Numbers 14

How To Be A Hero

We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Numbers 13:33. The Lord is with us: fear them not. Numbers 14:9.

Today I want to tell you three stories. The first is about ten spies, the second is about a little dog, and the third is about a small boy.

1. The ten spies were sent by a great leader you can call him a general if you like to spy out a country which God had promised to their nation. They were told to find out what kind of crops grew there, whether the country was well-wooded, what the inhabitants were like, what sort of towns they lived in, and so on.

After forty days the spies returned and gave in their report. There was nothing wrong with the land, they said. In fact it was a very good land indeed. They had brought back a bunch of grapes so large that it had to be carried on a pole between two men. No, there was nothing wrong with the land, but but the cities had terribly strong walls, and the country was inhabited by giants huge creatures who made them feel like tiny grasshoppers. Oh, they could never think of facing them never, never! And the people mustn't think of it either.

Well you know there is nothing more infectious than a panic. And when the people saw how frightened those spies were they grew frightened too. There was the most awful hullabaloo. They wept and they wailed, they wrung their hands and they refused to go a step farther. They even suggested returning to the country they had come from a country where they had been no better than slaves under a cruel ruler.

The long and the short of it was that they didn't go up into that land not for forty years, not until a new generation had grown up who were brave enough to venture in.

2. Now for the second story.

If any of you have been to Dublin you may have visited the zoological gardens. And if you visited the zoological gardens, you had a good look at the lions. The Dublin Zoo is rather famed for its lions. They seem to thrive there much better than they do in London.

There was one lioness in the Zoo in Dublin that lived to a great age. And when she grew old she was very much troubled with rats in her cage. The poor thing wasn't so brisk as she once had been, and she couldn't keep out of their way. The little rats tried to bite and gnaw on her.

The keeper was really sorry for her, and at last he hit upon a plan to deliver her from her tormentors. He opened the cage door a little bit and let in a small dog.

The lioness crouched ready to spring upon the new intruder and finish him with one stroke of her great paw. But Mr. Doggie simply took no notice of her. He had seen a rat in the corner and he meant to have that rat supposing he were killed the next minute. So he went straight for it and soon made an end of it.

Mrs. Lioness sat down to think. This might be a friend after all, instead of another enemy. It was rather decent of him to kill that rat, and he might be useful in future. Better let him alone. Better let him see that she meant him no harm. Better make some advance to him to show that she appreciated his kindness.

So what do you think? Every night after that, before the lioness went to sleep she would give a little sort of call or growl, and Mr. Doggie would run up to her and lie down with his head on her breast. Then she would fold her great paws gently round him and they would go to sleep together.

And you will be glad to hear that she was never again tormented by rats. Mr. Doggie kept them all away.

3. The last story is a very short one and it really isn't quite a story. A little boy was once asked how it was that David conquered Goliath. “Oh,” he said, “because they were two to one!” His friends thought that was rather a odd reply, so they asked him what he meant. “Well, you see,” he explained, “God was on David's side.”

That was what the ten spies in the first story forgot that God was on their side. Did I say ten spies? No, there were twelve, and the other two didn't forget. When the people were weeping and wailing about these terrible giants the two brave spies said, “The Lord is with us: fear them not.”

Do you want to be heroes, boys and girls? There are just two ways.

You must face your difficulties. Running away from them won't help to solve them and it will stamp you as a coward. Be they big or little you must go straight ahead like the little dog in the Zoo. Then you will find one of two things either that you have conquered them, or that they have vanished altogether.

And you must take God with you. That is the secret of true victory the secret of how to be brave. David knew it when he fought against Goliath. Gideon knew it when he went forth against the hosts of Midian with his three hundred. The first disciples knew it when they set out to conquer the world for Christ. The “noble army of martyrs” knew it when they laid down their lives for the sake of righteousness. Many and many a one among our own brave soldiers has known it when he set out to face fearful odds in the defense of liberty and right.

And we can know it too. Whatever be our difficulties, whatever be our dangers, we need never fear if we can say, with Caleb and Joshua and all God's heroes, “The Lord is with us.”