My kids used to play baseball. One of the things that always drove me nuts were the chanting, heckling, cheers of the teams at the batter. "Hey, batter, batter batter, batter, swing!" there were many more, mostly insulting or distracting intended to cause the batter to lose focus and blow his chance at the plate. Those kids weren't chanting because they were the stronger team, they weren't chanting because they were the better team, they were chanting because they were determined to use anything, even pointless, annoying, urgent heckling to distract the batter from accomplishing the goal before him.
Moses had a group of people following him, he led them out of Egypt and up to the edge of the promised land. Here stood this group of Moses followers. Think about what they had just witnessed. Plagues, the Angel of Death passing by their homes, the Red Sea parted so that they could cross on dry land, and Egypt's Army, the superpower of the ancient world, destroyed! How could they have come through all of that and still have any doubts about God's provision? Yet Moses was surrounded by an enemy chanting far worse than 'Hey batter batter batter batter...."
His enemy said "You can't do it!" "You'll fail" "You'll be destroyed" "No one will follow you!" "You'd better be careful!" and he chanted it so convincingly that Moses' own team started chanting with him...
Numbers 13:25- 33
After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. 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! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”
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!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
Can you imagine a player's own team chanting against him?
Here are the Israelites, after all God has done, reporting to the community how they are afraid of the 'Giants' living in the land. The word 'Anak' translates into 'no-neck' it was the land of the no-neck body builder types! I don't blame them for feeling outmatched. Satan is like a roaring lion, who wants to meet that? But I do wonder how they could so easily dismiss God's provision?
What did they tell themselves? It was just a coincidence the rivers turning to blood.... all those first born kids dying like that. and the Red Sea really isn't all that deep.... I am joking, but I sincerely wonder how they talked themselves out of God's blessings for them? Only one man - only Caleb speaks up to say 'God can do it, let's GO!'
Everyone else, everyone, says it's too hard!
It's the next part of the story that really gets me. The Israelites, the ones who are God's people, the chosen ones, favored, blessed beyond measure ones, yeah - they decide that rather than walk forward, they will go out among the people and "spread a bad report" Not only did they harm themselves with their inability to trust the Lord, but they also hurt their friends and neighbors.
They exaggerated the truth, they forgot God's favor, they spread nasty gossip to their neighbors, why?
Because " Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
They saw the problems and not the promise! They embrace the barrier and not God's bounty! They hang on to the heartache instead of looking for the healing! They see themselves as grasshoppers, lowly, incapable, and they assume that the enemy sees them that way too!
But the truth is quite the opposite. Those kids chanting, heckling the batter don't see them as a failure, as weak and puny and insignificant - NO - they see them as a threat!
No one heckles the bat boy! No one chants at the last kid on the line up, the scrawny kid, the kid that always strikes out - no, they chant for the kids that will get on base. and they heckle the loudest and the longest for the homerun hitter.
Rather than listen to the voices of the hecklers, I would encourage you to listen to the voice of your Heavenly Father, and take captive those chanting chumps!
2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV) "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
Most often, when we fall prey to the hecklers, it is when we start defending their position for them. "that's what they thought too!" Rather than giving a voice to the enemy, we need to spend our time taking those thoughts, and chanters, captive and making them obedient to Christ.
We all come to places in our lives where we have a choice. Are we going to surrender to the hecklers before we even get our chance at the plate, or are we going to tune them out - tune into the Lord's direction and swing for the fences? My God is faithful. He has walked me through fire and suffering unharmed. He has protected my family and children from days of disaster. He has refreshed and renewed my soul.
I'm with Caleb - let's go at once! Let's swing for the fences!
Amanda
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