Well if you would keep your Bibles in hand and turn with me now once more to the book of Joshua. On Sunday mornings here at First Presbyterian Church we are working our way through the book of Joshua. We have come today to chapters 18 and 19. It’s a section of the book in which, now that the land of Canaan has largely been subdued, the land is being divided between the tribes of Israel to be their inheritance. This is a section that began back in chapter 13, runs all the way through chapter 21, but these two chapters – 18 and 19 – form an important little sub-unit amidst that larger block of material.
So far, the tribes on the east of the Jordan – the tribes of Judah and the half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh – have already received their allotment of the land. That still leaves seven other tribes of Israel without an inheritance, and that’s the focus of these two chapters. And as you cast your eye over them, I don’t need any supernatural insight to know what you are thinking. “What in the world is he going to do with this?” It’s a long, long list of unpronounceable place names and really very little else. But let me tell you that just a little study and you will discover quickly that no creativity is required to find truth here that applies to the heart of the Christian today, even in apparently dreary passages like this one. You don’t need to pull a homiletical rabbit out of the Scriptural hat. You just have to pay enough attention to the text – there’s a lesson there – pay attention to the text and see what the narrator of Joshua is up to, to find riches that will nourish your souls.
So let me offer you three words that I think sum up the teaching of these two chapters just to give you a feel of where we are going, and then we’ll read some of the material together. The first is the word “reign” – the reign of God. R-E-I-G-N. The reign of God. With the establishment of the tabernacle at Shiloh, a claim is being made that now God has come to reign in the midst of the land. Reign. The second word is “rebuke.” There is a note of discipline, of chastisement, of rebuke in response to the apparent apathy of the people having conquered the land now to take full possession of it. Reign. Rebuke. And then finally, “reward.” The land is apportioned and the apportionment is different. Not everyone receives the same, and yet everyone receives something in the good purposes of God. And we’ll see particularly with reference to Joshua’s allotment himself, that allotment comes as a reward. A reward for faithfulness. So those are the three words – reign, the reign of God, rebuke, and reward. Before we get to all of that, let’s bow our heads and pray and then we’ll read God’s Word together. Let us pray.
Gracious God our Father, how we need Your help. We need the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We need to hear the voice of the risen Christ. He speaks in His Word. This is His Word. It is His voice. But we confess we are slow to hear. Our understanding is dull. Our hearts hard. So come to us now in the ministry and power of the risen Christ by the blessing of the Holy Spirit and give us light. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
Joshua 18 at the first verse. This is the Word of 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.”
Then in verses, beginning in 18:11 running through 48:19, we have the allotment for each of the remaining seven tribes. And we pick up the reading again in chapter 19 verse 49. Chapter 19 verse 49:
“When they had finished distributing the several territories of the land as inheritances, the people of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua the son of Nun. By command of the Lord they gave him the city that he asked, Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he rebuilt the city and settled in it.
These are the inheritances that Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun and the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the people of Israel distributed by lot at Shiloh before the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting. So they finished dividing the land.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
Reign
Now sometimes we do not realize how completely life altering an otherwise insignificant moment really is until it’s passed. I had a moment like that one day during my ministry in London almost fifteen years ago. When my telephone rang, I might easily have looked at the number – the unrecognized international number on my phone – and assumed like so many others it was just a telemarketing call and ignored it. But I answered the call, and because I did, my whole life and the lives of my family were to change forever. It was a call from the search committee of Main Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Mississippi where, in God’s providence, I was to become the next senior pastor, and from where, five years later, I was to be called to come and minister to you. A random moment with nothing particularly to distinguish it from any other, and everything changed in its wake.
Chapter 18 verse 1 is a bit like that. You might easily skip over it as unimportant and insignificant. It is brief, perfunctory almost, easily ignored. It reads like a bare piece of reportage of mere background information and that is all. But not so fast. Everything changes in chapter 18 verse 1. Look at it with me please. Chapter 18 verse 1. “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.” Up until now, remember, the Isralite headquarters had been at Gilgal. This was their wartime headquarters. But now the conquest has reached a point where the whole of Israel can gather en masse at Shiloh, which was located more or less at the dead center of the territory of the land of promise. But the significance of Shiloh lies not only in its geography; it’s not just that it’s geographically central. Shiloh is structurally central. Chapter 18 verse 1 is structurally central in the way this part of the book of Joshua is composed. It is central literarily.
I want you to think about a series of concentric circles. The widest circle starts with chapter 13 and chapters 20 and 21. Chapter 13, you may remember, tells us about the unusual allotment given to the tribes on the eastern banks of the Jordan River. Chapters 20 and 21 talk about the unusual allotment given to the tribe of Levi. Then the next circle moving in toward the center involves chapter 14 and chapter 19:49-51. Chapter 14 is the allotment given to Caleb, heroic Caleb; one of the two men who believed the promise of God when they had been sent to spy out the land by Moses forty years before. And chapter 19:49-51 is the allotment to Joshua, the other of the two men who believed the Lord. And so first of all you’ve got these two unusual allotments and then Caleb and Joshua. And then the next circle in, nearer to the center, is chapters 15 to 17 – the allotment of the tribes of Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh and its parallel, chapters 18:11-19:48, the allotment for the other seven tribes. So unusual allotments, Caleb and Joshua, the allotments for the various tribes, and then right in the very center of it all, like the pebble dropped in the pool of water that starts all these ripples emanating outward, right in the middle of it all is chapter 18 verses 1 through 10 and the scene unfolding here at Shiloh.
So Shiloh is central geographically and it is central in the narrative literarily because what happens here at Shiloh is central theologically. Look at chapter 18:1 again. At Shiloh, we are told, they set up the tent of meeting and the land lay subdued before them. The tent of meeting is another name for the tabernacle. It’s the holy place where the presence of God dwelt in the midst of His people. According to ancient Jewish tradition, for the next 369 years, Shiloh was to be the
resting place for the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle and the place where the glory of God shone out in the midst of Israel; the place where atonement could be made for sinners, the very heart of worship and devotion offered to the living God. No longer now will the tent of meeting move around from place to place as it did during the days of their fathers’ wilderness pilgrimage. Now, it will be housed permanently in one central location at the heart of the life of the people of God. Putting the focus here on Shiloh, making Shiloh the center of worship and ministry was a way to make a kind of claim. It was a flag planted in a new world. Like an explorer, you know, claiming the land for his king, Israel, in establishing Shiloh as a new permanent center for the worship of God was claiming this land for the Lord alone. That’s why the narrator says in verse 1, “The land was subdued before them.”
Interestingly, the narrator uses a verb that was also used at the very dawn of history. Genesis 1:28 – do you remember the instructions given to our first parents, Adam and Eve, back in the garden? What was it they were to do? They were to fill the earth and do what? Subdue it. Fill the earth and subdue it. Part of their work as God’s image bearers and His agents was to extend the boundaries of His kingdom. Eden was a kind of temple where God’s glory dwelt and He had communion with Adam and Eve. And they were tasked to subdue the world around them and bring the blessedness of the reign of God in His temple garden to every corner of creation. But of course we know how the story proceeded. And instead of that, sin shattered Adam’s life and brought misery and guilt to us all. The ground produced instead thorns and thistles in the wake of our first father’s rebellion. Genesis 6:5 says that “From then on, the thoughts and intentions of the human heart were only evil continually.” Psalm 51:5, “In sin our mothers conceive us.” “In Adam, death spreads to all men because all sin,” Romans 5:12. It was a catastrophe. And yet, despite our sin, Adam’s fall notwithstanding, and our enslavement and bondage to sin notwithstanding, God continues His purpose to fill the earth and to subdue it. He wills yet to make His kingdom reign from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more. And here in Joshua 18:1 is a glimpse of that great design at work. Can you see it in the conquest of Canaan, and especially in the establishment of the tabernacle at Shiloh, “the land was subdued before them.” The tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant, the holy place – this was God’s symbolic throne room. And when that throne room came to Shiloh the land was subdued.
And brothers and sisters, you know what that is, don’t you? That is the Gospel. It is the Gospel. The reestablishment of Eden lost with the sanctuary of God in its midst, subduing the world before the reign of the Lord – that’s what Jesus came to do. “No more let sins and sorrow grow nor thorns infest the ground. He came to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” Jesus came, actually as both second Adam and true Israel, in His life and death and resurrection, He subdues the land, as it were. Actually we can say more than that. The typology goes further than that. We can even say Jesus is the true tent of meeting. John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and,” literally, “tabernacled among us.” In the man Christ Jesus, God dwelt in the midst of His people as in the tent of meeting at Shiloh, in the midst of Israel. Or recall John 2:21. Speaking about His own body, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus is the true holy place. He is the true tabernacle, the meeting point between God and man in His incarnation, in His obedient life, in His atoning death, in His glorious resurrection. Jesus is the only place where your sin can be forgiven and you may be reconciled to God. We draw near to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the center of our worship – not a building now, not a temple – Jesus. And because “He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross, God now has highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” In other words, Jesus now reigns. He is King subduing the nations.
Because He sits at the Father’s right hand until He makes His enemies a footstool for His feet, because He reigns, He commissions us as Adam was commissioned before sin broke the world, to extend the boundaries of His dominion. You remember the words of the great commission. To “go into all the world and to make disciples, baptizing and teaching.” What are we doing? We are subduing the land. We are bringing people to bend the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, to come to the tabernacle of God, to the place of meeting where sin may be forgiven and find your place in His great kingdom. The reign of God. Do you see it here in the middle of this passage? This is about God’s kingdom, typologically at least here, breaking into the midst of the world but coming in antitypical reality at last in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rebuke
But speaking about the great commission, His call to us, brings me to the second thing I want you to see. Because Israel were called to go take possession of the land that was now subdued before them, they likewise had a commission to fulfill but they weren’t doing very well at it, at least not at this point in the narrative, were they? So first of all we see here the reign of God, but there’s also the rebuke. There is a word of rebuke. Many of you have graduates in your homes right now. On Tuesday past here, we had sixth grade and kindergarten graduations at the Day School. Some of you have just graduated from high school or maybe you are about to move on to college. Some of you have graduated from college and you are about to move on, maybe to a sphere of employment or perhaps to post-graduate studies. These are big transitions in your life and we are very proud of you and we praise God for the way He has led you and kept you and guided you and we look to Him to lead you into this next phase as well. But this is a big deal, each of these transitions, and they get bigger with each new graduation. But let’s not forget that they are also a big deal for mom and dad, and it’s a bigger deal with each new transition. And it actually gets harder to make the adjustment – doesn’t it mom and dad – until suddenly you find yourselves empty nesters one day and you say, well, you look at each other and find yourself saying, “Well what do we do now?” It’s not just the graduates who have to make an adjustment. One day you will too. Transitions can be tough though, can’t they? It can be hard to let go, hard to move on, hard to transition from one phase of life to the next.
The generation of Israelites who have been fighting their conquest in Canaan in the book of Joshua, remember, they have grown up never knowing anything but either wilderness wandering our constant warfare. That’s been their entire experience. And now suddenly the conquest is over. To be sure, there are still significant pockets of Canaanite resistance to be overcome, but the land is theirs and now it is being divided up as their inheritance. But like empty nesters who have a hard time embracing their new phase of life and letting go of their adult children, the early indications in the text here are that the transition from one phase of Israel’s national life to another is not going terribly well for them. Look at verse 3. 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?” The people were fine with a nomadic lifestyle. They were even used to the brutality of military conquests. This generation had never known anything else, after all. But now they have to make the switch. The tent of meeting is at its new permanent location at Shiloh. The land is subdued before them. It’s time to settle down, to put some roots down, to take possession of the land they’ve conquered and deal with the remaining Canaanites in each of the allotted tribal territories. But it seems here they are dragging their heels. The land was theirs but they’re reluctant to take possession of what God had given them. The war is won. To be sure, there are still some battles to fight, but the outcome is no longer in doubt, and yet they are reticent.
Now honestly, as you look at your heart, doesn’t that sound like us? Christ has conquered. He has come to the place now of supremacy and triumph, having made satisfaction for sin and sat down at the Father’s right hand in glory. The war is won in the wounds of Jesus. Praise the Lord. But now that He has triumphed, He says to us, “Okay, go take possession of the land.” There are riches to enjoy. There are victories yet to be secure. There are disciples to make. There are churches to plant. There are missionaries to send. There are nations to reach. There is still so much to do. So to enjoy the blessing, there is yet still obedience to come. That’s actually a principle we need to keep in mind. Many of the richest blessings that God promises to us only come as we obey His commands. You only get to enjoy the land if you go in and take possession of it. Many of the richest blessings of God come only as we obey His commands. Let me illustrate that principle in the teaching of Jesus. John 14:21 – “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.” Okay, so far so good. You see what He’s saying? “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Loving Jesus is revealed, manifested, displayed in obedience. So far so good. But listen to what He adds next. “Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who love Me, and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Do you hear what He’s saying? He’s saying there are spiritual flowers you can’t pick and smell and enjoy unless you climb to the mountaintop of obedience where they grow. That’s what He’s saying. There are depths to the love of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ you cannot know, you cannot access, you will never experience unless you learn more and more to keep Christ’s commandments and fulfill His commission and go in obedience at His call. The land is subdued, but how long will you put off going in to take possession of it? There are new phases and seasons of the Christian life. Don’t be content where you are. Press on! There are new vistas to open before you in the blessing of God, in the love of Christ, but you won’t see them unless you climb to the next hill and turn the next corner and go on and make progress. Don’t let your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ stall. Have you been putting off some painful course of obedience to which God has called you lately? Have you been looking over your shoulder this whole time reminiscing about the good old days and the way things used to be when the Promised Land lies before you, blessing yet to come lies ahead of you? There is a rebuke here that we may need to hear, isn’t there? I wonder if you are listening. How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land which the Lord the God of your fathers is giving you? “Stop your excuses already,” Joshua is saying. “Stop with the delaying tactics. Obey. Obey. Take possession of the blessings God has given and take possession of them by obedience to His command in your life.”
Reward
Reign. Rebuke. And then the last word that sums up the message of these chapters is “reward.” Reward. Pretty soon Joshua whips these tribes into shape, doesn’t he? In 18:4-10, he sends out scouts in groups of three, one from each tribe, one group from each tribe, to survey the land and to report back. They are divided into seven suitable portions and then Joshua will cast lots to assign each portion to one of the seven remaining tribes. In chapter 18:11-28, you see Ephraim receiving his inheritance, then 19:1-48, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Ashar, Naphtali and Dan, they all receive their inheritances each in turn. The beautiful thing about that record, by the way, along with the rest of this little extended discussion beginning in chapter 13 is that every tribe receives its share and none is omitted. Everyone’s allotment is different, to be sure. The size and the topography of the land – it’s all very different in every case. But the wisdom of God orders the proportions of each allotment as seems best to Him for the good of His people. None are ignored. None are neglected. All are dealt with fairly and fully, which is how the Lord always deals with His children – distinctly, differently, specifically and yet graciously and generously and kindly.
But then in chapter 19:49-50, we have a touching scene, don’t we? Do you see it? Chapter 19:49-50. Having led the people for so long, at last, the people remembered Joshua. Actually, verse 50 tells us it’s actually not so much Joshua that they remember but the command of the Lord that they remember concerning Joshua, which is even better. Better that they remember the command of the Lord than that they remember Joshua himself. Now we pointed out earlier, didn’t we, the parallel between this passage and chapter 14 and the allotment given to Joshua’s compatriot. The two men among the spies that Moses sent to spy out Canaan, the only two who believed the promise of God. Caleb. So these two accounts sort of bookend this whole section in a beautiful parallelism. You’ve got Caleb’s inheritance at the beginning of the allotment of the land and now at the end of the allotment of land you have Joshua’s inheritance. It’s a lovely parallelism. The author is working really hard to show God’s balance and faithfulness and fairness and he constructs all of this with meticulous literary attention to detail.
And yet despite the parallelism, there are some differences between Caleb’s allotment and Joshua’s allotment. And I don’t want to overstate them, but I think they are worth noticing. Remember in Caleb’s case, Caleb had to press his claim. Caleb is bold and heroic and so he sort of sues for the land he’s been promised and he comes with eagerness and urgency until he receives what God said would be his. But here it seems Joshua doesn’t say a word. It’s the people’s initiative this time. They come to Joshua and they give him his inheritance. And the inference seems to be not only is this simply the people following up on the command of God, but this is a reward, not just for Joshua’s original faithfulness back at the dawn of this whole story, but his continued faithfulness and obedience over all these many years. Joshua asks for and receives the city of Timnath-serah in the territory of Ephraim, which is the tribe to which he belongs. It’s a reward for faithfulness.
And there is a lesson here for us. When all the work is done, when the conquest is finally complete, when the world is evangelized, when we have all fought the good fight and finished our race, then the Lord Jesus Christ is going to reward His people according to what has been done in the body. Like the allotment of the land of Israel, here on that great day, Joshua II, King Jesus, will apportion to each of us our station and our inheritance in realms of glory to come. Yours won’t be like mine nor will mine be nearly so grand as yours, but each of us will be utterly satisfied. The land, the gift, the grace, the blessedness will be proportioned to each of us uniquely and perfectly and ideally. And crowning whatever rewards we will enjoy, sweetening whatever blessedness will be given to us will be the sight of our greater than Joshua himself, crowned with glory and majesty and dominion and power, receiving His great reward from His Father whom He has obeyed.
The arrangement of the land here reminds me a little of the picture that John sees – you remember the vision in the book of Revelation chapter 5? John sees the throne of God and he sees 24 elders surrounding the throne. They are sitting on little thrones of their own with crowns on their heads. They are holy. They are beautiful. They are royal. It’s also a picture, by the way, of the people of God. The 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 apostles, the 24 elders symbolizing the old and new covenant people of God. One people, not two people. The one people of God. And they are receiving their reward. They are reigning and they are radiant in majesty and splendor, wearing white robes, shining with holiness, with all sin removed. Here is our destiny. But in the midst of them all is another throne and seated on it another King. And in the center of the throne is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. God’s great King. And when John looks to see the Lion of the tribe of Judah, you remember what he sees? Not a lion, but a Lamb, standing in the midst of the throne looking as though it had been slain. And when the elders, when the people of God see Him, what do they do? Remember what they do? They slide from their thrones and they tip the crowns from their heads and they throw them at His feet and they start to sing, “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals for You were slain and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth!”
Look, here’s why we must not put off going in to take possession of the land the Lord, the God of our fathers is giving to us. Do you see it here? This is why we must run our races, each of us, with perseverance till we cross the finish line. Here is the reason we need to forget about what is behind and press on to take hold of that for which God has taken hold of us in Christ. Here it is. There is a glorious inheritance waiting for us, a glorious inheritance, a rich reward. Reigning with Christ forever in the new creation, shining with the mirror image of His moral perfection. All sin gone forever. It will be glorious, to be sure, but the greatest delight of our hearts will be the sight of the One seated on the great throne in the midst of it all who bears forever the nail marks in His hands and feet, the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. There will be nothing to compare to that. No joy so sweet as that. No reward so precious as that – to see Him as He is in majesty unveiled. To be with Him forever. To join the great chorus and sing, “Worthy is the Lamb!” What a reward. What a prize.
So then, brothers and sisters, run in such a way as to win the prize. Set your sights on that glorious destiny. That’s the finish line. That’s the reward. How long will you put off going in to take possession of the blessedness that God is giving you? Go on to take hold of that for which God has taken hold of you.
The reign of God in Jesus Christ. The rebuke of His Word. Stop dawdling and prevaricating and delaying and excusing your indifference. Press on because there is a great and glorious reward. Let us pray.
Father, we bless You for Your mercy and Your covenant love. We praise You for the promise of glory to come, the greatest of all the glories, the brightest of all the lights will be the glory of Jesus Christ and the light that shines from His face. The Lamb will be all the glory in Emmanuel’s land. How we long for that sight, for the joy of being in His nearer presence to be with Him always, to be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Forgive us, forgive us for not running our race with such vigor and urgency so as to take hold of that great reward. Forgive us for focusing here on what we have instead of hereafter and what is to come. Help us to hear Your rebuke and to go on and to take possession of the blessedness promised. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.