Fear is a powerful thing.
In fact, oftentimes it is a very useful thing.
Think about Noah in Genesis 6.
He was to build an ark.
If he was not scared of being drowned, of his entire family perishing and human existence being wiped out, would he have made it?
Now, there's also the fact that he feared the Lord, which is the fear he truly needed.
But in that, he also feared the word of the Lord.
Remember David.
What would happen if he did not fear Saul?
He was going to be killed by Saul if he didn't run.
He had javelins thrown at him twice, but he lived because he was willing to run away.
He had that motivation.
Then we can look at Saul, the one that was a Christian, who became a Christian.
He was willing to leave Damascus because he had to get up and go because there was danger.
Fear is an important thing.
It is something that God gave us and helps us to survive.
Now, there was once a study done where primates had a part of their mind disabled that allowed fear to occur.
And when this happened, it was striking.
They were able to create new fear.
They were able to remember old fears and use them, but they were not able to make new fears.
Fear is an important thing and when they were not able to make new ones, it was a danger to them.
What if they had never seen a lion before?
And now that they can't make a new fear, they meet a lion.
look, free breakfast.
It is something that is dangerous.
It is only going to be a hurt since they now have no fear.
Now fear in our lives is an important thing as well.
But this fear must be trained and it must be able to learn, able to grow.
How many times as children do we learn stranger danger, but then we do not learn a new fear of looking at every single soul and saying, this soul, if I do not reach them, is
going to be lost.
A fear that says, I want something better for you.
What about the fear that says, I'm going to hold onto mom and dad's hand, but then we do not learn the fear to hold to the Lord's hand through this life.
What about the fear of darkness, where we don't want to be
where we can't see, but then we're just fine being in the darkness of this world, not looking into God's book.
Fear is an important thing, and we need to be learning something new every day, learning the kind of fear that is important, that will help us make it to eternity.
Turn to Numbers Chapter 13, Numbers 13.
In this chapter was a fear that led to 605,000
530 men with their women and children not making it to the wilderness because they remembered old fears and would not cling to new ones.
They were not going to listen to the Lord even though they had been in the wilderness for years.
He had led them out of the land of Egypt.
They had now come to this land.
They have seen the Lord work miracles.
They've seen the Lord give them victory in battle, but there's still something that is wrong.
something that they just can't get their minds around.
Hebrews 9, 13, starting in verse one.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel.
Of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send men, every one a ruler among them.
And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them all from the wilderness of Peran, from all those things.
all those men were heads of the children of Israel." Now, we mentioned the fact that there is fear that is important.
There is fear that is willing to look and say, okay, what is it that I am about to face?
The Lord tells Moses, ready to spy out the land.
Know what you are getting into.
This is prudence.
This is something that is good for them if they do it wisely.
Verses 4-15 show the names of the men who went.
Verse 17, and Moses sent them out.
to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, now keep in mind Moses' words, these men had an objective and they followed everything except one command.
Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, get you up this way southward and go up into the mountain.
They first have a direction.
They are to go out into this land, they are to go southward.
And 18, they are to see the land, what it is.
And the people that dwelleth therein
whether they be strong or weak, few or many, and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad, in what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents or
in strongholds, and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean.
They are to be looking at the topography, the geography of the land.
It's hard to fight somewhere well if you don't know what the land is, like where you are fighting.
They are to also know the fruitfulness of the land, know the bounty that they are going to go and enjoy.
They are also to know their enemy.
They are to go and see who it was living in the land, but also know the infrastructure of the enemy.
Not only are they to know what people are there, they are to know what kind of cities they have.
Do they dwell in tents?
Do they have walled cities?
Do they have forts all around?
What kind of enemy are we facing?
These are commandments Moses gave.
Now, moving forward, he tells them,
to be of good courage.
We send it.
and they descended by the south and came unto Hebron.
Moses tells them to be of good courage in this passage.
I just cannot remember exactly where he said it.
Moses tells them to be of good courage and they do not.
Now, even if it was totally erroneous that it is not in this passage, God had showed them time and time again that they are to be of good courage.
Please look at verse 20.
And they ascended by the south, and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether it be wood therein or not,
in be ye of good courage." There it is, in be ye of good courage.
This was the one command that they did not follow from Moses.
They went and did the rest as we are about to see.
Verse 23, "'And they came unto the brook Eshkol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes.' They see the fruitfulness of the land.
And they bear it between two men upon a staff, and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs.
And the place was called the brook Eshkol."
because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thins, and they returned from searching the land after forty days.
So now they have come back after doing the search of the land, after seeing the fruitfulness.
Verse 26, And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Peran, to Kadesh, and brought back word unto
them unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
And they told them and said, came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey.
This is the fruit of it.
Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and their cities are walled and very great.
And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there, and the Amalekites that dwell in the land.
It continues to list these in verse 29.
Now, looking at their mission, they had an objective.
They were to search the land.
They were to know the enemy.
They were to know
what the enemy had.
They were to know the fruitfulness of the land.
They were to be of good courage.
Now, everything starts to shift in verse 30.
At this point, they have done everything that we know they were supposed to do.
They have gone out, they had enough courage to go and be on a land that was surrounded by the enemy.
But now, verse 30, and Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.
These spies had given what seems to be an objective report.
And then the people started stirring.
And then Caleb has to still them.
He says, we are able to do this, don't worry.
But then verse 32, and they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, the land through which we have gone to search it is a
land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.
And all the men that we saw in it are men of great stature.
And we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which came of the giants.
And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers.
So we were in their sight.
So there's this objective report where they say, OK, hey, here are the enemies.
And yes, we saw the children of Anak.
We saw giants.
But now their tone changes.
After they see the people's reaction, they start leveling up the exaggeration.
They even start lying.
They say all the men of the land are giants.
Only a select portion of the people that they went and saw were giants.
They have started lying.
They have started making this something that it is not.
They exaggerate, they say we were in grasshoppers in their sight.
It's they say that it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants.
They had said before it's a land that floweth with milk and honey.
It is a good land.
Now, now it's a harsh place that is going to eat you up if you even think about going in there.
They have changed what they were saying.
Now, this is where the rubber starts meeting the road.
When fear comes into place and it is untrained, it does not receive what it needs to truly fear God, it will lead to us magnifying the enemy.
They had an objective goal and they went and they messed it all up because they
did not have the courage after they got back.
And they told the entire congregation that this was a people that they could not defeat.
Now, look at chapter 14 verse 1.
There's a subtle lesson here for us.
And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried.
So, all the congregation lifted up their voice here.
Look back at verse 26 and see who the spies came to and told.
And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel.
When these spies came back, they had an objective mission.
They had something that they were to go and do and gather information.
And then they came back.
Hearing is a lesson in how we deal with information.
Now, secrets should not be hid in ways that are deceptive, in ways that are wrong, in ways that are dishonest.
But the way they handled this here,
is what led to the congregation stirring.
They came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation and said this, what would have happened if they just met with Moses and Aaron?
They're like, hey, we have this information, let's now go to the Lord about it.
Let's go inquire of the Lord and see what He says about these giants that are in the land.
And then we'll go to the people after we've gone to the Lord.
Let's just handle this wisely.
There are countless times.
where the Lord's church today is torn apart because something wasn't handled well.
There were countless times when families are torn because a loved one's death wasn't shared the right way.
Because somebody knew before somebody else and then it all became a ruckus.
It all became something that only left harm and hurt.
These people came to all the congregation and said this and then they started stirring before anything biased was said.
And that's what then led to the domino effect of them saying, no, we can't do this.
They see the people and they say, okay, we're going to tag along with that and say the exact same, we can't do this.
There's no way this is going to happen.
And it all went down from there and led to them being in a wilderness prison for 40 years.
That's what happens when we don't handle information wisely, when we don't think about what the Lord is going to say before anyone else.
They came and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried.
and the people wept that night.
When we magnify the enemy, there are things that we are going to forget, things we will lose sight of.
We will first and foremost lose sight of our God.
These are people who had been led through the wilderness.
They had seen the Red Sea parted and they forgot it, but they also forgot their gains.
They are now no longer slaves.
They have been a people, though they've been walking through the wilderness, they've been free.
They've not been whipped with the scourge in who knows how long, in quite a few years.
They also lost sight of their goals.
There was something that they were to go and do, go and conquer, and they had every ability to do it, but because of this fear, because they magnified the enemy, they will
not reach that goal.
Moving forward, fear will cause us to magnify the enemy, but also minimize the Lord.
Chapter 14, verse one, and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried.
And the people wept that night, and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron.
And the whole congregation said unto them, Would God we have died in the land of Egypt, or would God we have died in this wilderness?
And wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey?
Were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
That wine was obnoxious.
I know, it was obnoxious.
But imagine how Moses felt.
with his people who he had seen in the wilderness, who he's led, he's been patient with them.
He has helped them, he has pleaded to the Lord for them on top of Mount Sinai seeing it on fire.
And here they are.
about to enter the promised land that had been in place for over 400 years and they are about to miss it because they cannot look at the power of the Lord because they cannot see
what He is doing and appreciate it.
And the children of Israel, moving to verse 4, and they said one to another, let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
These are people who are now minimizing the Lord.
And when we minimize the Lord, we are going to question his leadership.
They say, wherefore had the Lord brought us up out of this land?
Why has he done this?
It would have been better for us to die in Egypt or die in the wilderness.
They are now questioning why the Lord has even brought them.
In this, they are being irrational.
Would God have died in the wilderness so that we wouldn't die there?
You're going to die either way if you have this kind of mindset.
They are being irrational when they are thinking that they can out ration the Lord.
They can out think Him.
Wherefore the Lord brought us out of the land of Egypt?
They are questioning the Lord, His leadership.
But now verse four, they are also going to try to replace His leadership.
And they said one to another, let us make a captain and let us return to Egypt.
They are now going to take all
of that progress, all of that time going through the wilderness, and they are going to bring it back to Egypt because they are too afraid to go into the land.
They are going to take everything that they had worked for, everything God had done, and totally reverse it, going back into a period of slavery at best, if not just totally
rejected by the Egyptians.
They are trying to take away everything the Lord had worked for.
And now,
not only do they question the Lord's leadership, not only do they try to replace, they are going to reject it.
But look at how amazing the Lord's leadership is.
These people that He chose.
Verse 5 again, then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes.
And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land.
If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it us, a land that floweth with milk and honey." Now, they not going to enter this land, but the Lord
hasn't appeared in glory over the tabernacle yet.
They haven't heard the Lord say, you are not going to enter this land.
He still being patient.
The Lord is still there and He is allowing those people to make their decisions and have leaders
that are encouraging them to do the right thing.
The Lord is still being good and he has these leaders who say the Lord is going to do this.
Now verse 9, only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land for they are bred for us.
Their defense is departed from them and the Lord is with them.
Fear them not.
These are leaders who say what you are doing is rebelling against God.
It's not going to get you anywhere.
neither fear ye the people of the land.
We have a God who can throw mountains into the sea.
Why not fear Him?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
That is a fear that is a reverence, but it's also a fear that respects His power.
But they respect the power of a people who have been in this land more than the power of the God that created them.
Their defense is departed from them.
The Lord is with us.
Fear them not.
But now, verse 10.
But all the congregation, they stoned them with stones.
And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel." These leaders who had been patient, who had been helping, they now
say, we're going to stone you.
Now, this could just be Joshua and Caleb that are being stoned since they were the ones that spoke up when Aaron and Moses had their faces to the ground.
It could have been all four of them.
but they are wanting to look at the leadership of God, look at those that are righteous, and because they are willing to stand up against those who are fearful, they want to stone
them.
And that is when things start to change, when their consequence starts coming.
We need to fear fear itself, because if we have too much of it, we are going to magnify the enemy, looking at the obstacles and saying, is too much.
then we will minimize the Lord saying he cannot take care of these obstacles that are too large for us to even think about.
But now an undue fear will mar our destiny.
Verse 11, verse 10.
And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.
And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me?
And how long will it be ere they believe me?
For all the signs which I have shown them, I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them.
I will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they.
And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it.
for thou brought us up this people in thy might from among them, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, for they have heard that thou, Lord, art among this people."
Moses goes on and tries to tell the Lord, try to reason with the Lord that he not to destroy this people.
Even though they were going to stone Joshua and Caleb, perhaps Moses and Aaron, he is still trying to help them.
He does not want them to be eaten.
taken with this fire, even though the Lord says, will make of you a greater nation, I will make of you a better people.
But Moses remembers that the Lord made a promise and he doesn't want him to break it.
There is a reason that he was a man, a leader unlike any other in the eyes of God.
Verse 13, and Moses said unto the Lord, then the Egyptians shall hear it, for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them, until they will tell it to the
inhabitants of this land, for they have heard
that thou, art among this people, that thou, Lord, hath seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them by time, by daytime, in a pillar
of cloud, and in a pillar of fire, by night.
This is a God that is with them, a God that has been leading them.
Now, if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into
the land which he sweared on."
unto them.
Therefore hath he slain them in the wilderness." Moses comes to the Lord trying to save the people who does not believe the Lord just so that the nations don't come and mock the
Lord.
He's trying to use reasoning.
Boiled down it still doesn't sound pretty.
It still doesn't sound like something that is going to be well for the Israelites case.
But the Lord hearkens to Moses.
Verse 17, "'And now I beseech thee,
Let the power of my Lord be great according as thou hast spoken." According to the power of my Lord.
Moses, remember Jacob, he had been traveling to the land of his fathers to go find his future wife.
And when he was at Bethel, he made a covenant with the Lord and said, if the God of my father does this,
I am going to go and do as He says." And throughout the coming years, the decades, He would say, God of my father, the God of my father, the God of my father.
Jacob was a leader, but he was not a leader who said, the Lord my God.
That is the kind of leader who is going to do the Lord's will.
He is going to have this kind of patience, this kind of meekness.
Remember David, who was a man after God's own heart, who wouldn't even lay a hand to the king.
who wanted mercy for those who rebelled against him.
This is the kind of person who says, the Lord my God.
Now this is the kind of leader that they have rejected.
They have this blessing from God and they will not take it.
Now as Moses continues he reminds the Lord of how God described his own personality in Exodus 34.
The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression.
and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." Moses pleads, pleads, and pleads he does
not want this people to be killed.
Now, verse 20, "'And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.'" Throughout Moses' reasoning, throughout his plea for this people, he said, according to the name of
the Lord, according to what
you have done, according to your power." And now he says, according to thy word, I will pardon this people.
God has listened and He will now allow this to be.
But verse 21, but as I truly live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.
The glory of the Lord is His power, it is His personality, it is His mercy, and it is His justice.
The things that set God apart make Him great
and the world is going to know what kind of God this is.
They were going to have the opportunity to learn from a people who went and defeated the Canaanites because of his power, but now they will learn a different way.
Or at least it will be more time until then.
according, but as I truly live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and
in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall
any of them that provoked me see it." These people, these that have rejected God time and time again, they are not going to come into the land.
Verse 24 shows that Caleb will.
And verse 25 shows the Lord's command.
Tomorrow turn you and get you into the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.
They are now to turn around.
They were going to go and totally reverse everything the Lord had done for them.
The Lord, in a way, He has made it better on them.
They are going to die in the wilderness, but at least their generation is going to circle back around and come to the land God had promised them.
They have now marred their own destiny.
The Lord will give their children something great.
But they have made it to where the rest of their lives is just nothingness.
They magnified the enemy, looking at these people and saying, we can't do anything.
They then minimized the Lord, who gives us this life so that we can become closer to Him.
And then they said, this Lord can't do anything.
And then they destroyed their own destiny.
Looking at how this generation lived through the wilderness, it wouldn't be a surprise if that vast majority of them still didn't learn and ended up being lost for eternity.
Now, this next generation.
at the end of their time, they are going to be far more impressive.
They are going to have their struggles.
They are going to have their times of punishment.
But they are going to be the people who came into the land.
They are going to be the people who made sure that they followed the Lord's way, as seen with the altar that was at Jordan.
But this generation has taken all of the mercy they can.
And there comes a time when the Lord's mercy ends.
Don't magnify the enemy.
The devil, don't magnify his work, his persecution.
Allow the Lord's power to take control.
He is not going to come down with miracles, but he is going to give us every tool, every asset to go out and spread his gospel, to go out and strengthen his kingdom.
We are not going to go defeat the Canaanites.
But we are going to spread the gospel to America, to all the other nations of the world.
Don't magnify the enemy.
Don't minimize the Lord.
He can do all things.
He is the one who had the power to raise his son from the dead.
He surely has the power to use you to save souls.
And finally, don't mark your destiny.
These were to go into the promised land, but they would not go into it because they feared.
If we fear, if we fear living God's way, we won't enter the promised land God has in store for us.
But if we follow his will, if we follow his way, he has something prepared for us.
If fear has taken control of your life, if you have not served the Lord your God with all your soul, all your heart, all your mind, now is an opportunity to come to him.
if you are in need of being baptized, if you are not a Christian and you want to start walking with the Lord, living with a healthy fear for Him and not a fear of the enemy.
Now is an opportunity.
If anyone is in need of the invitation, please come forward while we stand and while we sing.