Well, we're looking a second time at this paragraph, Joshua 14, verses 6-12. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, you know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt. but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, these 45 years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now here I am this day, 85 years old. As yet, I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me. Just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. For you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. And as we look into it, we pray that you would sanctify us through your word. We love your word. It is our desire to have it internalized, to become a part of us. And I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit, we would live it out. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Last week we began looking at the internal characteristics that made Caleb such a godly and effective leader, and we saw that every one of us really ought to aspire after more and more of these inward characteristics. And so I want to briefly review what we went over in verses 6 through 8, and I'll review them in the order that they appeared in the text. The first inward characteristic was that Caleb thrived under authority and therefore was able to exercise godly authority over others. I think too many people are put into leadership positions because they exhibit other very clear leadership skills. But because they lack this one, they have huge holes in their armor. A person, really, if he's going into leadership without being under leadership himself, there's going to be a spiritual disconnect that happens. And I think many of the leaders who have flamed out in the last couple of decades have precisely this problem. Second, because he had learned to lean on God's supernatural grace, he was able to achieve things that went beyond his own abilities. And I think we need to strive to have more than what we can do in our flesh, in other words, more than what we can achieve in our own natural abilities. Our passion should be to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit's filling. Third, His God-given vision helped him to focus more on what God thought of him than what other people thought of him. He was not dependent upon the approval of others. And I think it's very important that we put off the idolatry of seeking the approval of others before we become leaders. Otherwise, again, there's gonna be a huge hole in our armor. Fourth, he showed initiative rather than always being reactive. And we saw that initiative was doing the right thing without having to be told what to do. Fifth, he had no doubts about God's promises. Those promises were an anchor for his soul. Sixth, his vision was big because it was grounded in God's Word, and he had obviously internalized God's Word. He was a man of the book. Seventh, he did not allow dry spells, discouragement, or the passage of time to rob him of his God-given vision. So, if God gives you vision, circumstances should not matter. He pushed through them. Eighth, like William Carey, he expected great things from God. Ninth, his heart, his words, and his actions matched up with his vision, with the emphasis on the heart, because Jesus said, out of the heart flow our words and our actions. It's not just a formality. His heart gave him passion. Tenth, he shared his vision with others. We saw that leaders can't help but share their vision. It's something that so grips their lives, it spills over into the lives of others. And 11th, he did not allow the fear that was being generated by others to kill his faith. A fear can be contagious, but leaders don't catch it, okay? And I know it's odd to end a sermon in the middle of a verse, but that's what we did last week. I didn't want to, I think Caleb is such an important figure, I didn't want to give short shrift to my treatment of him. And so that brings us up to the last clause in verse 8, which says, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And the same thought is brought up again when he quotes Moses talking about him in verse 9, because you have wholly followed the Lord your God. And then again in verse 14. And actually the Bible uses this phrase of Caleb five times, which again shows how important this characteristic really was in his leadership. Now, the Hebrew is a little bit hard to translate. If you look at various versions, I've got a screen that's got about 35 different translations of the Bible. It's translated in various ways. Some translate it, he was fully loyal to the Lord God of Israel. Others translate the idea, he wholeheartedly followed the Lord. One author translated it, he fully closed the gap with the Lord. And I love that translation. It was actually in a commentary. He points out that the phrase is actually used by hunters trying to close the distance between themselves and the prey, and the idea is we want the gap between the Lord and us to be as small as possible. But I especially like the Hebrew word for holy. That same author, Alan Carr, says the word holy literally means to fill. It carries the idea of filling a sail with air. It is the picture of sails filled to capacity with all the available air so that the ship can move across the water with maximum speed. Every inch, every ounce, every nerve, every fiber of Caleb belonged to God. And this is why I have labeled the point He pressed into the Lord. I think that captures the Hebrew well. And, brothers and sisters, you can only press into the Lord as if you have a daily, constant relationship with Him. He loved the Lord supremely. There are so many things that keep a leader from pressing into the Lord on a daily basis, busyness being one of the biggest, one of those problems. And yet, I would look at it this way. Can you imagine anyone more busy than Moses? I can. Can you imagine anybody that was more busy than Jesus? I can't. And yet he daily pressed into the Lord. This is yet another characteristic that I am praying into each one of your lives. Press into the Lord on a daily basis, because it's only as you stick close to the Lord, you're going to have the power to be able to achieve a God-sized vision. Now look at the first part of verse nine for the next characteristic. So Moses swore on that day saying, and then he gives the oath promise in the rest of the verse. Moses swore on that day. Moses swore an oath promise to Caleb, and now Caleb is expecting Joshua to fulfill this commitment that had been given. We've already seen that Joshua, you know, really was captured by the promises of God, and there is some of that here because Moses was speaking by inspiration. But I think it's more than that. Caleb pointed to a commitment by the leadership, Moses, Now he asks the leadership, Joshua, to follow through on that commitment. In other words, promise-keeping is reciprocal. Caleb kept his promises, and he was confident that Moses and Joshua would keep their promises. And when you are in an organization, that follows through on their commitments, you are truly blessed. Let me read you the testimony of how an incredibly busy pastor finally learned this lesson, and I'm quoting from a letter that he actually sent to someone. He said, in the first years of my ministry, I sinned against my family. I spent an inordinate amount of time with the church family away from my own family. From time to time I was convicted and said to my wife, we're going to establish a family night each week. We did this for one or two weeks, but then I allowed other things to take priority. Again, several months would go by and I would make another half-hearted or quarter-hearted effort and again fail to live up to my word. I'll never forget how one night I was home and overheard my three-year-old daughter ask my wife, Mommy, how come Daddy's home? Is he sick? I lamented to my wife, is the only time my kids see me at home is when I'm sick? I again said, for sure, we're going to have a weekly family night no matter what. But tragically, what I said was priority really wasn't my priority in practice. My belief system wasn't aligned with my value system. Several more months went by. The oldest of my three children was now about eight. One of my sons asked me one evening if I would help him build his model airplane. And I responded by saying that I had a meeting at the church, but I would do it the following night. The following night came, and my son asked me with great expectancy, Daddy, are you going to help me build my model tonight? What do you think I said? I explained that since the previous evening, a very important issue had come up that required my attention, and then asked, do you understand? With tears running down his cheeks, my son said, yes, daddy, I understand, but you promised. Well, after I helped him build his model that night, we had a family night every week without fail. If you were to ask my adult children today, about the highlights of their upbringing, one of them would be family nights. By the way, I can't even remember what that important issue was. What I do know is that my family was far more important. I didn't want to lose them, and I thank God that I learned my lesson before it was too late. He learned the lesson of valuing his family. But when I read that, what really struck me was the importance of fathers being promise keepers, and mothers, and children. Are you a leader who follows through on your commitments, your promises? We want those who follow us to be able to trust us that we keep our promises. When we're promise keepers, I believe it creates a healthy environment where everyone thrives. Now, of course, the rest of verse nine relates to the family as well. It says, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever. Caleb's vision was a multi-generational vision, and we see that especially in the latter part of chapter 15 and his interactions with his daughter, Aksah. I love that. I love that section there, but I think it's succinctly stated here as well. Caleb was not in this just for himself. After all, he was 85 years old, right? He was leading in a way that would benefit the next generations. That's having a long-term vision. And if you read through the book of 1 Chronicles, you will notice that the Calebites had a lot of godly leaders, some of whom were so famous they had places named after them. Okay, and knowing Caleb, that's not surprising to me. After dealing with the faith being passed on from Moses to Caleb and then to his children, Michael Antony said, mentoring is a concept and process that every responsible Christian who was serious about passing on the faith should be involved in at some point. It is a critical component of parenting as a parent guides, nurtures, and prepares a child for life. As believers, we should be committed to the process of mentoring another in order to ensure the ongoing success of the church." So he's talking about covenant succession in family and in church. Leaders should always be preparing for the next generation. They're interested in leadership succession. They're interested in covenant succession. Now, in stark contrast, you can find in the Scripture examples of many amazingly gifted leaders like Hezekiah who missed this point and raised absolute hellions. And I'll just use Hezekiah as an example. He had many good leadership qualities, but he missed this one. In Isaiah, in chapter 39, he sends a message to Hezekiah, and he said, why did you have all of those Babylonian envoys into your place? Because of the pride of your heart, where you're showing off your wealth and you're showing off your kingdom, After you die, your children and your children's children are going to be captured by the Babylonians, turned into eunuchs, deported, and your whole nation is going to be ravaged. And Hezekiah's response is weird. It is absolutely weird. He said, the word of the Lord which you have spoken is good. At least there will be peace and truth in my days. And I just think, ah, that is incredibly, incredibly short-sighted. And it was obvious he didn't pass on his faith to his children, because even though he tore down all of the high places, his son Manasseh rebuilt all of the high places, sacrificed his children in the fire on those high places. Tradition says he sawed Isaiah in half. killed Isaiah, and his wickedness was spread so pervasively that 2 Kings 24, 3-4 credits the exile to Manasseh's wickedness. Now, the exile happened quite a bit later. There were other kings between, but he so successfully spread his wickedness that it credits the exile to Manasseh's wickedness. That is a complete reversal in one generation. One generation. One commentary on Isaiah asks this question. Could it be that Hezekiah's lack of any concern for the future led him to be a derelict father who failed to impart to Manasseh a vision for the glory of God and the future of Judah? And my own reading of Hezekiah's life makes me 100% convinced he is absolutely right in that conclusion. And the point is, you could be a good leader like Hezekiah, But if you lack Caleb's multi-generational vision, what you are going to achieve is only gonna last for a lifetime. It is not going to go on to the next generations. In other words, your leadership development of your kids needs to be a paramount importance in your life. And in the back, we have just a couple of copies, but you can download it for free off of the web. But it's a little leader development, It's a mentoring checklist for sons and young men. But more than a checklist, the beginning of that shows what it means to pass on a faith from generation to generation, where you're teaching your kids to pass it on to the next generation as well. The next characteristic that makes Caleb stand out was that he was humble, attributing his longevity, his health, and his successes to the Lord. He says, and now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, these 45 years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses. We must be convinced of the truth of Psalm 127, verse one, that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. If we make great accomplishments, Give glory to God and thank Him. If you're buff and fit and are able to do a lot of good things with your body, yeah, you're involved in it, but give thanks to God and give Him the glory. If your children are turning out wonderfully well, Give God the glory and thank him. May God increase humility within each of us. But that same verse that speaks of wandering in the wilderness speaks of his endurance, patience, and tenacity. Now, I'll hasten to say that not every leader has what Pat Lencioni calls the working genius of tenacity, but every one of us needs to grow in that God-given grace. Even if it doesn't come naturally, it is essential to a good work ethic. It needs to be mixed with endurance and patience. Everyone needs tenacity, whether it's a working genius or not. Now, last week, I shared a lot of comparisons between Caleb and William Carey, the great missionary to India. And I believe that William Carey had this as a working genius. He had this in spades. And He had enormous endurance, patience, and tenacity. It took a lot to get to India, but once he got there, he had faced obstacle after obstacle. First of all, you may not have realized it, but he was an illegal alien when he worked as a missionary in India. And what do I mean by that? Well, any European that wanted to live in India had to get a license from the East India Company, and the East India Company had a written policy they would never grant a license for missionaries, for any missionary work. It was only 20 years later that Parliament, as a result of massive petitioning, finally opened the door to giving a license for people to live in India as missionaries. But Kerry said, I'm called by God. I'm going there no matter what. And so he worked around the system, you know, he was going there to plant schools and to set up all kinds of other things. And then he did mission work on the side. And so he stayed there despite the law being against him. Once there, another missionary was caught in dishonest schemes, almost destroying their fledgling work. And then his printing press burned down. He started receiving severe opposition from both the government and the East India Company. And yet his tenacity paid off. Though it took a long time to get the first converts, he began planting church after church, translating the body, translating the the Bible into the Indian language there, the main language. He set up over 100 rural schools for the people of India. He founded the Serampore College, which, by the way, still exists today to train ministers. Because he was wanting to multiply himself, and it was not just academic training. There was hands-on training that he gave. He established hospitals, founded the Agricultural Society of India, started a Bengali newspaper. He supervised the start of India's first printing press, paper mill, and steam engine. He also taught languages at a local college, wrote a Bengali-English dictionary, later translated the full Bible into six languages, and portions of the Bible into 29 other languages. Now, granted, he was a genius. But he credits a lot of his work to simple, plain, old-fashioned work and tenacity. And I know many famous leaders today who are not geniuses at all. Everybody will acknowledge they're not geniuses, but they have accomplished a lot because of a good work ethic, and tenacity. They pushed through despite depression. They pushed through despite discouragement, health issues, and other problems. And they attributed their successes to God's blessing, their tenacity. And if you're easily discouraged and tempted to give up, I would encourage you to ask God for the graces of patience, endurance, and tenacity. They are graces. They are gifts of the Holy Spirit. And I think they're all essential to a godly work ethic. And by the way, all of these points are not just for the men. They're for the women, for the children, because all of us can be people of influence. Now reading the last part of verse 10 and into verse 11, Caleb said, here I am this day, 85 years old, as yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me. Just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now obviously God gave him phenomenal physical health and stamina, but there is also the hint that he maintained his vision of conquest into old age without becoming disillusioned. Now what was there that could have tempted him to become cynical and disillusioned? Well, there was the grasshopper theology of his own generation. Doing what God called them to do was just too much for the generation that died off, and they whined and complained and were in constant trouble during the 40 years that they were wandering in the wilderness in unbelief. And it would have been very easy to become cynical and disillusioned in that kind of an environment, but he did not. I think it was Chesterton who said, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried. And I think that's a perfect description of that generation of Israelites who just could not believe God's promises. They just could not live by faith. Hebrews says they died in unbelief. That was actually a testing ground for Caleb and Joshua's faith. And we live in a generation right now where there's a lot of unbelief, a lot of bad things happening out there in the church and outside the church. And I think you just need to say, okay, Lord, this is a testing of my own faith in you. I'm not going to allow it to waver just because everybody else wavers. The long wait itself could have made Caleb doubt God's promises, but he did not. Waiting for 45 years is really impressive. And he maintained his vision despite old age. And I believe it was because of his faith in God's promises that he received supernatural enabling. So here's the way I think probably he reasoned. He reasoned, since God said that I was going to be involved in the conquest of Canaan, then that means I can claim from God the physical health that I need to be able to do that. If God has put a calling upon your life, you can ask Him for anything that is needed to be able to achieve that calling. Now, He doesn't guarantee that He's always going to heal. There's examples in the Gospels where God waited for years, and He said, it wasn't that man's sin. Nobody else's. It was for the glory of God. God's got His timing. But, hey, if God has put a calling upon your life and your physical needs, are essential to that calling, you can ask God and He will grant it to you. 3 John 2 is one of my favorite verses that the Lord promises that we would prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers. And of course, all of those are bound together, our soul prospering, right? So you need finances to achieve your calling. Ask the Lord. Ask him in faith. He will give you everything you need. And so don't become cynical in an age of unbelief. And then finally, in verse 12, we see that he confidently and courageously claimed his possessions. He says, now therefore give me this mountain. He's basically saying, I think this is now God's time. Okay, I'm ready to receive it. I've done everything that is needed to get to this point, so please give me this mountain. And actually it was a mountain range. I didn't bring my map up here, but if you look in your, one of the maps has a red line that goes all the way up. There was a little mountain range that went all the way through his territory and continues going up all the way up to the northern part of Israel. But the mountain area he was claiming is the whole area in the red oval that I put onto the map. There may be more territory, but he had at least that amount of territory as I've gone through all of the scriptures. Now, once again, he based his confidence on God's promises. He says, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. Now, we don't have a record in the Bible of God promising Hebron. He did promise what he treads upon, but Moses must have said it. Joshua and Caleb apparently remember that. And so this was not a humanistic confidence, it was a God-given confidence. And by the way, to anticipate an objection, there are liberals out there who say that there's no way Caleb could have inherited Hebron, because other Scriptures say it was only the priests who lived there. Well, they're not reading very far in the Scripture, because if you examine this chapter through chapter 15, you will see there was a whole bunch of towns, villages, fortresses, and even the city of Debir that's included in the name Hebron. So Hebron didn't just refer to the city, there was a district of Hebron that was being inherited. Now let's look at the obstacles that he faced in gaining that territory. He ends verse 12 by saying that with God's help he could do it. For you heard in that day how the Anakim were there and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. So here's another objection that liberals bring up. They say, ha, another mistake in the Bible. Chapter 11, verse 22 makes it very clear there weren't any anikim there. Chapter 11, verse 22 says, none of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel. They remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod. Now, there are two theories that have been proposed to reconcile chapter 11 and this chapter, and I think both of them are plausible. The first theory says that this section is actually a recapitulation of the battles that happened in chapter 11. earlier driving out of the Anakim, but this time it's focusing on Joshua's lieutenant, Caleb, who did the fighting. So on that theory, it's a recapitulation. It's going back in time. The second theory says, no, this section does happen after the previous sections, and it says that when the armies in chapter 11 and following went north to conquer more territory, namely Jabin and his confederates, There was nobody to defend Hebron. They'd all gone north. And so the Anakims snuck back into the fortresses that were in the Hebron area and reoccupied them. And I lean in that direction, as it makes the most sense of the details, which seem sequential. By the way, chapter 11, verse 22 doesn't say they killed all the Anakim. It says there were none left in the land. They had fled. Well, if the second theory is true, it certainly reflects what frequently happens in Christian lives. We gain victories over certain besetting sins, but because we're not on guard, we're not constantly being vigilant, We find ourselves having to reconquer the areas of our lives that we had conquered before. So this is not surprising at all. By the way, everybody agrees that's exactly what happened in Jerusalem. But whichever theory is true, Caleb tackles giants, the very giants that robbed the 10 fellow spies of faith and made them refuse to enter the land. Back in Numbers 14, Joshua and Caleb, when they heard what the ten spies were saying, they tore their garments. They were in heartbreak over the unbelief of Israel, and apparently God had placed on Caleb's heart back then that when God allows him to go back into the land, he wants to conquer these very giants to demonstrate to everybody that they are not invincible. He had it in His heart to take them on as a testimony. Back in Numbers, Caleb had said this, The land we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. What a great speech. Caleb basically has the attitude, with God, nothing is impossible. And in Numbers chapter 14, the people are so upset with Joshua and Caleb, they're going to stone them to death. And God intervenes, and he rescues Joshua and Caleb from their friends back then, and he rescues them from their enemies since that time. Now, the second obstacle was that the cities were great and fortified. But Caleb was willing to try and even to die trying. His life was in God's hand. And that's the last thing that I see in verse 12, that he had both faith and hope in the Lord. Now, to our Western ears, what he says may seem like he's got a little bit of doubt there. He says, it may be that the Lord will be with me. It almost seems like it expresses doubt to us. But as Woodstraw points out in his commentary, the Hebrew need not express fear or doubt. Indeed, usually it signifies hope. The outcome of Caleb's hope is as sure as his faith is strong. The anikim will be driven out. So it is a certain hope But it's a hope that's realistic about the difficulty and that is humble before the Lord. I looked up the meaning of that Hebrew word in various dictionaries. They give exactly the same meaning. For example, Brown Driver Briggs' definition is this. This particle does not express a doubt, but a hope mixed with difficulty." Another Hebrew dictionary says, this word is the humble expression of hope and request. And faith, hope, and love go hand in hand. Caleb loved God supremely, trusts Him supremely, and has a steadfast hope that drives him into action. But I want you to notice in that phrase, he predicates victory on the Lord being with him. He knows he cannot manipulate God. Sometimes people try to manipulate God with their words. He can't manipulate God, and thus the appropriateness of the word may in the equation, but he's willing to bank on God being with him. God is not his servant. And again, the appropriateness of the humble word may. He's not a servant, but Caleb sees himself as being God's servant, and it's his delight to serve the Lord and to follow through on what God has promised. So I think that's the meaning of that may. And so, brothers and sisters, it is my hope that Caleb will be a model that will stir up faith, hope, and love in each one of us. And Lord willing, in the next sermon, we're going to finish off this chapter where we're going to look at the benefits of having a God-sized vision. But today, let's close with prayer. Father God, I thank you that you strew the pages of Scripture with testimonies of warning, like Hezekiah, of not being satisfied with what other people consider as good leadership qualities, but warnings that if we are not steadfastly sold out to the Lord, if we do not commit the same vision to our children, we will not have long-term success. And Father, we long for long-term success. So Father, I pray that you would bless this people with the vision of Caleb as they seek to disciple their children in the faith and disciple their children to be able to disciple the children after them. I pray that you would strengthen us and that you would, as you say, you are able to keep us from stumbling, that you would indeed keep us from stumbling as the Wilderness Generation did. In Jesus' name, amen.