Revering the Word
Joshua 15&16 The beginning signs of trouble ahead.
Good morning everyone. This morning we are in Joshua 15 and 16. We're gonna do two chapters today. They're going to be pretty brief. So we're beginning now after Caleb has had received his land. We're beginning to allot the land with the various borders to the various tribes of Israel and it begins with Judah which by the way is going to be one of the more faithful tribes which is going to be in the south. Their region is gonna go all the way from Jerusalem all the way to the southwest which is where Gaza is rather large territory. I have a map that I'm going to post if you want to take a look at the areas of the 12 tribes in the map that you should be able to see with the podcast. Now interesting something that I want to bring to your attention and that's a lot of times what I will do in some chapters of the Bible is I'll look for a nugget. I'll look for something that shines forth that God seems to bring to one's attention as they read and focus on that on a chapter that's largely dealing with territory. So it came about that Caleb said, "The one who attacks curious, suffer, and captures it. I will give him Asheth, my daughter as a wife, Ahnil the son of Kenneth, the brother of Caleb, captured it so he gave him." So this daughter of Caleb is being given and it says it came about that when she came to him that is her husband. She persuaded him to ask her father for a field so she alighted from the donkey. Looks like she got down so she she's with her husband. She gets down off her donkey and Caleb knew that he had something to ask that she had something to ask him and Caleb said to her, "What do you want?" Then she said, "Give me a blessing since you have given me the land of nugget. Give me also springs of water." So he gave her the upper springs and lower springs. So maybe in their land there wasn't good water and her and her husband said, "Hey, you know what? We should ask our father or my father, Caleb, for this." And he gave it to her. And you know something that comes to mind, something that I've believed I've tried to pass on to my kids or those. You know the answers always know if you don't ask. And so there's something to be said in life for advocating for yourself. If there's something that you've really won or something that you should you feel should be changed or different, you know sometimes you got to speak up to God and/or the first people involved or both and just say, "Hey, you know what? I would really like this or I would really like this to change." And sometimes you got to advocate for yourself. And again, the answer is always know if you don't ask. And sometimes we were missing out on a blessing or missing out on the change that could happen in our life because we're not advocating for ourselves and simply asking. So they asked for these springs and they got them. Now at the end of this chapter it says, "Now this is verse 63, "Now asked for the Juba sites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the sons of Judah could not drive them out." That's kind of interesting. Could not or did not. So the Juba sites live with the sons of Judah at Jerusalem to this day. So they didn't, they did not remove all the people from Jerusalem. And then in chapter 16 we get the territory of Ephraim and towards the end of chapter 16 it says, "But they did not drive out the Canaanites." This is verse 10. "Who lived in gizur." Excuse me. Excuse me, sorry. "But they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in gizur." So the Canaanites lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day and they became forced laborers. So in Judah they didn't drive out the Juba sites and Ephraim, they didn't drive out the Canaanites. And God had said that He wanted to drive the people out of this land. I want to take you now to the book of Judges. It's the next book in the Old Testament that the not-too-distant future will be getting to. And if we were to take a look at verse 27 of chapter 1, and it's still going over some of the land in the book of Judges that either did or did not get taken. And here's what it says, "But Manasad did not take possession of Bathsheen and its villages or Tanak and its villages or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages or the inhabitants of Ilbium and its villages. Please hang with me in this or the inhabitants of Megiddo and all its villages. So the Canaanites persisted and living in the land. Again, they didn't remove the people from the land. They didn't kill them. They let them stay. It came about when Israel became strong that they put the Canaanites to force labor, but they did not drive them out completely. That's what God asked them to do. Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who were living in gazure, so the Canaanites lived in gazure among them. Zabulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Catran or the inhabitants of Nahalal, so that the Canaanites lived among them and became subject to forced labor. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Akal or the inhabitants of Sidan or of Alhab or Ajzib or Hellban or Afik or Rahab, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Obviously, the author of Judges here is clearly trying to make a point that things were not driven out the way they are, the way they were supposed to. Naftali, verse 33, did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shamrash or the inhabitants of Bethana, but lived among the Canaanites. So this continues in chapter 1 about all the, and we've already seen it back in the book of Judges, how they're not they're not obeying completely. Now, verse chapter 2 of Judges, listen to what this says, "Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to botch him, so an angel now is going to speak, and he said, 'I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and as for you you shall make no covenants with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars, but you have not obeyed me. What is this you have done?' So the fact that they have not removed the people and false worship and even worship of false gods is taking place because of the pagan people on their land. He said, 'Therefore I also said, 'Therefore I also said I will not drive them out before you, but they will become as thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you. When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of the Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept.' So they named that place botch him, and there they sacrificed to the Lord. So in the next chapter, Joshua dies, then the next chapter, the next paragraph, then in verse 11 chapter 2, 'The sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they served the balls, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. So they forsook the Lord, and served ball, and the ashtroth, and that's what happened. In some ways in that land today, we have different people, different faiths, and they're at each other's throats, and they're always at war with each other, and this is why I believe God desired them to get everyone out of the land so that they could have peace, but they didn't obey, and really the land has been subject to a lack of peace ever since. Which is really interesting about the book of Judges, and I bring it up here in the book of Joshua, because they're not taking over the land. The book of Judges ends in a very sad way. This is chapter 21 of Judges, verse 25. So it's really the next generation, what happened to the people after they took the Promised Land, and they didn't have a king because God was going to be their king, but they didn't do very well in honoring God, and this is what it says in verse 25, the last verse of the book of Judges. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Everyone was right in his own eyes, and ultimately really what it led to is not doing what God wanted, but doing what was right in their own eyes, and essentially doing evil and worshiping false things around them. And really this begins back in chapters 15 and 16 of Joshua, where we were today, where they did not drive the people out of the land as God desired. So sometimes, you know, when we see Israel take the Promised Land and they had to destroy it and get everyone out of the land, and we want to know why. Well, we see what happened when they didn't, and they ended up not being a pure people devoted to worshiping God. Now they had some restoration under kings that who later came into being after the book of Judges, that's when we get Saul, and then we get David, and then we get Solomon, which is the Israel's heyday as far as a day of prosperity, but they still were not following God well, and Solomon had concubines, and there were false places of worship, and ultimately, you know, God's people in the Promised Land, it didn't end up producing a people holy devoted to God, and God is still after doing it today through His Son Jesus Christ, and now in this age, this season of history, we have the Holy Spirit to aid us and be in the people of God. Ultimately, the final victory is going to come when Jesus Christ is going to return, and He is going to set up a people and be a king, and He is going to have, you know, pure worship of Himself, beginning in the millennium and ultimately in the new heaven and the new earth that He brings in one day in a future dispensation, but anyways, it's interesting to see how the failures of Joshua 15 and 16 lead to what we see later in the history of Israel. Let's evaluate what we're doing now, you know, in our church, we're focused on the Holy Spirit, not only now Lord willing, in that days and weeks and years to come, but you know, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be a people that are focused on God's Kingdom and that our holy to our Lord, because He's there to give us aid. He's been summoned to our side to help us to be the people of God. Let's not just do what's right in our own eyes, let's try to do what's right in the sight and the eyes of God. God bless you