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Joshua | AKA (Part 4) · The Travis Rutland Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as President of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland.
• 0:42
  Speaker B: Well, good morning again. It's great to see each and every one of you with us and I'm excited that you chose to worship with us this morning. Now I am continuing, as Pastor Avery mentioned, this series on name changes in the Bible AKA we've talked about both Old and New Testament. This morning is going to be the Old Testament. So turn if you will to Joshua. As you're turning there, let me remind you of one final thing. This coming Tuesday is National Day of Prayer. There's all kinds of different things happening even in the county of Bartow, Bartow county, there's different things happening in different cities. But the one for Cartersville is at the sort of the historic, what they call the Gold Dome Courthouse. So the committee for the National Day of Prayer for Cartersville has asked me to do one of the prayers at that day of prayer. So I would love for you to join me at the Gold Dome Courthouse this coming Thursday. Day of prayer starts at 6pm so it's evening. They moved it from midday to the end of the little bit closer to the end of the day. Hopefully people can get off work and come to that. So 6pm this coming Thursday, I'll be doing one of the prayers for day of prayer and I would love for you to join me there this coming Thursday for National Day of Prayer. Now this morning we are, we are looking at someone. I was telling a couple people were asking me who the name was and they didn't know that his name had been changed. But it, but it has. And that is Joshua, the second in command to Moses, the one who becomes the leader of the Jewish people as they inherit the promised land. But Joshua actually had his name changed by Moses. So turn if you will to numbers chapter 13 as we look at Joshua this morning. Numbers chapter 13 right before the verse we're going to read, there is a list of all the men. Remember, this is the Let me bring you to where we're at.
• 2:27
  Speaker C: The children of Israel have escaped Egypt
• 2:29
  Speaker B: and escaped Slavery in Egypt. God has brought them out. He's parted the Red Sea. He's taken them into the wilderness experience. They've been in the wilderness for not long, probably a year, 18 months, something like that. Now they're ready to inherit the promised land. They're camped on the far side of the Jordan River. Moses is in charge, and he selects 12 spies. He selects one man from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. So 12 spies are going in together, and they're going to spy out the land, where the cities are, where the fortifications are, all that kind of stuff. So Moses prepares the 12 spies, and there is a list of all of those who are chosen. We're not going to read that because it's a lengthy list of ancient Jewish names. But at the end of that list, it tells us this. Look at numbers 13 and 16. Numbers 13 and 16. These are the names of the men who Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of nun Joshua. So do you see that he was born Hoshea. And in that moment, before Moses sends him in to the promised land to spy it out, he changes his name from Hoshea to Joshua. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this time together. We thank you for this opportunity to open your word, God, I ask that you speak to each of us, myself included. We want to hear from you this morning. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. There are all kinds of stories that I could open this message with about tales of courage and heroism. So we could talk about, for example, the defenders of the Alamo who fought to the last man in the face of insurmountable odds. Or I could reminisce. Not reminisce, but recall. Tell you the story of the 101st Airborne in World War II. The 101st Airborne is surrounded in the town of Bastogne. The Nazi forces have surpassed the town and surrounded them in Bastogne. And the 101st Airborne refuses to surrender. No matter what they face, they refuse to surrender to Nazi forces in Bastogne. I could tell you that story of courage, or one that is not war related. I could tell you the story of Dr. Martin Luther King having been arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. He writes what we now know as Letter from Birmingham Jail. I could tell you all those stories of courage in the natural. And we know those, and you know those. And you could probably tell a story of someone that you personally know who was courageous in something that did or went. However that looks but courage in the natural is not always exactly what we think it is. Now, I'm not saying that any of those three examples that I mentioned, I'm not referencing any of them when I say this, right? But I will say that we might think of a soldier being courageous in a certain battle. Nothing that I just mentioned. I don't want anybody to think I'm defaming people from the Alamo or the 101st Airborne, okay? I'm not saying that. But you might have a moment where a soldier in battle actually becomes frightened and scared and retreats from the battle. But then the enemy surrounds him and he is forced against his own nature to fight. He was in the midst of retreating. He was in the midst of running away.
• 5:54
  Speaker C: And yet then he finds himself in that moment surrounded by the enemy, and he actually acts courageously.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: But the courage, the moment, the courageous moment flows out of a moment that was decidedly less than courageous. You see what I'm saying?
• 6:09
  Speaker C: Or you might have a politician who takes a courageous stand against something or
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  Speaker B: for something, and it looks like, on the surface, it looks like a principled stand for or against this thing. Someone says that is courage in politics.
• 6:25
  Speaker C: But it might not be as courageous as we think. It might be that he's taking that
• 6:31
  Speaker B: stand because of a self interest or
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  Speaker C: because of self enrichment, that he stands
• 6:36
  Speaker B: to gain if the bill is passed or. Or if the bill is vetoed.
• 6:40
  Speaker C: Do you see what I'm saying? So there's things and ways in which
• 6:42
  Speaker B: we can look at a scenario, not fully understand it, think to ourself that is courageous and it actually not be so.
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  Speaker C: Having said that, then what does true courage look like? What does true biblical godly courage look like?
• 6:58
  Speaker B: Of all the examples and stories that you could talk about and read and discuss in the Bible, Old and New Testament, I believe one of the most helpful and truest examples of authentic courage found is this story from numbers 13 and 14 with Joshua and Caleb. And that's what we want to talk about this morning. There are 12 spies sent into the land. 10 spies bring back a negative report. Two spies bring back a positive report. Those two spies are Joshua, Caleb, Joshua having just had his name changed by Moses.
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  Speaker C: So look, if you will, in the
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  Speaker B: story, we're going to go right back to Numbers chapter 13. Look at verse 26. They spy out the land for 40 days. They send them into the land. They look at everything that's going on in the promised land. And then the people return. The 12 spies return. Numbers 13:26. Now they departed came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him and said, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit crops, grain,
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  Speaker C: grapes, wonderful things, right?
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  Speaker B: Look at verse 27 or 28.
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  Speaker C: Nevertheless, it says, the land is great. It flows with milk and honey. 8, 28. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong.
• 8:29
  Speaker B: The cities are fortified and are very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.
• 8:54
  Speaker C: But the men who had gone up
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  Speaker B: with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. And so we were in their sight.
• 9:25
  Speaker C: So you have this amazing land. It truly flows.
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  Speaker B: They admit it freely.
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  Speaker C: It flows with milk and honey. They bring back huge harvest of grapes and grain. Remember, these are people that have spent
• 9:37
  Speaker B: the last almost two years in a
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  Speaker C: wilderness, in a desert. So this is lush and the land is well watered, and there's rivers and grains and places to grow grapes and to feed your animals and to grow your crops. And it's wonderful. And they say, but nevertheless, nevertheless it is. The walls are high and they're well fortified. And there's armies and there's giants in the land. And we are as nothing.
• 10:04
  Speaker B: We are as nothing.
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  Speaker C: That is the report.
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  Speaker B: And Caleb says, you guys are wrong. Let us go up immediately and take possession. Courtney and I have very different sleep schedules. I am a night owl. Anyone that knows me, I don't like getting up in the morning. I don't like anything about the morning before 10am So I just don't. But, you know, I got a job, so I have to get up begrudgingly. But I don't like it. I'm not a morning person. Courtney goes usually mostly goes to bed much earlier than I do most nights.
• 10:46
  Speaker C: So when I come to bed, it
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  Speaker B: is dark in the room. She's already asleep. I can't see it, but I know where the chairs are. I know where the dresser is. I know where the end of the bed is, but I can't see them. But I know that they are there, but I can't see it. And so I make my way into a darkened room knowing that there are things that exist in that room that at that moment I cannot see. That is having the spiritual vision that God has.
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  Speaker C: Do you see that?
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  Speaker B: That is the first thing with true courage. True courage sees with God's perception. True courage sees with God's perception. We're not going to look at it or read it again, but I want to mention this. Look back at those verses. Sometimes the other 10 spies reference their own sight what they saw three times.
• 11:37
  Speaker C: They reference what the current inhabitants of
• 11:40
  Speaker B: the promised land see.
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  Speaker C: One time they say we are as
• 11:43
  Speaker B: insects in their sight.
• 11:45
  Speaker C: Do you know what they don't mention? Not even once in the entire sort of, you know, recap of what the promised land looks like. You know what they don't mention? They don't mention God's sight. They don't mention what God sees. They don't mention God's vision. All they say is, this is what I saw in the natural. And it was overwhelming and they're huge and they're giants and the walls are too tall and the cities are well fortified and there's too many armies and all the ites live in the land. The Jebusites and the Canaanites and the Amalekites. And we're never going to be able to do this. So all the ten spies, the ten other spies see is the stuff that they can see in the natural. And that's how so many of us are in our day to day walk, we only can measure what's happening through our own senses. This is what I can see, this is what I can hear, right? And what we fail to understand is there's whole levels of things that are happening that we cannot see. God is doing stuff. There are things happening in the spiritual that we don't always see. And what we have to do is get a hold of seeing the world the way that God sees it. There's stuff that we can't see. There's things that we don't comprehend. There's. There's ways that Jesus That God is doing things that are not obvious to
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  Speaker B: us with our limited natural sight.
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  Speaker C: I want you to see what Jesus
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  Speaker B: himself says in Matthew chapter 13. Look at Matthew 13 and 13. The disciples asked Jesus, why do you always teach in parables? And Jesus says, I speak to them in parables. Matthew 13:13. Therefore I speak to them in parables. Because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand.
• 13:37
  Speaker C: We cannot be those people. The other 10 saw defeat. Joshua and Caleb saw victory. The other 10 saw all the natural problems and shoes in the promised land. But Joshua and Caleb saw God's miraculous work. These are the Same people that 18 months earlier saw God split the Red Sea and they walked through on dry land. They haven't been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They saw all the plagues of Egypt. They saw how God provided they saw what God did in the natural. It would make no sense. How are we going to escape slavery in Egypt? Pharaoh's army is large. They have swords and spears and chariots and all the stuff that they would need to defeat us. They have seen God move over and over and over again. And yet in this moment of inheriting the promised land and doing all that
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  Speaker B: God wants to do in their lives,
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  Speaker C: they refuse to believe that there might be some stuff happening that they cannot see. True courage sees with God's perception, his vision, his sight. That's what we have to get a hold of. There may be moments where God is calling us to levels of courage that make no sense. You understand? They were ex slaves in the wilderness. They didn't have a lot of weapons. They didn't have a training. This is all they were. And in the natural, it makes sense to be scared. In the natural, it makes sense to be intimidated. There are giants in the land. The walls are tall, the cities are fortified. But true courage does not see with our own eyes. True courage sees what God perceives. True courage sees God's vision, his sight. For the moment we walk forward in that because we know that as we move forward under his guidance, he is
• 15:24
  Speaker B: seeing stuff that we cannot possibly see. Now they're not done. So the people freak out, right? Like they always do in the wilderness. Experience for 40 years, little bit of bad news, everybody freaks out. So the spies say, we can't possibly take the land. They're giants. Da da da da da da. And everybody freaks out. Look at numbers 14 and 2. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron. And the whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt. Or if only we had died in this wilderness. Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword? And that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? So they said to one another, let us select a leader and return to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. But Joshua and Caleb, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, the land we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us. A land which flows with milk and honey only. Do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for
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  Speaker C: they are our bread.
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  Speaker B: Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.
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  Speaker C: The next thing is this. True courage believes in God's protection. True courage believes in God's protection. Joshua and Caleb are honest. They go, yes, there are giants in the land, but look at. I love how they phrase this.
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  Speaker B: Look at what their protection has departed from them. The end of verse 9.
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  Speaker C: The Lord is with us. There are moments in the natural that make no sense. And true courage believes in God's protection. True courage moves forward knowing, believing that there's things that God can do. Just as there is stuff there that we cannot see, there is God's protection, protection that is happening in ways that
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  Speaker B: we do not fully understand and that
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  Speaker C: make no sense to us in the moment. But true courage marches forward, even though it's scary and intimidating, because they believe that God is going to do some kind of protective work that we cannot fully understand.
• 17:46
  Speaker B: At the end of the 1800s, after 30 years after the Civil war in America, at the end of the 1800s, the frontier wars, the Indian wars, as they call them, were drawing to a close. Most Native Americans were on reservations. And in the late 1800s, there was a medicine man, a prophet, that had a vision of a new dance that the Indians should dance, called the Ghost Dance. And this vision of the Ghost Dance began to spread throughout the Indian reservations and the Great Plains. And the man who had this vision said that the Ghost Dance would expel the invaders from their lands, that the Indians would be able to go back to their ancestral lands, that the game would return, that the buffaloes would return, all of these things. And there was another element to the Ghost Dance. There was Ghost Dance shirts And these Ghost Dance shirts were put on. And as the Ghost Dance shirts were worn and the dance was danced, the Ghost Dance was danced. The belief was that the Ghost Dance shirts made you bulletproof. They were impervious to firearms. You couldn't be shot with bullets while you had the Ghost Dance shirts on. And this Ghost Dance idea spread throughout the Great Plains. The Lakota tribe was located on Pine Ridge Reservation, and there was a number of these camped by a creek called Wounded Knee. And the Indian agents and the troops stationed outside of the reservation became increasingly nervous about this Ghost Dance talk and the Ghost Dance shirts and all these kinds of things. And so In February of 1890, the 7th Cavalry marched out to Wounded Knee to confront this camp of Indians believing in the power of the Ghost Dance and the power of the Ghost Dance
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  Speaker C: shirts,
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  Speaker B: there was what can be termed only as a massacre. More than 300 Lakota were killed that day, primarily women and children, because the Ghost Dance did not bring back the buffalo. And the Ghost Dance shirts were not bulletproof. They believed in an idea of protection that was not real. And it was an awful American tragedy. It really was. Wounded Heart, Wounded Knee. What do we say to that? Then you go, what in the world does that have to do with a passage from the Old Testament about Joshua and Caleb? It is this. And I want you to hear me on this, and I want us to be thinking about this, because this in particular is not something that has to be preached at more mainline denominations. But for us that are Pentecostals, this is something that is important to remember. God's protection is wonderful and magnificent and awesome and amazing and sovereign. And God does things that are miraculous that we could never think of or imagine. But the idea that we can simply make God do whatever we want, that we're just going to slip on bulletproof shirts and walk through life and nothing bad is ever going to happen, is tragically wrong.
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  Speaker C: Tragic to the level of what happened at Wounded Knee. It is tragic. We otherwise well meaning, well informed, well read, biblically based Christians, convince themselves that if they do these things, then nothing
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  Speaker B: bad will ever happen.
• 21:38
  Speaker C: And that is simply not true. Read both Old and New Testament, the God's people are constantly being killed and beheaded and imprisoned and martyred and sold into slavery. All these things happen. But do you see? We read a random verse and then we take ownership of it at a
• 21:58
  Speaker B: level that God is not intending.
• 21:59
  Speaker C: For example, you can drink poison or handle snakes and nothing bad will happen to you. And then a whole denomination grows up out of that, right where we're then going into the woods and finding rattlesnakes and cottonmouths and handling snakes. And it's an unfortunate thing because that's what we get accused of, right?
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  Speaker B: Nobody ever accuses Baptists of handling snakes, right?
• 22:23
  Speaker C: But as Pentecostals, that's what we get accused of. At my last church, there was some visitors that came in. We were spirit filled, non denominational, and I was showing them around and they said, oh, what's in that room? And I making a joke about our spirit filled roots, said that's where we keep the snakes. And they were like this. Mm. And about five minutes later, I saw them walking through the parking lot getting in their car. And I was like, wait a minute, I was just joking, right? But we say to ourselves, how does that snake handling thing happened, by the way? I can't find any denominations that are
• 23:05
  Speaker B: drink, just drinking strychnine.
• 23:07
  Speaker C: So you know what I'm saying? So how does that happen? It is that we have misunderstood what God's protection looks like. There are moments where you might get bitten by a snake and God saves your life the same way that he saved the life of Paul the Apostle. But there are other ways in which people that we love get sick or there is a disease. And we pray for them to be healed and they are not. And others outside of the church will tell you that God's protection failed. But listen to me, it didn't. They were given their glorified body in heaven. They were healed. It's just that they weren't healed in the way that we wanted them to be healed. Do you see that? But we don't get to control this. We don't get to make God do this thing. God, you have to heal this person. God, you must do this or do this blessing or do this way or this protection. That's not how it works. What we know is that God does protect. God does heal. Everyone who is a believer and gets sick will be healed. It's just that some of them are healed in heaven. Some of them are healed in their glorified body. We don't get to demand what God can do. Joshua and Caleb say, we have God with us. Their protection has left them. They don't know how it's going to look. They don't know what the protection is going to be, but they know that God will protect. God does things that we cannot think of or imagine.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Look, if you will, again to the life of Jesus. Look at John chapter 16 and verse 13, sorry, 33 John 16 and 33, Jesus is speaking John 16 and 33. He says these things. I have spoken to you that in
• 24:51
  Speaker C: me you may have peace. Right? His protection brings us peace.
• 24:56
  Speaker B: Why in the world you will have tribulation, you will have bad stuff, you
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  Speaker C: will have disease, you will have all
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  Speaker B: these things that we don't want.
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  Speaker C: But be of good cheer.
• 25:06
  Speaker B: I have overcome the world.
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  Speaker C: Do you see that? That is God's protection. But here's my question. How did Jesus overcome the world?
• 25:15
  Speaker B: On the cross.
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  Speaker C: Right on the cross. And then his subsequent resurrection. But the only way that we inherit his protection, he has overcome the world. He had to go through suffering himself to overcome the world. We also his protection, his blessing, his overcoming may not always look like overcoming. That was always the problem that the early church had. Paul is about to have his head chopped off in the in the Mamertine prison in Rome. That doesn't look like overcoming, but it was. Peter is crucified upside down because he refuses to die in the same way that Jesus did.
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  Speaker B: Crucified upside down doesn't look like overcoming, but it was.
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  Speaker C: Do you see what I'm saying? His protection doesn't always look like manifest itself the way that we want it to in the moment.
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  Speaker B: I've done more memorial services than I can count for people that I loved and that I prayed for to be healed, and they just weren't. That doesn't bother my faith.
• 26:30
  Speaker C: That doesn't. I know who God is. I know that he is sovereign. I know that he protects. I know that he does stuff. And I know that each and every one of them are healed and in their glorified body in heaven. But I'm still going to pray for everybody that I love that's here right now. Because I don't know who he is and won't heal in this moment. Do you see that Their protection has left them. The Lord is with us now. We don't always know what his protection looks like, but we know that he is with us. True courage believes in God's protection. We don't just do any crazy thing we want and demand that God pull us out of the fire that we've created ourselves. It is that we have confidence that no matter what happens, God will protect us in ways that we could never think of or imagine even sometimes the
• 27:20
  Speaker B: protection being eternal and not here. Now the final thing is this. Look again at numbers, chapter 14, by
• 27:29
  Speaker C: the way, when we didn't read it, but when Joshua and Caleb go, hey, don't worry, their protection is gone.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: And the Lord's with us. It says the people wanted to stone them with stones.
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  Speaker C: So I just want to remind you
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  Speaker B: that being courageous is not always inspire others to be courageous. Okay?
• 27:45
  Speaker C: They say, forget about Moses and Aaron.
• 27:47
  Speaker B: Let's elect a new leader. Let's go back to Egypt.
• 27:49
  Speaker C: Joshua and Caleb say, guys, don't worry about it. It's going to be great.
• 27:52
  Speaker B: The Lord is with us. And they say, let's kill those guys.
• 27:54
  Speaker C: Right?
• 27:55
  Speaker B: Okay, so true courage.
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  Speaker C: Now
• 27:59
  Speaker B: look at what happens. Numbers 14:29. Numbers 14:29. The people complain against the Lord, and so the Lord tells them that that whole generation will not enter the promised land. Numbers 14:29. The carcasses. Excuse me, the carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in this wilderness. All of you who were numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above, except for Caleb and Joshua, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. Final thing is this true. Courage inherits God's promises. He says every single person that's above the age of 20 is going to die in this wilderness, except for two men, Joshua and Caleb, because of who they are, because of what they believe, because they refuse to bend the knee, because they are truly courageous, because they believe in God's vision and they hold on to God's protection. They inherit promises. He says, everybody else is falling in this wilderness. Now, here's the thing about God's promises. It is somewhat a little bit like God's protection in that God's promises don't always happen in the way that we want it to happen.
• 29:20
  Speaker C: We don't read it. But God furthermore, goes on and he says, here's what's going to happen. You're going to spend 40 years in the wilderness till everybody of this current
• 29:30
  Speaker B: generation dies out and your children and grandchildren will inherit the land.
• 29:35
  Speaker C: But he's already told them that Joshua and Caleb were going to go into the land, right? If I was Joshua and Caleb, I'd be like, hey,
• 29:43
  Speaker B: could we just go ahead and wait for everybody to catch up?
• 29:47
  Speaker C: Right? I mean, seriously, if I'm Joshua and Caleb, why do I have to bang around in the wilderness for 40 years because everybody else didn't believe in who God was? You know, the damage that 40 years in the wilderness is going to wreak on your body and your face? Joshua's like, I'm gonna be all craggly. You know what I'm saying? Can I just go and wait in the land that flows with milk and honey and not have to hang out with all these people that like five minutes ago wanted to stone me to death. Can I just go on into the promised land? But do you see that? We inherit God's promises, but his promises almost never happen in the time that we wanted it to happen. It's his promises in his time frame, in his way. True courage allows us to inherit the promise. But the promise might take, what, 40
• 30:36
  Speaker B: years to manifest itself.
• 30:38
  Speaker C: True courage holds onto the promise no matter how long it takes to arrive. There's times where it's going to. God gives you this thing. He makes you this promise. And then you just wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and you think to yourself, it's never going to happen. But that's so many times. That's how the promises of God are. Sometimes they happen immediately, but other times you just feel like it's never going to arrive. But you have to trust that God,
• 31:09
  Speaker B: in his wisdom and infinite sovereignty, understands the situation better than you do. You have to just be willing to hold on to what God is doing. True courage courageously inherits God's promises, no matter how long it takes to get there. Now, let me close with this. It is 45 years later. Joshua and Caleb were 40 years old when they spied out the land the first time. They then spent 40 years in the wilderness. When Joshua and Caleb cross into the promised land, they are 80 years old. There is now years of war as they inherit the promised land. The conqueror of Jericho, the conqueror of AI. And then Joshua begins to allocate the land to the various tribes. This is what the tribe of Benjamin gets. This is what the tribe of Issachar gets. This is what the tribe of Reuben gets. And Joshua, as leader of the Jewish people, leader of the Israelites, he begins to allocate the land to the people.
• 32:18
  Speaker C: Finally, he gets to the tribe of
• 32:19
  Speaker B: Judah, of which Caleb belongs.
• 32:23
  Speaker C: Caleb is not mentioned much in any
• 32:26
  Speaker B: of the desert wanderings. And he is not mentioned much in the conquest of the Promised Land, the crossing of the Jordan River. He's not mentioned. He's just an old man hanging around. Now he's 85 years old.
• 32:39
  Speaker C: And Joshua says it's time to allocate
• 32:41
  Speaker B: the land to the tribe of Judah. And all of a sudden, Caleb shows up. Our assumption, my assumption would be that Caleb would show up and say, hey, Joshua, it's your old buddy Caleb. Remember us? 40, 45 years ago, we spied out the land. I know that you're about to allocate the land to Judah, here's what I'd like to ask. I've never asked for a single favor, but me and you go way back. I'd like the best land. I'd like the choicest cropland land. I'd like the land that backs up to the river.
• 33:15
  Speaker C: I'd like to be able to water my animals there. I want the land where the farmland
• 33:19
  Speaker B: is rich, where it's easy to grow crops.
• 33:21
  Speaker C: You're about to give away the land
• 33:23
  Speaker B: to Judah, and I'd like the best of the best. Turn, if you will, to Joshua. Chapter 14. Joshua 14:6. Joshua 14:6. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua and Gilgal. And Caleb said to him, you know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me and Kadesh barnea. I was 40 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. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt. But I wholly followed the Lord, my God. 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. And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive as he said these 45 years. Ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now here I am in this day, 85 years old. And 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. Stop right there.
• 34:44
  Speaker C: Doesn't that sound like he's leading up to asking for a favor? He's reminding him of the good old days. Remember when we were young and we went to the land and we were the only ones that held the line? And remember the other 10 were bums and nobody believed in us and we held the line. And Moses said this God spoke to Moses. Moses told us we're going to inherit the land. He said, I'm an 85 year old man. I'm your oldest friend. We've been friends for 45 years. He said, give me the easy land. Give me the crops that I can grow easy. Give me the land where the river flows through it so I can water my animals. He said, I'm old. I'm 85.
• 35:26
  Speaker B: That is not what Caleb said. One of my favorite verses in the entire Bible is Joshua 14 and 12. Look at it.
• 35:36
  Speaker C: He says, now, therefore, give me this mountain. Give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day. For you heard in that day how the Anakim were there.
• 35:49
  Speaker B: The what?
• 35:50
  Speaker C: The giants. You heard how the giants were there and that the cities were great and fortified. And it may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. He said, I'm 85 years old, but he said, I don't want the good crops. I don't want the nice quiet river. He said, give me this mountain full of cities, full of walls, full of giants. That is true courage. That is who we need to be. That is who God is calling this church to be about. What happens is we see a problem, we see a need in the world around us. And we say, oh, I hope God sends somebody. No, sir. You want to know what our prayer needs to be? Give me this mountain. Give me this mountain. I'm telling you, God has a purpose and a destiny. All it requires is people of God, men and women of God who operate in true courage, true, authentic courage. You got a kid or a grandkid that is far from God. You got somebody that's struggling with addiction. What I think we often pray is God bring somebody into their life. I'm not praying that anymore. I'm praying, give me this mountain. Give me this mountain. Caleb waited 85 years and he said, I'm not. Not done killing giants. He said, the Lord is with me, and I will not be intimidated by walls and cities and armies and giants. Give me this mountain. We have seen that there is hunger in Bartow County. And it would have been easy for this church to say, well, that's somebody else's problem. Let some other church feed them. But instead, Jack Howe and every volunteer at the Harvest House said, give me this mountain. It's easy for us as Christians to say, I wish politicians did a better job with this. I wish politicians would change or vote a certain way. And that's what we do, and we leave it alone. But instead, we have a young man named Joseph d', Angelo, our men's ministry director, who leads an organization. And we want to see change. We want to see biblical and godly values at the highest level of politics. And Joseph, Joseph said, give me this mountain. And I am proud of him and proud of what he does. There is a co worker. There is a co worker that is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And too many of us pray, oh, God, reveal yourself to him. Do something. And we Step back from that. We want the easy inheritance. We want the allocation of crops. Not Caleb, he said, I'm 85 years old and I'm as strong as I was when I was 40. Give me this mountain. Give me the co worker that needs a touch from God. Your prayer should be, give me this mountain. All of our partners, our missionary partners in places like Uganda and Thailand and Ecuador, we partner with them as they go out and say, give me this mountain. That is what true courage looks like. We see with God's perception, his vision.
• 39:07
  Speaker B: We believe in his protection and then
• 39:11
  Speaker C: we inherit his promise.
• 39:16
  Speaker B: That is what true courage is. Every person in here, I hope that will be your prayer. Give me this mountain. You start praying those four words.
• 39:32
  Speaker C: What we think is, there's somebody else coming.
• 39:35
  Speaker B: God's gonna send a Paul or a Peter. God's gonna send a Billy Graham. Listen to me. That mountain is there. It's inhabited by giants and the walls are fortified. Nobody else is conquering it. What you have to say is, give me this mountain.
• 40:01
  Speaker C: Give me this mountain.
• 40:03
  Speaker B: Their protection has left them. The Lord is with us. The Lord is with us. That is what true courage looks like. I don't know what your mountain is this morning, but don't run from it. Don't run from it.
• 40:18
  Speaker C: Don't expect somebody else to take it. Listen, you can run from your mountain,
• 40:24
  Speaker B: but it's still going to be there.
• 40:26
  Speaker C: You can't run away from the mountain
• 40:27
  Speaker B: and expect somebody else to conquer it. Give me this mountain. The Lord is with us. The Lord is with us. Give me this mountain. Make that your prayer this morning and you will see God do things in your family, in your marriage, in your finances, in your work, in your community, in this church that you could never think of or imagine. If hundreds of people that are here today begin to pray that simple prayer, give me this mountain. There is no telling what God can do. Let's pray. God, I thank you for every person here and I thank you for this opportunity. God, give us this mountain.
• 41:10
  Speaker C: It's unique to every person. Everyone in here has their own mountain. The thing that they've been praying for,
• 41:16
  Speaker B: the thing they've been agonizing over, the
• 41:17
  Speaker C: thing they've been worried about. God, we're not giving it to somebody else. We're not farming it out. We're not ignoring the mountain. We're not expecting somebody else to conquer it. Instead, God, we are stepping up as a congregation, individuals, men and women of God. We are stepping up this morning and we are saying, give me this mountain. We are no longer scared of it. Their protection has left them. The Lord is with us. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. We are taking ownership over the mountain. Not through anything we can do, but because you are with us. We want that mountain. Give me this mountain. We are no longer scared of the mountains that loom in our life. We are no longer running from them. We are no longer intimidating from them. I pray true courage over every person here. Authentic, courageous behavior. The mountain is there. Take your mountain. The Lord is with you. Take the mountain.
• 42:15
  Speaker B: Operate in true courage this morning, just as Joshua and Caleb did. Jesus name we pray.
• 42:22
  Speaker C: Amen. Give me this mountain. Go out there and take it. I love you guys.
• 42:28
  Speaker B: Have a great week.
• 42:30
  Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland.