Bible in 90 days – Day 11 – Numbers 9-21
Numbers 14:9-10 – Caleb and Joshua to Israel after spying out the promised land:
“Do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land… …Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones.”
Caleb saw the situation through eyes of faith in God’s promise. The rest of the people saw it only through eyes of “practical” and “conventional wisdom”. I’m sure they were bolstered by the fact of majority opinion as well. Fortified cities and giants indeed would have been humanly impossible to defeat. Except for one factor: a promise from God that they would be victorious.
Caleb, seeking to remind the people to trust God’s promise and act in a way the conformed to it, in spite of the other factors, go the response that many who urge God’s people to a life of faith get: “Stone him!”
You can expect to be despised sometimes, even by people who claim to follow God, for urging them to act in a way that conforms to the things they profess to believe.