We are in our series journey life, lessons
from old testament people of faith, and we're
winding we got 1 more lesson after today,
winding up our study of the book of
Joshua. And you know if you turn to
the book of Joshua,
Joshua begins with basically
god encouraging Joshua to take the place of
Moses. I mean, very opening verse, Moses my
servant is dead,
So you be strong. You be courageous. You
laid these people into the promised land. And
so you have this wonderful story.
Of Joshua as he leads the people across
the Jordan river as they celebrate passover. They
red dedicate their lives. And then you have
this wonderful story of them preparing to conquer
the land.
And as they prepare to conquer the land,
you have 2 stories, 2 battles.
The first battle the battle of Jericho. Is
the battle that they let God fight for
them. And of course, they win the battle.
The second battle is the battle of I
And in that particular battle, they decided to
do it themselves, and it was a disaster.
And basically, you learned that you need to
depend upon the Lord. If you're gonna do
what God has called you to do.
And then what follows after that, from Joshua
6 through Joshua 12,
is a series of battles.
You have all of these battles of where
Israel's is going up against the can.
You have the can who are organizing these
groups of kings, who are gonna try to
stop Israel from taking the land. And you
have just the record of these battles with
a famous battle where Joshua literally calls upon
the sun. In the moon to stop in
the sky, and they do in order for
them to win the battle.
And then when you get to Joshua 13
through 22,
you get to some of the most boring
scripture
in all the bible.
And and if you've done your daily bible
reading, get to it and it's like reading
the gene ideologies in first chronicles.
You're lot, you gotta be kidding are the
sacrifices
in the book of Levi.
I mean, let's be honest this, some of
the bible will put you to sleep fast.
And and this is 1 of them because
what this is from chapter 13 22,
it's where Joshua divides the land among the
tribes.
Now, I don't know if you've tried to
read an old deed before.
June and I, we own a piece of
property that was her family's property dating all
the way back to the early 19 hundreds.
And when you read the deed, it will
say the property begins
near the rock
beside the oak tree
and it'll run about, you know, 40 feet
to a fence post,
where it then goes kinda north with. I
mean, you're reading this going?
I have no clue where the property line
is.
I mean, who can understand this. Well, that's
what this is.
This is about 9 chapters
of reading
about maps
about where the tribes
and their d were and you're like, oh,
please save me. Because you have no idea
where any of these places are. You know,
you're just kinda guessing where these property lines
were back in the ancient Israeli communities.
And so you think, well, let's just skip
all this. But if you do, you skip
an important it part.
It's a story
embedded in this. That's 1 of the most
exciting stories
in all the bible.
And so when the tribes came together to
divide up the land.
Basically, Joshua was said, who goes first
and God said Judah goes first.
And so Judah comes to find out which
land they're going to get as an inheritance
from the lord. So now the people of
Judah approached Joshua at Gil gal, And Caleb
son of Jeff,
the Kin said to him.
Alright. So so Joshua is dev dividing up
the land. Caleb comes
as the representative from Judah.
Why?
Because he's the old man in the house.
I mean, he's the old guy. He is
at least 20 years
older than everyone else in Judah.
You say he was 40 years old when
he spied out the land.
And as a result of the rebellion of
the other 10 spies,
you know, Joshua and he said, we can
take the lamb. But the other 10 said
we could we can't take it because of
that, God said everyone who came out of
Egypt.
20 years and older wanna die,
which meant
everyone
died
who was
from Joshua age 20 years younger.
So here's Joshua,
and he's basically
you know, 85 years old, we'll talk about
there here in a moment.
And the nearest person to him 65.
And so he's the old man in the
house. And so he comes to Joshua when
he says, you know what the Lord said
to Moses, the man of God at K
barn about you and me. Now if you
go back to the text there in numbers
14, and we looked at that a few
weeks ago. But because of my servant, Caleb
has a different spirit and follows me how
wholeheartedly.
I will bring him into the land he
went to and his descendants will inherit it.
There's the promise of god.
Okay?
God made a promise to Caleb because you
have been on my side.
I am going to give you an inheritance
in the land. And if you turn over
to D
is the land that he actually spied out.
That's the land he was given.
He will see it, and I will give
him in his descendants us the land. He
sent his feet on.
That was the promise of God.
So if you can just picture the scene
for over 45
years.
Caleb has been waiting for an inheritance.
45
years.
Longing to go back to the land he
had spied out, longing to take it as
a promise from God.
And now it's time to divide up the
land. And so he comes to Joshua, and
he says, would you please give me that
land? And notice what he says. I was
40 years old when Moses, the servant of
the Lord sent me from K Barn to
explore the land.
And I brought him back a report according
to my convictions.
40 years old.
Now it's 45 years later. Joshua was probably
20
Maybe 30 years old. He's not as old
as as Caleb is. Caleb the oldest living
person in Israel
at this time.
Now then just as the Lord promised he's
kept me alive for 45 years. So they
spent 40 years in the wilderness.
In the last 5 years,
Kayla spent fighting.
5 years of war.
I mean, y'all think about World war 2.
Started in basically 19 41, December of 41
and went through the summer of 19 45.
They fought longer than that.
They've been fighting for 5 years.
And now he says,
Here I am today, I'm 85
years old.
Now the thing you need to understand
about why this is important is even though
they've been fighting for 5 years.
They've not taking the land.
Not taking it at all.
They've been defeating the can,
they've been capturing territory,
but as far as the whole land of
can, they don't have
hardly any of. And notice why the Lord
your God will drive out the nations before
you
little
by little.
As something I don't think most of us
realize.
Is that when they go into the land,
they set up camp, they begin to fight,
they keep defeating these kings, They're they're destroying
some of the cities. Some of the cities
they'd capture, and then the can would come
back in and re inhabit them.
But notice what he says, you will not
be allowed to eliminate them all at once
are the wild animals will multiply around you.
By the way, y'all ever noticed while animals
multiplying around us.
Anybody have a problem with deer
anybody at all.
I mean,
I... I'm like there's more deer in Henderson
field than there are humans.
I mean, you you you can't grow stuff
in your yard.
You can't put out a garden unless you
put a 15 foot fence up.
I mean, they're
everywhere.
And I don't know about y'all, but when
I was a kid, there were no deer.
Mean, we've gone from no deer to deer
everywhere.
I look at June and I say, oh,
dear.
Man alive, heard these come from.
You know, they're they're everywhere. That was the
concern that God had. He's like, listen. The
wild animals will multiply. If I drive all
of the can out at once. We're gonna
do it little bit by a little,
wanna capture territory.
I'm gonna do a lot to you territory,
and then you've got to go and capture
it.
So 5 years of war,
with many more years
to follow
and Caleb knew that.
I'm still as strong day as the day
Moses sent me out. I'm just as vigorous
as to go out to battle now as
I was then.
I love that. I love the attitude that
that Caleb hat. Now you need to understand
something about Kale. He's 85.
At this time, people are living up a
little bit over a hundred.
Moses lived to be a hundred and 20.
Joshua lived to be a hundred and 10.
And so, basically, when you're trying to figure
out how old would Caleb had been in
comparison to how long we live, the answer
would be somewhere around 50.
Maybe 50 to 55 years old.
And he says, listen. I'm just as strong.
I'm just as vigorous. I'm ready to go
into battle at 50 55 years old as
I ever was,
which leads us to lesson number 1.
1 of the most important lessons about about
the story of Caleb. Don't let the years
rob you of your spiritual passion.
I mean, there's a lesson that comes out
of the story of Caleb. It is that
we never
retire
from god's work.
I remember several years ago
back at this first church where I served
as a song leader.
I don't back and read some of the
older bulletin and had noticed that there was
this brother in the church that used to
be very active in the church.
I mean, he'd wait on on the table.
He would lead comm thoughts. He would serve
as an usher. I mean, he was head
of commit. I mean, he was very active
in the church.
But since I had been there, I'd never
seen him do anything.
And so 1 day, I went up, and
I just asked
I said, brother, I I noticed that used
to, you did a lot at church. You
were very active at church. I mean, you
were constantly doing things During the worship services.
I mean, you you were leaving comm thoughts,
you were waiting on the table. You were
you were doing this. You were doing that.
But I never... I noticed you you don't
do that anymore Is there a reason for
that.
And I'll never forget what he said to
me.
He said, when I retired,
you
I retired from everything.
And here I am 20 something years old
thinking.
That the way it works.
I mean, do we get up at a
certain age and it's like, okay. It's time
to pass it to a another generation. Now,
we definitely need to pass the torch to
the next generation. And we'll see that while
that's important here in a few moments. But
do we really retire from our service to
god?
1 of the things that you find in
Romans 12 from the message. Don't burn out.
Keep yourself fueling a flame be alert servants
of the master. Now, I I chose this
translation for a reason.
Earlier in the week, June and I went
camping with my brother and sister law, we
try to do that during the week of
the fourth somewhere, and so we went down
to North Mississippi, and to get down there,
blake, I had to travel through North Alabama.
Okay? I went down to the d,
shot across from D towards tu below. And
and I passed a church
that just caught my attention.
I mean, I just kinda looked at and
like,
sign say what I thought it was? Saying?
And the name of the church was burnt
out baptist church.
I'm serious.
Burnt out baptist church.
And so when I got home, I'm like,
I gotta find out it it's sure enough,
there's a community
down in North Alabama called Burnout, Alabama.
And so the the church there in the
community, the Baptist church just thought, it put
the name up there, burn out Baptist church.
How in the world do you advertise for
that.
Please come to burnout, church to christ where
everybody is burnout.
You
I remember there was a church for a
long time going toward Clark,
x exodus 11, if you go to Clark,
stood of turning back toward Clark where you
turned back toward kind of the northeast, and
there was a community down there named Little
hope.
Yeah. Also... Y'all Know where this is going
don't you.
And and the first time I passed by
the name of the Baptist church was Little
Hope, Baptist church. And I thought, oh, come
on, guys.
Now the last time I passed it, they
finally wise up. They named it new hope.
You know, let's... We we gotta get away
from this little hope. It's killing us.
Well, we as Christians don't need to be
burnout out Christians.
We don't get need to get to a
point where our life where we say, you
know what, we can't do anything anymore. Listen,
we live in age where more and more
of our younger people are losing their faith.
Which means more and more of our older
people have got to stand strong.
And and I mean Joe got up while
ago, and he said it right. He said,
we're We're in the richest nation. We're the
richest generation of this ever lived. We have
more gifts, more talents, more ability, more experienced
than even any people before us.
It's not time to quit.
We need to be like Caleb.
So Caleb says, now give me this il
country that the Lord promised me that day.
You yourself heard then that the ami
were there and their cities were large and
fortified.
But and I I need you to notice
this. The Lord helping me.
I will drive
them out just as he said.
Now, if you go back to numbers, this
is what I love about it. When they
came back,
it's evidently,
Caleb
who announced, you know, there's giants living there.
They went up through the ne gap, came
to He braun where, a hem
chi shy and tell my the descendants of
A lived.
Okay? This is the land
that Caleb asking for. Now, I want you
to pick up on this.
Caleb spied the land out,
not only spied it out, but recognize there
were these giant guys living there,
and he got their names.
What do y'all all think about that?
And he comes back and he says there's
3 of there in particular.
A hem,
Chi and Tal mai.
And y'all, we can take it. Everybody else,
no. No No. We're like grasshopper against these
people.
And so they weren't allowed
to go into the land because of their
lack of faith.
But you know what Caleb did?
Caleb remembered their names.
And for 45 years,
these 3 guys. And I have to think
that they probably were younger than Caleb at
the time.
You know, he went and spot out He
run. Here's these 3 giants
maybe in their late twenties, any he's thinking,
okay. They think they are so bad.
They're not nearly as bad as they think
they are.
If you go back to Joshua,
notice what the text says. From He
Caleb,
drove out the 3 an.
She shy, a hem and tell my, the
sons of A.
Now y'all, he didn't kill them.
He drove them out,
and you go hal.
By the way,
and and stan may correct me on that.
I hope I'm not wrong on this. But
the name Caleb, the 3 letters in Hebrew
that make up the name Caleb is actually
the Hebrew word for dog.
Dog.
I had a good friend who several years
ago came up to me when his first
son was born. And he said last, we
got a son, God's given us a son
and we've given him made great bible name,
1 of the Hebrews of the Old testament
we named him Caleb.
And I looked at him and I said,
did you research the name of that the
meaning of that name?
He said, no.
I said,
Caleb in Hebrew means dog,
and he just looked at me.
And then he said, don't you tell my
wife?
We named our son, dog.
Well, let me tell you It's not just
dog. Dog can be by the way in
the old... In in in the bible dog
is sometimes a word meaning trustworthy.
Faithful. Sometimes it's a very...
Word. And so it can be either side
of it. But basically, what you had here
is that Caleb was the pit bull.
That God sent up against these 3 giants.
And basically what he said is, he runs
not big enough for the 4 of us,
and you guys are leaving.
And can you imagine the sigh
when after Caleb got finished with them, and
they're dragging themselves out of He,
where they going? They didn't have a clue?
But they couldn't live there anymore
because Caleb had driven them out.
With god's help,
nothing is impossible.
You know, Jesus said something in John 14
that we we need to step back and
think about a little bit. You may ask
me for anything in my name and I
will do it. We we sometimes
misunderstand that. We think that in my name
simply means saying in Jesus name at the
end of the prayer.
That's not what Jesus is saying here.
What Jesus is saying is, you may ask
me for anything.
His name is his identity.
His name yes, s God saves mean that
you can ask anything having to do with
who I am.
As the 1 who saves the world, and
I will do it.
John later own would kind of,
in my view, correct it when he says,
this is the confidence we have in approaching
God that if we ask anything
according to his wheel.
In
who Jesus is.
He hears us. And if we know that
he hears us, Whatever we ask, we know
that we have what we ask of him.
The point simply being folks that listen, when
we ask for something that's in the will
of God, God is willing and ready to
respond.
God had called the upon Israel to drive
out the can.
Here was Caleb saying, Lord, I'm ready to
do it.
If you'll just help me and God said,
I will help you.
And you know if there's anything that we
need to realize is that God has a
power
available to us. As long as as a
power used to advance his calls,
that's absolutely amazing.
You go to ephesians 3 now to him
who is able to do
me more than all we ask or imagine.
Our problem is not. That we don't have
the ability to do it. Our problem is
we don't have the
imagination to do it.
And that's what God is calling us to.
He has given us a purpose and he
says, I'm with you, and I empower you
to do it. As long as you're doing
what I've called you to do.
Then number 3,
and I love this lesson Caleb was happy
to work behind the scenes.
We all know Joshua.
Joshua becomes the name becomes the name Jesus
in the new testament.
Joshua is the 1 that got picked to
replace Moses.
Even though you had caleb over here, older
than Joshua
an incredible leader,
and yet a leader who's willing to work
behind the scenes. We read about him in
the exploration in number 13. We read about
him here in Joshua
as they're dividing up the land. We read
about him in the book of judges the
very first chapter. That's it it.
Caleb doesn't show up anymore. Nowhere found in
the new testament.
And so you gotta ask yourself
What's going on with Caitlin.
And Kayla reminds me in the old brother
years ago.
Who who used to tell me last, I
don't like to be front.
I'm not I'm not that kind of leader.
I I don't wanna be out there, you
know, leading
songs or leading in worship or teaching. He
says, I just don't have those abilities.
Says, but what I can do
is I can help people.
He was no old Greyhound bus, retired Greyhound
bus driver.
And and what he would do when he
wasn't driving his bus as he would help
people, especially with us.
I mean, he would go and he would
work at their houses.
He would go and he would mow their
yards.
My next door neighbor was a retired Greyhound
bus driver and he got down where he
couldn't take care of his yard Guess who
showed up every week to mow he is
yard. This older brother there at the church
I was working at.
If I was going on vacation, guess l,
guess who else is yard got mode.
Mine and June got moved.
I mean, we would pull in. And we'd
say, old brother son. So he's been added
again.
He would come up to me at church,
and he would say last we need a
new sign out at the road. They signs
looking kinda up. Don't you think? I said,
oh, yeah.
He said, what would it cost to replace
that sign? I I don't I don't have
a clue. He said find out.
And I'd I go find out, and I'd
call him up, and I say, hey. The
cost of replacing that sign would be, you
know, 10000 dollars, he would say do it.
And I'll write a check for it.
He came in 1 day, and he says,
you know, I'm getting old. I can't hear
real good. Anybody got that problem beside me.
You know?
By the way, I have to ask June
to repeat herself all the time.
And I've decided it's 1 of 2 problems.
Either June talking like this all the time.
And by the way, some of y'all know
that,
or my hearings not as good.
My gas is is a little of both.
But anyway, this brother came in and they
says, I can't quite hear. How old is
our sound system? I said, I think it
goes back to when we built the building?
He said, how much would it cost to
put a new sound system in. By the
way, if you put in a new sound
system lately anywhere?
I mean, even at the house, it's gonna
cost you.
And so I said, well, I'll find out
and I went and told him he said
put it in, I'll write the check.
He was 1 of these guys who was
always behind the scenes,
serving,
helping,
encouraging.
Doing what he could. That was Caleb.
Caleb was someone who didn't want the limelight.
He just wanted to do what God had
called him to do.
And because of this Joshua Blessed.
Son of Jeff
gave him He as an inheritance. And I
love verse 14,
So He has belonged to Caleb, Son of
Jeff, the Kin I ever says. He took
the land.
By the way, I don't know if you
remember what He was.
He square Abraham bought a cave.
It's where he buried Sarah
it's where he was buried.
Is where Isaac was buried.
Rebecca.
It's where Jacob,
Leah,
It's where evidently. They carried the bones back,
of Joseph to bury where in he, but
they had to capture it first.
I think that's why Caleb wanted that land.
The text goes on though and and then
takes an odd turn.
After a Joshua dismissed the Israel israelites, and
this is over in the book of judges.
They went to take possession of the land.
Okay? In other words, they started fighting, they
started taking possession of the land. They've been
here now for years.
But, I mean, they still have a lot
of work to do. And the people serve
the lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and
of the elders who out lived and who
had seen all the great things the Lord
had done for Israel.
But if you know the book of judges.
You know what happens next it's not good.
Look at what the text says.
After that whole generation had been gathered to
their ancestors.
Another generation grew up
who knew neither of the Lord nor what
he had done for Israel?
How long does it take for a country?
To forget God.
When generation.
That's all it takes.
John Mike and I we're talking about this
this morning.
And I ask, are we living in that
generation?
A generation that says we don't wanna serve
God anymore?
We wanna serve the gods around us.
Because that's what the israel israelites did.
The israelites did evil in the eyes of
the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God.
They serve the by Als, the Ash
that was... Those were the gods of the
of the can.
And the anger of the Lord burned against
Israel so that he sold him into the
hands by of K,
Res,
king of Ara,
ara, na
Stand next time, you're gonna have to come
up and read that for you. Okay? Alright.
To whom the israelites were subject for 8
years.
In other words, God said, you don't remember
the slavery you had in Egypt.
Your grandfather suffered that.
I wanna give you a taste of it.
And of course, the people repent
and God, at that time, and the name
of the book, of course, is judges
would raise up a judge to deliver them.
You might wanna guess who you raised up,
watch this.
But when they cried out to the Lord,
raised up for them to deliver, Auth, son
of Kin as, Caleb younger
brother.
Who saved them. Now, you look at this,
you go, okay, so it's Caleb nephew. Well,
it's not just Caleb nephew.
But Caleb needed to take a town. He
said, whoever takes this town, I'm gonna get
my daughter to them as a wife, and
I else the 1 who took it. So
he ended up marrying
his first cousin.
And I know some of y'all going. You're
kidding me. Now, they did that back then.
See legal in Tennessee now. If y'all haven't
heard.
We we we've made right,
feral, we we passed the law say you
keep married your first cousin anymore.
So go down to Mississippi. You'll be alright.
But anyway,
I wish I could laugh at that board,
but I can't.
Alright.
But this is Caleb Son law.
Who becomes the first judge of Israel.
I can't help but wonder, why did god
choose him?
Was it because of the influence of his
father law?
His uncle.
The 1 who from the beginning,
followed
wholeheartedly.
What made Caleb of such an inspiration for
God's people ever sense
because Caleb love God with all of his
heart soul and strength. Those are the words
of God.
Not not not our words, not the the
writers of the bible, but god's words. So
He has blown to Caleb son of Jeff
Du, the Kin every sense because he followed
the Lord the God of Israel
wholeheartedly.
In other words, he had taken to heart
what Moses has said in g, hero Israel.
Lord our God, the Lord is 1. So
you love the Lord your God with all
your heart with all your soul and with
all your strength.
And that's what Caleb bit done.
So as we get older,
and I will speak to those of us
who are older.
As we get older.
We have a choice we have to make.
We can begin to back off.
Now, listen, I understand that we can't do
what we used to do. Alright. I understand
that at all too well.
I don't know about y'all this week, but
I'd go outside for 10 minutes and then
go inside for 2 hours to rest.
I mean, that... That's that's what the heat
will do to me nowadays.
But when it comes to the kingdom of
God,
I don't think we should ever retire.
And what keeps us from retiring is that
whole hard love.
That devotion that Jesus said this is the
first and the greatest of the commandments
follow it,
and everything else will fall into its place.
And so speaking once again to those of
us who are older.
Where are you at with your walk with
God?
If you got to the point for you've
given up, I hope not.
I hope like Caleb that all of us
can say, you know what? I'm just as
strong spiritually today. In fact, stronger spiritually today
than I used to be. Why? Because I
love God with all my heart soul and
strength.
That's what the church at Henderson needs more
than anything else. Yes, we need our young
people.
And we oftentimes speak to our young people,
but we need those of you who are
older as well.
We need your abilities, your talents, your gifts,
your ability to make this church what God
wants it to be. And if you've not
been doing that. Maybe it's time to rec
Maybe it's time to say God, I'm coming
back.
If we can help you in any way
and respond to the gospel.
Let us know how we can right now
as we stand the scene.