Joshua isn't all cupcakes and rainbows, but it's pretty awesome, a lot of stuff that happens there. I love characters like Joshua and Caleb. We're going to talk a bit about Caleb today. I love characters that stand up for what they believe in, that are strong in their faith, and they're brave and courageous. I've told you before, I like Rocky. Rocky, you know, he's starting to get closer to the age of Caleb, Rocky, the guy who, he's almost 80 years old, I think, brother, not brother, Sylvester Stallone. There's another character, and I may be really stretching your minds here a little bit, and maybe really revealing too much of my nerdness. How many of y'all know the character named Helm Hammerhand? Oh, there's a recognition, Helm the Hammerhand. There actually, Helm the Hammerhand was the ninth king of the horse lords of Rohan in the fictional world of Middle-earth written by J.R. Tolkien. And not a lot has been written about him. There's only like a couple of pages that are written about his rule, but he is a mighty man, Helm the Hammerhand. he was the ninth king like I said and they just came out with a movie at the end of last year and it's now streaming and the boys and I watched it Friday night and just I thought boy this is timely because I can't help but think of Caleb Helm the hammer hand was a again he was a he was a mighty man but when he was king he was not a young man and Just a part of his story, I'll just share you this little bit from, this is the appendix of the Lord of the Rings. It says, one night they were under siege in Helm's, what would be called Helm's Deep at the Hornburg, and they were under siege from the Dunlendings who wanted to destroy his reign. And it says, one night, The men heard the horn blowing, the horn of Helm, but Helm did not return. In the morning there came a sun gleam, the first for long days, and they saw a white figure standing still on the dike, alone, for none of the Dunlendings dare came near. There stood Helm, dead as stone, but his knees were unbent. Yet men said that the horn was still heard at times in the deep, and the wraith of Helm would walk among the foes of Rohan and kill the men with fear." Man, it's a cool story, but it's not real. But guess who is this guy we wanna talk about? Caleb. Caleb was a real, and he was, I think the story about Caleb is so much more compelling because it's real. This is history we're talking about. This guy we're talking about is an unbelievable hero of the faith. And so if you would, let's read our text. We're gonna read Joshua 14, six through 14. And if you would, would you be willing to stand with me while we read this? If you can, stand, if you cannot, stand in spirit. Joshua 14, verse 6 says, Then the children of Judah came unto Josh and Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephthah, the Kenizzite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh Barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to a spy out the land and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the 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 thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he had said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake his word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old, and 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. Now therefore give me this mountain. Whereof the Lord spake in that day, for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be the Lord will be with me when I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron, therefore, became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephthah, the Kenizzite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. Let's pray. Father, we love you, and we are in awe of this book that we hold in our hands. Lord, it is truth for us. It is everything that we need. We no longer need the miracles of the apostles. Lord, we have your word, your direct word from you to us. We thank you for the men that wrote this book. We thank you for how you have preserved it supernaturally over these thousands of years. And God, we thank you for the opportunity to observe this story of heroism and trust and faith in you. God, I pray it will challenge our faith, that we will desire to have a wholehearted mind and heart like Caleb. Lord, I pray you just bless our church in Jesus' name. Amen. So what had happened before in Kadesh Barnea? Remember, he referenced what had happened. He went back and he talked about it. And most of us, I think, are familiar with that. You probably know what he's talking about, what happened in Kadesh Barnea. One of the most well-known episodes of the Bible, it is. Moses sent out 12 spies. Okay, they had left Egypt under the supernatural power of God's provision. He was in their presence daily, and physically manifesting that presence on a daily basis. And so Moses sent out, they arrived at the promised land and he sent out 12 spies, one from each tribe to scout out the promised land. And after 40 days, the spies returned with good news and bad news. The good news delivered by Joshua and Caleb was that everything was as God had promised. The land was flowing with milk and honey. They brought back samples for everybody to enjoy, grapes and other things, so that people could taste the fruit of the land. And the promised land, it had lived up to its name. It was worth every step of that long journey is what the good news was. But then there was the bad news. The cities of the promised land were fortified and not inhabited by Israelites, I can tell you. They were filled with these hostile Canaanites who lived behind walls that seemed to reach to the heavens. Worse still, there were giants, as it says, in the land. They were intimidating warriors who made those Israelites feel like grasshoppers in comparison. And 10 of the spies that had gone out, besides Caleb and Joshua, 10 of those spies concluded that there was no way the Israelites could take the land. They argued that they would have had to find another place to settle. But two of those spies, as I've said, they disagreed. Joshua and Caleb. They saw the same challenges. They saw the same fortified cities. They saw the same tall walls. They saw the giants. But they remembered God's promise to go with them and give them victory. Despite the overwhelming odds, they chose to believe in God, wholehearted faith. Unfortunately, the people chose to be afraid, and they paid the price. They've wandered in the wilderness for another 40 years, and a whole generation of people died off except for Joshua and Caleb. Caleb, while the Israelites were trying to make up their mind, had this to say in Numbers 14, verse nine. He said to them, only rebel you not against the Lord. Neither fear you the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. They are bread for us? What in the world? He's saying, we're gonna eat them up. They haven't got a chance. We'll devour them. They saw the same problems that everybody else saw. Caleb wasn't denying the challenges. They were real. But he knew something and he believed something that all the rest of the children of Israel seemed to forget. That they had a big God. He understood that with God on their side, no enemy on earth could prevail against them. But those other people, they gave up. They paid the price. And we fast forward to where we are in Joshua 14, 45 years later. Moses has passed away. Joshua has led a new generation across the Jordan. Jericho fell. Then Ai, and they started conquering cities both to the south and to the north. And now it was the time to divide the land and finally settle it. And that's where we find Caleb say in Numbers 14, consider what God said about Caleb in Numbers 14, 24, but my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and have followed me fully. How would you like to have that on your resume? God blesses Caleb. I wanna talk to you this morning about three reasons why God blessed Caleb. The first would be because Caleb trusted in God wholeheartedly. If you hadn't caught the theme here, Caleb trusted in God wholeheartedly. I'd like to read a little bit from you from Numbers chapter 13. And we'll just look a little bit about what had happened in Kadesh Barnea in Numbers 13. It says in verse 25, they returned from the searching of the land after 40 days and they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel and to the wilderness of Paran to Kadesh and brought back word unto them and unto all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land and they told them and said, We came into the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak." That's an important name you need to follow. And we go down a little further. It says, And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and possess this land, for we are able to overcome it. And then that people that went with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up the evil report of the land. And it says, the land had eaten up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that saw it are men of great statue. And there we saw giants, the sons of Anak, those are the giants, which come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And everybody believed it. But Caleb trusted God wholeheartedly. Despite the fact that everybody else agreed that it was impossible, and they couldn't do it, he resisted. Him and Joshua resisted the temptation. going against the crowd, to go with the crowd, they resisted that. They went against the crowd. It's never easy to go against the crowd, especially when your friends are heading in that direction. I'm sure Caleb and Joshua had friends among those spies and among those other tribes, and that generated, they had all those people that they had traveled with, they had relationships, people who had influence in their life, but they went against them. They didn't believe the naysayers. When those around them said something couldn't be done, it's too hard, they said, you're wrong. That's hard to do. That's hard to do. Some might say that about some small churches like ours. Well, you're trying to reach a city for the gospel of Jesus Christ, a city that's got seven plus million people in it. How are you going to do that? It doesn't matter. We're just going to trust God. We got a really big God. He says He can use us so we can follow Him. At Kadesh Barnea, it was Joshua and Caleb standing alone against that entire nation. From purely a human standpoint, It seems like the 10 spies were right, you would think. The odds were against the Israelites. They didn't stand a chance on their own, but God had said, I'll go with you. And that changes everything. I believe it's in scripture where it says, if God be for us, who can be against us? That's the whole, you know, the whole point of our walk with God is to make sure that we're depending on Him, not showing how great and awesome and powerful we are. It's not about moving forward in our strength and our wits. That doesn't mean we're supposed to lay those things aside, but we're to depend as much as we can upon God. I think something we can learn from this is we should watch what we say. Proverbs 15 verse four says, a wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit. You know, a constantly repeating bad news, people will start to believe it. Maybe you've been the victim of a rumor about you that was untrue that was told. I've experienced that, praise the Lord, it hadn't happened as far as I know in a really long time. Rumor told about me when I was in my 20s, the devil's trying to attack me within our own church. And there's this rumor spreading that was completely untrue. Let me tell you, it almost broke my spirit. It almost made me want to not go to church anymore. We need to watch what we say. We need to watch how we speak, and there's power in repetition. Whenever these things are said over and over, it becomes true to people. You know what they call that nowadays? Fake news. It's out there on both sides, just so you know. There's power in repetition, what we say over and over. That means we should use our lips for good. In fact, the word of God says something about this in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter four, verse 29, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. How much corrupt are you allowed to let proceed out of your mouth? None. Let no corrupt. So if you don't know it's true, should you say it again? No, probably not. But that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Or Colossians 4, 6, maybe a little more pointed, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Listen, we should speak nonstop, encouraging truthful things about God. Whenever we face a challenge ahead of us, We need to depend on God. That's all we need. I mean, we need to apply ourselves. There's lots of things we need. But listen, what we really need more than anything is God. And we need to trust in God. We need to trust Him wholeheartedly. We should trust God. We should give Caleb the credit he deserves here, that he wholeheartedly trusted God. When the whole nation gave into fear, Caleb and Joshua stood alone against the multitude, and they trusted God. They were right, and the rest of them ended up being dead wrong. That was a cool pun I tried to put in there. Caleb trusted in God wholeheartedly. The second reason we see that God blessed Caleb, Caleb believed God's promises wholeheartedly. If you go back in our text to verse seven, He said, 40 years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swear on that day, saying, surely the land wherein thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. He believed in that promise. He had to wander for 40 years with that unbelieving generation, listening to them complain nonstop about Moses' leadership or the food situation or whatever other thing was bothering them. He had to endure their complaints for 40 years. But he held on to God's promise. He believed God's promise. I'm reminded of a story about George Mueller. George Mueller was a wonderful man who raised money for orphanages. And the story is told of him that he was on an ocean steamer off the coast of Newfoundland, and he was supposed to be in Quebec. It was a Wednesday night, and he was supposed to be in Quebec on a Saturday afternoon. But the ship was engulfed completely in fog. And so there was no way to go forward. That fog was gonna have to pass. And so the captain of that ocean steamer telling this story, He said he'd been on the bridge for about 24 hours when someone came and tapped on his shoulder, and it was George Mueller. And George Mueller said, Captain, I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon. And the captain said, that's impossible. I can't do it. So Mueller suggested, let's go down to the chart room and pray. The captain didn't think too much of this. He thought, that's crazy. What is that gonna do? He asked Mueller, do you know how dense this fog is? I don't think, he was obviously saying he didn't think that prayer was gonna do much. Mueller said, no, my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God who controls every circumstance of my life. They went down to the chart room. Mueller got down on his knees and prayed. And this captain, telling this story, repeats his prayer. Oh Lord, if it is consistent with thy will, please remove this fog in five minutes. Thou knowest the engagements thou didst make for me in Quebec for Saturday. I believe it is thy will. And after Mueller got done praying, the captain decided, well, maybe he should pray too. And so he started to pray and Mueller stopped him. And he said, there's no use for you to pray. God has already answered my prayer. The fog's already gone. And they came out of that room, went up on the deck and it was gone. The fog was gone. Why? Because George Mueller had some trick up his... No, because he believed in a big God. George Mueller believed God for his provision. He raised over $4 million for orphanages. And in that effort, he never asked anyone for a dime of it. They just gave it. When he had needs, he took them to God. He asked in faith. and he received what he needed. I see that in Caleb. He believes wholeheartedly in God's promises. And we see, we see that he believes it in verse 10. Behold, the Lord hath kept me alive these 40 and five years, even since the Lord spake his word unto Moses while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day 85 years old. And yet I am as strong this day as I was in that day that Moses sent me, as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, to go out and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain. Give it to me. God promised it to me. Give it to me. He never let go of God's promises. Never. He held on. He set his eyes on Hebron, that land that he was talking about, that he wanted. What's important about Hebron? Well, Hebron is, that's where Abraham bought land to bury Sarah. That's where Abraham and Sarah were buried together, where Isaac and Rebekah were buried together, where Jacob and Leah were buried together. Hebron was in the hands of the pagan Canaanites. And as far as Caleb was concerned, that land belonged to God's people. And he was gonna take it back. He said, I want that mountain. Why? Because he never let go of God's promise. He always believed in God's promises. He never forgot what that land meant. And at an age where most people are retired, he went, he went. He put the pedal to the metal and he went to war. He wasn't about to let go. God blessed Caleb because Caleb trusted in God wholeheartedly. He blessed him because Caleb believed God's promises wholeheartedly. And he blessed Caleb because Caleb followed God wholeheartedly. I think this is the secret of Caleb's success. There are six times throughout the books of Numbers and Joshua talking about Caleb and saying that he had followed God wholeheartedly. We saw it twice just in our text. Caleb was, I think, kind of the opposite of the man described in James 1.8. A double-minded is unstable in all of his ways. Caleb was not double-minded. He didn't have his foot in two different camps. He didn't consult the daily tracking poll to decide whether he could believe on what God said. We don't even see where he licked his finger and put his finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. No. He had a singular focus to follow God. A double-minded man is weak. He can't do anything for God. James, in that passage from James 1, I read verse 8, verse 6 begins, he says, "...but let him ask in faith, not wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." A double man is unstable in all his ways. That should capture our attention. It is easy, very, in fact, I'd say it's natural for us, even as born-again Christians, for us to kind of live our life in two different camps. We have our church life, and then we have our private life. We have our church life where we show up at church for Sunday school, and we sit through the lesson, and we nod, and we keep our eyes wide open the whole time. We go to the morning worship, and we stand, and we sing, and we visit with our friends, and we put money in the offering plate, and we engage in church. And then Brother Darin says, you're dismissed. We'll see you at the afternoon service, and you go home. We go home. Ooh, I'm not gonna say you. We, people go home. And they're just back to what they usually do. focused on the stuff of the day, focused on, well, I got this meeting ahead, and I've got this, I've got to prepare for work, or, you know, my garden is just, it needs a little help, I think I'm gonna spend tomorrow just gardening. Listen, none of those pursuits are wrong, but when that consumes more of your time and energy than following God, you're unstable in all your ways. It says right there in verse seven, let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. Weak men have divided loyalties. They can never commit with a whole heart to anything. They're here, they're there, they're everywhere all the time. They're never totally committed. Caleb was a man who was single-minded. He was wholehearted in following the Lord. He didn't ask his friends what they were gonna do whenever he gave his report and everybody else went the other way. Every day, it seems, at least his testimony is, that every day that he got up, he determined in his heart to follow the Lord. Caleb trusted God. He believed God's promises. And at 85 years old, he was ready to claim what God had promised. When others pulled in different directions, he wholeheartedly followed God. Can you imagine it with me a little bit? Caleb, this guy who's as strong at 40, 40, yeah, 40 as he was at, at 85 as he was at 40, This guy who his faith had not wavered or changed whatsoever, listening to the complaints of the Israelites for 40 plus years, he believed completely in God. And so he says, I'm ready to take that mountain. And when Joshua says, okay, that's gonna be yours. I think he just turned to his household and said, settle up boys, it's time to go fight. It's time to go. He didn't let anything distract him from doing it. What really happened in Kadesh Barnea? Those 10 spies said, look at how big those giants are compared to us. Caleb said, look at how small they are compared to God. The coward said, they're too big for us to fight. Caleb said, they're too big for us to miss. We need that spirit today. We need that wholehearted focus of trust, believing the promises and following Him, following God. We need to take a stand for the Lord. If we're gonna defeat giants, if we're gonna go and be an outward focused church as God has called our church to be, If we're gonna pray for the lost and develop a heart for people who need the Lord, if we're gonna put our money where our mouth is, we better have a heart and a mind like Caleb, wholehearted and following the Lord. As I attempt to land the plane here, let me ask one more question. I don't know if y'all like football. Brother Stan was a, he played a little bit of football at some point. He's not Jerry Rice like we joke about at church camp. Brother Stan, when are football games won or lost usually? Usually to the, you gotta fight to the very end, don't you? How many, there's many games that are, we call them nail biters. They come down to the wire, the last moment. Almost every game is won or lost in that final quarter of the game, that last bit. Many of us aren't as young as we once were. Brother Roy was down to the last few seconds and faithful to the end. I don't know where you are in your game, in your race, if you want to put it that way. You might be in the last quarter, you might have five minutes left on the clock, you may have three minutes, you might have 30 seconds. Coaches tell their players, play through the whistle. You know what that means. That means you keep going until you're told to stop, until the game is over. That's what we need to do. That's what we need to do. We need to get into the game and play hard. We need to get on mission for the Great Commission, and we need to give ourselves completely to it. And we better take heart here and now Because you don't know when you're going to be taken out of the game. You don't know how short your time is. You don't know how many more sunrises and sunsets you have ahead of you. I told you all about in my office, I have the poem of C.T. Studd, just the main refrain of C.T. Studd's poem, only one life will soon be passed, only what's done for Christ will last. It's in my office, pointed right at my desk, so when I look up, I can't help but see it. Why is that there? Because we only have a limited amount of time. And we can talk about all the cool stuff we bought that's going to end up in a landfill someday, or we can get all caught up in all the other circumstances and pursuits of our life, or we can live for Christ. But as C.T. Stutt says, only what's done for Christ will last. If we do our part, the game will end. I think I'd be a lot more confident standing before the Lord, hearing my score if I was faithful to the end. We need that wholehearted trust of Caleb, that wholehearted faith. We need to never release God's promises. We need to never retire from serving God. We need to never retreat from the enemy. D.L. Moody, he was saved at the age of 19, and he heard an evangelist by the name of Henry Varley say this, he said, the world has yet to see what God can do in and through and with and for a man wholly committed to him. I'm gonna repeat that, Henry Varley. The world has yet to see what God can do in and through and with and for a man wholly committed to him. And D.L. Moody said to that, by God's grace, I will be that man. We need that spirit. We have a big God. We can trust him. You can trust him. If you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ, Well, then much of what I've said really doesn't apply to you until you trust in Jesus. The world will try to tell you all kinds, your own conscience will try to tell you all kinds of things about how you can get right with God, clean your life up, and do enough good to outweigh your bad. No, the scripture makes it very clear there's no hope in that at all. The only hope you have is the blood of Jesus Christ. And it doesn't make any difference in your life the blood of Christ unless you wholeheartedly have faith in Him. I don't know what you need to do with God this morning, what business you need to do with Him. I want to have that heart of Caleb. I want to be wholehearted. I don't want to be a double-minded man. Let's stand together. where Eric's going to come. He's going to lead us in a verse of invitation.