Numbers 13:17-25 Bible Study | Episode 759

September 5, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 13:17-25  Bible Study | Episode #759

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter 13. Numbers, chapter 13, verses 17 through 25. We're dealing with Moses sending the spies into the land on the instruction of God. God told Moses to pick out twelve leaders from each tribe. I mean, twelve leaders, one from each tribe. And each, each leader was to go into the land and spy it out. And this brings up one of those issues that, well, this whole story is about choosing to walk by faith or not. And it is the really, I guess, the Old Testament overarching story, because the overarching story of the Old Testament is deliverance from Egypt into the promised land. The rest of the Old Testament, the start of the Old Testament, leads up to this. The rest of the Old Testament is how to work that understanding out of God's delivering us from the world and bringing us to the place of faith. And so when you're studying through that, that's where you're going with it. This being one of those critical moments in that story, in that overarching story of the Old Testament, whether or not to enter into the promised land is a picture of whether or not to trust God and tack on what he said. Now faith matures. And I guess that is the understanding that we have to get from this, this aspect of that story. Faith matures. What I mean by that? Well, God, we understand that when we first come to God, we have to come to God with childlike faith. Meaning? Meaning faith that just trust intrinsically. Now, it's not blind faith, because you people would even say childlike faith is blind faith. It's not blind faith. A child is not going to have childlike faith with someone he does not know or she does not know. A toddler is not going to just immediately go to somebody that they have no relationship with and they've not seen any of the adults that they know. And trust, have a relationship with, they're not going to just go and in fact they hide. That's what they do. If you speak to a toddler in his mother's arms or in her mother's arms while you're talking to her, oftentimes they'll hide their face. But as fat as the mother and father, their grandparents, especially bop bops are bop bops. Get, get childlike faith from their grandchildren. When you have that happen, when do you have that going on? If you don't know, my name is Bop bop. As a grandparent, if you have that relationship, then they have childlike faith. They trust you intrinsically, they trust you implicitly. They want, they want to please you and they want you to interact with them, to love them, to take care of them, and they trust you implicitly with that. Now that is childlike faith and that's the type of faith that God wants from us when he reveals himself to us as he does at the very beginning, he wants us to trust him implicitly. He wants us to trust him as a child would trust his parent because he is our heavenly father and he wants us to learn how to do that. In fact, he says, if you can't, if you don't come with him, to him with that kind of faith, well, you're just never going to make it, really. It's not going to happen. And that is true. That's the kind of faith that is necessary to begin the walk with God that we have. We have to trust him because we know him. He's revealed himself to us and he is someone that is to be trusted. And so that kind of childlike faith is important now that faith does have to mature, that faith does have to grow. And that faith is never ever blind. That basic faith is based off of relationship and revelation. It's based off of our relationship with God and a growing relationship with God in which we see him speak to us, moving our hearts, lead and guide us, and we begin to trust him more and more. Now, when we get to the places where we do big things of faith, where our lives are set up such that we're doing the big faith stuff, when we get to that point, he wants us to, and this is a New Testament principle also. He wants us to count the cost. He wants us to, to consider what this is going to cost us and be willing to pay it because like I said, even with the childlike faith, because we're in relationship, because we trust him, because we know him, we count the cost and we consider what it's going to take and that's what's going on here. God is brought them out of Egypt. He's, he's, he's hoping to have matured their faith. He sees, he's trying to mature their faith and he's bringing in the land of Canaan. When they came out of Egypt, they just had to trust him, based off of the miracles that they saw and based off of what Moses said. But when they get to Canaan, they've got to go in themselves. They got to go. They were being driven really out of Egypt, but in Canaan, they got to choose to go in. And God wants them to go into the land of Canaan and understand the value of what he's giving them and what it's going to cost them, the, the, the difficulties that are going to take place. Nothing wrong with considering that, it says. Then Moses sent them spout the land of Canaan and said to them, go up the, go up this way into the south and go up to the mountains and see what the land is like. Whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor, whether they're forest there or not, be a, be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land. Now, the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. So it's, it's early spring, it says. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. And they sent up through us the south, and came to Hebron. Ahimon, Shishai, Talmai, and the descendants of Anak were there. Now, Hebron was built seven years before Zon in Egypt. Then they came to the valley of Eskol, and they cut down the branch with one of the clusters of grapes, and they carried it between the two of them on a pole, and they brought some of the pomegranates and figs, and the place was called the valley of Eskol. And because the cluster which the men of Israel cut there and they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. So they went in and they spied the whole land out. They went from the south to the north. They saw the different areas and the different, the different benefits and all the things that God had given. They took a, they took a wide view of what God had promised them. They gave them. God gave them an opportunity to do something great. And they did something great. They, they, they went into the land and saw what was, what God had prepared for his people. What a great opportunity to go and see what God is going to give you, to see it before it's actually received. They got a great opportunity to count the cost, to evaluate what was going to happen. We asked for that a lot. God, tell me what's going to happen, what's coming down the road. God, instruct me, get me ready, prepare me, tell me, tell me what's next. Is my loved one going to make it through the surgery? Am I going to, am I going to survive these job cuts? I mean, all the time we ask God to give us a glimpse of what he plans for us down the road. And oftentimes we just have to learn to trust him in this situation. God says, go in there and figure it out. In Matthew, Jesus told us to do that. He told us that we needed to count the cost. He gave us, in fact, he gave us two stories. He said, he said if a rich man was going to build a tower and that's a refuge, a place of strength, a stronghold, he's going to build a tower. Does he not count the cost? Does he not consider whether or not he can complete the work? Because if he starts to build it and cannot finish, people are going to say that he's foolish. And then he says, consider a king. Shall he go out to battle with 20,000 men? When, when the king coming against him is going to battle with 30,000, does he not send an invariant, ask for peace before he goes out and has his whole army destroyed because he can't overcome the enemy? He says, he said, jesus said you've got to count the cost. And then he later explains to them that they're going to have to take up the cross and follow him. Now that's not blind faith. That's faith based off of relationship and revelation, but it's also faith off, based off of counting. Then understanding what, what is at stake in this situation? What's going on in this situation? Why, where, why am I where I'm at? Why am I endless in this problem? Why am I in this valley? Why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am I going up to take this? He says, count the cost. And not always does he give you information so that you can count the cost. But when he does, he wants you to consider it, he wants you to do that and you go, well, why would he want me to do that? Well, because when I walk in faith with him, I'm doing it in such a way that it's, that it's. I know what's going on. I'm trusting him even though what seems in the physical world to be impossible, I'm trusting him because I know he's the God of the impossible, all right? I know that he's a God that can do things that I couldn't imagine. And even when I look at, look at the situation and consider how difficult or how hard or how unlikely it might be, I trust God because he's revealed himself and I know who he is. That is not blind faith. That is faith based off of a relationship and revelation. And it's also faith that is powerful. Because when you go in and say, I know these are the issues, I know this is the problem, I know this is the hill to overcome, I know these are the things that it's going to cost me for this to take place, and yet I say yes to God, and yet I say I trust you. And yet I say I believe that your promises are yes and amen. When you do that, when you do that, then you are walking in. Powerful faith, childlike faith for the relationship, childlike faith for the beginning of the understanding of who God is. Knowledgeable, understood. Trusting God, seeing him, knowing who he is and counting the cost is powerful faith. It's faith that, that matters. It's faith that understands. It's faith that's in control faith. It's faith that does big stuff. It's faith that does big stuff. And so God said, go in and say what I'm going to give you. I'm giving you this land and go see. Go see how, how strong it is, how, how productive it is, how powerful the people are there. Go and see because I'm going to give it to you, which means that you were powerful enough to overcome, which means you're able to possess it and, and get the best out of it. What he's saying is, I've matured you to the point where you can actually handle this. You can do the big stuff that I have for you. You can take hold of the promises that I have for you. And he wanted them to do that. He wanted them to see what they were going to deal with and he wanted them to trust him in that matter. He wanted that. Now they're not going to do it. And that's the key to this story. We're going to spend some time on it because it's, well, it's one of those major points in this overarching tale of God delivering his people from the world into his best. And it's one of those things that you really kind of need to analyze a lot and think through a lot. Am I, am I the type of believer that God just uses childlike faith with? I just trust him to take care of me in the moment, in the hour. I trust him to provide for me. And I don't really know a whole lot. I don't understand a whole lot. I don't see a whole lot. If that's you, that's okay. But remember, you got to grow up. Or am I the type of person who has known God but never really done anything big because I count the cost and I never take that step of faith. I never do the big stuff. I never, never really have allowed God to handle the big issues of my life. I keep holding on to him. I keep holding on to what, what I want rather than what God wants. Or are you the type person that, that considers what, what is down the road? Because God gives you those opportunities. He, he allows you to see what's up ahead and realize that it's going to take a lot of effort and courage and strength and that it's going to cause me to have to get up and move and not stay and be content where I am, but be expecting of what is to come and to move forward. If I'm those, if I'm that type of person, then I'm going to be one who experiences the big things from goddess gonna I am and trust me, I want you to hear me day. God wants you to be that type. He wants you to experience the fullness of his promises. And the only way for you to do that is to initially trust him just because he's God and because you, you first come to know him. But eventually he wants you to trust him because you see, you see how, how huge his promises are and how sometimes they seem unattainable and yet with him, they're always attainable. And so you do it. You do those things. And so I would say to you today, this, this is one of those things that has to be pondered. It has to be considered. Who am I? How am I? Maybe even ask God, where do I fall in this spectrum, Lord? Am I still the little child? Am I, am I, am I one who's content where I'm at, never, ever really moving forward? Am I too hesitant, father, to trust you and move forward and receive the really big stuff that you have for me, which. 01:00 a.m. i. And whichever one I am, Father, lead me to be the one who says, let's go. Let's take the best that God has for us. Let's. Let's reach out and grab hold to his promises and make them yes and amen. Because they always were. Yes and amen.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today, in Jesus name.