The LORD now said to Moses, "Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes." So Moses did as the LORD commanded him. He sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran. (Numbers 13:1-3 NLT)
Moses did exactly what God called him to do. The twelve tribe-leaders did exactly what they were supposed to do. They went. They return. They reported the facts.
This was their report to Moses: "We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak!" (Numbers 13:27-28 NLT)
This may not mean much to you, but a land flowing with milk and honey is quite a place when you've been living in the desert and drinking water from a rock. The fruit they showed was really big!
The second part may not affect you, either, but Anak descendents were big. I mean really big. The David and Goliath story hadn't happened yet, but imagine a whole town of Goliaths - 9 feet tall. Yeah that was a big deal, too.
These were the facts: great land, big fruit, and big people. The question is not in the facts of this story. The question is, "Where is their faith?"
But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. "Let's go at once to take the land," he said. "We can certainly conquer it!" But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. "We can't go up against them! They are stronger than we are!" (Numbers 13:30-31 NLT)
You see, there's one more fact that they didn't report. Caleb reported it. Remember why they were sent in the first place? God said, "Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites..."
Fact: it's God's land.
Fact: He's giving it to them.
Fact: Nothing else matters.
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