Eyes of Unbelief, Eyes of Faith

Numbers 13:30–33 (NIV)

30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Dear friends,

They saw the same things. They walked the same land. They spent the same forty days. And yet the twelve spies came back with entirely different reports.

Ten of them said, "We seemed like grasshoppers." Caleb said, "We can certainly do it."

What made the difference? This passage puts a question to each one of us today: how do you see yourself right now?

They Were Not Lying

Let us be clear about something first. The ten spies did not fabricate their report. The cities truly were fortified. The descendants of Anak truly were of great size. What they saw with their own eyes was real.

Our lives are no different. Financial pressures are genuinely heavy. The pain of illness is genuinely deep. The wounds left by broken relationships genuinely hurt. Denying the reality of our problems is not what faith looks like.

So what, then, set Caleb apart?

It All Depends on Whose Eyes You Are Looking Through

The ten men saw themselves as grasshoppers. But look more carefully at the text — they said "we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes." It was not merely that the enemy saw them that way. They saw themselves that way.

This is the crux of the matter. Their problem was not the giants standing before them. The problem was the way they saw themselves.

Cast your mind back to Numbers chapter 10, when Israel set out from Sinai. The ark of the covenant went ahead of them, and Moses cried out, "Rise up, LORD!" How could a people led by God Himself come to see themselves as grasshoppers?

The answer is that they had forgotten God. The people who grew weary of manna and demanded meat in chapter 11, the spirit of rebellion that sought to undermine Moses in chapter 12 — that same unbelief had by chapter 13 reduced them to seeing themselves as insignificant. When we lose sight of God, we begin to see ourselves as very small indeed.

Numbers 12:3 tells us that Moses was "more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." But his humility was not weakness. It was an accurate understanding of his own place before God. When God is great, we do not become small — rather, within the greatness of God, we ourselves are made bold.

What Caleb Saw

Caleb saw the giants too. But he saw the God who stood behind them. "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it" — this was not reckless optimism. It was the confession of a man who held fast to the promises of God.

There were three things in Caleb's gaze. First, he remembered God's promise — "The Lord has said He will give it to us."Second, he trusted in God's power — "we can certainly do it" — not in their own strength, but in His. Third, he was assured of God's presence — the pillar of cloud was still above them.

Friends, to look at the very same reality as those around you and arrive at an entirely different conclusion — that is faith. Faith does not mean closing your eyes to reality. It means seeing God on the other side of it.

Dear friends,

There may well be a "giant of Canaan" standing before you today. A wall that seems impossible to scale. A moment in which you feel overwhelmingly small.

In that moment, you will hear the voice of the ten: "How could grasshoppers like us ever manage this?"

But God is asking you a different question: "Through whose eyes are you looking right now?"

May you be like Caleb — seeing the giants, yes, but seeing the God who stands behind them. Seeing yourself, yes, but seeing the God who walks beside you.

We are not grasshoppers. We are the people of God, who hold fast to His promises.

I close with the words of Numbers 13:30:

"We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."

May this be the confession of every one of us today. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.