You know, you've heard it said
that a dog is a man's best friend. Well, if a man does not belong
to the Lord, I suppose there might be some truth to that.
But the Lord is a friend that sticketh
closer than a brother. But a good dog will be faithful
to its master. And in this chapter, Numbers
13, we're introduced to a man whose name, his name means a
faithful dog. His name is Caleb. Verse 6, of
the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. Now why a father would name his
son Dog, I don't know. But we do see the significance
of it. In this verse we learn that Caleb
is of the tribe of Judah. That's the tribe Christ our Lord
is to come through. Christ himself being the ultimate
example of humility. He came down and made himself
of no reputation, lower than a dog in this world, and such is the heartfelt condition,
really, of every true child of God. You remember Mephibosheth,
2 Samuel 9, crippled, helpless, humbled greatly before the king.
and the king's mercies. And Mephibosheth said, What is
thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as
I am? It's not just the question, what
is a dog worth to the king? But rather, what is a dead dog
worth to the king or anybody else? Also in the Gospel of Matthew
chapter 15, a Canaanite woman confessed to being a Gentile
dog with no claim of being like a child sitting at the table
with the family, but as a dog under the table, she said, which
is permitted to pick up the crumbs that fall from the table. She owned that place. In Luke 16, Lazarus saw himself as one such dog,
desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's
table. So it's a bigger picture here. Unworthy in oneself and at the
mercy of the master is the picture of a dog. Now certainly that
character fits this man, Caleb. And as a result, what we find
here in this chapter and the next chapter, he is thrust into a position of honor,
which he didn't ask for, and he is there to fill that
position with honor or with dishonor. So that's what we want to look
at a few minutes this morning Caleb, the faithful dog. And the setting here is the children
of Israel had crossed the desert wilderness and have come to Kadesh
Barnea beside the Jordan River. And they're so near to crossing
over and possessing the promised land of Canaan that God had promised. Well, it is not to be for another
40 years that they'll do it. We know that. But it is not the
fault of this man Caleb. Back in verse 1 of chapter 13,
the Lord spake to Moses and instructed him to send 12 men, one from
each tribe of the tribes of Israel, to spy out the land. And then
in the listing of these 12 men and which tribe each one is from.
We've read in verse 6 that of the tribe of Judah, Caleb is
the man that was chosen. So I want to talk about three
things concerning Caleb, the faithful dog. You say, well,
I'm not going to let anybody treat me like a dog and get by
with it. Well, if you're ever going to
mount to anything in this life for the glory of God, you will. You will. He has. I mean, it's just it's just a subtle
thing. It's just a subtle thing. The Lord has fought my battles
many times, and he's done it so much better than I could have
done it. It's not the times when I told
the Lord I can handle this that I come out good. It's the times
when I told him I can't handle this that I came out good. And
it was his doing. It was his doing. But if we're going to fight our
own battles, Get even. Settle the score. Quit at the slightest mistreatment.
I promise you, you're going to be quitting pretty quick. Because
if that's all it takes, Satan will send somebody along pretty
quick to oblige you and to oblige me. But we don't need to look
at it that way. Not at all. Now on this thing
of a dog, I've seen men kick their dog right in the rib cage. Had to hurt. Hurt bad. I know none of y'all ever done
anything like that, but it has been done. Kick a dog. You know what that old dog will
do? If it's a faithful dog, if it's your dog, won't do anything
but just lay down at your feet. and moan and whine. Now that's something. That's
something. Submission in time of suffering. Loyalty in time of loss. Humility in time of hurting. Even a good dog will do that. It's worth a great deal. It says
a great deal about a person's character. So we're talking about
Caleb. I could just say this before
we move on. The true children of God are
treated as the true children of God by none but the children
of God. You can just mark that down.
This world don't care to do you wrong. The religious world don't care
to treat you as a dog. So you just have to make up your
mind that all this business is not about the praise of men.
It's between you and the Lord. And so we come to look at Caleb
with this. And I want to mention three things
here. Number one, Caleb's stand in the cross's hour. His stand
in the cross's hour. And here he is facing a great
test. What Caleb would do as the situation arises. Now our lives in this world consist
of many tests. You know that, and I know that. Not a day passes but what Satan
would destroy you and would destroy me. He never gives up. He never
takes a day off. And this man Caleb is put to
a great test. Along with the other 11, he crosses
the Jordan River and observes the land of Canaan. The scriptural
word, verse 25, they searched the land. Dropping down to verse
25, and they returned from searching of the land after 40 days. They came back to report unto
Moses and before all the people what they had found. Now verse
27, and they told him this is the majority of them,
told him and said, we came unto the land where thou sentest us,
and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit
of it. They brought back a big bunch
of grapes to show him how wonderful it was over there, what a blessed
land it was. And so they said here, it's everything
God said it was. No question about it. Nevertheless,
verse 28, nevertheless, when you see that word, nevertheless,
in the Bible, it's always an extreme turn, either for the
better or for the worst. It's no slight turn. It's an
extreme turn. And of course, in this case,
it's for the worse. They said, it's all God said.
It was 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 children of Anak were big
and strong like giants. The land of 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. There's all sorts
of enemies over there. And they said, it's more than
we can handle. We'd better just forget about
that land and stay where we're at. I mean, we don't mean to
discredit what the Lord told us. It is what he said. He never
told us all of it, and I think we'd be better off just saying
10 of the 12 were talking like this. 10 of the 12. Only Caleb and Joshua feel otherwise. What a test this is. And if you
try to imagine this, 12 people, and you one of them now, And
you come back to give a report, and 10 gives the wrong report,
the negative report. Caleb could have just said, well,
you know, we're outnumbered. It's 10 against 2. Their word
against ours. I may as well not even open my
mouth. Just let it go. The people's mind is made up.
10 have voted nay. There's no use in me even cast
in my vote. Oh, but there is. Oh, but there
is. And this is so important for
you and I this morning. It's true, Caleb is not going
to change the mind of the people. They're going to listen to the
ten, not the two. But it is important that Caleb be true to his own
heart, to his own conscience. See, the devil will point you
at the seeming little or no effect you think you're having in this
world, in your home, in your church, on your job, and say
it don't even matter if you, you know, are even part of it
or not. Oh, but listen, there's more to it than that. What about
your own heart, your own personal relationship to God? Oh, it's
important, very important. Now, all of that generation,
including the 10 negative votes, are going to die in the wilderness. But when we come to this man
Caleb, it is in passing this test, it is in doing the right
thing, it is in standing up that God said to Caleb, you're not
going to die here. No way. You're not going to die
here. You're going to go across. You're going to possess the land.
It's not going to be overnight. Matter of fact, it's going to
be more than 40 years from now with another generation. But
you mark her down, old boy. You're going across. Because
you did right. You stayed with the stuff. You
listened to me. Now that's how important this
was. That's how important this test
was. And he passed the test. Now look at verse 30. Caleb never
kept quiet. It would have been easy to keep
quiet. It would have been so easy to say, their mind's done
made up. What's the point? Oh, no. 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. Now, he never denied the great
walled cities. He never denied the Anakim, the
giants, and all the other enemies over there. No. He just said,
God is with us. Let's move forward. Let's go. Go up at once and possess it.
We are well able to overcome it. Oh, blessed, blessed word,
that word overcome in the Bible. You remember, we've just come
through in our Bible study in the Revelation, the seven churches
in Revelation 2 and 3, representative of all Christ's church in all
generations, to each of those seven churches, Christ said,
to him that overcometh, to him that overcometh. to him that
overcometh. Most of them had problems. Some
of them had serious problems. But there was going to be some
overcomers to him that overcometh. Well, Caleb was an overcomer
simply because his mind and heart was not fixed on the power of
the enemy. His mind and heart was fixed
on the power of God. What is your mind and heart fixed
on this morning? That's the question. Is it all
the obstacles? Is it all the trouble? It is
all the negative? To have, to have, to have, to
have our hearts and minds fixed on who God is. I'd just ask you
this question, get a little more personal with you. Is giving
up an option in your mind and heart? Well, your answer better be no.
Giving up is not an option. If you set your sights on God
and who He is, He's too big for anything or anybody to stop you. Now, that's how we're supposed
to think. That's how we're supposed to live on the basis of how big
our God is, not how big the enemy is. Is there any hope for you? Is there any hope for your family?
Is there any hope for your friends, your loved ones? Well, I'll answer that for you. How big is God in your mind and
heart today? If God's not big enough, there's
no hope for you. But He is. He really is. See, people act so silly. Nobody,
and I do mean nobody, is going to face the Lord and say, well,
I just couldn't make it. God will say, I never said you
could, but I said I would if you'd obey me, if you'd follow
me, if you'd walk with me, believe me, trust me. Caleb passed the test. He never caved in to the popular
vote. And you and I had better not
either. Well, Caleb never got in but
that one verse, verse 30, till the other crowd cranks up
again. And in verse 31, Start up again. You see, the negative side will
never run out. They'll never get through talking.
You have to make your stand for God and move forward. What they
said, but the men that went up with him said, I can imagine
saying, don't listen to him. The men that went up with him
said, we be not able to go up against the people, for they
are stronger than we. 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
were 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. I have listened to that scare
tactic preaching for 50 years. We won't be able to do anything.
We're too small. We're too weak. They'll laugh
us to scorn. They'll stomp us like grasshoppers. That's what they said here in
verse 33. Compared to them, we look like
grasshoppers. Do you know what was in Caleb's
mind and heart? Compared to God, they look like
grasshoppers. See, that's how we're supposed
to think. They were busy looking at the enemy. Caleb's busy looking
at God. They had no problem looking at
how big the giants were. Caleb had no problem looking
at how big God is. That's the difference. That's
the big difference. Don't say he was the best one
of the 12. Characterize wise. Don't say
he was the most obedient one. Don't say he was the smartest
one. But oh, there was something in him that God gave him. He passed the test. He passed
the test. He's a faithful dog. Number two,
second thing I want to talk about, Caleb's stability in that crumbling
generation. Turn with me a few pages on over
to Deuteronomy chapter 1. Deuteronomy chapter 1. Deuteronomy chapter 1 and the
verse 35, 34, And the LORD heard the voice
of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, Surely there
shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that
good land which I sware to give unto your fathers, save Caleb
the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, And to him will
I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children,
because he hath wholly followed the Lord." Now look at the testimony
of that last statement. Because he hath wholly followed
the Lord. Stability. Stability. Now this was not Caleb's testimony. of himself. This is what Moses
said about him. And recorded by divine inspiration,
this is what God said about him. He hath wholly followed the Lord. Christ said, John 10, 27, My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. They follow me. They don't balk
when somebody else hollers. They follow Me. They don't freeze up at every
obstacle the devil puts in the way. They follow Me. They don't run ahead of Me like
they know the way, like a bunch of goats. No, we don't know the
way. My sheep follow Me. Caleb wholly followed Does this
mean he never made any mistakes? No, of course not. But it means
with his whole heart he followed the Lord. You know, most people's religion
demands a whole bunch of fleshly excitement, but I'll tell you
something, following the Lord involves heart excitement. Holy following of the Lord is
not a physical exercise only. It is a heart relationship. Paul
said this. He said, it is the love of God
that constraineth me. It's the love of God that motivates
me. It's God's love for me that thrills
me and keeps me going. It's His love for me that results
in my love for Him. And then to wholly follow the
Lord is to follow Him all the days of our lives. Now get this
picture. Caleb watched all those ten negative
votes. He watched those men die one
by one through the years. The years passed on. all his
neighbors and friends and boys he'd grown up with, they all
died. But you see what was in his heart
way back yonder is still in his heart. Forty-five years passed. He's a stable follower of God. Nothing's going to interrupt
that. It's fixed in his heart. I'll tell you, and I'll just
use the example of marriage. It's so wishy-washy nowadays,
but I don't mind telling you all, when I married my wife in
1970, that's been 44 years this coming spring, I never did it
with any thought that it wasn't until death do us part. It was a settled fact. I'm not
being critical. I know it don't work that way
with everybody. Everybody don't have as good a wife as I've got,
and everybody don't have as good a husband as she's got. Thank
the Lord you don't. But anyway, God's been gracious. God's been good to us. But there's
just some things in life that you say, this is not open for
debate. This is a stable part of my life.
It's fixed. Going all the way to the end
with this. Well, that's how Caleb felt about following the Lord. And that's how you and I better
feel about following the Lord. Holy followed the Lord. But he watched all that generation
die. 45 years passed. Stable. Stability. The little epistle
of James chapter 1 and verse 8 says this. A double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways. You ever dealt with people? I
know you have. Well, I just can't make up my mind if I want to
do this or that. You know, I think about this. No, I think I...
Double-minded! Double-minded! I want to tell
you when it comes to the Lord's business, there better not be
any double-mindedness. That ain't nothing but ammunition
for the devil. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Stability, stability in the Lord. Now, turn with me to Joshua, on over
to the book of Joshua, chapter 14. We're jumping 45 years down
the road now. 45 years. Joshua chapter 14. Moses has died. Joshua is leading
the people. They've crossed the Jordan. They're
in the land of Canaan. Joshua 14 and verse 6. Joshua 14, verse 6. Then the
children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son
of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing
that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God concerning me
and thee in Kadesh Barnea." Forty years old was I when Moses, the servant of the
Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to espy out the land. And I brought
him word again as it was in my heart. I didn't come back and say, well,
if that's what the majority wants to do, then, no, I brought him
word according to what was in my heart. Nevertheless, there's another
one of them, nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me
made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the
Lord. Moses sware on that day, saying,
surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance
and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly followed the
Lord thy God. He keeps saying that. He said,
now Moses promised me 45 years ago that I could have this. 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 fourscore
and five years old." I'm 85. I was 40 then. I'm 85 now. I've
been in this army for 45 years. Joshua and I want you to know
something. I'm fixing to re-enlist. I'm
not going to retire. I'm up for re-enlistment. Now,
therefore, give me this mountain. Verse 12, give me this mountain. How long has it been since we've
been in any shape to say to the Lord, give me this mountain? You say, well, I can't do it.
I've been so unfaithful. I've just failed Him so much.
And I'm just ashamed to ask. Well, hey, you better not ask
anything on the basis of your being qualified for it. But it's
not too late. From this day forth, for every
one of us, to wholly follow the Lord. To wholly follow the Lord
is to follow Him when you stand alone. And it will come to that
in times and places. To wholly follow the Lord is
to follow Him in the face of danger and death. Back there in that 14th chapter,
of numbers after Caleb stood up for the right. The Bible said
all the congregation bade stone him with stones. Stone Caleb
because he come back and told us we can do it. Why did he do it? Because God
said we could do it. They sided with the ten and waited
to stone Joshua and Caleb. You know what? That didn't change
Caleb's heart. Not at all. In Acts chapter 7, Stephen was
a Caleb. They stoned Stephen, calling
upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. The apostle
Paul was a Caleb. Listen to this. Acts chapter
20, And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem,
not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the
Holy Ghost witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions
abide me. It's going to be trouble everywhere
you go. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life
dear unto myself. so that I might finish my course
with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus
to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Paul was a Caleb,
oh yes. So to wholly follow the Lord
is to follow him when you stand alone, is to follow him in the
face of danger and death. And then a third and final thought
I want to give you this morning, Caleb's strength in a critical
society. What made him different? How
did he endure? What was his secret? Turn with me back to Numbers
14 for one more verse. Numbers 14 and verse 24. 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 whereinto he went, and his seed shall possess
it." Note that statement in that verse, because he had another
spirit. while everything around him was
pressing him down and beating him down. And every way he looked,
the situation seemed to say, give it up. It's no use. And everybody turned their nose
up at him and said, what do you think you are trying to go against
the whole crowd? Right in the midst of that, there
was at the same time something in Caleb's heart or rather someone
in his heart that kept lifting him up and kept holding him up
and giving him strength and sustaining him. It was the sustaining spirit
of God giving him strength, giving him
vibrant faith in God He had so listened to God till
he never listened to all the garbage around him. I might ought
to repeat that. He had so listened to God that
he never listened to all the garbage around him. He is so full of God and what
God had said, what God promised. Didn't matter what the rest said
or did. Wasn't changing him. Have you ever, I'm going to ask
a question, don't anybody answer this. Have you ever been guilty
of eating so much you couldn't swallow another bite? Well, Caleb had so swallowed
what God said. He couldn't swallow a bite of
what anybody else said or thought. It didn't matter. Didn't matter. Caleb kept saying in his heart,
God said I'd make it whether anybody else thinks I'll make
it or not. God said I'd make it whether I think I'll make
it or not. I can trust Him better than I
can trust myself. And then finally over here in
the land of Canaan, he says to Joshua, you remember what Moses
said to me? Forty-five years ago, I could
howl for my inheritance. Everywhere my feet had trod.
Caleb said, I took that, not just as Moses' word, but God's
word. Now here, then he said, I want
that mountain, Mount Hebron. That's where the Giants occupied.
That's where the giants were. This is about our lives, folks.
This is about my life. This is about your life. You
see, you can avoid the giants, and you can settle for a spot
of ground that is so poor it won't even grow good onions. But if you want a life that amounts
to anything for the glory of God, there's giants to deal with. Count on it. Count on it. You and I don't have the strength
in ourselves to deal with them and neither did Joshua. But there's
one living in us. Oh, to live and move and speak
in this another spirit. That's how Caleb operated. This
was his secret. This was his strength. It was
John the Baptist's secret. The child grew and waxed strong
in spirit. How the Lord Jesus operated in
this world, Luke 4, 1, and Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost. It was Stephen's secret, Acts
6, 5, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the
Holy Ghost. It was the secret of the good
man Barnabas. Acts 11.24, for he was a good
man and full of the Holy Ghost. It was Paul's secret. Acts 13.19,
then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost. He exhorted the church at Rome
concerning the Spirit. Romans 15, 13, Now the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may
abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. It's not us, it's Him. Paul instructed
the church at Ephesus. Ephesians 5, 18, Be not drunk
with wine, And I want to tell you something
about that verse. There's a lot more than one kind of wine. And
I'm not talking about labels on the bottle, literally. Be
not drunk with wine, the wine of materialism, the wine of pleasure,
the wine of laziness, the wine of religion. Be not drunk with
wine, but be ye filled with the Spirit. It's in the continuing sense.
It's literally, be ye continually being filled with the Spirit. And oh, that's such a need in
your life and mine. We're leaky buckets. Oh yes,
be filled up one day and empty the next. Be ye continually being
filled with the Spirit. Oh my, it's the need of this
hour to live and move and walk in accordance with the leadership
of the Spirit of God, to submit, to bow at the Master's feet, to have, as the old song says,
nothing between my soul and the Savior, to harbor no bitterness
toward anyone, to have no unforgiving spirit toward anyone. Oh, we better get there. We better get there in humble
submission to the Lord, in obedience to the Lord, to wait before Him
patiently until He shows Himself mighty in our behalf. And He's done it so many times.
that all our sufficiency, as Paul said, may be of God and
not of ourselves. Caleb took a stand in the crisis
hour. Caleb had a stability. He kept
his eye on the goal for 45 years, looking at God Not the crowd
dying around him. Caleb was strong in spirit. That's
the secret of his life. May the Lord put these things
in us to better live for his glory and his honor while we're
in this world. That's the need of all our hearts. All right, let's stand together.