The video discusses the concept of full surrender to God and the blessings that come with it. It emphasizes the importance of wholly following the Lord and the great blessing and contentment that can be found in doing so. The story of Caleb receiving a special portion of land for wholly following the Lord is used as an example. It also highlights the penalty of not wholly following the Lord, as seen in the Israelites' inability to enter the promised land.

I'm going to title this evening's message, Holy Following the Lord. And I don't mean holy in the sense of God is holy, I mean holy in the sense of entirely. And it's a very suggestive phrase for us, found here twice in Numbers chapter 32, verses 11 and 12. Here the Lord speaks and he says, Surely none of the men, verse 11 here of Numbers chapter 32, surely none of the men who came up from Egypt from 20 years old and above shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me except Caleb, the son of Jephthah, the Kenizzite, and Joshua, the son of Nun. For they have wholly followed the Lord. You know the story, don't you? The children of Israel, when they were released from their slavery in Egypt, came out of Egypt as a nation born in one day. They were a people group enslaved inside of this nation. But when the Passover occurred and they were kicked out of Egypt because they couldn't stand the plagues upon the land any longer, the nation was born and they began this trek that was supposed to take them from Egypt to the promised land, the land of Canaan, the land that God had promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now, the best I can tell is that God's intention was that the journey take about two years. That's the way God laid it out in front of them. After a month or two, they came to Mount Sinai. They camped out at Mount Sinai for a whole year where God gave them the law. They built the tabernacle. They consecrated the priests. They ordered the camp. They got ready as a promised land people to enter into the promised land because, you know, there's a transition there, isn't it? Slave people are different from promised land people. Slaves aren't organized. Promised land people are. Slaves aren't disciplined. Slaves don't think about the future. And God built all of these things in them in that year at Mount Sinai. What he intended, that it would take, oh, six or seven months from Sinai into the promised land, and they came up to a place called Kadesh Barnea and Kadesh Barnea. They stopped and the children of Israel sent in 12 spies to spy out the land. I'd love to do a whole Bible study on that. I think it's a very intriguing question. Was it God's will for those spies to go at all? Because what did the spies learn when they went into the promised land? Well, they learned that the land was good. Did they know that the land was good already? Yes, God told them the land was good. All they learned was what God had told them already. But they also learned that the people who inhabited the land were very mighty. They were a strong warrior race. And 10 of the 12 spies that did their reconnaissance all over the promised land came back to the children of Israel and camped in their great camp there in the wilderness at Kadesh Barnea. And 10 of the 12 spies told the people, you know what, if we try to conquer these warrior people of the promised land, we're going to be slaughtered. It's better for us to stay in the wilderness or to return back to Egypt. Now two of the 12 spies offered a minority report. The two were Caleb and Joshua. And they said, listen, it's true that these people are mighty and strong. But our God is greater. God has given us the land. Let's believe in God and go forward into the land of promise that God has for us. And as you may recall, in biblical history, unfortunately, the multitude listened to the 10 unfaithful spies instead of the two faithful spies, Joshua and Caleb. Now, in pronouncing a sentence upon that generation of unbelief, which refused to enter into the land of God's promises, God told that entire nation, he said, everybody who's 20 years old and above, you're all going to die in the wilderness. It's very interesting when when they didn't want to go into the promised land, when they didn't have the faith to believe that God could win the victory for them. You know how they excused it. They said, you know, we'll go. But it's our children. We care about our children. They'll get butchered if we go into the promised land. You know, God responded to them, saying, he said, your children are going to enter in. You're going to die in the wilderness. And every person who came out of Egypt, 20 years old and above, died in the wilderness over the next 38 years, except for two, Joshua and Caleb. And the difference between every other person in Israel and Joshua and Caleb at that point was this. Joshua and Caleb wholly followed the Lord. Now, this is not an original concept in the Bible. Several months ago, we were in the book of Romans, chapter 12, and we talked about the idea of submitting yourself to God as a living sacrifice. Do you remember that from Romans, chapter 12, verses one and two, as our reasonable service that has the idea of a wholly following God? But this is a very interesting phrase. Near as I can tell this phrase, they wholly followed the Lord is only applied to three people in the entire Old Testament. I don't mean to imply for a moment that only three people wholly followed the Lord, but that specific phrase is only used of three people, Joshua, Caleb and well, we'll save that one for the end. Now, I just want to spend some time taking a look at these passages, because really it's only three different passages of scripture that speak about wholly following the Lord. We'll take a look at them here together tonight and we'll just pick out some facts from them and apply them to our life. First of all, a principle from Numbers, chapter 32, verses 11 and 12, let me read those verses again and then we'll take a look at some principles. God says, Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt from 20 years old and above shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me, except Caleb, the son of Jephthahna, the Kenizzite and Joshua, the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord. Here's the first principle. Not everyone wholly follows the Lord. Saying, wow, David, that's about the most elementary thing you could draw from this text. Wasn't that important principle to find out? Not everybody who is a follower of God wholly follows the Lord. I think it's a valid thing for us to consider here tonight. I wonder if some of the most scandalous lies on this earth aren't spoken in the church. No, let me correct that. Aren't sung in the church. What was the last song that we sung together? I will worship with all of my heart. I will praise you with all of my strength. I will seek you all of my days. I will give you all my worship. All my praise. You alone I long to worship. When I think we've all experienced it. I don't know if you experienced it particularly tonight, but it's been a long time. I think every one of us from time to time have experienced, well, we'll sing words like that and we are totally steeped in self. There we are. How do I feel? How do I like the music? How do I like the voice of the person singing next to me? How do I like the temperature in the room right now? What am I going to do tomorrow? All the while while you're singing those songs with your mouth. Isn't that funny? Aren't we like that? And it's scandalous sometimes, isn't it? You know, when you think about it, we talk or sing a lot about wholly following the Lord. But do we really do it? What keeps people from wholly following the Lord? Well, let me suggest a few things. It can be just plain old rebelliousness, stubbornness. God is speaking to your heart, saying, listen, let's get this out of the way so that you can wholly follow me. But you say, no, I don't want to get out of the way. I'm going to hold on to it. Well, then you're not wholly following the Lord. And it's because you're being stubborn. It's because you're being rebellious against God. Then again, other times we don't wholly follow the Lord. And I would have to say it's more due to deadness or coldness in our heart. You know, we're just kind of dead towards the things of God. You know, when we're in that place, don't we love to blame other people for that? You know, there we are. And I'll just take you back to a worship experience again or lack of a worship experience. And there you are, you know, you know, you're sitting there dead in worship. And so what's it all too easy to do? You know, that guitar player can't keep a beat, can he? You know, oh, just went off key right there, you know, and then you just think and you start thinking and you become critical on that and you start wanting to blame somebody else for the fact that you're not in worship. Well, when the bottom line is this, are you wholly following the Lord? There's a certain way that Satan works on our hearts to chill us into a coldness of heart. He doesn't shove you into the deep freeze cooler, does he? You would notice the difference in temperature, but it's like a very gradual cooling where the temperature just lowers a few degrees, a few degrees. But you extend it out down the road and then pretty soon you're in a place where your heart is just plain cold towards the things of God. Now, if that's where you're at tonight, let me say two things to you. First of all, I sympathize with you as a brother or sister. I know what that's like. I see it in my own life at times and it grieves me when I see it. And so you have a brother right next to you here. He says, I know what you're going through. So in the one part, I sympathize with you and I don't condemn you at all for the coldness of heart that you're in. On the other hand, I call you to repentance from it. Your cold heart is a sin. It's a sin to have a cold heart against a God who loves us so much. If you ever had that, think of that junior high school romance you had where you loved somebody so much and they didn't return anything unto you. Your little junior high school heart was crushed, wasn't it? Now, by analogy, think of how offensive it is, what a sin it is against the love of God when our heart is cold towards him. Well, so not everyone wholly follows the Lord. Here's a second principle from Numbers chapter 32, verses 11 and 12. Look at the phrase where it says, surely none of the men who came up from Egypt from 20 years old and above shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because they have not wholly followed me. The second principle is this. God knows if we are not wholly following him. Now, I can't tell that there's not a temperature meeting or a meter or a flashing light on your forehead that gives a little color indicating signal. You know, you can't put on a mood ring or something that displays a certain color that says, well, you're wholly following the Lord or not. I can't tell looking at you. But God knows. He knows in me. He knows in you. He knew of the children of Israel. He could look at them and he said, I know these two are wholly following the Lord. I know the rest of them are not. God knows. And friends, this is where we get down into the interior of our heart. Where are we really in our relationship with God? Is it a full commitment to him? We allowed other things to creep in the way. Are we hanging on to stubborn sin? Well, God knows whether or not we're wholly following him. Let me put it to you this way. I may not know whether or not you're wholly following him. You may honestly not know whether or not you're wholly following him. But God knows one way or the other. And I think God would tell you if you sought him. Here's a third principle. That wholly following the Lord will make us different than other people. Caleb and Joshua were different, weren't they? I mean, you had all the rest of the nation and yet Caleb and Joshua, you had the ten spies and then yet Caleb and Joshua, Caleb and Joshua were doing what they were swimming upstream, wholly following the Lord takes boldness because it's going to make you different than other people. Now, for some of us. We feel as if we can't handle that. The last thing in the world we want to do is to stand out one way or the other, we don't want to stand out as particularly bad, but we also don't want to stand out as particularly good. We just want to blend and we want to blend in. We want to be like the chameleon who will blend into his background, right? Well, friends, the problem is, is that if you're having that kind of heart, you can't wholly follow the Lord. There is a price you will pay for wholly following the Lord, there's no doubt about it, it'll cost you some things. It'll cost you some of the pleasures that this world has to give, it'll cost you perhaps some of the comforts that this world has to give. Now, whether or not the price is worth it, that's something for you to consider. But friends, we need to understand that wholly following the Lord will set us apart, it will make us different from other people. Now, next, I want you to see that our failure to follow the Lord in a complete way, our failure to wholly follow the Lord, it will not defeat his promise or his purpose. Look at it here. He says, Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt from 20 years old and above shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In other words, God's promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is going to stand. It didn't matter that the whole nation decided that they weren't going to follow the Lord. No, in contrast, God says they will. He will, I should say, work out his great purpose and our failure to wholly follow the Lord will not defeat his promise or his purpose. God's going to win out. He's going to triumph through. The question is, are we going to enjoy that victory with him? Now, a next point to make number five, there is a penalty to pay when we do not wholly follow the Lord. What was the penalty that they had to pay in Numbers chapter 32? Take a look at it there. It says they shall not see the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They're not going to see it. Now, I said that there's a price to pay when you do wholly follow the Lord. Do we recognize that together? Well, friends, you need to understand that there's also a penalty to pay when you do not wholly follow the Lord. You know, it's funny. I feel like I'm in such a time of refreshing in my own walk with God. Such a time of the Lord doing wonderful things in my personal relationship with him. I mean, it's just it feels all new again. It's like being born again, again. There's a freshness to it, there's a goodness to it, and I can just say it by way of personal testimony. It's because God's been dealing with these things in my life, you know, in past months, me giving a very rigorous look at my life. Am I wholly following the Lord? Am I harboring things? Am I shutting my eyes to things that the Lord would want to show me? And when you say I am going to wholly follow the Lord and that ground is in front of you and you begin to walk on it, there is great blessing in it. There is wonderful refreshment and blessing from the Lord. Look, some of you, you just have more abundant Christian lives, it's just stuck in the mud, you're like stuck in quicksand. I tell you tonight, in the name of the Lord, it doesn't have to be like that. It's not as if God's appointed that portion for you. Here you are, your spiritual gift is to be stuck in the mud or something. Not at all. God can pour glorious times of refreshing on you. Now, please, again, nobody will think for a moment and I trust nobody will gather this from my words that God has some range of ground for you where everything is easy and everything is comfortable. That's not what it means to wholly follow the Lord. It means to approach every day with a sense of commitment, with a sense of purpose to God. I am completely committed unto you, God. Now, when we do not wholly follow the Lord, there's a price that we pay for that. Now, maybe right now is a good place for me to answer a question. The question and the objection often comes up. It says, listen, Pastor, you're what you're painting here is basically a two tiered Christian experience. You know, you have the the run of the mill Christian here and then you have the the higher level Christian here. And you know what you're doing is you're you're promoting a spiritual elitism. Let me say this. Ladies and gentlemen, we have to believe with all of our hearts that the standing that we have in Jesus Christ is the same for every believer. We stand in the works and merits of Jesus. The believer who is wholly following the Lord is not any more justified before God than the believer who is not. Their standing in Christ is the same. The believer who is wholly following the Lord is not any more saved than the believer who is not wholly following the Lord. If they put their trust in Jesus Christ, if they believe in their heart and confess with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, then they're saved. And so I want to emphasize that this isn't an issue of standing before the throne of God. I'll tell you what this is an issue of. It's an issue, first of all, of enjoyment in the Christian life. Secondly, it's an issue of empowerment for Christian service. If you are not wholly following the Lord, I guarantee you, you will not enjoy the Christian life as much as a believer who is. Now, if that's the deal you've kind of made with yourself before God, you know what? I just want to live a mediocre Christian life. I want to live a half-hearted, cold Christian life as long as I get into heaven. Just tell me how much of the pleasures of this world and all the rest of it that I can indulge in and still make it to heaven. You know, that's all I really care about. Well, first of all, that's the determined place of your heart. Maybe we should talk together about whether or not you're really saved. But second of all, what a miserable place to live in. But that's not the abundant life that Jesus spoke of. So there's a great realm of enjoyment in the Christian experience that comes from a wholly following Lord. But there's another aspect of it. There's a great area of effectiveness and service for God. Friends, I think we want these things in a Christian life. Now, nobody can tell me that every Christian enjoys their Christian experience equally. Nobody can tell me that every Christian is equally effective in the work of God's kingdom. So am I talking about a two tier Christian living, not in the sense of our standing before God at all, our standing is in Jesus Christ, not in our own works, not in our own merit. The ground is level at the cross. Friends, there's not two tiers of Christians, but. We go against the clear teaching of scripture, if we act as if all Christians are equally committed and if all Christians are equally enjoying the Christian life and if all Christians are equally being used for God's kingdom. Well, on to our next point here from Numbers chapter 32, I want you to notice that our text also tells us that it is easier or better. I'm not sure which word is preferred here. You might say it's either easier or it's better to wholly follow the Lord with someone else. Don't you think it's great there? Who is it? It's not just Caleb. It's not just Joshua. It's Joshua and Caleb. I think about that for a moment. How can that be applied in your life? You know, maybe what you need to do is get together with somebody else and say, you know what? I don't know about you, but I'm convicted by this tonight. Let's wholly follow the Lord together. But let's make it a determination that, man, we're just going to seek God together. We're going to ask each other about our Christian life. And if we're letting things get in the way of our fellowship with God and let's endeavor to wholly follow the Lord together, I think you can build each other up that way. I think you can go to another brother or sister and say, hey, look what the Lord's doing in my life. Do you want to wholly follow the Lord with me? Now, you may not want to use that that phrasing, but you know what I mean. Well, why not? Why not together and say, well, look, Joshua had Caleb. Caleb had Joshua. How much better it would be if I brought somebody else along with me? Let's Bible say two are better than one. When one falls, the other can pick them up. Well, why not go? Can you imagine Joshua and Caleb? There they are walking the trip back from the promised land. They're going to visit the see the people of Israel again after this reconnaissance mission through the promised land. Well, you know, the ten unfaithful spies are there. They're all walking ahead, aren't they? They're all together in a group speaking in low voices, one with each other. Well, I don't think we can do it. Well, I think they're too mighty. Well, the cities are too walled. Well, did you look at the chariots they have? I don't think we can do it. And there's Joshua and Caleb in the back. They're talking together. They're praying together. And there'd be times when Caleb says, man, those guys sure look big. And I couldn't believe the weapons they had. We don't have weapons that sophisticated. And Caleb starts getting worried about all this stuff. And Joshua says, whoa, whoa, Caleb, Caleb, stop and consider. No, the Lord is going to do this. You know it and I know it. You need to put that kind of thinking away altogether. No, let's wholly commit ourselves to God right now. And they pray together and move on. And then there'd be another time where the doubts or the fears that start coming into Joshua's mind and Caleb would say, no, stop right now, Joshua, you know better than this. You see what a difference that can make. There's a great classic Christian book called The Calvary Road. And in that book, The Calvary Road. The author makes mention of a concept that I had never thought of before in these words, the concept of what he calls spiritual privacy, and he doesn't mean it in a good way. It means that you are so private about your spiritual life that you won't talk about it with anybody, nobody. That's wrong. Might I say not only is that wrong, that's dangerous. It's dangerous for you and it's dangerous for other people. Other people can be benefiting greatly by what's going on in your spiritual life. And I think that sort of we just get ourselves in this attitude that we're to be completely private about our spiritual life. Now, I will say this, there are certain aspects or certain experiences in our Christian life that are so wonderful or so intimate with God that I wouldn't dream of sharing them with you anymore than I would, you know, than a groom would dream of telling the details of his honeymoon to somebody. It's just it's a very personal kind of thing. But we must admit that's a pretty small slice of the pie in the Christian life. I think that we are unnecessarily private about our Christian life. There needs to be other people that you can talk with frankly about the spirit of your about the tenor of your soul. When's the last time you said to somebody or if ever. My heart is so cold towards God. Now, is it because it's never been cold towards God? No, but, you know, there's just some I could never say that. Well, why couldn't you? You know what you'll probably hear from somebody if you say that you share. My heart is so cold towards God. You probably hear mine is, too. Let's pray. I mean, we all go through the same things, right? You know that. And I know that. My friends, I think we need to beware of how Satan loves to use this twisting this idea of this almost in holding it in a maniac way of spiritual privacy. No, you can talk about these things. You can have a Joshua and Caleb encouraging one another to wholly follow the Lord. Now, I can't think of a better place, maybe not the only place where that kind of relationship can go, but there's certainly an excellent place for that to be is in a marriage for a husband and wife to be a Joshua and Caleb under one another and encourage one another in that way. All right, let's turn to another passage scripture, which speaks of wholly following the Lord, Deuteronomy, chapter one, verse thirty six. Now, Numbers, chapter thirty two. And Deuteronomy, chapter one, verse thirty six are fairly close in chronology. And they spoke about this great need, they're kind of on the threshold of the promised land and God's reviewing things for them. Deuteronomy, chapter one, verse thirty six, God says, except Caleb, the son of Jethenah, he shall see it referring to the promised land and to him and his children, I am giving the land on which he walked because he wholly followed the Lord. Right there, right in front of your eyes now, what are some principles we can draw from this passage of scripture? Well, first of all, Prince, why would draw from this is to say that there is blessing to receive when we wholly follow the Lord. Caleb got the land. God gave Caleb a special portion of land just for him because he wholly followed the Lord. There is great blessing to receive when we wholly follow the Lord. God has a choice portion for you. Does it make you more saved? Does it make you more justified? But I tell you, it makes you more blessed. It makes you happier, might I say, in your Christian life, too. It'll make you more content. It'll make you more resistant against sin. Do you want to be do you want to have a greater resistance against temptation than give yourself to wholly following the Lord and you walk in that walk in wholly following the Lord and you see if in a short period of time, a week, two weeks, three weeks, you'll notice that those old temptations don't sting you as bad. Your heart's just in a different inclination. You just your heart's more on the things of God. You love Jesus more. Listen, can you follow this equation with me? Somebody can check my arithmetic on this, but follow this if you can love Jesus more, love sin less. I think the two pretty much go together. And so when you're wholly following the Lord, it's just there's fewer chinks in your armor for Satan to shoot that fiery dart into. That's a great blessing. There is blessing to receive when we wholly follow the Lord. Now, let's take a look at another principle from this. It says, except Caleb, the son of Jephthahna, he shall see it. And to him and his children, I am giving the land. Well, here's another point I'd make. Wholly following the Lord brings blessing to our children. You know, that's how I'm thinking. It's funny. These thoughts have come upon me just in the last several days, my longing to see God do a great work in our midst. I thought, you know, God, I want it for the sake of our children. I want them to see a mighty move of God. I want them to see a move of God that can't be explained by, well, well, that was just a swell preaching or man, what a great worship team. Well, OK, great. I want to see a work of God that goes so far beyond that, that people go, wow, where did that come from? That must be the hand of God at work. I mean, look at that, it's the same old Pastor David preaching a sermon. But but look at look at how God has moved. Well, look at that. It's the same worship team that we've had up there. But man, look at the way that's the work of the spirit of God and to have it go on and to have it sustained and to have this this great, glorious work. Don't you want your children to see that? Don't you want the next generation to be touched by that, to know that God can work in such a way? Now, I remember that when I first came to the Lord, there really was a a difference in atmosphere, a difference in spiritual temperature. There was a just a great sense of expectancy and moving of God's spirit. And far be it from me to suggest that the movement of God's spirit is dead today. Not at all. But surely, surely we can see it further. Surely, surely we can see a greater and greater work of God. And I want my children to see it. Well, I'm taking this promise for myself. Lord, I want to wholly follow you, not just for my sake, but for the sake of my children as well. I want blessing to come to them. So maybe your heart is so hard and you are so settled in the mediocrity of your Christian life that you figure you'll just stay here and pinch your tit here and all of that. Well, might I say, if you are not noble enough to do it for the Lord yourself, perhaps you can be noble enough to do it for the sake of your children. Whatever will motivate you, I will take that. Let's go to another passage. Scripture would speak to this. Joshua, chapter 14. Verses eight and nine, again, we're still talking about the same approximate period in Israel's history that this time just before and just after they're entering into the promised land. Now, here is an exciting passage because here we get to hear Caleb speak in Joshua, chapter 14, beginning at verse eight. Here's Caleb's testimony. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with we up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day saying, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. Now go down to verse 14. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite to this day because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. The other phrase is used again and again of Caleb. Now, it was also used of Joshua, but it's used most specifically of Caleb. Now, here's some principles I want to draw from these few verses. First of all, when we do not wholly follow the Lord, it has a bad effect on others. Look at it in verse eight. My brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt. In other words, the 10 unfaithful spies now were they wholly following the Lord? Not at all. And when they came back and gave the testimony of unbelief to the nation of Israel, well, the nation of Israel was following their example of unbelief and their hearts melted. When we do not wholly follow the Lord, not only does it hurt us, it hurts those around us. Think about it. Think about it, how how it looks to the people that you work with when you're not wholly following the Lord. Look at how it looks to your family. Look at how it looks to people around you. They see the difference. They can tell the difference between somebody who's wholly following Lord and who's not. I mean, they probably wouldn't be able to describe it that way, but they can sense there's some kind of difference. It affects other people. It has a bad effect on others when we do not wholly follow the Lord. Now, there's another important principle here. Look at it here on verse eight. At the end of it, Caleb is bold enough to say, but I wholly followed the Lord, my God. This is almost more bold than we would like to speak. Right. I mean, before it was other people saying this, it was the Lord saying this about Caleb or Moses saying this about Caleb. But but now Caleb comes forth and says, you know what? I wholly follow the Lord. And here's the principle I want to gather from that is that when we wholly follow the Lord, we can know it. I don't think God's trying to play a shell game with us. Lord, am I wholly following you or not? I'm not telling you. Well, Lord, is there secret sin in my life so secret that I don't even know what it is? No, listen, if there's hidden sin in your life, you know what it is. You're hiding it. So get out, hide hidden sin. You know what it is. Stop trying to justify it. But, you know, you're into this thing, you're you're you're you're lying, you're losing your temper, you're you're in the flesh with lust or pornography, that's sin. Get it out of the way, put it far from you, if you're in those things, you're not wholly following the Lord. I don't know. Is that cutting it a little too simple? I don't know. That's just kind of where it lays. Now, what if you say, well, Pastor David, praise God, I'm not in those things. I mean, I can't think of any secret or or real hidden sin in my life. Well, listen, don't agonize over it. Just ask God, say, God, show me anything that is in the way of my wholly following you. Please show me, God, and please make it clear to me, because sometimes I can be thickheaded. And then trust God that he will. Now, might I say, please, ladies and gentlemen, do not pray that prayer unless you mean it. You know, sometimes we pray with our fingers crossed behind our back. For example, don't pray as if you don't know of any sin in your life when you well do. That's mocking God. Secondly, don't pray, God, you know, Lord, I'm unaware of anything in my life, but show me if there's anything hindering me wholly following and I'll put it away. Don't pray that unless you will put it away. What if God, please, I'm not trying to play Holy Spirit here at all, purely hypothetical example, but I just want to reflect the kind of heart that you need to have if you're going to pray this. What if you were to pray, Lord, just if there's anything, you know, if this is in the way of me following you, then then then just let me know and I'll deal with it because I don't want anything in the way. And the Lord says the television set. No, Lord, not that. Anything but that, God, we get the point. Don't pray that prayer unless you mean it. If you mean it, God will honor it and he'll show you and you show it and you deal with it. And what I'm trying to say is you don't have to go around in a morbid state of introspection. That can be a tool of the devil as much as anything. This kind of navel gauging Christian life. Well, I mean, sin and sin. Now, did I sin here? Now, you can have a liberty in your relationship and in your walk with the Lord, but keep a tender heart towards God, a sensitive conscience. And when you sin, make it up quickly with God. To just make it up quickly, just say, no, I'm going to set it right. Well, Lord, I sit here, but I want to set it right. God, I don't want to continue another moment far from you. I just want to set it right right now. God. You see the difference. I'm not talking about a morbid self introspection, but I am talking about being honest with God and saying, if there's anything in my life, Lord, show it to me. Now, another principle from this Joshua 14 passage is that wholly following the Lord brings permanent blessing. Did you see that in verse nine? It says, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever. Forever. Isn't that great? When we wholly follow the Lord, God will bring blessing into our life that sticks around forever. It really makes it worth it. You know, you say, God, just shine your light on my life. And if there's anything hindering and God says to you tonight, maybe, you know, what's hindering your walk with me? It's unbelief. Unbelief. God says, you're just not look, your life is filled with worry and anxiety. It wouldn't be like that if you just trusted me as a loving father to take care of you, Lord, I confess my unbelief. Forgive me of it, please, God. And then determine to set it out of the way. God helping you to do so. When you do that, God will bring into your life permanent blessing. Not blessing that's fleeting, but blessing that lasts. All right, one last passage. Now, I told you that we had our third person who wholly followed the Lord. The first one was Joshua. The second one was Caleb. You know who the third person is? Well, don't say Jesus, because you know Jesus fulfills. I'm talking about the Old Testament. First Kings, Chapter 11. First Kings, Chapter 11, verse six. Now we read right there. First Kings 11, six. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not fully follow the Lord as did his father, David. Now it says fully follow the Lord. In the Hebrew, it's the same phrase. It's the exact same phrase used, therefore, wholly follow the Lord. And this is the only place in the whole Testament we've looked at every place in the Old Testament where this phrase in Hebrew is used. So specifically, this phrase is only applied to three people, Joshua, Caleb and David. Now, the first principle we gather from First Kings 11, six, is that just because a father wholly follows the Lord, it doesn't mean that the children necessarily will. Isn't that a painful one to consider? It is kind of painful. It's painful to think of Solomon. Now, I thought you said, well, wait a minute, David, you just said that it will bless our children. Listen, did David wholly following the Lord bless Solomon? It certainly did. But Solomon didn't receive it the way that he should, and it was no guarantee that Solomon would wholly follow the Lord. Again, it was good that David did it, but I guess what this shows us is that each individual must decide to wholly follow the Lord. You're not going to inherit it from your mom and dad or from your pastor or from your spouse or from anybody else. Each individual has to make a decision to wholly follow the Lord. And then finally, isn't it amazing that David is someone spoken of as wholly following the Lord? Now, off the top of my head, I can't think of a place in the Bible where it describes to us that Caleb sinned. Of course, we know he did, but I just don't think there's any specific mention of it in the scriptures. But, you know, David sinned, right? David sinned in some pretty scandalous ways. Yet it is said of him that he wholly followed the Lord. And this shows us that wholly following the Lord does not mean a life of sinless perfection. But what it means is a heart and a life that won't accommodate sin, won't excuse sin, won't tolerate it. And you know what? In that one section of David's life, it took him many months to come around, but he did come around. He poured out his heart before God after being convicted by Nathan, the prophet, and he said, I have sinned against the Lord. Friends, that's confession of sin, that's being honest, that's being real. It illustrated that David did wholly follow the Lord, so it does not mean a life of sinless perfection. If that was it, then we would all be disqualified. But friends, it does mean a heart after God. Wouldn't you love it to be said of you? There you are at your funeral. And people would stand up with one voice and say, listen, we know one thing about this person. They wholly followed the Lord. What a glorious thing that would be. I'm reminded of the experience with Dwight Moody. D.L. Moody was a mighty, mighty evangelist used of God some 150 years ago, used greatly in America, used greatly in Britain. Thousands and thousands of people came to Christ through the ministry of D.L. Moody. Well, it all began when he was a shoe salesman speaking, I believe it was to a customer. I may have my thinking confused on that point. And the person challenged Moody as a young man saying the world has yet to see what God can do with one life that is fully surrendered to him. I'm paraphrasing the remark there, but that's the heart behind it. The world has yet to see what God can do with one life that is fully surrendered to him. You know what Moody's response was to that? It wasn't, oh, oh, that's interesting. You know, well, that's great thought for the day. I'll put it on my calendar or something like that. No, Moody's response was he said, I want to be that man. It can be us, too. It can be us. God can and wants to do that. Recently, we saw together that great video by Dr. J. Edwin or the role of prayer and spiritual awakening. He wrote many books, and one of the books that he wrote was a book called Full Surrender. And I want to read to you a couple of paragraphs from the very end of this book where he describes this message of full surrender. What is this message of full surrender? He says the message is simple. Our wonderful savior not only made provision that his children by faith might be delivered from the guilt of sin, but he also provided a clearly stated way whereby the shortcomings of his children might be confessed and forgiven and cleansed at any time. His word also teaches that the obedient Christian by faith may claim victory over sin, enter into a closer walk with God, fully surrender his life and be filled with the Holy Spirit of God for whatever service he may direct. This is individual revival. Multiply it in faith and there develops congregational revival, community revival, national revival and worldwide revival of Christians with resultant soul winning and missionary endeavor. There is a price to pay, but the reward is far greater. I agree with that completely. Do you want God to do a great work in our midst and call out before him and say, Lord, do a great work in me. I want to be wholly following you right now, tonight. If you're willing to pray this prayer sincerely, passionately to pray this prayer. Lord, show me if there's anything in my life keeping me from being wholly committed, from being a whole follower of you and by your grace, I will put it away. I'll be bold enough to say. If you want to pray that tonight, if that is your prayer. Once you stand up, you know, Lord, we want to receive this in the right way before your spirit tonight. God, I pray that you would guard any heart from leaving here tonight, taking this word in a wrong way, but Lord, surely there's a right way. Surely there's a good way for us to receive this. Surely there's a way that we must be wholly following you. God, bend us, bend me towards your purpose and God, before my brothers and sisters, I simply pray. And I say, Lord Jesus, if there's anything in my life hindering my fellowship with you, hindering me from wholly following you, then Lord, show me and by your grace, I'll put it away. I don't make that in my own strength, God. I say by your grace, I'll put it away. Thank you for the sweetness of your love.