Caleb and Joshua are great favorites of mine. They have got a ring about
them. They were not all the time looking for hindrances and obstacles in
their way. They got their eyes above them.
You remember how those men were sent forward to spy out the land of
Canaan. They had been sent out forty days to go over that land. They went
from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, and thence unto Hebron. And when
they reached the “brook of Eshcol they secured a branch with one cluster
of grapes, and bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the
pomegranates and of the figs.”
They were gone forty days, and the twelve men brought back what Congress
would call a majority and a minority report. Ten men reported that they
had gone unto the land to which they were sent, and that surely it flowed
with milk and honey. And so God’s word was true. They found milk and
honey. And they brought along grapes.
But ten of them were full of unbelief. They further reported that they
saw giants there--the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. The
Hittites, Jebusites, Amalekites and Amorites dwelt there. They were
all there, and also those great giants, in whose sight they were as
grasshoppers. It was a great war city, and they asked themselves if they
looked as though they were able to war with such giants. They said: “We
are not able.”
They undoubtedly brought back maps and charts, and said: “There is the
region. It would be monstrous for us to attempt to take it. There are
massive iron gates and a great wall, and we are not able to take it.
We are defenseless people--without any weapons. We will not be able to
overcome those people.”
I can imagine one man said: “Why, I looked up at those giants, and I
seemed as a little grasshopper, and I felt as small as a grasshopper. We
can not hope to cope with those giants. It is a good land, but we will
not be able to go up and possess it.”
Then they began to murmur. It does not take a very great while to get
unbelievers to murmuring. But Caleb tried to encourage them. He says to
them: “Let us go up at once and possess the land. We are well able to
overcome it.”
Even Joshua joined in with Caleb, and they proved two with the faith. To
be sure, they were in the minority; but if the Lord is with us we are
able to prove a powerful majority over the enemy. They determined to take
it, and they wandered across all through Canaan, but the people took up
stones, and would have stoned them to death. But “the glory of the Lord
appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation, before all the children
of Israel.”
And about three millions of people wandered in the wilderness for forty
years, until all the men laid themselves down in the desert grave and
were kept out of the Promised Land--all on account of their unbelief. And
I believe today that four-fifths of the church is wandering around in the
wilderness, far away from the cross of Calvary and the Promised Land. We
are able to have victory with God with us.
Ten men were looking at all those obstacles that this new land presented
to them, while these two men--Caleb and Joshua--looked up yonder. And
they saw God’s face and remembered the waste in Egypt, the crossing of
the Red Sea, the destruction which was brought upon the Philistines, the
water from the flint rock, and they believed that God was able--as He
most certainly was--to give them that land He had promised.