Never Too Old

In Numbers 13 Moses sends 12 men on from each tribe to look over the land God was giving His people, Israel. Ten of the men said that Israel could not take the land that the people who lived there were to strong.

One of the two men who told the people that if God told them to take the land they could.

Numbers 13:30

Caleb quitted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Caleb believed God that had given them the land and they could by God’s enabling go up and take the land.

In Numbers 14:24 and Deuteronomy 1:36 God promises to give to Caleb the land that he had walked on.

God honors obedience. When we obey God, He blesses.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing God and be willing to obey Him.

Then in Joshua 14 Caleb reminds Joshua what God had promised him.

Joshua 14:6-12

Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. I was forty years old 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. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have kept me alive, just as He said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim was there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.’”

Four things that I see In Caleb.

#1: He believed what God said.

God had told Caleb that he would enter the promise land and he was there. God also told Caleb that the hill country would be his and Caleb believed God. God also assured Caleb that He would be with him and enable him to take the land.

God has given us hundreds of promises in His Word and we can believe them and live based on them. When we do God blesses us.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing God and obeying God.

#2: Caleb reminded Joshua what God had promised him.

Caleb could have stayed quiet and let Joshua remembered what God had promised and if not take what Joshua gave him.

Caleb didn’t because he believed the promise but also because it was important to him.

Caleb wanted the land that God had promised him and so he reminded Joshua of the promise.

When something is really important to us we proclaim it.

When something is really important we remind others of it.

When something is really important we live based on it every day.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is focusing on what is really important.

#3: Caleb did not let age or circumstances deter him from doing God’s will

God’s will and nothing else should be what we allow to determine what we do and when we do it. God’s will is to be the driving fore of our lives.

Jesus’ prayer in the garden was not My will but Your will should be ours.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God’s will direct our lives.

#4: Caleb depended on God’s power.

Caleb had seen God:

Part the Red Sea

Provide Manna from Heaven

Part the Jordan River

Guide the Israelites Through the Wilderness for Forty Years

Defeated Much Stronger Enemies

He knew by experience God’s power and knew God would be his power to take the land he had been given.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing God’s power by personally experiencing God’s power.

Caleb followed God.

In the same way we are called to follow Jesus.

Following Jesus by Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

                                            Joe