Joshua Part 15 - Life In The Lord's Land

Andrew Grey continues the Sunday morning teaching series on the book of Joshua.

This sermon is from Sunday 1st February 2026 and the bible reference is Joshua 18v1 - 24v45.

Transcript

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If you'd take a Bible, please, and turn in it to the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 18. The Bible is like a library of 66 different books, and all of them telling one single story of God's gift to us of the Lord Jesus Christ and encouraging us, be it for the first time or the umpteenth time, to place our faith in Him. Let me pray as we come to the Word of God. Heavenly Father, on our own, we are too small and too sinful to know you, but you open up your lips and speak to us through your word, the Bible, and by your Holy Spirit. And you love to work inside of people to give us ears to hear and receive from you. And we pray that you would do that work now for our good and also for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. So we're working our way through the Old Testament book of Joshua. We're going to try and cover four chapters actually this morning, not in massive detail, but I'm going to read to begin with from Joshua chapter 18. Let's listen to the words of the living God. Then the whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them. There remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned. So Joshua said to the people of Israel, How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land which the Lord the God of your fathers has given you? Provide three men from each tribe, and I will send them out, that they may set out and go up and down the land. They shall write a description of it, with a view to their inheritances, and then come to me. They shall divide it into seven portions. Judah shall continue in his territory on the south, and the house of Joseph shall continue in their territory on the north, and you shall describe the land in seven divisions, and bring the description here to me, and I will cast lots for you here before the Lord our God. The Levites have no portion among you, for the priesthood of the Lord is their heritage, and Gad and Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them. So the men arose and went, and Joshua charged those who went to write the description of the land, saying, Go up and down in the land and write a description and return to me, and I will cast lots for you here before the Lord in Shiloh. So the men went and passed up and down in the land, and wrote in a book a description of it by towns in seven divisions. Then they came to Joshua, to the camp at Shiloh, and Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord, and there Joshua apportioned the land to the people of Israel, to each his portion. Well, thanks be to God for his word to us today. Why does God give us good things? Why has God given you good things? That's the question before us as we come back into the book of Joshua. In the story of Joshua, we see here our generous heavenly father in full-on giving mode. He is giving to his Old Testament church, who he rescued from slavery in Egypt, he is now giving them the land which he promised. But why? Why does God give good things to his people? Was it so that these different tribes, remember, these sons of Jacob, out of which the whole Old Testament church, the nation of Israel, was born, was it so that the different tribes could go off into their different corners of the promised land and just do their own thing? If you're a Christian, uh God has given you Jesus. Why? Well, let's get into this passage first. God's people are saved to meet with him. And in our chapter, we get almost the first glimpse in the book of Joshua about what the land was for. Mainly, so far in the story, we've seen, you know, after the wilderness wanderings, we've seen them cross over the River Jordan and the business of conquering the land. There are battles, there are victories, some defeats. And the division of the land has begun. Okay, so your tribe, here's your bit. You know, your clan and family, here's your bit over there. And now we come to chapter 18 and verse 1. The whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. And the point of it all, in fact, the point of everything is what's described in that verse. That the Lord's people might gather to meet with him. So here is why the Exodus happened. Do you remember how the Lord said to Pharaoh, Let my people go in order that they may worship me? Back in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 12, God gave commands for the people when they came into the land. And the most important commands were things like this: get rid of idols and places of false worship and worship me as I want you to. And here in Joshua, we come to the very centre of the Holy Land. Actually, we come to the point of this holy land. Think about our country for a minute. When you think about Britain, we probably psychologically think that the centre is London. Okay, sorry, rest of UK, it's just a fact. When you think about London, maybe the centre is Westminster or Buckingham Palace. So the centre, the focus, the heart of the promised land, it was a tent. See that in verse one. A tent. Not any old tent, but the tent of meeting. God came to dwell with his people, to live with them, and he gave them this tent, the tabernacle, and in his kindness he made it not just a tent, but a tent of meeting. So that the people could assemble. See that word, that verb in verse 1. They could assemble, literally, they could church. That's what the word church means, to gather. And so they would go out from here and they would come back to here in order to meet with him. Until such time as he gave the command for the tabernacle to be made permanent and turned into the temple in Jerusalem. Until that time, this was the Lord's chosen place, this place called Shiloh. If you know the Old Testament story, you might remember the very start of one Samuel about a man who used to go up year by year from his city to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh. People come and they go, but they always come back. They gather together to the Lord in order to worship. The Lord did not give a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He did not bless his people richly that they might just kind of go off and do their own thing and live independently of him or of one another. He gives extraordinary blessings to his worshippers. That's actually what Jesus said in John chapter 4. The Father seeks worshippers. So we're not blessed in order to indulge ourselves. All the gifts that he gives us, you know, blessings in creation. I don't know what the things about this creation that you most love are, or maybe blessings of family or work. But quite literally, at the heart of it all is Him and meeting with Him and worshiping Him. So maybe just reflect on the map of your life, the map of our lives. We're kind of given a map here, aren't we? So think about your map. So the church back then, uh, there were places where they were scattered around the land to their homes, but yes, constantly called to gather to meet. And well, think about us. Uh we are scattered, different places in the world, you know, a home, a family, a workplace, a community. But the centre of it all, well, it's not a tent in Shiloh, it's not the tabernacle, it's not the temple, but the centre of it all is the worship of God as He has commanded. So the Lord's day, the Lord's people, the Lord's worship. We come back to it, then we go out from it, and then we return to it. Think about the Lord's uh presence. Yes, he's present everywhere in his world, he's present with us in our private worship. Yeah, when we commune with him at home or on the tube or wherever it is, but there is something distinct and special here. Yeah, Sunday is still the Lord's day, even though every day is good, set apart that we might meet and enjoy him and be with him and one another in a particular way. And that is why he gives us all of those other blessings. So maybe just maybe just think about the map of your life and where worship fits in. Second, God's people are called to work for him. We read a little sentence. The land lay subdued before them. I wonder what you make of that sentence. If you've been reading through the book of Joshua, the land lay subdued before them. Did it? Was it? Well, there were actually still plenty of Canaanites to fight. Remember the inhabitants of the land, this wicked culture that the Lord had commanded his people to cleanse. There were plenty of Canaanites to fight, but the land was there for the taking, because the Lord had made it so, and he had told them to take it. In that sense, the land was completely subdued. He had said, It's yours, take it. We read in verse 2, there were still seven tribes whose inheritances hadn't been divvied out. And then in verse 3, we hit what has got to be a rebuke. Verse 3, so Joshua said to the people of Israel, How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land which the God of your fathers has given you? How long? Why are you hanging back? You're meant to be like Caleb, remember him? Or the daughters of Zalophahad, remember them? You know, God has promised me this, so I'm gonna make every effort to go and take what I have been promised. But these tribes and their representatives, they're not coming to Joshua like Caleb did, you know, boldly requesting their land. And we don't know why. The passage here doesn't actually tell us why they were so slow or even so slothful. How long will you put it off? Was it laziness? Was it fear? I guess we can, as Christian people, we can understand both of those things. Maybe it's fear following Jesus wholeheartedly. Well, you you come face to face with Canaanites, don't you? Or opposition, we might say, the pain and the cost of following Christ, putting sin to death. You know, being a whole heart for Jesus, well, it can be a fear-inducing thing. But also laziness. We get that too, don't we? And we can even use good theology, twisted, to justify laziness. You know, we're saved by grace, it's all down to God. Doesn't matter what I do. You know, should we sin that grace may abound? Well, the Apostle Paul had something to say about that, didn't he? So the promises of God should not lead to sluggishness, slothfulness. You know, his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, so make every effort. That's the feel of the Christian life, actually, isn't it? That's the dynamic of 2 Peter chapter 1, for example. Rest in the grace of God, and then you labor hard for God. And those two things are not enemies of each other. So you want to be like Caleb in old age. Well, it doesn't happen by magic. It's practice being godly. So just take briefly two promises that God has given to us, to the Church of Jesus Christ. Think about the fight against sin. We are not going to be perfect until we see Jesus face to face. But one of the gifts of God to every Christian is freedom from the dominion or the control of sin. That is a gift of God. Now, what do we do with that? And the answer is we don't do nothing with it, and we don't put off the hard work of fighting against sin. There is work to be done, sweat, pain, even. And there's the promise of progress and the Lord's help. What about evangelism? Um, we're not all called to be Rico Tice or Billy Graham. We are all called to make the most of every opportunity. Uh, and we're told that despite all kinds of opposition, the Church of Jesus will grow. He says things like, I will build my church. It's a fact, it will, it's a promise. Now, what do we do with that? And we don't do nothing with it. We seek to make the most of every opportunity in speaking up for Jesus. There is a promise of progress, and so we pray and we speak. Now, what Joshua does to this slowness or in response, it's quite instructive. He has to chivy them, but how he chives them is quite helpful. He gives them a surveying project. I suspect people who like geography would really like this project. Uh, he says, uh, go out, survey the land, then come back, and verse 10, I will cast lots for you before the Lord in Shiloh. And then you're going to have a job of work to do. You've actually got to go and take the land, cultivate it, and live in it. But in that activity of surveying, they're told to write a description of it. So go about the land and describe it. See that in verse 4. They shall write a description of it with a view to their inheritance. Maybe that's part of the antidote to sluggishness or laziness or fear, whatever it is. Look at your inheritance. Go and look at it. Describe it. Write it down. Here is what the Lord is giving you. Appreciate the gift of God. Look at Christ. Look at who he is and what he has done. How he loves you. Look at his gifts to you in life, in eternity. Survey the Lord's blessings, see his goodnesses, and then we go and labour for him. That's what they do. They go, they come back, the final seven tribes get allotted their land. And if you look down the rest of chapter 18 and chapter 19, you'll see different sections listing different corners of the promised land allotted to Benjamin and then Simeon and Zebulun and Issachar and Asher and Naphtali and Dan. And then at the end of chapter 19, last of all, a special inheritance for Joshua. And all of them, these tribes and their clans and families, you know, dad, mum, kids, they are receiving a gift from God. They're being invited to say, you know, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. And then to say, Let's go. Come on, let's go. Let's work for the Lord. Let's worship Him. Now imagine for a moment that you are building a grand design. I know lots of us like watching grand designs. You get to build a spectacular new house from scratch, or rather, watch someone else do it and yeah, with different results. Or maybe even better, imagine you get to build a city. You're a town planner building an entire city. You're like Louis Napoleon rebuilding Paris, or Christopher Wren and his friends rebuilding London after the Great Fire. Imagine you've got a massive spreadsheet in front of you. Just think of all the things you've got to do and provide for. Roads and sewage and electric cables and landscaping. You've probably got building control breathing down your neck and about a billion different things to worry about. Now, in the story of Joshua, we now get to the settlement of the promised land. So it's been divided out. What's going to happen in it? And we don't read about things like road layouts or sewage or anything like that. The law of the Lord elsewhere does have stuff to say about how you build your houses, for example, in order to protect people rather than harm them. But the next couple of chapters show us this that life in the land really only needs two things. So when you've done Project Conquer the Land, and you're onto Project Settle the Land, you turn over and look at the spreadsheet, and there are really just two things to do and to put into practice. Chapter 20, the land is to be full of justice. So when you fashion your settlements and build your communities, the land is to be full of justice. Chapter 21. The land is to be full of God's word. Now we're not going to spend long on each of these things, but hopefully we will see how they fit together. Worship and work and justice and the word. Such that if we were to take an aerial view, we get a drone and look down spiritually, if you like, over the promised land, which is in a sense a picture of the church, we would see worship and work and justice and the word of God. So into chapter 20, God's land must display God's justice. Let me read the very start of Joshua chapter 20. Then the Lord said to Joshua, Say to the people of Israel, appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, 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. 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. And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbour unknowingly and did not hate him in the past. 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 those verses may seem rather strange to us. So you're designing a land and built into it you have cities of refuge. Well, to unlock them, here is a question I think that will help. Who is most grieved when one human being kills another? Who is most grieved when one human being kills another? It must be unimaginable pain to suffer the loss of a loved one because of murder or because of extreme negligence, what we would call manslaughter. Now I've never experienced that. Human beings, we are uniquely made as God's images. So all human beings everywhere, we have a value and a dignity. So for one image bearer to take the life of another image bearer, it is an immensely serious thing. But it is the Lord who feels the weight of it most of all. We are his image bearers. And even more than that, God's word tells us that the shed blood of a man pollutes the land, it defiles the land, such that. The holy God cannot live there. If you're a note taker, Numbers 35 is a key passage. So murder rates grieve us, manslaughter grieves us, but it pains God most of all. So then God comes to his people, a sinful people. What do you do with this? Well, back in the Old Testament law, a murderer, well, it's very simple, a murderer must be put to death. No question about it. That is the just response. But what about the accidental taking of life? There is a justice problem, there is an aggrieved family member, and there is an aggrieved God. What does justice look like? And so, dotted throughout his promised land, God established cities of refuge. And so you can imagine someone turns up one day and he comes to the gate where the elders of the city meet to rule the city. And he confesses there has been a terrible accident on the farm. I was working with an axe, and the axe head flew off, and it killed someone. No evil intent. I did not hate this person. The elders at the gate examine him. Is it true or is it a ruse? And if it is an accidental death, then he can live safe in that city. And every single day that he was there, just imagine living around him. You know, that man down at number 32, it would say something, wouldn't it? God is holy, human life is precious, something terrible has happened about which God cares very much. But it was also not the end of the story. Verse 6. He can 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. And we're told no more than that. There's no commentary or explanation. But it seems like the death of a priest stands as a ransom. No other ransom payment is possible. Only the death of a priest. And if we're Bible people, this is not a surprise to us. God gives us things like the Passover, the sacrifices at the tabernacle, and now this. And it's all of us, it's all of it about the sheer wonder of the cross of Christ. You have a holy God, terrible sin, defilement, pollution, and yet atonement through the ransom of the high priest's death. Well, it's the Lord Jesus, isn't it? And all of it built into the fabric of the land, your town planning. Lastly, look on to chapter 21. I'm just going to read the first three verses. Then the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came to Eliezer the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the people of Israel. And they said to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, The Lord commanded through Moses that we be given cities to dwell in, along with their pasture lands for our livestock. So, by command of the Lord, the people of Israel gave to the Levites the following cities and pasture lands out of their inheritance. Now, this is the other key bit of the Lord's town planning strategy. Suppose you go to the high street. Actually, go to any high street in Britain, and you will probably see MS, Primark, McDonald's, Pizza Express, Starbucks, probably ten identical franchises everywhere. The way God set it up in Israel was this: whatever town you went to, there was a Levite franchise store. So if you went to Kirafaba on the high street, there you'd find a Levite. Or you go to Libna or Jatiah or Eshtamoah. There he is. There is the Levite franchise store. So these are the descendants of Levi, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and God gave them a unique job of being priests. Priests to God for the people. Now the Levites had places to live in, and as you look down the rest of this chapter, you will see where they lived. But here's the thing: they related to those places in a different way. Every other tribe had a place they could say, That's my land, that's my home. So if you were from Judah, you could say of a particular town, even a particular field, God's given that to me, to my family. The Levites could not say that. They had no inheritance, they had no portion among the other tribes. And as you read through the book of Joshua, we hear things like this their inheritance are the offerings that they offer. The Lord God is their inheritance, the priesthood of the Lord is their heritage. So they had this amazing privilege, the Levites. They had a unique access to God, and they were like illustrations to the rest of the people. If you know the Lord, that's enough. You can have nothing, you can have no land that you could ever call your own, but if you know the Lord, then that is enough. And each year they would take their turn serving in Jerusalem, different jobs at the tabernacle, first of all at Shiloh, sorry, at the tabernacle, and later at Jerusalem. But they also had a permanent year-round job. So wherever they were, you know, the Levite franchise thought in every town in Israel, they had a job which was to teach the law of the Lord. The Levites were to be messengers of the Lord Almighty. And later in the Bible, we read things like, they taught throughout Judah, taking with them the book of the law of the Lord. They went around to all the towns of Judah and took the people. So, how would worship be maintained? How would be the how would the people be encouraged to work for the Lord? How would justice be maintained in the land? Answer, as people heard and believed the law of the Lord. And in the sad story of the Old Testament church, that's why they were spat out of the land. The Levites failed to teach as they ought, and the people failed to hear and trust and obey. But the point was, God's land must be full of the law of the Lord. And no different now. The hearing and the preaching of the word of God must be everywhere. So just think about what flows from that. Yeah, we need faithful churches everywhere, we need faithful pastors and elders everywhere, in order that there be worship where there is none, and hard work for the Lord, where otherwise there's slothfulness or laziness or fear, and that the Lord's justice be maintained and grow. So let's bow our heads. I'm going to pray and ask that the Lord would do this particular word in us. Let's bow our heads. I'll lead us in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for your kindness. You delight to have people know you and serve you and walk in your ways. And that is very much our heart's desire as individuals and as a church. You know our weaknesses and our sins. We pray for a filling of your word and your Holy Spirit. We ask that these chapters we have just heard would be fruitful in our trusting, our obeying, our worshiping, our working. And we ask that for our good and most of all, that we might reflect your name and your nature in the world. And we ask that for Jesus' name's sake. Amen.