Sermon Tone Analysis

Give Me This Mountain

Give Me This Mountain

I. Introduction

A. A Day for Remembering and a Day for Patriotism

1. Remembering those who have fallen in battle

2. Remembering all loved ones who have died

B. A Text from a Book of Battles

1.

After Moses, Joshua became the leader

2. The land divided among the tribes of Israel

3. The area given will have to be conquered and developed

C. Caleb: “Give me this Mountain”

1. Asks the most difficult task (v.

12)

2. What motivated Caleb to press on to higher ground?

II.

Body

A. He Remembers God’s Promise to Him (vv.

6–7)

A. He Remembers God’s Promise to Him (vv.

6–7)

1. Caleb the spy ()

1. Caleb the spy ()

a. Sent by Moses 40 years earlier to spy out the land

a. Sent by Moses 40 years earlier to spy out the land

b.

The fruit of the land, flowing with milk and honey

c.

But Caleb saw beyond this to Hebron, where Abram met God

2. Caleb: “We are well able to overcome it” ()

Numbers 14:23-24

a.

The majority had great giants and a little God

a.

The majority had great giants and a little God

b.

Caleb had a great God and little giants

c.

The majority were problem-conscious, but Caleb was power-conscious

3. Caleb will now stand on the promises

a.

He will never forget them

b.

You will never find him part of the grumbling crowd

c.

He is on his way to this better land all through life

B. Caleb Remembers his Own Commitment to the Lord (vv.

8–9)

1. “I wholly followed the Lord …”

a. Reminded of the time of his full surrender

b.

A man of God, total dedication, committed

2. Remembers how he had stood apart from the crowd

a. Do you remember a day of victory?

b.

What about the day you were saved?

c.

What about the time of full surrender?

3. The sad story of

4. Have you left your first love?

C. Caleb Remembers God’s Faithfulness to him (vv.

10–11)

1. God hath kept me alive

1. God hath kept me alive

1. God hath kept me alive

a. Have you thanked God for keeping you alive?

b.

Except for Joshua, all the rest had died

2. I am now fourscore and five years old (85)

a.

Some senior citizen!

b.

Not resting on his laurels

3. God had cared for him up to that hour

4. “Grace hath brought me safe thus far”

III.

Conclusion

III.

Conclusion

A. Now, Therefore, Give me this Mountain!

1. Give me your best

2. Give me your toughest task

B. Remembering Should Challenge us

1. Lincoln at Gettysburg - Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

2. Accept the challenge

2. Accept the challenge

C. Move on to Higher Ground

Roger F. Campbell, Preach for a Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1997), 89–90.