Fully Following God

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For his blessing upon our whole day and upon this class, the time that we spend in the word, let's pray together, if you would.
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Our Father in heaven, how kind you have been to us, even today when we see your good hand in our lives.
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Lord, you protected us and kept us through the night last night. And it is of the Lord's mercies, even this morning, that we have not been consumed.
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Lord, great is your faithfulness. And we look to you now to help us, to encourage us, to teach us.
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Lord, we pray that by the working of the spirit of God, that the word of God would strike our hearts.
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We would learn much. We'd learn more of Christ. We would learn more of our great God and King and learn how it is that we ought to behave ourselves and to live as your representatives, as your ambassadors in this world.
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And what it is our hearts and minds should be focused upon and that we might be able to honor and glorify and magnify
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Christ Jesus, our King, even more so. Lord, we pray that you would please remember the day and all those that are still traveling here today to the church building to give them safety and mercy.
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And Lord, that we might just have a wonderful time of fellowship, a wonderful time of worship and adoring you, our great
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God and King. We thank you for your many blessings to us. We don't want to take anything lightly. Lord, even forgive us our sins even this day, as we think of your great holiness and our great sinfulness, we're grateful that your grace is greater than all of our sin.
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We praise you and bless you in Jesus' name, amen. If I were to mention some names,
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Meshach, Shadrach, Abednego, some of you get mental pictures and you know exactly who
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I'm talking about. If I was to mention Jonathan and David, you might get another thoughts in your mind and in your heart.
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Or maybe, and I'm just thinking of Old Testament right now. If you think of Moses and Aaron and the tabernacle, these people's names, as you think and look back on the
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Old Testament, of course, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10, that as we look back on the
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Old Testament, it's there for our example. It's there for us to learn from so that we don't make the same mistakes, that we treat or we look at our lives and we look at our great
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God as he ought to be looked at and worshiped and served and trusted.
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When we look at people's lives like, and I mentioned Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, you probably have, most of you have an idea of who
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I am talking about. But if I were to name these names, now, if you know the answer to this question, please don't ruin the whole thing for me.
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Yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about. But if I were to mention these names, and I wonder how many people you know have been named these names.
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What if I was to say Shammuah, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gadiel, Gadi, Amael, Shethar, Nabi, and Guellet, I can't even pronounce it.
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Guel is the last one, Guel. If I was to mention those names, not familiar, but do you have a mental picture?
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Do you know who I'm talking about? Some of you, I got a couple of maybe half nods.
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We're gonna find out that these are men, an example that we ought not to follow.
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And then we're gonna look at, of course, and I would like you to turn your Bibles to Joshua chapter 14. And I would like to look at the proper way and the proper behavior, the proper attitude, the proper mindset that we ought to have.
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If at the end of the class, I don't answer that question, somebody please remind me if I get too into this class.
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Joshua chapter 14. And I've been reading in the book of Joshua, just been very encouraged this past couple of weeks, and particularly in the life of a man who is the namesake of one of my sons, and his name is
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Caleb. In Joshua chapter 14, at this point in the book, they've already entered into the promised land, the children of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua.
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And as they're coming into the land, of course, there is the victory that they had, the defeats that they had, and there are cities that still need to be conquered.
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There are different things that are going to take place. But one of the things that God had said that would happen would be that the land would be divided among the tribes, among the people.
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And we come into the places where we're starting to see this taking place in the book of Joshua here in chapter 14.
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But we come to this one particular man, this man named Caleb. And the reason, one of the things that also spurred in my mind and heart this
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Sunday school class was one, Jeremy Smith, when he came, and on a
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Saturday morning with the men's breakfast, he talked about having a single focused, a single mindedness when it comes to being a believer.
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He talked about that a strong man is one who does not have a divided heart.
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He's not all over the place, but he's focused in one area. And then Pastor Mike last week touched on it in Matthew chapter six, in the
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Sermon on the Mount, verse 33, where it says, seek first the kingdom of God. And this idea of a single focusedness, single focused in a person's life.
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And as I was reading through Joshua and I come to this chapter, and I come to this one account of this man who, there's no doubt about it,
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I'm not going to teach a Sunday school class on, dare to be a Daniel, crave to be a
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Caleb. No, it's not that, but I know it's all God. I know it's
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God working in this man's life. It is God who made Caleb who he was.
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It was God who blessed Caleb. It was God who sustained him and was merciful to him and preserved him all the days of his life.
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But when we go back and if we get to look at it, we're going to see that God himself points out to Caleb that Caleb had certain attributes in his life.
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He had a focus in his life. God did, Moses did. And even in this chapter, we're gonna see that Caleb, what he does is he doesn't put himself forth.
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What he does first as he begins to speak here, when he speaks of the land that he believes that God had promised to him, he's not speaking in an arrogant tone.
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He's not being presumptuous. He just goes back and he recalls in the ears of Joshua, what was told by God to Joshua and Caleb when it came to the possession that he would have in the land of Canaan.
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And I'd like to begin reading in verse five,
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Joshua 14, verse five. As the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did and they divided the land.
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Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the
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Kenizzite, said unto him, Caleb speaking to Joshua, thou knowest the thing that the
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Lord said unto Moses, the man of God concerning me and thee in Canaan Barnea.
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Of course, Joshua is leading. Moses is dead. Joshua has taken over. And it's time where the land is being divided.
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Joshua is the leader of this. Caleb presents himself before Joshua as the other men were doing that.
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And Caleb says here, he says, you know something, Joshua. Joshua, you were there.
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And Joshua had been there to witness what God said through Moses when it came to the promises of who would get what and what land and the blessing that would come down to the different people.
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Continue reading in verse seven. He says, I was 40 years old when Moses the servant of the
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Lord sent me from Canaan Barnea to spy out the land and I brought him word again as it was in my heart.
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So we're talking many years previous. Joshua and Caleb were chosen out of the tribes to go into the promised land, to spy it out and to bring back a report.
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And at that point, Caleb says he's 40 years old. And when he came back, he gave the report that was on his heart.
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Verse eight, nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the
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Lord my God or I followed the Lord my God fully.
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I fully or wholly followed the Lord. And really for me, that phrase was the meat for my meditations on the word of God.
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Cause it brought me back to Jeremy Smith, that strong man having a single focus.
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It made me think of Matthew 6 .33, where Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.
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It also reminded me of Colossians 1 .18, where it says that whole book, the whole theme of that book is that Christ might have the preeminence and that he might be first in all things.
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And this idea of having a focus, not like in the book of James where it talks about somebody having a divided heart.
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It's about seeking the Lord first. It's about having a love for God that is focused singly.
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It is a commitment singly to the Lord. And here it's described or Caleb is described.
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And notice he says, my brothers that when we went into the land, they made the heart of the people melt and we'll hopefully get to touch on that in that it was the other men that went in with Joshua and Caleb, what kind of report did they give?
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Yeah, it wasn't too good, right? Unfavorable, doubt, fear, we can't do this.
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And Joshua and Caleb alone were the ones who, and if we look elsewhere, we'll see
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Joshua and Caleb are the only two out of the 12 who it gives this description of them that they wholly followed the
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Lord. But notice it's interesting in this verse here that Caleb is saying this of himself.
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And I don't believe he's arrogant when he's doing this. I don't believe he's presumptuous. I believe he's just, as we're looking through here, he's just recalling what the
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Lord has already said about him because if we look back in the book of Numbers, we look in the book of Deuteronomy, we're gonna see that God said this of Joshua and God said this of Caleb.
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But he's a man who fully followed the Lord or wholly followed the Lord. And the key to Caleb's life is that God was first.
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He put the Lord first. He did not think of himself. It wasn't his dreams.
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It wasn't his goals. It wasn't his desires. And this word to follow here, following the
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Lord has the idea of to show full obedience. He was a man, if God said it,
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I will do it. I remember, I always heard that before I went into the military, you get all kinds of advice of what you should do and how you should behave yourself.
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And somebody once told me, when you go to boot camp and the drill sergeant says something, you jump before you even know what he's going to tell you what it is that you've got to do.
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You just say, yes, drill sergeant. And you just jump and start doing it. And it's an immediate obedience that they want.
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And with Caleb's life, the key was, it was a lifelong obedience. It wasn't fits and starts.
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It wasn't half -heartedness. It was a focus on obeying God, putting God first before himself, before others, before his goals.
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What seemed mentally and physically impossible, it didn't matter if God said it, we're going to do this.
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It didn't matter what the voices of others were, the different counsel or influences that came his way.
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And don't we hear those cries to us today? Don't we hear all kinds of, you can't do that.
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And you can't have a prosperous, blessed church if you will just preach the word of God.
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It just won't happen. And my idea, and I believe our idea as far as leadership of this church, and I know you as members of the church, is to say, let
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God be true in every man a liar. It does not matter what men say. I like to take the stance that George Mueller took when it came to having an orphanage.
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You know, one of the reasons why he had that orphanage, yes, he wanted to provide for children. He wanted to make sure that those that were fatherless and homeless would be taken care of.
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But I remember in reading about his life, the whole thing was put together more than anything is that George Mueller was going to prove that God would be faithful in answering prayer and that he would be honored in answering prayer and he wouldn't ask anybody for anything.
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And all he would do was pray and God would be glorified in the answering of those prayers. And so much so that he got the building, he got the staff, and then it's time to open it.
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And he forgot all about getting some children. It was this kind of, because his whole focus was that God will get the glory.
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I will prove to this world who does not believe in God, who does not believe that God is all powerful, or God even exists.
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I will prove to this world through this ministry. I want to show, and it's kind of like the psalmist, that let the nations be glad.
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Let God be honored and magnified and glorified through the ministry of this church. And I believe that that was
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Caleb's type of focus. It didn't matter what anybody else said. It didn't matter what anybody else thought.
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What it was, it was the honor of God. God said that he was going to give this land to the children of Israel.
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And as a man of 40 years old, way back in those, and that's 45 years previous to this time, he and Joshua and 10 other men who were leaders, who ought to have known better, who ought to have, they were the ones that were selected from the tribes, were to go into the land and they were to spy out the land and bring back a good report.
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But what was so unique about this whole charge that they were given?
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What did God say before they went in? What did God say to them as far as, would they get the land?
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Was it a possibility that they'd get the land? I mean, they had to do it themselves, Steve? Yeah. Yeah, the
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Lord gave it to them. And he told them to go in and he said that he would go before them.
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The promises that you read, he said that that land that's flowing with milk and honey is yours. It's gonna be, and I'm gonna go before you and I'm gonna fight for you and you're gonna be fine.
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And Caleb believed that. Let's read on here in Joshua 14. After he says that the other men made the heart of the people melt, he said, but I wholly followed the
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Lord my God. And Moses swear on that day saying, surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children's forever because, and here we read it again, because you have wholly followed the
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Lord or followed the Lord fully. Your translation might read. You're going to get what
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God promised. You're going to be blessed because you're a man who has wholly followed the
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Lord. And my desire in the Sunday school class this morning is that we could just be encouraged.
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And not to be encouraged to say, okay, here's the stamp of a man, Caleb, and let's be like Caleb.
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Let's all talk about being Caleb's and go around and are you gonna be strong like Caleb, but be a man of God who lived in a relationship with the
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Lord in one that was unique. I believe we can be encouraged today in this way.
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Not that we'll all be perfect, but we'll be progressing in this relationship, in our walk with our
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God. I mean, we are, as we look in the New Testament, the scriptures talk about having fellowship with God.
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Our elder Pradeep knows all about 1 John, the book of 1 John. And one of the themes in there that just seems to be, particularly in chapter one, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
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The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Then he goes on to later to say, but if we sin, if we confess our sins, he said faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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There's this whole idea of this teaching that fellowship with God is very important.
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John chapter four, Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well about those that will worship God in spirit and in truth.
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And he says, and the father seeks people who will come after him in that way.
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There's a desire for God. We were created for the glory of God, of course, to bring him honor and glory.
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We are created for God's pleasure. And part of that pleasure of God is to have a people to call his very own and to have a relationship with that people.
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And we've been brought into a relationship with our God through Jesus Christ, his son. He has died for us on Calvary.
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He has shed his blood, taken our sins upon himself. He was buried. He rose again. God grants us the gift of salvation.
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And we come in, we are reconciled to God. We have become the friends of God.
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We come into a fellowship and a relationship with God. And to Caleb and to Joshua, that relationship was important.
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And there was something that they did in Caleb particular in this idea of holy following after God or fully following God.
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It had something to do with maintaining that relationship as in the human responsibility, the part that I know
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God is sovereign and he blesses and he upholds us and he keeps us, he'll never leave us, forsake us. He strengthens us, he provides for us, he guides us, he teaches us.
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But on the other hand, we are a responsible people who are to work out our salvation, fear and trembling.
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We're to be a people who push on, who wrestle, who strive, who labor and give ourselves and sacrifice.
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And yet we're to be devoted and committed and singly focused. And here it says for a second time in verse nine, that Caleb was a man who wholly followed the
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Lord, my God. Verse 10, and now behold, the Lord hath kept me alive as he said.
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You go back and you look at the old accounts. God said, I'll preserve you. You obey me, you go in,
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I'll take care of you. I'll drive the enemies out, you'll be victorious. And Caleb says here that God has kept me alive.
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So here we've already seen that God is a focus in his life.
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He wholly follows after the Lord. He understands that it's God who has preserved him all of his life.
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And notice he says, it is God that has kept me alive as he said, according to God's promise.
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And when God promises, he keeps it. He says these 40 and five years, even since the
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Lord spake these words unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness and now, lo,
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I am this day 85 years old. One of the things about this, and I thought
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I'd touch this later. I kind of step all over myself when I get out of order, but I got to do it because I don't want to forget it, is that this whole passage to me is an encouragement to all believers.
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It's an encouragement to the young, because we see here that if we remember our creator in the days of our youth, if we remember that we ought to uphold and keep our relationship with the
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Lord and our walk with God, and we take care of the spiritual disciplines, we're people of prayer, we're people of the word of God, that God blesses that faithfulness.
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And as young people, God rewards those who are willing to follow him for many years.
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And then for those that are here that are more aged, as we call seasoned saints.
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I look around the room and there are seasoned saints in this room. And sometimes Deb and I talk and it's like, man, where are the years going?
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You know, it just flies by. But to the aged and to the older,
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God will not forsake you. He gives continual strength. You can be used of God and be useful instruments of God to the glory of God, even to old age.
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God will never leave you nor forsake you. I remember in Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31, that verse that speaks of, they that wait upon the
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Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They shall walk and not be weary.
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They shall walk and not be weary. They shall run and not be in faint, something along those lines.
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In the previous verses up there, it says the young man will fall or fail, but the old ones will get strength.
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And that strength comes from the Lord. Caleb is a man here who understands that not only is it God who has preserved his life and kept him alive.
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And there were a lot of situations that Caleb had gone through, even up to this point where he could have lost life, but God preserved him.
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To his old age, he's 85 years old and he has seen that God has been faithful to him.
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He's been useful in the hands of God. And for those of you here that are in those years, if you think of Caleb here, 85 years old, be patient, hold on to the promises that God has given to you in his word, that he will never leave you nor forsake you.
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That Jesus Christ in John 14 has said, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you,
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I'll come again and receive you unto myself, that where you are, that where there will
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I be also. Jesus said, you will receive your heart's desire and ultimately end up in glory and see
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Christ face to face, the place that God has promised to you. But as we look at Caleb, what we see here is that there were some 45 years previous,
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God had promised him and he believed it. He believed that God had promised the land to the people and he went in and there was a bad report and they were not allowed to go in.
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And here he is 45 years later, for the 40 years, I mean the 38 years in the wilderness, there's seven years in the land are already up to this point from chapter one to chapter 14 in the book of Joshua.
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So the 40 plus the 38 plus the seven gives you the 85. And that's where he is now.
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And at 85 years old, Caleb says in verse 11, and as yet, I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in.
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Now, therefore, give me this mountain where the Lord spake in that day, for thou heardest in that day how the
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Anakims were there and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be the Lord be with me, then
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I will be able to drive them out as the Lord said. Now is this presumption? I mean, is he bragging on himself?
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I'm strong, I can handle this. I can do this all by myself. I've been to the Sunday school classes.
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I've been to the FOF classes. I go to IBS. I hear all the preaching.
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I memorize the scripture and I can do it. That's absolutely, that's not what he's saying.
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He's attributing to God, not only his life in the past, his life presently where God has preserved him and where he is.
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And he says that he attributes to God even the strength that he has at this old age.
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And I think that's an encouragement to any of us. Some of us are only 40 and we might feel like we're 85 or 50.
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But God is the strength of our lives. God is the one who will enable us.
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And in Caleb's life here, you see the whole focus, everything that he's saying. It's all goes, as God had said,
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God has preserved me. He's strong and he knows that because, and he'll be able to go in and conquer
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Hebron as he says here, if the Lord is with me. He knows that it must be his dependence and his trust must be in the
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Lord. And it says here in verse 13, Joshua blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for his inheritance.
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Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite unto this day.
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And here we have it for the third time because that he fully followed or wholly followed the
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Lord God of Israel. And what I wanna encourage you this morning with is that with all of the different things that can come our way, with all the challenges that we have as far as our schedules, with the things that are pulling on us, parents with young children, men with jobs, church, ministries, home, life, marriage, mowing the lawn, taking care of bills and finances and all these things that come our way.
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It is absolutely critical for us to remember that it ought to be the focus of our lives that we are people who make sure that we make every effort in our lives to constantly remind ourselves to be people three times over here.
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I just think it's just when we see that in the Bible, it is just an emphasis for us to show that this is something that is important.
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We ought to be a people who wholly follow the Lord or fully follow the Lord. And what does that mean?
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I had one commentator that I read and it said there that this idea of wholly following the
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Lord, fully following the Lord has the definition of closing the gap. It has the idea of a hunter who is out in the field pursuing the prey, the game.
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And as the prey moves, the hunter closes the gap to stay close to the prey so he does not lose sight and he will not lose that game.
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And ultimately as he's following and he's going through the woods, going through the fields and following the prey, he eventually, as the prey moves, he moves.
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And it's this idea of closing the gap. And I thought that was a wonderful description or an analogy of what it means and what
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Caleb did in his life. Joshua too, but here we're focusing on Caleb. It kind of reminded me in the
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Old Testament of the idea of, do you remember the tabernacle that they had in the wilderness, the tent in the wilderness?
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What kind of marked that out as compared to all the other nations? What was it that was very remarkable that was there in the tabernacle?
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Anybody remember? When it came to the presence of God, okay, I'll help you out.
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What was remarkable? Okay, there was a pillar of the cloud by day that was over the tabernacle and by night there was a pillar of fire.
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How did the children of Israel know when it was time to strike camp, bring it all up, pack up the tabernacle properly, strike their tents, get all their stuff together and their families and move?
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How did they know when to move? The pillar moved. And the pillar is a representation of the presence of God with the children of Israel, of a physical, visible representation of the presence of God.
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And as the pillar moved, the people knew it's time to move. That was just what they did.
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Caleb had seen that as a younger man and know that it was time with Moses at that time, that it was time to strike camp, it was time for the priest and all their duties to take all of the articles of the tabernacle and properly put it together to where they had the coverings and the poles and everything and the procession that they had when they were traveling.
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They kept in close proximity to the pillar and when it stopped, that's where they stopped and they set up the tabernacle again in the camp.
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And when I was thinking of this closing the gap, this staying with the Lord and following God, that was the mark of Caleb's life.
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That was this idea of closing the gap. When it came to Caleb in his life, he had a lifelong commitment of following the
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Lord. It started in Egypt, it was in the wilderness and it was now that he is in Canaan, he hasn't given up that.
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He knows where God wants him to be. One of the remarkable things about some of the mighty men of David, if you look in the book of First Chronicles is that those men had an understanding of what
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Israel ought to do. And they had an understanding of what Israel ought to do based upon knowing the will of God and what
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God would have Israel do, to be an obedient people, to follow the Lord, to be His people, to be wholly set apart for God, to keep the law of God.
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And those men of his, not only were they physical warriors and they were great, but they were spiritual men and they were men of understanding it says, men of understanding.
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And Caleb also was a man who understood back then, even at the age of 40 years old, that it was important to do what
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God said, no matter what, no matter who said what, no matter what the other side had said.
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And I want you to look with me, let's take a quick look back in the book of Numbers at that historical account.
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In Numbers chapter 13, I'm gonna tell you here so I don't forget, but you will see in Numbers chapter 13, the
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Lord speaks to Moses and He says to Moses, He commands Moses to send men to search out the land in Canaan in verse two.
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He says, notice it says, send men that they may search the land of Canaan, verse two, which
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I give unto the children of Israel. Every tribe of their fathers send a man, everyone a ruler among them.
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And so they select the men. Verses four to verse 15, you have the list of men, their names.
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In verse 17, it says, Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, get you up this way southward and go up into the mountain and see the land, what it is, and the people that dwell therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many.
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What the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad, and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether there be tents or strongholds, fortifications or tents, and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether it be wood therein or not, and be of good courage and bring of the fruit of the land.
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Now the time was in the time of the first ripe grapes. Verse 21, so they went up and searched the land from the wilderness
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Zin to Rehob as the men come from Hamath. And they ascended by the south and they came to Hebron where Ahiamen and Shishai and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there.
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Now Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt. Verse 23, and they came unto the brook
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Eshkol and cut down from the thence a branch with one cluster of grapes and they bear it between two upon a staff and they brought to the pomegranates and the figs.
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The place was called the brook Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.
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And they returned from searching the land after 40 days. And they went and came to Moses. Verse 26, and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel unto the wilderness
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Paran and Kadesh and brought back word unto them. And so they've gone and they're gonna bring back the word.
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Verse 27, and they told him and said, we came unto the land whither thou sentest us and surely it flows with milk and honey.
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And this is the fruit of it. They show him the grapes, no doubt. That's this big cluster of grapes between the shoulders of the two men.
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And so far, this report is good. So far, so good. Just like God said, we came in there, milk, honey, and fruit.
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Verse 28, nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land and the cities are fortified or walled and very great.
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And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. And we know that if we look down in verse 33, the children of Anak are giants, huge men.
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Verse 29, and the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the
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Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of Jordan.
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And I'm wondering, as I'm reading this, don't you, you know, don't you, these men here, I'm trying to talk to them and say, don't you understand that God knows this?
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Does God know that there are giants in the land? Does God know that the Jebusites and the
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Amalekites and the Hittites, that they're there? Of course he did. It's all according to his plan.
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But he said, go in, nonetheless, I give you this land. And in other places, we can read that God's gonna go before them,
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God is going to fight for them, God is going to help them and they'll win the battle through the
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Lord's doing. And this bad report is given, but I wanted you to see what a man who wholly follows the
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Lord or a woman who wholly or fully follows the Lord, what kind of attitude do they have?
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What kind of, when they see this thing that seems insurmountable, it seems unbelievable, it's just not possible, how do they react?
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Verse 30, and Caleb stilled the people before Moses. That means he quieted or he hushed the people.
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And he said, let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.
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Not in his own strength, I know he doesn't believe that they are going to in their own strength to it, but because God commanded them.
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And God promised that this land was theirs and he would go with them, if so be that the Lord be with him.
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You'll notice in Joshua chapter one, even when Joshua, the book that book opens, one of the keys in that book as far as for a person who has great success or prosperity or blessing from the
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Lord is, it has all and everything to do with the presence of God with you. And God is ever present with us, brethren.
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God is, he'll never leave us nor forsake us. And when we undertake something, our thought is, and Caleb's thought is here, we can do this.
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We can maintain and we can have fellowship and we can have a ministry in New England to the glory of God, because our
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God said he would be present with us. And it's Christ building this church. And it's the Lord that's with us.
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And it's not gonna be of our effort or our great oratory or our great skills that we have. It has all to do with the
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Lord. And a person who closes the gap understands that it's all about God, it isn't about us.
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And as God is working and moving, as God establishes a church, we need to be there.
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When God puts his word before us on how we ought to do ministry, we need to make sure that we're in tune with that in the scriptures and that we obey
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God and we do it God's way, not man's way. And we hear all about how man can do it his way.
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I mean, one of the latest things, and you probably hear a lot in blogs and different things is this whole Mark Driscoll affair that's going on as far as the inappropriate language that's being used in the pulpit to communicate holy truth.
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And the reason why it's being done, as they say, is because society's bottom has dropped out and this type of inappropriate language is used in society.
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And certainly it is when we go out in public, it is just amazing what we hear. But because they talk like that, then we need to reach them.
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So let's us talk like that and preach the Bible that way. That is unbiblical, it is not sound speech, holy speech, and it doesn't matter what they say, we're gonna do it the biblical way.
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And with Caleb, it didn't matter what the other 10 men said and those are the names that I mentioned earlier.
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I don't know, I have never heard of anybody who is called Gadiel or Gaddy or Shether, but I have met and I know people who are named
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Joshua and Caleb, because they were two men who fully followed the Lord. And they had a testimony that they wanted to close the gap with God.
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I believe that even when they sinned before God, their desire was to confess their sins so they could renew that fellowship quickly.
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And certainly we have that teaching in the New Testament as we look, as I had mentioned earlier.
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I believe that when it came to Caleb, as we see here, he says, we're able, not that we're able, but because God is able to do this.
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Verse 31 though, it says, but the men that went up with him said, we be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.
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True, that's true, but they didn't understand that though their enemy is strong,
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God is stronger. And when a person wholly follows the Lord, they understand that God is greater than our enemies and we trust
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God to overcome. We ask God to put a hedge about this church and to protect us as a people of God, as we minister for the
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Lord, as we labor to preach the gospel, the desire that we have is to look to God to be our all in all and not to look to our own strength or methods or means or gimmicks, but let's do church ministry the
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Lord's way. Doesn't matter what other people said. Caleb had this evil report that was witnessed right before him.
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Verse 32, it says, they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched under the children of Israel, saying the land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eats up or devours the inhabitants thereof.
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And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature, the giants, verse 33.
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And there we saw the giants, the son of Anak, which come of the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so we were in their sight.
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And they had totally lost perspective that their God was great and they were nothing. God would give them the victory if they would only obey him.
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In the next chapter, we don't have time to go there, but if you were to read chapter 14, you would see that what takes place is, is
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God wants to wipe out the children of Israel, to start all over again. Moses said, no, don't do that.
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It would be a blotch against your name and against your testimony. Show your strength in being merciful, pardon.
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And God does, but the consequences of this great sin of not trusting God is that those 10 men, and I was reminded of this, they were killed immediately.
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They died. Joshua and Caleb alone would remain alive out of those 12.
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And from everybody from the age of 20 and on down would be spared from 20 all the way up, would die in the wilderness over the years.
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There's an estimation that it could have been anywhere from 600 ,000 to a million, a million and a half people.
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I have a note in the book of Joshua. I think somebody calculated at once. And I can't remember,
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I think it was something like 87 or how many people per day would have to have died over the 38 years in the wilderness.
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And God, the consequences of not believing was great in those men's life who did not follow the
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Lord, but Caleb was a man who did. And I just wonder if you, as you think about this in your life lately, as you consider what ministry you're doing, as you consider your life in general, following the
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Lord, do you have that single devotion with all of your heart? Not half -hearted, not giving
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God the scraps of your life, but closing the gap and giving the Lord all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your will to do
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God's will. Be willing as you read the word of God and God reveals the truth in it that you're willing to say, yes,
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God, as God teaches me, I'm gonna walk in that light. I'm gonna do what God tells me to.
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And I wanna stay close as the Lord is teaching. I wanna stay close to him. I wanna be a person, as James said, draw close to God and he will draw close to you to have that close fellowship with the
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Lord. A single focus and no distractions, nothing unimportant will override what's important to make sure that we focus on giving
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God and God is glorified and pleased in all that we do. It's a separated life too, because those men rose up and they wanted to stone
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Caleb. They wanted to kill him, but it didn't matter what came his way.
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He stayed true to the Lord and focused on the Lord. He wasn't one of a divided heart.
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He closed the gap. MacArthur speaking even about his friend Joshua said,
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Joshua found that the ultimate measure of prosperity and success was knowing how
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God wants his people to live and living that way. Knowing how God wants people to live and living that way.
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And it's simple, isn't it? It sounds so simple, but by the grace of God, it can be done. What kind of a testimony do you as a child of God want to have?
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One who is divided, one who is half following the Lord. There is a hymn that we sing and it talks about take my life and let it be three quarters consecrated to thee, right?
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Take my life, let it be wholly consecrated. It's a good word. It has to do with our all full obedience to the
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Lord. And the person who will fully or wholly follow God knows God is with them.
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He is a present help and strength to them. He enables them, he protects them. God will fight the battles for them.
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And God blesses, age is no limitation. Strength comes from the Lord, but it is putting, as we look in the
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New Testament, it would be Christ first in all things. It would be seeking first the kingdom of God.
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It would be fully trusting God, not perfectly as I said earlier, we'll fail in this area. There'll be times when we will get distracted and we will think about things and it'll take us, we will get derailed at times, but it is confessing, coming back and closing that gap and walking as we should in fellowship with the
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Lord and having a desire to be useful to God, to have a life of wonderful service to God as Caleb did.
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Just think, he's 85 years old and he wants to go in. And you know what takes place in the next chapter in Joshua chapter 15?
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In 14, Joshua gives Caleb the land. And in 15, it says that Caleb goes into the land, it's around verses 13 and 14, and he defeats those giants.
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And what I love about the whole thing is when of all the land that Caleb could have asked for, he asked for Hebron.
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And I was kind of thinking about that. I was just wondering, you know, that is the place where the giants were. That is the place where his other 10 men that went in with him, they did not wholly follow the
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Lord. That is the place and because of that and the testimony that came back and all of that, that God was not believed and he was doubted and he was dishonored at that place.
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And I believe Caleb, like George Mueller, wanted to go back to that very place and he wanted to see
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God's name magnified there. He wanted to see God glorified in the defeat of those giants that were there.
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And he had to wait 45 years for it to take place, but God preserved him, God kept him. And isn't that just a great testimony of the faithfulness of God, that if you will have this focus, this being holy, a person who is wholly focused, fully focused on the
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Lord, that God blesses that obedience. God blesses that faith. God blesses that desire for the
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Lord to be magnified. And Caleb, at that point, 45 years later, is gonna make it right. God is gonna be honored in this place called
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Hebron. And he was. And then we see a little bit more in there. But if you go back and you look at some of the other testimonies in other books,
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Deuteronomy chapter one, in Numbers chapter 32, I believe, we see that we have this whole idea here that Caleb is a man who is known.
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And Joshua too, he is mentioned as a man who fully or wholly follows after the
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Lord. And for us today, the same encouragement comes to us. We may not do it perfectly, but we will do it progressively.
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And we will do it in such a way, as we serve here at BBC, as you live your life at home, as you go to school, as you work at your job, if we would be a people who would be focused on the
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Lord and seek first the kingdom of God and put Christ first, he's gonna be magnified. And we will see him glorified as he works out his will in our lives, the will in the will of our church, in the will of our marriages, as your testimony on the job, your testimony at school, standing strong, not worrying about what anybody else says, but having that single focus so that he might be honored.
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It'd be great to have a wonderful testimony like that, wouldn't it? Any questions?
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Anything that you, as we were reading, any comment of any of the texts that we saw this morning? None? All right.
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So I promised you it was not gonna be, dare to be a Daniel, strive on to be a
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Caleb. These men had a relationship with God. What a wonderful, wonderful testimony in their lives.
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And it came to pass that what God had promised to Caleb truly came to pass in his life.
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And he could say that it was all of God. It was all of the Lord. But on his part, for his responsibility, he was a man who did not lose focus.
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Let's not lose focus. Let's put the Lord first. Let's seek first the kingdom of God.
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And maybe in our lives, we'll be able to see when we're 50 and 60 and 70 and 80 and 90, if the
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Lord so wills to give us those years that we might be able to be a people who look back and say, here
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I raise my Ebenezer. I've gotten to this point so far by the Lord's mercy. And God has preserved me.
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And he has been so faithful to me. And I am still being used by the Lord, even into old age.
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Wouldn't that be a great testimony? Let's pray. Father, thank you for the testimony of your work, your grace and your hand in the life of this man,
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Caleb. We pray that we truly might be a people who would keep this in the forefront of our minds that we ought to put
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Christ first in all things, to have this type of devotion, to have this type of perseverance to where we want to live a life of obedience, quick obedience, immediate obedience, and obedience even in times when it doesn't make sense.
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Lord, that you might be magnified in our lives individually, that you might be glorified in our families and wherever we go as a testimony in this doomed and dark world.
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And particularly here at Bethlehem Bible Church, that we might be a people who desire to do the will of God as it is recorded in the word of God, to minister with the spiritual gifts, to uphold the ordinances, to be a people who preach the word of God faithfully, no matter what fad or gimmick comes our way and what we hear of, that we will boldly preach the word of God, that we will be in fellowship with you and desire to close that gap.
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And when we sin, we confess it quickly and be fellowship with each other. And when we are at odds with each other, that we would be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us.
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We might have a strong unity here and strive for that unity and be focused in that area, all of it so that you, our great
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God and King would be magnified and that Jesus Christ would be known and loved and served and adored.