Gooding, David: 7 - We Will Serve the Lord

When we broke off, gentlemen, we were studying, or at least we had begun to study, the four anecdotes that are to be found in section four of the book of Joshua, Two of them in the course of the detailed geographical descriptions of the inheritance of Judah, and two of them in the same or similar descriptions of the inheritance of Joseph. There was the request of Caleb, the request of Axar and Othniel, the request of the daughters of Zelophehad, and the request of the tribe of Joseph itself. It is interesting that they have something in common. They are all requests. Caleb came and claimed what had been promised him. Now we are to find that Othniel and Aksar come, and they ask for more. Then we shall move on to consider the daughters of Zelophehad, and they come claiming what had been promised them. And finally come the Josephites, and they are asking for more. Osniel and Acts are then, and the story simply is this, that they were the younger generation. By definition, they had not been involved in the apostasy of the older generation in the wilderness. And so you don't read of them, as you read of Caleb, that they wholly followed the Lord. For as we notice, that phrase, Caleb wholly followed the Lord, is in contrast to his contemporaries of his own generation, who apostatized from the Lord. Exar and Othniel had been of the younger generation. They had not been involved in the apostasy. These were the ones of whom God said that they would enter the land. Their fathers, who in their unbelief were afraid to go in and complained that their children would be made mincemeat of by the Canaanites if the nation attempted to invade Canaan. God said, your very children that you said should be for a prey, they shall go in. So here come that second generation who once were children, and they go into the land. The special interest of their case is that, um, having won his, uh, wife's hand, the daughter of Caleb, by subduing the city, uh, uh, Adosi, then Axar urged her husband to ask for more. That is understandable because her father had given her an inheritance in the south, that is in the Negev, and the territory in that part of the world can be exceedingly dry, and therefore, unless you get adequate water, you can't do much with the inheritance, or at least you are sorely limited as to what you can do. And if you have no rain from heaven very frequently, and then you in addition, you have no springs of water, your inheritance could remain dry as dust, they'll say. And so Axar, grateful, I suppose, for the inheritance that had been given her and achieved by the, uh, energy of her husband, who loved her so much that he went chasing giants off the inheritance and and won it. Now there's, uh, uh, though in gratitude, when her father next came, she moved Othniel to ask, and then Othniel, not getting off the mark as soon as she expected he would, she, like some wives do, asked in for him anyway. And asked for papa, observing that you've given us an inheritance in the south, give me a present, give me a blessing, thou set me in the land of the south, give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. Asking for more. It is a principle, gentlemen, enunciated and repeated by our Lord, to him that hath shall be given. It is a principle solemnly ad- advertised by the Lord Jesus in this very context. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth. And everyone that seeketh findeth, and to everyone who knocketh it shall be opened. Gentlemen, you may rely utterly on the promise of your Lord in your quest for deeper and greater inheritance and more enrichment of your inheritance. The Lord goes guarantor of this, that you do not ask in vain. Everyone who asks receives. It may seem like it to you that your prayers are not immediately answered, or that your seeking is not immediately rewarded, but unless our Lord be unreliable and untruthful in this realm of the spirit, he says, everyone who asks shall be given, and everyone who seeks shall find, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. I say in the realm of the spirit, because as you will remember from your reading of the gospel by Luke, that our Lord was enunciating that principle of spiritual life in this context. Said he, which of you is a father and his child should ask bread of him and he would give him a stone? Which father of you, if his, uh, child asked for fish, would give him a serpent? Of course you wouldn't. Bad as you are, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your holy, shall your Father in heaven give Holy Spirit to them that ask him. It is in that context, in spiritual development, that our Lord graciously gives his word of honor that every asking shall be answered. Which encourages me to use the historical incident before you in this, uh, uh, same direction. I grant you at once that the history says that Al-Aqsa asked for literal water, springs of literal water, to irrigate her garden that she might grow better cucumbers and things. I grant you that. If you feel it would be illegitimate to go beyond that and what you might call spiritualize it, uh, go to sleep just for five minutes, conveniently, while I indulge in a flight of fancy or two, you'll see. But let's start, at least historically, you'll see, just as we did with Caleb. Here was the younger generation when Joshua was raised up as the captain of salvation to lead them into the land. That was exceedingly good, but they felt the need of r- of of water to fructify their inheritance. Let's take them as a prototype of God the Godly in Israel, who once more, like Caleb, were never involved in any apostasy and wholly followed the Lord and lived in the age before our blessed Lord came. They had a great inheritance, did they not? Let us not despise it, we who Christians. We profit with their, from their great inheritance. Don't you? I've profited many a time by walking in King David's vineyard now and again and plucking a bunch of grapes here and there. Yes, he grew some delightful grapes, uh, didn't he, David, in his garden. Uh, this one, all the blessedness and delights of the man whose sins are forgiven, whose iniquities are covered. What an experience of God he had. He grew marvelous grapes. And I wander through his garden sometimes, uh, uh, the book of the Psalms, and pick grapes from his bunches and bless God for the inheritance he gave to David. And David has shared it with me. Yes. We owe more than we can tell, perhaps, more than we're aware of, for the great inheritance that the pre-Christian Hebrews have left for us. But now, if we extend that history to the point when now not Joshua was raised up, but the greater than Joshua, and our blessed Lord came and led his faithful Israelites, Mary, Martha, James, and John and company, led them into the great inheritance in a way that Israel had never achieved before. And tell me what was one of the marks of the Lord's, the inheritance that the Lord led his people Israel to through his work, and you'll tell me not only did he lead them into a perfection of conscience that they hadn't known before he did that. The greatest and most saintly of the people in the Old Testament, though they experienced forgiveness of sins, didn't, of course, um, uh, experience a conscience made perfect. You say, how do you know that? Well, the writer to the Hebrews points it out. He says, find me somebody who keeps on offering sacrifices, and you'll know that their conscience is not yet made perfect. If their conscience had been made perfect, they wouldn't offer another sacrifice all their lives long in order to get forgiveness of sins. But the remarkable David himself, good man, who wrote that psalm, oh, the blessedness of the man whose sins are forgiven, you would have found him every year thereafter at the Day of Atonement offering more sacrifices. He hadn't the conscience then made perfect. He's no- he has now, God bless him. Good old David. In his day when he was here on Earth, you know, if you had gone to King David and said, uh, your majesty, suppose you'd been invited to a garden party, tea party, like all respectable monarchs have from time to time, and you'd have said, David, uh, your majesty, I, I, I, I, I, I've enjoyed that latest number that you've written. Oh, which one is that? That one about the forgiveness of sins, you know, David, I believe born out of great experience on your part and deep experience. I don't want to rake up the past, uh, King David, but um, it's a marvelous, um, a marvelous lyric you've written, you know. All the blessedness of the man whose sins are forgiven, to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. I've enjoyed it so much, David, myself. My own experience runs along that line. Uh, might I make a suggestion to your royalty? Um, what about taking your harp, King David, and coming with me, and we'll enter the holiest of all in the temple down the road, and you and I will have a praise session seated around the ark. King David would have gone white round the gills. What are you talking about? Going into the holiest of all and sitting around the ark and having a praise session. You can't go into the holiest of all. And why couldn't he? His conscience was not made perfect yet, was it? The sacrifices of Israel inadequate. They had to be repeated. And David couldn't enter the holiest of all. He's entered it now, praise the Lord. Good old David, if you can hear me talking, you'll know what I mean. We are told that as we come to the New Jerusalem, we come to the spirits of just men made perfect. He is with Christ, which is far better. And so our blessed Lord led faithful Israel into undreamt of wonders of inheritance, more than Israel had ever known before. And then there was that unique thing, wasn't there? That on the fiftieth day after our Ro- Lord, uh, rose from the dead, there came such a shower, I must call it a deluge from heaven. That holy rain, what was the pouring out of God's spirit? Oh, what a wonderful thing. Don't think me too fanciful, at any rate, read your prophets before you do, because they talk about that coming rain that one day our blessed Lord would bring to Israel. You do know all about the, uh, feast of the Lord. Of course you do. You are experts. I can just remind you of the Feast of Tabernacles, you know. When Israel got at last into the land, they had their yearly, uh, religious festivals, and most of them were agricultural festivals. Uh, so they are thus introduced in the book of Leviticus. When you be come into the land and reap the harvest of the land, then what? Well, you had the first, uh, uh, thing, the, the, uh, first fruits of the green ears of corn, and then you had the harvest, the barley harvest, yes? You were reaping your inheritance, yes. And there was a kind of first fruits the first time of corn, and then there was the first fruits of the barley cakes out of the new, uh, reaped and milled corn. Lots of first fruits. And then there was a gap, and in the second half of the year, when you came round to the grape harvest, you had other festivals. Notable among them was the Feast of Tabernacles. It was a delightful feast. When you'll say, uh, you at last had time to put your feet up, and you built your tabernacles, your booths in the garden, you'll see, and all the relatives came up from Patagonia and goodness knows where else to celebrate with you the Feast of Tabernacles in the land. And as you sat there with your wife and family, and the harvest brought in, uh, the grapes and presently the figs and things, uh, and you were reaping your inheritance, it was marvelous. Now you'd arrived, you see. Mm. And, um, you were told by the regulations that as you sat in your booth, you had to remember all the way God had led your nation, from the time they came out of Egypt and how God made them dwell in tents and booths in the wilderness, all those weird year- years of foot slogging toil, until they got to their inheritance, and thank God for that, and now we're here, and now we've got the harvest, we've arrived, yes, marvelous. And you munched your grapes and felt very satisfied, at least the first year you did. And the second year. When you'd done it about sixty years, it became a little bit samey, you know. Didn't it? You'd seen it all before. Mm. And then when you'd done it sixty times, you see, there was this thought that one day you mightn't do it again. Because you might be dead. So the prophets in Israel began to ponder. This feast of tabernacles is a very nice affair, but is it all there is? Is that all God's purposes of redemption for Israel involved, or just, uh, being in the land and reaping the great harvest and munching a few figs? Or is there more? At that time of year, as you sat in your booth enjoying the fruits of harvest, if you were a decent farmer, you looked outside and saw the ground as hard as the mint. And you said to yourself, goodness me, if we don't get the former and the latter rains now, we're going to be in trouble for next year. There'll be no more plowing, no more sowing, and no more harvest next year unless we get these rains. So by the time our Lord came and went to the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem, the Jews had added other ceremonies in the Feast of Tabernacles, as you know, that weren't really in the Old Testament. And one of them was that day by day, for the eight days of the week, they went down with a golden pitcher down to the pool of Siloam, filled it with water, and ceremonially, as the people were watching, poured out the water at the base of the altar. A prayer to God, perhaps for the coming for the former and the latter rains that they needed now in autumn and in the spring, so that they might have a harvest next year, but only that. The prophets saw beyond, didn't they? They saw a day when God would pour out his spirit on all flesh. And so our Lord at one stage attended a feast of tabernacles. They'd all arrived, had they really? And on the last day's great days, great day of the feast, when the high priest was now pouring the water around the base of the altar twice, for it was the last day, and the thing had been done, a voice was heard above the massed multitude in the temple courts. If anyone thirsts, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his inward part shall flow rivers of living water. For here was the reality of which the prophets had prophesied, that God would confirm his inheritance when it was weary with an abundant rain. Here was the reality of which their pouring of the water around the base of the altar was but a faint symbol. And he spoke of the Spirit that they who believed on him would receive. They hadn't received him yet, for the Lord Jesus was not yet glorified. But when he was glorified, there came the abundant rain, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. You say, what's that got to do with Acts R and, uh, you've wondered now. You've wondered now from your original passage, haven't you, and gone off, as you warned us not to this morning, into a tangent. Or help me, I'll come back just for a few moments. Axonothniel found them in their Jewish inheritance, and they found it, uh, physically a bit of, as a bit of agriculture, rather dry, and asked for extra, and he gave her the upper and nether springs to make their land irrigatable and productive. They asked for more. In the passage that I quoted you from Luke chapter eleven, our Lord was saying, um, if you being evil, nevertheless as fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father give you holy s- give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Ask this somebody, uh, yes, but that's nothing to do with us. This applied to Israel before Pentecost, who prayed for the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and prayed for the Holy Spirit. Uh, when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, uh, uh, they received the Holy Spirit. Now, of course, we who were born the other side, the moment we trusted the Lord, we received the Holy Spirit. We don't need to pray for the Holy Spirit like the Jews had to pray for the Holy Spirit. We have him. Oh, good for you. I do believe you're right. You have the Holy Spirit. Is there nothing in the New Testament written to believers that they could ask for more if they were so inclined? What else does Paul mean when he says, I bow my knees to the God and Father, I pray the Father, the, uh, uh, you'll say, that he would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that you might know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance. We may pray, gentlemen, this side of Pentecost, and God knows we need to pray, for spirit of wisdom and revelation. That surely comes from God. To wake up, among other things, to the exceeding great wealth of this inheritance. What is the riches of it? I cannot speak for you, but in the grinding pressures of life and in sometimes in the routine of life in the church, one of the things that goes so easily is the sense of wealth going out of our ministry. And the Bible becomes a book of how-to rules. And spiritual life becomes a book of how-to. Like the book I get with my little Golf Volkswagen car, you'll say, never read the thing, except when the car breaks down, and then I can't find the right page. But you'll say, if I do find the right page and I put the trouble right, I don't, I don't take the Golf Volkswagen car handbook to bed with me and read it as my bedside reading. Who would in his senses? I don't sit around reading it. I only consult it when I am in need and how to cure a breakdown. How sad when we treat the Bible like a how-to book that you consult when you've had a bit of a difficulty. And the whole thing becomes routine and a bit of a bind and a grind. And thus people are weakened spiritually and psychologically, weaker to face the attacks of the world than they would have been. We desperately need men and women who can show us and make us feel the sheer wealth of the gospel. The wealth of our inheritance today, forget their second rate entertainment in the church, and it withers because they have found real gold. And how shall we attain it? Gentlemen, it requires asking for more. The apostle did it for his converts, that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, your eyes might be open to see what is the exceeding glory of the riches of his inheritance in the saints. God, give us a ministry marked by the wealth of the risen Lord. Asking for more? Shall we get it if we ask? I recur to what our Lord said about asking. That same passage in Luke eleven where he taught us importunity in prayer. There are different kinds of prayer, aren't there, for different causes. But this is the context in which we are exhorted, one of the contexts, to be importunate in prayer, absolutely shameless. Is there anybody around here, said Christ? And if he had a guest come unexpectedly in the middle of the night and had no bread to put before his guest. Well, if there was anybody like that around him, they would at once realize the difficulty of the situation because it's oriental. If he had someone, uh, come and visit him as a guest at the middle of, even if it was the middle of the night, he would be honor bound to entertain him. He couldn't say, well, there's a bed, old boy, and we take breakfast at ten o'clock in the morning. No, uh, rules of etiquette in the, in the Middle East meant you must put food before him there and then. Tremendous insult and a shame on the whole village if you didn't. So if a guest arrives in the middle of the night and you haven't got any bread to go, uh, to put before him, you run down the street to the next door neighbor and hastily knock on the door and say, hi, I, I, I've got a man come, a guest come, and I've nothing to put before me. Please get up and give me some bread. And our Lord says, suppose one of you does that, you go down the road and, uh, and you knock on your neighbor's door and say, hi friend, I've got a guest come and I've no bread, please give me some bread. And the man answers from within in sleepily, go away, I'm in bed with my children, go away. What would you do? Go away? You wouldn't. You're tired. I'm not going, I've got a guest, I must have bread, I'm not going to get bread. And I tell you, says the Lord, the man wouldn't give him be- get rise and give him because he's his friend, but he'd rise and give him because he wouldn't shut up. He was absolutely shameless. Why? Because of the necessity. Well, we don't do that in the middle of the night in England, nor in Ireland, you know, someone comes in the middle of the night, we have no bread to put before them, we send them to bed. And we'll say, have to wait till the next day. But there are situations akin. I mean, here's a mother, and at two o'clock in the morning she finds a 5-year-old is running a fearful temperature. And she debates with herself, ought she to call the doctor? Because in, in Ireland, we being prehistoric, we still are civilized, and we have doctors that will come out to patients if you ring them up. Um, but she has to debate within her mind now, should she get the doctor? I mean, what if this temperature simply because little Johnny ate too many strawberries for tea when mother wasn't looking, and he's got the stomach ache and his temperature has gone up, and it will be okay in a couple of hours. And to bring the doctor out for that, she would feel embarrassed, wouldn't she, if the doctor came in the middle of the night and Johnny, all Johnny had was an upset tummy and... So she said, perhaps you better not ask. But if grandfather in the middle of the night has a heart attack, mum gets on the phone, and as the doctor raises the, uh, the receiver at the other end, halfway in his sleep, he hears a voice speaking to him, Doctor, come! My father's had a heart attack. And the doctor says, well, I can't come. You'll have to come. And the woman is absolutely shameless. Not embarrassed, not the slightest embarrassed. The need is so pressing, she'll not take no for an answer. The man has jolly well got to come. And he learns as he gathers from her voice the sense of urgency and the need. And how do we ask for more at God's door, gentlemen? Pray Pray. for spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him, that our eyes might be open to the wealth of the inheritance for ourselves and to those we minister. Gentlemen, if you come casually asking sort of offhand and don't get it the first time you ask and you're content with that and you go home and you can live without it, you'll live without it. If you can't live without it, you'll stay and ask till you get it, won't you? Asking for more. Will the Lord encourage us? He expects us to take him seriously. He waits to see our shamelessness, our refusal to go away, our persistence in all humility. Lord, this is, we can't do without it. You must give. And he has given his word of honor that everyone who asks will receive. Asking for more. And then there was the case of the daughters of Zelophehad. Not, I think, the best known characters in the whole of the Old Testament, the daughters of Zelophehad. Now, before we proceed with them, allow me to ask our timekeeper the time. Thirteen. Thirteen? Oh, good, for the daughters of Zelophehad. They came claiming what had been promised them. This is chapter seventeen, as you notice. So Caleb came claiming what had been promised. Achsah and Othniel asked for more. Now come the daughters of Zelophehad, and they in their turn claim what was promised. And what was promised them? You will read about that in Numbers chapter twenty seven, Where, when Moses was making preliminary arrangements for the settlement of the tribes once they got over Jordan, the daughters of Zelophehad came to him and they said, Sir, may we speak to you? And he said, Yes, carry on. What is it? They said, Look, now our father, uh, had no sons, he only had daughters, and our father has died. Now you are distributing inheritance to fathers and thus to their sons, but because our father is now dead and he has no sons, it looks as if his family are not going to get any inheritance because there's only daughters. And they said, we'd like to put it to you respectfully, sir, that, um, uh, well, our father was a sinner like everybody else, he, but he died in his own sin. He was not involved in Korah's apostasy. Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not among the company of them that gathered against the Lord in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin, and he had no sons. Sure, he was a sinner, but should his whole family be penalized forever because he died in his own sin and had no sons? There were other gentlemen around, they were sinners too, but they happened to have sons, and they're inheriting. Why should we be penalized when, uh, he died because he had no sons? And Moses thought about the matter, and he said, yes, that case is just. He took it to the Lord, and the Lord said the case is just. In this case, if a man dies and has no sons, well, then his daughters, uh, may inherit. And so that was arranged. And then later on, their fellow tribesmen came to Moses, and they said, look here, you've made this new arrangement that, uh, daughters can inherit, but what happens if the daughters go and marry outside the tribe? They'll take the inheritance outside the tribe, and it will go to some other tribe. So then, uh, they consulted again, and the decision was made that if daughters inherited, they would be free to marry anybody, with this limitation, however, that they must marry within their tribe. And so the inheritance of one tribe would not be taken away and go over to another tribe. Fair enough, wasn't it? A very important thing. And so now they come to Joshua, and they said, Joshua, we'd like to remind you, sir, of the promise that Moses made to us in the wilderness, that we were going to be allowed to inherit, girls though we are, because my father had no sons, and he wasn't an apostate along with Korah. So they claimed what was promised, ultimately on the ground that their father was not involved in the apostasy of Korah. And good for him he wasn't, wasn't he? And our sinners come in various strengths, do they not? And we're all sinners, but I hope we're not all apostates. I tell you what, if you want to inherit the inheritance, you better not be an apostate either. There were apostates among the nation, we've already said that. And I must warn you, gentlemen, there are apostates in the Christian church. Jude warns his fellow Christians that even already in his day, certain men had crept in, unawares. That shows they weren't properly converted, but people that are properly converted don't have to creep in. They come in, colors flying, don't they? These chaps had crept in. They were false teachers, and in order to characterize them, Jude says that they have, um, perished in the gainsaying of Korah. The gain saying of Korah? Korah's rebellion was of this kind. It wasn't refusal to enter the land. Korah's rebellion was, he rose up and disputed the claim of Moses and the claim of Aaron. He said, you take too much on yourselves, you sons of Levi, arrogating to yourself, Moses, this supposedly special position that you are the prophet of the Lord, and everybody has to bow down to your word when you say it because you are the special apostle of our faith and bring to us the revealed truth of God. We dispute that. We've all a right to our opinion. You're not special, Moses. And as for this Aaron tra- traipsing around there in his high priestly robes and saying he's the one that's appointed to be a mediator between God and men, we'll tell you straight, we don't need Aaron. We're all as equally holy as Aaron, and we all can come into the most holiest of all. We don't need a high priest in his sacrifice. The gainsaying of Korah, he denied both the apostle, that was Moses who came from God, and the high priest of their Jewish confession. And such was the apostasy that God did a new thing and opened the earth and swallowed them up. It's alarming to hear Jude say that in the Christian church, already in his day, there were people like Korah, a whole bunch of Coras. But there certainly are now, aren't there? Men in Christendom who deny the apostle of our confession. They deny he came out from God. They deny his deity. They deny the incarnation. They deny the virgin birth. They deny his absolute authority. They're not beyond saying that on many things Jesus Christ was mistaken, and they claim to be Christian. I tell you, there is no inheritance. They that say such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. They've gone out from us, says John, for they were never of us. God keep us, gentlemen, from apostasy. God keep us from any error that denies the apostle of our confession or denies the high priest of our confession. When our blessed Lord Jesus came, there were many godly Jews who received him, others who stood in doubt and hadn't yet made up their mind. But alas for the nation that was led by men, who when even Pilate was willing to let him go, they denied the holy and the just. They who do such things unrepentantly, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And now let's take our break there. Before we enter into section five of the book of Joshua, we have one more anecdote to consider from section four. That is the story of a request of the Josephites, given us in chapter seventeen, verses fourteen to eighteen. And so, from all sins, my sins, I have to repeat it. I was saying, privately to myself, apparently, that before we proceed to consider section five of the book of Joshua, we have one more anecdote to consider from section four, namely the request of the Josephites given us in chapter seventeen verses fourteen to eighteen. If Caleb came and claimed what was promised, and Axar and Othniel asked for more, and the daughters of Zelophehad came and claimed what was promised. The Josephites came, and they asked for more, but didn't get it. Well, at least not in the form they had hoped. They came saying that they were a large tribe. I am a great people, said Joseph's representatives, for as much as hitherto the Lord has blessed me. Why have you given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance? Joshua said, if indeed you are a great people, get thee up to the forest and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim. Since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for me. And the children of Israel said, the hill country is not enough for us. I wonder, was that the real reason? Could have been, couldn't it, that meeting Perizzites of a Monday morning, unexpectedly around the corner of a big tree, was rather chilly kind of a Monday morning. Uh, and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley down below, of course, have chariots of iron, and that made life more difficult to expand in that direction. Both they who are in Beth-Ja'an and her towns, and they who are in the valley of Jezreel. So, if you can't expand upwards because there are Perizzites, and you can't expand downwards because there are Canaanites, said Joseph. Uh, we are a big tribe, give us more. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people and has great power. I agree with you. But if you are a great people and has great power, you needn't have one lot only. The hill country shall be thine. For though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof, or the income of it, shall be thine. For thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron and though they be strong. Sometimes, gentlemen, we ask for more, and God says, you don't get any more till you have fully developed what you have already. Sometimes we ask for more. We wish we had better circumstances and better, uh, uh, inheritance, and, uh, wish we had somebody else's inheritance. It looks so easy. Some parts were rid of perisites, and they didn't have Canaanites running around them in iron chariots, and they were very productive, and they weren't hill country, and they weren't encumbered by masses of timber that produced no food whatsoever. And we wish, don't we, we had somebody else's inheritance that is so easily developed. The Lord says no when we ask for more, and says, develop what you have and face the tough work involved in developing what we have, perhaps the Lord won't give us any more. Say to Archippus, says Paul writing to the Colossians. Take heed to the ministry thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfill it. And to Timothy, stir up the gift that is in thee, develop it, use it. If he, if Joseph comes saying, the Lord has blessed me and I'm a big tribe, therefore give me more inheritance, well, let his own words be put back to him. If the Lord has blessed you, then develop it. The Lord has given you a gift, develop it. Develop and exploit your potential to the full of what the Lord has already given you. Don't expect to be given extra stuff on a plate. How many assemblies are developing all the potential gift within them? I should think that must be a difficult thing for elders. I'm glad I'm not one. To see to it that all in the assembly are having their gifts developed, and not just sitting there and coming and going like doors swinging on a hinge. Sometimes I think that many of us have more talents than we realize. If only somebody had the imagination to point out what talents we have and how we could use them and expand them and develop them for the Lord. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, if the Lord had to come to us in our middle age, like he came to Sardis, and say, I have found none of your works fulfilled before my God. Works begun and only half fulfilled, and never developed properly, and never properly explored. But with that, we must leave section, uh, uh, 4 of the book of, uh, Joshua and come now to section five. That need not detain us long, or at least it won't detain us long, because of the vast extent of my ignorance of this particular passage. Let us notice, however, structurally again, how the author has ordered his material. It begins in chapter eighteen verse two. There remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet divided their inheritance. The story of how their inheritance was divided to them is then told in chapter eighteen and 19 at length and in detail. And you come in chapter nineteen verse fifty one to the end of that distribution of the inheritance to the seven tribes, which was done by Lot in Shiloh before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the land, and you might be tempted to think that at that juncture, section four had finished. But closer attention will show you that what you have finished is the distribution of the land among the seven tribes, that's all. There follow more chapters, chapter twenty and twenty one, and now they tell us two very important things, that out of the cities that were now given to all the tribes, two lots of cities had to be given back, so to speak. First of all, uh, you will see, uh, in chapter twenty one— uh, chapter twenty, they had to give certain cities, or at least prepare them and maintain them, as cities of refuge for accidental homicides, so that they could flee there and thus escape the vengeance of the avenger of blood. And then in chapter twenty one they had to give cities for the Levites to dwell in, that the Levites might be maintained in the service of the Lord proceed. When that is finished, look at verses forty three, forty four, forty five of chapter twenty one for the great summary, concluding summary that marks the end of section five of the book. So the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about according to all that he sware unto their fathers. And there stood not a man of all their enemies before them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel, all came to pass. With that resounding summary, chapter fi- uh, section five comes to its end. And I beg leave to point it out just once more, to argue that my divisioning of this book is not my own arbitrary idea imposed on the text. I am at least trying my best to follow the indications of organization that the author himself has put there. Section five then, as we have already noticed, is concerned with the distribution of the, uh, inheritance to the seven tribes. And what is told us at its beginning, verse three of chapter eighteen, borders on the incredible, that there should be Israelites who had toiled across the wilderness and had seen the magnificent deeds of the Lord that had brought them under Joshua into the land, and within, within sight of their own personal inheritance, and in spite of that, they were still twizzling their thumbs and aimlessly wandering around and were slack to go in to possess the land which the Lord, the God of their fathers, had given them. How is that credible? That anybody faced with a glorious inheritance that God had given them should be slack to go into it. And yet it is credible, isn't it? Because when all is said and done, we've been tarred with the same brush. And the writer to the Hebrews has to point out to his friends to whom he wrote that some of them, though keen at the start, had, curiously enough, become sluggish and hard of hearing. And what time they were meant to be teachers, they were still veritably babes and could only be fed on milk and water. Gentlemen, methinks, as they say in Old English, that it is a real spiritual disease. That if people begin well and go on and then start dawdling around and fall back, and instead of developing to the time when they could be teachers, still remain on milk sops. It's more serious than you might think, for it, uh, leads to a dulling of their hearing. And then you can bring on Gabriel, if he'll come down to heaven at your suggestion, to preach your sermons, and they won't hear much. They won't get excited. They won't be interested. You could have the even greater Michael the Archangel plus the Apostle Paul and Peter on the conference. I wouldn't hear much. It is a real spiritual disease, gentlemen. You have become sluggish and hard of hearing. Yes, and a disease difficult to cure. Of course, you can make excuse, perhaps, for those Hebrew believers to whom the writer to the Hebrews was penning his letter. I'd like to talk to you, he says, about our great high priest Melchizedek, you know, and all his glories, but then, la. That is, of course, the subject you need to hear about, you, you, you Hebrews, because you're going through terrible persecution, and you need the ministry of the high priest to know about how he intercedes for you and how he can strengthen you in the battle, but the very thing you need to hear about you can't take in because you're sluggish of hearing. Isn't that a sad business? Oh, my brothers, if you can keep the young converts on the go, do keep them on the go and making progress. Don't let them become sluggish if you can help it. You may ruin their appetites for the rest of their lives. But I say there's an excuse for the Hebrews because they had been converted, but I'm not quite sure whether they really wanted to hear too much about Melchizedek, their high priest. I guarantee they sensed in their bones that if they'd heard too much about him, they must- might have to forsake their earthly high priest to now the temple at Jerusalem, and perhaps that might not be convenient. And afraid to go too far for what they sensed it might involve them in. They had become hard of hearing. I knew of a leader of an evangelical pioneer team in Europe who wouldn't let those in his team under his leadership, uh, study the Bible too much. He said studying the Bible too much was dangerous. So then now, at last they were persuaded to go in for their inheritance, thank the Lord. And the first step was going round it and have a looking at it and then writing it down in a book. Do it, gentlemen. Do it. Don't forever content yourself with say doing the elementary things. Show some imagination. Do. And make the dear believers go round the bounds of their potential inheritance and show him the, show them the length of it and the breadth of it and the height of it and the depth of it. So that they may see what they're missing, and the Lord in his mercy open their eyes to see the glories of what they yet is to be attained. Dorsey. But I mustn't exhort you more on that, and the time frees away, uh, you'll know how to preach your sermons on that. Let's come now to the two major sections then, the two major chapters that follow, uh, here in section five: the provision of the cities of refuge and the provision of cities for the Levites. The background law, the background for the institution of the cities of refuge was, of course, the law against murder. You will find it in many parts. Uh, Numbers thirty five, thirty three, and thirty four is a case in point. Murder, the shedding of innocent blood, pollutes the land. It is said in that verse that the murder, the shedding of innocent blood pollutes the land in which God dwells. For the land was the Lord's land, and it is a part of his inheritance. And murder, he says, polluted the land. Moreover, murder was an insult to God, for man is made in the image of God. To murder anybody is an insult to God himself. Moreover, amongst Israel, the Israelites, the nation itself, was the Lord's portion. And therefore, to murder an Israelite was to diminish the Lord's own inheritance, wasn't he? No wonder murder was regarded so seriously in Israel, and it was said that only by the, uh, the the death and and bloodshed of the murderer himself could the original shedding of blood be purged. Let me just take a leap off into the historical books to remind you of that fearful desecration that Ahab and Jezebel perpetrated against Naboth. Naboth had received his inheritance through his fathers from the Lord and held it sacred. It wasn't just a field or two, a donkey and a cow and a few bees. Life to him was sacred. His little farm was sacred. It was the bit that God had given him, and he wouldn't sell it for anything. Sometimes I think life would be a lot sweeter if we regarded even our own possessions, not only our external possessions, but our internal, our gifts, our abilities, our natural talents, what the Lord has given us in life. If we came to believe with all our hearts that this is the portion that God has given me, it is a sacred thing. How it will enhance life's values, wouldn't it? How it would undercut the jealousy and the envy that sometimes gets in us, and how it would undercut the old urge to keep up with the Jones. I accept that what I am, by God's grace, is sacred, my inheritance. Nothing there to suggest that we shouldn't develop ourselves to the full extent. We've just heard a sermon from somewhere on, on that very topic. Jezebel and Ahab coveted Nabal's vineyard, and when he wouldn't sell it, Jezebel used the very law of the land and the sacred oath of God to commit judicial murder, murder Naboth to take over his land. That was a fearful desecration, not only to take away an inheritance granted by the Lord in the form of land, but to desecrate and murder one of God's blood-bought Israelites was part of the Lord's portion. We're not anywhere near murdering our brothers and sisters, are we? But there are occasions when we need to pray that prayer aforementioned, that God would open our eyes to see what is the exceeding riches of his in the saints. As C. S. Lewis used to say, if you could see that Christian man who sits next to you at this moment, as he will be when God has perfected him, you'd fall down and you'd be tempted to fall down and worship him. You say, how can you say that? Well, because when John in his vision saw an angel, he was so overcome with the splendor of the angel that he fell down to his feet to worship him and had to be pulled up by his hair. You mustn't do that, says an angel. I'm an ordinary two-eighths angel around here. I'm no one special. I'm only an angel. You mustn't worship me. But the sight of such magnificent glory instinctively had John on his knees. And what will you say about that man sitting next to you? When God has finished him, he'll be far above angels. Oh, if you could see your brothers and sisters as they shall be. God open our eyes to the wonder of his inheritance in the saints. And God help us not in any way to damage or dimish- diminish or to desacralize it. But here, of course, provision is made for the accidental homicide. In life's tasks, a man might accidentally kill his fellow. Because the shedding of blood was so grievous a thing, a man who had accidentally, uh, killed his fellow was in danger of the avenger of blood catching up with him, because it was the responsibility of the near of kin to act as the avenger of blood. This was an early state in Israel's development. Later, of course, it was taken out of the hand of the immediate kin and invested in the government to do it. But at this stage, responsibility for aven- avenging murder was on the next of kin to a- to avenge it. And the avenger of blood wouldn't stop to ask what the motivation was. All he would concern him is that his near of kin had been killed, and he would speed hot foot to take vengeance on the man who had done it. And therefore, cities of refuge were appointed where the accidental homicide might flee, and thus escape being killed at the hand of the avenger of blood. The process that then followed, as far as we can make out, was this. Once inside the city, the man was for the moment safe. The avenger of blood was not allowed to follow him in. The avenger of blood would then be brought immediately before the elders of that city, who would inquire about the case. If the man was obviously a deliberate murderer, they would hand him straight over to the avenger of blood. If there was some doubt about the case, it had to be referred to the All-Tribal National Assembly. The National Assembly made up its mind on the case. If they decided that the man had deliberately murdered his fellow, then they had him executed. If they held- had found that the man was sincere, he hadn't deliberately done it, there was no malice of forethought, it was an accident, uh, dulce, an unintended. And then the difficulties begin, don't they? At least, I'm hoping there's some lawyer here that they can explain them to me. I will show my ignorance now by detailing the difficulties. If the man was found in that sense to be innocent, he wasn't allowed to go home. Why not? It was all an accident. Why shouldn't he therefore be allowed to go home? No, he had to go back to the city of refuge and was forbidden to come outside the City of Refuge or leave it. He must stay there. And moreover, his relatives were forbidden to try and bribe the city authorities to let him free. They were not to come and offer a ransom of money and buy the man out from the City of Refuge so that he could go back to his inheritance. Why not? Because the court had pronounced that the man was not a murderer. Accidentally he had killed somebody, but he wasn't a murderer. Why was he forced to remain in the city of refuge until the high priest died. I'm in the habit of asking my friends this when I travel the world. I shall be asking you now. I can't believe that in a company this size, there's nobody here who's, who, who, who, who has, uh, preached a gospel sermon to Sunday school or adult people from the cities of refuge. I won't oblige you to confess if you have done it, gentlemen, but if you have, please come and tell me what you preach about it normally. When I've asked, some people have said, well, the city of refuge was such a nice place, the nearest th- thing to paradise on earth, that the God forced the man to stay there for his own enjoyment. I find it difficult. For if it had been such a glorious place, then why would anybody attempt to come and buy him out? Which thing was forbidden, of course. And if he was like most men, they might have enjoyed being in the city, but they would have had a conscience about their dear wife and, and, and, and, and fifteen children that they'd left at home on the farm, you'll see. And they would want to get back to the wife and family. Why weren't they allowed to? And what would you make of the direction that they were to stay in the city until the death of the high priest? Isn't that a little bit arbitrary? I mean, the high priest might live for the next forty years, or he might die next Tuesday. So why was it okay if he died next Tuesday for him to go home? Why, I mean... Why make it depend on upon the death of the high priest? I struggle with these things, and I'm far from telling you I have any answer. I will say where I got so far, and let my i- ignorance, uh, move you to try and help me after this lecture. Possible answers. While the man had done what he had done accidentally, he had done a very grievous damage, hadn't he? I don't know that it made any great difference to the wife and children of the man who'd been killed. Whether the killing was an accident or deliberate, they still lost father. They still lost the man who was re- to work for them and provide their daily bread. It was a damage that would never be undone this side of eternity. And shall the man just be allowed to go home and get on with nurturing his wife and family and enjoying his inheritance to the full, when now widow Hephzibah across the road was dragging out a very difficult existence because her husband had been killed. Was that one of the reasons why the accidental homicide must not be allowed home? Because he had actually done a great damage, though unwittingly. Maybe that's part of the reason, maybe it isn't. It is the fact that gentlemen in life that we can do damage unwittingly. So... I tremble to think of the people that I have damaged unwittingly, from which damage they'll never recover this side of eternity. And saying I didn't mean to, and I did it accidentally, and I'm sorry, well, that's perhaps all we can say. It doesn't undo the damage. To spoil God's inheritance, to spoil my Christian neighbor, even accidentally and unintentionally, is a serious matter, surely. God preserve us from ever doing it. Why then let them home at the death of the high priest in that case? Or, as I say, the high priest could, might die next Tuesday, or he might live for the next forty years. Some have suggested, and it seems to me there might be something in it, that if blood, shed blood polluted the land, then even though it was an accidental thing, it had to be atoned for. Could it be that the high priest's death was regarded, in some sense, as making some kind of compensatory atonement for the damage? You may think that that is, no, that couldn't possibly be right. What inclines me in the view that it could possibly be right is the other observation of the high priest. He wore the mitre as he went into the holiest of all to do his tasks, that he might bear the iniquities of the children of Israel. There was a sense in which, when it came to the holy things, the high priest bore responsibility for the iniquity of his people, with all the implications that that carried to them. Could it be that in some sense the death of the high priest was thought to compensate and deal with and remove the damage that had been done by the accidental homicide? I merely submit it to you. You'll see, gentlemen, you'll see my uncertainties and my grave need for help. And it is a Christian principle that when one man has helped you, you must help him. And goodness me, I've been talking for hours. You've got a lot of hours talking to do, gentlemen, in return. And then I think of that fearful case of homicide, the biggest that Israel ever knew, from the time they entered the land to the time they'll get back again. They killed God's own son. And you'll say those wicked men, and they did it with their eyes open, and they did it deliberately. Surely God will call fire down from heaven on them. Ah, but you haven't read the heart of God. For when Pentecost came and the apostles were commissioned to go out and preach, standing publicly before the multitude who had cried away with him, his blood be on us and on our children. Peter says, but I realize, gentlemen, you did it in ignorance, as did all your rulers. You didn't know what you were doing, and there is mercy for you on that account. Mercy for the murderers because they didn't know what they did. But all who shall tell what damage it was, how would you describe the killing of God's own darling son. Not ten million galaxies would compensate God for it. What shall appease the wrath of God for a land polluted by the precious blood that dripped down from Calvary's cross onto its soil. How shall ever our planet be cleansed and sanctified again? But the answer is by the death of God's great high priest. That's a marvelous story, isn't it? While I sit here, I think, gentlemen, I don't know if you do, of the things I've done in the past and the damage they have caused, and I would give, what would I not give? To undo them, but they can't be undone. How shall those who have suffered at my hand ever enjoy my presence in heaven? Yeah. You imagine, I've not been in this situation, but you imagine a schoolmaster, and he was an unconverted schoolmaster. Evil man, and he broke the faith of Johnny Smith. And Johnny Smith, having his faith broken, the faith he learned at his mother's knee. But before he had time to believe the Savior, the schoolmaster went and broke his faith, and the man went out on drugs and committed crime and went to an early grave, unrepentant and lost. And his dear mother, being a believer, broke her heart. And lo and behold, six years down the road, the schoolmaster gets converted. And what will the mother say when she meets the schoolmaster in heaven? How shall she bear to meet him? What shall compensate her? I know of only one thing, gentlemen. She shall find the death of the high priest at Calvary. Wash away all the sense of loss and compensate her beyond all her expectations. At least that's my hope. For if I had no hope there, how would heaven ever remain heaven? As we thought back over the damage that we have done. And finally, we come to think of the Levites. They had to have cities provided for them. The Israelites, out of their gratitude to God, must maintain the service of God, and therefore cities must be given back from their inheritance and given to the Levites. For the Levites had no portion at all but the Lord. Though God had a notion that that was enough. Uh, the Levites had no portion but the Lord, and they had to be maintained with houses and cities and some gardens around the city so that the service of the Lord might. And what would you say of the, uh, of the Israelite who was faced with a demand? Would you say this is unreasonable, this is too burdensome a tax upon us, on our slender income? Or would you not say, gentlemen, it is your reasonable service. Romans tells us that in our unregenerate state, man, he would not have the knowledge of God, but worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. When salvation does its, uh, its lovely task, then Paul reminds us that we are to yield our bodies a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable service. Now the Levites had many sacred duties to perform, but I fancy, you know, as day went by and month followed month and year followed year, uh, the service of the Lord in his temple might have got just a little bit monotonous and samey, you know? Half a dozen sacrifices, and you had to clear up the mess after them, and, uh, well, you'd had thousands of sacrifices go through your hands, and it was all pretty, uh, you know, samey and irksome and monotonous and whatnot. How did you get Levites to persist in their rigorous service of the Lord. They are, as far as I know, the only group of men in the Old Testament that were offered as a living sacrifice. At their induction, they were brought to the altar, and they were offered as a wave offering before the Lord. So does Paul require of us, Levites in spirit, that we offer our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. On what ground, I beseech you, he says, by the mercies of God, who spared you and brought you into your inheritance and thus enriched you. I beseech you by the mercies of God that you yield your bodies a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service. So may the Lord bless our evening meditation in his.