**Yet many giant grasshoppers have invaded a field and brought famine to the land.**
Note this maxim today :
“Most people claim to have faith, but we can know those who have faith when they stand before giants and behave like Caleb.”
Many a time believers do not see the enormous grace and opportunities which God has endowed on them.
All of us including myself are short.
We most often walk by sight and never by Faith. This is what makes us human. At the borders of Canaan, the children of Israel walked by sight.
While still eating manna that came down from heaven daily, they still doubted. They dragged behind, not to enter the promised land, while at the borders of Canaan to take possession.
Even the most powerful of the Christian man, is often in doubt. While those who surveyed the promised land believed it was a land flowing with milk and honey, which was been revealed to them through Moses.
They had the fruits in their hands, yet they did not believe they could enter, because as they said, they were like grasshoppers in their own eyes and the people of the land, which they came to possess also saw them as grasshoppers.
How can a man belittle himself in front of a problem, when God is there with him.
You know Jesus said : “if we have faith small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains.”
(Luke 17 : 6).
Often this faith of the size of a mustard seed is missing among us.We need to ask God to increase our faith.
Most people claim to have faith, but we can know those who have faith when they stand before giants and behave like Caleb.
Only Caleb out of the 12 men, believed they can have it and confessed this to Moses, who sent them to survey the land.
Moses had sent one man from each of the twelve tribes of Israel to go and survey the land.
If you read the following, you will see the report which they brought to Moses.
Reading from Numbers Chapter 13 :
13:25 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
13:27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
13:28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
13:29 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.
13:30 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.
13:32 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.
13:33 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.
(Numbers 13 : 25, 27 – 30, 32-33)
IT TAKES COURAGE TO HARVEST HONEY
In verse 33, the men who were sent confirmed that for a truth the land was full of milk and honey. They showed Moses and the vhildren of Israel the fruit of it.
But they dragged their legs that the people were stronger than them, for they lived in walled cities, had great people including giants, who were of the class of GOLIATH ( the Anaks).
They had told Moses that in their own eyes they were like grasshoppers and so they were in the sight of the inhabitants of Canaan.
But Caleb of the tribe of Judah :
“stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. (Numbers 13 : 30).
If you note, it was later in the Bible that lsrael conquered those tribes including the Amorites and the Amalekites.
OUR ENCOURAGEMENTS TODAY.
Could heaven set before us not look like entering Canaan?
Jesus said, in my father’s house, there are many mansions. And some, who live in marble houses are like saying let us hold the one we have. People fear the pressures they must go through to obey God and enter heaven later.
But heavenly garment is more precious than all the silvery garments we wear for a moment.
Let us stand up like Caleb to believe we can make heaven.
Shalom !
Let us pray :
Please Daddy Almighty God, give me all I need to follow you.
Israel would have loved to go back to Egypt to eat cucumbers.
I will not think that way.
Give me and my friends Canaan in Jesus name Amen.
Sermons from Miracle Valley @ Land of Goshen Agiliti, Mile 12, Lagos.
December 17th , 2023.
outreach,mvgm@yahoo.com