First of all, I like to teach all in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am so glad that you have come along.
Please turn to the book of Numbers, Numbers 13.
Numbers 13:30:
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.
Then Numbers 14:6-9:
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of them that spied out the land, rent their clothes:
and they spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land.
If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it unto us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
Only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is removed from over them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not.
In the same chapter, verse 24:
But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.
Please turn to Joshua 14. We will read from verse 6 through verse 15.
Joshua 14:6-15:
Then the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord spake unto Moses the man of God concerning me and concerning thee in Kadesh-barnea.
Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in my 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 sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy foot hath trodden shall be an inheritance to thee and to thy children for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God.
And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He spake, these forty and five years, from the time that the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked 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, and to go out and to come in.
Now therefore give me this hill-country, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakim were there, and cities great and fortified: it may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake.
And Joshua blessed him; and he gave Hebron unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance.
Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite unto this day; because that he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.
Now the name of Hebron beforetime was Kiriath-arba; which Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. And the land had rest from war.
Heavenly Father, it is a grace that we can meet together in the name of Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We do thank Thee, because we know that Thou art with us. We just pray that Thou wilt open our eyes to see Thee, open our understanding to know Thee, that we may be drawn wholly unto Thyself.
We commit this time into Thy hands and ask Thy blessing upon it, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, and the reason why He brought them out was to bring them in.
God promised Abraham this land flowing with milk and honey. It was about five hundred years later that God was going to fulfill that promise to Abraham—to fulfill it with his descendants.
So here you find God sent Moses into Egypt to bring the people out. But we must remember that God’s purpose in bringing them out was to bring them in.
This is quite evident, because we find that after they came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, Moses composed a song of victory. He and the children of Israel sang that song.
In Exodus 15:13, we read:
Thou in Thy lovingkindness hast led the people that Thou hast redeemed:
Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.
Then in Exodus 15:16-18:
Terror and dread falleth upon them;
By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone;
Till Thy people pass over, O Lord,
Till the people pass over which Thou hast purchased.
Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.
As soon as they came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, Moses made it very clear in the song of victory that God’s mighty hand, in bringing them out, would bring them into the place of His holy habitation.
God would bring them into the land. The peoples of the land would be frightened, knowing that Israel was coming. Eventually, they would possess their possession, and God would be their King for ever and ever.
Now, that is the purpose of God.
Of course, we know that everything that is written is written for our admonition. In Romans 15, we are told that all things that have been written have been written for our admonition. Admonition means, on the one hand, encouragement; on the other hand, warning.
Romans 15:4 says:
For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Whatever is written concerning the children of Israel was written for us. As we find in 1 Corinthians 10, they serve as types for us who live at the end of the ages.
The children of Israel were God’s earthly people, and we today are God’s heavenly people. Even though there is this difference, the principle of God’s dealings with them and with us is the same.
In other words, the purpose behind God’s salvation toward us, the purpose behind our deliverance, is not merely that we may be saved.
God’s purpose is not simply to take us out of the world. The world is under condemnation, and He has saved us. He has delivered us out of the world so that we may not die, so that we may be saved. But that is not God’s full purpose.
The reason why He saved us and delivered us out of the world is that He may bring us into something. He does not simply deliver us out of the world and leave us in the wilderness.
It is not God’s purpose that we should wander in the wilderness. The wilderness experience speaks of living in the flesh. We may be saved, but we may not have entered into God’s purpose.
We may be saved and yet still live according to the flesh—to our own desires, our own concerns, and our own wishes. If we do, we find ourselves wandering in the wilderness, and eventually we perish in the wilderness—not perish in Egypt, but perish in the wilderness.
This is not God’s purpose. God’s purpose is to take us out of the world and bring us into the promised land.
The promised land, to us, is Christ—the unsearchable riches of Christ. God’s purpose in saving us is that we may enter into our possession, our inheritance. We may enter into the riches of Christ and the fullness of Christ.
Now, that is God’s purpose.
In one sense, brothers and sisters, we are already in the promised land. As soon as we are saved, God has put us into Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30, it says:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.
The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus, God has put us in Christ.
Ephesians 1:3 says:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
We are in Christ, and God has blessed us. This is not something merely in the future. It is something that has already happened and is happening. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
In other words, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, positionally we are already in Canaan. We are already in Christ, and God has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All the riches of heaven God has given to us. That is our position.
But the question is: what is our condition?
God gave the land to Abraham even five hundred years earlier. He said, “I will give you this land, and to your seed.” The land had been given for hundreds of years, but now God said, “Go in and possess it. Exploit it. Tread upon it. Claim it. Experience it. Inherit it.”
That is the condition. Wherever the sole of your foot shall tread, it shall be yours.
In other words, it is more than a matter of position; it becomes a matter of condition. We are to possess our possession.
There is no problem with God’s promise. God has promised, and so far as God is concerned, His promise is as good as accomplished, because He never changes. He never goes back on His word. What He has given, He has given, and He will never take it back. It is done.
But so far as our experience is concerned, we need to enter into that which has been promised to us.
This is the difference between objective truth and subjective experience. Brothers and sisters, let us remember: there is no conflict between objective truth and subjective experience. On the contrary, objective truth and subjective experience are complementary to each other.
Objective truth is something that God has done in Christ Jesus. It is something that has been done. It is finished. You cannot add anything to it, and you cannot take anything away from it. It never changes. It is eternal truth and eternal reality.
So far as objective truth is concerned, we are in Christ. God has done it, and God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. That is settled.
But what is subjective experience? Subjective experience is what the Holy Spirit is doing in each one of us today.
He brings what Christ has done two thousand years ago and makes it personal to us—our personal life and experience. That is subjective experience.
Whatever God has done in Christ Jesus, it is the will of God that we should benefit from it, profit by it, and be blessed by it. How are we going to be blessed by what Christ has done for us two thousand years ago? It is by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit communicates to us what Christ has done and makes it real in us, so that we may experientially know what God has done for us in Christ.
Positionally, we are in Christ, and we are in the promised land. But conditionally, the Holy Spirit is going to bring us into what God has provided.
That is what you find in the story of the children of Israel. God brought them out of Egypt, and God made His purpose very clear. They understood it. The people sang about it, so you cannot say that they did not know it. They knew it.
But unfortunately, even though they knew it, they did not believe. Because of their unbelief, because of their disobedience, because they rebelled against God, they would not enter.
God revealed Himself to them in such clear ways, and yet they refused to believe. Finally, because of their unbelief, they were not allowed to enter the land.
The land was given to them, but they failed to possess it because of their unbelief.
But thank God, there were two men—Caleb and Joshua. Of that old generation, only these two men were able to enter into Canaan with the new generation.
To put it in a spiritual way, we can say that it was the spirit of Caleb and Joshua that possessed the land. That same spirit had to characterize the new generation before the people could enter into the promised land.
What was true with the children of Israel is, unfortunately, very true with the church today. Among God’s people, not many, but few, seem to be able to enter into the fullness of the promised inheritance.
But rather than dwell on the negative, we want to draw out the positive. The negative is not God’s purpose; it is a falling away from God’s purpose. What God wants is that we may enter into what He has purposed for us.
This is what we would like to share together this morning: what is the secret of possessing our possession? Or, in other words, what is the spirit that possesses our inheritance?
If we know what that spirit is, then by God’s grace we may be able to possess our possession—that is, we may be able to enter into the fullness of Christ.
This morning, we would like to focus on Caleb. Of course, the spirit of Caleb and the spirit of Joshua are the same, so if you speak of Caleb, you speak of Joshua. But we would like to speak about Caleb.
In the Hebrew language, names have meaning. I will not go into the history of names today, but in the old days, when people gave a name—especially in the Bible—you find that the names had meaning.
What is the meaning of Caleb? Some people say Caleb means “dog.” That is not exactly true. There may be such a meaning in the root, but Caleb actually means something like “raging with canine-like strength.” It suggests forcefulness, energy, and determination.
Immediately, you think of the word of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 11:12:
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force.
The word there means forceful. In the spiritual realm, there is so much opposition and resistance to the will and purpose of God that, if you want to enter into God’s purpose, you have to press your way through.
If you try to be passive, or even neutral, you will not make it. There is something we have to realize: in the spiritual realm, you will find such opposition.
We have opposition from the enemy, Satan. There is an adversary, and he is very real. There is an unseen world, and that unseen world is more real than the seen world.
There you find the adversary, Satan, with all his hierarchy of evil and all the demons under him, trying every trick and every means to block us and stand in the way of our entering into God’s purpose.
He uses the world as his instrument. He is called the prince of this age and the god of this world. He uses the world to stand against those who want to enter into the full purpose of God.
The world is very comprehensive. It is not merely the physical world as such—the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Satan uses the things of the world to distract, redirect, check, and enslave God’s people.
He wants them to be so occupied with the things of the world, with the anxieties and cares of the world, that they do not even have the strength or desire to go on and press on.
But the world is not only the physical world; there is also the religious world. Satan has created a religious world, and through that religious world he tries to block people from entering into God’s purpose.
He says, “Well, just be religious, and that is enough. Do not be too religious, too fanatical. Be traditional, like other people. Do not be different.”
Even in the religious world, you find the same thing. He uses it to block the way. He uses everything he can to hinder you from entering into God’s purpose.
If anyone is to enter into the full purpose of God, he has to press his way through. He has to have a holy boldness and a spiritual determination.
You remember the story of Paul when he was testifying before Festus and Agrippa. The Roman governor said, “Paul, thou art mad; thy much learning is turning thee mad.”
The world will consider anyone who presses into the fullness of Christ and into the purpose of God to be a madman—not merely a madman, but a fool.
They will say, “Why do you act that way? It is unreasonable. It is irrational. Why do you swim against the current? Flow with the current.”
But that is what life is. Anything that has life in it must go against the current. Dead fish flow with the current, but living fish always go against the current. That is what life is.
Brothers and sisters, the life within us is so vigorous that it urges us, calls us all the time, to press our way through.
To be a Christian is not easy. To be saved is not that hard, but to really be a Christian—to really follow the Lord and get through into the fullness that is in Christ—is not easy.
It demands a spiritual madness. It demands that we be fools for Christ’s sake. Otherwise, if you are merely passive, you will never make it.
I wonder if we ever get mad in a good way. I wonder if we are ever willing to be fools for Christ’s sake.
The will of God is revealed to babes and not to the prudent and wise. If you are too wise, you will think through everything. You will calculate everything, and as you calculate, you will say, “It is too costly.”
It is only the babes—the simple and pure—who may not realize all that is involved, but they just plunge into it, and they enter in.
Caleb had that kind of spirit, no doubt about it.
The Bible says Caleb had another spirit. The other spies, together with the children of Israel of that generation, had one kind of spirit. Caleb had another spirit within him.
What was the spirit of the ten spies? It was the spirit of the world. It was the spirit of their own flesh. It was not the Holy Spirit.
So, brothers and sisters, what spirit do we have?
Thank God, the spirit that is in us is the Spirit of sonship. Let us turn to 1 Corinthians 2.
1 Corinthians 2:12 says:
But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God.
What is the Spirit that we have received? We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God. Therefore, we know the things which have been freely given to us of God.
Turn again to Romans 8:15:
For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The word “adoption” there is really sonship. The Spirit that we have received is not a spirit of bondage again unto fear, but the Spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Now turn to Galatians 4:4-6:
But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
What is the Spirit that we have received? It is the Spirit of God’s Son. It is the Spirit of sonship.
In other words, we have all received within us a Spirit that is different from the spirit of the world. It is different from the spirit of bondage. It is the Spirit of God’s Son; therefore, it is the Spirit of sonship.
The Spirit within us is the Spirit of a Son. The spirit of a son always cries out for growth, for maturity, and for fullness.
Is that not true, brothers and sisters? We do have such a Spirit.
The Spirit within us is crying out all the time. It will not be silent. It refuses to be passive, refuses to be stationary, and refuses to remain where it is.
Within you there is a Spirit of God that is always longing for more, always reaching out for something more—something more of the Son.
There is something within every child of God that presses forward toward the Son, that we may be conformed to His image. This Spirit has been given to us. Every brother and sister has that Spirit within him and within her.
Sometimes you sense it. Sometimes there is something within you that refuses to give up, refuses to give in, and urges you to move on into maturity—to grow into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That experience is within you because that is the Spirit within you. It is the Spirit of sonship. We have the Spirit of sonship in us.
But again, there is a difference between position and condition. There is a difference between what God has given and how we have responded to it.
What is the spirit of Caleb? When the ten spies said, “The land is good, but we cannot go in. There are giants there, and the cities are walled up to heaven,” Caleb stood against them.
They said, “No, we cannot go. It is impossible.” But Caleb stilled the people and said, “We can go in. Let us go in boldly. We are able. We are well able to overcome it.”
Why? Because he said, “If God is pleased with us, if God is with us, who can be against us? We can go in and possess it. These enemies will be our food, making us stronger and stronger.”
There is such a spirit. That is the spirit of possession.
What does God say? God says that Caleb had another spirit in him, and that he had followed God fully.
That phrase is repeated a number of times concerning Caleb. God said that he had followed Him wholly. Moses testified that Caleb had wholly followed the Lord, and Caleb himself testified, “All these years I have followed the Lord.”
I think this is where we need to be careful. So far as the Spirit of sonship is concerned, we all have it. But have we followed the Lord?
The Spirit of the Son is crying within us to reach out, but do we respond? Do we follow? Do we cooperate? Do we submit? Do we hear?
Or do we draw back? Do we look around and find that it is too difficult, an impossible case, and simply give up? That is our danger.
You can put it another way: are you following the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Son within you, or are you following the flesh?
When you begin to look around, when you begin to consider yourself, the spirit of the world comes upon you, and the spirit of self dominates. Immediately, there is conflict between you and the Spirit of the Son.
The Spirit of the Son says, “Go on,” but the spirit of the flesh says, “It is impossible.” Whom do you want? Whom do you follow? Do you follow the Lord wholly?
The Bible says, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” If you love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, then it is all or nothing.
You cannot give God merely a little heart. A little heart is no heart. You cannot give Him merely a little mind. If you are double-minded, you will never make it.
What God desires is that we may follow Him fully, wholly, and unreservedly. That is spiritual madness. That is something we all need.
Thank God, we all have the Spirit of the Son. It is really strange: when you grow up, you may wish that life would slow down, but when you are little, you want to grow up.
I still remember my little sister. Now she is old, but when she was a little girl, she and a cousin of her age were sitting on the stairway talking to each other. Someone overheard them saying, “Oh, that we may be like big brothers and big sisters. We are so small.”
Children want to grow up. That is the spirit of a child. You have spiritual life, and that life claims growth. The spirit is always there: “Grow up, grow up.” That is the spirit of sonship, the Spirit of the Son, and we need to follow the Lord.
Do not be distracted, occupied, frustrated, or brought into a state of stagnation and inactivity. Do not draw back and say, “It is impossible.” Nothing is impossible with God. We need to go on to possess the land, and we need to follow the Lord fully.
It is against the current. When Caleb said these things, the people took up stones to stone him. They considered him unreasonable.
But I do believe, brothers and sisters, that God has already put that Spirit in us. The only question is whether we will follow the Lord and cooperate with the Spirit.
Spiritual life and spiritual warfare are really very simple. When you think that you must do it, everything becomes complicated and impossible.
But when you begin to see that all God requires of you is a willingness, a yieldedness, and a submissiveness—giving yourself to the Lord—then He will do it.
Caleb said, “If God is pleased with us.” The word “if” is not used in the sense of uncertainty, as though perhaps God may not be pleased. It is a word of humility and faith.
If God is for me, why not? If God is pleased with us, if this is the will of God, why not?
Caleb was not dependent on himself. He always said, “If God is pleased with us, if God is with us, if this is the will of God, then we can do it. Why do we not go in and possess it?”
This is very simple, and this is all that God requires of us. He has done it all. He has given everything to us. Now the Holy Spirit is going to make it real to us. All you need to do is let Him do it.
Do not block His way. Cooperate with Him. Follow Him, and you will enter in.
There are certain things in Caleb’s life that we can learn. He was one of the twelve spies. Because of his faith in God, at the moment they came back from spying out the land, God promised that the land upon which he had set his foot would be his.
God gave him that portion of the land. But strangely, he did not inherit that land until forty-five years later.
He could have inherited that land forty-five years earlier. God said, “Now this land is yours. You have already put your foot upon it; it is yours.” But he did not actually possess it until forty-five years later.
Why was it so? I believe there is a great lesson here. You find the same principle in Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11 is a great chapter on faith. It begins with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets. These are men and women of faith.
But toward the conclusion of Hebrews 11, the Holy Spirit says:
And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise,
God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
Possessing our possession, this inheritance, is a corporate matter. It is true that every one of us will possess a portion; that is true. But remember: we are to inherit our inheritance corporately.
Individually, Caleb could have inherited his land forty-five years earlier, but he could not, because God’s purpose is not merely for individuals. God’s purpose is for a corporate people.
Because of this, Caleb had to wander with the others in the wilderness until a new generation was raised up.
Those years of wandering in the wilderness served, on the one hand, to let those who were in unbelief pass away. On the other hand, a new generation received the spirit of Caleb.
The spirit of Caleb was not to be his personal possession only; it was to be shared with a new generation, so that a whole generation with this new spirit could enter and possess the land.
The will of God is corporate, not individual. God is not looking merely for individual overcomers. An overcomer overcomes not for himself alone, but for all of us.
It is to bring a whole generation into that inheritance. With that new spirit, the whole generation possesses.
This is what God requires of all of us. It is more than a personal life; it is a corporate matter.
Because of this, you find how important it is, on the one hand, that we do not fail, because if we fail, we pull others down. On the other hand, we have to press on in order to bring other people in.
In Joshua 14, we find that when Caleb went out to spy the land, he was forty years old. Israel wandered in the wilderness for thirty-eight years. Then under Joshua, they entered into the land and fought their enemies for seven years.
After they entered the land, the fighting was finished, and Joshua began to apportion the land to the children of Israel. It was at that time that Caleb came to Joshua.
He reminded Joshua, “When we were young, and when we went to spy out the land, I came back with a report according to what was in my heart. That is what I felt. That is what I believed, because that was the spirit within me.”
Then he said, “Now I am eighty-five years old, but I am as strong as ever, just as I was forty-five years ago. I can go out and come in. God has kept me all these years.”
When they had spied out the land, they heard that there were Anakim there. They were giants. Caleb had heard of them then, and the giants were still there.
But he said, “If God is pleased with me, I will drive out the Anakim and possess the land.” His spirit had not changed. It was still the same spirit, even though he was eighty-five years old.
I want to encourage those who are older in years. Sometimes, when we get older, we feel, “Well, physically we may be weaker. We are no longer useful. It is almost over. We can simply sit back and wait.”
But no. You find that the spirit of Caleb was as strong as ever. Even after forty-five years, at eighty-five years old, he was still pressing on.
As a matter of fact, forty-five years earlier he had heard of the giants. But now, at eighty-five years old, he possessed that land.
Hearing about the giants is one thing, but dispossessing them is another thing. The people heard of the giants and were so frightened that they said, “We are like grasshoppers in their sight.”
But Caleb was as strong as ever. He dispossessed the Anakim and changed that place. It was formerly the city of the giants, but he transformed it into Hebron—communion and fellowship.
Hebron, fellowship and communion, should be an encouragement to us. Do not feel that you are old. Caleb was eighty-five years old and was still very strong. It was then that he possessed his inheritance.
Go on. There is still much more of Christ that you can really enter into and possess.
Brothers and sisters, I really feel in my heart that we are living at the end of this age. The Lord’s coming is near. We do not know how long we have.
In this short period, much hangs upon whether we are faithful to the end or whether we deviate—whether we fall in the wilderness or enter into the promised land.
Much is dependent on this very short time. As Hebrews says, it is just a little while, and He that cometh shall come and shall not tarry.
God is not pleased with those who draw back. He wants us to press on into the fullness.
Heavenly Father, how we praise and thank Thee, because Thy thoughts concerning us are so many and so noble. Thou dost desire that we will not only be saved, but enter into the fullness that is in Christ.
Thou hast promised all this to us. Thou hast even given us the Spirit of sonship within us, crying out for that which Thou hast promised.
Lord, we pray that we may not be those who turn away, those who do not believe, or those who do not go on. Lord, we pray that by Thy grace Thou wilt enable us.
May we respond. May we cooperate with Thee and follow Thee with whole hearts. Lord, we do want to enter into the fullness that Thou hast prepared for us, and we pray that it may be our portion—not only individually, but corporately, among the old and the young.
Lord, it is our will that we shall enter in. So, Lord, we pray that Thou wilt use these few words to encourage us, to order us, and to bring us into that fullness. It is all for Thy glory.
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.