There are three stages in God’s plan of salvation: justification (initial acceptance by God), sanctification (ongoing growth in holiness), and glorification (final perfection in Heaven). While all Christians are equal at the foot of the cross, not all progress equally in their spiritual journey. The story of Caleb in Numbers 13-14 illustrates the importance of fully surrendering to God, following Him throughout one’s entire life, and living by the power of the Holy Spirit. These qualities set Caleb apart and enabled him to enter the Promised Land when others could not. As Christians, we are called to this same level of commitment and reliance on God’s Spirit to fulfil His purpose for our lives.

Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:01] One of the downfalls of my family, my parents, and my sister brother, and myself moving around from state to state was that in West Australia, I was being trained in the piano. And then we moved to Sydney, and I dropped out of being trained in the piano, and did nothing. And then when we came down to Adelaide, I talked my parents into getting me training on Spanish guitar. And there was a man who came from somewhere in South America who played flamenco and I was excited to start learning.
[00:00:44] That’s rather difficult to do, but the first thing he wanted me to learn was a Negro spiritual. So what a mixture, you know, South America, Negro spiritual. And the words were something really stuck in me and just the Negro spiritual goes like this. I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger traveling through this world of woe. There’s no sickness, toil, nor danger in that bright land to which I go. I’m going there to see my mother. She said she’d wait until I come. I’m just a going over Jordan. I’m just a going over home.
[00:01:31] And that triggered, in my mind, this thought of Christianity that I was being trained in from home. But the fact that there are two stages. One is when you get out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, that was the formation of the children of Israel. They actually had a walk to Horeb. It’s a place at the bottom of Mount Sinai and for two years they were there. They were getting the talks from Moses. They were having a few problems that Moses had to tell them off for. They had the tabernacle time, not a temple but a tabernacle is where they worshipped. And at the end of that time they were really only just about 14 days or depends on how measured by the historians away from where they were meant to next go in a
[00:02:26] town called Qadish Bonour and from there they were going to go across the River Jordan and into the promised land. The picture evoked in the Old Testament was about walking with God having the getting out of Egypt and the going into the promised land, so it’s like a two stage, two step. I don’t know whether you’ve been to a wedding where they’ve made to do the two-step. Well anyway that’s not relevant. But there was two stages in God’s rescue of the children of Israel, to become his people and to get into the Promised Land. And a lot of that has been taken over into people’s understandings of Christianity that there’s two stages. When you become a a Christian… one stage or other, someone teaches you, and you become a Christian.
[00:03:20] And then when you die… and dying is how the Negro’s spiritual. We can understand it, of course, in the oppressed people that were singing those spiritual songs. And the turmoil and the terror and the burdens that they live with… and the only relief was when they died, they went over Jordan, is how they looked at it. Now when we come to the New Testament in recent days as we’ve gone through the beatitudes we’ve been talking about, God’s aim, as articulated by Jesus in the beatitudes, be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. But that salvation, that the New Testament and the beatitudes in particular in the New in four New Testament books of the Gospels in general, teach. It is not a two-step but it’s a
[00:04:18] three-step, and I’ve been sort of bringing this out in different messages so it will stick in our minds. It’s amazing when you first get trained in something, with those early trainings, I’ve had the two-step idea for years and years per favour of this, that old Negro spiritual song, going over Jordan. We are all heading for a day when you die and that’s going over Jordan into glory. An actual fact the scriptures teach a three-step and the three-step is your justification when you come to Christ because you understand you are a sinner and you can’t do anything about it but that Jesus has and he has championed human life by living sinlessly, made himself to be a sinless sacrifice and died on the cross for our sins, that we could get into God’s favour, not by how we perform but by how Jesus has paid for our rebellion and our sin. That’s step one.
[00:05:18] What we’re doing tonight as far as the Sun Rally is concerned, we’ve had them in previous years, several years of having them on and off and we’re having one again. The fact that the other churches are not coming is probably my fault because we changed the date from last Sunday to this Sunday and they had that in their calendars and probably have other things on tonight. So we’re not having as many but we’re still having some because we have a testimony by tucker tonight. If you don’t know who tuck is you’d better come and find out this evening in the Sun Rally. But what we’re doing in that Sun Rally is of course presenting speaking to people the fact that to really get to be someone who’s into the train of
[00:06:07] getting saved is you’ve got to make a first step, just as the children of Israel, had to get out of Egypt, had to get across the Red Sea, have the Egyptians off their backs, they all got cast into the sea. You remember the story? Well, that’s the first step. But But it isn’t a case of your justification how you limp along as a Christian and eventually die and get to heaven where everything will work out. But it is amazing how many people in churches do have that picture that you become a Christian but you have a really great difficulty at living it out and you have your ups and downs. You have your times backsliding and eventually you’ll go over Jordan and you’ll be perfect. We will, of course, because our sanctification is gonna be made complete and our entrance to heaven, and we will be made perfect.
[00:07:05] But there is a step in between that the New Testament teaches that it is called our sanctification. A little word in the Greek is the word haggiasmos, I like the Greek words, haggiasmos. It’s a good word and it means to be set apart. It means to be made more holy. It also means when you give yourself to that process, when you consecrate yourself, and at the Home Group Friday night at the Koppards house we had a wonderful time. I have been enjoying going to that Home Group
[00:07:47] as we’ve been going through the gospel of John. We’re up to that chapters 16 and 17. And I like it because I take along my little Greek Bible as well. It’s an interpager that has an English side and has a Greek side. And when people get discussing, I have the advantage if I just look across the other page to see what the word is in the original language. And what’s interesting as I’m sitting there in the home group they are talking about what is the meaning of the word to be sanctified. And it’s the same word in 2 spots but the English translation it’s an RSV version. That’s the interpager one on that little book. Translated it with a different word.
[00:08:31] One spot, it says sanctify yourselves. The idea of sitting yourself aside to belong to Christ. trying to live the holy life is implied. But in the second spot it says, consecrate yourself. There’s a subtle difference between the meaning in English of sanctify and consecrate. Sanctification is originally done by God, but consecrate heightens the fact that we have to make a decision.
[00:09:09] We have to come to a place of definite choice to give ourselves to that process of sanctification to consecrate. A consecration is when you set things aside for not another use. And we’re set aside as Christians by our consecration to be holy. That’s why there’s verses in the Scriptures that say to us work out your own salvation.
[00:09:38] I was not telling you to go to university and study it. Work out your own salvation is to allow that which has begun in you to work its way out into your sanctification. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The purpose of God and our life is not just what job we have, not just the friends that we make, not just who we marry.
[00:10:14] Do you know there’s something more important than who you marry? You’re listening. Because who you marry is on the horizontal side, but the more important is the vertical. This is the will of God, even your. And the translations don’t know how to translate haggiasm, it’s the same word again. This is the will of God, Thessalonians says, even your, in one version, reads holiness.
[00:10:48] Another version reads sanctification. But the idea is that second step of your salvation where you not only got justified and forgiven and in the door and you know you’re going to heaven you’re on the journey not just getting there eventually when you die and get into glory and find that he’s made you perfect and he’s going to take us as Christians and have us all there as exhibits of his great salvation. We’re actually going to be trophies of Jesus but the final step of that change of us which began when we first came to Christ continue through the Christian life as we consecrate ourselves to that holiness movement of God spirited us.
[00:11:29] But it then is made perfect when you get to glory. Part of what it means to be glorified is to be made glorifiable, glorious and Jesus is going to glorify you before He stands you up as an exhibit of His great salvation. For some people the Bible teaches that’s a rather awkward time of being judged and being judged and told off by Jesus, not as a judgment that will make you go to hell or anything, but a judgment that will decide what rewards and in what status you might be in Heaven. There are going to be some people that will be put in charge of twenty-five galaxies that they can trip around in and have – I don’t know about holidays – but they’ll be able to be busy in the Kingdom back in then.
[00:12:19] And there are other people that are going to be given a much less elevated role, but lobby and glory. There is judgment for Christians at that moment and then Jesus is going to finish your sanctification so you can be a trophy worth showing. Did you know all this? Consecrate yourself to it. John chapter 17 says. Now that was my introduction. Sorry, I wanted to talk from the Book of Numbers and the Old Testament because the question arose to me are all Christians on an equal status. The answer is a yes, because at the foot of the cross, the grounding is all level. Nobody’s any different. Every one of us only gets in the door because of the person of Jesus and his death on the cross, and when you come to become a Christian it is a recognition that you can’t do it on
[00:13:22] your own you’ve got nothing to offer I’ve been telling you of one of my I have a favorite songs and when it was little one of them was that one I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger and then another one came about because I was involved in some meetings in Adelaide and one of the fellows who was leading told the congregation in his comparing the words of a song that really captured me and I’ve heard it once before, got him to tell me, but I keep telling you these. I came, how does it go? So I’m getting at the start of it, but it’s talking about the fact of what John Bunyan illustrated in his Pilgrim’s Progress that before Christian could really be Christian, he had to meet up with evangelist, and evangelist showed him a single road that led down to where
[00:14:24] there was a cross. And when Christian knelt at the cross, the burden of his sins fell off his back and down a big hole and he rose and stood and walk the Christian journey. Now in Pilgrim’s Progress it’s a bit of a two-step story because it’s coming to the cross and the end of the walk is to get across Jordan or across the river into heaven. And that song, this beautiful song this compare fella taught me, I knelt in the shadow of Calvary’s cross, ashamed of a lifetime of wanton and loss. My burden was heavy, I’d borne it alone. But now to the Savior, at last I had come. And that’s the first step of salvation of coming to the cross. That’s figurative talk. I don’t know whether in year 12 they taught you about figurative language, it’s when you say something that has an
[00:15:33] altogether deeper metaphorical meaning than just the words. I knelt in the shadow of Calvary’s cross, you don’t have to buy a ticket to Israel. Find out where outside Jerusalem is. There’s no cross there anymore. All the pieces of the cross have been distributed around the world by people who thought they were sacred. They’re not. What there is about the cross is the event that our Savior performed in bearing our sins and figuratively I knelt in the shadow at Calvary’s cross. Ashamed of a lifetime of wanton of loss and every one of us is a sinner who can say that to review whether or not you’re brought up with good family teachings and other outside people mightn’t see what you were but until you come to the cross, there’s nothing worthy of your life before God.
[00:16:36] My burden was heavy because there comes a moment when God’s Spirit speaks to you about your status with Him and the fact that of yourself you are the truth of the scripture for all have sinned in the full and short of the glory of God. You are a sinner, And when that burden comes on you, it’s a heavy burden. My burden was heavy. I bought it alone and there’s nothing more awkward, difficult. Understandably, you feel sorrowful as when you meet up with a religious person who’s trying hard to be better
[00:17:21] or trying hard to bear that burden of an awareness of the weight of their failure. Now I know by looking at the numbers of us here this morning, some of you are just that. It is quite possible to be brought up in a baptist church, or in any church, where you take on board the burden to be better and you might succeed as far as the measurement of the eyes of other humans. But until you’ve come to the cross, you haven’t been relieved of that deepest problem. You’re a person under God who is without Christ, with no hope. In the world the Bible says, Your burden is heavy. Maybe even this morning. Some of you might see yourselves through the eyes of eternity, through the eyes of the angels, through the eyes of the scriptures, through the eyes of the Gospel,
[00:18:28] my burden was heavy. And I bawndled alone but now to the Saviour. At last I had come. That’s step one, and that’s the reason why we’re having a Sun Rally tonight. I don’t know how many outside people will get here, two or three, a few that when we bring our friends or some of us who’ve never actually recognized that the burden’s been heavy and tonight may well get in the door by coming to the cross to Jesus. That’s metaphorical for recognizing you’re a sinner who needs his forgiveness. Well, the second step is the one that I’m trying hard to get on to preach on. And it answers the question as to whether all Christians are equal. Yes, they’re equal as far as the platform of coming under the cross, but are they equal in terms of their walk down the road towards the final moment of glory of getting to heaven?
[00:19:44] The truth of the scripture is, in our verse today, from Numbers 13 and verse 24. What we have up there is the introduction to the story, and I had intended to take you through this. In chapter 13, we have the history outlined of how they had come to that spot called Kaddish Barnia. It’s not a bad name to learn and have in your head. Say with me, please, Kaddish Barnia, Kaddish Barnia. Why? Because the Israelites had to come to that spot twice. It’s only a matter of days from where they’d gotten through the river, the Red Sea.
[00:20:55] And the Egyptians had chased them and all being drowned. And they’d been released from their capture to Egyptians in Egypt. And then they got through the Red Sea. Then they made their journey to what is called Horeb, and Horeb is at the bottom of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai’s the mountain up which Moses went and got the Ten Commandments. And in this period of time, for two years, they actually stayed there camped at Horeb or at the bottom of Mount Sinai if I’ve got my geography right. And this is in the period of time where Moses came with the Ten Commandments and how they had had a bit of a problem with a dance they did
[00:21:44] and when he broke the Ten Commandments and had to get another step. It’s also the period of time where they setup of the Tabernacle. There was no Temple yet that’s to come later in history in Jerusalem but there’s a tabernacle worship that they have. And the purpose was for them to go from Horeb to this town, Kaddishbarnia, where they would crossover the River Jordan into the promise of God. And that was the purpose of God for them, just days away, although maybe weeks I’m not sure exactly how long it would take, to walk that distance through the wilderness to get from Horeb to Kaddishbarnia. But because of what happened in this storyline, they were not allowed to go in and instead of going into the Promised Land, the third step in the New Testament, measures of the
[00:22:42] steps of getting into where God wants you to be. Instead of there going into the Promised Land, they were diverted to go for 40 years through the wilderness. And eventually, as another fresh generation arrived for a second time at and the reason why they had to go for the forty years of wandering in the wilderness so that the entire generation died off and never got to the Promised Land was because of the events of Numbers chapter 13 and 14, which we hear recount. It happened because Moses directed under God for them to choose an important person, a leader, so that their advice would be followed when they came back to one from each tribe, so there were 12 of them, so 12 leaders chosen.
[00:23:43] These were sent out to spy out the land as we had read to us by Cameron, and they were to look and to see what it was like, to see what the people were like, to see what the cities were like, whether they’re just nice little towns or whether they’re fortresses. They were doing a proper job of spying out what it would be like to go in and take over this land, and then they were to come back and they were also given the direction to get some fruit, and a part of fulfilling that thing about the fruit was that they found a spot because it was grape season where they got some grapes, and the way it’s described is that they come back and the fruit of the land, you can see it there on the screen, and that they came back to give their report to the children of Israel, and they brought a big bunch of grapes, and it was so big that they had to carry it with two men with the
[00:24:33] pole in-between, and this great big great cluster on the pole. Now, if it was just a normal size grape, they could have put it in a, no, no plastic bags, but they could have carried it somehow. But it was so large a fruit. They brought back pomegranates and figs and their report was, the lamb was fantastic to visit and they called it a land flowing with milk and honey,
[00:25:00] but they also discovered, and you’ll think, they’ve also discovered, look at verse 25 on the screen. At the end of the 40 days they returned, spying at the land and came to Moses and Aaron and the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation showed them the fruit of the land and they told them, we came to the land which he sent us. It flows with milk and honey which is a metaphor for it’s a lovely land. It’s not just desert. It’s got lots of good stuff and they showed it its fruit.
[00:25:38] they did what people in human nature do many, many times. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. Besides, we saw the descendants of Anak. Don’t look it up now, but in the book of Deuteronomy, it tells about this great enormous giants tribe of people who were meant to be, according to the story line, the offspring of the Angel’s, making love to the women of humans and producing giants. And there was a whole tribe of these enormous creatures, the Amalekites so-called, they dwelled in the land of certain part of where they went, as well as the other tribes that mentioned there and they gave a report that if we go in and try and take this land we’ll get slaughtered by these giants and we’re not strong enough and when
[00:26:44] anybody or when any of us face some difficult thing in our lives and we come to conclusion we’re not strong enough you may be coming to a quite a good estimate I think it’s good for people not to I think they’re so wonderful that everything that they could do it in no problem at all, you know I’ve got the personality, I can do it. It’s good to come to the realization that’s the task ahead of you in being a Christian is bigger than you can manage. For the other half of saying it like that and like these people did when they rejected the reports because they said we can’t take over the land they’re too big.
[00:27:26] it’s fascinating how they saw themselves as being like grasshoppers in the presence of big giants and they brought this negative report and they said if you go down to verse 32 they brought the people of Israel a bad report of the land, verse 32, a bad report the land, you know I’ve seen this happen in churches again and again and again, where we are so quick to turn to the negative, we haven’t got what it takes. Well that’s true but the other half of what they’re doing is saying God you can’t do anything about it. Goodness me! If you were brought out of Egypt by what What happened with the plagues to Egypt and by the angel of death coming over the country and of all the people pushing him out the door if you are bought out of Egypt by that
[00:28:31] miracle of those twelve problems that God brought on Egypt and if you’d gone to the sea and you’re about to cross the Red Sea and Moses put down his rod and the sea divided you went over a relatively, I guess, dry land. And then the Egyptians were there. I just see them, the Egyptians, coming with their wheels of chariots and all the fight and the fury. And they get half way across there when the waters come down, and all those silly old chariots are getting stuck in the mud. And they all get drowned and their bodies are washed up on the other side.” And the Israelites, all they saw of the Egyptians, were their dig corpselets.
[00:29:12] Don’t you think you better not talk about how strong’s the opposition, but you better start thinking how great is our God. A thank you to our musicians this morning. That statistic, radish that you gave us about the faithfulness of God. Are you going to make it to glory? You will but not because of how great you are in your natty personality and your great strength in your learning. But it is because of his faithfulness and greatest lesson that we as Christians can be led to learn is when you stop
[00:29:51] relying on you and you rest in the greatness of God. Is there anything too hard for God? No. You know, try taking that idea into your prayers and when you feel led to ask God for something to happen, he said that’s a pretty difficult, unlikely task. Just say to yourself it’s a quote from the Bible, find it when you get home. Is there anything too great for God, too big for God? That’s what they should have done, and even though they were the giants, it made them feel like like grasshoppers. Look at how the pitiable little immense, the land through which we’ve gone to spire out is a land that devours its inhabitants.
[00:30:49] Ooh. And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. There they’d seen the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who’d come from Nephilim. And we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to them. So they don’t try and take the Promised Land. What a difference that was from the attitude of Jonathan, Saul’s son, David’s friend, who at one stage went with his, you know, there were a bunch of Philistines.
[00:31:30] And he said, the enemy is all around us. Let none escape. The enemy’s all around us. Let none escape because God was on his side. And when, by faith, we rest in the power of our God, if he’s leading us, we can do anything. Doesn’t mean that we propose our plans and try and whistle him up to act as a genie behind them. No, no, no. But when we find what he wants us to do, he will get it done.
[00:32:05] And like I was saying the other week, if you take on something, and it’s just your idea, then he’ll make you pay for the bills. But if he calls you to do it, you can relax back, because he will also pick up the bills. And finding the purpose of God is a need to find His will for you, and to surrender to it.” As in Romans 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren to surrender your body is a living sacrifice. It goes on to say, so you’re proved by surrendering to God, and He will open up the
[00:32:50] doors that he wants for you. well there’s a verse in here, and because of the lights, and because I can’t quite see my Bible to tell you what verse it is, it tells you that there’s one person who’s different and he has a mate. And the two of them are Joshua and Caleb. And Joshua and Caleb, where Joshua is to be the leader of the group who take them in, you know that because Moses isn’t allowed and Joshua takes over. But the one who’s spoken about, who is with him, is in chapter 13 and verse 6, because they chose one leader man from each tribe. He’s got a list of them here in chapter 13, and from the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son
[00:33:41] of Jeff and Nuch, from the tribe of Ishikar, and he goes on to say about where he’s from. And this particular person is described as, over in chapter 14, as being different from the others. In chapter 14 and verse 24, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit, and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went and his descendants shall possess it. And Caleb and Joshua are the only two of that generation who get into the Promised Land. Caleb is noted by the Bible as being different. Are you listening? I think we’re all of the same level at the foot of the cross, but I don’t think we all
[00:34:45] end up exactly the same in the way the Bible is describing Caleb, and it actually tells us why he’s different. And I’ve been thinking of my sermon this morning, and I haven’t left myself much time to give it. But I want to tell you in brief form the ways that Caleb was different. And the first one, the text says here that he was fully surrendered to the Lord. And I believe of all of my heart that there is a Christian experience, Christian happening, I’m not sure what word to use. I don’t necessarily mean an emotional feeling. I’m not necessarily meaning to be at a time when, you know,
[00:35:31] you hear a voice behind the clouds, or something happens. I’m not meaning experience in the sense of, this is experiential and not intellectual. I’m meaning there is a happening. There is something that can occur. Here’s the word experienced in that sense. When you come to the point of telling Jesus he’s got the lot of you, and you hand over to him all that you are and tell him he can have the lot, to be fully surrendered is when you give yourself entirely
[00:36:13] stop keeping a little reservation as to what career you’re going to pick. I had to have knocked out of me all my choices for what I wanted to do in my life. But it then led to there being a Christian camp where the visiting speaker spoke on God as having a will and a purpose and that I should give in to the will and the purpose. It’s like God has a big computer. The big computer has got many little intricate parts and if you give God time and you surrender to Him to make the choices, He will make you into a very special little part most necessary than the big computer. This was at an era when people had computers, they’d fill up a whole room back when I was a young man, and he gave this analogy.
[00:37:15] But then he’d finish it by saying, but if you don’t, and you just keep to yourself the right to plan your way, the best that he could be going to make of you is the piece of the cardboard at the back. Boy, that was a telling impact on me. And that youth camp… I told the Lord that he could have everything. And I think it makes a difference and it’s a difference made Caleb. He was fully prepared to follow the Lord. Now one way he was fully prepared to follow the Lord
[00:37:54] was to follow him all his life. And you’ll often meet Christians, some of whom have had a start, but then they got into business And excuse me, they got into making money, and they had a 10 years that they were a bit off the game, spiritual wise. That’s not following the Lord all your life, holding the Lord all your life is when you give in a lot. And I met and I’ve told you this before.
[00:38:22] That’s one of my little illustrations I like. In Wheaton College, I met a man, he was an Italian man, and he was one of these people that had dedicated his life to finding out what Christianity was and to search the truth and to really find and study the Bible. And he set up his life to be 1-third of it, finding out what Christianity really is. Then the second third of it was to give himself training so he could serve the Lord somewhere, somehow. That’s the second step.
[00:38:56] And in the third part of his life, and he had his zero to – I can’t remember the turning points, zero to 30 for finding out the truth, and then 30 to 45 or something to being trained, and then the rest of the time to use those skills to serve Jesus. Sometimes the Lord steps in and He doesn’t let you do it the way you think He can plan it, so I haven’t heard whether He managed to do the turning points at the right year, But that fellow was planning to follow Jesus all his life. He gave him his entire life. A great challenge to me that I wasn’t wasting my time. I traveled overseas and I was doing study and the study that I did, both in Dallas and up in Wheaton grad school, you get the benefit of. because I have the help of that background of being able to go to the Scriptures
[00:39:59] and to be able to bring out what it means. And our church has the benefit of it, but I didn’t know where that would land me. I just followed the pattern, not the division of the years, but to find out what the truth is, to then train yourself in something. And it will be different things for different people. And I’ve noticed for those who do serve the Lord that it’s really fascinating when they give their testimonies
[00:40:29] of where they’ve come from. You can hear that God has stepped in and given them a training, and for different people coming to serve the Lord it can be very different fellows who are an engineer and ends up being a pastor, but what does he do in the church? But he gets at the part of the church all decked out using his engineering skills.
[00:40:48] or a man who was very good in there in another industry. I saw an Aboriginal man who was an evangelist and I watched him on the airplane as we went to Amsterdam one time. And he rounded up all the hosties, all the girls and he had a background where his training was getting on with people, different types, for particularly helping the women. But he was just fantastic, he got a lot of them, and witness to them on the plane. And when we got to Amsterdam and others of us were getting to live, where we’re going to be staying, he went and found the red light districts and witnessed all the prostitutes. That way they do it in Amsterdam,
[00:41:34] I won’t bother telling you, but they have this thing of shining a light out the window and the men go walking by and go walking in. Well he went and walking in, but he went and witnessed to them and he’s background that God had given him prepared him as he’s passed away now. He’s a man that God just blessed. But it was such a humble way and such a beautiful way as he brought the gospel to people, but it was with a skill that God had taught him across time, are you giving God the
[00:42:03] time to train you for what you’ll do the rest of your life? It’s what it means to follow the Lord all your life, to be fully surrendered. Just to give yourself to him, for what he will make of you, it’s a step of full surrender. So all being fully surrender can mean all your life. It can also mean that you have a personality, a personality that is prepared to not be someone that compartmentalises. You have your Sundays and you go and you join the youth group or you join the ladies group or you have your time to go and to be amongst the Christians. But you have another you. It might be at school and there you’re amongst the popular kids. Or you might have another you! So you’re amongst the businessman who’s really
[00:42:58] getting the money raking in… number of compromises you’ve got to make along the way to stay in that group. But there’s so many of us Christians who don’t fully follow the law, because we follow him with our religious side. But we’re different out in the other places and one of the reasons why people have no witness at all, because when the worldly people spot, you’re not the same with them as you are. When you say you go to church, oh you’re not the same all the time. It’s amazing how the non-Christian world can spot someone who’s not consistent all the time through. But the Scriptures have a third thing to say in our passage about Caleb, not only that he followed the law but it says he had, listen, it’s in that verse I read to you from chapter 14, And what makes a person effective is not what you bring to the combination of you and God,
[00:44:01] that’s what God brings. It is the Holy Spirit. And when you seek to be spiritual, you find that not an easy thing to chase because it’s we naturally have what the Bible calls the flesh which is our a fallen part that will be changed when you get to heaven. You have a bit of a struggle between the flesh and the spirit reading the Book of Galatians, is what it’s all about but in the Book of Galatians in chapter five or I’ve just mentioned chapter five. If you go there, you’ll read it about learning how to walk after the spirit. It’s the phrase or the, is that the clause?
[00:44:38] Walk after the spirit, it’s a clause. and J.I. Packo translated it, keep in step with the spirit. I thought it’s rather a rash of him to make it sound so different, but then I realised that keeping in step with the spirit, you know this business is the same thing as walking. But the idea of walk after the spirit is that you do it to keep in step with what the spirit is leading.
[00:45:04] It’s being filled with the spirit as the Ephesians words it. When you’re filled with the spirit it is letting the spirit somehow be in the control. And to be someone who is yielded to Jesus is someone who lets his Spirit is taking over you, and it’s a part of what you do as you grow, and go through sanctification, that you learn how to let the Holy Spirit. It has a lot to do with study of the Scriptures. It has a lot to do with prayer. I have to learn a hard way. all these lessons I want to tell you that it’s very easy to run with your
[00:45:39] personality strengths, or to be miserable without them. But when you come on turn to God and he somehow brings you to a point of realizing that you don’t have in your humanness what will really make the grade that he has, by the Holy Spirit. And when in that moment of desperation, if you want to know this, This happened to me when I had to go out west, and people kept telling me I was so uptight. One man told me, I visited the town, I had him for lunch, help him out. He told me I was the most uptight person he’d ever met. He went away, and that made me feel miserable.
[00:46:24] And then I went to college, and one of the students told me the same thing, I’d never make it in relation. Because it’s meant to be a matter of relationships, and I wasn’t good at them. But Jesus can. And when you learn the lesson that you can’t, maybe, but Jesus can, and you throw over your trust to be by what he does, there happens. It’s an occurrence. I want to say experience, but you might think I mean emotional. I don’t. Emotions only follow, but there’s a happening of the Holy Spirit. And when he moves, you realize that you’ve been made into someone more spiritual. And Caleb, though it’s Old Testament, he didn’t have the indwelling of that Spirit that we have when we respond to the Gospel in the New Covenant era. But he
[00:47:29] had the Spirit with him, as did other people at different times in the Old Testament. He was a spiritual person. If someone were to give an account of you, would they… You know, and sometimes as pastors, we get asked to give references. We naturally think our people are wonderful, so we give good ones. But are you a person whom the Spirit has a grip on and other people around you sense the Holy Spirit through you? Caleb was and he and Joshua eventually after 40 years of going through the wilderness with the Israelites who rejected so they all died except for them. Do you know what God allowed? Joshua and Caleb when they were in their 80’s walked up to the low walk up a mountain and God can sometimes overrule the normal kitting oldness if he needs to. And Joshua and Caleb he kept them so
[00:48:43] So when they got back to Kadhish Southeast and the time came, Joshua could lead them in. And the time came that Katie Carpenter was the only other adult man who went in, who worker for the first time. And it was because he was a spiritual man, aren’t all Christians equal? Well, in terms of spirituality, that depends on whether you learn to fully, wholly follow the Lord. Let us pray. Oh, my Father, I thank you for the Word of God. I thank you for the storyline in Numbers 13 and 14, and about Caleb, and that you give
[00:49:37] testimony to one of your own that he was a man with a different spirit. He fully followed the Lord. And Lord, I pray that you would make us such persons, too. I ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.