[0:00] Thank you again for joining us to worship our Lord and Savior this morning.! Amen.
[0:31] You can open up your Bibles to Joshua chapter 15, but I will confess we'll be kind of all over the place today. We are going to be doing an overview this morning, Joshua 15 through 19, and I have it mapped out so it shouldn't take me three hours.
[0:48] It might, but it shouldn't. It won't, don't worry. Okay, if you got the church emails this week, then you saw I sent out a reading plan for everybody. Whether or not you read it, that's between you and the Lord.
[0:59] But I sent out a reading plan so that you could be maybe prepared as we came into this morning worship service. And the hope with that is that we can go through this without missing any of the meat of the text.
[1:14] Because I am committed to line by line, verse by verse preaching, but the passages that we're looking at today, by and large, don't really lend themselves to strong, you know, line by line preaching.
[1:27] And they're not intended to. That's really not the way that they were written. They were written as a recollection of God's good works. And that's how we'll treat it today, as a recollection of God's good works.
[1:39] So that's what I, and that's what I want to show you, is that even in these passages that, you know, sometimes we come upon in our, if you, if you ever read through the Bible, maybe you'll come across this in, in Joshua, and you're like reading that day, and you're like, I can't even, I can't even read these names, let alone say them out loud.
[1:54] You know what I mean? Jeff accused me of trying to avoid saying the names out loud in this sermon. And he's not far off. I'll tell you that. There's a lot of names here.
[2:05] Over 250 cities are listed between Joshua 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19. 250. And that is really important because here's the thing. Whenever we read these things, it can seem kind of boring, but there's a message there.
[2:19] There's a message there. Okay? And here's what it is. God gave his people real land in real history, real cities, established places.
[2:31] God gave it to his people. In fact, God had promised that he would give these things to his people. In Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 10 and 11, it says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land, he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give you a land with large and bountiful cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill them with, cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.
[3:00] And when you eat and are satisfied, and he goes on to talk about how you should remember and worship the Lord only. The Lord God promised them cities that they didn't have to build, houses that they didn't have to put together and construct.
[3:14] They didn't have to buy their furniture. It was there. God promised this to his people, and he gave it to them. So what we're looking at today is really a testament to the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord our God.
[3:25] All right? And here's the thing. To make this sermon teaching experience a little bit more enjoyable, we're going to interact with each other today. Sound good? You're supposed to say yes. Thank you. Whoever said it, that's the interaction part we're starting.
[3:38] Okay. All right. Good. Thank you, Jason. So everybody good with that? Yes. Praise the Lord. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do. Throughout the sermon, you're going to see a slide that looks like this.
[3:50] And I'll say, God keeps. And when I say that, you'll say, together, his promises. Okay? God keeps. His promises. All right. Now here's what we're going to do. First, look to the person to your left.
[4:02] Tell them, God keeps his promises. God keeps his promises. Now look to the person to your right and say, I know. Praise God. I know. All right. So we're all ready.
[4:12] You want to practice again? Ready? God keeps. His promises. Very good. Very good. Okay. So as we look through this passage, we are examining really the way that God has always kept his promises.
[4:26] And that's really important for us. Because our faith is built on some pretty hefty promises that God has made. Right? Our faith is built on the promises that we will have hope in salvation.
[4:39] That we will be saved from our sins. That we will be forgiven for our sins. That's what we base our faith in is the work of Jesus Christ. And so we have to serve a God who keeps his promises. If we serve a God who sometimes keeps his promises and sometimes doesn't keep his promises, then we may or may not be in really bad shape whenever we pass away.
[4:57] But we serve a God who's faithful. We serve a God who does keep his promises. And so we know with certainty, with hope, with anticipation, that when we breathe our last on this earth, our true life begins with him.
[5:12] Amen? Amen. So we're looking at the story of a faithful God. And look, I'm not an artist. I'm not even a trace artist.
[5:22] I don't trace things really well. But I trace the map of Israel. And I only did this because I could move it around a little bit more myself instead of using a picture that someone else already did. Okay? But this is a map with all these different colors here.
[5:34] This is going to show us the land that we're going through as we read today. And we'll zoom in on different areas as we go, and I'll explain it all as we go. But there's a few things that we need to understand as kind of background material before we really jump all the way into this.
[5:50] Okay? So number one, there are 12 tribes of Israel. And these 12 tribes are named after one of Jacob's 12 sons. Kind of.
[6:01] Okay? So here's the back story. Joseph was Jacob's favorite son. If you've read the Genesis story, then you probably remember this. Joseph was Jacob's favorite son.
[6:12] And how could he not be with a name like that? You know what I mean? But Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.
[6:24] Remember this? They wanted to kill him. And then Reuben said, hey, no, just put him in this pit. And the idea was Reuben would go back and get Joseph later. But before he could come back, Judah conspired with the other brothers to sell Joseph into slavery.
[6:37] They were like, hey, what's the good of killing him when we can make some money? And so they sold their brother into slavery. You may have a shattered relationship with your family, but I don't think it really gets to that level, does it?
[6:50] I mean, that's pretty dramatic. They really, really hated their brother. They wanted to kill him. And so Joseph was sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites. And then he went to Egypt, was sold to Potiphar.
[7:02] God was with Joseph throughout the whole Joseph story. God is with Joseph. And so God raises him up to be the top person in Potiphar's house.
[7:13] He's falsely accused of a crime. He's put in prison. And then from prison, he comes out and he goes into the service of Pharaoh. There God is with Joseph again, and he rises up to be second in command in all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.
[7:26] Well, then there was this drought. And so Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to try to get some food and some provision so they could survive. And lo and behold, the person they had to interact with was none other than Joseph.
[7:40] Good interaction. This is good. So Joseph, he's wearing his Egyptian, you know, makeup, garb, the whole nine yards, was unrecognizable to his brothers. And so Joseph, eventually, you know, he comes clean.
[7:54] It's me. I'm your brother. Forgives his brothers, so on and so forth. Well, then Jacob, whenever he moves to Egypt, he comes and meets with Joseph. And he's so glad to see him.
[8:04] He's like, I thought you were dead. I thought you were torn apart by wild animals. And here you are. Not only do I get to see you again, but I get to see your sons. And so he met Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
[8:16] And at that point, in Genesis chapter 48, Jacob kind of honorarily adopts Ephraim and Manasseh for himself. And so the 12 tribes include Ephraim and Manasseh.
[8:29] There's not a tribe of Joseph, which is regrettable. But there's two tribes, his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. And then the reason that that, if you add that up, by the way, you take one out and that leaves 13 tribes, not 12.
[8:42] Well, here's what else happened. There was his other son. His name was Levi. Levi was not going to be a tribe that received a land allotment. And so that makes up the two.
[8:52] That takes out the two so that Ephraim and Manasseh can go in. So we have 12 tribes. It's Joseph's sons minus Jacob's sons minus Levi and Joseph. And it includes his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
[9:04] Okay? That's important because it just kind of shapes what we're about to look at. These are the sons of Israel, is what they're known as in the Bible. So Levi was Jacob's third son, but, and the Levites are still a tribe, but they did not receive any land.
[9:21] In Joshua chapter 13, the Lord explains that Moses, they explained that Moses understood that he did not give a portion of land to the tribe of Levi because the Lord, the God of Israel, was their inheritance just as he had promised them.
[9:34] So throughout the book of Joshua, in Numbers and in Deuteronomy, you find that the Levites don't get a land. They don't get a piece of land for themselves. Instead, they have a spiritual inheritance. They get to minister to the Lord in the tabernacle and then eventually in the temple.
[9:48] And so there are 12 tribes, but if you count those spaces, you'll see that there are really 13 land allotments. And the reason for that is because one of the tribes of Joseph, Manasseh, did something that no other tribe did, and they decided to split in half.
[10:03] So half of them are on the eastern side, outside of the land of Canaan, and then the other half is in the land. Alright? Another important point is that the significance of the tribes is not directly correlated to birth order.
[10:16] Okay? Reuben was Jacob's oldest son. But Reuben lost his birthright because he made a pretty nasty mistake. He slept with his father's slave, Bilhah.
[10:28] That was Rachel's slave who bore to Jacob Naphtali and Dan. Reuben was the oldest son, and he slept with his father's slave. And because he entered his father's bed, is how Jacob puts it, he lost his birthright.
[10:42] So Reuben still received an inheritance in the land, but he lost the birthright. He would not be the most prominent of Jacob's sons. Simeon and Levi, the next two sons in order, they lost their land blessing because they were violent men who took vengeance for themselves.
[10:59] Their sister Dinah was defiled by men in the land of Canaan, the Hivites. Actually, a man named Shechem, specifically. And Simeon and Levi, they blasphemed because they told these men, you can't marry our sister unless you're circumcised like us.
[11:15] And while these men were sore and healing, they went in and they killed them all. They slaughtered them. It was a huge embarrassment for Jacob, so much so that whenever he was giving his blessings in Genesis chapter 49, he told them they're not getting land.
[11:27] And so we'll talk about how that plays out as well for Simeon. Judah is the fourth son, and he would become the greatest of the tribes. But he still didn't get the birthright.
[11:39] He still didn't get the birthright. That's interesting. He would be the line with kings, that the scepter would not leave his hand. Judah's a lion, remember those things? And eventually, this is the tribe that Jesus Christ would come from, through the line of David, which is in the tribe of Judah.
[11:55] Jesus is, as Revelation says, he is the lion of the tribe of Judah. And so you have Judah, which is the most prominent of the tribes, but he didn't receive the land blessing.
[12:06] Joseph was Jacob's 11th son, 11 out of 12. And Jacob was the one who received the birthright blessing. I think there's a lot of reasons for this. But the most important is that, frankly, Joseph was Jacob's favorite son.
[12:22] I mean, that's really what it comes down to, is his favorite son. And Jacob, as the father figure in the whole household, got to choose where the birthright blessing went. And he split that blessing amongst Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.
[12:36] And then one last part before we get in here, and that is the land division, where each tribe actually ended up going, was decided by God.
[12:47] That's really important. God is the one who told them where their land was for each tribe. Okay? And so if you read through Joshua 15 through 19, what you see is that the land was divided through the casting of lots.
[13:02] We don't exactly know what that looked like. There's a lot of speculation. It could have meant that they had surveyed the land and decided where each parcel was, and then they pulled in a bag, the umum and thermum, and reached in Eliezer the priest and pulled out a color.
[13:17] And depending on the color, that would assign the tribe. And then depending on the color, the next pool would decide the land division. We don't exactly know what the casting of lots looked like, but we know that this was an ancient technique that God did use to give His people insight into His will.
[13:34] God did use it in the Old Testament. And I use that past tense on purpose. Do you know when the last time we see someone, a follower of God, cast lots in the Bible? Any ideas?
[13:45] The disciples. The disciples. When? Yeah. The replacement of Judas. In Acts chapter 1, replacement of Judas.
[13:57] They cast lots, right? And they land on Matthias, and they choose him to be an apostle. After that time, the Holy Spirit of God is poured out on believers. And once the Holy Spirit of God comes, we don't need to cast lots or flip coins or throw darts at a wall to guess what God's will is.
[14:16] As Christ followers who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, we are able to discern the will of God through prayer, fellowship, reading His Word, and letting God speak to us through it. So we don't have to cast lots anymore.
[14:27] But, make no mistake, the land division was decided by God Himself. Okay? So as we look through these chapters, I'm going to show you three things about each tribe.
[14:38] One, I'm going to show you the past promises. Two, I'm going to show you the present fulfillment there, here in the book of Joshua. And then three, we'll look ahead to how this tribe played out. Okay? And so before we do that, let's practice one more time.
[14:52] God keeps His promises. Amen. All right. So let's dive in here, okay? So we have the nine and a half tribes on the east, or on the west side of the Jordan, within the land of Canaan that we're looking at.
[15:07] But remember, there were two and a half tribes on the east. You have half the tribe of Manasseh, and you have Gad, and you have Reuben. Their tribal history and their land really fits with Jacob's blessings that he gave to each of them.
[15:22] But we've talked about these tribes, so I'm actually going to go ahead and enter into the promised land. And Joshua chapter 15, and we'll talk about Judah. Okay? So Judah is the first tribe to get land.
[15:34] In Genesis chapter 49, verses 9 and 10, Genesis chapter 49 is where Jacob, his final speech was his blessing of his sons. This blessing is seen as prophetic, where he explained different things about their tribe and their land allotment that they would have when they entered into the land of Canaan.
[15:52] Okay? And in Genesis chapter 49, verses 9 and 10, you see the word that Jacob gave to Judah. It says, Judah is a young lion. My son, you return from the kill.
[16:04] He crouches, he lies down like a lion or a lioness. Who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.
[16:19] That's a Christological reference. That's a reference to Jesus. The staff, the ruling staff, would not leave from the tribe of Judah. In Deuteronomy chapter 3, one of Moses' final speeches includes him providing blessings to the tribes.
[16:35] All of them except for Simeon. And we'll talk about that in a second. But in Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse 7, Moses said about Judah, Lord, hear Judah's cry and bring him to his people.
[16:47] He fights for his cause with his own hands, but may you be a help against his foes. So this is how this is fulfilled with Judah. He gets the largest territory. He is the largest tribe.
[16:59] And without a doubt, the most prominent well-known. Within Joshua chapter 15, in this land division for Judah, you also read the story of Caleb.
[17:10] We talked about this last week. Caleb going in and taking some specific land that was promised to him, which was Hebron. And he went in, and then eventually you see that this person, Othniel, who's Caleb's nephew, comes in and helps him with this fight.
[17:24] And then you see this really interesting story of Othniel, who marries Caleb's daughter, Aksa, and she makes a request to her father as a wedding gift.
[17:34] Okay? And this is what it says in Joshua 15, 14 on. It says, Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, descendants of Anak. From there, he marched against the inhabitants of Deber, which used to be called Kiriath Sefer.
[17:49] And Caleb said, Whoever attacks and captures Kiriath Sefer, I will give my daughter Aksa to him as a wife. So Othniel, son of Caleb's brother, Kenaz, captured it, and Caleb gave his daughter Aksa to him as a wife.
[18:02] And here's the interesting request from his daughter. When she arrived, she persuaded Othniel to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey. Caleb asked her, What can I do for you?
[18:15] And she replied, Give me a blessing, since you have given me land in the Negev. Give me the springs also. So he gave her the upper and lower springs. Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon from this passage and talked about how Caleb's daughter Aksa is a really beautiful picture for us of how we should pray powerfully.
[18:35] How we should pray. A few things that he pointed out is that she based her request in thanksgiving. She recognized that her father had already given her something. Thank you for what you have given me.
[18:45] And now, let's look ahead into what I am asking for. And she asked confidently. She asked expecting that her father would give her that blessing. And because she was motivated to ask for a greater blessing by her faith, you know, that her father would give her a blessing.
[19:03] And another commentator pointed out how Caleb, being a good father, gave a good gift to his daughter. How much better does our Heavenly Father give us good gifts? So in the future, this tribe of Judah becomes very, very important.
[19:18] There are some major prophets from there. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Obadiah, Joel. Some really well-known prophets there from the tribe of Judah. There was one judge, Othniel, his nephew, Caleb's nephew.
[19:31] And then there were some kings that came from the tribe of Judah also. So David, Solomon, all of the rest from the Davidic line. And then eventually, Jesus Christ comes from the tribe of Judah.
[19:43] And I want to show you here in this other map, kind of some important cities here in Judah during the time of Christ, in the work of Christ. So first of all, Bethlehem is in Judah.
[19:54] And so Jesus was born in Bethlehem. So he was born in this familial tribe that he's from. Bethany is where his, you remember the friends Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus?
[20:06] This is where they lived, in Bethany, right over here in Judah. And then Jerusalem, you see it's kind of on the line with Benjamin. We'll talk about that here in a minute when we get to Benjamin, okay? But Jesus was obviously very well-known in Jerusalem and in Judah because Jerusalem is the city where Jesus was crucified.
[20:24] So we have a really important city, or a really important territory here in Judah. And as you can see, it's very large. When the nation of Israel split after King Solomon into Judah, have you ever wondered why people from Israel are called Jews?
[20:42] Have you ever wondered that, where that name comes from? It comes from this time where the kingdom split in half and the kingdom of Judah became a very prominent line that stayed faithful more so than the northern kingdom, stayed faithful to the Lord.
[20:58] And so the term Jew comes from being a Judahite, someone from Judah. And so interesting, that's where it comes from. But Judah was the capital of the major split there in the kingdom.
[21:12] So the northern kingdom takes on the name of Israel and the southern kingdom keeps the name Judah. Okay, that was one. We'll get there, don't worry. Next we'll have the tribes of Joseph.
[21:24] I did that on purpose. So you have in Joshua 16 and 17, the land allotments for Ephraim and Manasseh.
[21:36] Okay? Genesis 49, 22 through 26 includes Jacob's blessing to Joseph. He says, Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine beside a spring.
[21:46] Its branches climb over the wall. The archers attack him and shot him down and were hostile toward him. So on and so forth. He says, Yet his bow remained steady, and his strong arms were made agile by the mighty one of Jacob, by the name of the shepherd, the rock of Israel.
[22:02] And eventually, the blessings of your father excel the blessings of my ancestors in the bounty of the ancient hills. May they rest on the head of Joseph on the brow of the prince of his brothers.
[22:14] Deuteronomy 33, 13 through 17. Moses has a large blessing also for Joseph. In verse 17, it wraps it up with, His firstborn bull has splendor and horns like those of a wild ox.
[22:27] He gores all the people with them to the ends of the earth. Such are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh. So we have these two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh.
[22:38] And they make up the largest portion of land in the north of Israel. They together have the most land in the north. And if you read through Joshua 16, you see this land allotment to the people of Ephraim.
[22:53] And at the end of their allotment, in verse 10, it says, However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. So the Canaanites still live in Ephraim today, but they are forced laborers.
[23:06] And then if you read about the inheritance for the half-tribe of Manasseh, we have this really interesting story where this person, one of the sons of Manasseh, his name was Zelophehad. Zelophehad had only daughters, no sons.
[23:19] And for inheritance, that was not good. So these daughters went to Moses. This is in Numbers 24 and 36. And they went to Moses and they said, Our dad died without any sons, but we need to keep the land because God promised it to us.
[23:36] And Moses agrees and says that they would receive land. And so what you see here in Joshua 17 is the land given to the half-tribe of Manasseh is given to these daughters of Zelophehad, of Manasseh, one of Manasseh's descendants.
[23:50] So it's a really, really neat moment here where, again, you have people who go and ask in faith. Knowing what is theirs, they ask in faith and they receive this blessing.
[24:02] But what you also see is that the descendants of Manasseh could not possess these cities because the Canaanites were determined to stay in this land. However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they imposed forced labor on the Canaanites, but they did not drive them out completely.
[24:17] There's an important note here that we see in Manasseh and Ephraim, and that is they took the land that God gave them, but they did not dispossess the people in the land.
[24:29] They became strong enough to remove those people, but in their strength, instead of removing them, they kept them around as forced labor. They took advantage of them. This is direct disobedience to the command of God.
[24:41] And really what it is was entrance for the temptation into idolatry and paganism that would begin to corrupt the northern kingdom and become its downfall in the future.
[24:53] And so just something that we should all be mindful of, let's bring this to modern times for a second. Don't mess around with sin. Don't think that it's okay to keep that sin struggle kind of in your back pocket because you have power over it, because you're confident that it won't bother you anymore.
[25:09] Remove the temptation. If it's your phone that causes you to be tempted, throw your phone away and get a flip phone. They still work. Did you know that? All right? If it's your computer that causes you to stumble, throw away your personal computer and only use your work computer at work, right?
[25:23] Like all these things. Here's the thing. If you are struggling with temptation, remove the temptation. Don't think that you're better than falling into temptation. The people of Manasseh and Ephraim made that mistake, and it led to their downfall.
[25:34] There were some important people from these tribes. From Ephraim, you have Samuel. He was the last judge and the one who anointed the first two kings of Israel.
[25:46] You have Elijah, Elisha, and Hosea. You also have some judges. From Manasseh, you have Gideon, Jer, and Jephthah. And from Ephraim, you have Deborah, Abdon, and Samuel.
[25:58] And then you have kings, Jeroboam I, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel. And then you have Menahem, Pekiah, and Pekah from Manasseh.
[26:09] Okay? And here are some important places in these lands as we go on. So Shechem became a very religious site there in Manasseh, Ephraim border. And then you have Samaria.
[26:21] Are you guys familiar with Samaria? You want me to move on? This is interactive. You can help me out. Yes? Okay. We'll move on. Now, the most prominent moment in Jesus' ministry in Samaria comes in John chapter 4, the woman at the well.
[26:35] He goes out of his way to encounter this woman and shares that he is living water. Beautiful moment. Okay. Now, real quick, we've got to practice again. God keeps?
[26:46] God keeps. Good job. Good job. We're standing. You're standing with me. This is great. The last ones are shorter, I promise. Okay. Benjamin. Benjamin. Genesis 49, 27.
[26:57] Benjamin is a wolf. He tears his prey. In the morning, he devours the prey. And in the evening, he divides the plunder. Deuteronomy 33, 12. Moses says something very similar. So, Benjamin received a small portion of land in the southern kingdom, southern half of the land.
[27:13] But they had some prominent places here. They have Jerusalem, kind of. Jericho. Also, Bethel and Ai. These places were also...
[27:23] Ai. These were also found here in Benjamin. Okay. One interesting note about the tribe of Benjamin is that in Genesis chapter 44, when Joseph is talking to his brothers, he's trying to hold Benjamin captive until they can go out and bring their father into Egypt.
[27:41] You remember this? And so, here's what's really cool. Judah, the one who had conspired to sell Joseph, stands before him and pleads for Benjamin's safety. He's willing to put himself on the line.
[27:52] He says, look, I can't go back and tell my dad another one of his sons died because last time I almost put him in the grave. He's like, I can't do that again. So, put me in jail instead. Let the boy go. And so, it's really interesting to me, in between Judah and Joseph, you have Benjamin.
[28:07] Because in the same way, Benjamin stood for his brother where Joseph was trying to hold him hostage in some way to make his point, if you remember that. So, Benjamin, really interesting tribe.
[28:20] There were some people from this place, but most importantly, King Saul was a Benjamite. And also, Paul the Apostle was from the tribe of Benjamin.
[28:31] Alright? Jesus had a moment in Jericho, by the way, in the tribe of Benjamin, if you remember. There was this little guy, his name was Zacchaeus, the wee little man, that was in Jericho, in Benjamin.
[28:41] Okay. Let's see here. Simeon. Simeon had his land taken away from him because of his violence. And Simeon was also the smallest tribe.
[28:53] So, in a way, he didn't really need much land. And so, this was the decision that God made as a blessing to the people of Simeon. He gave them land within the tribe of Judah.
[29:05] Here's the deal. The tribe of Simeon was not very prominent. And eventually, this is what probably happened. They dispersed and were absorbed into the tribe of Judah. And so, that's where one of the lost tribes goes is they're now part of Judah altogether.
[29:20] So, here we go. God keeps... I love it. Let's keep going. Zebulun. Zebulun. Some of these have great names. Okay? Zebulun's a great name. Zebulun will live by the seashore.
[29:30] This is what his father told him. And will be a harbor for ships, and his territory will be next to Sidon. It does not look like Zebulun is beside the seashore, but it was a really important trade route from the Mediterranean Sea eastward.
[29:44] And so, they were very involved in sea time purchases and all those types of things, in that industry. Okay? The land of Zebulun is in the region, in the New Testament, of Galilee.
[29:56] In fact, Jesus' hometown, Nazareth, is right there in Zebulun. And here's what's really cool. Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah 9.1 says, Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.
[30:14] But in the future, he will bring honor to the way of the sea, to the east of the Jordan, and to Galilee of the nations. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would do ministry in Zebulun.
[30:26] And God keeps... Amen. And we have Issachar. Issachar. We're doing well, by the way, on time. Issachar. Genesis 49, verse 14.
[30:37] Issachar is a strong donkey lying down between the saddlebags. That idea is that Issachar would be okay being forced labor. That they would be okay having people over them. That's what most scholars find that to mean.
[30:48] It's also in the land of Galilee. Nothing really prominent happened in the land of Issachar. They did have one judge. It was Tola. And they have this really special moment here when David is about to become king.
[31:02] The men of Issachar go and support David's kingship, one of the earliest tribes to do so. And 1 Chronicles 12, 32 says, From the Issacharites, who understood the time and knew what Israel should do, 200 chiefs with all their relatives under their command.
[31:17] So they were wise to see what God was doing and that David was the rightful king. And here we go. God keeps? God. All right. Asher. Asher is in the top northwestern most portion of the land of Canaan.
[31:31] Asher's food, this is Genesis 49, 20. Asher's food will be rich and he will produce royal delicacies. Up there, he's beside Tyre and Sidon, really important cities, and the people of Phoenicia.
[31:43] And so here's the thing. Asher was really well known for some of their exports and some of their really nice, fine food. Really interesting. There was no... I put here in my notes people from the tribe of Asher, nada.
[31:57] And I almost said that. But what I meant was for myself to know that there was not a prominent person in the Old Testament from Asher. But Mount Carmel is in Asher, or Carmel, I don't know how you say it.
[32:12] Caramel? No, I'm just kidding. Okay. Mount Carmel. That is where Elijah had his showdown with the prophets of Baal, if you remember that. Mount Carmel. And so there's the tribe of Asher. In the New Testament, there is one person who is said to be from the tribe of Asher.
[32:27] And if you remember this kind of random story, but right after Jesus is born and they go to the temple to dedicate him, there's this prophetess. Her name is Anna. Remember Anna? It says that she was from the tribe of Asher.
[32:39] So really, really cool. And here we go. God keeps? Two fawns. All right. Here we go. Naphtali. Not our organist. Naphtali is a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns.
[32:55] Naphtali was in the lush northern Galilean region. It had a really beautiful piece of land. There was one judge from this tribe. It was Barak. And within Naphtali, you have a ton of biblical New Testament relevant places.
[33:11] You have Capernaum. Jesus' ministry in Capernaum. He heals people. You have Chorazin. Jesus' ministry there. Bethsaida. Bethsaida by the sea is where Jesus fed the 5,000. And then you have way up north, Caesarea Philippi.
[33:25] You know why that place is important? That's where Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God. Really powerful moment. Who do you say that I am? By the way, real quick, we have to know who Jesus is.
[33:40] This can't take away from this too long, but you have to know who Jesus is. That's what the challenge that Jesus gave to Peter was all about. We have to know who he is. He is the son of God. All right?
[33:52] So he did a bunch of things up there, and God keeps? Jesus. Very good. Last one, guys. Last one. You did it. Dan, which objectively speaking is the most boring name of the tribes.
[34:07] Okay? Dan. Genesis, this one's interesting though. Genesis 49, 16 through 17, Jacob says, Dan will judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
[34:18] Dan will be a snake by the road, a viper beside the path that bites the horse's heel so that its rider falls backwards. And here's the thing. That's a really interesting prophecy.
[34:30] What does it mean that he'll be a judge? Because we know that we have the period of the judges. Well, there was one judge from Dan. Dan, it was Samson. He was a Danite. But really, what most people think that prophecy has been fulfilled in is the way that Dan became the source, one of the preeminent locations of idol worship in the northern kingdom.
[34:52] King Ahab, who if you go to Sunday school today you'll learn about, King Ahab actually set up shrines and idol worship sanctuaries and things like that in Dan.
[35:03] but here's what's really weird is that Dan did not take the land that the Lord gave them. They couldn't take it. And so, they made this decision, this is in Judges chapter 18, that they didn't like their land anymore because they couldn't get it and they just headed north and they found a city and they went in, they ransacked it and took it by themselves and now, Dan, the tribe, is actually located way up north.
[35:27] Not now. They were taken into captivity also. Jesus didn't do any ministry in the region of Dan but they became a judge of their tribe and of their people because they were a sore spot for idol worship.
[35:40] And God does not take kindly to idol worship at all. He does not, he is a jealous God. And that's the, that's the, that's the 12 tribes. Okay? That is the 12 tribes. That's the overview here from Joshua chapter 15 through 19.
[35:54] You made it. I'm proud of you. You hung in there. Is anybody asleep? Okay, good. Good. Because here's the deal. I want to, I want to share real quick. Real quick.
[36:05] I promise this will be quick. Sounds like there's some doubt in the room, Hayden. I don't know about that. Okay, real quick. Time me, okay? I'm just kidding.
[36:17] When we think about God's promises, past promises, we think about present fulfillment and future outlook. The way that the tribes of Israel would have experienced these things is that it's very similar to how we experience these realities.
[36:30] We have past promises that God has made and that is that if you believe in his son who came from the tribe of Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah, he came as the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies about him.
[36:42] He came and he lived a perfect life under the law that none of these people in this land could do. They constantly fell. They constantly fell into sin. They constantly wandered away from God. Jesus came and lived a perfect life.
[36:54] God's promises were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. And we also need to remember God's promises and how they apply to us, which is the present fulfillment. Believe in the person of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
[37:10] Again, these nations, it's a great testament to God's work, right? God gave them this land and that's amazing that he was able to do those things for these people. And now, as people who have the opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, we also can have an inheritance with Jesus.
[37:29] We become co-heirs with him. And so that's our future outlook. So the present fulfillment, believe in Jesus Christ. If you have not believed in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, then the way that these tribes were judged for their failings doesn't hold a candle to the weight of judgment that will fall on our heads if we don't believe in Jesus Christ.
[37:49] Thank God he's given us hope and a path out of that judgment. But we have this future outlook which is our own inheritance. In Ephesians chapter 1 verses 11 through 14, God says, in him, that's in Christ, we have also received an inheritance because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will.
[38:13] So that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory. In him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.
[38:27] The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of his glory. God has made a people for himself to glorify him in all eternity.
[38:40] Our inheritance is received when we see him face to face and we give glory to his name. The same way that the tribes of Israel praised God when they received their inheritance, we will praise God when we receive ours.
[38:54] And our, I promise, our praise will be a lot sweeter, it'll last a lot longer, and it will not be tainted by sin. So, some takeaways, don't let sin settle among you the same way that the people of Israel did.
[39:09] Remove it. Remove it. Don't let it stay in the land. Judah and Benjamin couldn't get the Jebusites out of Jerusalem. That didn't happen until the time of David a couple hundred years later, a few hundred years later.
[39:20] Don't let sin stay around. Get rid of sin. Colossians says to put your members, put parts of your body to death, right? Jesus says if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.
[39:32] That's dramatic, and the point is don't mess around with sin. But then also, remember the promises of God and look ahead to the promise fulfillment that he will give us in Christ Jesus.
[39:46] Let me pray for us and we'll sing a closing song and we'll wrap up today. Lord Jesus, you are good. You are good. You've shown us what it looks like to receive an inheritance according to your gracious gift.
[40:01] And so God, we look ahead joyfully to our inheritance. We thank you for the salvation that you have offered, that you have brought us, that you have purchased for us through your blood.
[40:11] and pray now that your word would sink deeply into our hearts, help us to remember your faithfulness, and help us to serve you with all our strength.
[40:22] And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.