VIDEO RECORDING OF THIS SERMON
AUDIO RECORDING OF THIS SERMON
Many of you have decided to follow Jesus and serve the Lord. So, it is encouraging to see what the Lord said about Joshua and Caleb who wholly followed the Lord. Consider Num 32:6-12. When you wholly follow the Lord:
You are the Lord’s servant following him entirely, completely, perfectly. Num 14:24. God called Caleb my servant, he had another spirit with him, and the Lord said, he “followed me fully.” Num 32:11-12 the Lord said that the rest of Israel “have not wholly followed me,” but Joshua and Caleb “have wholly followed the Lord.” When the rest of the people wanted to return to Egypt, Joshua and Caleb rent their clothes and said, “If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and will give it us… Only rebel not against the Lord,” Num 14:6-10. Even Moses and Aaron rebelled against the Lord, Num 20:24, 27:14. So, to wholly follow the Lord, we must follow him completely, and not veer off even a little bit.
You don’t escape the trials of life. The difference between you and others who are not wholly following the Lord is that God will lead you through the trials. Joshua and Caleb survived the plague that killed the other ten spies, Num 14:36-38. They went through the wilderness journey just like everybody else and because of everybody else. They endured the same hardships, ate the same manna, drank the same water, saw the same serpents, fought the same enemies. It’s just that they got through it and the rest of them didn’t. When they first made it to Canaan, and they encountered the defeat at Ai, Joshua asked why they didn’t stay in the wilderness. He had wholly followed the Lord and yet they lost at Ai. He couldn’t understand the defeat. The trouble was sin in the camp. And the Lord led him through it to ultimate victory.
You are given God’s divine provision. Joshua and Caleb were given strength, faith, promises, assurance, an inheritance, etc. In Jos 1:2-9, God promised Joshua, “I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, not forsake thee.” In Jos 4:14 God magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel. Joshua was given the book of the Lord to guide him. We have God’s presence with us and his Book to guide us, as well. In Jos 14:6-12, Caleb said, “I wholly followed the Lord my God… 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… if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.” They had the complete assurance of God that if they were following him, they would win their battles. Joshua and Caleb were never in a mind that God was working for them. They weren’t presumptuous, though the provisions of God were so abundant. Caleb said, I”ll drive them out “if the Lord delight in us,” or “if so be the Lord will be with me,” Num 14:8, Jos 14:12. They never quit following the Lord.
Your life works out the way that God said it would. Joshua received his inheritance in Timnathserah, Jos 19:49-50. Caleb received his inheritance in Hebron, Jos 14:13-14. And Caleb was able to fight the giants in a fenced and walled city and beat them. This is something he had been looking forward to from the first time he saw that city back when they went to spy out the land.
Conclusion: now that you know what wholly following the Lord entails, why don’t you wholly follow the Lord. That’s the right way to have success.