Let's do all verses. Like a river glorious in God's perfect peace all victorious in his righteous grief. Perfect yet he groweth fuller every day, perfect yet he groweth deeper all the way. Hearts are fully blessed Finding as He promised perfect peace and rest Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand Never Coke and Polo, never Trader Stan Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care Not a blast of hurry, touch the spirit hearts are fully blessed, finding he has promised perfect peace and rest. Every joy or We may trust Him fully, all for us to do. They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true. See, upon Jehovah hearts are fully blest, finding grievous promise. Perfect peace and rest. Thank you. You may be seated, pastor. It's in my top 100, and that's probably in my top 10, one of my top 10 favorite songs. And I love that. Stayed upon Jehovah. No better place to be rested on. Amen? And thankful for that. Alright. Brother Jim read our text this morning. We're going to look briefly in Numbers chapter 13. Numbers chapter 13, if you find your place there. And the westward migration during the time of the gold rush, you know, 1849, 1850, all of that era where the pioneers began heading west to their hope and future and the hope of a new land and a new place to have. thousands of Americans followed that trail out west. But the hardships they met along the way, and not only just along the trail, if they made the trail, when they got to where they were finally going, the hardships that were there, was never usually mentioned in the advertisement of those that were saying, come west, come west, it's a beautiful land, California's wonderful. It's still a land of fruits and, no, no, that's not what it meant. I'm sorry and of milk and honey that's what it is a milk and honey and it's a beautiful place I've been to California several often and I love love the beautiful country really is and I don't know what happened, but anyway, it's still a beautiful place. It's a very beautiful place. And no doubt, no wonder it drew people out there and all the, just the fertility of the land. And I've been through that. I don't know what that area is called around Manteca. That's inside between two mountain ranges and like a valley desert, almost like, what is that called? Oh, there you go. There's somebody who knows. San Juan is a beautiful, beautiful place. And all along the coastline, I mean, there's nothing like it in the world. It is a beautiful, beautiful place. And no doubt people went there to find their fortune, to find just a great place to settle down. and start over, but the hardships they met, and the hardships they met when they finally did make it, if they did make it there, were an incredible challenge. Listen to what one historical sketch said about this. They said this, pioneers crossed prairies, the 40-mile desert, the Sierra Nevada Range, and the Rockies on foot. and struggled to coax their wagons and their wagon loads alongside. I could not imagine for six months or more trudging along there next to those wagons and all the just think of the coming through at a certain time if you've ever read any of the history on the Donner Party and all of the mistakes they made and one of the major mistakes they made was they left Independence, Missouri too late in the year. and they were told over and again, you need to go, you need to go, you need to go. And there's a lot of lessons to learn, it's not a part of the message, but I'm fascinated by that whole event and that story. But it was a hard life and it was a hard trail. Many never made it, but even those who got to their promised land realized that the land claim wasn't the end, it was just the beginning of hardship. And some of the strongest people our nation has never known in stature and in just stamina and grit were those who staked their claims out there in the West and they came across the plains. Now I have, anybody from Kansas here? Who's from Kansas? I have wondered what the caliber of the person was that when they got across Kansas said, this looks good, we'll just stay here. Anyway, that's another story. A lot of them I think ran out of money. Okay, let's be fair. You know what the westward migration saw was really you could build some parallels with Israel and the hardships it took to get there and when they finally got there, the hardships were there. But God had a purpose in this. This is the difference. God had a purpose. And we see here in Exodus chapter, or Numbers chapter 13, I was just going to go through the whole Pentateuch until I landed on Numbers right there, but I got there ahead of time. Numbers chapter 13, the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel. And so we got here to Exodus, or to Numbers 13, and it was time, they had gotten to the borders of the promise of the land that God had given Moses and had covenanted with Moses. And it was time to go search out the land so they get an idea of what they were getting into. They sent 12 men out, one from each tribe, and you can find that here in verses 4 through 15. I'm not going to give you that, but if you go back and read it, you can see the names of each man that was a part of this committee of 12 that was told by God to go out and to search the land. And so the expedition was sent out, the path was given. They were supposed to start in the mountains. in that Northern part towards Syria. They're to travel their way down South through Hebron, and it would take them through the entire land of Canaan from North to South. And the commission was outlined for them as well. You're gonna survey everything. You're gonna check the people out to see whether they be weak or strong. You're gonna look at the housing to see whether they're living in tents or whether they're living in permanent homes and concrete structures or rock structures, I should say, and things like that. And then also you're going to look at the land because unlike us, right, they didn't have restaurants on every corner. That land has got to be fruitful and they're going to see whether the land was good or bad. God wanted Israel to have an eyewitness report of the land that God was giving them. And so verse 21, Moses goes ahead and he sends this envoy out. And it says this, so they went up and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin under Rahab, and men, as men come to Hamath. And so they began at the very north, and they worked their way south, 30 miles south of Jerusalem. And then the spies began to journal a few things as they went along. They began to find out, they collected some things. The first thing that you see here they collected were the grapes by the Brook Eskel, and then pomegranates and figs. And I don't know if we had a great discovery on our own land this past week, I found out. We have grapes as well. We have, you know, we live in the woods, so these grape vines, or vines, and some of these vines are huge, these old wild grapes. And I had a vine, I think I was just saying something the other night, a little vine growing on some little line thing I had up of lights. And three clusters of grapes I found. And man, this was, I was excited. They're the little bitty wild ones, they're yummy. And I thought, we don't have the grapes of Eskol, we have the grapes of Eccles. That's pretty close, I like that. And no brook, we got a river down at the bottom of the hill, but I'm working on these. These are gonna produce, I hope. But they brought some fruit of the land, which is, I mean, this is a miracle for us, because we live in Stone County, which is named that because of stones and rocks, and we live on the top of rocks, and we've got grapes, and I like that, Brother Allen, that's a good thing. And there's nothing else that land produces but rocks, but we do have grapes, and I'm thankful. And so God commanded Moses here, and he sent out the spies, and the spies carried out what God had commanded them to do. But I don't know if you've ever asked yourself or wondered why God set up this committee to survey the land, right? We know as time has gone by, especially in church history, especially in our American church history, especially if you want to narrow it down, beginning in 1847 and the beginning of when the Triennial Convention broke off and started the Southern Baptist Convention. We've always wondered what was the purpose of these committees? Usually not a lot. Right? And so we wondered here, why did God send out this committee per se to go and spy out the land? Well, I notice a few things here that we can see that God has done. Number one, they were going to be able to see visibly that God fulfilled His promise. Amen? They're going to see that this is exactly what God said it was going to be. Exodus chapter 3 and verse 7 through 8, you can go back and look that up and you can see what God told them about the land. And Leviticus chapter 20, He restates it once again. And so they can see here as they're going through the land, yeah, This is exactly what God said it was going to be. And then secondly, it's going to build some confidence. Right? God knew what the land was like, right? I don't think this was, they weren't reporting to God. That would be kind of silly, right? And you ever hear people pray and they report to God what you know, you're almost confident God already knows, right? And they're not reporting to God, He knows, but they're building confidence. They're gonna come back to this group of 600,000 foot soldiers alone, maybe a million and a half Israelites, and they're gonna report that, hey, God is, the land is exactly as God said it was going to be. And you know what? If God was true then and true now, I mean, I think, folks, He can be trusted, amen? And it's going to build some confidence, and it's going to build some trust that what God said He was going to do, He was going to do. And what God has said He was going to provide, He provided. It also reestablishes that God in His omniscience, right? He is all-knowing. He is an all-knowing God. Hey, listen, nobody in Israel had ever seen this land of Canaan at this time. Nobody could know what was going on in that place. And there is no way anybody could have. But God wanted Israel to know, I can be trusted. I know the beginning from the end. I know what I've told you, listen, you can trust me, you can follow me, you can rely upon me, and here's a big one, here's a big one they can learn from this. Following God pays off. It pays. It pays to follow God. You say, I don't know, I've had a pretty rough life. You haven't hit eternity yet, friend. Amen. Hey, this life isn't going to be even show up in eternity. It's going to be so fast. I mean, listen, it pays off. I hate to say it that way, but it really does. But watch all of this depended on one thing. Watch this. Look at chapter 13, verse one. Look at verse two. Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan. Look at these three words, which I give. which I give unto the children of Israel. Now look at verse 17 and 18. And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain, and see the land, what it is, and the people that dwell therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many. Now hold on. Who sent them? to Canaan. Who sent them into the land? We just read it, verse 2. Who sent them into the land? God did, amen? God sent them, right? But God wanted them to tell these spies, He wanted them to tell everybody what the land looked like. God sent the spies, it was His idea for the committee. And He wanted the committee to come back and tell everybody what it looked like, whether they be strong or weak or few. or many. I don't want to pass by this too quickly and I want you to notice something here in the text here. Would you notice this? Listen, God knew what the land, can we all agree? God knew what the land was like, amen? God knew what the land was like, watch, but He wanted them to see what it was like. Why? God knew what it was like. He's sending them, so why would he want them to see what it was like ahead of time? Well, we're gonna come up to a thing here where they're gonna get a little skewed view of giants. God already knew this. Why did God send the men? Well, to God, the giants were nothing. But Israel's view of the giants were completely dependent upon their view of God. Israel's view of the giants were going to be dependent upon their view of God. And so God wanted them to see it. You know why? I think you could go through and list a bunch of reasons, but I think it's very possible one of the reasons why God wanted them to see it, because He wanted Israel to see their own reaction and He wanted others to see their reactions to the opposition that laid ahead of them. See, the committee is going to come back and they're going to verify the promises of God. They're going to say, yeah, praise the Lord, the land is great. It is a fruitful land. I mean, look at the grapes, look at the figs, look at the pomegranates. I mean, this is just a cluster that we had to, we could barely get out of there. I mean, this is fruitful land. It is just like God said, but there's opposition. There's giants. There's giants in the land. Look at verse 27, And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great. And moreover we saw the children of Anak there, the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. Hold on, God already told them who all the inhabitants were. Go back Exodus 3 and verse 8, Exodus 3.17, Exodus 13.15, Exodus 33 and verse 3, Leviticus 20.24, God told them in each of those verses, He told them who was living in the land that He had given them. He had already told them that all of these tribes are already and these people are living. They're living there in the land. Yes, the cities were walled. They were big. There is giants. And they thought it came out of there and said, well, there's no place for us to live. It's already full. It's already full. We can't wait. I mean, yeah, it's the way you said it is. But the people are too big. There's too much. And we get a glimpse here, watch, we get a glimpse here what the majority's view of God is. You see, when we don't move forward in faith, what everybody is getting is a glimpse of our view of God. There is only two that were ready to go, the old guys. Caleb and Joshua, well, they're going to be the old guys. They believed God. They trusted God. They said, yeah, so what? Well, yeah, there's giants, but God's able. I mean, He brought us this far. They were able to look back and know, what did we see from Caleb and Joshua? Well, we saw their view of who God is. that He is capable and that He is able and that He is trustworthy and that He keeps His promise and that you could use just a little bit of deductive reasoning to say if God is faithful and God is right and He brings us out here this far, certainly He hasn't left us here to die. So let's go in and see what He does. But the majority said no. The others said, nevertheless, Nevertheless, how could they do this? I mean, think of all that they've seen. Brother Allen, think about it. They've seen the ten plagues. That'd been pretty cool. None of them hit you. Here they were up in Goshen, destroyed the land of Egypt, and it didn't even touch them. They saw the Passover and the death angel come over and take the firstborn of every Egyptian and every animal, but it didn't touch them. Oh, obviously, this was the hand of God that they had seen. They had seen the parting of the Red Sea. They had seen the bitter waters made sweet at Marah. They were eating manna every day by this time, water out of a rock. They got quail three feet high that covered the place. Listen, friend, they're in the middle of the desert. I don't know a lot about quail, but I know this. I don't think there's a lot of habitat in that wilderness area for quail to live. I don't know. Maybe there is. I've seen the wilderness. There's not a tree anywhere in it. I mean the sand is just as far as you can see. It is pretty barren and God brings an east wind and here come quail to where they flop in the wilderness. In the desert they're flopping there on the ground, three feet high, just spreading out the whole place. I don't know, that's pretty awesome. They've seen all this. I mean they haven't been too long on the road, but they've already had to defeat the Amalekites. Hold on a minute. They've seen the building of the temple of the tabernacle. God has set everything up. They've seen Mount Sinai. They've seen the smoke on Sinai. They've watched Moses come down and his face shining like it was because he's been in the presence of God. Hey, they've seen the very presence of God and a pillar of fire, a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. What more do they need? They knew what God could do. But watch, in spite of all they knew of God, in spite of all they had seen that God had done on their behalf, they still came away from the view of the giants with unbelief and distrust. Distrust of God. They didn't trust Him. That's all it comes down to. It's a trust issue. But nevertheless, Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great. And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there." So we see here in verse 31 that the men went up with him and said, ìWe be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.î And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, ìThe land through which we have gone to search it is the land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.î What a defamation of the character of God. Oh no, they couldn't deny it was exactly as God said. They couldn't deny that. But they came back with an evil report. And it was a disgrace and a besmirchment of the character of God. And so everybody that day, 20 years and older, God said, enough. You're not going in. You're not going in. You're going to die. Your carcass is going to fall in the wilderness. And watch, the entire camp is going to sit here until this generation dies. And you're going to wander around for the next 38 years until this generation dies. You know, I believe there are churches that are sitting idle waiting for a generation to die. So that another generation, not necessarily younger, but another generation will go on with faith and believe God. It happens in individual homes as well. It happens in individual lives as well. They believe the promise of God. Listen, they believe the promise of God would be problem free, I guess. No, come on, we've done it, haven't we done that? God bleeds us somewhere and we think, well I just thought it was going to be like, I thought because God did it, it was going to be perfect, like without problems. The only problem-free promise we have is heaven. Amen? The sin curse has ruined this life, friend, it's ruined this world, it has. Doesn't it sound crazy? After all that they've seen, after all that they have witnessed, after all that they have lived through, after seeing the presence of God in that pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, to watch it get up and to stop and go and move. I mean, they saw it. But they'd get this close and say, no, it's not possible. Not possible. And give an evil report. No, God's a liar. God's a liar. You know God's given us promises as well. Aren't we glad for those promises? as individuals. He's given us promises. He's promised to provide our needs. Amen? He said, Consider the lilies, Jesus said, Consider the lilies, they toil, and they spin not yet. I say unto thee that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothed the grass which is today in the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? We have the promise of God's provision. He said, hey, I take care of the flowers and the grass. I make grass grow. Oh, hey, we need somebody to plant grass this week. We got water on the ground. We need some grass to put out. But we're not cutting ours and putting it in the oven. No, we're just going to make it look pretty. I mean something as insignificant as grass, something as insignificant as a lily of the field and wheat and corn and these things as seemingly insignificant. God says, I have great delight in these things, I have created these things, but hold on a minute, how much greater and more important are you than the grass of the field that I take care of? He's promised to provide for us. And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of a doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after. And your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. He knows what ye need, but rather seek ye first the kingdom of God, and these things shall be added unto you. What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God? Well, seek the expansion of God's kingdom. the rule of God in the hearts of willing subjects, right? You have a King over you. So many people are seeking their own kingdom, they're seeking their own things, they're seeking all, and then they wring their hands all the time and worry and fear about their provisions tomorrow, right? Remember those that were going berserk over Y2K, right? Nothing wrong with stocking up stuff, but man, some people were just unchristian about it. Some people were just downright unchristian about COVID. There was some serious concerns, we didn't know a lot of things, but the abject fear as a pastor that bothered me the most was the abject fear of believers. I remember telling a guy, he was worried about bringing some kids to church, and I said, brother, they're not going to burn you at the stake. No, our forefathers really were burned at the stake for what they believed. that wasn't even on the agenda for us, right? No, we have promises that we can live by. We have promises that are sure of His provisions and things that way. What about promises for His presence of the Holy Spirit of God? Aren't we thankful for the presence of God whereby our given to us exceeding and great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. We know that God indwells us, right? We just looked at that in Sunday School. We have the promise of His presence until the day we die and we are with Him in His presence forever. We have the promise of the indwelling Spirit of God. Amen. I'm thankful for His promises. Amen? What about His protection? Over in Isaiah, He tells Israel, I like this. I think this extends, there's some principle that applies here to us as well. What's he going to say? This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. Amen. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. What? That no weapon formed against thee will prosper. And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. And he says, this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. And their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. Oh, we have the promise of his protection. Amen. We have the promise of his faithfulness. Oh, over in Hebrews, he said, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For I've said, I will never leave thee. For he had said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Have you, have you noticed, have you noticed covetousness as connected with trust? I'll never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Be content with such things as you have." Right? Let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. Why? Because I've said, I'll never leave thee, nor forsake thee. His faithfulness. His faithfulness. He's promised to us. He's promised to make us like Jesus. I don't know about you, I like that. Have you ever looked at you and not really liked you? I'm not saying having a false, deprecating, you know, sense of, you know, woe is me type of thing. But listen, you think I let you down? I let me down too. And you let yourself down as well. But you know, we have the wonderful promise that He's making us like Jesus. I like that. I don't know about you. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. There's your predestination, friend. Not unto salvation, but unto sanctification and being made like unto Jesus Christ, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8.29. Just a side note, 8.28, 8.29 is in past tense. You can go back and study that this week. It wasn't talking about future things, about being predestined unto salvation. He's predestined us to be made in the form, image of Jesus. He has promised us, if you will trust, put your faith and trust in Christ, and you're adopted into this family, I'm going to make you just like the one that you trusted. I love what one pastor said, that the father was so pleased with his son that he wanted many more just like him. God has given us all personal promises. They apply to you, they apply to me. If you're a child of God here today, they apply to you. If you're not a child of God this morning, they can't apply to you. And He wants them to apply to you, and you need to come to Jesus today. But He's given us promises. He's also given us promises as a church. Crimson Avenue Baptist Church. We have the promises of God for us as a body. Jesus will build it. He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He's given us promises of building his church. He has given us the Holy Ghost to empower the church. The church was started, Jesus started his church, right, I believe, before Pentecost when he began to call them out, called out assembly, and he empowered it at Pentecost. He said to tear ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power. He was talking to his church. And we have the promise of the empowerment of the Spirit of God. That as we go out, as we did yesterday, knocking doors, we can go out with the power and the aid and the help of the Holy Spirit of God. He's empowered us to do that. He's promised us that the gates of hell will not prevail against Him. Absolutely not. He's given us promises for our church. And if we're anything like Israel, we have seen the mighty hand of God in our lives. Amen? You have. I've seen Him change hearts. I've seen Him miraculously provide needs. I've seen Him miraculously heal a body. I've seen Him heal relationships. I've seen Him save souls. And you know what I think? I think you have too. I think you've seen it. I've seen Him do all of these things because I've seen Him do it first in me. And I've seen Him do it in others as well. Amen. God has promises. He has promises for our future as well. This isn't the end of it, friend. This is just the beginning. If you're still breathing on planet earth and walking with Him, there are still promises that apply to your life. And here it is, Israel was at the very precipice at the ultimate promise that God had made unto Abraham. And as a child of God, there is a promise in the future for us as well. We saw the promise of heaven. in whom also ye trusted, that after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, ye are saved eternally. Amen. which gives us rest in 1 John 2.25, and this is the promise that He hath promised us even eternal life. John 14.3, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be. Also, we have promises that we have seen in the past, we have promises that we're living in today, and we can be assured that we have promises tomorrow. I'm thankful for that. He's given us precious promises. were promised of heaven. But can I tell you? Canaan is not a type of heaven. Canaan land, the promised land that was promised to them, is not a type of heaven. It's not a picture of heaven. It is a type and a picture of the land, Canaan land, of being God's will. It's a type and a picture of God's rest to the believer. Heaven is perfect and it's giant free. but God's will is full of giants. You know why? Because God's will and God's rest is not accessed by our power, but by His. Not by power, Zechariah said, nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. You see, giants are destructive. And God will allow giants in our life. And yes, we may give them the opportunity to destroy some things. I hope I'm not going out on a limb here. Now I've got your attention. You're all nervous now. This is going out into the live stream. Who knows what he's going to say. But sometimes I think that God has allowed giants in our life to destroy something. Sometimes I think God has allowed giants in our life to destroy our own self-sufficiency. Didn't Jesus say over in John 15, 5, I am the vine, ye are the branches? He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. Why did God have the committee go into the land? So He could see what their view of Him was. Whether they're going to trust Him. Whether they're going to rely on Him. You know why God allows giants in our life? You know why He allows opposition in our life? I was called to minister. I didn't know it was going to be this. I was called to the mission field. I didn't know this was going to happen. I was called to pastor this church. I didn't know this was going to happen. I didn't know this problem was going to come up. I thought it was only in this country that that problem came. I didn't know this. I didn't know, hey, nobody's doing this. He's trying to see what our view of Him is. Whether we're going to trust Him. No, I think sometimes He's letting these things in our life and these troubles in our life to destroy every last ounce of self-sufficiency that we have in our life. Because listen, our self-sufficiency will ultimately destroy us. Just ask Asa. I mean, Asa was a great king, 35 years. The guy seemingly just did what was right before God. I mean, he had great victories in his life, but at the very end, when he had a simple little disease in the foot, the Bible says he went to the physicians instead of God. And then God even gave him a time. The prophet came and said, hey, don't you remember God delivered you from the Egyptian and from the Lubams and all of these different ones? Don't you remember God delivered you from all of these? and you went to the physician before God? No, God challenged him on his decision. Now, time out. This is my time out. The point of this is not that you don't go to doctors, okay? This is not what this means. Some people take from this, oh, we shouldn't have gone to a doctor. No, the point of this is Asa's trust, something happened in his heart that was revealed that God was trying to illustrate, show him that his heart had trusted and moved from his trust being in God to his trust being in himself and his trust being in man. And the prophet of God brought it to his attention and instead of saying, wow, forgive me, he threw the prophet in prison. And watch, a 35 year reign ended in a mere 5 years with his death. What was Asa's problem? Well, I think it just goes right back to the problem we all have of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency. Were there other problems? Oh, I'm sure we could spend a long time picking apart or diving into the passage with Asa and find all sorts of things. But I know one of them is self-sufficiency. And it's your problem, and it's my problem. You know how self-sufficient we get? We get so self-sufficient we wake up in the morning and some days we go out of the house without a meaningful time of prayer. Knowing full well there's giants out there. And God is revealing sometimes our own self-sufficiency. Let me ask you this morning, and I'll wrap it up here. As God is continuing to conform you to the image of Jesus, are there giants in the land? Are there things that you are dealing with in your personal life You believe you are where God wants you to be, you believe you're in the will of God, He's brought you where He has brought you, right? I mean, I can, I don't know where God has brought you from, I know some families God has brought out of Egypt and brought them all the way east to this promised land of Missouri and I mean what a joy, what a joy that is, what a wonderful thing that is. And there are those that get wrong with God and they go back to Egypt. Where is Martin anyway? Didn't he go to California? No. I'm joking. I'm joking. Yeah. But God has, listen, God has brought people. Listen, if you're here this morning, you believe you're in the will of God. How many believe you're in the will of God where God wants you to be right now? How many believe that? You know what you know is as real as I know is as real is that there are giants in your land today. There's things that can bring fear into your life. There are things that can bring a lackadaisical attitude and even laziness into the life. There are things that can bring self-sufficiency into our life. And I think sometimes the greatest giant in our life, and let me just, I'll just speak personally, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, put you under this condemnation if it's not you, but I have a sneaking suspicion we're not much different. But I think one of the largest giants in our life is our own flesh. We battle on a day-to-day basis, don't we? Friend, did God tell us it was going to be easy? Did Jesus not say, if they hated you, they're going to hate me? I mean, if they hated me, they're going to hate you? Did He not warn us what the world was going to be like? Did He not tell us what was going to happen? And this great land that we're living in and His will and the rest that we see in Hebrews 4 that is available for us? But not only are there giants within each of our individual lives, but there's also giants in the life of this church. I am fully convinced that God has brought us where we are today, no doubt about it. Most of you that have been here for most of this time and the transition and things that are going on, you see it's unmistakable. You've watched the hand of God. You've watched God do things for us. But can I tell you, people still need to be reached and buildings still need to be built, which means what? There's still giants that we're going to face. I think two of our biggest giants are manpower and money. Sorry, person power and money. Get in trouble for that. Not by anybody in here. Pray there for the Lord of the harvest. Send forth laborers into his vineyard, into his harvest. Yeah, laborers and lucre. There we go, two L's, not filthy lucre, but money. They're giants, they're giants. Can I tell you, I don't know how God's going to accomplish it, but I do know this, He didn't bring us as a church here to die. I know that. I would never want to impugn the character of God and walk away from here and go, well, I guess this is it. Giants in your personal life? We have giants in church life? Hey, they're going to be there, right? They're going to be there. Let me give you a couple things to remember and then we'll wrap it up here. I'm thinking about giants. When there are giants that are taking up space in your promise, remember the ones that God has already killed in your past. Aren't you glad He's the same yesterday, today, and forever? Aren't you glad He said, I change not? If you've watched Him do something in the past, He'll do it in the future. He will. He absolutely will. Do you think God wanted the giants to totally remain in the land? No. No. Number two, remember that sometimes God wants us to see how big the enemy is so we can see how big God is. No, God's not wringing His hands at the giants that are in our life going, Oh, I better just get them out of there because they're going to just… No, He has a purpose in that. He's allowing them. Hey, listen, would you ever know how strong the strongest man in the world was if he never had a bar full of weights to pick up off the ground? Right? You ever seen that guy, those guys, and they got like 800 pounds on this bar, and they're dead lifting 800 pounds for reps. You're like, whoa. You know what that just showed? Well, it just showed that He is what He says He is. Sometimes God wants to see how big the enemy is so we can see how big He is. Number three, remember that giants may be a giant to you, but they are never a giant to God. Never. We saw it this morning over in Isaiah where God called the nations as a dust of the balance and a drop in the bucket and the count of the isles is a very little thing. It's just nothing to Him. Could you imagine? Listen, our galaxy alone, just the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 or 120,000 light years across. 186,000 miles per second for 100,000 years. 186,000 miles per second. Do that for 100,000 years. And they say that's how wide just our Milky Way galaxy is. And in our solar system, they say there's billions of them that size. And the Bible says that he meted it all out with a span. What are you saying? There's nothing big to God. There's nothing big at all. Let me give you number four. you're never too old to have giants in your land. By the time Joshua was finally able to bring the children of Israel into Canaan, we know Caleb was 80 and Joshua probably wasn't too far off. And you know what they were inheriting? A land full of inhabitants of the land. You know, I love what Caleb did, he was 80 years old now. I can't fight, but he had money, so he hired it done. He said, well, I can't do this and I can't do that, but if you got money, you can hire it done. Just hire it done. Amen. You're never too old to have giants in your land. They had to clear them out as well. Let me give you the final one, number five. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Over in Hebrews 12, we're foreseen, we're encompassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses. Those aren't our loved ones watching us from heaven. You have to go back to chapter 11 and check that out. Let us lay aside every weight that does so easily beset us, and let us run the race with patience that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. We remember the events, right? Peter stepped out of the boat, Call me to come unto thee. Alright, come on up Peter. So he walks out in the water, it's pretty incredible. So many applications in this. But one of them is that as long as he was watching Jesus, we know this, you learned this in Sunday school a long time ago, as long as his eyes were on Jesus, he was above the water. Once he took his eyes off Jesus and looked at the circumstances, He began to become consumed by the circumstances that he had once been on top of. You know why some of you feel so overwhelmed this morning? Because your eyes have gotten off Jesus and they've been focused on the circumstances. So many are facing giants this morning. Listen, how can I say that so emphatically? Because that is a part of the Christian life. There's giants in our land. There's giants in the promises that God has brought to us. And what you need to do this morning is to run to Jesus if you've gotten your eyes off of Him and just put your eyes back on Him and trust Him. Trust what He's doing and look forward, look forward how He uses you to rid your land and your promise of the giants that He's allowed to be in there. God does want you delivered, He does. And it will come. but you gotta keep your eye on Him. Our Father, thank you this morning. We thank you that you're the all-wise God. There's never one thing that you had to go, boy, I don't know, maybe I should do this or do that. You've never had to ponder what you ought to do. You do all things as the Word says, according to the counsel, after the counsel of thine own will. You depend on nobody else's input to know what you ought to do. And Father, you allow things in each and all of our lives. You allow things in the life of this church. Things that seem like giants. Things that seem like they're insurmountable. Things that seem like we could never get the victory over. Things that seem like we could never win the battle over. But Lord, we've noticed here that maybe sometimes you've allowed these things into our life so we could just, be reminded and see who you are and how big you are and how capable you are and that we would just get our eyes off the circumstances and turn them back to thee. So Father, if somebody's there this morning, I pray that they would just do that today. Turn their eyes back to Jesus. Well, thank you for what you do this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Would you stand this morning with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, the piano's gonna play. Just a quick raise of hands. Nobody's watching. Nobody's looking. Anybody say, you know what? There are some giants that I'm facing in my life right now. I never imagined at this stage of life that I'd be facing such things, but I am. But I am. Anybody like that? Say, well, I never thought I would be there. Never thought it. Yeah. need of the flesh, maybe it's a physical need, maybe it's financial needs, maybe it's just the outworking of retirement. I count to my retirement years and I never thought it would be like this. Can I encourage you this morning to get alone with the Lord today? I'm not saying that your eyes have gotten off of Jesus. Maybe they're still right on there and you just needed some encouragement today to keep on. Maybe you need a little help today. You need to turn your eyes back to the Lord and trust in who He is and what He's capable of doing and watch and move forward as God eventually commanded Israel to do. You're not going to stay here. You're going to go forward. Eventually, and they did, they did. If the giants in your life were keeping you from moving forward, would you look to the Lord again today and start going back forward again, making forward progress once again? What is forward progress? What does it look like? Ordering your steps in the Word of God and trusting Him and believing Him as you move forward in what He's commanded you to do. Just moving forward. The faith life. By faith, continuing to do what He's told you to do. There's not the, I mean, do you really want me to go and start listing all the, just the elementary level, the elementary things of following God, of being faithful in prayer and being faithful in the word of God and having the word change your heart, being faithful to the assembly of the body, being faithful in your tithes and offerings, being faithful in sharing the gospel, being faithful in having the right attitude and the right heart before God? Yes, listen, the giants, they're big, but listen, giants don't go away by you staying still. Actually, giants go away when we move forward. Yeah. It's amazing. Those Anakims and all those nations had 38 more years to get more entrenched in the land. had 38 more years for the roots to grow deeper and for them to grow stronger. That's why it took so long for some of the tribes to get rid of those Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hibbites and some of them. So they're too strong for us. They have iron chariots. Well they had 38 years to figure that out. Maybe if they had gone in at the first time they wouldn't have had all of that power. I think one of the biggest tragedies was the second generation was fighting the battles the first generation should have fought. May God help us today. Just keep our eyes on the Lord, keep moving forward, trust Him. The giants are always going to be there, but God loves to take out giants. Amen. All right, we're gonna be dismissed and I do hope you have a good afternoon. And we'll be back tonight at six o'clock. And so let's be dismissed in a word of prayer this morning. Brother Jim Healy, would you close us in prayer, please? Amen.