ONE-YEAR JOURNEY OF THE BIBLE
Day 49 -Numbers 14-15 (Are You Brave Enough to Stand Against the Crowd?)
“But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes; and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: "The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, "a land which flows with milk and honey.' Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them." And all the congregation said to stone them with stones...But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of the men who went to spy out the land.” (Numbers 14:6-10; 38)
The ten spies who did not believe God can give victory to the Israelites over the evil inhabitants of Canaan spread a bad report were able to dishearten the entire population so much so that they resolved to return to Egypt! But Joshua and Caleb stood up and spoke to the all the congregation as we read in our text above. The fact that they may have known that they were battling a lost cause did not prevent them from speaking up against evil and proclaimiing the truth.
Even though Joshua and Caleb failed to convince the people to repent and change their course of action, they won big time in the eyes of God and as a result only the two of them out of all the adults in the congregation remained alive to enter the promised land. Herein lies a very important principle for believers: God may not always call us to win the battle against evil but He always expects us to stand up against evil.
We are living at an unprecedented time in history when there has never been such an intense hatred of man against God and against Christians who follow Christ. There are more people who have died for their faith in this generation alone than in all generations combined! We can now even see Christians being beheaded right before our eyes on the internet. The time of the Great Tribulation that Christ and the prophets warned about is imminent.
This brings us to the sobering thought which is: Would I be brave enough to stand against the crowd when it is headed towards evil? I pray these words of our Lord Jesus will give us all the encouragement to make a resolute commitment to stand up against evil and speak the truth boldly when we are called to do so:
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.” (Matthew 5:11)
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, "A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.” (John 15:18-21)
”And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
(Luke 14:27)
No comments:
Post a Comment