by David Scott Robertson
“At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there” (Numbers 13:25-28).
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Moses had ordered twelve tribal leaders to explore the land of Canaan prior to the nation entering in to possess the land. This territory was the exact destination that the great God Jehovah had led them to using a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. There could be no mistake, this was the place.
The passage I opened with sadly chronicles the official report of the majority of the twelve spies upon returning from their expedition. The consensus was a dismal one.
The first words out of their mouths were good! It was truth!
“We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is the fruit” (13:27).
Oh, that they had stopped right there and kept their fears to themselves! An entire generation’s future lay in the balance on the next few words. Then, brace yourself, here it came – the bombshell. The next word was like an atomic warhead exploding – “but…”
What do you mean “but?” After all God had done to sustain, uphold, and preserve hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in an impossible situation, one would think that the very last word out of their mouths would be “but…”
Had not God led them to that precise spot supernaturally? Had God not performed miracle after miracle in order to set the stage for the conquest of Canaan? Had not God fed an entire nation with manna from heaven and watered their herds with water from a rock, for goodness sake?
The very men who had walked on dry ground at the bottom of the Red Sea with massive walls of water on either side of them somehow had the audacity to say the word “but…”
(Num 13:28 NIV) But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.
It was as if the word “but” was the transition from a blessing to a curse for an entire nation. From that word forward, the anger of God Himself was aroused, the very God whose declared that He was slow to become angry.
When I came to the word “but” in the text, I lowered my Bible to my lap prayed out loud in my recliner: “Holy Spirit,” I prayed, “what can you teach me from this passage?” Then I waited in silence. The following words bubbled up within my spirit:
“With many words sin is not absent.”
“Quit while you are ahead.”
“Even a fool appears wise when silent.”
“Parents stopped naming their children after the names of the ten spies.”
“It would be better not to speak at all that to speak in such a way that another’s faith is crushed.”
“The word ‘but’ is not the culprit in this instance rather a lack of faith in God.”
God doesn’t expect us to lie or pretend that problems, even severe problems, okay, even problems that appear impossible to resolve in the natural, don’t exist. Of course they do! God doesn’t get any glory out of you and me trying to “cover for God” and pretend that real problems don’t exist.
Caleb was one of the spies who gave God the opportunity to use the word “but” in its proper context.
“But Caleb tried to encourage the people as they stood before Moses. ‘Let’s go at once to take the land,’ he said. ‘We can certainly conquer it!’” (v. 30).
Well, the rest, as they say, is history. The ten spies with their faithless report perished in the wilderness along with every Israelite twenty years and older (Numbers 32:11) down to the last person. (Can you imagine being the “last Israelite” from that generation still living holding back the forward progress of an entire nation? He probably had a “do not resuscitate” sign on his sick bed there at the end!)
God used the word “but” again later on in his reference to Caleb:
“But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (Numbers 14:24).
The conclusion of the matter is this: Be very wise in your usage of the word “but.” The words that follow that important word in your speech may very well determine life or death, blessing or cursing, a commendation from the Lord or condemnation from the devil.
DSR
11/6/05