Notice in these people here, in Joshua and Caleb, there was faith in their heart. In one part in Joshua, Chapter 14, after 40 years wandering in the wilderness, Caleb said this: My strength to come in and go out has not diminished! I am 80 years old, or whatever it was; he said: I'm as strong as I've ever been. Now that's a strong spirit, and it's affected his body, and his health. It's affected his life; and so he's able to say: oh, don't give me a plain, give me a mountain! Don't give me the place where it's easy, give me the place - I want to take the giants that stopped everyone 40 years ago! Forty years ago they saw the giants, and he said: I've been wandering in the desert for 40 years because of those wretched giants, let me at them! You see, that is a faith kind of thing. So many people live just out of the circumstance. The circumstances change, their world's falling apart. Your world has not fallen apart! Changed yes, but now you need to be planning, dreaming, and speaking about what else is happening. You must decide how you will face life, and what you will speak about your life, what will you speak about the circumstances? What will you speak about God, and what God is doing?
See the people in the wilderness, He said: as you've spoken to me, I'll do to you. It'll be just like that. You were right, they are too big for you, or putting it another way, every opportunity I gave you to grow, you didn't take it, and now you're declaring what's reality. You're too small to handle these things, which by now you should be able to take. That's interesting isn't it? I wonder how many people here, there's things which you should be able to tackle, take on, and get victory over - and you still can't, because each time it comes around, you didn't respond with faith. Now I've been around long enough to know that this is true for every one of us. We all have our challenges. No one is exempt. You might see people, and they sit and smile in church, but you don't know what they're facing behind the scenes. You don't know what issues with marriage, with children, with finance, with work, with all kinds of things - but there they are, praising God! In other words, their spirit was able to arise, in spite of the circumstances; and I've noticed with such people, after a while everything shifts and changes, and the problem that was there a while ago has gone.
Think about some of the ones you've had Brydon. I remember praying with you, over your land, that bit of land for the house. Oh there were set-backs and set-backs and set-backs. Even when you had it signed up, it looked like it - it just fell over. Disappointment, but I remember Brydon just standing believing God ,and even when the thing that he should have got, and legally could have pushed for it, fell over he said: no, God's got something better for us. I like that, and I've seen the better, and it is much better than what he originally had in mind, because he never let go of faith, that God was at work. I don't always see God at work, can't always understand what He's doing sometimes. What I do know, is that He's faithful; and if you hold His word, and hold faith in your heart, you come out just pretty good at the other side of it. You may have matured a bit, lost a few hairs, and got a bit greyer, but you come out much better in your spirit, much better in your spirit!
So the Bible tells clearly of the power of words, and God's word, if you'll speak that, has got even more power. Hebrews 4:12 - now the word of God is living and powerful! God's word has power to change your life; so the Bible says: it's ALIVE! It's not just an empty book. Now the problem is, we read it and don't get anything out of it, and we think it's a dead book. I don't understand, this is hard, too hard for me, and so we quit and give up. But here's the revelation of it: God's word is quick, it's alive, and it's powerful, and it can sort you out. You've just got to let it. There's some things you have to do, to let it. You've got to value it. It's a sword. It's a sword. You speak the word of God sometime to someone, and you see if it isn't a sword - they'll bite you back. You start to share the word of God with people, you'll be quite surprised - it's a sword alright. No matter how nice you say it, it's still a sword. It gets a bite from people, it gets a real big bite.