Midweek Bible Study | Joshua 16-19 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] all right so before i begin reading from joshua chapter 16 let me just go to the map on the back wall and orient ourselves again to where we've been this is uh you know a satellite view of israel with the sea galley to the north the dead sea to the south and the jordan river that combines the two and when the people of israel get to the promised land after 400 years of slavery in egypt after they finally after 40 years make it there moses has handed leadership off to joshua joshua leads the people into the promised land and then because the nation of israel is divided into 12 tribes based on the 12 sons of jacob roughly there's some grandsons of jacob in there each tribe is given a land allotment and so we've already looked at two and a half of the tribes reuben and gatt and half of the tribe of manasseh are going to live out their lives in the territory east of the jordan river uh in what is today saudi arabia sorry what is today jordan and then the other nine and a half tribes are going to end up dividing in in this uh you know rather primitive drawing that we have here on the western side of the jordan river and so far up to this point we have seen the land allotment to the tribe of judah and uh as soon as judah gets their land allotment you remember that caleb uh comes to joshua since joshua and caleb were the only two who were righteous before god to enter the promised land because of their faithfulness the their entire generation died in the wilderness on the 40 of on the 40-year journey but joshua and caleb were the only two righteous and caleb comes to joshua and says hey gosh remember i was i was one with you and the two of us came into the promised land and moses promised me that wherever my foot would trod that there i could lay claim to the land so what can i have as you're ready to dispense by lot the these land divisions to the tribes i want my share and it was something that was promised to him and so joshua gives him hebron the town of hebron which is located today in the west bank now just a little history on this to to get us up to speed here in around 975 bc after the death of king solomon the land of israel becomes divided there is civil war and when when you look at this land allotment on the western side of the jordan river it's going to be divided basically in half you're going to have 10 tribes that divide to the north and two tribes that separate to the south and basically believe it or not the civil war in israel was over heavy taxation okay stuff has not changed right and so over heavy taxation the son of solomon rehoboam imposed heavy taxation on the israelites and so 10 of the 12 tribes said we're not into this and we're separating and the 10 northern tribes became known by the name israel because they contain the majority of the tribes so they retained the larger national name israel and they selected jeroboam as their king not the son of solomon jeroboam but two tribes to the south were okay with rehoboam the son of solomon and those two tribes of the south were judah which we've already noticed here and we'll mention in a little bit in the green territory is the little tribe of benjamin and jerusalem becomes the capital for the southern territory and the southern territory will be known by the larger tribal name of judah the reason i bring this up is because sometimes people want to know why did the people of god end up being called jews they were called jews after the tribe of judah because after the nation of israel is dispersed by the assyrians and the babylonians the 10 northern tribes they say are lost they're not lost to god but they were they were lost in terms of geography and in terms of heritage not lost to god and so the nation of israel the ten tribes became lost if you will but the southern tribes of judah then retained the larger name that identified the people jews are called such after the tribe of judah so there's a little history background on all of this judah is the largest of the 12 tribes that's why they've been given the largest of the territories and so when we come here to chapter 16 joshua now is going to decide and determine by lot we're going to talk about that what the land divisions are for the remaining tribes so i know some of this is a little monotonous when we look at these chapters here we're just like reading tribe allotment tribe allotment tribe allotment boundaries the names of villages the names of towns and all this stuff and and i and i get it but there's some wonderful application all this so don't miss it the first thing i want you to notice in chapter 16 is that phrase the lot fell the lot fell that's in verse 1 because the way that they would determine what tribes got what land was by lot what does this mean it was literally like a casting of dice not as simplistic as that but that's what it means and it says they would cast the lot the lot fell now you have to understand something because to us that seems and it should seem like such an unspiritual thing what are you drawing straws for this you're just rolling the dice to figure out who gets what land allotment well you have to remember and you can mark this verse down in the margin of your bibles it's proverbs 16 verse 33 and this is what it says the lot is cast into the lap but its every decision is from the lord that's proverbs 16 33 the lot is cast into the lap but it's every decision is from the lord you see in old testament times and i want to state that again old testament times and i'll clarify in a moment but in old testament times there was a way that one could try to discern the will of god and it was through the casting of lots and that god actually honored it to reveal his will in terms of yes or no by the casting of a lot so to us this looks like this is so unspiritual you know they're just rolling dice to figure out who lives where but behind that was a very strong spiritual emphasis and that's why in proverbs 16 33 it says well the lot is cast into the lab but every decision is from the lord because they really sought the lord in doing this now just as a as a way to understand the casting of lots in the bible the first time that casting of lots is mentioned in your bibles is in leviticus 16 and verse 8. the first time lots were cast was by aaron the priest aaron was the brother of moses and aaron cast the lots to determine when two goats were presented which one was to be offered to the lord and which one was to be the scapegoat now we have that saying today in in our vernacular you know someone was a scapegoat it means you know blame was pinned on them and and they took the blame uh and and a lot of times it's it's not justified they became somebody's scapegoat well back in old testament times there were two goats that were presented to the high priest and one goat was offered to the lord as a sacrifice the other goat the priest would pray over lay hands upon that the sins of the people might be transferred in this symbolic way upon this goat and then the goat was sent out from the city into the wilderness to die and it was actually a beautiful picture of how our sins are cast away that jesus became for us in a sense the scapegoat because he took on our sins and he died on our behalf and it was symbolic there was it was a picture in old testament times of how the scapegoat would take transfer transferred the the symbolically the sins of the people and then cast out of the city that it might die so um the first time that lots are cast is by the high priest aaron there in leviticus 16 8 when he's determining which goat goes to the lord which goat becomes the scapegoat the last time that casting lots are mentioned in the bible is actually in your new testaments it's in acts 1 26. now in acts 1 26 what happened was that the disciples were together minus judas because judas had already hanged himself at this point the disciples are together in the upper room and they're and they're waiting on the lord this is before pentecost and the holy spirit falling upon them and filling them and so they got together the disciples the 11 and decided we need to select judas's replacement now what's interesting is they were never really told by the lord to do that so it seems that this is somewhat of a fleshly decision you know they got some time on their hands there's they're waiting for they don't know what you know they're just told you know wait in jerusalem for the gift my father promised you know jesus told him so they're like waiting there they're praying they're spending time together and and i think they have some time on their hands and they're like you know what we ought to do we ought to roll some dice and figure out who's going to replace judas now why do i say it that way because when they cast the lots and that's the last time the lots are ever mentioned being cast it's acts 1 26 to find judas's replacement it says that the lot falls on a guy by the name of matthias and so they take him as the replacement for judas but you know what that guy is not mentioned another time in all of the bible judas's replacement is not mentioned any other time and most bible scholars believe that the reason he's not mentioned again is because he was never god's will god never asked them choose judas's replacement why because it is likely that the one that god chose to replace judas was the one that jesus appeared to on the road to damascus his name paul so it seems they're in acts 1 that they did a fleshly thing that they didn't need to do because it wasn't god's intent that that matthias should replace judas now that's the last time that the lot is cast and why is that and even then as i'm saying it probably was not something instructed by the lord the reason why that's the last time it appears is because we're not to do that today okay you are not to try to you know draw a straw or roll a dice or flip a coin to try to figure out god's will and if you're doing that go stop it just die just that just stop that okay because it's that's not god's will for you you know i've heard some crazy stories of people you know i had this one dear family and at when at the time when they told me this you know they weren't they didn't really have a relationship with jesus and but and they've since uh moved but um i remember them saying you know what we decided to come to cornerstone because we flipped a coin i said really i said yeah yeah we decided to flip a coin and then this is it was so funny it was it was very precious because she says to me the the wife says to me but you know the reality is it was between you and another church and i really didn't want to go to the other church and so heads was cornerstone and tails was the other church i had to flip 12 times to get the heads i said wow okay thanks a lot after 12 times then you know you finally got heads and now you're a cornerstone but anyway i tried to help them understand listen there's a way you can actually discern the will of god it doesn't involve flipping a coin and she's like really i said yeah it's called prayer you pray now and we have the holy spirit we have the word of god and so you see that's what's interesting acts 1 26 last time the lots were cast in the bible why because acts chapter 2 the holy spirit falls and now come with the holy comes coming with the holy spirit is the wisdom from above and the ability to discern and understand the will of god without the holy spirit without this personal indwelling of god's presence then people in the bible would resort to other mechanical methods to try to discern and determine the will of god which god did honor for a time until he gave the holy spirit now that we have the holy spirit and we have god's word and the spirit bearing witness to our spirit as we read the bible and as we discern the will of god through prayer the holy spirit gives us counsel we read god's word and anything we think that contradicts god's word we should reject this is how god helps us now to understand what his will is no more casting dice no more drawing straws no more flipping coins now in our story here how was it that they actually cast the lots and i think it's important i want you to go back to numbers if you flip back in your bibles uh to to the left a little bit numbers chapter 27. i want you to see this with me from numbers chapter 27 because we actually are given instructions as to um how joshua was to discern the will of god through the casting of lots by the way as you're turning there to numbers 27 there's actually a feast on the jewish calendar about the lots the feast of purim poor in the hebrew p-u-r means lot the plural of lot is lots and in hebrew the plural of poor is purim the feast of purim why is the feast of purim something celebrated related to the lots because in the book of esther there was a wicked man an agagite by the name of haman and haman cast the lots because see even pagans would try to determine the god's will by casting lots back in the day haman this wicked was basically like the prime minister of persia when the jewish people were taken into captivity by the babylonians and they ended up staying there in babylon and subsequently persia that haman this wicked prime minister of persia cast the lots to determine the date when all the jews should be massacred because he was just demonic you know hitler was not the only one who wanted to exterminate the jews you know there have been plenty of demonic leaders past and present and future with the antichrist who are anti-semitic and want to destroy the jews and haman was one such demonic man and the bible says in the book of esther that he cast the lots to try to figure out the date upon which this massacre should occur by exterminating the jews well if many of you as many of you know the story of the book of esther god intervenes and haman is the one who ends up dying and not the jews but when subsequent to that the jewish people remember god's favor towards them when the lot was cast but god intervened and they were not massacred that's the feast of purim the feast of lots now here in numbers chapter 27 this is when joshua's being raised up to succeed moses and we read this at the end of chapter 27 look at verse 18. so this is before moses dies and and this these are his instructions here numbers 27 verse 18 and the lord said to moses take joshua the son of nun with you a man in whom is the spirit and lay your hand on him set him before eleazar the priest note that and before all the congregation and inaugurate him in their sight and you shall give some of your authority this is god talking to moses give him give joshua some of your authority that all the congregation of the children of israel may be obedient notice this verse 21 he shall stand before eleazar the priest who shall inquire before the lord for him by the judgment of the urum i'll explain that in a minute at his word they shall go out and at his word they shall come in he and all the children of israel with him all the congregation all right here's what we learn moses is parting instructions from the lord concerning joshua here's how you're going to discern the will of the lord and it's given to us right here we just read it you're going to go to eleazar the priest and you're going to inquire of the will of the lord through the urum what is the urum the high priest eleazar was the high priest and you can go back here now to the book of joshua because eleazar is still the high priest here when we're reading the book of joshua the high priest had a vestment and in the vestment were two stones called the urum and the tumem and they were different colored stones because they're not around today nobody really knows for sure most bible scholars think one was white and one was black and the purpose of the urum and the tomb was to discern the will of god and it was only a yes answer or no answer that was it and one of the stones with one of the colors meant yes and one of the stones with the other color meant no so somebody would come to inquire the lord you'd go to the high priest and for example you would say should we go fight the amalekites what do you what what do you say lord what is your will should we go and fight the amalekites and the high priest would reach in without looking and pull out a stone if it was the yes stone it was yes if it was the no stone it was no that's how they cast the laws so specifically here in the book of joshua when we're reading how the lot was cast he's going to the priest in fact if you go back here to joshua glance ahead to chapter 19 the very last verse of chapter 19. i want you to see that they this is how they actually did it in chapter 19 verse 51 last verse these were the inheritance which eleazar the priest joshua the son of nun and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of israel divided as an inheritance by lot in shiloh before the lord at the door of the tabernacle of meetings so they made an end of dividing the country so it tells us right here this is exactly how they determined it they would cast the lot and by casting the lot in this case what it meant was joshua would go to eleazar the priest and say all right here's the tribal here's the division of land who's supposed to get this is it supposed to go to the tribe of judah yes or no and they'd be pulling out stones oh no try again it's supposed to go to issachar yes or no no try again supposed to go see this is how they would do it okay now again today you got the word of god you got the holy spirit you got prayer so don't be flipping a coin but in this story this is how they determine the will of god now let's go back here and i'm going to skim through a lot of this but here we go back into chapter 16. so now after dividing the land for judah we're going to start to divide the land for the rest of the tribes and here it goes verse 1. the lot fell to the children of joseph from the jordan because joseph gets a double blessing so both of his kids joseph's going to be removed and both of his kids are going to get assigned territory uh the children of joseph by the jordan by jericho to the waters of jericho on the east to the wilderness that goes up from jericho through the mountains to bethel and then went out from bethel to luz passed along to the border of the architects at ataroth and went down westward to the boundary of the japhelites as far as the boundary of lower betheron to go to gazer and it ended at the sea so the children of joseph and here they are manasseh and ephraim took their inheritance and here we go verse five the border of the children of ephraim according to their families was this and then it lists all these villages and towns which i'm not going to do but i will highlight here here on the map in the center of your map in the blue that's the territory of ephraim that's what they get assigned here and uh i want you to notice that as it describes here are the boundaries for ephraim it does say at the end of chapter 16 and i want you to notice this we'll come back to it in verse 10 it says and they did not drive out the canaanites who dwelt in gaza but the canaanites dwell among the aphromites to this day and have become forced laborers now look this is this is a very dangerous thing that we're reading here so don't overlook it they're supposed to drive out everybody because the people who inhabit the land are pagan people they are not only opposed to god they are opposed to the children of god and these people will come back to haunt the israelites who have allowed them to remain it's interesting here it says that the ephraimites did not drive out the canaanites from their territory but they did assign them to forced labor meaning what meaning they had the strength and the ability to force them out but instead of doing that they turn him into servants if you have the ability to drive them out you should be driving them out this is actually a disobedience to what the lord told them to do but nonetheless this is their territory if you go to chapter 17 it says in verse 1 there was also a lot for the tribe of manasseh for he was the firstborn of joseph and you're going to notice here that we're going to get into the um the other the western side of the jordan river and this is the other half of manasseh so this is the only tribe that split half of them said no we like the land on the eastern side of the jordan river the other the other half said no we like it on the western side and so manasseh gets split but i want you to notice further down with me in verse three something interesting here because it says but zelo fahad zelipha had the son of heifer the son of gilead the son of machir the son of manasseh so this is part of the descendants of manasseh this particular guy zelophehad had no sons but only daughters and then it lists the names of the daughters uh mela noah okay it was a girl's name back in the day hog not not a very uh flattering name there milka and tears up okay now here here's what happened normally the landa llama would go to the males in the family and and thus by default any females within the family would have their lotta lying uh uh their land allotment along with their the head of their house and or their father or their husband okay but what happens here when this guy has no sons but he only has daughters these daughters are like left out in the cold so like we need we need a place to live too so so here notice verse 4 and they came near before eliezer the priest and before joshua the son of nana before the rulers saying the lord commanded moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers therefore according to the commandment of the lord he gave them an inheritance among their father's brothers ten shares fell to manasseh besides the land of gilead and bashan which were on the other side of the jordan because the daughters of manasseh received an inheritance among his sons and the rest of manassas sons had the land of gilead look one of the things i love about the bible and and christianity in general is that you notice in not just the old testament but also in the new testament the wonderful standing that women have with god and it christianity is unique in that way you're not going to find that in islam you're not going to find that in hinduism you're not going to find that in buddhism you find the wonderful honoring of women in the bible and here come these these ladies are like we don't have men in our lives so we need land too and joshua and elias are like yes you also equally get a share of the inheritance and so like you know here they come all the single ladies all the single ladies all the single ladies put your hand up for some land up you know so that's what they do put your hand up for some land up that's what they did right here and so they so they got their land allotment i'm a mess just pray for me and so anyway and so and so it says in the territory they're reading the rest of verse nine and the territory of manasseh was from asher to miknotha and that lies east of shechem and the border went along south to the inhabitants of end to pua all right keep going over further down to verse 12. i'm still in 17. go to verse 12. because you're going to see the same thing repeated there in verse 12. yet the children of manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities but the canaanites were determined to dwell in the land and it happened when the children of israel grew strong that they put the canaanites to force labor but did not utterly drive them out again same scenario you have enough power to reduce them to forced labor you have enough power to drive them out but you didn't do it and so land continues to be divided here there's this kind of interesting ending to chapter 17 i'll just read it verse 14. it says then the children of joseph spoke to joshua saying why have you given us only one lot and one chair to inherit since we are great people in as much as the lord has blessed us until now they're not happy with what they get and so joshua answered them and said well if you are a great people then go up to the forest country and clear a place for yourself they're in the land of the parasites in the giants since the mountains of ephraim are too confined for you he's like you know they're like we're a great people we need more okay if you're so great go go cut down some trees you know go and go go expand your territory and uh so it says in verse 16 but the children of joseph said the mounted country is not enough for us and all the canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley of chariots of iron both those who are of bethshan and in its towns and those who are of the valley of jezreel and joshua spoke to the house of joseph to a frame in manasseh saying you are a great people and of great power you shall not have only one lot but the mountain country shall be yours although it is wooded you shall cut it down and its farthest extent shall be yours for you shall drive out the canaanites though they have iron chariots and are strong so like do it go ahead just you know expand but you're going to do some work to earn it chapter 18. now the whole congregation of the children of israel assembled together at shiloh and set up the tabernacle of meeting there this is important and the land was subdued before them but there remained among the children of israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance so i'm going to put the town of shiloh on the map for you shiloh is located there in the territory of aframe and this is a significant town i've been there once be before the 2001 intifada in israel and now because shiloh is part of the west bank it's a little too precarious to to go to shiloh but originally shiloh was the place where the tabernacle of the lord was pitched this was a a mobile sanctuary of the lord that was like a tent and moses was given instructions about its material its design and how it was to be made and the israelites carried it with them because they didn't have a permanent temple that wouldn't happen until the days of king solomon and that temple would be permanently built in jerusalem but before the temple was built in jerusalem they had a mobile uh temple known as the tabernacle or also called in some translations the tent of meeting and that was pitched in shiloh and you can go you know when i went to shiloh it's interesting because it's like untouched uh shards of pottery are all over the place i mean and you can you can pick them up and take them because it's just remnants of people who gathered there to worship the lord i have some of the pottery from shiloh people gathered there to worship the lord before the temple was built and it was there that they came and they would offer sacrifices and they would seek the lord well shiloh is headquarters and it's the place where eleazar the priest is and what we read at the end of chapter 19 tells us that this is the place where joshua would go to inquire of the lord he would seek god's will through elias or the priest at shiloh where the tent was where the tabernacle was now what happens here at shiloh is that because the other um it appears here that some time has gone by and the tribes have not claimed their allotment and so here's what happens in verse 3 then joshua said to the children of israel how long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the lord god of your fathers has given you pick out from among you three men for each tribe now there's still seven tribes that haven't gotten their allotment so this is 21 men i want you to pick 21 men here three men from each tribe and i will send them they shall rise and go through the land survey it according to their inheritance and come back to me and they shall divide it into seven parts judah shall remain in their territory on the south and the house of joseph shall remain in their territory on the north so talking about ephraim in manasseh but you shall therefore survey the land in seven parts and bring the survey here to me that i may cast lots for you here before the lord your god but the levites have no part among you for the priesthood of the lord is their inheritance and gad reuben and the half tribe of manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the jordan on the east which moses the servant of the lord gave them and then the men arose to go away and joshua charged those who went to survey the land saying go walk the land survey it and come back to me that i may cast lots for you here before the lord in shiloh so the men went past through the land and wrote the survey in a book in seven parts by cities and they came to joshua the camp in shiloh and then joshua cast lots for them in shiloh before the lord and there joshua divided the land of the children of israel according to their divisions and so the verses following divided for the remaining seven tribes now i just want to point out the simple thing here there is a beautiful combination of man's participation and god's intervention what do i mean joshua instructed these 21 men i want you to go out and i want you to map the territory map it survey it and i want you to you know write it all down in a book and what they ended up doing was they made notes of different towns and villages they made notes of brooks and streams they made notes of mountains they made notes of cliffs they made notes of all this the topography of the land they mapped it out they surveyed it and and there were natural boundaries that fell when when you look at this map you know as cluttered as it might look it's actually based on some natural boundaries you know when you look at a map of the united states you know particularly the east coast you know a lot of our boundaries and borders are around you know natural parts of the land natural topography of the land where rivers and streams you know the potomac river divides virginia from maryland there are natural things that are recorded as boundaries this is what these guys were doing but what is interesting is that that man's participation was survey the land write it all out but god's intervention was revealed through joshua casting the lots so it wasn't like it was all just human participation go write a map and then fight over it and write your names wherever you want no it was you map it out come back and now i'll cast lots so that god can determine which tribes go to which part of the territory and the reason i mention this is because sometimes it's important for us to realize that that's still a similar way that god operates in this sense he doesn't want you to just simply rely on yourself he wants you to rely on him but at the same time he uses your natural talents gifts and abilities to partner with god's divine intervention on things it isn't it isn't just you know the extremes it isn't like you know your future is based solely on your determination right and god as sovereign as he is and can do all things without any help from us loves to partner with us in the revelation of his will and so there is this beautiful combination in the bible of man's participation in the sovereignty of god that's the beautiful tension of the bible in terms of salvation right it's man's responsibility it's god's sovereignty and where does that tension meet in the middle and it's and it's that way with us so you know as we don't always over hyper spiritualize everything and at the same time don't neglect god and think that it's all up to you there's this wonderful tension that meets in the middle somewhere between okay how does god want you to be involved in the the actual fulfillment of his purpose and of his plan and so it takes some discernment there and so that's the kind of thing we see happening here man is is surveying this writing the boundaries and god is then determining who goes where there's this beautiful a joint venture here man's participation in god's intervention well we're going to hustle through this because you're going to see here the rest of the land allotment here we go so verse 11. now the lot of the tribe of the children of benjamin came up according to their families and the territory of their lot came out between the children of judah and the children of joseph so here on the map this little tiny green area that's benjamin and i want you to notice of all of the towns mentioned there's one important one jump ahead to verse 27. sorry verse 28 there in chapter 18 verse 28 there's a list of different cities that are mentioned as part of this territory by the guys who survey the land and in verse 28 you have zela eleph and jabus notice that and in parenthesis which is jerusalem so i'll put that on the map for you jerusalem falls just inside the territory of benjamin and so that's where jerusalem is located and then when you look at chapter 19 verse 1 it says the second lot came out for simeon for the tribe of the children of simeon according to their families and their inheritance was with within the inheritance of the children of judah now notice that their inheritance was within the tribe of judah so down at the bottom of the map to the south you see simeon their territory was within judah's territory they were a small tribe judah was the largest tribe this was helping to protect them giving them a little bit of shelter around them because the larger tribe could help the smaller one and it says in verse 10 the third lot came out for the children of zebulun according to their families and the border of their inheritance was as far as sareed so now we're going to go up north and you see the territory there in light blue in the middle of the north zebulun zebulon gets that territory if you look at verse keep reading with me verse 17. the fourth lot came out to issachar for the children of issachar according to their families and so you have also up there to the north just east of zebulun you have the territory for the tribe of issachar and if you keep reading verse um by by the way um i neglected to mention but this is just in passing there's some important people in your bibles based on these different tribes from the tribe of benjamin king saul was from the tribe of benjamin the apostle paul was from the tribe of benjamin when you get here to verse 24 the fifth lot came out for the tribe of the children of asher according to their families here's the tribe of asher to the far northwest and someone famous from the tribe of asher is found in luke chapter 2 the elderly prophetess anna anna was from the tribe of asha asher and when you get down to verse 32 it says the sixth lot came out to the children of naphtali for the children of naftali according to their families so the region of natalie is also up there to the north the region of natalie hugs the sea of galilee somebody famous from the tribe of naftali was barack not obama but barack was a leader in the book of judges but not a very good leader because he was very timid and so god had to raise up deborah as a a judge in the book of judges deborah was from the tribe of ephraim and barack was from the tribe of naftali and then lastly in verse 40 you have the the last tribe gets the allotment the seventh lot came out for the tribe of the children of dan according to their families and so this little tiny pink area on the coast of the mediterranean in the middle of the map there that's the tribe of dan that stan's tribal allotment now the most famous person from the tribe of dan was a tragic story the life of samson also another judge he was a danite and i want you to notice real quickly verse 47 it says and the border of the children of dan went beyond these because the children of dan went up to fight against leshem and took it now here's what we find out dan doesn't like their little tribal allotment down there so they go way up north beyond what is today the golan heights and they take this territory leshem and there they dwell when we go on our tour of israel and we go up to tel dan we're going up far north it was not god's original land allotment for them but they went and took it anyway they took possession of it and it says in verse 48 this is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of dan according to their families these cities with their villages and let's close out chapter 19 here because we're going to see that joshua himself the last to get his own personal allotment and this is what he gets and verse 49 it says when they had made an end of dividing the land as an inheritance according to their borders the children of israel gave an inheritance among them to joshua the son of nun according to the word of the lord they gave him the city which he asked for timnath sarah in the mountains of ephraim and he built the city and dwelt in it these were the inheritances which elias are the priests joshua the son of nun and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of israel divided as an inheritance by lot in shiloh before the lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting and so they made an end of dividing the country here is an arrow to the town timnath sarah which joshua got us his inheritance in the region of ephraim i want to close with this passage from colossians chapter 3. you don't need to turn just listen colossians 3 verse 5 says therefore put to death your members and the esv says put together for what is earthly in you which are fornication uncleanness passion evil desire and covetousness which is idolatry because of these things the wrath of god is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them prior to knowing christ but now you yourselves are to put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy language out of your mouth do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him where there is neither greek nor jew circumcised nor uncircumcised barbarians give the enslaved nor free but christ is all and in all i share this with you in closing because this is a picture for us of the danger of what they didn't do they allowed they allowed the enemy to remain when they should have driven them out they should have put them to death so that the influence would not corrupt them in the same way we have a fleshly nature that always is trying to dominate us but in christ you see we are to put to death these things that are part of our earthly nature and that's why paul lists some of those things not an all-inclusive list just a reminder to us these are some areas where we can struggle in our flesh the bible says make no provision for the flesh to gratify the desires of the lust thereof and it will be a constant battle for us to die to ourselves and to crucify the flesh but if we don't put to death in our flesh if we don't die to self these things will end up haunting us these things can end up coming back to bite us so to speak and when you look at jewish history the enemy that they did not drive out became the enemy that would defeat them so we must take the necessary steps in our own lives to deal with those things of our flesh so that they don't dominate us amen let's pray together lord thank you for your word and thank you for this reminder that there are things in our own lives that try to dominate things in our own lives that of our flesh that try to take control different sin issues that we all struggle with and we pray that we would make no provision for those things but that we would daily die to self that we would crucify the flesh that we would live for you we need your help lord because we are weak in ourselves but we are strong in you and so we pray god that we would not coddle the flesh we would not feed the flesh but we would die to self and live for you we thank you for your word tonight i pray you'd speak to our hearts even as we leave here tonight we give you praise and we give you glory and honor it's in jesus name we pray and everybody said amen you

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

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Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers

Id: OMQ8439u5_w

Length: 44min 53sec (2693 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021