When in November 2022 we began monthly local Sunday services, we figured it was God who was leading us into it in the same way the Lord commanded Moses to send spies into the land of Canaan which He was giving to the people of Israel. It was as if we were being called to explore the local landscape and build community closer to where we live.

Numbers 13:1-2
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”

This was not an exercise for God’s but the people’s benefit. God was giving this land to the people of Israel and knew everything about it. He was giving it to them because He knew it well and knew it was the best for them. So it was not a fact-finding mission for Him but for the people. The Lord was not seeking assistance in assessing the land. God desired for the people to have a pre-awareness of the land they were inheriting. As far as God was concerned, the matter of inheriting the land was a done deal. So God’s instruction to send spies was not intended to assess the land’s suitability but to create an pre-awareness and inspire the people to the land.

So Moses sent spies in obedience to the Lord’s command and after thoroughly and extensively spying out the land, the 12 spies returned with contradicting reports. The majority (!) reported that dispossessing the inhabitants and inheriting the land was simply beyond their reach.

Numbers 13:31-32
Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The 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.

On the face of it, it seemed like God’s plan to send spies into the land backfired.

However, there was a small minority (consisting of Caleb and Joshua only) who held a polar opposite view to that of the majority and reported as follows: Numbers 13:30
But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

God later testified about Caleb saying that he had “a different spirit and followed Him fully” (Num 14:24). The majority of the spies sharply opposed Caleb and Joshua and incited the people to disbelief until The Lord Himself intervened.

The difference between the two reporters? The majority simply failed to factor God into the picture while Caleb firmly factored God into their conquest of the land.

It’s now a full two years since we started the local Sundays and clearly sense God moving us on to “take the land” as per His calling and promise to us at CCC – “CCC is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.” (Gen 49:22)

LEARNING POINTS:

As we do, here are a few lessons from Caleb and the story of the Israelites in Numbers 13 and 14:

• All the spies (both those who brought a bad report of the land to the people and those who did not) saw and witnessed the very same and real challenges that the land and its inhabitants posed.
• The 10 who gave a bad report of the land concluded that there is no way they’d be able to dispossess the land.
• The 10 had no regard for God and His promise but were solely influenced and overwhelmed by what they saw. There was not even a hint of consideration of God and His promise. There was almost a total disregard for the person of God and His Word to them.
• From their generation, only Caleb and Joshua entered the promised land.
• Caleb was commended by God and went on to inherit the land because he had a different spirit and followed the Lord fully: Numbers 14:24
  But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.
• God was fully pleased with Caleb and we know that without faith it is impossible to please God – Hebrews 11:6
  And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
• Caleb’s secret or the difference with Caleb was that He prioritised, elevated and fully trusted in/believed God and His promise. He had NO issues with God and His word/promise knowing God was able to fulfill them despite the very real challenges he saw and witnessed.

APPLICATION POINTS

As we too look to inherit God’s promise to us in the shape of the first missional community in East London…

….Like Caleb, let us determine to follow the Lord fully, pressing on in trusting Him and His promise to us wholeheartedly.