# You can finish

Category: Grace
Key Passage: Joshua 14:6
Speaker: Young
Date: June 7, 2024

Started today, we are going to go to the book of Joshua, and it is just an honor to be here. We have known your pastor, Brother Chisgar, for many years, but this is my first time coming to be with you folks and to see this place. And how exciting to walk right into a lobby and see a poster of the new property and the new building. I just—I love going places where people still believe that God can get it done, and people aren’t looking for an exit ramp. People are looking to say, “Where can I go for God the next mile?” In 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, all the stuff that is going on—that is an encouragement to our heart.

I will just share a quick word of testimony as we are turning to the book of Joshua. My name is Brother Jared Young, and I have the privilege of knowing—or I hope it is a privilege—of knowing some of the folks in this room: Brother Anthony and Ms. Cotora. I just appreciated their testimony at Bible College, and I know even still here.

Brother Anthony was just a tremendous servant there and one of the best bus captains they had. To be honest with you, it was just a pleasure to get to serve the Lord with him and Miss Cotora there. It is good to see you folks serving, and all that you guys are doing for the Lord is exciting. And Ms. Sarah, my wife and I got to work with her on the Liberty Bus, and she may have an idea of where the name for Liberty Baptist Church came from, but we will not get into that or give that away. But we are very, very excited to get to serve the Lord.

I did grow up in Lexington, Kentucky. I know we are here in Tennessee, so please do not hold that against me, all right? My wife is from Chattanooga, and I have been praying and fasting, trying to get her right with the Lord and quit wearing orange and all that kind of stuff. But she has told me it is probably not going to happen, so I have learned to kind of come to grips with that. I grew up there and just had the privilege, like many of you, just to be involved with the church. And thank goodness for a good Bible-believing church. What we are hearing about all the things that are essential and not essential? We know Hebrews tells us that church is essential, but just our own personal experience—I mean, I need church. Church is where I got saved. Church is where I gave my heart to the Lord. Church camp is where I met my wife. There are so many avenues and aspects of church, and it is definitely essential. You are a part of a wonderful church here in Rutherford County, so praise the Lord for that.

I did grow up in church, and as a young man, I trusted the Lord as my Savior. I was just a nine-year-old boy when I was 16, I surrendered my life to preach the gospel. Now, after you hear me preach tonight, you might be like, “Well, Brother Jared, you should have rethought that surrender.” But you know, God does not need our talent; he does not need our ability; he just needs our willingness. I truly believe that, otherwise I would not be up here. God can use anybody because I definitely fall in that category. So, Pastor, we are just thrilled to be here tonight.

My wife has a similar testimony: grew up in church, gave her life to the Lord. As you can see, she is a very talented young lady. The only mistake she has ever made in life was marrying me, and that was about two and a half years ago. She is stuck now, but praise the Lord. It was a big step up for me. We are expecting God to work in Bowling Green, starting a church in 14 days. I am a little high-strung. We have been in Pennsylvania, Ohio, just about everywhere. I am on caffeine like you would not believe, and we drove seven hours already today. We were in Deer Stable, Kentucky, this morning. If you do not know where that is at, that is okay; our GPS did not either, all right? We are glad to be here. I told some of the folks back here about civilization, roads, and big cities that I know—okay, Nashville, go north. We know how to get home from here, so we are excited about that. We are starting a church. We have stepped out in faith. We are just asking the Lord to meet our needs. He has. I believe he will if we will stay faithful.

Your pastor is an example of that, having started a work and not just starting and holding on—he is moving on to the next level. That is an encouragement to a young man and a young couple getting started. I say that to say this: we are just thrilled to serve the Lord, and we are very, very excited to be with you folks tonight. Let us get into the Bible, and we are going to learn a very important lesson from the life of a man by the name of Caleb this evening. I hope you will follow along in the scriptures. I love the Word of God. Anytime I get to stand and preach or hear taught the Word of God, it just captivates my attention, and I pray that it would do the same for you this evening.

The Bible tells us in Joshua chapter 14, in verse number 6, is where we will begin reading. The Bible says this: “Then the children of Judah”—this is Joshua 14, verse number six—“came unto Joshua in Gilgal.” This is after they have entered into the land of Canaan. This is after they have defeated all the foes, and we are picking up in verse number six. “And Caleb, the son of Japhunah the Kenezite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart.”

Now notice verse number eight. I am going to really draw something out here. “Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people to melt; but I wholly”—notice that word “wholly”—“followed the Lord my God.”

Verse 9: “And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children’s for ever, 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.” So we are going to do some math here, church. Forty and forty-five equals eighty-five. Good. Okay, I went to Christian school, so it takes me a while to get all that stuff, all right? Now, 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. You did the math; it is 85.

Notice verse 11, and we will go right to the message: “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.”

We are going to take one man in this passage of Scripture, and we are going to look at the life of Caleb and how Caleb conquered his mountain—how Caleb conquered his mountain.

It is interesting. When you come to this passage in the Bible, it is an exciting time. I love growth, I love just new stages of life. Maybe this is your first year in high school. Maybe you are in ninth grade; that is a new stage. Maybe you have gotten a new career or a new place in your job, and there is just something exciting about new things in life.

This is a new stage the children of Israel are in. If you can imagine the scene, there is Joshua. He is the leader who has replaced Moses. All through the book of Exodus, it tells about Moses, and in Numbers, Deuteronomy—now Joshua is dividing the land. They have already conquered the nations. It took them five years—five years of bloody conflict to be able to push the Canaanites out of the land. Other than just a few isolated pockets here and there, some on mountains, some in valleys that were still holding on to the land, the land had been subdued and had been completely conquered by the Israelites.

All they were doing now was simply drawing up the maps and saying, “Okay, this is the possession, the land that goes to Judah. This is the possession that goes to Naphtali.” Through every single different tribe—Asher, Dan—they would go down and divide the land. In the midst of that assembly, I do not know if there were hundreds or thousands gathered, an old man pushes through the crowd. Can you see him? His name is Caleb. He is 85 years of age. I do not know, folks, if he is on a walker; I do not know what is happening, but he is coming through, and he has just got a burning, burning in his eyes. This guy has a mission. He pushes his way to the front of the crowd, and he comes to Joshua.

Who is Joshua? That was his old friend. They had gone and spied out the land of Canaan in Numbers 14. He looks at Joshua and says, “Joshua, I am here to claim that land that God had for me. I want my mountain. I want my mountain.”

Look what he says in verse number 12: “He says, ‘Now therefore give me this mountain whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, 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 hath said.’”

He is 85 years of age. Everybody else is putting their sword in a display case. Everybody else is getting out their harness to be able to start working the land. Everybody else is getting their hoe and their pitchfork; they are going to start farming. This guy still has his sword in his hand, and he is coming up and says, “All right, I want that mountain. I want that mountain that the Lord had promised me, and just point me in the right direction. I cannot see as far as I used to, but just point me in the right direction. I am ready to take that mountain.”

Now, he was at an age when most of us would say, “Hey, Caleb, you ought to just be checking out your 401(k), see what is coming out of that. You need to be playing shuffleboard. It is time to just take it easy. Caleb, you are 85. Hey, you are best friends with the leader of Israel. He can probably give you a land that has already been conquered. He can probably give you a land that is flat so you do not have to climb.” I mean, we all know how stairs go, and I mean, you do not have to do any of that. Caleb, just talk to Joshua; he will give you a land more easily attained.

But, church, Caleb did not want a land more easily attained. He did not want a land that had already been conquered. He wanted the land God had promised him. If this 85-year-old man, at what we would call the latter days of life, is coming with new life and new vigor to say, “God has a will and a purpose for my life,” I believe every person in this room under the sound of the word of God—I think this will apply to all of us. We ought to have that same spirit Caleb had. We ought to have that desire to say, “God, I do not know what it is in my life, but I am not at a place where I can check in my Christianity and say it is time to coast. God, what mountain is in my life that you want me to conquer?”

We are just going to look quickly at five aspects of Caleb’s life. The first is this: Let us consider how Caleb conquered this mountain. By the way, he did do it in God’s strength. How did Caleb, at 85 years of age, have this desire to want to do God’s will, to aid him up just as much as a young preacher boy or a young Bible college student or a young person who just surrendered? He was just as on fire. Here is how he did it. We are going to look at five aspects of his life.

The first is this: Let us think about Caleb’s past. Think about Caleb’s past. Where had Caleb grown up? The answer is the land of Egypt. Do you remember the story in Exodus? For 430 years, God’s people were in bondage—awful bondage, slavery. Caleb was born into a slave’s home. In fact, his father, Japhunah, named him Caleb. The word Caleb in Hebrew literally means dog. How many of you would name your newborn son “dog”? All right? I mean, Fido, maybe. My dad did whistle for us because there were six of us kids, but he never named me the dog’s name. My wife and I are excited. We know that we are having a boy, and we are not just excited about the church; we are excited about being parents and all that kind of stuff. We are so pumped. But can I say this? We are not going to name him Fido or Rover or Rex or something like that, but Caleb’s dad named him the Hebrew word for dog.

I got to thinking, why would any dad name his son “dog”? Maybe it was the kind of life Caleb was born into. For 430 years, Caleb’s dad was a slave. Caleb’s grandfather was a slave. In fact, probably Caleb’s great, great, great grandfather was a slave, and he looked at his son and said, “You have no life. You are born into the living bondage of slavery here in Egypt. You have a dog’s life ahead of you, son.” Caleb knew what it was like to have a whip across his back. We talk about being mistreated; it just basically means somebody did not like our post on social media. We talk about persecution; that basically means somebody did not give us a raise or they did not put the cheese on our burger just right—and that is a crime, by the way, okay? But we talk about the persecutions we go through and the hardships. Oh, Brother Jared, it is awful. But Caleb knew what it was like to be mistreated, not just verbally, physically. Caleb had a pretty awful past. I do not think anybody in here would stand up and say my past was just as bad as Caleb’s. From my days of infancy, I was treated like a slave. I was simply sold and handled as property. He toiled for 38 years, if you look at the Bible. For 38 years, that was his life. Every work he did, he did not get any wages. Every effort he put in, he got nothing back other than to say it was done for Pharaoh. Caleb had a pretty awful past.

But then one day, God sent a deliverer. What was his name? Moses. Moses came, and he led God’s people out of Egypt into a promised land, and his life was forever changed. Can I say, like Caleb, you and I were born into bondage? Not physical bondage. Many of us in here have never experienced that, and prayerfully never will. But all of us were born into spiritual bondage. Do you know what the Bible says in Psalm 51:5? The Bible says, “Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Did you know I was born a sinner?

I had four sisters growing up. They would all call me out if I tried to say otherwise, but you were born a sinner as well. All of us, the Bible tells us in Romans 3:23, have sinned; we have come short of the glory of God. We were born into spiritual bondage. That bondage was simply dragging us one day to a miserable death and a place in an eternity in a burning place called hell—a real, a literal place. Folks, we did not become sinners because we sinned one day. We sin because that is our nature, just like a dog barks and a cat does whatever a cat does. I do not have one. But because of that, that is our nature. We are sinners because we were born that way.

But one day, just like Moses came as a deliverer, church, one day God sent a deliverer to us, and that was Jesus Christ. Do you remember the day He brought you out of sin? Do you remember that day? Second Corinthians tells us that we were made a new creature. “Behold, all things are become new.” God came into our life; He let us out. If you are not excited about that, you are not thinking about what God did in your life. That gets me excited. I do not want to ever get over the joy of my salvation. God has led us on to victory.

Do you know what the devil likes to do? He likes to do what Caleb could have easily done. He likes to bring up our past, does he not? He says, “Oh yeah, you are saved, but what about when you used to listen to this? When you used to do that? What about when you used to be mistreated?” There is nothing that makes me more angry than to hear that a child or a teenager is being abused. I tell you, I know God forgives any kind of sin, but there is something inside me that just wants me—I just want to defend that person. I want to go and I want to help, and it hurts your heart, those of you that run these beautiful buses and pick up the children, to see the conditions sometimes they are in. Perhaps that was your experience growing up. Perhaps you were mistreated. Perhaps you were abused. Perhaps you were done wrong at work and you were looked over or even lied about. But do not live in your past. Church, we can look past the past, and we can look to a bright future with God’s power.

Caleb’s past was pretty awful. He was a slave. He was mistreated. He had no ground to stand upon. He had been property until he had been delivered by God through Moses. The Bible tells us in many different places. In one, Philippians 3:13, it says, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.” We are not supposed to live in the past. Yes, we can learn from the past, but folks, if it is under the blood, it ought to be out of our mind.

Sometimes God says, “I have a bright future for you. I have a plan for your life,” and we live in, “Well, I was mistreated as a child,” or, “Boy, I went through a difficult—maybe a divorce. I went through a difficult relationship.” God is there for you in all of that. Do we believe that Hebrews 13:5 is part of the Bible, where He will never leave us and He will never forsake us, or is that just something we put on a coffee mug? Jesus Christ is there for you and I. He is there for you right now. I do not know you; you do not know me, other than I am that high-strung caffeine guy from Kentucky right now, okay? God is there for you, and whatever trial you are going through tonight, He wants to be there. Do not let the devil bring up your past. Give that to God.

I heard a preacher say one time, “You cannot get to the next chapter in life if you are constantly rereading the one you are in.” You cannot change what happened. I think of people that grew up, and they could not pick the home they were born into—you cannot, by the way. They could not pick their siblings, the surroundings. You cannot pick your environment, but guess what you can choose? You can choose what you do with your environment. You say, “God, it was not fair.” Well, maybe God is preparing you. How many folks in this room, I wonder, if they could raise their hand and testify, could say, “I had some bitterness in my life, but I turned that over to God, and now I am using that to help somebody else”? How many people have that testimony? Praise God.

As Christians, we are mountain conquerors. Caleb did not get to the base of the mountain and say, “God, I would have conquered it, but you know my past. I am just a slave. I cannot amount to anything, God.” No, he said, “God has given me this mountain, and I am going to move forward in faith for God. I am going to move forward.” Do not let your past be an anchor holding you back. Let it be a rudder guiding you in wisdom as you move forward for Christ.

Not just his past—consider this. Caleb had to go through a lot of preparation. Let us consider and look at his preparation. If you study the journey of the children of Israel, it is pretty interesting. About 2.4 million people all leaving, going on the same road. No Uber, no Greyhound buses. These people are on foot or on donkey or camel or whatever they rode back then. They are all leaving at the same time, and their journey begins in Exodus 12, verse number 14. It goes all the way through the book of Numbers, and they travel several hundred miles—466 miles on foot. That journey took them 47 days just to get out of the land of Goshen to the base of Mount Sinai—47 days.

A lot of times, we make a decision for God in church. We hear a pastor, Pastor Chisgar, preach, or Brother Anthony preaching, and somebody just shares their heart. We come up, we make a decision, and we mean it. We say, “God, I surrender my life.” But then we do not follow through. We do not say, “God, I am going to allow you to prepare me.” God told them He would deliver them and take them to a promised land, but 47 days later, were they in the promised land? No. They were out in the desert at the base of a mountain. But God knew what He was doing; He was preparing them.

At the base of the mountain, God had them camp there for 11 months and five days. That is when the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were given. If you have ever read those books, it takes about 11 months and five days. Those are long books, all right? I struggle checking those off on my Bible reading calendar. The genealogies and all the different Levitical stuff—it is just over my head. But God gave those to them.

So they have been there for 11 months, five days. You add 47 days to that. Then they traveled to the land of Kadesh-barnea—almost another 11 months, 17 stops. Two years have transpired, and they still have not gotten to Canaan land. God was preparing His people. He said in Exodus, and then again in Deuteronomy, He could have taken them the direct way, but they would have run into the Philistines, and they would have hit war right off the bat. But God took them the long way to prepare them. Do you feel like something in your life is going the long way? Maybe God is preparing you and me.

My wife and I prayed right from getting married that God would let us have a family. We were so excited about that, but God had a longer route for us. That included two miscarriages. We did not enjoy that. We did not understand that. We would look at people that aborted their children. We thought, “God, why would you let somebody abort a child if we want a child? That is not fair, God.” You ever have those kind of situations in your life? But maybe God is taking you a different way to prepare you for something. Maybe God is taking you a longer route. Do not get frustrated with the preparation.

Here is what Caleb did every morning. He got up and he helped push the cattle forward. He helped pitch the tents, and his hands got calloused. His tongue got thirsty when they were out of water. He got hungry when they were needing food. While others around him complained and said, “God, you did not give us water,” Caleb said, “Whoa! God just brought water out of that rock.” When others said, “God, you did not give us any food. This is stupid. Why are we in the desert? You promised us a land of milk and honey. We do not even have food to eat,” Caleb said, “Hey, look, there is like pancakes falling from heaven.” That is not in the Bible, by the way; it was manna. But he said, “Look, God is bringing bread from heaven? God is providing.” When other people saw problems, said, “Why is God leading us in circles?” Caleb said, “Whoa, there is a cloud that we follow every day, and every night it turns into a pillar of fire. That is so cool.” And he took a selfie. Well, actually, that is not Bible either. But he said, “Everywhere I went, everywhere I go, there is a God that takes care of me.” Other people saw problems. You know what Caleb saw? A God that could provide.

How do you view your life? Difficulties? Everybody has them. “It rains on the just and on the unjust.” Does the scripture not say that? But yet if we will look at life and say, “God, I do not know why, but I am going to trust you,” God is preparing you. God is preparing me. God is preparing all of us for the next step in life. But some people, we fight the preparation.

I wonder how many men and women have served in the United States Armed Forces of any type in here. Could you raise your hand? Let us give them a hand. I appreciate our veterans. I see about five or six of them. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Do not answer me, but I am just going to generalize. I am just going to guess some things about your time in the service. Probably you went through some type of training, boot camp, something along those lines. I am going to assume that on day one of that training, the drill instructor did not come and ask you, “How are you this morning? Did you sleep well? Whenever you are ready, we would like to move out and work on some drill and ceremony. At your convenience, we will move over to the mess hall and get some lunch. Whenever you feel like it, we have some calisthenics on the program for you.” They probably did not say that, and they are kind of laughing at me and saying, “If you only knew, son,” all right?

They did not ask you; they told you, “Get over here, do it.” They used words that I would have to ask my wife what they mean. They told you; you got to get there, and you got to be there now, and you got to stay there. You jump when we say, “Jump,” and you do what we say. Why? Because they were preparing you for battle. But yet when God prepares us and God puts us through something, we say, “God, it is not fair. God, why is my life difficult?” Why do we have a Bible if life was supposed to be problemless? Why are there so many answers to problems in the scriptures? God is preparing you. God is preparing me, and if we fight the preparation, we miss the lesson. Preparation is not enjoyable, but ladies and gentlemen, it is essential. You must have preparation. I am glad that before somebody comes and performs a surgery on me, they had to go to seven years of medical school, and they could not do it with a YouTube video. Praise the Lord. I am for in-person classes when it comes to brain surgeons, all right? They need to be there. If they are tardy, let me know, because they are not operating on this guy. They will not find anything when they get in there anyhow. I want somebody who is prepared, but yet we say, “Well, I do not have to be a prepared Christian. I will live off what Pastor Chisgar gives me. I will live off what I get in the youth department. I will live off what my parents tell me.” We prepare for everything. We prepare for sports. We prepare for making a home purchase. We get all the papers prepared, but we do not prepare spiritually.

Caleb’s preparation was not enjoyable, but Caleb said, “God, if you can take care of me in the wilderness, you can get me to the top of that mountain. And God, if you can take care of my needs, my physical needs, I know you can take care of my spiritual needs.” Caleb drew strength from his preparation.

What else made this 85-year-old mountain climber tenacious enough to come and say, “I want my mountain”? It was not just his past; he did not live there; he learned from it. It was not just his preparation.

Caleb was pretty passionate about what he believed. I get a little weary with people who believe you can be excited about anything and everything but church. I believe that church is dignified and holy, and of course, I believe that. But folks, you can get excited in church. Having a pastor who has a vision—you are going to meet next week or the week after to be in a new property, to pray around an area where there is no building, but there is going to be a building. If that does not get you excited, boy, you need to go into the exciter checker place wherever that is, and you need to get checked out. God has big stuff going on. You can get excited about that.

I am from Kentucky. We have fans that cheer when UK is losing by 52 points. They are yelling at the ref, “You are blind, ref!” And I am like, it does not matter, but go ahead. They are excited about their team, even when they lose. Folks, we are not on the losing team. We are on the winning side. God is winning. God is not wondering what is going on. God has everything falling in place, and all we have to do is say, “God, I am following you.” That ought to get you excited.

If you watch the news all day long and you listen to all the pundits and all the people and watch all the debates and all those different things, yeah, that will depress you. But if you get in your Bible and say, “Hey, I had a God who could take care of Pharaoh; I know I have a God that can take care of those people I cannot name, but you saw them on some of the debates.” I have a God that can care for all of those things because God is bigger than a political party. God is bigger than a political individual or a governor or a mayor. God is God. Yet we are the only people on the planet who do not believe that. The trees, the rocks—they would cry out if we would simply hold our peace. But I have a God I can get excited about.

Caleb was pretty excited. He knew God was taking him through the wilderness. He said, “Hey, the wilderness is better than slavery. I am following God.” He became passionate. In fact, let us turn to Numbers, the Book of Numbers, and let us go to Numbers Chapter 14. We have been in Joshua, Chapter 14.

In Numbers Chapter 14, we are going to find that the children of Israel have journeyed through the wilderness. They have journeyed all the way up to the land of Kadesh-barnea. They are on the verge; they are about to go into the land. It is exciting. God chooses out 12 men; Caleb is one of them—excuse me, Joshua is one of them. We have all sung this song about the 12 men that went to spy on Canaan, and 10 were bad and two were good. Caleb was one of the good guys, and he went there, and he was pretty excited about what he saw.

The Bible tells us in Numbers 13, it talks a little bit about the spies. They go through verses 25 through, and we will not read that for the sake of time, but they go through and they come back, and you know the story, church. Ten of them get up and they give an evil report. They say, “Well, there are giants in the land.” They started off just like a CNN report: “Good evening, folks. There are giants in the land. It has been reported that there are walled cities. From all of our recent data and polls, we find out that there is about a 99.9% chance that God simply cannot do it. In fact, we were being likened even to grasshoppers.” They gave you the whole evening report, and people were depressed and discouraged.

Now, we have to say, “Time out.” They did not lie in the report. They told the truth. There were giants; there were things in the land. But they did not put the faith factor in there. They did not say, “Hey, next to those giants, God is bigger. Next to those walled cities, God is greater.”

Caleb and Joshua had heard enough. Finally, in verse number 30 of Numbers Chapter 13, Numbers 13:30, Caleb stilled the people, and he says, “Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.” He stood up. He spoke up for God. He said, “Hey, I do not just believe in God; I am going to take a stand for Him. I am not an undercover Christian. I am going to let people know I serve a God. We are well able to overcome it.”

They had moved all the way to the brink of the Jordan, and they were at Kadesh-barnea—this great movement of 2.4 million people ground to a halt. They waited with fear and apprehension. Anytime a movement stops, it becomes a monument. How many monuments do you drive by with steeples on them to this day? It is kind of ironic. We were driving by and actually discussing this very thing and drove by a church that is just a denomination. I will be honest with you, they are not reaching folks; they are not teaching the Bible. On top of that church, not even 20 miles from here, were five big buzzards. I thought, “That is interesting. They knew something was dead.”

Folks, I do not want to be a part of a dead movement. I want to be a part of something that is alive and a part of something that is right. Caleb stood up with Joshua and said, “Hey, we are well able to do this. God is able. God is great.” Did everybody believe him and do exactly what he said? No, they did not. Sometimes we are going to take a stand, and we are going to be the only person at work who says, “Hey, I am a Christian,” and you think everybody is going to get right with the Lord. No, you may eat lunch by yourself. In fact, you may get your car keyed. I do not know. Sometimes when you take a stand for the Lord, it does not turn out right.

But Caleb was worried about pleasing someone, and that someone was God. Caleb did not please the crowd. They got so mad they wanted to stone them. But Caleb said, “I am going to please God. I am going to be passionate. I am going to speak up.”

Sometimes we do this: we all want to be popular. What does everybody else think? Okay, I will say something about God because everybody here is happy and Christian. What do you do this Thanksgiving when you are the only Christian there at your family reunion? Or maybe there is that lost brother-in-law or sister-in-law. Folks, we have got to witness to them. We have got to share the gospel. I know it is difficult. I know it is uncomfortable, but we have a God that we ought to be passionate about. Caleb spoke up for the Lord. No one else did. God remembered what Caleb did. He said, “Okay, Caleb. Everybody else is going to die in the wilderness, but I am going to let you go into the land of Canaan. Joshua, I am going to let you go into the land.” God did not let Caleb down. If you speak up for God, He is not going to leave you, so to speak.

I will give you two more things. We looked at his past; Caleb would not live in his past. We looked at his preparation; Caleb said, “Whatever I am going through, God, it is to get me closer to you.” We looked at his passion; he is excited about God. He is excited to be a Christian. He does not go through life looking like he is sentenced to church; he enjoys it.

But Caleb also had persistence, and this is what gets most of us in life. Here is what happened: 38 years he had been a slave. Two years now, he had traveled the desert to get to the promised land. He did what was right, did he not, church? He did what was right. He stood up and spoke up for God. But yet who is sentenced to still wander for 40 years with the children of Israel? Caleb. Wait a second. God, that is not fair. It was not fair. We would look at God and say, “God, you are unjust.” He spoke up for you. Why does he have to wander the wilderness for 40 years until every one of those heathens died in the wilderness?

Sometimes we get frustrated because you say, “God, I have been faithful to church. I reared my kids in church, and now they have walked out on God. It is not fair.” “I have been in my place, and God, I am struggling in my marriage. It is not right.” “God, I have read my Bible, and I am having issues.” “God, I am tithing, and my finances are not what they need to be.” Have you ever been there where you have said, “God, I did what you told me to do, but it is not working out”? Just be patient. Persist. Keep going.

Caleb got up the next morning, and he did what he had done the morning before. He got up and said, “I am going to Canaan.” Maybe 40 years in the future, but God promised me I am going to Canaan. He got up, and he did not murmur. He did not complain. He kept back in Moses. He kept standing behind the man of God. He kept serving. He kept walking the desert miles. He persisted. Caleb would have had every right to quit, but he did not quit. He persisted. That is why we remember Caleb. That is why we sing, “I want that mountain.”

A history teacher was lecturing, and we all know history is boring, okay? I taught some history; I love history. But this teacher was teaching, and he saw his class—we all know Columbus Day is coming up, I think, on the 12th—and he began to teach, and he had lost the class. He said, “Now, class,” it sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher, “Christopher Columbus had a lot of difficulties, and honestly, had he turned back, no one would have blamed him. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.” But no one would have remembered him either. Think about that.

It is pretty true, is it not? A lot of people in history, in Christianity, are remembered not by what they did not do, but what they overcame. I love World War II history. Winston Churchill, the little guy who looked like a bulldog and did this everywhere he went and smoked cigars—we are not supposed to do that in church, okay? Listen, he went everywhere like that. Winston Churchill was a pretty tough fellow. You did not want to get on his wrong side. He was voted by many people as one of the key men of the 20th century. He was up in years, and he was asked to come and address a large body of students in an Ivy League school. It was packed: alumni, students, faculty, guests, anybody that could get in to hear the former Prime Minister of Great Britain. They thought he was going to give a huge oration, a huge speech. He walked up, and he just said five words in his gruff accent, which I will not try to repeat: “Never, never, never give up,” and turned and walked away.

Think about that. Is not that what the Christian life is all about? We know that this is true. We know that God’s word is true, but so many times we just say, “That is too hard. I quit.” My wife and I, when getting started, everybody asked, “How are you going to get started?” Well, “The Lord is going to provide.” That is the easy part—getting started, but staying faithful. How many years now later, Pastor Chisgar? Twenty years later. That is what a true Christian hero looks like. Anybody can start; we want to finish. I believe you want to finish. You would not be here on a Sunday night if you did not. So whatever you are going through in life, look at Caleb and say he went through 40 years of unjust treatment, 40 years of wilderness wandering he did not deserve, but he said, “I am not going to quit.”

We have looked at his past; it was awful, but he did not live there. He learned from it. We looked at his preparation; it strengthened him to one day take the mountain that God would have for him. We looked at his passion; he stood up, he spoke up for God, he was identified with God’s people. We have looked also at his excitement for God—“I want to be a part of this.” And then we looked at his persistence: “I am going to continually do what is right.”

Here is the fifth and final thing as we end the service tonight, and I thank you for your attention. What was the foundation of this dynamic faith that Caleb had? What was the foundation that kept him on the straight and narrow for 85 years without wavering? It was this: Caleb had a promise. Caleb had a promise. Let us read Caleb’s promise. In Numbers 14, one chapter over, the last passage we will read—we will wrap it up for tonight. In Numbers chapter 14, verse 24, the Bible says, “But my servant Caleb, because”—Numbers 14:24—“he had another spirit within him, and hath wholly followed me, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went; and his seed shall possess it.”

That was a Bible promise. “Caleb, you are going to go into that land. Caleb, you are going to possess that land.” It did not matter how many years Caleb was in the wilderness; he was going to go to Canaan. Why? God promised him. It did not matter how many battles he went through. He fought with the children of Israel for five years. He never went into battle wondering, “Am I going to get shot? Am I going to get killed?” God had promised him. In fact, I do not know; he may have gone into battle like this: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I do not know if he did that, okay? He did not have to worry. He had God’s word on it.

He said, “Well, that is good for Caleb, but I do not have a promise from God.” Oh, really? Do you know what Second Peter 1 tells us? We have been given “exceeding great and precious promises.” Do you believe that, church? God promises, “I will supply your need according to my riches by Christ Jesus.” “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Caleb did not just get excited because he went to a church service and it stirred him up on the inside. He got excited because he had read and learned, and God had given His word. God’s words were spoken to Caleb: “You will possess the land. You will receive your inheritance. Your seed will possess it.” He said, “I am going to go to the bank on that promise.” We have more of the Bible than Caleb ever had, and we live in doubt. We have more of the Bible than Joshua ever had. God has given us these promises, but all we have to do is stand on them. All we have to do is claim them as our own. Are you standing on the promises that cannot fail? Are you standing on the promises that never change? God has guaranteed us in His Word; He will take care of us.

What is it in your life as we close out the service tonight? I do not know you; you do not know me. But I know if you are like me, there are things in your life you are praying about. I know that there are things in your life that maybe you say, “God, I wish you could work here. I wish you could change this.” Let us go to God about those things. If it is your past that the devil is bringing up, saying you cannot live for the Lord, be like Caleb and say, “No, God, you have taken care of my past. It is under the blood. I am going to claim that mountain for you.” If you have lost your excitement, Brother Jared, I have been in church for years—rekindle your passion by reading the promises that God has for you.

Maybe you are a young person and you are in school or you are just constantly being corrected. I could not stand being corrected. Oh my goodness, it still gets under my skin, but I need correction. The Bible tells us in Proverbs that the fool rejects correction; the wise man invites correction. Give your parents a heart attack, young man. If you go home and ask your mom and dad, “Hey, is there anything in my attitude that you see that you think ought to be corrected?” That would be a good question for some young people to ask their parents tonight.

Spouse, husband, wife—have you ever approached your husband or your wife and said, “Hey, is there a way I could be a better husband?” Do not ask my wife; she has a list, okay, and I am working on it, all right? But is there a better way I could be a better spouse? We ought to be looking for ways to be more for the Lord, to be less of ourselves, to conquer those mountains.

With heads bowed and eyes closed, we will prepare for the invitation. However, Pastor normally does that. Someone comes to the piano; they are welcome to do that at this time. Before I turn it over to Pastor Chisgar, it is a very simple message. With heads bowed and eyes closed, I wonder, what is it God wants you to do? It does not matter your age. Maybe you are very young. Maybe you are in the middle years. Maybe you are in the senior years. God has someone for you to love, someone for you to witness to, some work for you to do. Do not let your past keep you from God. Do not let the preparation, though it seems difficult, realize God is putting that there to build you, to make you into what He wants. Get excited about the work of the Lord, and base everything that you do. Be persistent on the promises of God. His promises will never fail you. They will never, ever let you down.

As I turn it over to Pastor Chisgar, if God wants you to do something, I pray that you would do that either in your seat or at this altar in this time of invitation.

Original File: You can Finish - Bro. Young