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We come now to begin to consider together the second half of the book of Joshua. To introduce us to the topic, let us now read two passages from different chapters in this second half of the book. And the first is from chapter thirteen and is the word of the Lord to Joshua. Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years.
And the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed. This is the land that still remains, all the regions of the Philistines and all the Geshurites, from the Shehor which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites. Then the five lords of the Philistines, the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, and the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites, also the Arvim.
On the south, all the land of the Canaanites and Miara that belongeth to the Zidonians unto Aphek, to the border of the Amorites. And the land of the Gibealites and all Lebanon towards the sun rising, from Baal Gad under Mount Hermon, unto the entering in of Hamath. All the inhabitants of the hill country, from Lebanon unto Misrphothmaim, even all the Sidonians. Them will I drive out from before the children of Israel.
Only do thou allot it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance. Words, the wor- lords of the, the words of the Lord to Joshua, beginning the second half of the book, and what is in fact the fourth section. Now let us read from chapter eighteen. This begins the fifth section of the book.
For the second half of the book has three major sections in it, like the first half of the book has three major sections in it. This is the second half of the book, section two, beginning at eighteen verse two. And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet divided their inheritance. And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are you slack to go in to possess the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?
Appoint for you three men for each tribe, and I will send them, and they shall arise and walk through the land and describe it according to their inheritance, and they shall come to me. And they shall divide it into seven portions. Judah shall abide in his border on the south, and the house of Joseph shall abide in their border on the north. And you shall describe the land, that is the rest of the land, into seven portions, and bring the description hither to me, and I will cast lots for you here before the Lord our God.
For the Levites have no portion among you, for the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance, and Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond Jordan eastward, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave them. And the men arose and went, and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, land, saying, go and walk through the land and describe it, and come again to me, and I will cast lots for you here before the Lord in Shiloh. And the men went and passed through the land and described it by cities into seven portions in a book.
You notice the phrase. Wrote it down and all its details in a book. And they came to Joshua unto the camp at Shiloh. Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord, and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions. So, as I say, in this session we begin to study the second half of the book of Joshua. Need I say it that the first half we have discovered to be concerned with this topic, not with Israel's entry into their possessions.
There is nothing of that in the first half of the book. The first half of the book is altogether concerned with what Joshua did as commander of the united armies, first to get the Israelites into the land physically, and then to subdue all the opposition of Jericho, of Ai, of the southern confederacy of kings and the Northern Confederacy of Kings. It is what Joshua did through the united armies of Israel, through their fighting, and through the miracles that God did to achieve the three gate objectives.
That done, and it took a long while to do. The second half of the book now opens up before Israel the practical possibility of entering into their individual inheritance by their tribes, the parts of the country that God would allot to each tribe for its inheritance. We discussed this morning in our general session at the beginning of the day the concept of inheritance.
It's enough for me now, perhaps, to say that from a practical point of view at this late hour in the day, we may think of our spiritual inheritance in Christ as all the blessings that Christ has procured for us. So that, taking the book of Joshua as a prototype for us Christians, the first half, what Joshua did to make the inheritance possible, corresponds to the great and almighty work that our Joshua, Jesus, for Joshua is the Hebrew for Jesus, the great and mighty work that our blessed Lord Jesus has done to make possible our entry into our inheritance.
When we have gathered what our blessed Lord has done for us, to make it possible for us to enter our spiritual inheritance, not only in heaven when at last we get there, but even now here on earth, when we discover what our Lord has done, then comes our responsibility to enter in to that inheritance. That is what the second half of the book of Joshua, therefore, is about. Of course, it's about that at the literal physical geographical level of the conquest of the literal land of Canaan.
Yet in that, even in that conquest, the Israelites had a very practical experience of God and God's provision and God's help and his marvelous miracles and the wonder of Joshua, as God exalted Joshua in the eyes of the people that they might fear Joshua all his days. And in particular, the miracles were done through Joshua's agency more often than not, because God was intent on exalting Joshua. And our hearts surely have been moved, at least we hope so, as we considered those pictures from far off times, so vividly pointing to the great victories of Christ, who in the first place conquered death by dying on behalf of his people.
As much as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death and deliver all those who, through fear of death, were all their living time subject to slavery. That's what our blessed Lord has done for us. Just as through Joshua's instrumentality, the ark was taken and went into Jordan. The very presence of the Lord on that ark, splitting the Red Sea and leading Israel down through and up the other side into their inheritance.
Apart from the miracle, it would have been sheer danger of death for Israel to attempt to cross it at the time when Jordan was in flood. Vivid picture of what our blessed Lord has done to make possible our entry into the inheritance that God has for us. Through his death and resurrection, says Peter, we have been begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven for us, who are now being kept by the power of God.
What our Lord did at Calvary to make our entry into our inheritance. Then again, for the establishment of the law, which meant physically that before the law could be established up in Shechem near Gilgo- near Ebal and Mount, uh, Gerizim, the two cities that lay in the path, namely Jericho and then Ai, had to be overcome, and were so overcome under the judgment of God, so that Israel was then free to establish the law...
near Shechem. And when we thought of that, we thought of what our blessed Lord has done. How that the judgment of God fell on Jesus Christ, our Lord. A judgment that we richly deserve. And to make it possible for us to be saved, God had to establish the honor of his law, and that meant condemning us as sinners, did it not?
And not just condemning us, it meant on God's insisting on the penalty of the law being paid. The curse of the law being, of a broken law being honored. The amazing story is that to make it possible for us to enter our inheritance, the judgment of God fell upon Christ. He bore the curse of a broken law for us. Therein alone lies our salvation. We are strictly forbidden to add anything as a condition for salvation to what our blessed Lord did at Calvary.
And of course, secondly, our blessed Lord makes it possible for the law to be established in another sense. So Romans eight says that what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own dear son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. As you know, gentlemen, it's not a question of saying we can't keep the law for salvation. That is perfectly true.
And we don't need to keep the law for salvation. That is equally true. And Christ has paid the penalty of our breaking the law. That is true. So that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ. That does not mean that we don't have to keep the law, does it? No, indeed it doesn't. The purpose is that the righteousness, the righteous requirement of the law shall be fulfilled in us. Establishment of the law has two sides to it. The penalty paid by Christ, so there's no condemnation for us.
That's a gift. But the gift of God's Holy Spirit in the believer, to enable us as believers to walk not after the flesh, our own unaided effort, but after the power of the spirit and new life in the Spirit, new life in Christ in the Spirit, enabling this to happen, that the righteous demand of the law shall be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Thank God for those ancient pictures in the second division, uh, of the second section of Joshua, the story of the establishment of the law by the judgment of God on Jericho and Ai, and the lessons it represents to us, particularly those that are told us in the Epistle to the Galatians.
And what more has Christ done? And what more will he yet do? The third section of the book, as we saw today, was concerned with Joshua putting down all rule and authority. The destruction of the kings in Canaan. Until those kings were destroyed, it would be perilous for Israel to try and settle down into their individual inheritances. And so Joshua had to deal with the kings and the authorities, the principalities and the powers.
He put them down. It was done in two stages. First, he put down the kings of the southern confederacy. God joined, or had Joshua join with him, as God himself joined in the battle to destroy the kings and their armies from the south and to deliver the Gibeonites who had been converted to Israel. God fighting for them. Magnificent story, isn't it? And we thought, as we saw those old fight kings captured, put to death, hung on a tree, and made an open spectacle of the encouragement, so shall God do to all your enemies.
That made us think of what Christ has done for us, so that we can enter our inheritance. He had to face the principalities and powers, did he not? In Colossians chapter two, in a few verses, depicts in very colorful and dramatic language what Christ did at Calvary to strip the principalities and powers of their weaponry against us, to nullify their accusations against us, not by denying our sin, but taking the account of our sin that we ourselves confess to, paying the penalty and nailing the receipt of our pardon to his very cross.
The answer to the accusations of the accuser of the brethren, his satanic majesty and all his troops. If that doesn't mean anything to you yet, well, it surely will do one of these days. It wasn't just Luther, who standing for the truth of the gospel, felt himself on times assaulted by Satan himself. We need an advocate with the Father.
The blessed Son of God who at Calvary answered all the accusations of the devil. There's more to salvation than just just convincing human beings. Christ fought for us, that mighty spiritual battle at Calvary. He subdued the powers of hell. In the fight, he stood alone. God give us ever a greater and increasing understanding of what the death of Christ has done for us in the spiritual realm.
The book of the Revelation in chapter twelve, in its colorful language, tells us how that the, uh, devil is the accuser of the brethren. He accuses them night and day before God. You have to take him seriously, of course. The devil is more concerned with morality than you might think. If God is going to save human beings and bring them at last to their inheritance in heaven, his satanic majesty will have a voice in it and say to God, how you dare do it?
Don't you know what this chap has been doing in life? You're going to tell him that he's forgiven? You're going to throw me out of heaven and put him in my place, the rotten sinner that he is. What answer shall we have? In that passage in the Revelation, it is said they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. Marvelous, isn't it? What Christ has done, whether we realize it or not, for our great salvation, battling with the hosts infernal.
As we saw in the narrative that tells of the putting down of all rule and authority. It had to be done in two stages, and was so done. The first stage with the southern kings, and the reference to hanging on a tree. We notice it and saw its significance. Second stage, in which the northern Confederacy came, with all their sinister power. God hardened their hearts, and they were eventually destroyed.
The putting down of all rule and authority is likewise in two parts. There is what Christ did at Calvary, for our sakes. There's yet a mighty battle to come. When the Lord shall come again. And do battle with Satan's puppet, the man of sin, heading a godless world in which men have got rid of God, only to have find themselves having to bow down to a mere human being inspired by Satan.
And the beast and the false prophet shall make war with the Lamb, a- and the Lamb shall overcome. What Christ has done and will yet do, that we might enter our inheritance. If the first half of Joshua serves in God's wisdom to give us thought patterns that we can meditate on and understand, that will shed light on what Christ has done for us to bring us into our inheritance, both now and hereafter, then God help us to learn Joshua, if need be by heart, and seek God's grace to understand it, that Christ might thereby be glorified, and our understanding of what Christ has done for us be enlarged.
The first half of Joshua then pointing in its prototypical language to what Christ has done for us, that we might enter into our inheritance, our spiritual inheritance, even now, and in the future, the inheritance reserved for us in heaven. What is the second half of Joshua about? The second half is the preparations being made, the great work done that made possible for the s- for the tribes to enter their inheritance. Now the practical thing. The tribes had to get up and walk and move and fight to enter their inheritance.
You say, that's very funny. Because I thought Joshua had fought all the enemies until there weren't any me- enemies left. Well, yes, he fought all the enemies and killed all those around, but a lot of them skedaddled, as they say, and ran off before Joshua got there. Ha ha. So he took a few cities down the south and executed the king and put the inhabitants to flight, but not all the inhabitants waited to be executed. Can you understand that? Ran off. And then, of course, Joshua and the armies moved on to some other cities, and then presently left the south and went up north.
And when he was gone up north, the original inhabitants came back again. What would you have done if you'd have been an original inhabitant? So when Joshua divided the land for the tribes individually to take up their inheritance, when the dear tribes went to take up their inheritance, they found the place was occupied more often than not. What are they going to do then? Oh, they had to fight so years to get into their inheritance. You say, God has given me a great inheritance, and it is a gift.
I didn't have to fight for it, he gave it to me. Marvelous. You're going to enter into it? I tell you now, you'll have to fight hard. It won't just come automatically. You won't wake up one of these Sunday mor- uh, Monday mornings and say, oh, I, you know, I feel something different. Something's happened to me overnight. Oh, well, perhaps I've become holy overnight. Most unlikely. You won't wake up one Tuesday morning and say, do you know what? I didn't realize it before, I can cite the whole Epistle to the Romans off my heart.
You won't do it without learning it, gentlemen. And to learn it will be a fight. I'm telling you now it's a fight. Listen to Paul talking to Timothy. Endure hardship, Tim old boy, he says, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Give yourself to the hard, hard work of reading and teaching God's word and doing the ministry of an evangelist. There is no pretense, but what it will involve from time to time, hard fighting.
The devil will see to it there are obstacles galore in the way, and not all the obstacles will be bad, wicked things. They will be nice things, interesting things. Ah. But you can't get two pints of water into a one pint jug, can you? And if the jug of your life and mind is filled with other things, you won't get spiritual things into it. It will demand discipline of time and energy and thought and effort, not only to learn it oneself, but by various means to pass it on to others.
This then is going to be the lesson for the second half of the book of Joshua. It has three sections to it, this second half of the book. I've read to you the beginning of the first section in this second half of the book, what you might call section four, and then I've read you the beginning of section five To show you the similarity in these opening words of the opening of these two sections, and then to call your attention to the differences.
Both of them are going to record how the inheritance was divided up and given to the individual tribes. There were two major difficulties in the way. The first one is mentioned by God himself in chapter thirteen, uh When Joshua was now old and well stricken in years. And to rub it in, God came to him and said, Joshua, you're old, my good man, and well stricken in years.
Just as if he didn't know it. The problem was that he had toiled assiduously with mighty courage these many years, at least five, perhaps more, in rigorous military campaign. He was old when it started. He was very old when he finished. And the problem? There remains very much land to be possessed. The problem of old age.
When I was young, I was going to do I don't know what, and change the world for good, for God's sake. I don't know what happened, really. When I was not looking, I sort of became old. I can't believe it some days. I look at certain gentlemen. I knew them when they were students, all bright-eyed and full of career and ambition, just qualified.
And those fellows now, are some of them, what, in their seventies, and some of them have already gone home. And to see them gone through their whole career, oh, how soon it's gone. You believe me if you don't, if you have to. That life will soon be gone by, you young folks. You better start making up your mind in your youth to give yourself a hundred percent to God. Not necessarily all in so-called spiritual work, but to determine that your career, your daily career, is going to serve the glory and purposes of God.
And that your marriage, if it is God's will for you to marry, shall serve the purposes of God. That the whole of life shall be devoted to God and to the prosecution of his purpose. And among those purposes, our entry into our great spiritual inheritance. I was going to understand the whole Bible before I died. Silly chump. And I think God whispers in my ears like he did in Jo- Joshua's.
Gooding, you're old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth even yet very much of the Bible you haven't understood. And I've been at it for seventy years. The problem of old age. What is Joshua to do about it? Do my older brethren present feel like it? Feel there's so much to be done that they would like to have done, but time has run out on them.
What to do? Now there's all this land, says God, Joshua, yet to be possessed. So, divide it up among the tribes, because I'm going to give it eventually to them, to act in faith and hold it out in front of their noses, so to speak, that they may begin to reach out after it. Allot it to them in faith. The area which God described wasn't all of it occupied for centuries.
But God was taking the long-term view. God is like that. He holds out the future as a possibility, doesn't us? To get us going for it. And Peter puts it like this, he's given us great and exceeding promises. Why does God promise? Why doesn't he wait till things happen? No, he holds out promises because promises give us an incentive to go in for it, and to find the fulfillment by which we make a become partakers of the divine nature.
Mm. So was, uh, Joshua. We shall come back to the details tomorrow, maybe. But he was old. eighty years plus. When he distributed, or he's going to distribute, in this section of the book, the inheritance to Judah, and then the inheritance to the tribes of Joseph, that's Ephraim and Manasseh. Before he could get going, distributing the, the, um, inheritance to the tribe of Judah, we're told, up came the children of Judah, chapter fourteen and verse six, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite came to him.
Now, Caleb was a Kenizzite. He was not of the tribe of Judah, but he'd been incorporated into it, and here he comes. Wow. Joshua, he said, because he and Joshua had both been spies originally, hadn't they? And had gone into the land and came back with a good report of it. And when the other spies pointed out to the Israelites that in the land there were giants, and we were in their sight as grasshoppers, Caleb and Joshua said, absolute pithom nonsense. How do you know how you look like in their eyes anyway? But the Lord is going to be with us, and we shall have him for breakfast.
Um, but the people wouldn't listen. And so Caleb had to suffer with the nation for forty years. But at the time, Moses had promised him that whatever land your foot trod on will be yours, Caleb, when at last the people go in. Tremendous promise. You know, he believed it from the very first. It was a promise, an ambition, a hope that kept him a going for forty years through the wilderness.
And as soon as they got in, here come the tribe of Judah, and Caleb speaks up. Now, J- Joshua, he says, you remember the word that Moses spoke to us when we were spies? And you remember how he said, Caleb, the ground upon which your foot has trodden shall be yours. You see, Joshua, I claim it for my inheritance. Joshua said, yes, it shall be yours. That's what they call standing on the promises, or something similar.
He had, you see, the word of Moses, the servant of God, the inspired word of Moses, and therefore divine authority. It wasn't just some wild claim, it was a claim based on the word of God through Moses. And though it had been long delayed in its fulfillment, now Joshua and Caleb claim its fulfillment, claiming what was promised. Well, there's a something that made old Joshua's old heart cheer up and beat a bit faster and feel a bit warmer, that there was a man around like Caleb that took God at his word and was going in for all that God had promised.
Two giants. Hebron was the place, well, what we now call Hebron, of course. It's called a different name in those days. Trouble was there are a number of giants. The Anakim were there. The father of all the Anakim, the father of all the giants, his name was Abar, you see, and this was a city of Kiriath Abar. It was a city of the old giants. Giants, says Kay, that made no difference to me. And off he went, at his age of eighty five, chasing the giants off the inheritance, prepared to fight for what God had promised.
Comes a challenge to my old heart. Since Christ has done so much to make the inheritance possible. Am I prepared on my side to enter into the inheritance, even if it means fighting, and disciplined fighting too, in the management of resources and time and determination? Claiming what is promised. Then there is another little incident told us, and that is told us in chapter, uh, 15, from verse thirteen down to verse nineteen.
Caleb got a portion, you see. That was his portion. We were discussing these terms like portion this morning, one of the technical terms to deal with inheritance. So Caleb got this, you'll see. Uh, even Kiriath Arba. Arba was the father of Anak, father of the Anakim, the giants. Now that city is also called Hebron. And Caleb drove out hence three sons of Anak, Sheshai, Achiman, Talmai, the children of Anak, all of them giants. He chased them out.
He went up then against the inhabitants of Debir. Now Debir, uh, the name of Debir aforetime was Kiryas Sefer. Curious name, it means the city of the book. And Caleb said, he who smites Kiryas Sefer and taketh it to him, I will give him Aksa, my daughter, to wife. Hmm. And Athiel, the son of Kynes, as brother of Caleb, took it, and he gave him Aksa, his daughter, to wife. Old Caleb knew a thing about you- motivating young people, I suppose. There were giants in this city of the book.
Kiryas Sefer it was. City of the book, lot of giants there. How could he motivate anybody that would need to be a young man to go up there and deal with them? How could he motivate them to go and do it? Wise old boy. He said, anybody that goes and smites Kiriath Sefer, the city of the book, I'll give him my daughter Axar to wife. And apparently, Osniel had one look at the giants and then took a look at Axar, ha, and decided he'd better go and meet the giants.
Hm. You'll see. Talk about motivation. He not only got a bride, Caleb's daughter, of all people under the sun, and she was a chip off the old block. But, uh, he got the city of Hebron, uh, uh, uh, uh, the city of Kiryas Sefer as well, the city of a book. If I were a married man, I should now preach a sermon to you, you who are younger and not yet married. But I am not a married man, so I won't preach the sermon. But if I had been a married man, what I would have said would have been...
Watch who you marry. Experience shows, and they who stand on the touchline often see more of the game than others do. Your wife can be a tremendous incentive to go on with the Lord and his work. Your wife could be the very opposite. Careful who you marry. I don't know why the city was called the City of the Book, but this late of our, uh, ni- uh, this late hour of the night, it gives me an excuse for fanciful interpretation.
You're going to manage this book? Going to get to know it? What, including the Old Testament? Cool. I tell you, you'll have to fight a lot of giants. Don't pretend it will be easy. I'm a student and a scholar by bent, so it's easier for me than many, I realize that. And not all of us can be biblical scholars. But to get to know God's word will be a fight, gentlemen. And in this modern world, it will be a bigger fight than ever it was.
Fight the good fight of the faith. And do preach the word, Tim, says Paul to Timothy. Teach it when it's in season, a good opportunity, and when it's a bad opportunity. Preach it, man. For the time will come where they will not endure sound doctrine. They want to be entertained. We live in a world that listens with its eyes, doesn't it? Instead of with its brain, and decides by its emotions rather than its will.
The fight to get to know the book, the book, will be a real rigorous fight. Oh, it has its delights and its joys and its wonders. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil, says the psalmist. Oh, where was I? Oh, I, I was with that girl, Caleb's wife, because she was a chip off the old block, wasn't she? What a... Mm-hmm. So, uh, Caleb, true to his word, gave Othniel not only exile, but the inheritance. Do you see?
And of course, like father-in-laws will do, daddy came to visit the young couple. And Axer said to Osniel, now look here, when daddy comes, you are to ask for some more territory. Wives do that kind of thing sometimes. They prod their husbands to ask for things. So Offnio got ready to ask when Papa came. Papa was some personality, of course, as you may imagine, and they'd already been given a pretty, uh, a good deal of territory to ask for more.
Wow. So here comes father. And out went Othniel and Axa. Axa didn't give Othniel time to speak anyway. She said to dad, you'll have to give us more territory, dad, she said. This is useless, what you're giving us. Nothing but dry bit of old sand. Can't grow any cucumbers nor tomatoes nor nothing on it, she said. You'll have to give us some extra stuff for water supply. And Caleb couldn't refuse, of course, and gave them the upper and the nether spring. Marvelous insistence, claiming what was promised and asking for more.
Do we want to enter our inheritance? We shall have to learn to claim what is promised and then ask for more. Paul was in the habit of praying for his converts. Two prayers of his are recorded in his letter to the Ephesians. In the one he says, I bow my knees. Pray that God will grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.
That you might come to know what is the hope of his calling. And what is the riches of the glory of God's power towards us, towards us, that power that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand, far above all principality and power? You will have noticed, of course, that Paul prays for a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
You say we don't have to pray for the Spirit, do we? Every believer has a Spirit. Well, yes, of course every believer has a Spirit, and Paul has just told the Ephesians that they've been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise upon their believing. He's already told them that. In that sense, we don't have to ask for the Spirit. Every believer has received the Holy Spirit. We do need to ask for the Spirit's illumination. If this book is going to become not a mere recital of the- theological facts, but the living Word of God that gets hold of our hearts as well as our minds, we shall need the gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Not revealing doctrines that have never been heard of before, of course not. But to understand what the book itself is saying. And what it means. Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of our understanding, our hearts being enlightened. This is a gracious ministry of the Holy Spirit in the believer, that we might know what is the hope of his calling. Not merely knowing it theoretically, but for it to dawn ever deeply on us with more reality.
Why God has called us. And what to has he called us? Called us by his glory and to his glory. The great sovereign of the universe. What is the hope of his calling? Not just, gentlemen, to get us into heaven with a guaranteed seat, though get us there too. What is God's program for us, for now and for eternity? God has put a great deal of expense into it, hasn't he?
Nothing short of the giving of his son and the sending of his. We do need our hearts illuminated. This is a real experience, not just a theory. Hearts illuminated by the Holy Spirit to grasp what is the hope of his calling and what the exceeding glory and the riches of his inheritance in the saints. That'll take some illumination. Do you know your fellow saints? Do they always inspire you with a sense of wealth? To look at them as God looks at them.
See the riches, the glory of it, of God's inheritance in the saints. Oh, if I could see it more, how I would serve them. To know what is the exceeding greatness of his power. That power has already been exerted in raising Christ from the dead, but in raising Christ from the dead, that power that did it is still streaming towards us, is it not? You know, our hearts illumined to see it this way.
That's a lifetime experience. But if the prayer's in scripture, I may pray it, meant I, and claim what is promised. And if an old man may speak, sensing how much land there is to be possessed, and I've not yet possessed it. God be thanked for the younger men that are coming on behind, that one can at least point to the great things of God. You see the younger men like Othniel and his wife Axa going in for it, saying, asking, dare ask for more, the gracious ministry, the springs, upper and nether springs of the Holy Spirit's exercise in our lives.
Hmm. Claiming what was promised, asking for more. The second lot to have their inheritance allotted to them were the Joseph tribes. Do you see? And, uh, chapter sixteen onwards tells us about them. The Joseph tribes were, of course, Ephraim and half the tribe of Manasseh.
The other half had its inheritance east of Jordan. So they were given their inheritance by Joshua and Eleazar the priest. There are two little stories within the geographical details of the borders of their inheritance. The one of them comes in, uh, chapter seventeen and verse three. But Salophihad, the son of Hepha, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters.
And these are the names of his daughters, Mahlah and Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Terzah. And they came near before Eleazar the priest and before Joshua the son of Nun, and before the princes, saying, the Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers. Therefore, according to the commandment of the law, he gave them an inheritance among the brethren of their father, and there fell ten parts to Manasseh. And so forth, and so on.
The original story is told twice over towards the end of the book of Numbers. These five daughters of Zelophehad, one of whom rejoiced in the name of Noah. It's a little party joke, you see, isn't it, to ask your Christian friends whose daughter was Noah? To test whether they've read their book of Numbers recently, or Joshua. And Noah, this particular Noah, was a daughter of Zelophehad. But they came to Moses, so the book of Numbers said, and pointed out to Moses that their father had died.
He had no sons, only these five daughters. But they pointed out to Moses that their father, to use their phrase, had died in his own sin. Meaning that he hadn't been involved in those disreputable, uh, revolts and rebellions against Moses that had gone on in Israel. Either by the people at, uh, who originally refused to go into the land, or by the people that got caught up in the rebellion led by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
He died, like everybody else does eventually, but he died in his own sin. Now, if he'd have had sons, therefore, his sons would have qualified to have been given their inheritance when they got to the land of promise. But seeing he had no sons but only daughters, then if nothing were done, the daughters wouldn't be given an inheritance. And so their father's line, in that sense, would lose out on the inheritance, and no inheritance be given to that line of the family.
And the daughters argued it wasn't fair, and so a special rule ought to be made that when a man had no sons but only daughters, then the daughters should be allowed to inherit the portion that would have been given to their father or to his sons, if he had any. Moses took it to the Lord, and the Lord agreed with the five daughters. And it was laid down that the daughters should be allowed to inherit when they got into the land, in spite of the fact that their father had died, you'll see, in his own sin, as they put it. Subsequently, a condition was laid upon it because the other tribes pointed out to Moses that if these girls who inherit so much territory go and marry somebody from a different tribe, then this territory will go from our tribe to that other tribe.
Moses saw the point as well. And so the extra condition was laid down. Yes, daughters could inherit land within the tribe if their father had no sons, but on the condition that they must marry within the tribe and not marry outside it, so that the land would keep in the tribe and not go across to some other tribe, and the original tribe's inheritance be diminished. That was the rule. All that need concern us tonight is this. When the Joseph tribes, including, uh, the tribe of Manasseh, came to be allotted their inheritance, up came the five girls, if they were still girls, and claimed what was promised.
Yeah. They were given it. The fact that apart from this special regulation, because their father had died without sons, they wouldn't have got any inheritance, had moved them. Not going to rest content with that. Dad didn't have any sons, and it's his fault that we don't inherit. They said, what about doing something ourselves about it? Easy to blame our parents, isn't it?
For dying too quickly or some or other offense. We shall need to stand on our own feet, gentlemen. Stop blaming the people that have gone before, fathers or elders or anybody else who did a bad job or didn't do the proper job. Okay, there may be some truth in it, but God help us to grow up and stand on our own feet. Start where we are and go on for God. And claim what he has promised.
These exceeding great and precious promises of which Peter speaks in his second letter, chapter one. Well, then came the children of Joseph. This is chapter seventeen, verse fourteen. And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one part for an inheritance, seeing I am a great people, for as much as hitherto the Lord hath blessed me? Children of Joseph included, of course, the Ephraimites and also the half tribe of Manasseh.
That included, uh, uh, uh, they were included in Joseph, you see. And Joseph was a very big tribe, because it contained both Ephraim and now the half tribe of Manasseh. They came and complained that they had only been given one lot, even though they were a very big tribe. And Joshua said unto them, if thou are a great people, get thee up into the forest and cut down, cut the, get thee up into 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 thee.
And the children of Joseph said, The hill country is not enough for us, that all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Beth Shean and her towns, and they who are in the valley of Jezreel. Hmm. And Joshua said unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, you're a great people, and you have great power. You shall not have just one lot only, but the hill country shall be thine. I know it's a forest, he says. But you're a great people, aren't you? Well, get up into the forest, and you shall cut it down, and the out- outgoings of it, profits of it shall be thine.
For thou shalt drive out the Canaanite, though they have chariots of iron, and though they be strong. Daughters of the Lophiad were coming to claim what had been promised. Here come the Josephites. They ask for more. Oh, you see a little pattern developing, don't you? Caleb claim, came claiming what had been promised, and he got that. Aksar and her husband asked for more. They got that as well. Zelophehad's daughters claimed, and they claimed, came and claimed what was promised.
They got it. The Josephites came and asked for more. We are a big people, they said. Not good to give us one lot. Oh, you're a big people, are you? Well, I'll tell you what, get up into the mountain. Oh no, they said, no, no. No. I mean, forest, all forest up there. Oh, hard work. And the trouble is that down in the valley are the Canaanites, and they've got chariots of iron, so they're difficult too. We want a nice big lot, you know, green pasture with a lot of clothes on, you see, where we can sit in our farmhouse, you see, and watch the cows eating and, uh, get milk, and, uh, we can have beautiful fields and, uh, go through lines, and, uh, I mean, we're a big tribe and we've a right to it, haven't we?
I mean, we are big. And as for those Canaanites, we don't want to come near them. Got chariots of iron. They asked for more. And Joshua said, I agree, you are a big people. Yeah. Well, because you are a big people. Well, get up into the forest and start cutting it down. You are a big people, aren't you? Got big muscles. Do you want some more? Well, use up your muscles working for more and develop what you've got. Hard work, you say.
Well, of course it's hard work. And as for those Canaanites down in the valley that have chariots of iron, God will give you the grace and strength to deal with them as well. So in our final day, we shall have to consider this second half of the book of Joshua. Its major theme is entering into the inheritance that has been made possible by the great exploits that Joshua had done. Translated into a higher key, it means entering into the inheritance that Christ has made possible for us by his great work at Calvary, his death and resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Spirit.
We've been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. We're heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And the tremendous potential lies around us. We are urged to enter in to our inheritance. Yes? God give us the grace to realize there is an inheritance there to be entered into. And God give us the grace and the stamina, the courage and the perseverance and the deliberate intention to enter into our great spiritual inheritance, even though from time to time it will involve us in hard work and fighting to make time and energy available for it.
Somewhere along that line, our lesson will go, God willing, in our final day together tomorrow.
