Mutual Faithfulness
Joshua: Pass Over and Possess • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 5 viewsNotes
Transcript
And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir: and the name of Debir before was Kirjath-sepher.
And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wouldest thou? Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.
Introduction
Introduction
Finally, the land begins to be divided up. The grand battles are over and the work of possession begins. However, faithfulness is necessary for the continued hand of God in the land of Canaan.
We need to be looking throughout the book for our theme for 2025. The central focus of the book of Joshua is that God wants us to move forward and take ahold of the blessings of our salvation.
Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.
As we saw in our study of Ephesians, God has blessed us with spiritual blessings. All the saved have access to these blessings. Do we share them with the lost? Do we live them faithfully in our lives? Do we thank God for them daily? The book of Joshua leads us along the path of living the victorious Christian life. All we need to live victoriously, we already have in Christ. We must just cross over the river of fear and take ownership of the land of Promise!
As we begin chapter 15, we enter a portion of the book of Joshua that by many will be considered boring or trivial. Lists are often the most demanding portions of Scripture for application to our daily lives. The cities of the area given to Judah are listed and the border of their territory is outlined. This area is the south of the land of Canaan according to the area captured by Israel.
But what could be the significance of this chapter for the church today? How can we learn something from this section on geography? The giving of the land to Judah is a sign of hope that God is going to carry out His promises to His people, especially the eventual arrival of a Messiah to die for the sins of the people.
So, we come to the listing here where many locations of importance for the chapters ahead. For example,
We see the area of the judging of Othniel in the book of Judges 3.
We see the location of Hebron, first capital of David in 2 Samuel 2.
We see the area of the Philistines, who are perennial enemies of Israel as in 1 Samuel 7.
We see the location of the battle between David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.
We see the location of the capital of the coming Kingdom, Jerusalem, in Micah 4.
What is the significance of these lists? They show us the cities and villages, the homes and streets, the mountains and valleys of the visible blessings of God. God works in the concrete locations, problems and realities of our lives. When He promises us blessings, they are not just pie-in-the-sky but food on our plates and breath in our lungs. So we see this morning the Mutual Faithfulness in the inheritance of Judah.
Declaration
Declaration
The blessings of salvation require a faithful God and a faithful people. When there are challenges, God promises to be faithful to us. Today, we must seek the continued supply of God's provision through carrying out His commands. The event of the passage has two responses by the people.
Inheriting Blessings Requires God’s Provision
Inheriting Blessings Requires God’s Provision
This then was the lot of the tribe of the children of Judah by their families; even to the border of Edom the wilderness of Zin southward was the uttermost part of the south coast. And their south border was from the shore of the salt sea, from the bay that looketh southward: And it went out to the south side to Maaleh-acrabbim, and passed along to Zin, and ascended up on the south side unto Kadesh-barnea, and passed along to Hezron, and went up to Adar, and fetched a compass to Karkaa: From thence it passed toward Azmon, and went out unto the river of Egypt; and the goings out of that coast were at the sea: this shall be your south coast. And the east border was the salt sea, even unto the end of Jordan. And their border in the north quarter was from the bay of the sea at the uttermost part of Jordan: And the border went up to Beth-hogla, and passed along by the north of Beth-arabah; and the border went up to the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben: And the border went up toward Debir from the valley of Achor, and so northward, looking toward Gilgal, that is before the going up to Adummim, which is on the south side of the river: and the border passed toward the waters of En-shemesh, and the goings out thereof were at En-rogel: And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward: And the border was drawn from the top of the hill unto the fountain of the water of Nephtoah, and went out to the cities of mount Ephron; and the border was drawn to Baalah, which is Kirjath-jearim: And the border compassed from Baalah westward unto mount Seir, and passed along unto the side of mount Jearim, which is Chesalon, on the north side, and went down to Bethshemesh, and passed on to Timnah: And the border went out unto the side of Ekron northward: and the border was drawn to Shicron, and passed along to mount Baalah, and went out unto Jabneel; and the goings out of the border were at the sea. And the west border was to the great sea, and the coast thereof. This is the coast of the children of Judah round about according to their families.
Judah was the fourth son of Leah, first wife of Jacob. He was the instigator of the sale of Joseph into slavery. When there were opportunities to make compromises with the truth, Judah was the first to supply them. Yet, God has chosen Judah to be the father of the line of the coming Messiah. Jacob, as he blessed his sons before his death, said this of Judah,
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come; And unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Surely, God choses to work in fallen people through mercy. The entire covenant program with Israel is one of kindness, mercy and goodness. Such are the translations used for the Hebrew word hesed. This word ought to be committed to memory as the encapsulation of the way God describes His faithfulness to His chosen people. God is a reliable provider for mankind. He has created all things and He provides the sustaining of all things through His kindness. When He passed before Moses, He used this word twice to describe Himself,
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
So it is in the life of Judah and his descendants. We begin the division of the land with the placing of Judah in the area of the south of Canaan. Verses 1-12 outlines the borders of this area for the reader.
Show map
Speaking of this area of Canaan and the climate of it, one Bible dictionary tells us that,
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Geographical Territory
Judah thus held a strip of mountain land on the central spine of southern Palestine, about 50 miles from north to south and 20 miles from east to west. Of this 1000 square miles,
The land given to Judah, though large in acreage, is not without challenges. They must rely on God for provision because of the shortage of water in the area. Moses had instructed the children of Israel about the necessity of God’s hand in the land before in Deuteronomy 11. Many of the Israelites would have assumed on arriving that the land of Canaan was similar to the land of Egypt where the irrigation of the Nile River was all that was required to see the land bring forth abundantly in fruit. Yet, the truth is that Canaan is not the same as Egypt.
For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; And then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you.
The rain that God promised was necessary for Judah to see their land provide for their needs and the needs of their descendants. Rain represents the blessings and provision of God. When there is a drought, we pray hard for rain. When there is a rainy day, we complain that it ruins our plans.
The period just before and during the Great Depression went by a specific name in the area of north Texas, western Oklahoma and Kansas, eastern Colorado, and south Nebraska. Historians refer to this geographic area and period as the “Dust Bowl.” A series of environmental disasters occurred in this area to cause permanent damage to the soil and the inhabitants. There wer massive dust cyclones that brought dust into the homes of the people. A draught resulted in terrible shortages of food and water. Once a flourishing portion of the grain production of the United States, today it is unable to grow much of anything. What could have caused such devastation?
In his book The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan quotes a report that was prepared about this situation by the Great Plains Draught Area Committee in 1936. Many had thought that the climate of the Plains had changed and caused the drought and dust storms. Instead, the report read, “There is no reason to believe that the primary factors of climate, temperature, precipitation and winds in the Great Plains region have undergone fundamental change…The problem of the Great Plains is not the product of a single act of nature…The basic cause of the present Great Plains situation is an attempt to impose upon the region a system of agriculture to which the Plains are not adapted.” In other words, the choices of the people who had brought the farmers to this place-through government subsidies and national pressure to produce more and more grain-directly resulted in the cataclysmic events of the “Dust Bowl”.
The message of Moses to the children of Israel is the same. What they do in the land, what Judah does in this challenging area, will determine if God provides the rains. What will the people of God do with what they have been blessed with?
God has provided us blessings beyond our comprehension through the death and resurrection of His Son. We can have home in heaven. We are able to come into the presence of God and bring our concerns to Him. We will have our food provided by a God who knows our every need. Inheriting the blessings requires God’s provision. How do the Jewish people act in their inheritance?
1. Some Responded in Faith
1. Some Responded in Faith
And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, even the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron. And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence to the inhabitants of Debir: and the name of Debir before was Kirjath-sepher. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wouldest thou? Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs.
The story of Caleb is found here in a more expanded form than we saw at the end of chapter 14. Verse 13 tells us that Caleb received the area of Hebron. His actions in verse 14 result in the defeat of the last of the giants outside of Philistia. Caleb responded to the giants with faith in God.
However, there is more to the story of Caleb’s family. In verses 15-19, we see that some of Judah responded as God had commanded. Faith is choosing to live as though the promises of God are true. The family of Caleb did so. Paul tells us about faith,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Faith begins with salvation. Jesus came to earth to live a perfect life and die for mankind’s sin. When He hung on the cross on Calvary, Jesus was paying the debt that you and I owed because of the evil things that we have done. Jesus gave His life for us and was buried for three days. On Sunday morning, He walked out of the tomb alive forevermore. Faith is a choice of confident trusting in Him alone for the removal of your sin and the promise of eternity with Him. Paul continues,
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Do you believe in the free gift of God? Do you have faith in Him? Where are you on the question of salvation?
When the city of Debir requires conquering, Caleb offers his daughter to whomever will go up and destroy the city. This was only a few miles south of Hebron and was part of the job that Joshua had given to the people to cast out the inhabitants. Caleb’s offer is taken up by his nephew Othniel.
The city is captured by Othniel. Achsah marries him and receives a field as dowery. Yet, the true faith of Achsah is found in the request that she makes of her father. In verse 19, Caleb gives her the upper and lower springs of water to provide for the productivity of the land.
When there is a call for faithfulness, some Christians will respond with faith. Caleb, Othniel, and Achsah are pictures of this response. Are we people of faith? Jesus reminded us of the importance of faith in the promises of God.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
2. Others Wait for Another Generation
2. Others Wait for Another Generation
Joshua 15:20-63
This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families.
The rest of the chapter is a listing of the cities that were inside the inheritance of Judah. Some of these are identifiable on a modern map through archaeology. Others are unknown. Yet, God works on the streets and in the lives of the people in all of these villages and towns. God works in our lives as well. No situation is too small or too out of the way for God to care about it.
One significant note for moving forward with the story of Israel is found in verses 45-47. The land of the Philistines was part of the inheritance of Judah. This was an area that would later be associated with demon worship. What will Judah do with this area and the others that contained the idolatrous people?
And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease.
Our answer is found at the end of the chapter.
As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.
There was a condition of the men of Judah in regards to Jerusalem. They were unable to take possession of the city of Jerusalem. From the valley of Hinnom, they had to watch the Canaanites continue their idol worship and pagan culture. This city was on the border of Benjamin and Judah and would require David ultimately defeating and driving out the Jebusites.
Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.
The response of some is to wait until another experiences the blessings of God. Too often, we intend one day to do something great for God. We think that one day we will read of Bibles and pray as we ought. The truth is that God wants obedience now. He is faithful now and He calls us to faithfulness as well.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The blessings of salvation require a faithful God and a faithful people. When there are challenges, God promises to be faithful to us. Today, we must seek the continued supply of God's provision through carrying out His commands.
Judah was given the land that required effort to see fruit. A portion was desert. Some was occupied by the Philistines and some by the Jebusites. The greatest requirement that is imposed by God on His people is faithfulness where we are placed, no matter the challenges. The Philistines were never completely defeated and removed from the land. Ezek 25 indicates that God is still dealing with them during the period of the Exile.
Have you been faithful in your heart to God this week?
What is the status of your thought life?
How is your attitude about the financial issues you maybe facing?
What can be said about the anger that you have toward someone else that is unresolved?
Faithfulness to God is a choice that we must make today if we want to see God rain blessings on us in a challenging day. Part of the word “faithfulness” is faith. How is your faith in the promises of God? Do you hesitate to go up and claim the blessings of God. We have God with us each day. We have access to Him through the death of Christ. How is your heart today?
Joshua Joshua 15:1–63
General MacArthur, commander of the American forces in the Philippines, experienced his own “Pearl Harbor” on December 8, 1941, at 12:35 p.m., ten hours after the attack on Hawaii. Japanese fighter planes caught MacArthur’s air fortress still parked on the ground. Although MacArthur was aware of the Pearl Harbor disaster and received a direct cable from Washington commanding him to implement planned countermeasures, his inaction resulted in the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
Mutual faithfulness begins with a surrender today to the continual pursuit of God’s commands in our Christian life! Choose faithfulness today.
