Well we continue today in our ongoing series looking at the teaching of the book of Joshua, and we’ve come to the next major division of the book. So far, chapters 1 through 4 focused on crossing the Jordan, the beginning of the entry into the land. Then in chapters 5 through 12 where we’ve been for the last several weeks, the focus was on conquering Canaan. So Israel came out of Egypt, the first four chapters, crossing the Jordan into the land; the next chapters, 5 through 12, conquering the land, conquering Canaan. But now, beginning here in chapter 13 and running all the way through chapter 21, having entered the land and having conquered most of the land, the focus falls on claiming the inheritance. Crossing the Jordan, conquering Canaan, now claiming the inheritance.
Now today as we turn our attention to the thirteenth chapter, I’ll admit to you, frankly, that it is not a candidate for the most exciting chapter in the Bible. In fact, when compared to the accounts of daring military campaigns, of divine interventions, of surprising heroism and risky faith and alarming enemy counter attacks that really comprise the material we’ve considered so far, the list of places allotted to each of the various tribes of Israel with which this whole part of the book of chock full, hardly makes it a page-turner. Not a few commentators, after expending gallons of ink on the preceding chapters, spare just a few pages of reflection on what are, at least in their minds, rather dreary records of who got what in the allotment of the land. But appearances can be deceiving. Appearances can be deceiving. In fact, that’s a principle we ought never to lose sight of in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Sometimes it is boring, and in the boring and the mundane and the everyday, sometimes it’s in the unexciting and the commonplace and the apparently banal that God is at work accomplishing some of His most profound purposes. And that is certainly the case with Joshua chapter 13.
There are three deeply instructive exhortations in this chapter that I want you to consider with me. First of all, in the opening thirteen verses or so, we are being taught about living in the gap between the already and the not yet. That’s where we live. That’s where they lived – in the gap between the already and the not yet. Promises fulfilled in part but not yet complete. Life in the gap between the already and the not yet. Then secondly, verses 8 through 33, we’re being taught to look back in order to move forward. Look back in order to move forward. Remember what God has done that you may be bold in believing what He will yet do. Live in the gap between the already and the not yet, look back in order to move forward, and then thirdly in verse 14 and again in verse 33, we are being taught to prize the giver and not just the gifts. The giver and not just His gifts. Alright, so – live in the gap between the already and the not yet, look back in order to move forward, prize the giver and not just the gifts.
In a moment we are going to read the passage. We’ll only read verses 1 through 6, or 1 through 7, excuse me, but we will be focused on the teaching of the whole chapter. Before we do that, let’s bow our heads and pray together. Let us pray.
O Lord, since the sum of Your Word is truth and every one of Your righteous rules endures forever, we ask that by Your Holy Spirit You would give us ears to hear and hearts to believe all that Your Word says to us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Joshua chapter 13, the first seven verses. This is the Word of God:
“Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, ‘You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess. This is the land that yet remains: all the regions of the Philistines, and all those of the Geshurites (from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron, it is counted as Canaanite; there are five rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron), and those of the Avvim, in the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongs to the Sidonians, to Aphek, to the boundary of the Amorites, and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrise, from Baal-gad below Mount Hermon to Lebo-hamath, all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Misrephoth-maim, even all the Sidonians. I myself will drive them out from before the people of Israel. Only allot the land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded you. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh.’”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
In 2007, a Portuguese aristocrat named Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara – that’s a mouthful! You think the names in Joshua are tricky! This poor fellow has quite a name too! But anyway, Luis Carlos we’ll call him, he was dying, and so he gathered some friends as witnesses and divided up his estate in front of a notary public. And then after his death, his lawyers reached out to each of the seventy beneficiaries in turn that Mr. de Camara had chosen. And without exception, all seventy were astonished at the windfall that they received. You see, there was a total lack of personal connection between Luis Carlos de Camara and each of the seventy. What happened that day before the notary public was that Mr. de Camara pulled out a telephone directory, a phone book, and began randomly flicking through the page and dropping his finger on a name and on each of the seventy names upon which his finger alighted, he bestowed a portion of his estate.
We read Joshua 13 and we yawn a little bit, don’t we? This part of Joshua is where quiet times go to die! You’re reading through the Bible and you’re feeling pretty good about having made it thus far. After all, you managed to push on through Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and the action certainly picked up the pace in the first twelve chapters of Joshua. And then you get to chapter 13 and it all rather hits a wall. It’s a list of who gets what parcel of land as an inheritance in Canaan, and it’s tempting to skim over it or even to skip it entirely. But what if you were to answer the phone one day and it’s the lawyer of Mr. Luis Carlos de Camara of Portugal telling you, you stood to inherit a portion of his estate? I’m confident that you would not find the details of the inheritance and who gets what at all uninteresting in that circumstance.
And in many ways, that is how we need to read this part of the book of Joshua. We need to try to see it as those to whom this inheritance was being allocated saw it – as a glorious fulfillment of God’s precious promise to give them the land, a wonderful windfall, a place to call home at last. In fact as Christians, when we read about the inheritance of the people of Israel in the land, we need to see here a reminder, we too, you and I, we have been promised an inheritance in the will and testament of Joshua II, the Lord Jesus Christ. Not now a parcel of land of course, but as we saw last week, if you will remember, on Easter Sunday, 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 4, ours is an inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading, “kept in heaven for you.” So in this passage we are meant to be reminded of the true, final inheritance made out to us in Jesus Christ – an inheritance of heavenly blessedness, of final likeness to Christ, of the beatific vision of the glory of God shining in the face of our Savior, of the general assembly of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and of fellowship with the spirits of just men made perfect. And in the end, of a new creation – a new heavens and a new earth, coming at the end of the age. What a joy it will be to take possession of that inheritance! And surely, we ought all to have a great deal of interest in learning all we can about it, of awakening in our hearts a greater longing for it, to take possession of it, and of pressing forward that we may in God’s good time enter into it.
Live in the Gap between the Already and the Not Yet
But of course that time, when we finally take possession of the fullness of the inheritance promised to us, that time is not yet. Right now, we enjoy many glorious privileges if we are Christians. Many gifts of amazing grace. Many blood-bought, cross-won privileges. But the fullness of the inheritance must wait for God’s timing. And that’s the message of verses 1 through 13 of Joshua chapter 13. Would you look there with me first of all? Verses 1 through 13 – here is the first exhortation this passage has for us. We must learn to live in the gap between the already and the not yet. Live in the gap between the already and the not yet. In verse 1, the Lord speaks to Joshua. The problem is stated first of all. Do you see it? “You are old and advanced in years and there remains yet very much land to possess.” That’s the problem. They have won victory after victory, they have conquered most of the land, and yet there is still a great deal that remains to be conquered. Verses 2 through 6 give us a quick list of the territories, of the cities and the regions that remain to be dealt with.
And now look at how God promises, rather proposes, that Joshua deal with that problem, if you look down at verse 6. So the problem is stated and the scale of the problem outlined, and now verse 6, here’s how to deal with the problem. First of all, God renews His promise. Do you see that in verse 6? “I myself will drive them out before the people of Israel.” So this is what God has been doing all along and what He promises to continue to do until the work is done. That’s God’s side of this equation. And then notice the work Joshua is given to do and Israel through Joshua. Verses 6 and 7 – “Only allot the land to Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded you. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh.” So this is land they haven’t conquered yet. God promises to give it to them, and Joshua here is told to apportion it to each of the nine and the half of the tribe of the half-tribe of Manasseh that live on that side of the river that has not yet received an inheritance. It’s an act of faith. God is going to give it and so in faith, believing His promise, “I want you to apportion the land as though you already possessed it.”
You remember the other tribes, Reuben and Gad and the other half of the tribe of Manasseh, have already received their inheritance, as we are about to discover in the chapter on the eastern bank of the Jordan River before they entered the land of Canaan. And so he’s dealing with the nine tribes and the half of Manasseh that had not received its inheritance that will receive it on the other side, on the western side. And they have not yet been given the land. The work is not yet finished. Yet acting in faith on the promise of God, they are to trust that it will be so and apportion the land accordingly. They have a long way to go, but they’ve come a long way too. They have enjoyed many rich blessings, yet there are many blessings still ahead. God will finish the work, and so He calls them to go on in faith and not get complacent. “Even though you do not now possess the land, assign the inheritance and trust Me.”
And that is our call also, isn’t it? We have received so much by the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the work is not yet finished. We are not to grow complacent, but to press on in faith believing God is faithful and He will surely do it. “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” And so we are to press on, believing that God will keep His Word. That is the position in which we find ourselves because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about the blessings we currently enjoy, already right here and now. “We are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” We have regeneration, new life. We have sin forgiven. We are counted righteous in Christ only because God has reckoned His righteousness to our account. We have been adopted as His children, entitled now to the rights and privileges of heirs, heirs of God and coheirs together with Christ. We have received the spirit of sonship who dwells in our hearts, enabling us to cry, “Abba, Father!” bearing witness with our spirits that we are children of God, helping us in our weaknesses when we do not know what to pray for as we ought, interceding for us with groans too deep for words.
We have sanctification. The reigning power of sin is broken forever in our hearts. We have been translated out of the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. And now, beholding as in a mirror, in the mirror of Scripture, the face of Jesus Christ, we are being transformed right now from glory into glory into His likeness. And we have persevering grace so that in every trial, in every sorrow, in every wound we are being taught by our Father’s disciplining hand to trust the Lord Jesus, to walk by faith and not by sight, to discover that there are reserves of grace sufficient for us in every circumstance we may face. Our faith is being refined by fire so that it’s tested genuineness, more precious than gold, might be found to praise and glory and honor at the coming of Jesus Christ. We are being trained to keep in step with the Spirit, not to grieve Him nor to quench His work.
We have access, access to the throne of grace and of glory that we may find mercy and obtain grace to help us in our time of need. We have the ear of God the Father. We are united to Jesus Christ, the Spirit of holiness resides in our hearts. We have love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control. We have the Word of life, a voice in our ears behind us saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” We have fellowship with all the saints on earth and in glory. We have the supply of God’s promise and provision to meet every need of ours, according to the glorious riches that are ours in Christ Jesus and the promise that all things will work together for our good. All things. What privileges are yours! What privileges! What grace has been lavished upon you! What blessings so far – God has brought you and He will surely lead you home. Already you have received so much of this glorious inheritance.
Through the conquest of the kingdom of darkness, accomplished in the obedience and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet there remains very much land to possess. There remains still much of sin and self, of unbelief in our hearts to conquer before the work is done. There remains more of the world left in spiritual darkness, perishing for want of the Gospel, before the work is done. There remains very much land to possess, and so we are being called here – do you see it – to live in the gap between the already, the wonders we now enjoy, and the not yet, the work still to be accomplished. We have so much, but we’re not all the way home quite yet. And so let’s not get complacent. That’s the message. Let’s not tire of the task before us. Let’s not sit back and coast. In our city, it ought to be a scandal to us that so many people have no idea about the meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You and I, we are called to go tell them. It’s not someone else’s job; it’s our job. And in our church, we need to face the reality that none of us are as faithful or as zealous or as holy as we are called to be. And in our hearts, too often still we prefer the fleeting pleasures of the worldling, even though in our minds we know that “solid joys and lasting treasures none but Zion’s children know.”
Complacency. It’s one of the great dangers of life in the gap between the already and the not yet. And certainly we can see it plainly here. If you look at verses 8 through 13, it’s especially highlighted for us – the danger of complacency. Before the allotment for the nine-and-a-half tribes on the other side of Jordan, on the west of Jordan are listed for us, the remainder of the chapter goes back over the inheritance already given to the two-and-a-half tribes who had settled on the eastern bank of the river before the conquest began. Verse 8. Look at verse 8. “With the other half of the tribe of Manasseh the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses gave them, beyond the Jordan eastward, as Moses the servant of the Lord gave them.” Then verses 9 through 13, we have a general survey of that region, and verses 14 through 33 is a detailed breakdown of each piece of land allotted to each of those tribes. So the Reubenites are listed in verses 15 to 23. The Gadites, 24 to 28. And half of the tribe of Manasseh in verses 29 to 32. Alright, so this is a record of what has already been accomplished. The conquest already concluded. Land already assigned. An allotment already given east of the Jordan.
But don’t let verse 13 slip past your notice. Look at verse 13. “Yet the people of Israel did not drive out the Geshurites or the Maacathites, but Geshur and Maacath dwell in the midst of Israel to this day.” That’s a long list of Israel’s early successes, and then like a needle in their nice shiny balloon, verse 13 says, not only did they fail to drive out the Geshurites and the Maacathites, but they still haven’t done it by the time Joshua was being written. It’s a record of certainly initial successes, but this one area of failure, and it seems as though we are being told, “Yes, there’s this one small area of failure, but look, look at what we’ve done!” And so they sort of sat back and said, “Look, it’s good enough! It’s pretty good. We’ve conquered most of the land. Yes, there’s a couple of areas still to deal with. We’ll get to it, you know, someday down the line.” And they never did. And complacency set in.
How easy. Don’t we relate to that? How easy, after receiving so many rich blessings, how easy, especially after a season of particular growth and special blessing, how easy to sit back and coast for a while; to go so far and then decide, “This is good enough. I’ll rest here.” To settle. Have you settled? Have you lapsed into spiritual mediocrity and complacency? And we kid ourselves about that, don’t we? We lie to ourselves. “Oh sure, yes, there are some areas of worldliness left in my heart. I’ll admit it. Maybe I’m not dealing with my anger problem, or my greed or my pride or my love of money or my fear of men, but everything else is pretty good. I’m enjoying so much of God’s rich blessing, so let’s not upset the applecart. I’ll get to that other stuff in due course at some other time, down the line, eventually, one day when I have a bit more margin in my life.” And so we sit back and we embrace spiritual mediocrity and we compromise and we find ourselves mired in complacency. Geshur and Maacath dwell in the midst of Israel to this day. You will never get like Jesus without killing sin, without driving it out. There is no compromise possible. You are a combatant in a spiritual war. You are not a passenger on the deck of an all-expenses paid cruise with Jesus as your bellhop whose main function is to make sure nothing ever disturbs your comfort. And so first of all, this passage warns us not to become complacent as we live in the gap between the already and the not yet.
Look Back in Order to Move Forward
But it also offers us some real help to do that, to actually overcome complacency as it begins to grow within us. Look again at verses 8 through 33. And this time, would you notice how the Israelites are taught to look back in order to help them move forward. To look back in order to move forward. First of all, live in the gap between the already and the not yet. Now, look back to move forward. Did you see the mention of the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites there in verse 10? Did you see that? And in verse 12, the mention of Og king of Bashan. And then look down at verse 22 and Joshua recites the inheritance being given to the Ruebenites. And did you notice that little reminder about the defeat of Balaam, son of Behor? Do you remember the story of Balaam? You can read his story in Numbers 22 through 24. He was hired by Balaak to curse the Israelites. He ended up blessing them. Later, he becomes the instigator of leading the Israelites into immorality and idolatry. It’s a little reminder to the Israelites as they think about the conquest still lying ahead of them of the other types of trouble they might yet face, not just military opposition, but spiritual deception and temptation too. But even Baalam, the Lord defeated and overcame. Even Baalam. So Sihon is mentioned again in verse 27 in the territory of Gad and Og again in verse 30 in the territory of the part of Manasseh that lived east of the Jordan.
Why is the text reciting all this for us – defeated kings and false prophets overcome in the power of God? Why is it reciting the previous victories of the Lord? Well whether it’s a military opponent like Sihon or Og, or a spiritual deceiver like Baalam, son of Behor, the point is to remind the people of God, “Our God wins the victory.” It’s a simple message. “Our God wins the victory.” One important way of not falling into complacency, now that so much of the conquest was over, one vital tool to keep on fighting until all the land is conquered is to remember the mighty deeds of God that have already been won, have already been displayed. Look back to past grace so that you may believe yet in grace still to come. Hither to the Lord has helped us. He has been faithful. He will be faithful still. There are supplies of future grace. How can you be sure? Well look back and see the supplies of past grace that He has so graciously and freely lavished upon you. There was land still to possess. Don’t get complacent. Fight on! And as you fight on, remember what God has done. He will do it again.
Sometimes we sing the hymn, “O Breath of Life, Come Sweeping Through Us.” You remember that hymn? “O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us. Revive Your Church with life and power. Come cleanse, renew us, and fit Your Church to meet the hour. O wind of God, come bend us, break us till humbly we confess our need. Then in Your tenderness remake us, revive, restore, for this we plead. Revive us, Lord, is zeal abating, while harvest fields are vast and white. Revive us, Lord, the world is waiting, equip Your Church to spread the light.” It’s a beautiful prayer to God to come and shake us out of our complacency. But were God to answer it, one tool He will likely use, one tool we must learn to use, is to keep looking back in order to move forward. Nothing will embolden us to fight on today and tomorrow quite like remembering how God gave us the victory yesterday. And what victories we have to look back upon, not just to Sihon and Og and Baalam, son of Behor, we look back on the victory of King Jesus who has accomplished all the work that the Father gave Him to do. Of those whom the Father gave Him to save, He has lost not one. He has loved His own and loved them to the end. He has borne our sins in His body on the tree, dying for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He has risen from the dead for our justification. He has ascended to the Father’s right hand where He ever lives to make intercession for us and is seated there at the place of majesty and power until the Father makes all His enemies a footstool for His feet. That is the great story to which we are to return, again and again and again. Jesus Christ has already triumphed. And in light of that story, let us take up our arms and march back into the fray, for He has conquered and His kingdom is forever.
Prize the Giver Above the Gifts
Live in the gap between the already and the not yet. Learn to look back so that you can keep on looking forward. And then finally, prize the giver above the gifts. Prize the giver more than that gifts. There is one tribe – if you scan through the chapter – there is one tribe of all the twelve who does not get a portion in the land. They will receive, later on, they will receive some particular cities to occupy, but they do not receive any territory designated as theirs. To them belongs an inheritance of a different kind. They’re mentioned in verse 14 and again in verse 33. Do you see them mentioned in both places? “The tribe of Levi, to the tribe of Levi,” verse 14, “Moses gave no inheritance. The offerings by fire to the Lord God of Israel are their inheritance.” Or verse 33, “To the tribe of Levi, Moses gave no inheritance. The Lord God of Israel is their inheritance.” The priestly tribe, the Levites, they were given the meat of the sacrifices as their recompense for their labors. And that really is meant to be a symbol of a deeper even deeper reality. The one to whom those offerings were made was their true inheritance, the living God Himself. The Lord God of Israel is their inheritance.
Of course to have the Lord as your portion was a perspective that the Lord wanted for all the Israelites. The tribe of Levi was consecrated especially to that ideal, but it was supposed to serve as a reminder in the very constitution of their national life of that reality for every one of the people of God. They were all meant to say to God with David in Psalm 142, “You are my refuge, my portion, in the land of the living.” Or in Psalm 73:26, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of heart and my portion forever.” God is my portion. He is my inheritance, my allotment. The land was just an outward pledge of that deeper, inner reality. The Levites, the Levites were a socio-political reminder, they were a sign to the whole people of God in Israel of that promise, of that possibility. They were not meant to rest content just with that, with gifts. They were meant to transpose the gifts to a higher key, not just to revel in the gifts but to rejoice in the Giver.
In Ephesians 1:18, there is a remarkable prayer of the apostle Paul where he prays that, “the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we may know what is the hope to which He has called us.” And then he explains, “the hope to which He has called us,” as – listen to this language – “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” Now that last phrase, “His glorious inheritance in the saints,” is mind-blowing to me. Paul doesn’t say what we might say as he thinks about our relationship to God in the Lord Jesus. We would pray about our glorious inheritance in God. Paul flips that on its head wonderfully. He says, “the saints” – that is, you and me if we believe in Jesus – he says we are God’s inheritance – “the riches of God’s glorious inheritance in the saints.”
It’s a way, really, to emphasize the same point being made in our text when we are told that God is the portion of the Levites. God and His people are the great prize that each receives in the other. God’s glorious inheritance is in the saints. The saints’ portion forever is God. We were made by God for God. We were saved by Jesus Christ for Jesus Christ. The Spirit has come to us that we might be His and He might be ours. What you get in the Gospel, when you become a Christian, what you get is not gifts. It’s not new life. It’s not forgiveness of sin. It’s not help for all the challenges ahead – though you do receive those things wonderfully. But the greatest, sweetest reality you receive is Jesus Christ Himself. He gives you Himself. He is the pearl of great price. He is the treasure buried in a field. God Himself in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. What a gift He gives when He gives you Himself.
Let me ask you if you’ve been settling for gifts lately and neglecting the Giver. That is not Christianity. Do you realize that? That’s idolatry. It’s not Christianity. When the gifts of God are more precious, more important to you than the God of the gifts, when your happiness and your affluence and your family’s peace and your health and your financial security and your future employment, when those gifts occupy more of your heart’s attention and affection and desire than the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the sin of idolatry. Jesus is not the means to the higher end of a safe, nice, comfortable life. Jesus is the end. He is the gift. He is the treasure. He is the pearl of great price. He Himself, not just what you hope to get out of Him. Jesus will not be used. Jesus wants you for Himself and He gives Himself to you. And that is the sweetest gift of them all, and we only rob ourselves when we neglect it.
So every Christian lives in the gap between the already and the not yet. So let’s be thankful, certainly, for what God has already done. But let’s be sure that we do not fall foul of complacency, signing a truce with sin, of spiritual mediocrity. Let’s press on to take hold of that for which God also has taken hold of us. Let’s stay on mission. And to help us, let’s keep looking back and see what God has already done that we might truly believe He will keep His promises for what lies ahead. And then let’s never, let’s never settle our deepest affection, our highest appetites, our greatest longings merely on the gifts, but fix them instead upon the Giver, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You that You give Yourself to us in Jesus. You give Yourself. Forgive us when we have settled all our hopes, all our affections, all our longings and loves on the gifts. Forgive us for our idolatrous hearts. Help us to tear every idol, every competitor from our heart’s throne and there set apart Christ as Lord once again. We pray, O God, for grace to combat this sin of complacency, because there is yet very much land still to possess. So help us to see all that You have done. Not to take that as reason to sit back and put up our feet and coast along, or to presume upon You, but to instead take that as assurance that having done so much, He will finish the work, and that however hard the fight lies ahead may be, we can win the victory because Christ already has triumphed. So hear our cries, O God, and go before us into the conquest that lies ahead in this week, enable us to live for Your praise and glory, and to be killing sin lest sin be killing us. For we ask it all in Jesus’ name, amen.