Caleb's Stand for God

Please turn with me to the book of Joshua chapter 14. I believe this will fit in very well with what we've been hearing all afternoon. Joshua 14.

I will try to fill in the blanks in some of this, but I would think most of us would hopefully be familiar with the story of this man Caleb, and I just want to look at one verse here, verse 12. The divisions of the land, the allotments, the inheritance is being divided out as Joshua was doing that, and they've crossed over, and they're going to have to fight for this land, of course, but God has given it to them, and this is the words of this man Caleb in verse 12. He's speaking to Joshua, he's waited, he's bided his time, he's 85 years old at this point, and it says, "'Now therefore give me this mountain, give me this mountain whereof the Lord speak in that day, for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim's were there, and that the cities were great, and fenced." If so be you Lord will be with me then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said.

Notice two times he refers to the Lord speaking, his word, and that is what is motivating, what is driving Caleb here. I want to give you the flip side of the other side of the coin of what my brother Al has been bringing before us, and as well we began this afternoon with hearing about an ascended man. And in a very real way, Caleb is a little picture of that because he's a man who wants to ascend.

He's got a mountain in his heart. He's thinking of this and he's held on to that, the heights, for 45 years. And why I said the flip side of that is of what my brother has been saying, and he's been alluding to it already, speaking upon resting on the Word of God, resting on the Word of God.

And that's vital, but that's not all of it, it's only half of it. Because if all we do is rest, you're gonna sleep your life away. It's very simple.

Rest, the flip side of that is acting. That's what faith is. You have to receive the Word, but then acting on that Word, and that's exactly what Caleb did as we read this account.

It's very interesting. He is in all respects a real mountain man, if I can put it that way. There are famous mountain men, if you want to read in history, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, some of those names might be familiar to you.

And I see some people nodding, you probably read about those. It's interesting. Bridger was in his 70s when he died.

Kit Carson was in his 50s when he died. These were men that explored, they blazed trails, they went in, they were mountain men. Here's a mountain man, and he's gonna claim a mountain, and he's gonna blaze a trail, and he's 85.

He's older, just beginning this, than after those other men died. It's interesting about this man Caleb. You know, I was reading the Australian coat of arms.

If you've ever seen it, it pictures two creatures that are very, very different from one another. One is the emu, the other is a kangaroo. They're on both sides of that Australian coat of arms.

Now, they're very different animals. The emu is a flightless bird, and of course, we all know what kangaroos are. The emu is kind of like an ostrich, and so on.

And it's interesting that those animals were chosen specifically because they share a characteristic that appealed to the Australian citizens. Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward. They can't go backwards.

It's interesting, because when it comes to the emu, he has a three-toed foot, clawed foot, and it actually causes him to fall if he tries to go backward. And the kangaroo has this large tail, and he can't go backward. They're interested in going forward.

When it comes to Caleb, he would have made a great Australian. Just wanting to go forward. No interest in going backward.

No interest in reverse. In total contradistinction to the other spies that went into the land and looked at it, they wanted to go back. They not only said, why did God take us out of Egypt? And why did God bring us through this wilderness? And Caleb is saying, backwards? Backwards? He said, press on.

Let's go on. Can I ask all of us, and myself included, as a Christian, in your spiritual life, in your spiritual activities, with this book in your hand, this book of God, are you going backwards? Or are you going forwards? There is no such thing in the Christian life as just being still. I know the psalm says, be still, I know that I am God.

That's not what I mean. You're either going forward or you're going backwards. Caleb is a man that said, backwards? I'll have none of it.

And here he stands and he says, give me this mountain. So I want you to notice the first thing that impressed him was the Scripture, if I can put it that way. The Word of God.

He says twice in that one verse, as he's speaking to Joshua. You remember? You remember that day? He says, the Lord spake, the Lord spake. You see, any movement for God, there's a lot of movements we can do in the flesh.

And there's a lot of movements we can do as far as the world is concerned. There's a lot of attainments, there's a lot of climbing the ladder. Here's a man who's interested in climbing the heights, spiritually.

But the only movement we can do for God, spiritually, has to begin and be based on the Word of God. And Caleb had that. He had the Scriptures.

We're living in a time where there's a lot of extra-biblical revelation, quote-unquote, where there's a lot of touchy-feely and people are writing things and giving us things that are superficial and outside the, really, the boundaries and the parameters and the guidelines of Scripture. Young Christians, especially, be careful of what you read and what you get a hold of. Saturate yourself.

Base yourself. More yourself. Know the Word of God.

Memorize it. Learn it. Caleb held on to that for 45 years.

And he says, this is what the Lord said, if there's going to be a work of God, it has to begin. It will begin with the Scriptures. Prophets thundered it.

Over and over again you read, thus saith the Lord, whether it's an Ezekiel or a Jeremiah or whoever it is, thus saith the Lord. The Word of the Lord came, and so on. Prophets thundered it.

Priests moved in the light of their operations and functions under its guidance. The Levitical offerings, the workings of the priest, everything they did was guided by the Word of God. Kings, royalty, they had to memorize the Word of God.

They reigned. They really should have reigned in light of it. And the Lord Jesus himself, can I say it reverently? He says, lo, I come in the volume of the book.

It is written of me to do thy will, O God. The Word of God. And so it begins with the Scripture.

Hebrews 11, we've read about resting, resting, right? Talking about the hall of faith. All of these people who had the Word of God, and they took it, they were given it by God, and they acted upon that. All those characters in Hebrews 11.

One of the last churches in the book of Revelation, Philadelphia. What does the Lord Jesus say of that assembly as he commends them? He says, you have a little strength. He says, you have not denied my name, you have kept my word.

Scriptures. And at the judgment seat of Christ, we will be judged, if I can use that word. Our service, our life, will be assessed on the basis of did we keep his word? Did we obey the Word of God? And so there's absolutely no excuse not to know it.

It gives us both the parameters as well as the propulsion for living. It tells us what we should do. It tells us why we should do it.

We have everything in our hands in this wonderful book that is God-breathed, unique in all the world, to tell us what the mind of God, to tell us the great truths of the Word of God, of God himself. And here's something that Caleb held on to, and he didn't let it go. And not only did he not let it go, he didn't let anybody else take it from him.

He didn't let anybody else dissuade him from it. There were challenges faced. Was this man perfect? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. But he didn't let anyone, and I'm going to get to that in a minute. So number one, he had the Scriptures.

Number two, he had a sight. He got a sight of something. He, just over into the land, as those spies were collected and gathered, and then they were sent in, a 40-day covert mission, an excursion into seeing what God had said as Moses sends them in there.

And they go into the land of Hebron. Now keep that in mind. Hang on to that.

As they look at things, Eshcol, Hebron, and so on, he sees a sight that was indelibly marked in his heart. And if you go back to Numbers chapter 13, you will see the counterpart of this, the experience of this, and one of the first things you read of in the text is that they came to the mountain. The mountain.

They didn't have to go far in. Caleb got a hold of that. He got a sight of a mountain.

How can you miss that? How do you miss a mountain? Here's a man, and once he sees that mountain, once he steps over and looks, you could almost hear the gasp, the sigh, the awe, in looking at this is what God has given us. And he's overjoyed. He's already claimed it, as you've been hearing, in his heart, and he's holding on to it.

Brethren, do you have experiences like that from the Word of God? Not simply just resting and sleeping your life away in some listless, aimless, lifeless Christianity. Not simply just a workaday world where you just go, listen, I know there's something to be said for consistency. I'm not knocking that, obviously.

That is important. But there are believers, and there seems to be such a lifelessness, such a powerlessness, such a lack of vision. Here is a man, and he got a sight of that mountain.

Listen, this is no minimalist. This is no man that's looking at the, you know, the container-type house, you know, where he can just... He's got a mountain in view. He wants something big.

How often do we settle for mediocrity or nothing at all? We're just content with hobbling through life. At the end of this dispensation, have we lost the fire? Have we lost the spirit? I'm praying for all of us, assemblies of God's people, that there will be that spirit, the spirit of a Caleb, the spirit of men that we've been hearing about, that will be captured and will captivate us and motivate us. Not all is lost, but I will tell you this, we're on the precipice and the verge of things being lost if we continue with a visionless, lifeless, sightless Christianity.

He got a sight. Not only a mountain, but you know what's interesting? The very time that they went into that land, the very time that they crossed over to look, you know what it says? It says it was the time of ripe grapes. The time of ripe grapes.

Isn't that so kind of God? It wasn't the time of the little seedlings, and it wasn't past the time where they looked and said, ew, raisins. You know, these were big grapes. They put them on a pole and they walked them, and God was giving them a sight of what was there.

It was the time of ripe grapes. Can I ask you something? All of us, men, women, younger ones here, what do you see when you look in this book and you look in the mirror and you look at the world around you? Are you getting a sight of mountains? Are you getting a sight of ripe grapes? It's the time. You know what else it says? They were there for 40 days.

40 days. How long have some here had time to look over things? I'm looking into the faces of people who have had decades. Not 40 days.

Decades. And what are you seeing? What are you living for? What are you moving in light of? Every one of us are seeing something. And we either have a myopic vision of just simply a selfish lifestyle and all that we can take that's so close to us, or we have that vision that sees mountains.

You know, it's interesting, the Lord Jesus said, going back to faith, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, be thou removed and cast into the sea. And it will be. He saw a mountain.

40 days. He had a sight. Something else he had.

He had a stand. He had a stand. As he's standing there that day and he's saying to Joshua in chapter 14, give now, give me this mountain.

He's turning the clock back. Decades. Because he's standing there and the only one he's standing there with that day that was part of that group is one man.

Joshua. All the rest are gone. All the rest.

That generation that died in unbelief could not go in. And not only could they not go in. Evil surmisings? No, no, no.

This wasn't, that day there was no surmising. It was definite. They made no bones about it.

They wanted to kill him. He knew exactly what they were thinking. There was clear-cut, definitive opposition to the step, the stand, that he and Joshua wanted to make.

A stand that actually God had told them to enter into. All works for God begin with the Scripture. They begin with the work of the Spirit of God.

But very, very often we will never gain anything for God without a stand. And he had to make that that day. You know, when I look at that, he goes in with the spies.

Now listen, they all saw the same thing. They all went the same way. They all took the same steps.

But all the spies are not of one mind. And sadly, the reality is, and possibly in this very audience today, right now, not all the saints here are either. And there are those that are gonna have to take stands.

And it's not an easy thing. It's not an easy thing to hold on to a mountain. It's not an easy thing for 45 years to watch people die around you like Caleb had to do, and keep hanging on and hanging on.

And he did it. It would have been an easy thing, wouldn't it have, with the other ten men. That's the majority, right? There was a majority report, and there was a minority report.

And it would have been very easy for Caleb to say, you know what, I'm not gonna buck this thing. It's far easier to go along with the crowd and simply agree. And maybe they even have the people at heart.

They're considering the people. I mean, there's giants in that land. There's fighting.

We've got to do all this. Yes, yes, you have to do that. Yes, that is the cost of claiming that land.

That is the cost of conquest. And if we lose sight of that, brethren, the war's over. It's interesting.

Both reports agree. The land was worth possessing. It was a land of milk and honey.

And it was exactly what the Lord said. Now get this. There was basic, basic agreement on all of that, but it's in the action where the difference was seen.

Faith requires action. There are far too many ground-level Christians. Caleb was not one.

Caleb had a mountain in sight. Caleb wasn't interested in the status quo. Caleb wanted—listen, brethren, don't miss this—Caleb didn't want necessarily what he wanted.

Caleb wanted what God wanted. How did he know? How do any of us know? How do you know what God wants? How do you know? From His Word. That is the only way we will know.

Feelings, emotions, suppositions, surmisings, whatever, positive thinking, psychology, all of that goes out the window because the only one thing that we can rest on and we can respond to is the Word of God. And that's what he had. So let me ask you, and I don't want to speak about this in a generic way, in a kind of a, you know, a yellow label kind of a way and just throw the Bible out there, because we all agree that the Bible is the Word of God, basically.

But it is your and my response and obedience to it that makes the difference. So when you read your Bible, do you ask the Lord, show me what you want me to do and give me the strength and power spiritually to do it. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

When I see something that is contradictory to what self wants, help me, guide me, show me. You know, there is one thing that will always precede conviction. In fact, I know we speak about conviction as one of the number one things, but there is one thing that is even more basic than conviction, and you will never get conviction without it.

And it's this, desire. One thing have I desired, the psalmist says. Caleb had the tremendously innate, overwhelming desire to get that mountain, to enter into what God had.

And he said, God is, we are well able, God is behind it. He says something interesting, when he said, he says, I do not want to be a ground-level believer. I don't want to set my sights so low.

He says, give me this mountain. And he says, I wholly follow the Lord. That's interesting.

He actually says that to Joshua later on. I wholly follow the Lord. Several times it says that.

In fact, and the Lord says it about Caleb. He wholly followed me. You know, when it comes to saying that, some of our lives there's a lot of holes in.

Right? He says, I wholly follow the Lord. But there's some of us that we're living lives that are wholly, but they're not that wholly. We're living with potholes.

And some of us are living with sinkholes. And some of us are living with threaded holes. You know the difference? The pothole is where the piece of road surface is, it's gone.

It's not there anymore. You're moving down a roadway that's not navigable, and it's uncharted, and really, and you're going and there's nothing there. And then a sinkhole is where there's all of a sudden the whole ground just falls out below you.

And then a threaded hole, well that's like when you put a screw in something, your threads go round and round. And there's some believers and all they're doing is just spinning round and round and round. There's no progress being made.

There's no forward movement. They're just hunkered down. They're just... God does not intend that type of life for any of us.

God saved you so that you will live a life of faith and faithfulness in response to His Word. And that's exactly what Caleb was doing. And the sad thing is, the one sad thing, is that he had to do it against others that were right there, fellow believers even, if I can put it that way.

Caleb was not perfect, no, but what he did was he put the Lord first. We were hearing, I think both of our brethren mentioned it, in terms of business, in terms of our recreation time, in terms of our associations, in terms of our liaisons, in terms of our activities, in terms of our decisions, our time. Do we make the Lord and His Word form us, guide us, govern us, motivate us? I think we need mountain men today.

We need mountain men. He says, give me this mountain. Now give me that expression.

That's an oft-repeated expression, not only in our lives, but in the Bible. First time it occurs is back in Genesis 14. And there's the King of Sodom, and he's telling Abraham, who's just fought the Battle of the Kings, he says, give me the souls.

Give me the persons. And it's interesting, when it comes to that, this is Abraham's response, listen. He says, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the Most High God, the Possessor, get it? The Possessor.

He's literally going like this to the King of Sodom, right? Because he's saying, you want, you want, he says, I am linked with the Possessor of heaven and earth. And he says, I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatch, a shoelace, if I can put it. And that I will not take anything from you, lest I should, lest you should say, I have made Abraham rich.

He says, I want none of it. Can you look at this world around? I'm not talking about the legitimate things, but there can be pursuits that can be overwhelming of even the legitimate things that can cause us to be blinded to mountains that God has for us, and we make our own mountains. And when you compare Abraham and Lot, just think about, I don't want to get off track here, but just to mention this as I'm winding down here, I want you to think, if you compare Abraham and Lot, what was the difference? It wasn't that Abraham believed God and Lot didn't.

We know from the New Testament, shockingly as it is, that Lot was a believer. So it wasn't that one believed God and one didn't. It wasn't that one that was a believer and one was an unbeliever.

But it comes down to the clash between one's beliefs and his material interests, and Lot's, can I say it this way, religion goes down. Fails. He's actually looking, he's seeing, unlike a Caleb who's seeing what the spies did not see.

How could they miss it? Because they weren't looking for it. There's also Abraham ending up associated with a mountain himself, wasn't he? Because of his faith. It wasn't quite the same as Caleb's.

It was called Moriah, where he had to offer up his son in response to faith, the Word of God. And Abraham goes down on the annals of sacred history, unlike any other man, so that the Lord Jesus himself says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and was glad. Yes, Abraham was associated with a mountain.

What was Lot associated with? Well, by Lot's choices and what Lot saw, he glares at us over the centuries with a charred and blackened ruin of the plains of Sodom. Is that what we want? Is that what you want? I don't think so. Do you want to be able to, after a life, to say, I saw the wrong things? I just wasn't looking.

I just wasn't listening. There was no mountain in my heart. There was no land to possess.

I just lived a life of comatose Christianity, and I just went on. But I never really dug into the book. I never really claimed those things.

My response was weak and poor. My prayer is that we will go from this conference dedicated, driven, to seeing mountains. I think of the spoil at the end.

And while it was given, here's a seeming paradox, while it was given, he still had to take it. He had to fight for it. God wants that.

He wants to see us extend ourselves. He wants to see us reach out. He wants to see the opened hand for him and his things and his word.

Not these things, not the world, but his things. And you know what? He had a great yesterday, didn't he? Caleb, you had a great yesterday. I wonder what kind of yesterdays we have.

Regret's a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing. I can tell you that.

There's other people here that can tell you that, too. I don't think Caleb had many regrets. He looked back on that, and I know the Apostle Paul says, forgetting those things which are behind, right? But that's different.

Caleb is saying, I have a memory that I am anchoring to. And my brother, when you were saying just about your call, you were going back. That was an anchor.

It was special. It was from his word. God gave it to you, and you responded.

And we're all very thankful that you did. Caleb had a great yesterday. But every act he did from that moment on was lived in light of a tomorrow when he'd get that mountain.

He never lost sight of it. Never. Now, if you were to ask Caleb, ask about Caleb, I'm just going to give you four people.

If you were to ask Moses about Caleb, I just jotted down a few things that you might hear them say. Number one, Moses would say this, yes, I remember Caleb. I listened to his report.

That the spies came and came back, and they created and they developed discord and unrest and unbelief. The people were agitated by what they brought. They didn't help the people.

They caused friction, and actually, because of them, a whole generation was lost. In fact, I remember it says that Caleb tried to still the people. Moses said, I remember that.

Are you that type of person? Would people say that about you? You see, people would have said maybe about Caleb, because if you ask the spies, if you ask the spies, they might have a different slant on things. The spies would say, oh, Caleb, you know, he was a little bit fanatical. He was a little bit over the top, and you know, we tried to just, but Caleb, he pushed the envelope.

And if you were to ask those spies, and how did that work out for you? The spies would have to say, along with many others, we died in the wilderness. We died in the wilderness. Caleb didn't die.

In fact, it says the Lord kept him alive. The Lord kept him alive. We died.

If you were to ask that generation that went in to Canaan with Caleb, what about them? What did they think of Caleb? You know what they would say? I could almost hear them say, oh man, what a fighter. What a guy. What a man.

Faithful. Tenacious. Yeah, oh yeah.

He waited and waited for so many years, and all he kept doing was talking about this mountain every day. He never lost sight of it. What do you talk about? What has so taken over you? Is it the cars? Is it your truck? Is it the hobbies? Is it the farm? Is it your friends? Is it social media? Is it... What has taken over you? Because what took over Caleb was the inheritance.

It was that mountain. And if you were to ask one more person, if you were to ask his daughter, Aksa. You read about her in the book of Judges.

If you were to ask his daughter, that's interesting, go to people's families and you'll find out about them. She would say, what a great father I had. What a great dad.

He taught me values. He taught me what's important. Fathers here, mothers, are you teaching your daughters and your sons what is really important? And are you doing it in a spiritual way that will leave indelible impressions? Are you showing them, telling them about the mountain? Or are you telling them how to make a mark in this world? How to make an impression upon worldly people? Hebron.

He got it. He wholly followed the Lord. And he got Hebron for an inheritance.

Oh, you read about Hebron. Tremendous, rich, rich history in Hebron. Abraham buried Sarah there.

Jacob and Leah. Isaac and Rebekah. A lot of history in Hebron.

I just wonder, brethren, we go from this conference, we got a mountain in your heart? You don't? Well, get one. Get one. It's right here.

It's right here. Set our affection on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Because where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.

May God bless us.