Caleb: It Is How You Finish
Bob Yandian
Have you reached the point of retirement, or facing that time shortly? Do you see each day as if your life is winding down? Are you already planning more for your death than what is left of your life? Do you feel as if your calling is coming to an end? Maybe It’s time to conquer something new. The hero we are going to study today, asked for a new project at eighty-five years old. I don’t find that Caleb was led by God to take on a mountain in his later years or conquer the Anakim. He asked for a new project and God gave him one.
I believe you have a lot to do with your length of life, health and overall attitude of joy and fulfillment. Life is not a settled time determined by God alone. There are things you can do to add “length of days” and “live long on the earth.” If you do not have a vision for the latter days of your life, then ask God for one. Caleb did.
Without a Vision You Will Perish
My doctor told me something important as I reached my mid-sixties. He told me most men die within a year or two after retirement if they have nothing to do except fish or hunt. They have been so used to working and having something to do each day, they die soon for lack of a goal each day.
The pastor who began the church I pastored was approaching his seventies and retirement and losing his vision and hearing. His step daughter was in trouble financially and with her health. She was going to have to give up her new born son to foster care. Her step father and mother adopted the son, their grandson, and raised him. At seventy, this former pastor gained a whole new need to live and raise this boy in the ways of God. Within a few months, his hearing and vision returned. In his eighties he was attending his son’s baseball games and school functions. The boy went to college and is married now and his father, my former pastor, died at ninety-seven years old. Like Abraham, he found a new reason to live. “With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation” (Psalm 91:16). God wants to satisfy you with long life.
Caleb’s Introduction at Cadesh-Barnea
“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.
So Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.
Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of the tribe of Ephraim, Joshua the son of Nun.” (Numbers 13: 1-3, 6, 8)
After one year in the wilderness, the children of Israel came to the boarders of the promise land and Moses sent in twelve spies, the heads of each of the twelve tribes. Of the twelve, only two came back with a report that Israel could take the land and the inhabitants. The other ten were afraid of the giants.
God had previously told the Israelites they were already the owners of the land, but only two remembered God’s promise, Joshua and Caleb. These two compared the giants to God and the other ten compared the giants to themselves. You will never win if you compare yourself to the enemy. But you cannot lose if you compare the enemy to God. “If God be for you, who can be against you?” (Romans 8:31)
Caleb and Joshua Stand on the Lord’s Side
“And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go in at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who searched the land, tore their clothes: Doubtless you will not come into the land, of which I swore to allow you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.” (Numbers 13:30,14:6,30)
Not only did Caleb and Joshua come back with a report of faith, they stood by their decision when all the other leaders were against them. They were not swayed by the multitude, but by God’s promise. God said of the entire generation that left Egypt, only two would go into Canaan, Joshua and Caleb.
Caleb’s Career
Caleb and Joshua were the only two who came from Egypt, crossed the wilderness and entered Canaan. All others of the first generation died in the wilderness over the next thirty-nine years because of unbelief.
Caleb saw the oppression of slavery in Egypt, but also saw the rise of Moses to deliver. He saw the ten miracles performed by God through Moses on the land of Egypt. He participated in crossing the Red Sea and witnessed the drowning of the Egyptian army behind.
Caleb saw the death of Moses and experienced the transition of leadership to himself and Joshua. He and Joshua led the second generation, born in the desert, into Canaan. Together they won battles against large cities and small. They overtook small and large armies and in one case conquered five armies who united against them. God fought with Israel and they took the land promised to Abraham and divided it among the tribes of Jacob’s sons.
The Reflections of Caleb
“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. 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. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you 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.” (Joshua 14:10-12)
Many begin well but finish poorly, or do not finish at all. King Saul, Lot, Samson, Solomon and Demas are a few in the Bible.
Caleb had no problem finishing well. He looked to the God who began the work to also finish it in him. Like a huge marathon of runners, the beginning of a race sees thousands take off at the gunshot, but few cross the finish line. Most give up somewhere along the line. Beginning is not a problem, finishing is.
Abraham began at seventy-five to become the father of all believers. At ninety-nine he became a father and began the Jewish race also. Moses began at eighty to be the deliverer of Israel. He led them through the wilderness until he was one hundred and twenty.
Now, our hero Caleb, at eighty-five took a mountain and the largest giants of Canaan who lived there, the Anakim. The Anakim were the ones who put fear into the hearts of the ten spies. They reported to the people of Israel, “we were as grasshoppers in their sight.” Caleb was successful in killing most of the Anakim and driving out the remainder of them from Canaan.
Caleb’s Final Days and His Generosity
“Now it was so, when she came to him, that she persuaded him to ask her father for a field. So she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered, “Give me a blessing; since you have given me land in the South, give me also springs of water.” So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.” (Joshua 15:18, 19)
Caleb’s daughter was included in the inheritance given to him. She had already received a large piece of land in the south and now asked for more. Caleb knew his life was coming to an end and was generous to her. He thought more of others, including his daughter, and provided for his children and grandchildren in the coming generations. After all, our blessings in life, given to us by God, are for us, our children and our children’s children.
Reflections of an Older Man
Now that I am in my seventies, I can say with David, “I have been young and now am old, yet, I have never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed (children) begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). If you will stick with God and His plan for your life, and maintain your vision and joy, you will be one of the few finishers in a huge field of starters.
How many people do you remember who attended your church years ago and were excited for what God had planned for their lives are still around? Where are most of them today? How many pastors were passionate to win souls and disciple believers years ago are still in the ministry today? Our national average says only one out of ten pastors will finish.
When I went to Bible School in the early seventies, there were thirty-five in my graduating class. All were excited to begin their ministries pastoring churches, evangelizing their cities or going to mission fields around the world. Ten years later, at our reunion, only ten showed up. Our Bible School director said more than twenty had given up, took secular jobs and were no longer in the ministry. Even Paul in Second Timothy chapter four, told of many who had begun with him and were no longer in the ministry.
Let your motto be, “no matter how strong the opposition, I will get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other, I will be a plodder. I may be as slow as the turtle, but I will win the race over the rabbits who took off fast but have given up. It’s not how many started with me, but how many finish. I am not just a starter, I am a finisher. I will finish my race and I will keep the faith. I may not be remembered by many in life, but God will shout from the housetops of heaven what I did in secret in life. And there is a prize laid up for me in heaven.”
