“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 a man, every one a ruler
among them.’ And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them from the
wilderness of Paran.” (Ver. 1-3.)
In order fully to understand the foregoing commandment, we must look at
it in connection with a passage in the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses,
in going over the facts of Israel’s marvelous history in the wilderness,
reminds them of the following important and interesting circumstance:
“And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and
terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the
Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
And I said unto you, ‘Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites,
which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Behold, the Lord thy God hath
set the land before thee; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy
fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged.’ _And ye
came near unto me every one of you_, and said, ‘_We will send men before
us_, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by
what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.’” (Deut. i.
19-22.)
Now here we have the moral root of the fact stated in Numbers xiii. 2.
It is evident that the Lord gave the commandment concerning the spies
because of the moral condition of the people. Had they been governed
by simple faith, they would have acted on those soul-stirring words of
Moses, “Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: _go up
and possess it_, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee;
_fear not, neither be discouraged_.” There is not a single syllable
about spies in this splendid passage. What does faith want of spies, when
it has the word and the presence of the living God? If Jehovah had given
them a land, it must be worth having. And had He not? Yes, truly; and not
only so, but He had borne testimony to the nature and character of that
land in the following glowing words: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee
into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that
spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley and vines and
fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of oil olive and honey; a land wherein
thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in
it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig
brass.” (Deut. viii. 7-9.)
Should not all this have sufficed for Israel? Ought they not to have been
satisfied with the testimony of God? Had not He spied out the land for
them, and told them all about it? and was not this enough? What need of
sending men to spy the land? Did not God know all about it? Was there a
spot “from Dan to Beersheba” with which He was not perfectly acquainted?
Had He not selected this land and allotted it, in His own eternal
counsels, for the seed of Abraham His friend? Did He not know all about
the difficulties? and was He not able to surmount them? Why, then, did
they “come near _every one of them_, and say, ‘We will send men before
us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again’”?
Ah, reader, these questions come right home to our hearts. They find us
out, and make thoroughly manifest where we are. It is not for us to sit
down and coolly animadvert upon the ways of Israel in the wilderness,—to
point out error here and failure there. We must take all these things
as types set before us for our admonition. They are beacons, erected
by a friendly and faithful hand, to warn us off from the dangerous
shoals, quicksands, and rocks which lie along our course, and threaten
our safety. This, we may be sure, is the true way to read every page of
Israel’s history, if we would reap the profit which our God has designed
for us in penning such a record.
But it may be the reader is disposed to ask a question here. Did not
the Lord expressly command Moses to send spies? and if so, how was it
wrong for Israel to send them? True, the Lord did command Moses to send
the spies, in Numbers xiii, but this was in consequence of the moral
condition of the people, as set forth in Deuteronomy i. We shall not
understand the former unless we read it in the light of the latter. We
learn most distinctly from Deuteronomy i. 22 that the idea of sending
the spies had its origin in the heart of Israel. God saw their moral
condition, and He issued a command in full keeping therewith.
If the reader will turn to the opening pages of the first book of Samuel,
he will find something similar in the matter of the appointment of a
king. The Lord commanded Samuel to hearken to the voice of the people,
and make them a king. (1 Sam. viii. 22.) Was it that He approved of the
plan? Most surely not; on the contrary, He declares plainly that it was a
positive rejection of Himself. Why then command Samuel to appoint a king?
The command was given in consequence of Israel’s condition. They were
growing weary of the position of entire dependence upon an unseen arm,
and they longed for an arm of flesh; they desired to be like the nations
around them, and to have a king who should go out before them, and fight
their battles for them. Well, God gave them their request, and they were
very speedily called to prove the worthlessness of their plan. Their king
proved a most complete failure, and they had to learn that it was an evil
and a bitter thing to forsake the living God and lean on a broken reed of
their own selection.
Now, we see the same thing in the matter of the spies. There can be no
question, in the mind of any spiritual person who studies the entire
subject, as to the fact that the scheme of sending the spies was the
fruit of unbelief. A simple heart that trusted God would never have
thought of such a thing. What! are we to send poor mortals to spy out a
land which God has graciously given to us, and which He has so fully and
faithfully described? Far be the thought. Nay, rather let us say, It is
enough: the land is the gift of God, and as such it must be good. His
word is enough for our hearts: we want no spies; we seek for no mortal
testimony to confirm the word of the living God. He has given; He has
spoken; this is enough.
But, alas! Israel was not in a condition to adopt such language. They
_would_ send spies. They wanted them; their hearts craved them; the
desire for them lay in the very depths of the soul. Jehovah knew this,
and hence He issued a commandment in direct reference to the moral state
of the people.
The reader would do well to ponder this subject, in the light of
Scripture. He will need to compare Deuteronomy i. with Numbers xiii. It
is possible he may find difficulty in judging of the true nature and
moral roots of the act of sending the spies, from the fact that the thing
was ultimately done in pursuance of “the commandment of the Lord.” But we
must ever remember that the fact of the Lord’s commanding the thing to be
done does not, by any means, prove that the people were right in seeking
it. The giving of the law at Mount Sinai, the sending of the spies, and
the appointment of a king are all proofs of this. No doubt God overruled
all these things for His own glory and for man’s ultimate blessing, but
still the law could not be viewed as the expression of the heart of God.
The setting up of a king was a positive rejection of Himself; and we
may say that the sending of men to spy out the land of promise proved,
very distinctly, that the heart of Israel was not fully satisfied with
Jehovah. The whole affair was the fruit of their weakness and unbelief,
though acquiesced in by God because of their condition, and overruled by
Him, in His infinite goodness and unerring wisdom, for the unfolding of
His ways and the display of His glory. All this comes fully out as we
pursue the history.
“And Moses sent them [the spies] to spy out the land of Canaan, and said
unto them, ‘Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain:
and see the land what it is; and the people that dwell 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; and 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, whether there be wood therein or not. And be ye of good
courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.’ Now the time was the time
of the first-ripe grapes. So they went up, and searched the land from
the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath.... And they
came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with
one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and
they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs. The place was called
the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children
of Israel cut down from thence. And they returned from searching of the
land after forty days. And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and
to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness
of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the
congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him,
and said, ‘We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it
floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.’” (Chap. xiii.
17-27.)
Here, then, was the fullest confirmation of all that the Lord had said
concerning the land—the testimony of twelve men as to the fact that the
land flowed with milk and honey—the testimony of their own senses as
to the character of the fruit of the land. Furthermore, there was the
telling fact that twelve men had actually been in the land, had spent
forty days in traveling up and down therein, had drunk of its springs and
eaten of its fruits. And what, according to the judgment of faith, would
have been the plain inference to be drawn from such a fact? Why, simply,
that the same hand which had conducted twelve men into the land could
conduct the whole congregation.
But, alas! the people were not governed by faith, but by dark and
depressing unbelief; and even the spies themselves—the very men
who had been sent for the purpose of assuring and confirming the
congregation—even they, with two brilliant exceptions, were under the
power of the same God-dishonoring spirit. In short, the whole scheme
proved a failure. The issue only made manifest the true condition of the
hearts of the people. Unbelief was dominant. The testimony was plain
enough—“We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it
floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.” There was
nothing whatever lacking on God’s side of the question. The land was
all that He had said, the spies themselves being witnesses; but let us
hearken to what follows. “Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell
in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we
saw the children of Anak there.” (Ver. 28.)
There is always sure to be a “nevertheless” where man is concerned,
and when unbelief is at work. The unbelieving spies _saw_ the
difficulties—great cities, high walls, tall giants. All these things they
saw, but they did not see Jehovah at all. They looked at the things that
were seen, rather than at the things that were unseen. Their eye was not
fixed upon Him who is invisible. Doubtless, the cities were great, but
God was greater; the walls were high, but God was higher; the giants were
strong, but God was stronger.
Thus it is that faith ever reasons. Faith reasons from God to the
difficulties,—it begins with Him: unbelief, on the contrary, reasons
from the difficulties to God,—it begins with them. This makes all the
difference. It is not that we are to be insensible to the difficulties;
neither are we to be reckless. Neither insensibility nor yet recklessness
is faith. There are some easy-going people who seem to get along through
life on the principle of taking things by the smooth handle. This is
not faith. Faith looks the difficulties straight in the face; it is
fully alive to the roughness of the handle. It is not ignorant, not
indifferent, not reckless; but——what? IT BRINGS IN THE LIVING GOD. It
looks to Him; it leans on Him; it draws from Him. Here lies the grand
secret of its power. It cherishes the calm and deep conviction that
there never was a wall too high for the almighty God—never a city too
great—never a giant too strong. In short, faith is the only thing that
gives God His proper place; and, as a consequence, is the only thing
that lifts the soul completely above the influences of surrounding
circumstances, be they what they may. Of this precious faith, Caleb was
the exponent, when he said, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we
are well able to overcome it.” These are the pure accents of that lively
faith that glorifies God and makes nothing of circumstances.
But, alas! the great majority of the spies were no more governed by this
lively faith than the men who sent them; and hence, the one believer was
talked down by the ten infidels. “The men that went up with him said, ‘We
be not able to go up against the people.’” The language of infidelity
was flatly opposed to the language of faith. The latter, looking at God,
said, “We are _well_ able;” the former, looking at the difficulties,
said, “We are _not_ able.” Thus it was and thus it is. The eyes of faith
are ever covered by the living God, and therefore difficulties are not
seen: the eyes of unbelief are covered with the circumstances, and
therefore God is not seen. Faith brings in God, and therefore all is
bright and easy: unbelief always shuts God out, and therefore all is dark
and difficult.
“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 people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we
saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants; and we were
in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.’” Not a
word about God. He is entirely shut out. Had they thought of Him—had they
brought the giants into comparison with Him, then it would have made not
one whit of difference as to whether they themselves were grasshoppers,
or whether they were men; but in point of fact, they, by their shameful
unbelief, reduced the God of Israel to the level of a grasshopper.
It is very remarkable that wherever infidelity is at work it will
always be found characterized by this one fact, namely, it shuts out
God. This will be found true in all ages, in all places, and under
all circumstances. There is no exception. Infidelity can take account
of human affairs, it can reason upon them, and draw conclusions from
them; but all its reasonings and all its conclusions are based upon the
exclusion of God. The force of its arguments depends upon shutting Him
out, and keeping Him out. Only introduce God, and all the reasonings of
infidelity crumble into dust beneath your feet. Thus, in the scene before
us, what is faith’s reply to all the objections advanced by those ten
unbelievers? Its one, simple, all-satisfying reply, to which there can be
no rejoinder, is, GOD!
Reader, do you know aught of the force and value of this most blessed
answer? Do you know God? Does He fill the entire range of your soul’s
vision? Is He the answer to your every question? the solution of your
every difficulty? Do you know the reality of walking, day by day, with
the living God? Do you know the tranquilizing power of leaning upon Him,
“through all the changes and chances of this mortal life”? If not, let
me entreat of you not to go on for one hour in your present state. The
way is open. God has revealed Himself in the face of Jesus Christ, as the
relief, the resource, and the refuge of every needy soul. Look to Him
now, even now, “while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.”
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” and “he
that believeth shall never be confounded.”
But if, on the other hand, you do, through grace, know God as your
Saviour—your Father, then seek to glorify Him in all your ways, by a
childlike, unquestioning confidence in all things. Let Him be a perfect
covering for your eyes, under all circumstances; and thus, in spite of
all difficulties, your soul shall be kept in perfect peace.