By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé
While discussing this week’s study, one that takes us to the Promised Land, itself, Michael said something that completely illuminated this story as well as, and more importantly, the character and heart of God. He said,
“Don’t be dogmatic. Don’t look down from above, at what happens to the Israelites. Use your ears and listen to God. If you depend on your brain, you will judge them. You judge with your brain. You learn with your ears when it’s God you’re listening to.”
With these words, we begin a Scriptural odyssey into a Bible lesson that is written to, once again, this week, change our lives, if only, we will listen carefully to what God is telling us. Our temptation will be to judge. May we rise above this.
It is a familiar story:
The Israelites, led by God, who spoke primarily through Moses, finally arrived at the threshold of the Promised Land. What a time it was! It was the stuff of legend and of that which had long been desired.
Now the Israelites were there. The Promised Land was just across the Jordan River. It was so close that they could see it. Dreams had become sight, hope, a reality. The excitement must have been almost incomprehensible!
And, of course, the God of powerful strategy and order, had a perfect plan for His People to take possession of this promised world. At God’s command, Moses sent out one man from each ancestral tribe to explore Canaan, the Promised Land. They were to scout out whether the land was good or bad, the present inhabitants weak or strong.
This advance team was gone forty days. When they arrived back in camp, it was with conflicting accounts. While all agreed that it was a land that flowed with milk and honey, ten of the twelve scouts reported that they saw fortified cities which would be formidable to capture, and that, besides, there were giants in this land.
Caleb, speaking for himself and Joshua, strongly disagreed, saying,
“We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
(Numbers 13:30) NIV
These differing ideas of what to do were in a philosophical street fight. And then it got worse.
Though the twelve scouts had spoken directly to Moses, soon, the words of the ten doubting men found a much larger audience:
“But the men who had gone up with him, (who had gone with optimistic Caleb), said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. And THEY SPREAD AMONG THE ISRAELITES A BAD REPORT ABOUT THE LAND THEY HAD EXPLORED.”
They went on:
“…we seemed like grasshoppers IN OUR OWN EYES, and we looked the same to them.”
(emphasis added)
(Numbers 13:31-32, 33) NIV
Oh, how tragic it is when we, in our own eyes, see ourselves as grasshoppers, when it is God, Himself, who is leading us! God help us not to judge others, yes, but may He also deliver us from judgement regarding ourselves, the very People of the Creator of the Universe —. we who are traveling under the banner of the miracle-working Most High God!
Michael says,
“Yes, these ten fearful scouts were about God’s business in scouting the Promised Land, but they were not about God’s business when they returned in fear, a fear that they quickly passed on to two million of God’s People!”
“Not God’s business!” Michael’s wise words warn us of a condition in which we never want to find ourselves. God will never put His Promised Land within our grasp unless He has equipped us to take it and to flourish there.
We so well recall the census which God ordered. Michael reminds us of this:
“It is crucial that we don’t forget that this Bible Book is still titled, “Numbers.” Who was counted in the census? It was those 20 and above who could make up the military.”
Michael continues,
“God was saying to the Israelites, ‘Train your army, your warriors, to be able to fight giants. God was making an army to take on the world.”
He is doing the same today. There are giants, enemies of God, in our promised lands. May we never forget that we are the warriors who are well prepared to find victory over them. If God sends us, He has us covered. He has our backs.
Of course, we have seen a pattern of fear with the Israelites and, sadly, it does not take a different turn here:
“That night, ALL the members of the community raised their voices and WEPT ALOUD. ALL the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘IF ONLY WE HAD DIED IN EGYPT…WOULDN’T IT BE BETTER FOR US TO GO BACK TO EGYPT?…WE SHOULD CHOOSE A LEADER AND GO BACK TO EGYPT.”
(emphasis added)
(Numbers 14:1-4) NIV
How can this be! Egypt and slavery are the same thing.
The reaction to this was immediate. Moses and Aaron fell facedown. Caleb and Joshua tore their clothes, along with giving the Israelites reminders that God would bring them victory.
The Israelites returned their consternation with threats to stone them.
And the LORD? Moses talked Him out of striking this People dead in its entirety by arguing, once again, that the Egyptians would hear about it and say,
“The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.
Moses then pleaded to God:
“…forgive the sin of these people.”
(Numbers 14:17-18, 19) NIV
Such a scene as all of this was is difficult to imagine! The loud weeping of two million people, the falling on faces, the tearing of clothes, the LORD’S anger and disappointment, altogether conjure up an image that is apocalyptic!
Yes, of course, once again, God forgives them but He also imposes consequences:
“…not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times. — Not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.”
(Numbers 14:22-23) NIV
Instead, God said that they would be sent back to the wilderness where they would pass on from this life, over time, during the next forty years. — one year for every day they spent scouting the Promised Land, trembling before its giants.
Who then, did God say would enter this Land after the forty years of wandering? Those under 20, at the time of the census, would, under the leadership of Caleb and Joshua, enter the Land.
So key is the fact that God will never break his oath for the Israelites to live in the Land He promised their ancestors so long before. It just would not be the ones who stood within sight of it that day. It would be their children.
As Michael so eloquently says,
“In God’s world, ladders don’t change; only the people on them change. The Promised Land, the rising up the spiritual ladder to the high level of God’s Paradise is always the same. He doesn’t lower the Land to meet the courage level of those climbing up to it. Some will back down the ladder and not climb it. New people, like the next generation of Israelites, will summit, will cross the Jordan to the high plain, God’s Canaan, the Promised Land.”
What was the Israelites’ reaction to God’s decision?
“When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly…’Now we are ready to go up to the land the LORD promised. Surely, we have sinned.
But Moses said, ‘Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed. Do not go up, because THE LORD IS NOT WITH YOU. You will be defeated by your enemies.”
(emphasis added)
(Numbers 14:42) NIV
Despite this warning, some of the Israelites attempted entry, where they were summarily routed, as Moses warned them they would be.
God knew after their first forty day trial period, scouting the Promised Land, that they were not then, nor would they ever be, capable of taking Canaan. They could only see giants, not God’s unlimited power.
On the other hand, God gave them forty years to reflect on this failure and to teach their children how to avoid their own mistakes. He didn’t remove this power from them.
Michael says of this.
“People do what they do. God gives them time to grow.”
This generation would not cross over Jordan but they would have a forty year span of time when they could favorably influence those who would. This is far from nothing.
We began this week’s study with Michael’s sage words not to judge the Israelites. How easy it is to look at the overview of this sequence of events and to do just that, to do the thing that comes so easily to all of us. — to judge.
Michael says that, instead of taking it upon ourselves to be judgmental with our brains, we would do well to listen to God with our ears, to listen and learn.
In this vein, I’m wondering something. I’m wondering how many promised lands we are just across the Jordan from. I’m wondering how many giants we are seeing beyond the Jordans in our lives, seeing and allowing them to convince us to back down the ladder Michael speaks of, thereby missing out on experiencing the higher plains with God to which that ladder would take us. God help us to climb on up the ladder, the metaphor for rising to the higher spiritual land. God help us to cross the Jordan, a symbol for the last push to take possession of what God has promised.
Michael always says,
“Get to God the best way you can.”
Will there be giants to overcome? Probably. This won’t matter. God specializes in reconfiguring the giants so that we see them in the divine perspective —. That is as minute, diminished, inconsequential.
God has put a higher world, a loftier relationship with Him right in front of us. It is our Promised Land of the soul. The ladder to this can take us up to it. As Michael says, this will never change. The direction of God will always be upward. Let’s climb it. Let’s reach for the sky, for the heavenly realms of God.
Very sweet! And, compelling! Good job, Jill and Michael.