Caleb's Unwavering Faith: Conquering Giants at 85

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Welcome weirdy that rises the reporter guys.

Remember that that was the joke I was making.

Oh we're they're here. Hey. My name is Chris, this

is Jeff.

We are the Bible Guys, and today we are inserting

a story about Caleb that we weren't necessarily planning on

talking about.

But we're going to get through that line.

I know it wasn't on the list, but I just

can't skip it.

You can't do it.

I can't skip it. So this is one of my

favorite stories in the entire book of Joshua.

Really yes, wow, yeah, Okay, Well, before we get to that, Jeff,

we have an episode that are segments segment that desiree

is given to us.

Called mail Bags.

So this is by Paul W.

That's fantastic, Paul W.

Thank you Paul for writing in. He says this.

During a past episode, you both talked about items in

your bucket list. I'm curious to know what's the most

adventurous thing you've ever done.

Well, that's tough.

That's tough for you.

Got a bunch, I got, I've got something.

It depends on what you mean by adventures like dangerous adventures.

What do you think of when you think a ventures

more like travel? What do you think of when you

think of the word adventures.

Well, I thought both of those things, like jumping out

of an air.

Didn't give us, to give us the most dangerous thing

and then the most.

Yeah, I would I would say, jumping out an airplane

with my son on his eighteenth birthday. Wow, I think

I think that was pretty cool. It felt pretty adventurous,

you know, that is, and it was great.

I loved it.

And then, but then I would also say, in terms

of travel, when I was heading to Egypt, I had

a fifteen hour stop in Rome layover, and then also

stop in Paris on the way back. So within a

ten day time frame, I actually saw the Roman Colisseum,

went inside the Pyramids of Egypt, and went to the

Eiffel Tower.

Wow. Yeah, wow, Yeah that's pretty great. That's pretty that's

not too bad.

Yeah.

So you just got them all, got them all off

the bucket list and in a week and a half.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think about that.

So I've always been that guy that somebody go, hey,

you want to try that, and I'd be the one

to do it, you know. So that's why I've been

in the hospital so many times for stitches like.

Forest Gump, pick gum, stick your head in.

That hole exactly. I was, well, my name's Forrester.

And by the way, you know, did you know I

grew up wearing braces on my legs like Forest Gump?

Did you really?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, run Forest Run? You remember that?

Yeah, but I'm I'm sure I knew that.

Yeah.

They were so heavy. If I fell down, I couldn't

get back as like a turtle. I couldn't get back

up by myself. Really, some kids pushed me down. I

lived in a trailer park as a little kid. They

pushed me down. I couldn't get back up.

And how long did you have those?

A couple of years? Yeah? Two years? Wow?

Did they magically come off when you started running?

Yeah? That's why I'm so fast. Yeah, so.

You should see me play ping kong. By the way,

it also made me a world class ping pong player. Yeah,

so adventure I made maybe one of the most one

of the things I look back on and think about

the most as far as, while that was a great adventure,

was and you've been out in this area among the

Pocot people several years ago, I was a co leader

on a motorcycle trip out in a bush that.

Was off the roads for the most part during the daytime.

So there were roads to the final villages that we

would stop at so we could have a support truck

that would meet us at those places. But there were

lots of places we went that we were just on

like animal trails and riding across dried out riverbeds and stuff.

And then we slept in tents the whole time, right

and doug latrines and yeah, it was pretty pretty rugged.

That was fun.

And you know, on that trip, we had hyenas come

into our camp in the middle of the night. I

stepped on a little cobra, you know it. It was

a It was a crazy, crazy, crazy trip.

So that was pretty adventurous.

Uh, As far as other things like that dude a

whitewater raft during rafted one time during the monsoon season

in the Himalayas in Nepal, uh.

That sounds more. Yeah, that was pretty crazy.

I mean, I've just I have a million of those

kind of stories that just adventures. We went ballooning through

the jungles right.

Above all of the.

The temples in Bagan in Myanmar, right along the Irrawadi.

River with all the fog. That was really cool. Been

dune bashing out and.

No, okay, because I would be pretty fearful ballooning.

We we had a couple of guys that were afraid

of heights but loved the balloon trip.

Huh.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's super calm and peaceful and very very gentle.

Everything moving, how it moves is very Yeah. So it's nice,

uh dune bashing and uh outside of Abu Dhabi, you know,

all those kinds things. So yeah, just tons and tons

and tons of those kinds of things. That's that's how

I live my life. Wherever we go. I was trying

to forge out what's the most adventurous thing to do while

we're there, And so our policy usually is, and you

know this too, we'll work five or six ten hour days. Yeah,

but once we hit that sixth or seventh day, we'll

take a whole day and just go play and whatever

the fun thing is to do in that country or

in that place. You know, I've been in forty three countries.

Around the world. So whatever the fun thing is to

do in that place, we'll try to carve out one day. Well,

I've worked fifty hours up to that point. We'll carve

out one day and go do fun things, you know.

Yeah.

Well, when I ziplined in Costa Rica over the forest,

it was the last zip line was a quarter of

a mile long, yeah, and it was just unbelievable, and

it was it was in the rain.

It was like pouring down, and so that was that

was pretty good.

That's pretty great.

Yeah, And we were really really really high up.

I'm talking like I bet you we were one hundred

feet in the air maybe.

When So we were in costaiqu we did sabbatical in

Costa Rica, right, and my wife wanted to do the

jungle canopy tour.

Yeah, you know where you get up at the.

Top and then you walk along these little walkways and

all the monkeys and the birds and all.

At the tops of the trees.

Right.

Yeah, So we were having trouble with the translator. There

was no translator, and so we're just trying to explain

what we want to do to the ladies selling tickets

and she goes, oh, trees, yes, yes, trees. Okay, So

she sells us these tickets and then these guys pick

us up and we go up the mountain in like

side by side UTVs, you know, up to the top.

We get to the top, they start putting on harnesses

and helmets and we're like, that's weird. I don't remember

I ever seeing anybody wearing harnesses and helmets and the

tree top walks, and so they take us up to

the top of the thing that hooked my wife up.

My wife was like, no, no, no, no, I want.

To walk walk walk. He goes, no, zip zip zip,

and he just shoved her.

And you know, the zip lines go from one mountain

across the valley to the other mountain and they're going

back with and so our first one was over a mile.

Over a mile was our first zipline. And she didn't

want to do any ziplines ever, and they just hooked

her up zip zip and shoved her and she's screaming

all the way across that and there were sixteen zip

lines to get to the bottom of the mountain.

Wow, right, she was so mad. A translator would help

lots of translation.

That's so funny.

Yeah, so, hey, that's a really fun question. Paul.

You should come with us sometime on one of our

little adventures. Like I said, it's hard work, yeah, but

we'll usually take one day and go have a little

bit of fun.

Yeah, for SUREA.

Well, we are going to be talking about Caleb, and

I am very curious as to why this is one

of your favorite stories.

In the Book of Joshua. I'm sure we're about to

hear it.

Yes, So.

By the time you get to Joshua chapter fourteen, they

have won most of the battles. They haven't won all

the bat They didn't completely finish everything that God told

him to do, as far as driving out the wicked

inhabitants of the land and all these things. And you know,

it's weird. It's hard to talk through the Book of

Joshua and judges. There's a lot of death, there's a

lot of war. Through this God is bringing judgment on

the Canaanites, and he's using the Israelites to do that.

Right in the same way that later on God sends

the Assyrians to bring judgment on Israel when they're not

obeying God, he sends the Babylonians to bring judgment. So

God often uses governments and peoples to bring judgment on

other governments and other peoples, right, and so that's the

While war is a horrible thing, God uses it for

his purposes and so he had commanded him wipe out

these peoples, and they did most of it, not all

of it. But Joshua decides, okay, we're going to divide

up the land. And so there's twelve tribes and he

begins to say, okay, that tribe needs to go over there,

this tribe go over here and start to settle the land.

Because early on they're traveling together as one great, big,

giant group. Well, now they're taking over a large piece

of land and they need to hold it, so they

need to divide it up equitably based on the size

of each of the tribes, and so that's what they're doing.

So then they they divide the land on the west

side of Jordan, they divide the land on the east

side of Jordan. And then finally Caleb in the middle

of that, Caleb comes to Joshua sends a delegation and

here's what it says in verse six. This is a

delegation from the tribe of Judah, led by Caleb's son

of Jeffoon or the Keenazite, came.

To Joshua at Gilgal. Gilgel kind of became one of

Joshua's capitals.

Caleb said to Joshua, remember what the Lord said to Moses,

the man of God about you and me when we

were at cadish Barnea. Remember that was the time when

they were going to go across as spies. When they

came back, ten spies said no, Joshua and Caleb said, yes,

we can go win this thing. And Moses pours out

a blessing on them, even though God poured out a

curse on everybody else. So he says, that was forty

years old, and Moses the serving the Lord sent me

from cadish Barnea to explore the land of Canaan. I

returned and gave an honest report, But my brothers who

went with me frightened the people from entering the promised land.

For my part, I wholeheartedly follow the Lord my God.

So that day Moses solemnly promised me the land of

Canaan on which you were just walking, will be your

grant of land and that of your descendants forever, because

you wholeheartedly follow the.

Lord my God.

Now as you can see the Lord has kept me

alive and well as he promised for all these forty

five years since Moses made this promise, even while Israel

wandered in the wilderness. And today I'm eighty five years old.

I am as strong now as I was when Moses

sent me on that journey, and I can still travel

and fight as well as I could then. So give

me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You

will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of

Anak living there in great walled towns. But if the

Lord is with me, I will drive them out of

the land, just as the Lord said. So, Joshua blessed

Caleb's son of Jaffuna and gave Hebron to him as

his portion of land. Hebron still belongs to the descendants

of Caleb's son of Jafun, the Kenazite, because he wholeheartedly

followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Previously, Hebron had

been called kiriath Arba. It had been named after Arba,

a great hero of the descendants of Anak, and the

land had rest for more.

So, I love.

The fact that Caleb is eighty five years old and

he goes, dude, I'm just as strong to day as

I was then. I can fight just as well as

I can then. And as they're dividing this up, you

notice Joshua kind of skipped this region, right. So this

is where hebron is, that became the city of David.

It's up near where Jerusalem is, it's up in the

hill country. There were fierce warriors, extremely strong towns. And

so while josh was dividing him up all the rest

of the land, he hasn't done this part. And Caleb goes, dude,

give me the hard part. He's eighty five years old,

and he said, I still want that mountain. That's the mountain.

I want give me that mountain, and we're going to

go take these people. But he keeps going back to

the fact I obeyed God. Then I'm obeying God. Now

God's still going to keep the promise. I had to

wait forty five years for it, but God's going to

keep it right. And what I love about Caleb is

that in forty five years he never wavered. Right, So

his faith was strong at forty and at forty five,

even though he waited so long. Five at eighty five, yeah,

at eighty five. Even though he waited so long, he

never wavered. He knew that God was going to keep

his promise, and so when the opportunity finally came, he's like,

give it to me, I'm ready.

So you love the fact that this is a testament

of a life well lived and completely believing in obeying

God's promises and then still having just as much faith

at the end of his life.

Yeah, that he had at forty.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, that's what I love. I love the

fact that he never gave up. Yeah, he just he

kept serving God and he kept the same vision. God

had said, you will take this land. And so I

think personally because he's highlighting the fact that he said,

you know, I went in, I saw the armies of

you know, the people of Anak, and then I came

back and said, we can still take them. And so

then all these years, forty five years, he's been thinking

about I want to go get that place right. God said,

wherever my feet are, that's going to be mine. Moses

told me that land's going to be mine. So I

just want to remind you I haven't forgotten that that's mine.

I'm going to go take it.

And by the way he had some unfinished business. And

I love the idea of unfinished business, that this guy's

going to go finish.

Right, I love that. That's great.

And by the way, he's eighty five, and he claims,

and it must be true that he is just as

strong and can fight just as well as when he's forty.

Yeah, let me tell you something.

My father, who I just took to New York I

just mentioned a couple of yesterday's episode, he's eighty five

exactly well, and he fell and so as we were

walking through the streets in New York, he falls down,

and I thought, I thought the trip was over right,

because he's so frail, and he was cut up everywhere.

You know, it was just everything was bleeding and everything else.

And we walked up the Statue of Liberty and he

had a stop halfway, and you know, couldn't do all

those things. I cannot imagine my father going up against

himself at forty and saying that he's exactly the same

as he was at forty, because he was probably decently

tough at forty. Right, Who in the world do you

know in your lifetime who's as good at eighty five

as forty.

Yeah, my dad's eighty six, and he's in that kind

of that falling stage right now too. At seventy, I

would say, I would think my dad at eighty five

is still going to be tough guy. My dad at

seventy could outwork both of us in a day. He

was so strong and so sturdy. And then he had

an accident, wound up breaking his hip, and he had

some other things, and then his health is, you know,

deteriorated since then. But at seventy, I remember thinking, I'm,

you know, less than forty at that point, and I

remember thinking my dad could beat me up right now. Wow, right,

that's pretty good. And so he was pretty tough. But

you know, life catches up fast, right, right. We're humans,

We're just we're frail.

Life catches us up fast.

So to for him to be able to say I'm

just as strong today now, there might have been a

little bit I think that you'll.

Be saying that when you're eighty five, right, a.

Little bit of hyperbole. There may have been a little

bit of hyperbole there. He also had a bunch of

sons and nephews and all that kind of stuff at

this point too, right, that probably were ready to go.

But yeah, his confidence. By the way, he'd also seen

God do all these miracles. He remembers when God stopped

the Red Sea, split the Red Sea, man wiped out

the wiped out the Egyptians. It was only him and

Joshua left that can remember all those things. And then

he had just recently seen God do more miracles here,

you know, stop the river Jordan, let him cross over

on dry ground. He got to see how God wipes

out Jericho all these other cities and fulfills all the

promises he said he was going to do. Now there's

still more work to be done. And this is where

you know I mentioned this, I think it was last week.

It's interesting God told Joshua in Jericho just march around

and shout.

The walls are going to follow you. Guys are going

to win. He doesn't do that in any of the

other cities. All there are cities.

It's a full on fight, right, it's a war, right,

and it's unreasonable for us to expect that there would

never be any battles. If there's no battles, there's no victories, right.

The victory only comes because otherwise it's just another day, right, Right,

there's no such thing as a victory. You don't win

if you don't have to compete, and so there are

struggles and God doesn't say life is going to be easy.

And this is the other thing I think I love

about Caleb is, at eighty five years old, most people

are thinking I should probably kick back and take it

easy and let another generation do it, let other people

do it, And he doesn't. Right, he knows a battle's coming,

and he's not saying I think God's going to do

in hebron like he did in Jared Jericho, right, right,

that was a one off. He's seen a whole bunch

of more battles that happened after that time. God did

great things, but there was still battles. There were wins

and losses, there were fatalities, there were all these things

that they struggled with, and he did not have any expectation.

It doesn't appear that he's thinking this is going to

be another Jericho battle because he references the people of

Annak and their big walled cities and the fact that

they're tough guys. And he goes and I'm just as

tough as I was too, and I'm ready, right, so

unfinished business and this idea that you know, God's gonna

bless me, But I'm willing to go in and pay

the price. Whatever the price is, I'm willing to go

pay that price for this victory.

So I want to read the note in the Life

Application of Study Bible that says, when Joshua gave Caleb

his portion and fulfill to promise God had made the

Caleb forty five years earlier. We expect such integrity and

reliability from God, but do we expect the same from

his followers? How about you? Is your word reliable? Would

you honor a forty five year old promise? God would

and does, and even today he is honoring promises he

made thousands of years ago. In fact, some of his

greatest promises are yet to be fulfilled.

It gives us much looking much to look forward to.

Let your faith grow as you realize that God keeps

his word. So what a great turn of thoughts there

where He's talking about God's faithfulness, but he's also talking about,

you know, just the idea that a forty five year

old promise can be trusted. When you think about men

right mankind, you think wow, So it's just really cool.

That's fantastic. Yeah, keeping a forty five year old promise.

God's still in the business keeping thousands.

Of year old promises. Yeah, it's great.

And you know, when it comes to God's promises and

when it comes to you know, just this chapter, I

am constantly reminded of my mother in law. So, my

mother in law, Sally, is she's on full dialysis and

she's not really doing great, and her health has declined

and and she's really struggled, and she had an episode

a couple of weeks ago where we thought we were

going to lose her and everything else. But you know

what's so interesting is that she is absolutely never wavered

in her faith ever since. In fact, I would venture

to say she's probably she's probably one of the first

like praying women I've ever met in my life where

when I was just young and she would just talk

to me about you know, praying and doing her devotions

and and everything else, I thought to myself, Oh, I

better marry your daughter, because this is this is a

this is a good.

Woman, you know.

And anyway, but she's from I met her when I

was fourteen years old. When I'm fifty three, so that's

been a long time and I'm telling you she has.

Never wavered either.

And so in the midst of you know, all this

really you know, I mean finality, I mean about you know,

somebody who thinks to themselves, Okay, in a couple of years,

I might not be alive. So all those different things,

she's never wavered at all. She still loves the promises

of God, and she still reads. And so every Mother's

Day she looks forward to me writing the Bible verses,

and I'll look up verses just for her. And then

she says, oh, I got your card, And she said,

and it took me like a month, and I went

through all of your Bible verses and I did a

study in all of them every time I send her.

So now it's become a tradition to every Mother's day.

I'll give her like twenty or thirty different verses and

she'll do a study in all of them.

Oh that's great, isn't that cool? Yeah?

So that idea of your faith never wavering. This is

Caleb's story, right for forty five years, waiting for God

to promise. If God keeps promises, I wonder if Caleb

worked out extra hard and watched his diet during that time,

so he'd be ready when because God made a promise,

he knew God was going to keep his promise. I

wonder if God. I wonder if Caleb kept preparing right.

Sometimes I think we get older because instead of doing

the hard work, we start paying somebody else to do

the hard work. Instead of leaning in, we start leaning

back in the lazy boy, right, we.

Just kind of slow down.

And so there are some people you meet, They're seventy

years old, they're going one hundred miles an hour, doing

all these things, playing pickleball, going, and there's other people

seventy years old, right, and then there's the other seventy

year olds that seem like they're ninety, right, And it's

I wonder if Caleb just continued to lean in, do

the hard work, not lean back, because he knew that

God had unfinished business, not just him. God to said, hey,

this is gonna be your land, and it wasn't yet

his land. So he just kept staying there, leaning in,

staying fit, staying working at it. Because then he comes

in and here's the thing. We didn't say the people

of Anak were giants. There's a whole race of giants.

So the giants that David had to fight that had

not been wiped out yet. We're down in what is

now Gaza, right, the Philistines, and they were Goliath was

ten feet tall, right, so somewhere in that range very likely.

You know these seven to ten feet tall? Are these

these these men of Anak? And you know the Israelites

were not known for being tall. So, but Joshua or

Caleb is like, I'm ready, man. He's not resting on

his previous accomplishments and successes.

Right.

He already had successfully been a spy, He'd already successfully

helped Joshua lead to people. He'd already done some really

really great things. And he wasn't to the point it

was like, well, my time's passed. That's not what he did.

He did, he didn't come to that point. Instead, he's

not resting on his old accomplishments.

He's still leaning in.

He's and he's ready when when the opportunity finally comes,

he's ready. And I think about that, how ready am I?

If God doesn't continue to fulfill his promises for twenty

more years in my life? Will I still be ready

at seventy three as I am at fifty three you know,

it's great, and so I think there's something to that

that he's ready to go fight giants because God promised

that he would.

Hey, by the way, my brother in law and I

measure ourselves our height, and when I say that i'm

five eight, my brother in law says, no, you're not,

you're five seven and.

Three quarters because he will not give me five eight.

Right, So you reference Glapiston feet all he's nine feet

nine inches.

Because details matter.

That's what.

It depends on how you measure a cubit. But yeah,

cubit in a span. There's different cubits.

You know that, right?

Oh yeah, yeah, but I thought it actually gave Oh,

I guess it's just the way it's translated.

It's how you measure the cubit, Okay, because its are

eighteen inches, some cubits are twenty one inches.

Well, the NLT actually translates it and says nine ft

nine inches.

Yeah, because they arbitrarily chose how big a cubit is, gotcha, Yeah, yeah, that's.

What it is. Yeah.

Well, hey, that looks like it's our time, So we

will see you hopefully next time.

On the Bible.

Guys,