{"id":174093,"date":"2023-08-14T04:41:33","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T09:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/?p=174093"},"modified":"2023-08-09T06:07:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T11:07:09","slug":"47-a-wilderness-11-g-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/14\/47-a-wilderness-11-g-2\/","title":{"rendered":"47.a. “Wilderness” – 11.g. “For we are well able to overcome it.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Num 13:25-33<\/b>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>\u00a0At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.\u00a0And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.\u00a0And they told him, \u201cWe came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.\u00a0However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.\u00a0The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.\u201d\u00a0But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, \u201cLet us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.\u201d\u00a0Then the men who had gone up with him said, \u201cWe are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.\u201d\u00a0So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, \u201cThe land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.\u00a0And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The returning spies both spoke and showed all Israel what they saw in the land. The spies seemed to sense they were more on a mission from Israel than on a mission from God. What God had promised about the land was indeed true. The fruit they brought back \u2013 grapes, pomegranates, and figs \u2013 showed how fruitful and blessed Canaan was agriculturally. The message from most of the spies was, \u201cThe land is as wonderful as God promised, but we can\u2019t conquer it.\u201d It is hard to imagine a report\u00a0more\u00a0unbelieving and unfaithful to God than this. This report recognized the faithfulness of God\u2019s promise, the truth of His word, and yet said, \u201cDespite all that, we can\u2019t conquer the land.\u201d If the faith of the spies was tested over this 40-day tour of the land, they failed the test. They didn\u2019t believe God could or would fulfill His promise to give Israel this land, as stated in the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Caleb commanded the people to immediately (at once<\/b>) trust God, obey God, and take the land. He understood that in the LORD they were\u00a0well able to overcome it<\/b>. But the men who had gone up with him said<\/b>: Their unbelieving response was a strong combination of truth, lies, and exaggeration. F.B. Meyer compared the perspective of the ten unbelieving spies to that of the two faithful spies, Caleb and Joshua: \u201cThey saw the same spectacles in their survey of the land; but the result in the one case was\u00a0panic, in the other\u00a0confidence and peace. What made the difference? It lay in this, that the ten spies compared themselves with the giants, whilst the two compared the giants with God.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Significantly, two groups of men could see the same things \u2013 the same grapes, the same Canaanites, the same land, and the same cities. One group (Caleb and Joshua) came away strong in faith, and the other ten spies had a sense of certain doom. Ultimately, faith or unbelief is not rooted in circumstances or environment. Faith is rooted in a heart that trusts God and His promises. (Guzik)<\/p>\n

But they distrusted God’s power and promise. How much we stand in our own light by our unbelief! At length the messengers returned; but the greater part discouraged the people from going forward to Canaan. Justly are the Israelites left to this temptation, for putting confidence in the judgment of men, when they had the word of God to trust in. Though they had found the land as good as God had said, yet they would not believe it to be as sure as he had said, but despaired of having it, though Eternal Truth had engaged it to them. All things are possible, if they are promised, to him that believes; but carnal sense and carnal professors are not to be trusted. Unbelief overlooks the promises and power of God, magnifies every danger and difficulty, and fills the heart with discouragement. May the Lord help us to believe! we shall then find all things possible. (Henry)<\/p>\n

Can you imagine what our lives would be like if we:<\/p>\n

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  1. Desired God\u2019s Word<\/li>\n
  2. Spent time in His Word<\/li>\n
  3. Meditated on God\u2019s Word<\/li>\n
  4. Listened to the quiet whispers of the Holy Spirit<\/li>\n
  5. Intentionally choosing to pursue a life of obedience, trust, and reliance in God<\/li>\n
  6. And, trusted in the promises of God over the fears of the present and what is to come<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Num 13:25-33\u00a0\u00a0At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.\u00a0And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the … Continue reading “47.a. “Wilderness” – 11.g. “For we are well able to overcome it.\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15994,5417,17197,10788,17202,17201,6178,13478,17195,13982,8704,16061,4936,16063,719,16049,219,16011,15988,17198,17199,17194,7430,17193,289,17200,17196,701],"class_list":["post-174093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers","tag-40-days","tag-aaron","tag-amalekites","tag-amorites","tag-anak","tag-bad-report","tag-caleb","tag-canaanites","tag-flows-with-milk-and-honey","tag-fortified","tag-fruit-of-the-land","tag-hittites","tag-israel","tag-jebusites","tag-jordan","tag-kadesh","tag-moses","tag-negeb","tag-nephilim","tag-occupy-it","tag-overcome-it","tag-paran","tag-returned","tag-spying","tag-strong","tag-they-are-stronger-than-we-are","tag-very-large","tag-wilderness"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174093"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174110,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174093\/revisions\/174110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}