Caleb becomes almost garrulous in telling over the old story of that
never-to-be-forgotten day, when he and Joshua stood alone and tried to
put some heart into the cowardly mob before them. There is no mock
modesty about the man. He says that, amidst many temptations to be
untrue, he gave his report with sincerity and veracity, 'speaking as it
was in mine heart,' and then he quotes twice, with a permissible
satisfaction, the eulogium that had come upon him from the divine lips,
'I wholly followed the Lord my God.' The private soldier's cheek may
well flush and his eye glitter as he repeats over again his general's
praise. And for Caleb, half a century has not dimmed the impression
that was made on his heart when he received that praise, through the
lips of Moses, from God.
Now, of course, such a tone of speaking about one's past savours of an
earlier stage in revelation than that in which we live, and, if this
were to be taken as a man's total account of his whole life, we could
not free it from the charge of unpleasing self-complacency and
self-righteousness. But for all that, it is not the same thing in the
retrospect whether you and I have to look back upon years that have
been given to self, and the world, and passion, and pride, and
covetousness, and frivolities and trifles of all sorts, or upon years
that in the main, and regard being had to their deepest desires and
governing direction, have been given to God and to His service. Many a
man looking back upon his life--I wonder if there are any such men
listening to me now--can only see such a sight as Abraham did on that
morning when he looked down on the plain of Sodom, and 'Lo! the smoke
of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.' Dear friends I the only
thing that makes life in the retrospect tolerable is that it shall have
been given to God, and that we can say, 'I wholly followed the Lord my
God.'
III. Again, I see here a life which has discovered the secret of
perpetual youth.
'I,' says the old man--'am as strong this day as I was in the day when
Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for
war, both to go out and to come in.' For fighting, and for all the
intercourse and manifold activities of life, his sinews are as braced,
his eyes as clear, his spirit and limbs as alert as they were in those
old days. No doubt you will say that was due to miraculous
intervention. No doubt it was; but is it not true that, in a very real
sense, a man may keep himself young all his life, if he will go the
right way to work? And the secret of perpetual youthfulness lies here,
in giving our hearts to God and in living for Him. Christianity, with
its self-restraint and its exhortations to all, and especially to the
young, to be chaste and temperate and to subdue the animal passions,
has a direct tendency to conserve physical vigour; and Christianity, by
the inspiration that it imparts, the stimulus that it gives, and the
hopes that it permits us to cherish, has a direct tendency to keep
alive in old age all the best of the characteristics of youth. Its
buoyancy, its undimmed interest, its cheeriness, its freedom from
anxiety and care--all these things are directly ministered to, and
preserved by, a life of simple faith that casts itself upon God, and
dwells securely, in joy and in restfulness, and not without a great
light of hope, even when the shadows of evening are falling.
One of the greatest and most blessed of the characteristics of youth is
the consciousness that the most of life lies before us; and to a
Christian man, in any stage of his earthly life, that consciousness is
possible. When he stands on the verge of the last sinking sandbank of
time, and the water is up to his ankles, he may well feel that the best
and the most of life is yet to be.
'The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned.
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid."'
'They shall still bring forth fruit in old age, they shall be full of
sap and green.' A gnarled old tree may be green in all its branches,
and blossom and fruit may hang together there. The ideal of life is,
that into each stage we shall carry the best of the preceding,
harmonised with the best of the new, and that is possible to a
Christian soul. The fountain of perpetual youth, of which the ancients
fabled, is no fable, but a fact; and it rises, where the prophet in his
vision saw the stream coming out, from beneath the threshold of the
Temple door.
IV. So, lastly, I see here a beautiful example of a life which to the
last is ready for danger and enterprise.
Caleb's words as to his undiminished strength were not meant for a
boast. They express thankfulness and praise, and they are put as the
ground of the request that he has to make. He gives a chivalrous reason
for his petition when he says,' Now, therefore, give me this mountain,
_for_ the Anakims (the giants) are there; and the cities great and
fenced.'
Caleb's readiness for one more fight was fed by his reliance on God's
help in it. When he says, 'It may be the Lord will be with me,' the
_perhaps_ is that of humility, not of doubt. The old warrior's eye
flashes, and his voice sounds strong and full, as he ends his words
with 'I _shall_ drive them out, as _the Lord spake_.' That has the true
ring. What were the three Anak chiefs, with their barbarous names,
Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, and their giant stature, to the onset
of a warrior faith like that? Of course, 'Caleb drove out thence the
three sons of Anak,' and Hebron became his inheritance. Nothing can
stand against us, if we seek for our portion, not where advantages are
greatest, but where difficulties and dangers are most rife, and cast
ourselves into the conflict, sure that God is with us, though humbly
wondering that we should be worthy of His all-conquering presence, and
sure, therefore, that victory marches by our sides.
Old age is generally much more disposed to talk about its past
victories than to fight new ones; to rest upon its arms, or upon its
laurels, than to undertake fresh conflicts. Now and then we see a man,
statesman or other, who, bearing the burden of threescore years and ten
lightly, is still as alert of spirit, as eager for work, as bold for
enterprise, as he was years before. And in nine cases out of ten such a
man is a Christian; and his brilliant energy of service is due, not
only, nor so much, to natural vigour of constitution as to religion,
which has preserved his vigour because it has preserved his purity, and
been to him a stimulus and an inspiration.
Danger is an attraction to the generous mind. It is the coward and the
selfish man who are always looking for an easy place, where somebody
else will do the work. This man felt that this miraculously prolonged
life of his bound him to special service, and the fact that up in
Hebron there were a fenced city and tall giants behind the battlements,
was an additional reason for picking out that bit of the field as the
place where he ought to be. Thank God, that spirit is not dead yet! It
has lived all through the Christian Church, and flamed up in times of
martyrdom. On missionary fields to-day, if one man falls two are ready
to step into his place. It is the true spirit of the Christian soldier.
'A great door and effectual is opened,' says Paul, 'and there are many
adversaries.' He knew the door was opened because the adversaries were
many. And because there were so many of them, would he run away? Some
of us would have said: 'I must abandon that work, it bristles with
difficulties; I cannot stop in that post, the bullets are whistling too
fast.' Nay! says Paul; 'I abide till Pentecost'--a good long
while--because the post is dangerous, and promises to be fruitful.
So, dear friends, if we would have lives on which we can look back,
lives in which early freshness will last beyond the 'morning dew,'
lives in which there shall come, day by day and moment by moment,
abundant foretastes to stay our hunger until we sit at Christ's table
in His kingdom, we must 'follow the Lord alway,' with no half-hearted
surrender, nor partial devotion, but give ourselves to Him utterly, to
be guided and sent where He will. And then, like Caleb, we shall be
able to say, with a 'perhaps,' not of doubt, but of wonder, that it
should be so, to us unworthy, 'It may be the Lord will be with me, arid
I shall drive them out.' In all these things 'we are more than
conquerors through Him that loved us.'