A sermon that Derreck would have preached on 13th March 2022 if he hadn’t tested positive
Caleb (Pioneers & Settlers)
Intro There are two types of people in the Kingdom of God.
Pioneers, and Settlers.
We’ll focus on life of Caleb, one of my favourite OT characters.
We’ll look through his eyes, and through his life and times we will see this difference of mind-set between the Pioneer and Settler.
Let’s start by clarifying what we are looking at, let’s ask ourselves…..
What is a (spiritual) Settler?
We think of the word ‘settler’ in two very different contexts.
We think of the wild west and settlers travelling across the USA in wagon trains looking for a better future, the promise of land and a home – sound just like Caleb and the Jews!
The second is closer to home.
We think of our offspring and what they are doing with their life.
We want them to be ‘happy’ and so look for them to find a life-partner, get a house or flat, get married, have children, our grandchildren.
We want them to settle down.
What do they do?
They go and circumnavigate the globe on a skateboard or do a foot safari in the jungle of Laos and Cambodia, or they do charity work, raising money by pushing a dried pea with their nose from Land’s End to John-O-Groats!
Settling means coming to a standstill. Many early American settlers never made it to their destination, disease, starvation, bandits, Indians all took their toll, but many just stopped and said, “This is far enough!”
They ‘settled’ for second best rather than pushing on to their destination in the far west.
The children of Israel were similar.
They left the Egyptians, they were now free, how did they use that freedom?
They whinged and whined (Ex 15:24). After only three days after the Red Sea, they were complaining that they had no water.
Shortly after that they complained they had no food.
Here is the mark of a settler they said, “We were better of in Egypt! At least we had pots of meat and ate bread until we were full!”
Funny, I thought that in Egypt they were slaves, told when to get up, when, where, and how to work, when to eat and drink, when to sleep.
If they didn’t they would be whipped.
Funny how good the past looks sometimes.
In Egypt the Israelites were institutionalised.
Now they had freedom, what did they do.
They exchanged Egypt for God. Instead of expecting to be told what to do by their taskmasters they waited to be spoon-fed by God.
Any soldier/survivalist/nomad will tell you that finding water in the desert is not hard you just need to look! The Israelites didn’t bother, they were settling back into dependence – this time on God. They wanted Him to sort it out. Neither is it hard to find food, again there is so much in the desert to eat, but, you have to go get it!
The Israelites were looking back to the ‘good times’ of Egypt, the familiar, the known, the understood, where the order and structure was a part of their lives. They were starting to see those days through rose-coloured glasses, and so yearning for a past that didn’t exist.
We can look back to good times in our lives, excellent churches we once belonged to, favourite clergy or readers – but it is in the past.
It was never that good, and those times were for the past, another time.
It’s astonishing that the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt.
But the ‘Settler’ mind-set continued.
What happened when they got to Jordon and had to cross?
God told them to spy out the land. They did, one spy from each tribe.
They all came back saying how wonderful the land was.
But 10 reported the land ignoring the promises of God that they would live and prosper in it. They said, “…it is a land that devours its inhabitants.” The cities are great with high walls, the soldiers are giants and many of them, and they’re ugly!!
One again they looked to go back to the familiar past, in Num 14:2-4 they say ‘We wish we had died in Egypt….let’s appoint a leader and go back.’
Let’s just settle back into what we once were…… slaves.
It was good back then, we knew what was going on, we were fed, looked after – oh dear, such short memories.
So, they rebelled against God, tried to stone Joshua and Caleb for telling the truth about God’s promises to them – and refused to go into the Land.
God said ‘fine’, if you really want to go back into the wilderness, then go!
If you don’t want the best I have for you and you want to settle for second best in the wilderness (wilderness = 102nd best), then fine.
You will die living in your past!
You see, going back and living in our familiar past means we have no hope! Hope points towards the future, not into the past.
We might have hope for eternity, heaven, however we see that.
But how about hope for tomorrow and the next day.
If we are living and settling for the familiarity and comfort of the past we have no hope for tomorrow, because we are living in the past!
I’m 66yo this year, I’m hoping with good diet, exercise, and general good health to have at least another 20 years around here.
I am not going to spend those 20yes settling into a comfortable, cosy past, just waiting for time to run out in a spiritual wilderness.
Because that is what God did, He walked them around for forty years until every last one that rebelled died.
The 10 spies who convinced the nation to rebel, they died of plague.
You see, decisions and choices carry with them consequences.
There is something to learn here, if we are determined to live as settlers, fine. But, if we convince, coerce others to do so that is serious, and we will be held to account for it – let’s take God seriously.
If God says ‘GO’ and you don’t, there is a consequence for the action.
A whole generation died because they would rather settle in the past, in the wilderness, in what they knew than follow God to receive His very best.
That sounds tough but remember two weeks ago when we were looking at Ash Weds and the woman in adultery, how in John ch8 Jesus takes the ‘gloves off’ and says come blunt confrontational things.
One thing He said to the Pharisees was, ‘I go from here, you will die in your sins…’ Jn 8v21, does that not resonate and echo from here?
‘I will take my people into the land; you will die in the wilderness’.
Sounds like we have heard this before doesn’t it?
We need to take God seriously, take Him at His word. He takes us seriously, seriously enough to send His son to die for us, maybe we should extend God the same courtesy and take Him and what He says seriously?
A whole generation died because they preferred the familiar past to the promised future.
I wonder how they reacted to Caleb and Joshua during those forty years.
I wonder if when someone cried out, ‘Not blooming quail fricassee AGAIN!’ if they caught Caleb’s eye and he mouthed the words, ‘Milk…Honey’?
I wonder if they could even look him ion the eye.
And Joshua, how many shied away when he passed not able hold His gaze
This death in the wilderness was not just a physical end of life, but a spiritual death. What could they do, where could they go?
They were just counting the days until it ended, absolutely tragic, a real low point in the relationship between God and His people.
Let’s get a little more positive, what does a ‘spiritual pioneer’ look like?
What is a (spiritual) Pioneer?
Forty years later when all of rebellious Israel had died God brought the people back to the banks of the Jordon. They were a different people now. They had learned two things.
First, that the desert/wilderness was not a familiar, cosy place to be, but a place where people died.
Their experience of wilderness, the familiar past was that it brought death. They were not going back to that – hurrah, lesson learned.
A spiritual pioneer learns as they go along, that’s what discipleship is all about. A pioneer recognises that the past it to be learned from – NOT lived in!
They came ready to cross.
A quick word about Moses, Joshua, Caleb, for they were forty years older too. This time Moses was taken up Mt Nebo and shown the promised Land, he wasn’t going to go in because of his disobedience, he was to die there.
But it says that his, “..eye wasn’t dimmed, and his natural force was not abated”. Even at 120yo he could still read size 12 font at twenty paces!
The ‘natural force‘ is an odd phrase, there is not an English word that fits.
It could be his strength, his spirit (not HS), his physical fitness, also it could refer to his ability to still father children – Moses was an ‘alpha male’.
But he was disobedient, God has no favourites, He dealt with Moses the same way, he would not see the promised land. Again, let’s take God seriously.
Caleb was now 85yo, (Josh 14:10) he was ‘as strong now as I was then, ready for war and going out and coming in.’ People did live to different ages then but if Moses was that fit at 120, then Caleb must have been pretty good at 85yo. Joshua, groomed to replace Moses was in his teens when he went as a spy, now at 55-60 he was a man, he was a leader.
This generation had learned something else.
As soon as they got across the river they came to Jericho, what was the battle plan? They asked.
We’ll walk around it for several days in silence was the reply.
What?! Are we looking to conquer them, or bore them to death?
They had learned that if they obeyed, it would go well with them, so, they obeyed, and victory was theirs.
But our question now is, was Caleb a Pioneer or Settler?
The answer should be self-explanatory, but let’s look anyway.
What was Caleb?
If you excuse the wild imagination for a moment. I can see in the multiple battles post-Jericho Joshua charging and throwing himself into the ranks of the enemy causing havoc and mayhem wherever on the battlefield he stood.
I also imagine Caleb running several yards behind (a little out of breath) saying something like, ‘Josh, wait for me! I’m not as young as I used to be, don’t finish the fight before I get there!’ I can just imagine 😊
But seriously, when the time came to divide up the Land what did Caleb say?
Maybe….. “Well, I’ve lived through Egyptian slavery, crossing the Red Sea, 41 years in the wilderness, multiple battles. I think I’ve done my bit, time to hand over to the young folk. Give me a shallow valley with a river running through it, at least a lake, with forest nearby for wood, give me fertile soil that turns over easy, a place far from the fighting that will happen.” Did he heck!!!!
Remember, what the areas were that so frightened the other spies and led the Israelites into rebellion?
Moses had promised to give Caleb all the land the sole of his foot trod on.
He spied out the hill country, with the big walled and fortified cities, the place that had the big ugly giants occupying the land. Where the most feared of the giants lived, a man named, ‘Arba’ the greatest of the giant warriors.
Caleb hadn’t finished, he knew God had more for him, he wasn’t going to ‘settle’ for God’s second best in his life he was going for EVERYTHING that God had to offer, he was going to fulfil God’s plan in his life, he was going to fulfil his destiny in God.
No looking back, remember Yes, learn Yes, take the given promises Yes.
But no settling into what was comfortable and familiar.
The high country and the giants were for him, the fruit of which would be passed to his children.
An aside, for us now, what have we learned of God in our generation that we have passed (are passing) to the next generation, our spiritual children?
If we have learned nothing to pass on, what have we done with our lives? What has it been for?
You know, when I grow up, I want to be like Caleb.
Looking forward, embracing all that God has, fulfilling all that God has for him to do, experience and be.
I’d like to close with a poem.
At the Book Club this week we were joined by the author and illustrator.
The author asked a question around a poem called, The Summer Day,
I would like to read it to you.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? (The summer day by Mary Oliver)
Will you be Pioneer or Settler with (what is left of) your life?
That choice is up to you.
Be safe. Go well. May God be with you.