There were more than 600,000 men who came out of Egypt. Few were like Caleb. In fact, it was only he and Joshua of all these men who set foot in the Promised Land. Caleb believed the Lord was with him and Israel. His confidence was in the minority, but the Lord gave him his place in the land. Calebs are a necessity. Men such as these tell us to get going and claim our triumphs with God. (Psalm 78; Numbers 13:30; Numbers 14:24, 30)

Needed: Caleb Spirits and Caleb Hearts

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon 11782
11:00 AM on 11/10/2019

 #Heart

#Hope

#Spiritual Life

#Spiritual Warfare 

#Trust  

#belief

#Caleb

#faith

#furnish

#minority

#spirit

#table

#trust

P. Schaller –

We are ready to hear a word, amen. Psalm. 78 is not a good psalm. It is but because it’s in the Bible, it’s a good psalm. God’s word. 32 times God is saying about the people of Israel how – the verbs there. 32
times they provoked me, they tempted me, so I want you to notice it to preface our sermon.
The sermon will be good. I believe that. We start bad but it will be good. I hope so. I believe
that. Stay standing. Look at Psalm 78:1-4 He introduces the psalm and he’s saying and starts in
the history of the Jewish people. vs. 6-7

The purpose of the psalm is that people would set their hope in God and not forget the works of God. Would you say that to your neighbor. Don’t forget the works of God. vs. 8. Read this out loud with me. Notice here. There are two parts in that verse. Their heart and the other one is spirit. There is a problem in both. Their heart is not
right and spirit not steadfast. Now, vs. 9. Turned back in the day of battle. Watch. I’m going out
to battle against the enemy and I’m out of here.

I turn back. God is with me. I see the enemy and I turn back in the day of battle. I run away in the battle. We have 32 of these verbs in this chapter. I want you to later read it. Vs. 10. Kept not, refused, vs. 11 forget his works. Vs. 17
sinned yet more against him. Provoking. Vs. 18 tempted God. vs. 19 spake against God. vs. 22.
Believe not. Trusted not. Vs. 30. Not estranged from their lust. All this they sinned still and
believed not. Vs. 36. Flattered him with their mouth, lied with their tongues. Heart not right
with him neither steadfast in his covenant.

Vs. 40-41. Limited the Holy One of Israel. On it goes. Vs. 56-57. That’s my thought for now. Before we go there, there were two articles P. Steve found related to a short discussion P. Jason Moore and I had with Jen Lynch and P. Steve about the advantage of marriage. I said P. Steve, maybe you could find material about the benefits of
a lasting marriage, marriage that endures and lasts to the end. He found two. These are secular.
One by a Harvard health -he’s a doctor.

Harvard health publishing. These are not Christians. It’s not Christian material but it’s been found if you are married and stay married, you live longer. You have fewer strokes and heart attacks. You have fewer chance of becoming depressed. More likely to survive cancer for a longer period of time and more likely to survive a major
operation if you are married. In a study of 25,000 people in England, they found that among
people that have a heart attack, those that are married were 14% more likely to survive and
were able to leave the hospital two days sooner than a single person.

Interesting piece of information. It affects your mental health, physiologically, your immune system. In another
piece here we have a short list. I don’t want to go too much into this. Marriage is good for your
mental health. Married men and women are less depressed, less anxious, less psychologically
depressed than single, divorced, or widowed Americans. By the way, if you are wanting to get
married and you are not married, you can meet P. Steve in the mother’s room at the end of the
sermon.

You will own more money it was found out. Men tend to think that marriage is a
consumption item. But in fact, getting a wife may increase an American male’s salary by as
much as a college education. Married men make by some estimates as much as 40% more
money than comparable single guys. Then getting richer, there is a paragraph here about
getting richer. Also, marriage increases sexual fidelity. Cohabiting men are four times more
likely to cheat than husbands. Cohabiting women are eight times more likely to cheat than
wives. Marriage is also the only realistic promise of permanence in romantic relationship.

Just one of ten cohabiting couples are still cohabiting after five years. In other words, you live with
somebody but why not get married. I didn’t explain myself but that’s okay. Just one out of ten
cohabiting couples are still cohabiting after five years. By contrast, 80% of couples marrying for
the first time are still married five years later and close to 60% will marry for life. Then there is a
piece here, you won’t go bonkers.

Marriage is good for your mental health. Yes, I got that already. It can save your life. Let’s see. That’s it for now. Okay. Why do I say this but because I believe it. I believe that what I’m about to say in the message can help us because marriage can be hard. Keeping my marriage together can be really a challenge but you can do it. It can
happen. Stay marriage. Stay in the fight. Stay together. Learn to forgive. Learn to believe. It can
happen. If it hasn’t happened for you and you are divorced once or twice or more, God is for
you. We don’t talk about people.

We don’t gossip. I don’t know the status of people here. That’s not my point. You have a private life. Your personal life. I’m happy you are here. I’m hoping that some of the things we say will speak to your heart from the Holy Spirit. That leads us up to the message. It is about Caleb in Numbers 13. It’s great to be in God’s house today. Vs.
30. Here’s one man that said something that was very important for the people to hear and also
believe. Caleb had the Spirit of God. I think you know the history here. We have Europe, Italy,
Greece Turkey, Israel, Africa. Like this.

Here is the Nile River. The Jews were living here in Egypt. Here’s the Red Sea. There’s three parts to our geography here. One is Egypt, two is the wilderness and three the Promised Land. Sea of Galilee, Jordan River that goes down to the Dead Sea. You know the map.

1) They were slaves in Egypt. How did they get out? You can talk
back to me? God. How did they get out of Egypt? The hand of God. The high and mighty hand
of God. He divided the Red Sea and they go out of Egypt. They are saved. They ate the lamb
that night. The blood was on the door. They left Egypt and now they are in the wilderness.

2) They are in the wilderness. Caleb is in the group. How many men came out of Egypt? 600,000
men. How many people? We don’t know. Women weren’t counted in that number. Women
and children. Maybe 2 million, might be three million came out of Egypt. Who is the leader?
Moses. Who is Caleb? He’s the guy I want to be like. He’s the guy that has something in his
heart. His heart is right. What about the other people. It says they tempted God. They tempted
God. Think about this for a minute.

I want to explain the map. When the Jews came up along this side of the river. They cross over and come up on this side and come to the Promised Land. This is within two years of leaving Egypt. They sent 12 spies into the land. Ten of them said no way. And two of them said yes. It’s that verse there. We can go up. We are able to over come it.
Many of us know the story. The other ten spies said no way. We cannot do this. They returned.
They walked back down without going in and come over here and live here for 40 years in the
wilderness.

I’m sorry, 38 more years after going up. 38 more years. In that group is Caleb. In
Caleb’s heart he is saying we could have gone in. We could have gone in. Have you ever been
there? I believed that could have happened, but it wasn’t time. 38 years later they go back up
there under Joshua and Joshua sends two spies in. 12 are too many. The committee. It’s too
many people. I need two real guys with a spirit of Caleb, a Spirit of God with these two guys and
they come in and back out and say let’s go. That’s what Joshua needed. Numbers 14:24 he had
another spirit. That’s what I want to say today. We when we find God, we want to stay there.

That’s important. When we find God, we have to stay there with God. When we find God, we
can’t reverse. When Caleb got it, he was different from the other ten, but he was right. He was
a minority, but he was right. I want to say I need a Caleb in my life. I want to say I’m looking for
the message of Caleb. I want the heart of Caleb, the spirit of Caleb. I know life and marriage can
be hard. I know that.

Maybe if God could help me and show me, I would start to think in terms
of what God is saying than what they say at the barber shop or Hollywood, or research. I don’t
know what it is being said and what is wise, true, and useful and what is from God. Here’s a
short diagram for us. Simple. Goes like this. God is God and you and I are people. Psalm. 100. He is
my shepherd. We are his sheep. And we have not made ourselves, but he has made us. We are
the sheep of his pasture and he has made us and not we ourselves. When God is God, then
there is worship.

The Spirit of God, the mind of God, the heart of God. God is God. It may not be
easy. But there is the mind and heart of Caleb who is saying things. I heard P. Stevens on a tape
from 1983 yesterday. I loved his preaching. He was so clear in our vision. We’re going to go to a
hundred countries. We want to train disciples. We want to be highly committed. We want to
take up the cross. We want to believe God for the next step, that God has raised up the
ministry.

This is 1983. I’m thinking about the Spirit of God using him to say these things to us
when we are on the edge of not believing it. We are kind of on the edge of not believing that
my marriage will survive, or my cigarettes will one day leave me or my pornography or my bad
habits that I don’t seem to get rid of. They come back and disappoint me and discourage me.
Psalm. 78, when you reverse the picture here and it goes more like this.

This is me and others and then God is talked to like this. Can God prepared a table in the wilderness? There’s two ways to say that. One in faith like can God prepare a table in the wilderness. Yes, he can. The other way
of saying it is sarcastically. What? Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? What? Can he
raise the dead, I suppose? Can he bring water out of rock? Can he bring food from heaven? Can
he answer my prayer and give me a wife or a car or a child? There is two ways of saying it. He is
God and I see.

Because somehow when Caleb went into the same country as the other ten,
they are looking and saying we don’t have the fortifications, the weapons, the swords. We’re
just two years came out of Egypt as slaves. We don’t have the right shoes or clothes. We don’t
have a trained army. We don’t have any discipline for this. No way we can go into these
fortified, mountain regions with these cities that have been here for a hundred years and take
on these people.

These people could wipe us out. They could wipe us out. Caleb is there like
well, no. No. He promised this to our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he brought us
out of Egypt. Don’t you guys remember two years ago we went through the Red Sea. And
haven’t you seen? Don’t you know our God didn’t bring us out of Egypt so we would live in the
wilderness. He brought us out to bring us in. That’s what I see. Let’s translate that into our
language.

A young man has a bad habit, some kind of sexual habit that he has of some kind.
And he comes to church and there is something speaking to his heart. You are free. You are
free. Christ set you free and he believes that. After a couple days, he is disappointed with
himself. He says what could I do pastor. I go back to my habit. I go back to my sin. What does
the pastor say? He says young man, I realize you are guilty. You are disappointed with yourself.
You are a sinner as Romans 7 teaches. You have no other option but to believe God.

But you are not believing God that way. What? Do you think God could change that? I don’t think so. I’ve
been living with this problem for a long time. You think God could do that? They limited the
Holy One of Israel by what they experienced and saw and imagined in their own hearts. God
becomes something dull and boring to people. This is a very good point. God becomes
something dull and boring to people.

Their God is not this one. This God called Jesus Christ who
runs through a troop and leaps over a wall in Psalm 18. This God who came out of the tomb and
raised from the dead on our behalf, and speaks to our hearts and says to us, go and sin no
more. Neither do I condemn you. Last week I was in Hungary preaching and a few days earlier
in Romania. I talked to a man who had a habit of smoking cigarettes. He said I quit smoking and
I go back to it.

I quit smoking and then I go back to it. I got so tired and disappointed with
myself. Then he said I came into this church and I heard about grace and God. God became big
in my mind. I didn’t even think about it. Just smoking cigarettes and going to Bible school and I
wasn’t even thinking about it. I was starting to get occupied with God. I could say it in this
context. The spirit of Caleb that somehow I got to understand that I’m not looking at the visible
things. I’m looking at the invisible things.

The spirit of Caleb is affecting my life. I’m starting to believe God. Then he said it was gone. One day this was the last one. The cigarette was over and gone and haven’t had one since and it was seven years ago. How did you do that? He said God did it. What was the mechanics of it? He said it was simply the Holy Spirit started to show
me the nature of God, the grace of god. The grace of God teaches us in Titus 2:10-11. The grace
of God changes our hearts and changes our lives.

The grace of God could say in our marriage, honey, don’t worry about it. We got our problems. I’m not perfect. I know that and I’m sorry. And that’s how it is. In my heart I want you to know I’m like starting to believe and seeing how good God is. My hope is that one day I would have the spirit of Caleb in my life. I would be able
to say and still the people and say, we can take it. I don’t mean it like a rah, rah, message. I’m
just trying to say it deeply and in our hearts and spirit that we are much more capable of things
than we realize.

We are much more capable of living a way that is beyond our selves. Psalm. 40
lead me to the rock higher than myself. Here is a warning. If our God becomes more like us and
our God is more like why you didn’t do this. I expected this and this is what I got. I’m
disappointed with you. I can’t believe this happened to me. I’m angry about it. I can’t handle
that. I go to church but in my heart I don’t have what the Lord is looking for which is this kind of
you know what I mean.

This kind of thing where Lord, I’m sorry that I treat you or think of you
like that. You are in heaven and I am on earth and you can do whatever you please, Psalm. 115:3.
May our words be few on earth for he is in heaven and we are on earth and we know about this
much. We don’t know what is going on. We don’t know what is happening. Let’s hope that God
would give us a Caleb in our life.

I wish I could do the dial up a Caleb or something. Have a friend that is a Caleb and I think we have many of them around. I think I need a Caleb in my life. I need that because it can rub off on me. I could have a Caleb in our life, and we can talk about our wounds and disappointments only so long until we get tired and bored. Could we move on? Where is there a Caleb. Caleb will help us move on. The praise and the worship of almighty God
who will take care of us. Jesus is between the two. Come on, guys. Do you know what God has
for you? Come on guys.

Believe me, trust me. Let’s go. The tomb is empty. Let’s go. Let’s believe. That’s what church is about and to be honest I think that’s what our marriages need somebody with a Caleb spirit right in the living room and someone saying we are well able. This little problem, this tough period, this bump in the road, that’s okay. The real enemies, the real giants over there, real fortifications but God is with us. And he can do it. Raising kids, I wish
there was a Caleb in the garage.

You know, I need a Caleb right now. I wish there was a guy there that could talk to my heart and minister to me. Raising kids. What a challenge, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. Raising kids. And I really didn’t do it. My wife did it. Halleluiah! Give her a hand! Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. She’s a Caleb. You know, raising kids,
running a business, providing food for your family, managing the craziness of this life. I think if
Caleb’s God, he’s lasered in and he knows who God is. He hit the big, the big thing. He won. He
got it.

When that’s happening, Jesus said when you find that, then my heavenly Father will take
care of you. My heavenly father – the enemies will fall on your right and on your left in Psalm
91. If you and I can laser in with a concentration on the big stuff, the weightier matters of the
law. The more important issues of life, setting your affection on the things above. Because we
are choking on our idols with the things below.

We are. I’ve never seen so many bored people. So many dull and bored and empty people surrounded with their toys just kind of like, you know, they got all kinds of stuff but where’s the, you know, where’s the fire. Where’s the spit, the vinegar? Where’s the message? Where’s the purpose? Where’s the faith? Where’s the
challenge? I need a challenge. I need a challenge. I need a Caleb. I need an opposition that the
Almighty God can say, come on. Believe me.

You can take on the enemy. You can. I need it. You know, if you are bored in life and you’re surrounded with all your toys and all your stuff and then you are trying to pay for it all with your credit cards and everything and this whole thing. I know the whole routine. I know the narrative. I know how it goes. But there is also another side
to it. And that’s give it in you heart. You can enjoy it. It’s yours. Have it. It’s fine. It’s not the
stuff. It’s the heart. If in the heart I can give this thing to God, and this thing.

I can give my wife to God, my children, my life. I can give it to God and become a worshipper of God. And I’ll find
that I got authority over these things. And I’m going to be like Caleb in my heart and in my life.
I’m able to say we can go take it. Let’s go. We can be a missionary. How about later in life? I
could get rid of all my stuff and be a missionary and go and serve. I have all my stuff, but I could
be a missionary in Towson, right here in town in Maryland and borders of PA and New Jersey
and the folks from Wilmington.

Thank you so much for coming down. That’s amazing. Pastor Carl’s got a vision. Wilmington, Delaware. Well, what about the drugs in Baltimore and the murder and all those things. That’s why God sent us cuz we got the Spirit of Caleb. We got something to do here. God sent us here. We can do something. That’s no problem. No. That’s
great. Beautiful. So I need a Caleb. Turn to you neighbor and say, would you be my Caleb?
Would you be my Valentine? Remember all the unmarried people, they can meet in the
mother’s room afterwards.

We’ll kind of match them up! P. Steve will do it. No, okay. Let’s finish. I’m serious. I need a Caleb. We’ve got this in our minds. We have history in it. But the warning is be careful. Don’t flip it upside down. Keep God is God. Keep looking to him and hearing from him and believing him and you’ll be fine. You will increase. You will grow. You will
learn more. You will become not shallow. No! Schaller! I said shallow. Some people call me,

Pastor Shallow, That was a great message today. Thank you, Pastor Shallow. Okay. So, you’ll not
be shallow, but you will learn and become a richer person cuz that’s what Caleb does. When we
hang out with him and we hear and we follow and we’re part of that, we end up doing a dance.
Party time, and this party is not with alcohol. This party is with the Spirit and say whoo hoo.
Wow! It is fun to be a Christian.

It is just straight up awesome adventure of faith to be a believer and to share the message. And to love people that need help. That’s what we are here for. Too many shallow people are drowning in their boredom and their emptiness and they need somebody like Caleb to help them. Amen. Tonight we will have a great service here. I’m so
happy to be part of this church fellowship.

What happened through the years people like you and me who with the spirit of Caleb said we can do it. The Soviet Union had an iron curtain. We said we can do it and we did it. We’ve been there. Twenty-four cities in ten year’s time. We planted churches in former communist bloc countries all the way out east. It’s amazing. We can
do it. We can do it. We are right here in the city of Baltimore. We can help people, touch
people, and we can do it. Wow! It’s amazing. And we can raise a family and we can keep our
family together. Wow.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.