Numbers 13:17-33
I came across an email a couple of weeks ago from Bill Yount who is a Christian speaker that I subscribe to, and he had some words of wisdom and some insight into the season that we are in.
If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to The Book of Numbers, and we are going to read from chapter 13. I’ll also be talking some from chapter 14 because the story continues from there, but I don’t want to read a whole chapter and a half, so we’ll read from 13 and then I’ll skim through chapter 14.
This story takes place as the Israelites come to their promised land after having wandered for 40 days. And God had told them that he was going to take them to a land of “milk and honey.” So they come to the land of Canaan. I’m sure many of you are familiar with this story, and maybe you’ve heard sermons on this, but what Bill Yount pointed out was something quite interesting, and I want to give you his perspective on it.
Scripture: So if we start with verse 17, we read this:
17 When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20 How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)
21 So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath. 22 They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there. 25 At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.
26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
I’m sure you’ve read this, studied it in Sunday School, and heard sermons about it…so what do I want to bring out to you today? What does this have to do with the season we are in now, here in Watkins Glen?
Well, Bill Yount’s email is titled, “I heard it through the grapevine.” You see, the grapevine stuck out to him. If we go back to verse 20, in my version, the end of that verse is in parentheses. It says, “It was the season for the first ripe grapes.” Now, I don’t know about you, but as a writer and as a preacher, that’s usually the kind of thing that would get edited out. It’s not necessary. The season of the first ripe grapes is completely irrelevant.
Or is it?
I mean you could tell the story without mentioning that it is the season of the first ripe grapes. Whether or not they brought back grapes, you don’t need to be told that it was in season, right? So why is it mentioned?
It’s mentioned because that was what God intended for the Israelites to focus on. Instead, they focused on something else completely. Now, I’m not going to say that I blame them. After all, they’re only human. But, the question I want to pose to you today is, what are you focused on? The grapes or the giants?
Well, one answer to that question is this. What we look for, is what we find. What do people look for when they talk about God? You find the atheist tends to focus on the negative while the Christian focuses on the positive.
The atheist is trying to find God in the natural, whereas the Christian finds God in the spiritual. Sometimes, you can find God in the natural––you can find God in nature, you can find his fingerprint on everything. But if you believe in evolution, then you’re going to tend to find evolution. If you believe in God, you’re going to find God. And that’s why so many Christians and non-Christians end up in circular debates because you’re going to find what you’re expecting to find.
Roger Babson, an American historian, was visiting the president of Argentina about one hundred years ago when the president said to him: “You are a student of history, Will you please tell me why it is that South America, with her unlimited resources, and having been settled earlier than North America, has nevertheless made much slower progress in civilization and material prosperity?”
Mr. Babson threw the question back upon the president by saying, “Mr. President, you evidently have studied this question yourself, and I would be interested to know your answer to it.
The President replied that he thought the explanation lay in the fact that South America was settled by Spaniards who came seeking gold while North America was settled by the Pilgrim Fathers who came seeking God.
There’s a whole other sermon in that story, but you can see that you get what you look for. What did the Israelites go seeking? Moses told them to go seeking the fruit, but he also wanted to know what kind of people were in the land and how fortified they were.
So what they told Moses was true. They brought back the fruit, and they said there were giants in the land. That’s what the Nephilim were, they were a whole race of giants like Goliath. I can’t blame them for being scared or at least cautious about it.
But the Israelites, I think, when Moses called them to spy out the land, were looking mainly for the people. They were seeing how much of a challenge it would be to take them over. And when they saw that they were giants, they said, no way.
Now, I don’t know how they did it. I don’t know how you make giant-sized fruit. But the Nephilim had fruit made for their size. And it could have been a motivator for the Israelites. I think that’s what God intended for them to see. They brought back fruit so big that verse 23 says, When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs.
So one cluster of grapes was so huge that it required two men to carry it on a pole, and by the way, this reads, the pomegranates and figs were probably carried on the pole as well.
What did God want them to focus on? The land of milk and honey. They found it, but they didn’t. They found what they were searching for––the people, the challenge. The land of milk and honey was secondary. God Called The Land That Was Full Of Giants And Ungodly Cities, Walled Up To Heaven, “A Good Land That Flows With Milk And Honey” (Bill Yount).
A group of tourists was traveling through Iceland on a tour bus and stopped near a volcanic canyon. Soon there was word of a missing passenger. A woman, who had changed clothes, didn’t recognize the description of herself, and joined in the search. But the search was called off at about 3 a.m., when it became clear the missing woman was, in fact, accounted for and searching for herself.
Sometimes the thing you’re supposed to be searching for is missed, even when it’s right in front of you.
At the beginning of Chapter 14, the Israelites were so distressed that they wanted to go back to Egypt. Keith Green has a song about that if you get a chance to look it up. I mean, at least Pharaoh kept them alive. They had food, clothing, and shelter. It might have been bad, but this seemed worse. Isn’t it just like God to call us to something that seems worse than where we just were? Only to be promised a blessing?
We see what lies ahead, and we think, “Um…God, can we negotiate?” We want to see the terms and conditions before we go ahead, right? Unfortunately, God doesn’t give us the terms and conditions, he just says to trust him.
Faith does not preclude trials. God gives us trials to strengthen our faith.
Oswald Chambers said, “Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo were not delivered from going into the fiery furnace. They still had to go. And God met them there. They didn’t know that was going to happen ahead of time, they had to go into the fiery furnace. Same thing with Daniel in the lion’s den. He still had to go. He was not delivered beforehand, but God met him there.
The same was true for the Israelites, and sometimes the same is true for us. We may not be delivered from going someplace scary, because that scary place is exactly where God wants us. Where do a lot of testimonies come from? They come from someone who went through some scary stuff and God met them there in the midst of it.
He’ll meet us there, and he’ll be glorified in our obedience.
Bill Yount said, “Joshua and Caleb still stuck it out with that unbelieving bunch of “sour” grapes that eventually dried up in the wilderness and became raisins.”
Isaiah 65:8 says, “As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is still a blessing in it,’ so will I do on behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all.”
Now, that verse in Isaiah is in a little different context, but you get the idea of how it applies here. To God, the cluster of grapes represented a blessing. Imagine the blessing the Israelites would have had if they only had faith in what God told them. This is the land I am giving you, a land filled with milk and honey.
And clusters of grapes made for giants.
And this is what Joshua and Caleb said to the Israelites in chapter 14, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”
Now, in the movies, that would have done it. That would have been the inspirational speech that would have motivated the ordinary band of men against the mighty army of giants. You can see it in Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Robin Hood or even Independence Day. I’m sure you can name a few other movies that had that inspirational speech that motivated the audience, right?
Then there was that montage with spirited music of everyone grabbing armor and training. So what happened here? The same thing?
Verse 10 says the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Not what you’d find in the movies.
So it was this incident where God decided to make the Israelites wander in the wilderness for the next 40 years. They had wandered for 40 days, now it’ll be 40 years. And now, even Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land. Only Caleb and Joshua.
I want to go back to that cluster of grapes for a moment and tie this together. Now, I don’t know if God intended this or not. But Bill Yount, in his email, found this interesting. He felt as if our focus shouldn’t be just on God, but our time has come as a worldwide body of believers to become a giant cluster. And it’s time for the new wine.
That might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think now more than ever, the churches have to unite. It’s going to be difficult because, as I’ve said in other sermons, churches are kind of going every which way. I recently read on Baptistnews.com that the United Methodists are becoming less united, and the split that has been talked about for a couple of years is beginning to happen.
Why? Over liberal vs. conservative theology. And there are liberal and conservative American Baptist churches too. In fact, there are two liberal American Baptist churches right down the road from us––one in Ithaca and another in Painted Post. So while there are splits happening, we need to also be aligned with fellow believers.
Look around. This church congregation isn’t as big as it was pre-pandemic. A lot of churches aren’t. And it’s going to require us to cluster together to get the mission of the gospel out there, and it’s going to require a cluster of church denominations to work together.
A perfect example is Operation Christmas Child. When we were the drop-off location a couple of years ago, there were people who represented different denominations coming into this building for a single cause. I think that sort of thing is going to have to start happening on a more regular basis as each church congregation becomes smaller.
And when it came to a ministry such as that, we didn’t ask people what their theological leaning was––whether it was conservative or liberal. We just worked together for one common goal. And maybe that sort of thing is going to become more commonplace, I don’t know.
But our focus shouldn’t be on how small this congregation is and how less of an impact we can make, but on how we can become that cluster of grapes and provide a bigger blessing for the people of God.
What does that have to do with the Israelites and Canaan? It’s easy to look at the world around us and be discouraged. It’s easy to look around these pews and be discouraged. It’s easy to see church buildings close around us and think, “gee, maybe that should be us.”
Last week, I was told of a church near where we live that has about the same number of people in it as we do. And they got a brand new pastor, and right off the bat, that pastor encouraged them to close the church. And so they did. They didn’t have to, there was no dire need for them to close. The building was in good shape, and they had money in their coffers to keep going, but the pastor encouraged them to close.
I’m not going to do that. No matter how small in numbers we are, we can still make a big impact––whether it’s on each other, the people of this community or people halfway around the world.
And I believe God is calling this church to cluster with other churches and ministries to continue the spread of the gospel and to bring hope and encouragement to other believers and to those who are not yet in the family of God.
So what are we going to focus on? The challenge that seems too great or the God that we can’t see, but is greater?
Remember when I said we may have to walk into a trial, only for God to meet us there? It will probably happen. We may have our Canaanite or our fiery furnace or lion’s den moments. We can’t focus on that and get distracted.
Maybe God will have to squeeze the cluster in order for the new wine to pour out. In other words, he might have to put some pressure on us in order for our faith to be moved. Well, if it’s God, then we know it will work out for good. That pressure will come in the form of a challenge, or something we’ve never done before. It may give us some anxiety to look at and say, “I can’t do that,” or “I’ve never done that before.” But that’s why new wine is called, new wine. It’s usually something we’ve never done before.
And it’s usually something we can’t do. God usually calls us to something that only He can do through us. We’ll be forced to rely on him so that He gets the glory and not us.
So in this new season. Not just Springtime, but I believe this new post-pandemic season, what is it that God is calling you to, and what is it that God is calling this church to?
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by SplitShire from Pixabay
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