‘We shall soon, D.V., be home. We have worked secretly, carefully, mutually dependent, directed and helped by the Lord, who gave us this tremendous privilege and responsibility on behalf of His people. We have accomplished our task, with a tangible reward in our hands, or more accurately, on our shoulders, Num. 13. 23; an earnest of our inheritance, a token of God’s goodness. Now all that we have to do is go in and possess the land He promised to us, 13. 30 … I can hardly believe it – it happened so quickly: my companions, all bar one, spoke against me and said we could not go in; the people have listened to them, 14. 1-4; God has come in in judgment, 14. 35-37. Now Joshua and I cannot enter Canaan until a generation passes.’
Caleb, the whole-hearted follower of God, was deprived of Canaan’s blessings for forty years. As Joseph and Daniel, he suffered because of others’ sins. How did they feel? Did it make them bitter, resentful, cynical, often complaining, blaming others, grudgingly critical of the way the Lord had acted? We have no record or evidence of it – quite the contrary. What splendid examples of the teaching of 1 Pet. 3. 12-17; 4. 16-19!
Here are men whose trust and hope were in God alone; the faithful God, whose Son was also to suffer similarly.
Caleb was a man of faith. He neither overlooked nor underestimated the high walls, the fortified cities, the giants, nor the power of God who is greater than all. Caleb saw everything in its true perspective, that is, with God in the picture. He did not measure the giants against himself, but against God. The ten spies saw themselves as grasshoppers compared to the giants; Caleb saw the giants as grasshoppers compared to God, 13. 33; 14. 9. Such is faith: so Elisha compared the enemy’s forces with the Lord’s; ‘they that are with us are more than they that are with them’, 2 Kgs. 6. 13-17; cf. Deut. 20. 1. ‘Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world’, 1 John 4. 4.
‘I suffer … nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep …’, 2 Tim. 1. 12.
