Consequences of Disbelief: The 40-Year Wandering

Show Notes

Episode 468:  
In this episode, we discussed how the spies were sent to explore the land of Canaan. The story unfolds with the majority of the spies expressing fear and doubt, while Joshua and Caleb stood firm in their faith and belief in God's promises.We emphasized the importance of having voices of faith around us, especially in times of uncertainty and doubt. The contrast between the faith of Joshua and Caleb and the disbelief of the other spies served as a powerful lesson on the consequences of going against God's will.

What is The Bible Guys?

Whether you’ve been following Jesus for years or you’re just starting to ask questions, there’s a seat for you here.

Join Jeff and Chris for honest conversations about Scripture, faith, and the everyday stuff we all navigate. With humor, personal stories, and plenty of back-and-forth, The Bible Guys explore what the Bible says and how it connects to your life.

Subscribe, bring your questions, and get to know the Bible one conversation at a time. Head over to TheBibleGuys.com for more information!

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Welcome everyone, every single listener or watcher if you're watching on YouTube to the Bible Guys. It's amazing that they're watching and listening, Yes, watching him amazing, really onerous. Yes. And so by the way, we we've it's been a long time since we've said hit share or like, right, that's right, just you know, share the Bible Guys with somebody. I was actually running. I ran into somebody just the other day, literally, like I think five days ago on a weekend on Sunday. Who said, man, I try to tell people about the Bible Guys wherever I go. And I'm in a conversation and I say, oh, you know you love you'd love the Bible Guys. And I thought, man, that's really nice. That is nice. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, So it helps us, It helps our metrics and our numbers. So just share or like, click and share. Make all your friends wild the streams come true by introducing them to the Pike Podcast. Think of the point that it vote for me and I make all your wildness dreams come through Pedro for Pedro. So hey, today we are reading one of the most famous passages in the Book of Numbers, and it is Numbers thirteen where the spies go in and they check out the promise life. It's going to be super cool. It is. So First of all, we have a social media minute. Oh is it going to be one minute? Yeah? Well, I don't know. There's some really nice things that people have been minutes minutes Okay, So the first one, Lynn B says, thank you for such a great episode, whatever episode that was. It really is a great way to start the week with a reminder how much God has done for us and still continues to do for us. It is true. That's awesome. And thank you Lynn for writting in because that's right. Well, this is awesome. By the way, send your comments in because we love hearing this stuff. It gives us the drive to keep going absolutely. And then the next person this which is Charman D. Charman D says so happy that we are not only blessed to be one of those countries, but we are the most blessed to have Jeff and Chris as our pastors. Wow. Wow, that's a statement. Great job great job on not only this podcast that you are doing every day, but on being great pastors and serving here at Age Church. They attend our church. So thank you, Charmon. That is unbelievable. Thank you. That is great, too, great comment. It's almost a little embarrassing, it is. Thank you. And then Karen h says, you guys are so funny. I love it. Never thought learning the Bible would be so much fun. You guys make it easy to understand. Bless you both. Oh, I would say very enough. Some of us on the podcast are funny, Thank you, Jack. They are so kind of you. Others are just being carried over. No what just when I think you don't have it in you, you surprise me all the time. Just give you massive compliments. That's how you are here. Don't be hard on yourself. I think you're kind of funny, too funny looking funny. But you know what that other phrase though, never thought learning the biot would be so much fun, you guys make it easy to understand that phrase. You guys make it easy to understand. I've always felt like family ministries in particular talking you know, all these years as we would hire new family ministries people, I would say, I think one of your number one jobs is to make sure that our kids and our young people don't leave going that's the most boring thing I've ever heard. How do we take the most exciting story in all of the annals of human history, the most amazing story. God invaded this planet because he loved us, and he rescued us from the dragon, and he sacrificed himself for us. How do we take this the most amazing story ever and bore people put them to sleep with it? Right? And not only actually a lot of people are good at it. I know, I've I've worked for I heard a lot of news in my day, buddy, But how do you do it? My friend Dave Wilson always says, uh uh. He says, when somebody's falling asleep in church, wake up the preacher. Yeah, that's true, that's what he says. That's true. Yeah. So, uh, you know, I think that's one of our jobs is this is an incredible story. We have to get out of the way of it a lot of times. Now we can, you know, to make it understandable. If we can shed a little bit of light, if we can turn some light on, and you know, expose the texts and say, hey, this is this is what it means. That helps a little bit. But the other part of it for us too is we we horse around a lot, but this is pretty much what we do. So if we don't get the if we don't get the horse around a little bit together doing this kind of stuff, anything, that's right. Uh. But but more than that, I think that my the reason why I'm a pastor is because I sat underneath a pastor who made the Bible understandable and relevant and uh, and I was I was continually u flabbergasted that he could take a passage that at first glance was like, what does that mean? And then all of a sudden I could walk away and go, oh, my goodness, it means this one thing or these three things or whatever it was. And I was like wow. And it was something that I remembered, something that I understood, and something that was relevant in my life today. It was so practical and applicable and beneficial. And I thought to myself, man, that is amazing. And and and by the way, I compared that to my growing up experiences. So I was a teenager at that time, but growing up I was just like, well, you know, geez, the Bible is the most difficult thing and most boring and irrelevant thing in the world. And then all of a sudden you compare it, you know, this juxtaposed position here, and I'm just like, this is this is how it should always be. Right. Yeah, so hey, we take that as a great compliment. Yeah, for sure from Karen. So thank you so much. Karen. All right, well today we're jumping in. He never thirteen. We just talked about making exciting and then he starts, he starts yawning. He's already board late. The situation always gets me. I have to fight it, so numbers thirteen. Basically they've come up to just so you know, up to this point, the people of Israel have been wandering a little bit. They've been heading towards the Promised Land. The Promised Land represented so much to the people of Israel and figuratively represents, you know, where God brings us to ultimately, the promised land of a relationship with Him and in eternity. But so they're heading towards the Promised Land and they decide, hey, it's getting a little scary. What should we do? And they come up to the Jordan River on the they're on the east side, which would be in what would be now modern day nation of Jordan, and they're ready to go across into Israel. And so with that being said, numbers Chapter thirteen versue says that the Lord now said to Moses, send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I'm giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes. So Moses did as the Lord commanded, and he sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran. And then for the next eleven verses it spells out all those names, guys with names like Guel and Knabi and Amiel. So I'm not going to try to read them all. What is it wolf? See, Yeah, you can go ahead and read them if you like. Makis so from all all of the tribes of Israel Rau. Then in verse sixteen it says, these are the names of men Moses sent out to explore the land. Moses called Hoshiah, son of None by the name Joshua. Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land. Go north through the Negev into the hill country. See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. See what kind of land they live in? Is it good or bad? Do they their towns have walls or are they unprotected like open camps? Is the soil for or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see. It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes. So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of zen as far as how do you say, rayhab near le boheimoth ye judgement, That's exactly what I was going to say. Going north, they passed through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Hymen, the Sheshai, and Talmai, all descendants of Anak lived. The ancient town of Hebron was founded seven years before the Egyptian city of Zoa. When they came to the valley of Eskol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes so large that it took two of them to carry it on a pole between them. They also brought back samples of the pomegranates and figs, and that place was called the valley of Eskol, which means cluster because of the cluster grapes the Israelite men cut there. After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron and the whole community of Israeli kidish in the wilderness of Puran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit. They'd take it from the land. This was the report to Moses. We under the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country, a land flowing with milk and honey. And here's the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, descendants of Anak. The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley. But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. Let's go at once and take the land, he said, we can certainly conquer it. But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. We can't go up against them. They're stronger than we are. So they spread this bad report among the land among the Israelites. The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of anak next to them, We felt like grasshoppers. And that's what they thought too. The next verse says, in the whole began, the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Yeah. So, and the story does go on. But the bottom line is is we know the ending of this story, which I don't think we're gonna touch on next week or tomorrow. So the story is is that regardless of Joshua and Caleb's plea to go into the land, they decide not to. Right. Yes, so because we're not doing it right right numbers twenty h yeah, yeah, so we just have to summarize. And because of their disbelief, then what happens They wind up wandering in the wilderness for forty years until everybody voted not to go dies boom, that is the way to say it. And so and so God says, God says, here's the promise. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lead you to the hence the word promised land, the land that has promised to you. And then Moses says, hey, go check it out. And just like God delivered the Egyptians from the or excuse me, the Israelites. The Egyptians, right, I mean they were they were weaponless, Egyptians had chariots and uh. And yet you know God, God delivered them. And not to mention, you know the stories of old right, you know how God just always shows up for uh, you know, his people and uh. And yet they felt like God was not big enough apparently to overcome the people in the Promised Land. Right, but it was everything he promised it would be, yes, right, They they literally came back. Hey, these grapes we had to we had to hang between a on a pole between the two of us. Can you even imagine? Yeah, you and I carried a cluster of grapes back from Kroger in a little bag. In fact, in fact, it's many clusters of grapes right right, because that's how big they are. That's how small they are compared to them, you know, between a pole. Are you kidding me? I can't by the way, I can't even imagine swallowing you rape that size, right, eat it like an apple? Right right? So, uh so it was everything God promised it would be. Yes, why wouldn't they just go, Okay, we're going to take it. So Caleb goes, let's just take it now. Let's not wait another minute, let's go. Joshua is the other one who votes and says, hey, we should go, right. Joshua's Moses's right hand man. Joshua believes that God's going to keep his promises. But everybody else was voting on the was voting based on the problems they could see, and Joshua and Caleb saw all the promises God had made. There's a big difference between those two things. If you live your life like you know, it's there's what twelve was it? How many spies went in? Twelve? Was it twelve? Yep? Was twelve? Yeah, so you get all these spies they go in and two of them say we can do it. Yeah, twelve men went to spy ocaine and ten we're bad and two we're good. I remember that one. Yes, yes, okay, so listen, I know that we're technically not assigned chapter fourteen, but can I skip ahead and sort of read these verses? We don't actually have to have them on the screen, But this is one of my favorite parts of this story that we didn't get the chance to read. So let me set the context. So, out of all these twelve spies, they're all saying, no, we're afraid they're giants. And then, as we already have read, Caleb is the only one right, He's the only voice of reason. He says, come on, let's go, And then they say and they're like, no, we Then Joshua gives this incredible rousing speech. It reminds me of the Brave Heart speech from this day to that would you not sacrifice that for your freedom? Right? You know all that? So it says in fourteen it says that the Joshua and Caleb tore their clothing in despair, right, and they said to all the people, the land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land. And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land. He'll give it to us. It is rich land, flowing with milk and honey. Do not rebel against the Lord, and don't be afraid of the people of the land. They are only helpless pray to us. Think about how inspiring that is. They have no protection, but the Lord is with us. Don't be afraid of them. I mean, that's an incredible speech. Then the next verse says, but the whole community talk about stoning and cale, so it's like the best reaction ever, right, It's it's like it's like this incredible speech and then you know, like a movie cuts and then they they see the guys tied up or something. It's like they talked about starting them give me a rock. I'm gonna shut these guys up. This incredible, rousing speech that we but we know is true. And you know, there's so many sermons in there, but but first of all, here's here's a sermon. We need the voices of faith around us, right, so that when we live our lives and we come across all the things that come our way, you know, we face trials, we face things that discourage us, we lose faith, we doubt God's promises. We we we face things that are just we seem insurmountable, the odds are incalculable. And then there's always that it seems like God's you know, sends hopefully that voice of reason. Maybe it's our mom, or maybe it's our wife, or maybe it's a good friend. And they're the person that you already know what they're going to say, right, because they're oh, here they come. They're going to say, you know, have faith, believing God, go to church, read your Bible, just be strong, you know. And when we're when we're far from God, sometimes it's the last thing we want to hear. So sometimes what we do is we want to avoid people like that, right, we avoid. And as a pastor, you know this to be true. You try to call somebody to encourage them, what do they do? They dodge your calls or they avoid your texts. Right. I was thinking of a really good friend of mine. He's really discouraged about his marriage, and uh, and they're on my heart like every other day, and and I and I texted this guy and I was like, hey, I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm your pastor and your friend and so I would be doing myself and you a disservice if I didn't have to, if I didn't say this to you. I said, but I'm praying against what you're feeling. I'm praying against it, man. And I said, I know you don't want to hear that because I'm a good friend of yours. But it's because I believe God wants this for your life. Right. And he didn't respond, He didn't respond at all, And I didn't expect him to to be honest with you. But but I hope I'm the voice of Joshua and Caleb, you know. But but here's another here's another sermon that's in here. You ready for this? Remember those names you skipped? Yeah, okay, think about all the names that you hear today. Your name is Jeff, My name is Chris. Do you know somebody named Joshua? Yes? Have a brother named Joshua. Do you know somebody named Caleb? Yes? Now do you know somebody named Zacher No? Or Maki Nope? Or or Vafzi No? Right? So you don't you don't know any of those guys, right? Or Emuel or Sepher or Nabi or Uel or Gotti or Gidiel or Palti or Shamuah. The reason why you don't know that is because those guys are guys that nobody wants to remember, right, They're relegated to the dustbin of But who are the heroes of faith? The names that have carried on through the generations. Joshua and Caleb. They're the only two of the twelve that you still hear people naming their children after. And that's got to be a massive sermon right there. Well, God chose to name his son, yes you will, Yeah, that's right, right, right, right, So Joshua's name, Jesus name was Joshua, right right, yeah, yeah, yeah, in that language. So it's pretty amazing. Yeah, and so and so it's yeah, that's you know what, to be honest with you, I I think I heard that a long time ago, and I've really completely forgot that. But you know, it's it's it's just an incredible tribute that. So here's the sermon that's hidden in there, and that is that which we do today. We may not see or think that our choices will live past our lifetime, yeah yep, but yet they do, don't they. It's right, our choices of standing up for faith. What it was the Bible saying, our choices not only move the kingdom forward, but you know, you never know this side of eternity. Uh, you know what what would living for God will mean to the generations that come behind you? And only until we get to the other side of eternity where we know that what we do on this earth has affected those who have come behind us. And so you know, here's Joshu michaeleb probably in this moment, having no idea. You know that here we are talking about them thousands of years later, maybe our children after them. You know. For me, I used to teach this a lot to my young adults and some of my high schoolers as well. When the crowd seems to be fueling its own hype, go against the crowd every time. The crowd is almost always wrong, just even in our modern times here recently, I just recently read an article. It started off in the Wall Street Journal. There was a link from the from there to another article. Right, so there's two articles about think of how many things mainstream America now just mainstream media, mainstream America has gotten wrong just in the last five or six years. Let's talk about masks and mandates and pandemics. Let's talk about politics, let's talk about burning down cities, Let's talk about all these things that then now mainstream media is retracting or stepping away from a conspiracy and just shouting down anybody goes, Have you ever thought about Rah viciously attacking anybody who gave an opposing view at all? Right? And now how many things? It's dozens of things that literally had people fighting at Thanksgiving dinner over things that turns out to be not true. Right, but we're gonna go ahead and fight with each other. Yeah, this is my shocked face. Yes, right, and and here you go. You have twelve go in, yep, two come back and go we can do it. God problems, We can do it. And it's everything you said it was right, and ten go, yeah, there's some problems over there, and those big guys we can't beat them, right, and the whole crowd wanted to kill the two. Right, he said we can do this, and I know that we can do it, But can I remind you of God's promises? They have no protection. God is with us. They are like pray to us. These are some of the most inspiring unbelievable things that Joshua is pointing back to God. It's not just inspiration, it's inspiration attached to promises. So under all the uncertainty over the last several years, I've had a lot of people want to come in and say, Jeff, I just instinctively am thinking there's something not right in society today, and I'm not sure where I should go. And I would always say I'm not sure either, but I can tell you when the whole group is going that way, go the other way, go the other way. Right. And so when you're not sure what you should do, what are God's promises, and go God's promises, the direction of his promises, go his way, regardless of what everybody else does. Because here's what I know. They went in to spy for forty days, they rejected God's plan, and they d for forty years. The consequences were ten times. There's forty days, So it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, right, it was thousands of times. It was three hundred and sixty five times, right, because each day was a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so three hundred and sixty five times right times forty right, right times forty. Yeah. So so the consequences of going against God's way are unbelievable, even though the masses were going that way, and we live in a society that is even more mass hysteria driven then back in that day. Right, And so one, stop getting your news from every all your friends. Right, that'd be one. But then just understand, when the whole world is going a certain way, you need to go the other way. Go the other way, go God's way. Yeah, and uh, and you know because two lived, two lived through it, and two eventually made it to the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb Caleb from now they're old men instead of young man, right, and everybody else cost them. They had to wander for forty years. But yeah, yeah, and then and then all. So here's another sermon that's in here, which is, sometimes your choices and your disbelief in God don't just affect you, they affect everybody around you absolutely, because what happens is is they're the ones the ten persuaded the nation right to the point to where now the whole crowd is looking to stone Joshua and just you know, just shut this guy up, because I'm telling you, guys, if we go in there, we're gonna die, right, And all of a sudden, you know, they're persuading the crowd, and the crowd listens to the ten over the two, and then what ends up happening is everybody suffers. Everybody suffers for the ten's disbelief, right, And so you know, sometimes like you know, like I don't want to. You know, my dad's a wonderful human being, you know, but when he divorced my mom, I don't know back then if he would have thought because I never asked him, But it wouldn't it have been silly had he have hed he approached us and said, well, hey, this is my life. My choice has nothing to do with anybody else. I'm gonna divorce your mom. Don't tell me what to do. It's my life. He didn't say any of those things, But wouldn't have been silly for him to think that that choice divorcing, of divorcing my mom only affected him. Right, I'm not talking about right or wrong or reconciliation in my mom's situation. I'm not talking about any of that kind of stuff. Decisions have trickled down effect that are devastating to the people. Yeah, I'm only I'm only saying it's sometimes it's silly to think, you know, to claim, hey, it's my life, it's my happiness, it's my choices. Well, I mean that's fine, but just recognize it's never just your life, almost never, it's it's it's it's going to bleed out on other people around you. So we have to consider that. And you know, society does say, right, whatever makes you happy, society points it back to you. You know, we just want you to do what is best for you. We want you to do well. You know that there's some measure of truth to that. But we have to realize that, you know, our choices almost always affect those around us. Yeah. So, so then in chapter fourteen, I'll finish up with this. Because your men explored the land for forty days, you must wander in the wilderness for forty years a year, for each day suffering the consequences of your sin. Then you will discover what it's like to have me for an enemy. Right, So the people then they change your mind. They go, oh, god, you're right, we change her because you know what happens. Right after that, all ten spies were struck dead right in front of them. So then people, will you know what, God, we changed your mind, will go. But at that point God had said no, now you're gonna go spend forty days or forty years in the wilderness. So thea's no, no, no, we're going to go in and they were going to go across the river Mos. Whoa, you can disobey God again. Now he said to go in the wilderness, and you're gonna You're gonna bring more plagues on us. But Joshua and Caleb, they chose to go the right way. God spared their lives. God carried them through that forty years of difficulty, and then He does deliver around his promises. And so God never promises that it'll be easy. There's no victory without a fight, right, But God does say, I'll go with you, I'll for you, I'll protect you, and I will give you everything I promised that I give you, And so we can always trust God. Otherwise we set God up as our enemies. Yeah that's good, all right, Well, hey, we'll see you tomorrow hopefully on the Bible. Gus