In trying to put a handle on what God has been speaking to me about all week on How He sees the year 2020 amidst the Coronavirus, I was sent to a particular story in the Old Testament in the books of Numbers and Joshua. God had just delivered the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt and across the Red Sea, and they were on their way to the land of Canaan to inherit it. They eventually were positioned outside of Canaan, the land promised to them by God through Moses to call their own, as they were a people without a home or an address. The promised land Canaan was right next door to them, they now have the opportunity to go in it and claim it. This was the promise the Lord God had made to Abraham concerning the land of Canaan:
Leviticus 20:24: “Hence I have said to you, “You are to possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.”
However, as the people waited next door, in the book of Numbers 13, God instructed Moses to send 12 men as representatives; one each from the 12 tribes of Israel, to go up into Canaan and spy out the land and bring a report back to Moses about how they can take it.
12 men including Caleb and Joshua spent 40 days spying out and surveying the land and its inhabitants.
When the 12 completed their assessment, their report came back split. 10 men brought back a negative report. This was their report in verse 27-28:
“We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.
And verses 31-33: “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.
But 2 men, Joshua and Caleb reported positively:
Verse 30: “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
Numbers 14: 7-9: “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”
Sadly, the Israelites believed the report of the 10 negative men over that of Caleb and Joshua, so much so that they sought to stone them.
As a result, God then replied to Moses in verses 11-12 and 23-24:
“How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a [plague] and destroy them, but I will make you (Moses) into a nation greater and stronger than they.
23As surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. 24 But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land (Hebron) he went to, and his descendants will inherit it.”
Following this, God made the children of Israel to spend 40 years wandering into the desert outside Canaan, when it could have taken them only days to go and claim their land; their inheritance. God also sent a plague to devour them, and allowed their enemies – the current inhabitants of Canaan then – to overthrow and kill them, and that whole generation of people who did not believe the Lord’s report all died, and they never got to inherit the land the Lord God promised to them. Except for Joshua and Caleb. They survived the annihilation.
Stay with me, all this talk of land is leading us to something very important!
Fast forward to 40 years later in Joshua 14:6-13.
Caleb went up with the people of his tribe of Judah and met with Joshua, who now became leader and ruler of the Israelites. Caleb reminded Joshua that God had promised to give him the land in the valley of Hebron, the land inside of Canaan that he had spied out and brought back the good report on. Joshua remembered, and he blessed Caleb and gave him the land as his inheritance.
Takeaway Points:
- God first spoke a promise to His people.
- 12 men went to see about God’s promise, 10 came back with fake news and only 2 brought back good report. When God speaks, always only a few will hear it or even believe. God never wins a popularity contest, but a STRATEGIC contest.
- The people believed the false report of the 10, and in so doing, they moved in a spirit of unbelief and they brought judgement upon the whole nation. So it is in the world around us. False reports are bringing spirits of distraction, confusion and delusion over the people, and the whole nation suffers for it.
- But even while the whole nation was being judged, the 2 who believed God’s report were spared from the judgement; Joshua and Caleb. Caleb even reported that at age 85, while the nation was dying from a plague, he was strong and healthy to even go down to Hebron and fight and throw out its inhabitants to claim his land.
- But pay attention to this. Even though God made a promise to Caleb, Caleb still had to come forward and declare God’s promise over his life for him to receive it, it was never given to him automatically. Same as it was with the Israelites, God gave them a promise of the land of Canaan, but they never got it automatically, because they did not believe that promise of God, they never made it into that promised land and therefore they aborted their purpose and became disinherited.
- Because of their unbelief and inability to position themselves for their inheritance and their blessings, they lost it all. Not only did they lose it, but God gave what was meant for them to others!
Homework: Taking back 2020
What are the promises of God for your life? You need to go before God and ask for YOUR blueprint. General promises can be found in the bible for the believer’s life, but it serves us well if we had our own personal word from God. Many of us don’t know what God is saying about us. We need to seek it out. We get that by simply asking the spirit of God to tell us and listen out for His response. Some of us may have gotten a prophetic word or may even already know from God personally what He is saying about you. Write them all down. Read them back to yourself daily. That is God’s word and promise for YOU. When we know what our specific declaration/promises are from God, when the enemy comes against us to abort our purpose, then we are able to declare what God promised to us and it cancels the plan of the enemy to take us out.
What are the promises of God over America? Do you know them? Some specific prophetic words have been spoken over America, but many negative words have been spoken as well.
But whose report do you believe?
Do you believe what you see? Or do you believe what you know? When Caleb and Joshua gave their report of what they saw in Canaan, the problem wasn’t so much that the negative report was a lie, in fact it was true, but that in spite of what they saw, they REMEMBERED that God had declared and promised the land to them and they believed God would have given it to them. Despite what they saw, they believed what they knew. THAT is faith!
But you may ask, if Joshua and Caleb believed God’s word, how come the promise wasn’t credited to their belief and the nation benefited from it? Why did the whole nation needed to believe God’s word if it was spoken by God? Great question. But the answer is that God moves in our will. The people had two choices from the reports they received. They chose to believe the bad report and it caused the nation to move in a spirit of unbelief against God’s word and it sealed their fate. Today we have some Christians moving in the spirit of belief of what they know God is saying and doing in spite of what is happening around them, and as a result, even though our whole nation is wasting away, believe me, those people are experiencing a total different life that represents calm, joy, and abundance of prosperity. They will relate to you a totally different picture/report than the reality around them.
Remember, the Israelites were the very same people when back in Egypt when God sent 7 plagues including the one to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, God told them to stay indoors and put blood on their doorpost to be spared. Now here they were in the middle of the desert being faced with a plague of a disease and not one of them were spared from it! How ironic!
You may also question the promise God made to Abraham and Sarah for a promised son. They still ended up with the promised son in spite of how they acted. The answer to that is Abraham and Sarah DID NOT move in a spirit of unbelief. In fact even though they expressed doubt at first, they did believe God would give them a son so much so that when they did not see it happening, Sarah gave her husband to her handmaid in the attempt to make it happen. That spirit of jumping ahead of God’s plan before He acts resulted in a counterfeit to the promise which produced Ishmael. But because they still believed, they still received the promised son Isaac.
There are 2 reports over America, and God spoke 1 of them; a GOOD report. Yet here we are in a plague in the very year that God said so many powerful things would happen! Could we figure out why this is so? Could it be that as a people, especially the people of God, that we have shunned God’s declarations and have not been supporting his promises over this country?
But what are the promises? These were given by different prophets of God, including myself. And I have been declaring them for over a year now… and I have been sounding like a fool to many. Like an overzealous Jesus freak! What I declare does not match up with the reality around us, it just does not add up. But what Caleb and Joshua reported to the Israelites did not match what was reality then either, and the people must have thought they were fools because they sought to stone them to death.
These are America’s 2020 promises:
- This is the year for the prosperity of America. The stock market will increase to high levels such as never before.
- God will raise up a new generation of believers, and pour his spirit out on them to spread the gospel boldly and reach the the generation of the new age.
- God will raise up many new ministries and upgrade the existing ones that seek their new blueprint to move effectively in the new and upcoming age.
- This will be the year for Kingdom women to take the front of stage in ministry to counteract the spirit of Jezebel over the earth
- This will be the year for a massive Tsunami worldwide revival being birthed right here in this country.
- 2020 will have the people of the earth seeing the true power of God at work in the earth and through his people.
Satan wants to use this virus to abort God’s plan. Today we must rise and declare the report of God over this country and over our lives. Even if nobody spoke a word that you heard, as a Christian, we are called to be light in dark places and the bearer of the Good news. We should be declaring over the situation in our country and our lives blessings and hope and positive words. We are the head and not the tail. God told me that during this time, we should focus on His promises over this country and keep repeating them for all to hear. Why would we not want our country to heal, to be prosperous, to be Godly? Why would we not declare these things? Why are we not speaking out against division and hatred? God told me He is not happy of the things that as Christians we support and believe today. Too many of us are being simply spectators as our world waste away. We need to step into our divine purpose and re-align ourselves with the Kingdom of God and bring God’s purpose to the earth. And if we have turned against Him, and have not supported His promises or what He is doing, or even if we are simply silent and have closed our mouths and not bring God’s word to the people, then we are working against Him and we perish, or we lose our inheritance and wander around in the earth until we die, and we get replaced by another generation who will inherit our Kingdom inheritance and do God’s bidding in the earth.
My Testimony:
In November, God made me a promise that my husband and I would buy a house and move to Georgia by March of 2020. When the virus came, I am sorry, but I did not claim or give power to it. If you saw my posts, I was living my best life. During the week of the Governor locking down my state of Idaho, God told me to pack, rent the moving truck, and drive down through 8 states from Idaho to Georgia. God showed me on the USA map that He had cleared the way for me like the parting of the red sea. Literally a map with all locked down states were red, and you could see a blue line of states trailing all the way from Idaho to Georgia, God told me that was Him parting the red sea for me to go.
See the map below that was shown on the news at the time. Note all the states in red that were on lockdown, and all the states in blue that weren’t. Note the blue states were my trek from Idaho to Georgia, with the exception of IL, IN, and KY, I could have traveled through all blue states to my destination. That was amazing!
People cussed me mercilessly in my inbox for doing that and let me tell you that did not affect me. I knew what God said and what He told me to do, and when you move in purpose, nothing sways you, you can sleep in a storm! God told me that every plan He had for my life for 2020 is still on His calendar and the virus will never affect them. But, while traveling, someone reached out to me and told me they got a vision that my Jeep was turned over and that I was dead. I canceled that assignment by declaring everything that God promised over my life for 2020 as the reason I would not die. Remember, Joshua and Caleb was spared 40 years of Judgement of a disease and of death because they believed and acted upon what God had said to them!
Remember, 40 years later when the new generation of Israel finally grew up to inherit Canaan, and they were all given their allotment in the land based on the will of the inheritance. No-one called Caleb and gave him the land God promised to him, he still had to go and declare to Joshua that God had promised him the valley of Hebron before he could receive it.
Let’s take 2020 back from the devil. If anything, declare with your mouths in whatever format you want that God is going to win. That God is going to get His way, that God is going to fix this. Stop speaking virus and speak victory! Stop speaking reality and speak promises! Pray over your household. Seek the Lord about what He is saying over 2020 because trust and believe, this year God is promising some powerful things and as a Christian, we have an important role to play!
But only THOSE WHO BELIEVE HIS REPORT, will ever experience those promises. This is NOT the stage where you place blood over your doorpost and stay in to avoid being hit. Whether you are indoors or out, if you are not walking in purpose and covered under the blood of Jesus… IT WILL AFFECT YOU! This virus can hit you not only by physically making you sick, it can use your wrong choices and free will to break down your immune system AGAINST God and cause you to become disinherited and dead to His promises, and you spend your life wandering around without purpose and wondering why you cannot get a breakthrough while others have. And then someone else ends up getting your inheritance!
Will you be a Caleb and speak what God promised and therefore claim your inheritance and victory over your life AND country? Or will you continue to be a naysayer speculator and believe what is seen around you and end up dis-inheriting yourself?
Composed by Dr. Pastor Dione Nancolas: Founder/CEO Spirit of Esther Ministries