Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Welcome, everyone, every single listener or watcher, if you’re watching on YouTube, to The Bible Guys.

Jeff:
It’s amazing that they’re watching and listening. Yes, watching and listening. You really honor us.

Chris:
Yes. And so, by the way, 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 what you’d 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.

Jeff:
Click and share. Make all your friends wildest dreams come true. By introducing them to this little podcast.

Chris:
I think I’m Napoleon Dynamite. Vote for me and I’ll make all your wildest dreams come true. So, hey, today we are reading one of the most famous passages in the book of Numbers, and it is Numbers 13, where the spies go in and they check out the promised land.

Jeff:
It’s going to be super cool.

Chris:
It is.

Jeff:
But first of all, we have a social media minute.

Chris:
Ooh, is it going to be one minute?

Jeff:
Yeah. Well, I don’t know. There’s some really nice things that people have to say. It should be minutes. Minutes. Okay. So the first one, Lynn B. says, thank you for such a great episode.

Chris:
Whatever episode that was.

Jeff:
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.

Chris:
And thank you, Len, for writing in because that’s right. That’s 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 is Charmin D. Sharman 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. There’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 Heritage Church. So they attend our church. So thank you, Sharman. That is unbelievable. Thank you. That is really great.

Jeff:
Two great comments. 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. I would say some of us on the podcast are funny. Thank you, Jeff. Others are just being carried along.

Chris:
You know what, just when I think you don’t have it in you, you surprise me all the time.

Jeff:
They just give you massive compliments. That’s how you were hearing that?

Chris:
And don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you’re kind of funny too.

Jeff:
But you know what, that other phrase though, never thought learning the Bible 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 in family ministries in particular, talking 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?

Chris:
Hey, actually, a lot of people are good at it.

Jeff:
I know.

Chris:
I’ve worked for them. I’ve worked for them in the past. I heard a lot of snoozers in my day, buddy.

Jeff:
But how do you do it?

Chris:
My friend Dave Wilson always says, 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.

Jeff:
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, uh, 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, um, this is pretty much what we do. Right. So if we didn’t get the, if we don’t get the horse around a little bit, you know, together doing this kind of stuff, that’s right.

Chris:
But more than that, I think that the reason why I’m a pastor is because I sat underneath a pastor who made the Bible understandable and relevant, and I was continually 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 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 how it should always be. Right. Right.

Jeff:
Yeah. So, hey, we take that as a great compliment.

Chris:
Yeah, for sure.

Jeff:
from Karen.

Chris:
So thank you so much. Thank you, Karen. All right. Well, today We’re jumping into Numbers chapter 13.

Jeff:
We just talked about making it exciting and then he starts yawning. You’ve already bored yourself to sleep.

Chris:
This low light situation always gets me. I have to fight it.

Jeff:
So Numbers 13, 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 uh, you know, the, the, where God brings us to ultimately the promised land of a relationship with him in, in, 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 13, verse one, it 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 12 ancestral tribes. So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He sent out 12 men, all tribal leaders of Israel from their camp in the wilderness of Peron. And then for the next 11 verses, he spells out all those names, guys with names like Guel and Nabi and Amiel. So I’m not going to try to read them all.

Chris:
What is it?

Jeff:
Vofsi. Yeah, you can go ahead and read them if you like. Maki. So from all of the tribes of Israel. Rafu. Then in verse 16 it says, these are the names the men Moses sent out to explore the land. Moses called Hoshea son of Nun 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 their towns have walls or are they unprotected like open camps? Is the soil fertile 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 Zin as far as Rehob, near Lebohemoth.

Chris:
Don’t judge me. That’s exactly what I was going to say.

Jeff:
Going north, they passed through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Haman, the Shishai, and Talmai, all descendants of Anak, lived. The ancient town of Hebron was founded seven years before the Egyptian city of Zohar. When they came to the Valley of Eshkol, 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 Eshkol, which means cluster because of the cluster of grapes the Israelite men cut there. After exploring the land for 40 days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they’d taken from the land. This was their report to Moses. We entered 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, and the whole community began weeping aloud and they cried all night.

Chris:
Yeah. So, and the story does go on, but the bottom line is, is, uh, we, we know the ending of this story, which I don’t think we’re going to touch on next week or tomorrow. So, uh, the, the story is, is that, uh, regardless of Joshua and Caleb’s, uh, plea to go into the land, uh, they decide not to, right. Yes. So, uh, cause we’re not doing it right. Right. That’s correct. Numbers 20.

Jeff:
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris:
So we just have to summarize and because of their disbelief, then what happens?

Jeff:
they wind up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years until everybody who voted not to go dies.

Chris:
Boom. That is the way to say it. And so, and so God says, God says, here’s the promise. I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m going to lead you to the, hence the word promised land, the land that is 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 from the Egyptians, right. I mean, they were, they were weaponless. Egyptians had chariots and, 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, you know, his people. And, and yet they felt like God was not big enough, apparently to overcome the people in the promised land.

Jeff:
Right. But it was everything he promised it would be. Yes. Right. They literally came back. Hey, these grapes, we had to hang on a pole between the two of us.

Chris:
Can you even imagine? Yeah. You and I carry a cluster of grapes back from Kroger in a little bag. 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, you know, between a pole. Are you kidding me? By the way, I can’t even imagine swallowing a grape that size. Right.

Jeff:
Eat it like an apple. Right. Right. So it was everything God promised it would be. Yes. Why wouldn’t they just go, OK, 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 is Moses’s right hand man. Joshua believes that God’s going to keep his promises. But everybody else 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, there’s what, 12? How many spies went in? 12. Was it 12? Yep, it was 12. So you get all these spies, they go in and two of them say, we can do it. Twelve men went to spy on Cain, and ten were bad and two were good. Remember that one?

Chris:
Yes, yes. Okay, so listen, I know that we’re technically not assigned Chapter 14, but can I skip ahead and sort of read these verses? We don’t necessarily have to have them on the screen. Yeah, go ahead. And 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 12 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, and then they say, and they’re like, no. But then Joshua gives this incredible rousing speech. It reminds me of the Braveheart speech, right? From this day to that, would you not sacrifice that for your freedom? You know, all that. So it says in 14, it says that 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 prey 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 Joshua and Caleb. It’s like the best reaction ever. Right. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like this incredible speech. And then, you know, like a movie cuts and then they, and then they see the guys tied up or something. It’s like, they talked about stoning them. Give me a rock. I’m going to shut these guys up. This incredible rousing speech that we know is true. And you know, there’s so many sermons in there, but first of all, here’s a sermon. We need the voices of faith around us. Right? So then 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, we face things that are just, we seem insurmountable. The odds are incalculable. And then there’s always that. It seems like God, 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, believe in God, go to church, read your Bible, just be strong. You know, and 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? 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 they’re on my heart like every other day. 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. Right. 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?

Jeff:
Yes, I have a brother named Joshua.

Chris:
Do you know somebody named Caleb? Yes. Now, do you know somebody named Zakir? No. Or Maki? No. Or Vafsi? No. Right. So, so you don’t, you don’t know any of those guys, right? Or Emul, or Sefer, or Nabi, or Guell, or Gadi, or Gidil, or Palti, or Shemua. The reason why you don’t know that is because those guys are guys that nobody wants to remember.

Jeff:
Right. They’re relegated to the dustbin of,

Chris:
But who are the heroes of faith, the names that have carried on through the generations? Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb. They’re the only two of the 12 that you still hear people naming their children after. And that’s got to be a massive sermon right there.

Jeff:
Well, God chose to name his son Yeshua.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s right.

Jeff:
Right. Right. Yeah. So Joshua’s name, Jesus’ name was Joshua. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In that language. So it’s pretty amazing.

Chris:
Yeah, and so it’s, yeah, that’s, you know what, to be honest with you, I think I heard that a long time ago, and I’ve really completely forgot that. But, you know, 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. But yet they do, don’t they? That’s right. Our choices of standing up for faith, what does the Bible say? Our choices not only move the kingdom forward, but you never know this side of eternity, what living for God will mean to the generations that come behind you. And it’s only until we get to the other side of eternity will we know that what we do on this earth has affected those who have come behind us. And so here’s Joshua and Caleb, probably in this moment, having no idea you know, that here we are talking about them thousands of years later, naming our children after them.

Jeff:
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 there to another article, right? So there’s two articles about, think of how many things mainstream America, not 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. Yeah. Conspiracy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just shouting down. Anybody goes, um, have you ever thought about? viciously attacking anybody who gave an opposing view at all. 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 going to go ahead and fight with each other.

Chris:
This is my shocked face.

Jeff:
Yes. Right. And here you go. You have 12 go in. Yep. Two come back and go, we can do it. God promise we can do it. And it’s everything you said it was. Right. And 10 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 who said, we can do this.

Chris:
And not only we can do it, but can I remind you of God’s promises? They have no protection. God is with us. They are like prey to us. These are some of the most inspiring things that Joshua is pointing back to God. It’s not just inspiration. It’s inspiration attached to promises.

Jeff:
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. Yep. 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 40 days. They rejected God’s plan and they wandered for 40 years. The consequences were 10 times. It was 40 days. So it’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

Chris:
Right? Thousands of times. It was 365 times, right? Because each day was a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 365 times, right? Times 40. Right, right. Times 40.

Jeff:
Yeah. 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 than back in that day. right? And so, one, stop getting your news from 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. Because two lived. Two lived through it, and two eventually made it to the promised land. Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb. Now they’re old men instead of young men. And everybody else cost them, they had to wander for 40 years. But yeah.

Chris:
Yeah, and then also 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 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 shut this guy up. Because I’m telling you guys, if we go in there, we’re going to die. And all of a sudden, you know, they’re persuading the crowd and the crowd listens to the 10 over the 2. And then what ends up happening is everybody suffers. Everybody suffers for the 10’s disbelief. And so, you know, sometimes, like, you know, like, I don’t want to, you know, my dad’s a wonderful human being. But when he divorced my mom, I don’t know back then if he would have thought, because I never asked him, but wouldn’t it have been silly had he approached us and said, well, hey, this is my life, my choice. It has nothing to do with anybody else. I’m going to 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 it have been silly for him to think that that choice of divorcing my mom only affected him? Right. I’m not talking about right or wrong or reconciliation and my mom’s situation. I’m not talking about any of that kind of stuff.

Jeff:
Decisions have trickled down effect that are devastating to the people. Yeah.

Chris:
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 and 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,

Jeff:
So then in chapter 14, I’ll finish up with this, because your men explored the land for 40 days, you must wander in the wilderness for 40 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? Yeah. So the people, then they change their mind. They go, Oh God, you’re right. We changed it. Cause you know what happens right after that? Right. All 10 spies were struck dead right in front of them. So then people go, you know what, God, we changed our mind, we’ll go. But at that point, God had said, no, now you’re going to go spend 40 years in the wilderness. So they said, no, no, no, we’re going to go, and they were going to go across the river. Moses said, whoa, you’re going to disobey God again? Now he said to go in the wilderness, and you’re going to 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 40 years of difficulty. And then he does deliver on 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 provide 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.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s good. All right. Well, hey, we’ll see you tomorrow, hopefully, on the Bible Guys.