Joshua 14 - Caleb Requests His Land // 31 May 2026

Jes Abbott

Transcript

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Morning everyone. I'm gonna have to move this, it's doing my head in. I actually counted the squares to work out where it should be in the middle. This morning I'm gonna be uh speaking from Joshua 14. You might have thought that the Joshua series was over, but there's one left. And this morning, as I'm here, um looking back at last week and and looking forward at next week, I find myself in something of an Australian sandwich. And uh not just any Australians, you know, a doctor of theology and and an author. And then next week an apostle, a church planter, a guy who's got an amazing prophetic ministry. So I'm in the middle of this amazing Australian sandwich, which probably makes me what, vegemite or something? Is that and then thinking back over the Joshua series, um, a few weeks ago in our four o'clock service, Pastor David Wade was speaking on a passage, he says, This is the most important passage in Joshua. Okay, and then two weeks ago, Scott says, This is the climax of the whole Joshua series. Chapter eight. So I'm the Vegemite in an Australian sandwich and the leftover from Joshua, but it's gonna be okay, okay? It's gonna be alright. Because it might not be the most important, it might not be the climax, but I think actually chapter 14, which we're gonna look at today, is actually potentially the most exciting because we're looking at slaying giants and we're looking at taking possession of what God has promised you. So it's gonna be alright, okay? It'll be fine. As we journey through the book of Joshua, we've seen how God enabled the Israelites to possess the land that he'd promised Abraham 400 years before. Uh, and we can see that actually they they could have done it 40 years earlier, but they didn't. They sent 12 spies in to spy out the land, and when they came back, ten of the spies gave a bad report about the land. And in Numbers 13, I think we'll have it on the screen. Numbers 13, starting at verse 27, it says this, this is what they reported to Moses. We went to the land where you sent us. It really is a land flowing with milk and honey. Here's some of its true, but the people who live there are strong, and the cities have walls and are very large. We even saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev, the Hittites, Jebuzites, and Amorites live in the mountain region, and the Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and all along the Jordan River. Caleb told the people to be quiet and listen to Moses. Caleb said, Let's go now and possess take possession of the land. We should be more than able to conquer it. But the men who'd gone with him said, We can't attack those people, they're too strong for us. So they began to spread lies among the Israelites about the land they'd explored. They said, The land we explored is one that devours those who live there. All the people we saw there were very tall. We saw Nephilim there, the descendants of Anak and Nephilim. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that's how we must have looked to them. The people were absolutely on the verge of seeing everything that God had promised them. But they wanted to go back to Egypt. They had short memories about how terrible it was, how badly treated they'd been in Egypt, and how amazingly God had brought them out. And Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies to actually give a good report. They said the land is good. They didn't focus on the giants, they didn't focus on the problems, they focused on what God had promised. But once the people decided they weren't going to go in then, God basically said, Well, you won't go in at all then. And for 40 years that generation wandered around in the desert, and none of them, apart from Caleb and Joshua, entered the land. Not even Moses. And what a tragedy that was. They missed a moment in God. And as a result of it, they never possessed what God had for them. But Joshua and Caleb weren't like the others. Caleb's name actually means wholehearted or faithful or devoted. And it's very closely linked to the Hebrew word for dog. And I guess some of those things actually describe what a good dog's like, isn't it? They're faithful, they're devoted, they follow their master. And that's what Caleb did. It wasn't just his name, that's what he did. Six times in the Old Testament, we're told that he wholeheartedly served the Lord. Moses said it about him, God said it about him. And in Numbers 14, God said that Caleb had a different spirit in him to the rest of the Israelites, because he had God's spirit in him. And Caleb gave a good report because he saw with God's eyes. He saw what was potential there when those around him just saw the problems. We need to be careful, you know, of what we report we bring. Because what we say about people, or what we say about opportunities, what we say about situations, can have really positive or really negative impacts on others. You know, if those other spies had given a good report, at that moment the people of Israel would have gone in and possessed the land that God had for them. But because of the bad report, they didn't. And it turned the whole people against God, and they died in the desert as a result. But in his integrity, Caleb, when other he had faith when the others had fear. He told the truth when others lied. They said the land devours the people that live there. In the subsequent chapter, Caleb says, the giants will be Lechem to us. Now Lechem means food in Hebrew. So he's saying, the land's not going to devour us. By God's grace, we are going to devour the people and take possession of that land. And as a result of his obedience and his wholehearted service, God told Caleb that one day he would inherit the land that he had seen where the giant Anakites lived. The Israelites' disobedience meant they wandered around in the desert for 40 years. And we don't hear anything about Caleb in that 40-year period. But we have to assume that all through that time he continued to wholeheartedly serve God. And this morning I want to tell you that if God has promised you something, he doesn't forget his promises. It might not happen in the time scale that you think, it might not happen in the way in which you think it will happen. But if God has said something, it will come to pass. So if you're still waiting on a promise from God to be fulfilled, take Caleb's example. Just continue to wholeheartedly serve him, and in due time it will happen. As we come to Joshua 14, there's 31 kings, 31 cities that had been destroyed, and the land given to the Israelites. And uh and our old dog Caleb comes back into the narrative. Joshua 14, and starting at verse 6. It says, A delegation from the tribe of Judah, led by Caleb, son of Jephanah the Kennesite, came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb said to Joshua, Remember what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about you and me when we were at Kadesh Barneh. I was forty years old, when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barneh to explore the land of Canaan. I returned and gave an honest report. But my brothers who went with me frightened the people from entering the promised land. For my part, I wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. So that day Moses solemnly promised the land of Canaan on which you were just walking will be your grant of land and that of your descendants forever, because you wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. Now as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well, and He's promised for all those forty-five years since Moses made this promise, even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I'm eighty-five years old. I'm as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You'll remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great ward towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out, just as the Lord said. So Joshua blessed Canaeb, son of Jephana, and gave Hebron as his portion of land. Hebron still belongs to the descendants of Caleb, son of Jephana, the Kenesite, because he wholeheartedly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Previously Hebron had been called Kiriath Abba. It had been named after Abba, a great hero of the descendants of Anak. As I said, God doesn't forget his promises. Not only was Caleb wholehearted, he was a remarkable man to be able at 85 to still do what he was able to do at 40, but he credited it to God. And he recognized that it was God who would go before him and win the battles for him. So this morning, whether you're 14, whether you're 40, whether you're 85, whether you're 105, if you're breathing, God has a job for you. He's still got battles for you to win for him. Like Brendan said last week, there's a call on your life right now. And you have everything in God that you need in order to complete that. When we look back, we can see it it was fear of the giants that actually stopped the Israelites from possessing the land. And Caleb comes back 45 years later and he says, I will drive them out with God's help. And that's exactly what he did. He didn't wait for the giants to come to him. He went and dealt with what was in front of him and what God had promised him, and he took possession of it. Caleb had a different spirit. It was the Spirit of God that was in him that gave him the courage. It was the Spirit of God that gave him the eyes to see as God did. And it was by the Spirit of God he won his battles even against giants. Caleb was an ordinary man like you and I, but he wholeheartedly trusted in an extraordinary God. And that's what God calls us to do. And that starts by remembering what God has done for us in the past. It's really important to, when we face new challenges or we face new situations, remember what God has done for us in the past. Caleb and Joshua remembered what God had done in Egypt in bringing them out of Egypt. They remembered the plagues. They remembered the way he parted the Red Sea so they could go through on dry land. They remembered that they were following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They remembered that God fed them in the wilderness with manna. They remembered that God had brought water out of a rock when they needed water, and because of all of that, they knew that if God promised them something, he would come through. Later in scripture we see we see David doing the same sort of thing, facing another giant from the peoples that the Israelites hadn't driven out. He used the same principle. He said, The one that looked after me when I was taking care of my father's sheep, the one that saved me from the lion and the bear is the same person who will bring this Philistine into my hands. And again, like Caleb, he didn't wait for the giant to come to him. David ran towards Goliath and he possessed what God had got for him. God's promise to Joshua and the Israelites was that everywhere that they placed their feet, he would give them. And everywhere they put their feet, God did give them. Caleb possessed his inheritance, but the Israelites didn't go everywhere that God had told them to go. And they didn't receive all the blessing that God had for them. And they didn't deal with all of the giants they were supposed to overcome. There were nations they didn't drive out. There was land they didn't take. There were giants they didn't slay. And there were places where they actually moved in with those living in the land already rather than possessing their own promise in God. And that was why Israel later on was still fighting giants, still had nations that were thorns in their side, because they hadn't taken what God had given them. Within a generation from Joshua, they'd actually all forgotten the Lord and they were serving the gods of the Canaanites. Large areas were not taken, and today modern-day Israel only only possesses 3% of what God had promised Abraham that they would have. And I wonder what the Middle East would look like now if they actually had stepped into everything that God had had for them. So what are the lessons that we can learn from Caleb, this whole-hearted giant slayer? Well, he held on to the promises of God and he waited patiently until those promises came about. So a question for you this morning is what has God promised you? What has God put in your heart that you yet haven't seen fulfilled? It might feel like it's been a long time coming. But I want to encourage you this morning to remain faithful and to serve wholeheartedly. Because in due time you will see God's promise fulfilled. Because God doesn't forget his promises, and God cannot lie. And maybe there's giants that are in your way, things that are stopping you from possessing everything that God has for you. Maybe there's mountains you need to get over, maybe there's land that you need to possess still. And as I was preparing, I just felt God was saying, you know, for some people that's a they're addictions. Addiction is what's stopping you from possessing everything that God has for you, whether that's money, sex, power, drugs, whatever it is, that there are addictions and God wants you to deal with them. For others it might be fear. Either fear of others or fear of what might happen if you step into what you think God's calling you into. Or maybe it's fear of failure that actually you don't think you can do it. Maybe it's things that speak people have spoken over your life and you and you just can't shake them off. Maybe it's guilt for something that you've done in the past and and you feel like God can never forgive you for it, and that you can never move into what He has for you. And maybe it's just disobedience, you know what God's calling you into, but you just haven't done it yet. You see, the Israelites didn't face their giants for 40 years, and because of that, they just went around in circles. And I believe God's saying this morning that even though you think these giants in your life might be too big, might be too difficult, that you might never overcome them, I believe God wants you to finish them off this morning by the power of his spirit. I believe he wants to take that fear from you and by his spirit equip you to overcome those things that are stopping you from stepping into what God has for you. I believe in prayer this morning there needs to be some giant slaying going on. Because we don't want to wander around for 40 years in circles, not possessing what God has for us. What land is still needing to be taken? What things have you settled for rather than possessing everything that God has for you? What things are that you're just tinkering around the edges of that God wants you to dive right into so that he can use you? The promise of the Israelites was everywhere they put their feet, God would give them. And you know, everywhere that we go, we take the Spirit of God with us. And there's land, there's communities, there's people who don't know Jesus yet. But I believe that like God has put his spirit in us and he wants us to go and possess what he's promised us. He wants us to take the communities around us. He wants us to slay some of the giants that are in the way. I'm gonna ask the worship team if they'll come back up. I really feel God wants to do something this morning. He wants to shift peoples from where they are past barriers, past things that have been holding you for years. I really believe God wants to break in by his spirit and and move amongst us today. I'm gonna ask the prayer team to come up. They'll be around the side here. And as we're worshiping, if you know that there's a giant in your life that needs to be dealt with, please don't go away without getting prayer this morning. Because even though you might think it's impossible, nothing's impossible with God. And he wants to set us free, he wants to stop those things that are binding us from stepping into the fullness of everything that he has for us. So don't go without getting prayer. Because I'd like to see some giants slate this morning in the power of the Spirit.