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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Friday, 06 March 2009 10:15 |
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Num 13:1-2, 17-20, 25-14:3, 26-35
February 8, 2009 - Lindsborg Cov.
“Whom Will You Fear?”
(Fear of God vs. Fear of Man)
Sermon
Let me ask you a question this morning. What are you afraid of? What scares you? Can you think of anything that just strikes fear deep in your heart?
For example, I am afraid of lightning, among other things. I have been for years. Now, I know that many of you really enjoy a good Kansas thunderstorm, and my wife would be numbered among you. If there is a big thunderstorm she wants to run out into the yard to watch it, while I want to crawl down into the basement and pray that it is over soon.
So, what are you afraid of? Go ahead and just shout it out to me. What scares you? (Wait for response)
OK, thanks for sharing. I really expected at least one of you to say that you are afraid of lengthy sermons. But, since none of you mentioned it . . .! Just kiding.
We are all afraid of something, aren’t we? Everyone is afraid of something or someone. Sooner or later, we all bump into something that scares us.
Now, we also have what we call phobias. Phobias are an extreme, irrational fear. For example, I mentioned lightning before. I have a painting in my office that pictures a big bolt of lightning coming down out of the sky. If I had a full blown phobia of lightning then I would not be able to hang that painting in my office. In fact, I couldn’t even be in the same room with that picture because it would be too frightening. That kind of extreme, irrational fear is very unhealthy, even debilitating.
However, on the flip side, a complete lack of fear can be equally unhealthy, dangerous, even deadly. It is not wise to fear nothing. A healthy sense of fear helps maintain appropriate boundaries. Fear can actually keep us safe.
This whole topic of fear brings us to our lesson for today. If you were here last week, you might remember that Pastor Jeff told the story of when God gave Israel the law. Before He gave them the written law, etched on stone tablets, He simply spoke the law to them from the mountain. You might remember that the presence of God was so dramatic, so violent, so threatening that the people were completely terrified. They begged Moses not to have God speak to them directly. They said, “You speak to us and tell us what He said and we will listen, but don’t have God speak to us lest we die.” That is how frightened they were to be in the presence of God that day.
Well, God did establish the covenant with His people and even renewed it when they immediately broke it. He is now almost ready to send them in to claim the land of His promise. There is only one last preparation to make. God establishes the CIA. You look startled. You didn’t know the CIA had such a deep history, did you? Yes, God founded the CIA, the Canaanite Intelligence Agency.
God tells Moses to select one man from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to act as spies. They were to go as a team across the Jordan River into the land of promise and explore the land and bring back a report to Moses and the people.
So, that is what Moses does. He appoints a representative from each tribe to act as a spy. He tells them to see whether the land is good or bad, how many inhabitants there are and whether they are strong or weak, whether the cities are un-walled or fortified, whether the soil conditions are fertile or poor, and whether there are trees or not. He also instructs them to do their best to bring some fruit back from the land because it was the beginning of grape season.
These twelve men cross west over the Jordan River and begin to explore the land. They are gone for 40 days. When they return they are indeed carrying some fruit from the land. Among other things they have some grapes. The grapes are huge! One single cluster of grapes is so big it takes two of them to carry it back!
They report to the people that this new land is a lot like Texas. OK, well, the Bible doesn’t exactly say “Texas”. If you have ever known someone from Texas who was proud of his state, you know that everything is better in Texas. And that is what they found in the land of promise. Everything is better! It is an exceedingly fertile land. The crops are good, the water supply abundant, the trees fruitful. They describe it as a land flowing with milk and honey.
So, the good news is that everything is better in Texas. However, a true Texan will tell you that everything is also bigger in Texas. And it was. The fruit is bigger, again, it took two men to carry home a single cluster of grapes. And the cities! There are many fortified cities of massive proportions. The horizon is dotted with gargantuan imposing fortresses with impregnable walls. They said, “We don’t have a chance to get through there. And even if we did, then we would have to run into the people, and we don’t want to do that, because they are huge too! In fact, many of them are actual giants!” They said, in verse 33, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them”
So, they said, “The good news is that everything is better there, but the bad news is that everything is bigger there.” In 13:31, ten of the spies conclude, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”
However, there are two hold-outs. Two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb offer a dissenting opinion. They are in favor of taking the land. In fact, they try desperately to talk the people into going in. They agree with the other ten spies that the land is exceedingly good, flowing with milk and honey (14:7-8). But they can also see the tide turning. They can tell that the people are afraid and beginning to balk.
Twice in 14:8-9 Joshua and Caleb encourage Israel not to be afraid of the pagan inhabitants, and they offer several reasons:
1. “Because their protection is gone. God is fed up with these people and He has removed their protection, so they are now weak and vulnerable.” (14:9)
2. “Because the Lord is with us. God is on our side!” (14:9)
3. “The Lord will give us the land. He has already promised it to us!” (14:8)
4. “We will eat them for breakfast! We will swallow them up.” (14:9)
They even warn the people that not to go in would be rebellion against the Lord (14:9)
The ten spies had already spread a bad report among the people about the promised land and managed to stir up Israel’s fears and uncertainties about the future. The people raised their voices and wept aloud (14:1). The whole assembly grumbled against their leaders, Moses and Aaron (14:2) They said they wished they could have died in Egypt (14:2). They would even have preferred to die in the desert than by the sword of their enemies (14:2).
They predict two things will happen if they go in swinging: 1. All the men will be killed by the sword (14:3), and 2. The women and children will be taken as plunder (14:3).
So, the people mutiny. They consider stoning Joshua and Caleb (14:10) for having the audacity to deliver a favorable report. They even propose choosing a new leader to take them back to Egypt. (14:4) They are forever wanting to go back into their former slavery. To say the least, the people are not happy.
But neither is God. To say that God is not happy is a gross understatement. He is positively livid, and He pronounces judgment on the people. (14:26-35) God says that none of those who grumbled against Him would enter the land of promise. That entire generation would wander in the desert until every last one of the adults died. (14:29)
There were only two exceptions. Only the lives of Joshua and Caleb would be spared because they trusted God. (14:30) and were willing to obey.
God said that their children will be the ones to inherit the promise, (14:31) which is really such an irony. Remember, the grumblers had predicted that all of the men would die in battle and all of their children would be taken as the spoils of war. God essentially says, “OK, I will use your own words as your punishment. You will indeed die, but here in the desert rather than in battle. And your children whom you feared would become slaves, they are the ones who will receive your inheritance.”
Meanwhile, the children will suffer for the unfaithfulness of their parents. They will work as shepherds for decades, waiting until the last of their parents falls dead in the desert (14:32). Here again we see that sometimes innocent people suffer the consequences of other people’s sins. The children suffered. Joshua and Caleb suffered.
God says that the people will wander in the wilderness one year for each of the days the spies explored the land. They spies were gone for 40 days, so Israel would be shelved for 40 years. One full generation wasted. (14:34)
Can you imagine how depressing it would be to hang around in that camp for the next four decades? The people have nowhere to go. They have nothing to do. They have no direction and no purpose. Their only role is to wait around to die. Their past is full of mistakes and regrets. Their present is full of boredom and meaningless wandering and death. And their future, well . . . they have no future. Can you imagine how depressing that camp would be?
By the way, the ten spies who brought back a negative report and led the people into rebellion, God killed them. (14:37) For them He did not wait around for 40 years, He simply struck them all dead on the spot.
There are so many life lessons we could draw from this story. I wish we had more time to discuss a few of them. But for the sake of time I will only look at one today. This is, I think, the central lesson of this whole story, and it has to do with the question, “Why were the Israelites so afraid?”
The ten spies who brought a negative report said that they seemed like grasshoppers compared to the size and strength of the inhabitants of Canaan. Granted, but why did this strike terror in the heart of Israel? I think it is because they were only looking at two people. They were looking at their enemy and they were looking at themselves, but they were not looking at their God.
Sure, they were like grasshoppers compared to the giants of the land, but what were the giants of the land compared to the most High God? Not even grasshoppers! I think the fundamental failure of the Israelites here is that they were preoccupied with themselves and their enemy rather than with their God. The reason their enemy was too big is because their God was too small.
But before we get too hard on Israel, we should be careful to note that we can make the same mistake, and I think we often do. You see, we too have an enemy. His name is Lucifer. He is very powerful, far stronger than we are. He is very smart, far more clever than we. In fact, he often seems invincible. He can be very intimidating. Compared to us, he is a giant and we are mere grasshoppers, easily crushed.
But let us not make the same mistake Israel made in being preoccupied and enamored with the size and strength of our enemy. Rather, let us be preoccupied and enamored with the size and strength of our God. After all, our victory never depended on us anyway. Sure, compared to us, Satan is a giant and alone we have no hope to defeat him. But compared to God, Satan is not even a grasshopper. He is less than a molecule and he has no hope of standing against His creator and ours. The reason Israel was so afraid of the inhabitants of the land is because they had more faith in the power of the pagans than they did in the power of their God.
As I was reflecting on this story, I could not help thinking about another time, much later in Israel’s history when they once again encounter a giant. That story, of course, is David and Goliath.
David faced an enemy far superior to himself in size, strength, weaponry, and battle experience. Goliath, we are told, was over nine feet tall! David was just a boy, or a young teenager. So, I imagine that Goliath’s fist was likely as big as David’s whole head. And it is clear from the text that David had no armor. He didn’t even have a very good weapon, just a sling-shot and a few stones.
That wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that Goliath had a javelin, a huge spear, a shield, and a sword, as well as an armor bearer to carry whatever else he needed. Not that he needed any of that stuff. With one simple blow of his hand he could kill David stone dead. David did not stand a chance.
But David was not afraid of Goliath. Why not? Because he was not looking at Goliath. He paid very little attention to the enemy’s size or his bulging muscles or his array of powerful weapons. He was looking at God. He was much more impressed with the size and strength of God than Goliath.
In fact, David says something that is one of my favorite quotes in all of Scripture. In 1 Samuel 17:45-47, “David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.’”
Now that is a bold thing for a little pipsqueek to say to a mighty giant. But you know the story, don’t you. You know how the story ends. Goliath does fall once the battle ensues and David does indeed cut off his head with Goliath’s own sword.
I cannot help but wonder, what would have happened if those ten spies had believed God? What would have happened if they had trusted that God was indeed with them and therefore they could not lose? What would have happened if they had convinced the people of Israel to boldly march into the land of promise and take it in the Name of the God of Israel? Had they trusted God and obeyed, there might not have been a David & Goliath story, because they would have killed his giant ancestors.
So, what are the giants in your life? Of whom are you afraid? As I said before, we are all afraid of something or someone. It is foolish not to be afraid of anything. The only question is, “Whom will we fear?”.
Proverbs 29:25 says, “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” And today’s story is a cautionary tale which bears out the truth of that proverb.
Jesus is even more explicit in Luke 12:4-5. He warns, rather bluntly, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him”.
The reason Israel’s enemies seemed so big is because their God seemed so small. How big is your God? How big is our God?
I want to close by reading to you the words of one of my favorite songs. It was written by a group called Casting Crowns, and it is called "Voice Of Truth". I want to read the second half of the song to you.
Oh what I would do to have
The kind of strength it takes to stand before a giant
With just a sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
Shaking in their armor
Wishing they'd have had the strength to stand
But the giant's calling out my name and he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
Time and time again "Boy, you'll never win!
"You'll never win"
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
And the voice of truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the voice of truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
But the stone was just the right size
To put the giant on the ground
And the waves they don't seem so high
From on top of them looking down
I will soar with the wings of eaglesWhen I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
Singing over me
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
And the voice of truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the voice of truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
Will we choose to listen and believe the voice of truth?
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Last Updated on Friday, 06 March 2009 10:24 |
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