Discouraging God's People (Num. 13:26-33; Deut. 1:26-28)

12/30/2008 9:25 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                              Focus:  Discouraging God’s people

Bible Reading & Meditation     Reference: Num. 13:26-33; Deut. 1:26-28

            Message of the verses:  “26 ¶  they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.  27  Thus they told him, and said, "We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.  28  "Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.  29  "Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan."  30  Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it."  31  But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us."  32  So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.  33  "There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’

            “26  "Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God; 27  and you grumbled in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. 28  ‘Where can we go up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, "The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we saw the sons of the Anakim there.’”

            It is interesting that the chapter that I read before beginning this part of my devotions was the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, which is none as the faith chapter, and that is what was lacking in the children of Israel in this section of Numbers. 

            This section is the second sin which the children of Israel had committed against the Lord, but as Dr. Wiersbe points out in the opening portion of this chapter that these sins can be committed by people today just as they were committed by the children of Israel at the time written about by Moses.

            As seen in yesterday’s SD it was the people of Israel who wanted to send out the spies in the first place, and now when these spies returned they gave a bad report and got all of the people stirred up against Moses, and actually against God, for they all began to think that God was not able to do what He had told them that He would do and this is something that does not make the Lord happy at all.  “A faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted, and God tests our faith to help us make sure it’s genuine (1Peter 1:1-9) and to help make it grow.”  (From “Be Counted”)  “Unbelief is serious because it challenges the character of God and rebels against the will of God. ‘But without faith it is impossible to please God,’ (Hebrews 11:6).’”  (Be Counted)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I was driving to the church to work with the WEBBS team yesterday I seemed to look at all of the houses on our street with a different look than before when I drove down our street before, for while driving down the street I began to have a longing to give out the message to the people who live in those houses that God loves them and wants them to know about this wonderful love that God has for them.  God has given me a desire, a strong desire to tell others about what the Bible has to say about the end times, for that is the vehicle that God used to call me to Himself and so I want to share that with others.  I want to begin to pray about this and I think that the best way to reach the people on our street is to write a letter to each of them with a little information about the end times to wet their appetites and also in this letter invite them to a Bible Study at our house to go over the end time prophecies.  I truly believe that this world as we know it is fast winding down and will soon come to a climax just as it is written about in the Scriptures and so before the rapture of the Church I want to tell others about how it is that all of this will come about.  How does this tie into this SD?  Well it takes faith to go ahead with all of this the kind of faith that Joshua and Caleb had to enter into the rest of the Promised Land!

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. I want to begin to think about and pray about what the Lord would have me to put into a letter to our neighbors in order to invite them to an end times Bible study.

Memory verses for the week:                                              Romans 6:14-18

14.    For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

15.    What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  May it never be!

16.    Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness?

17.    But thanks to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

18.    and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

12/30/2008 10:11 AM