Caleb and Joshua by R. D. Quinn

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 28, 1916

Caleb and Joshua

By R. D. Quinn

In the Conquest of Canaan

R. D. QUINN

The conquest of Canaan under Joshua occupied seven years, and during the whole of that time there is but one record of defeat and loss of men in battle. The story of this defeat is told with great minuteness in the seventh chapter of Joshua, because it involved lessons of the greatest moment to Israel, and of incalculable value to the people of God today. With Jericho in ruins, and nothing to fear from the rear, Joshua pushed on into the interior, and the next city they encountered was Ai. Two things were responsible for their defeat at that place: the undetected presence of sin in the camp, and the self-confidence of the men of Israel in recommending only a few men to go up to take the city.

After their humiliating experience, and the turning of their backs before their enemies, they carefully investigated the cause of their defeat, and traced back its genealogy to Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah; and Achan and his house were taken to the valley of Achor and utterly destroyed. The record is that the valley of Achor became the door of hope. See Hosea 2:15. The basis for hope was a cleansed and purified camp.

There is no doubt but that God would have revealed the presence of sin in the camp just as certainly before the march on Ai as afterward had Joshua and the leaders been living in that abiding fellowship of God's Holy Spirit which would have given them the spiritual discernment to detect the presence of sin.

It was so in a similar case recorded in the book of Acts. What Achan was to Israel, that Ananias and his wife were to the early church. Instead of the fifth chapter of Acts recording a great revival, as it does, and multitudes of men and women being added to the Lord, possibly it would have recorded a great defeat, such as came to Israel at Ai, had it not been for the manifest presence of the Holy Ghost, and Peter's spiritual insight and discernment which enabled him to detect sin and put it away before undertaking a great work for God.

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” Whenever there has been perpetual failure in our lives or labors, we may be sure that some cherished sin hidden in the heart or life is responsible for it. We may wonder why God does not deal as definitely and severely with sin today as he did in the past; but the answer is that God seldom repeats himself, and these great object lessons of his abhorrence of sin, in both the Old and New Testaments, are sufficient for all time. Great victories for God invariably follow great reformations of heart and life.

The putting away of sin is what brought Christ to this world to die. All else he could have done for us and remained in heaven. Let the church once more return to apostolic purity and power, and by diligent searching put away the accursed thing from its midst, and again we may count on the manifest workings of God, and multitudes flocking to the light.

“So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses.” Joshua 11:23. Following this, all the tribes met at Gilgal to divide the land by lot. The country had been only nominally conquered, and there were still many walled cities held by the giants, and much land yet to possess. But the time had come to divide the land by lot, and then every man of every tribe could go back and drive out the enemies that should chance to be still on that particular plot that by lot had fallen to him. And just here is where the test of individual responsibility comes in.

The same is true in the conquests of our divine Joshua. He said after his last work was finished, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” But while that was perfectly true, we have to fight over again in our own lives these same battles, and on the very same battle ground. How to win the victory is the great message to us of the whole story of Joshua and Caleb. The secret of their success lay in that oft-repeated sentence, “They wholly followed the Lord.”

It would perhaps be difficult to find in the writings of the Old Testament a more beautiful testimony than that of Caleb as he addressed Joshua at Gilgal, at the time of the division of the land. No language or comment could be more impressive than the exact wording of the Scriptures:—

“Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God.

“And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. 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.

“Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-arba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.” Joshua 14:6-15.

“Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.” Joshua 15:14.

“Of all the Israelites that received their inheritance in the Land of Promise, Caleb appears to have been the only one who succeeded in perfectly expelling the native occupiers of the country. The Israelites generally seem to have made but poor headway against their

strong and mighty foes, with their chariots of iron and fenced walls. Repeatedly we encounter the sorrowful affirmation, they were not able to drive them out. But Caleb was a notable exception.”

What though Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim! Joshua 14:15. What though his three grandsons, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the sons of Anak, were prepared to yield their lives rather than give up possession! Joshua 15:14. Yet Caleb drove them out—not he indeed, but the Lord, who was with him, and gave him a victory that must have otherwise eluded even his strong hands. The man who wholly followed the Lord was alone wholly victorious.

“How precious and searching is the conclusion! Our failures in expelling the giants of the heart, in dealing with inbred corruption and the assaults of Satan, are almost entirely due to some failure in consecration. We have not wholly followed the Lord. There has been some secret flaw, some leakage, some drainage away of strength. This must be put right before the other can be secured. But when, so far as we know, we are entirely yielded to God, then no sin can stand before us, because nothing can stand before him. We humbly and trustfully put the matter in his hands, and believe that he will go forth against our foes in the chariots of salvation.”

If we would in our day seek and obtain the blessing that made those men mighty for God, we must follow the Lord fully. This was the secret that lifted them preeminently above their fellows, and made them so mighty in their conquests for God. The same power is waiting our demand and reception, and the need of Calebs and Joshuas is just as great now as when these men by faith took possession of their promised inheritance.

South Lancaster, Mass.