Good morning and Happy Sabbath. Welcome to Sacramento central Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sacramento, California for our "central study hour" this morning. You're joining us right here in our sanctuary and we're very happy to see you this morning. A very special welcome to you that are joining us from across the country and around the world like you do every week to study God's Word together. We are one big happy family.
And soon we will be all in heaven together. I'm looking forward to that day. Let's start singing this morning. So take out your hymnals and sing along with us. Hymn number 462, "blessed assurance Jesus is mine.
" This comes as a request from stewart in australia, ralph and birdie in the bahamas, amedi, valencia and abalino in belize, Philip in belize, autumn and arrowlyn in California, douglas in Delaware, John in england, judy in jamaica, abigail in Massachusetts, connie in Nebraska, anyel and jotham in the Philippines, abel in puerto rico, John in Virginia and nosality in zimbabwe. "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine," and we'll sing all three verses. [Music] You know, as we were singing that I was thinking if we kept that in mind all day long every day, praising our Savior no matter what happened and we kept a prayerful, praising heart, I think our days would go much, much better. If you have a special hymn, a favorite hymn that you would like to sing with us on a coming Sabbath, I invite you to go to our website at saccentral.org. And there you can click on the "contact us" link.
And you can request any hymn in our hymnal, and we'd love to sing that with you on a coming Sabbath. Our next hymn we're going to sing is hymn number 532, "day by day." And we're going to sing all three stanzas. And this comes as a request from howard and bertha in ArKansas, jasmine, anyel and veronica in the bahamas, pedro in barbados, ethan in California, douglas and kevin in Canada, sheila and David in florida, martin in grenada, colleen, dorette and rochelle in jamaica, william in Massachusetts, beth, venita, raymond, joyanne in New York, flora in Pennsylvania, rose, alden, darryl in Philippines, cathy in saint lucia, Esther in south korea, tess, evelyn, winston and trinidad and tobago, stephanie in united kingdom and veneta in the u.s. Virgin islands. Hymn number 532, "day by day.
" [Music] Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we humbly come before you this beautiful Sabbath morning. Lord, help us to remember each day that we are your treasure and we are your child. And that you truly have our names engraved on your hand, each one of us, and that you will never leave us or forget us. So we thank you, Lord, for bringing us here to worship you, to worship you as our creator and our friend and our Savior.
So as we listen to Your Words from Pastor Doug this morning, Lord, just fill us with life. Fill us with hope. And fill us with the message that we can take to a cold and dying world that you're soon to come, and that you will save us. And Lord, we just cannot wait for your coming. So keep us faithful.
I pray these things in your holy and precious name, amen. Our study this morning will be brought to us by Pastor Doug Batchelor, senior pastor here at Sacramento central. Thank you musicians and morning, friends. Say good morning to the class and welcome everybody. We have visitors here at Sacramento central.
We're glad you're here. Want to welcome our friends who are watching and studying with us on television from all over the planet. And we're very glad to have you join us today. We are in the second chapter of our new lesson, second study in our new lesson dealing with the background characters in the old testament. Oh yes, before we get to that, a couple things.
One is I want to tell friends--now let me think here. This lesson is going up 'til October 8. Oh, you know what's happening October 8? I hope you do. We're going to be uplinking a special program for teenagers on 3abn. It's also going to be carried, we're very thankful, the hope channel is going to carry it for the west coast.
It's going to be uplinking from great lakes adventist academy in Michigan. Pastor Ross and I will be there with 250 live teenagers. And we're going to be talking about the most important questions. It's sort of a teen, oh, I guess you'd call it revival, evangelism series. We're going to be dealing with some of the questions teens have about God and creation and the Bible.
And some, we don't know what the questions are going to be. But it will be on this station. And we hope that you tune in. It's not too late to register your site. And so plan now on--if you know any teens that you'd like to be closer to the Lord, this would be really good for them.
By the way, one reason we're doing this, there's a number of studies both in evangelical and in the adventist church, and the essence of those studies is that between the years of 17 and 25, somewhere between 60% and 70% of Christians who are attending church as teenagers stop. And it's because certain questions are not answered that really ground them in their faith. And so this series I believe is one of the most important things that Amazing Facts is going to do. I hope if you know any young people in the category between 13 and 17 or 18, you'll encourage them to tune in to the m.i.q. Meetings.
M.i.q. Stands for "most important questions." And if you want more information, there's going to be a website. And it's simply miqteens, miqteens.com. We hope you'll go there and get more information. And we also have a free offer that goes along with our study today.
I don't know what it is right now. They told me, but I don't see it on the screen and I forget. But they'll put it up there on the screen. We hope that you'll call and ask for it. And we give these offers that often help to enhance the study.
They go along in some way with the study. I'd encourage you to use that. Our lesson today dealing with the subject of caleb in particular. The whole quarter is dealing with background characters in the old testament. And I know I'm going to enjoy this.
I know when they have the academy awards--you know my mom used to cover the academy awards, both in beverly hills and then when she retired she did it in miami. And they'd give an award for the best actor and actress. And then they have the best supporting actor and actress. And we're really dealing with the best supporting characters in the--some of them who are in the background in the old testament. And so that's what this lesson is dealing with.
Today lesson two is talking principally about caleb, one of my favorite characters that you're going to find in the old testament, caleb. And it's called, "living with the wait." Now the principal information you're going to find about this is going to be from the book of Numbers 13. So if you have your Bibles, you might turn with me to Numbers 13. And we have a memory verse. That memory verse comes from-- I just told you to turn to Numbers and the memory verse is in Psalms.
Hope you can place a piece of paper there in Numbers. Don't lose your spot. The memory verse I'd like you to say with me is from Psalms 130:6-7, Psalms 130:6-7. You might be able to read that right out of your lesson. And I think in the lesson it's coming to us from the new king James version.
You ready? "My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord; for--the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption." "For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption." Now, you ever had to wait for anything? Have you ever had to wait 40 years? Now not only does caleb have to wait 40 years to get the promise that he believed in, Moses had to wait. He wanted to be involved in helping to deliver God's people, but he preemptively--it's called a preemptive strike. Moses preemptively struck an Egyptian and killed him.
And that wasn't God's timing. He had to wait 40 years before God was going to use him in a different way. He tried to do it in his own strength. Bible has a lot of stories of people who had to wait. Did David have to wait from the time he was anointed king until he actually was coronated? You can go through the Bible and see a lot of times where God's people had to demonstrate patience.
"They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength." Well caleb had to wait too. Now we're going to start. I'm going to have somebody read for us Numbers 13:1-2. Then we'll kind of go through the story. Who has that? We gave that verse to somebody.
Dr. David has that here. We've got some other verses we're going to be giving out here. Why don't you introduce this for us, in Numbers 13:1-2. "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, every one a leader among them.
" Alright, first thing I want you to know, this is not God's idea. You're looking, and it says, "the Lord spoke to Moses." It's like God said, "you know, we better send spies, 'cause I forgot what the promised land looked like. Or maybe you need reinforcement." When you go to Deuteronomy 1, it says the people came to Moses saying, "let us send spies." And what you have here in Numbers is God saying, "okay." And so he gave them permission to do it. But it was never God's idea. God already knew what the promised land looked like.
It was the people coming to Moses. Now you notice 40 years later, Joshua again sends spies, but he hand picks them and he picks them for faith and he sends two of them. Right? So they're being sent to basically say, "well, you know, all we have is these fleeting stories of what the promised land looked like that's been passed down from our ancestors several generations. And things change. And you know the weather changes.
And the people are different. And we really don't know what to expect. We better do a survey. You know, one of the great stories in history, one of my favorite, is about the lewis and clark expedition. Nathan and I were daydreaming the other day.
And I said, "if you could go back in time--" you ever ask yourself this question? If you could go back in time and suddenly plop yourself down somewhere in history, where would you plop? Where would you go? What part of history do you think was wonderful and intriguing? And nathan, for whatever reason, wanted to be back in europe in the middle ages. And I thought that was pretty bleak. But I said no, I wanted to be in North America shortly after it was discovered, by the anglos anyway, and to have seen the incredible wonders of the country that the--just the-- we had douglas fir tree. I've just seen some of the old pictures in willits. They have them on the wall there in a museum of douglas fir that are as big as redwoods.
I mean it was just incredible what they saw. And I always thought, boy, if you could have been part of that lewis and clark expedition and seen one herd of buffalo takes a day and a half to cross a river. Just, you know, the incredible things that they saw. Prairie dog towns that went on for miles, one prairie dog town, just flocks of birds that took hours to pass overhead. I mean just the wonders that they saw back then.
And you know, they were an expedition that was sent out by thomas jefferson. They bought the Louisiana purchase and they thought maybe you'll find the northwest passage, might be a river where we can have a water route to the pacific. It might be out there somewhere. Rumor was that it was there. So they got this government expedition.
And they sent these men where they really didn't know. Even the indians were pretty sketchy about what they would find if they kept going up the Missouri. And so they sent these roughly 48 men on a trip of 4,000 miles each way by river and foot. Everything they had they had to carry with them. Eight thousand miles roundtrip to find out what was there and come back and report.
One died. It's incredible all they went through, took two and a half years and only one died. And he died from appendicitis. And so it's an amazing story. And I've often thought, boy, I would have liked to have been on that expedition.
And here you've got these 12 spies. And they're being told, you know, I have two years. It's not as big as the 4,000 miles. They've basically got to do a 200-mile circuit. And to bring back word.
And so the 12--it's important to know the 12 tribes kind of voted and picked their representatives of who they would send. And when you take up the story here, you know, most of 'em kind of disappear in history. And it says, "now these were the names of them--" I'm in Numbers 13:4-- "from the tribe of reuben, shammua The Son of zaccur; from the tribe of simeon, shaphat The Son of hori;" it says, "from the tribe of judah, caleb The Son of jephunneh." And then it goes on through the tribes. And it says in verse 16, "and Moses called hoshea The Son of nun, Joshua." And they sent them to spy out the land. Now here's the instructions that Moses gives.
He said, "go spy the land of canaan." I'm in verse 17. "Go up this way into the south, and go up into the mountains, 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." Are they nomadic in tents or are they cities with walls? "Whether the land is rich or poor." You know now we have satellites that go overhead to find out what our enemies are doing. We take pictures. But back then if you wanted to know what your enemy did, you just had to sneak over and look. There were no cameras.
I mean someone had to get a firsthand look. They didn't even have binoculars. And so they sent them to find out. "Whether the land is rich or poor; whether there are forests or not. Be of good courage.
And bring some of the fruit of the land." "Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes." So it's fall, right? It's autumn. "So they went and they spied the land from the wilderness of zin as far as rehob to the entrance of hamath. And they went up through the south and came to hebron; ahiman, sheshai, and talmai, the descendants of anak, were there." Now these were this tribe of giants. They believe that they had intermarried with some of the philistines and that produced Goliath. And so there were some very big people that lived there back then.
And that comes up later in the story. And it goes on to say, "the descendants of anak were there. Now hebron was built seven years before zoan in Egypt. And then they came to the valley of eshcol," this is way up north by Carmel. "And they cut down a cluster of grapes and they carried it between two of them on a pole.
" This is not something that one guy can stick a pole through and carry over his back. It is so big that they carry it between two people. The other reason they carry it between two, because if you're walking on foot and you're bouncing a cluster of grapes off your back for miles, it turns into raisins or jelly before you ever get there. So they're also protecting it and they're carrying it so it can hang free between two of them on a pole. But it's understood it is a big cluster of grapes.
And it says after 40 days they returned. "So they departed," verse 26, "came back to Moses and aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of paran, at kadesh;" later known as kadesh-barnea, "and they brought back word to them and they showed all the congregation the fruit of the land." Now here's where the story gets really interesting. "And they told them, and they said: 'we went to the land where you sent us. And truly it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit." Well that sounds like a good report. The land is flowing with milk and honey and here's the fruit.
And I can just picture it. First of all, notice it says two of them are carrying this cluster of grapes. Who do you think those two were? I can't prove it, but I think it was Joshua and caleb, because evidently whoever got there first had a positive report. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. It seems like the other ten spies catch up later, and they said, "no, it's a land that eats up the inhabitants.
" That's two conflicting reports. One says flowing with milk and honey. The other says it's a land that eats up the inhabitants. And I think that they're pockets-- Joshua and caleb were so excited as they're going through the land. They're saying, "wow, look at the springs here by Jericho! Look at the palm trees!" And then they go up into the mountains not far from Jerusalem, hebron, where the giants live, and all the ten of the spies can see is, "look how big the walls are.
Look how big the giants are. How can we ever conquer people like that. We look like grasshoppers in their sight." And caleb says, "wow, look how deep and rich the soil is, how fertile it is, look at the springs of water. What a great place, southern exposure." And he's in his mind, he's picking out where the orchards will be and where the vegetables will be. And he's just so excited because God said this is the promised land.
And after all he did to bring them out of Egypt and all the miracles to bring them out of Egypt, why would they doubt--yeah there's obstacles--why would they doubt that he could do it? He didn't know how he'd do it, but he believed he would, because God said he'd give it to them. Right? I mean if he had brought them that far, does he have evidence for his faith? Is faith just believing blindly, or does God give us evidence for our faith? Yeah, you think in the Bible when David said to Saul, "I think I can kill Goliath," Saul said, "how can you do that? Normally what would you--would make you think that strapping young man like David with very little battle experience could go out against this monster mountain of a man named Goliath and win?" David said, "well, the odds weren't against me-- the odds weren't with me when I killed the bear. And the odds weren't with me when I killed the lion. Based on the victory over the bear and the lion, I have evidence that God can help me kill the giant." See what I'm saying? So God gives us evidence for our faith. There's evidence of his promises and prophecies in His Word, that he keeps His Word and that it's possible.
So they go and they look at the land and two of 'em say, "flowing with milk and honey." But at this point, the other ten spies catch up. And they say, "nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of anak there." And it says, "the amalekites dwell in the land to the south; and the hittites, and the jebusites, and the amorites dwell in the mountains by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan." And the people start to get restless and go, "oh no. This can't be. This is bad news. How will that ever happen?" And he says--the people start to murmur.
"And caleb quieted the people before Moses." What does it mean when it says, "caleb quieted the people?" What has to happen before you feel a need to quiet the people? They start to groan and murmur and say, "oh no, what are we going to do? Now--we should have died here in the wilderness." Caleb jumps up on something and he says, "shh! We can make it!" Listen to what he says. "He quieted the people before Moses, and said, 'let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.'" Now I may be jumping ahead of somebody else. Let me see here. He said, "we are well able--" oh yeah, verse 31--somebody look up, I'm in Numbers 13:32. I got it.
Is that the one that we gave you? Alright, don't read it yet. I just want you to be ready, okay? Now let me read this and I'm going to just pontificate a little bit on this. Verses 30-31 first, caleb says, "we are well able, let us go up now." "But the men who had gone up with him said, 'we are not able to go against the people, for they are stronger than we are.'" Alright, here you've got two church leaders. I mean they're representatives of the church. They've come to bring back a report.
And they're speaking to the congregation. And one person says to the congregation, "we are able to be victorious." And the other one is saying, "we are not able to be victorious because they're bigger than we are." Alright, let me translate that to us today. Who's the enemy? The devil. Is he bigger than you and i? Yeah. I mean angels exceed in strength to humans.
Man is made lower than angels. The devil was the highest of the angels. Is he powerful? We're wrestling, "not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers and heavenly places." And sure, in our own strength, the devil can beat us. "Without me--" how much can we do without Christ? Nothing. So you can understand that if we're going against this giant, the devil and his minions, these giants, that some would look at the odds and say, "we can't do it.
I mean look at how often we're overcome by sin. We can't do it." But caleb doesn't look at that. He looks at the victories of the past and said, "the Egyptians were bigger than us too." And he said, "based on what God has done in the past, we are well able." Do we get the same two reports in the church today? Are some standing up and saying, "you know, after all we're all weak sinners and so don't take yourself too seriously. We are not able to be victorious. Don't expect to be overcomers.
But doesn't Jesus say, "we must be overcomers," in Revelation? And so you're getting conflicting reports. Now if you don't believe you can overcome and make it to the promised land, will you make it? You see how important this is? Alright, go ahead and read for me, what did I say? Verse 32 and 33 of Numbers 13. "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." You know, you can maybe imagine how they felt. Just suppose--it says that one of the King of the anakim had a bed that was 13 feet. Now Goliath was 9 1/2 feet and he was big enough.
So let's just pick an average and say these guys averaged 9-10 feet. And they said, "we felt like grasshoppers." I mean they're watching from the bushes. These guys go out to their gardens. They go out to the well and go out and cut wood. Can you imagine going against an enemy where all you could do is swing at his kneecap? That'd be a little intimidating.
But David said, "well, if you can only hit his kneecap with a sword, use a sling and go for the head." And so they just had to raise their sights really. So they're looking at how big the problems are. And you know what they're problem was? They're thinking like grasshoppers. They're thinking like grasshoppers. They're saying, "we were just grasshoppers in their sight.
" Any of you ever seen a little yorkshire terrier or a little toy poodle go after a german shepherd? And it's like nobody has ever notified the poodle about the big disparity in size. And I have watched shepherds run from like little chihuahuas, because--or yorkshire terriers, it's like they just, they have no concept of size. Their spatial understanding doesn't exist. And I've seen these little yorkshire terriers take off after these great big dogs. And I've seen the big dogs running from 'em tails between their leg.
Someone said one time, "the question is not how big the dog is in the fight, but how much fight is in the dog." And caleb, he said, "oh, it doesn't matter. You know, if God is with us, you and God are always a majority." So he had this attitude of victory. And that was going to make all the difference in the world. And so he wasn't going to be thinking like a grasshopper. Now we got to keep reading unfortunately in Numbers 14.
Oh, well you know what I want to do? I want to stop and tell you a little more about caleb. First of all, the name caleb means "to attack" or "capable" or "dog." It's a difficult word, 'cause the root is used several ways in the Bible. And in some way it's talking about the relentlessness of a dog. You ever seen--how can a dog-- a dog can't outrun a dear or a caribou, but how to wolves do it? They don't get tired. They don't give up.
They keep after them. They're relentless, aren't they? And they'll track 'em sometimes for days. And they just plod along. And so it's talking about this relentlessness or capableness of a dog. Caleb is mentioned 32 times in the Bible.
Something interesting about his family tree; you can read in Joshua 14:6. And we'll read this later in our study today. "Then the children of judah came to Joshua in gilgal. And caleb The Son of jephunneh the kenizzite--" now it tells us about caleb's father is jephunneh. And it says he's a kenizzite.
Kenizzite doesn't talk about really who is father is. Kenizzite is like Israelite or jebusite. It's a people. And they were not Israelites. They were related to the edomites, which were related to Israel.
Matter of fact, look in Genesis 15 just to find out more about caleb. Caleb evidently had some mixed blood. But they had been adopted into the tribe of judah. Genesis 15:18, "on the same day the Lord made a covenant with abram, saying: 'your descendants, to your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the kenites, the kenezzites, the kadmonites, the hittites, the perizzites," the rephadim, or "the rephaim." Notice there it says the kenezzites. There were a people that lived down in the Judean desert in that region that caleb's father had some clan relatives there that maybe had joined the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt.
Maybe he had married a lady from judah, or his father has, but somehow the name is attached with the kenezzite people, which were not pure Jewish. It's interesting how many different peoples you find in the family tree of Jesus and of God's people. But they were grafted. And everyone from rahab to tamar to Ruth, right, came from other places. So I just thought that's interesting to notice that caleb in particular did have some of the blood in him of the people he was conquering.
Interesting. Uriah, the hittite, loyal soldier of David, right? Who were the hittites? They were a people that was to be conquered by the Israelites when they came into the land. And here he converts to the God. And you ever read what uriah says, he only says one verse in the Bible, but it talks about complete devotion to God. But isn't it interesting sometimes how the converts are more loyal than people who are raised in the church, so to speak.
Here you got caleb, who maybe has grown up and he's kind of mixed blood. And he's saying, "we can make it. We can do it. I believe in the God of Israel. And the people who have been there for, you know, ten generations from Jacob, they're going, "oh, we can never make it.
" Have you seen that happen in the church before? You know sometimes the people who convert in have a more childlike faith. That's why Jesus said many will come from the east and the west and sit down in the Kingdom with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And the children of the Kingdom will be in outer darkness because they didn't believe. We've got to have faith. Okay, so we're in chapter 14 now.
They decide to believe the ten spies. Notice which is the majority? The faithful or the unfaithful? The ones who say, "we can't make it," are the majority. The ones who say, "we can make it," Joshua and caleb, are the minority. Would those odds still be the same in the church today possibly? You are able. He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before his throne.
Yes you are. You are able to be a victorious Christian. Yes you can. But you know, if you say it, you'll be called a fanatic by the others. Isn't that right?" "Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried.
" So their lack of faith didn't make them happy. "And the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel--" I'm in chapter 14:1-2-- "and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and aaron, and the whole congregation--" now they question their leaders. "The whole congregation says to them, 'if only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!'" Be careful what you pray for, even when you're pouting, 'cause you might get it. And they were going to get it.
"Why has the Lord brought us up 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.'" Now they're going to pick someone else other than Moses. "And Moses and aaron fell on their faces before the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel." They prostrated themselves. They're praying and saying, "oh don't do this!" They completely humble themselves. And notice here, you know most of the time it talks about caleb, but here it includes Joshua. "And Joshua The Son of nun and caleb The Son of jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, they tore their clothes; and they spoke to the congregation of the children of Israel, saying: 'the land through which we passed to spy is an exceedingly good land.
'" Now you're getting conflicting reports. They said it's a land. The ten spies said it's a land that devours the inhabitants thereof. You know why? Were there thorns in the promised land? Probably. Were there a lot of flowers too? You know, in order to have honey, you got to have flowers.
And if it's flowing with milk and honey for the cows to be flowing with milk and for the hives to be flowing with honey, you got to have other rich vegetation. They were looking at the thorn hedges. And the others were looking at the flowers and the honey. People find what they look for. Isn't that right? You've heard me say this before but in California on a spring day, you can have two birds that are native flying around, one is looking for things that are dead and carrion, decomposing, the other one's looking for flowers and nectar.
One's a hummingbird; one's a buzzard. Same countryside, different birds. By their nature they look for different things. And some people always look at the problems. It was amazing how the ten spies could come out of the promised land and say, "it devours the inhabitants.
" Maybe they saw a pit somewhere. "Oh, it could fall there, get devoured." You know, there were slime pits. By the way, during one battle it talks about them falling in it. But caleb saw the slime pits, he said, "I think that stuff will burn. We could pave our roads with it.
It was asphalt." I mean so it depends on how you look at it. Tar pits, they did, they had 'em there. "Why is it the Lord has brought us?" "And Joshua and caleb said, 'it's an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, 'a land that 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, the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.
" Now reason they said, "they are our bread," you know how they went out in the morning, they just picked up the bread? God rained it, God provided. They're saying a couple things. One is, "God's gonna provide for us, just like he has every morning." They went out and saw a miracle. Didn't they? Six days a week anyway. The other thing is all of these nations had prepared the land.
It was roto-tilled. The wells were dug. The houses were built. The gardens were fenced. All they had to do was go in and move in.
They'd done all the hard work. "They are our bread. They've done it all for us. We've just got to go in." And they're just appealing to them. Notice, "the Lord is with us.
Do not fear them." That's the big question. What did God say to Joshua? "I am with you. I am with you." What did he say to gideon? "I am with you." He said to Moses, "I am with you." He said to David, "I am with you." And what did Jesus say when he ascended? "I am with you." How does the Bible end? "the Lord himself will be with us." And so he says, "God's with us, what are we afraid of?" Remember all the signs he's performed. And you know what? It says, "then the congregation said to stone them with stones." Now the congregation's getting ready to stone Moses and aaron, caleb and Joshua. But God intervenes.
"Now the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the meeting before all the children of Israel." They're getting ready to take up stones in the desert to execute these faithful men. All of the sudden the glory of God begins to flash and reverberate from the temple. And everyone goes, "ahh!" And it just stopped the whole mob. It's like God, they had forgotten God's presence was there. And even after that they don't repent.
They just drop their stones. They decide not to stone them. At this point, God then issues a judgment. Now you'll notice that we got a section in here. It says, "standing tall when it counts.
" Someone read for me Exodus 23:2. We got that right up here? Exodus 23:2. And someone else get prepared to read Numbers 14:30. I don't know who got that one. Oh, is that you? Oh, well I think we handed that out to someone.
You? Alright, go ahead read that for us. "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment." Why is caleb one of the heroes in the Bible? Because when it was unpopular to vote a certain way, he still voted his conscience. When everybody around him started to murmur and complain, it would have been real easy for him to kind of fold his hands and say, like politicians do, "what's popular right now? Which way is the wind blowing? That's which way I'm going to go." And he doesn't say that. He votes for God. And so it takes courage sometimes to stand up and say, "even though everybody's doing this, this is what God says.
This is what I'm going to do." And so he stood up for what the truth was. And then it says here... Oh, I already that. Numbers 14:34, now God pronounces a curse on the Israelites because they did not believe. And he says you prayed that your carcasses might fall? Okay, Numbers 14:34, "according to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, 40 days, for each day you will bear your guilt one year.
" By the way, this is that principle of a day for a year. You find it several places in the Bible. "You will know my rejection." So all that generation from 20 years old and upward that said, "we're never going to make it," didn't make it. Now it's good that God-- this is really encouraging. There were some teenagers there that maybe had passed the age of accountability.
And who knows what they were thinking. Maybe they were following their parents, that could have been anywhere from, you know, 12 to 20, and God said, "look, I'm going to have mercy on you, because you're young, and you're maybe being influenced by the crowd. But I want you to see that God is able." And so everyone from 20 under--by the way also, those who were 20-over, you had to be 20 to fight in the army. So everyone 20 and under, they survived. You know what that means? After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, how many people entered the promised land that were over 60? Out of 2 million, give or take a million, we don't know how much it was, 2 1/2 million.
But out of roughly 2 million people, there's only 2 that are over 60. What were their names? Joshua and caleb. And the Bible says there was not a feeble person among their tribes. One reason there was nobody feeble among their tribes is because they were eating well and exercise, fresh air, sunshine. Another reason is there was nobody but two over 60.
Isn't that right? Everyone else had died from various plagues and things in the wilderness. So they had been kind of thinned down to the faithful and the healthy. So that also helped them when they finally went into battle. Another verse here I want you to read, Numbers 14:30. Who has that? "Except for caleb The Son of jephunneh and Joshua The Son of nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in.
" Alright, well that's pretty clear. By the way, you look in verse 24 it says the same thing. "But my servant, caleb, because he has a different spirit in him." Are there different spirits like, you know, cereal in the Market? Or was it saying that he had the Spirit of God and a spirit of faith that the others didn't have? It was different from the crowd. "But caleb, my servant, because he had a different spirit in him, and he has fully followed me. He's followed me fully.
" How does God want us to follow him? Fully. It says, "I will bring him into the land, and his descendants will inherit it," because he had faith. Well, friends, I want to make it. Don't you? And we want our descendants to make it. So there's a tip there.
God's given promises in His Word. Now I want you to think about this. God said, "you gotta wonder 40 years." Was caleb gonna wander because of his unbelief? But did he stay with the children of Israel? Could Moses and Joshua have said, "look, you guys, you don't believe, but caleb and aaron and Moses and i, we're going to head over there and we're going to whoop 'em all, we're going to take the land because you don't believe. You guys go wander. We're going in!" Is that what they said? Or did they maintain a sense of community and say, "even though the church--" listen very carefully-- "even though the church lacks faith, even though the church is doing things wrong.
Even though there are some leaders that don't have faith, those ten spies, and because of your wandering, because of your unbelief, we're going to wander with you, because God is with you." When they went back into the wilderness, not only did Moses and aaron and caleb and Joshua go back with them, God went with them. So don't forget that. Some people say, "oh man, there's hypocrites in the church and they're doing this wrong. Or they're doing that wrong. And I'm going to go off by myself like Elijah and live in a cave.
" What did God say to Elijah? "What are you doing here?" "I'm the only one left. I'm holy. They've all sinned. They've forsaken you, but I love you. I'm faithful.
" God said, "you got a pretty high opinion of yourself." That's one of the problems with arrogance. You can never tell an arrogant person they're arrogant, 'cause they don't see it. And there are spiritual people that can be arrogant. And God said, "get back in there. I've got 7,000 knees that haven't bowed and that's still my people.
When did I tell you to leave? I didn't tell you to run from jezebel." If you want a revival, you got to be in the house, right? If you're gonna clean the house, you gotta be in the house. If you're gonna bail a boat that's got a leak, you gotta be in the boat. You ever try to bail a boat when you're in the ocean? And so there's a lot of people that jump ship. And yes, the church needs revival. And yes there are problems.
But God wants us to stick together because he's still with his people. How do you know? He stayed with Israel because he had committed to them the oracles of truth in His Word. He is committed to this movement, the oracles of truth. And in spite of problems, and I've got a list, and you've probably got a list, it's still his church. And he wants us to stay together.
Amen? And that's how you have a revival. I always--i get confused and exasperated when I see people say, "oh, you know what the church did? I'm not going back anymore. I'm going to just meet by myself in my house." That's not God's will. 2 Peter 1:4, somebody got that one? Back here I think. They gave that to bonnie.
Hold your hand up. We're talking about the promises of God. By the way, while we're talking about promises, let me read you one. Caleb made it to the promised land because of faith. Mark 11:22, Jesus said, "have faith in God for assuredly I say to you whoever says to this mountain, 'be removed and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes those things that he says will be done, he'll have whatever he says.
Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you'll have them." Did caleb have faith that he was going to get into the promised land? Did he ultimately get what he believed in? Does God make promises to us in His Word that we can claim by faith? Will we receive those things when we claim them by faith? Alright, go ahead, read that for us, 2 Peter 1:4. "By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." "Exceeding, great and precious promises, that through these," promises we can be overcomers. Through these promises we are able to escape. Alright, now I need to jump ahead, "passing on the legacy." I got a lot left to cover and I'm running out of time. I want you to know that josh-- that caleb survived during those 40 years of wandering, maintained his health so much so--go with me to Joshua 14.
We're jumping up to the book of Joshua now, from the books of Moses. Caleb survives through three books. He's in the books of Moses, the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. It's amazing, isn't it? One man living all that time. He comes to his old buddy, Joshua, and he says to him, "now therefore, give me this mountain which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the anakim were there," the giants, "and the cities were great and fortified.
It may be the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them--" "I shall be able." Notice that, through the Lord. He hasn't changed, has he? "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." Now I had left something out that I wanted to read. There's another promise in the Bible. Someone read for me psalm 92.
Did I give that to somebody? You know where I'm going? Psalm 92:12. Did we distribute that one? Psalm 92:12, "the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in lebanon." Read through verse 15. "Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Amen. Isn't that nice to know? In their old age they will still flourish.
They will still bear fruit. I think that's a wonderful promise. So here everyone's afraid of the giants when they first spy out the land. What does caleb say when he gets in the land? "Give me the mountain where the giants area." And then you know what he does? When you get to the book of Judges, he--caleb says, "whoever takes this mountain is going to get my daughter as wife." You read about that in Judges 1:12. "Then caleb said, 'he who attacks kirjath sepher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter achsah as wife.
' And othniel--" who later becomes a judge-- "The Son of kenaz--" it's interesting that caleb has a brother named kenaz, like the kenazites--his "younger brother, took it; and he gave him his daughter achsah as wife." Now after he says, "you can have her as wife," by the way, you had to pay a dowry for a wife. And he says, "the dowry will for conquering this land," he says, "I'm going to give you my daughter." And then she comes to her father, she says, you know, "thank you for the land, but I want something more." "So it was, when she comes to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and caleb said to her, 'what do you wish?' So she said to him, 'give me a blessing; since you have given me land in the south, give me also springs of water.'" Now which land in the northern hemisphere gets the most exposure to the sun? Southern exposure. So which is going to need water the most? Land with southern exposure. She says, "you've given me this land with southern exposure.
I'm going to need water." And she said, "give me some springs." Must have been a big parcel that had several springs on it. And it said, "caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs." So you learn something else about caleb. Is he generous? He's patient. He's faithful. He's wise.
And you know what else he's doing? He's passing on to the next generation this blessing and this faith. He's just a wonderful hero from the Bible. I'm looking forward to meeting him in the Kingdom. Aren't you? He had a big-hearted man, brave man, strong man. And I don't know that the Bible tells us exactly how long he lived.
But it says, "the Lord was with judah," verse 19, "and they drove out the inhabitants of the mountains," led by caleb, "but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron. And they gave hebron to caleb, as Moses had said. And he expelled from there the three sons of anak." Those were the giants. And so here's this old man. By the way, Jerusalem is where it is today because judah got the land that they got, which is because caleb had faith in God.
Now do you get that line? The reason that Jerusalem is where it is today is because of where judah is. And judah is where they are because of the faith of caleb. So you can trace it all back to him. Wonderful story of a background character. Unfortunately, we're out of time.
But I do want to take a moment. I'm going to tell you about our free offer, friends. "Do you really believe?" We've been talking about faith today. We'll send you a free copy of that if you ask. "Do you really believe," just call the number, 866-study-more, 866-788-3966.
Also please pray for, and don't forget to register for the m.i.q. Teen meetings. You can do that by going to miqteens.com. God bless. We'll be studying together again next week.