Five times in the course of his short plea with Joshua does he use the
expression 'the Lord spake.' On the first occasion of the five he
unites Joshua with himself as a recipient of the promise, 'Thou knowest
the thing that the Lord said concerning me and thee.' But in the other
four he takes it all to himself; not because it concerned him only, but
because his confidence, laying hold of the promise, forgot his brother
in the earnestness of his personal appropriation of it. And so,
whatsoever general words God speaks to the world, a true believer will
make them his very own; and when Christ says, 'God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him
should not perish,' faith translates it into 'He loved me, and gave
Himself for me.' This is the first characteristic of a life built upon
the promise of God, that it lays its hand upon that promise and claims
it all for its very own.
Then notice, still further, how for all these forty-five years Caleb
had 'hid the word in his heart,' had lived upon it and thought about it
and believed it, and recognised the partial fulfilment of it, and
cherished the secret fire unknown to any besides. And now at last,
after so long an interval, he comes forward and stretches out a hand,
unweakened by the long delay, to claim the perfect fulfilment at the
end of his days. So 'the vision may tarry,' but a life based upon God's
promise has another estimate of swiftness and slowness than is current
amongst men who have only the years of earthly life to reckon by; and
that which to sense seems a long, weary delay, to faith seems but as 'a
watch in the night'. The world, which only measures time by its own
revolutions, has to lament over what seem to the sufferers long years
of pains and tears, but in the calendar of faith 'weeping endures for a
night, joy cometh in the morning.' The weary days dwindle into a point
when they are looked at with an eye that has been accustomed to gaze on
the solemn eternities of a promising and a faithful God. To it, as to
Him, 'a thousand years are as one day'; and 'one day,' in the
possibilities of divine favour and spiritual growth which it may
enfold, 'as a thousand years.' To the men who measure time as God
measures it, His help, howsoever long it may tarry, ever comes 'right
early.'
Further, note how this life, built upon faith in the divine promise,
was nourished and nurtured by instalments of fulfilment all along the
road. Two promises were given to Caleb--one, that his life should be
prolonged, and the other, that he should possess the territory into
which he had so bravely ventured. The daily fulfilment of the one fed
the fire of his faith in the ultimate accomplishment of the other, and
he gratefully recounts it now, as part of his plea with Joshua--'Now,
behold, the Lord hath kept me alive as He spake, these forty and five
years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses. And now, lo! I
am this day fourscore and five years old.'
Whosoever builds his life on the promise of God has in the present the
guarantee of the better future. As we are journeying onwards to that
great fountain-head of all sweetness and felicity, there are ever
trickling brooks from it by the way, at which we may refresh our
thirsty lips and invigorate our fainting strength. The present
instalment carries with it the pledge of the full discharge of the
obligation, and he whose heart and hope is fixed with a forward look on
the divine inheritance, may, as he looks backward over all the years,
see clearly in them one unbroken mass of preserving providences, and
thankfully say, 'The Lord hath kept me alive, as He spake.'
And, still further, the life that is built upon faith like this man's,
is a life of buoyant hopefulness till the very end. The hopes of age
are few and tremulous. When the feast is nearly over, and the appetite
is dulled, there is little more to be done, but to push back our chairs
and go away. But God keeps 'the good wine' until the last. And when all
earthly hopes are beginning to wear thin and to burn dim, then the
great hope of 'the mountain of the inheritance' will rise brighter and
clearer upon our horizon. It is something to have a hope so far in
front of us that we never get up to it, to find it either less than our
expectations or more than our desires; and this is not the least of the
blessednesses of the living 'hope that maketh not ashamed,' that it
lies before us till the very end, and beckons and draws us across the
gulf of darkness. 'The Lord hath kept me alive, as He said; now give me
this mountain whereof the Lord spake.'