We're going to read from God's word now
in numbers, and chapter 13, we're going to
begin reading at verse 25, and we'll read
down to chapter 14 and verse 10.
And we pick up the account where the
spies have returned from their reconnaissance of the
land of Canaan.
You remember how they brought impressive examples of
the fruit from that land.
Numbers 13, verse 25.
Let's hear God's word.
And they returned from searching of the land
after 40 days.
And they went and came to Moses and
to Aaron, and to all the congregation of
the children of Israel, and to the wilderness
of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back word
unto them, and unto all the congregation, and
showed them the fruit of the land.
And they told him and said, We came
unto the land whither thou sentest us, and
surely it floweth with milk and honey, and
this is the fruit of it.
Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in
the land, and the cities are walled and
very great.
And moreover, we saw the children of Anak
there.
The Amalekites dwell in the land of the
south, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and
the Amorites dwell in the mountains.
And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and
by the coast of Jordan.
And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and
said, Let us go up at once and
possess it, for we are well able to
overcome it.
But the men that went up with him
said, We be not able to go up
against the people, for they are stronger than
we.
And they brought up an evil report of
the land which they had searched, unto the
children of Israel, saying, The land through which
we have gone to search it is a
land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and
all the people that we saw in it
are men of a great stature.
And there we saw the giants, the sons
of Anak, which come of the giants, and
we were in our own sight as grasshoppers,
and so we were in their sight.
And all the congregation lifted up their voice
and cried, and the people wept that night.
And all the children of Israel murmured against
Moses and against Aaron.
And the whole congregation said unto them, Would
God that we had died in the land
of Egypt, or would God we had died
in this wilderness?
And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto
this land, to fall by the sword, that
our wives and our children should be a
prey?
Were it not better for us to return
into Egypt?
And they said to one another, Let us
make a captain, and let us return into
Egypt.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces,
before all the assembly of the congregation of
the children of Israel.
And Joshua the son of Nun, Caleb the
son of Jephunneh, which were of them that
searched the land, rent their clothes.
And they spake unto all the company of
the children of Israel, saying, The land which
we pass through to search it is an
exceeding good land.
If the Lord delight in us, then he
will bring us into this land and give
it us, a land which floweth with milk
and honey.
Only rebel not ye against the land, neither
fear ye the people of the land, for
they are bred for us.
Their defence is departed from them, and the
Lord is with us.
Fear them not, but all the congregation, they
stone them with stones.
And the glory of the Lord appeared in
the tabernacle of the congregation before all the
children of Israel.
Well, every once in a while, every faithful
minister of the gospel experiences occasions, be it
one on one with a parishioner or be
it in a small gathering, be it at
a conference or in public worship, times where
he feels more ministered unto than he ministers.
And I want to take this opportunity to
tell you with all the love of my
heart that that's the way I feel about
this week.
You have ministered to me greatly, and I
thank you all for your friendship, your hospitality,
your communion in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe in the communion of saints.
It has been so good to be here,
dear friends, and so good to have the
opportunity to meet you and to come to
know you a bit.
And I pray, God, that ties have been
forged that will turn into petitions after our
departure from one another.
When you attend a conference of this nature
and you feel close to the Lord and
close to his people and you return home
to your small charges as ministers, to your
small congregations as lay people, to that city
block where you don't know anyone who serves
the Lord besides your own family, back to
your job where you seem to be the
only Christian, there can be a genuine anticlimactic
letdown.
And what we need in such occasions more
than anything else is that dimension of faith
that we want to speak to you about
in this closing address.
I'm calling it simply persevering wholehearted faith.
Persevering wholehearted faith.
So we need not only the faith, the
simple childlike faith of an Adam and Eve,
the submissive faith of the Shunammite woman, the
growing and mature faith of the Canaanite woman,
but we need the persevering, following faith of
Caleb, this great man of God who persevered
for 85 years in the midst of murmuring
Israelites.
You know, the persevering dimension of the Christian
life is sometimes the greatest miracle of all.
When we preach on Pentecost from Acts 2,
verse 4, about how the Holy Spirit filled
the house where the apostles were sitting, and
the Spirit gave them utterance that they could
speak in their own languages and preach to
the people, we are awed by the miraculous
character of the outpouring of the Spirit.
But sometimes I think that a later verse
in Acts 2, Acts 2, verse 42, is
every bit as miraculous as Acts 2, verse
4.
And there we read these words, and they
continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship
and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
You see, it's a wonder to become a
Christian, but it's also a wonder to remain
a Christian.
And when you consider what you are and
what I am in ourselves, sometimes the greater
wonder becomes that the Lord keeps me converted,
that the Lord allows me to persevere, that
the Lord doesn't abandon me.
Because now when I sin, I sin against
the cross, against the blood, and against His
love.
What a wonderful thing perseverance is.
And may I say to my fellow brethren
in the ministry, one thing to remember to
assist you in persevering in the Gospel, in
the day of small things, is to reckon
with this reality that all around us, our
people are submerged in worldly things 165 hours
a week.
They have three hours with us, perhaps, in
the house of God.
And when you don't see much progress, consider
the miracle that God would use basically those
three hours and a little bit of daily
devotions to even retain them at the level
of spirituality where they are, in the face
of a powerful, terrorizing, godless world that bombards
its philosophy every other hour of that week.
Sometimes that helps me.
When I say, where's the progress of that
young saint?
Then I think, well, at least there's no
backsliding.
At least they're holding their own.
That's a wonder that the Word even does
that.
But we want more than that, don't we?
We want to grow.
We want our people to grow.
And we want to persevere in the most
holy faith.
And we need as ministers, first of all,
to show our people examples of that kind
of perseverance.
Could it be that God has put you
in a small charge in a day of
small things and shown you but small fruits
in order that you may stand as a
beacon of example for your people and for
the world around you of a faithful minister
of the gospel who is emulating and modeling
the grace of our God in the Lord
Jesus Christ?
Could it be that God has withheld showing
you great fruits in your ministry so that
you might be a living example of those
who keep their hand on the plow and
don't look back?
For he that looketh back is not fit
for the kingdom of God.
Brethren, labor on.
Cast the bread of God upon the waters
and you shall find it after many days,
if not in this life, on the great
day.
Samuel Rutherford said, And heaven will be two
heavens to me when I meet one other
soul from Anwerth there.
And when you meet your own people on
the day of judgment on the right hand
of the great shepherd of his sheep, oh,
be encouraged.
Even if you were used for one soul,
all the labor expended will be well worth
it.
To spend eternity also with that person praising
and glorifying the Lamb.
But every one of us needs mentors in
this regard.
And this morning I want to set before
you this great man of God who in
times every bit is bad or worse than
ours.
And against every human odd, persevered in consistent
and persistent and fulsome faith.
So I want to preach to you from
Numbers 14, verse 24.
But my servant Caleb, because he had another
spirit with him and hath followed me fully,
him will I bring into the land where
into he went and his seed shall possess
it.
So our theme this morning is persevering by
following God fully.
And I want to see that theme in
three thoughts with God's help.
First, we want to look at the meaning
of that expression, following God fully.
Its meaning.
Secondly, we want to see its root.
Why Caleb could follow God fully.
And third, we will look at its reward.
The promises God granted to Caleb in response
to his following God fully.
The day I was ordained into the ministry,
when my father shook my hand.
He said to me, son, today you have
finally begun.
But remember, it will be harder to persevere
than to begin.
But the grace of God will be sufficient
for both if you stay close by God.
That is what is so remarkable about Caleb.
You never read one instance in scripture.
Of course, he was a sinner.
Of course, he was a man of like
passions as we are.
But you don't read of it in scripture
that this man ever strayed from God.
He's an amazing example.
The Bible, God says of him.
I'm sure Caleb wouldn't say that of himself
because he would know his own heart, wouldn't
he?
He followed me fully.
What a wonderful thing when other saints can
say that of us.
But an amazing thing when God can say
that of us.
You remember what God said of Job that
he was perfect in heart.
God meant he was the same thing.
God didn't mean that he never sinned, but
God meant that he was following him fully.
Job didn't say that of himself, did he?
But God said it of Job.
And God says it of Caleb.
He followed me fully.
Persevering faith, fulsome faith.
That's what we need, friends, by the grace
of God.
Now, who was this Caleb?
Well, you know, of course, that Caleb was
one of the 12 spies sent out by
Moses with God's permission to search out the
promised land.
One was sent from every tribe.
Israel was encamped at Kadesh Barnea on the
edge of the desert on the border of
the promised land.
Ready to do battle against the inhabitants of
the land, to conquer them as God had
promised.
And after 40 days, these 12 spies returned.
And what is remarkable is that all 12
of them agree on the basic, objective, external
facts.
All 12 agree that the land of Canaan
is a good land.
A land that flows with milk and honey.
They even brought back a huge cluster of
grapes from Eshcol to prove how good this
land was.
They all agree that the inhabitants of this
land are, for the most part, a war
-like people.
And they agree that there are giants, particularly
in Hebron, the children of Aenar, the sons
of Aenar, that would be a fearsome foe.
And they agree that the cities are strongholds
containing walled bulwarks.
They all agree that it would be a
complicated and difficult thing to fight the Canaanites.
But the spies have a division among them
when it comes to interpreting these facts.
There is a majority report that is turned
in by 10 of the 12.
And that report is very negative.
That report says, verse 31 of chapter 13,
We be not able to go up against
the people, for they are stronger than we.
That's the conclusion.
No use going forward.
It's plain as day.
They outnumber us.
Human reasoning.
There'll be more against us than there before
us.
The majority conclude by reasoning and by unbelief.
Fear and unbelief are the parents of their
conclusion.
They had the facts straight, but they had
the conclusion wrong.
And they had the conclusion wrong because they
omitted the greatest fact of all.
The fact of God.
And the fact of God's promise.
The God of the Red Sea.
The God of the wonders of ages past.
That God had said, go in at once
and you shall take the land.
You see, unbelief, the antonym of faith, is
such a deadly foe because unbelief reasons with
flesh and blood.
Unbelief tallies up the walls and the Amalekites
and the Giants and the Canaanites.
And unbelief concludes it is impossible to go
forward.
And the tragedy of the story, it is
a tragic story, is that the people side
with the majority report.
And these ten men are responsible for leading
two and a half million Israelites into the
slew of desponding unbelief.
What a tragedy.
What a calling ministers have, because in some
ways, I like to think of our calling,
brethren, as the calling of a spy.
Every week we go out and we spy
through the Scriptures, don't we?
And we search the Scriptures and we bring
back to our people the coming Sabbath, a
report of the land, a report of God
and of his promises, a report of the
heavenly land of Canaan, a report of how
to traverse the earthly land by faith.
And woe be to us if we bring
to our people a message of unbelief, a
message of no hope, a message in which
God is left out of the equation.
That's what these ten false spies were doing.
It was really a cruel report, don't you
think?
Here they come back, carrying on poles, mind
you, with men, these huge clusters of the
grapes of the vineyards of Eshkol, and they
lay them before the people.
They say, look at these wonderful grapes.
Look at this wonderful land.
But you can't have it, because we're not
going in.
Here you can see it, but you can't
have it.
It's no use.
It's torture.
Have you ever tried that with a child?
Bring in a beautiful new bike to my
son and say, look at this wonderful bike,
son.
Isn't it a great bike?
You know, walk around it.
Great!
Oh, but you can't have it.
That's the way you can preach the Gospel.
You can make it great.
You can show the wonderful things of the
Gospel.
But if you don't show sinners the way,
and you don't encourage them in that way,
and you don't tell them to go in
by faith, you are like the ten false
spies.
Well, happily, there are two other spies.
And they come with a minority report.
They come believing what even unbelieving Balaam had
to say.
From a donkey, God is not a man
that he should lie, neither the son of
man that he should repent.
Hath he said, and shall he not do
it?
Hath he spoken, and shall he not make
it good?
And so, Caleb stands up and he quiets
all the people.
And he says exactly what the people don't
want to hear.
Because the people, you see, really wanted to
hear that they couldn't go into the land.
They were afraid.
They were unbelieving.
And so, Caleb tells them what they don't
want to hear.
Let us go up at once and possess
it.
For we are well able by the strength
of our God to overcome it.
And Caleb says, our defense is sure.
And the people will be bread for us.
You see, with God all things are possible.
And with God, a minority gains the victory.
I had a ministerial friend who was in
Nigeria, very discouraged in his ministry.
And in the lonely, remote part of Nigeria,
the numbers were very few.
Everything was down.
He was wondering, why am I here?
What's the future?
And one day, in God's providence, a little,
old, run-down, rickety truck went bouncing along
in front of his home through all the
bumps of the street and all the potholes.
And he looked at that truck with amazement.
And crude, red letters painted on the side
of the truck were the words, God plus
one equals majority.
Friend, when you go back tomorrow, when you
ascend that pulpit on Sunday, when you go
back to your labor on Monday, would you
please remember those few words?
For your own good, God plus one equals
majority.
You see, it's by that faith that Caleb
could have the courage.
He really believed that.
And therefore, he had the courage to stand
up and face all these hundreds of thousands
of people.
Let us go up at once.
Caleb didn't say, oh, well, you know we
disagree among ourselves, so we're going to have
a conference.
We'll come back to you in about four
days after the twelve spies have had a
conference together.
We'll see if we can come up with
a compromised position.
No, God had said, God had promised.
Lord, do as thou hast said.
You see, there are many things in our
lives that we don't need to pray about.
I don't know if you've ever thought about
it that way.
You don't have to pray about discerning God's
will in areas where God has already made
His will known.
God had made His will known.
It was plain.
It was clear.
We must go in at once.
You see, when we don't want to do
God's will, what we so often do is
we say in our pious Christian way, well,
I'll pray about it.
Those prayers are an abomination to God because
His will is known.
You see, those who persist in low levels
of obedience will persist in false petitions.
And they will persist in low levels of
assurance as well.
God has connected together obedience with His own
Word.
And when He speaks, it is to be
done, friends.
And it is not to be done tomorrow.
Tomorrow's faith is simply today's unbelief.
Let us go up at once.
For the people are given unto us because
God has promised.
So, all the spies saw the same facts,
but Joshua and Caleb had a heart for
God, a heart for His promise, and a
heart for the people.
They saw the same thing with their eyes,
but they had different conclusions from the heart.
And what a difference this makes, you see.
Unbelief is always dreadfully contagious.
It persuades the people that the giants of
Anak are larger than the promises of God.
It makes God look small and giants look
big.
And it eats away at the vitals of
faith.
And it stunts spiritual growth.
Isn't that true?
Every time you are unbelieving in the presence
of God, your spiritual growth is bruised and
stunted.
But true faith, persevering faith, makes the giants
become dwarfs.
And it makes God to be big as
He really is.
Persevering faith is realistic faith.
Now, that doesn't mean that persevering faith goes
in an easy way.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that persevering faith is easy
faith.
But I do say that persevering faith is
sure faith.
There is a sure way.
Sinners, saved sinners, persevere with God.
Believe in His promises.
Trust in His Word.
They may go through difficult times and difficult
furnaces of affliction and tunnels of challenges, but
God will bring them through.
Proverbs 23, verse 18 says, "...there will surely
come an end, and thine expectation shall not
be cut off."
God is always true to His Word.
God always meets or even exceeds His promises.
He does exceeding, abundantly, above all that we
ask or think.
And so, this minority believes in God.
And believing in God, they come with a
positive report.
Let us go in and let us take
the land.
Now, may I ask you, my friend, does
your life display a positive report of God
and His promises?
Or a negative report of your own complaints
and your own unbelief?
You see, not only unbelief is contagious, true
faith is contagious too.
And your life, more than you realize, is
contagious.
For well or for woe.
People are watching you, especially when you claim
to be a Christian.
They are watching you so carefully.
They are watching every move you make, far
more than you realize.
When I was in the army, then the
drill sergeant said to us, as part of
the harassment of the army, you can only
have two pairs of boots.
And you have to have white dots on
the back of one pair of boots.
And every other day you wear the white
dot boots.
And the next day you wear the non
-white dot boots.
And you can't disobey.
And the goal, of course, was that every
night you have to polish your boots because
you have to wear the other boots the
next day.
So you have to keep up with all
this polishing.
Well, I didn't like polishing my boots very
much.
So, yes, I bought a third pair of
boots.
And I had that third pair of boots
in my locker.
One day I opened my locker and my
room partner, who was not a Christian, he
saw my locker and he came to me.
He said, I have something to ask you.
He said, why do you have three pairs
of boots in your locker?
I said, well, I just thought I'd get
an extra pair and I wouldn't have to
polish my boots.
But the drill sergeant said, you should only
have two pairs.
I said, yes, but you know.
He said, and he looked me straight in
the face.
I'll never forget it.
This is 30 years later.
I remember it vividly.
I see his face.
He said, I thought you were a Christian.
The smallest thing.
If you're inconsistent, the world will notice.
But the good news is, if you are
consistent, the world will notice too.
And the world will begin to feel that
there's something in your life that the world
misses.
And the world will ask you questions.
They will test you.
Is this minority report for real?
Or is it a sham?
Is Christianity really vital?
Is it really true?
What do they say when they look at
your life?
Are you a Caleb walking consistently with your
God?
Are you following God fully?
You know the story of an old Puritan
who was challenged by someone once who said,
I'm not sure I'm really so attracted to
your religion because your life is so precise.
Well, said the Puritan.
His name was Rogers.
My friend, I serve a precise God.
He meant that in a good way.
In a loving way.
And you see, when you walk in a
precise way, not a precise legalistic way, but
a precise way according to God's law out
of love, and people see that love, there
will be a certain level of contagiousness in
your life.
The Heidelberg Catechism says that by our walk
of life, we may win others.
What does it mean then to follow God
fully?
I'd like to suggest to you this morning,
it means at least four things.
And certainly more.
But let me just give you four things.
First of all, to follow God fully.
It means to follow God persistently.
You see, this is not the only time
that the Bible says of Caleb, he followed
me fully.
If you turn with me just a moment
to Joshua 14.
Joshua 14.
You will notice there that in verses 13
and 14, Joshua speaks to Caleb and blesses
him and gives him Hebron for an inheritance.
And then says, 14, Hebron therefore became the
inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the
Kenazite, unto this day because that he wholly
followed the Lord God of Israel.
He's 85.
He fully followed God when he was 40.
He fully followed God when he was 85.
Through 40 years in the wilderness.
40 years surrounded by murmuring Israelites.
40 years of unbelieving, complaining people on every
side.
He followed God fully.
That's amazing.
Some of you I've been talking with in
the last days, I feel for you in
a situation where there's so few Christians around
you.
But here's your encouragement, my friend.
It is possible to be a Daniel in
the courts of Babylon.
It is possible to be a Caleb in
the midst of a murmuring wilderness people and
be faithful to the Lord.
Caleb followed God.
And I take that to mean that he
followed God evenly.
He didn't live his religion, as John Warburton
once said, in fits and starts.
He lived his religion consistently.
Day in, day out.
All those years in the midst of the
camp of the murmurers.
He was faithful unto death.
He persevered.
You see, there are a lot of people
that are religious by fits and starts, aren't
there?
There are the Jews in John 6 who
were walking with Jesus, but then turned away.
There are the Galatians who began to run
well and then backtracked.
There is Lot's wife who left the city,
but turned back.
There's a young man in my congregation who
said to me when he was very ill
in intensive care, Pastor, if the Lord ever
brings me out of this hospital, I consecrate
my whole life to Him.
He's now back with his old friends and
as worldly as ever.
What a tragedy to not follow the Lord
fully.
What about you, my friend?
Can you join God's people on Sunday and
look like a saint and be a chameleon
on Monday and look like the world at
your job?
Are you following God seven days a week?
Or does the way you talk, does it
sound like the world?
Can the world hear from you and see
from you that you are coming from another
world, a heaven-born world?
I'll never forget when I was first saved,
I so desperately needed communion with God that
I went around to all my friends and
told them that I could not be their
friends temporarily because I had to spend time
in the Word and I just had no
time.
And one friend was so puzzled, he said
to me, he said, you're talking like someone
who's coming from another world.
And it didn't dawn on me until years
later that he was right.
It is another world to be a Christian.
It's a whole other world to be a
Christian.
And we don't need to hide that, you
see.
We don't need to flaunt it, but we
don't need to hide it.
We need to genuinely show it in a
natural way by our conversation, by our walk
of life that we belong to another world.
And that we follow the Lord seven days
a week.
And that we don't belong to this poor,
miserable world that's happy only two days a
week.
Happy outwardly.
Thank God it's Friday.
That's what the world says.
Clare Davis in one seminary class I had,
had written on the board one day, TGIM,
when we walked in.
And we were debating what that could mean.
And he walked in and he said, thank
God it's Monday.
Because a Christian, you see, a true godly
Christian wants to serve God seven days a
week.
He enjoys his work because his work is
an opportunity to serve the living God.
A Christian follows God seven days a week.
Is that your goal?
Is that your pursuit?
Do you persistently strive to live to the
glory of God as Caleb did?
Secondly, to follow God fully means to follow
God sincerely.
To follow Him with all my heart.
To follow Him just the same, even if
there would be no heaven and no hell.
Because God is lovable and worthy to be
served and feared and adored.
To follow God means to follow Him with
all my heart in every situation.
No matter what people do to me.
And no matter what they say about me.
The big things in life and the little
things in life.
We must follow God fully.
Caleb followed God fully.
He stood up.
The people picked up stones.
Isn't that what they did?
Verse 9.
They picked up stones to stone Him.
And Caleb didn't flinch.
He didn't back down.
He would rather die than stop following his
God.
He's a real Daniel.
In the wilderness.
He's willing to endure insults and jeers.
He's willing to endure the disfavor of men
so that he may enjoy the favor of
God.
Caleb had the fear of God in his
heart.
And how we need the fear of God
today.
Do you know why so often that we
Christians are so little salt on the earth?
Why we've lost our saltiness so much?
It is because we don't portray from the
inside out the fear of God.
And what is the fear of God?
The best definition of the fear of God
I've ever read is by John Brown.
He said, The fear of God is to
esteem the smiles and frowns of God to
be of greater weight and value than the
smiles and frowns of men.
Did Caleb care that they stone Him?
Well, of course he cared.
But he cared more about the smile of
his God.
He followed God fully.
But this applies also to the small things
in life.
One example that comes to mind is, again,
a little army story here.
The first day I was in the army,
I sat down for lunch with my tray.
And I prayed, of course, silently.
And when I opened my eyes, my tray
was gone.
There was a whole table full of guys.
I just kind of looked around and couldn't
find my food.
I waited maybe 30 seconds.
Didn't say a thing.
Just waited.
And then a guy, two down across the
table, said to me, So where'd your food
go, praying boy?
I said, Well, I don't know where it
went, but God knows.
He said, You really believe that God hears
you?
I said, I know God hears me.
I was silent for a moment.
Ah, one guy said, Give it back to
him, buddy.
So they gave it back to me.
Just a small example.
It's so tiny.
But are you willing?
You see, even the smallest examples of life,
are you willing to speak a word for
God?
Wherever it may be.
Why are we so shy?
The world's not afraid to speak about its
agenda.
Why are we so shy to stand up
for the name of our God?
And take a little ridicule, a little persecution.
When our master took so much for us.
Follow God sincerely.
Every person you meet that is unconverted is
your mission field.
And view Him that way.
And pray for opportunities to speak.
And to walk before Him in the ways
of God.
Two weeks ago, well, three weeks ago now,
I was in Ontario, Canada, in my brother's
bookshop.
And the man walked in and he wanted
some Bibles for Turkey.
Well, my brother showed him 37 Bibles in
a box and said he could have them
for $2 each.
The man said, Well, I'd like to tell
you a story about what's going on in
Turkey.
This is what he said.
He said, I have a minister friend in
Turkey.
He was distributing Bibles.
And he got imprisoned.
And his tormentor said, tell us who gave
you those Bibles.
He said, I'll never tell you who gave
me those Bibles.
They're brethren and sisters in the Lord.
Well, they said, we'll persecute you.
He said, never mind.
So they took him into the torture chamber.
And they ripped off one of his toenails.
And they said, when he was in pain,
You tell us, you tell us.
Who gave you those Bibles?
I said, I will never tell you.
They ripped off another toenail.
Each toenail, they went along.
They asked him the same question.
He did all 10 toenails.
He would not tell.
And they said, why won't you tell?
He said, my master suffered much more than
you put me through.
And he never told against me.
And so we'll get you to tell.
It's just a matter of time.
Oh, he said, I'll never tell.
They ripped off a fingernail.
They went through all 10 fingernails.
And they began on his teeth.
One tooth at a time with a pair
of pliers.
They emptied his entire mouth.
And every single toenail, every single fingernail, every
single tooth, they asked him, tell us.
He said, no, I'll never tell you.
Finally, they hung him upside down in that
torture room.
And they beat him around the ankles and
the feet for some unknown reason.
Ninety-nine times, the maximum Islamic law allows.
After every beating, they asked him to tell.
He refused to tell.
They then gave up.
They took him as a sack of potatoes.
They threw him out in the street.
And there he lay as a beggar.
And in God's providence, one of the very
few Christian missionary women in Turkey happened to
walk by and see this beggar in the
street.
And like the good Samaritan, she had compassion.
And somehow, she managed to get the strength
to throw that beggar on her shoulders and
take him to her home.
She nursed him for three months and was
astonished to find out that he too was
a Christian missionary.
And to hear his story.
She then sent him to Louisiana in America
where he spent six months in the hospital.
And when he came out of the hospital
after six months, he could walk with two
canes about 50 feet.
The church was so impressed with his testimony,
they had him preach for them.
And then they asked him to become their
pastor.
He said, no.
He said, why not?
You need to recuperate.
You need to stay here.
No, he said, I've got to go back
to Turkey.
He said, why would you go back to
Turkey?
He said, I have to distribute more Bibles.
He went back to Turkey.
He distributed more Bibles.
He got imprisoned again.
In God's amazing providence, when the case was
taken to court the second time, because he
really didn't know where the Bibles came from,
he was let free.
He was let free six weeks ago now
as we speak.
And three weeks ago, this man came into
my brother's bookstore and said, he wants more
Bibles.
You can imagine what my brother said.
He said, you take those Bibles for nothing.
You see, this man has a firm resolve.
There is no negotiation.
My life is here for only one purpose.
I'm going to follow God, period.
There's no other agenda.
That's what makes for a strong Christian.
You see, that's what Paul had.
Isn't that so?
I am resolved.
I am determined to preach no other name
than Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Paul had a thousand things he could engage
in.
He had a wonderful mind.
He said, no, I'm going to control my
mind.
I'm going to control my time.
I've got one agenda.
I've got one goal in life.
I'm like a horse with blinders on.
I'm living and I'm dying for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
He followed God sincerely with all his heart.
Oh, may God help us to do that.
That doesn't mean that people are going to
rip out our toenails or our fingernails.
But you know what I mean.
In the smallest ways, we're going to suffer
persecution.
You can't live as a Christian in this
world without suffering persecution.
Martin Luther said persecution is the fourth mark
of the church, the true church.
All they that live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
You can't follow a reproached master and not
ever be reproached yourself.
My friend, you have to be willing to
pay the price to be a Christian.
You have to follow God by persevering faith
and God will help you.
He that loveth father and mother more than
me is not worthy of me.
Thirdly, to follow God fully means to follow
the Lord indivisibly.
That's the old divine word.
Or Thomas Boston put it this way, universally.
It means to follow God in the whole
panorama of my life.
To follow all His commandments, all His will,
all His means of grace.
It means to say with David, then shall
I not be ashamed when I have respect
unto all thy commandments.
Or in another place, I will run in
the way of all thy commandments.
You see, Caleb didn't pick and choose.
Some people say today, oh, I'll follow nine
commandments.
God gave ten.
Other people pick and choose certain areas where
they say it's not so bad if I
do this wrong.
You ever hear Christians begin their statement like
this?
I know this maybe isn't right, but...
Whoa.
I know this isn't right, but...
Anything that isn't right that you knowingly do
is going to bring you away from God
and anything you do that brings you away
from God is never worth the price, you
see.
Destroys and injures and dampens your spiritual life
and it stuns your faith.
We have no business as Christians obeying God
with a halting, partial obedience.
We must obey Him fully with all our
heart.
Not picking and choosing, but asking in all
things, Lord, what wilt thou have me to
do?
Now, part of that obedience means being in
the Word daily, using the means of grace
faithfully.
You can't maintain strong, vibrant Christian witness without
maintaining daily communion with God.
My friend, you've got to make a resolve
that from this day on, you will not
delegate to third, fourth, fifth, sixth place.
Your daily communion with God, but it will
be number one.
I must seek the face of God before
I seek the face of man every morning,
said Robert Murray McShane.
It's the only way to live.
Serve the Lord, seek the Lord indivisibly with
your whole way of life.
Fourthly, follow...
Fourthly and finally, to follow God fully is
to follow God exclusively.
That is to say, to follow no man
further than that man.
Don't follow every man only insofar as that
man follows the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul
advised.
As soon as a man turns away from
Christ, we must turn away from that man.
That means that we call no man master.
It means we enjoy our forefathers.
It means we emulate and we strive to
imitate even the great saints of the Bible
like Caleb, but only insofar as they follow
the Lord Jesus Christ.
We call...
We are the servant of no man.
We are the servant only of the Lord
Jesus.
Behold, our text begins, my servant, Caleb.
You see, a servant has no time of
his own, does he?
A servant has no possessions of his own.
His silences, his speaking, his everything belongs to
his master.
And Caleb is a servant of God.
And if you're a Christian, you're a servant
of God.
And everything you are and everything you own
belongs to Him.
Follow Him exclusively.
Well, I'm sure there's many young people sitting
here this morning and say...
You're probably saying right now in your heart
that this is all well and good, but
do you realize how hard it is?
How hard it is to resist all the
peer pressure when all my friends want to
go to a place of sin.
How hard it is for me to say
no.
Well, I do know how hard that is.
And I do know what it's like to
fall.
And I do know what it's like, thank
God, to go to God for repentance.
And you must do that.
And then vow afresh, leaning on God, never
to do it again.
May I give young people just a moment
eight real quick guidelines for fighting peer pressure,
for following God fully.
Here they are, young people.
Real quickly.
Number one, understand the strength of peer pressure.
Understand its strength.
Ralph Erskine said, when it comes to sin,
you must do one of two things.
Fight or flight.
And if you're weak in that area, you
must flee.
You must flee friends and groups and places
which you know will bring you temptation that
is hard for you to fight back.
If you're strong in the area, you can
go ahead and fight hand to hand.
Number two, lean hard on the Lord Jesus
Christ.
He fought against more peer pressure than you
will ever have to fight against.
And He's able to give you the strength
to fight in His strength.
Three, be true to God.
Be true to His commandments.
Pray for His Holy Spirit.
Think more of what God thinks of you
than what a man thinks of you.
Be true to God.
Remember how small man is compared to God.
Remember how small your friends are compared to
God.
You're going to school.
You're surrounded by all these friends.
You think it's so important to be accepted
by them.
I'll tell you something.
Two weeks after you graduate, you probably won't
see any more than two or three of
those friends for the rest of your life.
They're here today and they're gone tomorrow.
But God never goes away.
He's the inescapable God.
You need to serve Him, my friend.
Don't serve man.
And fourth, be true to yourself.
Give of yourself in friendships.
That's self-sacrificial love.
But do not give up yourself for friendship.
That's sacrificing your convictions.
But rather use means to strengthen your convictions
and strengthen your position.
Five, remember that a true friend seeks your
best.
A true friend who leads you into pathways
of sin isn't worthwhile being your friend.
In fact, he's not your friend.
He's your enemy.
And you don't need these kinds of friends.
Quote, friends.
Six, remember that long-term happiness means more
than short-term pleasure.
How many older people in my congregation...
I can't tell you the number, but how
many older people say things to me like
this?
If only I hadn't fallen to that sin
when I was a teenager.
You know, I've never had...
And I've worked with literally more than a
thousand seniors in my three ministries.
I've never had a single senior say to
me, I'm sorry I spent so much time
when I was young serving the Lord and
reading His Word and talking to His people
and obeying Him.
Never one.
But I've had a good number say to
me, If only I had sought the Lord
when I was young.
If only I hadn't caved into peer pressure.
If only I had seen what life was
all about.
If only I had lived to the glory
of God.
All these years, the scars of my teenage
sins are with me.
Pardon my sins of my youth, O Lord.
Oh, young people, save yourself from that agony.
And dare to say no to sin.
Think long-term rather than short-term pleasure.
Seven, lead rather than be led.
You don't think your friends will respect you
if you lead them in a different direction.
They will respect you the more, or else
they will reject you altogether.
And if they reject you altogether, that's for
your best welfare at that point.
Lead them in the ways of God.
Be positive peer pressure for them rather than
let them be negative peer pressure for you.
And do remember that their inner thoughts often
differ from their outward words.
How many times, if you're a God-fearing
young person, I'm sure you know that, if
you're a God-fearing young person, and you
stood up for the Lord, the very people
that have mocked you have later come to
you and said, you know, I'm in trouble.
I wonder if you can help me.
Because they respect you.
And number eight, remember that life is short.
Life flies by.
Talk to your grandpa.
Talk to your grandma.
Ask them how quickly their life flies by.
And what a tragedy to spend this one
life being influenced by miserable, rotten, negative peer
pressure.
Well, how then did Caleb walk this way?
This sounds too good to be true, doesn't
it?
To walk all these years in such a
setting in such a way.
Well, our text tells us how it was
possible.
We read in Numbers 14.24, But My
servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with
him, hath followed Me fully.
Did you hear that?
Another spirit.
Some commentators say something like this.
Well, the ten false spies had a spirit
of distrust, of unbelief, of fear.
Caleb's spirit was a spirit of faith and
hope.
Theirs was worldly.
His was heavenly.
Theirs was a spirit of angry disobedience.
His was a spirit of childlike obedience.
Theirs was satanic.
His was of God.
All these things are true.
But where did all these things come from?
And the answer can be only, of course,
Caleb had the Holy Spirit within him.
And that manifested the whole different demeanor, the
whole different spirit with which he walked before
God.
1 Corinthians 2.12, Now we have received
not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things that are freely given to
us of God.
Now why was the Holy Spirit given to
Caleb?
And why not to the ten false spies?
Sovereign grace.
And what motivates sovereign grace?
Sovereign love.
And what motivates sovereign love?
Sovereign grace.
You see, you can't get beyond the sovereignty
of Caleb's walk with God.
God gave Caleb the strength he needed, and
God is willing to give that to sinners
who ask it of Him.
God is a gracious God, as we heard
last night.
His free gift of salvation entails within it
the free gift of persevering grace as well.
And that is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
How could Caleb walk this way?
Because Jesus Christ persevered to the end.
Because Jesus Christ followed His Father fully.
In sunshine and in darkness.
And because Jesus Christ was exclusive in His
devotion, and indivisible in His walk, and persistent
in His daily life, Caleb received strength to
be that as well.
Friends, we don't have the strength to be
Caleb's in ourselves, but God has it.
And God can give it to us.
The Father is willing, the Son is willing,
and the Spirit is willing.
Will you ask it of Him?
But then finally, our text this morning closes
with some rich promises.
Him will I bring into the land where
into He went, and His seed shall possess
it.
Let me close by laying before you three
wonderful promises that are connected with this persevering
faith.
The first is, Caleb's life is going to
be preserved.
That's an amazing thing.
600,000 men and probably two and a
half million people around Caleb died in 40
years.
Now, I didn't do my math again, but
one time a long time ago when I
preached on Psalm 90, I figured out that
in the 40 years in the wilderness, it's
something like 40 funerals a day.
Can you imagine seeing 40 funerals a day
and people still going on and murmuring for
40 more years and living in that atmosphere?
And you alone, with Joshua of course, survived
to be able to tell what the Lord
has done.
What a promise.
And what a reward of grace.
Caleb survived and entered the land.
And friend, I know as a Christian there
are days that you think you won't survive.
There are days that you say with David,
I shall one day be slain by the
hand of Saul.
David was hunted for 16 years.
And maybe you feel like you've been hunted
all your life by Satan and evil powers
that be.
But you won't be slain.
God will keep you.
He keeps the feet of His saints.
You will survive.
Him will I bring.
God emphasizes it.
Him, the one who follow me fully, I
will graciously bring into the land.
And the others shall die.
God honors them that honor Him.
Secondly, God promises to give Caleb the land.
Him will I bring into the land where
into He went and His seed shall possess
it.
Isn't that an amazing promise?
Turn with me just a quick moment to
Joshua 14 again.
Look at verses 10 and 11.
Caleb is speaking here.
Joshua 14, 10 and 11, 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 fourscorn,
five years old, and 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.
And then verse 14, Hebron therefore became the
inheritance of Caleb.
God gave Caleb extra strength.
He rewarded his faith.
And then turn over one more page.
Joshua 15, verse 14.
Here's the most amazing thing of all.
And Caleb, 15, 14, drove thence the three
sons of Anak, Shishai, and Haman, and Telmai,
the children of Anak.
Who were the children of Anak?
The giants.
Who drove them out?
Two and a half million Israelites.
Oh no, we can't go in.
Two and a half million of us aren't
enough.
One 85-year-old man is enough.
If God is on his side.
God plus one is maturity.
If God be for us, who can be
against us?
And thirdly, the Lord promises to give Caleb's
seed the land to possess.
The implication is obvious, isn't it?
Caleb's children are going to fear the Lord.
And they're going to inherit the earthly Canaan
as a type of the heavenly Canaan.
His children are going to be influenced by
his faith.
And God's going to use this man for
his own children.
Oh, what a blessing.
That's one of the most gracious rewards of
living a consistent life of faith, when God
uses our testimony as parents in the lives
of our own children.
He's a faithful covenant keeping.
Dear friends, I commend you to God.
I commend you to His grace.
And I want to ask you in closing
this morning, do you belong to the unbelieving
minority?
Or do you belong to the believing minority?
Or do you belong to the unbelieving majority?
Do you believe that the God of Caleb
still is?
Amen.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, we thank Thee for such notable
examples like Caleb in the Scripture, Mr. Great
Hearts, who follow Thee fully, who serve as
mentors for us.
And we pray that such men may not
discourage us because they're beyond our reach, but,
Lord, that they may convict us and draw
us to Thee and to Thy goodness.
Lord, help us to follow Thy grace and
encourage us that it can be done in
the kind of world in which we live.
It is possible to follow the Lord and
to rely on His promises and to live
as a Christian in an unchristian world.
Lord, help every young person here to resist
all negative peer pressure and become a source
of positive pressure.
Help every adult, every senior, to persevere in
faith.
Help us to walk in Thy ways, Lord.
Show us the foolishness of every daily choice
we make that follows the evil spirit rather
than the other spirit, the Holy Spirit.
Oh, God, forgive us our sin.
Forgive us for grieving Thee, for following our
own devices, for fearing the faces of men
more than the face of the living God.
Grant us Thy Spirit to overcome the world,
preserve us from falling, and to present us
blameless before Thee in the great day of
the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Amen.