Dennis Tuuri

Okay, I tell you what, let’s do let’s start by looking at the rest of the book of Joshua for just a couple of minutes. So, open up your scriptures to Joshua. We’ll just do a real brief overview to let us know where we’re at in this book. As you can tell from the date on the outline, this is basically the same sermon I gave at RCC two weeks ago. And we’ve been preaching through the book of Joshua.

And so, let’s just look at a little bit of the context for that to let us know where we’re at. It is kind of an interesting chapter in terms of a whole new section in the book. We normally think of Joshua as the conquest of the land of Canaan. It is certainly that. But there’s a lot in this book besides that and in fact most of it is other than that. So let’s just look and you remember from reading your book of Joshua I suppose that in the very first chapter we have a series of talks, sermons, lectures or commands rather—statements by God to Joshua and then to the people. Joshua then is the transmission belt for God’s command to the people.

And he basically tells them they’re going to go in and possess this land of Canaan after wandering 40 years in the wilderness because of their sin. And so chapter 1 prepares us for the conquest of Canaan with God’s command. And along with God’s command, he gives his assurance of blessing that he will indeed give them the land. He tells them over and over again, be strong, be very courageous, do everything in accordance to the law here.

Let not this word depart from your mouth. Think on it. Meditate upon it. Obey this law in every place where you set your foot. That is I’m going to give to you for your inheritance. So God has promised him here total conquest of the land of Canaan. And then he gives instructions to the leaders of the people who give the people instructions. And so there is this chain of command—to use a Bill Gothard sort of a term that goes on here.

And we see then that there are military aspects of this conquest. There’s a chain of command militarily. There’s social aspects. The idea of all Israel being included in this victory is stressed very highly. There’s covenantal aspects. There’s a law. There’s blessings and cursings attached to that law. He says that if you do these things, you’re going to be blessed. You’ll inherit the land, but you have to do these things. These are conditional promises. So there’s lots of themes that run through the book of Joshua, and they all really get kind of summed up in God’s initial command in chapter 1.

Well, chapter 2—they send spies out to Jericho. And of course, chapter 2 is the story of the conversion of Rahab and her profession of faith. And we see there that at the beginning of the conquest of a land that really it’s not all going to happen by military means. There will be conversions and Rahab is the picture of that preceding the conquest of Jericho. So God saves Rahab and her family out of Jericho. And the spies go there, they get the—they come back, they bring a good report as opposed to the two spies or the 12 spies rather, the 10 of the 12 spies that brought an evil report 38 years before that caused them to be judged by God and not enter into the land.

Chapter 3, Israel passes over the Jordan. We have an obvious picture here of the new creation of God. The land appears out of the midst of the water—the way that the land appeared in the original creation. God brings his people through the river Jordan, typically through death and through resurrection into the promised land. And so the picture of the traversing of the Jordan reminds us of the going through the Red Sea, reminds us of the creation by God where the waters are separated and the land appears and he brings out a newly created people then to serve him in the land of Canaan as they crossed through the river Jordan.

This is so important that in chapter 4 we have the commemoration of this event with 12 stones taken from the Jordan. I believe that there were 12 stones placed in the Jordan where the feet of the priest stood with the ark. Very important to remember there the ark preceded the people, the priesthood. So this is not primarily a military conquest of the land. This is primarily the people being led in worship to God and being directed by him into the inheritance that he’s going to give them. Those 12 stones are a reminder. They’re set up in the midst of the water. They’re also set up on the other side at Gilgal.

So, while it is a book of conquest and inheritance, we have several chapters here of preparation for all that. And we’re not even done then. In chapter 5, before we get into the conquest itself of Jericho, in chapter 6, we have circumcision and Passover being performed at Gilgal. Gilgal gets rolling. God rolls away the reproach of Egypt at Gilgal with the rolling away symbolically of the foreskins of the people in circumcision and they then are brought into covenant renewal by God and they eat a covenant meal with God, the actual Passover itself.

And so worship precedes conquest. Very important major theme of this book. Worship to God, covenant faithfulness to him being brought through his recreation, his rebirth and regeneration is essential to then what follows the military conquest of the land. So we’ve had five chapters already and nobody’s done anything in terms of conquest. And of course that all begins in chapter 6.

Chapter 6 is the fall of Jericho. And we know the miraculous events there and God establishes his sovereignty and conquest. They don’t do it by sword or by might ultimately. They do it just by marching around the city in obedience to God’s command. It’s pure obedience that is portrayed for us, the sovereignty of God and leading us into victory in terms of the fall of Jericho. So God establishes right at the outset of the military conquest, having talked to them about worship, the preeminence of worship over societal reorganization and over political conquest.

He then teaches them that even when you get around to societal work, political conquest, the redevelopment of the land in terms of people that are going to be faithful—Israel is going to take over where the Canaanites were. Israel means those who rule for God. The Canaanites were those who are in rebellion to God. Their iniquity become full. They’re being dispossessed. And a correct people who understand that rule is for God are being entered into the possession of the land to exercise dominion in it.

And in that process, worship is important and God’s sovereignty. When you get around the political reorganization of the land, God’s sovereignty, God’s hand is what does it for us. And God stresses that with Jericho. Then in verse 7, right away the people fall. They always do this in the Old Testament. God gives them blessings. They prosper. Then almost always they’re tested and they fall. And in chapter 7, the children of Israel get routed by a comparatively smaller city at Ai because of the sin of Achan.

We see there that man’s responsibility is stressed in political reorganization of the land. After God establishes his sovereignty and the regeneration of Rahab is shown as a model for what’s going to happen in all the earth, we then see this big picture painted for us that man is responsible for his actions and he must be pure in terms of his moral life. The society must be the Christian society and culture must also be corrected and chastised by God.

Judgment begins at the house of God. Those who would seek to execute God’s judgment against the pagan nations for their own benefit as Achan tried to do—God will turn those his take his judgment away from those that are so affected by God’s people and his rod of judgment comes against them. So God man’s responsibility is established in chapter 7 and then in chapter 8 we have the repentance being demonstrated at the end of chapter 7. God’s people are again ushered into victory. We have the capture and destruction of Ai.

So we have the man’s responsibility and God then trains his people to be warriors for him. It’s not just marching around the city anymore. There’s a very complicated set of feints, maneuvers, an ambush—like Navy SEALs, remember we talked about that before—coming into the back of the city. Very complicated maneuvers. God begins to train his people to execute his judgment for them. He trains their hands to be warriors as David talks about in the Psalms. And so God establishes his sovereignty, man’s responsibility, and then man is trained by God in how to go about political reorganization of the land.

Well, in the middle of all this conquest story, then we really have the preparation for conquest in the first five chapters. And then 6, 7, and 8, we have the picture of two specific battles being waged at Jericho and Ai. And the result of that, God’s sovereignty, man’s responsibility, man being trained for warfare. And then chapter nine, we see another conversion story. I believe ultimately it’s a story of the failure to consult God in making covenants on the part of the people. They enter into a covenant with the Gibeonites, being deceived by them. But ultimately, we know that the Gibeonites serve God faithfully in the temple as hewers of wood and hewers of water rather—and cutters of wood for the fire the sacrificial fire and then the cleansing offerings that would happen at the temple and tabernacle then and temple later on.

So I think that ultimately we have here kind of a parallel to the story of Rahab. We had Rahab, Jericho and Ai, a single individual, single cities being portrayed for us in terms of the conquest and political reorganization of the land. Well, in chapters 9 and following, we’re going to have the southern campaign and the northern campaign. Lots of cities being conquered left and right. As a prelude to that, we have God’s sovereignty and calling men to salvation pictured with the conversion of the Gibeonites in chapter 9.

I think the conversion is pictured for us when they say to Joshua, “Yeah, we fooled you. Now do to us whatever seems right to you. We’re in your hands. You do to us whatever you want us to do.” And ultimately, that’s got to be our posture to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, we have to tell him, you do us whatever seems right in your sight and he graciously saves us instead of slaying us and that’s what’s happened to the Gibeonites here.

So God again establishes the preeminence of evangelism really even in this Old Testament story of holy war against the inhabitants of the land. He establishes the priority of evangelism at the beginning of the individual cities conquered—Jericho and Ai—and at the beginning of the two then halves of the land conquered—the southern and northern parts. Verses 10, or chapter 10 then deals with the defeat of the Amorites and the southern campaign and we have miraculous things happen there just like we had miraculous things happen at Jericho at the marching around the walls, the walls falling down. In chapter 10 we have some very dramatic things happening—the sun and moon stay still whether it’s dark or light I’m not exactly sure but in any event God miraculously moves and sovereignly moves that his people could complete the conquest of the southern groups and so this really is parallel to the capture of Jericho in chapter 10.

Chapter 11, we have the defeat of Jabin’s alliance. In both these chapters, we have the kings of the world conspiring together the same way that Psalm 2 talks about the nations conspiring against Jesus Christ. And Acts then tells us they conspired against Christ, but he puts their conspiracies to folly and he conquers them over time and in history. So in chapter 11, we have the northern groups conquered by the army of God and the war that goes on.

And so we now have as we had Rahab, Jericho, Ai—now we’ve got Gibeonites, southern group, northern group. In Rahab, we have salvation and redemption. We have Jericho, the sovereignty of God. And then in Ai, we have man’s responsibility being trained for war. And so in the last half of these last three chapters of conquest, we’ve got the conversion of the Gibeonites. We’ve got the southern troop, miraculous efforts by God. He slays more with his hailstones than they do at the with the edge of their sword. And then in chapter 11, the defeat of the northern groups, which is basically very few—no real miraculous events mentioned there. Instead, it’s man’s responsibility being trained for warfare. That’s pictured as the big emphasis of chapter 11.

And then this kind of wraps off then the conquest of the land. The last of chapter 11, verses 16 and following is a recounting of the geographic areas of Canaan that were taken by Joshua and Israel, those who had ruled for God. So it’s summarized by geography. The last half of chapter 11 the conquest is and then in chapter 12 we have a list of the kings defeated by Moses.

So in these two summary statements at the end of the conquest portion of the book we have Joshua being of course a type of the greater Joshua, King Jesus. Joshua is king over all the land. And then in chapter 12 he is king over all the kings. And so we serve Jesus Christ who is king of the whole earth and he is also king of kings.

And so we have a recitation of geography and then kings listed in chapter 12 to emphasize really the greatness of Joshua and his faithfulness to God’s command and obedience to it and of course picturing to us the great salvation in Jesus Christ. So that ends off the conquest portion of the book. So the first five chapters are preparation for conquest. Chapters 6 through 12 then are the conquest of the land.

In chapter 13 very importantly now—the place where we’re going to talk to today—we have now the beginning of the inheritance of the land being divvied up. So it’s all been conquered, not possessed or occupied, but rather essentially conquered through the defeat of all the enemies. In other words, there are still pockets to be cleaned up as chapter 13 tells us. There’s cities to be occupied, but basically the conquest is done. And chapters 13 and following talks then about the inheritance of the land and how each of these tribes gets various things listed for them to inherit.

So that brings us up to what we’re going to talk about today, and that is the meek inherit the land. And I’ve given you an outline for this chapter. Chapter that basically what we’re going to do is go through this chapter pretty summary fashion first and then the second part of the talk will be basically application of what we find in chapter 13.

So first of all an overview of Joshua 13. First of all then the Lord commands Joshua to divide the land in verses 1-6 or you might say 1-7 actually. God commands Joshua to divide the land up and that’s pretty straightforward but it’s very important we look at the details of this and look at the context of the command, then look at the command itself and then look at the conditional blessings attached to the command.

So let’s do that first—context of the command. Verse one is the context for the command. It says Joshua was old and stricken in years. So the first part of the context of the command is Joshua’s old age. Joshua here is probably somewhere around 100 years of age and he apparently did not age well as Moses or as Caleb. We’ll see in the next chapter in chapter 14 that Caleb says, “Well, you know, I’m pretty old guy, but I’m still real strong. I can go conquer. I can go conquer giants still.” So Caleb aged well. Joshua apparently didn’t. God says he was stricken in years. His health is failing, in other words.

So that’s part of the context for the command. And then the other part of the context for the command is that land remains to be possessed. He says, “Well, you’re old.” And he says, “This is the land that remains to be possessed. All the borders of the Philistines and all Geshur.” And then he gives this geographic summary in verses 2-6 of the various lands that yet need to be possessed.

And then he actually gives the command and that is to divide the land by lot in verse six after he continues the geographic summary of what needs to be conquered yet. And then he promises, “Thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance as I have commanded thee.” So there’s the command and the reasons attached to the command are Joshua’s old age and the fact that land yet remains to be possessed.

Now there’s a conditional blessing attached to the command. He begins the command by saying, “Them will I drive out from before the children of Israel.” Okay, that’s the blessing attached to this command of God. This covenant so to speak being emblematic of all the covenants God makes with his people. He promises them that if Joshua will divide the land for an inheritance by lot as he has commanded him, then he will give it—he will drive out the nations from before the children of Israel.

Now it sounds like that’s just a simple sort of promise from God, but we know it’s conditional. We know, for instance, in Judges 2, verses 21 and 22, we read the following. God says, “I will also not henceforth drive out any from before thee of the nations which Joshua left when he died, that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein as their fathers did keep it or not.” So when it gets around to Judges 2, we find out that God tells them he’s not going to drive out the nations from before them. They’re not going to obey that law. They’re not going to keep it in their hearts and minds and in their thoughts and guiding their hands and their feet. And so as a result, God says he’s not going to drive those people out. It is a conditional blessing that God gives them in Joshua 13. And he tells them later that he’s actually not going to do it.

Now in the providence of God, the fact that he doesn’t drive out those enemies has the result of proving Israel. That’s what we’re told in Judges 2:22. God says, “I’m not going to do this because I want to prove Israel whether they keep the way of the Lord to walk therein.” So when we have things in our lives that don’t go good and that go difficult for us, we can sometimes focus—as we probably should—on our sin that maybe led to the circumstances in which we stand. But ultimately, God’s purpose is not simply to punish us. God’s purpose is to prove us, to demonstrate to us, and then mature us in keeping his word.

And so we can look at the lands that yet need to be possessed in our own lives, the sinful pockets that we haven’t dealt with yet, or the areas of the culture around us that we have not been in possession of in terms of victory using for God’s purposes yet. And we can see these things as tests and evaluations from God and take them from his hand gratefully and thankfully and acknowledge his sovereignty in these affairs to bring us to full maturation through these things.

Okay. So the context for the command then is Joshua’s old age. The land that means to be divided. The command is given to divide the land by lot and then the conditional blessing is attached to it that if they do these things correctly according to God’s law, he’ll drive out the nations. Now that’s the first six verses. In verses 7 through 33, the summary command given to us becomes particularized in some amount of detail.

This is one of those boring lists of towns in the Bible that people find difficult to read through and certainly publicly. The first thing you should do is be thankful that you didn’t have to read all those names in front of people. Difficult and difficult to understand why these lists are in the scriptures sometimes. Let me just say at the outset, I believe it was Matthew Henry who said that our gratefulness to God increases as we descend to the particular particulars of his blessing.

So if we look at this long list of geography, you can imagine that if you understood where these places were, if you lived in the context of this geography, that these particularized blessings from God would cause your heart to ascend in gratefulness to him. In other words, you know, it’s kind of like the old Bing Crosby song, you know, count your blessings. When I’m tired and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. Or the old song, count your blessings, name them one by one. And that’s what God is doing here for us. He’s telling them the blessings. He’s descending to the particulars to use Matthew Henry’s term. And it’s very important in our lives when we don’t feel good, when our emotional state is not high, we’re going through testing, trials, whatever it is—it’s important that we descend to the particulars of what God has done in our life in terms of blessing.

Individual people, individual places we’ve stayed, individual jobs we’ve held, for instance, and learned lessons from God in those jobs. It’s important that we descend to the particulars. And that’s what God does here. He summarizes the particulars of the command statement he’s just given to them. Now the way he does this—he says that Canaan is to be divided to the nine and a half tribes. Now you remember that before they came into the land of Canaan the two and a half tribes—the Reubenites the Gadites and the half of the tribe of Manasseh—they asked for and received from Moses their inheritance on the other side, what’s called Trans-Jordan the other side of the Jordan River.

Okay, on the east they got that inheritance and in Chapter 1, we find out that while they were given that inheritance by Moses, they had to promise to go into the promised land, the men that is the warriors, and help the rest of the nine and a half tribes get their inheritance too. So what’s going on here at the beginning of the division of these inheritances? He’s talking about those two groups. Basically, he’s going to divide the portion of the inheritance under the 9 and a half tribes in verse 7 that’s described for us.

And then he gives us a summary of the Trans-Jordan inheritance of the two and a half tribes in verses 8-32. So he says in verse 8, “With whom the Reubenites, the Gadites have received their inheritance.” Now it gets a little confusing because Manasseh, as we’ll see in later chapters, gets inheritance on both sides of the Jordan. Now that’s a picture of how while we’re divided, we’re united. The one and the many come together.

So it gets a little bit confusing here, but what he’s saying in these verses is now give the tribes to the nine tribes plus the half tribe of Manasseh. Divide that up as Moses rather had divided up the two and a half tribes, Reubenites, Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh on the Trans-Jordan. Okay. And then he summarizes the Trans-Jordan inheritance of the two and a half tribes in verses 8 through 32.

Now we could spend some time—we won’t, we’ll spend just a minute or two maybe—but just to give you an example of what you could do. You could preach a year’s worth of sermons easily on any one of these lists from the book of Joshua. They’re not boring lists. Once you get to know these places, these names, what they mean. For instance, in the original languages, it’s really rich with understanding of blessings for us.

Let me just give you an example. In verse 9, we’re told that a portion of the land that the two and a half tribes got says that it was “from Aroer that is upon the banks of the river Arnon and the city that is in the midst of the river and all the plain of Medaba unto Dibon. All the plain of Medaba unto Dibon.” And we see here a plain described that has the idea of a pasture land, a green pasture land is what that word means. Medaba, it turns out that name means quiet waters. So God is here giving the two and a half tribes a portion of their inheritance is the pasture land, the table land so to speak of Medaba, the place of quiet waters. And of course, it doesn’t take too much recognition that the scriptures promise God’s people in Psalm 23 that he leads us into green pastures beside still waters.

And so when the psalmist wrote that in Psalm 23, he might well have been thinking back—probably was—upon the green pastures beside the place of still waters that God had already given his people as a down payment as a picture of the blessings that he would give us a table land in the midst of still waters.

Also the term “Zereth Shahar” in this long list of accounts for us is actually the translation of that means the splendor of the dawn. Now we could go through all these names and look at the meanings of them and look at various portions of scripture where these names mean something. But the whole point is you got to take my word for it and then do your own studies that there are rich fountains of blessing in the midst of these names here that God wants his people to associate with the particularization of the blessings that he gives to us.

In other words, the Hebrew language is very graphic. Names mean things. We read them in the translation, so they don’t mean much to us. But if you understand the meanings behind these things, then it becomes a great picture of the great torrent of blessing that God gives to his people as they move into Canaan and accept their inheritance. I think I don’t think I did it here, but a couple of weeks ago, oh let’s see, it was either chapter 11 or chapter 12, I actually went through and read about 15 verses interposing the—translating the actual literal names. In other words, what these names mean—by quiet waters instead of the names themselves. And it’s tremendous of the blessing that you can see as you work through this and study your Bible out and see what these names mean.

Well, anyway, this summary is given to the two and a half tribes in verses 8-32. And then in verse 13, he says, “These are the things—the places that yet remain to be conquered in the Trans-Jordan.” Verse 13, “Nevertheless, the children of Israel expel not the Geshurites nor the Maacathites, but the Geshurites and the Maacathites dwell among the Israelites till this day.” Now it just seems like a little sentence thrown in, but becomes quite important later on.

Absalom was the product of David marrying a Geshurite woman. Okay? And when Absalom rebels against David, he goes and spends time where? With the Geshurites. So you see, it’s a picture that God leaves these people that are yet to be conquered. Failure on our part to be obedient to God’s call, but he uses them to test us, to try us, and to demonstrate to us the folly of our own sin of omission. David had a great thorn in the side in the rebellion of his son Absalom. And it was God using the failure of the people here to drive out the Geshurites and the Maacathites and reminding them later, see what happens when you leave sin in your life you don’t deal with. Brought tremendous upset to the people of God during the time of David. Rebellion, death of his son, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, the same thing is true of us. And when we read verses like 13 about the Maacathites and the Geshurites, it should cause us to think a couple of things. One should cause us to remember that in our own lives, there may be sinful areas in our moral lives that we do not attend to. Well, I’m basically pretty good. I got 90% covered, but that 10% will cause you problems. Now, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty for not being perfect. You can’t be perfect. But the whole point of this, continue to work on those areas that God convicts you of in terms of personal sin because otherwise your failure to deal with it will come back and your sin will find you out. And that’s what happened to David with the Geshurites.

And secondly, it also tells us that as we progress in the next century to the political reorganization of the lands in which we live, whether it’s Washington, Oregon, the United States, wherever it is, we can’t be content. We don’t want to end with a failure to evangelize, a failure to politically reorganize various portions of the land. We’re looking for total conquest here in the long haul. King Jesus commands us to go into all the world, not just 90% of it. And so same thing is true here.

Verse 14 in this first summary of the particularization of this command to inherit the land. Verse 14 ends it off by saying, “Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance. The sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance as he said unto them.” And this just simply means that the other tribes get land and they work the land and they eat the produce from the land. The Levites don’t have any land. They’re to be given cities scattered throughout the tribes. But the sacrifices the Lord God made by fire are their inheritance. What does that mean? Well, the Levites got the tithe. And so the portion of the tithe given to them was their inheritance, the scriptures tell us. And then the sacrifices by fire, various portions of meat were offered up to God. And some of those the Levites got to eat parts of.

Okay? And so the point of this is the Levites received their inheritance, their sustenance for their life from their duty in terms of the tabernacle or temple later on. So that’s how their inheritance is and it begins to describe to us the special state of the Levites in that verse.

Okay. Now we have an enumeration of the inheritance of the two and a half tribes and the Trans-Jordan in verses 15-31. And this is broken up to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the Manasseh—tribe the half tribe of Manasseh. So God’s told them in the first few verses, first five or six verses, divide up the land. Then he tells them this is a summary of what the two and a half tribes got. And now he gives even more particulars in terms of each of those two and a half tribes. And in verses 15 through 23 he tells us the inheritance of Reuben.

Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob, firstborn son. And so he begins the list of inheritance with him. Reuben will not be prominent in the history of Israel. He won’t become the most important tribe. The firstborn is a picture in the Old Testament of the failure of the firstborn Adam leading to the salvation offered through the secondborn Jesus Christ. And so the firstborn of Reuben is listed in terms of its inheritance here, but it won’t become prominent throughout the rest of Old Testament history.

Reuben means “I see a son” and it implies faith. It has the context in the name itself of being faithfulness and faithfulness leads us into inheritance. Just mentioned here in verse 22 in the context of Reuben’s inheritance that we read about Balaam the son of Beor the soothsayer that he was slain by the children of Israel. This is an important verse if you ever study the life of Balaam because this is the verse that tells us explicitly that Balaam was not a good guy, that he was a soothsayer.

You read about Balaam and you think, gee, who was this guy? He sure said a lot of good things about God’s people. Remember, he was hired by Balak to curse God’s people. Instead, he blessed them. And you think, well, he must be an okay guy. No, he wasn’t an okay guy. He was a rebellious man before God. But God put his word in his mouth. He says here that he explicitly—who was a soothsayer and he was killed by the children of Israel. That’s important too because it’s a continual reminder in these first few chapters of the inheritance to avoid the sin of Balaam by implication.

Remember Balaam’s strategy against God’s people as we’re told in the book of Revelation was to cause them to stumble through immorality. “There is no divination against Israel. There’s no enchantment against God’s people. The only thing that will halt the advance of God’s people,” Balaam essentially said, “is to get them to sin. And you got some pretty good-looking gals, he said. Get those gals down there and get them into sin through that mechanism. Get them worshiping false gods and falling into physical adultery as well. And that’s the only way that God is going to turn his back on these people and not give them victory.”

The Balaam strategy throughout history is to cause God’s people to sin. I saw yesterday, must have been the 700 Club or something I was watching at the motel. I saw George Grant saying that history is one of two things at any particular point in history. It’s either the picture of God’s people moving forward in obedience and being blessed by God or it’s the picture of God’s people retreating and becoming sinful and as a result suffering God’s wrath and disciplines against them. That’s what history is. And as we move through the story of the expulsion of the Canaanites, the real center of attraction here is Israel itself. And will they be faithful? Will they not be faithful?

We look all around us. We read in the papers about the Canaanites in our land. They’re not important. Ultimately, the determining factor in history is the faithfulness of men and women like you. And what happens is the church either is faithful and moves out in obedience or it retreats and falls into the Balaam strategy of sin through various means.

So we have the inheritance of the Reubenites pictured for us in that series of verses ending in verse 21. Again, it would be—we could spend a lot of time talking about some of these particular places, talking about Mount Pisgah, which is mentioned in the inheritance of the Reubenites. Remember that was the mountain from which Moses looked upon the land and saw the land would not enter it. However, various other things we could talk about, but we’ll go on.

Then the inheritance of Gad is particularized in verses 24-28. Gad means “a troop cometh” and it speaks of increase of prosperity and also speaks of military might. Gad means a troop cometh. So you have increasing numbers, but they’re a troop. They’re a military organization. Reuben and Gad are linked together here by God. Faith and then the result of God’s faith, blessing and prosperity to the end that we would conquer for King Jesus is spoken of in these two names being linked together.

And in verses 24-28, we have their particular area particularized. They get Gilead for instance. Remember the balm of Gilead. “Is there no balm of Gilead?” Well, Gilead is mentioned here in the inheritance of the Gadites. Succoth and Penuel which play an important part in the story of Gideon later on in the book of Judges is also in this tribe. Sharon’s famous roses come from the inheritance of this tribe. You see there’s these places are real places that are very important later in biblical history. The Gadarenes who Matthew Henry said love their swine more than their savior in the gospel accounts of King Jesus. The Gadarenes live in this particular region as well.

So this is one big recitation of various places and events that will become important in biblical history. Then following then the Reubenites and the Gadites we have the inheritance of the half tribe of Manasseh in verses 29-31. Manasseh means forgetful and it’s interesting because the name then of his son Makir is mentioned in verse 31. We have a geographic summary of Manasseh’s inheritance from God. And then in verse 31 it says that all these things pertain to the children of Makir the son of Manasseh. Makir means “he who recollects.”

So we’ve got Manasseh forgetfulness and Makir, he who recollects being brought together here in terms of this inheritance. And in the providence of God, we know that from other portions of scripture, we’re to forget what lies behind us, but we’re to remember what Christ has done for us and what he has called us to do in the future. Both those aspects are important. Yeah, it’s important to forget what lies behind us things that lay behind us, but it’s important to recollect where we are going on to in the faith of God and the military prosperity that he gives us then to conquer for King Jesus.

As I said, Manasseh has is a split tribe, so to speak. They have half of their tribe on one side of the Jordan, half the tribe in the other side of Jordan. And that’ll be mentioned later in the book as well. In Manasseh’s territory we have Bashan where forests and trees are plentiful. The oaks of Bashan are an important part of Old Testament geography and produce. Cattle and livestock are also of course associated with Bashan.

And I think I mentioned this before but Bashan is of course the kingdom of Og. The two great kings on the Trans-Jordan were Sihon and Og. And you see them repeatedly mentioned throughout the scriptures have a picture of what God does to all the enemies of his people. They’re like the down payment on the trans-Jordan of what will happen in all of Canaan. And Og, king of Bashan. Bashan has livestock and bulls which are important for sacrificial use. But those bulls also are emblematic of those who are prideful. Jesus was surrounded by strong bulls of Bashan, we’re told in Psalm 22. And so it’s a picture of either blessing or cursing, the use of God to sacrifice ourselves to God or rebellion against him and being then put to death for our sins.

Okay. So as I said, it’d be helpful to go through all these particulars. We don’t have the time. Then in verse 32, we have a final summary statement of the trans-Jordan inheritance of the two and a half tribes. “These are the countries which Moses did distribute for inheritance in the plains of Moab on the other side of Jordan by Jericho eastward.” So that ties off the inheritance of two and a half tribes. And the rest of the chapters will deal with the inheritance of the other nine and a half tribes.

Verse 33 rather concludes the section of scripture. “But unto the tribe of Levi, Moses gave not any inheritance. The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance as he said unto them.” So we have two statements. Verse 14 and verse 33. As the tribe of Levi getting no inheritance in the land, but the sacrifices of God of the Lord God of Israel their inheritance. And then the Lord God of Israel himself is their inheritance described for us in verse 33.

Okay. What does all this mean to us? Well, a lot of specifics we can get bogged down in, but overall I think it’s important just to remember the big pictures of this story that is painted for us in verse 13 at the beginning of the inheritance chapters. And what we see here is first of all that the meek inherit the land due to the diligence of the aging agent. Remember where we started the beginning of the chapter, God comes to Joshua and says, “You’re old and stricken in years and you got to get on with your work.”

Now there’s a wonderful passage that I think would be a great life verse for those of us who get older—which is all of us—to remember. Psalm 71, I’ll just read a few verses leading up to verse 18.

“O God, be not far from me. O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul. Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.”

Now, that, by the way, could be a summary verse for the book of Joshua. “I will go in the strength of the Lord.” That’s what the book of Joshua is all about. When we go in the strength of the Lord, we prosper. Verse 17, “O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.” Joshua was taught from his youth, and he says he would declare his wondrous works. And then in verse 18, this is the verse I’m urging you to remember as you get old. “Now also, when I am old and grey-headed. O God, forsake me not until I have showed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to everyone that is to come.”

This was written by Joshua, but it was written for Joshua. Now when Joshua is old and stricken in years, God tells him essentially verse 18. Now when you’re old and grey-headed, forsake me not. God won’t forsake Joshua until Joshua shows forth God’s strength unto this generation and God’s power to everyone that is to come. That should be our goal as we mature in faith as well.

The meek inherit the land first of all due to the diligence of the aging agent. Joshua has to be reminded of his old age apparently by God. Some men don’t like to think about their advancing age. But God says it’s important to know where we’re at in the calendar of life that God gives us. It’s important that Joshua knew that his life was coming to an end and he must get on with the work God had given him to do.

Secondly, the meek inherit the land to complete God’s holy war. It’s interesting, you know, I mentioned that 13 begins the inheritance portion of the book. And I kind of figured when I first started this book that first half of the book’s about conquest, fine. We’ll talk a lot about responsibility. Second half of the book is about inheritance. Talk a lot about the blessings God gives us. Kind of a nice balance, you know, we don’t always want to hear about what we’re supposed to be doing. We want to hear about what God’s done for us as well.

But here, right at the beginning of this section about God’s blessing to us, what does he tell us? The purpose for this inheritance is not so that we can have a life of personal peace and affluence. The purpose of the inheritance, the context for God’s command to Joshua to divide the land up was to complete God’s holy war. He tells them there’s a bunch of things that these are the groups that need to be occupied—to be occupied yet and driven out. And now here’s the mechanism you’re going to use it cuz you’re old. You can’t do this anymore. You’re not going to lead the whole army anymore. There’s a change of battle tactics is all that’s occurring in verse 13 now.

The mop-up exercise continues through the division of the land. Bush and his notes on Joshua said that this order would not only strengthen their assurance of the final possession of the land, but would serve also as an incentive to prosecute the work of conquest with fresh vigor and to keep themselves from all leagues and other incumbrances to their work. So the meek inherited the land due to the diligence of the aging agent, but also to complete God’s holy war.

That’s the context of the entire command. And third, they do this in unity and diversity. They do this now not working together as a united army under God institutionally but they do this now through a decentralized mechanism there that brings new opportunities but it also brings renewed tests from God. We know from Judges 5 that Deborah bemoaned the division of Reuben that Reuben was a divided group. They would not come when they were needed for the rest of the tribes of Israel to take their part in the war against Sisera. They stood afar off and Deborah bemoaned that in Judges 5. They gave preference to private interests above public duty. And so they failed this test of unity and diversity.

Now that they were split off from everybody else, they said, “We’re fine on our own. We’ll just take care of ourselves and forget everybody else.” And as a result, the Reubenites was the first tribe taken into captivity under Assyria. They went into captivity a full 20 years before the other 10 tribes were taken into captivity to Assyria. So God stresses here as the meek inherit the land the responsibilities of unity and diversity. We have responsibilities in our homes and our tribes in our extended families. We have responsibilities to the greater nation of Israel as well.

Third—fourth then—the meek inherited land with the assistance of the Levites. This is very interesting to me. The Levites are mentioned twice that they don’t receive an inheritance in the land that the sacrifices by fire are their inheritance and God is their inheritance. The Levites are not put together into one specific geographic location that people then come to seek them out. No, they’re dispersed amongst the tribes. Why is that? Well, I think it’s because they’re supposed to be helping those guys out there in their various tribes and their various callings to prosecute continue to prosecute God’s holy war against the wicked.

The Levites are there to assist all the tribes of Israel as they perform the work that God has called them to do in their specific regions. They’re dispersed amongst the tribes. They are the social glue—them and their teaching of the relevance of God’s word to whatever each of these tribes is doing. Whether one is better at hewing at growing trees or one is better at fishing or whatever they’re doing, the Levites are there as the social glue to take the word of God, minister it to their particular situation, and show them the application of God’s word to the end that they might continue to pursue this holy war against God’s enemies and against their own personal sin as well. They were dispersed.

So the meek inherit the land with the assistance of the Levites. And finally, the meek inherit the land avoiding idolatry—avoiding the idolatry of Balaam, the immorality that he would lead the nation of Israel into. And avoiding the idolatry of the land itself. The Levites, it said that God is their inheritance. Ultimately, of course, God is the inheritance of all of his people. Abram, God told Abram, “I am thy exceeding great reward.” The land itself can become idolatrous to God’s people.

I was reading an account of King Philip’s War which happened in the early days of the American colonies in the Puritan days and this account I have historical account of King Philip’s War involves a series of talks by various Puritans as to why it took place—why many good people were slaughtered by King Philip and his Indian warriors. Very moving account. But it’s interesting that one of the—I think it was Increase Mather wrote about this and he said that one of the things that God was doing through King Philip was to chastise the people of God who wanted more and more land—physical land. He talked about preachers who would leave their flock so that they can go and get some portion of land 160 acres or something. He said he wasn’t happy with just 40 acres. He wanted more and more and more. Land can become idolatrous. And if Mather was right—and he probably was—it was idolatrous to our forefathers. And God brought Indians to chastise and discipline our spiritual forefathers in this land here as well.

They were to avoid the idolatry of thinking the land itself was their blessing. The land is simply a picture of the blessing of God himself.

Now all of these five elements are very important in our lives as well. We are the new meek so to speak under King Jesus instead of under Joshua. Now we spirit, not just the land, but the whole earth. Joshua was going to get older and go away. And so the mopping up campaign took place through a decentralized operation mechanism. And so King Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 that as he leaves—not because he’s old and stricken in years, because he’s leaving to do something else. He’s leaving because he’s finished his work. Now he prepares a home for us in heaven. He says that we are then commanded to go into all the earth as they were commanded to go into the land, preaching the gospel and discipling the nations.

The meek, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, inherit the earth. The meek are those who are broken to God’s harness, who are useful—not weak, but useful horses under God’s harness. And we inherit the earth as well. And by application, then we inherit the earth as we do to the diligence of the agent. And as we look at Joshua’s faithfulness to complete his work, we should look at our own need to chart our life courses and to see what work God has laid in front of us.

We had a Josh—In the context of RCC when we started, Judge Beers, we thought it’s strange that there was only one older couple and started at the middle of this church as we got started and started to move on and progress in maturity and obedience to God and his word. But it’s not strange. It’s a very typical thing to happen in the history of men. Just as there was a faithless generation in the time of Joshua, there’s been a faithless generation in America as well. And I’m not indicting all the older people in our country, the older Christians, but most of them have not proved faithful to the whole word of God. We had a man who was faithful.