Preaching

‘Giants of Faith’

Moses led the people out of Egypt, across the wilderness, and to the border of Canaan. There he sent twelve spies to cross over and scout the land—the land God had promised to them.

Taken from Numbers 13 and 14

The spies returned and told the story of their trip: “We went into the land and, wow it does flow with milk and honey and oh, the fruit! The only thing is, that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak.
Caleb interrupted, called for silence before Moses and said, “Let’s go up and take the land now, we can do it.” But the others said, “We can’t attack those people; they’re way stronger than we are.”
They spread scary rumours among the People of Israel. They said, “We scouted out the land from one end to the other—it’s a land that swallows people whole. Everybody we saw were giants, alongside them we felt like fleas.
The whole community was in an uproar, wailing all night long. All the People of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The entire community was in on it: “Why didn’t we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness? Why has GOD brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don’t we just head back to Egypt? Right now!”
And the Lord said, “Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land I promised, he and his descendants will inherit it.”

Scripture tells us that God’s people left Egypt they crossed the Red Sea in faith, unfortunately there is no record of their faith after that event. Two years later when they reached the border of the promised land it appears that they had not deepened their relationship with the Lord. They seemed to know about Him, but not actually KNOW Him, KNOW Him enough to wholeheartedly trust Him. It was though they had forgotten that the Lord had given them a promise. The promise was I will give you this land that I’m taking you to. The land was a gift from the Lord to His people they didn’t have to earn it, they didn’t have to work hard to get it, it was purely and simply a gift. All they had to do was walk in.

I have some sympathy for them, there is a saying, ‘it seems too good to be true’
and another saying is, ‘you can’t get owt for nowt’. But when you are in a relationship with the Lord those sayings just doesn’t hold water. The Lord gives unconditionally, no strings attached. Grace costs nowt.

However after the twelve spies returned, Wow, they all said the land is amazing definitely flowing with milk and honey, with bunches of grapes as big as you head. Pomegranates ripe for the picking and figs that when you bite into them the juice runs down your chin.

Then 10 of them said ‘BUT’, ‘but what’ Moses said, and the 10 said in a shivering sort of voice, ‘there’s fortified cities with walls 10 foot thick. The people are big and strong they’re all built like Arnold Swartznegger and there’s people even bigger than that, giants in fact 10 ft tall. We are like fleas in comparison we’d be mad to cross over’. And so the 10 gave what’s more commonly called in the spy business as a crap report.

But 2 spies thought quite the opposite and one of them called Caleb, full of faith said, ‘hang on a minute, there’s nowt to fear. All we have to do is walk in it’s ours, there’s no problem the Lord said He’d given it to us it’s ours’. But the people were afraid and listened to the ten fearful spies, Giants, no thank you.
After all they had seen and experienced of God’s might and power in the parting of the Red Sea, but yet they had failed to listen to His promise about giving them this land and instead had listened to the 10. The people believed what the majority said instead of believing what the Lord had said. So often people listen the majority

However Caleb, believed with all of his heart what the Lord had said. He must have known the Lord intimately and had a deep trust in Him. He believed the Lord’s promise to give them the land. He reckoned no problem was too big for the Lord and if giants were in the way God would sort them out. Scripture records that Caleb was of ‘a different spirit’, He knew the Lord enough to emphatically trust in Him. The Lord Himself was Caleb’s confidence, his hope and strength. Caleb looked to the promise and not at the problem he trusted what God said

There are different Giants to be found in scripture. Giants represent the fears we have in ourselves that seem overwhelming, we can have plenty of Giants in our lives that are hard to overcome. Overcoming our embarrassments, our inadequacies, the blocks we have that stop us trusting God. Yet there are other giants in scripture, giants of faith like Caleb who have a different spirit and hearts full of faith with trust in God.

For me Giants of faith would start with the missionaries I knew in Blackburn and some of their spiritual children I was fortunate to meet. Let me tell you about Margaret and Lawrence Livesey just ordinary people who worked in a cotton mill in Blackburn. The Lord called them to be missionaries in India in the late 1930’s. They knew the Lord well enough to be able to trust Him and the Lord had made them one promise. A promise that like Abraham they would have more children than they would be able to count (meaning spiritual children).

They sold everything to finance themselves and set off. When they got to India they stayed with another established missionary for 2 years to acclimatise, learn the customs, the language and so on. With very little money left they moved south to where they felt the Lord wanted them. Virtually penniless they moved into a slum and lived amongst a people called ‘the untouchables’. Except for the odd visit from the Indian missionary society, they were alone, with just their faith in the one who had led them into the depths of poverty.

I’ve visited the slums like they lived in and seen the conditions of people there, one room made of cardboard or corrugated iron, made of anything that can be scavenged, even just palm leaves. No toilets or running water and open sewers running down the dirt street. You may have seen something like it on the tele, what you can’t imagine from seeing TV pictures is the smell, the smell of poverty is awful.

But yet the Livesey’s would tell you that the Lord kept them safe, they were never ill through enduring extreme heat, drinking contaminated water, or eating contaminated food when they could get it. Those were daily miracles. Their Xmas dinner that first year were 6 rotten bananas given to them by a neighbour. Though they only had a limited knowledge of first aid they did what they could for the sick in the neighbourhood but they always prayed in the name of Jesus for each one that they helped. In this way they survived by giving love, a bit of first aid and prayers, the locals gave them food in exchange for their kindness.

In March a Xmas cake arrived from Blackburn which they shared with their neighbours and later money started to arrive from someone in England. Margaret wrote in her diary, ‘income for the month one shilling (5p) missionary work is not what I expected’. Lawrence eventually got overwhelmed by it all and after 5 years in this slum he told Margaret he wanted to give up and go home. But Margaret was fixed. She said ‘you go if you want but I was called to India and India is where I’ll stay.’ He reluctantly stayed.

I can’t imagine what I was like for him staying on feeling all their dreams of bringing people to know Jesus had come to nothing. It must have been a daily struggle desperately not wanting to be where he was and coping with the Giant of discouragement that seemed to be ridiculing their hopes and dreams. But the Lord had not given up on Lawrence and His child was encouraged and strengthened and Lawrence’s faith was restored.

It was now 8 1/2 years since they set foot in India and Lawrence literally stood on a box in the street preaching the gospel when they received the first of their promised spiritual children. A man called Gnana Prakasam came to know Jesus, he was the first person to come to faith after they had lived all that time in grinding poverty. Gnana Prakasam helped to bring many to know Jesus and gradually the number of new Christians grew and grew.

When Lawrence and Margaret retired and returned to Blackburn they left behind hundreds who had come to know Jesus through the ministry they had started and that Gnana had helped them complete. The Livesey’s came back to Blackburn and I I was fortunate enough to meet these folks, I visited them when I could and I soaked up their stories of the Lords faithfulness to them. And He fulfilled His promise to them. He took his time and they had had to wait for His timing but their spiritual children did indeed grow to a number that could not be counted.

Lawrence loved Margaret very much. He wrote in Margaret’s 80th birthday card. ‘My love for you is deeper than the ocean and there’s a kiss on every wave’. Lawrence died in his early 80’s, when they were lying on their bed holding hands. Gnana Prakasam came from India for the funeral and Gnana stayed with me for two weeks. I learned more about what these two remarkable people had done and how deeply they were loved by those who knew them. By now thousands had come to know the Lord.

The day before he left to go back home to India I took Gnana to see Margaret for the last time, the visit over, the 70 year old Gnana knelt down at Margaret’s feet and said, ’pray for me Mum’. To this dignified Indian pastor Margaret was his spiritual mother. I’ll never forget that moment, I continued to visit Margaret in her nursing home but I knew she was slowly dying. A nurse would wake her up for me and after 5/10 minutes she would drift back to sleep again. The staff told me that Margaret slept most of the time just waking up for short times when she was brought food or a drink, but everyday at 6 o’clock on the dot she would suddenly wake up and pray non stop at the top of her voice for half an hour in a foreign language. They could hear her all along the corridors, I never found out whether she was praying in tongues or in her Indian language of Tamil.

Two ordinary people called by the Lord to do extraordinary things, two mill workers with ‘a different spirit’ called to face extreme poverty in India in order to bring the riches of Christ Jesus to thousands. Physically they both stood about 5 foot tall, but to me they were giants. Materially they were poor, but spiritually they were incredibly rich. They loved Jesus, and trusted him enough to step out in faith and go where He led them. Facing the giants of absolute poverty, discouragement and disappointments they clung on to God’s promise to them during those long years. Eventually seeing God fulfil his promise to them that they would have spiritual children beyond counting.

We all face giants in our lives that bring fear, discouragement and disappointments in different ways at different times. Even Paul in his 2nd letter to the Christians at Corinth told them, he had been under great pressure, far beyond his ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life itself (2 Cor 1.8,9). It sounds to me like Paul had fallen deep into a depression and practically given up but he went on to say, “but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.”

Somehow the Lord kept that mustard seed of faith going in the bleakest times when Lawrence and Paul had no strength left. The hardest of times are when we don’t feel Him and it feels like He isn’t there. Those are the times we need to ask him to to give us the ability to somehow trust him in the adversity and confusion of it all. Those are the times when our faith is pushed to its limits – and when it is pushed to its limits that is where we need Him to give us more faith to enable us to grow in Him. We need to ask Him to guide us and strengthen us when we don’t have the strength in ourselves.

In time, in the hardest and messiest times in life as we turn to Him we gradually discover the unique ways He walks with each of us and the ways He works in our lives. These very personal discoveries give us the experiences we need to gradually grow in our ability to increasingly trust Him. No matter what is happening in our lives, whether we are in India or Blackpool we all have that potential to become spiritual giants. A people who do not not rely on themselves but on God. Jesus we look to you.