In this sermon, the preacher discusses the voice of unbelief, which is characterized as whiny, complaining, and grumbly. The congregation of Israel is portrayed as crybabies who regret their decision to enter the promised land. Despite their repentance, God declares it is too late for them to enter the land. The preacher then introduces the main message of the sermon, which is the importance of a spiritual truth that leads to victory in the Christian life. The sermon is set in Numbers 13 and 14, where Israel is given the assignment to possess the promised land but fails due to their lack of faith.

Numbers chapter 13 and 14. I'm going to take you through what I consider the most important message that I can teach you or give to you. I'm aware that I can't give it to you and I can't teach it to you. The Spirit of God has to open your eyes to see it. But what's in this message is what I eagerly and diligently searched for from 1974 to 1985. A spiritual truth that I read about. I had read about it in the life of Hudson Taylor. I've got his testimony on print for you, just a little part of it here. When Hudson Taylor found that thing that he was looking for, when I saw it in his life, and even as he shared it, that's what I wanted. And I remember I wrote in my Bible in 1974, the day I started searching for it. Today I'm going to share with you that thing that is so important for this Christian life. Only the Spirit of God can help you to see it though. It is the most important thing for the believer to realize and to come to grasp. And the thing about it is once you grasp it, you can still let it slip away. But when you do let it slip away, you know when it's gone and you know how to get it back. Now I've titled this message, Wasted Years. Wasted Years. There's probably nothing more tragic than to see a life that is wasted. And I thought about this title in relation with the children of Israel because this is the story where they come up to the promised land and they don't get to go in. How many Christians are like that? They get saved but they never get on to the promised land level where they live free and out from under the bondage of sin and self and the misery and there's no joy. And I was thinking about, this title popped in my mind when I thought about a young Vietnam hero who was shot down. And it's a true story, it's in last year, 84 I think, Reader's Digest. But he was shot down and it went through how he struggled for several months. He was severely wounded. He was just, it's a miracle he even lived. And I think he lived something like a month and a half before anybody ever found him at all, before the enemy found him and took him captive. But it was just a story of his struggle and then later on how he escaped out of one camp alone and then he got into another and he eventually died there. But some other prisoners came back and they knew the story. They found out what all he went through. But he went through all of that suffering and all that struggle just to die. That's all it was. He struggled so hard just to die. And I imagine he died without Christ because there was nothing in there about Christ in the story. But how many believers, their whole existence is just a struggle. There's no freedom, there's no power, and then they just die. And the children of Israel is just sort of a tragic thing. I think if we were to see on their epitaph out in the desert, you'd see a tombstone and we'd just see another one. Wasted years. What about that for an epitaph on your tombstone? Wasted years. Let's pray. Father, you open up our hearts to this passage now. Lord, we don't want to waste our years. We only have a few. And they're flying by. It seems like a hundred miles an hour as it is. Holy Spirit, open up our heart to this truth that you're going to teach us today. In Jesus' name, Amen. There will never be any victory in your life or my life or any believer's life without submission to the will of God. God has been humbling me this week and teaching me things. And humility, it's one of those brave things to talk about, but it's not a very fun thing to go through. It's not fun to be humbled. Remember Jesus? He was humbled to the point of the cross. It's just not fun. But there will never be any victory today or tomorrow or any day in your life unless we are willing to totally submit ourselves to the will of God. Now, the flesh doesn't give up easy having its own way. The flesh doesn't produce faith, by the way, either. If there's no faith in your life, then there's no victory. The flesh just doesn't produce things like that. The flesh produces fear and frustration and failure. For us, then we can go through the rest of the alphabet too and probably get some things. But it just doesn't produce anything that's any good. And this is why we've got to learn to totally just die at the cross. Now, how to live in victory in the wilderness. This is our desert survival series. This is number 29. And I don't know if we'll go much beyond probably 32 lessons in this. We'll have to see how the Lord leads. But how to live in victory in the wilderness. How to get to the point where we can stay in victory. Now, I want to share with you just briefly two things. One, the setting. And then we'll get to the sermon. And in the setting, we're in Numbers 13. And for the setting, we're going to go through two chapters. We're going to have a fast Bible study. Maybe it'll be fast. I don't know if I do too many things fast. But here's the setting. There is the assignment given to Israel. They went through the desert now for two years. They escaped. They went through the Red Sea, went down to Sinai. They received the Ten Commandments. And they went through some trials. They've gone through some trials all along the way. Now, here they are. They come up to Kadesh Barnea, the bottom part of Canaan, the promised land, Israel, where they were supposed to go in and possess it. And God said in Deuteronomy 1, 20 through 22, the Lord thy God has set the land before thee. And then he said, go up and possess it. You go on in and take it. Now, when you come to Numbers 13 in verse 1 and 2, here's the assignment. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan, which I gave unto the children of Israel, of every tribe of their father. Shall you send a man, every one a ruler among them? They're going to send out 12 men to spy out the land. Now, the reason they're sending out 12 spies is because they would not go into the land. God said, just go in. And they said, no, let's send some spies in and check it out first. And so God says, okay, send some spies in then if you want to, but you don't have to. Now, here's where we're at. They're sending spies in because of unbelief. And so from 1 or 3 all the way through 25 is the search committee is formed. The search committee of 12, they are sent out and they go into the land. And in all those verses, they bring out many things. Moses tells them what to do when they go in. He says, okay, you go in and you check out. You look over the land, the topographical layout, you check out the people, you check out the cities, you check out the fields, you check it out and see if it isn't what God said it would be. And so that's basically what goes on from verses all the way down to 23 or 26. And so they go in. Now they come back in verse 26 and they've got a report. And here's the report, first of all, from the unbelievers committee. The spies went out and they ended up with two groups. They had two committees really. They had one, which was the unbelievers committee, I call them. And the other was the believers committee. Well, the unbelievers committee, they report back first. Okay. Verse 26, chapter 13. And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel and unto the wilderness of Franz and brought back word unto them and into all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. All right. There they are, they're back. They said, it's just like you said. And they told them and said, we came into the land with it, thou sendest us and surely it floweth with milk and honey. And this is the fruit of it. You see those two guys over there, man, one's got a pole over his shoulder. Another one's got the other end over his shoulder. And that pole is bent, almost ready to break. And they got one cluster of grapes on that thing. How much it weighed, I don't know. But if it took two men to carry it, it must have weighed maybe somewhere around 150 to 250 pounds, one cluster of grapes. And there they are. They said, look, it's just like you said. And they brought back some other things, man. It's just like you said, it is a land that flows with milk and honey. This is the promised land. God brought them out of this slavery of Egypt to bring them into this land. And they had to just walk in and take it. They had the fields ready for harvest. It was the grape harvest. And they just had to walk in and walk into the houses and live. And they had it there. And all they did was just walk in and worship God and enjoy Him and live. Man, what a setup. But notice, 28 and 29, they say, but there's that old famous billy goat. 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 and the Amlekites. And he goes in, there's problems though. There's giants in there. They got big walls and big people. Now, the other committee chirps right up and they say in verse 30, and Caleb still the people, because they're all getting riled up. And Caleb still the people before Moses and said, let's go. Let's go get him. Man, let's go. He probably, he already had him a place picked out. Let's go. Caleb still the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it. There's the report of faith. Faith always sees God as bigger than the problems. Always. If you got a problem that you think is overwhelming you at work, at home, or at play, wherever, you're being overwhelmed because you're not living by faith. There's old Caleb and Joshua. They go, what? What problems? Man, we saw God out there. Oh, sure. There's a few giants laying around here and over there, but man, we're going to get them. We're going to have giants for supper. Let's go. We saw God. But what happened? 31 to 33, notice what happened. But the man that went up with him said, we be not able to go up against the people. We, for they are stronger than we. How did they know? They hadn't even fought them yet. They're stronger than us. Verse 32. And they brought up an evil report of the land, which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying the land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great statute. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And so we were in their sight. Oh boy. There's a principle here. You know, whatever you know is stronger than you doesn't matter as long as you also know that God is bigger and stronger than whatever it is that's bigger than you. And that's why Caleb and Joshua were ready to go. They knew those giants were bigger than them. They wasn't fools, but they knew that God was bigger than the giants. You got a problem? Been overwhelming you? Been beating you down? Been discouraging you? How come? Because you're sitting there looking at this giant face to face. Every day you get out of bed and you come look at this giant and you just shrivel back. And God says, don't look at giants. Look at me. And let me thump on the giants. What about it? Can you give it to God? Well, Joshua and Caleb said, let's let God take care of the giants. Let's go get it. Man, we've been out in this desert long enough. Let's go take it. But they wouldn't go. Now chapter 14, continue on our Bible study. We better keep moving. I might want to preach on that. Here is several little things. Verses 1-4 is the voice of unbelief. The voice of unbelief is a whiny, complaining, growly, grumbly, irritating voice that just gnaws away on your nerves. And all the congregation, sin's always catchy by the way, and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried and the people wept that night. All night long you can hear them over in their tents. Bunch of crybabies. Two, three million crybabies out there. All night long just wailing. Here they come up. They got this problem out there. And all the children, it's like they hadn't come through any problems also, right? They've already gone. They've escaped from Egypt. They went through the Dead Sea. They didn't have any water. They got water out of the rock. They didn't have any food. They got food that comes down and drops right there at their doorstep every day. God took care of their enemies. What are they talking about? And all the children of Israel, verse 2, murmured against Moses. By the way, when you've got a problem, what do you want to do? Blame somebody. Let's blame the preacher. The preacher wants to blame the people, you know. So we throw, we've got this hot potato, we throw it around there, you know. So they're going to blame Moses. He's the one that got us out here. Moses, he's going to say, now it wasn't my idea. This is God's doing. This is what always happened. They'd come to Moses and then Moses would go to God. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses, against Aaron and the whole congregation said unto them, would God that we had died in the land of Egypt. It'd been better to die in the land of Egypt, never to come out. Oh, would God we died in this wilderness. And wherefore hath the Lord brought us? Why did the Lord bring us out here anyway into this land? But to kill us by the sword, to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey. By the way, you know who made it out of that wilderness? They said, listen, our little kids are going to die. Our kitties are going to die. The enemy's going to kill them. You know who went into the land? Their kitties. They died because they wouldn't believe it. God said, everybody is 20 years old and upward you're going to die in this desert because you won't believe me. And all the kitties, they got to go in. But they had to bear the burden of waiting for 40 years for mom and pop and grandma and grandpa to die off in the desert so they could bury them, kick some sand over, put up a stone and scrabble on it. Waste of years. They had to bear that burden. Our children have to bear many of our mistakes. Wherefore has the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt. Mutiny. Wasn't mutiny on the bounty, man. It was mutiny in the desert. They're going to take care of old Moses and get a new captain. That's the voice of unbelief. Now, here's the recognition of treason. Moses recognized it. In verses 5 and 6, he recognized the treason. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them, that searched the land, rent their clothes, and they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to search it, it's an exceeding good land. They said, Listen, listen, let's don't commit mutiny. Let's don't turn against God. Let's don't apostatize and turn away. Let's go get it. Here's the voice of faith. Verse 8, If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel ye not against the Lord, neither fear the people. Remember, flesh produces fear of man. We went through that one whole lesson, one whole sermon on the fear of man. Only rebel ye not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Hey, listen, these guys, they're our bread and butter. They got it all out there. They don't know it, but God's using them to provide for us. And their defense is departed from them. You know what those giants are talking about in their camp? While the Israelites were camped on the other side of their mountains? You know what those giants are doing around their campfire at night? Now, they don't know they're out there yet, but they're thinking, they're talking. Boy, I hope those Israelites never show up here. If they ever show up around here, we're done for. Did you hear what they did to the Egyptians? Why, when they left, just the backwash of their wave wiped out Egypt. Why, when they left, they didn't have any crops, they didn't have any money, they didn't have their firstborn. They were done for. Did you hear what they did to the other fellows over there? And then the others over there that got in their way, the ones that went out and attacked them. Man, I hope they never show up. They were trembling in their boots. And here's Israel on the other side of the mountain. What are they doing? They're trembling in their boots. Now, who's got something to be afraid about? You know what, Satan does this to you and I? If he can get us scared, he will make us shake, and he'll get us afraid, he'll get us mad and riled up and all kinds of things. And we don't have to be that way. All we've got to do is just be relaxed and calm. Giants? What giants? You may be surrounded with giants. I don't see any giants because I'm looking at God. But if you look at giants, guess what's going to stomp on you? They'll stomp the daylights out of you. And Satan's going to make sure that just your particular type of giant shows up. Just whatever will just really discourage you or make you angry or discourage you. Just exactly custom made for you. What might work for you might not work for me. And he says, look at this. Boo! Every day is Halloween. Because he's the one that originated that satanic night. By the way, let's not celebrate Halloween. We're going to have something for the kids here that night. That's the high witchcraft night for the Satan worshipers. And he will have you experience a boo day every day if you will follow him. But just look at God. God, I see you. There's some things out here, but I'm not going to look at them. You take care of them. And you look back and they're gone. Can you make it through today with your problems? How many of you have some problems? You know, don't raise your hands. Can you make it through today? Every one of you will say, I can make it through today with my problems. The problem is most of the time we look off to tomorrow or we get to focusing on our problems that we've got today too closely. Tomorrow we're to look ahead to Jesus coming. Well, this isn't going to last forever. I'm not going to work in this place forever. Praise the Lord. You know, I'm not going to have to live here or work here forever because the Lord's coming back someday. You know, we get our eyes off the Lord completely. Well, there's the voice of unbelief, the recognition of treason. Then there is the voice of faith and then the response of unbelief to faith. In verse 10, notice what they do. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. You know what? They're going to stone Moses. They're going to stone Aaron. They're going to stone Caleb and Joshua. And what happened? At that point, God stepped in. At that point, it says the glory of the Lord appeared. Nobody's going to be doing any stoning, God says. If anybody does any stoning, I'm going to do the stoning. Now he didn't say that in verbal words, but that's about what it meant. He says, you're not going to touch my servants. And all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. Now, verse 11 and 12 is the Lord's anger. They got God mad. By the way, between 9 and 10 and 11, somewhere right in there, you know what the children of Israel did? There's a psalm in the hymn book. And I don't know, I think it's, what was it? 195 or somewhere in there, about here it is, 191. Somewhere between those verses, the children of Israel crossed over the line of no return. It was finished. They could not go into the land anymore. That was it. I don't know if you realize it, but they did that. Somewhere right in there. And there's a song that says there's a line that is drawn by rejecting our Lord, where the call of his spirit is lost. And you hurry along with the pleasure of mad throng. Have you counted the cost? Have you counted the cost if your soul should be lost? Though you gave the whole world for your own, even now it may be that the line you have crossed, have you counted, have you counted the cost? Now, if you're lost today and you don't know Jesus as your savior, there may come a day when you just cross over the line. Now, this is getting into a theological point that many have debated, but I think I've ran across some in my lifetime already that have crossed that line. When I would beg with them to be saved, or plead with them, or share with them, and tears would come down their cheeks, or they would say, no, I can't do it. I want to, but I can't do it. And I've talked with a lot of them, I believe, when I was preaching the rescue missions. I would beg them, won't you please just turn your life over to Christ? And I didn't understand it, but I just wondered if this wasn't what it is, if they hadn't crossed the line. Well, Israel crossed the line as far as them getting into the land. They couldn't go. They got God mad. Verses 11 and 12, the Lord's anger. Verses 13 through 19, they got God so mad, God was going to scratch them all off. And God said, Moses, I'm going to take you and raise up a whole new tribe. And Moses, it's a good thing they had Moses. Moses said, now Lord, wait a minute. Everybody's going to hear how you took him out of Egypt, but you couldn't get him into the land. What's that going to look like? He was really a good lawyer. He was the chief. He was the number one lawgiver, wasn't he? He wasn't, you know, he wasn't a fool. But God prompted Moses to intercede for Israel, because Moses was a type of Christ also at that point. There he was, interceding, and he says, okay, they can live for a while, but they're going to die out here in this desert. And so Moses intercedes, verses 13 through 19. 20 through 35 is the Lord's pardon in the condition. Here's the pardon. Verse 23, he says, surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it. He says, okay, everybody can get away right now, but they're going to die in the desert, and all of those that are 20 years old can get into the land, except for two men, Joshua and Caleb. They were the only oldies that went across, that made it in. For 40 years, then, they wandered in that wilderness. Verse 30 through 34, chapter 14, gives you more details on it, where it says, Dallas, you shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of, and then Joshua. I don't know why they always had dads with big long names that we have trouble pronouncing. But anyway, you two are going to get in. And then he goes into about their children. Now then, 30 through 35 is the Lord's pardon. 36 through 39 is the record of Moses. Moses gives some more details. 40 through 45 is the most interesting thing. You know what they did? 40 through 45 is the rebellion of the unbelievers. God says, you can't go in. You know what they say now? Oh, well, now we want to go in. They're just like a little kid, you know. You can't go to bed. Well, I want to go to bed, you know. You got to go to bed. Well, I don't want to go to bed. Whatever you want, they don't want. That's just what they're like. You know what they do? They got to look back over their shoulder. They look back out in the wilderness, and there's all that desert. And they changed their mind. They said, well, on second thought, we'd rather go face the giants than go back in that desert. And God says, it's too late. You've already crossed the line. You've already made your decision. Have you ever made one of those deals? You know, last week I shared with you how I went to the service, and when I stepped off the bus, and this little sergeant jumped up and started yelling in my face, I knew I'd made a big mistake, you know. And I wanted to go back, but it was too late. I had already signed on the dotted line, man. They had my life for four years, you know. I knew I'd made a mistake. And that's what it is. They knew they'd made a mistake, but they're going to try anyway. And so this passage, 40 through 45, all it does is tells us that they got up in the next morning. It says they rose up early, verse 40, in the morning and got them up into the top of the mountain saying, lo, here we are. We're going to go take the land. And we were going to the place which the Lord had promised for us, for we have sinned. We've sinned, but we've repented. God said, it's too late. There comes a time when it's too late to repent. And that was it for them. And Moses said, don't go up. You're going to sin even more. You won't make it. Don't go up, because the Lord isn't with you. And they go up, and they try to beat them, and they get beat. The giants come, eat them up. It's like grasshoppers. You know, that's an interesting thing. If there's no submission, there's no victory. And having failed in faith, they're now going to try to live by presumption. And that's exactly what we try to do a lot of times. If we fail in faith, instead of repenting, oh Lord, show me what I did wrong. We just turn around and try to do it with some effort. Well, I'll just try to do it a little harder this time. Well, they failed in faith, and now they're going to try to live by presumption. They didn't like the wilderness. They didn't think they could go back, so they're going to go back and face the giants. God says, there's no choice. You've got to go back to the wilderness now. It's a hard thing. Now here's the sermon. That was the setting. The sermon is this. Hebrews chapter 3 and 4 deal with this very subject, this very chapter, this very passage, 13 and 14. Hebrews 3 and 4 talks about entering into the rest of Christ. This for the believer, when we get saved, when we come to the cross, when we come to the cross and our sins are forgiven, and we are dead to our old life, and we rise to walk a new life with Christ spiritually, we are to enter into a life of rest. Where He says, go, we say, yes sir, Lord, I'll go. And we live by faith. We do what He says, whatever He wants, we do it. And we're relaxed. But if we're not living by faith, we kick and we hold back, and we say, well Lord, I'm not sure about your plans for me. I'm not sure about this problem that you presented in my life. I'm not sure about this person that you put into my life that's bugging me. And I'm not sure about these circumstances. And we get up tight, we kick up dust, and the Lord says, now go on, it's okay, I've got some plans, I know what I'm doing. It's the same thing in the Christian life. The Lord wants us to come, when we come to the cross and when we trust Him as Savior, we're to be dead. But what happens is we come down off the cross, and we're just like the Israelites. Everything the Lord wants us to do, we kick about it, and we scramble, and we gripe, and we complain, and we cry and bellyache. The Lord wants us to come to this point where we're just dead, just stuff. In Hebrews 3, 8-19 is the heart of the passage. Verse 18, it says in 2, let me just read through here. Verse 8, Harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation, the day of provoking God. That's what they did, they provoked God to anger. In the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, saw my works forty years, why was I aggrieved with that generation, and said they do always err in their heart, they have not known my way, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, and departing from the living God. Not enter in because of unbelief. You see, they tried to get in, but they couldn't get in. God said if you won't go in in faith, you won't go in. They wanted to go in on their own effort. Then in chapter 4, he says, let us therefore fear, lest the promise be left to us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to have come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. Look over at verse 9, Hebrews 9. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Verse 10, he that has entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his. Have you ceased from your struggling, from your kicking, from your, from, from self, selfishness? Here's what we're to labor to do. Verse 11, let us therefore labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Now the application is for the Christian. Now there's some, there's an interpretation here for, for salvation, but we're making an application. We're assuming that you're a Christian. The lesson is just picture yourself being there at Kadesh Barnea. And God says, you see, Kadesh Barnea was their cross. God had just, they just really got saved. They were new babes. They just got saved. And now God really brings it to the point. Are you willing just to die to self? He'd been nursing them along in the wilderness for those two years. That was their growing period, growing in Christ. And now he says, here's the cross, die to self, go in, step forward. And the giants have fallen, but just died to self. The fear, the frustration, all of that stuff, just died to it, but they wouldn't do it. Now, let me just go through some things here. How to live in victory in the wilderness. What are crosses for? Crosses are for dying on. Whenever the Lord puts a cross in front of me, I'm learning slowly, but I'm to die on that cross. What would I do? Oh, there's an obstacle in my way. I try to go around it, try to go under it, try to go over it. And every time I try to go a direction that leans over my way, you just can't get around it. Who puts a cross there? Well, God does. He does. Old Job had that same problem. He was kicking up dust and hollering and screaming about all the problems he had and, you know, complaining how righteous he was. But when he was all done, he saw that God did all of that just to show him that he was vile. I hold fast my integrity. I'm a really good man. Well, he was. He was a holy man. But God wanted him to see that the very root of our being is vileness. God put it there. And God puts mine there. And God knows just what will humble us. So crosses are for dying on. Do you have a cross, a burden? What are you to do with it? Die on it. Die to it. I'm just dead. Now, how do you get to victory? We get to victory by giving it to God. We just die, Lord, I'm going to give you these giants. I can't handle them anyway. What do you do with giants? Man, I don't know about you, but I'm not a David. Sometimes giants just scare the daylights out of you, don't they? Lord, I'm going to give you my giants. I'm going to die to myself, effort, whatever. Just give them to the Lord. You die to it by giving it to God. See, you see, Israel had a cross and they wasn't willing to bear their cross. And Jesus said, if any man's going to follow me, he's going to have to bear his crosses. What do we try to do? We try to get rid of our crosses. And Jesus says, no, that's not the way of the disciple. The disciple has to bear his cross because in bearing your cross, you become more like me. We say, oh, Lord, I want to be like you, but I don't want the burdens that will make me impress me into being like you. You can't have it both. There's always going to be crosses for the Christian. There's just not going to be any other way. We've got to bear our cross, whatever the Lord brings. Case Barnea was their cross. What's yours? Now let me go through some thoughts quickly. If self doesn't die, then flesh will rule. If self doesn't die on the cross, then flesh will rule in my life. There are six evidences of unbelief that I picked out. They had a spirit of pride. Did you know that? That flesh promotes the spirit of pride. God didn't check with us first. We don't like the route he chose for us. There are some problems this way. It's pride when we will not accept God's direction for us. The spirit of pride. Number two, an independent attitude. An independent attitude was expressed when they said, we're going to go up anyway. We're going to go by presumption. They wouldn't go in by faith, but they would go in by self-effort. I'll do it my way. That was an independent attitude. Something else, they had an impatient disposition. That's a touchy spirit, a resentful spirit. They resented God even bringing them out there. You know, we do that too. Here's something else. They had a spirit of self-will. If you don't like God's will down here, what makes you think you'll like it in heaven? I thought about that for those that are unsaved. They don't want God's will down here, but they want to go to God's heaven. It just ain't going to work out like that. If you're going to have God's heaven, you're going to have to have God's will, and it starts with the cross where he died for your sins. Then there's a spirit of fear. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind or discipline. So if I ever have a spirit of fear, then flesh is producing it. And then another thing, an unbelieving attitude, a spirit of discouragement, a lack of confidence in God's timing, complaining about someone, something, worried about the outcome. All of that is an unbelieving attitude. Those are the evidences now in closing down. Without faith, difficulties always look magnified. Without faith, flesh always operates with a magnifying glass in front of it. It's a big one too, by the way. Everything. Man, do you look at that grasshopper? You look at that giant. You put a magnifying glass on a giant grasshopper and you're scared. Wow, man, that's a big monster. Little old beady grasshopper, but you put a big magnifying glass like they use on these telescopes, and that thing will look 50 feet long. Hey, by the way, they say in their sight, we're like grasshoppers. A grasshopper is what? Half inch high? Do you know the comparison between a grasshopper and a six foot man? It would be like a six foot man looking at a 216 foot man. They said, man, those guys are 216 foot tall. We can't beat them. Now, what does flesh do? It exaggerates. It magnifies the problem. We just blow it all out of proportion, don't we? We think it's just big. Well, those giants weren't probably about twice as big as they were. That wasn't a problem. It didn't matter. God was going to thump them off anyway, but that's the way we do. Now, how do we live in victory? How'd you get saved? Well, you said, I come to the cross and I got saved. The way you live in victory is you stay at the cross there and stay dead. Don't come alive. If you see a giant, don't let him. A dead man's not going to get concerned if a giant walks by. Matter of fact, a dead man, a giant can come and just romp right on top of him. He's not going to care. He's dead. And when I'm dead, then whatever God wants to do is just fine. Lord, you want some giants? That's fine with me. But if I'm not dead, I'm going to complain about those giants. So you get saved by faith. We wrestle our soul in God's hand. How to live in victory? We just stay right there in God's hands. Giants and all. It doesn't matter. If you die, you die. If we live, we live in the Lord. If we die, we die in the Lord. Whatever. Praise the Lord. I'm the Lord's. He's going to get victory whether, whatever, this giant eats me up or whatever. Well, it just reminds me of the story about the fellow that bought a ticket to go to Italy. You hear that? Maybe I told it to you. He got this ticket and he got into the boat. He got down in his little cabin, a small cabin, and the guy stayed there and almost died of starvation because it was a three-week trip. He had some bread and stuff and his food ran out. And when he got there, they found him. He'd come up. They said, man, what's wrong with you? He says, oh, we're following you here. What's wrong? Oh, I'm about starved to death. And they said, well, why didn't you eat? The meals came with your ticket. What? You mean I could have ate? Yeah, man, we had food all over the place. That's the way we are as believers. We're just scrambling along. Oh man, it's hard being a Christian. I don't know if I can make it. With salvation comes the abundant life. Jesus said, I'm coming that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly. If you're going to crawl along on your belly, it's going to be because you don't want to live by faith. He says, I've already given you the victory. Don't let Satan blow you out in the salad, scare you. He says, meals are included on this trip. You can eat them if you want. But if you don't, it's going to be hard. No victory if there's no submission to his will. If we submit to his will, then we have that peace. You know, Jesus, when he came to the cross, what did he say? Thy will be done. Wouldn't that be good this week when we come to our palms? We say, Lord, your will be done. If you want this rascal in my life bugging me, you want this problem in my life, I'm going to let you leave it there. But I'm not going to let it defeat me because I'm going to say, Lord, your will be done through this and you'll get the victory. He submitted to the cross. And what did he find by submitting on the cross? Jesus purchased victory, not for himself, but for you and me. He was already victorious. Thy will be done. And there victory was found. Wasted years. What an epitaph. Wouldn't it be better on your tombstone to put these words? I have finished my course. I have ran my course by faith. Fulfilled my course. Fulfilled years instead of wasted years. Well, let's bow for a word of prayer. Lord, thank you for the message you gave us. Holy Spirit, only you can open it up to help us see that Calvary, we're free. Giants, it don't matter. Whatever, we're free. Thank you, Lord, for the message you gave us. If there's one that needs Christ, I pray that they would have the courage to step forward and receive Christ, and do that which they need to do. If there's one of us here today that's been struggling and scraping and kicking and complaining, and you've been just piling it on, you've been letting those giants come in just because you wanted us to look up to you. You wanted us to see you. Why, you could have thumped those old giants off, and you did when they went into the land 40 years later. You just thumped them off, they went through there and mowed through those giants. Lord, thank you for the lessons you gave us. Thank you for this sermon. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for opening our eyes that we would see Jesus and that we would remember that thy will be done as we submit to you and your will. We'll find victory in Jesus' name. Amen.