Although God ordered the mission to spy out the Promised Land, eight of the ten spies failed. These men would have been rulers of their tribes, which goes to prove that leaders can often be wimps like anyone else. But God knew what He was doing. He was putting them through a courage/faith test. The test was given to expose and eradicate the wimpy negative spirit that God did not want to enter the Promised Land. This wimpy spirit would quickly have melted away any courage that they might have had. They would have been defeated at Jericho, which was the first of many strong cities they were to face.

The wimpy courage-less spirit not only possessed the eight spies, but also quickly took hold of the whole multitude when they heard the evil report. Let’s read Numbers 13:31-33, “But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.’ And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, ‘The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’”
 

Despite the mighty miracles that God had done for them in Egypt and subsequently in the wilderness, that devastating wimpy spirit, driven by the demons of hell, quickly discouraged them. Despite the courageous appeals of Caleb and Joshua, even in the face of certain death by stoning (Numbers 14:6-10), the wimpy, defeated and discouraging spirit prevailed. It amazes me how the spirit of negativity and discouragement can so quickly blind our eyes so that we cannot see the God of signs, wonders and miracles. Worse than that, it makes us not even want to see Him. What an insult to God! 

This courage-less, faithless, unbelieving spirit was so entrenched, it took 40 years of wandering in the wilderness to get rid of it. Israel went into the wilderness independent and could only come out when she learned to be totally dependant on God. Song of Solomon 8:5 says, “Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?”

Rahab the harlot spoke the real truth of the scenario 40 years after it happened. I believe this truth could have been just as real 40 years earlier. Joshua and Caleb could feel it in their bones. Listen to what Rahab confessed to the Hebrew spies when they came to check out Jericho, “I know that the Lord has give you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are faint-hearted because of you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:9-11)