What hindered Caleb and Joshua from being worn out by the trial of the wilderness, which had worn out all their generation? Let Caleb himself answer: “My brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. ... 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, both to go out, and to come in ... if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said” (Josh. 14:8,10-128Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. (Joshua 14:8)
10And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, 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. 11As 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. 12Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and 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 said. (Joshua 14:10‑12)).
Caleb owned that it was a pleasant land which the Lord gave to the children of Israel, and his heart was set upon it. He could discern the difference between that land and Egypt; his treasure was in the land, and there his heart was. On account of the difficulties of the way, others esteemed Egypt preferable to the wilderness, but Caleb esteemed Canaan, with all the difficulty of entering into it, as far more precious than Egypt with present ease but with present bondage also. He had tasted the fruit of Canaan; it was this which made him tread the wilderness with such elastic steps. Besides this, he had the sure word of the Lord’s promise to support him. He knew the certain end unto which his wanderings, in company with others, must lead.
The Object of Desire
For us, God has given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. This was the comfort, strength and establishment of the apostles, as well as of common Christians. Christ Himself, to whom the Spirit ever bears witness, is thus not only the object of faith, but the object of desire also. It is as the object of desire that He is known now, by the earnest of the Spirit. If the Spirit of God shows to us the things which are freely given to us of God, He shows them not as in the distant future, but being Himself the earnest of the inheritance. He now glorifies Jesus, taking of His things and showing them unto us and showing them as ours now in Him, so that we can taste and handle our own blessings.
Grace and Power
“Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God.” It is no presumption to answer to the testimony of God to our own souls. The soul of Caleb rested entirely on the grace and power of God which had caused them to triumph at the Red Sea; the same grace and power could alone lead them into possession of the land. But the very same principle of fully following the Lord, which made him encourage the people to go up and possess the land, would hinder him from going up without the Lord, after He had said, “Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.” Where the Lord was, there was both grace and power; and Caleb had to learn that grace and power for forty years in the wilderness, before being put into actual possession of the very part of the land on which he had trodden with his feet.
The Spirit of God
The Spirit of God is presented to us in direct contrast with the spirit of the world. The spirit of the world is one of restless activity and inquiry, but the Spirit which is of God is the very opposite. The Holy Spirit produces in the saint the spirit of a sound mind. He leads the soul backward to the past and forward to the future. He steadies the soul by leading it to repose on the already accomplished work of Christ on the cross, and from thence He animates the soul, by leading it into the glorious prospect set before it. If Caleb needed to have his heart occupied with Canaan to cheer his spirit in the wilderness, we not only need the earnest of the Spirit for the same purpose, but also to keep us from the seductive power of the spirit of the world. As the earnest, He leads the soul to long to see Christ as He is and to be like Him, and thus, too, He leads in the path of fully following the Lord. To be ever with the Lord is the blessing in prospect, but to have Him ever with us now is the consequent earnest.
“As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.” He had acted on that strength when He searched the land, and he was ready, at the prime of manhood, to go up and possess it; now, at fourscore and five years, he finds his strength the same. If we attempt the smallest difficulty without regard to this power, we are foiled, but if the greatest obstacle presents itself, through faith in the Lord we prevail. The characteristic form of power now is endurance. The spirit of the world is that of impatience and a desire of grasping some supposed present blessing, but the Spirit of God, being Himself the earnest of certain inheritance, becomes especially the Spirit of power in enabling us patiently to wait for what is ours already. It is thus that, although “our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The Holy Spirit keeps the eye looking on invisible realities, making them, as it were, more palpable day by day.
From Strength to Strength
It is blessed indeed to see an aged disciple in whom the cravings of the mind for novelty have passed away. He may perhaps have gone through the ordeal of worldly fascination, have found his progress very checkered indeed, disappointment succeeding disappointment, desire dropping off after desire, yet all tending to one thing, to make him know the value of one blessed object, even Jesus. “I have written unto you, fathers,” says John, “because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (1 John 1:1414And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)). What conscious strength there is in thus having a single object, although it is hardly ever practically attained, but through a process of unlearning. But that single object is the one object whom the Spirit of truth has been continually witnessing to in our souls as the great end and center of the eternal counsels of God. This is the strength of old age. In the never-ceasing conflict, when the buoyancy of natural powers ceases, the warfare is carried on by a deeper sense of the power that works in us. Faith lives when the natural faculties are impaired. The soul of the aged disciple is true to Jesus where the powers of memory and recognition fail. He that has “borne ... from the belly” and “carried from the womb” says, “Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you” (Isa. 46:3-43Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: 4And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. (Isaiah 46:3‑4)). By the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Father and Son abide now in the soul of the believer; by the presence of the Holy Spirit believers can say, “Our conversation is in heaven.” And thus “those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; to show that the Lord is upright” (Psa. 92:13-1513Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; 15To show that the Lord is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Psalm 92:13‑15)). It is when the flesh is thoroughly crushed that we have strength with God and prevail. And thus, even as Caleb, the believer goes from strength to strength, mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit, at the same time that the abiding presence of the Spirit is the sure witness of the righteous judgment of God passed on the flesh in the cross of Christ and the Spirit of revelation of heavenly and eternal realities and of present communion with Him.
Christian Friend, 2:298, adapted