Joshua and Caleb

God sends Moses into the land of Egypt to rescue and deliver His people from their slavery to the Egyptians. He throws 10 whopper plagues at the Pharaoh in order to get him to release His people from their bondage. God literally parts the Red Sea to complete the deliverance mission. God the Father performs one of the most powerful supernatural displays of signs and wonders that the world has ever seen to get His people pulled out of Egypt. (Exodus 3:17)
Moses tells God's people that God will give them what He calls the Promised Land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. He will settle His people down in this land and this is where He will break the Israelites off into 12 different tribes.
From Deuteronomy 1:19-25 it seems plain that Moses intended to go straight on into the Promised Land at this point; it was the people’s suggestion that they should send spies ahead.
The Israelites sent twelve spies into the Promised Land to check out who the enemy was and to develop battle strategies to defeat them. God was going to allow them to go into the Promised Land, but they first had to defeat and drive out their enemies in order to conquer and possess the land.
When the spies return after 40 days, ten of them came back with a bad report. They said their enemies were giants and that their kingdoms were too well fortified and they wouldn't be able to defeat them. They were grasshoppers before their enemies.
However, the two men of faith Joshua and Caleb trusted God (Numbers 13:30) and insisted that they should go and over throw them. They saw giant grapes (Num.13:23), land flowing with milk and honey, the giants were their bread (Num.14:9) and it was clear they (the enemies) had no protection (Num.14:9). They knew that God’s favour was upon the Israelites and not the giants.
God appointed Moses to be the leader and he made a mistake in listening to the people and sending spies to Canaan. Since he made that move it was easy for him to accept the bad report from the ten spies and ignore Caleb and Joshua’s report. Every one of us are leaders in certain areas from being a big brother/sister, mother, father, doctor, nurse cleaner, we have to be very careful on who we listen to. We are in that position for a reason and if we are not careful we may mess up what is yet to come our way.
In Japan and China I gather there is no word for crisis, only opportunity. Whenever, there is crisis they see it as an opportunity. At the moment while there is global downturn Chinese people are going around the place and buying companies, property and whatever that is on distress sale due to the financial crisis. Joshua and Caleb saw the giants as their bread. If we can allow the Holy Spirit to work this through us we will be champions. The Lord said He will never leave us nor forsake us and therefore we have his protection over our lives. The Israelites murmured and complain but God’s grace was still upon them. If they murmured and complain at that time and God still blessed them, how much more will He do for us now that Jesus has come and died on the cross.
It is important to note that whatever you call a thing, it is to you. For example they saw themselves as grasshoppers and so that’s what they will become. Have you noticed they did not confront them yet and already they were fearful? When we see a problem from a distance it is a tale not the truth. Our faith in God is only as strong as the test we survive. Remember big giants guard big treasures. What’s your giant; see through it as there is treasure in it.
Names are so important here that I thought I will just mention this: Joshua came from the tribe of Ephraim. Ephraim’s father was Joseph and he was blessed with double grape (Genesis 49:22) Caleb came from the tribe of Judah which means praise. Joshua could not fulfil his destiny till he stood with Judah – Praise.
I find names in the Bible exciting as they tell a story. When I am reading the Old Testament I look for Jesus in those stories. It is wonderful.
First of all, let’s find out what Jesus’ real name was in that time period as it obviously was not “Jesus”. The Letter “J” was not to be invented for another 1600 years! If you saw the movie “Passion of the Christ” by Mel Gibson, then you might recall everyone calling him “Yeshua”. This is the short form of “Yahoshua”, which, was the Hebrew name for Joshua. So, if “Jesus’” real name in English should be “Joshua”, then why do we call him “Jesus”? Where did we get the word “Jesus” from? It is a horrible attempt to translate “Yeshua” into the Greek “Ieosous”, and then they mixed in a little Latin to end up with “Jesus”. The name “Yahshua” (Joshua) is the combination of two Hebrew words, “Yah”, which is the short form of “Yahweh” (like Jim is the short form of James) and “Shua”, which means “salvation”. So the name Joshua means “Yahweh is salvation”.

Thanks for calling by again. May God bless you.