Numbers 13:30-32
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. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 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.
Caleb is what contemporaries would call a "Christian Nationalist" because he had the audacity to take God at His Word and the arrogance to apply it in real time to real estate.
As difficult as the Canaanites were going to be to tackle, the doom scrollers back in his camp at home base were just as prickly and resistant to God's rule.
The people had placed their faith in unbelief. They were sure they would be defeated. They believed in the indomitable nature of their enemies and the insufficiency of their Commander's intent.
Today, we look out over a landscape of advertisements communicating the indomitable nature of the ruling elite and the great stature of their scientific and political achievements. They broadcast their permanence and the futility of your resistance. But they do not have the final word. Their lies need not be our liturgy. They might be giants... or they might just imagine themselves mighty men. They can think themselves to be larger than life, but that just means they need to be knocked down a few pegs and we, as God-fearing men, ought to be happy to oblige.
"One of the paradoxes of politics is that only the man who is brave enough to challenge dragons can discover that they are only lizards." — G.K. Chesterton
Numbers 14:9-10
Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones
The bad guys are our bread. The enemies of Christ have no gates that can hold. If God is with us, how could they stand against us?
Yet, there are still those in the congregation who fear the wrath of the super men instead of the wrath of the Savior of men. They insist that the giants of the land are too big to take on even when faith points out that they are too big to miss. The benefit of aiming at the broad sides of barns is your ability to hit them rather easily.
Faith overcomes. It conquers the land. It faces down giants and lives to sing about it. Unbelief retreats every time. It flees at the rumor of trouble, but the righteous are as bold as lions in standing against real trouble.
1 John 5:4
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
Faith is indomitable. It is a weapon against which the enemy has no shield. No gates can stand against the battering ram of belief. Wicked walls will fall and sinful men along with them. Hear the encouragement of Jesus, the greater Joshua, and obey the greater commission and take the land for King and country for when He said, "Disciples the nations!" He was echoing this sentiment, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it" for He punctuated His prescription with a promise and said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen."
Numbers 21:1-3
And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners. And Israel vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, "If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities." And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah.
Christendom is constantly attacked, but how often have we asked to have the nations as our inheritance in response to these aggressions? The request cannot be a compromised secuarlism. God will not grant a truce between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of Eve. If we beg for compromise, our prayers will fall on deaf ears. But if we are so bold as to ask to see compromise utterly destroyed and the evil purged from our presence, we just might hear God's voice of approval and hand of blessing on our initiative as He gives us the land of our inheritance.
Numbers 13:6
Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
May Christ increase the sons of Jephunneh. God give us men who believe Christ's command to take the nations on His behalf that we may see Him with us, always, even to the end when every enemy has been allocated its place under His blessed feet.
1 Corinthians 15:25, Romans 16:20
For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
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