God's people in God's placeby Rod Bayley, 9 September 2007, Joshua 13-21
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Helen, she had an estimated inheritance of $600 million. I imagine
she'll be interested to learn of this fact when she has some
comprehension of money, and the details of this inheritance will no
doubt provoke an enthusiastic hearing. However, her arrival brought
much angst amongst her family rivals for Rupert's $US7.5 billion
fortune, and this angst has since increased with the birth of sister
Chloe in 2005. It has also caused concern for many of the biggest
investors in News Corp which has a total shares value of $US36 billion
- both the family members and the biggest investors would all like to
have a bigger slice. But Grace Helen will only receive her $600
million once she turns 30, regardless of when the now 76 year old
Rupert dies, but it affects their inheritance so they have more than a
passing interest in the details. Have you ever received an
inheritance? Have you been present for the reading of a will which
outlined your inheritance? It's unlikely that you'd fall asleep
during the reading of a will from which you might benefit - if you
have a personal stake than the time-consuming details don't induce
boredom, rather they are of great interest.
I raise this point, because as we consider chapters 13 to 21 of Joshua
today, we enter another major division of the book. In chapters 1 to
4 we have Israel entering the land, in chapters 5-12 we have Israel
taking the land, and chapters 13-21 we have Israel possessing the
land. They finally receive their inheritance, the Promised Land, as
each of the twelve tribes have their portion of the land allotted to
them. But the most enthusiastic reader of Joshua begins to wilt and
nod off as he enters these chapters. Watching war movies always tends
to be more exciting than participating in land surveys. Chasing a
Canaanite out of the hill country is far more stimulating than
plodding over his former land and tracing borders. But our problem is
that we're too detached - we need to view this land distribution as
an Israelite would have seen it. You might think these lists and
descriptions terribly dull, but for the Israelite this material
describes their inheritance - this is the exciting reading of the
will. More than that, it points forward to the stunning inheritance
that awaits us, won by Christ's death and resurrection.
Have a look with me at the opening seven verses of chapter 13, which
provides an introduction to this whole section. Verses 1 to 7 read:
"When Joshua was old and well advanced in years, the LORD said to him,
'You are very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be
taken over. 2This is the land that remains: all the regions of the
Philistines and Geshurites: 3from the Shihor River on the east of
Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north, all of it counted as
Canaanite (the territory of the five Philistine rulers in Gaza,
Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron - that of the Avvites); 4from the
south, all the land of the Canaanites, from Arah of the Sidonians as
far as Aphek, the region of the Amorites, 5the area of the Gebalites;
and all Lebanon to the east, from Baal Gad below Mount Hermon to Lebo
Hamath. 6As for all the inhabitants of the mountain regions from
Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, that is, all the Sidonians, I myself will
drive them out before the Israelites. Be sure to allocate this land
to Israel for an inheritance, as I have instructed you, 7and divide it
as an inheritance among the nine tribes and half of the tribe of
Manasseh."
Joshua had now become old and yet there was work still to be done,
with much land to occupy. However, God's power was still more than
adequate for the task ahead, and so in verses 6 and 7 Joshua simply
had to allot the tribes their particular inheritance of land so they
could clean it out and occupy it. All this alerts us to the fact that
although the Promised Land had been conquered - all the major cities
had been defeated - they still needed to settle in the land and clear
out the remaining remnants of people. Having said that, it's easy to
read verse 1 and forget how much had already been accomplished under
Joshua's leadership. Verses 2 to 5 describe land on the fringe of
Canaan - mainly the Philistines territory on the Mediterranean coast
to the south west, and small strip in the north reaching up to
Damascus. So they had achieved a significant level of dominance. And
the tribes were not left merely to their own efforts, but they stood
under the assurance that God would drive out those who were left.
Joshua was about to retire, but God would still be at work through his
people.
However, the commitment of the people to this ongoing, more laborious
task is clearly questionable in the first allotment discussed in
verses 8 to 13. Here we have the allotment given to the two and a
half tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan, but in verse 13 there
is a worrying description of their inability to follow through on
fully possessing their inheritance. The writer states: "But the
Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maacah, so they
continue to live among the Israelites to this day." Such sins of
omission would come back to haunt them. As we saw in the bible
studies this week, later in Samuel's day there was intermarriage with
these people, not least of all by King David, who married the king of
Maacah's daughter who bore him the usurping Absalom (2 Sam.3:3). The
king of Maacah later joined forces with the Ammonites to fight against
king David (2 Sam.10), and when David's son Absalom killed his brother
Amnon, he fled to the king of Geshur (2 Sam.13).
This statement in verse 13 is the first of a series of accusations of
tribal failure in following up the initial conquest. It was one thing
to invade and conquer a territory, but it was another to persevere
over a period of time to occupy the whole territory allotted to a
tribe. This incomplete obedience fails to grasp the 'now and not yet'
of their situation - they had won the land with God's help but they
hadn't received it fully. They had been given an incredible
inheritance but they weren't using it - it was as if they hadn't
received it.
For many years Hetty Green was called America's greatest miser. When
she died in 1916, she left an estate valued at $100 million, an
especially vast fortune for that day. But she was so miserly that she
ate cold oatmeal in order to save the expense of heating the water.
When her son had a severe leg injury, she took so long trying to find
a free clinic to treat him that his leg had to be amputated because of
advanced infection. It has been said that she hastened her own death
by bringing on a fit while arguing the merits of skim milk because it
was cheaper than whole milk. If you're like me, when you hear such an
account, you think how sad, or how stupid - she was sitting on a
massive inheritance but she lived like a pauper. But you see, Israel
was acting like this - not using, not possessing the land they'd been
given.
It is with this backdrop that we are given the positive example of
Caleb, the example of someone who even at the age of 85 years had
energy and displayed faith in action. Turn with me to chapter 14,
verses 6-15. Notice in verses 6 to 9 how Caleb recounts how he and
Joshua brought a positive report back to the people as two of the
twelve spies 45 years earlier (Numbers 13-14), and that because he'd
followed the Lord wholeheartedly Moses had promised him the land he'd
surveyed. And so in verses 10 to 12 he states:
"Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-
five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved
about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty five years old! 11I
am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as
vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12Now give me this
hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard
then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and
fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he
said."
Here is persevering faith that follows through on God's promises.
What a contrast to the two and half tribes on the other side of the
Jordan, and nearly all the other tribes also as we'd see if we had
enough time to survey this whole section. This chapter points to
Caleb as an example of how Israel's tribes ought to be extending the
original conquest by cleaning out and nailing down their various
tribal portions. As Caleb builds toward his punch-line in verse 12, he
recalls God's goodness to date. God had kept him alive through the
last 45 years, and this through wilderness and war, and he was still
blessing him with stamina. The perspective of faith takes in God's
goodness, responds in gratitude and finds grace for God's next call.
Because of Israel's lack of commitment to following through on God's
promise, we are not only given the contrasting example of Caleb, but
also Joshua rebukes the final 7 tribes for not taking possession of
their land in chapter 18, verses 1 to 10. After a description of
Judah's allotment in chapter 15 and the allotment to the Joseph tribes
of Ephraim and Manasseh in chapters 16 and 17, Joshua effectively says
to the rest: 'what's wrong with you - get moving on working out your
allotment.' Look at verses 3 to 6 with me, of chapter 18:
"So Joshua said to the Israelites: 'How long will you wait before you
begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of our
fathers, has given you? 4Appoint three men from each tribe. I will
send them out to make a survey of the land and to write a description
of it, according to the inheritance of each. Then they will return to
me. 5You are to divide the land into seven parts. Judah is to remain
in its territory on the south and the house of Joseph in its territory
on the north. 6After you have written descriptions of the seven parts
of the land, bring them here to me and I will cast lots for you in the
presence of the Lord our God."
We hear the keynote again here, as Joshua accuses the remaining seven
tribes of being lax, of being slack, with regard to possessing the
land. There is a persistent attitude here which Joshua is trying to
counter, because they're in danger of dropping the ball when the game
is not over. Now is the crucial time to press on and take hold of
their inheritance, because the land has been subdued. And so Joshua
seeks to shove them out of their comfort zone, by setting in train a
process for them to follow. The land is God's gift to them, but that
does not cancel out human responsibility. God's promises to them are
not intended as sedatives, but as stimulants.
I want to finish our consideration of this whole section of Joshua by
skipping forward now to the end - to the final summary from the
narrator. In chapter 21, verses 43-45 we learn that God gave them
rest in their inheritance:
"So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their
forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44The
Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their
forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord handed
all their enemies over to them. 45Not one of all the Lord's good
promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled."
This passage is the heart of the message of the book of Joshua, the
grand testimony to God's faithfulness to his promises to give them the
promised land. He had brought them out of Egypt where they had been
slaves for 400 years, then took them through the wilderness for forty
years, and then into Canaan and drove out their enemies before them -
God's promises had been faithfully fulfilled through centuries of
turmoil. But perhaps you find these words too final and conclusive
given that there remained plenty of land which they had yet to occupy,
and remnants of their enemies which they were failing to drive out?
But the writer obviously knew about these other factors, and so this
is not a contradictory statement. They had conquered the land, and it
had now been allotted - the fact that they might possess still more of
it does not negate the main point. All that was left was a mopping up
operation. What we hear in these key words is praise of God for his
faithfulness to his promises - the land promised to Abraham way back
in Genesis 12 has now been received.
Well, what is the application of all this for ourselves today?
Firstly, we who are under the new covenant promises in Christ, who've
been included in God's people through faith in Jesus' death and
resurrection, also have an inheritance. Christ's death not only pays
for our sin and wins us forgiveness now, but it also gives us eternal
life which begins now. We have new life now through the Spirit, who
is a deposit guaranteeing our coming inheritance. There is a clear
'now and not yet' to our inheritance also. Ephesians 2:6-7 brings
this out by stating: "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us
with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the
coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." In verse 6 we have
already been seated in heaven, and in verse 7 we're awaiting the
coming age when we'll experience that current reality. How do we live
now so that we will receive all that God has already given us? Well,
like the Israelites in Joshua's day, we need to act on our trust in
God's promises and persevere in our faith until we receive our
inheritance in heaven. There will be lots of trials ahead in our
life, which may cause us to doubt God but we are to hold firmly to the
gospel and not forget our future inheritance in Christ! In 1 Peter
1:3-6, which we read earlier, the apostle Peter says,
"In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4and into an
inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for
you, 5who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming
of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In
this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have
had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."
I'm sure, amongst a gathering of this many people, that there are a
number here today that are struggling with ill health; there are those
who are grieving the loss of loved ones; there are those who are
struggling with depression; there are those who are having
difficulties at work or who are searching for paid employment; there
are those facing broken relationships and much heartache. This life
is full of trials which will test our faith. But if you are a
Christian, you are sitting on a gold mine, so to speak, a spiritual
inheritance which can't be lost.
It's like having the ticket to the event in your hand but having not
witnessed it yet. Let me use an example from the Olympics back in
2000 when Sydney hosted the games. Christine and I managed to secure
tickets to see Cathy Freeman run, albeit in her semi-final. I remember
getting the tickets weeks in advance, seeing the ads and anticipating
the real thing. When the day finally we put on our fake Australian
flag tattoos and packed the back pack and caught the train. But even
when we'd arrived at Homebush Bay, we hadn't received what was
promised. We were soaking up the atmosphere of the 27th Olympiad, but
until we sat down in the stadium and saw the athletics events, it was
still a promise which was yet on the future horizon. Now, that's a
weak analogy of partial fulfilment of a promise, but you get the idea
- you have something in your hand now, but you have not fully received
what awaits.
The second application is that, like the Israelites, we have an
inheritance from God. However, our inheritance isn't the land of
Canaan - our salvation from sin does not lead to the hope of rest in
Palestine, but rest in God's presence eternally in heaven. We have
the sure and certain hope of eternal life where we will see Jesus our
Saviour, face to face. Our inheritance is to be with God, to live in
perfect relationship with him - God's people in God's place. The
bible's clearest summary of this reality which we await is in
Revelation 21:1-7. Look at verses 1 to 3 with me:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw
the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard
a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with
men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God
himself will be with them and be their God."
Notice also that in what follows, verse 7 announces that all this is
our inheritance - "He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will
be his God and he will be my son." Let's make sure that we can keep
trusting, keep pressing on, that we might inherit eternal life.