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Caleb and Joshua are great favorites of mine. They have got a ring about them. They were not all the time looking for hindrances and obstacles in their way. They got their eyes above them.

You remember how those men were sent forward to spy out the land of Canaan. They had been sent out forty days to go over that land. They went from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, and thence unto Hebron. And when they reached the “brook of Eshcol they secured a branch with one cluster of grapes, and bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs.”

They were gone forty days, and the twelve men brought back what Congress would call a majority and a minority report. Ten men reported that they had gone unto the land to which they were sent, and that surely it flowed with milk and honey. And so God’s word was true. They found milk and honey. And they brought along grapes.

But ten of them were full of unbelief. They further reported that they saw giants there—the sons of Anak, which come of the giants. The Hittites, Jebusites, Amalekites and Amorites dwelt there. They were all there, and also those great giants, in whose sight they were as grasshoppers. It was a great war city, and they asked themselves if they looked as though they were able to war with such giants. They said: “We are not able.”

They undoubtedly brought back maps and charts, and said: “There is the region. It would be monstrous for us to attempt to take it. There are massive iron gates and a great wall, and we are not able to take it. We are defenseless people—without any weapons. We will not be able to overcome those people.”

I can imagine one man said: “Why, I looked up at those giants, and I seemed as a little grasshopper, and I felt as small as a grasshopper. We can not hope to cope with those giants. It is a good land, but we will not be able to go up and possess it.”

Then they began to murmur. It does not take a very great while to get unbelievers to murmuring. But Caleb tried to encourage them. He says to them: “Let us go up at once and possess the land. We are well able to overcome it.”

Even Joshua joined in with Caleb, and they proved two with the faith. To be sure, they were in the minority; but if the Lord is with us we are able to prove a powerful majority over the enemy. They determined to take it, and they wandered across all through Canaan, but the people took up stones, and would have stoned them to death. But “the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation, before all the children of Israel.”

And about three millions of people wandered in the wilderness for forty years, until all the men laid themselves down in the desert grave and were kept out of the Promised Land—all on account of their unbelief. And I believe today that four-fifths of the church is wandering around in the wilderness, far away from the cross of Calvary and the Promised Land. We are able to have victory with God with us.

Ten men were looking at all those obstacles that this new land presented to them, while these two men—Caleb and Joshua—looked up yonder. And they saw God’s face and remembered the waste in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the destruction which was brought upon the Philistines, the water from the flint rock, and they believed that God was able—as He most certainly was—to give them that land He had promised.