direct me to this particular theme tonight. And I thought, no, I don't want to do that. Somebody recently preached on Caleb, and I don't want to go back to Caleb again. And generally, we reserve preaching on Caleb for older folks. And we don't, you know, and all those kinds of things. But he is an example. He's a wonderful example, not just for those of us who are older, but for young people also. We meet him, really, not We know about 45 years of his life. We meet him when he's 40 years old. And then we meet him again at 85 and those places and mentions in between. He would not be one of those fellows that Brother Wallace preaches about, little and unknown but necessary in the Lord's work. He's a pretty well-known fellow. I want you to open your Bibles to two places. I want you to open to numbers. 13, Numbers 13, and then to Joshua chapter 14. I'm going to read two passages. Well, I'm gonna really read three, a verse from chapter 13 of Numbers, about three verses from 14, and then a few verses from Joshua 14. Numbers 13. I'm going to read just verse 30 and you'll know immediately where we are. The scene is Kadesh Barnea. The children of Israel have been out of Egypt for a brief time. They've experienced God's care and provision in taking care of their physical needs. They've experienced the awesomeness of God's presence. And now they have come to the place where they are ready to enter the land that God had given to Abraham and to his children forever. Now Kadesh Barnea is in the south of the land. It is east of Gaza. It is west of the Rift Valley. Of course, it's south of the Dead Sea, but still that valley there, that fracture in the earth that goes down through there that allows the Dead Sea to be the lowest dry ground on the earth, the shore of the Dead Sea to be the lowest dry ground on the earth, the lowest place on the earth. So it's west of that, east of Gaza, and just south, south of the area that God said, this is where you'll go into. And so they send out 12 spies. They pick 12 good men, good men. And they go and spy out the land. And they come back and say, it's just like God said it was. Everything's just like God said it was. Except there are some things God didn't tell us about. Everything he said was right, but there are some things he didn't tell us. He didn't tell us about these fortified cities, and he didn't tell us about these giants. Well, why should he have to tell us about that? But that's another sermon. And they stirred up the people. Ten of them says, we cannot do this. We cannot do this. Joshua and Caleb were of a different heart. And in verse 30, Caleb, Numbers 1330, Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once. Sounds kind of radical. Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are able to overcome it. Now, you know as well as I do that he's not saying that in ourselves we're able to overcome it, any more than we're able to walk through the Red Sea without the Lord. But with the Lord, we can do that. And his dependence on the Lord, he says, let us go up at once. Now, in chapter 14 and verse six, Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes, and spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their defense is departed from them. and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. Now, it's interesting that there is a very close coordination in that verse 9 about rebellion against the Lord and fear of the enemy. Now let's turn to 45 years later. 45 years later in Joshua chapter 14. In Joshua chapter 14, I'm going to read an extended passage for me, verses 6 through 13. Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua and Kilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, these old buddies, they are the old men of this crowd. They're at least 20 years older than anybody else in the congregation. 20 years older. And Caleb says to Joshua, 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 spy out the land. And I brought him word again, as 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 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 said, these 45 years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day, I don't know whether it was his birthday or not, but he said, this day, I am fourscore and five years old. Yet I'm 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. I'd like to know what he ate. He ate manna. That's what he ate. Okay. 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 Anacoms were there, and the cities were great and fenced. And that is where they saw the giants. That's where they saw the giants, was on that mountain and in that place. The Anacoms were there, and the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me. then 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. I'm going to read the last two verses. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, unto this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kiriath Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakims, and the land had rest from war. Now I want you to see three things about the example of Caleb, and I want us to let it be our example. First of all, I want you to see the example of his vision. He was a man of vision. He had been there, he had seen the land, he had tasted of the good things, and he had seen in his mind's eye what it would be like to live there. Oh, to live there. You see, the other people with him, they saw giants, but he saw God. Always throughout the scripture, whenever you get your eyes off the Lord and start looking at things around you, you're not going to move forward the way the Lord wants you to. Peter walking on the water, that's an example of it. Peter again after the resurrection there on the Sea of Galilee as Jesus prepares bread and fish upon the fire for them and they come in and the Lord Jesus Christ deals with Peter there, love us thou me, love us thou me, love us thou me and they go through that and and he speaks to John and to Peter, and he says to Peter, Peter, this is going to happen to you. You're going to be taken where you don't want to go. Other people are going to gird you. You're going to live to be an old man, and you're not going to have control over what happens to you and everything like this. And Peter is saying, oh, my, I don't know. And he says, what about this guy? And he points to John. He says, what about him? What's he going to do? And the Lord says, what's that to you? Follow me, keep your eyes on me. And whenever we look around us, we can be discouraged every which way. But whenever we keep our eyes on the Lord, that takes it all away, makes everything different. Others saw giants, he saw God. Others saw fortresses, but he saw houses for his family. He said, this is my place. I like this. We can be here. That's what God will give us. Other people saw foes, but he saw the fruit of the land. Man, they come back with those clump of grapes, a cluster of grapes so big that they had to put it on a pole between them and carry it on a pole between them. My, that's pretty impressive. That's impressive. They still use it. That symbol is still the thing. Two men with a pole between them walking along with a cluster of grapes hanging down is the symbol of the tourism department of Israel right now. Right now, whenever you see the tourism, the Department of Tourism in Israel, that's the thing that identifies them. Other people saw opposition. Caleb saw an opportunity. Now, you talk about it any way you want to and call it by whatever terms you want to, but that's the difference in the way that people of faith look at situations. Opposition? Well, of course there's opposition. But there's an opportunity. It's been a long time since I've quoted the song, but it comes to my mind right now. Why, I complain about the problems, rejoice in the opportunity. You have a chance to grow in grace and take hold of responsibility. The reward is worth the suffering. There's glory by and by. Thank God for the problems on the way. If you never had a problem, you'd never know that God could solve them. That's part of the life we live. That's part of the way we go. Your problem, the verse of that little course, that little song I just quoted said, your problem is a compliment, tailored and just your size. It may well be a heaven-sent opportunity in disguise. Why complain about the problem? Rejoice in the opportunity. Others saw the problems, but he saw the promises of God. Now, that was a position of vision. He had a positive vision. I like to be around positive people. Now, I know you can go to seed on that, and I know the books that have been written, Power of Positive Thinking, and all this kind of stuff, and what it tends to do. Those kinds of books tend to deify the human mind. And whatever the mind of man can imagine, the genius of man can produce. And the fact is, it's almost like that. It's amazing what God has built within us. But we don't need to be so afraid of positive thinking that we have to be negative all the time. Well, you know, I just don't think that'll work. I just don't believe we ought to do that. I just don't think, you know, oh, we tried that. We tried that before. You go to some churches and some places I go and some preachers I talk to and say, well, you could do this and we could do this. And have you tried this? Yeah, we've done all that. It just doesn't work. You know, it may work other places, but it doesn't work here. You know, it may work for other people, but it doesn't work for me. and just down and depressed and negative and all those kinds of things. Now, Caleb wasn't like that at all. Now, if anybody had a reason to be negative, I think Caleb did. Now, Caleb was the man who said, let's go now. Let's go now. And he stilled the people before Moses. And he said, God is with us. We can do this. We can do what God said do. Let's go now. And rather than going now, they said no. And they didn't go. And Moses wouldn't lead them and say, let's go. Come on. I've had opposition from you before. We're going to go now anyhow. If you don't want to go, just stay behind. But those of us that are on this thing and going to go, we'll go and God will give us the victory. I don't know why Moses didn't say that, but he didn't. And that's his business between him and the Lord. And I don't get into that. But I know one thing. Caleb had to spend 40 years in the wilderness with a bunch of murmurers who would not go forward at the command of God and at the promises of God. He had to wander around and around and place to place and spend 40 years in the wilderness with them. 40 years that he could have been enjoying the promised land. If they had listened to him and said, let's go, let's go, what a wonderful thing it would have been. 40 years and then five years of battling throughout the land. After that, he had a positive vision. But not only he had a vision, not only a positive vision, but it was a vision based on promises. It was not just some pipe dream. He had the promises of God. He said, God has said this. This is what God has said. It's amazing to me that they had just been delivered from the mightiest military nation on the earth at that time. They had been delivered out of bondage without a general, without arms, without anything, without any weapons of warfare, and without lifting their hand to battle. They were delivered out of that and took the wealth of the land with them. They reaped the results of an overwhelming military victory against the mightiest army in the world at that time. And now they come up here. I don't know. Some people go from one and a half to two, two and a half, three to four million people. And there are these little cities up there with walls around them. And there are some guys, there are not many of them, but there are some guys that are giants. I mean, they're big fellas, but there's not many of them. If they didn't even have God with them, it looks like they'd have had enough confidence in who they were and the sheer numbers of who they were. to have been assured of the victory. But no, we can't do that. We'll go up there and we'll battle and who knows what might happen to our children. Oh, our children might get hurt. Our children might get hurt in the battle. Well, yeah, they might. That could happen. But you and I both know who had to fight the people in the land. Their children. because they didn't go. Their children had to fight the battles. It was a vision based on promises. I got a text message today from Doyle and Glenda Coy. You know, I don't know where they are. They're everywhere. They're running all over the place. But today, they were back in Kentucky. They were in Lexington, Kentucky. And they looked up this church that we bought hymn books for. up there in Lexington, a new church. I should know the name of it. A young man by the name of Vince Stover is the pastor, and Glenda had texted me and said, where is this church? We want to find it. We want to go there Sunday, see what's going on. And so I said, I'll try to find it. I'll find out, you know, at least get you a number to call or something. So they called, and they were there this morning. And she's taking a picture of the hymn book, you know. They've got the hymn books. They love the hymn books, you know. And interesting, whenever I saw it, the picture of the page, the song on the page that she took was Standing on the Promises. And I thought, I got to say something about that tonight in this sermon. I got to say that I saw that picture. I looked at the picture, and I couldn't quite make it out, and I made it a little larger. And there it was, standing on the promises. And the second one on that page over there down at the bottom of the page was, break thou the bread of life, dear Lord to me. And then they had, she sent me a picture of Doyle standing beside the pastor. And I thought, what a good thing. I'd already heard from the pastor, and he told me that it was there. They were there, and it didn't cause too much problem in the service, but it was okay. Caleb's an example of vision. What's your vision? And what is intimidating you from fulfilling that vision? I'm talking about a God-given vision with God-given instructions with God-given promises. What's your vision? God has something for you. You say, I wouldn't even want to tell you what it is because it's just a, it's a big thing and I can't do it. Okay. Whatever. Whatever. Stay in the wilderness. Live between the verses. Now, the second thing I want you to see is his vitality. His vitality. He is an example of energy. Now, he was an example of energy at 40 years of age. But he's an example of energy at 85 years of age. Man! He had come out of Egypt as a 40-year-old man. marched out of Egypt, walked through the Red Sea, followed Moses in the wilderness, risen to a place of leadership, come to Kadesh Barnea out of his tribe. He is the one that is chosen to go spy out the land. He represents his entire tribe. And whenever he comes to that time, he is excited. He's excited to go see the land. And he comes back excited about going in and conquering the land. He's excited about that. He had to be down with this 40 years in the wilderness, but he stayed faithful. He stayed faithful and wandered around with those people in the wilderness. I just cannot imagine, and I love to think about, and I said this not very long ago, but I love to think about what the children of Israel could have done had they marched forward under Moses' leadership. Moses still had 40 years in him. He had 40 years of leadership. He was 80 years old at that time, whenever Caleb was 40. Moses was 80. But Moses lived to be 120. He still had 40 years of leadership. And he stayed right in harness. And he stayed right there, right to the very end. Caleb endured the wilderness. for 40 years. At 80 years of age, he entered into the battle for the land. And now at 85 years of age, he says, that place that intimidated my brethren 45 years ago, That place that had the giants and that place that had the fortified cities, I'm 85 years old, but that's my place. That's for me. That's for me. Now, I don't know. They've known each other a long time. Joshua and Caleb have known each other a long time. They've walked a long road together for many, many years. I don't know. Joshua had to say, all right, Caleb, go for it, man. Go for it. I don't think Joshua questioned him at all. I don't think Joshua said, ah, now, Caleb, you're 85 now. I don't know about that. I don't think he said that at all. I think he said, God bless you, Caleb. I admire that. I like that. I like that vitality. I like to see that in older folks. But I tell you something else I like to see. I like to see it in younger folks too. I just, it just, Irritates me. It seems like the older I get, the more things irritate me. I know you're not like that, but anyway, okay. It irritates me to see young people too tired to do anything. Give me that place that intimidates other people. That place that other people are afraid of, that place that keeps them from following the will of God, that thing that intimidates them and makes them back up and say, whoa, no, I don't think we can do that. I'll take that place. Give me that place. I'll take the hard place. He's an example in vitality. He's an example in vision. But I like this also. He's an example in victory. He's an example in victory. And I read again, verse 14 of Joshua 14. Heberon therefore became the inheritance of Caleb. the son of Jephunneh, the Kinezite, unto this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel." He took that mountain. He conquered those giants. He drove the Anakims out of there. And we ought to do the same thing. We ought to do the same thing. Whenever God puts before us a vision and a goal and God gives us something that He wants accomplished for His glory, why not? Why not let's do that? Why murmur and whine and complain and say, oh, I don't think we can do that, I don't think we can do that, I don't think we can do it. Well, of course we cannot do it in our own selves. God knows that, we know that, everybody knows that. Who do you think got the glory for the children of Israel marching through the Red Sea? God got the glory for that. If they had marched on into the promised land right then and conquered the land and dwelled there according to God's promise and according to God's command, who would have gotten the glory for that? God would have gotten the glory for that. Now they fought the battles, but God got the glory for it. Because everybody knows we do not do that in ourselves. And if we accomplish only that, that we can do in our own power, naturally. If that's all we do for God, who gets the glory for that? We do. We get the glory for that because that's what we can do. I have the power to do that. I have the skill to accomplish that. I can do that. Whenever God gets the glory for it, it's when we take on something that's doomed to failure unless God works through us. And then when that's done, God gets the glory for it. He conquered the mountain. He took Hebron. Now, Hebron was a hard place then. Hebron's a hard place now. You don't go to Israel with a tour now and go visit Hebron. You just don't do that. I went in there one time with our guide, just the two of us. I went in there. We went past five checkpoints. Israeli soldiers at five checkpoints. And they gave us specific directions to go to the next checkpoint. And said, you go straight to there. Don't go off anywhere. Do not go off this road. You stay right on this road. You get to the next place, they tell you the same thing. Extreme caution. And we got to the cave of Machpelah. It's a huge, it's not a cave anymore. I mean, you know, as the structures are built up, the huge place, been there, been recognized as the burial place of Abraham and Sarah and those others for 3,000 years. For 3,000 years it goes back to that place right there, that people have been going there for 3,000 years to the burial place of Abraham and Sarah. And to go in there is a pretty awesome thing. And of course, all kinds of stuff builds up around a place like that. In fact, whenever we were in there, there was no one there hardly. I think we saw three other people in this huge, massive place. I think there were three other people that we saw. There were probably other people there, but we saw that many. And this one fella wanted to show us the burial place of Adam and Eve. I thought that was very interesting. I wonder how that burial place survived the flood. But anyway, anyway, it's amazing how things can go on like that. Hebron, still a hard place today. But he took that place and he took the mountain at 85 years of age. Now I'm gonna show you something that I want you to see and I want you to get this. Because whenever God does something for you, you need to do something for God, okay? When God does something for you, you need to do something for God. Got that? Say it one more time. People say you have to hear it seven times before it sticks, so hang on. When God does something for you, you ought to do something for God. Turn to Joshua chapter 21. The battle's over. The land is divided. Not every inch of the land is conquered, but Joshua has said, Simeon, the tribe of Simeon, you take your people, go here, tribe of Dan, go here, now you conquer their land, you go ahead, we've got it down to where you can handle it now, and you do that, and here we go, Naphtali and Issachar, all of y'all, Ephraim, Manassas, all of you, all of you, get your land conquered, get that taken care of, and we'll dwell here in the land. And now, Caleb, Caleb is down at Hebron. And he's got the mountain, and he's got Hebron, and he's got the surrounding hill country around there. And you know what happens in the tribe of Judah here? What happens in the tribe of Judah, they're picking out cities now that are going to be given to the priests. They're called cities of refuge. And they're places that the priests live. They do not have a certain section of land, but the priests live in all, amidst all of the tribes. And Caleb says, they ought to have Hebron. I've conquered Hebron. God gave me that. I want that to be done. And he gave them the city of Arba, the father of Anak, which city is Hebron in the hill country of Judah with the suburbs round about it. And after God had given that to him, he gave it back to God. Isn't that a good thing? That's a good lesson to learn. How to enjoy the victories that God gives. He's not only an example of vision. He's not only an example of vitality. But he is an example of how to live in victory. And how you ought to behave whenever God gives you victory. Let's stand together.