MOUNTAINEERS!

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

MOUNTAINEERS!

Josh 14:9-13

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. 10 And 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. 11 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. 12 Now 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. 13 And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance.

           Caleb, now 85-years-old, campaigned to receive what God had promised him. He made his case based upon three things.

           Caleb had been faithful! He had followed the Lord for 45 years without wavering. In verse 9 he uses a strong word when he says that he had “wholly” followed the Lord my God. We, as a church, have long struggled with what to do with aging missionaries. In many cases we continue their support not because of what they are doing but because of what they had DONE.

           God had been faithful! Caleb points out that, at 85, he was still going strong. God had kept him alive and still had a work for him to do.

           Caleb still had a passion to claim his mountain! He would take possession of his inheritance and defend it from all enemies. Joshua, himself probably aging, granted Caleb his passionate request.

Ps 71:14-15

14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

15 My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.

Dear Lord, as I age, make me a mountaineer! AMEN