Joshua 15
Amen. Turn in your copy of God’s
word to Joshua 15. I think I gave you warning in the
last couple of weeks that we were going to get into some tedious
chapters. And so we had a little of that
last week, but tonight, um, I don’t know what’s going to be more
painful, me having to read it or you having to hear it. But
we got to remember that when we open the word and read the
word, it is the voice of God himself speaking. And so if he
lists 100 towns and villages, he meant to say that. And just
like when your mother gave you broccoli, it was good for you,
whether you knew it or not. And so we never, ever, ever,
ever, ever want to look down on any portion of God’s word.
We want to read it. as the catechism says, with diligence,
preparation and prayer, lay it up in our hearts and put it into
practice in our lives. And I think in just a little
while, you’ll realize there’s gold in these hills. Not because
I went and found it, but because it’s already there. We just have
to see it. So with great joy, let’s read
together God’s word. This is Joshua 15. And I’ll begin
at verse one. It says, the allotment for the
tribe of the people of Judah, according to their clans, reached
southward to the boundary of Edom, to the wilderness of Zin,
at the farthest south. And their south boundary ran
from the end of the Salt Sea, from the bay that faces southward.
It goes out southward of the ascent of the Acribim, It passes
along to Zen and goes up south of Kadesh, Barnea, along by Hezron
up to Adar. It turns about to Karka. It passes
along to Asman, goes out by the brook of the Egypt and comes
to its end at the sea. This shall be your south boundary.
the east boundary, and the east boundary is the Salt Sea to the
mouth of the Jordan, and the boundary on the north side runs
from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan. The boundary
goes up to Beth-Hogla and passes along north of Beth-Araba, and
the boundary goes up to the stone of Bowen, the son of Reuben.
And the boundary goes up to Debir from the Valley of Acre and so
northward, turning towards Gilgal, which is opposite the ascent
of Adaman, which is on the south side of the valley. And the boundary
passes along to the waters of En-Shemesh at the ends at En-Rogel. Then the boundary goes up by
the Valley of the Son of Haman at the southern shoulder of the
Jebusite, that is Jerusalem. The boundary goes up to the top
of the mountain that lies over against the Valley of Hinnom
on the west and the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim.
Then the boundary extends from the top of the mountain to the
spring of the waters of Nephthoa and from there to the cities
of Mount Ephron. Then The boundary bends around
to Bala, that is Kiriath-Jerim, and the boundary circles west
of Bala to Mount Seir, passes along to the northern shoulder
of Mount Jerim, that is Chesilon, and goes down to Beth Shemesh
and passes along by the Temna. The boundary goes out to the
shoulder of the hill north of Ekron, then the boundary bends
around to Shikaron and passes around to Mount Bala and goes
out to Jabneel. Then the boundary comes to an
end at the sea. And the west boundary was the
great sea with its coastline. This is the boundary around the
clans of Judah, according to their clans. According to the
commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb, the son of
Jephunneh, a portion among the people of Judah. Kiriath, Arba,
that is Hebron, Arba was the father of Anak, And Caleb drove
out from there the three sons of Anak, Shishai, Ahenim, and
Talmai, the descendants of Anak. Then he went up from there against
the inhabitants of Dabir. Now the name of Dabir for formerly
was Kiriath-sephir. And Caleb said, whoever strikes
Kiriath-sephir and captures it, to him I will give Achash, my
daughter as a wife. And Othniel, the son of Kenaz,
the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achaia, his
daughter, as a wife. When she came to him, she urged
him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey and
Caleb said to her, what do you want? She said to him, give me
a blessing. Since you have given me the land
of the Negev, give me also springs of water. And he gave to her
the upper springs and the lower springs. This is the inheritance
of the tribe of the people of Judah, according to their clans.
The cities belonging to the tribe of the people of Judah in the
extreme South toward the boundary of Edom were Kabzeel, Eder, Jager,
Kena, Demona, Adada, Kadesh, Hazor, Ifnan, Zif, Telum, Bealoth,
Hazor, Hadadata, Kerioth, Hezron, that is Hazor, Amam, Shema, Molada,
Hazar Gada, Heshmon, Beth Pellet, Hazar Shuall, Beersheba, Beziathiah,
Baila, Im, Ezim, Eltilad, Kasel, Horma, Ziklag, Madmana, Sansana,
Labayeth, Shilhem, Ayan, and Rimon in all 29 cities with their
villages. And in the lowland, Eshtel, Zorah,
Ashnah, Zenoah, Ngenim, Tepua, Enam, Jarmath, Adolam, Soca,
Azica, Shear-arim, Adiathim, Gatora, Gatorothaim, 14 cities
with their villages. Xenon, Hidatsha, Mig-Dal-Gad,
Dillion, Mizpah, Jopthil, Lakish, Bozkath, Eglon, Kaban, Laman,
Chitlish, Ghidoroth, Bendagon, Nema, and Madoka, 16 cities with
their villages. And there was Libna, Ether, Ashen,
Iphthah, Ashnah, Nezib, Kielah, Akzib, and Moreshah, nine cities
with their villages. Ekron with its towns and its
villages, from Ekron to the sea and all that were by the side
of Ashdod with their villages. Ashdod its towns, its villages,
Geza its town and its villages, to the brook of Egypt, the great
sea with its coastline. And in the hill country, Shamir
and Jatir, Soka, Dana, Kiriath, Sana, that is Debir, Einab, Esh,
Timah, Anim, Goshen, Olan, Gilo, 11 cities with their villages.
Ereb, Duma, Eshin, Janim, Beth, Tapua, Affica, Humta, Kiriath
Arba, that is Hebron and Zior, nine cities with their villages.
Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Judah, Jezreel, Jokdim. Zenoa, Cain, Gibeah,
and Temna, 10 cities with their villages. And then Hauhol, Beth-Zur,
Gidor, Meroth, Beth-Anoth, and El-Tekhon, six cities with their
villages. Kiriath-Bael, that is, Kiriath-Jerim,
and Raba, two cities with their villages. In the wilderness,
Beth-Araba, Medin-Saka, Nibshan, the city of Salt, and Ngedi,
six cities with their villages. But the Jebusites, the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out. So the Jebusites
dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day. Amen. That is the word of the
living God. At our house, we’re good Southerners. Among other things, we take Southern
living. Every Southern person should do it, whether you read
it or not. You at least sit it on the coffee table, so when
people come over, they think you’re good Southerners, right?
That’s how it’s supposed to work. Well, the other week, a recent
issue came, and everybody flipped through it as usually happens.
It sits on the kitchen counter. And so we had this discussion
at dinner. Why do people from Texas think
they’re in the South? And then we had, is Florida still
in the South, what with all their migrants from New York and what
all. Is it still a southern city? So we had this discussion about
the the south the deep south the mid south, you know The far
south and we talked about how people view the south Economically,
they view the south kind of culturally they view the south Geographically,
there’s all kinds of ways. So when somebody says I’m from
the south you got to ask what they mean by that And then you
got to ask how you interpret it Sort of like the barbecue
discussion, right? It’s only good from the Piedmont
of North Carolina, but it depends on who you ask, right? There’s
all that good stuff. So in Israel, the South is made
nice and simple. They have one South. Israel,
the promised land, is a strange little sliver of land. It’s about
the size of New Jersey. Now comparing the promised land
in New Jersey is probably not something that ought to be done,
but for geographical, Comparison, there you go. It’s about a 6,700
square mile piece of land. It’s about 150 miles tall, which
is not that much. And in some places it’s 27 miles
wide, and in other places it’s as much as 57 miles wide. So
it’s a little sliver of land that’s pretty tall. And so Israel,
as we’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks, is beginning
to occupy their allotments in the promised land. The first
part of Joshua, you remember, was them crossing the Jordan
and going into war. Now that they crossed the Jordan
and gone to war, it’s time for them to move into their empty
lands, to live in the houses they did not build, to drink
from the cisterns they did not dig, to live off of the produce
of the vineyards they did not plant, and to live inside walls
of cities and villages that they did not build. It’s time for
them to take occupation of the land that flows with milk and
honey. And so tonight in our passage,
we’re gonna see a little more edging into this fulfillment
as Judah takes their portion of the promised land with an
interruption from Caleb and his work. Remember last week that
Caleb got first choosings. Caleb and Joshua, 38 years before
this, were the two spies that were faithful to God. The other
10 spies were chickens. Remember that 12 spies, they
went spying out the land, 10 came back and said, oh no, the people
there, they’re too big, they’re too hairy, they’re too scary.
We can’t possibly take the promised land. But Joshua and Caleb came
back and said, don’t worry about it. They’re big and bad, but
we’re bigger and badder because we have God on our side and our
God is mighty. We can take the promised land.
So Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies, really the only
two of that first generation that lived into the second generation
and went in the promised land. Everybody else, including Moses,
died on the other side of the border. And so we looked at how
Caleb, because of his faithfulness, got to pick his portion in the
promised land. And his portion is going to be
within Judah, within the tribe of Judah. So tonight, as we think
through Judah, getting first allotment, and actually getting
the most land, we’ll see another snapshot of Caleb’s faithfulness
in the mix. But this is southern Israel.
This is the southern square of the promised land. It has, I
don’t know which way y’all are thinking, at least I’m looking
at it myself here. So it has on this side, it has
the Dead Sea and this side, the Mediterranean Sea. And then there’d
be the border in the south with Egypt. And then up here would
be a line that you heard, as we read, drawn, that would kind
of include Jerusalem and south in the southern block. So if
you look at a map of Judah and all the rest of the tribes, Judah
got the most. And can’t you just hear it? Why
did they get more than we did? Can’t you just hear it? They
got more, we got less. We got more people, we’re more
special. You can just hear it. It’s like the front seat arguments
we used to have growing up. It was wonderful when I had children
come along. Children aren’t allowed in the front seat. With airbags
and all the rest. When I was a kid, you didn’t
ride in a car seat. You just got in wherever and
played with the ice scraper. You know, you took your chances.
Nowadays, they strap you in like you’re a NASA astronaut going
to the moon and back, which I suppose is good. But I don’t know if
child mortality rates have changed. But you know the front seat fights. Some of you younger folks have
just missed out on that. Oh, what great fun we had and
what terrors my mom had. I think we all ended up in the
back mostly. Lucky we didn’t end up on the side of the road.
But Judah gets to go first. Judah gets to pick the most,
or they get allotted the most by Almighty God. And we wanna
think about why that is. And it’s the first thing we want
to think about in our passage tonight, promises made. Why did
Judah get the most? Why did Judah go first? Well,
promises made about 500 years before this, when Abraham sojourned
from Ur of the Chaldeans, when God came to him living in Ur
of the Chaldeans, living in paganism, worshiping idols, not fearing
God at all. God said, Abraham up from this
land, traveled to this land called Canaan, sojourned in this land.
So Abraham did, he was obedient to God, he built an altar, he
worshiped God, and God came to him and said, Abraham, where
you stand will be your land. It will be for your people. Then
he told him to look up in the heavens. The offspring from your
own loins will outnumber the stars of the heaven. Look at
your feet. Your offspring will outnumber the sand on the seashore. Later promises would say your
family will outnumber the dust of the earth. And so God says,
look here, Abraham, this is your promise, your allotment. And
so we know the story of Abraham, especially you Wednesday night
Bible study gatherers. We’ve been making our way through
Genesis now for about two years, I think. And we are getting towards
the end when Israel is not in the promised land, but what will
God do in time? He’ll bring them back after the
Exodus. from Egypt. But all that Abraham
has at the end of his life is that little cave at Machphala
where his wife, Sarah, is buried. That’s all he has. And so tonight
when we read through all those cities and villages and iron
stakes in the ground, did any of y’all ever read your deed?
You know, if you live in an old neighborhood like I do, it’ll
say, you know, it goes to the corner of Dr. So-and-so’s house,
and over here it goes to Mr. Brown’s dairy stall, or something
like that. It’s really fascinating to read.
Why is all that so exciting? Well, when it’s our deed, it’s
because it’s ours. And when it’s people who’ve been wandering
in the desert with no home and living in a tent that probably
leaked with scorpions and snakes, They’ve been all going to the
water cooler that was the rock, and they’ve been eating stuff
that’s been falling from heaven. Don’t you think, especially the
women, it’s time to nest, right? It’s time to go to Target. It’s
time to go to Home Depot. It’s time to go to, where do
we go? We go to Pottery Barn and, you
know, the depot this. you know, we, we, we become good
supporters of Chinese tariffed items, right? And we fill our
house up with it. And then we turn on our TV, which
was probably made there. And we yell at it. Um, that’s
what we do in it. Um, but God made these promises. And so when we read, when we
read these lists, We remember that what Abraham never received,
God generations later fulfilled in his promise to Abraham in
these people’s very lives, their eyes saw God’s full fulfillment. And I want us to just stop for
a moment and think about this as a New Testament person. Promises
made, okay, Old Testament, they get a little piece of the promised
land. They get their 40 acres and a mule, as it were, Jesus
promises us in my Father’s house are many mansions, many rooms.
I’m gonna leave and I’m gonna go and I’m gonna prepare a place
for you and then someday I’m gonna come back and get you so
that where I am, you may be with me also. And then I take this
a step further and think about how ironic it is that Abraham,
who did not receive the fulfillment of the promises, he looked for
them far off, but he died and went to heaven. When he gets
to heaven, some years later, remember the story of the rich
man and Lazarus? Lazarus was the man that lived
outside the rich man’s house and he ate table scraps and the
dogs licked his boils and his wounds. And the rich man dies
and goes to heaven, or goes to hell. The poor man, Lazarus,
dies and goes to heaven. And it says euphemistically,
but wonderfully, he went to Abraham’s bosom. When God makes a promise
to us about an earthly plot of land or a heavenly abode, he
keeps that promise. And so promises made are promises
kept. And that’s the second thing we
want to think about in this passage tonight. I was thinking of songs
in my head today. There’s that little, this land
is your land. This land is my land from, California
to the New York Isle, from the Redwood Firs to the Gulf Stream
waters. I was trying to think about the
Gulf Stream waters. Is that North Carolina? Because we stick out
the most. Has to be because we’re such a good state and we’re in
the South, no matter which way you look at it, right? This land
is our land. That’s a little catchy jingle.
I think it was written by a man who was a kind of a dirt farmer
in Oklahoma, lived through a lot of hard times. But at the end
of the day, what have you got if you got nothing else? You
got your little square, right? That’s a sign here of the promises
kept of Almighty God. You read through the boundaries,
you read through the list of cities. Maybe some of you have
done the Bible through a year thing and you got to this and
you kind of did the little speed read. But I don’t know if you
thought about it as I was doing the little hooked on phonics
thing and trying to pronounce all those foreign named towns. There were some recognizable
places where later in Bible history, God’s going to do some amazing
things. And in particular, one will be the city of the Jebusites,
the city of Jebus at some point becomes the city of David because
David is able to conquer it. build the city of God there.
And so you see when Israel’s unfaithful, uh, at some point,
uh, David will be faithful and clear out the rest of the land.
So there’ll be over the next couple of weeks and all these
chapters, boundaries and towns and villages, list of places
taken and not taken. There’ll be little harbingers
of there’s trouble. So the Jebusites not being taken care of, that’s
bad. We’ve read a few others. We’ll read up a few more. There
will be successes, there will be failures, there will be more
work to do. But here specifically, the tribe
of Judah gets its land. And I don’t know, we haven’t
made it there on Wednesday night yet. We’re a few chapters away
from chapter 48, chapter 49, the end of the life. of Jacob
as he comes down to Egypt to see his son Joseph. But when
Jacob is blessing the 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel, he blesses
Judah. God blesses Judah. And from Judah
will come princes. In fact, there’s this little
obscure phrase that people argue over and over what it means.
Is that really how it’s translated? But it says from the tribe of
Judah, the scepter. the ruling scepter, the crown
will not depart. Judah is royalty. And so from
Judah, the line of Judah, but in Judah, the royal kingdom will
last in Israel. Now, think for just a moment
about after the time of Solomon. Solomon disobeys God, God is
angry, and so he splits the kingdom. There’s the northern kingdom,
which is the 11 tribes, there’s the Southern kingdom, which is
Judah. So when you go to Israel and they get Southern living
magazine, you don’t have to argue about what’s the South. It’s
just Judah, just one tribe, one big square. Judah is the place
where Jerusalem is. So while all the other tribes
get dragged off later to Assyria, Judah continues on. Eventually
they get dragged off to exile by Babylon, but Judah is the
southern tribe. It is the royal tribe. It is
the place where Jerusalem, the city of David, the temple of
almighty God is. And so when God makes promises
to Abraham, these promises are kept in our passage. And it’s
important for us to see all of these details and to put them
in order in our minds to know God is, he’s keeping his promise,
he’s keeping his word. And so these spots of land, these
plots of land are part of the land flowing with milk and honey
God meant to leave to his people for their inheritance. Well,
let’s think about Promises pursued. You’ve got promises made by God,
promises kept by God, but there’s a pursuit of these promises here
that we see Caleb pops up again. Now Caleb pops up again and it
tells us about something that Caleb does way on down the road
in history. Okay. So as, as the tribes are
making their way into their plots and spots of land and getting
their allotment, this story about Caleb is going to happen way
later. but it’s inserted here for a biblical and theological
reason. And the biblical theological
reason is the exact same one as last week when we saw Caleb’s
faithfulness. Caleb is the only one who’s gotten
the nerve to do what God asks. Everybody else is gonna whine
and complain. Why do we have to fight enemies? Why didn’t
we get as much land? You know, the front seat arguments.
So here again, Caleb is put right in front and center in front
of the eyes of the people. He’s the poster child we would
say if you’re gonna be like anybody in the Bible At least in this
case, at least do like Caleb and obey God, listen to his voice.
Don’t be scared of giants. Remember, he picked the land
with the big people. He picked the land that had the steepest
hills. He picked the land that would be the hardest to overcome
and to dwell in. So this is an encouragement when
we read about Caleb. Do like Caleb here. Have faith
in God and clean out your portion of the promised land, even if
it’s the Antichrists. even if it’s the eight footers
or the 10 footers or whatever they are, even if it’s the big
ones. Now, it’s very interesting when
Caleb is pursuing his promise. I don’t know if he consulted
his daughter on this one, but he said, you know, OK, whoever
can take the city of Dave here. You’ll get my daughter’s hand.
I wonder if he had talked to her, you know, hey, honey This
is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna have a raffle And whoever
can take day beer that that nasty city with all those nasty people
in it. It’s kind of like Remember when the US forces went in was
it the surge? I forget which Iraqi city it
was But anyway, the you remember the surge they went door-to-door
and cleaned out the city. That’s probably what has to happen
here and I try to think about what this must have been like,
and I remember we moved into our house in Greensboro about
12 years ago. And when we moved in, an older
gentleman had the house, and he thought it was a great idea
to plant English ivy front and backyard. And so one of the things
I did for about the first two years we lived there is I got
rid of English ivy. And there’s only one way to do
it, and it’s to pull it up by the roots. And if I had thought
about it, even though my girls were young, I would have stood
on the front porch and called out to all of Greensboro. If
you’ll come and get rid of this Ivy, I’ll give you my oldest
in marriage. That would have been a great
way to do it. That’s not what I did. I pulled
it up by the root, hand by hand. And to this day, sometimes I’ll
ride by there and see, is the Ivy coming back? Is it creeping
back? But why did Caleb do this? Two things. One is he’s obeying
God. He’s taking his portion of the
land completely. Now, Day Beer, if you get technical,
is not in Caleb’s portion, but it’s in his neighborhood. And
you know, sometimes we’re good neighbors. If I see my neighbors
are gone and their trash cans are still sitting out, I roll
their trash cans in, because I don’t want it to look like
they’re gone, because if somebody hits their house, they’re going
to come to mine next. So we do things neighborly to be neighborly,
but also for our own good at times. There’s a little, oh,
my battery died. I knew it would. It’s a sign
you’re going too long. We’ll just turn this one on.
All right. So second thing that Caleb is doing
here is he’s cleaning out the promised land, but he’s, he’s
also, he’s also obeying God, right? You got to take the land,
you got to clean it out. Um, but he’s, he’s putting it
in front of these guys. Hey, look, I’ll give you a daughter
in marriage. That must mean that it’s next
to an impossible task. And so if he’s offering this,
it must not be able to be done. But if it is, this is the kind
of guy you want your daughter to marry because she’s gonna
live safe and probably happily ever after. All right, so we’ve
thought through promises made, promises kept, promises pursued. And I want us to think about
pest in the promised land. We saw mentioned that the Jebusites
are still around Jerusalem. Judah did not remove them. It
takes until David’s day when David makes it his city. And
I want us to think about in our own lives, the things we are
unwilling to remove because it’s too hard. Hebrews tells us that
we should run the race of Christian life with endurance. We’re longing
for heaven. We’re looking to Jesus as we
make that race. And it says, let us lay aside
every sin which clings so closely to us so that we can run with
endurance and without hindrance. And sometimes we’re not willing
to kick out the Jebusites. And sometimes that’s our television
channels, isn’t it? Sometimes that’s our leisure
time. Sometimes that’s, as we say, our vices. Take stock of your Christian
walk. Is there some fat to be trimmed?
Is there some things to call out and remove from your life?
These inhabitants not removed from the promised land will wreak
havoc on Israel. They will cause Israel to become
unfaithful. We go from David being a man
after God’s own heart, and we know his sins and his troubles
to his son being the most wise guy in the world. to marrying
foreign wives, hundreds of them, scores of them, and to bringing
Israel down to the level of the nations and their own abasement.
Sweet. We come to Israel during the
times of the prophets and Israel is following other gods. They’re
sacrificing their babies and they’re doing all kinds of abominations
before almighty God. We have to recognize the pest
in the promised land, the pest in the Christian life. I don’t
mean to over-spiritualize this, but you get the point. We need
to be diligent about seeking to destroy the things in our
lives that will destroy us, because these things will come back to
destroy and to injure Israel. One last thing to think about,
and maybe this is a pest in the promised land. We’ve let this
doctrine ease into the church. I think sometimes we think when
we die, we’re going to, we’re going to go to heaven and somehow
sprout wings. You know, that’s a good theology
that pops around in our world. We’re going to sprout wings and
we’re going to get a harp. You know, we’re going to flap around
strumming a harp and that we just going to live this spirit
life. Uh, one of the things God promises to do at his second
coming is to make all things new. The new Jerusalem is going
to come down from heaven and God is going to dwell among his
people on the earth. And I think the earth will be
made into an Eden-like creation again. And we’ll till and toil
and we’ll work, but there won’t be thorns and thistles. We won’t
bust our thumbs with the hammers. We will plant and we’ll reap
a harvest. And it will be a wonderful time.
And I think this promised land being pursued here challenges
us to pursue the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. and to pursue
and pray for his coming in order that we might receive our eternal
inheritance and that we might faithfully, as we will no doubt
do, work it and keep it and bring great blessing on the new heavens
and the new earth as the glory of God covers the face of the
earth to every corner, to every stretch. This is our God, and
this is what he provides. Let us look to Jesus and trust
in these promises. Let’s do pray together. Our great
God, we thank you so much for your love and mercy to send your
son into the world to save sinners and to draw us to yourself, to
bring us into your church, and to give us a heavenly home. We
do thank you that you have a place prepared for us. We long for
that dwelling. And until then, help us to be
faithful here as we are alien strangers, sojourners, and pilgrims. Lord, watch over us, keep us,
help us to remove the pest that seek to destroy us. All for Jesus’
sake we pray in his name, amen.