Spy Vs. Spy

Psalm 106:24-31

24The people refused to enter the pleasant land,

for they wouldn’t believe his promise to care for them.

25Instead, they grumbled in their tents

and refused to obey the LORD.

26Therefore, he swore

that he would kill them in the wilderness,

27that he would scatter their descendants among the nations,

exiling them to distant lands.

28Then our ancestors joined in the worship of Baal at Peor;

they even ate sacrifices offered to the dead!

29They angered the LORD with all these things,

so a plague broke out among them.

30But Phinehas had the courage to step in,

and the plague was stopped.

31So he has been regarded as a righteous man

ever since that time.

Joshua and Caleb hurried back to safety after completing their assignment to spy out the land of Canaan. After a couple of years wandering in the desert, they were thrilled with the lush farmland they encountered. Joshua and Caleb must have been ecstatic on the way back to the camp, chattering about what life would be like in this land God had promised them.

When they reached the camp, they cheerfully reported the good news: It’s a magnificent land, flowing with milk and honey!

But five other pairs of spies had returned with a different story: The people living there are huge. They make us look like grasshoppers. We’ll never displace them.

Joshua and Caleb had seen those people, too, and they did look big—but they knew God is bigger. If God had promised this land to Israel, no one could stand in their way.

But the Israelites bought the majority report, rejecting Caleb and Joshua’s call to arms. As a result, the Lord allowed none of the people except Joshua and Caleb to enter the land. It was an early example of that great comic-strip saying: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

God’s people are still making that mistake. We cower from new experiences because we fear the opposition. God wants to lead us forward, but we feel like grasshoppers. Don’t be like the Israelites, who “grumbled in their tents and refused to obey the Lord” (Psalm 106:25).

To an inheritance divine

He taught our hearts to rise;

‘Tis uncorrupted, undefiled,

Unfading in the skies.

ISAAC WATTS

Bible Networking

Phinehas (verse 30) was a grandson of Aaron, the high priest, and thus a great-nephew of Moses. Find this story in Numbers 25.

Notable Quotable

“Generally speaking, the soul and body fare inversely. When the body is pampered with every luxury, the soul starves.”

F. B. MEYER