Rhemalight

 Introduction: Evil Report Vs Good Report

Numbers 14:23-24 and Numbers 13:27-33

What makes a report evil or good? What report about your promised land have you received? What reports about your promised land that are brought by others do you believe? Well, let us go to Numbers, chapters 11, 12, 13 and 14 especially 13 and 14.

Moses sent a dozen folks to go and spy the Promised Land. This has given rise to what we now call the 12 spies. Well, the whole story about the choice, their assignment and their report is well documented in chapter 13 but I want to concentrate on their report (Verses 27-33).

This is my summary of their Report:

The land was flowing with milk and honey       TRUE

There were giants in the Land                       TRUE

We were in our own sight as grasshoppers      PROBABLY TRUE

We are not able to go up and take the land     FALSE

Many Christians use the Scientific method consciously or unconsciously but in the Christian walk, it is not the best option since it is based on what you can perceive with the five senses i.e. sense knowledge. The 10 spies based their conclusions on the observations they made of the situation at hand. I have been writing about relationships and I can write that to base your conclusions on observations in a love affair is wrong. There is a higher plane, call it a higher revelation. You can’t just base your life on observations and ignorance of God’s word. Ignorance is not just about lack of the information but also choosing not to adhere to God’s word that you have heard. Let me give two examples;

First, Paul after writing about tongues and women in 1Cor 14, states in verse 38, “But if any one is ignorant, let him be ignorant”.  Second, I took a tour of the Ethiopian capital, and at the end of the tour, I didn’t have enough Ethiopian birr (currency) for the cab driver. So I got what I had and added Ugandan shillings. Amazingly, the driver called his friends and one of them assured me that the shillings were not money. Anyway to cut a long story short, the driver drove us a further 2 miles to a bank where I withdrew Ethiopian birr that he was used to. He counted the shillings insignificant because he was not used to them and even though he held it, he ignored its value (of course I don’t blame him) but surely we are clever enough not to act like that with the Word of God.

The 10 spies brought back an evil report. Usually when we think about evil, we think about adultery, robbery etc but the report of the other spies apart from Caleb and Joshua is termed evil by the word of God. What kind of report was it? Why didn’t they enter the Promised Land?

It was a report of Unbelief & Doubt. Unbelief and doubt is evil. There was no evil found in Jesus. This clearly shows that at no one time did He waver in his faith. Unbelief and doubt limit and even tempt God. One author wrote: “Faith invokes God while Unbelief and doubt provokes God”. I found that to be in line with Numbers 14:11(KJV)

A Different Spirit!

Like I said earlier, unbelief provokes God and surely I wouldn’t want to do that to God who is my father.  Let’s now look at verse 24 in Numbers Chapter 14.

God says that Caleb had another spirit with him. This implies that the other 10 spies and the people had a different kind of spirit from the one Caleb had. Caleb because of that spirit didn’t provoke God (verse 11) but instead he believed God.

Here are men who had seen God in manifestation for a long time but still couldn’t believe in his ability. This is different from Paul, Caleb and Joshua.  “We can’t do it”, they said. We are not able. They are stronger than us. No, we can’t! They went on and on. Faith begins where the will of God is known and received (acted on). These things were written for our own example. They heard the same message of faith but it didn’t profit them because they didn’t mix it with faith. (Heb 4:2) You need to understand why they failed so that you have a better footing. Like I usually say, I read books e.g. on marriage especially written in form of biographies to learn what to avoid and what to adopt. I read the Old Testament to look for encouragement and also to avoid the same mistakes that they did.

You must differentiate the Spirit of faith (Holy Spirit) and this spirit. Actually good news bible says Caleb had a different attitude. As believers we have received the Holy Spirit and if you are baptized in the spirit, you are filled. Just because you received the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t mean you are going to operate in faith or believe. Believing is a choice. You choose what to believe and then God accounts that to you. This is what differentiated Joshua and Caleb from the others. They had gone through the same path but they chose to believe differently. Caleb chose to believe God and the others chose what their senses communicated. I am not saying you always ignore what your senses communicate but if they contradict what the word/truth, you better take hold of God’s higher revelation

Faith pleases the Almighty God and anything other than that doesn’t please God. Let me take a side journey here. We usually talk about pleasing God, and thank God the bible has something to say about it.

(Heb 11:6)  But without faith [it is] impossible to please [Him], for it is necessary [for] the one approaching God to believe that He is and [that] He becomes a rewarder to the ones diligently seeking Him.(ALT)

But you should also know what displeases Him. It is pretty simple-Lack of faith (unbelief) does. Also Numbers 11:1-3 shows that complaining displeases Him. I said this earlier but let me repeat it here. Unbelief limits the working of God to the point where He CANT perform as He would have wanted. (See Mark 6:5-6)

In my sequel to this, I will deal with the characteristics of this spirit i.e. believing and speaking.