CALEB - A MAN WHO WHOLLY FOLLOWED THE LORD

CALEB
By David Wilkerson

Caleb, whose name means forcible, fortitude, is a type of one who clings to the Lord! Caleb was inseparable from Joshua, representing one who continually walks with the Lord through all the distractions of life.

Caleb had accompanied the spies over Jordan, where the Holy Spirit drew him to Hebron—"the place of death." Abraham and Sarah were buried there, as were Isaac and Jacob and the patriarchs, and years later, David's kingdom would begin there. With awe Caleb climbed that hallowed mountain and faith flooded his soul. He prized that sanctified place and from that time on, he wanted Hebron for his possession.

It was said of Caleb that he "wholly followed the Lord" (Numbers 14:24). He never wavered to the very end and at eighty-five years of age he could testify: "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" (Joshua 14:11).

In his old age Caleb waged his greatest battle! "Now therefore give me this mountain [Hebron]..." (14:12). "And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb...Hebron for an inheritance..." (14:13). "Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb...because that he wholly followed the Lord" (14:14).

The message is glorious: It is not enough to have died to sin—to have entered fullness sometime in the past. The need is to grow in the Lord to the end! To keep your spiritual power and strength without wavering. To "wholly follow the Lord" even in old age!

Hebron—Caleb's inheritance—means a company associated! Associated with what? With death! Not only the death to sin in Jordan, but living in a place of death. Living with those who are associated with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! "Give me this mountain," Caleb had prayed. In other words, "Give me this walk of death to self!" It was here that Abraham had built an altar to sacrifice his son and it was here that Caleb and his tribe would live, constantly associated with that altar of living sacrifice.

Caleb's wholeheartedness for the Lord produced a holy fire for God in his children. While the children of the two and a half tribes turned away and embraced the world and its idolatry, Caleb's family grew stronger in the Lord!

God’s desire for all of us is that we enter a place of rest, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. That requires following him “with all thy heart…and with all thy strength” to the very end (Mark 12:3)

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