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Text: Numbers 13:25-33

Marathon runners train for the long haul. After all, they know they have 26 miles and 385 yards to run. The record for running this distance is about 2 hours and 5 minutes. Can you imagine running 26 miles in 2 hours? I can't.

Good marathon runners have this race down to a science. They study very carefully the science of how the body responds to the stress of the race. Training plans have been developed so that the runner knows exactly how many miles to run in preparation for the race. They know exactly what to eat the night before the race to help them the most.

And marathon runners talk about "The Wall." The wall is a term used to describe the time when the runners have crossed a point in the race where they have no more glycogen reserves. Glycogen is the substance stored in the muscles and liver which is the muscles primary fuel. At this point the body has run out of fuel and swaps over to begin using fat reserves as a fuel source.

The solution to the wall experience is to train the body to accept the change from glycogen to fat by running a number of long training runs into that zone. Runners have to push on through the Wall.

Many people in our church have already hit the Wall in reading through the Bible. When they waded into Leviticus, they found that their reading reserves were used up, and they quit. But the solution for the reading Wall is the same as the marathon wall. Push on through it. Train yourself and pace yourself for the long haul. We are running a marathon, not a sprint.

If you are on our published schedule, then you have finished one of the difficult parts. We are once again entering the territory of interesting narrative.

Our passage for today from Numbers 13 recounts the fascinating story of what might have been for the Israelites. If they had responded with courage at this point in the story, then they could have avoided most of the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

After only a couple of years in the wilderness, mostly while they were camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai receiving instructions from God, the people now stand on the edge of the Promised Land. Moses sends twelve spies to scout out the land to see if it is good land and to judge the prospects for taking it.

The spies spend forty days in the land, and bring back a cluster of grapes that is so big that two men have to carry it. Then they report to Moses and the people about what they have seen. They reported, "We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan."

The first thing we can note about this story is that the report is accurate. All twelve of the spies agree with this assessment of the situation. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, the fruit is plentiful. And the people who inhabit the land are strong. Caleb and Joshua do not disagree that there are giants in the land; they just disagree with the others on how the people should respond.

Last Thursday night, I was asked to speak to the FCA at Pikeville College. I chose for my text the passage from 1 Samuel 17 describing the great battle between David and Goliath. One of the applications of that story was that there really are giants in the land.

In our day, we are not likely to be fighting against nine-foot-tall Goliaths, unless we are on the university basketball team. But we all face giants in our lives. For some, it is the giant of addiction. Drugs and alcohol have a way of dominating ones life like a giant before pygmies. For others of us, our temptations may vary greatly, but temptation is always a giant confronting us.

Ephesians 6:12 says, "For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

I think most people are like the majority of the spies sent into the land in that they cower in fear before the giants of the land. Those ten spies report to Moses saying, "We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we." They further report that the people are of great size, and conclude, "to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, so we seemed to them."

Most of us cower in fear as well. We talk more about what we can't do than what we can do. "I can't help my temper, that's just the way I am." "I can't help it if I am negative all they time, that's just my personality." So we give in to the giants of temptation that confront us and try to justify ourselves by saying, "I am just a grasshopper before the giant of my temptation."

Legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne once took his team to California to confront a number one rated USC team. He knew the California team was better and should win, but Rockne was not one to give up easily. He decided to try intimidation. So he recruited every large student on his university campus, no matter how out of shape they were. Then he outfitted all of them in Notre Dame uniforms for this one game. When the Notre Dame football team ran out onto the field in California, the USC team was intimidated by 100 huge men in uniform. They had no idea that almost none of the big men would actually be playing in the game. Their fear got the best of them, and USC lost the game. (1)

That's what happened to the majority of Israel's spies, and that's what happens to us. We too have that Grasshopper Mentality that thinks we are so small and our problems are so big that we don't have a chance. We may as well not try.

The armies of Saul who heard Goliath's challenge every day for 40 days felt the same way. No one would dare to go out and fight Goliath one-on-one. Not until, little David stepped forward in the name of the Lord.

For both David and the children of Israel, the giants are real! And our giants may be real as well. In fact, they may be bigger than we are and have every reason to win in the battles of life.

But David knew the best way to view the situation. Goliath may have been bigger than David, but Goliath was NOT bigger than God. David stands for Goliath and shouts, "You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand…"

The secret to David's victory over the giant was not in believing in his own power, but in believing in the power of God. God is bigger than our problems too, if we only have David's kind of faith.

We always have a choice. We can respond with faith like David's or we can respond with grasshopper faith like the ten spies.

Look at the passage again to see who influenced the people on that day. Chapter 14 begins with these words:

1Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.”

Instead of listening to the messengers who said, "We can," they listened to the messengers who said, "We can't." The people were infected with fear. They could only see what they could not do, rather than what, through God's grace and power, they could do. Aren't we the same way?

Franklin D. Roosevelt made one of the most famous statements about fear on the occasion of his first inaugural address on March 3, 1933. The country was deep in the throes of the Great Depression. Work was hard to find, and what work could be found did not pay enough to support a family. The American people had almost given up hope. Roosevelt decided to address the situation at the very beginning of his first inaugural address with these words: "This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper." "So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear. . .is fear itself. . .nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Because of their lack of faith, the people of Israel would wander in the wilderness for forty years!

In our story, Joshua and Caleb were the heroes of the day. Caleb spoke right up and said, "Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are able to overcome it."

In chapter 14, Joshua proclaims, "If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them."

The New Testament has the same message for us. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline."

Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…"

There is only one known cure for fear. Do you know what that is? It is faith. Some people argue that faith is the opposite of fear. I'm not so sure about that, but I do not that faith is the cure, the only cure, for fear.

Faith is a synonym for trust. If we trust that God will take care of us, we should then have no fear. Harry Emerson Fosdick put it this way: "Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable and, most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God" (2) We have a choice – fear or faith.

There's an ancient legend that comes from India. it tells about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat. That took care of his problem – until he met a dog, at which time he again became afraid. So the magician changed him into a dog. The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger. But then the once-mouse-now-tiger came complaining to the magician that he met a hunter of whom he was afraid and said he wanted the magician to help him again. The magician refused, saying, "I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse." (3)

There really are giants in the land. Which will it be for us? Fear or faith?

Endnotes:

1) Robert E. Buchanan, Jr, "The Grasshopper Complex", Best Sermons 7, James Cox, ed., HarperSanFrancisco,1994, p.230.

2) quoted by J. Wesley Wilkey, PRCL, 6/22/2000

3) Robert E. Buchanan, Jr, "The Grasshopper Complex", Best Sermons 7, James Cox, ed., HarperSanFrancisco,1994, p.233.