The sermon titled 'More Lines in Pleasant (and Dangerous) Places' discusses the allocation of land to the tribes of Israel as described in Joshua 14 and 19. The children of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, Eliezer the priest, and tribal heads, distributed the land by lot, following God's command given through Moses. Caleb, noted for his unwavering faith, requests Hebron as his inheritance, emphasizing his confidence in God's promises despite the presence of formidable foes. His story contrasts with the reluctance of some tribes who hesitated to claim their inheritance, highlighting themes of faith, obedience, and the importance of acting on God's promises. The sermon encourages believers to anchor their faith in God's promises, drawing parallels between the biblical narrative and the Christian journey towards eternal inheritance.

Our sermon text today is Joshua 14 and a few verses in 19. Joshua 14. These are the areas which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eliezer the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed as an inheritance to them. Their inheritance was by lot, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes and the half-tribe. For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half-tribe on the other side of the Jordan, but to the Levites he had given no inheritance among them.

For the children of Joshua were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. And they gave no part to the Levites in the land, except cities to dwell in, with their common lands for their livestock and their property. As the Lord had commanded Moses, So the children of Israel did, and they divided the land. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua and Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenazite said to him, You know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart.

Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day saying, Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said these forty-five years, ever since the Lord has spoken this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now here I am this day, 85 years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me.

Just as my strength was then, so it is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day, for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. And Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenazite to this day because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.

And the name of Hebron formerly was Kirjath Arba. Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war. Joshua, 1949. 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, Timna, Sarah, in the mountains of Ephraim, and he built the city and dwelt in it. These were the inheritances which Eliezer 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 and Shiloh before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. So they made an end of dividing the country." The title of the sermon today is more lines in pleasant and dangerous places. Last time we were in Joshua the title was Lines in Pleasant Places. I was just quoting from Psalm 16, a Psalm of David when he says, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.

And that the possessing of the promised land was a literal fulfillment of that. They're real lines. They're lines being drawn on maps in our last text and in this text. Lots of lines. And they are in pleasant places.

This is a land flowing with milk and honey. So this is our second Map in the Lap week. And we'll be going through what was west of the Jordan. Last time we were together it was chapter 13. So if you remember, if you just take a blank sheet of paper and you fold it in half, the crease down the middle is the River Jordan and it really does divide Israel in in half.

Last time chapter 13 was everything east of the River Jordan and Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh were given that land. Why? Because it was perfect for livestock. And they had a lot of livestock. So back in time they asked Moses for it.

And Moses said, if you'll send your warriors over the Jordan with your brethren to conquer their share of the land also, then you can have it. So they made that agreement and they kept that agreement. This week we're actually covering six chapters and it's not the most scintillating or exciting reading that you'll ever do that's why you'll notice we read a chapter in just a little bit instead of sped up Instead of all six chapters because it's land survey material It's as interesting as you would think a land survey is And I know we have a couple of land surveyors here. No offense meant. But war movies are more popular than land surveys.

I forget which commentator says that. It's a lot more fun to watch horror movies than it is to participate in land surveys. But all of scripture is profitable, even land surveys. And Dale Davis says that no close inspection of a good gift from God could ever be boring. So I think we should just sort of approach these chapters this way.

This is a detailed, a close inspection of a good gift from God, and we'll just look at it this way. So we had last week chapter 13, this week chapters 14 through 19, holy moly. And then next week will be chapter 20, we'll be looking at the cities of refuge, then the week after that, Chapter 21, the cities of the Levites, 48 cities that are sprinkled throughout the tribes on both sides of the Jordan. And that's for a very specific purpose. I look forward to preaching on that.

Let's pray. God, we do take your word for profit, profitable on every page. And there are some pages that surely are a struggle with us. They give us family trees, genealogical records, and land surveys of places that we're unfamiliar with. But we know that if you used space on your one book on these things, that there must be profit that we can extract out of it.

So now that we ask you that you would help us to extract the prophet out of these six chapters, send us home with something that would help us all our lives long walking with you. I pray in Jesus name, Amen. Major heading number one. There will be four major headings. Major heading number one is a basic tour of the map.

So if you have your map, On the right side of the page is what we covered in chapter 13. It's the right of the Jordan. It doesn't even have to do with events in the book of Joshua because they conquered this when Moses was still alive. We talked about it last time. I won't talk about it anymore this week.

Then they crossed over the Jordan just above the Dead Sea. So you look at my map, the body of water towards the bottom is the Salt Sea or the Dead Sea. Just above that you'll see Jericho and Gilgal. That's where they crossed over. They defeated Jericho and they were camping most of the time in Gilgal.

Our text of scripture starts with them being in Gilgal, chapter 14 starts with them there. So geographically that's where they are as this section begins. Then you can just see from the south moving north you have Judah and that will be the first tribe that will get their allotment. It is the tribe of kings, Maybe that's why, but the text doesn't say why. They're first.

They get a big plot of land down south, and then we'll be working on the map through these chapters, and we'll be visiting the map frequently. So Keep the map nearby. Oh, so the salt sea and the Dead Sea is the big body of water in the middle at the bottom. If you go up the Jordan to the second largest one, that is the Sea of Galilee. It's called Chinarath, or the Sea of Chinarath in most of our chapters here.

Sometimes it's called the Lake of Gennesaret in the New Testament, the Sea of Tiberias. It goes by a lot of different names. You know it by the Sea of Galilee. How do you know that? Because Jesus grew up near there.

If you look, the one dot at the top, or the north of the Sea of Galilee, is Capernaum. That's where Jesus, that was his home base, as close as he had to a home base, during the years of his public ministry, and he would have grown up a little south and a little west of there in Nazareth. It's not marked on your map, but it's there. All of that would have been Galilee. Galilee is not mentioned there, but Galilee would have been Naphtali, some of Asher, Zebulun, and Issachar is essentially where Galilee, that Roman province.

Okay, that's major heading number one, a basic tour of the map. Now you have it. Number two, major heading number two, a review of the structure of this section. The reason we're taking these six chapters together is because it is a really well-defined unit. They really do belong together.

You could slow down and take the locations and say what would end up happening historically in those locations and you could take forever if you did that. Decided not to take forever. But These six chapters are a very well-sharply defined unit. Let me say three things about the structure of this section. So this is major heading number two, a review of the structure of this section of six chapters.

I want to say three things about the structure. Number one, the working team who distributed the land to the remaining tribes bookend the section. So there's a working team, a team that actually God has assembled to distribute the lands to the remaining tribes. And this working team bookends the section. What do I mean by bookends?

God calls out the working team in the first verse of the section, and he calls out the working team in the last verse of the entire section. So let's look at this. Chapter 14 verse 1. These are the areas which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eliezer the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed as an inheritance to them. Now flip forward to chapter 19, the very last verse of chapter 19, which is verse 21.

And look, you have almost identical words here. 19 verse 51, these were the inheritances which Eliezer 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 meeting. So they made an end of dividing the country. So the author of the book has marked this out as a really well defined unit and one of the definitions of that unit, setting the boundaries of the unit, is this work team that is called out. It's Eliezer, he's just called a priest, that's very modest, he's actually the high priest.

Joshua the son of Nun. Kids, Nun doesn't mean that he doesn't have a father. It's not the son of nobody. It's actually his dad's name is N-U-N spelled differently. So please don't come out from under my teaching and say, my preacher says Joshua didn't have a daddy.

No. He's the son of a man named N-U-N-NONE. And then the heads of the fathers of the tribes. So each tribe had a head. And these heads, with Eliezer the priest and Joshua, formed this working group that divided up the land.

We haven't talked about Eliezer. I don't think he's been mentioned in the book of Joshua at all. If I'm wrong about that, he's just been mentioned in passage and hasn't played any sort of a role in the book at all. He's the son of Aaron. Aaron was Moses' brother.

Aaron was the high priest. It is the family tree of Aaron that will be the priests in Israel. If you were not a descendant of Aaron, you weren't a priest in Israel. Aaron died not long before Moses died, so Aaron doesn't factor into the book of Joshua at all. After he died, his oldest living son, Eliezer, became high priest in his place.

So this is who we're talking about here. And Eliezer was there when Joshua was inaugurated by Moses in Numbers 27. I want to look at that quickly. Turn back to Numbers 27. Numbers is the book right before Deuteronomy.

Joshua, go back to Deuteronomy, go back to Numbers, and now Numbers 27. Let's read this just to place Eliezer and who he is and what some of his history. Numbers 27 verses 18 through 21. 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 Eliezer the priest and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight.

And you shall give some of your authority to him that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient he shall stand before Eliezer the priest who shall inquire before the Lord for him by the judgment of the Urim. So the Urim and the Thummim are two things. We don't know exactly what they were, but they actually had a place to hold them in the high priest's ephod. And when you were going, it would be sort of like casting lots to get a decision from the Lord. So God, through the mouth of Moses, links together the religious leader, the leader of the worship of God, the high priest, and the civil leader.

It was Moses, but it was becoming Joshua. Moses in this text is actually beginning to give Joshua some of his authority as this transition period where Moses would die and Joshua would be the civil leader and Eliezer would be the high priest leading the people in worship. So God puts them shoulder to shoulder here, and that's what we see in the dividing of the land. They were both leading this working team to divide the land and give each tribe its own inheritance. So Eliezer was the high priest, the leader of religious worship.

Joshua was the civil leader. And then each tribe had a representative. All the tribes would have a representative that were part of this working group to divide the land and give the inheritance to each tribe. Now think of the importance to that. No tribe is asked to take anybody's word for anything with their inheritance.

You would have a representative there as they were casting lots. In fact, towards the end of what we're talking about today, there would be a surveying team that would go out to document and survey the land and write down the geographical features of the land so that they would have areas, well-defined areas that they could cast lots for. The survey team actually had representatives too. So God was very wise in how he put together this working team. No surprise there.

God is wise in all that he does. But we see the wisdom of God playing out here. Yes, there were these leaders, a religious leader and a civil leader, but also every tribe had a representative. So when the surveys were done, when the lots were cast, you would be represented there in the process. So that was number one, the working team, which bookends this section.

Number two, again we're talking about the structure of this six chapter unit. They were simply following previous commands from the Lord. Everything we're studying this week in all of the six chapters is simply an execution of what God commanded them to do in Numbers and in Deuteronomy. God told them do this in this way and in these six chapters that's what they're doing and that's the way that they're doing it. If you're back in Joshua chapter 14, look at the beginning of verse 2, their inheritance was by lot as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses." How did they decide who got what?

By Lot. Why? Because God told them to do it by Lot. Oh, so they left it to chance? No.

Doing it by Lot isn't leaving it to chance. Doing it by lot is leaving it to God. God controls the lot. Proverbs 16, 33. Or verse 5, chapter 14 verse 5.

As the Lord had commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did and they divided the land. I turn to Numbers 34 now. Numbers 34. I just want to demonstrate to you that what is being asserted at the beginning of this six chapter unit, that they were just following the commands that had previously been given to them, is indeed what's happening. Because we have a record of it in Numbers 34.

I'll be reading verses 16 through 19 and then skipping to 29 and I'll tell you when I do it. Numbers 34, 16 through 19. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, so this is God telling Moses how this should go. These are the names of the men who shall divide the land among you as an inheritance. Eliezer the priest and Joshua the son of Nun.

And you shall take one leader of every tribe to divide the inheritance to divide the land for the inheritance these are the names of the men from the tribe of Judah Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Then it goes on and it lists a man to represent every tribe. So not only did God say, let every tribe be representative, God gave Moses a name for every tribe. It starts with Caleb who will represent the tribe of Judah, and Joshua will represent the tribe of Ephraim. I think that's true. Nope, Ephraim actually had another man, and Joshua is extra to that.

So, God told them exactly what to do and how to do it and in our text they're doing what God told them to do and how he told them to do it. I want you to consider what confidence and what certainty the commands of God give us. We're not actually in an unbounded world free to do just whatever thought pops into our minds. You should thank God for that. You have so much more certainty in life.

You have so much more grounds for confidence in life than that. This has me reflecting on my ability to over complicate and over think my life. When if I would just obey the clear commands of God, half the things I agonize over would just disappear. So just think about this in your own life. Just say, I've got lots of things that I agonize over.

That's true of me, I'm sure it's true of you. There's a list of things you agonize over. But if you would give yourself wholeheartedly to just going after the things that God clearly spells out, how many of those would evaporate? How many of those would just dissolve and go away? I think when I look at my list of things I agonize over, if I was wholeheartedly doing just the things that were clearly commanded by God, a lot of those things would just evaporate.

This should have us thinking. This is one of the beauties I think of the whole book of Joshua. Joshua is playing within the boundaries. God has required certain things, commanded certain things, and we find Joshua in chapter after chapter after chapter doing the things. And so, he's hemmed in.

That's not bad, that's good. He shouldn't resent that, he should embrace that. And so should we. So many of the things that we agonize overcome from, we're outside the boundaries. We're in territory that God has claimed for Himself, or we're not wholeheartedly about the things that He's commanded us to do.

We can have a life of so much more confidence and so much more certainty if we will first focus on the things that God has clearly told us to do and then save your agonizing for the other things that are left after you do that. I think we'll find it to be a smaller list than our current list. The third thing to say about the structure is this. The two faithful spies bookend the section. So, a faithful spy at the very beginning and a faithful spy at the very end.

What do I mean by a faithful spy? 45 years earlier, 12 spies had been sent into the land. Two of them came back with a believing report. It's a great land and God will fulfill his promises. We should go in and take it right now.

That was Joshua. That was Caleb. Caleb's allotment is given to us right at the beginning of this unit of scripture and Joshua is given to us right at the end. They should have listened to these men and these men are given their inheritance, their part of the inheritance at two ends of this unit which divides up the land. Caleb is given Hebron here in chapter 14 and then Joshua is given Timnath, Sarah at the end of chapter 19 and it forms the ends of this six chapter unit.

Okay, that was major heading number two, a review of the structure. Major heading number three, chapter by chapter summary. So you know we'll have to do this fast, but we can. Chapter 14 begins with an introduction to the section. It announces that we're going to do an allocation of territory by tribe for these nine tribes and the half tribe and It will be by lot why by lot because God said do it by lot and it gives us the working group The rest of the chapter has to do with Caleb asking for his territory.

Caleb claiming his territory. We have time markers in chapter 14 verse 7. Caleb said, when I was sent out a spy for the first time. I was 40 years old. And then verse 10 he says 45 years have passed and now I'm 85 years old.

I'm an old man but I don't feel like an old man. I'm an old man but I think I can still fight like a young man. And so you give me the territory and I'll lead the charge to take possession of this territory. Listen to Numbers 14 verse 24. Just listen because it's a single verse.

Numbers 14 verse 24. This is a God speaking to Moses after the people had refused to take the counsel of these two faithful spies and were in rebellion, would not go in and possess the land. God said this to Moses. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it." So in our text in Joshua chapter 14, when Caleb comes to ask for his inheritance, he's not bragging when he says, I wholly followed the Lord. God said that of him in Numbers 14.

He's quoting God in Numbers 14. God said that Caleb had a different spirit in him than the ten spies that discouraged people He had a believing spirit in him and he followed God fully So and Then he promised him that he would have an inheritance in this land. So Caleb comes and he quotes God and asks for what God had promised him. Caleb pleads the promises of God. First with Joshua and then with God.

Look at chapter 14 verse 12, the second part of it. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. That's not a statement of unbelief, that's a state of hope. Not wishful thinking kind of hope, but confident expectation kind of hope as Josh said earlier. Dale Davis, a helpful commentator on Joshua says this, Caleb keeps coming back to this as he Yahweh promised verse 10 From the time Yahweh spoke this word to Moses, second half of verse 10, which Yahweh promised on that day, verse 12, as Yahweh has promised, second half of verse 12.

See Also verse 9, so Moses swore on that day five times Caleb hammers this point home. His request is for nothing but what God has promised. That's what we have in Joshua chapter 14. Only Caleb asking for exactly what God has promised and nothing more than what God has promised. Dale Davis continues to say this, true faith always functions that way.

It pleads God's promises. It anchors itself upon the Word of God. There can be no other foundation for faith. Yes, true faith always functions that way. It pleads God's promises.

It knows God's promises. You better know His promises. How can you plead them if you don't know them? And then it pleads God's promises, asking for exactly and no more than God has promised. It anchors itself upon the Word of God.

But there are giants where Caleb is asking for. The Anacheam are there. By faith, Caleb doesn't care. By faith, Caleb says, I'll fight like a young man. You send me there and you'll see that I'll fight like a young man.

I'm not a diminished man, though I'm 85 years old. Everybody else in the whole nation is at oldest mid-sixties. He's mid-eighties and he says, give me the land of the giants. Caleb is very inspiring if you haven't noticed. Brothers and sisters, I'm convinced that this portion about Caleb and what he's like and about his inheritance is at the beginning of this six chapter unit to tell us This is how it's done.

This is how it's done. Plead the promises and then act accordingly. You might be 85, but say, if God has promised me this land, I have a confident expectation that I can take this land. The Giants are there, by faith I don't care. So Joshua blesses Caleb and he gives him Hebron.

So you've got your map, you've got the salt sea, It's the big body of water towards the end. Go about one third of the way down from the top of the salt sea and then go west a little bit and you'll see Hebron. That's Caleb's turf. God gives that to Caleb. Chapter 15 begins with Judah getting its inheritance, and Judah is Caleb's tribe.

So Caleb gets his specifically, but you can see on your map, Hebron is within the tribal territory of Judah, and that makes sense. Judah gets this big area down here. It's the green portion west or to the left of the salt sea terminating on the Mediterranean Sea as its western boundary. It includes Jerusalem. So look at the top, sort of near the salt sea.

The top of Judah's territory, equal with the top of the salt sea, is Jerusalem. But it's right on the border of Benjamin's territory too. So as you read your Old Testament, sometimes Jerusalem is going to be identified with Judah, and sometimes it will actually be identified with Benjamin. It's because it's a border town. Jerusalem is a border town between these two tribal territories.

Last time I said when we get to these tribal allotments it will either be determined by geographical borders that are described, or a list of the major cities, or both. That seven out of the twelve tribes, it's described using both. The geographical border that you could trace out, and then also the major cities. The other five tribes are one or the other geographical borders or a list of the major cities. Here Judah is given a land allotment, the geographical borders are described, and then the major cities are listed.

And sandwiched in between is the account of Caleb taking Hebron. I look at chapter 15 verse 14. Chapter 15 verse 14. Chapter 15 verse 14. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak from there.

Sheshai, Ahaman, and Talmi, the children of Anak. So Hebron, apparently, was governed by three giants. You have their names there. Now, you want to see something amazing? But I never knew.

I never saw it. I never saw this connection this week. Turn to Numbers 13. I promise you something amazing. Numbers 13.

Numbers 13, I'm going to read verses 1 and 2 and then jump and I'll tell you when I'm jumping and where I'm jumping to. Numbers 13, 1 and 2. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them." Twelve tribes, twelve leaders being sent to spy out the land. Caleb will be one of these men.

Alright, now verses 21 through 23. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamoth. They went up through the south and came to Hebron. Ahaman, Sheshai, and Talmi, the descendants of Anak were there. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt.

Then they came to the valley of Eshkol and they were cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes and they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. That was part of the mission, that they were to bring back some of the produce of the land for observation and inspection by the rest of the Israelites. So they have this massive cluster of grapes that they take and put on the pole. But these spies had gone to Hebron, and the same three giants that are mentioned in our chapter were there 45 years earlier.

Caleb was there, and they were there. And Caleb wanted to take it then. Caleb was ready to do it then. Caleb would have led the assault then. Those three giants must have been young-ish then, and so they're still there.

They're still governing in Hebron, and Caleb was there, and he's back. Caleb is back. Isn't that amazing? I thought that was amazing. I seem more excited than you were about that.

I'll give you time to digest it. You can tell me how excited you are about it over lunch. Then Caleb went to Debir. Debir is one of the cities that was mentioned as being conquered in the earlier chapters of Joshua. But this is going to happen over and over that places that were conquered, time has gone by and there's been a regrouping and a resettling so that as the tribes get their possessions, their possessions won't be completely emptied out of inhabitants, each tribe is going to still have work to do to displace and and the command of Deuteronomy 20 is to annihilate these people and so this this happens in a number of cities where we saw in earlier chapters it was conquered.

And now the tribe goes in and has to essentially re-conquer it. The major military forces, their backs have been broken by these earlier conquests, but there are still inhabitants in the land and they are regrouping and that's actually going to play an important part here. So Caleb goes to Debir and he essentially says, To anyone who can take it, I'll give my daughter Aksa." So there's this city, it's inhabited by enemies, and If you can take it, you can have my daughter as wife. So Othniel does it. Now what should we think about that?

Let me offer two thoughts. One, Narrative is not normative. What do I mean by that? We're in a narrative. It's a historical account.

It's telling you what happened. There are things in it that are probably good, there are things in it that are probably not good. You shouldn't proclaim it good unless God says it's good in the text. So these are simply historical accounts that say what happened. It's not normative.

We're not to do everything that we see in the historical accounts. Imagine what a mess our lives would be if we did everything we saw in the historical accounts of the Old Testament. No, no, no, no. Narrative is not normative. Descriptive is not prescriptive.

What do I mean by that? This is a description. Things that happen. It's not a prescription by God. Prescribing what we ought to do, must do, would be good to do.

So that's the first thing. Narrative is not normative. Descriptive is not prescriptive, by the way. If you come to your Bible with just those two things it will help you. Number two.

There are two ways to look at it. The first way is the way that is my knee jerk, which is a woman is no prize to be won at a competition. What? You can go do this exploit and you get to marry my daughter? What kind of behavior is that?

There's another way to look at it. Look at what that man was willing to do to win that woman. That man risked life and limb because he wanted to marry that woman. That's how Matthew Henry takes it. Listen to Matthew Henry.

This made it intolerable to Othniel to think that anyone should do more to win her favor than he would. And so inspired him with this generous fire. Thus is love strong as death and jealousy cruel as the grave. He's actually drawing from the Song of Solomon where the lover says of the beloved, love is as strong as death and jealousy is as cruel as the grave. And Matthew Henry is saying, Othniel acted like that.

Okay, somebody's gonna marry this woman. It's gonna be me! No one's gonna do more to win this woman than me I'm taking that city But a woman should never be a prize to be won at a competition. Cool off, Matthew Henry. As a follow up, Othniel becomes one of the judges of Israel.

You can read about him in Judges chapter 3 verses 7 through 11. Joshua and that group dies off and the people fall away from the Lord, engage in idolatry, and in judgment, God allows the king of Mesopotamia to rule over them for eight years, and then God raises up Othniel to fight against and defeat the king of Mesopotamia and then the land has rest for 40 years so this man will be a leader of Israel and in times to come to deliver them as a judge and deliverer. A final note, chapter 15 verse 63. The last verse of this 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 to this day. You find Jerusalem treated as a foreign city, even though look at your map, it's right in the middle of Israel, but it's treated as a foreign city in the book of Judges. It's for this reason, the Jebusites, they couldn't or didn't dislodge them. Or didn't dislodge them. And it would be David, who would be king seven years in Hebron, Caleb's territory.

And then he would become the king of all Israel, and he would go and take Jerusalem from the Jebusites 400 years later. So, I mean this was true for a long time. I said this last time we were together considering Joshua. This is a harbinger of bad things to come. I think Matthew Henry is exactly right.

They could not because they would not. Had they wholeheartedly, by faith, gone to take Jerusalem, they would have taken Jerusalem. God would have been with them and given them the victory. So no comment is made here. It's just said that they couldn't take Jerusalem.

But this is a foreshadowing of really bad things. It means idolatry is going to be alive and well and spreading in the land for centuries to come. Chapter 16. We get to the tribes of Joseph. Remember, Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob, but Jacob essentially adopted Joseph's two sons to be as if they were his own sons Ephraim and Manasseh and so that's who we encounter in 17.

We saw on the west side of the Jordan. That Manasseh was half the tribe of Manasseh, half the families tree of Manasseh, were given this huge brown district at the top east of the Jordan. And that the other half tribe of Manasseh is given this huge pan. Manasseh got so much land. Look across the Jordan.

Look at what they got on the west side of the Jordan, on the left side of your page, and look what they got on the east side of the Jordan. Look at all that land. What does it have to be? It easily has to be a third of all of Israel to this one half-tribe. That's amazing.

Then again, look at chapter 16 verse 10. I'm going to just point out a couple of these places which are foreshadowing of really bad things for the nation. And they did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Giza, but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites to this day and have become forced laborers, they never should have done that. They took their labor, they should have taken their lives. God commanded it in Deuteronomy chapter 20.

Chapter 17 is the half tribe of Manasseh. Here we encounter the five daughters of Zalapahed, a man with five daughters. Now there's a man I can identify with. He had no sons, and so they make their claim on a part of their inheritance based on what Moses had promised them in Numbers 27, 1-11. So if you want to know more about the five daughters of Zalopahed, Go to Numbers 27 and read verses 1 through 11 and you'll find they had gone to Moses then saying we have no brothers it's going to mean that we there won't be any inheritance for our part of the family tree unless you make it so that daughters with no brothers can inherit land.

And Moses asked God and God said yes, what they say is right. They should be able to have the land. There are no close relatives who are men. So they're just claiming what Moses had promised them and God told Moses to do it. Again look at 17 verses 12 and 13, Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities, but the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.

And it happened when the children of Israel grew strong that they put the Canaanites to force labor. They did not utterly drive them out. That was wrong. It's a total violation of Deuteronomy chapter 20. They shouldn't have taken their labor.

They should have taken their lives in idolatry, survived, and flourished in centuries to come because of this failure. Now look at verse 14 to the end of the chapter. Now follow along if you I'm going fast so if you're not tracking with me come back. Joshua chapter 17 verses 14 through 18. Joshua 17 starting in verse 14.

Then the children of Joseph spoke to Joshua saying, Why have you given us only one lot and one share to the inheritance? To inherit, since we are a great people, inasmuch as the Lord has blessed us until now?" So Joshua answered them, If you are a great people, then go up to the forest country and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the Parasites and the Giants, since the mountains of Ephraim are too confined for you. The children of Joseph said, the mountain country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both those who are of Bethshein and its towns and those who are of the valley of Jezreel. Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, You are a great people and have 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." What is this? They come, and they say, we don't have enough territory. We need more territory. Now you look at the map, tell me if you think Manasseh and Ephraim are land starved.

They say, well, there's not enough land for us. So he says, well, clear land. Go into the forest land and clear it and occupy it. He tells them, you do have enough land, work. They say, well, even if we work, there still won't be enough land.

And so he says, if you do have enough land, fight! They didn't want to work to clear land that was theirs but that was forested. They didn't want to fight because they were afraid of enemies that had iron chariots. But the promises of God are more real than iron chariots. David Howard, another commentator that I'm reading week by week, rightly points out that what they say is very like the ten unbelieving spies 45 years earlier.

Very like. This is set in stark contrast, in the starkest contrast to Caleb. This is the anti-Caleb. Whatever Caleb was like, these are totally different. The polar opposite of Caleb.

If Caleb was the example of how it ought to be done, Ephraim and this half-tribe of Manasseh is the example of how it ought not to be done. Matthew Henry eviscerates them. He clobbers them for this attitude of not being willing to work to clear land, not being willing to fight to claim land. Then he says this, and Then he's lining up to clobber you and me. Note, many wish for larger possessions who do not cultivate and make the best of what they have.

We straighten ourselves by apprehending the difficulties in the way of our enlargement to be greater than they really are. What can be insuperable to faith and holy resolution. What was Matthew Henry saying? He's saying, nothing can stand against faith and holy resolution. The reason you don't have more is because you lack faith in holy resolution.

If you would work and fight, you could have all you could handle and more, but you won't work and fight. That's what Matthew Henry is saying. Ow! That's so true of me. I know I could have more of what I want and need if I had more faith and more holy resolution to work and fight.

Chapter 18 signals a big shift in location from Gilgal. Gilgal was right where they crossed the Jordan. So if you go to the Dead Sea, go up just a little bit, you'll see Gilgal is the open circle just above the Dead Sea. They're now shifting to Shiloh. So if you look where I'm pointing, it's just the northern border of this purple Tribal allocation for Ephraim.

Shiloh is northeast there near the border. So they move from one place to the next. Look at the beginning of 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 within Ephraim.

Ephraim is Joshua's tribe. It's centrally located. So look, there's Shiloh. It's about center, north to south and east to west. And this for the next 300 years will be the center of Israel's corporate worship.

People will be coming here until Eli. Eli will be high priest at Shiloh 300 years later and his sons are wicked and the nation is wicked and God gives the Philistines victory over them, and the Philistines will take the Ark of the Covenant into their own territory, and that will have disastrous results from them. That's 300 years later, and between right where we are in Joshua and those 300 years, Shiloh will continue to be where the Ark of the Covenant is and where the people will gather for corporate worship. Now look, I'm going to continue the end of verse 1, 18, the end of verse 1, through verse 4, and the land was subdued before them. But there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance.

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 and I will send them. They shall rise and go through the land, survey it according to their inheritance, and come back to me." Now, it seems strange, doesn't it? Why would any of the tribes be backward to go and get their inheritance? You would think they would be chomping at the bit to get to their inheritance.

Eager to get to their inheritance. Seems strange to me what's really happening. I want you to think of the context. When you think of the context it actually starts to make a lot of sense. Everyone 45 years old and younger only knows one way of living.

Altogether, in tents. Tent, tents, tents, not in tents, but in tents. Altogether, they've lived that way for 45 years. It isn't inconvenient, it's the baseline for them. And the land can actually support them that way.

It is a land of abundance, a land flowing with milk and honey. God has commanded them to spread out, but They're not logistically required to spread out. It's not that the land doesn't have abundance for them to remain together, to live in tents, like they had for 45 years. Most of the nation knows no other existence than together and in tents. And possessing the land will have difficulties as well as blessings.

Yes, there are promised houses that they didn't build, wells that they didn't dig, vineyards that they didn't plant, But we're seeing there are people there that they're going to have to displace who will fight for their land, fight for their lives. Joshua knows that they have to strike while the iron is hot. You understand that metaphor, striking while the iron is hot. When you're making metal work, you heat it up until it's red hot. You've got to strike it then, because it's in a semi-liquid state where you can change its form then.

You can change its shape then, but as soon as it starts to cool, you lose the ability to change it. That is this way. The inhabitants of the land are regrouping every day they don't go to possess their land. So they either strike while the land while the iron is hot and go now while the people are at their weakest or every day they're gaining strength. So Joshua assembles a surveying team, three per tribe, to go out and to document the features of the land so that they can cast lots and send these tribes into their inheritance.

Josephus, the Israelite historian that was at after the time of Jesus says it took him seven months. That's history outside the Bible, so I don't know if it was really seven months. But it's a big job. So their job is to survey all of that. This is not a one day, one week, one month kind of activity.

So Josephus might have the history right. It might have taken seven months. It took him a long time, whatever it was. In the last portion of the chapter, Benjamin is allotted their inheritance, their tribal inheritance, and were given the geographical borders and the major cities. So Benjamin is just north of Judah, it's the orange one right here, coming right off the top of the Dead Sea or the Salt Sea.

In chapter 19, our sixth and final chapter of the day, and I still need to speed up. In chapter 19, Simeon is given his tribal allotment. Look at chapter 19, verse 9. The inheritance of the children of Simeon was included in the share of the children of Judah, for the share of the children of Judah was too much for them." So Judah was given a lot of land and they really didn't have the population to take possession of this land mass in a meaningful way. So Simeon was actually given a tribal inheritance within the tribe of Judah.

And Judah was apparently, obviously agreeable to it. You aren't given geographical boundaries here. You're only given a list of cities with Simeon. Simeon during portions of the Old Testament now sort of disappears as a tribe. They seem to be really assimilated into Judah.

Then Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan are given theirs in quick succession. You're talking about the tribes up here in northern, and then Dan is down just north of the border with Judah to the sea. Finally in chapter 19 verses 49 through 51, we get Joshua's inheritance and the conclusion. Joshua's, the town given to him is within his tribe of Ephraim. So he's in the purple there.

And in chapter 24 verse 30 we'll read that Joshua will be buried in this city. So he dies in the last chapter of Joshua and he's buried in his tribal inheritance here. Alright, major heading number four, a few concluding thoughts and applications. A few concluding thoughts and applications. I have three.

I quoted Psalm 16 verses 5 and 6 two weeks ago, I'll quote it again here, it's the Psalm of David. Oh Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance in my cup. You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.

I'll say exactly what I said two weeks ago. I quoted that song for three reasons. One, to highlight that what we're reading is about a people, tribes being given a land flowing with milk and honey. It is literally true that their lines have fallen in pleasant places. Literal lines on a literal map, literal abundance, figurative milk and honey.

But they are being given a literally, it's literally true that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places too. To remind us all that the physical promised land is a foreshadowing of the new heavens and the new earth. This is just a picture. The reality is to come. There will be a new heavens and a new earth.

Every sorrow gone, every tear wiped away. Jesus is the light of that place. So it's never night. The gates are never closed. There are never any dangers.

There's never any sin. And so it's figuratively true that the lines have fallen to us in very, very pleasant places. Believers, look forward to the future. With hope, yes, but with joy, with anticipation, with eagerness, an eternity is coming that's better by leaps and bounds than anything we've ever experienced. The best that you've ever known in this life, it would be shameful to compare it with what's coming.

And thirdly, so we never forget to treasure the giver far above any gift. Thank God for a land of milk and honey. But God is the portion of our inheritance and our cup. And it was such a pleasure last week to preach on the greatness of God from those three Exodus texts. Just to think that that kind of God, who if he were to pass before us now to show us his glory, he would have to hide us in the crevice of a rock, and he would have to shield us with his hand while he passed by, and then he would just be able to give us a glimpse of his glory from behind.

That's the kind of God who is the giver of all of these good gifts, and He Himself is better than the sum total of all the good gifts. Number two. That was number one. Remember, the lines are falling to you in pleasant places. Number two.

Then as now Caleb and Joshua are our examples. 45 years ago they stood when the other ten wouldn't stand for God to say that God would keep his promises. And now they're leading the charge. Eighty-five year old Caleb is leading the charge to take possession of this land. Can you, brothers and sisters, Can you say, I am wholly following the Lord?

I am wholly following the Lord. I'm so ashamed to even read those words. Wholly following the Lord. By faith, in faith, with faith. Number three.

Closed with Romans 8, 31, and 32. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Are you sure Caleb didn't pin those words? Are you sure it's the Apostle Paul?

I think Caleb wrote those words. Caleb lives the life of, if God is for me, who can be against me? Giants? No, I fear no giants. Now, verse 32, that was Romans 8.31, now Romans 8.32, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Our mantra is better, stronger, goes further than anything Caleb knew because we've seen the Son of God die on a cross for our sins. Yes, if God is for us who can be against us And who can doubt that God is for us if he didn't spare his own son? God, thank you for this tax. May we live, may We have a different heart like Caleb had, a believing heart, one who is so thoroughly convinced that if Jesus really is God and came to die for our sins that you would withhold no good thing from us, that our lines really have for all of eternity fallen to us in pleasant places. Oh give us such a firm conviction of that in Jesus name.

Amen.