“Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.” (Numbers 14:9 KJV)
Their defense. Literally, their shade or even their protection. 1 Peter 2:11 makes a revealing connection between the passions of the flesh and the war waged on the soul. Similarly in this chapter, what the people hear in the moment causes all that they have grown to know to vanish. Why does it vanish? What causes it to vanish? Look closely at verse three. “…brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword…” Yes, there is a war waged on the soul. It becomes most apparent when we realize that following the Lord is in fact going to kill us. Yet, does Jesus not tell us this in John 12:23-25? Right at “…The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.” The subsequent realization is that the corn of wheat must die to in turn bring forth much fruit. What of all our possessions do we think that we can bring with us into what God has promised for us? What of all our experience and talent has adequately built a foundation under us that it might support the weight of glory? It is right here at this moment, in this realization, that the real understanding of this report of what is on the other side of this river really means to us. We really are going to die! Our hopes of saving ourselves must be released with sheer honesty. If we are going to live in that land, we must know that from this step forward that He is the one that we trust in, and it is by His power alone that we will conquer. Their defence, their shade, their protection really has departed from them. God has already conquered them. Those passions of the flesh, be they lusts and desires or the hope of protection for our little ones, wage war in a flesh that must be laid down and departed from to enter God’s promised land.
Do you see something really special that God has given these people (and us)? He has brought them thus far “…these ten times…” (verse 22) in opportunity after opportunity to strengthen their faith. Note that in looking back on each of these ten times it has been more than an opportunity to follow the freshly delivered law, but actually an opportunity to see what faith and trust are and to grow in it. God has also allowed them to spy out the land ahead of time. To hear a picture of what this place looks like, that it might offer a hope of the reality of what has been promised. God is now offering them a chance at a freewill expression to see if their faith is ready to grow through hope into His love. Sooner or later we all realize that all that I am is woefully insufficient to enter into what God has for me, yet He still gives us that choice to fully surrender in faithful trust to Him.
The balance of this chapter speaks very firmly to God’s justice. The majority of the people opt not only to go against what is offered, but look for a chance to get rid of the current leadership that surrounds the place where God is meeting with them. While there is a beautiful dialog between Moses and God about forgiveness and concern that God’s name might not be brought into disrepute, ultimately God is a just God. Those ten who brought the bad report are done away with immediately and the rest are filtered out over time, and God does this in such a way that the next generation does get to enter so that only those who reject Him might not be allowed to enter, and God always finds a way to preserve His name. We are warned in Galatians 6:7,8 to not mock God. We do reap what we sow. We might kid ourselves in that stories like this are merely examples of an underlying truth. Jesus meant what He said. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6 KJV) There is no part in our existence that we can really get to God without surrendering to Jesus first. The truth to this is very real and very present. So present in fact that He came to live among us, die for us, and rise again to prepare a place for us.
“And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” (Joshua 14:10,11 KJV)