Joshua 14
As you’re making your way to
Joshua 14, let me just point out, um, uh, A couple of facts
that’ll help you think through where we’re going in the book
of Joshua. So Joshua 14 through 19, chapters
14 through 19, are about the allotment of the promised land
to the Western tribes. So remember two and a half tribes
stayed east of the Jordan, the tribes of Reuben, Gad, the half
tribe of Manasseh. The other half tribe of Manasseh
plus the other nine tribes will settle in the promised land west
of the Jordan. And so bookended tonight, we’ll
see in chapter 14, then whenever we get to it at the end of 19,
we’ll see on the front end tonight, Caleb taking his inheritance
and then Joshua takes his inheritance on the back. Remember they’re
the two spies that 40 years before went into the promised land with
the 10 others. The 10 others chickened out and
said, they’re giant and scary. Joshua and Caleb said, we can
do this. And so God made a promise to them, because you’ve been
faithful, because you believed me, I’ll give you a choice of
the promised land and where your feet stood. That will be a place
for your offspring and children. So tonight we’re going to look
at Caleb’s inheritance. Then next week, we’ll look at
the middle inheritance. Then we’ll look at Joshua’s on
the back end. And one of the things to think
about is Caleb and Joshua sort of bookend the large bulk of
the inheritance, because it’s going to be hammering stakes
in the ground and putting orange flags up. It’s not going to be
exciting, thrilling reading. But one of the things you’re
going to see is Joshua and Caleb still have that twinkle in their
eye. We can take this promised land. The middle group is going
to whine and complain. And that’s kind of typical, right?
Israelites, um, we, we want something and then we don’t want it. Uh,
and then when we get it, we complain about it. So, uh, I think that’s
why, uh, Moses, uh, or why God, uh, whoever wrote Joshua put
these, uh, words in our scripture. So let’s give our attention to
14, one through 15. These are the inheritances that
the people of Canaan. received in the land of Canaan,
which Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun, and the
heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of
Israel gave them to inherit. Their inheritance was by lot,
just as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses for the
nine and one-half tribes. For Moses had given an inheritance
to the two and one-half tribes beyond the Jordan, but to the
Levites he gave no inheritance among them. For the people of
Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. No portion was given
to the Levites in the land, but only cities to dwell in with
their pasture lands for their livestock and their substance.
The people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses. They allotted
the land. Then the people of Judah came
to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb, the son of Jephunneh,
the Kenizzite, said to him, you know what the Lord said to Moses,
the man of God in Kadesh Barnea, concerning you and me. I was
40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me
from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word
again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with
me made the heart of the people melt. Yet I wholly followed the
Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day saying,
surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an
inheritance for you and your children forever because you
have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord
has kept me alive just as he said these 40 years since the
time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked
in the wilderness. And now behold, I am this day
85 years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that
Moses sent me. My strength now is as my strength
was then for war and for going and coming. So now give me this
hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day. For you heard
on that day how the Anakim were there and with great and fortified
cities. It may be that the Lord will
be with me and I shall drive them out just as the Lord had
said. Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb,
the son of Jephunneh, for an inheritance. Therefore Hebron
became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite
to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of
Israel. Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath Arba. Arba
was the greatest man among the Anakim, and the land had rest
from war. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. for us, his children. So in my
house I’m the morning dog walker and back in February our little
puppy needed walking training. So we would take him out to the
corner And he would drag his feet almost all the way there.
He sniffed something, something was afraid. Fast forward about
six, eight months later, I can’t keep up with him. He literally
drags me, a 230-pound guy, 33-pound dog, drags me down the street.
And he’s often champing at the bit to get down the street. the talk of the neighborhood,
if you will. People pass by, they laugh. What’s
a big guy like you being pulled around by a little dog like that?
The dog is leaning into his leash. He’s leaning into his walk. He
smells something. He’s after something. He’s interested
in something. And that’s, in a sense, we don’t
want to compare Joshua to a dog. But Joshua is pulling on the
leash. Caleb is pulling on the leash. They can’t wait to take
full possession of the promised land. And in our passage tonight,
as we look at Caleb and this story of Caleb getting his inheritance
by request and by grant from almighty God, we see him tugging
Uh, at the least champing at the bit to, to finish the job,
uh, to get his inheritance, to get his allotment, to finish
clearing it out and to settle in it and make it his own. Now, uh, just a moment of technical
clarity here. I mentioned this a moment ago,
but Caleb’s inheritance and Joshua’s inheritance are going to serve
as the bookends in chapter 14 and 19. And then chapters 14
through 19, the bulk of it are going to cover the nine and a
half tribes of Israel getting their land. So you’re going to
have the two faithful spies. Remember the 10 other spies and
that whole wilderness generation died. They did not believe God
would provide the promised land for them. Only Caleb and Joshua
and Moses survived that generation. Now, Moses did not see the promised
land. because he sinned against God. He only saw it from afar
on the top of Mount Nebo, and then God carried him up to heaven.
But Caleb and Joshua are the only two who’ve survived both
generations and made it into the promised land. And so these
two faithful spies in Numbers chapter 14, where this story
is told, are told by God, this land is going to be your land.
You and your grandchildren are going to inherit this land. Your
feet The feet of your offspring will stand on this land forever.
And these are gonna be important promises because we’re gonna
see that these promises are what keep Caleb’s twinkle in his eye
going. So it’s interesting we talk about
Caleb. I’ve written Joshua in my notes. So if I say Joshua,
I mean Caleb. So I’m about to get myself straight here. But
Caleb fits our gun lap discussion this morning. Maybe some of you
missed that, but we talked about our final lap in the race of
life and wanting to finish well, finish strong. And this, I think,
goes right in with that. Here’s Caleb, an old man. He’s 85 years old. And by today’s
standards, that’s definitely old. But even by the standards
of his day, that’s old, right? Remember last week, God said,
Joshua, you’re old, you’re advanced in years. Uh, he’s about the
same age. And so by either standard today
or their day, uh, Caleb and Joshua are old men, but Caleb is fit,
uh, for a fight and he has great faith that will help him accomplish.
his goals of receiving his inheritance and the promised land, taking
his allotment, clearing it out of all enemies and settling his
offspring in the land forever. And those are the things we want
to think about for a few moments tonight. Caleb’s fitness, Caleb’s
fight, Caleb’s faith. First of all, Caleb is fit. Now we know the word kind of
be an exercise word, but it’s really an old word that can be
used maybe with a synonym, we’re meet, not M-E-A-T, but M-E-E-T. We meet the standard. We’re fit
for the task. How does Caleb believe he is
fit for the task? Well, he says, first of all,
I’m alive. If you woke up this morning, you ought to be thankful.
God preserved him. He’s alive. God preserved him
not only through the wilderness years, but through the conquest
years. And if you do the math of Caleb was 40 when they left
Egypt, Um, they wandered in the desert about 38 years before
the conquest of the promised land. And so you add about seven
years, you get an 85 year old man. So they’ve been fighting
about seven years from the time they crossed the river Jordan
on dry land and took the, uh, the city of Jericho by marching
around it to this particular point where Caleb is saying,
um, I’m ready for my allotment. I’m ready for my 40 acres and
my mule. It’s been about seven years and
Caleb is now 85 years old, but he’s fit for the task. He’s alive,
God has preserved him through the wilderness. He says, I’m
as strong as ever. I could fight then, I can fight
now. But what really makes him a fit and complete person? Well,
the phrase pops up in our passage several times. He is holy, W-H-O-L-L-Y,
completely holy, devoted to the Lord. Uh, what is in his heart
is what is in the Lord’s heart. Now we need to stop here and
think about this for a moment. Um, we can make a to do list.
We can make a new year’s resolution list. We can leave church on
a Sunday. We can sing all the songs. We
can stand up at the right time. We can sit in our pew. We can
put something in the offering plate. Uh, there’s all kinds
of things that we can do, uh, that, that make us feel supercharged
for living for God. But let me say this loud and
clear. Unless the Holy Spirit does the work, our labor is in
vain. Unless the Holy Spirit does the
work, we just have a list of resolutions that we will probably
fail. We have a list of to-dos that would be honorable to God
and maybe kind to our neighbors, but we’ll flunk at them. So to
be wholly devoted to the Lord is a wonderful thing. It’s a
wonderful thing to chase after, to endeavor after, to pursue.
but God, the Holy Spirit has to do it. And so we want to say
that at the outset, lest we come away here with a, um, uh, I think
I can spirit like the little engine that could, or the, uh,
solo bootstraps like us. Um, you know, that’s the sixth
solo of the reformation. I can pull myself up by my bootstraps.
Um, lest we come out way with that. No, we, we want to rest
in Christ alone for our salvation and believe in the spirit’s power
to give us a heart. that is wholly devoted for God,
because you know how it is. You wake up, your first eye opens,
your second eye opens, and you think, today’s the day I’m going
to serve the Lord. Today’s the day I’m not going to say something
stupid. I’m not going to do something stupid. I’m going to quit doing
the things that I’ve done. And then 10 minutes in, we’ve
broken God’s law and thoughtward indeed. We’re saying, God, here
I am again. I’m the dog that’s run off. And
I’m back home because I know where my Alpo is, right? That’s,
that’s kind of the way we are. So we know ourselves, but we
want to be wholeheartedly devoted to almighty God. And we do pray
for his spirit. But why is Joshua fit? Well,
the spirit’s at work in him. God is using him as a mighty
leader of Israel. And Caleb, it has dawned on me
that that’s your name too, right? I was just thinking about this
earlier. It’s like, we have a Caleb in the room. So I got to give
him some good, good, good things to, to, to, to meet up with. But, but one of the reasons he’s
fit is because God has given him an extraordinary task. He’s Caleb’s right-hand man.
How many people does it take to replace Moses? Well, it kind
of takes two, doesn’t it? Josh was the main one, but Caleb
is his right-hand man. They can’t do anything without
one another. It’s like Batman and Robin. They just got to have the help.
But God has raised him up for an extraordinary task, but he’s
also given him a measure of courage, a measure of faith, a measure
of energy, and a measure of can-do spirit that And most importantly,
the Holy Spirit make Caleb an exceptional man fit for the task
that is before him. And as we’re going to see, not
only is he fit for the task, he’s fit for a fight. That’s the second thing we want
to think about. Caleb says basically this, it’s going to be war. Now,
when you’re 85 years old, you’re supposed to be looking at real
estate in Florida, right? When you’re 85 years old, you’re
supposed to be looking at real estate in one of those, planned
communities where they cut the grass for you. One of those planned
communities where the sprinklers water the lawn. One of those
planned communities where the yard guys put in the petunias
and then they change them out for the right season when the
heat comes. They come by and water them. You’re supposed to live
in one of those planned communities when you’re 85 years old where
there’s no crime. You’re supposed to live in one
of those planned communities where you live in a maintenance-free
home. They pressure wash it once a year whether you need it or
not. The interesting thing about our friend, Caleb, who is fit
for this fight is he’s willing to take the most weed infested
part of the promised land. The Anakim are there. Now you
remember back in your reading of Genesis, maybe some of you
Wednesday nighters, maybe it’s been 18 months since we were
in that part of Genesis. But do you remember about the
time of the flood, the Anakim were the men of might. They were
the, they were like the nine foot dudes. They make Goliath
look puny, right? These, these are big guys. And
so that’s why 30 some years ago when Joshua and Caleb spied out
the promised land, they were the only ones, the other 10 were
chickens. and hid under the wagon or whatever. That’s why they
went back and said, oh, we can’t do this. There are people there,
big and scary, mean and hairy. And so they did not believe that
they could take the promised land, but not so Caleb and Joshua.
And so what’s Joshua, or what’s Caleb gonna do here? Is he gonna
pick the condo on the Mediterranean shores? Or is he gonna get one
of the timeshares, you know, that Mike Huckabee offers you
on the Sea of Galilee? Y’all seen that? No, he’s gonna
pick, Hebron, the tallest peak in the Southern range of Judah,
where the big, scary, nasty Anakim live. And here’s 85 year old
Caleb. He says, I can go down there
and I can spray the roundup. I can go down there and I can
clean house. I can go down there and I can take that promised
land. He’s ready for the war. He’s ready for the fight. Now
we have to do a little sanctified wondering here. Why does he want
to go fight? Well, a couple things. One is
it may be that he realizes he’s the only one who can do this.
Sometimes a good leader recognizes there’s work to be done and worker
B1, 2, and 3 can take care of this and 4, 5, and 6 can take
care of that. 7, 8, 9 can take care of that.
But job number 10 takes worker B number 10 and only worker B
number 10 can fight off the Anakim. So it could be a leadership thing.
He knows he’s the only one who won’t tuck tail and run. He knows
what it will take to exterminate the Anakim and take their section
of the promised land well. That could be it. There’s another
reason that it could be as well. It’s got Hebron there. Hebron
is one of the great cities of antiquity for the Israelites.
It’s where Abraham bought a cave. where he buried his wife. It
was the only piece of real estate in the Promised Land, basically
a burial cave, that Abraham, the man of promise, with the
child of promise, owned at his death. And so Hebron is an important
place. It’s where Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob are buried. It’s the first of the Promised
Land, you might say. And so Caleb, who is not really
born into the people of Israel, he’s kind of a mixed breed, actually.
He comes into the faith of Yahweh and he realizes maybe above all
people, this is the cream of the crop of the promised land.
Yes, it has some enemies and they’re big and nasty, but this
is a piece of heritage. This is like getting a house
in Charleston, right? If you’re a Southerner, this
is like getting a house in Richmond. This is like having a place in
Atlanta, whatever Southern city you may find to be a place of
your heritage. That’s what this is like. And
so he is fit for the fight to go up against the giants and
the Anakim. God is big. God has done it before. And so Caleb believes his big
God can help him win this section of the promised land. And as
he’s done before, he will do it again with Caleb at his side
and the Anakim, the giants will be no match. for Caleb. So here’s a man, Caleb, in his
old age, he’s fit for a fight. We want to think about his faith.
His faith is rooted in all that God says to him. At the end of
the day, that’s all we have. When we go to praying, we do
not treat God like a divine bellhop. God, I need this. And he provides
it like a slot machine, or we dial up the hotel bellhop, I
need a chicken dinner brought. That’s not how God operates.
Prayer is the offering up unto God, the desires of our heart
for things agreeable to his will. And so unless we read about God
and know about God, we really can’t pray well. And so it’s
good for us to plead back to God, the promises of God, Lord,
you promised to give me this piece of land. Caleb has a claim
on this land because God has already said to him that it’s
going to be yours. You were a faithful spy. You,
you, Caleb, you, Joshua were faithful spies. When the time
comes, this land on which your feet have trodden will be yours
and your offspring forever. And so this man of faith calls
on the promises of God. He doesn’t just say, Hey, I want
the best piece of real estate that has the most historical
value. No, he says, I want the land. that God has promised me. So how does this story go? Well,
they’re allotting the land, they’re casting lots for the land for
the tribes, nine and a half tribes west of the Jordan. And Judah
comes to, the tribe of Judah comes to Joshua at Gilgal, which
is kind of his headquarters. And Joshua comes, or Caleb comes
right up to Joshua and says, okay, it’s time for you to make
good on God’s promises. Do you remember what he told
us back when we were the two faithful spies? I’m here now. to collect
my deed. And several times in our passage,
you see Caleb appeals to the word of God, the word of Moses,
the word of God through Moses, says it about five or six different
ways. And he simply says, let God’s word be kept by giving
me my inheritance, my allotment. Now, one of the simplest ways
to understand what God promises to Israel in the promised land
is The two G’s, grapes and grandkids, right? Remember God told Abraham
a long time ago before this, I’m going to give you offspring
that will outnumber the sand of the seashore. That’s the grandkids
part. And the grapes part is the promised
land. I’m going to put you into a nation. And you will live in
cities you did not build. You will draw water from cisterns
you did not dig. You’ll live inside walls that
you did not raise. You’ll live in houses that you
did not build and you will eat grapes from vineyards you did
not plant. The Israelites were the first
carpetbaggers, you might say, right? They went into a land
and they took it. They killed all the enemies of
God because the judgment against the Canaanites had risen up.
uh, to the level where God used Israel to judge them. And so
when they issued the ban and killed all the heights in the
land, uh, that was their just due for their judgment. And so
all Caleb is doing here is saying, God, give me what you promised. Do what you said. And so you
think about us in light of Jesus’ second coming. We look for a
land, not this one, to live in. We look for a promised land.
We look for the heavenly city. And so we can pray back to God
as promises. God, you have promised to send
your son to collect your church. God, you have promised to send
your son to collect our church. And you promised that you’re
building a place for us. In your house are many mansions.
If it were not so, you would not have told us. that it was
so. And so Lord, come back, come quickly, come retrieve your church
and bring us where you are that we may be with you. That’s not
praying a pie in the sky prayer. I hope there’s a heaven. And
if there is one Lord, bring me there. Now he’s told us there
is one and those who have faith in Jesus Christ will be in heaven. And so when we long for the grapes
and the grandkids of the promised land, we long for the fruit of
heaven. and to be there with our generations. And the book
of Hebrews tells us how we’re to make this walk, how we’re
to make this pilgrimage. As we long for heaven, we keep
our eyes fixed on Jesus. And in a real sense, you can
say Joshua’s or Caleb’s fitness is just that. He keeps his eyes
on our almighty God. keeps his eyes on the precious
promises of God, just as we keep our eyes on the precious promises
of Jesus under the new covenant. And as we walk to the heavenly
city, as we long for the grandkids and the grapes of the everlasting
joy that we will be blessed with in heaven, we have to keep our
eyes on Jesus. The Anakim will be big. The Supreme
Court will be big. the woke culture will be big.
Whatever the school systems are doing to our children will be
big in our eyes. And over and over and over, we’ll
be overwhelmed with all kinds of enemies. And we’ll begin to
sink like the other 10 spies and say, they’re giants, they’re
too big, they’re mean and that’s scary and big and hairy, and
we can’t overcome them and we’ll lose sight of our God. But we
must remember what Jesus says, I have overcome the world. Now I want us to think, Just
in a few final thoughts here about how this might apply to
our daily living. Caleb was one of a few. In fact,
he was really only one of two in one wilderness generation
that believed God, trusted God, saw the opportunity beyond the
obstacles. Most, if not all, looked at the
obstacles and never saw the opportunity to enter the promised land. We
forget this, I think. God was taking Israel directly
into the promised land. This 40 year business was not on the books. Well, it was in
God’s books, but he was planning to take them on in. Why did he
not? Why did he make them 40 years? Because they whined and
they complained and it was their punishment, but they were going
to zip right in there. They were going to take the low
route. get up in there around some enemies, but they were going
to zip right in the promised land rather quickly. So only
two people, Joshua and Caleb believed God. That’s pretty sad
after what a million people plus came out of Egypt. And so you’ll
find yourself as a firm believer in the Bible. You’ll find yourself
as a firm believer in the historic Christian faith. You’ll find
yourself to be the odd person out, the odd man out, the odd
woman out. Um, you’ll, you’ll be at school.
Oh, you believe that stuff? You’ll be at work. You’re a Christian. You’ll, you’ll be at a family
gathering. Oh, you’re still thumping that Bible, probably clinging
to your guns as well. And you’ll, you’ll be in various
social settings in life and you will be the only one not bowing
the knee to bail. And maybe you’re even part of
a church that’s a little weird like that. But I will tell you,
and Caleb’s life will display to you, it’s better to be a faithful
few in the eyes of God than to be a wandering many in this world
who do not know God or love him or follow him. wholeheartedly. God will put you to work and
he’ll use you in a mighty way, but you may be the only soul,
at least so it seems to you, living that way. And so we pray
that God might give us the grace to live as Joshua did, but really
more as Jesus did, holy after God and his ways. And we pray
now for his strength. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that
you would help us to see what you require of us to follow you
wholeheartedly. We cannot do it in our own strength,
but you’ve given us your word. You’ve given us your church and
you’ve given us your spirit to teach us and to guide us and
to convict us and to show us the way. Lord, we would mess
it up just like many of the Israelites did, but we want to live in the
strength of Jesus. So help us this night to do that.
We now pray it in his name. Amen.