Promises, Faith and Blessing

Text Joshua 15 Time 08 11 20 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church (Zoom)

We come this week to Joshua 15 and here we have the allotment for the first and largest tribe, Judah. Here we have the borders of Judah defined, something more about Caleb (spoken of in Chapter 14) and then a long list of towns in the territory of Judah. Perhaps this is a good time to quote Matthew Henry who reminds us this is Scripture

“And therefore we are not to skip over these chapters of hard names as useless and not to be regarded; where God has a mouth to speak and a hand to write we should find an ear to hear and an eye to read; and God give us a heart to profit.”

This is not Genesis 22 or 1 Kings 18 but it is still Scripture and so useful to some extent.

Three things.

1. Remember that God always fulfils his promises

In verses 1-12 the borders of Judah are described. It is easier to see this on a map than to read about.

The allotment for the tribe of Judah, according to its clans, extended down to the territory of Edom, to the Desert of Zin in the extreme south.

Their southern boundary was a sort of flat U shape. It started in the east and went from the bay at the southern end of the Dead Sea, crossed south of Scorpion Pass, continued on to Zin and went over to the south of Kadesh Barnea. Then going up again it ran past Hezron up to Addar and curved around to Karka. It then passed along to Azmon and joined the Wadi of Egypt, ending at the Mediterranean Sea. It included Philistine country then. This is their southern boundary.

The eastern boundary is the Dead Sea as far as the mouth of the Jordan.

The northern boundary is like a wavy line from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It started from the bay of the sea (the Dead Sea) at the mouth of the Jordan, went up west then to Beth Hoglah and continued north of Beth Arabah to the Stone of Bohan son of Reuben. The boundary then went up to Debir from the Valley of Achor and turned north to Gilgal, which faces the Pass of Adummim south of the gorge. It continued along to the waters of En Shemesh and came out at En Rogel. Then it ran up the Valley of Ben Hinnom along the southern slope of the Jebusite city (that is, Jerusalem). From there it climbed to the top of the hill west of the Hinnom Valley at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim. From the hilltop the boundary headed toward the spring of the waters of Nephtoah, came out at the towns of Mount Ephron and went down toward Baalah (that is, Kiriath Jearim). Then it curved westward from Baalah to Mount Seir, ran along the northern slope of Mount Jearim (that is, Kesalon), continued down to Beth Shemesh and crossed to Timnah. It went to the northern slope of Ekron, turned toward Shikkeron, passed along to Mount Baalah and reached Jabneel. The boundary ended at the sea.

The western boundary is the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea.

These are the boundaries around the people of Judah by their clans.

Now all that may not seem very interesting but remember, God's great plan was to bring Messiah into the world. Messiah needed to live somewhere and so God promised Abraham land.what is called the promised land. This is some of the detail of the land. It is in this area that Jesus was born.

It's like God's promise to save those who trust in Christ today. What does it look like? Well for me I got up yesterday and had breakfast. I completed most of my preparation for this sermon and did various other things. I went to bed, I slept, got up again and had breakfast, I preached this morning at the chapel. I went for a walk. Here I am preaching again. It's quite ordinary - as it mostly is for you. But remember God is fulfilling his promises. He is working out his purposes in our lives.

2. Consider Caleb again and the constant need for faith

Then in verses 13-19 we have some more about Caleb. In accordance with the LORD's command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb son of Jephunneh a portion in Judah - Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the forefather of Anak.) From Hebron Caleb drove out the three Anakites - Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai, the sons of Anak. From there he marched against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher). He took not only Hebron then but also Debir. And Caleb said, "I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher." Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's brother, or perhaps nephew took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage. Here is Caleb's faith then - he gains ground for the people of Judah by fighting and not being scared of giants. We today must fight the fight of faith unafraid of the opposition.

And then in verses 18, 19 we see what is another sort of faith

One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, out of respect for her father-in-law Caleb asked her, "What can I do for you?" She replied, "Do me a special favour. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water." (The Negev was a desert area). So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. More than she asked for. We begin with faith and we go on in faith. Ask and it will be given you is the promise. It is not wrong to desire good things and God is more than willing to give, if we will only ask.

We constantly need to be reminded of faith. It is lack of faith that stops us praying. It is lack of faith that makes us worry about things.

When Hudson Taylor was sailing to China to begin his missionary work, his ship was in great danger. The wind had died, and the current was carrying them toward sunken reefs which were close to islands inhabited by cannibals - so close they could see them building fires on the shore. Everything they tried was to no avail. In his journal Taylor recorded what happened next:

The Captain said to me, “Well, we have done everything that can be done.” A thought occurred to me, and I replied, “No, there is one thing we have not done yet.” “What is that?” he queried. “Four of us on board are Christians. Let us each retire to his own cabin, and in agreed prayer ask the Lord to give us immediately a breeze.”

Taylor prayed briefly and then, certain that the answer was coming, went up on the deck and asked the first officer to let down the sails. “What would be the good of that?” he answered roughly. I told him we had been asking a wind from God; that it was coming immediately. Within minutes the wind did began to blow, and it carried them safely past the reefs. Taylor wrote: Thus God encouraged me ere landing on China’s shores to bring every variety of need to Him in prayer, and to expect that He would honour the name of the Lord Jesus and give the help each emergency required. That is the sort of faith I am thinking about.

3. The reality of God's blessing

Finally in verses 20-63 the towns of Judah are listed. Verse 20 gives the heading This is the inheritance of the tribe of Judah, according to its clans:

You then have different districts. Of course, there are liberal commentators who will say that these towns were never part of Judah until much later but that is to misunderstand. These towns were given to Judah at this point - when they took them is another question.

First, the Negev in the south in 21-32, beginning The southernmost towns of the tribe of Judah in the Negev toward the boundary of Edom were and ending - a total of twenty-nine towns and their villages. This includes Beersheba and Ziklag.

Then, the Shephelah, the gently rolling hills from the coast to the mountains, in 33-47, beginning In the western foothills: ... and ending (45-47) Ekron, with its surrounding settlements and villages; west of Ekron, all that were in the vicinity of Ashdod, together with their villages; Ashdod, its surrounding settlements and villages; and Gaza, its settlements and villages, as far as the Wadi of Egypt and the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. This section comes in four parts - 14, 16, 9 then what we think of as Philistine country. It includes Eshtaol, Zorah, Adullam, Lachish, Eglon, Libnah and then Ekron, Ashdod and Gaza.

Thirdly, the hill country in 48-60, beginning In the hill country: and ending (60) Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim) and Rabbah - two towns and their villages. This section is in five parts - 11, 9, 10, 6 and 2 towns. It includes Kiriath Sannah (that is, Debir), Eshtemoh, Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), Jezreel, Timnah and Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim).

Finally, 61 and 62 the wilderness to the east - In the wilderness: Beth Arabah, Middin, Sekakah, Nibshan, the City of Salt and En Gedi - six towns and their villages.

Finally, this note is struck in verse 63 Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah. Unlike Caleb they did not show the enterprise to take the city. It was not until David's time that that happened.

Perhaps the lesson here is to remember that what we are looking forward to as Christians is not some vague floating cloud in an ocean of delights but to a new heavens and a new earth. That is the reality. Just as the reality of the promise to Abraham was actual towns like Beersheba and Ziklag in the Negev or Lachish, Eglon and Libnah in the Shephelah or Debir and Hebron in the hills so what we are looking forward to is something very different. One day there will be towns and there will be places in the world to come and they will be home to us.

I was walking along next to the North Circular on Friday and there are lots of waste patches where people throw rubbish. It made me think of walking along as a boy in my home town. Some parts of the place you got to know quite well. You would even recognise the rubbish from the last time you looked. That's part of what home is - it is utterly familiar as these places were to the people of Judah down the ages and as the new heavens and the new earth will be to us one day.

You know how much I like music perhaps. One thing I like in particular is the variety. I like the fact that at the flick of a switch I can listen to Irish folk music or Progressive Rock or a bit of reggae or classical music or jazz or whatever. I think heaven will be something like this. A tremendous variety - not necessarily musically but in every way. There is a stunning variety in this present creation. Take sharks as an example. I was reading a piece where a writer speaks about Wobbegongs. He explains how at one point he had never heard of a Wobbegong but then while he was making dinner one night, his five-year-old, a voracious reader called Grace, entered the kitchen and announced that Wobbegongs do not eat humans. He says "I breathed a sigh of relief. Even though I had no clue what animal she was talking about, I was thankful not to be featured as the main entrée on its dinner menu. I noted with irony that I had spent the morning teaching her kindergarten maths, and now she was teaching me high school biology. She held up her marine life book and showed me a picture of this bizarre creature that looked like a rug from the 1970s. “Isn’t it funny that God made Wobbegongs, Mummy?” she giggled.

Up until this point, I had only thought about one shark: the Great White – Spielberg’s “Jaws,” who still manages to torment me when I am swimming in open waters and everything from a twig to a candy wrapper resembles a fin. In fact, there are more than 440 species of sharks – and that only includes the ones we have discovered. There are 11 species of Wobbegongs alone."

Now if there is such variety in this creation what will it be like in the one to come? And when I say this I mean that there will really be a vast variety of animal life and marine life of plant life for that matter and it will be real - as real as anything you have seen so far. What God promises us is not something vague but something real. Look forward to it.