Seeing With Eyes of Faith

--- I always like to begin a lesson with something compelling, something interesting, something upbeat. But this week's lesson is so sober that I'm not sure there's any way I can put a different spin on it. There's one main plot that we need to understand in the Bible from Genesis chapter 12 all the way to right up where we are here. One main plot, and that is that God wants to bless Abraham and his descendants and make them his own people. He wants to bless them by increasing them in number. He wanted to bless them by taking them out of the land of Egypt. He said that they would go into Egypt and then delivering them to Egypt. He wanted to bless them by bringing them into the land he prepared for them. That is the main plot from Genesis 12 right up until now. And in our current study, we're within sight of that finish line. We are within sight of getting that accomplished. And 12 spies are selected. They take a peek into the land for 40 days, and they return with the majority suggestion that they should give up and that they should turn around and go back to Egypt. That is a reversal of the road to redemption. It is a reversal of everything that God has intended so far. And so we ask the question, why this reaction now? They've come so far. Those particular people have invested more than a year in this pursuit. And now their current attitude is, it could be described as paralyzing fear, which leads to disobedience due to a lack of faith. That is where they're at right now. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. The Bible teaches us this. And so what they needed at this point was the title to our lesson, Seeing with Eyes of Faith. And what we need is the title to our lesson, Seeing with Eyes of Faith. We face similar things just like they did. We face potential trouble, uncertainties, perplexing issues. But remember, the God-ordained plot in our life is to press forward to the finish line, that he who began a good work in you will complete it. And so faith says God is able. Fear says not even God can do this. We know that none of the situations that the spies, we know, because we know the Bible, we know that none of the situations they feared were going to come upon them. And the truth is that many of the situations that we fear also don't come upon us. Mark Twain said, I have had a lot of troubles in my life, but most of them never happened. Let that sink in a little bit. And there's a lot of truth there. All right, the location that we're at is not given to us in numbers. It is given to us in Deuteronomy. They are at a place called Kedesh Barnea. Deuteronomy chapter 1 said it was 11 days journey from Horeb, which is Sinai, by way of Mount Sir to Kedesh Barnea. And that is where our narrative starts. So we're going to start reading in Numbers chapter 13.

And then we have a list of all of their names, which ends in verse 16 by saying that Moses called Hosea the son of Nun, Joshua. And these are the things that Moses said that he wanted them to look for. You listed the contrast, whether the people were strong or weak, few or many, whether the land was good or bad, whether they had cities or camps, if it was rich or poor, if there was trees or not. And by the way, bring back some of the fruit of the land. And so they did all that. And you saw on your map how far they went into the land, all the way to Hebron. And they cut some of those grapes and brought back pomegranates and figs. And then in verse 25, it says, at the end of 40 days they returned from spying out the land. And they were holding all this fruit with them and showing them. And verse 27 says, the spies said, they came to the land. Or excuse me, we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit. Here, look. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Malachites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. Now, there's nothing in their report that they hadn't known for centuries. God had told his plot to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Joseph, to Moses right along. Everyone knew. And he often said, I'm sending you to the land that's flowing with milk and honey. It's possessed by seven nations larger and stronger than you are. They went in, they looked at it, and they said, yep. That's exactly what it is. And then in verse 30, because they confirmed that it was exactly the way God said, then Caleb, he quieted the people before Moses. And Caleb says, let's go up at once and let's occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they're stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, it is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them. Now what I wonder is, did they ask? Did they go up to them and say, what do we seem to you? Do we seem like grasshoppers to you? How did they know that? They didn't. It was emotion. You see now in this part of it, their emotion. Do you ever start a sentence saying, I just feel like? I try to get that out of my vocabulary, but it's there all the time. I just feel like we seem like grasshoppers in their sight. That's what they're saying. And so as chapter 13 closes, we see that the report of the 10 men influenced the entire congregation toward unbelief, not believing that God could enable them to do it. Caleb is the man of faith, and he sees with eyes of faith. And Joshua as well. Caleb is the spokesman here. Yet due to the majority report, unbelief, pessimism, the report that said we are not able to do it, that became the popular opinion of the whole culture at the time. And it spread through the camp very quickly. And so now in Numbers chapter 14, because Israel had become very good at weeping and grumbling, we read this,

Now stop there for a minute. Why were they grumbling against Moses and Aaron? What in the world did they have to do with this situation? But this is human nature that we see, and this is very common. When people face fear, frustration, grief, they often forget to take their troubles, their perceived troubles, vertical, and it goes out horizontal. And it often comes out at those in authority over them. It is why teenagers and young adults rebel against their parents. It is why people in church life, Christians, sometimes criticize their leaders, their pastors, their leaders. It's because this is human nature. And if you have ever been a leader or perhaps mentored someone in your life who is challenging you over things and the words ever come out, I'm not the enemy here. But it is kind of human nature that that happens. And we see it happening right here. I mentioned that to say, if you are in a situation like that or you are mentoring someone, don't take it personally. They're not really attacking you personally. It's human nature. It is the sinful nature that comes out. And here's how they grumbled. It says, the whole congregation said to Moses and Aaron, and I kind of made bullet points of these things, would that we had died in the land of Egypt. Would that we had died in this wilderness. Why is the Lord bringing us into this land just to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? In verse 4, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Now, their conclusions here seem to us to be very illogical. Of course, we know the end of the story. But we look at this and we see we want to look at them right here and say, you guys, are you not the ones who saw the 10 plagues in Egypt? Are you not the same people who? sheltered under the blood of the lamb at Passover and were saved in that plague? Are you not the ones that walked through dry land when the Red Sea was parted for you? Are you not the ones who looked back and saw the Egyptian army consumed by the waters? Are you not the ones that ate the bread of heaven and, in fact, are still eating the bread of heaven, the manna that God provided? Are you not the ones that drank the water from the rock when you needed it? Did you not hear God's voice audibly on Mount Sinai? Did you not see the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire? And, in fact, it is still among you. You are the ones who he has brought right to the precipice of Canaan. And you are the ones that are saying, let's just turn around and go back. We read it that way, and we're just mind-blown illogical. And yet we totally understand in our own lives what fear, how it tramples over faith, don't we? We've experienced it. And if we translated this all into the language of our spiritual life, it would sound something like this. No gratefulness for what God has done for me, for reaching out to me, for saving me. We would say, I just wish I'd never been born. Following Jesus is way too hard. I can't do it. It's going to kill me. I was better off when I just lived for myself. I think I'll go back and do that again. That's maybe how it would sound like. We'll come back to that. But right now, the attitudes here, we can see now why these four men of faith, in verses 5 and 6, why they respond. Moses and Aaron fell on their faces. They could see it the way that we see it from the end of the story. Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and said,

What a good sermon. That's good words there. And so Caleb is trying to appeal to them to not let fear have its way. But their response in verse 10 is, all the congregation said, let's just stone them. We don't want to hear this. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting. And that always meant that Moses and God were going to have a talk. And that's what happens next in verse 11. God says to Moses,

And now we come to a part where we see again that Moses is walking in that. He's seen as a type of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in his intercession, interceding for people who do not deserve his intercession and do not deserve God's mercy. But he asks for it anyway. And he appeals to God on these terms. He uses his own words and his own character to appeal to him. And he said, OK, so if you do this, the Egyptians are going to hear about it. And you know how they talk. If the Egyptians hear about it, then all the other nations are going to hear about it. And didn't you say that you chose these people to be your very own? And didn't you say that the sign of that would be that you were in the midst of them, you know, the cloud, the pillar of cloud, and the pillar of fire? Isn't that what you have said? And so he said, you know, you can't do this. And he's appealing to God, saying your actions should line up with the words I've received from your own mouth. And he reminds God of what he said to him on Sinai.

That is how he revealed himself to Moses. And so then Moses says, please now 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. And he intercedes and says, please forgive. Now, the Lord knew that Moses was speaking his own language back to him. And so in verse 20, God says,

And God loves it when we do that. That's why he says according to your word, because Moses' word was God's word. But truly as I live, look at verse 22. God said, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these 10 times and have not obeyed my voice, none of them shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despise 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. And so we want to stop right there, because this is both the high point and the focal point of our lesson. It's very important here. There is a judgment coming for Israel because of their unbelief, which led to their disobedience. But for Caleb and for Joshua and those who did not succumb to the unbelief and disobedience, there is mercy in judgment. We see it all the time in the word. Those who truly have the eyes of faith will see the promises of God. It's like Abraham said to God at Sodom. He said, far be it from you to sweep away the righteous with the wicked. God has his ways of separating out people in times of judgment. Will the people who have eyes of faith be affected by the wicked? Yes, they are often affected. We'll talk about that in a minute. But they are not swept away in the judgment. Now, maybe there's some area in your life as you've done this lesson, as you're listening, where you see that unbelief has a foothold. You not only believe the bad report, but perhaps you worry about it. You change your plans over it. You perpetuate it. You spill it out toward others, just like the 10 spies did. And you influence people in the wrong direction. How would the Lord have us change our attitude and to bless others rather than cause them to grumble and fear? What was the difference between the 10 spies and the two spies? The difference is in that phrase. And if you didn't underline it, underline it now. Caleb had a different spirit and has followed me fully. I love that. Do you think that this different spirit, and Caleb is mentioned again because he's the spokesman, but it's Caleb and Joshua. Do you think that this different spirit came over them in the camp when they heard the report from the 10 spies? Do you think that they developed this different spirit during their 40-day spy mission? Or do you think that this different spirit was cultivated over an entire lifetime? And you can tell what I think. I think that they had developed. They knew who their God was. They knew that he delighted in them. They knew what his promises were. And that enabled them, when the majority report came, to not let it affect them whatsoever. They listened to it and said, no, that's just not truth. I'll tell you what truth is. Because they had cultivated eyes of faith throughout their lifetime. Caleb and Joshua practiced being men of faith. They practiced being men of faith before the temptation was foisted upon them in the camp to listen to the majority report. Do you practice being a woman of faith? Do you practice that? What does a woman of faith look like? And that's what we're going to go to. We're going to go to Hebrews, where this very passage that we're at in Numbers is in mind as the author is writing. And it tells us what a woman of faith, a person of faith, looks like. And I'm going to ask you to watch for a couple key words, unbelief and hardness, OK? I'll put it on the screen for you. It's Hebrews chapter 3. We're going to start in verse 12.

A woman of faith keeps a soft heart. She practices keeping a soft heart. Two times in that passage, we read, don't let your heart get hardened. Don't harden your hearts. Let's go on to the next verse, verse 16.

A woman of faith guards her heart from unbelief. It is not sin, you guys, that keeps us from a life of victory and rest, necessarily. It is a lack of faith, which is described as unbelief that grows to disobedience. That's what keeps us out of abundant living. The carnal life says, it's too hard. It's too high. I can't do it. But eyes of faith say, along with Caleb, yeah, we're able to possess the land. God is with us. God delights in me. And so God will do the work. God will give me the strength. It requires eyes of faith to believe that God is on our side and delights to lead us into abundant life. OK, I want to quote from Andrew Murray, who in his book, Holiest of All, which is a commentary on the book of Hebrews, which I love. I pull it out and read it every couple of years. He says, the Hebrews had faith to leave Egypt. They had begun well, but they had been hindered. Even so, there are many Christians in our churches who never come further than the initial faith of conversion. They say they know God has saved them from Egypt, but they rest content with the thought of having been converted. There is no hearty desire, no earnest purpose to press on to a life of holiness, no readiness to go up into the promised land of rest and of victory. Interesting truth that he writes in that book, isn't it? And so for us, I want to take us to later in Hebrews, where the writer in chapter 10 says this, but we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. That's us. We do not shrink back and are destroyed, but we preserve our souls through faith. We see with eyes of faith. Now, how do we do this? Just optimistic thinking, oh, it's all going to work out, or close our eyes and think happy thoughts and fairy dust, and we'll just get into Neverland somehow. I thought of three things, ways that we do this. Number one, know that this is what God wants for me. God wants for me abundant living. He wants for me the experience of victory and rest in my life. He delights in me. So this is not a life without, this is not a sinless life, and this is not a life without trouble. It is a life that rests in knowing that God is in control and that God's choices for my life are good. It is a restful life. Number two, having a different spirit, a different spirit even than the culture around us. Not leaning on my own understanding, not leaning on the popular opinion of the day, but trusting in the Lord with all my heart. That is a different spirit, is it not, as we walk through this life? And I would hope that each one of you has a different spirit than the culture around you. Third thing, practice a life of faith daily. Taught piano lessons for a couple of decades, and never once did I begin with a Rachmaninoff concerto. No, you begin at the beginning. You practice. You take baby steps, but you practice those until one day you are ready to begin working on that big piece. And we need to practice. We can't expect to respond with eyes of faith next January if we don't practice eyes of faith this February. This is how it works, and so we practice. That is what enabled Joshua and Caleb to come back to see the land completely differently, because they had a life that practiced this. All right, let's go on to find out what happens in our story. Verse 25, now we're going to look at God's three judgments that I want to identify. Verse 25, the Lord says, well, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. Judgment number one, they said that they wanted to go back to Egypt, so God is giving them what they asked for. And he said, all right, you want to go that direction? Turn your back, and you head right back to the Red Sea. And as they do that, what will their back be turned to? It will be turned to the land that God promised them. It is a reversal. They're going back on the road to redemption, but that's what they asked for. And God's judgment on them was, all right, then you can do that. He didn't send it back to Egypt. He just let them go in that direction. Verse 28, say to them, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. He's not killing them. He's just saying they will be there long enough to die. And all of your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb and Joshua. Judgment number two, they said they would rather die in the wilderness. God says, all right, it is time now to just allow you to have what you've been asking me for. And this wasn't the first time that they said that, right? And so he said, all right, in the wilderness you shall dwell until this generation finally dies. Verse 31, the Lord said, but your little ones who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. Judgment number three, you were certain that I was not able to protect your little ones, and so I will bring them in without you. I will protect them without you, outside of your presence. And what about the 10 spies? Verse 36, 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, these are the instigators of the rebellion, OK? They died by plague before the Lord. They did die right there. Only Joshua and Caleb remained alive. And this is the second time that we read, and the third or fourth time that we suspect by connecting the dots that God separates out in judgment. And he had a stronger judgment against those who instigated the grumbling, those who instigated the bad report. There is a stricter judgment on those who teach and who lead. Did we not see the positive side of that when we studied James? Those have the stricter judgment. We see the same thing here. Those who instigated the rebellion, the Lord dealt with swiftly and immediately. Now, they die, but look it, a lot of other people's lives are altered because of their sin. And that is something that we see in our world. We see that the sin of the disobedient, the sin of the wicked, alters, affects the lives of the innocent. Why is that? Every one of you in this room, I'll bet, has been adversely affected at some point in your life because of the sin of another. Why does that happen? Why does God not protect us from that? Well, in Genesis chapter 3, the rulership of this world has been handed over to Satan. He is the ruler of this world. And we live in an existence in the flesh here where sometimes evil affects good people. And it is a sad thing. But you guys, this isn't what God ever intended for us. This isn't God's intention. It's why he started the rescue mission in the first place, to redeem us, to save us from the effects that we live with here. And when we are with him, it won't be like this. We have a hope and a future to know there will be a time when evil will not reach into our lives. It will not affect us. And yet, Caleb, Joshua, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, whoever else was of their eyes of faith, they were affected for another 38 years by having to wait and not going to the land that God promised. But they did see it. God preserved them to be able to experience that. Now, I want to just take a little side trip here and leave Bible teaching aside. And this is just my personal opinion, OK? Can we do that for a minute? I often hear people say, if God isn't going to judge America pretty soon, I just don't know what. And I think, oh no, you have it all wrong. See, He has been and He is judging us. We have been in judgment for a number of decades already. God is allowing us everything we've asked for. Now we're not God's people. However, at the beginning, we reached out to Him and built our culture on His truths. And so we linked arms at the beginning. And then later on, we changed our mind and we kicked Him out. And all the things that we've asked for, and I'm not going to go through it, that's not, you know what I'm talking about. Everything that we've demanded, our independence, we've demanded to go a different way than God's design. Has God not treated us just the way He treated Israel? It's like, okay, then I'll give you what you ask for. And that's where we're at. We are being judged. So what do we do? Okay, now, if you were yourself back in a Hebrew tent in Kadesh Barnea, and you're listening to what's going on, and you're like, you guys, no, how can we, how can you all be thinking the same thing? This is terrible. What would you do? What would you do if you believed Caleb? Well, I don't know what I would do for sure, but I would probably make sure that God knew I was on His side. And I would say everything that they're saying, I don't agree with. And so my tent, remember, is facing the tabernacle and the pillar cloud. And I would just make sure that I was in good standing with the Lord, and that I was continuing to live my life in response to His redemption. All right, so now you're a woman living where you are today. And you look at the culture around and you're like, no, that is so wrong. What do you do? Kind of the same thing. You say, God, I'm going to continue to live my life in response to my redemption. And you've clearly shown me what that looks like. I'm going to make sure that you and me are good. And if you give me an opportunity to be an influencer, I'll take that. But I understand from scripture and from observation that not all that many people are given an opportunity to be an influencer. So I'll wait for you on that. And in the meantime, I'm going to follow you. It's what we do, right? And we believe that there's mercy and judgment. So in the midst of the judgment, even in our culture, we say, God knows how to preserve. God does not sweep away the righteous with the wicked. And we rest. We rest in the place of victory and rest. So we've got to get back to this. Okay, now I'm back to the Bible, okay? That was all just me, okay? But now it's the Bible lesson. And the people heard this verdict, and they mourned greatly. Oh, they were remorseful. They regretted their grumbling and whining. And they got up early in the morning, and they went up to the hill country, and they said, here we are. We'll go up to the place that the Lord promised, for we sinned when we didn't believe. And now we're ready to go. And Moses rebuked them. He said, you guys, this isn't going to succeed. God already said, and it's not going to change. And so in verse 44, we see, here's how our study ends. But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. And then the Amalekites, the Canaanites, who lived in that hill country, came down. They defeated them, and they pursued them even to Horma. These are hard chapters, you guys, hard chapters to read. Like I said, I couldn't pick out very many perky things out of this chapter. But it gives us a frame of reference, because so much of the New Testament writings and warnings rest on this, and we've seen that in our study. So it's important for us to read through the implications of this event. And the narrative has been so clear, you hardly needed me to stand up and connect any dots for you. If you studied the lesson, you knew all this. You got it. It is very, very clear. So I just want to end with one question. What about your own Kedesh Barnea? What about your experience, my experience in that same place? Each of us, we've said this, we travel through our own wilderness. We get to a Kedesh Barnea, looking at the promised land, the land of abundant living. Here's our questions. Will we trust God with all of our heart to bring us into that land, or will we lean on our own understanding and absorb the reports around us and believe them? Will we become obedient and go in and conquer the land, knowing that God delights in us and his strength is in us, or will we shrink back? And as we look at the supposed difficulties and the potential trouble that might be involved in being obedient, we are not of those who shrink back, right? So I want all of us to grow up to be delightful old women who quote Mark Twain and say, I have had a lot of troubles in my life, but most of them never happened. Father, we thank you for this passage, even though it's hard. Lord, it feels good to be inspired by good things in scripture, and it feels good to be inspired as we see the negative aspects. So Lord, I pray that you would help us to make it useful in our life. Lord, help each one of us in this room to see with eyes of faith, whatever obedience you're calling us to, whatever issues you're calling us to, to walk forward. Lord, help us know that you delight in us, that you are with us. And if you open up the path, you will make it happen. It is God who works in us to will and to act. And so Lord, we thank you for this lesson. In Jesus' name, amen. ---