How Big Are Your Dreams?

MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX

A. Last week we talked about the 12 spies who spied out the Promised Land & then came back with their report. You recall that 10 of them gave a negative report, & 2 gave a positive one. The 2 who gave the positive report were Joshua & Caleb. This morning I want to follow in Paul Harvey’s footsteps & tell you "The rest of the story." And you will find the rest of Caleb’s story in Joshua, the 14th chapter.

As the story unfolds, you need to realize that 45 years have passed since the spies entered the Promised Land & came back with that discouraging majority report which caused the people to refuse to obey God’s command to go in & take the land.

So because of their disobedience, God told them that they would have to wander for 40 years, one year for every day the spies were in the land, until every man of Israel who had voted to disobey God had died in the wilderness.

B. And God kept his word. For 40 years they wandered, & God provided for them. But at the end of those 40 years only Moses, Joshua, & Caleb were left of the older generation of men. So when God told them again that it was time to go in & take the Promised Land, this younger generation was ready to do it.

Yes, the giants that had so frightened their fathers were still there. But this time they obeyed God, & the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. They followed God’s leading, & He gave them victory after victory, & within 5 years the Promised Land was theirs.

No, they hadn’t conquered it all. There were areas still occupied by their enemies. But they had conquered most of it, enough to be able to divide the land up into large regions where each of the 12 tribes could settle & begin building their own homes & cities & farms.

Of course, that meant that some tribes still had to contend with enemies in their own region. But with God’s help, they were convinced that they could do it. God had truly given them a land flowing with milk & honey!

C. Now, it is at this point, as the 12 tribes are dividing up the land, that we come upon the 2nd part of the story of Caleb’s life, as recorded in the 14th chapter of the Book of Joshua. So follow along with me now in Joshua 14, beginning with the last part of vs. 6, as I read what Caleb is saying,

"You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you & me. I was 40 years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear.

"I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, `The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance & that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’

"Now then, just as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive for 45 years since the time He said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, 85 years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.

"Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised