Numbers 14:44 But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.
Most of the world can be divided between those who are pessimists and those who are optimists. I think most of us are a combination of both, but some people are obviously more one than the other. For instance, I have some friends who are pessimists. If we are watching my favorite football team that has had an undefeated season, my pessimistic friends will say, “Well, it can only go downhill from here. They’ve won every game this season. They have got to lose sometime!”
On the other hand, my dad tends to be an optimist. I remember when I was twelve years old, we were watching a game, and it wasn’t going well for us. My dad piped up and said, “Well, all we need now is a fumble or an interception!” I remember bursting out laughing even though I didn’t understand why it was humorous to me at the time. Now I do. It was funny because dad is very optimistic. He thought we had a chance of winning.
If you look for it in the story of Numbers 13-14, you can find pessimists and optimists. God had sent Israel to go possess the land of Canaan, and they had sent twelve spies to search out the land. When the report came back, ten of the spies said that the land was beautiful, “nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.” Essentially they said, “We can’t do this.” Is that pessimistic or optimistic? I think we would agree that it sounds pessimistic.
Caleb, on the other hand, “stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.” Now that sounds very optimistic.
Let’s apply this paradigm to the end of the story. When God’s people refused to go into Canaan, God said, “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness.” God said, “If you are not willing to go, then you aren’t allowed to go. Go back where you came from. Your children for whom you feared will know the land that you have despised.”
It was at this point that the people had an apparent change of mind. After God said, “Go back to the wilderness,” the people “rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up into the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned.” It is true that they had sinned by refusing to go up into the land. But now they were sinning by going into the land against God’s new command. The first time they disobeyed by not going, and now they were disobeying by going.
Was their determination now to go into the land an indication of optimism or pessimism? What about Moses? Moses said in Numbers 14:42, “Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.” Was Moses being optimistic or pessimistic by telling them not to go?
The answer is that pessimism and optimism represent a limited way by which to understand what is the right thing to do. It is the wrong paradigm for this story. The question is not whether they were optimistic or pessimistic, but were they obeying or refusing, were they living by faith or by presumption? Numbers 14:44 says, “But they presumed to go up unto the hill top.” They did so without Moses, without the Ark of the Covenant, and without God.
Now it is not presumptuous to go up against giants. It is presumptuous to go up alone without God. When God says, “Go,” and I stay, that is presumption. When God says, “Stay,” and I go, that is presumption. Faith is not being optimistic or pessimistic; faith is obeying God.
Let me give you three avenues in particular. First, when God has promised, I need to act. This was the land of promise. God had promised it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Second, when God gives a command, I need to obey. I need to live in faith and not presumption. If God commands me to go, I should not stay. When God commands me to stay, I should not go.
Third, I need to consider my ethic, the way I am doing what I am doing, the guidelines that govern my attitudes and actions. In Numbers 13 God said, “Send thou men, that they may search the land.” The word “search” means “to find out how.” They weren’t to search the land to find out if they could take the land. They were to search the land to find out how to take it. Their entire premise was, “Let’s go search the land to find out whether we should obey God or not.”
In short, if your life can be explained merely by your temperament as a pessimist or an optimist, something is not right. We are not slaves or victims but people with a choice. The choice is not whether we are going to be an optimist or a pessimist, but whether we will live by faith and obedience or by presumption.