Joshua was a leader that God used in an uncommon way to see an uncommon work. Think about the miracles that Joshua saw. Think about the supernatural things this man observed with his own eyes: the Jordan River opening up 40 years before the Red Sea opened up, and once in the land, the walls of Jericho falling down. He saw something very supernatural and very uncommon. But now in chapters 13 through 24, Joshua is involved in a very common job. He's going to be a surveyor of the land and he is going to dole out real estate; back to the mundane and back to the Monday to Friday stuff. Not the miracles that you see in the first 12 chapters, this is now taking what God gave to them. My father was a land developer in southern California and he loved it. He loved plotting land and looking at real estate maps and the boundaries and the borders and the contracts. I knew nothing about them and still don't. He came by it honestly because his father, my grandfather, was a homesteader; that's a piece of American history. Back in the day when the American government was giving to people the right to settle a piece of land for free, whatever they could occupy and farm, my grandfather took a piece of Laramie County, Wyoming, and created a little piece of farmland and raised his family there. That was the land from which this country was founded. That's the theme of the rest of the book - the land. The word land appears 85 times in this book. The words "inherit" and "inheritance" appear 60 times because that's what it's about and this is the land. This is what God promised the Children of Israel - the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. They've arrived and now they'll dole it out. We're not surprised if the rest of this book reads sort of like a real estate contract, and it does. It has those details: this tribe gets this piece and there's the border and then it goes to that place, etc. We are going to skip some of that. We're going to survey it from 30,000 feet, but by way of a reminder: chapters 1 through 5 were them entering the land; chapters 6 through 12, were them conquering the land, and now chapters 13 to the end of the book, is the distributing of the land.
There are two heroes in the book that are exciting to me and both of them are in their 80's. That's really exciting to me because it shows me that the older you get, you can still be a hero. In fact, we'll see Caleb say, "I'm 85 years old today." Both he and Joshua are old coots in this book, but God is still using them and I love that.
Chapter 13, verse 1: "Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And the Lord said to him: 'You are old,'" (God's honest!), "'advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.'" No one likes to be reminded of their age and frankly getting older scares most people. It's typically where the biggest trials of life will fall. Joshua, however, seems to be just getting started in terms of being used by God. He knows he's old and God reminds him that he's old and there's a lot of land yet to be taken and occupied according to God's promise. I want to share something with you. An elderly woman wrote these words, obviously towards the end of her life, looking back. She said, "If I had to live my life over, I'd dare to make more mistakes the next time; I'd relax; I would limber up; I would be sillier than I have been this trip; I would take few things seriously; I would take more chances; I'd climb more mountains; I'd swim more rivers; I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps, have had more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who lived sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to do nothing else; I would want just moments one after another instead of living so many years ahead of time. I'm one of those persons who never go anywhere without a thermometer, hot water bottle, rain coat, and parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have. If I had to live my life over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dinners; I would ride more merry-go-rounds; and I would pick more daisies."
We're going to find that Caleb would say, "I want more mountains to conquer," at 85. Joshua says that he's old and God tells him that he's old and we'll discover the other hero in a few chapters. Verse 2: "'This is the land that yet remains: all the territory of the Philistines and all that of the Geshurites.'" Now in the next few verses, 3 through 6, beginning in the south and moving towards the north, God will spell out all of the territory they haven't yet occupied and taken as their own. He goes through the land, from south to north as if to say, "Come on, get busy. It's time to divvy up that land." Verse 7: "'Now therefore, divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh.' With the other half-tribe the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses had given them, beyond the Jordan eastward, as Moses the servant of the Lord had given them." So Joshua is to recognize and confirm that plot of land that those two and one half tribes east of the Jordan had requested. You may remember that they went to Moses and they said, "Hey look, there's great pasture land on the east side of the Jordan River, we have a lot of cattle and flocks and we don't want to go on the other side of the Jordan. Let's stay here." Moses, said, "Okay, deal, but you have to come over and help the nine and one half other tribes settle their land and once they've settled down, you can go back and settle your land." In other words, "You're drafted in the army and you have to come and fight and take this land that God has given to us and then go back." Verse 32: "These are the areas which Moses had distributed as an inheritance in the plains of Moab on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward. But to the tribe of Levi Moses had given no inheritance." Now you say, "Wait a minute. They got the short end of the deal." No, they got the best part of the deal. You say, "What do you mean the best part of the deal? They don't get any land." "Yes, but finish the verse." "The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance as He had said to them." What that will mean practically, is that the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe that will minister in the tabernacle, will be living from the support of the other tribes in Israel. All of them will pitch in and when they bring their offerings to the tabernacle, the thank offering, the grain offering, the trespass offering, they will take part of that, part of the meat and carve off a section for themselves and they will go home and they will eat it. Plus, we're going to see in chapter 21 that 48 cities scattered throughout all of the landscape will be given as Levitical cities which means there will be Levites living everywhere throughout all of the tribes. We'll see why that is important shortly. But really, what could be better than that? Remember when God came to Abraham after Abraham said, "What are You going to give me Lord?" and God said, "I am your exceeding great reward." Abraham should have said, "Wow, I'm so honored, You're giving me intimacy with Yourself; a relationship with Yourself; I get to walk closely with You; You're going to be my personal shield and my reward." He didn't say that. He said, "What else are You going to give me?" Jesus said, "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?" Where are you aiming your sights in this life? As you're plotting your course, what are you after? In the end, what are you aiming at?
There was a grave in southern France by the Mediterranean Coastand a simple tombstone that read, "Here lays the soul of Count Lewis Easterfield." People walked by it for years and one day somebody dug it up and found a box and inside the box were jewels and a note that read, "To you, my heir, I bequeath this wealth. In this box is my soul; the money without which a man is but a machine and his life a long procession of weary empty years." That's what he lived for! Now he's dead in a casket with his little soul, his little jewels. What does it profit if you have the whole world but you lose your own soul? "Hey, tribe of Levi, the Lord is your inheritance, you get to be in the ministry, and trust me, you'll be taken care of."
Joshua chapter 14 is the day everyone has been waiting for. This is pay day; this is when everybody finally gets the land, tribe by tribe, that God had promised them. They do this by an interesting method and it's not going to sound that spiritual - they cast lots. I've read a lot about the casting of lots and this is what I've discovered in all of the Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, and all of the language helps, nobody knows exactly what they did. The best they can gather is that this is sort of like the equivalent of flipping a coin and that God superintended that flipping of the coin or casting of the lot. As it says in Proverbs, chapter 16: "The lot is cast in the lap but every decision is from the Lord." So it was somehow supervised by the priesthood and ultimately by the Holy Spirit Himself using stones or sticks of different lengths. So the land was divided by casting lots. Chapter 14, verse 1: "These are the areas which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed as an inheritance to them. Their inheritance was by lot, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses." Verse 6: "Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him: 'You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God.'" This is his testimony. "They did not trust God; I wholly followed the Lord my God." Some of you think, "It doesn't sound like a testimony it sounds more like a bragamony; he's bragging that he followed the Lord." But it was true. Joshua and Caleb, by God's own admission, were the only ones that had the faith and crossed from that last generation. "'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.' And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.'" There is something I notice about these guys. There're not ashamed of their age. Isn't it funny how when you're young you want to be older and when you're older you want to be younger? It seems that nobody is satisfied and I've always been intrigued by the way people monitor time and tell their ages. When a baby is a baby, he's so many weeks and then months old. "Oh he's fifteen months old." As they get just a little bit older, they keep time by half years, and this is very important to kids. "So you're nine?" "No, I'm nine and a half." "Excuse me, I was way off!" Then as you get a little bit older, you monitor time by whole years. As you get older you start doing it by decades. "I'm in my thirties." Yes, but what side are you on? "I'm in my forties." Then you get to a point where, "don't ask." But these guys and God are very honest and unashamed about their age. "I'm 85 years old today." I'll tell you what the testimony of Caleb was: his faithfulness to God over the grind; day after day of 40 years in the desert. Everybody was mumbling, complaining, dividing and Joshua and Caleb continue to wholly serve the Lord. The greatest testimony I've ever heard isn't the drug addict who is saved out of drug addiction or the alcoholic or the mass murderer, although those are great testimonies. But it's somebody who became a Christian at an early age and were kept by God all those years and stayed faithful - that's a tremendous testimony. Here's an 85 year old guy saying, "Right now I'm 85 and God as kept me alive," and he's still serving. Verse 11 gets better: "'As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said.'" Somebody once said, "You are as young as your faith and you are as old as your doubt." Here's an 85 year old person who is very young and spry and a young whippersnapper because he's got that faith. "I'm just as strong today as I was then and I want that mountain. I'm going to take those enemies and it could be that God's will be with me." Wouldn't that be a story in the newspapers, "Eighty-five year old geezer takes over a whole territory while the rest of these tribes are so afraid to move in." I'm going to date myself, but while I was reading this I was reminded of the movie "Jaws." I think that "Jaws One" came out in 1975 and I refused to see it because I knew that I would be so terrified that I would never go into the ocean. Everyone who saw it said, "Oh man dude, I'm not surfing for a year." So I thought, "I'm not going to see that movie." I did see "Jaws Two" and the trailer and advertisement for it was, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water……Jaws Two!" That's sort of like Caleb. Just when you thought it was safe to back into the land, Caleb is back; it's Caleb Two; he was here 40 years ago with those ten other spies and now he's back and he's 85 and meaner than ever! He's going to go for it; he has the faith of a young man. This is what I love: he wasn't stuck in his past; he reminisces saying, "I remember years ago when I was so close with God and I made a commitment to God and the Lord spoke to me." Get over it; what are you doing now for the Lord? People and movements do this. Sometimes Christian movements and revivals will look backwards to a mountain top peak in their history when God was moving really powerfully. "Oh, the Jesus Movement; remember the Jesus Movement? Wasn't that cool, man, the bell bottoms and the tie dies?" Yes the Jesus Movement was cool but last time I checked He's still alive and still moving. Let's get over that one and let's have a new revival and not keep looking back to the past. What I also love about Caleb and Joshua is how they viewed themselves - as older people. Not, "Well I'm older now and I'm not what I used to be and I'm useless really. Get the young guys to do it." He sees himself as more useful now than ever. He's not a couch potato and doesn't watch Monday night camel races for the rest of his life. He wants to go to war. At the end of my life, whenever that is, I want to be able look back and say, "I fought the fight, and I finished the race and now there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord our Righteous Judge will give to me on that day." These guys are like that.
In chapter 15, the other nine and one half tribes get their land beginning with Judah. Why Judah? Judah is the largest tribe and gets the largest portion of land and so it's allocated and divided. In Verses 1 through 12 the land is stipulated as to where it will be geographically. Verses 13 through 16 are those who will inherit the land in Judah, family by family. Judah, that big portion of land in the South, will occupy and be given over 100 cities to take and they take them all without a problem except for one city, Jerusalem; the Jebusites' stronghold. That will remain uninhabited and not controlled by Israel until the time of David which we will see very shortly in the book of Samuel when David takes it. Chapter 16, verse 63: "As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day."
Chapters 16 and 17 give the allotment to two of the sons of Joseph. Joseph is one of the sons of Jacob but Joseph gets a double portion and the tribes are named after Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Why is that? Joseph became the prime minister of Egypt and through his God given plan, saved the entire family of Jacob when 70 came down, Jacob and his family, and they were protected by Pharaoh and protected by Joseph. Therefore, Joseph's dad, Jacob, in Genesis 49 says, "Look, God used you powerfully and you've been so fruitful in your life that your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh are going to be listed with their uncles and each of them are going to get a portion of land." So it's divided out to Joseph or his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Chapter 16, verse 10: "And they did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites to this day and have become forced laborers."
Chapter 17, verse 13: "And it happened, when the children of Israel grew strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out." What did you notice in both of those verses? They didn't finish the job and they didn't drive them out. They kept the inhabitants of the land as slave labor, forced labor. Why? Because they were motivated by materialism and so in order to increase their wealth, they didn't drive them out, instead they thought, "Hey, why should we kick these guys out or destroy them or move them away? We can use them for our purposes." That was a big mistake because as we'll discover in the book of Judges, these very same people, the Canaanites who were slave laborers, will make coalition with the Philistines and other enemies around Israel and persecute Israel and turn the Israelis into forced laborers. There's a principle there: if you tolerate even a little bit of evil or compromise in your life, it will bite you. There might be sin, and we all know where we are vulnerable, (I know where I am), and I know that if there's a pet sin that I don't deal with immediately, harshly and radically, that it has a tendency to grow. I watch where that sin ultimately controls and destroys people. So God knew what He was doing when He said, "Get rid of them; get them out of the land; occupy this." But they didn't do it.
Here's the bottom line: God has a place for you, a land, using this metaphor, a place of abundance. He doesn't want you to just have a boring Christian life. God has given us what Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly; to the full; to the max; turned up to ten; all the way." Jesus described the life we should be living as, "Torrents of living water gushing from you." That's the fullness of the Spirit and that's where God desires us to live. So God is saying, "Take it, it's all yours and enjoy it."
Chapter 18 is strategic because what happens in this chapter will affect them for hundreds of years, in fact 369 years. They move their headquarters from Gilgal, remember Gilgal? As soon as they cross over the Jordan River, right in the plain there was this little encampment called Gilgal. From there they conquered the middle section of the land, from there they turned south and conquered everything around Jerusalem and then they move north and attacked in that strategy. So here, they move their camp from down south in Gilgal to a place called Shiloh, right in the middle of the land. There they will put the tabernacle with the Ark of the Covenant and it will be the central place for worship for the next 369 years - they'll come to Shiloh. Shiloh is elevated and perhaps one of the reasons they move there is for military purposes. Strategically it's great because from Shiloh you can look on all areas around you. I have been there and looked down around the valleys. It's strategically located for warfare and protection. Because Shiloh has played such a vital role in Israel's history, I've always wanted to see it, but I had a problem. Though I've been to Israel 30 times, I'd never been allowed to go to Shiloh up until the time I'm going to tell you about. That's because it's occupied by people who aren't friendly to the state of Israel and tourists aren't allowed there and tour busses don't go there, but I've always wanted to go there because I'd heard that there are some great excavations and all the history that was there of the Tabernacle. One time when we were up in Galilee, I told my tour guild, "Hey, listen, I'll meet you down in Jerusalem. I'll be there by nightfall and I'm going to rent a car and go down." He looked at me with those eyes and said, "You shouldn't go to Shiloh," because he knew that I wanted to go. I said, "See ya!" I got in the car and I went toward Shiloh. I had read news reports about carjackings and car bombings and all the things that nobody wants to deliberately go into, so I found an Israeli soldier, they are all over the country and they always carry their Uzi's. I picked up one and then two and I had a whole little army in my car. I skirted through Shiloh and I figured I had military protection. I got to see the area of the land and then went down to Jerusalem. So that's my little story of how I saw Shiloh.
Verse 2: "But there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance. Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: 'How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you?'" You see, Joshua expects the Children of Israel to take some initiative. "Don't stand around with your hands in your pockets waiting for me to do it. You guys do it. The promise isn't just for me, it's for you." Remember the promise back in Joshua chapter 1 and then in Joshua chapter 3 that God gave to the children of Israel? "Every place that the soul of your foot shall trod, I have given you as I also said to Moses." So, go get it, God gave it to you, put your foot on it.
In the rest of chapter 18, the tribe of Benjamin gets his allotment. Benjamin is a very small tribe and he's sandwiched in between Ephraim and Judah, that big tribe down in the south.
In chapter 19, six more tribes get their allotment: Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and finally Dan. All these six get their tribes in the mid section and the upper part of the land. Also, Joshua gets a special little place called, Timnath Serah up in the mountains of Ephraim just like Caleb got Hebron, his own little enclave, Joshua get his own little place where he can settle down and relax if and when he decides to do it. He is in his eighties! So he gets this little town of Timnath Serah and he builds a little city there and he lives out his days.
Chapter 20 lists special cities; they're called cities of refuge. Don't misunderstand, a city of refuge isn't a vacation place filled with hotels and swimming pools where they can bake out at the spa. These were judicial asylums. If a person committed involuntary manslaughter, it wasn't predetermined or intentional but they killed somebody and didn't mean to, they could flee to one of these cities of refuge and wait for a fair trial by the judges at the gate. Somebody could plead their case. They were to live there and they could bring their family there until the high priest died. These cities of refuge were very important. Verse 1: "The Lord also spoke to Joshua, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'Appoint for yourselves cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses,'" (when did He speak to Moses? Numbers 35, and repeated it in Deuteronomy 19), '"that the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from,'" (notice this), '"the avenger of blood.'" Remember the law that governed Israel; the Lex Talionis: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and scar for scar." God gave that to limit the vengeance that someone would enact on another person who injured them. There was a special cultural position called the avenger of blood; it was cultural. It's not like God said, "Go out and avenge them," but He knew it existed in these cultures in the ancient near east. By the way, they still exist today. If somebody is killed in your tribe or your clan, somebody in your clan will become the avenger of blood. If somebody dies in your family by another tribe, there is said to be blood between the tribes and between those people. It is not uncommon even today to have that kind of retribution enacted by a clan or tribe. So back then, there were these cities of refuge; there were six of them: three on the east side and three on the west side of the Jordan River and they were pretty much evenly spaced. According to the Talmud, at all of the major crossroads in Israel, wherever there were main roads running throughout the land, there would be a sign pointing the way to the city of refuge. People could basically flee, they could just run. If a crime was committed they thought, "Oh man, his brother is going to be after me," they would just take off. Eventually they would find one of these road signs on the road and go to the nearest place of refuge until they could get a fair trial.
In Joshua chapter 21 are the Levitical cities I mentioned. Remember I said that they get no inheritance and that the Lord is their inheritance? They will live off the donations given by the rest of the tribes and that will support the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. They also got 48 cities scattered throughout all of those tribes. This is what it would mean and this is why it's important: there were 48 places where the Levites lived and it is said that their location meant that anybody in Israel was never more than ten miles from a Levitical city. So there was always a priest or priests nearby if you had questions about the Law or questions about God's Word, questions about why this is said and what it means and how it applies to my life. You'd have the Levites to teach you. By the way, that was one of the roles of the Levites. It wasn't just ceremonial or sacerdotal. It wasn't just putting on the robes, sprinkling stuff and cutting lambs up and saying, "Okay, I've done a day's work and now I'm going home." It was that while they were living among the Children of Israel, they would teach them the Law. Look at this passage out of Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse 10 where Moses tells the tribe of Levi that: "'You are to teach Jacob the Lord's judgments and Israel His Law.'" I'm bringing this up because it shows me that part of the heart of God is that in all generations, the Lord's people understand His Word. He wants us to be taught, to be fed, to learn what He said, and to devote ourselves to Bible study. Even back then, the priests scattered around the land to give them the fullness of God's Word for their lives.
Joshua chapter 22 is a sad chapter. It's an example of the lowest form of communication. You know what the lowest form of communication is? Assumption. It's the lowest form of communication because people's assumptions are based on hearsay. They don't have all of the facts, they don't duly investigate it or go to the source, they just hear things and then assume things and they build a case around it and then they start gossiping. The nation was almost divided because of that very thing. It almost destroyed a portion of them. Here's the deal. Remember the two and one half tribes that settled east of the Jordan? They had been on the west side of the Jordan helping the nine and one half tribes settle when these allotments were disbursed and now they are heading back. They come toward the Jordan River and there's been a long separation between them and their families and they stop at the Jordan River and they do something. Chapter 22, verse 9: "So the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses. And when they came to the region of the Jordan which is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan-a great, impressive altar." The question is: Why did they build an altar? Probably because they're sensing isolation as they are going back across the Jordan. "We're going to be isolated by this geographical wonder and topographical thing called the river and we're going to be out of sight and out of mind. So let's build an altar that's big enough, just like the one down south when we crossed over the Jordan River. That altar was there to remind our children of God opening up the river so let's build a big altar to remind us that we belong to each other." It's a show of unity. They weren't to sacrifice anything on it and they will state that at the end of the chapter. It was simply a memorial altar. Verse 11: "Now the children of Israel heard someone say, 'Behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh have built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region of the Jordan-on the children of Israel's side.' And when the Children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the Children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them." Wow! First of all they don't have all of the information, they have assumption. They heard somebody say it and thought, "Oh well that must mean such and such, so let's kill them." It happens all the time. It's the sad legacy of the last 2000 years of church history. People hear little things and assume other things and they are ready to go. Why are they ready to kill them? Why are the nine and one half tribes going to go war? Because back in Deuteronomy chapter 12, a key chapter, it stated the law of the central sanctuary where God said, "You destroy all of the other altars of the pagans who will be involved in pagan worship and the only place you are to sacrifice your animals and go through your rituals is in one central place and there the Lord will put His name," it was in Shiloh and then it was moved down to Jerusalem. This was not a sacrificial altar. This was a symbol of unity but the symbol of unity was misunderstood as a symbol of apostasy. That's the misunderstanding and that's the assumption. "They built an altar! They must be sacrificing to pagan foreign gods; kill them all!" The real reason they built it was to be a symbol of unity which was the very opposite of what they were accused of. Gossip almost lead to a war and rather than personally confronting and dealing with the issue to find out all the facts, they are ready to fight. What happens? A guy named Phinehas, one of the priests and a delegation, a committee go check it out. They see that it's Kosher and cool and they are not going to sacrifice anything on it and it's all cleared up in verses 30 and 31.
We now come to the end of the book. Chapters 23 and 24 comprise the farewell speech of one of the heroes, Joshua. It's his final message. Chapter 23 seems to be a message to the leadership of the country: nobles, generals, the tribe's leaders, and priests. Chapter 24 seems to be broadened out for all of the people; the entire assembly. Chapter 23, verse 2: "And Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them: 'I am old, advanced in age. You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the Lord your God is He who has fought for you.'" Don't you love that? Somebody once told me, if you defend yourself, the Lord will let you. I like this better - it's the Lord who fought for you. "'See, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, as far as the Great Sea westward. And the Lord your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight. So you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you. Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left.'" Does that sound familiar? Doesn't it sound almost identical to what God told Joshua, the leader, in chapter 1? It's the same thing. It's like it's so internalized in this guy that he's saying, "Hey, this really worked for me - to not just read and hear what God did but to do what He said and to obey Him." Verse 11: "Therefore take careful heed to yourselves, that you love the Lord your God." People of God, owning a Bible is good, reading one is really good - but it's not enough. It's when you own, read, and do, that the joy and the fullness of life comes your way. Jesus said to His disciples, "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." James said, "Don't be just hearers of the Word, but also doers lest you deceive yourself." Verse 14: "'Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth.'" What does that mean? "I'm going to die." "'And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed.'" It seems as if Joshua believes in the verbal inspiration and what theologians call the plenary inspiration, that is that the Bible, every word of God's Word is inspired, and all of the words are inspired. Not a single word that God has spoken has failed.
Chapter 24 are his last words before he kicks the bucket; an historical review of all that God has done, beginning in verses 2 and 3 with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In verses 4 through 6, he speaks of Egypt and the deliverance. In verses 7 and 8 he reviews the wilderness wanderings and then speaks of going on into the land crossing the Jordan River. Verse 13: "'I have given you a land for which you did not labor,'" in other words it's a free gift, you didn't earn it, "'and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant. Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!'" Notice a word that is often used in the Bible which is in verse 14: "Now, therefore serve the Lord." In other words, Joshua will demand a commitment based upon a logical response to what God as done. "Look at all that God has done. Now, therefore, fear Him and serve Him." Paul does the same thing. In eleven chapters he spells out what God has done and then in chapter 12 of Romans he says, "Now, therefore, Brethren, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is the logical, spiritual, reasonable thing to do." It's the same idea. Verse 15: "'And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.'" Did you know that serving God is a conscious decision as well as an absolute commitment? Joshua, this 85 year old guy says, "Okay, I'm old, advanced in years, and I've got nothing to prove so let me just spell it out to you. You make up your mind today whom you are going to serve; stand up and tell us whose side you're on; false gods or the God." Who else doesthis in the Bible? Elijah, on Mount Carmel. They all gather with the priests and priestesses of Baal and Ashtoreth, and that wily prophet stands up and says, "How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, serve Him, if Baal be God then serve him but make up your mind." He calls them to an absolute decision to take sides and let us know where you stand.
I have a question for you? How long will you waver? How many sermons must you hear? How many services do you have to attend before you'll finally break and humble yourself and give your life fully and completely to the Lord God? Choose this day who you will serve. Verse 16: "So the people answered and said: 'Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods.'" Verse 24: "And the people said to Joshua, 'The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!' So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem."
Where does the commitment to follow the Lord begin? At home. In verse 15 he doesn't speak as the leader of the nation but as a husband and a father. "As for me and my house we are going to serve the Lord. I can't make that decision for you, Children of Israel, but for me and my house." I'm asking men to make that decision and I think that the Lord is calling on men to be men and to be leaders in the community, in the home, in the family, and in the church. A nation is only as strong as the families in that nation. If a nation is weak it's because the families in that nation are weak. I don't have time to go into the story, but years ago, my life, my family's life, and the church was threatened by a satanic group that said they were going to burn the church down. I met with this guy who at the end of our conversation gave his life to Christ. Before that, he was threatening and said, "We're a whole group of satanic worshipers that are praying against Christian families in Albuquerque." I heard that and I thought, "My goodness, are enough of us praying for Christian families, when you have Satan worshipers praying against us?" This is a real battle and real warfare. Joshua knew it and he and Caleb are old and they're ready to fight. Verse 26: "Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, 'Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.' So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance."
This is what I want you to walk away with: Moses couldn't bring them into the land; Joshua brought them into the land, Yeshua brought them into the land. There is a comparison, the Law came by Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. We've already compared Ephesians with Joshua and I want you for a moment to compare the book of Revelation with the book of Joshua. The book of Revelation is like the book of Joshua on steroids. This is what I mean. In the Old Testament book of Joshua, Joshua takes the land. In the New Testament book of Revelation, Yeshua takes the earth. The decimal point is moved; it's the whole thing that is at stake. As He does that, Jesus rids the earth, the land, of all sinful inhabitants and brings judgment upon the land and even hailstones from heaven like what happened in the first part of the book of Joshua when the inhabitants of the land were being rid from that place. In the Old Testament, Joshua sends in two witnesses to spy out the land. In the book of Revelation, there are two witnesses in chapter 11. In the Old Testament there are seven trumpets and seven days that the trumpets are blown. In the book of Revelation there are seven trumpet judgments among others. In the Old Testament book of Joshua, there's an alliance by a false king to persecute Israel called AdonayTsaddiyqor our "righteous lord", which is a false title because he wasn't the righteous lord but he was the king of Jerusalem stationed in Jerusalem and formed a coalition to persecute the Jews, as there will be in the book of Revelation. The Antichrist staging from Jerusalem will be an all out persecution against the Children of Israel. I'm glad we're on the winning side and that our Joshua will make sure that we inherit not only heaven, but wants us to inherit fullness right here and right now. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this book of Joshua and the many principles that we have learned and that we've been able to cover it in two weeks and to understand it and to see how it applies to our life through the lens of Ephesians, 1st Corinthians, Hebrews, and even Revelation. Father, I pray for anyone here who is on the sidelines, who is marginally spiritual and who comes to church because they have to, or because their friends come, or somebody in the family comes, but they haven't surrendered to Christ and had their sins forgiven. I pray they come into a right relationship with You tonight. Amen.