Refuge Joshua 20
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basically talk about the divisions of land that each tribe would get. These chapters go into great detail as to who gets what and what borders they will control.
It is a little bit difficult to read. We don’t have to apologize for that. Remember, this book is written to be an historical account of the people of God as they take possession of the promised land. This is like the legacy contract that dots all the i’s and crosses all the t’s.
Everything that needs to be reported is reported and we see how each tribe/or family get’s their possession, their land, and what are the boundaries of that land
And this can be hard for us to really spend time pouring over, especially if you don’t know the territory. These lands, these cities mean nothing to us here and now, but basically it would be like saying, this tribe goes from the northern boundary of Townsend to the southern boundary of Bear and following the line to the west to Maryland. This tribe’s land goes from The Elkton line all the way to the river at Perryville.
And it goes on like that for a while. 9 chapters or so. And these chapters, although hard to get through help us as we think about the big picture. It’s good to go back a little bit and remember the promise God made to Abraham.
6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
The next verse talks about how Abraham lived in Bethel next to AI
8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
Pretty neat. God told Abraham that his people would have this land. And we just talked about Bethel and AI a couple of weeks ago. Joshua and his army took those cities right after Jericho. Some 6 or 7 hundred years after God promises Abraham a particular stretch of land and Abraham has no kids, and now, the descendants, hundreds of thousands if not a couple of million descendants of Abraham are now taking possession of this land that God promised them.
We need to Read the Bible as a whole.
Understand this for a minute. Too many people will take a couple of verses out of the bible and read them and claim that for that day. Now, it is good to read your bible even if it is just a couple of verses here and there. But please, understand that there is a whole story that is going on here. There is a whole thing happening that you miss if you shoot here and there.
You miss out on so much if you aren’t really reading the book, within the context of itself. If you don’t know who the author is, if you don’t know when in history it was written, if you don’t know who it was written to then you aren’t receiving the intended message those words have to say.
That is really important. We should always aim to find the intended point that the writer is trying to make and not insert our own agendas to the verse.
There is no other book that you would read like that. I am reading a book with my son, the Hunger games series and I could never just open it up and read something and expect to really understand what is going on. We need to be intentional about how we read the word of God.
At least read books at a time. Unless it is proverbs, or the Psalms, because those are collections put together. They aren’t a narrative.
That is why it is so easy to mess up, that is why it is so easy to take verses out of context. Some of our favorite verses that we claim for ourselves that encourage us may be setting us up because that verse might not be written in the context that we are taking it in.
We should really be reading the bible in context.
So when we read that Abraham was promised a particular land, we see hundreds of years later that Joshua is taking the exact land that God promised Abraham. Even names the same cities. When you put that together and see how it fits you really see the faithfulness of God. You begin to trust Him even more with your life because you see that He can be trusted and you see that He truly cares for His own.
Do you know God loves you and cares for you? He loves sinners. He loves those of us who don’t have it all together. And what we are talking about today reinforces this whole idea that God loves us even when we mess up.
God made good on his promises. and when you go back to Genesis where God says, I will make you a people as numerous as the sand on the shores and as many as the stars in the sky. It seemed impossible for a guy like Abraham to believe it. But, miracle after miracle, little step after little step and here we are. The people of God now possess the promised land. Mostly They didn’t take all the land
Joshua is setting up the boundaries and now he is getting to a part where God was specific and asked for a certain number of cities to be set aside as Cities of Refuge. Cities of Refuge
1 Then the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, 3 that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there. They shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood. 4 He shall flee to one of these cities and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and explain his case to the elders of that city. Then they shall take him into the city and give him a place, and he shall remain with them. 5 And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly, and did not hate him in the past. 6 And he shall remain in that city until he has stood before the congregation for judgment, until the death of him who is high priest at the time. Then the manslayer may return to his own town and his own home, to the town from which he fled.’ ”
Now a city
God cares so much about his own, about His people that He has set up a place of sanctuary for the person who commits murder unintentionally. This is something that God mentioned to Moses back in Deuteronomy. He is to set apart certain towns of sanctuary where a person who unintentionally killed someone could go and live in safety.
20 Cities of Refuge
A promise made by God to care for those who killed unintentionally. I want to talk a little bit about this. This is something that God told Moses to do back in Deuteronomy
In order to understand the cities of refuge we need to understand the way that we got here.
When sin first entered into the world, It used to be the law of the jungle. That is how people lived. It started with Cain and Able. I don’t like something about you and will do whatever necessary to remove it, even if it means killing. Very harsh, not what God wants but it gets worse.
There is another story in Genesis about a man named Lamech.
23 Lamech said to his wives:
“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
People are taking the law into their own hands, which is usually not good. It’s the wild west going on. Sounds a little like today. Shootings are so prevalent that we don’t react any more to it. It just becomes part of normalcy. It really seems like the wild wild west. And even though we don’t live in the big city we still experience some of this.
As a matter of fact, I bet many of us deal with a huge problem in the world today, and that is road rage. Anyone here experience road rage before? Whether it has been done to you or whether it is just you? I bet that is most of us here this morning. We take our problems, our conflicts out on each other instead of, letting it go, or letting someone in charge take care of it.
Speaking of road rage. Drivers ed .com reports that 2/3 s of people who die in car crashes every year are the result of road rage? We take the law into our own hands. This is a problem now just like it was back in Genesis. Even though people were prosperous, even though they were blessed they still were murdering and killing one another. Something had to be done.
God begins to speak about ethics and the law and says in
33 “When a man opens a pit, or when a man digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make restoration. He shall give money to its owner, and the dead beast shall be his.
35 “When one man’s ox butts another’s, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also they shall share.
12 “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. 13 But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. 14 But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Exodus
Exodus 21:33-35
This is where we get eye for an eye. This is where we get the idea that the punishment should be in proportion to the crime. But the idea of ethics continues to develop later in Exodus (remember that this is where the law is given to Moses. God is telling Moses how this civilization is supposed to work).
As a matter of fact, in ancient Israel’s history, the nearest relative of a murdered person is responsible for avenging the blood of the one who kills another.
19 The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. 20 And if he pushed him out of hatred or hurled something at him, lying in wait, so that he died, 21 or in enmity struck him down with his hand, so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.
Tough stuff to hear. But
God is a God of Justice, but he is also a God of Mercy. Those things always need to do together when we talk about God. Justice and Mercy, Mercy and Justice. Well, what if a man kills someone but he didn’t mean to. Where is the justice in that? God has an answer.
12 “Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. 13 But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place to which he may flee. 14 But if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
God is saying, “if you plan on killing someone, then you will receive punishment in the form of capital punishment, if you kill someone accidentally, then you will have a place to seek refuge into a designated place. You will get to live, but you will have to love in a specified place.
So when Joshua takes over the promised land he is instructed, reminded by God that there are to be cities of refuge set aside for people to come to if they have accidentally killed someone.
IF You were working on a roof and dropped something on someone and it hit them on the head and killed them, you feel terrible and the family could come after you. You have a place to go. There are 6 cities of refuge set up by God for such an occasion.
Now, when the person seeks asylum in one of these cities he has to go through a trial by the elders of that city. He has to plead his case to them and they decide whether or not the killing was premeditated or not. But there is still a punishment that takes place. That man who kills has to remain in that city until the high priest dies. That would be a hardship on his family. There is still a consequence to his actions even if it is accidental.
But what the cities of refuge did was makes sure that a family blood feud would be prevented. Much like the famed Hatfields and McCoys. Endless revenge, back and forth killing even if there was an innocent mistake along the line.
I love that God tells us that revenge isn’t the answer for us. Only God really knows the condition of our hearts.
20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
24
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Romans
This is a picture of how God loves. He has mercy on, loves the sinner.
I think, there are instances, many times, that when we sin it’s not because we want to. It’s not because we planned on it. But we still sin none the less. One of the things this story points out is that God has provided a refuge for sinners. Because that is the kind of God he is.
We are all sinners as points out.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
But listen, God is our refuge. can I share a couple of verses with you this morning that will encourage you?
1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
26 In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence,
and his children will have a refuge.
10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower;
the righteous man runs into it and is safe.
4 For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
Who is God? He is a refuge where we can take shelter, a home that we can live in, he is a fortress we can take shelter in.
This is who God is, by nature. It is the nature of God to provide for His children, it is the nature of God to provide a place for us to be safe so that we can live, not for ourselves, but for Him. Doesn’t matter if you are a woman or a man, a child or an adult, it doesn’t matter what skin color you are, what country you come from, what you do for a living. God is our refuge.
But there is one thing that prevents us from entering into that city of refuge, that relationship with God. And that is sin. The problem of sin. The problem with sin is that it separates us from a relationship with God. God is so holy by nature that we cannot approach him unless our sin problem has been addressed.
And that can be addressed by Jesus Christ. God has provided for us a refuge in Jesus Christ. Jesus, God’s own son came into this world to be our refuge. He experienced every tempatation you and I have faced but he did it compleltey, meaning that He never gave into temptation the way we do. That makes him sinless.
God has provided for us a refuge in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our refuge. It is Jesus where we run and hide when we find ourselves in a place that is undesirable. It is the refuge of Jesus that we cling to when we are desperate.
It is because of the sinlessness of Jesus that He can take us and make us clean. His death on the cross, his blood which was poured out actually washes us clean from sin and guilt.
When we believe in Jesus and receive Him to be our own personal savior then He holds us up before God and says, “Father, she is one of us, and he is one of us.
We never know how much time we have left in this world. No one is totally prepared for leaving this world in that, it is usually sudden, even if we think we are prepared only God knows when that his going to happen.
If you never have, please make Jesus your refuge this morning. If you are sick of running, if you are sick of the uncertainty, know that Jesus is the refuge provided for you to run to for salvation.
You don’t have to turn into a freak, you don’t have to get your life together before you do it. You can’t! You do it now. That is how Jesus wants you to do it. He is our refuge. Give yourself to Him today.