Numbers 13:17-25 [Taste & See Series #5] Pastor Ron Koehler Grace Tucson, AZ July 8, 2012

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1 Numbers 13:17-25 [Taste & See Series #5] Pastor Ron Koehler Grace Tucson, AZ July 8, 2012 When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land. (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.) So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath. They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 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. That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there. At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. In the name of the Lord, who is good, dear friends, Did you celebrate a special day this past week? I bet some of you did. You might have celebrated it in a number of ways: maybe you didn t lie about anything, not even in a teasing way; maybe you confessed something to a friend or your spouse that you ve never told them What? You look confused. Ahh, you thought I meant the 4 th of July! I was talking about yesterday, the 7 th of July! You mean to tell me that you didn t celebrate National Tell The Truth Day? I guess it doesn t surprise me since I might be one of the only ones who even knew it was National Tell The Truth Day! Believe it or not, there is such a day. That we might need a day where we re told to tell the truth is pretty sad, really. With God, every day is Tell The Truth Day. There was a particular time when God told the truth to his people, but they didn t believe him. He made them a promise, but their fears just didn t allow them to believe and that s where the grapes come in. Today our Taste and See worship series brings us to Numbers 13:17-25, the account of the They were and they GRAPES OF PROMISE IN CLUSTER VALLEY 1. Evidence of God s Faithfulness 2. Remind Us to Trust God s Word After hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites, the chosen people of God, those who had received the promise of a Messiah to come through their people, made their way out of Egypt, travelling through the desert wilderness south of where you and I find the nation of Israel today. A few month s trek took them to Mt. Sinai where they remained for a year or so, after which they moved north toward Israel. So the account we read from Numbers 13 took place somewhere toward the end of the second year out of Egypt. After two years of traveling, they were on the edge of the land God had promised to give to his people. 300 years prior to this, Joseph made this statement to his brothers: God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land (Egypt) to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 50:24). The promise had been repeated and handed down and remembered by God s

2 people, treasured by them. They were already God s people, they were promised this land of their own, and the Savior from the world s sin would come through them. These were sacred promises. Now here they stood, listening to their God-appointed leader Moses telling them (This is from Deuteronomy 1:6-8.): The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to their descendants after them. Can you imagine the excitement?! After 700 years or so of promises from God about this new country all their own, can you imagine how they must have felt?! God promised them this land and now he was telling them to go in and take it! I suppose if we were among them, nothing would have been able to stop us. We would have been so eager. Or would we? Details found in Deuteronomy chapter 1 reveal that instead of rushing in to seize the object of God s promise, the people asked if they could send in spies to check things out first. It seemed like a good idea to Moses too, so he asked God. And so we hear in this account from Numbers that God said Send them in one from each tribe. So these twelve leaders of God s people Shammua, Shaphat, Caleb, Igal, Hoshea (Joshua), Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi and Geuel undertook a 40- day, several hundred mile round trip exploration. Their mission? See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land. They accomplished their mission and Cluster Valley was a key stop along the way. The Valley of Eshcol means Cluster Valley. It was named that because that is the lush spot where they took a knife and cut a cluster of grapes from the fruit-filled vines. God had promised them a land that would overflow with good things for his people. Those GRAPES OF PROMISE IN CLUSTER VALLEY were proof that God had kept his word! God was absolutely right this was a bountiful land, preserved for his people. Along with those grapes, they took pomegranates and figs back to Moses. The people would truly TASTE AND SEE that the Lord is good! Those grapes were EVIDENCE OF GOD S FAITHFULNESS to his promises.

3 This all sounds so wonderful; it worked out so well. They could TASTE AND SEE that the Lord is good, that he had made good on his promise, and that this land was now theirs. But before we talk a little about what all this has to do with us, I have to share some bad news with you. All the kids here this morning know what Show and Tell is, right? You get to take something of yours into class and show it to everyone and tell them something about it. Well, that s what these Israelite leaders who were exploring the land did and it didn t go so well. Yes, they had this nice fruit from the land to show everyone that was not the problem. Opening their mouths and talking about it was the problem! Ten out of the twelve explorers gave a report that got everyone worried. They started out saying, The land is awesome it flows with milk and honey! BUT, they continued, the people are powerful, the cities are big and surrounded by walls. The people are fierce giants. Even after Caleb and Joshua interrupted and said, No, we can do this! the others talked among the people, exaggerating and distorting things so that the people were afraid and cried and rebelled against Moses and Aaron. They complained that they should have just died in Egypt or in the desert rather than be killed by the scary people of this new land. But Joshua and Caleb supported Moses and Aaron and said, The Lord is good. The Lord can do this and will give it to us. Don t be afraid, the Lord is with us. And the Lord s people wanted to kill them. And now you know why they wandered 38 more years (making it a total of 40) before they were allowed to enter the Promised Land. The consequence of their sin, of not trusting God s promise, was that the people would wander one year for every day that those spies explored the land. The whole generation who rebelled would die out and only Joshua and Caleb and those 20 and younger at that time would later be able to enter and receive the blessed fulfillment of God s promise. Though his people didn t deserve it, God would make good on his promise. His people would enter this wonderful land. Those grapes from Cluster Valley were evidence that God was faithful, but his promise was ignored. I m wondering again how we would have handled the situation. Would we have been as faithful and trusting as Joshua and Caleb? Would we have been ready to rush right in, trusting in God s promise? In the face of challenges and opposition, would we have spoken up about our trust in God to work things out for our good? You know, it s not as if God had earned a reputation for being unreliable. But the people did not believe him. They let what they saw get in the way of what they knew of God. They trusted what they saw and what they felt would happen instead of trusting God s 100% promise. That is a grievous sin in the eyes of God. Sadly, I think that we do the same. I think we sin the same way.

4 You heard Jesus, in the gospel for today, say that you don t have to worry about your life because God is going to take care of you even better than he takes care of the beautiful birds or the glorious flowers. Be honest now, have you worried about your job, the house, your finances, your health? Have you wanted more stuff than you have and fretted over not being able to have a better car, a better house, nicer clothes, more toys? Raise your hand if you have ever fretted or worried about such things. Look at this we have all not trusted the promise of God! Even as we stare at the grapes in our lives evidences that the Lord is caring for us just as he said, we won t trust that he ll continue to do so! And some of you are really not gonna like this. Jesus says seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Some here today do not trust that promise of God. They are not seeking what God wants. They give little thought to his kingdom and the spread of the gospel. I say that because that promise from Jesus goes hand-in-hand with this promise which is also not trusted: Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the LORD Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it (Malachi 3:10). Here s the fact: God asks you and me to give joyful, regular, generous offerings to him which are in proportion to what he has given to you. And he makes the promise that he is going to bless you when you do it. But how many of us are sitting here today and our offerings to God are not regular, but sporadic or even non-existent? How many of us do not give generously and in proportion to God s blessing because of fear? We re afraid that we won t be able to make ends meet. We re afraid that we won t be able to have the vacations or the toys we really want for ourselves. The bottom line is that we do not trust God s promises of abundant blessings when we give as he asks. We don t like to hear that. Who knows, maybe some of you will respond to me like those Israelites responded to Moses and Joshua and Caleb with anger (hopefully not death threats!). Our problem is the same as theirs we don t trust God s promise. And we reap what we sow. We continue with discontentment, with financial struggles, with lack of fulfillment from the things we ve bought for ourselves with God s money. In the worst cases, the love of money and the things of this world take over and saving trust in God is lost altogether. Spiritual death awaits that person like death in the desert wilderness awaited the Israelites whose fears got the best of them and caused them to reject the promises of their God. The grapes from Cluster Valley are a reminder for us to trust God s promises of care and providing. A Christian person who treasures those promises and trusts them is not content to give sporadic, piddly, leftover, grudging offerings to God. They re more like Joshua and Caleb, who in the face of challenges and voices telling them otherwise, stood their ground and trusted God s promise and acted in faith.

5 In the lesson from 1 Corinthians that we read earlier, you heard that you have spiritual gifts. But some of you don t feel that you do. There s not really anything I can do you say. Or you simply do not use your abilities to serve God and his people. Do fears hold you back? Are you afraid to offer to help here at church? Are you afraid that you ll mess something up? Are you afraid of offering your time because that won t leave enough time for you to do what you want? I won t be able to sleep in on Sunday morning if I feel like it not if I sign up to usher or serve fellowship after the service or sing or What I want to do is what I m focused on instead of what God wants me to do. Like the Israelites standing at the edge of the Promised Land with God telling them to go, we stand there with God telling us to trust his promise that he has gifted us to serve and encouraging us to do it. Will we focus on what we see and what we want or what God sees and what God wants? What consequences might the Lord let us endure because we reject his will? You know, sometimes we look at the Israelites in disbelief. How could they not trust God s promises when they watched the waters of the Red Sea divide as the Lord saved them and drowned the Egyptians who chased them? God did such great things for them, how could they not trust him when he spoke to them? Really? If those men and women and children were here today and the actions and thoughts of your life were recorded for them to view, do you think they might say the same about us? God has blessed you too! Just think of the blessings in your life. I m not even gonna try to list them you do it. You have seen and felt and experienced his undeserved love. You have been provided for. Even when you were behaving foolishly and sinfully, God was faithful to you. Unlike those Israelites, you have been privileged to know the full extent of God s love in Christ. What a blessing that is! God brought his Messiah through those people and when he came, he made the necessary sacrifice for sin just as God promised! Their forgiveness came as they trusted that God WOULD send that Savior; ours comes when we look at the cross of Christ and trust in Jesus death for us. You know what that means. It means that our sins of fear, which lead to sins of many other kinds, including the couple mentioned already it means that all those sins are forgiven as we look to him, trusting that promise. With a clean conscience then we can go forward. In thankfulness for the love of God in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can make the necessary changes of heart and life. We can watch out for that creeping fear that focuses more on what we see than on the promises of God found in his Word and we can push that fear aside. This is not impossible for us. You have TASTED AND SEEN that the Lord is good, so be Joshua and Caleb! Show God your trust! Live your faith! Look at the grapes in front of you, the evidence of God s faithful love in your life and live that trust in God s promises! Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Supporting Cast. from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi; 12

Supporting Cast. from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi; 12 Supporting Cast Moses Trust in the Lord THE PEOPLE Recon God s Command o Numbers 13:1-3 The LORD said to Moses, 2 Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From