THERE are many precious lessons in ch. 14. We must remember that what happened to them was for our admonition. We, too, are passing through the wilderness; and as truly as they were delivered from Egypt, so truly have we been delivered from the world. The history of what happened to them is given that we may not fall into the same snares. And, perhaps, what we have here has an exceedingly solemn voice; the forty years’ journeying, when it could have been done in eleven days.
But God left not Himself without witness. There is always a remnant. Here only two, Caleb and Joshua, formed that remnant. Six hundred thousand were against them, but these two men were true to the Lord, and faithful to Him. They valued the heavenly portion.
The book of Joshua corresponds with Ephesians. Generally people think of the crossing of the Jordan as the end of life here, when we go into heaven; and Canaan is a type of heaven. There is a well-known hymn beginning:
“Could I but stand where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s wave, nor death’s cold flood,
Could fright me from the shore.”
But you know, when they entered the land they had to fight. So while it is true, in a certain sense, and can be so used, yet Canaan really sets forth the heavenly places where believers now are in Christ. They had to fight and wrestle with these very ones they were so dismayed about. It was now no question of the iniquity of the Amorites not being full but when they got in, they had to wrestle against flesh and blood. We have not, but “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in heavenly places.” “We wrestle,” that is, those who, like Caleb and Joshua, value the heavenly portion God has given us, and seek to enter in. Such have to fight this spiritual warfare.
You cannot do it in your own strength. You must have “your loins girt about with truth,” and “put on the whole armor of God.” And we need to have the helmet of salvation; and, first of all, to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” That might was displayed in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Eph. 1. We want to have on the breastplate of righteousness, and the shield of faith, and our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; and to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, that “ye may be able to stand against,”―what? “Against the wiles of the devil.” That is the greatest danger, the wiles of the devil. “Having done all, to stand.” We must never think of laying down the armor till we are at home.
They “despised the pleasant land.” God charges them with it, not only here but in the Psalms. How many of us despise the heavenly portion we have in Christ!
Every Epistle has its own character. In Romans it is a man alive in this world, and called to present his body a living sacrifice. The Epistle to the Colossians comes between Romans and Ephesians, and there are links with both Epistles. We are not seated in heavenly places in Colossians, but we are dead and risen with Christ. “If [it does not imply doubt, but since] ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” We are risen with Christ, with a hope laid up for us in heaven; but in Ephesians, we are there. The Christian has died with Christ; is crucified with Christ; buried with Christ; risen with Christ; raised up together (Jew and Gentile), and seated together in heavenly places IN Christ. But when He comes, “so shall we ever be WITH the Lord.” As far as the spirit is concerned, when we die the spirit is at home with the Lord; but that is not the perfect state.
And the whole assembly lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron; and the whole assembly said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or in this wilderness would that we had died! (14:1, 2).
So these did not value the land; the difficulties were too great. How careful we ought to be as to what we say! God took them up on their own words. They said, “would that we had died;” and they all had to die, all that came out of Egypt above twenty years old. They were kept in the wilderness forty years till they all had died.
And why is Jehovah bringing us to this land that we may fall by the sword, that our wives and our little ones may become a prey? Is it not better for us to return to Egypt? (14:3).
Egypt was a snare. Isaiah says, “Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help.” We must be careful, for we are a heavenly people, about to be conformed to the image of God’s Son; this is the purpose concerning us,” that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren; but even now we are “partakers of the heavenly calling,” and 1 Corinthians 15 says, “As is the, Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” We cannot alter that: people may say there is an amount of spiritual pride in putting up to be heavenly, but we are so. It is not “putting up” at all. These very children were brought in by God.
And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return to Egypt (14:4).
So Egypt was a snare to them then; and it was a snare to the children of Judah in Isaiah’s day. The word of God has such a variety of warnings for us concerning Egypt. When Abram was in the land, ―the very land they were journeying to, ―there was a famine. That was when Abram broke down. He went down to Egypt. In Canaan he was a worshipper, and was separated to God: he had a tent and an altar; but in Egypt he had no altar and no tent; and instead of having confidence in God he was filled with fear for his own life, and told a lie. God mercifully delivered him, and he was brought back to the place where his altar had been at the first. But all that time was lost. And more: he became rich when down in Egypt; and his riches and those of Lot led to the rupture between them, and to Lot pitching his tent towards Sodom. He never had an altar after he left Abram.
Also it was in Egypt Abram got Hagar. She was an Egyptian. Abram could not wait God’s time to give him a son, and fell in with the plan of Sarah to get a son by Hagar. And we find no communication from God to Abraham mentioned for seventeen years. What a fearful loss his was by going down into Egypt! May the Lord preserve us from becoming worldly!
Then Moses and Aaron fell upon their faces before the whole congregation of the assembly of the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of them that searched out the land, rent their garments (14:5, 6).
God is evidently saying to us here, Look on this picture and on that! “Look at the people filled with unbelief. How sad! Now look at the two men who bring in God. We have a blessed word in Mark 11. Have faith in God.” Bringing God in makes all the difference you see. They were quite delivered from the fear that had taken possession of the great mass of the nation.
And they spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it out, is a very, very good land (14:7).
They spake unto all the company, “The land... is an exceeding good land.” That is nothing to be wondered at when it was God’s choice! He is the Giver of all good.
If Jehovah delight in us, he will bring us into this land, and give it us, a land that flows with milk and honey (14:8).
That could not be said of Egypt, but characterized the land God had given them.
Only rebel not against Jehovah; and fear not the people of the land; for they shall be our food. Their defense is departed from them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not (14:9).
If they gave Jehovah His proper place they would be delivered from that fearful slavish fear. As they looked at the giants they thought themselves as grasshoppers, and thought the giants considered them so too. It was reducing God to a grasshopper! Whereas what were these giants in God’s sight? Oh, if we only understood more that in comparison of Him the nations are as the dust of the balance, or a drop in a bucket What are they all if God be for us? So it proved here. There were six hundred thousand against two faithful men. “The Lord is with us, fear them not.”
And the whole assembly said that they should be stoned with stones. (14:10).
Now in a day of declension and of turning the back on God, those who are faithful are bound to be hated. So they were ready to stone these two faithful men. It does cost something to be faithful. How blessed when we hear Paul saying, “In every city bonds and afflictions abide me,” but “none of these things move me.” “I endure all things for the elect’s sake.” Paul would face everything. He said to the Roman governor, “I refuse not to die.” But Paul would be the first to attribute it to the grace of God. He had been told by the Lord, that His “strength is made perfect in weakness.” God always works by weakness, and He works by weakness today. So Paul says, “I will glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Human weakness makes a clean platform for God. We turned once before to Isaiah 41, where God takes a worm, a very weak thing; you could not think of a weaker; to thresh a mountain. Impossible to man, but it is in the hands of God.
In the book of Judges, God is always using weak things; an ox goad; left-handed Ehud; broken pitchers and torches; in the hands of Samson, the jaw bone of an ass. The last judge of all did more than they all. His weapon was prayer, and he offered up to God a sucking lamb (1 Sam. 7:99And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the Lord: and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel; and the Lord heard him. (1 Samuel 7:9)). One could not have a more beautiful picture of entire dependence. And the Philistines were entirely discomforted.
And the glory of Jehovah appeared in the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel (14:10).
Beware what you do! “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
The time of the saints’ departure is in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and is entirely a question of the will of Him who says, “I have the keys.” All the powers of the earth put together could not effect it without the Saviour’s will. How often they sought Paul’s death! At Lystra he was stoned; and when he stood before Nero he says, “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion,” the mighty emperor of Rome. It is just what we have here. All the congregation, six hundred thousand men, bade stone them. There is something very dark here, very evil in the sight of God. But on the other hand, there is something very lovely in the testimony of Caleb and of Joshua, and of Moses in this chapter.
And Jehovah said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe me, for all the signs which I have done among them? (14:11)
What wonderful signs He had shown them! I always link that with John 2:23-25,23Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:23‑25) and the comment of the psalmist, “They soon forget His works,” however much they were affected by them. Faith in Christ, based on miracles, is a worthless thing. They were His credentials as sent from God, but were not meant for the salvation of anyone. In the beginning of John 3, the Holy Ghost plays on the word “man.” “There was a man,”―one of those very people who believed in Jesus. “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God.” How was he met? “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Chapters 3, 4, and 5, we ought to speak of together. In chapter 3, man’s nature will not do for God. Chapter 4, shows us that however bad the character, sovereign grace can meet one. The Lord did not say to that bad woman, “Ye must be born again.” But she was born again. She said, “Come, see a Man who told me all that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?” “Whosoever confesseth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” In chapter 5 man is utterly helpless. Man’s nature will not do; he has a bad character; and is utterly helpless. But the Lord meets his nature, his character, and his condition.
I will smite them with the pestilence, and destroy them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier then they (14:12).
There never was one of the human race that had such a proposal as this made to him. But Moses thinks more of God’s glory than his own interest. So it should be with all of us. God’s glory should be above everything else. And he made more of the interest of the people than of his own interest. That is the produce of God’s grace.