The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise, the praise of my God and King, the triumph of His grace. This is LeSaire Bradley, Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. I'm glad you joined us for the broadcast today and pray that the message will be a blessing to you. We would appreciate it if you would take time to write us and let us know that you have listened.
And if you can help us with the support of this broadcast, we'll certainly be grateful for it. Our mailing address is Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. And we invite you to go to our website at BaptistBibleHour.org. There you can read The Baptist Witness.
And if you'd like, make a donation to the broadcast there. It's always been a great blessing in a time of crisis when a forceful leader has come forward, given people the courage to do the right thing. As we examine the Scriptures, we see that there were those seasons when God withdrew effective leadership from His people.
This was a judgment because of their sin and rebellion. But at other times there were men and sometimes women in place who arose to fill a much needed position. Whether we think of Joshua, a man of courage, or we think of Esther who risked her life to see that her own people were spared. We think of those who were wonderfully used of God in some special and unique situations.
Today I want us to talk about one of those men. We turn to the book of Numbers chapter 14 and read about a man named Caleb who we will describe as being an example for the times. Surely we are living in challenging times.
In many ways they are evil days. The influence of the world seems to be taking its toll in the lives of many professed Christians. Some who have in times past indicated a willingness to stand firm for the fundamental principles of Scripture, show signs of weakening and turning away from the faith. We consequently need men of leadership and courage. Men who will fill the role of guiding God's people in the right direction. It's wonderful when we can see some examples from Scripture that will give us both guidance, instruction, and courage to fill that role that we ought to occupy. So in Numbers chapter 14 of the 24th verse it says, But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land where into he went and his seed shall possess it.
Here we find a man who was a great example, a courageous leader, and one that we should certainly try to emulate in our lives today. The first thing that is said about Caleb is that he had another spirit. Caleb was a man who looked past the immediate obstacles and dangers.
It is so easy for all of us to see those difficulties in life as being insurmountable objects. It is so easy for us to be gripped with fear, to hold back when we ought to be moving forward, failing to stand when we ought to be bold, but this man looked past all of those obstacles. Numbers chapter 13, we read beginning with the 25th verse. Twelve men had been sent as spies into the land of Canaan. God by covenant had promised this land to his people long ago. Now they have the opportunity to enter it and the spies are sent in to bring back a report about the condition of the land.
Verse 25 says, And they returned from searching of the land after forty days. And they told him and said, We came unto the land whither thou sent us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. 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.
This twelve man committee comes back to make their report. They are all agreed that it is a good land. They agreed that it is a land that flows with milk and honey.
But ten of those men focus on the difficulties that they observed. They said, The cities are walled and very great, and we saw the children of Anak there. We saw giants in the land.
The Amalekites dwell in the land to 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. What are they looking at? They are looking at the perceived danger.
They are looking at the enemy. They are assuming that it is going to be impossible for these people who have been so long in bondage to enter the land and claim their possessions. 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.
What was Caleb doing? Looking past what seemed to be an impossible situation. Looking past the circumstances of the hour.
How often are you possessed of that same spirit when it says that Caleb had another spirit? Or do you find yourself thinking like the rest of the world thinks? You look at a problem, you do not see an immediate solution, and you say, Well, I give up. You see the darkness of the time, you see the evil and corruption of our day, and you become terribly disheartened. You see this problem and that in your life, and you are ready to fold it all up and say, What is the use? I look back over the past, I see failure, I look at the challenges of the present and the future, I see that I just cannot make it, I am too weak.
And you are ready to give up. But Caleb said, Let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it. But the man that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched under 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 we saw in it are men of great stature. If you go into that land, you will just be eaten alive. No way you can go over there and survive.
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. That is a pretty bleak picture, isn't it? You come back to report to a nation of people, there are women and children in this group, people are concerned about their safety. And so here are these men who have spent 40 days over there searching it out.
This is an eyewitness report that they are bringing back. You know that is why we sent these men over there, we want to get a report, this is the report, we better listen to it. Just wouldn't make good sense to try to take that land and endanger our families. Haven't you sometimes reasoned in that vein? You see something that is commanded in scripture.
You see something that you as a Christian ought to do. But you begin to make the excuses about why it just won't work. And you say, well at this particular time it is just not reasonable.
It is not logical. Think of the danger that I am going to be facing. Think of the sacrifices that I am going to have to make. If I do the right thing, what is it going to do to me financially? What is it going to do as far as my future plans? What is it going to do as far as my friendships?
Are people going to reject me because I take this stand? See, Caleb was a man that looked past all of that. He looked past the walled cities. He looked past the giants. Others said, well we were like grasshoppers in the sight of these giants.
Caleb saw that God was bigger than the giants. Oh, that we today might be men and women, boys and girls of faith. Where we always see God bigger than our problems.
How has it been with you just in the past few days? Have there been times when your problems have been so overwhelming? They have weighted you down so heavily that that's been your total focus. You haven't thought about the greatness of God. You haven't thought about the promises of God. You haven't thought about what He is able to do for you. You have thought about yourself, your problems.
And you have become consumed with fear and doubt and worry and therefore have been extremely ineffective in doing the things that you ought to be doing on a daily basis. Caleb was not a man possessed of the spirit of fear because he believed in God. You see, he looked to God's purpose and God's power. In the 14th chapter of the 8th verse, when for the second time he tries to encourage the people to go in the right direction, he said, If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it us a land which floweth with milk and honey. I don't think the word if there is a word of doubt because the context reveals that he was a man who had absolute confidence in God. But I think it's a mark of his humility.
He wasn't being demanding. He recognized God as the sovereign and in control. But he is saying, If the Lord delight in us, He will bring us into the land. In other words, we are looking to the Lord as our source of help.
God is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. You would think that it would have been easy for a lot of other people to have stood right with Caleb at this time because these were people that knew something about the power of God. These are people who had been delivered from Egyptian bondage by the Lord's mighty hand. These are people who had seen the waters of the Red Sea parted so that they were able to cross. You would think now, surely they will believe that whatever the problem, no matter how high that walled city might be, God is able to bring it down.
But no, they are gripped with fear. Has that not often been the case with you? You forget about your deliverances of the past. You forget about what God's already done for you. You forget about how many times he's led you through the chilly waters and brought you safely out on the other side. You forget about the time he stood with you in the fiery furnace. You forget about the time that you couldn't see any solution at all and God miraculously intervened and turned things around. You saw times when you just did not have the strength.
You said, I can't make it another day. And although he didn't change the circumstances, he changed you and he gave you grace sufficient for the trial. Have you forgotten all of that?
Oh, may we be reminded of his mercies which are new every morning. One quality about this man who is an example for our times is that he was willing to stand with the minority. So many times people seem to be of the persuasion that the majority must be right. What I believe must be right, look at how many people agree with me. Look at what the educators of our time are saying. Look at what the philosophers say. Look at what this notable authority has written, this must be right. This is the way most people think.
There's a desire to fit in. But he was willing to stand with a few. We see in the sixth verse of this chapter that reference is made to Joshua and to Caleb. They were the ones who had searched out the land and now upon hearing the response of the people, they rent their clothes.
Out of the twelve men who went in, only two, Joshua and Caleb, said, let's go up at once and take it. Now how do you make your decisions? Do you kind of wait to hear what other people are going to say and try to find out how they think? Because you don't want to stick out like a sore thumb. You don't want to be different. You don't want your friends to criticize you. You don't want to be ostracized.
You don't want to look like a religious fanatic. So you check it out to see how the tide is flowing and then you voice your opinion. Not so with Caleb. It didn't matter to him how many other opinions might be voiced. It didn't matter to him how many other people on the committee might have a different thought.
It didn't matter to him that the whole nation basically stood against him. He was going to stand for what he believed was right. Are you willing to take that kind of a stand today? What about you young people? You're faced with many challenges today. Sometimes your friends can have undue influence over you. You want to conform your thinking, your conduct, to what is acceptable among your peers. Or sometimes young people say, I tell you I'm my own person. I want to be independent. But it becomes very evident that that independence is limited by the attitudes and opinions of friends.
I only want to be independent from mother and father. I want to fit in with my friends. I want to be accepted. So I want to go where they go, talk like they talk, dress like they dress, think like they think. I want to fit in.
I want to be one of them. What about you at work? It's one thing to come to church, be in the company of people that all believe essentially the same thing, and be very bold. I mean you can sit at the table in the fellowship hall and take all kinds of courageous stands about what you know to be the truth.
But how is it when you get out on the job? How is it when you're asked to participate in something that you really have some concern about? You're put into a program that espouses some idea that you know just is not right. How are you going to respond to that? I've talked to young people who have faced many of these things as they embark upon a particular career and find out that the basic thinking is so foreign to what they believe the Scriptures teach that it's taken a tremendous amount of courage for them to stand and in some cases could well have jeopardized the pursuit of that which they desired to be a part of.
In other words, the profession was legitimate, but much of the humanistic thinking attached to it today was foreign to Scripture. Now are you one of those who say, well, I want to have a personal quiet faith. I don't want to be one that speaks out. I don't want to be one that has to undergo criticism. Or do you have boldness because of your walk and fellowship with Jesus Christ that you are willing to stand? Do we not need young people?
Do we not need families? Do we not need people of all ages today that are courageous as Caleb was, willing to stand with the few? Not only was he willing to be a part of the minority report, he was bold enough also to give a warning as in verse 9. Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land, for they are bred for us. Their defense is departed from them and the Lord is with us.
Fear them not. How often are you willing to give somebody a warning? I'm not talking about becoming a legalist. I'm not talking about being a self-righteous Pharisee, going around condemning everybody else. But how often are you willing right in your own household, right among your own friends, right in your own church to give a warning when it's in order to do so? He says, only rebel not against the Lord. When you see somebody that has turned in the wrong direction, somebody who has embraced an idea or an activity that you see to be directly in rebellion against what the Word of God teaches, how do you respond to it? Well, sometimes people say, well, I'm praying for them.
That's fine, but that's not enough. Caleb didn't just say, I'm going to pray for you people that you'll have a change of heart. Caleb warned them, only rebel not against the Lord.
And he didn't come at them as though this is my own personal opinion and I want you to conform to my way of thinking. He says, my concern is about your relationship with the Lord. If you rebel at this point, it's not just that you've rejected my report.
It's not just that you have rejected me. You have rebelled against God. And so he says, their defense is departed. The Lord is with us and the defense that these our enemies had is gone.
God has removed it from them. The Lord is with us and so you need not fear. Are you courageous today to give warnings where they ought to be given? Sometimes that warning may be necessary for your own companion, your own wife or husband may need to be admonished lovingly according to biblical principles, your own children, some other family members.
People who are your dearest friends say, well I don't want to jeopardize the friendship. Are you most concerned about that which honors God or maintaining the status quo among your friends? Caleb was a man who put God first and not only so, he was willing to take a stand in spite of the danger in which that placed him. Verse 10 says, but all the congregation bade stone them with stones. You talk about a violent reaction. I mean they didn't just say, now Caleb, you know we love you a lot, but we just think you're a little off track here and we're not going to follow your report. I mean you've got to understand that these people were worked up to a frenzy. Fear gripped them and when people are full of fear they'll do a lot of strange things. And here were people that claimed to love God and want to honor God and serve God were identified as God's people. But now when Joshua and Caleb are recommending that they go up and take the land and they see that it is going to jeopardize their safety, they believe that it could endanger the lives of their children, they see that they can suffer many losses. We're not going to do it.
It's not just a matter of saying we're not comfortable with it. We're ready to stone these men that have given this report. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel. If the Lord had not intervened by his glory appearing in the tabernacle it may well have been that they would have fallen through and destroyed these men, Moses included, getting rid of their leaders because they talked in terms of appointing another leader that they might go back.
How preposterous! To think of a people who had suffered all those years in bondage had now been delivered by the mighty hand of God. And rather than moving forward, accepting the challenge in front of them and believing that God was able to intervene, they were ready to risk all the dangers of going back, subjecting themselves again to being slaves, not knowing what Pharaoh's reaction would be and what would overcome them there. You say, well, I just can't imagine people thinking like that. But before you're too quick, have you ever thought a little bit in those terms? You've thought about giving up.
You've thought about turning back. You've said this matter of trying to serve God is too hard. And I have to listen to biblical preaching all the time.
If I could go someplace to hear some nice uplifting little dissertations that make me feel good about myself, I might be able to handle that. But this thing of always being brought under conviction, always having to face my sin and my fault and my failure, all this thing of self-examination, I'm really not comfortable with that. Oh, that we might be willing to stand. Caleb was willing to stand in spite of the jeers and insults of the congregation. In spite of the fact that they were ready to take up stones and stone him, he was still willing to stand. So not only did we find that he had another spirit, but according to the text, verse 24, it says that he hath followed me fully.
Caleb followed the Lord fully. He was obedient in contrast to the rebellion of the multitude. Look at chapter 14 and the first verse. And all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God we had died in this wilderness? I want to tell you the sin of murmuring may be looked upon lightly by many people today.
God does not look on it lightly. According to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10, there were thousands of his own people that were overthrown and died in the wilderness, and the charge is they were murmurers. They complained. They fretted. They were not satisfied with what God had given them.
So they are complaining. Oh, it would have been better if we had died in the land of Egypt. Oh, if we had just died in the wilderness.
Oh, everything is out of place. Who would have ever thought? Have to come to this horrible circumstance. Never thought I would live to see a day like this. Our life is in jeopardy. Oh, if we had just died a long time ago.
Terrible, terrible, terrible. And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall with the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? Now they are blaming it all on the Lord. Why did the Lord do this to us anyway? Why did the Lord bring us out here to this place just to let us be consumed?
Oh, this is terrible. You see, all murmuring ultimately gets back really to a complaint against God. You may start out complaining about people and about circumstances, but what you are really saying is, Lord, I am not happy with the providence that has unfolded in my own life. I really think, Lord, that I was entitled to something better. I should have had smoother sailing in my life. It just does not seem fair. In fact, you may reason that you know of people who are really not as good as you are. They really do not live up to the high marks that you reach, and yet they seem to have an easier time than you do, and you are kind of upset about it.
It is just not fair. I do not understand it. Lord, why have you brought me to this place? And they said to one another, let us make a captain and let us return to Egypt.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the congregation of the children of Israel. You see, he was obedient while others were in a state of rebellion. The whole multitude rebellious.
What a terrible spirit. It is the spirit of rebellion. God says, enter the land. This is your land.
I gave it to your fathers by covenant many years ago. What do they say? We will not enter in. We are not going to do it.
Oh, they felt like their excuse was justifiable. We are afraid. We are in danger. Our life is in jeopardy. How could we be expected to go forward and subject our own wives and children to this kind of danger?
No, we cannot do it. When God in His Word clearly enjoins you to take a particular course of action and you rebel, oh, in your mind you may have justifiable reasons. Look at this. Look at how I would be jeopardizing myself. Look at how I would suffer reprisal. Look how I would have financial losses.
Look how I would lose friends. All of this, you make excuses. But it still comes down to rebellion. God says, do one thing, and you say, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do something else. For still our ancient foe Does seek to work us woe His wrath and power are great And armed with cruel hate Old earth is not his equal Well, if we reach a place that we're faltering and failing to move ahead as the Lord has bidden us in His Word, we don't like to think about that as rebellion.
But that's really what it is. If God says, move in a certain direction, He expects us to do it. And even though we sense our weakness, we can remember I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.
Again, I urge you to write us and mention the call letters of the station over which the program has come to you. Until next week, at this same time, may the Lord richly bless you all. Christ Jesus, it is He Lord Sabbath is His name From age to age the same And He must win the battle The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. Address all mail to the Baptist Bible Hour Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's the Baptist Bible Hour Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. And though this world with evil fear Should threaten to undo us We will not fear, for God hath with His truth To triumph through us The free
