Dennis Tuuri

warfare and you and these are the countries which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed for inheritance to them. By lot was their inheritance as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses for the nine tribes and for the half tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of two tribes and a half tribe on the other side Jordan.

But unto the Levites he gave none inherit among them. For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. Therefore, they gave no part unto the Levites in the land, save cities to dwell in with their suburbs for their cattle and for their substance. As the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal.

And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God concerning thee in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me, made the heart of the people melt.

But I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swear on that day, saying, Surely the land wherein thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord hath kept me alive as he said these forty and five 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 four score and five years old as yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then even so is my strength now for war both to go out and to come in now therefore give me this mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there and that 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. Joshua blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite unto this day because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakim, and the land had rest from war.

Continuing back now with Joshua, the book of Joshua. We’re in chapter 14. It’s been a number of weeks since we addressed chapter 13, and the subject today is Caleb’s inheritance, warfare in you. The first thing I want to do is just look a little bit briefly at the literary structure of this chapter and where it fits into the book and then after that we’ll proceed with the outline that you have hopefully a fairly simple outline and try to move through this material in a way that will be helpful to you.

We have people in the context of our families and in this very church named Caleb. So it’s easy to try to remember this lesson and then you see the people that are named Caleb in the church and in your extended communities and families to remind yourself hopefully of at least a couple of things we might say today. Basically I think that Caleb—the name means wholehearted or following the heart or according to his heart and has that concept of being wholehearted before God.

I think this story basically what I’m trying to help you to see is that I think that one of the main themes that God wants us to see out of Joshua 14 is that Caleb is two things to us. He is an exhortation or encouragement to us to be wholehearted in our devotion to the Lord. And then secondly, he is an assurance to us that God rewards those who are wholehearted and he blesses them with inheritance and the things that inheritance means to us.

So on one hand he’s an exhortation on the other hand he’s an assurance or encouragement to us. So that’s basically what we’re going to try to say in the context of all of that. Hopefully I won’t muck it up too much so you don’t remember the main points which are those two. Okay, let’s just go through the chapter real quickly again the verses and then talk a little bit about the literary structure of it.

Basically we have two sections to chapter 14. Verses 1-5 are kind of an introductory summary statement of the division of the land on the west side of the Jordan in Canaan proper. Chapters 12 and 13—chapter 12 was the defeat of the kings east and west of the Jordan River, and chapter 13, which we dealt with last, was the beginning of the inheritance section but most of it was concerned with the inheritance on the east side of the river Jordan, not in Canaan proper. So chapters 12 and 13 can be seen almost as a divergence from chapter 11.

If you have your Bibles there, turn to chapter 11, the last couple of verses. And we’ll note something kind of interesting here. Remember chapter 11 summarized the land that had been taken. And then in verse 23, the last verse of chapter 11, we read, “So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses. Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes, and the land rested from war.” Now that says two things.

One, he took the whole land, gave it away, and then ending that, the land rested from war. In the verses we just read from chapter 14, it begins in verse one by saying, “These are the countries which the children of Israel inherited.” And then at the end of chapter 14 after it talks about the story of Caleb, the last phrase is and the land rested from war. So essentially here we’re going back to the end of chapter 11 where we’re going to deal explicitly with the land that Joshua having conquered now just gives out as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel and then the land resting from war is the summary statement of that.

So chapter 14 is tied as a literary structure back to chapter 11. Chapters 12 and 13 were kind of a discursus almost about the whole thing east and west wrapped up together. But now we’re going back proper to the division of the land in Canaan. So chapter 14 has these two portions to it. First, in verses 1-5, a summary statement of the division of the land. The themes here is that all of Canaan is given away. All of Canaan is given.

Secondly, this is given according to the command of God. And third, that this land is given through men. The commands of God involve the use of men, specifically Moses, Joshua, Eleazar, and the heads of the tribes of the children of Israel. And then finally, we have again a reference to the Levitical exception to the inheritance in the land with a little bit further explanation. Okay, let’s just go through these first five verses real quickly.

“These are the countries which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan which Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed for inheritance to them.” This hearkens back to Numbers. When God first told Moses that the land is to be distributed back in the book of Numbers, he gave this specific formulation that Eleazar would be involved, Joshua would be involved, and the heads of the tribes, that is one prince for each of the twelve tribes would also be involved in the allotment of the land.

It goes on to say in verse two of this text, “by lot was their inheritance as the Lord commanded.” And indeed, that was the mechanism, lot. Now, there’s different ways people have interpreted how that lot was used. Some say they were lots or pieces of stone with borders written on them and tribes written on the other ones and we put them together. We don’t know how it was done exactly, but essentially it was a product of what we would call today chance.

But it isn’t chance of course because God determines the outcome of the lot as Proverbs tells us. And so God’s superintendence of the process is very emphatically pointed out here. He uses Eleazar. Why? Well, it’s interesting when Moses first asked God for a helper, one to take his place, and God gives him Joshua. God actually told Moses that Joshua was to receive counsel from Eleazar. Now, we don’t hear much of that in the story of Joshua, but it’s understood in the scriptures that behind all of Joshua’s commands that he gives to the troops both to conquer and then inherit is the person of Eleazar.

He’s getting his counsel and hearing from the Lord many times through Eleazar the priest even though it isn’t said explicitly. Back when Moses commissioned Joshua that was said God said he’ll stand before Eleazar. He’ll receive counsel from him and then he’ll tell my people what to do. Eleazar the priest has significance then in the order here. He is placed first. The priestly work of Jesus Christ is the basis for our work then as we follow our Lord’s command.

Second, Eleazar is involved because the casting of the lot was a religious affair. It was explicitly a ritual, a liturgy you can look at it in terms of that the priestly group was involved with. And so we have these people involved. And then we also have the inclusion of the heads of the tribes. Why? Well, one practical reason of course would be because these tribes are going to receive their inheritance, their boundaries from Eleazar and Joshua according to lot.

They’re liable to complain. But if they’re there during the process and are part of it, they can see that this is what God has established. So it’s a further evidence to the tribes that their inheritance comes forth from God and that they’re to be content with that inheritance. Okay, the text talks about how Moses had gave the inheritance of two tribes and a half and the other side Jordan. The Levites he gave none inheritance among them in verse three.

Verse four, for the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. Now remember in verse in chapter 13 it said the Levites didn’t get an inheritance for two reasons. One their inheritance was the offerings. They got to eat the stuff and they theirs was basically the animals that went into the offering system to God. So they got their produce of their land from what their work was, which was liturgical in the temple with God.

And then secondly, chapter 13 told us that the Levites inheritance was God himself, emblematic of course of all Israel, but they’re set aside as a special tribe. Here in chapter 14, we have yet a third reason for the exclusion of the Levites from inheriting land. And the reason given here is that Joseph had two sons. Those two sons were then adopted into the family of Jacob as if they were sons. Told us explicitly when Jacob speaks with Joseph, he tells them, “Your two sons will take your place as two tribes.” So Ephraim and Manasseh become substitutes for Joseph.

Now we’ve got thirteen tribes for inheritance unless you remove the Levites. The Levites are kind of bumped from one list, so to speak, by the expansion of Joseph into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. That’s what it tells us here in verse 4. Now, it’s interesting. We won’t turn to the text, but if you go back to the description of the high priest’s garments, the high priest carried the tribes of Israel where.

Do you know? Do you remember? He carried them in a couple of places. He had a breastplate that had twelve stones. And he had stones on both of his shoulders with the names of the twelve tribes inscribed on them. Six on one, six on the other. But the language of those two pieces of wear that the priest had is different for those twelve tribes. One set is said to be according to their birth and the other is according to the names of the tribes.

So on one list we have the names of the tribes as they exist when the high priest begins to minister and Levite isn’t among those. Those twelve tribes includes Ephraim and Manasseh. At least that’s the implication of the text. But Levite is portrayed on the other set of twelve which is by birth. By birth Levite was one of the twelve tribes. So we have an interesting development here in terms of twelve and thirteen tribes and two different sorts of lists that you see throughout the scriptures.

When you see the twelve tribes listed, it is either one way by birth or it’s another way by the names of the tribes. Now why is that? Well, we could talk a lot about adoption of the two grandsons as sons. Good models there for adoption and the importance of that to our understanding of who we are. We could talk about Levites curse and blessing, their death and resurrection as a tribe. Remember why they were originally excluded from land way back before they were selected as the priestly tribe.

They were excluded because of their plot to go ahead and wipe out people using the sign of circumcision. And God said because of their anger, they would have no inheritance in the land. And so they were originally placed as the servants to the priests, slaves like the Gibeonites were slaves to God as it were because of their disobedience. But they then turn that into a thing of blessing by their accepting it with their whole heart and then they become special in the promised land.

So, it’s a picture of our death and resurrection, useless to God and then incredibly useful to God as his servants. Okay, we could go on, but that’s enough of that. But these are interesting things as we go through these chapters I want to point out to you. So, those first five verses again ends in verse 5. “As the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land as the Lord commanded, the Lord commanded as the Lord commanded.”

At the beginning introduction of the inheritance and its distribution, the emphasis on God’s initiative, God’s direction, his command in terms of the men that distribute the land, who gets the land, and then the very divisions themselves. These things are done according to the command of God. And his commandments are really stressed. They’re stressed in a different way in the second half of the chapter where we see the story of Caleb.

In the second half, in verses 6 and following of chapter 14, we have an introductory story to the inheritance. Okay? Now, we’re going to talk about the rest of the tribes in the next few chapters and what they get and what they don’t get. But we begin with a person not a tribe. Remember when Jericho and Ai were conquered two cities, we had Rahab and her family saved first. A model, as one of the commentators Davis says, an example at the beginning of another section.

Rahab was saved prior to Jericho and Ai being conquered by God’s people. And then remember before the northern and southern campaigns in terms of the conquest happened, what example did we have there? We didn’t have a single person. Now we had a group, the Gibeonites, because now we’re talking about warfare for the whole area. So the Gibeonites were an example placed in the text as a literary story very important but as a story to help us understand then the conquest of north and south and the redemptive elements in it.

And here at the beginning of the inheritance of the tribes in the west side of Canaan or west side of the Jordan in Canaan proper we have a picture of a man. The importance of individuals is stressed as well as the importance of the group the one and the many. And we have a model here given to us to help us understand the inheritance and the basis for it. The story of Caleb before all the tribes get their inheritances.

So that’s some of the big themes going on here. The theme again is God’s command, Caleb’s wholeheartedness, and then Caleb’s blessing from God of strength and inheritance and the ability to conquer God’s enemies. Reading verses 6 and following. “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, ‘Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God.’” Caleb comes with the men of Judah.

Why? Well, because if you go back to Numbers, remember I said that the heads of the tribes were supposed to be there, their princes. Caleb was the prince of Judah in the delineation of who was supposed to get the inheritance back in Numbers. The command of God to Moses said, “This is the guy here, Caleb, for Judah.” And there were twelve other guys. They’re not really remarked upon later on, but here we see Caleb coming with Judah.

He represents them. And Judah is also coming to witness to the righteousness of his claims as well. He’s not coming by himself. He’s making an appeal to authority on the basis of other people going with him. This is always a good thing to do. In any event, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite. Again, we can’t spend time on that, but again, it’s an interesting reason why he’s called the Kenizzite. There’s people don’t really know.

The Kenizzites were a conquered people in the land. They were like the Canaanites or the Hittites. It could be that we see in Caleb again, a picture of people who were conquered and then become useful for service. Some people think that Caleb was named after the Kenizzites because he conquered them the way that the Romans, for instance, would name a guy Germanicus because he’s the one that conquered Germany.

Hard to say why, but in any event, he is described here as Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite. Anyway, Caleb then tells the story to Joshua at the beginning. So, the inheritance, he’s not going to get his by lot because God has already given specific command. He doesn’t want special privilege. He wants the same thing that’s happened in the inheritance of the land with everybody else. He wants it by the command of God.

And God commanded that for the rest of the tribes, we have lots. But he commanded Moses and Joshua is reminded of this by Caleb. He commanded Joshua to give the area of Hebron to Caleb. And so Caleb is just simply pleading God’s command to him here. Caleb says, “You remember what God said unto Moses, the man of God.” Very important expression in the Old Testament gives Moses a high designation. He is the man of God.

And if Moses said, I get, he brought, in other words, in this mountain, that’s the way it should be because he’s the man of God or was the man of God. “I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. I brought word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me, made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God.”

You’ve heard this story a number of times. You should know it real well. Of course, twelve spies sent out. They come back to give a good report. Important phrase in the history of my development over the last ten, twelve years. “A good report.” This is where that phrase that I’ve used at originally our bookstore and then later with our newsletter, etc. This is where it all came from. “A good report.” We were trying to bring a good report.

We still are as a church that the land is well able to be conquered by God who is with us even though it looks like it’s filled with giants. It is. But in any event, the two spies bring back the good report, Caleb and Joshua. And ten spies bring back an evil report according to the scriptures. Not just a disbelieving one, an evil one that tells the people of God, “No, don’t go up and conquer it. They’re too numerous for us.” You know the story.

And Joshua knows the story, but Caleb is reminding him here on the basis for his legal claim to an area of land. He wholly followed God. Moses in that day said verse 9, “Surely the land where thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children’s forever because thou hast wholly followed the Lord thy God.” So we know that the area of Hebron this mountain that Caleb was asking for that’s where he actually had gone out and spied out and his mission as a spy for God forty and five years previously that’s where his feet had trodden and God is telling him just when he told Joshua wherever your feet trod that’s yours.

Caleb’s feet had already trodden out an area of Canaan and that was his now. Okay. And he’s reminding Joshua of this. And he wholly followed God in walking.

“Now behold, the Lord has kept me alive these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word to Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. I am this day four score and five years old. He’s saying, I did these things. God kept me alive.

Number one. Secondly, as yet I am strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me as my strength was then, even so my strength now for war both to go out and come in. He’s strong still too at the age of eighty-five. “Now therefore give me this mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day. For thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there and how the cities were great and fenced. If so be the Lord be with me.

Then I’ll be able to drive them out.” Joshua says great. Win it and wear it. I bless you. I endow you with the power of God to go forth and to win that area then to wear it to use it. That’s your area. Joshua blesses him and he gives unto Caleb for an inheritance. A Caleb asked for the mountain. The mountain area included whatever this mountain was included Hebron. So it’s a whole vicinity that he’s getting summarized by the name Hebron which was a specific city in verse thirteen.

“Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh of the Kenizzite unto this day because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.” Again that three times now repeated in the text. “The name of Hebron before was Kirjath Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakim, and the land had rest for war.” Big transition, right? Kirjath Arba, city of Arba. Arba was perhaps a great man among the giants.

Arba was the specific name given because he was great among the giants that was like their main source of power there in Hebron and it’s being transferred now politically culturally to Caleb a great man for God. So that’s basically what we’ve got going here. Then we’re going back to the inheritance story. We’re given a summary the emphasis on God’s command. We’re then given a picture an example as Davis says in his commentary of Caleb, to help us understand all the inheritance being allotted and the implications of it for their lives.

So let’s turn now to our outline. We’ll go through this pretty quickly. First of all then Caleb, inheritance, warfare in you, will start with Caleb. We’ve talked a little bit about him. Name is wholehearted. You’ll see that the outline I’ve given you. Caleb wholehearted in the face of external and internal enemies. Caleb was wholehearted with God. And the first mention of his following his heart it was back when he went to spy out the land.

He went up against giants, numerous people, fortified cities, looked at it, was not turned from the path of seeing it as God’s territory because he wholeheartedly followed God in the face of enemies external. But secondly, he had enemies internal. It’s one thing to be wholehearted and to face God’s enemies and to do that well and be courageous because of your faith in God. Then you come back and the people you are called into association with they want to stone him.

That’s what happens when him and Joshua bring back a good report and the ten bring back a bad report. The people want to stone the people with a good report and then God intervenes and says, “Whoa, forty years you’re going to wander because you didn’t hear these guys. You didn’t hear me.” They were going to stone Caleb. Caleb wholeheartedly followed God, though he didn’t budge from his convictions, from his understanding of faith in God as the great conqueror of the world because the people that he was in the context of didn’t believe it.

He didn’t swerve because of external enemies. He didn’t swerve because of internal enemies within the church, the visible covenant community as well. Caleb was wholehearted in the face of external and internal enemies. This, by the way, is not is not restricted to Caleb in the scriptures. It’s an exhortation to us to be the same way. Paul, what did Paul say? He said that when I received my commission from God, everyone deserted me.

That’s Paul, you know, frequently we see Paul that position in the New Testament. He faces external opposition, great adversaries where he’s going to go preach the gospel. But he also faces desertion by those who are supposed to be his supporters and encouragers within the context of the church as well. Paul in the New Testament, these things are a model from us. You’re going to have to face those kind of pressures and you’re going to have to wholeheartedly follow God in the face of external enemies.

But also in the face of internal enemies. Caleb says that he walked wholeheartedly. He followed God with wholly followed after the Lord is the expression used. Busch in his commentary says that means I perfected my obedience before the Lord. It means the word when it says he wholly followed. One way to think of it is as if the tracks of God are laid out in front of him when he’s walking. And as he walks, he walks so carefully within the tracks of God.

You can’t see his tracks. He follows right after God wherever God leads. And the picture being given to you here is of a person walking in snow, for instance, and you walk right in his tracks. That’s what Caleb does. And he does that in spite of the fact that along that path, fierce giants raise up the Anakim. And he also does that in spite of the fact that his friends and compatriots and associates, they want to kill him, too.

They want to discourage him from his direction. And then they want stop him from his path, but he continues to perfect his obedience to the Lord, to try as much as possible to follow after God in his footsteps. That, as I said, is what God did or what Paul rather, or God did through Paul. And Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:16, “At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.” What a gracious man, huh?

“Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me.” And that’s what Caleb the Lord stood with him and enabled him to be wholehearted in this in this development of his pursuit after God’s will. It’s interesting because a couple of other places in scripture the key to whether or not a people receive inheritance when they did not receive the inheritance thirty-eight years prior. Numbers tells us it because they did not wholly follow after the Lord.

Okay. Caleb receives what he wants here because he wholly followed after the Lord. Later on, Solomon, David’s son, will not wholly follow after God and as a result, the people of God will go into exile eventually. So, this concept of wholly following and wholeheartedly following is key to the Christian life and is key to the life of faith and is key then to the blessings that God sends forth to his people.

Red Path wrote of Caleb and Joshua’s faith in the context of external enemies. The following: “The majority measured the giants against their own strength. Caleb and Joshua measured the giants against God. The majority trembled. The two triumphed. The majority had great giants but a little God. Caleb had a great God and little giants.” So Caleb was faithful and wholehearted in the face of enemies external and internal. But secondly, there’s another phase of Caleb’s life that isn’t real stressed in this text, but it is referred to in terms of the wilderness wanderings.

Caleb was wholehearted and followed wholly after God in the context of thirty-eight years of putting up with the people or at least many of them who wanted to stone him and putting up with the kind of problems that existed in the context of the wilderness. The everyday affairs of life, the details of life Caleb was wholehearted and following God in as well. So it wasn’t just a great moment when he went to spy out the land.

He wholly followed after God in the wilderness as well. FB Fyer says the following: “Amid the marchings and counter marchings, the innumerable deaths, the murmurings and rebellions of the people, he retained a steady steadfast purpose to do only God’s will, to please him, to know no other leader, and to heed no other voice. It was of no use to try and involve that stout man, that stout lion’s cub in any movement against Moses and Aaron.

He would be no party to Miriam’s jealous spirit. He would not be allured by the wiles of the girls of Moab. Always strong and true and pure and noble. Like a rock in the changeful sea, like a snowcapped peak in a change of cloud and storm and sun. A man in whose strong nature weaker men could hide, and who must have been a tower of strength to that new and young generation which grew up to fill the vacant places in the van of Israel, the center of the Hebrew camp.

In him the words of the psalmist were anticipated that he bore fruit in his old age and to the last was fat and flourishing.” Caleb in the context of the wilderness wanderings trusted after God and followed him wholly. But then third, we see now Caleb’s wholly following God in his old age and in the new conquest to come. And Caleb says, “I’m continuing to follow God wholeheartedly in the context of this new development of my life as well.” And that is the inheritance and the conquering of the land that the inheritance might become the peoples of Israel in a full sense.

And God’s enemies might be driven out. So, Caleb follows after God wholeheartedly in various aspects of life as a model for us, as an encouragement to us. But in addition to being an encouragement, Caleb is also an exhortation to follow God wholeheartedly. Caleb is also an assurance to us of the blessings that God gives to him. Caleb’s inheritance. What did Caleb inherit from God? What did God give Caleb? Well, the first thing God gave Caleb was long life.

Long life. Remember it’s written that man lives in the scriptures that man lives three score and ten. And if his life be extended, it’s for sorrow and misery. Caleb’s life was extended as graciously by God to the age of eighty-five at the writing of this particular portion of scripture. But it wasn’t for sorrow and misery. He was given long life that he might have blessing from God. And so Caleb’s long life itself is a picture in a small way of death and resurrection again.

He has strength and resurrection in his old age. He has not lost that strength due to the impact of sin and its curse upon man, his shortened lifespan. So, Caleb receives long life from God. But secondly, he receives strength in that long life. He says, “I’m as strong now as I was then to make war, to go out and to come in.” A frequent phrase found in the waging of war, the changing of cultures for God.

Caleb says that the blessing that he had gotten from God and direct result of his faithfulness to God were these two things, long life and strength. And now he asks for the third blessing of his inheritance, and that is the desire of his heart. The scriptures tell us in Proverbs that if you delight yourself in God, he’ll give you the desires of your heart. And Caleb had wholly followed after God of his whole heart.

And God gave him the desire of his heart. What was the desire of his heart, though? It was that land and those men that caused Israel to stumble before the very difficulty of the task to wipe out the Anakim and take that land. I think is part of what drew Caleb to it. His desire was that God’s name not be a reproach amongst any group. And so he went up against giants as David did to roll away the reproach of God’s people and those who would be enemies to God.

His desire was in line with God’s desire. And God then gave the desires of his heart in his old age. We have here a picture of course of that psalm that does say that now in my old age may I show forth the strength of God to the generations to come. And that’s what Caleb was doing here in his old age. Caleb was an excellent model in that way. There’s a fourth area that’s not in your outline though in which Caleb also wholeheartedly followed God and reaped an inheritance as a result of it and that is in the city of Hebron itself.

Later Hebron is to become a city of the Levites. We’ll read about that later in the in the book of Joshua. And Caleb doesn’t kick about that. He wholly gives over that city and its suburbs to the Levites as a Levitical city. And so he wholeheartedly trusts God even in pretty difficult times of seeing that area that he wanted given over to other men. But it just shows you that Caleb’s inheritance was God himself and the growth of his kingdom.

And so he willingly and gladly did that. Caleb was a man of great devotion and he reaped great blessings from God in terms of inheritance and he also then involved himself in warfare for God. Caleb was a model for us in terms of an exhortation and assurance of inheritance. But he also his story brings us to the reality of the warfare that he would then engage himself in. He sought the inheritance from God to the end that he might make war against God’s enemies.

He—Caleb, inheritance, warfare in you—then reminds us indeed that his inheritance was in the context of warfare. Now we said this before. Remember we said in chapter 13 that when God begins to divide the land, he does so because there’s much of the land that yet needs to be conquered. And he changes the method of how it’s conquered by giving to the tribes to go out and possess the land now that has been conquered definitively once for all but then is worked out in a series of steps.

Well, Caleb is the same way. Then his inheritance he seeks as a model for us to understand all the inheritance he seeks that inheritance that he might make war against God’s enemies. God’s war, its context then the warfare that God calls Caleb to is the inheritance. It is the context of the inheritance and it also is the joy of the saints. Caleb didn’t shrink back from the warfare. He wanted to go and pursue God’s people.

He didn’t see it as a diversion from his life of personal peace and affluence. He saw it as central to who he was to wage war against God’s enemies. The way that David says in the Psalms, “God train my hands for war.” It’s a thing David delights in. It’s interesting the verse where God places our feet on high places in the Psalms, normally used in a devotional sense, it goes right out there to talk about how he trains our hands for war.

The high places are places in which we can wage war against God’s enemies. And Caleb was that kind of a guy who received his inheritance to make war and rejoiced in it. He rejoiced in the warfare. It’s the glory of God’s saints to be able to wage war against his opponents. And Caleb understood that. Of course, war has as its goal rest. It isn’t an end in and of itself. It comes to the end of chapter 14, which says the end of all this process of wholeheartedness to the commands of God, then of the blessings of God, of inheritance and strength and long life and then the end of that warfare that is a result of the inheritance that God gives us is rest.

So the land had rest from war. So the end result of war of course is not it’s not to be a lifestyle in and of itself. It’s toward an end. The land is rest. The establishment of God’s peace, God’s order in the context of our lives. So that’s Caleb. Caleb is pictured as being wholehearted in various stages of his lives and various opportunities from God to be tested in terms of that wholeheartedness. He’s pictured as a man who receives the desire of his heart, the area of Hebron, who receives long life and strength to the end that he might make war against God’s enemies and as a result produce God’s peace, God’s order in the world in which he lived and bring rest to the land.

All of this, of course, relates to us. We also have this is given to us as an exhortation to us to follow after Caleb’s model. Now, Caleb is a picture certainly of various character qualities that we want to follow. But beyond all that, of course, Caleb is also a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s interesting that the inheritance begins here with a man Caleb. And after the tribes all get their inheritance, Joshua takes his inheritance last as we move toward the end of the book.

At the beginning and end of the inheritance is Caleb and Joshua. Those were the two faithful spies went out into the land. And I think both of them portray different aspects of the Lord Jesus Christ to us in terms of their history of redemption they’re painting for us the Messiah to come. Our savior is like Caleb and he’s like Joshua. He’s like Caleb in that he goes out and makes war. He defeats the enemies for us.

He defeats the giants. David defeated Goliath, of course, is a picture of that as well. Jesus rolls away the reproach of sin against us by defeating Satan through his death, burial, and resurrection. Okay? So, he’s a picture of Caleb and rolling away our reproach and leading us into victory. But he’s also a picture of Joshua who doesn’t put himself first, but rather receives his inheritance at the end. So both of those aspects God these two men are pictures of Christ to us and Christ ushers us into the same sort of salvation that these men are seen as ushering the nation of Israel into as well.

In Ephesians 1, it said that we receive an inheritance from Christ. And the word for that receiving is has its roots in the lot. Again, the inheritance is linked to the lot, the providence and decree of God. And we have an inheritance today in the New Testament then that the scriptures tell us of So all these things are very relevant to us. I think that we have to remember that it is God’s people who serve him wholeheartedly who do end up inheriting the land from God and various blessings.

The promise of inheritance is not a claim upon God that we as his people can make. That’s not the purpose of it. The purpose of the promise of inheritance is to assure us that only those people that follow God in the midst of difficulties, trials, and the everyday affairs of life, the wandering in the wilderness, of Caleb for instance, it’s those people who wholly follow God who are established. The people that didn’t didn’t get to enter into the land.

They died in the wilderness. Solomon later doesn’t wholly follow God. His people are brought into exile. And that’s where we are today. We live in the context of a generation that follows a Solomon-like approach. The church in America has not wholly followed after God in all that it does and proclaims. And what are we today? We’re in a position of exile essentially. We’re like the nations that were dispossessed.

We’ve got to meet in various facilities. We have to operate in the context of a political culture for instance in thirty days when most the people elected and most the things decided are definitely not Christian in which the culture becomes increasingly anti-Christian and real opposition to the Christian faith. Now that’s not because God is somehow his arm is too short. That’s because we as a people, the Christian church has not wholly followed after God.

And so God’s taken us into a position of semi-exile. We’re like Caleb was in many ways. We’re wandering in the wilderness, but we’re also like Caleb. We can point to the future and know that God will inhabit this portion of land, all the earth with people that are wholly tuned to follow him. And so we’re trying to do that in our lives. And we’re pointing toward that with our children as well.

Really at the heart of Caleb’s life. It’s really interesting how God in his providence go brought us to Psalm 116 last week and then Caleb this week. One of the commentators gave us in one section of this commentary on Joshua 14 and Caleb titled the section “the anchor of faith” and how Caleb had his anchor of faith and following God and not looking to men for his direction and for his walk. Caleb at the basis of who he is has the anchor of faith firmly fixed on the person of God.

And because he does that, he goes forth in victory and he goes forth with God’s blessing upon him. As we look around us today, do we see giants in the land or do we have a giant God who can take those giants and those enemies to the Christian faith and he is well able to conquer them? I think that most of the people in the context of this church understand that all these things that the scriptures tell us in old and new testaments about the inheritance we receive is true of us today as well.

That is that God doesn’t create the world not to be inhabited by his people. Isaiah says God creates the world to be inhabited and to be inhabited of course by his people. We look forward to inhabiting this land as a Christian church in a fuller sense. And so we’re I think in a position of understanding Caleb’s wholehearted trusting after God even in the context of thirty-eight years or a hundred years in wilderness wanderings in terms of this country and the church in America.

Do we witness to the truth of this amidst the external opposition? And do we witness to the truth of God’s calling, God’s directives to us to go forth to preach the gospel knowing the gospel is the dynamite of God and is effectual. Do we do it in the context of opposition from the church as well? Or are we ashamed of those doctrinal distinctives we have in terms of an optimistic eschatology that God is well able to conquer the land and that is the whole flow of human history?

If we’re like Caleb, we wholly follow after God in the proclamation of the truth of the scriptures. We witness to that truth in spite of internal or external opposition. But then of course most of the time we’re living our lives in the small details of life the way Caleb did for thirty-eight years in the wilderness. For thirty-eight years he was in the context of essentially an unbelieving people most of that time. It was in the context of people that had wanted to stone him for a good number of those years and he was in the context of knowing that going here there and everywhere was leading to a greater mission ahead that he could not participate in now.

Things could not change ultimately for thirty-eight years in terms of the possession of the land. And Caleb in the context of what many people would see as great cause for despair and depression didn’t waver. He wholly followed after God. If he had wavered, he couldn’t make this claim to God. Now, in Joshua 14, he didn’t. And so you in your everyday lives, in your week to week existence, in your home schools, in your cleaning your washing your dishes and cooking your food, in the not in the seemingly unimportant tasks you do at work, whether it’s clerical work, hanging sheetrock, what ever we do.

Do we see it as a way to follow God wholeheartedly? Do we apply Caleb’s wholeheartedness to every area of our lives? That’s what God wants us to do. Most of Caleb’s story, we remember, is the spy story, and then he goes in and kills the giants afterwards forty-five years later. But those were just a couple of years, couple of weeks in the first part, couple of days out of a long life of faithfulness to God that is characterized by faithfulness in small things of life.

And if we’re going to teach our children to battle the giants when the big conflicts come. It is impossible to do that unless we’ve taught them to battle the giants of despair, despondency, an attitude that sees things removed from the providence of God and his footsteps. If our kids cannot see the footsteps of God walking through their daily tasks at home, then they’re not going to see them either when it comes to doing what we think of as the big things for God.

Caleb followed after God wholeheartedly in the small details of life. And then, of course, in the big battle. The time comes and Caleb knows now it’s time to go get those Anakim. These guys have scared God’s people for forty years. We’re going to go get them now. When the big battle comes, Caleb points toward it and he’s wholehearted then as well because he was faithful in the smaller things. He’s faithful in the large things.

You could think of this too as the seasons of life. Caleb was a young man when tested the first time and then through the middle of his life, Caleb lives in wholehearted obedience to God through the middle of his life and then at his age in his old age He also follows after God. Well, that’s the faith that God requires us to have. He asks us if we have that kind of wholehearted understanding of his word, it’s relationship to our lives.

And do we have the trust and assurance of knowing that God’s blessing comes upon us? You know, there’s another aspect to this. Caleb understood what his inheritance was. There are those of you who have a special understanding of what your inheritance is, what your Hebron is, is what your mountain is. And Richard isn’t here today. I can probably say this about him. He seems to have really focused on the educational issue in different aspects in terms of helping other people understand it politically etc.

Richard I think part of his inheritance as he looks forward to the next forty years of his life is that specific area and reconstructing, rebuilding, transforming that area again, not just politically but in terms of the culture, the people he runs into at the grocery market etc. That’s part of what he is focused on. There are others of you have a real clear idea of what God has called you to do forty years out from now.

You have a particular area of calling, whether it’s business or whatever it is that you know that’s what you’re aiming for. And I would encourage you in that Caleb knew that. Now, a lot of us don’t know that though. Caleb was one guy out of millions who had that specific vision that God had given him and promise. Most of the people didn’t know where they were going to live, did they? They didn’t know until what happened?

Till the lot was cast. And then they knew what their inheritance was. And now they had to say, “Yeah, that’s it. That’s where God has taken us to.” Well, your lot in life. What is it? You may not know. But as God unfolds it, as his providence, his casting of the lots occurs in your life week to week, month to month, year to year, do you accept the results of that lot joyously as the steps of God that he wants you to walk in faithfully to him?

Caleb, Judah, other tribes did. Later on, the tribes of Joseph, they grumbled about their inheritance. They weren’t thankful to God. We’ll see that later as we get up to chapter 17. They weren’t thankful. And they thought these guys, the Canaanites have iron chariots. They say, “This lot is too hard. The lot and life you’ve cast for us, that’s too hard. We don’t want to do it.” And Joshua kept telling him, “Possess the land.

Possess the land.” They pulled back. Well, we can pull back from our lot in life as well. God warns us the things that are going to make us pull back. In the parable of the seeds. There’s that seed that has no root in it that takes the gospel message, takes the inheritance from God the way God’s pointing us to. But when affliction or persecution arises, it’s gone, blown away, rooted up. Affliction is one thing that God uses to test your commitment to hardily follow him.

But then there are those which are sown among thorns, such as hear the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things choke out the word and cause them not to bear fruit from God. If you have trouble accepting your lot in life, frequently these are the very areas that are going to cause you to stumble in wholeheartedly following God in your lot of life. The cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the gospel of personal peace and affluence, the desire just to live a happy life.