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Song: Can He Depend On You?
Scripture: Numbers 13:25-14:10
Numbers is so named because the book opens and closes with a census of the Israelites. Moses numbered the Israelites who came out of Egypt but fell in the desert because of unbelief. Forty years later he numbered the generation raised in the wilderness whom God permitted to enter the Promised Land. Sandwiched between these two countings is the story of the first generation who over four decades counted the cost of their faithless rebellion following the report of the spies. The story of their fall is a lesson to their children and to us.
Number your days. Every Israelite twenty and upward with the exception of Joshua and Caleb was cursed to die in the desert. That gave a certain urgency to every day. Life is but a countdown to judgment. The fact that you don’t know where your count stands ought to bring a sobriety to your day.
Number your blessings. Israel numbered her woes. She counted all that was against her. Were the giants of Canaan mightier than the chariots of Egypt? Were their fortified cities greater than the pyramids? They numbered all the wrong things and so miscalculated their condition. Like Crosby sang, “When you’re worried and you can’t sleep, try counting your blessings instead of sheep.”
Don’t trust in numbers. You may stand alone like Joshua and Caleb. If their confidence to defy the majority could have been transferred to the people to defy the Canaanites, Israel would have marched to Canaan. Trust in God, no matter who opposes, no matter the odds. That’s all that counts.
Jason Moore
