TRANSCRIPT:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life

Numbers 13:26 – 33

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anakcome from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Let us pray

Hide me behind your cross, Lord. May my words be your heart. You have told us you love us, help us to know your love and live it every day of our lives. Amen

In the 1990s, there was a craze that I never understood. Called the Magic Eye, it had to do with these pictures that looked like prisms of color oddly put together. Supposedly, if you squinted just right at these images, you could see a 3D picture that was completely unrelated to the blotches. The reason I say supposedly is that I never saw these pictures. Even as I prepared to preach this week and I visited the Magic Eye website and even tried their special “this is how you do it picture” that is supposed to make it easy to do. Even when I knew what the underlying image was supposed to look like – For me, it does not work. I could not see these special graphics, no matter how hard I tried. The thing is, though, that the pictures are there. Just because I cannot see them does not mean they aren’t real. The 3D picture, in fact, is the foundation of the 2 dimensional pattern that is readily apparent. According to mentalfloss.com, the process works like this:

“A Magic Eye image starts with a programmer creating the hidden image…as a grayscale, smooth gradient depth map where dark points that should be furthest away are darker and closer points are in lighter shades. Then, they create a 2D pattern to camouflage that image. Finally, a computer program using a Magic Eye-patented algorithm takes the image model and the pattern and orients repeating patterns to the intended depth of the hidden image. When someone looks at a Magic Eye, the repeating pattern feeds the brain the depth information encoded into it, and the brain perceives the hidden picture” For whatever reason, I am incapable of seeing the hidden picture. The repeating patterns are all I can see. What is right in front of me in the image is the limit of my ability to view the picture.

Here's what’s happening in Numbers so far:

The people were counted as they continued to learn at Mt. Sinai all of God’s commands for them and their worship.

When they finally left Mt. Sinai, they began marching across the desert, headed for the promised land, the land of Canaan that God had promised throughout time to this point to them.

Along the way, they had some challenges. They had no food, so God provided manna. They had no water, so God provided water.

They complained ab