We felt like grasshoppers next to them, and that is what we looked like to them!" (Num 13:30-33). But Caleb refused to bow to the sheer peer pressure that would have been mounting on him to alter his report so that it too would sound negative like his colleagues" were! Caleb was forty years old when this event happened - an extremely youthful when you take into consideration that people lived for many hundreds of years in those times (Num 14:6). Oh for more Calebs in this crooked and depraved generation of young people who will take God's command that we must not follow the crowd in doing wrong seriously! At least on three occasions Moses warned the people of Israel must not bow to the peer pressure to follow the perverted way of people they would rub shoulders with after they entered the Promised Land, Canaan (Ex 23:24/Lev 18:3/Lev 20:23). But the people of Israel did not take this categorical command of God earnestly and therefore suffered the consequences - terrible consequences. I pray that we youngpeople will not follow their lousy example. The Roman governor of Jerusalem Pilate knew that Jesus had not committed any crime that was worthy of crucifixtion. He had lengthy debates with the Jewish leaders arguing that Jesus was "innocent" (Luke 23:14). In fact, the Scriptures record that "he wanted to to release Jesus" (Luke 23:20). He tried to suggest to the crowd that had gathered to hear his verdict regarding Jesus that it would be best to release Jesus after a mild flogging. Just before he was to announce his judgement concerning Jesus his wife sent word to him to imploring him to leave the innocent Jesus alone. But we know what he did. We've read what he did, haven't we? "But the crowd shouted louder and louder for Jesus" death, and their voices prevailed. So Pilate sentenced Jesus to die as they demanded" (Luke 23:23,24). Simply put He followed the crowd in doing wrong. He did not have the moral courage to stick his neck for what he knew was right.
