by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2025
(Oct. 30, 2025) — The Hebrews believed they were stepping out in faith.
In fact, they were stepping out on a limb, and God didn’t back them up.
Israel fell.
Hard.
Yesterday, the same step would have succeeded.
Not today.
I am talking about the crisis on the border of Canaan, the region that God promised to Abraham, but his descendants hadn’t seen in 400 years.
The Exodus of that abused generation from Egypt was unprecedented.
Ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard.
Did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?1
Now, here they were, poised to enter the Promised Land. Given the miracles they had seen and the fact that they were here, not in Egypt, you would expect them to charge ahead.
Instead, they balked.
Twelve spies had returned from scouting the territory for 40 days, and 10 of them differed with God about possessing it.
“We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we,” they said. “We saw the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”2
Their pessimism swept the camp.
“Why has the LORD brought us to this land to fall by the sword? If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!”3
The multitude conspired to oust Moses and to stone the two spies who insisted they could prevail “if the LORD delights in us” and further urged, “Do not rebel against the LORD.”4
God intervened and set a new course: “Tomorrow turn, and move out into the wilderness by the Way of the Red Sea.”5 He banished them to 40 years of living in the wild.
But after sleeping on the events of that day, the Hebrews reconsidered and told Moses they were ready to occupy Canaan.
“Here we are,” they said the next morning. “We will go up to the place which the LORD has promised.”
Moses protested. “Don’t do this. You have turned away from the LORD, and He will not be with you. This will not succeed.”6
But they insisted. They weren’t the grasshoppers anymore. Overnight, they grew into giants of faith.
With newfound resolve, they rushed ahead and failed miserably. The Amalekites and Canaanites routed the Hebrews.
How did yesterday’s promise become today’s collapse?
The Israelites presumed.
Yesterday, God had commanded, “Enter,” but they turned back.
Today, God commanded, “Turn back,” but they “presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp.”7
Both days, they disobeyed. God forgave their rebellion, but He did not relent when they took His blessing for granted.
In their failure is a lesson for us.
God takes how we step out, whether by faith or presumption, seriously.
The Israelites were not the first or only ones to assume God’s favor.
- Pharaoh watched them walk onto the bed of the Red Sea and concluded his army could do the same. The Israelites had stepped in at God’s order; Pharaoh went out on a limb. They crossed; the Egyptians drowned.
- Foreseeing offenders who would ignore the rulings of appellate courts, God prescribed the death penalty for their presumption.8
- Another law compared the one who presumes to one who raises their hand to God. Such daring was to result in being ostracized.9
- In our times, Peter warned about those who infiltrate the church and, despising authority, “are presumptuous and self-willed.”10 He ranked them among those “reserved under punishment for the day of judgment.”
Paul says these examples are for our admonition.11
On the other hand, faith pleases God. Without it, we cannot please Him.12
Hebrews 11 is full of examples of those who stepped out in faith—boldly, confidently, and successfully. God told Abraham to leave his homeland for a place yet to be named. Abraham heard, left, and God delivered on His promise.
Moses received God’s instructions about the Passover and led Israel in observing it. God delivered them, as promised.
How can we be sure we are stepping out in faith like them, and not going out on a limb?
We can step out in faith confidently when we remember how faith begins. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”13
Faith is all about believing God speaks, listening, and then obeying.
God speaks in many ways, including in His word, the Bible; in prayer; in worship; and through other believers.
And when He does, He will confirm it. God honors His own directive: Let everything be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
The Israelites presumed, but didn’t need to. Nor do we. “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it.’”14 Learn to discern God’s voice.
The next time someone tells you to step out in faith, check with God first. You don’t want to be out on a limb that He didn’t tell you to climb.
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1 Deuteronomy 4:32, 34
2 Numbers 13:31, 33
3 Numbers 14:2, 3
4 Numbers 14:8, 9
5 Numbers 14:25
6 Numbers 14:43
7 Numbers 14:44
8 Deuteronomy 17:8-13)
9 Numbers 15:30
10 2 Peter 2:10
11 1 Corinthians 10:11
12 Hebrews 11:6
13 Romans 10:17
14 Isaiah 30:21