So in Numbers chapter 13, the results were in and they were final.
Wouldn’t that be a good feeling?
[laughs]
The results in Numbers chapter 13 weren’t, uh,
they weren’t the results of a presidential election.
They were the results of the scouting report
that the scouts went into the promised land brought back
to the Israelites who were in the wilderness and
and they were, the results were good.
I mean, they came back and they said,
He said, “The land is everything that God said it would be.”
“It’s a land flowing with milk and honey.”
“Look at these grapes that we brought back. They’re massive! It’s amazing!”
“There are also people there, just like God said there would be.”
“And they’re big people, they’re intimidating.”
“They have big cities with big walls surrounding those cities.”
But Caleb said, “But, but let’s go in.”
And maybe he was thinking of the promise that God gave them
that nothing and no one was going to stop them from getting the land
that God had promised them.
Caleb spoke with confidence,
but most of the other scouts, they didn’t.
They, uh, they latched on to the size of the people.
They said, they said, “We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. We were tiny.”
It made them feel afraid
and they spread their fear to the rest of the camp and,
and everyone then started, well, saying some pretty dumb things like,
“We should go back to Egypt. Life was, life was better there.”
And they started telling everybody the same thing
and they got everyone riled up and everybody was,
they were ready to pack it in and go home
instead of walk right into the land that God said that he would give to them.
They let their fear get the best of them.
And if they were afraid,
and if in their fear they did and said some pretty stupid things
when they believed in God,
when they had seen God already do amazing things for them,
when they had just been reminded of the wonderful promises
that God had given them if they were afraid.
Don’t let it throw you for a loop when you see
a whole lot of people acting out in fear these days.
When you hear people say and see people do some,
just some really dumb things.
We don’t need to be surprised by that.
We don’t like it,
but we don’t need to be surprised by it.
And we also don’t need to join in it, and join in with it and living out in fear.
One thing that the Israelites said as they were complaining was,
“Why would the Lord lead us into this place only to have us die by the sword?”
“Where our wives and our children are going to be killed?”
And they were they were right about one thing.
The Lord was leading them into that place.
But then they invented something about God.
They invented this, this thought that
God was going to break his promise.
Their fear got the best of them in that way
that it caused them to invent things about who their God was.
And we don’t need to.
God is always God.
And for Israel, he was the God who
still led them into the promised land,
just like he said he would.
He’s the God who still overcame all of those enemies for them,
just like he said he would.
He’s the God who never broke a promise.
He was very consistent in what he said he would do for them,
even though Israel was very inconsistent
in how faithfully they followed him and trusted him.
And that’s the secret to dealing with
anything that comes up in life.
It’s to remember who our God is,
and our God is the same God that did all those things for Israel.
One of my bible verses that I read this morning as part of my morning devotion
was from Psalm 116.
And the psalmist finds himself in a in a pretty tough situation. He says,
he says, “The chords of death entangled me. The anguish of the grave overcame me.”
“I was overcome by distress and sorrow.”
And I don’t think he was even, you know, experiencing the day after an election,
but life was rough,
just as it often is for all of us whether or not there’s an election taking place.
But then he did something.
He simply reminded himself of who his God is.
He said, “The Lord is gracious and righteous.”
“Our God is full of compassion.”
“The Lord protects the unwary. When I was brought low, he saved me.”
“Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”
“For you, Lord, have delivered me from death,
“my eyes from tears,
“my feet from stumbling,
“that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”
That’s who our God is.
That’s who your God is.
And, of course, he’s also the God who has never failed to
keep any one of his good and gracious promises
so that you can rest well tonight, my friends.
because we know who God is.