Faith for a Faithless World - The Spirit of Joshua and Caleb

Faith for a Faithless World The Spirit of Joshua and Caleb

 

Numbers 14: 8-9 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."

 

The enemy will stop at nothing to try and discredit God. He will constantly be trying to get us to doubt what God has already promised us. The sad reality is that he succeeds far too often. Children of Almighty God are constantly selling their own inheritance short. We constantly settle for so much less than God has planned for us simply because we do not believe what God has said. We trust our own senses, lean on our own understanding and watch as the blessings God intended for us never come to fruition.

 

Such was the story even as far back as the original chosen people of God, Israel. In the early part of Genesis we see the promise of the Lord:

 

Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. Genesis 12: 6-7

 

And so this promise remained through Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Through the travels of the Israelites into Egypt where they survived a famine but eventually became enslaved. For hundreds of years they served as slaves to the Egyptians. God would deliver them through Moses but the people were never satisfied. Upon arriving at the Promised Land, Moses would send out twelve spies to survey the land and report back. They would spy out the land for forty days. Ten of them would report back negatively and two would bring back a positive report. The ten represent everything that we do wrong when approaching God with faithless lives and the two represent the correct way to approach the promises of God.

 

Now all 12 would agree that the land was as good as God said it would be. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. They had brought back a single cluster of grapes to prove it but as the Bible describes it, this was no ordinary cluster:

 

When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs. Numbers 13:23