Joshua 14:6-15 • January 30, 2025 • g1311
Pastor Todd Lauderdale teaches a message through Joshua 14:6-15 titled “Faith The Pleases God.”
Well, if you’d like to join me, we’re going to be in Joshua 14 this evening. I’ll give you a second to turn to that spot as I tell you a little bit about the book of Joshua itself because this book, if you’re not familiar with it, is a significant period in the history of Israel. They are entering into the land that God had promised to them long ago, and God is now going to fulfill that promise that He had made to them. This is a book of triumph as Joshua leads the nation to drive out the wicked nations that inhabited that land in order to occupy it themselves.
Moses has already passed away. Moses is the one that the Lord had used to lead them out of slavery in Egypt. After four hundred years of serving the Egyptians, through the mighty hand of God, the Pharaoh let the people go; and Moses led them through forty years of wandering in the wilderness, which we will talk a bit about tonight. But when they were on the brink of the Promised Land, Moses died and Joshua took over. Now, Joshua is the leader of the nation. After they had many victories, and most of the land had been taken over by the nation of Israel, it was time to divide up the land. They went through a period of time where each of the tribes of Israel were going to get their land allotment. Tribe by tribe the borders of their land were divvied up between them.
Then we come to Joshua 14, and we see a unique event taking place. Instead of a section of land being given to a tribe, it is given to an individual by the name of Caleb. I want to go ahead and read the portion of Scripture we’re going to take a look at and consider tonight and then see why it is that this man received his own allotment as the land was divvied up. Follow along with me. We’re going to begin in verse 6. It says:
“Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him: ‘You know the word which the LORD said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. 7 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 back word to him as it was in my heart. 8 Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9 So Moses swore on that day, saying, “Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.” 10 ‘And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. 11 As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. 12 Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you have heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said.’ 13 And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. 14 Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel. 15 And the name of Hebron formerly was Kirjath Arba (Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim). Then the land had rest from war.”
Why is it that this man was singled out and was given his own allotment of land as opposed to all of the other tribes got their allotment of land to share? Why did he get his own land? I will begin by telling you that God had promised that to him more than forty years prior to this passage. In fact, this passage is late in Caleb’s life. This is near the end of Caleb’s story. There’s a whole lot of story that goes along in Caleb’s life beforehand, and we’re going to talk about that here in a few minutes, but we need to understand that the reason why he was being given this allotment of land is because God had promised it to him way back in the day, and we will talk about the day that that happened.
Why did God give him this promise, though? God gave him the promise as is recorded there in verse 14 of the passage we just read, “Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day,”—why?—“because he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel.” Caleb had placed his whole confidence in the God of the Bible. His faith was planted there, and so his life was going to reflect that faith that he had. Because God saw the genuineness of his faith, He rewarded him with this promise, “When you get into the land, I want you to know, you are going to inherit this section of the Promised Land because you were faithful to me.”
Like I said, this is the end of his story, but I think it’s important for us to look at the beginning of his story because it explains the end of his story. Before we get that far, I think it’s important for us to understand that God has called us to a life of faith. It was so back then, and it is so today. We can see throughout Scripture God’s appeal for us to believe, for us to have faith. It is said of Abraham, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
We’re told in the Old Testament to, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart.” We’re told in the New Testament that “ . . . whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” and that, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life.” The Bible is full of passages that appeal to us to believe God and to place our faith in Him.
What does it really mean to believe? I mean the words “believe,” “faith” are common words in our vocabulary, not just us as Christians but even within the world these are common words for us. Many have a superficial belief when it comes to the things that they proclaim, that they believe in. What I mean by that is that they can say that they believe something, but then you examine their life and it does not appear, by the way that they live their life, that they actually believe the things that they proclaim. A person can say, “I believe in God,” but then you take a look at how they are living their life and it seems very diametrically opposed to the very thing that they say that they believe in; or that they can say they have faith that the Bible is true, but then many areas of their life don’t seem to live in connection with what Scripture happens to talk about. So, is just making the proclamation that, “I believe in God,” all that God is really concerned with? Does God just want us to acknowledge that He exists?
Well, I can tell you flat out that that is not the biblical intent of “believe” or “having faith” actually is. In fact, I want to give you two key indicators of what true biblical faith is. When the Bible is speaking about “faith,” when the Bible is saying “believe,” these two things are always part of that proclamation. If you’re taking notes, I encourage you to write these down. The first is biblical “faith" trusts. There is a Greek root word that actually gives us both our word “believe” and our word “faith” in the New Testament. They both come from the same word. “Believe” is just the verb version, and “faith” is the noun version of the word. The simple and most basic definition of what that Greek word means is the conviction that something is true. I would say that that definition, though it is a true definition, is only the superficial definition of the word “believe.”
Why do I say that? Because in James’ letter, the second chapter, he makes reference to, “Even the demons believe—and tremble!” He uses the same word that is often used when it is speaking about our belief. We have to understand that the demons do not believe in a fashion that trusts in God, it is simply an acknowledgement that He does exist. They have the conviction that that fact is true that God actually exists. That can’t possibly be what the Bible is appealing to us for when it comes to our “believe” or our “faith.”
There is a secondary and more impactful definition of the Greek word that we find often Scripture either translated “believe” or “faith.” That more intense definition is to place confidence in or to trust. I’m telling you right now that that is the biblical intent of what it means to believe, what it means to place your faith in God. It is not just believing that God exists, it is placing your confidence in that God where you are trusting that God in what He says, in what He does, in what He asks of you. That’s the first part of what real biblical faith is. First, biblical faith trusts. The second part is that biblical faith acts, meaning that its action matches the claims that it is making. A biblical faith is active. It trusts in God, and so because of that trust and confidence in God, it is going to act in a way that reflects belief in the God who has given us commandments, who has given us promises, who has given us warnings. We take all of that to heart, and it impacts the way that we live our lives.
James actually says it this way in James 2. He says, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” In other words, James is bringing both of those concepts together that true biblical faith is not only placing your confidence and trust in God, but it’s going to be reflected in the life that you now live. It’s going to impact the choices you make, how you’re living your life out. Probably the one chapter in all of the Bible that is going to define faith for us in the clearest fashion is in Hebrews 11. We’re not really going to spend time there tonight in this message, but many of you know that Hebrews 11 is often called “the hall of faith” because the chapter begins in verse 1 with a clear definition of what real biblical faith actually is, “Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.” Then the chapter begins to go through the lives of so many of those from the Scriptures, from the Old Testament, who lived their lives by faith; but it shows that they had faith by what it was that they did or what it was that they did not do. They had placed their trust in God, and it impacted the way that they lived their life.
What I’m telling you to begin with is that anyone who proclaims faith in God but that faith does not transfer into a trust in what God says and a change in their life that reflects that trust in God, that is a superficial faith on the same level as Satan himself and demons who believe in the existence of God but that does not convert into trust or a change in behavior. That is what God is looking for in our lives, and because God is looking for that kind of faith and trust, He’s going to put our faith to the test.
We all know what that is like. We go through periods of time in our lives where we definitely understand our faith is being tested. We need to know in those times that God is doing something. First of all, He is giving us an opportunity to trust Him. He’s also giving us an opportunity to act upon His Word. In other words, trust God through the trial that you happen to be going through and appeal to His Word as to how you are to handle it. Is there anything I need to be doing? Is there anything I need to stop doing in order to be faithful to what God calls me to do in a situation like this? God will put our faith to the test.
Now, the background to this chapter, Joshua 14, is the fact that God had been testing His people. He had been testing them for many, many years; and I want to kind of take you quickly through the background story of how that really played out going back to the time of Moses in the book of Exodus. You can just listen to what I am sharing with you, and I’m going to make reference to the books maybe that you’ll find those stories, but we won’t have time tonight to turn to those places. Suffice it to say that Moses heard the voice of God out of a burning bush calling him to the ministry. That “ministry” was to go to the land of Egypt, speak to Pharaoh, and tell Pharaoh, “God has sent me here to tell you that My people need to be set free.”
We know the story, how that story unfolded, Pharaoh did not want to let them go, so the Hebrews that were there, the slaves of the Egyptians, were able to watch over a period of time as through the hand of Moses God unleashed His power in order to persuade Pharaoh to let His people go. Here’s an introduction to God’s people, the display of God’s power and God’s ability to move on their behalf. They had a front-row seat to see how the Egyptians were afflicted but they themselves were not afflicted. They were protected by God, but the enemies of God suffered the afflictions to the point where Pharaoh finally broke and said, “Fine! You guys can leave.”
After four hundred years of slavery, generations of Hebrews that had lived in slavery are finally being given their freedom. You gotta know that they were excited about that because Moses had given them promises from God saying, “God isn’t only setting you free, God is going to give you your own land. It’s a land that is flowing with milk and honey, and we’re about to go there. Here they are, excited about being set free, having their freedom for the first time in their lives, excited also about the prospect that they are going to a place where they will have their own land and a very good land flowing with milk and honey.
But it wasn’t trouble-free because as they left Egypt, entered into the wilderness, things got tough. They were excited about what they left, they were also excited about where they were going. Here they are in this time period of the in-between where their lives were going to be tested. God was going to test the fabric of their faith. Did they really trust God? And, did they trust God enough that it will change their behavior and how they’re going to live? We know that they at one point had their backs up against the Red Sea when the Egyptian army came after them. We know later, once they had crossed the Red Sea, that they got into the wilderness and there wasn’t a whole lot of food out there, so they started getting very hungry, didn't know where the food was going to come from. Later, they were getting thirsty, and they didn’t have a source of water, so they didn’t know where the water was going to come from. So, one test after another test, after another test was coming their way that they had to figure out how to deal with it, and it would come down to whether they were going to trust God and walk in God’s ways or whether they were going to take it upon themselves to figure things out or grumble and complain until Moses did something for them.
There’s a parallel in our own lives right now in that we’re kind of in that “in-between” time. Do you guys realize that? If you are a believer, if you are a born-again Christian, you are in an “in-between” time—between the time that the Lord saved you and the time that He is going to usher you into His heavenly Kingdom. We’re excited about both of those things, aren’t we. I mean, we’re excited about the day that we were set free from our sins, when we knew that we were forgiven by God, and we were accepted by Him. That was a glorious day. We know also it’s going to be a very glorious day when we one day step foot into God’s Kingdom and we get to enjoy His presence forever. But here we are in the “in-between” time, the time of testing. The time of testing for them is very similar to the time of testing for us because every one of us goes through trials. None of us will come through this world unscathed, and it is the time that as the Lord dealt with His people back then, He will deal with us. What is He trying to do? He wants us to learn to trust Him. He wants us to learn to act upon what His Word calls us to do.
You know what those Hebrews would begin to see is that God was faithful every single time. Every time that they were in a crisis, God would get them out of that crisis. Their backs were against the Red Sea, God parted the Red Sea. Their stomachs were hungry for food, God rained down upon them manna from heaven. Their lips were parched with not enough water, God caused water to flow out of a rock. Every time that they were in a situation where they didn’t have a solution to their own problem, God became the problem solver; and in every one of those instances, it was God saying, “I’m faithful. I’m faithful. I’m faithful. I will not leave you nor forsake you. I am here for you. I understand what your needs are. I will meet those needs.”
The other thing that God was doing in that time was testing the genuineness of their faith. Would they trust Me when they’re in a crisis? Will they look back upon how faithful I’ve been to them up until this point and say, “Well, if God has been so faithful to me so far, then He is going to be faithful to me the rest of the way out.” Or, would they begin to throw up their hands, complain to Moses, and say, “It would be better if we just went back to Egypt. Life was better there than it is right now.” You know how the Hebrews responded. They grumbled, they complained, and every time they were in a crisis, they did not trust the Lord, they freaked out. The proved themselves faithless. God proved Himself faithful; they proved themselves faithless, except for a couple guys.
There were a couple guys that were not like the rest, and both of those guys are found in our story here—Joshua and Caleb. Now that they’re in the Promised Land, now that many of their enemies have been driven out, not all of them, there are still enemies around, but enough have been cleared out that they could divvy up the land, Caleb comes to Joshua to remind him of the promise that God had given him more than forty years beforehand. Look at what it says, beginning in verse 7 again. This is Caleb talking. He says, “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 back word to him as it was in my heart. 8 Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9 So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD my God.’”
Now, Caleb’s words might remind you of a specific instance that happened to the nation of Israel when they were in the wilderness. After forty years of them wandering around in the wilderness, going through the tests that God was throwing their way, they came to the edge of the Promised Land. It was not too far away, they were in a place called Kadesh Barnea. In that place Moses decided the he was going to send in a group of spies into the Promised Land just to check it out. He selected twelve men, twelve men that would travel together. They would go into the land that God had promised them, they would do some surveillance, and come back with a report. Those twelve men went in. Two of those twelve men were the guys in our story—Joshua and Caleb. They surveyed the land, and they came back with the report.
Their report was essentially the land is just like God promised. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. They brought back some of the fruit of the land to show the people really how good a land it was. But they also came back with the report that the people that are living in that land were big dudes. They were strong. They were powerful. In fact, their report was, “We were like grasshoppers in their sight.”
I want you to know that all twelve of the spies agreed to these details: They all agreed that the land was great; they all agreed that their enemies in the land were big. But that’s where their similarities ended because, as we know, ten of them gave the report to the nation saying, “There is no way in the world we should even attempt to cross over into that land. They will wipe us out. We will not survive. Our kids will die. We should stay right where we are. Don’t go in.” Then, there was Joshua and Caleb. Both of them had a different report. In particular, Caleb, who appears to have been the spokesperson at the time, said, “Why shouldn’t we go in? God has said that He’s giving us this land. It really does not matter how big they are or how many they are! If God said it, we ought to believe it, and we ought to go in.”
I like what Alan Redpath said about these spies. He said, “The majority had great giants but a little God; Caleb had a great God and little giants.” You know, it really comes down to where you put your confidence, where your trust and your faith is. If your eyes are upon your circumstances, God can seem very small; but if your eyes are on the greatness of who your God is, your problems become small because you know your God can handle it.
You see, in this situation they were confronted with yet another one of the tests that they would have to go through. The test was: Are you going to believe God when God says, “I’m going to give you the land,” or are you going to look at the circumstances that you will be placed in and hightail it in fear that it won’t work out the way that God said it would work out. You see, that’s the difference between genuine faith and superficial faith. Genuine faith trusts in God and is going to act accordingly. Superficial faith says that they believe in God, but when they’re put in a tight situation, their true trust is in their own resources, in their own decision making. What did the people decide? They decided that the obstacles in the land were too great. It would be better not to go.
Notice, it was not a question that some believed in God and some did not believe in God. They all believed in God, they just didn’t all believe God. Do you understand the difference? To believe in God is simply to acknowledge that God exists; to believe God is to believe what God has said is true and it will come to pass. That’s the difference between superficial faith and biblical faith. God has not called us to a superficial faith. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a place in Scripture where God tries to convince you that He exists. Scripture was written in such a way as to assume/presume that God already exists, it’s just whether you trust Him or you don’t, whether you’re placing your confidence in Him or you’re not.
I want to take you back for a moment to the actual event. If you want to turn there, you’re more than welcome to, but it’s found in Numbers 13 and 14. It tells the story of Moses sending in the spies to check out the land. We’ve already talked about the report that they came back with, and even what the whole nation decided—they decided not to go in. Because they decided not to go in, God said, “Okay, because you did not believe Me, none of you will go in. You’re going to stay out here in the desert until you all die off and your kids will get to go in, all except for Joshua and Caleb.”
I want you to listen to what God said in Numbers 14:24. If you’re there, you can look. If not, just listen, “But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.” After God says, “Okay, you guys aren’t going to go in because you don’t believe Me, so you aren’t going to go in at all. You’ll die here in the wilderness, but Caleb will not. Because Caleb believed Me, I will allow him to go in and his descendants will inherit what you would’ve inherited.” It’s interesting that God uses the phrase, “because Caleb had a different spirit.” What did that mean? What did it mean that Caleb had a “different spirit”? I think it’s simply that Caleb was being set in contrast with the people who did not believe God. The spirit within those people was the spirit of unbelief. The spirit within Caleb was a spirit of absolute trust and confidence that no matter what the circumstances, God is faithful to His Word; and if God said it, it’s going to happen. Because of that, God honored him.
There’s a Hebrew word that is used by the Lord in that verse which was in reference to the fact that Caleb fully trusted in the Lord. It is the Hebrew word mâlê, and it meant to the full or wholeheartedly. The people were wishy-washy, but Caleb was mâlê. He was wholeheartedly, to the full, placing his confidence in God. It’s interesting because if you still have a thumb back in Joshua 14, we come across that same word mâlê three other times. Three other times that term for fullness, for wholeheartedness, is used in reference to Caleb. Caleb makes reference to himself in verse 8 when he says, “ . . . but I wholly followed the LORD my God.” That’s mâlê. Then Moses, when he spoke about Caleb, at the end of verse 9 he said, “ . . . because you have wholly followed the LORD my God,” again, mâlê.
Down in verse 14 we get Joshua and his words to Caleb when he says at the end of that verse, “ . . . because he”—that is, Caleb—“wholly followed the LORD God of Israel.” It’s interesting that it was not just Caleb making mention that he had a heart after God. Moses also said that he had a heart after God, Joshua said he had a heart after God, and God said he had a heart after God. All using a Hebrew word which meant to the full, meaning that Caleb was a man whose heart was wholly given over to God. He had placed his trust in Him, and he was going to live his life living out that confidence that God was always going to be there for him and He was always going to accomplish what He promised to do.
What I see in that is that genuine faith is noticed by others. It’s one thing to say that you have faith, it’s another thing for others to notice your faith. When they see the way that you speak, when they watch the way that you handle your problems, and just the way that you conduct yourself can be a testimony to others that your faith is mâlê, that it is to the full, that is wholehearted. Now, are we perfect? We are not perfect people. Is our faith perfect? It is not. I think about the guy in the gospels that had come to Jesus for help, and the statement that he made to Jesus, “Jesus, I believe. Help my unbelief.” I bet you every single one of us can relate to making a statement like that, “Lord, I believe in You, but there’s pockets, there’s areas of my heart, my mind, that is having a hard time wholly putting my confidence and trust in You. Lord, help my unbelief.”
Because Caleb had placed his full confidence in the Lord, Caleb received the promise that God had given him more than forty years prior. It was forty years in the waiting. Forty years he had not forgotten that God had given him that promise, but now the day is finally coming that God is going to fulfill that promise through Joshua as Joshua gave him the city of Hebron as an inheritance.
In the next chapter, which we didn’t read but I want to point out to you, chapter 15, Caleb is going to go into that land and drive out some of the giants, some of the massive men that lived in the area that God was giving to him. Remember, he’s eighty-five years old, and he goes into the land that God is giving him, and he dispossesses those giants. It says that in Joshua 15:14, “Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak from there: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.” Anak was the father of the Anakim which were known as a very large tribe of people that occupied that land. But Caleb, an 85-year-old man, was able to drive them out and possess the land that God gave him. Why? Because he wholly trusted in the Lord, God wholly gave him his land.
Now, that’s significant because if you read through the book of Joshua, what you’re going to find is though the nation of Israel had driven out many of their enemies, they did not drive out all of their enemies. Many of these tribes that were beginning to possess the land that they were given had to deal with the problem of some of their enemies still lived there and were harassing them and causing them problems. It seems that because the nation of Israel did not fully trust in the Lord, God did not fully drive out their enemies. But because Caleb fully trusted the Lord, God fully drove out his enemies. He was able to live in peace while the other nations were going to struggle for a while, and the book of Judges is all about that, in case you’re interested.
I want you to think about this. These were words that were spoken much after the time of Caleb, but they surely applied to him. In 2 Chronicles 16:9, the Word of God says, “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” God’s eyes are always looking. They’re going throughout the world looking for loyal hearts, those who have placed their confidence in Him, so that He might show Himself strong on their behalf. Caleb, no doubt, caught the gaze of God, so God blessed and honored him for it.
That’s the kind of faith that God is wanting to stir up in our own lives. Many of us have placed our trust in the Lord. I’m not here questioning saving faith, but I do think we need to consider: Are we living lives that have put our full confidence in the Lord, so much so that it is changing our behavior? It influences the way that we act and react to things in our life, and not only is that happening, but people take notice of it. They see the change that we don’t act like we used to act or we don’t treat our problems like others treat their problems. Why? Because we have placed our confidence in God. You see, faith pleases God, and when God sees genuine faith, He rewards that faith by working strong on their behalf. “Without faith,” Hebrews says, “it is impossible to please God.”
As we wrap up I want to ask, is your faith right now being tested? Are you going through a time where God is really putting you through the ringer? Well, I will tell you there’s a few things that He is trying to do. First, He wants to show you His faithfulness, that through your situation He will not leave you or forsake you, that He will get you through it, and again He will prove Himself faithful. Secondly, it is to prove your faith genuine. How are you handling it? Have you taken it back upon yourself to figure it out or have you cast it at the feet of Jesus allowing Him to guide you through it, acting upon His Word, trusting in His promises. Let’s find ourselves there. Amen?
Pastor Todd Lauderdale teaches a message through Joshua 14:6-15 titled “Faith The Pleases God.”