The man who obeys the first commandment and loves the Lord his God with all of his heart, all of his soul, and all of his might (Deuteronomy 6:5) has certain laws working for him of which he is often unaware.
It is said of Caleb that he wholly followed the Lord (Deuteronomy 1:36). When he reviewed what he had done, Caleb himself said, “I wholly followed the Lord my God” (Joshua 14:8). It is very enlightening to study the lives of Caleb and Joshua, because they were the only two men from an entire generation who survived judgments that were proclaimed upon all of the other people. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, they entered in to possess some of the choice pieces of ground in the land of Canaan. The lives of Caleb and Joshua illustrate two principles: One, you are never defeated until you are first defeated in your spirit; two, if you wholly serve the Lord, you have perpetual victory and immunity from judgment.
These principles are also illustrated in I Samuel 7:1–13. And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill, and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. And it came about from the day that the ark remained at Kiriath-jearim that the time was long, for it was twenty years; and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. (They had lost the ark, and for twenty years the presence of the Lord had been removed from them.)
Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve Him alone; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.” So the sons of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtaroth and served the Lord alone.
Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.” And they gathered to Mizpah, and drew water and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the sons of Israel at Mizpah. (This was the same Mizpah where Jacob and Laban had made their covenant hundreds of years before, as recorded in Genesis 31.)
Now when the Philistines heard that the sons of Israel had gathered to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the sons of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. Then the sons of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it for a whole burnt offering to the Lord; and Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him.
Now Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, and the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day against the Philistines and confused them, so that they were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and struck them down as far as below Bethcar. Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come any more within the border of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
This account gives us the impression that the wars with the Philistines under Saul and David were really unnecessary. Remember the two principles: You will never be defeated until you are defeated in your spirit; and if you wholly serve the Lord, you will have perpetual victory and immunity from judgment. These principles operated during the life of Samuel, and if the children of Israel had wholly followed the Lord and served Him, they would have continued to have immunity from judgment. They would have walked in perpetual victory, without ever being defeated, if they had not been defeated in their spirits.
This is important for us to remember today also, because the Lord is bringing us to a new level of victory, and that victory is based upon our entire and total sanctification. Why must we come to such a total dedication to the Lord in this end time? Paul gives us the answer in I Thessalonians 5:23–24, where he wrote about the end time. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. The more completely we are dedicated to the Lord in this day, the more perfect will be our victory.
There will be many different realms of victory and many levels on which people will live. The top drawer of Christianity is going to be in a little state of tribulation because the Lord will have to deal with whatever is lacking in their dedication, the same as He will have to deal with the lack of dedication and commitment on the part of the ungodly. The ungodly will meet death and destruction, but there will also be a great deal of tribulation for those who are only halfhearted in their relationship to the Lord. The Word says that God will judge the circumcised and the uncircumcised alike in the day of the Lord (Jeremiah 9:25). There will be no distinction because you are serving the Lord. You had better be set to serve Him with all of your heart, because the place of immunity will be the place of wholeheartedness. When you wholly follow the Lord, as Caleb did, then you will be immune from judgment, and you will have perpetual victory.
We should be concerned about this, because there will be great assault from the enemy against us; and sometimes we will wonder whether we are experiencing victory or defeat. The Lord will not leave you alone as long as there is anything lacking in your commitment to Him. But if you are not defeated in your spirit, you will never be defeated at all.
The stories of Caleb and Joshua and Samuel are positive examples of the principle of wholeheartedness. The story of Rehoboam in I Kings 14:21–31 offers a negative picture.
Now Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put His name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. Verse 21.
How did it happen that an Ammonitess was the mother of Solomon’s son? Solomon had a wisdom from God that could discern and rule and judge. He was wise about everything but women. He married seven hundred wives and kept three hundred concubines (I Kings 11:3). Instead of having standing armies ready to invade all the surrounding countries, he wooed the favorite daughter of each king, resulting in a marriage of state and an alliance with the king. The foreign king probably would not rebel or attack Israel, because he would fear for his daughter’s welfare. If everything went well, the king could come to Solomon’s palace and visit his grandchildren every year. This practice of political intrigue backfired on Solomon though, because in time, these foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord. A heart that had been set completely on the Lord at the beginning was finally turned, and thus his wisdom was turned to folly. One of these foreign wives was a daughter of the king of Ammon, and from that union came Rehoboam.
The jealousy of God must be reckoned with. You have probably heard the saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” It is also true that hell hath no fury like the Lord made jealous. If you bring rivals into your life, the Lord will treat you so badly that you will wonder why He is treating you, the one who loves Him, worse than He treats His enemies. He wants you either to love Him perfectly or not at all. He does not like half-hearted love. He does not want you to be “neither hot nor cold.” He wants you to love Him completely. It is the divided affections that cause all the difficulties, for He is a jealous God. He chastens those who half-heartedly follow Him, but He gives great blessing to those who wholly follow Him.
And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked Him to jealousy more than all their fathers had done, with the sins which they committed. For they also built for themselves high places and sacred pillars and Asherim on every high hill and beneath every luxuriant tree. And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.
Now it came about in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and he took everything, even taking all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. I Kings 14:22–26.
The Lord will give you many blessings, but if you are half-hearted or if your affections are divided between the Lord and other rivals to His worship, He will strip from you the glory and blessing that was initially His heritage to you. When Solomon pleased the Lord, there was blessing in the house of the Lord. At the time of the dedication of the Temple of Solomon during the Feast of Tabernacles, the glory of the Lord filled the Temple so that the priests were not even able to stand to minister (I Kings 8:10–11).
Solomon made shields of beaten gold which the Temple guards carried whenever they escorted the king up to the house of the Lord (I Kings 10:16–17). They did not expect to use these shields of gold; they were made just for show. Imagine what a shield of gold would be worth today. Those shields weighed almost twenty pounds each. At the present price of gold, each one of those shields would be worth about fifty thousand dollars!
When the Israelites stopped worshiping the Lord with all of their hearts, God was swift to deal with them. All the shields of gold were taken away by the king of Egypt. What did King Rehoboam do when that happened? If he had been trying to please the Lord, he would have repented with all of his heart; but because he was trying to put on a good front, he decided to be very religious. So King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place, and committed them to the care of the commanders of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king’s house. Then it happened as often as the king entered the house of the Lord, that the guards would carry them and would bring them back into the guards’ room. Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. And Rehoboam slept with his fathers… I Kings 14:27–31.
Rehoboam did not have much going for him. He was not immune from war, and he was not immune from judgment. He had trouble. The same will be true of you if you want to live on the lower plane of half-heartedness. If you want to give yourself wholly to the Lord, you will be victorious. Dare to believe that this will really work. Samuel did; and during all the days of Samuel, the Philistines did not come near Israel. But Rehoboam was humiliated continually all of his days. It did not matter how the Temple guards pranced or how the shields had been polished. Everyone knew that the shields were only made of bronze; the shields of gold were gone.
The price of a shield of bronze is virtually nothing compared to that of a shield of gold. Which do you want? Do you want to try to put on a phony parade? Do you want to put on a front and hear God say that you have a name that you live and you are dead? (Revelation 3:1.) Do you want Him to rebuke you for being neither hot nor cold, and tell you that He is going to spew you out of His mouth? (Revelation 3:15–16.) If you are going to walk with Him, do it with all of your heart. The half-hearted way is not worth the effort. It is disastrous to sit on the fence when God is shaking the fence. You will hurt yourself. Serve Him with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
If there is any area where the enemy has gained a foothold in your life, determine to see a new level of victory established in your heart once and for all, as you enter in with joyful worship and praise to the Lord. Hate any openness in your heart toward anything that is not wholehearted for God. Determine to be liberated absolutely and completely from all the assault of the enemy, and enter into the immunity that belongs to true believers. Believe for health, healing, deliverance, and release. Determine to reach into the victory in every realm—physical, financial, and spiritual. Possess the victory over harassment from the enemy. Proclaim his defeat. Proclaim him to be what he is, and proclaim yourself to be what you are. Magnify the Lord in every way you can. Let the blood of Jesus Christ remove anything within you that feels insecure or self-condemned.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him. I John 3:21–22a. And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. I John 5:14–15. Open your heart to the Lord, and ask Him to deal with you right now if you have reservations. If you look deep enough into your heart, you will probably find some. Let the Lord bring you to a place of wholeheartedness before Him. Seek to follow Him wherever He goes, seeking not your own welfare, but His. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Do not follow in the ways of Rehoboam. Determine that you will carry shields of gold, not shields of bronze. In this end time, let us again walk as Samuel did, wholly following the Lord our God, so that all the days of our lives the enemy will not even dare to cross the border into our territory.