Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. | ||
| Joshua 14:6 | ||
| Forty-five years before this account in Joshua 14, God had led His people to a place called Kadesh-barnea. Poised to go into the Promised Land, the people of Israel sent one man from each of the twelve tribes to check it out. The tribe of Ephraim was represented by Joshua, the tribe of Judah by Caleb. Ten of the spies returned, saying, “We can’t go up against the people because they’re stronger than us. Compared to them, we’re just grasshoppers.” Joshua and Caleb, however, ripped their clothes in grief and said, “The land is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delight in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us. Do not fear the people of the land. For they are bread for us.” When others said, “We’re going to get crunched and stomped on,” Caleb said. “No, God’s with us. And those giants are bread for us. We’re going to eat them up” (see Numbers 14:9). And here, forty-five years later, an eighty-five year-old Caleb is about to claim the inheritance that Moses promised to give him (Deuteronomy 1:36). Now, one would think that, at eighty-five, Caleb would say, “What I want is a condo on the beach on the Mediterranean seashore.” Or perhaps, “Give me a cabin on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.” But that’s not what Caleb said. As we’ll see, he asked for the land where the giants lived because he knew that the secret of strength lay not in taking it easy but in taking up a challenge. You see, God does not want us to fade away, to retire, or to pull back. Rather, He wants to take us from glory to greater glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). He wants us to become stronger and deeper, richer and better, year after year until the day He takes us to Heaven. Pastor Jon Courson | ||
