The Wilderness Wanderings

Moses grinned as He sent twelve leaders into the Promised Land to bring back a report about how great and grand their new home would be. But when those twelve men returned after forty days of recon, all of them weren't so excited. Pick up your Bible or phone and turn to Numbers 14 to hear the story.

This episode is based on the God's Word for Life, Fall 2025 Adult Lesson Guide entitled, "The Wilderness Wanderings" (November 9, 2025).

Find an Apostolic church that preaches this glorious gospel and our response at UPCI.org

This episode is produced by the Pentecostal Resources Group and is hosted by LJ Harry. To order resources of the God's Word for Life curriculum, visit
PentecostalPublishing.com and PentecostalResourcesGroup.com.

Share your God's Word for Life stories with me at pphcurriculum@upci.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

A missionary spent a great deal of his life traveling around the world, much of it for a missions agency. He spoke of a time when he visited and stayed for a while in an extremely remote, forested part of India where people lived very primitively. He was interested in something called missiology, which partly deals with how to take the gospel to other people groups. A key concept in missiology is learning what impacts the culture of that group you're trying to reach and understanding what matters to them, understanding what they value. After being there for a while and having many conversations with people, this missionary spoke with a chief elder. Through a translator he asked the question What are the five worst things people can do? He thought he already knew the answer, he thought he would get an answer like murder or assault or some such heinous crime. But when the chief elder listed his top five worst offenses, the first one was slander. The missionary was taken aback, kind of rocked back on his heels a little bit and asked the question really? You would put slander ahead of murder? And the elder wisely answered, Yes. If you kill a man, you have killed him. He's gone. If you slander him, you try to deceitfully destroy his reputation, you have killed him while he yet lives. When the children of Israel spoke a slanderous report concerning the promised land, they were chipping away at the reputation of the living God. He had proven himself to them repeatedly since they left Egypt, and now that they were at the brink of the promised land. They were declaring him unable to deliver on his promise. Their lack of faith caused them to miss what God had prepared for them, and for many of them it became a death sentence. We must speak faith and not doubt about our God. He can deliver. He's already proven it. Just look back at the Red Sea. Look back at the plagues on Egypt. When you face overwhelming obstacles, do not slander the God who has already shown He is well able and willing to deliver you. First question before we go to the voiceover guy: do you speak more about your problems or your God? And while you merit on that one, let's hear from this guy.

SPEAKER_01: 2:28

Welcome to God's Word for Life Lesson Companion Podcast, brought to you by Word of Flame Curriculum and the Pentecostal Publishing House. This podcast encourages adult disciples to think deeply about God's Word, further develop their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and make a greater commitment to the purpose and plan of God for their lives. Let's dive into today's lesson and explore what it means to live out God's Word in our lives.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

All right, everybody, put their pencils down now that you've answered that first question. I want to introduce myself. My name is L.J. Harry. I'll be your proctor for this exam. I will also be your host for this podcast. And you're listening to the God's Word for Life lesson companion podcast. Today's episode is entitled The Wilderness Wanderings, and it comes from the book of Numbers, chapter 14, verses 30 through 31. Doubtless you shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb, the son of Jefuna, and Joshua the son of Nun, but your little ones, which you said would be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. If in your Bible reading you typically skip over the book of Numbers, not today, we are going to look deeply at the Book of Numbers and look deeply at what happened to the children of Israel and why many of them missed on the promise God had promised them. They were ready, they were excited, they wanted to claim the promised land. They had followed the cloud from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, and now they stood on the brink of fulfilling a promise God had given to Abraham hundreds of years earlier. God instructed Moses to choose a leader from each tribe and send them as spies into the land. See if this starting lineup sounds familiar. We have Shamua, Shaphat, Caleb, Egal, Oshea, Palti, Gadiel, Gadi, Amiel, Sether, Nabi, Guel, and Joshua. Those are the twelve spies Moses sent into the promised land to spy out the land. But motive matters. Moses sent them on a reconnaissance mission to gather information about the number and strength of the people, the condition of the cities, the productivity of the land. But this was already their land by covenant promise, by their covenant making, covenant keeping God. God was not telling them, I want you to go into the land and let me know if you think I'm big enough. God was telling them, I want you to go in the land and look at your new home and be excited about where you're about to live. This was not go into the land and let me know about the giants I don't know about. This recon mission was all about go into the land and then come back and tell the rest of the people all about this beautiful, too wonderful for words land they're about to inherit. Because I made you a promise, and I keep my promises. God knew all the facts before he sent them on the spy mission. He knew the people were strong, the cities were fortified, he knew the children of Anak lived there. God did not need the Israelites to tell him the condition of the promised land. This was an exercise of faith for Israel. After forty days they returned to Israel and carried the bounty of the land. But these men could only see the obstacles. The Bible says ten men brought back a bad report. King James Version translates it an evil report, Numbers 13, verse 32. But according to many sources, the Hebrew word is even stronger than evil. It means a slanderous or defamatory report. With their account, with their story. The spies were not just sharing their opinion, they were slandering and defaming the Almighty God with their report. Remember, the land already belonged to Israel. It was their promised land. It was not their hoped for or one day you might get it, land. God promised them that land. When he brought them out of Egypt, he knew where he was bringing them. God's purpose was simply to show them the beauty and abundance he had already prepared for them. They were going to live in cities they did not build, and eat from vineyards they did not plant, but they only focused on the enemy. What an insult to God, the same God who had already brought them from their enemies through the Red Sea, and destroyed their last enemy completely as they watched the Egyptian slave drivers wash up on the shore of the Red Sea? How could they doubt that he would once again deliver the land he had promised them? Next question. What comes to mind when you think of a slanderous report? How can slander hinder what God wants to do? Let me be very clear. What we say does not diminish God. It just diminishes our faith in God. We can't make him any smaller, we can't make him any larger. He already fills all time and space. He's already the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. He's already the Almighty God. You can say what you feel like you need to say, what you want to say. It does not diminish God. It just begins to chip away at your faith in God, to where you start to wonder and question, does he care? Does he know? Is he able? Is he willing? When you start to ask those questions, then you start to wonder, is God really as great as Scripture says he is? Let me tell you, he is. In fact, he's greater than we can really imagine. Paul said it like this now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. When God revealed himself to Moses, he revealed himself to Moses as I am. Whatever you need, Moses, if you need a cloud to guide you by day and fire to guide you by night, I am. If you need a healer when the water is bitter, I am. If you need a lawgiver to give you direction and boundaries and guidelines by which you should live your life and be in covenant with me and with others, I am. If you need a warrior to rise up and fight the enemy you cannot fight on your own, I am. Whatever you need from me, I am. It's the same with us. Whatever you need our God to be, he is healer, deliverer, savior, redeemer. He fights for us. He stands with us, he goes before us, he leads us, he provides for us, he protects us, he is I am. But understand what Israel was about to understand, conversation matters. We must be careful when we speak of our situations, our trials, we're not slandering our God. If God has promised us, it will come to pass, his word is sure. In fact, in Romans 3, the Apostle Paul said, Let God be true and every man a liar. If eight billion people on this planet say God cannot do it, God can still do it. It just diminishes our faith. It does not diminish his power. When we face an obstacle, magnify our God more than our obstacle. Victory begins with what we say, with our words, life and death, they are indeed in the power of the tongue. Ten men, ten spies, men you've probably never heard of before, spoke death into a camp of thousands. Not just because they believe themselves to be grasshoppers, because that's how they said when they came back. They told the people they came back. Imagine that reunion as they come back sullen. They're carrying grapes on poles. They're so large. But when the people of Israel see them, they, hey, hey, hey, what's it like? What's it look like? What's how how how big is it? How great is it? How grand is it? And they have frowns on their faces, and some have wiped their tears where they've been crying, and they ask them, What, what? And they said, Oh, oh, it's it's everything Moses told us God told him it would be. Yeah, it's huge, it's large, it's beautiful, but it's walled, it's fortified, it's filled with giants. In fact, we look like grasshoppers to us, and we even look like grasshoppers to them. How do they know that? They spoke defeat about themselves, and they were convinced the enemy saw them as defeated. But they didn't know that. They didn't know what the enemy saw them as. They just saw themselves, and so they thought the enemy would see them in the same way. The power of ten brought a death sentence on thousands. Our conversation matters. But there were two men, thank God for two men, Joshua and Caleb, who continued to have faith in God to be their strength. Our faith in God overcomes our fear, and our conversation has consequences of good and bad. I remember during the pandemic we saw this t-shirt, we saw this hashtag all over the place, faith over fear. That's a great way to live. Faith in God over fear. Choose today, no matter the circumstances, no matter the trial, no matter how you see yourself, choose to speak about the greatness of your God more than about your enemy. Those ten men's slanderous report turned the hearts of the children of Israel, had an effect on so many people. They spent the night and mourning, crying, weeping, grieving. They grieved a loss before they even played the game. But the next day, they went even a step further by rebelling against God and Moses. They even planned to return to Egypt. I want you to remember what God had brought them from. Later on in Scripture, God refers to Egypt as the iron smelting furnace of Egypt. They were not members of a resort in Egypt. They were slaves, slaving away under Egypt's blazing sun, building treasure cities for a Pharaoh they neither knew nor loved. But they thought going back was better than going forward. Moses and Aaron fell to the ground because they understood this wasn't just a statement made in anger. This was an act of rebellion against God. God had faithfully proven himself to be their deliverer. He had led them by a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. He had protected them from enemies round about. But the congregation's fear and anger were so inflamed they conspired to stone Moses and Joshua to death. That was all God could take. Suddenly his glory appeared at the tent of meeting before the eyes of all of Israel, and God was ready to pronounce judgment on his own people. Rebellion and rioting are two things God will not tolerate. And when the children of Israel rebelled and rioted, God immediately showed up. Be careful your lack of faith in the God who has proven himself already repeatedly does not lead to rebellion. You will not know how God will work it out. I don't know how God will work it out. That's okay. Remember, God does not always call us to understand, but He does always call us to trust Him. Let's increase our faith daily by remembering who our God is and all He has done for us. If you don't already do this, do this. Keep a journal of the prayers God has answered. Keep a journal of the times God has spoken to you and promised you. Keep a journal of all the wonderful works God has done in your life. And in those times when you feel like God is silent or even absent, look back on that journal. Look back on those you might call them memorial stones, and look back at what God has done and rejoice in who he is and what he will do. If you don't journal, then open up the journal, open up the Word of God, and just begin to walk through the Word of God and see what God has done. And know what he has done before. He can and he will do it again, and he will do a new thing he has never done, just because he is God and He knows no limit. Israel was so discouraged they wished they had died in Egypt where at least they could have been buried. They were convinced the Canaanites would kill them and prey on their wives and on their children. Numbers 14, verse 3. Then God shared his plan with Moses to destroy the entire congregation and begin anew with Moses. If Moses were in this for himself, if he were leaving Israel for fame or the retirement package, he might think, okay, they're going to talk about me, Moses, the father of the faithful. In fact, if God does start all over, he may even change the name of the nation. It might be the children of Moses, not the children of Israel. They might be the Mosesites. I know it doesn't really sound the same, but work with me here. He could be the God of Moses, Eliezer, and Rehabiah, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If Moses were in it for himself and for the retirement package, Moses would have said, Great plan, God, where do I sign? But he wasn't. Moses was not leading for his name's sake. He was leading for God's. So Moses interceded for God's people who wanted to stone him. What mercy. They want to stone you, Moses, and you're going to pray for them? And Moses reminded God that if you destroy the nation of Israel, the nations around us will declare that destroying them was the only reason you delivered them from Egypt. You wanted to destroy them, not let Pharaoh destroy them. Moses also reminded God of his great nature. Lord, don't forget you're slow to anger. You abound in steadfast love, and you forgive iniquity. Don't forget who you are. You have every right to destroy us, but don't forget you're merciful. The ten spies had already slandered God. Moses did not want another nation to follow in their faithless footsteps. Here's a question. If God made you the same deal as He made Moses, how would you have responded? I'll make it all about you, Moses. It'll start over with you. What do you think? How would you have responded? The Israelites should have been thankful for a godly leader who stood between them and God's justifiable, justified anger. God listened to Moses' plea, and I I believe he smiled. He spared the nation, but there were severe consequences for their slander. The people, from the ages of twenty years old and upward, who saw God's glory, who saw the signs he had performed to deliver them from Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, they were sentenced to die while they wandered in the wilderness. The only two who would be spared were the only two who believed, Joshua and Caleb. Hey, great news. We don't have to be in the majority to be the majority. Again, if eight billion people say God cannot, in one single solitary, faith-filled voice speaks up and says, Yes, God can, that one voice and God make the majority. You don't have to be in the majority at your work or at your school in order for God to be on your side. God is not swayed by polls and by protests or by trends. He is attracted to truth and faith. In an interesting twist, God decided their little ones they thought would be prey. In fact, they declared it. Oh, if we go in the promised land, they're going to prey on our children, they're going to take our children, they're going to kill our children. God told them, No, they won't. I will fight for your children. They will inherit and dwell in the land you have rejected. So forty years. Forty years they wandered in the wilderness. One year for each day the spies spent in the promised land. The wilderness, which should have been a temporary place, became a permanent burial because of their slander. Today we stand like the children of Israel before a great promise. But we cannot allow a lack of faith to destroy what God has designed for us. We have we are abundant with promise. God has promised us so many great promises, the scripture refers to them as exceeding in great and precious promises. God has promised revival in the last day he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh. God has promised, perhaps promised you, that he will bring your lost son or daughter back to him, or he's promised he'll bring your brother or sister back to him, or he's promised he's going to touch and heal your body, whether here or there. God has promised he's going to provide for you, take care of you. God has promised if you've planted that church, he will bring people who are hungry to that church so they can hear and heed the word of God. He's promised to lead us to hungry people and lead us to people who are looking for him and lead hungry people to us. God has promised us. Don't forget what he's promised, and don't slander him because he has not brought to pass that promise yet. Don't allow a lack of faith to destroy what God has already promised. We've got testimonies. God has already delivered us from a life of destruction, a life of misery, a life of no hope. Do not forget God's mercy, God's miracles, God's mighty hand that has already worked for us. If God has brought you out, then declare by the grace of God, I will never return. We're not going back to Egypt. The only way from this day forward is forward. Against the majority opinion, Joshua and Caleb never broke covenant with God. They never lost faith in his power to give them the promised land. They never spoke or agreed with an evil report. And because of their faithfulness to God, God was faithful to them, delivering them from death in the wilderness and into a land full of blessings and promise. Don't allow an evil report to turn your faith to rebellion, denying you the promises of God. Caleb declared they were all well able to overcome the obstacles because it was their promised land because their God promised him. Even when Caleb was eighty-five years old, he was an octogenarian plus five. He was still ready to claim the promised land God had promised them. The power of keeping covenant with God is revealed as he keeps covenant with you and keeps all he has promised. We need people like Joshua and Caleb in our lives. Who are those people for you? And how can you be a Joshua or Caleb in somebody else's life? Abraham received a covenant promise and a land. The Israelites received the promised land in a detailed document explaining how to remain in covenant with God, the Ten Commandments. In the handbook on the Pentateuch, Dr. Chris Paris reveals God gave both apodictic, which were prohibitive, and casuistic, conditional, laws in the Ten Commandments to the people. The prohibitive laws are absolute, while the conditional laws regard conditional situations. God had repeatedly experienced the inconsistency of sinful humanity. Therefore, the Pentateuch gave the Israelites a detailed plan to remain in covenant with God. Just before Moses died, he delivered the people in written form and in a public address, the book of Deuteronomy, the last message, repeating the laws to help them live in covenant with God while living in the prosperity of the promised land. Deuteronomy literally means second law, Deuterone, second, Nami Law. It was God giving them the law one more time so they would not forget who He is and what He has done, and what they are called to do in this covenant. If we have obeyed God's plan of salvation according to Acts 2, verse 38, we are blessed to have the supernatural help of Almighty God, His Holy Spirit walking with us as we walk in covenant with him. The laws from the Old Testament were written only on tables of stone, but now have been written on our hearts. When we say yes to God's Spirit, we declare the Lord will be our God. We enter new covenant with Him, but we must learn from the children of Israel and not allow a lack of faith to cause us to rebel against God. We must have the spirit of Joshua and Caleb and determine we will live according to God's plan so we can be God's covenant people. And with that, we wrap this up. One Saturday morning a minister was busily trying to prepare his sermon under difficult conditions. Ho ho, I have been there many times. It was a rainy day. His young son was restless and bored with a little to do. So finally, in desperation, the minister picked up an old magazine and thumbed through it until he came to a brightly colored picture. It showed a map of the world. He tore the page from the magazine, ripped it into little pieces, and scattered the scraps all over the living room floor, and he said, Son, if you can put this page together, I'll give you a dollar. The minister hoped that challenge would take his son most of the morning, but ten minutes later. Wonder what he wants. What if he just needs some help? He heard a knock on the door. His son was done. He had completed the puzzle. Oh well that was short lived. The minister was still staring at a blank screen and a blinking cursor, trying to figure out what am I going to preach to these people tomorrow? But he got up and he walked over to where his son was, and he was amazed. He really had finished the project so soon. The pieces of paper neatly arranged and the map of the world back in order. And he asked the question, Son, how did you get that done so fast? And the son sagely said, Oh, that was easy. On the other side was a picture of a man. So I just put a piece of paper on the bottom, put the picture of the man together, put a piece of paper on top, and then turned it all over. And I figured if I get the person right, the world would be right. His dad smiled, handed him a dollar, and told his son, You uh you earned that dollar, but you also gave me my sermon for tomorrow. If a person is right, his world will be right. And he went back to the blank screen and blinking cursor and started typing away for what he would preach that Sunday. The Old Testament covenant was a great document to guide the behavior of Israel in their relationship with God and with others. But as wonderful and detailed as it was, it could not accomplish what it was created to do. But why not? Because humanity was not right. Humans needed more than a law, they needed transformation. They needed to be changed. We need to be changed from the inside out so we could learn to obey the covenant laws of God. When God rewrote the laws under the hearts of humanity through the infilling of His Holy Spirit, new people, new creations were born. These new people were right. The law of God was written on our hearts, and now we're able to live right through his spirit. When we allow God's covenant to lead our lives, we want to be in right relationship with God and each other. Instead of focusing on putting the world together right, let's focus on getting ourselves in covenant with God right. As that young boy so wisely said, if a person is right, his world will be right. One last question. What needs to be made right in your life in order for your world to also be right? Let's pray for God to increase our faith so we trust in Him to lead us to what He has promised us, and then pray for God to cover our mouths so we will speak by faith instead of speaking slanderous reports about our Almighty God. Lord Jesus, we love you today. Increase our faith. Increase our faith that you are able, you are willing to keep what you've promised. You will never fail to keep your promise, never failed one word of all your great promises. Help us, Lord, I pray, cover our mouth if you must. Help us, Lord, to speak only faith and not slander about who you are and what you will do, even in moments we don't understand or we don't know how you're going to do it. Help us still to speak faith. We know you're able. We know you're willing. We know you are still God. Help us today, Jesus, increase our faith, and help us, Lord, to speak only faith concerning who you are and what you're able to do. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. Thank you, God's Word for Life listeners. Subscribe, follow, like, click the notify button so you'll never miss an episode when they drop, typically on Fridays around 9 a.m. Eastern Time. And be sure to share this God's Word for Life podcast with others who maybe are teaching God's Word for Life or just simply walking with God and need something to help them walk with Him a little bit closer, tell them about the podcast. If you're looking for an apostolic church, go to upci.org, type in your zip or postal code, or go to globalmissions.com and you'll find a missionary nearby you can reach out to them, or if you have any trouble with either one of those, email me at GWFL at upci.org. That stands for God's Word for Life at UPCI.org. And I'll help you find a church. If you're looking for resources for children all the way through adult English and Spanish, you can find all of that at pphespaniol.com or pentecostalpublishing.com. You'll find great resources from God's Word for Life as well as books, Bibles, Bible studies, music, great discipleship resources for your walk with God and your relationship with Him and with others, so we can live in covenant with God and with our neighbors. Next week, we go into another segment of the Bible. It's a segment we call Judges and Kings. We've gone from the Exodus, and now we're going deeper into the Bible as we journey from Genesis to Revelation, and our next week's episode is called Crossing the Jordan River. I'm looking forward to sharing that with you next week, and always look forward to learning and living out God's Word for life.

SPEAKER_01: 30:00

Thank you for listening to God's Word for Life Lesson Companion Podcast, where together we explore what it means to live out God's Word in our lives. If you haven't yet, make sure to subscribe to this podcast. And if you are looking for other Bible study tools and resources to encourage you in your walk with God, visit us today at Pentecostal Publishing.com.