Caleb: A Man with a Different Attitude

Good morning. It's good to be with you all this morning. I guess, um, for a title, I'm going to talk about Caleb, a man with a different attitude. And, um, I want to, um, make a apology for you all. When I was at Brothers' meeting last time, we were reminded that we had agreed to use the King James and the New King James versions of the Bible in our meetings, and I've been probably one of the primary offenders in using other translations. And so I will amend my ways and read to you from the New King James this morning. I enjoy reading different translations of the Bible personally because it helps me to think about the words in a different way.

And I plan to still share those things with you, but I will primarily read from the New King James. So without further ado, this morning I want to talk about the life of Caleb. Now, I know we just studied Caleb in Sunday school. I guess the last time I read through that part of the Bible, I thought there would be some material there for a message, and it never entered my mind that we would study him in Sunday school. But I still feel like I want to share that. And, um, I guess the thing that really stands out about Caleb, just at the outset, was that God said that he followed the Lord wholly. And so it's going to be an encouragement this morning for all of us to, to do that.

You can open up to Numbers chapter 13. I think that this is the first mention of Caleb in the Bible. And, um, the other thing that the other disclaimer that I'm going to make for you this morning is I am not going to pronounce all these names properly.

I was if, if you're interested in how they're supposed to be pronounced, you can go to blueletterbible.org. And if you get into the Study Helps, you can click on the Strong's numbers, and someone pronounces every single one of those Hebrew words. You can, you can go and listen to them. But my memory is not good enough to remember just how he says it.

Of course, the other thing is they pronounce even Caleb differently in Hebrew, like Kilab. But I will stick with the, the English pronunciation this morning. I'm not going to read everything about Caleb because I would it would make a long message. So we're going to jump around just a little bit, read the first two verses of, of chapter 13 of Numbers. "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 'Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.'" And then he goes down through and says what each of those men are. And I'll let you read them yourselves.

Um, the one thing that's interesting is that in the account in Numbers, it says, "The Lord said to spy out the land." If you read the account in Deuteronomy, the people are saying, "We want to send spies." I don't know how to reconcile that, but maybe God agreed with the people and said, "Okay, send spies."

And then we'll drop down to verse 17. "Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, 'Go up this way into the south and go up to the mountains and see what the land is like, whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are forests or not. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.' Now, the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath.

And they went up through the south and came to Hebron. Ahaman, Shisha, and Tammah, the descendants of Anak, were there. Now, Hebron was built seven years before Zion in Egypt. "Then they came to the valley of Ishkol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes. They carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. The place was called the valley of Ishkol because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there. And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days.

Now, they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. And they brought back word to them and said to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

Then they told him and said, 'We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong.

The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the bank of the Jordan.' Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, 'Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.' But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.' And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, 'The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants.

And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.'" And continuing in chapter 14, "So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, 'If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims?

Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?' So they said to one another, 'Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.' Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. But Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Japhunnah, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, 'The land we passed through to spy out is exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, the 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.' And all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Now, the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of meeting before all the children of Israel."

And I'll just make a few comments here on the first part of the story.

Um, so the spies were sent, and they did what they were told to do. They brought back the fruit of the land. And I don't know I don't know how big a cluster of grapes needs to be before you hang it on a pole. They sure don't sell them like that at Walmart.

But it must have been a pretty nice pretty nice, um, place to be. But, you know, the only thing that those 10 men could see were the giants. That's the only thing they saw, the giants. And I was just thinking about this giants, and they thought, "Well, we're, we're like grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers." My, um, my friend Laverne Martin was here the other Sunday, and I didn't remember that he was as tall as what he is. And there's lots of people taller than him. He said he was 6'7", but I felt sort of short. And I don't tend to feel that because I'm pretty average.

And so if I mean, we don't know how big these fellows were, but if Goliath was one of the descendants of these people, and he was 9 feet tall, you know, that's higher than I can reach. You would feel like a grasshopper.

You start to feel small even when someone is only, you know, 8 inches taller than you, maybe. So that was just so significant. So then after, after the congregation picked up the stones, God intervened. It says his glory appeared in front of the tabernacle, and I think that sort of, you know, brought that down to a halt.

And, and jumping down to verse 20, "Moses fell on his face, and he interceded, and he said, 'God, if you destroy these people, the Egyptians are going to hear, and they're going to know that you can't do what you said you were going to do.'" So he appealed to God's honor.

And so in verse 20, "Then the Lord said, 'I have pardoned according to your word, but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have put me to the test now these 10 times and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.'" So God's pronouncing judgment and also blessing, sort of in the same breath.

And we're going to talk about talk about that a little bit more. And in the account in Deuteronomy and you can turn there if you don't want to. I'm just going to read two verses there for now. Deuteronomy 1:34 to 36 says, "And the Lord heard the sound of your words and was angry and took an oath, saying, 'Surely not one of the men these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, the son of Japhunnah. He shall see it. And to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked because he wholly followed the Lord.'"

So God made a solemn promise to Caleb that he was going to go in, and he was going to, to inherit the land that he had walked on. And I guess we're just going to go ahead and finish, finish this story.

We're going to move to Joshua chapter 14, which is where this sort of you see the end of this.

And we'll read starting in verse 6, "Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb, the son of Japhunnah, the Chanzanite, said to him, 'You know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me and Kadesh-Baarena. I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-Baarena to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brother, and 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, for both 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." And Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jonathah, as an inheritance. Hebron, Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jonathah, the Chanzanite, to this day because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.

And the name of Hebron formerly was Kereth-Arba. Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war."

And going into to cha chapter 15, verse 13, "Now to Caleb, the son of Jonathah, he gave a share among the children of Judah according to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, namely Kereth-Arba, which is Hebron. Arba was the father of Anak. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak from there, Shisha, Ahaman, and Tammunnah, the children of Anak. Then he went up from there to the inhabitants of Dabur. Formerly, the name of Dabur was Kereth-Shepher.

And Caleb said, 'He who attacks Kereth-Shepher and takes it, to him will I give Asha, my daughter, as wife.' So Othnel, the son of Kenez, the brother of Caleb, took it, and he gave him Asha, his daughter, as wife. Now it was so when she came to him that she persuaded him to ask her father for a field. So she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, 'What do you wish?' She answered, 'Give me a blessing. Since you have given me land in the south, give me also springs of water.' So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs."

Now that's pretty much what the Bible has to say about Caleb.

And I don't know what that story does for you, but when I read it, it's inspiring. It's, um, it's a kind of tale that makes you feel good. You have a warm feeling in your heart, probably, about the faithfulness of God and, and maybe some admiration for a man that was willing to stand up for what was right. But have you ever considered why? Why did the story turn out the way it did? What, what moved Caleb to have that kind of confidence and faith that God was going to do what he said he was going to do?

We don't know a lot about Caleb's background. When we meet him in the Bible, he's 40 years old. So he's basically my age. I'm 42. And that sort of is interesting to me because, I don't know, when you when you meet somebody that's about your age, there's, there's just something nice about that. You can really identify maybe with where they are in life. So he wasn't a young man, but he wasn't an old man. And we don't know his backstory. We know his father's name. We have no idea what kind of person his father was. We don't know if his father wholly followed the Lord or if he didn't. Did he read you know, did he tell the stories to Caleb of, um, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob?

Did he, you know I mean, they didn't have the law necessarily then even written out to read to their families. What we, we don't know. The Bible is silent about his, his backstory. The only other thing we know about him at this point is that he was a leader in the tribe of Judah because it says that all the spies that were sent were leaders in their tribes.

So I don't know if he was the chief or if he just had responsibility in the tribe. He must have had some respect. I think we can safely say that. So let's, let's just think about some things that were significant. We talked about him being a leader.

He had this wholehearted commitment. The Bible says, "God said, Moses said," and, and Caleb's own testimony was, "He served the Lord fully."

And, and he seemed to have faith. And I want to talk about that just a little bit more. And he also had a different spirit. And the one translation said a different attitude.

So these are just some things that, that I'm thinking about with some significant things about his character. And a demonstration of his leadership was when the people were all in an uproar. It says he was able to quiet the people down so that he could talk. Now how he did that there again, he must have commanded some respect. When he came out there and he wanted to say something, he was able to, to get the people to re to quiet down and to respond to him so that he was able to talk.

And that's a gift. I've tried to get groups of people to quiet down, and I have had moderate success. They were really stirred up. In the beginning of Numbers I just want you to keep this in mind. In the beginning of Numbers, they took a census. That's why we call the book the Book of Numbers, because I think it starts with a census and maybe it ends with one. Does it end with one?

I didn't look, but it starts with one. There were 600,000-plus men that were aged 20 and up, 600,000 and some change. So when he was up there, it was basically him and Joshua and Moses against 600,000. And I don't know that's not a position that you really enjoy being in.

And, um, it, it takes some, some force of character. Um, the devotional we heard about seeking God's approval versus man's approval. He definitely wasn't looking for man's approval at that point, or he would have been on the other side with the 600,000 plus the 10.

But so I guess the question the burning question that I have about this is, why did he make the choices that he made? What got him to the point where he was able to make a choice? You know, the first thing he said um, I know that Brandon was teaching us in Bible school the other year that sometimes the first words that we hear from somebody are significant in the Bible in the Bible accounts. And so the first thing he said is, "Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able able to overcome it."

So that was his attitude about this problem. He went and saw the giants, and they were way up over his head. And he said, "We're well able. It's not just, 'I think we can probably do it.'" He said, "We can absolutely do this."

You know, there's, there's a number of men in the Bible that had character like this. And I was thinking about it. You know, Caleb joins the ranks of men who are willing to basically stand alone for their faith. Abraham, he left his father's house, went all by himself. He didn't know where he was going, it says in Hebrews.

And he, he pretty much was on his own. Joseph, he was drugged down to Egypt. He was all by himself, and he stood for what was right. He didn't have to stand up against 600,000, but his position put him in jail for years. Moses stood alone in front of the children of Israel many times.

David stood up alone against the giant with sort of the same kind of, uh, of an attitude as Caleb had. God's going to honor his name.

Um, Jeremiah was giving the word of God there all by himself, and they threw him down into that pit, and he sank in up to his armpits, and they could hardly get him out. Daniel stood up alone against those heathen kings over and over again from when he was a boy on up. What, what happens in someone's life that makes them make that choice?

What's happening in your life that's going to help you make that choice?

You know, Caleb probably lived a pretty ordinary life. He probably had his livestock. We know he had family. The Bible talks about his, his sons, his daughter. He probably was living sort of like we are right now, going about his everyday things.

But yet he saw something that the other 600,000 people didn't see. So just how audacious was this for him to stand up there and make this kind of a statement? You know, he had a lot of evidence to back up his position. And we're going to talk about this evidence. Hebrews 11 says that, that, um, by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that, that so that the things which are seen were not made of things that are visible. And so the thing about faith is we take the things that we can see, and we use them to understand the things that we can't. I don't know how else to do it.

And, and if you go on in, in that chapter in verse 6, "But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him."

So if you want to have faith in God, the first thing you have to do is you have to believe that he actually exists. That's a big stumbling block for a lot of people. How do you know that God exists? Well, what can you see? What can you handle? What can you smell and taste? You have to use your senses to see the things that are, and then you can use that evidence to see the things that aren't you can't see.

And so for me personally, the creation is a huge thing that bolsters my faith when I consider how complicated life is. It defies imagination that it could start from a single cell that all of a sudden came together in some premortal soup. It didn't happen that way. They can't do it in the lab. They'll never be able to do it in the lab because only God gives life. I think that's where the line's going to get drawn in what they can do. I don't think that we're going to be able to give true life to anything.

And Caleb had that too. He could see probably they didn't have the science to understand how complicated the DNA is and how complex your eyeball is and the fact that without your lens and your retina and your cornea, you couldn't see.

And the chances of that all evolving together are, are so slim that they're almost nonexistent. So what else did Caleb have to go to base his faith on? Well, he saw at this point, they had only been in the wilderness for two and a half years, three years. He's 40. So he remembered Egypt well.

And he was there when God sent the 10 plagues on Egypt. He saw those miracles. He saw how the children of Israel were treated differently than the Egyptians were. He was there when the death angel came over and passed over his house.

He was there. He saw it.

He got to the Red Sea and saw the Egyptians with their chariots charging up and the sea opening up and walking through on dry land. He watched the sea close up on those Egyptian chariots. He watched God take the wheels off. He saw that.

He saw Moses hit the rock and water come out. He saw the manna come down from heaven and saw God's provision for the children of Israel. Right there was the pillar of fire or the pillar of cloud. They saw it every day. It was there. It was with them.

He watched God fight their battle when they came up against the when the Amalekites attacked them. He saw it. All the rest of them saw these things too. Think about that. There's something else he might have known. I didn't realize this, but in Deuteronomy chapter 2, there's a couple of pretty interesting passages here, and you can turn there if you like. Deuteronomy 2, starting at verse 9, "Then the Lord said to me," now this is when the children of Israel were going around. God made them go around Edom and Moab.

He made them go around. That's why they ended up coming in and having to cross the Jordan River to get, get into the to the land of Canaan. "Then the Lord said to me, 'Do not harass Moab nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ur to the descendants of Lot as a possession.'" And then there's a parentheses, and it says, "The Emnem had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim.

They were also regarded as giants like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and dwelt in their place just as Israel did in the land of their possession, which the Lord gave them."

So the Moabites were able to deal with these giants and chase them out. The Moabites and the Edomites, it says, they both, they both were able to deal with it. Did they have a pillar of fire? Did they have a cloud?

Was God giving them manna? Now it does say that God gave them that land for an inheritance. So I, I'm sure that that is the explanation for their success. And then if you go down to, to verse 19, "And when you come near the people of Ammon, do not harass or meddle with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the descendants of Lot as a possession." And there's another parentheses, and it says that was also regarded as a land of giants. Giants formerly dwelt there, but the Ammonites call them Zam-Zummum, a people as great and numerous and as and tall as the Anakim.

But the Lord destroyed them from before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place just as he had done for the descendants of Esau, who dwelt in Seir when he destroyed the Horites from before them. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place even to this day.

So the Ammonites also did it. They chased the giants out of their land.

Now, if you were a reasonable person considering this evidence, and you were standing there beside Caleb, what would be the reasonable course of action to take? "Oh, they're too strong for us. We'll never get in."

No.

There's three groups of people that kicked the giants out, and they weren't getting fed manna. They weren't seeing the pillar of fire. They didn't have someone. If you held their arms up, they would win in battle. This is why God was so upset with the Israelites when they did this. He was so upset because he said, "I have given you everything. I've given you all the information you need to obey me, and you're not willing to do it." All they could see was the giants. All they could do was complain. That was why I titled it "A Man With a Different Attitude." They complain. That's all they did over and over and over again.

Caleb must not have been complaining, or he would have been right there with the other 600,000.

So that's Caleb. He made his choice thousands of years ago.

What about us?

Well, I was just thinking, I was just thinking, what, what can we do to have the kind of faith, the kind of obedience that Caleb had? I was thinking about David. You know, we have a little bit more of his backstory. We know a little bit more about his youth, and we know about some of the choices that he made when he was young.

We can see some of that in the Psalms. And I was thinking about some verses from Psalm 119. I'm going to read, read the first six verses here. "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with the whole heart. They also do no iniquity. They walk in his ways. You have commanded us to keep your precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all your commandments."

And so you see in David, and we know this, someone who purposed to seek God with his whole heart. Have you made that your purpose? Have I made that my purpose? Is that my goal in life? To seek God with my whole heart. You know, that sounds like the first commandment that Jesus gave, right?

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. It's everything.

And then just a few more verses from Psalm 119, verse 9, "How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word. With my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandments. Your word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you."

And I don't know what you think, but I think some of that is the secret. If, if, if you want to be able to make the kind of choices that Caleb made, if you want to be able to conquer the giants that you face, and there are giants, I'm not really going to talk about the giants that we face, but they're, they're there, and it's anxiety, and it's fear, and it's pride.

Those are some of the biggest giants that we probably face. There's opposition from spiritual forces. Those are giants.

I'm going to talk more about, about the faith this morning, but there, there are giants. And, and like Caleb says, we have the tools to handle them. We're not going to do it ourselves. We need God's help, but we have the tools.

So what does it mean to holy follow the Lord? We talked about, you know, putting everything you have towards whatever it is that God wants you to do. And I think we've got to come to the place where nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters. Whatever God says is what matters.

And God's not asking us to do anything that's unreasonable. He wasn't asking Caleb and the children of Israel to do something unreasonable. We had a lot of proof that his power they had a lot of proof that his power was with them. They had proof that other nations were able to conquer the giants or at least chase them off. I don't know. I don't know if Caleb excuse me. I don't know if Caleb actually killed these guys or if he just chased them off, but it says he drove them out, whatever that means.

Same difference. He was there and they weren't.

So sometimes it can be hard to know what, what, what is what does God want me to do? Well, you know, some things God was pretty nice, and he wrote these things down in places like the Sermon on the Mount.

Love your enemies. Don't be covetous.

Watch your eyes. Don't in Psalm 119, I was going to read a verse that talks about not looking at something that's worthless, and that could take a number of, of different um, different um, applications could be made there. So some of these things we don't need to figure out any more than Caleb needed to figure out if God wanted him to go into the land of Canaan or not. That was the stated purpose of what they were doing.

Didn't have to figure that one out. Some things are harder. Should we go to the mission field? How do we reach our neighborhood? Some of those things are a little harder, a little harder to know exactly what God's will is, but we do know that it's his will for us to love our neighbors, care for the people who are hurting, visit the sick. So, you know, I don't know. A lot of these things aren't as hard as what we, we try to make a try to make it hard so that we don't have to do it, I think.

But I guess, you know,

I guess the thing that is, is really inspiring in, in Joshua about Caleb is he said, you know, I'm 85 years old now, and I'm just as strong as I was when I was 40. And I don't think we have anyone here that's 85, but we do have some older people here. And I think I know you all well enough to know that there's probably none of you that are in your seventies that are saying, "I'm as strong now as I was when I was 40."

That's not usually the way it works. But I think in a spiritual sense, we can definitely participate in that. And sometimes people who are, are older in their, in their faith are, are stronger.

I was going to say that earlier, but I forgot.

So the challenge for us is when God speaks to us, and we know, we know that this is God. We're not trying to figure out if this is God anymore. We know that God is saying, "I want you to do this," whether it's something that he's written in his word or something that we hear clear enough that we know this is the way God wants us to move.

Are we going to be as quick to obey as Caleb was?

Is God going to be able to say about you that you have a different attitude, a different spirit, and that you're holy following him?

Is there any, any response to the message?