JOSHUA 9-16 CONQUEST OF CANAAN2012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Joshua 9-16 Conquest Of Canaan

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2012.

All right, well this evening we are in the book of Joshua beginning with chapter 9. We'll be going through chapter 16 of the book of Joshua. And as we study this book, we understand that Joshua is the author of the book. He's the one who has recorded these things as they were taking place. His name means Yahweh is salvation. It's the Hebrew form of what we know as Jesus today. That's the Greek form of Joshua. And so Jesus, Joshua,

Yahweh is salvation is what his name means. And it's covering the time period of about 1406 to about 1350 BC. Those dates are approximate, but it's covering that time period where the children of Israel head into the promised land and begin to conquer the land that God has given to them. And so the theme of the book is the conquest of

Because it's now that they're taking possession of the land of Canaan, which becomes the nation of Israel as we know it today. Here we have a timeline of the historical books.

And this is because Joshua begins kind of a new section of the scriptures with Joshua. Then you have Judges and Ruth and then the, you know, 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings. And all of these are historical books. They're recording the history of the nation of Israel.

And so as we enter into this section, here we have a new timeline beginning with Joshua there on the far left, then the time of the judges, then the time of the kings, the time of captivity, and then the time where they return to the land after the captivity. And so this is the timeline essentially of the Old Testament as the children of Israel enter into the promised land. It's after this

You know, well, you see it ends at about 400 BC, which means there's that 400 years of silence. And then the birth of Christ takes place and that brings in the New Testament time. So we're looking at, we saw previously Genesis, the beginning of creation, all the way up to the time of Joshua. And now...

For the next few months, we'll be looking at Joshua all the way up through that silent period before the birth of Christ. So we're right at the beginning of the historical books as we see the children of Israel begin to conquer the land of Canaan. And here's some of the geography that's considered as far as the book of Joshua is concerned.

On the right side here, you see the dotted line that goes up. That's the area that Moses led the children of Israel. He brought them out of Egypt. They were in the wilderness for some time. And then they came up there on the west side of the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. They go up. They conquered two nations up there. We'll see that this week. Then they camped right at the

right at the banks of the Jordan River near the Dead Sea. And Moses delivered to them the book of Deuteronomy, and there Moses died. Well, now Joshua takes over from there, and he crosses over the Jordan with the nation of Israel, and they begin to conquer the land that God has given to them. And we'll begin to see the developments of that this evening. This is what we covered last week, as Richard shared, and he did an incredible job.

There we go. He did an incredible job in sharing the word last week and covering the chapters. One day I hope to teach like him. But as he talked about the conquest of Canaan, they were in the plains of Moab. That's where they were with Moses as he, you know, came to his last days upon the earth. Now Joshua leads them across the Jordan River. God does a miraculous work. And they camp at Gilgal.

From there, they do the circumcision thing. They take a couple days to recover, and then God sends them to Jericho. And they march around, they march around, they march around, and then God delivers Jericho into their hands. Then they attack Ai. At first, it's unsuccessful because of sin in the camp, but then they conquer Ai. And after that, they go up to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebalt.

And those are the mountains that God said through Moses to write the law, to pronounce the blessings and the cursings. And the covenant is read and renewed there at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. And that brings us up to where we are this evening as we begin in Joshua chapter 9. The key verse of Joshua chapter 9 is verse 15.

It says, so Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to let them live. And the rulers of the congregation swore to them. What's happening here in chapter 9 is a covenant that is made with the city of Gibeon or the Gibeonites. And so we see there in verses 1 through 15 that Joshua makes this covenant with the Gibeonites.

In verses 16 through 21, we see that the Gibeonites' deception is discovered. Now, God had instructed them, that is the nation of Israel, to not make any covenants with the people of the land of Canaan. And so what the Gibeonites did is they pretended to be from very far away.

They deceived the leaders of Israel. And so this covenant was made. But then it's discovered there in verses 16 through 21. And so it ends up with verses 22 through 27, Joshua making them servants to Israel.

Chapter 9 of Joshua is a really great chapter for you and I to consider as believers. Because there's some great lessons learned by Joshua and the leaders of Israel here. And they're learned the way that we often learn our lessons, the hard way. So what they do is they fail to seek God's counsel.

In verses 1 and 2 here of chapter 9, it's interesting. It says that there's these other nations that they're hearing about the conquest of Israel. And so they begin to make alliances. They begin to join together to try to protect themselves and become a massive force so that Israel will not conquer them.

Well, the Gibeonites decide we don't want to join up with those guys. That's probably not going to work. So let's try something else. And so in verse 4, it says they worked craftily. So they're being crafty. They're being deceptive. And they put together this scheme to pretend that they're very far away to trick Israel into making a covenant with them.

Well, the lesson that we see here is that Israel receives these guys. They look at their provisions, which they put together, and they think, well, this makes a lot of sense. They must be from far away. How else do you get moldy bread? And so they look at it. They decide, well, we think this is right.

Verse 14 says, then the men of Israel took some of their provisions. That is, they looked at the provisions that these guys brought. They checked out their shoes, the things they presented as evidence. But it says there at the end of verse 14, but they did not ask counsel of the Lord. And so this is the lesson for the nation of Israel, but for you and I as well. The importance of seeking God's counsel.

They looked at the evidence. They looked at what they brought to support their story. And it seemed to make sense. It added up. It was very clear. There's no need to pray about this. There's no need to consider, you know, that they might be lying to us. We've got it figured out. And so they make the covenant. They make the deal. You know, that's a danger for you and I as well.

sometimes we have this kind of mindset that, you know, God's big and he's concerned with big things, but he's not so concerned with little things. And so we kind of think, well, I'll alleviate, you know, some of God's workload and I'll handle the little things in my life for him. You know, I don't really want to bother him with some of those little things and some of the agreements I need to make and the covenants I need to make and the relationships I need to establish and the things I need to do.

And so what we do is the same thing as the nation of Israel. We look at all the evidence. We look at the bank account. We think, well, you know, I can afford it. The money's there. Seems like a really good deal. You know, it's a limited time, so we got to get the deal right away. So let's go ahead and do it.

Or we look around and we think, you know, this makes a lot of sense to me. And I think I have, you know, some wisdom and some understanding. And so I'm going to go ahead and do this. I'm going to enter into this agreement. I'm going to enter into this covenant. And many times we do that without seeking God's counsel. But here's the problem with that. Satan is crafty. He's cunning. And he is out to deceive us.

You can see it all the way back in the Garden of Eden. You remember in Genesis chapter 3. It tells us there that the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field. And what does he do? He goes to Eve and he deceives her. He leads her astray. He presents some evidence, some suppositions, some questions that causes her to be deceived.

This is the way that the enemy works. This is the way that Satan works. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul warns the Corinthians that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. You know, Satan doesn't come with, you know, big scary things to try to scare you off.

No, he comes with, hey, this is going to be really good for you. This is a great opportunity. You don't want to miss out on this. This is going to be awesome for you. It's going to be wonderful. It'll probably help your spiritual life. That's the kind of presentations that Satan brings. He transforms himself into an angel of light. And Paul goes on there in 2 Corinthians 11 to say that his minister's

That is, those who are working on his behalf also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness. They put on the show of righteousness. Again, saying, this is going to be a great thing. Not, hey, you should make this deal. It's going to destroy your life. Here's where to sign. No, this is going to be the best thing for you. This is going to be great. This will help you.

That's the way that the enemy, well, he brings things into our lives to sidetrack us, to distract us, to burden us, to bring us down. And he's crafty. And so we need to be very careful with those, well, maybe what we would consider little things that, yeah, it's not so important to take that to the Lord. We can see the evidence. We can see what's there and figure out whether or not it's a good deal.

The bottom line here is the children of Israel are walking by sight and not by faith. It's the opposite of how we need to walk. We need to walk by faith and not by sight. That is faith, which is obedience to God at His word. Not by looking at what we can understand and figure out and come up with, but looking to God, hearing from Him and responding to those things that He puts upon our hearts.

Now it's not that God tells us everything in advance. And it's not that God gives us every decision. Sometimes he gives us the opportunities and he lets us make the decision. But we definitely need to give him the opportunity to redirect us. To give us insight into those decisions. Sometimes you might have two opportunities before you. And it's not that God will necessarily tell you which one to take.

But you need to give him the opportunity. We need to give him the chance to intervene, to redirect, to lead us in the way that he wants us to go. But the scriptures point out here, Israel did not do that. They did not seek God's counsel. They didn't bother to give God an opportunity to speak regarding this decision. They just looked at it, decided this is a good deal, and made the covenant. Now God had told them,

You can check it out later on in Exodus chapter 34 verse 12. Also in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verse 2. God says, make sure when you go into the land, don't make covenants. Don't make covenants with the people of the land, God said. Several times he warned them. It's amazing how God gives warnings and we think,

Yeah, that's a nice warning, but you know, I've got this one figured out. I think I've got a handle on this one. I can see the evidence. Look, God, their bread is moldy. It must be true. It must be right. This is a good deal. We need to do it. But you know, God doesn't warn us just for the fun of it. He warns us because he knows what's ahead. You don't know what's ahead. I don't know what's ahead, but God knows what's ahead.

And so when he gives us instruction in his word, it's not just, you know, to cause us to jump through hoops. It's because he knows what's around the corner. One of the reasons why I'm spending this much time here in the first chapter, we're not going to spend this much time in every chapter, but it's because this is a warning for us. God wants to remind us, you're going to have some decisions before you this week. You're going to have to make some decisions this month.

There's going to be some deals and opportunities that you're going to have to, well, you're going to have to decide which way to go. And listen, God wants you to be reminded to seek his counsel. It doesn't matter if it looks really good to you. What does God have to say about it? We need to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. And so the children of Israel here make a mistake.

They disobey God. They don't seek his counsel. And they make a covenant with the people in the land, even though he told them not to. Now, their deception is discovered there in the next part of the chapter. And as they find out, they figure out, hey, you guys lied to us. Why did you do that? The children of Israel, the rest of the nation think, hey, we need to take this people out. They're part of the land. God told us to take the land.

But the leaders, it's interesting, the leaders of Israel upheld their covenant. They said, no, we can't attack them. We made the covenant. And this is the other part of the insight that we get in this chapter. The importance of keeping our covenants, keeping our word, keeping our promises. God wants us to keep our vows. He wants us to be faithful to the things that we've committed to.

And so, although they made the mistake of making the covenant, they give us a good example here by keeping the covenant. Now, you get some insight in the reality that God wanted them to keep the covenant because later on in 2 Samuel chapter 21, there's famine in the land while David is king. And David seeks God. And he says, God, how come there's famine in the land?

Is there something we need to do? Is there something that, you know, you're trying to speak to us? And God says, well, yes, as a matter of fact, there is. There's famine in the land because of Saul's treatment of the Gibeonites. The people, or the descendants really, of the people who made the covenant with Joshua. Later on, Saul attacks them and kills them and puts them to death. Not all of them, but some of them. And God says, you broke your covenant.

And as a result, this famine is in the land. And so David was required then to meet with the Gibeonites and to make it right. To give them retribution for, or restitution for the treatment that they experienced under King Saul. And so you see that God wanted them to keep this covenant. It was the right thing for them to do. They did the right thing. Even though it wasn't popular, they upheld the covenant. And so what they did instead is they made them servants. Instead of putting them to death,

They honored the covenant. They made them servants. And they caused them to be then in bondage to the nation of Israel. Well here you have a map of the area. Again looking at the conquest that has already taken place.

and the people are camped at Gilgal. They keep returning back there in these different excursions and things that they go on. But Gibeon is there to the left and so they go to Gilgal. They send their representatives with the moldy bread and the worn out sandals and clothes and they make the covenant there at Gilgal with the nation of Israel. And then they find out a couple days later it's only about 20 miles to Gilgal

from Gilgal. So they just take a short trip and go over there and say, hey guys, you lied to us. What's up? And so this is where they're at and we'll see that the trouble begins with this covenant very quickly here in chapter 10. Joshua chapter 10 verse 42 is the key verse. It says, all these kings and their land Joshua took at one time because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.

So here in verses 1 through 15, we have the Amorite kings attacking Gibeon. These are the kings surrounding the city of Gibeon. And they were the ones who were making alliances and gathering together. They're going to overcome Israel. That's what they think anyways. But now they're upset because Gibeon, instead of joining with them, they've made this covenant. And so they begin now to attack Gibeon.

And they, that is Gibeon, sends for Joshua, for the nation of Israel to come and defend them. In verses 16 through 27, the Amorite kings are killed. Israel comes. They do battle with these soldiers from these five kingdoms. And the kings are put to death at the end of this battle. And then verses 28 through 43, we see that Joshua conquers the land in the south.

So the first thing that happens here is this attack that takes place on the city of Gibeon. Here you have again the region. You see the city of Gibeon there. And then here with these purple lines you have the different kings. These five kings gather together and they go and attack Gibeon. And so then what happens is Joshua comes from Gilgal and begins to attack these kings that are gathered there against Gibeon.

Now this battle goes on and the amazing thing here that happens in Joshua chapter 10 is as they're winning this battle, it's a great army that they're fighting against, but Israel is winning. And as they're winning, Joshua realizes we don't have enough time to beat all these warriors, all these soldiers from our enemies. I mean, we're winning. Things are going really good, but we don't have enough time. And so he says, Lord, let the sun stand still.

Just stop the sun in its tracks. We need more time to be able to finish the task ahead of us this day. Amazing to consider. It's amazing actually if you back up a little bit to contrast. It's a good picture of how we often are. Here's a little decision. These people come. It's clear they're from far away. No need to ask God for this. Let's make the covenant. But now the

Lord, there's something big that I'm asking for. There's something big that needs to take place. Lord, would you make the sun stand still? Isn't that how we are? We take God the big things and we try to handle the little things on our own. Here's Joshua though. He cries out to God and he says, make the sun stand still over Gibeon. Now the more amazing thing is that God does it. He causes the sun to stand still. He's with Joshua in this battle.

And he causes this to be a day like no other day. Verse 14 says that there is no other day like it. This is not just, you know, some kind of weird eclipse type thing or some type of, you know, strange happenings in the solar system that, you know, it was just a little thing that happens, you know, every once in a while and it's, you know, familiar. We know about it. This is something that has never happened again. This is a day where the sun stood still.

What does that mean? That the sun stood still. You and I today, we talk about sunrise and sunset, right?

But we understand, we've been through, you know, elementary school science. We understand the sun doesn't really rise and set. It's the earth spinning. From our perspective, it looks like it rises and it sets. But it's really the earth spinning that causes the movement of the sun for us. In the same way, the sun standing still...

is probably not an impact on the sun but probably an impact on the earth and its rotation it's probably more accurate that the earth ceased to rotate it came to a stop and there's some interesting ideas surrounding that i'm not going to get into those this evening because we don't have time but if you want to dig in if you like to dig into those type of things

There's lots here in Joshua chapter 10 that you can look at as far as possibilities as what physically happened when God caused the sun and the moon to stand still. But the point here in verse 14 is that the Lord fought for Israel. He brought hailstorms

Upon the enemies of Israel. He took them out supernaturally. The hail killed more people. Than the actual soldiers of Israel did. So God is just working miraculously. Supernaturally. On behalf of the nation of Israel. He's with them in this battle. He's for them. Now I bring all this up. Because it's interesting to me. That John tells us in 1 John chapter 5. That if we ask anything. According to God's will.

That he hears us. And that if he hears us, then we know that whatever we ask, we have the petitions that we've asked of him. John says, we have confidence in this. Here's our confidence. When we ask according to God's will, that we know he hears us, and we know that we have the petitions that we've asked for.

here's Israel in this battle God is with them he's for them it's his will that they have victory this day and so it's no big thing when Joshua says son stand still God says yeah I'm in agreement with that that's according to my will I will support that and so the son stands still this is the amazing thing about the relationship with God that we have

That God works miracles. He does the unthinkable. He does things that, well, physics, scientists, today look at chapter 10 of Joshua and they say, that's nonsense. How could the sun stand still? That's silly talk. And great scholars and intellectuals determine, this is not even worth thinking about. That's just silly fairy tales. But listen, when you pray according to God's will,

He hears you and he answers those prayers. And so seek his will. Seek his plan. Seek God's counsel and pray accordingly. Because as you're involved in the battle that God is with you and he's fighting on your behalf, he's there with you. God works miracles. He does amazing things as you cry out to him according to his will.

So this battle takes place and now it begins the opportunity for Joshua to deal with the southern portion of the land of Canaan. So he has this battle there at Gibeon with these five kings. He defeats them and then he goes on from here to conquer the rest of the southern land or the southern area.

So he goes here from this battle at Gibeon to that city of Makeda. And then he goes from there to Libna, then to Lachish. Lachish is how we say it, but in Israel we learned it's Lachish. So if you want to pronounce it right, there you go.

Then you have Eglon. They went and conquered that. They conquered Hebron, then Debir, and then they went down south to the Kadesh Barnea area, came back up to Gaza. So essentially he's conquering that whole southern region now as a result of this battle. It was kind of the beginning of the conquest of the southern area of the land of Canaan that God had given to them. And that brings us now to Joshua chapter 11.

Verse 23 says, So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had said to Moses, and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to the divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war.

Now in Joshua chapter 11, we're looking north. We saw what took place, how God dealt with the region in the south. Now he's dealing with the region in the north. And so verses 1 through 5, you have the northern kings gathering together, just like the southern kings did. Now the northern kings are gathering together. Hey, let's form an alliance. Let's group up, put all of our soldiers together. We'll make a massive army, and then they won't be able to defeat us, is their thought.

But then in verses 6 through 15, you see that Joshua defeats the northern kings. And then kind of an overview and a summary of all his conquests there in verses 16 through 23, as we see that Joshua took the whole land of Canaan. So the northern kings gather together, but they are not victorious in their fight against Israel.

So here it's zoomed out a little bit further than the maps we've been looking at. We've seen the southern portion. Now we're looking up north. And there Hazor, that's kind of the ringleader of this bunch now. He's the one gathering all the nations together. And they gather together at this place called Merom. And as they gather together there, they form this massive army. And now Joshua is going to come up to the north and

to have this battle with those nations and then like we saw with the southern kingdom then he goes a little bit further north he comes back to Hazor he conquers Hazor he conquers forget the name of that and I can't see it he conquers that city and then he conquers Dor so he goes around he conquers the the northern region of the land of Canaan in in verse 9 here of chapter 11 it says that

Joshua, as he defeats this army, that he deals with the horses and the chariots of this army in the way that God instructed him to. That is that he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. The idea of hamstringing a horse is the idea of rendering it useless for battle. He made it so that they were not able to be fast or strong. But then he also burned their chariots with fire.

This is God's command to Joshua. Now, the normal thinking would be, hey, we beat this army. Here's all their horses and chariots. Now we can take these horses and chariots and be even stronger in battle.

But God had given Joshua instruction ahead of time. And he actually gave instruction in the law too. That they were not to trust in themselves, their soldiers, their military might, their military vehicles. But they were to trust in the Lord for victory.

You guys might remember a song from a long time ago. Some may trust in horses, some may trust in chariots, but we will trust in the name of our Lord. And that is the stance that Joshua makes. And so he deals with these military vehicles so that Israel does not trust in them, but continues to trust in the Lord for victory as they conquer these cities and nations.

And so the end result is Joshua has conquered the kind of the central area there with Jericho and Ai. He's conquered the southern area. He's conquered the northern area now. And so the summary is Joshua has taken the whole land there in verse 23. According to all that the Lord had said to Moses. He has conquered the land. Now what's interesting is in Joshua chapter 13.

Two chapters forward, we'll look at that in just a moment. In verse 1, God says to Joshua, Hey Joshua, there's still very much land to be possessed. And so you kind of see this idea that they conquered the whole land, but that does not mean that all the inhabitants of the land have already been driven out. The idea is that they've conquered kind of the major powers already,

But there's still many cities and villages. There's still many groups of people that are living within the land that are yet to be driven up, that are yet to be dealt with. And so God's going to be instructing now the individual tribes. Now that the main battles have been accomplished, now it's going to be the responsibilities of the individual tribes to drive out the inhabitants of the land that has been given to them.

This is important for us to consider because, well, as Richard was sharing last week, that the conquest of Canaan, the book of Joshua, is a great picture for us of what God has called us to in victorious Christian living. The promised land is not a picture of heaven because look at all those battles that have to take place. There's not going to be battles in heaven.

It's a picture of instead the life that God has called us to. The abundant life that Jesus promised to us. Now in this abundant life, in this victorious Christian life, we have victory through our Joshua, Jesus, who accomplished the great victory, conquered the land at the cross. But there's also all of these little battles that are yet to take place. And there's this land that is to be possessed.

You see, there's promises of God of abundant life that you and I, He calls us to engage in battle to obtain those promises.

He calls us to cast off sin to obtain those promises. He calls us to take steps of faith to obtain those promises. He calls us to obey the scriptures to obtain those promises. He calls us to obedience. So there's battles associated with that, but there's great reward and promise that goes along with that as we live this abundant Christian life that God has called us to.

So the main victory has been accomplished for us, but there's still battles to fight. And so we need to be engaged in that war. That's why we need to be, as Paul said, armored up, taking up the spiritual armor, because we are in a battle. And God has some great rewards for those who will engage in the battle, some great promises to be fulfilled for us. Well, that brings us to now Joshua chapter 12.

Here in Joshua chapter 12 verse 7 is the key verse. It says,

So in verses 1 through 6, we have the summary of the kings that were conquered by Moses. And then in verses 7 through 24, we have the kings that were conquered by Joshua. So here's what that looks like on the map. Under the leadership of Moses, he first led them in victory against the Amorites there on the west side of the Jordan River. And so they came in conflict with them. They conquered them.

As God instructed. And then Moses led them to Bashan. The kingdom of Og there. And there was a great battle there. And Israel conquered them and took possession of this land here on the east side of the Jordan River.

Then under Joshua, they cross over the Jordan River. And now with Joshua, well, first they conquer Jericho and Ai, that central area of the land. Then, as we saw this evening, they conquer the southern portion of the land. And then they conquer the northern portion of the land. So here in Joshua chapter 12, it's the summary of these conquests that have already taken place. Now, if you want to see what that looks like as a list...

Quick, write all of those names down. No, you don't have to. It's all there in chapter 12. So there's all of the kingdoms that were conquered by Moses. You have the Amorites. You have the region of Bashan. Just those two regions. By Joshua, it says 31 kings total here in chapter 12. And so he did a great deal of battle. It also tells us that it took a good amount of time back in chapter 11, verse 18. It said Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. So he did a great deal of battle.

So we understand this wasn't done overnight, but he is dealing with all of these kingdoms throughout his time there in the promised land. I like what Alan Redpath had to say about Joshua chapter 12. He said, sometimes in the course of human experience, it is good to sit down and reflect on what has been conquered by the grace of God.

And I would encourage you to consider, maybe take some time this evening or tomorrow morning and just consider what victories has God brought in your life? What things has he accomplished by his grace? And maybe just, you know, make your own Joshua chapter 12 and recount and record some of the things that he's delivered you from. Some of the miracles that he's accomplished. Some of the victories that have taken place as a result of the Lord at work in your life.

Well now we move on to Joshua chapter 13. Verse 1 is the key verse. It says, Now Joshua was old, advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, You are old. In case you didn't know, here's your confirmation. You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed. So here in chapter 13, we're heading into this new phase now of the book of Joshua.

They've conquered the land. They've taken it as a whole. There's still many battles to fight though. And so God tells Joshua, you're old and there's much land to be possessed. So now you need to pass on the torch and begin to give portions of the land to the different families of the nation of Israel.

Well, in verses 1 through 7, we have a description there of the land that's yet to be conquered. And some of the specific areas and regions, like the Philistines there on the coast of the Mediterranean, their land was not conquered. And the northern area of Lebanon, that was not conquered, and so on and so forth. And so there's specific pockets of regions that were not conquered, in addition to the multitudes of cities and cities

different people that were inhabiting the land. But here we have a description now in verses 8 through 14 of the land east of the Jordan. Now this is the area where they conquered under the leadership of Moses. And that land is divided between three tribes. And so verses 15 through 23, you have the description of the land that was given to Reuben.

Verses 24 through 28, you have the land of Gad described. And then verses 29 through 33, you have the land of half of Manasseh. The description of that land that was given to them. So again, what that looks like

Here on the map you have the Mediterranean Sea. There's the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee. So on the right side of this, which is the east portion that we're talking about, this is the land that they conquered and it was divided in this way. Manasseh at the north, Gad in the middle, Reuben in the south, right along the Dead Sea. And so that's the picture of what's being described here in Joshua chapter 13. The land being divided between these different tribes.

Now this is really important. And we're actually going to be spending the next few chapters. Looking at the land that's given. To all of the different tribes of the nation of Israel. And so that's why you were given this handout this evening. So that you could. If you don't have a map already in your Bible or something. You could kind of see visually. As you read over the next few days. The divisions of the land that are being described. As we continue on in Joshua.

So the land east of the Jordan is divided up between these three tribes. Now Manasseh is a unique tribe because half of the tribe decided we want to stay on the east side of the Jordan. The other half of the tribe said we want to go into the promised land and settle on the other side of the Jordan. And so we'll see as we read in the chapters this week that Manasseh has also a portion of

On the west side of the Jordan, in addition to this portion on the east side of the Jordan. Manasseh was a really big tribe. And so part of the people stayed on one side, the other part entered into the promised land. So when it says half the tribe of Manasseh, that's not like a half brother, you know, something like that. It's not that they were partially related. It's just a description of how many of the tribe settled there versus how many settled on the other side of the Jordan River.

Here in Joshua 14, 13 is the key verse. It says, And Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as an inheritance.

In verses 1 through 5, we have this description of the process of the dividing up of the land. It's divided up by lot. They basically cast lots. Whoever got, you know, the certain straw, the certain size, that's how they determined what portion they got in the land. But also the land was divided up according to the size of the tribe.

So if the tribe of Judah had a big population, they would get a bigger portion of land. If the tribe of Simeon had a smaller population, then they would get a smaller portion, which is actually what happened. And we can see that on the maps later on. So the land is divided up by a lot, and that's how it's determined what...

portion in the land of Israel they get. And then in verses 6 through 15, we have this recording of Hebron, this city being given to Caleb because Caleb asks for it. So Caleb goes to Joshua and man, as you read this, it's like you got to love Caleb. This guy is

If you remember, let's back up a little bit. This guy was one of the original 12 spies. Him and Joshua are the only survivors of those original 12 spies. In fact, him and Joshua are the only survivors of the whole nation that was alive at the time they sent those spies into the land of Canaan. The spies came back. Joshua and Caleb said, there's giants, there's

There's going to be great battles. The cities are heavily fortified, but God's with us. Let's go. Let's conquer this land that God's given to us. But the other 10 spies said there's giants. The cities are heavily fortified. There's great fruit. There's, you know, great things there, but we can't do it.

It's impossible. They're too mighty. They're too strong for us. We can't enter in. And so those 10 spies discouraged the rest of the nation. And as a result of their unbelief, the whole nation wandered in the wilderness. And God said, you're going to stay there in the wilderness until that whole generation dies. Everybody 20 years old and up is going to die in the wilderness. The next generation will enter into the land that I've promised to you.

Well, Joshua and Caleb are the two exceptions to that because they were the ones who had a faithful testimony that said, God's with us, let's go. And so Joshua now is leading the people into the promised land. And here's Caleb. He's 85 years old at this point. He's been wandering the wilderness for 40 years. He survived. Now he's an old man and he goes to Joshua and he doesn't ask for an easy portion of land.

He says, Joshua, God promised us the land that we set our foot upon. And when I was a spy here 40 years ago, I scouted out the area of Hebron. And there's giants there. There's mighty cities. It's well fortified. I want that land that I set my foot upon. That I spied out. That's the land God promised to me. So give me that land. He didn't ask for an easy portion. There's not many battles. Not big competition or opposition there.

Here's this old man saying, I want to fight those giant battles, those big, those hard battles. Why? Because God's with me was his testimony. God's going to fight for me. He's saying the same thing he was saying 40 years earlier. God's with us. We can do this. It's not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. And so he has great faith in God.

He says, give me that mountain. Give me those giant battles. Give me those great fortified cities. And I will conquer them in the strength and in the name of the Lord. Verse 14 is interesting here in Joshua 14.

It says, Notice why? Because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. We see the key here. The reason why Caleb is able to enter in and say, give me these big battles, these giant battles. The reason why he's able to be victorious in these battles as an old man is because he wholly followed the Lord.

He wholly followed the Lord. He was totally committed, fully sold out, holding nothing back. He obeyed God. It's a great example for us to not be, you know, one foot in, one foot out, to not be 75, 25 percent, you know, like we're mostly committed except for these couple of things, but to be wholly devoted to the Lord, to be completely sold over and say, I'm going to obey Jesus no matter what.

No matter what life brings, no matter who says what, no matter what takes place, I'm going to follow the Lord no matter what. A great example for us, a great man of faith, this guy Caleb. Well, Caleb, because of his great faith, he receives Hebron. He lays claim to Hebron.

The promise that God made to him. Again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. Jesus has accomplished the victory for us. But listen, there's promises that God has for us in the abundant life that he's promised to us. In the victorious Christian life that he's laid before us. And we need to be like Caleb. And wholly follow the Lord. And grasp hold of and say, God, fulfill your promise. Be faithful to your word. Do the things that you declared you would do.

Well, as we see this portion being given to Caleb, it should cause us to consider the importance of this inheritance that we're talking about. You see, the inheritance of the tribes of the nation of Israel was a very special thing that God was setting up for them. This is land that God was giving to them. And it was meant to be permanent.

And so this is God's gift to his people. As the nation of Israel comes in and the tribe of Judah is a big tribe, God says, here's your land. Now the land was not just given to the tribe as a whole. We're looking at the big picture. We're seeing the whole tribe of Judah, the whole tribe of Manasseh, so on and so forth.

But actually, that land was then further broken up between all the families. So every family of the nation of Israel received a portion of land. Imagine that. Every family received a portion of land. They were given, here's your land. You got 40 acres. You got 80 acres. You got, I don't know, how much ever is appropriate for the size of the tribe and the size of the family.

That was their land. They were just given land. Can you imagine being just given a plot of land by the Lord? That's what happened. Now, God set it up so that that would be their permanent possession. It was meant to last forever. Because He set it up, you might remember as we talked about going through the laws of Moses, the year of Jubilee. So that even if you sold this portion of land...

Every 50 years, the land would return to its original owner. So you weren't actually selling the way that we think of selling. It was more like leasing. Well, I'll lease you my land for 48 years, but then in the year of Jubilee, it comes back to me. God set it up. This is your portion. This is your inheritance. It's permanent. Every family gets their piece of property, even so much so that in Ezekiel chapter 48, as God sets up his kingdom,

And rules and reigns here on the earth for a thousand years. In Ezekiel chapter 48 it describes the land being divided between all of the tribes. This is part of God's plan. He wants them to have this inheritance. It's important to him and it's important to the nation at the time. It was a great blessing of God that he set up for them and he set up provisions to protect it as well.

Well, Joshua 15 now, verse 20 is the key verse. It says, this was the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families. So now we're beginning to see the breakup between all the different tribes. Verses 1 through 12 describes the land of Judah, the land that was given to Judah. Verses 13 through 19 describe Caleb's portion. Once again, looking at and reviewing the portion that was given to Caleb and his family within the land of Judah.

And then verse 20 through 63 describes the cities at the limits of Judah. So it's kind of describing the borders and all the cities are around the land of Judah. So what that looks like on the map is this. There in the yellow at the bottom, you see the land of Judah. It extends further south than what we could put on the screen here. But it's a big portion of land that was given to them. And that's what's being described here in Joshua chapter 15. So Judah here, it's a large tribe. It's an important tribe.

And it becomes later on when Israel splits in two and kind of has a civil war, it becomes the southern kingdom. It becomes the nation of Judah later on. So we'll be seeing that as we head forward in our historical books.

Now the land of Judah is noteworthy for a couple reasons. One of the reasons is David, King David, is a descendant of the tribe of Judah. But more importantly, Jesus is a descendant of this tribe. So this is the land that was given to them. And their descendants later on are David and Jesus, among others. Joshua chapter 16, our final chapter for the evening, verse 4 is the key verse. It says, So the children of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim took their inheritance.

So in verses 1 through 4, you have the lot falling to Joseph's sons. Joseph's sons, remember Joseph was a son of Jacob, also named Israel. But Jacob took Joseph's sons in place of Joseph.

And so we often talk about the 12 tribes of Israel. In actuality, it's 13 tribes of Israel because Joseph became Ephraim and Manasseh. There's not a tribe of Joseph when you're talking about the land of Israel. It's Ephraim and Manasseh. So the lot falls now to Ephraim and Manasseh. And so their land is going to be given here in the land of Canaan. And the first one that we see in verses 5 through 10 is the land of

Ephraim. So the land that's given to Ephraim, what that looks like here on the map, it's just a little bit above Judah there. You see Ephraim

that dark olive green or whatever color that is. So they're not as big of a tribe as Judah. They don't require as much land, but they will become a very prominent tribe later on in Israel's history. And so I mentioned the divided kingdom and Judah would be the, you know, the southern portion of that kingdom. Well, later on, Ephraim becomes so prominent, the whole northern part of Israel will be referred to often as Ephraim. So they become a

much bigger and more important tribe later on. One of the noteworthy descendants of the tribe of Ephraim, which you might be familiar with, is the prophet Samuel. And we'll see that in 1 Samuel chapter 1. He comes from the tribe of Ephraim.

And so this is the land that's given to Ephraim. Now you can see all the blank spots. We're going to get to those this coming week. So some exciting reading ahead as you look at the different divisions of the land. And what I would ask you to consider is a couple things as we finish up this evening. First of all, seek God's counsel. Learn the lesson of the Gibeonites. Don't walk by sight, walk by faith. And seek God on those decisions. But as we finish up looking at the different divisions

Parts of land that were given to the tribes of Israel. I want to ask you to consider the inheritance that you have in Christ. You know, many times we miss out on what God wants to do, what God could do, what God will do. We miss out on our inheritance. God is assigning all of these different portions to the people.

But he's also involving them. He's saying, I'm going to give you victory. Now go to battle. He's involving them in the process. He's saying, take action. In John chapter 10 verse 10, Jesus says, I've come to give you abundant life. In Romans chapter 8, Paul describes for us the victorious Christian life that's lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. It parallels for us this vision of this promised land.

But sometimes you and I as believers, we miss out on the victories that we have in the power of the Spirit. We miss out in the inheritance that God has established for us. Or maybe you could consider the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control. But how many times are we missing out on those things? Because we're not grasping hold of the inheritance.

We're not receiving the Holy Spirit. We're not walking in the Spirit. We're not living the abundant life that has been made available to us. The land has been divided. Your inheritance has been given. Now our ultimate inheritance is in eternity. But the promised land is not a picture of that. That's yet to come. That far exceeds anything that we can imagine or think. But right here, right now, God has for you an inheritance.

He has for you great promises. He has great plans for you. Now it's our responsibility. He's laid it out. It's our responsibility to grasp hold of it. You know what's amazing about this? As you consider this in light of the land, there's no permanent transfers. You couldn't permanently transfer the land to somebody else. It always reverted back to the original family, the original owners. You know, you and I as believers, sometimes we trade in

The promises that God has for us. For foolish things. And so instead of having the victory in the spirit, we've traded that in for some foolish fantasy, some trivial pursuit, something that it's meaningless, but we've invested ourselves in it. We've devoted ourselves to it. And so we're missing out now on the victorious Christian life. And we're falling into sin. We're being beaten up by the enemy.

Because we've traded in our inheritance for something that's not worth it. But the amazing thing is, you look at this picture, there's no permanent transfers. That means, listen, you haven't lost at all. You can experience once again the victory in the Christian walk that comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. You can be redeemed once again. And you can enter into those battles and grasp hold of those promises.

You might be missing out on the fruit of the Spirit because you've cashed it in. Instead of being filled with the Spirit, you've been filled with other things. Your joy is gone. Self-control is out the window. Your patience, lost that a long time ago because we've traded it in for something that wasn't lasting, not worthwhile. But there's no permanent transfers. You can be filled with the Spirit and experience the fruit of the Spirit once again.

You might be able to trade it for a little while. But there's no permanent transfers. I was thinking about that verse where Paul says, the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. You know, sometimes we trade in our calling, the ministry that God has entrusted to us. Great opportunities for the kingdom of God. We trade them in for other things.

We get distracted with the things of this world, the things of this life, and we pursue those things instead of the things that God has called us to. And so we're not exercising our gifts. We're not engaging in the work that God has equipped us and enabled us to do. But the amazing thing is, if you find yourself in that position,

You're not living the victorious Christian life. You're not filled with the Spirit and demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit. You don't have that abundant life that Jesus promised. You're not fulfilling the call that He's placed in your life. It's not too late. It's not over. You haven't missed out. There's no permanent transfers. So come back. Be like Caleb. Wholly follow the Lord. Fully grasp hold of Him. Wholly devote yourself to Him. And claim those promises that He's given to you.

And I don't mean claim it by just, you know, shout it. I mean claim it by live it. Be filled with the Spirit. Turn away from those worthless idols and follow Him, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with all of your heart. Let's pray. God, it's amazing to consider the great, incredible promises that You've bestowed upon us. And yet, Lord, You also give us part in those promises.

As James told us, sometimes we don't have because we haven't asked. And so God, I pray right now for each one, Lord, that we would ask, God, fill us with your Holy Spirit. Forgive us and cleanse us from our sin. Lord, we know we fall short. We blow it. We've messed up. We've gone astray. We've traded in our inheritance for something that's not worth it. Lord, forgive us. Fill us with your Holy Spirit.

empower us by your spirit to walk uprightly. Help us to engage in the call that you've given to us, to be strong and courageous as we obey your word, that we might experience the abundant life that you've promised to us. Help us, God, to believe you at your word and to be obedient, grasping hold of these promises that you've set before us, our inheritance that you've given to us as we walk this earth.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us to go forward. As we look forward to the full inheritance that you have for us in eternity, help us to walk in victory now, in obedience to you, and in the power of your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.