There’s a great contrast here in this story, and I’m sure it’s why it’s told at this point, right in the middle of this account of the division of the land. It’s the contrast between Caleb, who followed the Lord wholeheartedly to the very end and took the land that he’d been promised so many years before, and the people who, for the most part, failed to fully possess these possessions. Oh, they had the land. They were there. The power of the Canaanites was broken during the seven years of military conquest. All of the great cities had been overthrown. But when the land was divided up, they were to go into their individual portions of the land, subdue it, and drive the inhabitants out. And we’re told again and again in these chapters that they didn't quite do it. They settled down, and instead enjoyed the conquest without carrying it through to completion.

Yesterday we began to look at the first reason for Caleb’s greatness, which was his complete trust in God. One of the great commentators on this particular story, Alan Redpath, wrote of Caleb and Joshua’s faith: “The majority measured the giants against their own strength; Caleb and Joshua measured the giants against God. The majority trembled; the two triumphed. The majority had great giants but a little God. Caleb had a great God and little giants.”

Now it’s worth asking at this point what the secret of this man’s greatness was. In fact, it was no great secret. Caleb had total faith in God, and he gave himself to God utterly. It’s not hard to see his faith. That comes out very simply in this matter of the spies' initial report. You know, it’s the case that real greatness is not complicated. Great people are not complicated. It’s generally the weak people who are complicated. They always have dozens of mutually contradictory ideas floating around in their minds and dozens of mutually contradictory courses of action. They see that this might be something that would be worth doing. But then again, they’re not quite sure about it. It might be more valuable to do something else. Perhaps they could go about the task this way, and that might work. But then again, there might be another way that would be better.