Verbalizing negative thoughts can do untold harm. Pessimistic words have stopped inventions, delayed projects and defeated souls. Gloomy speeches have vanquished armies and caused nations to crumble in ruins. We will be judged by the effects our demoralizing statements have had on the lives of others. Ten spies cost a whole nation 40 years in the wilderness. They saw the giants as bigger than their God. They not only failed to enter the land themselves, their great grasshopper speech sent God’s people cowering away. Be careful what you say!
“So they (the ten spies) gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:32-33 (NASB)
