Caleb - The Faithfull Dog

I hope that the title of my message
generated some interest, Caleb the Faithful Dog. Before I've
finished with the message, you'll know why I gave it that particular
title, Caleb the Faithful Dog. Well, let's open our Bibles to
Numbers now, chapter 13 and 14, and let me give you a few words to sort of build a platform for
this message. The children of Israel encamped
below Mount Sinai for about a year. As far as I can determine, they
were there for approximately a year. And during that time,
the Lord gave them the law and gave them the tabernacle and
the services of the tabernacle. and the many sacrifices and feasts
and so forth. And then moving across the desert
with the pillar cloud before them during the day and the pillar
of fire by night, they came to a place called Kedesh Barnea,
and that was on the edge of the desert, and that was on the very
threshold or the border of the land that God had promised them.
It was their goal. It was the place where they were
going. It's the place Moses told them of when they left Egypt.
It was the land that God had promised them from the time they
left Egypt, and yea, even the land that God had promised Abraham.
Well, when they came to this stopping point on the edge of
the desert, on the very threshold of the promised land, they stopped. that by God's directions, and
they sent also by directions from Moses, which God had given
to him, twelve spies down into the land, the land of promise,
to spy out the land. Now let's read about that in
Numbers 13, verse 17 through 20. Now these were heavenly orders,
these were divine directions Moses gave to the people Just
above, in Numbers 13, you have the names of these men. But down
here in verse 17, And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan,
and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up
into the mountain, and see the land, what it is, and the people
that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or
many, and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be
good or bad. and what cities they dwell in, whether in tents
or in strongholds, and what the land is, whether it be fat or
lean, whether there be wood therein or not, and be of good courage,
and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time
of the first ripe grapes. So these spies went down into
the land of promise. And they stayed there 40 days. And you know, I've been preaching
a long time, and I've got to confess something. I was reading
this evening, just reading around this Scripture, and it's good
for us to read all around what we're preaching on. But for the
first time, I saw something I've never seen before, that those
spies went down into the land of promise, and they stayed there
40 days. And when the people rejected the report of Joshua
and Caleb and turned and went back into the wilderness under
the wrath of God, God sentenced them to stay in the wilderness
one year for every day those spies stayed down there in the
land of promise. They were there 40 days looking
over the land. And when the people turned to
go back into the wilderness, God said, you'll stay out here
in this wilderness one year for every day that those spies stayed
down in the land of promise. So they went down there and they
stayed for 40 days, and they spied out the land, and it was
a land of milk and honey. They came back. Read chapter
13, verse 26. And these men came back, and
they gave the report. They said to Moses and to Abram,
verse 26, numbers 13, to all the congregation of the children
of Israel under the willingness of Haran, to Kadesh, and brought
back word unto them, and to all the congregation, showed them
the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said,
We came unto the land, whether thou sinnest us, and surely it
floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.
And there were two fellows that were carrying between them a pole, and on that pole was
hanging a cluster of grapes. They were so plentiful and so
big and so beautiful that it took two men to carry a cluster
of grapes out of that land. It was a land of milk and honey.
They brought back pomegranates, and they brought back figs, and
they just came back full of praise for the land. And when they brought
back this fruit, they said, it is a land of milk and honey.
It is a land of fruit. It is a fine land. And all the
eyes of the people were upon these twelve spies. But they
went on, verse 28, Nevertheless, they said, the people be strong
that dwell in the land. The cities are walled cities,
and they're great. And moreover, we saw the children
of Enoch there, and the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south,
and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, and they dwell
in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast
of Jordan. In other words, they said, this is too much for us.
We can't take it. They're too strong. Well, there
were 12 spies, and 10 of them, this is the way they talked,
but two spies, two men, Joshua and Caleb, C-A-L-E-B, Caleb. Look at verse 30. And Caleb,
evidently Joshua didn't speak right now because he was Moses'
right-hand man, that people would expect him to give a good report,
that people would expect him to do what Moses felt led to
do. So he didn't say anything evident,
but Caleb spoke up. Caleb, verse 13. Caleb stilled
the people before Moses and says, let us go up at once and possess
it. We're well able to overcome it.
We can do it. But he was the only one. Caleb
was the only one. And then he spoke again over
here in verse 8. And he says of Numbers 14, verse
8, "...if the Lord delight in us, He'll bring us into the land,
He'll give it to us, a land which floweth with milk and honey."
Verse 9, Caleb goes on, "...only it rebel not ye against the Lord,
neither fear ye the people of the land. They are buried for
us, their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with
us. Don't be afraid of them." But the people in the next verse
says, They'd stone them with stones. They were angry. Here
was Joshua and Caleb were standing alone, the whole million of them
around them. So God was angry. And God turned
them back to die in the wilderness. They, after he had told Moses,
I'm provoked with them, I will not bless them, they'll turn
back, just what they said. They said, we should have died
in the wilderness. Well, he said, that's exactly
what's going to happen. Exactly what they said, that's what's
going to happen. They're going to die in the wilderness,
and not a one of them shall enter the Promised Land. Not a one
of them. These spies all died of the plague, all ten of them,
except Joshua and Caleb. But God said, for every day that
these men stayed in the Promised Land, you'll wander one year
in the wilderness, for every day, forty years. And not a one
of you shall enter over 20 years of age, not a one of you, over
20 years of age shall enter the land, I promise. Your children
possess it, but you won't." And they found their grains in the
wilderness. But here in verse 24, here's my text, but God said,
verse 24, But My servant Caleb, because he hath another spirit
with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into
the land, whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it.
Now, there are three points to this message. The first one is
this. The name Caleb, it means dog. That's exactly what it means.
It means dog. Don't you know that he took some
terrible mocking about this name? That's what his name meant, dog.
I don't know why any father would give his son a name which means
dog. But that's exactly what the name
Caleb means. If you want to, look it up. You'll
find that it means dog. I think some folks lately have
changed it to fateful dog and things like that, but it's dog.
That's exactly what it means. But you know, I think this is
very fitting because I find that people who genuinely follow the
Lord, Caleb followed the Lord. He followed the Lord. He was
a servant of the Lord. God said, but my servant Caleb
had followed me fully. Men who follow the Lord are not
too proud to take unto themselves the name Dole. In fact, if you'll
turn to 2 Samuel 9, turn over there with me for a moment, 2
Samuel chapter 9, David had taken over the kingdom of Israel, he
had united the hearts of the people, and he sent word for
his servants to find the son of Jonathan, the grandson of
Saul, and they reported that he was a cripple, that he was
a pitiful sight, lame on both his legs, a cripple man down
in the land of no pasture, no bread, Lodibar. So David sent
and got him and brought Mephibosheth up to that beautiful palace,
the presence of the king, and they brought in this poor cripple
boy and put him down there in the floor in front of David.
I know he was full of fear and trembling. because it was customary
in those days for the king who came into power to destroy the
whole family of the king who preceded him for fear they'd
rise up and claim the throne, especially a grandson. And so
that's what Mephibosheth expected, I'm sure, when they brought him
to David. But David said, I'm going to show mercy to you, and
I'm going to make you one of the king's sons, and they're
going to put a ring on your finger, and a robe on your back, and
you're going to sit at the king's table, to which Mephibosheth
said in verse 8 of 2 Samuel 9, and he bowed himself and said,
What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead
dog as I am? Humble men, men whom God hath
blessed, men to whom God in grace has spoken, they're not too proud
to take the name dog. Well, that's what they are. Without
are dogs and sorcerers, and they know that they were without,
and they were dogs. And then there was a woman who
came to Christ one time, and she said, Lord, have mercy on
me. And he didn't answer her. And
she continued to cry after him, and his disciples came and said,
send her away. She's worrying us to death. And
she kept saying, Lord, have mercy on me. My daughter is grievously
ill. And the Lord turned to her and
he said, I'm sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Israel is my people. Israel is my family. Israel is
my kingdom. I don't owe you anything. I'm
sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She said, Lord,
have mercy on me. And he said, it's not fit to
give the children's bread to dogs. That's what they call the
Gentiles, dogs. And it's not a fit thing. Christ
said this to her. to give the children's bread
to dogs. And she spoke up and she said,
that's true, Lord. But even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from the master's table, their master's table. And our
Lord turned to her and he said, woman, great is thy faith. Be
it unto thee as you desire. Even the dogs eat the crumbs. So the name Caleb is very fitting
here. My faithful dog. My faithful
servant. the dog. This is one of the first
things I believe that God is pleased to do for those whom
he shows his mercy. He brings us down in the dust
of nothingness. If you'll turn to 1st Corinthians,
I want you to look at this for a moment. We've read this so
many times, perhaps we've become too familiar with it. 1st Corinthians
chapter 1. Will you turn over there a minute?
1st Corinthians 1 verse 26. He says, You see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, doesn't say not any, he said not many. Not many mighty,
not many noble, but God hath chosen, and this is us, here's
a description of us whom God hath chosen, foolish, weak, base, verse 28, despised, things
that are not. That's us. Paul said I'm nothing. Who is Paul? Who is Cephas? Who
is Apollos? Nothing. Though I'm not one whit
behind the chief apostle, I'm nothing. God brings us down before
He raises us. God strips us before He closes
us. God humbles us before He exalts us. God shuts our mouths
even before He gives us a note of praise. He said, What the
law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty. God
resisted the proud. He gives grace to the humble.
What did Job say in Job 40? Behold, I am bowed. B-I-L-E,
bowed. Behold, I am bowed. I put my
hand upon my mouth, I'll not speak. What does Isaiah say?
I'm a man of unclean lips. If you will, turn to 1 Corinthians
3. Here's the scripture I wanted you especially to see. 1 Corinthians
3, verse 18. Now listen to this. What I'm
saying is this, before God raises us, He'll humble us. Before God
gives us a note of praise, He'll shut our mouth. And we won't
hesitate to take the name Dom. Bow, nothing, base, weak, ignorant,
those all apply to us. We don't know anything. It says
here in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 18, let no man deceive himself.
If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let
him become a fool, let him become a fool, that he may be wise."
Solitarsis had to be brought down, down. So Caleb the dog,
Caleb the dog, this mother and father gave him the name, and
for a humble, broken servant of the living God, I guess it's
a good name. Out of, somebody said out of
600,000 men that came out of Egypt. 600,000. Now you expect Joshua to enter
in. Joshua was the leader. But out
of, other than the leader, Joshua. Other than the leader, Charlie,
Joshua. Out of the nearly million men that came out of Egypt, one
man. the dog. That's the only one
with it. And that's the dog. That's the
only one. You've got some highfalutin names
in the scripture. You've got Daniel, God is my
judge. You've got Joshua, my help is
in Jehovah. You've got David, what is that? David, I can't think of it. But
all of them mean something grand and glorious. But Caleb, the
dog. I love that. You see why I named
this sermon that, Caleb the Faithful Dog. But he's the only one, the
only one. Well, let's ask another question
here, and we've got the name Caleb there, my servant Caleb.
But God said something about him here. He said, He hath followed
me fully. He hath followed me fully. He
followed God such a way that he's the only one that went into
the land of promise, the only one. out of all those men. What is it to follow the Lord
fully? What did God mean here when he
said, Caleb, verse 24, Caleb, my servant the dog, the faithful
dog, he had another spirit with him and he followed me, F-U-L-L-Y. And do you know, if you'll take
your concordance, Caleb is mentioned several times and almost every
time it will say, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who followed
the Lord fully. Well, let me give you four things.
What is it to follow the Lord fully, so as to enter the land
of promise, so as to reap the blessings of God's mercy and
grace? Well, first of all, to follow the Lord fully, first
of all, is to follow Him. It's to follow Him. Now, my sheep
hear my voice and they follow me. They watch it, don't run
ahead of the Lord, they follow the Lord. Now we need to listen right here,
we need to look at this. If we're not careful, very, very
careful, we'll find ourselves trying to move in front of God's
providence. And if we move in front of God's
providence, we'll be the directors of our own steps. And we're not
beyond that, moving ahead of God. preacher, an old-time preacher
is here one time preaching for me, he told me this, he said,
sometimes God lets us go out there and chase that rabbit,
and get out there by ourselves, and suddenly discover that we
are out there where we ought not to be, doing what we ought
not to be doing, pursuing a course that we ought not to be pursuing,
and God just leaves us out there. And in his own good time he'll
bring us back. But we learn that lesson. We get ahead of God's
providence. We become directors of our own steps. Somebody said
this, those who leave the pillar of fire will find themselves
in the fire. Another said those who go before the pillar of clouds
will find some dark clouds lowering over them. I often write people
who write in for the television tapes and I'll put a little scripture
verse beneath my name. And I use this one quite a bit
because I think it's I think it's one all of us need to learn.
We don't ever learn it. It's one we need to continue
to learn. It's in Psalms 27. I use this very frequently along
with two or three others, but this is one that I use frequently. In Psalm 27, verse 14, it needs
to be at least mentally underscored. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage. He'll strengthen
thine heart. Wait, I say. Again, I repeat,
on the Lord. wait, hardest thing in the world
for this modern generation of church people, preachers included,
to wait on the Lord, to be still and know that I'm God. We're
in a hurry. And if you acquaint yourself with the Word of God,
our God moves, but He moves in His own time and in His own way
for His own glory, and God's never in a hurry. I was just reading a book a while
ago by Matthew Henry talking about we need to spend more time
busy, working, laboring, serving God. And I hate to disagree with
men who lived so long ago and were so great and so used to
God, but I think, Brett, we need to sit still once in a while
and wait on the Lord, be still and know that I'm God. I read
over there in the book of Luke in chapter 2, there's a man called
Simeon, who had a long gray beard, evidently, and white hair and
wrinkles and stooped shoulders, and he had been sitting around
Israel waiting on one thing for about 90 years. Just waiting,
waiting. See, the Holy Spirit had told
him one day that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Messiah.
And it says that Simeon was waiting on the Messiah. I don't know
what else he had what else he did or how else he spent his
time, but I do know that the goal of his life was to see the
Messiah. And then when he saw him, he
said, I'm ready to die. I don't need to see anything
else. I've seen all this to see. I've seen the Lord. I've seen
his salvation. I don't know. I think we're,
most of our time spent spinning our wheels. I really do. I think
we're making a lot of noise and burning a lot of rubber. and
making a lot of smoke and not going anywhere. I think we need
to just wait on the Lord. He's going to have to do it anyway.
So this man followed the Lord, so the first thing about following
the Lord is to be sure who you're following. You better make sure
you're not following your wishes or your desires or your directions
or your plans or your ambition. Let's see if it's the Lord's
plans that I'm following, the Lord's directions, the Lord's
pillar of fire and pillar of cloud. Am I following Him? Whose
glory am I seeking? Mine or somebody else's? Or God's? Wait on the Lord. I think we'll
wait like Simeon. We might be a little older than
we are now, but we might be a little more ready to get something done.
We might be a little wiser. We might have something to say.
He stayed. He stayed. Can you trust Him? Can you wait on Him? Can you
be stamped and know that I'm God? I got to do what I'm going
to do tomorrow. Well, God may not be going to
do it tomorrow. It may be next year before He gets around to
it. It took 400 years to deliver Israel out of Egypt. From the
tearing down of the walls, it took so many hundreds of years
for the Messiah And it's been 1979 years since he came, and
we're still talking about the second coming, but he'll come.
He'll come. Secondly, what is it to follow
the Lord? Well, he said, he followed me, my servant Caleb, had another
spirit, he followed me. He followed me. That's what he
was following. He followed the Lord. He got
his orders, and that's where he stood. It's to follow the
Lord all the days of our lives. I want to read you a beautiful
story. Turn to Joshua. I want you to read it with me.
Joshua, I love this, this is beautiful. Joshua 14. Joshua
chapter 14, beginning with verse 6. Now here, here old Caleb was
85 now, when this right here was written, 85. You look down
here in verse 10, you see the last line in verse 10, Lo, I
am this day fourscore, that's 80, and five, that's eighty-five
years old. It's all over now. They've entered
the land. Now, look at Joshua, got it?
Fourteen, beginning with verse six. Ready? Joshua fourteen,
six. I want you to look at this. Then
the children of Judah came unto Joshua and Gilgal, and Caleb,
the son of Jephunneh, the Kisanite, said unto him, is Caleb talking? Joshua? You know the thing that
the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God concerning me." Moses
was dead now. "...and thee in Kadesh Barnea."
Forty years old was I 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. Isn't that beautiful? Nevertheless,
my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people
melt. But I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses sware
on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet it trodden
shall be thine inheritance and thy children's forever, because
thou hast wholly followed the Lord thy God my God. And now,
behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty
and five years, even since the Lord spake this word to Moses
while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. Now
I am this day eighty-five years old. And yet I'm as strong this
day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. And my strength
was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and
to come in. And now therefore give me this
mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day. For you heard in
that day how the Anakins were there. and that the cities were
great and fenced, if so be the Lord will be with me, I shall
be able to drive them out." I'm 85 years old, but I can still
whip a heather, and that's what he said by the power of God.
Isn't that beautiful? I can still handle it. So Joshua
blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh, Hebron,
for an inheritance. That's a beautiful story. He
followed the Lord, followed the Lord, and then he followed him
all his life. He's still following the Lord
when he's 85. Now a lot of folks like Lot's wife. They flee from
Sodom for a while and then they look back. And then many folks
are like the foolish Galatians. Paul said, oh foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you? I'm marveled that you're so soon
removed from the gospel. And many are like those in John
6, 66 who followed Him because of the loaves and fishes, and
then when He preached to them, they turned and went back and
walked no more with Him. And then I want you to turn to
Psalm 78. Some follow the Lord in times of sickness. This is
something folks get real religious when they get sick. They have
preachers running around this hospital down here like parasites,
like vultures, waiting on the fence, you know, for somebody
to get sick so they can get a profession out of them. But it's normal.
Natural men get real, when they get in trouble, they get real
religious, you know. And that's what David says in Psalm 78.
When he slew them, then they sought him. When God afflicted
them, they sought him. And they returned and inquired
early after God. Oh, they got real, real, interested
in God, and they remembered that God was their rock, and the high
God their Redeemer. Nevertheless, they flattered
God with their mouths, and they lied to Him with their tongues,
for their heart was not right with Him, and they weren't steadfast
in His covenant. They were just getting sick and
afflicted, and they got real religious. And some folks do
that. But Caleb started out following
the Lord. And all the days of his life,
he followed the Lord. And when he came down to the
closing sunset years, when he was 85 years old, he said, I've
followed the Lord. Just like the Apostle Paul, he
says, I've kept the faith. I've finished my course and laid
up for me a crown of righteousness. That's what it's to follow the
Lord. It's to follow the Lord and it's to follow Him all the
days of your life. And then notice another thing,
turn back to Numbers 20, Numbers chapter 14. Sometimes it's to
stand alone. To follow the Lord is to stand
alone. That's what Caleb did, the dog did here. He stood alone.
There wasn't anybody with him. Nobody. There was Moses and Joshua,
but you'd expect this, discounting Moses and Joshua, you'd expect
them. to follow what God spoke to them. But here, this man Caleb,
he wasn't in the inner circle, he wasn't in the high eschalon,
he wasn't one of the generals, he was just Caleb the dog, and
yet he stood alone. I remember Brother Barnard telling
me about a meeting that he had up in Olney, Illinois. He was
here in April 1950. And he went from here to Olney,
Illinois. And he preached in a Baptist
church there. And, well, like Barnett said,
all hell broke loose, you know. They didn't believe anything
he said. The pastor didn't believe it. His wife didn't believe it.
The deacons didn't believe it. Nobody else did. And Ross said
that he went home from church one night and the pastor called
the deacons together. And he said, that man is going
to tear up our church. But I said, I stayed in the pastor's
home. He wouldn't speak to me. His wife wouldn't speak to me.
He said, she served me breakfast that morning and wouldn't speak
to me. They hated me. He said, I was trying to tell
them the truth about God, you know. Natural men don't want
to hear the truth about God or about themselves or about what
salvation is. They want to hear what they want
to hear, you know. So he said, those deacons met with the pastor.
They met downstairs and the pastor told them, said, One of the men
of the church has promised to give $300. That was back in 1950. And we'll send this man on his
way, and we'll shut down this meeting while we still got a
church left here. And they went around the circle. Every deacon spoke. They was
all fired. Amen. Let's get rid of him. And he
came to one old gentleman. Came to an old Caleb sitting
there. Now, Brother Dave, what you got
to say? Well, he got up. And he looked around, and they
told Barnard later what he said. Well, he said, Pastor and deacons,
brethren, he said, this man's preaching the gospel. And he
said, Pastor, you've never heard it. Consequently, you've never
preached it. And you men here have never heard
the gospel. I have. I've heard the gospel. And this
man's preaching the gospel. Now he said, I'm going to tell
you, I want no part of this. I'm leaving. Before I leave, I want
to warn you, that man's God's servant. And you lay your hands
on him and close this meeting. You will rue the day. And it
all got quiet in there. But that one old white-haired
man, Barnard said, turned the tide of that meeting. They dismissed
that meeting, came home. Barnard preached the next day
and the next day. And he said one night, two or
three nights later, he wasn't even preaching. A boy got up
and sang a song, Why Should He Love Me So. The pastor's wife's
playing the organ. He said she stopped playing,
put her head on the keys, and wept. And the pastor came down
to the front here and knelt. And seven deacons came down,
and they're all on their knees on the front row. And God saved
every one of them. One old Caleb. Sometimes you
have to stand alone. And sometimes it gets tough. They took up stones. You read
that over there? They're going to stone them.
They're going to stone them. Now, this place where I preached
last week in Hussar, Louisiana, Southern Baptist Church, and
they waited until I got out of town, the pastor called me Monday,
and that young fellow, they called his hand. There was a football
coach, a school teacher, that was only there one night, but
he's a loudmouth. He's a men's Bible class teacher,
but he doesn't come to church except when he comes to teach.
And he stirred up trouble last Sunday, and I talked to the pastor
Monday. He was getting ready to resign.
I said, Now, Chuck, God's preachers don't run. You didn't learn to
run playing defensive end for the University of Georgia, and
don't you run now. You'll have them fire you. Because
these preachers don't resign. They may get fired, they may
get run out of town. But I said, when you leave, when
you leave town, if they fire you and run you out of town,
when you leave, you shake the dust off your feet. And God's
judgment will fall on that community. I guarantee you. They don't believe
in sovereign grace, you know. But he said, I'll stay, I'm going
to stay. And I said, who knows? The Lord's
already saved three down there. He may save some more. He may
have a people, but I said, they're not going to stay if you leave,
because you've got the gospel, you're God's man, you're God's
messenger, you're God's preacher. And when that football coach
comes to see you tonight, he was coming over Monday night,
I said, you sit him down and tell him one thing, he's a football
coach, you're a preacher. And you won't tell him how to
coach football, he's not going to tell you how to preach the gospel.
But be nice, I said, you know, love your enemies. But don't
back up. Joshua and Caleb didn't back
up. They stood there and said, this is so. They said, we'll
stone you. It's still so. It's still so. You know, I can't
help but think while we was down there Thursday night when that
lady, the piano player was saved and those other two people under
conviction, this young pastor may have been a prophet that
night. He said, you may fire me, but I'm going to preach the
gospel here. I reminded him of that. I said, you remember what
you said? You preach the gospel no matter what it costs. I love
him. He's going to do it too. He's going to do it. And this,
what is it to follow the Lord? It's to follow Him fully. It's
to follow Him all the days of your life. It's, if necessary,
to stand alone and even be stoned. But then last, it's to follow
the Lord in heart. In heart. It's not a fleshly
following the Lord. It's a heart and soul following
of the Lord. There are many churches, Mr.
Spurgeon said this, there are many churches with crosses on
their steeples. who long since have taken the
cross out of their pulpits. Is that right? So following Christ is not a
physical show or a physical exercise. It's a heart work. It's a heart
relationship. My son, give me your heart. Give
me your heart. It's not trying to convince people
how many souls you've won to Jesus. It's not to convince people
how much work you've done for the Lord. It's to follow Him
in your heart. Give me your heart. Peter, you
love me? I love you, Lord. Feed my sheep. That's the basis. That's the
foundation. You love me? Feed my sheep. I worship Him
because I love Him, not because I want to go to heaven, not because
a Christian ought to go to church, not because I ought to be here
on Sunday. I'm here because I love Him. I preach because I love
Him. I give because I love Him. I
show mercy because I love Him. If you do it for any other purpose,
any other motive, you're wasting your time. The Lord trieth the
heart, God searcheth and trieth the reins. That's the innermost
being. That which motivates me, Paul
says, is the love of Christ. That's the whole thing. I need
no other motivation, only the love of Christ. I worship him
because I love him. I think old Caleb, the dog, could
have said that. You know, they say a man's best
friend is his dog. An old dog will lay outside the
barn door there in the cold and the rain and the sleet and the
snow just to be near his master. Why? He loves him. He loves him. He can strike him like that and
he'll lick his hand. He loves it. He loves it. That's the sole reason. That's
the sole motive. It's because he loves it. And
that's what it is to follow the Lord. But I'll tell you this,
you can't follow the Lord until you know Him as your Redeemer,
as your Justifier, as your Representative, as your Mediator. And when you
see Him in His beauty, the lily of the valley and the rose of
Sharon, how can I help but love Him? Our Father, we are thankful
for Caleb, Caleb the faithful dog. He loved his master. He was willing to stand alone.
He was willing even to be stoned. He wouldn't back up. He wouldn't
quit the fight. And he followed thee, Lord, all
the days of his life. And when he was an old man, he
remembered God's promise and God's blessings, and he claimed
it. Now give him a mountain, the Lord promised. And he cannot
fail, he keeps his word. Lord, may we follow thee fully.
This life is not for long. And someday, like Caleb, we shall
say, I'm four score and five years old, and now I'm entering
that land that my God promised me. I have followed him fully. Bless this message. Show us the
real values of life. is so prone to be turned aside. The eyes of this flesh are so
easily attracted to that which is not of any value whatsoever
to our souls. Lord, turn our eyes on Christ,
and all these things will grow dim in the light of his glory,
his beauty, and his grace. In his name we pray, amen. Why
do you come and lead us in this way? Well, let's sing 388, Have Thine
Own Way, Lord. Let's stand please. Have thine own way, Lord, have
thine own way. Thou art the potter, I am the
clay. Mold me and make me after thine Yielded and still

Caleb - The Faithfull Dog

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Caleb - The Faithfull Dog

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