Caleb & the Land of Spiritual Victory

Take your Bibles then and open to Joshua. Joshua, you can be finding chapter 12.

And we're going to cover really three chapters, though we're not going to deal in depth with actually quite a lot of it.

And I think reasons are rather obvious, but we're going to kind of get an overview of chapter 12 and 13 and spend the bulk of our time on chapter 14.

But last time we finished the details concerning the conquest of the land, Joshua Israel's conquest of the promised land.

And we talked a little bit about the central campaign. In fact, we really spent several chapters, not last time, but over the course of several Sundays looking at the central campaign, as it were, starting with Jericho.

And again, kind of the central part of the promised land. And then we kind of just real briefly looked at the southern campaign and then the northern campaign.

And our focus was on the big question. How could a holy, just, loving God have commanded such harsh actions on the part of his chosen people?

And I'm talking, of course, about the total destruction of entire cities. Some of them burnt to the ground. Burnt to the ground. And not only that, even worse, in our minds, the merciless, seemingly merciless annihilation of all their inhabitants.

In fact, the Bible says a couple of times in those chapters we looked at last week, everything that breathes air. And so we dealt with that.

And if you weren't here last night, I'm sorry. I'm not going to answer that question tonight. You'll have to go online and listen to the sermon for yourself. But that's what we dealt with last time.

And I hope that the answer I gave from Scripture was adequate for you. And yet, still, we kind of come away from it all thinking, Man, you know, it's hard to really digest all of that.

Why God would have Israel treat and deal with the inhabitants of Canaan, the Canaanites, so severely. Now, moving on from there, chapter 12 lists all, and we didn't really talk about this last time.

We're not going to talk about it much here tonight. But in chapter 12, the Bible lists all of the Canaanite kings that were defeated by Israel in these campaigns, including those that were defeated prior to Israel crossing over the Jordan and coming into the land.

I'm talking about those kings that were defeated under the leadership of Moses on the east side, eastern side of the Jordan River, which was the border of the promised land.

And so that's what chapter 12 deals with. And so it's, you know, in chapter 10 and 11, we have the various battles. And then in chapter 12, we have kind of a summation, kind of a listing of all of these kings.

And you can read that for yourself. And it is interesting history. And then chapter 13 deals or begins to detail the dividing up of the land.

And that's kind of the, really, what some would call the second main division of the book of Joshua. And so here's where we actually have the land now being divvied up, divided up by lot.

And not only the land, there are sections of the land of Canaan, but also specific cities for certain purposes. And we'll really just, we just really get started with that.

And that runs all the way through, well, chapter 19 for sure. That is the division of the land, specific details about that. And then 20 and 21, speaking of the cities of refuge and so forth.

And we'll get to that on later. And so it begins then here in chapter 13 in verse 1 with these words, now Joshua was old.

All right, so we've had quite a bit of passage of time here, haven't we? It didn't take long for us to read those several chapters. And we, you know, kind of rapid succession, we read about these various battles.

And many of them, of course, especially the details about the southern and northern campaigns were just sentences long, maybe a couple of verses long.

And basically, again, just basically, they attacked and everybody was killed. And so we have this kind of misconception that all of this took place in a short space of time, but that's not true.

So some passage of time has taken place here, and Joshua is now old. And not only that, but he is advanced in years. I'm not sure what the difference is between those two expressions.

I guess some days we feel old and some days we feel advanced in years. I'm not sure which one is the more positive of the two. You'll just have to decide. And I guess to make matters worse or to make it even more sobering, and the Lord said to him, you're old.

He said, you're old, and you're advanced in years. And there remains, he says, and this is key in verse 1, there remains very much land yet to be possessed.

And then God, in this chapter, first part of this chapter, chapter 13, lists those portions of the land that were yet to be conquered.

And apparently quite a bit of geography, quite a bit of the land had not yet been conquered. And then after that, God says in verse 6 of the chapter, chapter 13, them, speaking of these peoples, the population of these people and those lands that are yet to be conquered, them I will drive out from before the children of Israel.

And then he says it's only divided by lot, Israel, as an inheritance as I have commanded you. So he is given, even though Joshua is not now dead and out of the picture, I mean, he's still going to be around.

And really we're going to have to wait until I think chapter 22 or 23 before we get some farewell speeches from Joshua. Joshua, he's not out of the picture, but he's old, advancing years, he's coming to the end of his life, he has one more task to do, and before he dies, he must then divide the land among the people as God commanded him.

All right, so just kind of having said that, even though the first 11 chapters of Joshua, especially when you get into the parts of Jericho and Ai and then we're going on with the various battles, you know, you have this picture in your mind, maybe you're different than I am, but I kind of have this picture that, man, it's just about done here.

I mean, everything's complete. It just seems, after all of those various battles and the, you know, the victories, it seems to picture total dominance in the land.

You just kind of have that idea. And yet there were still large portions of the land of Canaan, the promised land, yet to be conquered. Now, I brought a map here.

If you'll advance that one slide, you can see how the land was divided. And this is what we're going to, you'll be reading about here in chapter, starting with chapter 13 and 14 and on again, all the way to chapter 19, specific details about where each tribe, the land each tribe would be given, was given for their inheritance.

And you can kind of see that. And you might note right down the middle of the slide, the middle of the map, you have the River Jordan. And so on the east side of the River Jordan, that, of course, is not the promised land.

You know that there were some tribes, Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh were allowed to locate and were given as an inheritance those lands on the eastern side of the Jordan River, outside of the promised land proper.

Those were places that were conquered under the leadership of Moses. And then when you get over into the promised land, then you have the 12 tribes. Now, I don't know if that is helpful to you, but visually, you can see all the tribes.

There's the other half of Manasseh, and you have Asher and Naphtali, and I can barely read them from here, and I don't have all the tribes memorized. There's Simeon and so forth.

Judah, of course. And actually, Judah is going to be the first one that we take up in this division of the land. Now, you might, just by way of information, just in case you don't know, that one of the tribes, the tribe of Levi, or the Levites, of course, were not given any of the land for an inheritance.

There's no Levi up there in any part of the promised land. So it excludes the Levites. And the Bible tells us a little bit about that.

We're not going to spend time and go back and talk about the why of that. I think it began, first of all, with the Levites' disobedience, but then they repented, and then God is going to give them an even greater inheritance.

And that's kind of what we will get here from, for example, verse 14 in chapter 13. Only to the tribe of Levi he had given no inheritance.

Now, that sounds terrible. Sounds like they're left out. But really, they're given a great inheritance. The sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire, their burnt offerings, the sacrifices as a part of their worship of Yahweh, these things are their inheritance, as he said to them.

Let me add that other verse, verse 33. Toward the end of the chapter, we come back to the tribe of Levi again, but to the tribe of Levi, Moses had given no inheritance.

And then this statement, the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance. Now, that's pretty good, isn't it? And we know that Levites, of course, were given charge over the conducting of the worship and the service in that way to Yahweh.

And it wasn't that they were just excluded and didn't have any place to live. They were given some specific places to live. But their inheritance was the Lord, solely.

Not a piece of geography or real estate, but the Lord, the sacrifices, the opportunity to serve, all the tithe that was given, required by Israel to give, was part of their inheritance, and so forth.

All right, so that's why, then we speak of 12 tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel, when actually, by the way, there were 13. There were 13 tribes.

Because the Levites were not given any territory there in the land of promise. Remember, of the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 sons of Jacob, Joseph, his inheritance was divided into two.

He had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Those are two tribes of Israel. There's no tribe of Joseph. So his inheritance was divided among his two sons. And so when you include all of the other 11 sons of Jacob and then the two sons of Joseph, then you have what?

You have 13 tribes. 13. But when you exclude Levi, who was given a different kind of inheritance, then you have 12. Just thought I would throw that out in case you're wondering about where these tribes have come from.

Now, the distribution of the land, then, the land of promise, follows a pattern. I said this a moment ago that he begins with Judah.

And so here's pretty much the pattern. He begins with the most important tribes first. And Judah is the most important tribe.

Can you think of any particular reason why that would be? It would be out of Judah, the tribe of Judah, that the Messiah would come.

And there are other reasons as well. But Judah is number one. And that's given to us, detailed for us in chapter 15. The tribes of Joseph, I said those are two.

That's Ephraim and Manasseh, well, western Manasseh. That is, that half of Manasseh was given land inside the promised land.

And chapters 16 through 17 detail that. And then very quickly, the remaining seven tribes are then detailed, their inheritance is detailed in chapters 18 and 19.

Now, all right, this is just some things to kind of get you prepared when we get to those chapters. But the entire listing of the, the inheritances, the land given to each of these tribes, that entire listing is introduced by a fairly lengthy account of Caleb.

It's interesting. Caleb is just kind of put in there. We don't have details about any of the others within the various tribes, Caleb being of the tribe of Judah.

But we have this, this inserted here about Caleb. And it kind of introduces us to the details that will be laid out for us concerning the inheritance of each of the tribes.

And so, I want us tonight then to spend the remainder of our time looking at Caleb. And so, if you have your Bibles open there to Joshua, look on over to chapter 14.

And we take up Caleb's story starting with verse 6. And it's an amazing story. Verse 6, starting with verse 6.

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.

It was 40 years, I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. So we know, we remember that Caleb was one of the 12 spies that Moses sent in to the promised land.

And I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. By the way, you remember Caleb and Joshua were the only two of the 12 spies that gave back a very positive report.

And I wanted to encourage the people, we can possess this land. Caleb was one of those. And he was giving testimony according to his heart. Nevertheless, verse 8, 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. Remember, he did not perish in the wilderness.

Because of his faith, he was allowed, he and Joshua were allowed to be the only ones other than Moses. And of course, Moses was not able to go into the promised, allowed to go into the promised land.

But Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful witnesses and reporters, spies, they were able to go through that 40-year wilderness wandering and allowed to go into the promised land.

So this is what Caleb is kind of reciting this for us. And so, I was kept 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 going in.

That's a pretty big statement, isn't it? I'm not sure that I could say that. Anyway, 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.

And Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as an inheritance. Hebron, therefore, became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, to this day because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.

And the name of Hebron formerly was Kerjath Arba. Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war. All right, so this little insert here, excerpt from the life of Caleb and it's really very interesting.

And Caleb, obviously, just from what we've read here, not only what we remember about how he gave a very positive, very faithful report as one of the 12 spies.

But now this that's given to us about Caleb tells us he was an exceptional man. I mean, he really was. Strong man. I mean, he's 80, what did I say, 85 years?

And just as strong, way back when you gave me the promise, just as strong now as I was then. And he was a man, of course, who knew what he wanted to do.

And he did it, the short story is. And I would add, because we have a few here in the room tonight, this man happened to be a senior citizen.

And he did what he did. Now, before we talk about Caleb, I'd like, it would be good, I think, to consider something. We've dealt with this a few times, maybe early on in the study of Joshua.

It would be good to consider again something about the message of Joshua. The spiritual message, the application spiritually. There's some confusion about that.

The book of Joshua is an illustration of the victorious Christian life. That's what Joshua is an illustration of. It documents, of course, Israel possessing their land of promise, the land that God had promised them.

They crossed over the Jordan and they possessed their possession. But now, what does the other side of Jordan represent? This promise, what does it represent spiritually?

What is Canaan symbolic of? Well, it's not symbolic of heaven. And though we have some songs that are written to that effect, with that thought.

You know, I've even heard some say, well, one of these days I'm going to cross over those chilly waters of Jordan, meaning I'm going to die and go to heaven. But Canaan land, the promised land, is not symbolic of heaven.

Canaan represents, again, the spirit-filled, victorious life of the believer. And so, it just falls right in line with some of the other symbolic representations, spiritual representations, in the early Old Testament.

Egypt represents what? Lostness, bondage, bondage to sin, slavery to sin. Deliverance from Egypt represents salvation, redemption.

How were they redeemed? How were they delivered? Through the blood of the Lamb. That represents salvation. The 40 years of wilderness wandering represents disobedience, being out of fellowship with God, broken fellowship, which does not have to be the Christian's experience, by the way.

And Canaan then represents, the promised land represents victory, spiritual victory. It represents the spirit-filled life. All right, so the book of Joshua is all about possessing the promised land, and the promised land represents the victorious, spirit-filled, Spirit-filled Christian life.

And Joshua, who does Joshua represent? Well, he'd have to represent Jesus. Joshua is the Old Testament type of Jesus, one of several. And even his name is the Hebrew counterpart to the Greek name for Jesus.

Yeshua means Jehovah saves, or Jehovah is salvation. And so Joshua represents Jesus. So Joshua led Israel into their land of victory.

victory. Jesus Christ is the one that leads us into our spiritual land of victory, spiritual victory, the spirit-filled life. And so, what about Caleb?

Who does he represent? Well, you and me. Caleb represents the born-again believer. That is, he represents what you and I ought to be and can be, can be, as God's children who have yielded to the control, the lordship of Christ in our lives.

And so that is the spirit-filled, spirit-empowered, victorious Christian life conquering our Canaan land, possessing our promised possessions in Christ.

All right, now having said that, then, it might be a good idea to look at the life of Caleb. If he represents us, then maybe we can learn something about not only who we are, but who we can be in Christ as believers.

So, let's look at several things about Caleb. First of all, and these are very simple, and you can see these right here in the scripture, Caleb's character. He was a man of character. Caleb's character.

And, you know, you can very easily see how that's described here in a number of places. For example, verse 8, nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but what?

I wholly followed the Lord my God. That's a statement about Caleb's spiritual character. I wholly followed the Lord. It's mentioned again in verse 9, so Moses swore on that day, saying, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever.

Why? Because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And then you look in verse 14 of this chapter, Hebron, therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, to this day, because, why?

He wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. It's kind of redundant, isn't it? Three times, see. God says, this is incredible. It's really a Hebrew superlative.

Three times something is mentioned. When something's mentioned three times, it's mentioned for extreme emphasis to show the supremacy of it.

And so Caleb was a man who wholly followed the Lord. Wholly. Not wholly, H-O-L-Y, but W-H-O-L-L-Y.

Wholly. All of Him. That is, Caleb was a man who gave God everything he had. And that is crucial, that is instrumental to a victorious Christian life, a spirit-filled life.

Does God deserve everything you have? Well, absolutely. He gave it to you. And everything you have belongs to Him. So, half-hearted, half-devoted Christians will never conquer their Canaan land in the sense of spiritual victory.

Victory over sin and victory over the flesh. Half-hearted, half-committed Christians will never know spiritual victory because half-hearted Christians are faint-hearted Christians.

Now, we're comparing, what we're doing is looking at Caleb and having Caleb stand as the model for us. He was a man of character.

Dwight L. Moody was also a great man. Some of you have read his biography and it's really very good, very interesting to read. And even if you've not read his biography, probably many of you have heard of him and know a little bit about him.

And yet, if you read his biography, you'll discover that one of the turning points in his ministry happened really early on in his ministry during a revival meeting in England.

Now, God had already been using Dwight L. Moody up to this point, but he was attending this revival service and he was not the preacher, but there was an evangelist there by the name of Henry Varley.

And one night, while Henry Varley was preaching, he said something that forever changed Dwight L. Moody. 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.

The world has yet to see a man like that. And Dwight L. Moody said, when he heard that, he said, by the grace of God, I will be that man. I will be that man. And God took Dwight L. Moody who was basically uneducated.

He was in many ways kind of uncultured, kind of crude in many ways. He was a shoe salesman. Nothing wrong with shoe salesman. But God took that guy, Dwight L. Moody, and used him to bring spiritual awakening and revival to two continents on this planet.

And why? Because he wholly followed the Lord. Wholly followed him. And so he's a good example of who Caleb was. So Caleb's character, he wholly followed the Lord.

But now, Caleb's character led him to something else. His character led him to his confidence. So you have Caleb's character and then you have Caleb's confidence.

I mean, you can't read this account here in this chapter in Joshua without sensing that very clearly. His confidence. Give me this mountain.

I am able to go out and to come in and I'm just as strong today as I was 40 years ago and you can't help but get that from this account.

And in what was Caleb confident? That's the important question. Was he confident in his own strength? You might think that's what he's saying but it's not.

Was he confident in his own smarts? Just more intelligent and better leader and better military tactician or whatever? Well, certainly not that.

Maybe he is confident in his past successes. Sometimes we can be confident in our past successes and Caleb surely had, you know, a high point in his life when he stood, he and Joshua alone, really, in front of these other ten spies and they made this great report.

Is he confident in these things? Confident that Moses, you know, thought a lot of him and so forth. No, it's not that at all. He was confident in the word of the Lord. Confident in the word of God.

That's where his confidence came from. And this too runs throughout the passage just like the other statement about him wholly following the Lord. Look at verse 6, for example, in this chapter.

In fact, there are three examples of this. Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the children of Israel had conquered and Moses, the servant of the Lord. I'm looking at the wrong chapter. Let me, 6 of chapter 14.

Are you in the right place? Then how come you had me read that verse? Okay, verse 6, Then the children of Judah came to Joshua and 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 and Kadesh Barnea.

What's he referring to? The word of God. Not the written, what God actually spoke, okay, in those days. So, his confidence in the word of God.

You can look at it and see it again in verse 10. 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.

There it is again, a reference to the word of God. His confidence was in the word of God. Verse 12 also, Now therefore give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day for you heard in that day how the Anakim and so forth.

So, the Lord spoke, the Lord's word, what the Lord said, all of those things repeatedly in this account given to us about Caleb.

So, do you know where Caleb received his confidence? It's pretty clear. Caleb's confidence was in the word of God, in what God has said. And so, Caleb had a mountain to conquer but God had given him that mountain vision, very confident about that and as one preacher put it, as Caleb marched up the mountain with a sword in his hand, he had the title deed in his back pocket.

So, he already had the land and he had his confidence not that he could conquer it himself or that anything about his own strength or ingenuity or even anything about what he thought he might deserve, you know, because of his faithful witness.

No, his confidence was in what God had said. The Bible says, of course, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The Bible says, the Lord has said that we may boldly say.

See how it's attached to the word. Anything that we can say boldly must be connected to God's word because it is true. All right, the point is we had better take God's word seriously, right?

Soak our lives in it and saturate our minds with it and read it and learn it and not only that but live it, know it and live it so that we will be able at every juncture in our lives to say with confidence, God has said.

God has said. Many of God's people don't really know what God has said on many matters. Better get into it.

Find out what God has said. Your confidence will be founded, rooted in what God has said. So Caleb was a great man of God because Caleb believed the word of God.

He believed what God said and he believed the word of God because his heart was pure. His heart was pure because he wholly followed the Lord. Do you see how these are all tied together? Now if we move on from there and this is very logical really, Caleb's character, he wholly followed the Lord, led to Caleb's confidence.

He believed the word of God and that led to something you and I need very much and that is courage. Caleb's courage. Caleb's courage. He was bold.

Clearly. A bold man. Brave. Brave and very courageous and now the area of land known as Mount Hebron, the mountain region there, Hebron, which was the land promised to Caleb and his family, it was rich with fertile land.

It was very fruitful, very fertile. There was just one slight problem. Do you know what that was? giants. Yeah, giants. The land was inhabited by a clan, a family of real live giants.

Alright? That's what the Bible says. In fact, they're the sons of Anak and a certain descendant of Anak we know quite well from the pages of scripture and his name was Goliath, descendant of Anak.

And so Goliath was one of the descendants. So these are giants and they were inhabiting most of this land and so before the land could be conquered, Caleb had to drive out the giants.

and so before the promise then could be realized, God had promised it to him, before the promise could be realized in his life, Caleb had to conquer the land, a land inhabited by giants.

And so the application is really pretty clear if you're looking for an easy way to spiritual victory and a spirit-filled life. If you're looking for an easy way, a kind of laid-back, lazy way to experience spiritual victory, you can just forget it.

It's just not, that's not, it takes discipline. God gives us the grace, of course, we're not doing anything in our own strength. But God expects us and demands that we participate with him in this work that he is doing in our lives and this need for spiritual victory.

Caleb had some opposition ahead of him. Even though the land had been promised to him, he had opposition and so do we. Someone has said that the door of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition.

And I would imagine that every one of us have learned the truth of that in our lives and we'll continue to learn that. All right, let's just look at the opposition Caleb had that he faced.

First of all, he had to overcome grasshoppers. He had to overcome grasshoppers. Look at verse 7 and 8 again. It was 40 years, 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. Made the heart of the people melt.

how did they, these other spies, the ten spies, how did they make the heart of the people melt? Well, we can read about that in Numbers.

So you can just kind of flip over there real quickly to Numbers chapter 13 and listen to verse 33. 13 verse 33.

This is the report, part of the report of the ten unfaithful spies, the ten cowards. And they're speaking of the land of promise.

There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak came from the giants. That's just said parenthetically. And we, now listen to this statement, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight.

Now think about that statement. We were like grasshoppers from our own point of view. And so we were in their point of view as well.

But first, from our perspective, we're nothing. We're just like little grasshoppers. That was their estimation of themselves. And since God was leading them and giving them this land, this was their estimation of course of God and God's strength and God's bigness, God's ability to fulfill all that he had promised God's people.

We are in our own sight. Like grasshoppers. Do you know what their problem was? They had a grasshopper complex. That's something that we sometimes have.

A lot of Christians have this kind of complex. You know, they say, you know, to live the Christian life and to live it in victory, well, that's just, that's a great concept.

grasshopper complex. That's a but who can do it? And, you know, that's a grasshopper complex. And we often see ourselves as grasshoppers.

We say there are too many giants in that land of spiritual victory. Nobody could ever live there. Folks, listen, before we can do anything great for the Lord, we have to overcome the grasshopper complex.

And so Caleb first had to overcome that, and then he had to overcome giants. He had to overcome giants. They were clearly in the land. Verse 12, back there in Joshua 14, Now, therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day, for you heard in that day, the day when they were reporting, the spies were reporting, you heard how the Anakim, the descendants of Anak, 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 he really did have to face some real live giants living in fortified cities. So he had to overcome giants. What are the Anakims?

I've already mentioned that they're giants. They're certainly not what you take for headache, Anakims. You can't buy that down at Walgreen or anything like that. Anakims were real giants.

Goliath, again, was a descendant. He was how tall? How about nine feet tall? Best estimate. That's not just hyperbole or, you know, some embellishment of a story.

Goliath really was a giant, and he really was nine feet tall. Caleb, though, was not at all worried about those giants. I mean, you can't get from this account that Caleb was worried about them, fearful of them.

In fact, I think we can understand from Scripture that he was excited about that prospect, excited about going up against and conquering these giants.

Can you believe that? Well, just look, again, we were over there in Numbers chapter 13. In chapter 14 of Numbers, in verse 8, listen to what Caleb said.

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. This is Caleb's report. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land.

Now, the other spies just talked about giants, so he's referring to what they said about giants. Don't fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. That's a really interesting way to put it.

They're just bread for us. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. They are like bread.

This is amazing. I mean, think about Caleb. This man, Caleb, was a courageous man. And he said, those giants, why, they're just bread for us to eat.

what he said. He wasn't a bit afraid of them, excited about the prospect of going up against them. They're just bread for us to eat. Someone passed the peanut butter and jelly.

We're just going to eat them up, is what Caleb was saying. But we need to learn a spiritual lesson here because these giants, the opposition, Caleb said we're like bread, and bread is food, right?

Last I checked, in fact, I love bread. Bread is food, and food serves as nourishment to the body, right? Well, most foods you eat do.

And nourishment then produces what? Growth, strength, produces health, can't be strong, can't live very long without food.

So what is Caleb saying? Caleb is saying God did not place these giants in the land to defeat us. He didn't place them here to defeat us. He placed them here to grow us, and to strengthen us, and to give us opportunities to rely upon him.

That's how we ought to approach every giant that we face in life, and we face a number of them. They're there, if you truly belong to God, one of his children through faith, grace and faith, then you know that the obstacles that you face are there because God has allowed those things to come into your life, and they have not been put there to defeat you.

They have been allowed to be there in your life to grow you, strengthen you spiritually, and even more importantly, possibly, maybe this ought to leave the list, to give you more and more opportunities to trust God and to rely upon him.

Just think about it. What if you had no obstacles in life? Would you ever need God? Never need to trust him? All right, so we have an example of courage.

Caleb is an example of courage. He said in verse 12, give me this mountain. Give me this mountain. Adrian Rogers once said, Caleb sat down at the table and said, pass the anicum, please.

anicum, the breakfast of champions. That's the way Caleb felt about it. All right, so one last thing. Old Caleb had to overcome something else, not only grasshoppers and giants, but he had to overcome gray hairs.

Some of us are dealing with that. Some of us more than others. But he had to deal with gray hairs. Look at the last part of verse 10.

I already emphasized this when I read it. Now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive as he said these 45 years ever since the Lord spoke his word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness.

And now, here I am this day, 85 years old. I'm 85 ahead, overcome gray hair. We have to as well. God ever threw with us?

No. Never threw. Is there ever a time we, because we're older now, we just kind of kick back and just let go and don't have to worry about any spiritual growth or spiritual maturity.

No, that never ends. Does it mean that now God, the giants, they ought to stop? I'm not able to take on those giants anymore. No, there's never a time when that stops. Caleb said, he was courageous, I'm just as able today as I was, you know, 40 years ago when the promise was given to me.

One last thing, Caleb's conquest. Now, get the scheme of this. Caleb's character, he wholly followed the Lord, led to Caleb's confidence, he knew and believed the word of God, and Caleb's confidence then led to his courage, give me this mountain, and finally Caleb's courage led to his actual conquest.

Conquest. What was Caleb's conquest? It was Hebron, the region of Hebron. I can't see it from here, it's too blurry for me, maybe you can. But do you know what the name Hebron means in the Hebrew?

It means fellowship. It means fellowship. So what did Caleb want? He wanted the mountain called Fellowship, symbolic of his desire for fellowship with Yahweh God.

Isn't that what you want? And do you know how much of that mountain Caleb was promised? All of it.

All of it. And so he wanted the fullness of fellowship with God. Isn't that what you want? And do you know what Hebron was known for? And I mentioned this a moment ago, but it was known for its fertility, its fruitfulness.

Isn't that what you want with God? Would you like to live there spiritually? Would you like to live on the kind of the mountaintop of Hebron, the mountain of fellowship with God, the fullness of God, the fruitfulness of God in your relationship with Him?

Well, you have to possess it. You have to possess it. This kind of mountaintop has to be conquered. And so how do we do that? by conquering the giants.

And specifically the three giants that oppose us there. And we read about that in chapter 15. So just look one chapter over to verse 14.

And this is inserted for us. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak from there, Shishai, Ahimon, and Talmei, the children of Anak.

So these are listed specifically here. Even their names are given. These three sons of Anak. These sons of this clan of giants.

Someone has done a study of the three names here and discovered that they can apply to some very specific character issues.

For example, Shishai means, the word means noble, means noble, and so it can signify who I am, the giant of who I am, or the giant of ego.

Ahimon means a gift, means a gift, and signifies what I am, what I am, pride, and so the giant of pride.

talmei means a furrow, like a farmer would make, a furrow, and signifies what I can do, what I can do, and so the giant of self-reliance.

Isn't that interesting? Those are the three giants we face. Who I am, what I am, what I can do. Ego, pride, self-reliance.

Now there are other giants, and we typically think of people, and things, and events, circumstances that challenge us, and make life hard for us, and so forth.

But those are giants, yes, that we face, and we can have victory over them, but these are the three biggest giants we face. That is ego, who I am, pride, what I am, and self-reliance, what I can do.

So, you know, there's the land of spiritual victory promised every born-again believer, and there is a way to live life on the mountaintop, fellowship with God, fullness of God, fruitfulness with God, but for that mountain to become a reality.

Just like with Caleb, spiritually speaking, for us, you must come to the place where you say, God, I cannot do it by myself. God, you can, and I trust you.

Give me this mountain. Give me this spiritual mountain. The land of spiritual victory. Thank you.