Exploring the Land May 22, 2016 Numbers 13 It has been 430 years, 430 years since any of Abraham s family have stepped foot in the Promised Land. For 430 years they have heard about this land that had been promised by God to Abraham and his descendents, but none of them had ever seen it. I am sure the legends abounded. I am confident that they all had an opinion about what it would be like. But no one had actually been there. What did they know? Well, they knew that it was a good land, prized land. But they also knew it was currently home to the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They all lived there. It was currently their home. But their God had promised it to them, had promised to drive out these people as with a hornet before them. This land would soon be theirs! And yet, we all know the feeling of anticipating Christmas or birthdays only to open your gifts and deal with the disappointment of things not being as good as you expect. Socks! Books you are supposed to read. The same gift you got last year but never even opened. Yes, we have all been there. In fact, I am so bad a picking out gifts that Joan picks them all out for everyone, even herself. I m just not very good at gift giving. I hit a home run about 1 out of 20. My ideas are usually rejected. My kids don t even thank me for the presents because they know they come from Mom. But here, in our study of the life of Moses, the people of Israel are about to enter the land, the Promised Land, the land given to them as a gift by their heavenly Father. What would it be like? That is the question before us. We are now out of Exodus and into the book of Numbers. So, turn with me to Numbers 13 where we read this next installment in this saga. For the first time, some of the Israelites get to see their new home. READ Numbers 13. Main point: Our Father gives His children good gifts. (Amen?) But He expects us to use eyes of faith to see them as good. Let me put in a different perspective. Jesus said this in the sermon on the mount, (Matthew 7:9-11) Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him
a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him? So, we know that He gives good gifts. Right? And yet, sometimes they don t seem so good to open them, especially if they are not as we expected. So as we study this event, let us learn our lesson through them. Just because things don t look like we planned, it doesn t mean that our Father is not a good gift giver. The truth is that He expects us to trust His judgment, and His promises. He gives good gifts! Amen? (2 parts) I. It is human nature to want to peak at our presents. vv. 1-25 I don t blame the Israelites for wanting to look. I would want to know the very same things. They were getting a gift of land that they had never seen. v.1- The LORD said to Moses, 2 Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders. They had finally left Mt. Sinai, and now were at the southernmost border of the Promised Land. I can only imagine the excitement and the stress. Here in Numbers, the idea of exploring the land comes from God. I d like to read the account from Deuteronomy 1 to give additional details. Deut. 1:19- Then, as the LORD our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea. 20 Then I said to you, You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. 21 See, the LORD your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
22 Then all of you came to me and said, Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to. 23 The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. 24 They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. 25 Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us. So, in Deuteronomy, the LORD charged them to go in and take the land. Then the people asked Moses if they could go in and take a look before entering. We see from v.22 that their purpose in going was to bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to. In other words, they didn t have satellite photos. They didn t have detailed maps. They needed boots on the ground to plot out a strategy. In Numbers, the emphasis is on the search party. The LORD wants representative of all the people to catch a glimpse of the land. Why? I suspect because He knew it would be hard and He wanted them to know going in what was there. He has been telling them consistently that there were people living in the land, but assuring them that He would drive them out before them. But here, I see another step in that effort to inform them ahead of time without scaring them into retreat. 3 So at the LORD s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. 4 These are their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; 5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; 6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; 7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; 8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; 9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; 10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; 11 from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi; 12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; 13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael;
14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; 15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki. 16 These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land. (Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.) Why the detail about names here? I m not sure, but I do note that several of the names have el in them. Others are words conveying biblical truths, like Hoshea, which means salvation. And we even see the detail that Moses changed his name to Joshua, which means Yahweh saves. In other words, the names themselves reminded them of their connection with the LORD. But, in an overall sense, all of these representatives were trusted leaders, probably young, strong leaders, the type that would lead the people into battle. They represented every tribe. The information about the land would be affirmed by all and their leaders would have a sense of where they are going. This is not a bad idea. 17 When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 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? 20 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.) Don t these just sound like the questions of people who were dying to peek inside their presents? They were interested in the land, and its suitability for farming. I think it s cute that they want them to bring back some of the fruit. Show us this abundant fruit (as if you would be able to tell the productivity of the land by a bushel of olives). They were interested in the cities, and whether they were fortified. Uh oh, I see here not only a reference to cities that you did not build, but also a how hard is it going to be to defeat them? And then we have the questions about the people, how many and how strong? That sounds to me like there is concern. Is this going to be a cakewalk or a struggle? And yet, what do we already know? The truth is that it doesn t matter how many or how few. It doesn t matter how strong. Remember the Egyptian army? With their chariots? It doesn t matter how fortified are the cities. The plagues of Egypt
infiltrated every single household, every body of water. The LORD has promised them victory. He would be fighting for them. HE would drive them out before them. Yes, He has been warning them all along that there are people living in the land, but that warning was always in the context that He would move them out. He was giving them this land, and He could take it from the current occupants. 21 So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath. 22 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.) What do we see here? They went it from the south and went all the way to the northern edge (Lebo Hamath). They came back down in some sort of circular route. In other words, they saw it all. But then we notice the town where three noteworthy people lived, who were sons of Anak. Oh dear! Now we have a problem. We don t know it yet, because this is the first mention of Anak in all of Scripture, but this is a problem. In other words, it is significant that these three men are mentioned and their forefather is mentioned, even if we don t know why yet. Then we see that Hebron, this city of note had been built roughly at the same time as a city they knew in Egypt. Why again is this important? We don t yet know. 23 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. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there. 25 At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. What do we see here? They were to bring back some of the fruit of the land. And the fruit they brought back was grapes, the sign of plenty, of blessing. And the grapes they brought back were in just one cluster, one single stem. But the stem was so large that it had to be carried on two poles by two men. In other words, something that should have been as big as a volleyball was as big as a volkswagon. (Not really, but you get the point.) This was the land of plenty!
This was a good land. Fruit grew in the valleys. Bountiful fruit grew in the valleys. And remember, they would not have to plant the vineyards because someone already had planted them for them. They could walk right in and harvest a crop. So, let s pause right there. You ve heard the mission. You ve seen the report. What would have been your take on it? Ready to go? Excited or afraid? It all depends on your perspective. And it is not just a matter of optimism or pessimism or realism. It really is a matter of trusting the promises or not. It was the same situation with David and Goliath. (Oops, there s a connection here that we do not know about yet!) But it was not that David was just more optimistic than his brothers. It was a trust in a promise that could not be tamped down. David did not need to peek inside the package to see if he could win. He knew he would win because his God had already promised victory. It s the same thing. Can you see where this might go with us? We are often put in the same scenario. We know what God wants from us. We are confident of the directive, but we want just want to peek to know what we are in for. And as is so often the case, it is a mix. The peek can be viewed either positively or negatively. And so now, which do you believe? II. Not everyone sees things the same way. vv. 26-33 We all receive the same basic information, but the conclusions could not be further apart. The spies all saw the same things, but they came back with totally different reports. 26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak
there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan. The group report, the part they all agreed with, the facts as they saw them were not in dispute: the land was everything God had described it to be. The fruit was as luscious, the bounty of the land was overflowing. The people were all there, the Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Canaanites were all there. There were a lot of them and they lived in well defended cities. Everything was as promised. But then we again note that the sons of Anak were among them. Why? We don t know yet. 30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it. Caleb gave the first assessment. Let s go. What they found was in perfect harmony as described by God. No reason to hesitate. Let s roll! 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, We can t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. Then we have the other assessment, one shared by the majority of the spies. The people we saw are stronger than we are. Did Caleb (and Joshua) not think they were stronger? Not at all. The issue was not who was stronger, but whether the situation fit what God had described. Since it all fit together, and God had already promised victory, there was no reason to hesitate. But to the others, the size of the people, the physical strength of the people scared them. They probably looked at the size of the men, imagining it as an army, and compared it to this invading nation of women and children, and elderly, and livestock, and possessions. You can t defeat an army with a string of U-Hauls! 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the
descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. Notice the shift here. Now the land of plenty was like a hungry lion, devouring everything in its path. So, the land itself was suspect. And the people, the people were all huge, every single one of them. And then, we saw the Nephilim! Now we see the connection. The Nephilim is a reference to Genesis 6, a strange passage that describes the children from the Sons of God mating with the daughters of men. These children were the Nephilim, the heroes of old, the men of renown. Now, I am not going to deal with all the possibilities of who these people (or creatures) were, but rather to see them as this text sees them. These were people of legend, larger than life people, stronger than anyone else in history, champions of the battlefield. The Nephilim were back and living in the promised land! Now, let me close the loop by reading a short section of Joshua 11 to you that refers to these same people. READ Joshua 11:21-22. At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns. No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive. So Joshua wiped out all of these giants, these Anakites, these Nephilim...except for a few that lived in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. Wait, where was Goliath from? Gath. (I Samuel 17:4) Are you beginning to see the picture? Yes, there were some huge people who lived in the land, warriors of legend. But if you understood who your God was and what it was that He had promised you, it wouldn t matter how big they were. Joshua killed them all, except a few. And then generations later, David picked up where Joshua left off and killed Goliath. You see, neither Joshua here in Numbers and later in Joshua, nor David were bothered by what they saw. They were clinging to the promise. The size of the Anakites just made the promise that much more amazing. Put it this way. If the land was empty and the people were gone, then how would that have proven how strong was their God? If the land had been empty, they wouldn t have needed the promise. But the purpose of the promise was to display the glory of God. Isn t that what the LORD said? The people you live
among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. Of course the land is full of people, fortified cities, warriors of renown. They have to be there to show how mighty and awesome is our God! Yes, we look like grasshoppers compared to them. That was by design! Are you catching the point? The issue is not optimism versus pessimism or realism. The issue is the promise of God and the purpose of the mission. And we must know that His plans are intended to bring Him glory. By definition that means the obstacles will be huge, insurmountable. So, we ought not be surprised or discouraged when we see them. We ought to believe the promise and not the legend. We ought to respond to whatever we see with faith and not fear. Right? If we believe this is the Word of God, then what should be different about our lives? 1) We will temper our curiosity to peek. 2) We will trust the plan of God rather than our instincts. 3) We will expect the obstacles to be huge. 4) We will receive the good gifts that our Father gives to us with thanks by faith.