Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 79
TRANSCRIPT
In this podcast I want to look at how RTF ministry could have helped Joshua and Caleb and the other 10 spies as they scouted out the promised land. I believe what would have helped them will also help us as we walk in the promises of God.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations, and in today’s podcast I am going to look at the story of Joshua and Caleb scouting out the promised land found in Numbers 13 and how their story can strengthen your life as well. Today’s verse is Numbers 13:2 “Send men that they may explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.”
In this podcast we are going to look at the story of the Israelites scouting out the promise land found in Numbers 13-14. I encourage you to read the entire story because there are many things from this story that we can learn to help us in our walk with Christ today. I am taking some of this podcast from a wonderful teaching by our friend James Goll.
The first thing we see in today’s verse is that God told them He was giving them this land. It says in Numbers 13:2, “Send men that they may explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.” He told them that he was giving them this land yet 10 of the spies did not believe this promise from God. In all vulnerability I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have known the promises of God and yet I have chosen doubt instead. What I didn’t realize until coming to RTF is that I was living with a stronghold of unbelief. I was raised in a church environment where there were a lot of “Yes that’s true, but….’s” For example we would say Yes, it is true that Jesus can heal people, but He will most likely do it through the doctors. We would pray these prayers that gave Jesus and us an out if the healing didn’t happen. “If it is your will, would you heal Betty.” Those were cop out prayers. It was a stronghold in my life that had to be broken using RTF ministry.
You can see how this stronghold affected the spies as they went to scout out the promised land. They knew that God had promised them this land as their inheritance. They saw how amazing the land was flowing with milk and honey. In fact, they cut down one cluster of grapes that was so big it had to be carried on a pole between two men. One cluster of Grapes! Yet in verse 28 they revert to that great statement of unbelief, “Yes…but”. And the ten spies gave all of the reasons why they could not possibly possess this land that God had promised them. The people are too strong, they have strong fortresses, and oh by the way, there are giants in the land. These ten spies were willing to ignore the promise of God and forfeit the inheritance God had for them because of this stronghold of unbelief. They believed what their eyes saw over the spoken word of God.
One powerful part of this story is that the ten spies were believing a lie. Their lie might have been like a lie Cindi, and I discovered in our lives. I am going to bet that you have had times when you believed God told you to do something and that something did not go very well. I think most of us have believed an Ungodly belief that goes something like this, “If God calls you to do something than it should go smoothly.” I will not soon forget the first time Cindi and I discovered that we were believing this Ungodly belief. We had just finished seminary and were asking God where He wanted us to go next. He brought a friend of ours to mind and we knew we were to contact this friend about our future. Well in those days before RTF I struggled with a lot of passivity. I knew I was supposed to contact this friend, but my passivity kept putting it off. One day as I was getting out of bed in the morning the Holy Spirit put a bee in my bonnet, which is a southern way of saying that the Holy Spirit put such an urgency in me that I could not do anything else that day until I contacted this friend. I called him and told him the Holy Spirit told us to call him about our future. He just chuckled and said that he was leaving in 15 minutes to head to the airport to fly to Nashville, Tennessee to meet with a church that was looking for a new youth pastor. What a God thing, right? Well during his visit, he told them about us and set up a meeting with the church. So, within a few weeks we traveled to Tennessee and interviewed with the pastor and the elders of the church. It was a wonderful visit, and they felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to offer us the job. We knew from both the God circumstances with our friend and from the confirmation of the Holy Spirit that we were to take this job. We packed up our two young boys and moved from Texas to Tennessee. God’s calling was undeniable so the experience should go well, right? It turned out to be the most painful experience of our lives. We ended up getting fired from that job. Upon our release from that job, we were never given an explanation why we were let go nor were we allowed to say goodbye to our youth group. God called us to that job so it should have been an easy and smooth road, right?
Where are you ignoring the promises of God and possibly forfeiting the inheritance God has for you? Are there prophetic words that you received many years ago that have not come to fulfillment, and you’re tempted to give up believing they will ever be fulfilled? Are you struggling with unbelief about your health or about your finances or about a loved one who is not walking with the Lord? Realize that this struggle might be coming from a stronghold of unbelief that wants to keep you from fulfilling the purposes of God for your life. Get with an RTF minister and dismantle that stronghold. Don’t be like the ten spies and allow what you see in the natural steal the promise that God has for you. Oh, by the way, the ten spies died by a plague and were not allowed to go into the promised land.
Back to the story. The people of Israel believed the ten spies and did not believe what God had said or what Joshua and Caleb said to them about the promised land, which made God angry. The people were so upset that they wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb which really made God angry. In Numbers 13:11 God said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn me? How long will they not believe Me.” And in his anger with the people He said, “I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them.” In other words, I am going to kill them.
Then something amazing happened. Have you ever wondered if prayer really works? Do our prayers affect God? Does He listen and respond to our prayers? The answer is yes and here a perfect example of God responding to the prayers of Moses. In verses 13-19 Moses pleads with the Lord for mercy for the people, and in verse 20 it says, “So the Lord said, I have pardoned them (the people) according to your word.” God changed his mind because of the prayers of his friend Moses. God does change things on our behalf as well in response to our prayers. Our prayers are very powerful to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. Do you have a loved one who is not walking with the Lord, and you have prayed for years for them and you are ready to give up. Don’t give up. Your prayers are being heard in heaven and they are changing things here on earth.
One of the battles that the ten spies lost was the battle for their minds. When they saw the giants that were in the land, they believed the lie that they could not defeat them. They even said in verse 33, “There also we saw the Nephilim (the giants) and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” It is interesting that what the ten spies believed actually empowered their enemies. They believed they were small, like grasshoppers, and that is exactly what the giants saw in them. What we believe about ourselves is so important. It is important that we understand what God says about us and not even how we see ourselves. Our identity is one of the major battle fields for us as God’s children. God says that we are new creations in Christ, that we are His sons and daughters, that we are the righteousness of God in Christ. That is what is the most true about us. But our enemy comes along and tries to steal that truth from us by having us look at our past (the sin that has already been forgiven) or to look at our mistakes, or to look at the circumstances and situations around us to cause us to feel like grasshoppers in our own eyes.
A very powerful part of RTF ministry is dealing with what we call False Identity Statements. These are those “I am” statement lies that the enemy loves to use to keep us from experiencing the fullness of our identity in Jesus. He, the enemy, understands that a believer that knows who they are as a child of God and walks in their authority in Christ is a threat to the kingdom of darkness. Examples of these false identities are things like I am stupid, or I am dirty, or I am worthless. It is amazing to watch in ministry as a person renounces and breaks agreement with one of these lies and then asks their Father God “Who do You say that I am?” What God has to say about them is often so extravagant that it is difficult for them to believe. During this ministry God often says things like You are my precious daughter, or you are a mighty warrior, or you are special and precious. When I broke off the lie that I am a failure and asked God who He said I am, God said to me You are my Favorite. Is that amazing, or what? And I think you are God’s favorite also.
RTF has a wonderful teaching we call Facts vs. Truth. For the ten spies the “facts” blinded them to the “truth”. The truth is often above or higher than the facts. What do I mean by that? The facts were that there were giants in the land. We don’t want to live in denial of the facts. But the truth of a situation is not necessarily found in the facts. In this situation the truth was that God had promised them this new land and it didn’t matter that there were giants in the land. When God says it that ought to settle it for us. His truth is above or higher than the facts we see with our eyes. Living by the fact is going to cause us to live below what God has for us.
In 2010 God sovereignly called Cindi and I to go through training at RTF. He spoke to us through a prophet that we were to apply for the training. The fact of our bank account said that we had no money so there was no way that we could pay for and attend the five-week RTF training. Because we had a word from God through a prophet, we sent our application to RTF. We were already two weeks past the deadline for applications, but the director of training said he would give us two more weeks to get our money together. We began to pray and declare that since God called us to this training, then He will have to supply the needed money. Nothing happened for 13 days. On day 14 we went to our Post Office Box and there was a check for $10,000! The facts were that we had no way of paying for the training. The truth was that God is and always will be our provider. God’s truth, we will attend this training, was higher than the fact that our bank account was empty.
We are living in a day where it is critical that we live by God’s truth and not get caught up in the facts. The facts are that evil is rising all around us every day. We see it on the news and in social media, we see it in our colleges and universities, we see it in our local schools, we see it in our government. Those are the facts and if we live by those facts, we are going to reap its fruit. God’s truth is much higher than what we see. Yes, there are giants in our world, but fear not, God has overcome the giants.
It you need help breaking some of these mindsets and strongholds, please contact RTF at Ministry@restoringthefoundations.org, or go on our website www.restoringthefoundations.org and click on the Get Ministry tab at top of the page and find an RTF minister in your area.
If the ministry of RTF or these podcasts have been a blessing to you and you would like to help RTF continue to take this healing message around the world, you can go to our website and click on the Donate tab at the top of the page.
Prayer
