Well do keep your Bibles in hand and turn with me to that classic Mother’s Day text, Joshua chapter 15. Joshua 15. We are working our way through the book of Joshua on Lord’s Day mornings here at First Presbyterian Church. Sometimes the Scriptures have chapters in them that are not very interesting, and at the same time, very important. Our passage this morning arguably falls into that category. So as we approach it, let me remind you of 1 Timothy 3:16 which says that “All Scripture is breathed out by God and useful.” That applies to Joshua 15 as much as it applies to John 3:16. This is a useful chapter. It is breathed out for your good by the mouth of God, and so we can’t skip past it. Matthew Henry says of this passage, “Where God has a mouth to speak and a hand to write, we should find an ear to hear and an eye to read, and God, give us a heart to profit.” So this passage has something important to teach us even on Mother’s Day and we need to approach it in a spirit of expectation that we are going to hear from God.
You will remember what is going on in the story so far. Israel concluded their forty year wilderness wandering after escaping Egyptian bondage. They crossed the Jordan in the first four chapters, they conquered Canaan, chapters 5 through 12, and beginning back in chapter 13, really running all the way through chapter 21, they must now claim their inheritance in the land. You will remember chapter 13 introduces this block of material reminding us about the land already conquered and allotted and assigned on the eastern shore of the Jordan River before the conquest proper really has begun. Then chapter 14 begins the division of the new territory on the western side of the Jordan with a word about the inheritance allotted to faithful, old Caleb to whom we will have cause to return in our passage again today.
But really it has waited until now, till Joshua 15, for the allotment of the land of Canaan to each tribe of the people of Israel in turn to get underway. So while we may feel that the long list of names, strange sounding places here in Joshua 15 is hard to read through without glazing over, actually Joshua 15 is reporting a momentous occasion. The land promised to Abraham, the land that God swore to give the Israelites when He brought them out of Egypt, that land was now being assigned to them at long last. This is a very big deal. We’re going to think about it today under two simple headings. And you know when a preacher says, “I only have two points,” that he’s lying to you! Two headings with other headings underneath them, but two big headings. First of all, the promise that God keeps. And then secondly, the kingdom that God builds. The promise God keeps and the kingdom God builds. We’ll spend most of our time on the first of those and we’ll touch on the latter briefly at the end.
Before we do that, let’s bow our heads and then we’ll read the passage. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we come pleading with You, pleading with You that You would open our hearts, open our eyes, our understanding to behold marvelous things out of Your Word. Teach us, rebuke us, instruct us, train us in righteousness that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, even from Joshua 15, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Joshua 15. We’ll read the first twenty verses and then I’ll summarize the rest of the material until we get to verse 63. This is the Word of God:
“The allotment for the tribe of the people of Judah according to their clans reached southward to the boundary of Edom, to the wilderness of Zin at the farthest south. And their south boundary ran from the end of the Salt Sea, from the bay that faces southward. It goes out southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, passes along to Zin, and goes up south of Kadesh-barnea, along by Hezron, up to Addar, turns about to Karka, passes along to Azmon, goes out by the Brook of Egypt, and comes to its end at the sea. This shall be your south boundary. And the east boundary is the Salt Sea, to the mouth of the Jordan. And the boundary on the north side runs from the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan. And the boundary goes up to Beth-hoglah and passes along north of Beth-arabah. And the boundary goes up to the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben. And the boundary goes up to Debir from the Valley of Achor, and so northward, turning toward Gilgal, which is opposite the ascent of Adummim, which is on the south side of the valley. And the boundary passes along to the waters of En-shemesh and ends at En-rogel. Then the boundary goes up by the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the southern shoulder of the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem). And the boundary goes up to the top of the mountain that lies over against the Valley of Hinnom, on the west, at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim. Then the boundary extends from the top of the mountain to the spring of the waters of Nephtoah, and from there to the cities of Mount Ephron. Then the boundary bends around to Baalah (that is, Kiriath-jearim). And the boundary circles west of Baalah to Mount Seir, passes along to the northern shoulder of Mount Jearim (that is, Chesalon), and goes down to Beth-shemesh and passes along by Timnah. The boundary goes out to the shoulder of the hill north of Ekron, then the boundary bends around to Shikkeron and passes along to Mount Baalah and goes out to Jabneel. Then the boundary comes to an end at the sea. And the west boundary was the Great Sea with its coastline. This is the boundary around the people of Judah according to their clans.
According to the commandment of the Lord to Joshua, he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the people of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron (Arba was the father of Anak). And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak. And he went up from there against the inhabitants of Debir. Now the name of Debir formerly was Kiriath-sepher. And Caleb said, ‘Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.’ And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.’ And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
This is the inheritance of the tribe of the people of Judah according to their clans.”
Then verses 21 through 32 cover the towns given to Judah in the extreme south, 33 through 47, the towns in the lowlands, 48 through 60, the towns in the hill country, and 61 and 62 tells about the towns in the wilderness and the eastern territory given to Judah and we conclude with verse 63:
“But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out, so the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in this portion of His holy Word.
The Promise God Keeps
Well let’s think first of all about the promise God keeps. The promise God keeps. Did you know that in the United Kingdom, bank notes all bear an inscription signed by the governor of the bank of England that reads, “I promise to pay the bearer on demand…” 5 pounds or 10 pounds or 20 pounds or whatever the denomination of the note might be. It’s a relic, really, from the time when the bank note was connected to gold held by the bank on behalf of the bearer of the note. Modern banks no longer depend on a gold standard so the promise on those British notes is really just a tradition. There was a time, however, when you could show up at the bank of England and exchange your bank notes for the stated weight of gold. Today that promise is all talk. It’s empty words. Part of the teaching of Joshua 15 is that unlike the promise on a British 10 pound note, a promise that will never be fulfilled, unlike that promise you can always take the promise of God at face value. God is always good for His promises.
When God made a covenant with Abraham, He promised to be a God to him and to his children’s children. And He promised to give them the land of Canaan as an inheritance. In Genesis chapter 12 verse 6 we read, “When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’” Later in Genesis 15 verse 7, God reiterated that promise in the context of a formal covenant ratification ceremony saying, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” And Genesis 15:18, “On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. ‘To your offspring I will give this land. From the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.’” So the promise of the land was a central, visible, tangible blessing and a token of the covenant of grace that God made with father Abraham. And we will never understand what this long list of strange sounding place names so carefully and lovingly narrated here in Joshua 15 is doing in our Bibles until we grasp its significance as part of the story of God’s covenant faithfulness. He is keeping His promises.
In verses 1 through 12 we learn the borders of the land being assigned to the tribe of Judah, the first of the tribes to receive their allotment on the western shore of the Jordan. In verses 2 through 4 we have the southern border moving west from the Salt Sea, what we would call the Dead Sea, over to the Mediterranean. Then we learn about the eastern border in verse 5, which is the Salt Sea itself. Then in verses 5 through 11 we are given a long description of the complex, northern border, along with a brief aside in verse 8 about Jerusalem, which is a set up for the concluding remark in verse 63, to which we will return later. And then in verse 12, we are told about the western border of the territory of Judah which is the Mediterranean Sea itself. And it’s clear, isn’t it, as we read it through, that the narrator loves telling you all about this. He loves this description. There’s some relish in all the details. He’s taking his time laying it all out. This is thrilling to him. He’s like a mom or a grandmother boasting about the achievements of her children or her grandchildren. She goes on and on and on, giving the blow by blow of her latest sporting triumph or his many academic successes. And while everyone else is smiling or nodding, the truth is, their eyes have glossed over and they’ve long since tuned her out. But every detail is precious to her. It means something wonderful to her. Maybe not so much to us, but to her it’s a thrill.
And I think that’s a little of how the narrator speaks to us here as he gives us this dusty old geography lesson in Joshua 15. He is reveling in God’s covenant faithfulness, spelling out every detail, pouring over the specifics of just how it is that God was keeping His ancient word. Our God, He wants us to understand, is a promise keeper. When we sing, “His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay” – that’s what we sing. Our narrator, on the other hand, says the same thing like this – “Their south boundary ran from the end of the Salt Sea, from the bay that faces southward. It goes out southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, passes along to Zin, and goes up south of Kadesh-barnea, along by Hezron, up to Addar, turns about to Karka, passes along to Azmon, goes out by the Brook of Egypt, and comes to its end at the sea.” We’re both saying the same thing. “His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay.” Our God keeps His promises. That’s what he’s saying. He keeps His promises. “He who has promised is faithful,” 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “He will surely do it.” On His every promise, brothers and sisters, on His every promise God has written, “I promise to pay the bearer on demand.” And He will never renege on that promise. That’s the teaching of this chapter.
And in many ways, the rest of the chapter spells out for us how that works. We see here not just that God’s promises are sure and reliable and trustworthy and true, but how the promise of our faithful God operates. I want to show you three things – I told you there were subheadings – three things about how the promise of God operates. First of all, Joshua 15 teaches us that God’s promise extends to families. It extends to families. Then, God’s covenant promise is received by faith. Extends to families, is received by faith, and finally, God’s covenant promise requires faithfulness. It requires faithfulness.
God’s Covenant Promise Extends to Families
First of all, God’s covenant promise extends to families. That’s the point, by the way, of verses 20 through 63. He’s not content with simply telling us about the outer boundary of the land of Judah. The narrator wants to spell out for us exactly who gets what within that land. Every clan, we might say every extended family, receives a specific allotment of cities and towns. Everyone receives a portion according to their clan. “God’s provision thus reached down to the basic structures of Israel’s society,” remarks one of the commentators, “ensuring that all could understand themselves as recipients of the promise of land.” God’s promise is not scattershot and general. It is particular and specific. It’s not just for a broad class of people; it is for clans and families, even for individuals.
Granted, now granted ancient Israelite culture, they thought about the bonds of kinship, of family and clan and tribe, in a way that is quite alien to us. We are an increasingly individualistic society. But that does not mean that we can simply dismiss this covenantal pattern of God’s dealings with His people according to kinship as a quaint artifact of ancient near eastern culture, no longer relevant today. No, this is God’s way in every era of salvation history, including our own. The promise is to His people and to their children. So Genesis 17:7, remember, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you.” Acts 2:39, “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are afar off, as many as the Lord your God shall call.” Certainly today, God’s people no longer look for a plot of land as their inheritance in Canaan. No, in the new covenant, in the age in which we live, we look for an inheritance which is to come, secured for us by the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David; the heir of the covenant Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. He promised us that the meek should inherit – what? The earth! Our possession will not be a mere parcel of land, you know, defined by boundaries – north, south, east and west. Ours will be a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth, the home of righteousness. But beloved the promise, that promise of an inheritance, glorious and expansive, is nevertheless still to you and to your children.
And that’s one reason, by the way, why Mother’s Day is worth celebrating, isn’t it? As your pastor, it makes my heart glad to see so many of you back from out of town or home from college. You’re here to celebrate the day with your mothers. Mother’s Day is an artificial holiday, but there’s something – as David pointed out earlier – something deeply Biblical about the sentiment that it gives us an opportunity to express. Because family continues as the very center of God’s plan to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. This is God’s ordinary method of working. He works through families, through dads and moms, and that’s something rightly to be cherished and celebrated and prized. The covenant promise extends to families, to these extended family units in Israel. Everyone receives the promise specifically and directly.
God’s Covenant Promise is Received by Faith
But let’s also be clear, that covenant promise does not come to families automatically. Just being the child of a Christian does not guarantee your salvation any more than not being raised in the church excludes you from God’s saving mercy, which brings me to the second point about God’s covenant promise that I want you to see. The covenant promise extends to families, and secondly, the covenant promise is received by faith. It is received by faith. In the previous chapter, do you remember our attention fell for the first time on 85 year old Caleb who received Hebron as his inheritance. Hebron used to be called Kiriath-arba because Arba and his descendants, a local gang of hoodlums called the Anakim, they all lived there. And in our chapter, we come back to Caleb – as we are going to see in a moment in verses 13 through 19, to find out how he got on dealing with the goons in Kiriath-arba.
But before we look at Caleb’s exploits, we need to be sure we notice the remarkable fact that heroic Caleb, Caleb who is held up in these two chapters as an example to all of God’s people, Caleb isn’t even Jewish. In His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, God said, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” Joshua 14:6 tells us Caleb was a Kenizzite. That is, he comes from one of the peoples listed as the enemies of Israel who were occupying the land of promise. Apparently somewhere along the way, during their wilderness journey, Caleb has joined himself to the people of God and has come to trust in the God of Israel. In fact, Caleb, remember, believed God when nobody else in Israel would except for Joshua. Caleb trusted the promise when no one trusted the promise! And now at last, here, Caleb is receiving the promised blessing itself.
But we need to be clear, it was his faith in Israel’s God that gave him a share in the inheritance, not biology, not genetics, not mere ancestry. Jesus said, remember, “Unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” It’s not birth but new birth, not just family but faith that gives the inheritance that God has promised in His covenant. So let me say to you, if you are a covenant child here today, of whatever age, as you celebrate Mother’s Day, make sure you understand no matter how diligent your mom has been in raising you as a Christian over the years, no matter how great the example of faith and godliness she has provided for you, simply being your mother’s son or your mother’s daughter is not enough. You yourself must believe on the Lord Jesus, “for there is salvation in no other name given under heaven among men by whom we must be saved.” Today we are celebrating family, celebrating mothers, and rightly so, but don’t let the blessing of family blind you to the duty of faith. Don’t let the blessing of family blind you to your duty to believe, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. I guarantee you, I promise you, there is no sweeter gift you could give a Christian mother on Mother’s Day than the knowledge that her children are trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for themselves.
God’s Covenant Promise Requires Faithfulness
The covenant promise extends to families. The covenant promise is received by faith. Thirdly, the covenant promise requires faithfulness. Now let’s look at the story of Caleb and his conflict with the sons of Arba, his descendants, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai in verses 13 through 19. Caleb conquers Kiriath-arba. He renames it Hebron. And now he wants to deal with Sheshai and his brothers in their cities. And Kiriath-sepher is next on the hit list. And so you’ll notice he offers Achsah, his daughter, in marriage, to whoever among them could conquer the city. Now certainly ancient near eastern marriage customs were very far from our own in many respects, and this passage certainly highlights that. But the strangeness of it notwithstanding, we mustn’t judge Caleb too harshly here because he is not offering Achsah up as a prize, as a sort of commodity to be traded in the marketplace in exchange for a political victory. That’s not what’s going on. Actually, Caleb is looking for a suitable husband for his daughter who’s faith would be the equal of his own. He’s looking for someone for Achsah who will face the Anakim and trust the promise of God and fight the Lord’s battles in a way that will be the mirror of Caleb’s own remarkable faith and courage. And he finds in the conquest of Kiriath-sepher an opportunity, a convenient mechanism for testing out those virtues.
And as it turns out, Othniel proves himself to be the man for the job. Do you see that in the text? Caleb’s high bar for any suitor for Achsah is remarkably effective in identifying a good man. Othniel would not only conquer Kiriath-sepher, we learn in the book of Judges chapter 3 that he will go on to distinguish himself as the first of the judges to lead Israel after Joshua’s death. Joshua 3 tells us he was filled with the Holy Spirit.” He defended Israel and the land had rest for forty years under Othniel’s leadership. Othniel actually becomes a kind of savior figure in Israel. He is a redeemer of sorts. Othniel points us to Jesus. He is meant to remind us of the Savior to come. And isn’t that the kind of spouse you want for your children, after all – someone who puts us in mind of Jesus.
So you see what’s going on? Caleb has a duty as the leader of his household, a covenant obligation to care for and ensure as far as he can that his faith is passed on and continued to his children and to his children’s children. He’s not washing his hands of his responsibility for his daughter, for her husband, for their future. He is resolved to be faithful. And that’s also part of the message of verses 18 and 19 if you’d look there with me please. After their wedding, Achsah, who as it turns out is every bit as feisty and direct as her daddy, asks Othniel to secure some land from her father, and then perhaps with a little impatience, decides to take matters into her own hands and goes directly to Caleb and says, “Okay, I’ve got the field. Now give me the water to make the land fertile.” And the point of that fascinating little snapshot about Caleb’s family life is not so much to show us that Achsah is a forceful lady not to be messed with. She is. But the point is, Caleb gives her the blessing. He uses the blessedness that he enjoys, the blessings of the inheritance given to him, and he apportions some of it to her.
And here’s my point. Yes, the promises of the covenant are ordinarily fulfilled in believing families. Yes, they are received by faith. But do not overlook the fact that they also require faithfulness. They require faithfulness. They require care for the children entrusted to us. We are to take all wise, lawful steps to provide for and to ensure that the truth of the Gospel and the life of faith are passed on from generation to generation. Just like we exhorted covenant children not to rest on mom and dad’s faith but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for themselves, so let me exhort moms. Moms, I’m picking on you because it’s Mother’s Day, but really dads, you’re the head of the household; this is your responsibility as much, at least, if not more so than your wife. So moms and dads, do not presume upon God with regard to your children. What blessings you have received, share with them, and take all steps necessary to ensure that you pass on the faith to generations yet to come. Raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Do not abdicate responsibility for it to someone else. It is not the church’s job to save your children. It is not the school’s job. It’s not the Christian camp’s job to convert them and disciple them. It is your job, in partnership with the local church certainly, under the blessing of God, but you are the primary evangelist in your home, the primary discipler of your children. You are. And as we are faithful under the obligations of the covenant, God is usually pleased to bless and to bring our children into possession of like, precious faith with us.
Here’s how God keeps His covenant. Do you see it? Generation to generation. It runs along family lines. It is received by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it calls us to faithfulness. The promise God keeps.
The Kingdom God Builds
And now finally and very briefly, the kingdom God builds. Let me just point out two things and then I’m done. First, in the chapters to come, none of the descriptions of the land allotted to any of the other tribes is anywhere as extensive as the allotment given here to the tribe of Judah. Judah is being singled out and elevated and highlighted and given unusual prominence. And now given that we have seen that, secondly, look at verse 63. Verse 63, “But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out, so the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.” Judah couldn’t do it. Despite how great they were, they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t take full possession of their inheritance. Actually, it was not until David came along – David, the great king of the tribe of Judah – it wasn’t until David that Jerusalem finally became the possession of the people of God and Judah’s heir, King David, triumphed at last over the Jebusites.
And the lesson isn’t difficult to grasp. I hope you can see it already. God’s kingdom God’s when God’s King comes to make Zion His own, not by any effort of ours, but by His mighty work. After all, isn’t that what great David’s greater Son came to do? David’s earthly conquest is a dim shadow of Christ’s mighty victory. The Lion of Judah, the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ came to earthly Jerusalem and there He was crucified, dead and buried. And it seemed like another defeat for Judah, but in His death and glorious resurrection, the Son of David conquered and He made the new Jerusalem the heavenly Zion, the inheritance of His people forever.
Mothers, grandmothers, I want you to know I bless God for you. You are called to be His instruments in the nurture of new generations in the faith and you are a great gift to us all as you do that vital work. But never think for a moment that the salvation of your children, any more than the salvation of your own soul, rests upon you. You can no more do that – save your children, save yourself – you can no more do that than Judah could drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem. Only God’s great King could accomplish that feat and erect His kingdom. Only Jesus saves. And so moms, my best exhortation, my strongest encouragement, the greatest benediction of which I am capable is to call you to look to Christ, to trust in Christ, to entrust yourself and your family, your children to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the King who builds God’s kingdom in your heart and in theirs. And when He builds, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.
The promise God keeps. You can trust His Word. Receive it by faith. And the kingdom God builds. The Lord Jesus Christ came to establish His kingdom. We must all look to Him. Let us pray.
Our Father, we adore You for Your great gift in Your Son, the Lord Jesus. Help us, not just the moms and the grandmothers or the covenant children. Help us, all of us, today, right now, to trust in Him, to rest on Him, to receive the inheritance promised by faith alone. And give us grace to be faithful in fulfilling the covenant obligations that rest upon us to point our children and our children’s children to the only Savior who builds Your kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.