WAS Moses quite right in sending the twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan? Had we only the thirteenth of Numbers to guide us we should say undoubtedly he was. Its opening verses seem to place the point beyond dispute, for there we read that “Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them.” But when we, turn to Moses’ account of the matter in Deuteronomy 1:2222And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. (Deuteronomy 1:22) we see that the thought of sending men to search out the land originated with the people. They asked Moses to send them, and it pleased him well. So they were sent.
Why should the people have wished the land to be searched? Had not God spoken of it as a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey? Did they doubt it? And had they forgotten that God had promised to bring them in? Was it not unbelief and the fears that flow from it that prompted them to ask Moses to send the spies?
However that may be, it put them to the test. The twelve men finished their appointed task and returned with their report. It was a good land, said they, “flowing with milk and honey.” But that added nothing to their present stock of knowledge. And then they learned for the first time that the men of the land were taller than themselves—that their cities were walled up to heaven, and the spies had seen the giants there! And now what would the people do?
It would have been infinitely better had they not known this. Better if they had waited till they had to meet the foe, strong in the faith that however tall and mighty, God would give them the victory over them.
But now their eye saw the foe before they had to meet him, and the cities with their towering walls made their hearts melt, so that they sighed and wept and groaned all through the live-long night!
Is it not always so when we are not content to let the morrow take care for the things of itself? “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” We know this and yet we constantly forget it. We peer into the future—we try to find out what the morrow or the next day may bring. And then our timid faithless hearts beget a thousand fears. We see nothing but giants and cities walled up to heaven and feel that we are but grasshoppers. Then God is forgotten, His past deliverances are not remembered, unbelief holds her dark dismal carnival, and our craven hearts shiver and shake, as if our God were like the gods of the heathen—unable to deliver!
But among the twelve were two men of faith—Caleb and Joshua. They sought to still the people and said, “Let us go up at once and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.” Brave words and true! Nevertheless they were not believed. The only answer the people gave was this: “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God that we had died in this wilderness.... Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt” (chap. 14:2, 3). Who would have supposed that the sending of the spies would have led, to this? What an exposure of their hearts! How little they had learned to trust in God, to believe in His faithfulness and saving power. It looks as if God had no place at all in their thoughts. Had He utterly forsaken them, cast them off and left them to fight their own battles? If so there would be some show of reason in what they said. But such was not the case. And when again those men of faith faced the multitude and said, “The people of the land are bread for us... the Lord is with us fear them not,” the whole congregation bade stone them with stones!
What a warning against unbelief. What an example of the evil and folly of ‘not moving along with God, step by step, never doubting that we shall ever find God’s grace sufficient, no matter what we have to face on the morrow. Sufficient unto the day are its battles and its burdens, its sorrows and its cares. Strength for today we may expect, strength for the morrow when tomorrow comes, but not before. What if we have to fight with giants, what if the cities be walled up to heaven and we are but grasshoppers? Is not God for us? Is He a grasshopper? Is there anything too hard for Him who has made heaven and earth? “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Let us chide our needless fears and trust in the living God.
And God took them at their word. Had they said, “Would God we had died in this wilderness”? In the wilderness they should die. All the men, from twenty years old and upward, who had murmured against the Lord, their carcases should fall in the wilderness. For forty years they should wander in the desert till death had claimed them every lone. But Caleb and Joshua and the little ones of those unbelieving men who had said their children should be a prey—these would God bring into the land which their fathers had despised (chs. 14:28-31). Such are the just ways of God, such His holy government.
“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition” (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)). Why should we fall into their sin? Why should we limit God, as if His ear could ever grow heavy that it could not hear, and His arm be shortened that it could not save? He has brought us hitherto. Blessed be the Lord, there hath not failed one word of all His good promise (1 Kings 8:5656Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant. (1 Kings 8:56)). Let us then trust Him for days to come. But let it be one day at a time, and let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus when He said, “Your heavenly Father knoweth.... Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:32-3432(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:32‑34)).
“So for tomorrow and its need I do not pray;
But keep me, guide me, hold me, Lord—
Just for today.”