Caleb refused to have a grasshopper identity. Others feared and missed the victory God had for the nation. He always looked to the day he would go into the Promised Land. He wholly followed God with a different spirit. Hope in the Lord. Learn to laugh at yourself. We have another spirit for times of trouble. (Joshua 14:6-14; Numbers 14:4)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller, Pastor John Love
Sermon 11928
7:90 PM on 7/29/2020

P. Schaller –

We want to do a tribute to P. Morrison. Job 33:23, P. Morrison and Dawn, this couple was a team. There’s P. Morrison. We are about the same age. He’s two years younger than me. We went to Bible college together. Then I graduated and went to Finland and he – there’s P. Ben next to him.
Then he came to Finland to join the team. vs. 24. We had a joke. I don’t know how it happened,
but he came to the airport, and then immediately he got on a train and we sent him up in the
country to preach. He had no time even to land. He came to Finland and went directly to
preach at a school many hours away. Great friend. Amazing servant. This verse kind of fits for
him, vs. 23-24. You know there may not be many men of God. They’re one among a thousand
but he was one of those. I have a short list of things here.

Doug Wumbolt, his elder up in Marlboro, “he lived for the bema seat. He was a pursuing pastor. He went after people and also went after God. He always would say we are about missions. We are about missions. That was the motto in the church. They gave a lot of money to missions. They were always promoting missions.” And he was always one with us. Always one with Dr. Stevens. A very good disciple of the ministry, the Bible Speaks. Loved messages, loved conviction, loved the cross, the application of the cross in his life. “He also had a lot of joy. He had a sense of humor. He also had wisdom.” In our problems here through our transition fifteen years ago, he was a great
friend to me and to us. In Chicago, in one of our tense meetings, he stood up and he was small.
He was the founder of the Short Pastor’s Association.

Stan Collins wanted to join it and he said you’re not allowed. He was fearless. He had conviction. He had fire. When something was wrong, it was wrong; when it was right, it was right. “He had a laid down life on the inside and outside. He was concerned with lost people. He loved people very much. He knew people. He would talk to people. He knew their history. He encouraged them. Havril, MA was his first church. He went to Bible school in South Berwick. He went to Finland as a missionary. He was a pastor for 34 years in Marlboro. He traveled to Europe, Africa, South America. He knew the importance of preaching the Word of God. He loved the Word of God. He was a man of prayer. He was humble. He was a generous giver.” He passed a few days ago. I rejoice in that. He’s with the Lord. And P. Carl and P. Yurma and soon you! Turn to your neighbor and say, and soon you!

Maybe I’ll say this one thing as I finish here. Learn to laugh at ourselves. I shared that at the
staff the other day. I have seen people through the years have problems. They have problems
with themselves and with other people. They have problems in the church because they cannot
laugh at themselves. That’s what it boils down to. They are too serious with themselves, with
people and about life. They don’t have it. P. Morrison wasn’t like that. He could make fun of
himself. He enjoyed it. He never lost his dignity and sense of his own value. He knew that in
Jesus Christ. It’s a mark of a spiritual person. A spiritual person can afford to be very carefree in
this life. And laugh about things that are crazy in this world. Don’t be so serious. If you’re too
serious, it will catch you.

But the Bible says a year ago, we had a Convention in this very place.
Remember that word “convention?” Anyone remember what that was? We used to have one in
Europe and Baltimore. What was the title for last year’s Convention? “Rejoice in the Lord
always.” How can you do it if you take yourself too seriously? If you can’t laugh about the mask
thing. The mask thing. I got one over there. Why aren’t I wearing it? I don’t know. You laugh about money, children, people, about the church, about life. Rejoice in the Lord how much?
Always, and because you don’t believe me I’m telling you always. There it is. P. Love is going to
give the message tonight and I’m going to sit back and enjoy it.

P. Love –

I remember my wife and I actually we were dating at the time. It was over 40 years
ago. She went to Salem State University and we had heard about a Bible Speaks pastor who
was preaching. I can’t even recall the location because I’m in the early stages of dementia! It
was a long time ago! We went there and it was P. Morrison preaching. I thought to myself, he’s
a little guy. What’s he going to say? There was a picture up there playing the saxophone. When
he used to pick that up in Marlboro, I thought, he’s probably going to fall off the end of that!
The instrument was as heavy as he was. What a great guy. Praise God we got to know him. He
was in our ministry. One of the last times I was up there, and we were evangelizing together we
would go to Worcester, Massachusetts on Saturday to do outreach. He said you got to come
with me. I said, really? Why?

He said I met this World War II veteran and I was sharing the gospel with him. He told me when he was in Europe fighting during the second world war for the country, and he said he met a chaplain. He said his name was Chaplain Love. P. Morrison said we have a Chaplain Love. He said I don’t think it’s the same one. No, it’s a different one but I’d like you to meet him some day. That Saturday, Pastor Morrison said you got to come with me, and we found the man. He would go to this one location in the downtown area and sit in the park and we found him. He started a conversation. He said, here he is. Here’s Chaplain Love. He said, that’s not the one I know. He said, no, no, I know it’s not the same one but he’s a chaplain too. He looked at me and said, what are you a chaplain for? I said, a basketball team. He said, augh, augh. He was so excited we were going to be able to meet this man.

He loved souls. He loved soul winning. He loved people. It was always a joy to be in his company. Greatly missed. Today on the Grace Hour with P. Renaldo he shared this verse in Numbers 14:24 about Caleb. I think we are all familiar with the life of Caleb. Caleb and Joshua, two of the 12 spies sent by Moses into the land, a little reconnaissance mission. Remember? Go in and spy out the land. He said to them, see if it is everything God said it is. Go into the land and come back and agree with God that it is what God said it was. When they came back, the ten spies brought back so much more than that. They started talking about the people groups, the obstacles and walled
cities and giants in the land. Then they made that strange comparison and said they’re giants
and we’re grasshoppers. I don’t recall once God ever referred to his people as grasshoppers. It’s
not in the Bible.

They came back and they said this is our new identity, grasshoppers. They were
the first to promote this grasshopper complex that spread to the entire nation. This negative
report from the ten spies infiltrated all the people. Then there was Joshua and Caleb. After
listening to the ten spies, they quieted the people and they said, it’s a land just as God said it
was. A land that flows with milk and honey. Here’s the fruit of it. We shouldn’t wait another
moment. We should go immediately into the land and take it. It’s ours. God said so. He’s given
it to us. It’s a gift of grace. Let’s take it. A great confession of faith. The negative report had
already found its way into the camp. It had already infiltrated the minds and the hearts of
people. That was the end of that. And now the children of Israel would wander in the wilderness for almost 40 years.

Can you imagine! All I can think about is Numbers 14:24 when Caleb
finally came into that land, that entire generation died off. Joshua and Caleb go into the land.
When Caleb goes in he says give me the mountain I saw some 45 years ago. He stepped into the
land and finished fighting the battles and he said, I’ve come here to collect a promise made to
me over 40 years ago. I’ve come to collect. I like that. Numbers 14:24 Caleb had a different spirit.
That’s what made him so different. That’s what set him apart. He had a different spirit. Just like
so many of us. What’ s it going to take living in an age when a pandemic seems to be the
greatest thought hovering in our heart just above our minds vertically everywhere? I’ll tell you
what it’s going to take. Another spirit.

Another spirit. It also says Caleb followed the Lord wholly. I have been on a quest since I’ve been very young. I have been on a quest for a problem free life. I’m here to tell you tonight I have not found it. Nobody has. Nobody goes to sleep and says that was a great day. There were no problems. My mind and heart are completely at rest. And I’m praying for another one like that tomorrow. Nobody goes to sleep like that. Right? Any more than the nightly news comes on and says all we have is good news. We apologize for it right from the beginning of our broadcast. It’s just good, good, good, so tape it because you want to listen to it over and over again. No, what we hear is, we hear the music on the nightly news and then you hear that serious look and more of us are dying and it’s the President’s fault. You sit there like uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. They are feeding our hearts with fear.

Thank God we have the house of God to come to so we can feed our hearts on faith. Amen! We have to because we need another spirit. We are not immune to the reality of the pandemic or virus. We know it’s there and we’re taking the necessary precautions and we do all we can, but we can’t afford to let our hearts be filled with fear. Because fear has a way of driving God’s thoughts out of our souls. And if there was ever a time to collect God’s promises, to hide those promises in our hearts, to allow those promises to give us a divine perspective and live with something called hope it’s now. Again, there is no such thing as a problem free life. If you are waiting for it,
also go outside tonight and look in the air and see if you see pigs flying around! That’s on the
same level. It’s not going to happen.

There’s always going to be trouble, always going to be problems, always going to be difficulties. It will never be an ongoing ever-increasing blue-sky existence. As someone else put it. They said anyone that thinks that life is a bowl of cherries is bananas. Right? It’s true. Problems happen and they happen to everybody, don’t they? When I was a young believer and I got saved – I think I got saved because I had so many problems. I finally just yielded to Christ and said, yes, I accept Christ. I had this idea in my mind no more problems for me. I’m going to be problem free. Everyone else is going to be troubled. After the first hour of being saved, I realized that’s not the case. Really what God says is in fact I’m going to personally create a few problems to increase your dependence on me and remove you from independence to the self-life. I was in shock. How can God use problems? He does. Everybody has problems but not all people deal with their problems the same way.

That’s what separates us as believers from an unbelieving world. Some people are overcome by their problems. And there are other people in this room in this place here in these seats tonight overcome their problems because of Christ living in them and the word of God abiding in them. A lot of people because of their problems they are left bitter. So many people here could get up and testify and say because of the problems of life, I’m actually better. I don’t mean to say that you can improve on the righteousness that is imputed to us by faith, that you can add to the perfect standing that we have been given by virtue of Christ’s finished work. what I’m saying is as we move through life, we actually do become better. We actually do enjoy more of life because we realize our problems don’t exist to trouble us or drag us down. Our problems exist so that God can take them and work them together for our good, reveal his glory and manifest his life to a watching world.

God does that. Caleb is going to accept the challenges before him by faith. Others are going to accept those same challenges with fear. They are going to be paralyzed and they are going to wander aimlessly in the desert. We were saying today how it would have been so easy for Caleb to be bitter. To cry out to God and say, listen, I believed you. Joshua believed you. Why do we have to wander with these unbelieving stubborn stiff-necked people?
He could say something that we have heard throughout our lives. He might have been the first
one – he didn’t do it, but he could have – he could have coined the phrase, God, it’s not fair. It’s
not fair. Why should I live a troubled life because of their lack of faith? Why should I be
associated with a people who won’t trust you and won’t take you at your word and won’t mix
faith with your promises?

Why do I have to endure the next 40 something years of wandering
with them? He could have been the kind of guy that every time another one of them perished
in the wilderness, he could have been, Hallelujah! There goes another one. Let’s get rid of them
all Lord. The sooner the better so I can get my mountain. That was not his attitude. His attitude
was, listen. God is still in this. We are still God’s chosen people. We might have delayed the
fulfillment of his promise toward us as the children of Israel, but he’s still God. He’s still on the
throne. We can still trust him. I know the day is going to come when he will come through on
those promises and I’m going to be there to collect that promise. Collecting promises. That is
what we do every time we come together.

Every class, every leadership class, every rap session following the services, every Bible study we have. What are we doing? Collecting promises. We need God’s thoughts more now than ever. Caleb’s story stands out because his faith stands out. That’s what separated him. 45 years earlier, I can’t even imagined it, he believed God. He could
not enter into that land. The great part of the story is God took notice of Caleb’s courage and
faith and never forgot it. He prized that in the life of his servant. That’s why we read he had a
different spirit. We could try to define that word “different” in so many ways. We would all
have good illustrations and good definitions to describe it, but let’s just say it’s out of this
world. It’s nothing like this world. It almost rises to another level.

We would say that other level is the thoughts of God, so much higher than the thoughts of man, so much higher than an unbelieving, Christ rejecting world might experience. We don’t have those thoughts. We have
higher thoughts, loftier thoughts. After all, we are seated above in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. Amen? Our minds are to be set on those things which are above in Colossians 3:2. That’s where
our lives really are, hid with Christ in God. We set our minds and our affections on things above.
What a resume for Caleb. How are you remembered? I had a different spirit. I wholly followed
the Lord. Who wouldn’t want that kind of resume. Who wouldn’t want that written on their tombstone. What would you like in terms of words on your resume when life comes to a conclusion? We think of P. Morrison and we hear words like joy and love and a pleasure to be around and preaching the gospel and winning souls and loving people. What a resume. That’s how we want to live our lives in the exact same way.

He follows in the footsteps of Caleb. He is yet another Caleb because he had a different spirit. He was so unlike the rest of this world. As Pastor Schaller said, he could laugh at himself. It’s so important we learn to laugh and have
freedom and enjoy life and not look at it as a great burden delivered to us to crush us. What
kind of spirit catches God’s eye? What qualifies as a different spirit? It’s almost like the answers
start to emerge and they come forth in the Bible when the distribution of the land begins to
take place. Joshua 14 this is the essence of what it was that set Caleb apart. They are his own
words. You can see what he was thinking based on what he speaks. Out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaks. Our words are simply the verbal expression of what it is we are
thinking. Listen to how Caleb was thinking.

Joshua 14:6-14, what do you read? What do you keep hearing about? Over and over. The Lord. The Lord. The Lord. The Lord. Nine times. The Lord. Joshua what’s on your mind? The Lord. Caleb, what are you thinking about ? the Lord. Where have you placed your mind? On the Lord. What about the people that kept you in a wilderness
for 40 years? Didn’t that trouble you? Didn’t bother me. My mind was on the Lord. I often
think, what if someone took a transcript of my mind? What would they read? It would probably
be something like: The virus, the mask, the pandemic, the problem. Where are we going to sit
in church? I don’t know. The roped off area or the other area? I’m not sure. Who am I going to
sit beside? Contaminated or uncontaminated? I don’t know. What would a transcript of my
mind look like?

The world wants to program us to think that way when God says to listen. Want
to get through a pandemic? Have another spirit. Want to get through a crisis in life? Have
another spirit. Want to get through an economic challenge in your life? Have another spirit.
Want to be challenged by what has happened in the world? Have another spirit. That’s what it
takes. That’s what he had. One day it could be the economy. Some time you have a bad
neighbor and what do you think about? The jerk, the jerk, the jerk that lives next door to me. It
can be anything. It’s whatever it is that occupied our thinking. Again, if we sit back and in a
passive way keep taking our cues from this world and our culture, we’re going to be troubled.
We’re not going to see any hope for the future. But God teaches us to do otherwise. It’s
possible.

None of us should condemn ourselves if we get to that place. God wants us to
understand this. Oh my soul, why are you cast down? We got to do what the psalmist said in Psalm
42:5 hope thou in God. I will yet praise his name. I will find hope as I look into his countenance.
That’s what he said. He counseled himself with the thoughts of God. We’ve got to learn just to
treat our cast down souls with thoughts of God. Flood our souls with thoughts of God. Drench
our hearts and minds with thoughts of God. Cast down anything contrary to the thoughts of
God. The thoughts of God say even in these hours that we find ourselves living, I can do all
things through Christ who is strengthening me from within.

The thoughts of God teach us that God’s grace will be sufficient for us. He will supply our every need and we will lack nothing to his glory and honor. If you let the thoughts of this world marinate your soul, it’s going to drag you down and beat you up. It’s going to make you bitter and angry. You might even be tempted
to say, God’s not fair. Praise God. We thank God tonight he’s not fair. He’s gracious. He’s good.
Somebody could say Joshua, this is so unfair. God’s not fair. Do you know what he would say?
God is good. God keeps his promise. God will get us in to the land. All we have to do is believe
him and mix faith with what he said. That’s all he’s ever looking for. The thoughts of God. We
can’t meditate on our misery. We can’t keep reciting our problems over and over again. It never
changes us or puts us in an improved situation. Someone could say, I’m around these people
and all they ever do is sing the blues.

They don’t have to invite you into the chorus. You can step aside and say I’d like to sing a different song. I would like to sing the songs tonight before we started our service. I would like to sing a song of worship, of praise, of glory, of knowing God is going to carry us through and get us to the other side. Because He always keeps his promises
and that’s why we want to collect them. Thank God for Caleb. Thank God for the Caleb’s in our
church. I think if P. Scibelli was alive at that time, him and Caleb would be joined at the hip. No
question. Caleb would probably be following him. The Body of Christ here has that same spirit
because we’ve learned something. You know what we learned? Our best thoughts are God’s
thoughts. When we have God’s thoughts, we are thinking the best thoughts we can think.

We can’t get those thoughts by watching the news or being informed again and again and again or
checking in with social media and seeing what people are saying. We can’t get those thoughts
that way. We have to get them from above. We have to develop that personal relationship in
our own souls. They talk about hanging onto the coattails of other politicians when there is a
political race. If a Republican or Democratic president is sweeping the country and winning in a
landslide, most of the time typically all of the Democrats will win their offices they are running
for or all of the Republicans will win. The coattail affect doesn’t work in the kingdom of God.
You have to get your own faith. You have to do your own believing.

You can’t just be swept into the kingdom because everybody else is. You have to make that choice. I have to make that choice that says I am going to believe God. I’m going to be in the business of starting each day
and collecting another promise and hiding it in my heart so I will have all that is needed, so I will
have all of the strength, all of the power, all of the divine ability that will allow me to live a life
as an overcomer. God promises that he will do it for us. We have to turn the death ear
sometimes to the critics and doubters. Ignore all the naysayers. When the pessimists begin to
crow, we just cover our ears and say, Lord I need to hear you. Those are prevailing voices out
there. I need to hear that one voice among a thousand that says it will be even as God says it
will be. We can still trust him.

We can still move forward by faith. We may be limited in some senses like we haven’t been in the past, but we know it’s just a matter of time our God will carry us through. We will begin to take whatever time he gives us while we have here on the planet to redeem it and to redeem souls and to reach a world with the gospel. He knows if we
stand still too long, grass with begin to grow under our feet. We have got to get back to going
into all the world and preaching the Gospel because we know that is important to God. We
know his last commandment is our first priority and we can’t wait to do it again. We know it’s a
matter of time before we do it again. Joshua and Caleb are outnumbered 10 to 2.But they still believed in God’s power and the day came. Imagine when Caleb steps into that land and he
sees that mountain he had seen decades earlier.

He said, there it is! I’ve come to claim it. It’s mine. I’m as healthy now as I was back then. I’m as strong now as I was back then. My spirit hasn’t been diminished. My soul hasn’t been discouraged. It could have been if I allowed it, if I
let it happen. I didn’t. I’m here to collect a promise. Every time we come together, we come
together for that one great purpose to collect God’s promises. We can’t live without them.
Bread alone doesn’t cut it. We need every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

P. Schaller –

Wow! Wasn’t that a good message. That was so good. That was so good. So
appropriate and what are some things that stuck in your mind? We did. We laughed. He had a
different spirit. There is a spirit of the world. But you have a different spirit. There is a spirit of
pride maybe? But you have a spirit of love, of humility. There is a spirit of confusion. What spirit
do you have? We have another spirit. We’re not confused. It’s clear. We can go into the
Promised Land. We could go now. Ten people said no we can’t do it. No, we have to be realistic.
I understand that but there is a spirit in life, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of worship. The spirit of
the Body. You know how you change in life? By being humble enough to sit and listen to that
kind of message and receive something from God.

You might say I did. I received something but you know, is this how it’s going to go? We say yes. That’s how it goes. You grow little by little and have the right spirit and able to be a long time. How long did it take Noah to build the ark? I don’t know. How many? I’m asking the question. 120 years maybe. A long time. How about
Moses? He was out in the desert for how long? 40 years and then he went back and went to
Egypt and came back out. How many years out there again? Another 40. A long time. What kind
of spirit did Caleb have? How old was he went he came out of Egypt? 40 years old. How old was
he when he got the mountain? I thought it was 87. Was it 85? I think in the Bible 87, but I’m not
sure. No, he got it right. That’s a long time.

That’s a looooong time! If you interviewed P Morrison tonight who is up in heaven – if you say, how did you live your life? It took me a long – I wholly followed the Lord. How long did you follow him? Two years? P. Morrison would say my whole life. How did you do it? I received. I was humble. I was in the right spirit, in the
congregation. I learned to serve. I learned to be faithful. I learned to walk by faith. The Spirit of
God did it. That’s the same with every life here. The Spirit of God, that’s what you got. Do you
have the spirit of CNN, the local TV? How about it? Do you have the spirit of Baltimore? Do you
have the spirit of the United States of America and all that? I love my country but I’m not living
in some kind of la la land about reality.

I want to share the Gospel. I want to preach the gospel. Our country is going where in a hand basket? Where is it going? It’s going in a wrong direction. You know what’s needed? Caleb had another spirit. That’s what’s needed. Be careful now. Be careful. I didn’t get to preach tonight! Listen. Do I love America? You can’t find a better
American than the way we are, nor are we deceived that this country is in trouble. We are
killing our babies. We are murdering people. The hypocrisy of this world is unbelievable. Kids
are getting murdered in the streets of Baltimore. Does anyone care? Covid is a big deal. Okay. Okay, Fine. What about a kid in the street murdered, 17 years old and so on? What about that
kid? What about that death? What about murder on the street? Hypocrisy is unbelievable.
Don’t have a hypocritical spirit.

Every life is precious. Every second is a gift. Every promise from God is real. God is real in our life and we want to bring it right here where we are living. That means we care about kids on the street and kids in the neighborhood. We care about world missions. What do you think, this thing shuts us down? That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. This is not shutting us down. Caleb had another spirit. That is ridiculous. You mean I can’t go soul
winning? You mean I can’t evangelize? You mean it changes my life like that? No, I’m not wholly
following the Lord. Jesus would say I need you in the crisis. I need you in the prison cell. I need
you when things are bad. I need you in the nursing home. I need you in the mission field. I need
you in a place of danger. I need you to risk your life and lay down your life. I need you to have
another spirit. Not to save your life but the life of the Holy Spirit who sent us into the world to
live on the roof top in the corner of the roof top and so on.

That’s fun. That was an amazing message, pastor. I loved that message. Wow! We have another spirit. We have another spirit. We’re not quitting. We’re not backing up. We’re not putting up. We’re not shutting up. We’re
not quitters. We’re not backing up. We do good when the pressure is on because we have
another spirit. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! When things are bad, things are good. Thank you, God.
That’s how I feel about it. That was amazing. Amazing. Caleb spirit. Jesus Christ is in our midst.
Churches are shut down. They haven’t been open for four months or five months. A church has
not been open for four or five months? What is the pastor doing? Where is he? What is his
message? What spirit does he have? What is he of the world? Where is he? Where is the man
of God? Where is the man of God? Where are the people of God? Wow! That’s amazing! The
country is going in the wrong direction.

Not in California. Huntington Beach. Google it. 5,000 people gathering. Governor Nusim says you cannot meet. The Christians are saying we’re going to the beach We’re going to sing our hearts out. We’re going to baptize new believers. We’re going to preach the Gospel. We need a revival in the United States of America. We need a
revival in the United States of America. That’s called another spirit. That’s another spirit. That’s
another spirit. The devil hates that spirit. He loves to talk to you all night long and lull you into
passivity. And tell you you got to fear this and fear that and don’t do this and don’t do that. And
the government says and on and on it goes. What’s going on? You show up in church and in
humility we hear a message from a man of God like we did, and we have fellowship with each
other, and we put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no Convention but look what I got
underneath my shirt?

I got a Convention t-shirt. Oh no! I got a Convention t-shirt underneath!
You can’t get it out of me! You can’t get it out of me! These are for sale in the café! We
cancelled it but God is with us. That’s the good news. Programs come and go but Jesus is here
forever. Praise you Lord. Things change. They go up and down, but God doesn’t change.
Halleluiah! Praise the Lord. Thank you Lord.

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