"In a nutshell, it never was God's best for Israel to live in the wilderness where nothing would grow; where it's hot and barren and sand and scorpions and snakes. I mean, God never promised Abraham, "Abraham, let Me tell you about My wonderful promise to you. To you and your descendants, I'm going to give you this wilderness where nothing will grow. Where there's nothing but snakes and scorpions. Your people will never have any new clothes, they'll never have any new shoes and they'll eat the same food for forty years. Aren't you excited about My promise, Abraham?
That's not what God promised Him. God promised to give him the good land. In fact, God told him to walk up and down the length and to walk across the breadth of it. He was talking about the good land! The promised land! And He said, "This is the land I'm going to give to your descendants. It's a good land; the land that flows with milk and honey; has brooks and rivers and waters; and you can grow wheat and barley." He said, "It's a good land. It's a delightsome land." And God brought the people out of Egypt. They had been in slavery for all these years. They knew about the promise to Abraham. That had been passed down from generation to generation. They knew about the promise. And so, "Praise God!" "God's delivered us from Egypt; where we didn't own anything; we had no control over our lives; we were absolute slaves to Pharoah. We had to do exactly what he told us. We had no choices whatsoever. God's gonna bring us into this abundant land!"
And did you know, I've down my homework a little bit... Do you know how far it is from Egypt to Canaan? Two hundred miles. It's not very far. Two hundred miles. I don't know how long it takes in the wilderness. If you figure, ten miles a day, that's what, twenty days? Five miles a day is forty days. One mile a day is two hundred days. That's still less than a year. But you know the Bible says, God didn't take them the shortest route. Do you know why? He said, "Lest they see war". Because He knew they weren't ready for war.
So He led them on a circuitous route. And somebody asked me recently, they said, "How long was it from the time they left Egypt, till the time that the first bunch came up to the promised land and sent the spies in?" Ready? Even by the circuitous route, it was only seventeen months. Seventeen months in the wilderness. God brought them up to possess the land.
Well, you now what they did. They sent in these spies to spy out the land; and they looked at it and, we'll just go ahead and read it again. I know you know it virtually by heart, but it's good to see it again... And please remember even as we read this, everything in this report is factual. The good and the bad. It's a good land. They talk about that. They they just start delineating facts about the land; and, everyone of those statements is true. But the conclusion they come to was not true. That's what God called an evil report.
But now, also keep in mind this; forty years later when the next generation came up to possess the land, they faced exactly the same facts. It was never the giants that kept Israel out of the promised land; it's intimidation; it's fear. I'm going to say it another way for tonight's lesson: It's the strongholds. The strongholds in the Old Testament. It's like strongholds in the land, but what we're really talking about possessing is the abundant life, and what keeps us from doing that is the strongholds that are in us.
Now watch this...
"They went and came unto Moses and to Aaron and to all of the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and they brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land."
Num 13:26
By the way, the in the previous few verses here, it says that they brought back a cluster of grapes for example that was so big. One cluster of grapes was so big, they had to put it on a pole and two men had to carry this thing on their shoulder. Can you imagine what that looked like to a people that had lived in Egypt their whole life in slavery. Then had been out in this wilderness. Even seventeen months, where nothing will grow; scorpions and serpents. And now God's going to bring you into a land... Looking at those grapes where it takes two men to carry one cluster. We'll there's no doubt they wanted the land, is what I'm trying to say.
"And they told him, and they said, We came unto the land whither thou sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land (that's true), and the cities are walled (true), and very great (true): and moreover we saw the children of Anak there."
Num 13:27-28
"The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan."
Num 13:29
Now here's Caleb already, he's heard enough of this bad stuff already.
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."
Num 13:30
So just so you'll know, I don't have time to get into all this. Caleb that day, when he said this is forty years old. Later on, forty years later, they go into the land. Five years into the warfare, they come to that same mountain; the mountain where the sons of Anak live. Do you want to know what Caleb said? He said, "I am eighty-five years old this day. My eyesight is not dimmed. The Lord is with me, and I am well able to take this mountain." "Give me this mountain where the sons of Anak are."
Later on you'll find that he drove them out. All of them, because the key was, "Because the Lord is with me." Amen?
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able... (Now if you will mark in your Bible. You ought to underline... "We are well able (to overcome it)."
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able..." (You ought to underline that.) Because that's the war between your spirit and your soul right there. We be not able is made up out of all the strongholds that's keeping you out of your land: fear; intimidation.
The spirit man says, "Come! Walk on the water with me!" Caleb was speaking... Only two voices in all this multitude of people...
Here we have millions of people that have come out of Egypt, and out of all this whole congregation; millions of voices. We've got two. Joshua and Caleb are going, "We can do it!" The voice of the spirit man shouting out like a mustard seed. But the soul is looking at all of the circumstances. Oh there's giants in the land! It's bad. These are all warlike people.
We're looking at all of this and the soul goes, "We be not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we. And notice that the soul made no reference at all to God there. These people are stronger than who? "We."
But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 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."
Num 13:30-33
(Taken from Pulling Down Strongholds - Gary Carpenter Part 1 of 3
That's not what God promised Him. God promised to give him the good land. In fact, God told him to walk up and down the length and to walk across the breadth of it. He was talking about the good land! The promised land! And He said, "This is the land I'm going to give to your descendants. It's a good land; the land that flows with milk and honey; has brooks and rivers and waters; and you can grow wheat and barley." He said, "It's a good land. It's a delightsome land." And God brought the people out of Egypt. They had been in slavery for all these years. They knew about the promise to Abraham. That had been passed down from generation to generation. They knew about the promise. And so, "Praise God!" "God's delivered us from Egypt; where we didn't own anything; we had no control over our lives; we were absolute slaves to Pharoah. We had to do exactly what he told us. We had no choices whatsoever. God's gonna bring us into this abundant land!"
And did you know, I've down my homework a little bit... Do you know how far it is from Egypt to Canaan? Two hundred miles. It's not very far. Two hundred miles. I don't know how long it takes in the wilderness. If you figure, ten miles a day, that's what, twenty days? Five miles a day is forty days. One mile a day is two hundred days. That's still less than a year. But you know the Bible says, God didn't take them the shortest route. Do you know why? He said, "Lest they see war". Because He knew they weren't ready for war.
So He led them on a circuitous route. And somebody asked me recently, they said, "How long was it from the time they left Egypt, till the time that the first bunch came up to the promised land and sent the spies in?" Ready? Even by the circuitous route, it was only seventeen months. Seventeen months in the wilderness. God brought them up to possess the land.
Well, you now what they did. They sent in these spies to spy out the land; and they looked at it and, we'll just go ahead and read it again. I know you know it virtually by heart, but it's good to see it again... And please remember even as we read this, everything in this report is factual. The good and the bad. It's a good land. They talk about that. They they just start delineating facts about the land; and, everyone of those statements is true. But the conclusion they come to was not true. That's what God called an evil report.
But now, also keep in mind this; forty years later when the next generation came up to possess the land, they faced exactly the same facts. It was never the giants that kept Israel out of the promised land; it's intimidation; it's fear. I'm going to say it another way for tonight's lesson: It's the strongholds. The strongholds in the Old Testament. It's like strongholds in the land, but what we're really talking about possessing is the abundant life, and what keeps us from doing that is the strongholds that are in us.
Now watch this...
"They went and came unto Moses and to Aaron and to all of the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and they brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land."
Num 13:26
By the way, the in the previous few verses here, it says that they brought back a cluster of grapes for example that was so big. One cluster of grapes was so big, they had to put it on a pole and two men had to carry this thing on their shoulder. Can you imagine what that looked like to a people that had lived in Egypt their whole life in slavery. Then had been out in this wilderness. Even seventeen months, where nothing will grow; scorpions and serpents. And now God's going to bring you into a land... Looking at those grapes where it takes two men to carry one cluster. We'll there's no doubt they wanted the land, is what I'm trying to say.
"And they told him, and they said, We came unto the land whither thou sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land (that's true), and the cities are walled (true), and very great (true): and moreover we saw the children of Anak there."
Num 13:27-28
"The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan."
Num 13:29
Now here's Caleb already, he's heard enough of this bad stuff already.
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it."
Num 13:30
So just so you'll know, I don't have time to get into all this. Caleb that day, when he said this is forty years old. Later on, forty years later, they go into the land. Five years into the warfare, they come to that same mountain; the mountain where the sons of Anak live. Do you want to know what Caleb said? He said, "I am eighty-five years old this day. My eyesight is not dimmed. The Lord is with me, and I am well able to take this mountain." "Give me this mountain where the sons of Anak are."
Later on you'll find that he drove them out. All of them, because the key was, "Because the Lord is with me." Amen?
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able... (Now if you will mark in your Bible. You ought to underline... "We are well able (to overcome it)."
"And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able..." (You ought to underline that.) Because that's the war between your spirit and your soul right there. We be not able is made up out of all the strongholds that's keeping you out of your land: fear; intimidation.
The spirit man says, "Come! Walk on the water with me!" Caleb was speaking... Only two voices in all this multitude of people...
Here we have millions of people that have come out of Egypt, and out of all this whole congregation; millions of voices. We've got two. Joshua and Caleb are going, "We can do it!" The voice of the spirit man shouting out like a mustard seed. But the soul is looking at all of the circumstances. Oh there's giants in the land! It's bad. These are all warlike people.
We're looking at all of this and the soul goes, "We be not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we. And notice that the soul made no reference at all to God there. These people are stronger than who? "We."
But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 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."
Num 13:30-33
(Taken from Pulling Down Strongholds - Gary Carpenter Part 1 of 3
