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 recognized the partial fulfillment 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 fulfillment 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 favor 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 installments of fulfillment 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 fulfillment 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 fountainhead 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 installment 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 providence's, 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 blessedness 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.'
