts.

They agree on the facts.

They agree that this is a good land.

They agree that the people

are very strong.

But they believe

that God is able to conquer.

There is a story that is told

in sales training

kind of for motivation

about a shoe salesman.

He basically went

to a far away country

and he writes back in despair

to his headquarters

saying they don't wear shoes here.

No prospects for sales.

A few years later

another man went

and he wrote back

great prospects for sales here.

They don't wear shoes.

Two people can look

at the same facts

and come to a different conclusion.

And that's what happens here.

We have the ten spies

and we have Caleb and Joshua

and they come

to a different conclusion.

Caleb says in verse 30

as we've seen

we should go up

and take possession of the land

for we can certainly do it.

Now this isn't mere bravado.

This is confident faith

that God is with them.

These are not the words

of someone who just

wants to go for a fight.

This is someone

who really believes

that God will give them the land.

And Joshua backs him up

from verse 7.

The land we pass through

and explore is exceedingly good.

If the Lord is pleased with us

he will lead us into that land

a land flowing with milk and honey

and will give it to us.

Only do not rebel

against the Lord

and do not be afraid

of the people of the land

because we will swallow them up.

Their protection is gone

but the Lord is with us.

Do not be afraid of them.

So how is it

that these two groups of people

who have both experienced

similar things

have both seen

what God has done

rescuing the people

from Egypt.

How can these two groups

of people

come to such vastly

different conclusions?

Well the clue

is actually in the text.

In verse 27

in chapter 13

the people come

and they give this report

to Moses

as we've already read.

and the people say

we went into the land

to which you sent us.

Essentially saying

we went to the land

that you, Moses

sent us to.

Whereas

if we went back again

to the first couple of verses

in Numbers 13

this is the land

that God

is giving to them.

Essentially

the spies

focused on the size

of their enemies

they focused on the obstacles

and they left God

out of the picture.

They forgot all about him.

And that was what made

the difference

between how Joshua

and Caleb respond

and how the ten spies respond.

They look at exactly

the same facts

but Caleb and Joshua

have the perspective

of faith

not unbelief.

They know

what God is capable of.

They remember

the Lord's faithfulness

in the past

they remember

that God had been with them

they remember

his promises

and they have faith.

Interestingly

Joshua

has fought

one of the nations

mentioned here

in the past.

The Amalekites

are mentioned

as one of the

nations

that they are going in

and in Exodus 17

Joshua

is involved

in leading the armies

against the Amalekites.

Now this is the incident

where Moses

has to keep his arms up

and they only win the battle

as long as Moses

has his arms up

because God's

involved in it

and that's the sign

that's being used.

But what's very interesting

is at the end

of the battle

when they've been victorious

God makes a promise

that he will wipe out

this nation

and he says

make sure

you tell Joshua

what happened.

Make sure

that Joshua

knows

that I was the one

behind this battle

that I was the one

who helped them

have the victory.

So Joshua

was being prepared

in many ways

for this day

when he would go

into the land

he would see the nations

of the Amalekites

and he would remember

that they had defeated

them in the past

with God's help

and that these things

would be possible

in the future.

Essentially

what happens here

is that the majority

of the spies

compared

the nations

to Israel

and therefore

they thought

Israel will lose.

Caleb and Joshua

compared the nations

to the Lord Almighty

and that made

all the difference

because of course

the Lord Almighty

would defeat them.

This was the God

who had parted

the Red Sea before them.

This was the God

who had already

defeated Egypt.

Why would he

abandon them now?

So the question

becomes for all of us

who are we

going to fear?

Are we going to fear

people,

man

or are we going

to fear God?

That was the situation

for Joshua

and Caleb

and it's the situation

for each of us.

If you forget God

ultimately

you will fear men

because you'll not believe

that God is able

to help you

in the situation.

So if we simply

look at the obstacles

that we face

whether as individuals

or as churches

we know

that we will be

outmatched.

We will inevitably

fall short

if we're looking at it

purely from a human

perspective.

Purely looking at it

from what strength

and might

we have.

I'm sure there are times

when all of us

have felt like grasshoppers.

We've felt surrounded

by insurmountable challenges

and humanly speaking

that possibly was true.

You or I

do not have the power

to bring someone

to faith in Jesus

and you or I

do not have the power

to deal with sin

in our life

otherwise why would

we need Jesus?

But faith recognizes

that the world

is not viewed

correctly

purely from a human

perspective.

Faith recognizes

that God is at work

that he is in control

that this is his world

and no matter

how great the opposition

if the Lord

is pleased with us

our future

is assured.

If God's calling

someone to become

a Christian

they will become

a Christian.

Even if it's only

our weak words

that they have

to listen to

God can use

even the weakest

of words

even the poorest

of presentations

of who he is

in order to bring

people to faith

in him.

And if God's at work

in our hearts

then we can be assured

that one day

our sins

the problems

we wrestle with

will be fixed

that one day

we will be glorified

with God.

This knowledge

that God is able

to do this thing

is the only thing

that has helped

God's people

throughout the ages.

It's the only thing

that has allowed

people to stand up

in faith

for God

in the midst

of horrendous

situations

even worse

than the world

that we face now.

Humanly speaking

Joshua and Caleb

looked utterly foolish

but God was pleased

with them

and so Joshua

and Caleb

entered the land

later.

They inherited the land.

Later

there will be tales

of how Joshua

and Caleb

defeat all of these

nations

that are mentioned

here.

They feared God

and so they were

freed from the fear

of man

and we have to

follow their example.

So there's a sharp

contrast in this passage

between the fear

of God

and the fear

of man

depending on

who you listen to.

And the question

for us then

is which

when we face

a hard choice

this coming week

or these coming months

which side

will we fall on?

But before we get

to that

it's worth spending

a bit of time

thinking about

the consequences

of unbelief

because that's

the final point

that we see

in this passage

and the final point

this evening

the fury

of God

because the assembly

are furious

with Joshua

and Caleb

and they are ready

to stone them

and then God

steps in.

In the midst

of the rebellion

he steps in

and declares

his fury

at the people's

rebellion.

He pronounces

the judgment

against the people.

Now

in our modern world

we don't like

to talk about

the fury

or wrath of God

the judgment

of God.

We find these

things uncomfortable

but the Bible

is absolutely clear.

God is a holy God

and God will judge

the wicked.

He'll judge

those who don't

and not his people

who are rebelling

against him.

And actually

without that

there is never

any justice.

We need the fact

that God is a God

of justice

that he will judge

in order for us

to be assured

that justice

will operate

in the world

and the end of time

God will judge

the world.

But the question

becomes

do we believe

in this God

of judgment?

Do we believe

that in the end

God will judge people

and therefore

we have to tell people

about Jesus

in order to show them

there's a better way?

These words

in this passage

are extreme

and we have to realize

that these words

are the fury of God

against not the

surrounding nations

but against his own people.

That's how serious

he takes this rebellion

and how much

this must have hurt God

that these people

who he had rescued

who he'd been with

were rebelling

against him

again.

He's forced

by his own majesty

and holiness

to rise up in judgment

even against his people

so we see

what that anger

means to God.

He's ready

to wipe them out

and yet Moses

intercedes

on behalf

of the people.

Now

we could spend

an entire evening

looking at

Moses' intercession

and how he prays

for the people.

Essentially

he goes to

two truths.

He says

on the basis

of God's glory

and on the basis

of God's merciful nature

he prays

that the people

would be forgiven.

He acknowledges

that the Lord

is a God of justice

and that the Lord

is a God of mercy

and he asks God

in accordance

with his promised

faithfulness

to the people

his covenant mercy

to forgive them

despite the fact

that they are in rebellion

against him.

And God answers

and does forgive them

but their sin

still has consequences

just as we know

that our sin

has consequences

that we can be forgiven

and yet there can still

be negative

bad consequences

in our life

from decisions we make

that are not

the way God

would have us live.

The people don't get

the total annihilation

they deserve

but they're still

going to be punished

and ironically

what God does

as a punishment

is he gives the people

what they want.

The people said

it would be better

for us to have died

in the desert.

God says you'll die

in the desert.

He actually gives them

exactly what they asked for.

He grants their request

and so the long term

program of entering

Cana will be delayed

until this whole generation

of rebels have died out

in the wilderness

and a future generation

will inherit the land.

It's often said

that the Old Testament

is full of wrath

and the New Testament

is full of mercy

but that's nonsense.

We see here the truth

that mercy and justice

work side by side.

God doesn't completely

wipe out the people

but he does punish

their sin

and this is an illustration

actually of something

that C.S. Lewis wrote

in The Great Divorce.

He said this

there are only two kinds

of people in the end.

Those who say to God

thy will be done

and those to whom

God says in the end

thy will be done.

All that are in hell

choose it.

Without that self-choice

there could be no hell.

No soul that seriously

and consequently

desires joy

will ever miss it.

Those who seek find.

Those who knock.

It is opened.

The people choose

to die in the wilderness

and God answers

their request.

And as we draw

to a conclusion

this evening

that raises the question

will we decide

to follow God

or follow our own desires?

Will we be people

who say to God

thy will be done?

Or will we be people

that demand

that our will

is done by God?

The good news

for all of us

is that just like

Moses stood

and interceded

on behalf of the people

we have someone

who intercedes

for us.

Jesus, God's own son.

And what's interesting

is that Moses

had to rely

on the character of God.

He didn't have

anything to bring.

He merely asked

on the basis

of God's character

that he would forgive

the people's rebellion.

Whereas Jesus

did so much more

than that.

Jesus went to the cross

and paid the penalty

that we deserved

for our sin.

He took the punishment.

So that while the people

had to face

the punishment here,

the consequences here,

Jesus took the punishment

on himself.

And following his resurrection,

Jesus stands

interceding for each of us,

making sure that God knows

that we are his people.

And at the end of time,

he's the one

who will stand up

at the judgment day

and say,

that person I died for.

I have already bared

and borne the punishment

that they deserved.

If you're not a Christian

here tonight,

you have to make a decision.

Will you bear

the punishment yourself

for all the wrongs

that you've committed

in your life?

Or will you place

your faith in Jesus

and his faithfulness

and the fact that he

has already done

all the work?

Will you demand

to God

that your will is done?

Or will you humbly

come to him

and rest in him

knowing that he has

already done it all

for you?

You don't need to strive

in your own power

or strength any longer

because Jesus

has done all the work.

And if you are a Christian

here this evening,

do you recognize yourself,

your own persistent

unbelief at times?

Do you recognize

the times when you

don't obey God,

you don't put him first

as you ought to?

We all need to wrestle

with this problem

of unbelief in our lives

because we are not perfect.

We need to follow

the example of Jacob

and Caleb,

Jacob,

Joshua and Caleb,

who remembered

the promises of God,

remembered God's

past faithfulness.

That was what allowed them

to face the trials

that came their way.

We also need to remember

the promises of God

and his past faithfulness

to us.

We need to know

that God is with us

and God promises

to be with us

to the end of the age.

We need to know

the promises

that he has in store

for us in the new heavens

and the new earth.

We need to know

that Jesus rescued us

on the cross

as the ultimate demonstration

of who God is,

of his love for us.

And we also

have to recognize

that the challenges

that Joshua and Caleb

and the people faced

were real.

This would not be

an easy nation

to conquer.

There would be difficulties

in going in

and conquering the nation.

So we will also

face challenges

that are obstacles

that we will encounter

as a church

and as individuals

that will seem

insurmountable to us

and will be hard

to get through.

But the promise

of God

is to get us through it,

to be there with us

and ultimately

that he will restore

all things.

So when we come

to face challenges

and tough decisions

this coming week

and these coming months

and years,

we have to look

to our God.

Remember that he

is involved.

Remember his promises

to us,

his faithfulness to us.

And we also have to look

to one another

to support one another

because that's one of the things

the church is there for.

Joshua and Caleb

supported one another.

And that's what you see

throughout scripture

is this need for people

to have support

from one another.

So as a church,

that's one of the things

we have to be able to do.

So whenever we face challenges,

we need to remember

to cling on

to the promises of Jesus

and his faithfulness

in the past.

And we do need to pray

like the man

who said to Jesus,

Lord, I believe,

help my unbelief.

Let's pray.

Father God,

we do confess

there are many times

when we don't demonstrate

our belief in you.

we pray.