After forty days the men returned from spying out the land,They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
3 sermons cite this verse
… who return from the assignment share a majority report that speaks of the land flowing with milk and honey, but they focus on the problems and the threats. Now, let me stop here parenthetically. They say that it's flowing with milk and honey. That in order for you to get some milk, you got to do some work. In order to get some honey, you will be stung. But yet, they are focused on the problems and not the possibility. They state, even though God has called us to etch out a space, we look like grasshoppers. We saw from a distance the people who were living there. We don't look like we have enough power. I don't think we can live next to them. But then there is another person, only one, a minority report. Caleb offers a different stance. He says we can find a home and live in this new space. But I must offer this, Reverend Rice. There is a complication that must be acknowledged that is not resolved. …
In other words, really freakishly pagan, dangerous, idol-worshipping tribes are throughout this promised land. Listen carefully. The promised land that Israel had arrived to. Now listen. The sons of Anak, they were there. They had been there for a long time. The Malachites had been there for a long time. The Canaanites had been there for a long time. I'm going somewhere with this. And what you're about to learn, the United Nations, they don't know. Well, in the promised land, there were those pagan nations dwelling. All the while, God had made the promise. But wait, did God make the promise to Joshua and Moses? Or did God make the promise regarding the land by great detail to someone much earlier? Yeah, Abraham. Hundreds and hundreds of years earlier, God had made the promise to Abraham. and said, oh, by the way, with great detail, pin drop from this location to that location, all the way down south, all the way back up north, that's the promised land. Folks, listen. …
… And then in verse 25, they come back after spying out the land. Numbers 13 verse 25. It says, And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the high land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites dwell in the hill country. The Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let's go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. The men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people. They're stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone to spy out, it's a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak who came from the Nephilim. …