After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.” But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!” But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” [Numbers 13.25-33]
I want to be very clear here today - the report the spies brought back to Moses and the people of Israel was not wrong. The land was indeed good, the people were indeed big, and the towns were indeed fortified. The spies faithfully reported what Moses instructed them to report! Look at the previous verses 17-20:
Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land: “Go north through the Negev into the hill country. See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps? Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see.” (It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes.)
However, the interpretation of the report brought by most of the spies is where they made their faithless mistake.
Having been part of the "faith movement" for many years now, I have heard much teaching about the importance of our "confession." Let me just say that I remain faithful to that. However, I wish to differentiate myself from the faith movement in this one point: it is not wrong to report what is seen!
What is wrong is to take what is seen as fact and interpret it without faith. For example, Jesus did not deny the existence of "the mountain," but He denied the existence of the mountain to deter His faith!
Where the spies (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb) failed, was not in reporting what they had seen, but in interpreting what they had seen without faith!
Caleb is on record of having made a model faith statement:
But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!” [Numbers 13.30]
See the difference? Caleb was not in foolish denial about the circumstances, but he disallowed the circumstances to deter his faith. Caleb had some memory it seems of God's deliverance of Israel up to this point (the Red Sea event to name one instance).
There is a huge lesson about faith in this story.
Father, help me to understand the difference between recognizing facts and responding in faith!
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