"Knowing brothers, beloved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but in power and with the Holy Spirit and with full conviction . . . And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the Word in much affliction , with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only has the Word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report . . . how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessolonians 1:4-10).

I am a child of the 80s. I grew up on Mork & Mindy. It was there I, like so many others, got laugh-after-laugh watching the crazy antics of Robin Williams.

I hope by now my few but faithful readers are seeing just how much gospel is in the Old Testament Book of Numbers.

God promised to give Israel a good land called Canaan. Poised at its edge, Moses sent spies into Canaan. Two spies believed God and wanted Israel to go in and take the land. Ten spies disbelieved God and gave a cowardly report.

"And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron" (Num 14:2).

In our last post, we uncovered some eternal gospel truths out of Numbers Chapter 12. We come now to Chapter 13, where we read of Moses sending spies into the land of Canaan (The Promised Land).

I've taken on the task of reading through the Bible in the last six months of this year. Typically I read through the Word each year, but spent the first half of this year doing a somewhat different reading plan. But decided to now go back and sweep through God's Book in 6 months, which has me currently in the Book of Numbers.

Bowdoin College in Maine has joined the slowly-but-surely expanding list of institutions of higher learning that now define "freedom" in terms of tyranny and tolerance (so-called).

"I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one" (Ezekiel 22:30).

June 6, 1944. D-Day.