Hammer on Anvil '

In my recent studies and prayer time, I have been meditating about Caleb in Numbers 13. You may remember the story: God tells the Israelites they are to possess the land of Canaan, and Moses selects 12 men who are commissioned to "see what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak," among other things (Numbers 13:18).

Wait a minute. God tells you to go take possession of a land He is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, and you send men to go before you to see if it's okay? Yes, that's exactly what Moses did. But Deuteronomy 1 tells us this was not Moses' idea. In this chapter, Moses recaps what the Israelites have been through. After he told them to take possession of the land and exhorted them to not be afraid or discouraged, "Then all of you came to me and said, 'Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to'" (Deuteronomy 1:22).

Apparently they forgot that God had led them with a pillar of cloud and they had no need to inquire about the route they were going to take. Instead of reminding them of that fact, though, Moses says, "The idea seemed good to me," and it went south from there. The outcome is not generally good when you listen to men rather than God.

The 12 men go to spy out the land, and after 40 days return to report to Moses. They agree that the land is flowing with milk and honey as God had promised, but then the fear kicks in, and they tell Moses "the people in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there" (Numbers 13:28). Apparently the descendants of Anak are gigantic, and the Israelite men seemed like grasshoppers in comparison.

Before it goes any further, Caleb steps up boldly and says, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, because we are well able to overcome it." Then all the wailing begins, about how these giants will devour them and there's no way they can take the land. God's judgment quickly ensues. He says none of the men will see the promised land except Caleb, "because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully" (Numbers 14:24).

So instead of possessing the land and beginning to enjoy its fruit, the Israelites were plunged into 40 years of wilderness wandering. All because they took their eyes off of God when circumstances loomed a little too large for their comfort.

Has this ever happened to you, my friends? Has God ever spoken to you about something specific He wanted you to do? You were excited about it at first, and you could see the way ahead, but then some big nasty hurdle showed up in the road and blocked your vision. Though you knew you were following God, you just couldn't seem to see beyond that hurdle. Frustration and fear got the best of you, and you may have even determined that it wasn't really God speaking to you after all. Have you been there?

Brothers and sisters, when you begin to seriously take God at His Word, I can guarantee hurdles in the road and giants in the land. Satan has no reason to mess with you if you are a nominal Christian who does nothing to threaten him. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit of the living God, and you offer your body as a living sacrifice to Him on a daily basis, Satan gets ouchy. Prayer makes him particularly nervous, as Samuel Chadwick observes:

Satan dreads nothing but prayer. His one concern is to keep the saints from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, he mocks our wisdom, but he trembles when we pray.

This is why we are told to "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer" (Romans 12:12). It is why James encourages us to count it all joy when we meet trials, because the testing of our faith will produce the perseverance it takes for us to be "mature and complete, not lacking anything" (James 1:4). Our lives are not supposed to be easy, my friends. But if we keep our focus on God, rather than being deterred by the giants in the land, we will reap a harvest of joy and blessing that we cannot even imagine.

If giants are haunting you right now, I pray that you will be able to see beyond them. Isaiah 45:22 says, "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other." Turn to Him today, and ask Him to give you a fresh revelation of himself. As you watch this video, may you become, as John Mark McMillan sings, "unaware of these afflictions, eclipsed by [His] glory."