The Spying Of The Promised Land

by Chris Simmons

God commanded Abram to “go forth … to the land which I will show you” and by faith he went. While Abram “passed through the land,” God promised, “to your descendants I will give this land.” From that time on, that land became known to God’s people as “the land of promise” (Hebrews 11:9) or, as it is commonly referred to today, “the promised land.” Having received the law at Mt. Sinai, the Israelites journeyed through the “great and terrible wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:19) at the Lord’s command. They came to Kadesh-barnea where they were told by God through Moses, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the Lord our God is about to give us. See, the Lord your God has placed the land before you; go up take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 1:20-21). It was theirs – promised and given by God, and all they had to do was “go up (and) take possession” (Deuteronomy 1:8).

Moses was directed by God to, “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them” (Numbers 13:2). They were to get a perspective of the land that God was about to bless them with (“spy out,” Numbers 13:2, 17-20) by seeing what the land, people, cities and produce were like. They were also to develop a strategy on how they would enter the land (Deuteronomy 1:22). What wasn’t to be on their agenda was deciding if they would enter the land.

God had previously described the land He would give to them as a “good and spacious land … a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8) and when the spies returned, they confirmed what God had promised when they reported “we went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27). You would think that seeing such a prosperous land would increase their faith and motivate them to obey God, doing whatever God told them to do to possess it. Rather, their focus was not on the promises of God and the riches of the land but on their physical observations of the inhabitants of the land. “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” (Numbers 13:28). Only Joshua and Caleb remained faithful and Caleb tried to calm and exhort the Israelites when he said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it” (verse 30). The other ten spies, though, came to the conclusion that they were too small, too weak and that they simply were “not able to go up against the people” of the land. In spite of God’s promise, and the deliverance He provided from the Egyptians and His miraculous provisions for them in the wilderness, they came to the conclusion that the land would “devour” them (Numbers 14:30-33) and basically proclaimed that they didn’t believe God could give them the victory.

The problem regarding the conquest of the promised land was that the Israelites forgot who the battle belonged to! Certainly they would have to engage in battle the inhabitants of the land but they forgot that it was God who would be fighting for them. David understood this point as he prepared to battle the champion from the armies of the Philistines as he said in I Samuel 17:46-47, “This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands.” God doesn’t need numbers or size or any other earthly measure to be in His favor for His will to be executed successfully. Jonathan, Saul’s son, recognized that “the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few” (I Samuel 14:6) and Gideon learned in Judges chapter seven that the size of the army is not of concern to God but rather their submission, faith and obedience to His will.

The lesson for us today is that we need to do our part faithfully and obediently and trust God that He will never abandon or forsake us. When Paul was journeying to Rome, even when conditions looked hopeless (Acts 27:20), his faith and courage remained strong as he believed God “that it will turn out exactly as I have been told” (Acts 27:25) – that indeed he would safely arrive at Rome as God had told him (Acts 23:11). Do we believe God that all things will turn out as we have been told? Do we believe that we can truly “cast all our anxiety upon Him” (I Peter 5:7) and that God will never “desert” us or “forsake” us but forever will be our “helper” (Hebrews 13:5-6)? If so, we need to get busy and fight our good fight of faith (I Timothy 6:12) and do our part as those who “sow” and “water” and allow God to provide the increase (I Corinthians 3:6-7). Or have we come to the conclusion that the forces we battle are too big and too strong and that the gospel just isn’t powerful enough today to transform peoples’ lives anymore? Can we see that the lack of faith exemplified by the ten spies is the same lack of faith that has spawned the “social gospel” movement today – men who feel that the gospel of Jesus Christ needs a human hook or angle (i.e. fun, food and entertainment) to accomplish what His word no longer can.

The report of the ten caused the Israelites to first hang their heads, look down and say “we can’t.” The attitude of defeat then caused them to look back to what they left behind. They came to the brilliant conclusion that they’d be better off going back to become slaves in Egypt again. The “whole congregation” said to Moses and Aaron, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! And why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt ... Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt” (Numbers 14:2-4). We need to learn the lesson that we can’t ever afford to look back. Jesus teaches us that, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). Jesus also exhorts us to “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). Paul had a lot going for him in his early life before his obedience to the gospel but he knew his past could never again become his focus and that he continually needed to be “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13). Satan will persist in seeking to get us to return to our former manner of life, our former slavery to sin and always tempts us to return to wallow in the mire (cf. II Peter 2:22) that the blood of Christ once cleansed us from.

When faced with the choice, the Israelites chose to shrink back. We are warned in Hebrews 10:35-39, “Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” This is simply a lesson of faith in God expressed in our obedience to His will. “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). Do we have the faith we need to fight the battles we need to fight and trust that we can do “all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13)?