We're turning together this evening in God's Word to the book of Joshua and to the chapter 14. The book of Joshua and the chapter 14. Come to God's Word this evening, and the Lord has laid this portion upon my heart for tonight, and I want to read from Joshua chapter 14. We're breaking into the chapter of the sixth verse. They have come in here to the promised land and coming to the point where that land is being distributed, the various portions. And we break in here in Joshua 14 and the verse 6. Then the children of Judah came on to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the kin as eight said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God, concerning me and thee in Kedesh Barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kedesh Barnea to espy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. 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 swore on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon my feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord 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 unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet, I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war both to go out and to come in. Now therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day. For thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron, therefore, became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kennesite, on to this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kerjeth Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakims, and the land had rest from war. Amen. We'll end our Bible reading there at the end of the chapter. And may the Lord bless His Word to our hearts this evening. I would like to take as my text tonight the words that are found there in the eighth verse. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. And particularly those words at the end of the verse, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. Let's just unite together in a word of prayer. Our gracious God and our loving Heavenly Father, we do thank Thee this evening that we're found in Thy house. We do praise Thee, our Father, for Thy presence with us and for all that has gone before. We do thank Thee, our Father, for the singing of Thy praise. We do thank Thee, our God, for the messages and song. We do praise Thee for the rapport and the challenge that we've heard of the work of God in Argentina. And we thank Thee, our Father, for Thy Word tonight. We praise Thee that we have that more sure word of prophecy to turn to. And we ask tonight, our Father, that it might be a word in season to each of our hearts, that Thou wouldst help us, our Father, in our walk with Thee. And may we know what it is to follow after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Do bless our hearts and abide with us now, we ask it in the Saviour's great name. Amen. or someone. Some people would follow sports very avidly. They may have their particular team, whether it's rugby or football or some other kind of sport. Some people would perhaps follow more the politics and the current affairs of the day. Some people follow the world's music or the world's fashion or they follow after a particular line of career or business. But here in this portion of Scripture, we're coming across an individual who followed the Lord. And of course, that is Caleb. And it is said in the Word of God of Joshua and of Caleb that these two men together Holy followed the Lord. The two men go back a long way. Joshua and Caleb were the only two men from that previous generation who would enter into the promised land. There was a whole generation that died in the wilderness during the forty years of wandering. But these two men would have the privilege of entering into the land of Canaan and actually possessing that land. And the question would arise this evening, well, why only these two men? Why Joshua and Caleb? Why is it that they were allowed to enter into the promised land and the others perished in the wilderness? It was for this reason they wholly followed The Lord. These men were marked out. They had that particular characteristic. This was their testimony. And there's a three-fold witness here in our Bible reading to the fact that this man, Caleb, wholly followed the Lord. You can see it in our text at the end of verse 8. Words that are similar also appear at the end of verse 9. Because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And words appear at the end of verse 14. Because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And so the words being spoken of Caleb, they mark him out, they distinguish him, they identify him as an individual who wholly followed the Lord. And it will be good this evening to some degree and measure at least, if each one of us could wholly follow the Lord. I want to briefly look here at Caleb as an example to us tonight and also perhaps as a challenge to each of our hearts. And I have three very simple points to leave before you tonight. Firstly, Caleb's following the Lord. Very clearly in the words that we have been reading, you can see this testimony. He says of himself, But I wholly followed the Lord my God. And the words there of her text are spoken by Caleb himself. Verse 9, the words there that are repeated are actually a quotation from Moses. And the words that we refer to in verse 14 is that testimony of Joshua himself when he is speaking of Caleb and he is saying that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And so you have that three-fold testimony. The personal testimony of Caleb himself, you have that supported by the witness of Moses and also by Joshua himself. Here was a man who followed the Lord. Now, there is further testimony in God's Word that Caleb followed the Lord. If you were to go back in your Bible to Numbers chapter 14, you would see that there is reference here to this same individual Caleb. In Numbers chapter 14 and verse 24, it says, But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and had followed me fully, Him will I bring into the land whereinto he went, and his seed shall possess it." Now the difference here is that it is the Lord who is the speaker. And the Lord is saying in Numbers 14 and verse 24, My servant Caleb, And so you not only have Caleb's own testimony that is supported by Moses and by Joshua, here's the Lord speaking about this man. And the Lord is saying of Caleb, He's My servant. He had another spirit with him and he hath fully followed Me. Also in the book of Numbers, chapter 32, verses 11 and 12. Numbers 32, verses 11 and 12. And here we see that it is the Lord again who is speaking. Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward shall see the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me. Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kennesite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord. And it is the Lord Himself who is bearing witness here concerning the two men, Caleb and Joshua, and He is saying they have wholly followed the Lord. And in the book of Deuteronomy, the very first chapter, and in verse 36 of that first chapter, We could take verse 35 to make the connection again. Similar words. Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land which I swear to give to your fathers, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord. And there's the third time. the third time that the Lord Himself bears witness to this fact, that here was a man who wholly followed Him. And therefore, Scripture leaves us in no doubt concerning Caleb. Six times in all, once by Himself as He testifies, the other by Moses, then by Joshua, and three times by the Lord, giving six in all, that here was a man who followed the Lord. And it wouldn't have been easy to follow the Lord as Caleb did. You think that all that he would have come through since Israel were redeemed out of Egypt, the crossing there of the Red Sea, and then the time that was spent in the wilderness and the wanderings there and the various trials that they would have come across in the wilderness. At times, they were thirsty. They thought they were going to perish. At other times, they were hungry. And yet there in the wilderness, they're proving the Lord. And all the way, Caleb's following. Caleb's following the Lord. Caleb was there when they entered into the Promised Land, when they crossed the River Jordan and the battles that had to be fought as they entered into the Promised Land. He was there at Jericho and he's following the Lord. There around the walls of that city, Caleb is following the Lord. whenever they went into battle at Ai. And of course, at first they were defeated there. Then there was the eventual victory at Ai. Caleb's following the Lord. You think of the confederacy of the Canaanite kings that would come to stand against Israel. Caleb's following the Lord. So it wasn't easy. When we think of a man who was following His name really isn't a very flattering one, the name Caleb. In the original language it means dog. And yet today if we were to think of the dog, the dog is known for being a faithful follower of its master. And here we have Caleb and he certainly demonstrates that he's faithfully following the Lord his God. And the application that would flow from that to us this evening is that the Lord would be calling upon us to follow Him. Every generation of God's people are called to follow Him. You remember when the Saviour in the New Testament, the Gospels relate to us how He was walking there by the Sea of Galilee and He saw Peter and Andrew and they were casting their net into the sea. And the Lord in Matthew 4.19 called out to them and He said to them, Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men. Follow Me. Remember Matthew himself, Levi as he was, sitting at the receipt of custom. And the Saviour passed by. Mark chapter 2 and the verse 14. The Lord said, follow me. And it tells us, and he arose and followed him. He arose and followed him. But you know, following the Lord is not going to be easy. In fact, in following the Lord, we're told that we have to take up our cross. There will be the difficulties, there will be the trials, there will be the struggles. And in Matthew chapter 16 and the verse 24, then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. You see what it involves to follow the Lord. Any man, any woman, will come after me, they must first deny themselves. Self must be kneeled to the tree. Deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Following the Lord will be bearing a cross, standing for the Lord, bearing reproach for the Lord Jesus Christ, but there has to be that willingness to follow after the Lord. I often think of Blaine Bartimaeus, He sat by the highwayside and he heard the Lord. He heard the commotion. And he's told perhaps it's the Lord Jesus Christ. And as he realizes it's the Lord, he cries out to the Lord for mercy. Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And the disciples tried to quieten him down, but he cried out all the more. And the Lord said to the disciples, bring him to me. And the disciples came to Blaine Bartimaeus. And he said to him, Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. Those words are special to me. It was through those words that the Lord confirmed my call to the ministry, to go into the study of the Whitefield College of the Bible. Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee. Of course, the Lord was to do that great miracle. He was to give Bartimaeus his sight. And whenever the Lord had healed him, the Lord said to him, Go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole. You know what it says of Bartimaeus? He followed Jesus in the way. The Lord had said to him, Go thy way, but the Bible tells us that he followed Jesus in the way. And surely that's what the Lord requires of us today. With all of the tests and trials and all of the temptations and all of the difficulties, the Lord would call upon us to follow Him. Remember in John chapter 21, the Lord had come to Peter there. Peter was restored unto the Lord in the shores of Galilee. The Lord was saying to Peter, Love us, though me. Three times He asked him it. And then in that chapter as well, Peter, The Lord will reveal to him how he would suffer and how he would be martyred for the cause of Christ. But he said this to Peter, follow me, follow me. And immediately the Lord said that. We read in Peter turning about, he turned away from the Lord and he looked at another. Then he asked the Lord a question. He said, but Lord, what shall this man do? He was looking to John and he wanted to know what John was going to do. And the Lord gave a gentle rebuke there to Peter. He said to him, What is that to thee? Follow thou me. Follow thou me. And that's what the Lord wants His people to do. Not to look to see what others are doing or to see what the crowd is going to do, but what we are going to do. The Lord calls us individually to be followers and know that we would follow Him no matter what others are doing. Let us follow the Lord. And so we see the example here, Caleb. and his following. But secondly, I want you to notice Caleb's faithfulness to the Lord. Because these words in our text, he says, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. Not just that he followed the Lord, but the detail is there that he wholly followed the Lord. And it speaks to us of one who is completely given over, not holding anything back, but there's that entire devotion and that consecration to the Lord. And Caleb was one who proved that over many years that he wholly followed. There's a reference to time in the portion of Scripture that we have read. And you can see in the verse 7, for example, and he's referring back in his life and he said, 40 years old was I. And he's looking back to the time when he was 40 years of age. And if you compare that reference to verse 10, where he brings it up to the present, and he says, And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. So we could look back to the time when he was 40 years of age, and now he's able to speak about being 85 years of age. And therefore, we can see here, for 45 years at least, he was holy, following the Lord. That's a good testimony. That's a powerful testimony to be wholly following the Lord for that length of time or even more. And it testifies here of the Lord's mercy, because as he looks back over those 45 years, he's saying, the Lord has kept me alive. It's the Lord's mercy. All through that time in the wilderness, all through the trials and the temptation, through the battles there and everything that we've had to face, the Lord has kept me. He wants to testify of that. A generation died in unbelief, but the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, 45 years. Notice in that 10th verse, towards the end of it, he uses the word low. Low I am this day, four score and five years old. As if he can hardly believe it. He looks back over 45 years and he's thinking, where did that time go? And he knows now that the time has come where the Lord is going to fulfill the Word and fulfill the promise that he gave to him all those years before. And we have read of the Lord's Word in Numbers 14 and verse 24 where the Lord gave him the promise there that he and his seed would possess the land. And Caleb has held on to that promise. He has trusted the Lord. And for 45 years, he has never let go of that promise. And he sees now the Lord is going to fulfil it. But he never forgot it. He never forgot it. We look at verse 6 where we took up our Bible reading. Then the children of Judah came on to Joshua in Gilgal and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the chemist said unto him, and this is Caleb speaking to Joshua, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kedesh Barnea. Joshua, You know the thing that the Lord said? He said it to the two of us. And Caleb is able to take him back 45 years to a Word that the Lord had given him. Taking him back to a promise that the Lord has given him. A Word that he had never forgotten. A Word that he had carried with him for 45 years. It's good to get a Word from the Lord like that, isn't it? A Word that will not fail. A Word that you can hold on to. A Word that will carry you day by day and week by week and even year by year. A Word upon which we can stake our whole eternity. Isn't it good to have a Word like that from the Lord? You know, to get that Word today, you need to take up the Bible. You need to open up the Scriptures to allow the Lord to speak to our hearts. Today's the day of gadgets, isn't it? With all these mobile phones and these tablets and computers and all sorts of things, and they have their place. But sometimes we get so consumed with those things and all of the latest updates or posts or whatever it is, we don't take time today with the Word to sit down and to read and to pray over the Scriptures and to get that Word from the Lord, to see what the Lord would say to us. Caleb was able to say to Joshua, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord saith. The Lord had spoken. And such was the word to Caleb's heart. He wholeheartedly followed the Lord on the strength of that word for 45 years plus. Caleb is claiming the promise now. When he comes to verse 12, he's saying to Joshua, Now therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day. For thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me. and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord saith." And it's all there according to the Lord's Word. He knows that the Lord will keep His Word and that the Lord will fulfil that Word. And remember here, he's an octogenarian. He's 85 years of age. Maybe it's good just to take a moment to pay tribute to those who are into their 80s. or even into their nineties. I was with a lady this afternoon and it was her birthday. I think she's 95 years of age, a faithful follower of the Lord. And you know, as she sat and chatted, she was paying tribute to the Lord and kept saying, it's the Lord's mercy. It's only by the grace of God. You know, whenever you have those in their eighties and nineties who have been following the Lord for many, many years, what an example they are. What an inspiration they ought to be to the up-and-coming generation that have been following the Lord for a lifetime. It's interesting when you come over into the New Testament and Paul was speaking to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4 and then the verse 15. And here's the Apostle Paul and he's exhorting the younger man And he's exhorting him concerning the ministry. And he said in 1 Timothy 4 and verse 15, Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in so doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." As Paul was giving counsel there to Timothy, to the young man, and he was speaking to him about the ministry, and about the doctrines of God's Word and the great truths of the Gospel. And he said to Timothy, Give thyself wholly to them. Give thyself wholly to these things. That word wholly there, literally it means be in these things to the point that you are wholly absorbed by these things. And this is an exhortation even to young people today. Give yourself wholly to following the Lord. You don't want a life if you look back and look back upon wasted years. Look back upon a time that you regret you didn't give it to the Lord. I remember hearing the story of Henry Farley. He was a children's worker, Sabbath school teacher. And he said to the young boys, In his class, the world has yet to see what the Lord can do in, through and by and with the man that is fully yielded to him. And one of those that Henry Varley spoke those words to was D. L. Moody. And D. L. Moody said, by the grace of God, I'll be that man. and he wholly yielded his life to the Lord. And of course we know that he became D. L. Moody, the great evangelist. What a soul winner he became. It's estimated that it was in the region of one million souls were won for the Lord Jesus Christ through the ministry of D. L. Moody. The world is yet to see what God can do in and by and through and with that soul that is fully yielded. following the Lord, faithfully following the Lord. Then thirdly here, we see Caleb's fellowship with the Lord. You think of the words of Caleb here in our text. He said, But I wholly followed the Lord my God, my God. It's important to see here the little word, my, the possessive pronoun. He could have said, I wholly followed the Lord and full stop. Or, I wholly followed the Lord God. Or, I wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. Those words would have been correct in themselves, but he adds these words, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. That makes all the difference. It was Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, who said the essence of Christianity is found in the possessive pronoun my, my. It's one thing to say of the Lord, He's the Great Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, and the Great Shepherd, but to say He's my shepherd, that's a different thing entirely. And here Caleb says, I wholly follow the Lord my God. And whenever you consider that little word, my, we can see that that word involves fellowship with the Lord. You see, our Christianity is not following blindly. It's not following a creed. It's not following man. It's not following a religion. It is walking in fellowship with the Lord. That's what it is to faithfully follow the Lord. It's to be in fellowship with the Lord. And Caleb knew that fellowship and experienced it. He knew what it was to have the Lord with him. Whenever you go to that twelfth verse, and we've just read it a moment or two ago, but when you come to the latter part of it, it's speaking here about Caleb going into this particular portion of the land and taking that land for the Lord. And he's saying, if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. And Caleb is saying, well, I couldn't do this in my own strength. But the Lord will be with me." That was his fellowship with the Lord. The Lord will be with me. And maybe the Lord would be challenging the heart this evening. And you would be thinking, well, the work would be too great for me. It would be too difficult for me. And I'm willing to follow the Lord, but I just feel that I couldn't take that step. There's that fellowship with the Lord where He will be with you. He will be with you as you take that step. And the Lord, of course, equips His people for His will. And Caleb had experienced this down through those 45 years and more. He proved the Lord's presence with him. He could say all along the way, all along the way, He's forty and five years ever since the Lord spake the Word. The Lord had never failed him. And now he was coming into that portion of the land that he was claiming. And you can see from the end of the portion and from our Bible reading that that was to be the land of Hebron. Verse 13, And Joshua blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh, Hebron, for an inheritance. We know what the word Hebron means. It means fellowship. The one who had faithfully followed the Lord and who had been in fellowship with the Lord, he would remain in fellowship with the Lord as he would go into those latter years. Hebron also brings the thought of fruitfulness, fellowship and fruitfulness even into his old age. That's the beauty of following the Lord. Every age, every stage, every step of the way, we can prove the Lord. We can go into the Word of God and the longer we serve the Lord and the longer we study His Word and we read into the Word, the deeper that Word becomes to us, the bigger the Bible seems to get to us by way of the depths of its truths. Oh, the beauty, the blessing of having that sweet fellowship with the Lord through His Word. Caleb would know victory in his labors for the Lord. If you were to just glance into the next chapter of Joshua, chapter 15 and verse 14, it says, And Caleb drove fence the three sons of Anak, Shishai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. In those words there in chapter 15 and verse 14, it's telling us that Caleb was able to go into that particular portion of the land and he was able to drive out the giants. He was able to defeat them. He was able to take that ground and possess it for the Lord. For the individual tonight who will follow the Lord, who will faithfully follow the Lord, who will be in fellowship with the Lord, the Lord will give the victory. The giants will fall. The ground will be taken. And it will be to the glory, to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, that in our day and in our generation we could see souls one. We could see the Lord stepping in again. and the Lord gathering a people unto Himself. May He give us such a victory and may it be to the glory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thank you for listening. May the Lord bless His Word to our hearts tonight.