The Difference Between Cowards And Calebs

 

"Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said,
"Let us go up at once and possess it; we are well able to conquer it."

But his fellow scouts said, "We are not able to go up against the
people of Canaan, for they are stronger than us."

(Numbers 13:30-31)

The Report Of The Spies And The Remonstrance Of Caleb

William Brassey Hole

(1846-1917)

Scottish artist

Painting courtesy/Meisterdrucke Fine Art Prints

"Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today if you hear His voice, 

Do not harden your hearts, as happened in the rebellion of Israel,
 and their provocation and embitterment of Me

 in the day of testing in the wilderness, 

Where your fathers tried My patience and tested My forbearance
and found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years.

And so I was provoked with that generation, and said,
They always err and are led astray in their hearts,
 and they have not perceived or recognized My ways,

 and become progressively better and more experimentally
  and intimately acquainted with them.

Accordingly, I swore in my wrath and indignation, 
They shall not enter My rest.

Therefore, beware brethren, take care, lest there be in any one
of you a wicked, unbelieving heart, which refuses to trust in
 and rely on Him, leading you to turn away and desert
 or stand aloof from the living God.

But instead, admonish one another every day, as long as it is called
Today, that none of you may be hardened into settled rebellion,
by the deceitfulness of sin.

For we have become fellows with Christ the Messiah and share in
all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and
original assured expectation, in virtue of which we are believers,
firm and unshaken until the end.

Then while it is still called Today, if you would hear His voice
and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion
in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated
and embittered God against them.

For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked Him?

Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?

And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years?

Was it not with those who sinned, whose dismembered bodies
were strewn and left in the desert?

And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, 
 but to those who disobeyed, who had not listened to His word
and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded?

So we see that they were not able to enter into His rest because
of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God.

Unbelief had shut them out.

Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds
and is offered today, let us be afraid to distrust it, lest any of you
think they have come too late and have come short of reaching it.

(Hebrews 3:7-19, 4:1)