Fight The Hard Battles Now / Conquest of Canaan Unfinished (Joshua 12-15)

The Incomplete Rest After Joshua 11

So tonight we're gonna be covering Joshua chapters 12 through 15. Last time, two weeks ago in chapter 11, we ended by reading that line at the end of the chapter, then the land rested from war. And that's true to a degree, but the land never really rested completely.

The Land Yet Remains to Be Possessed

So we're just gonna follow along in chapter 13. So we'll cover chapters 12 through 15, but listening along to chapter 13, one.

Through eight. Now Joshua was old, advanced in years, and the Lord said to.

Him, you are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed. This is the land that yet remains, all the territory of the Philistines, and all that of the Gesurites, from Sihor, which is east of Egypt, as far as the border of Ekron, northward, which is counted as Canaanite.

The five lords of the Philistines, the Gazites, the Ashtodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites, also the Avites. From the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Me 'en, that belongs to the Sidonians, as far as Aphek, to the border of the Amorites.

The land of the Gebelites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrise, from Beilgad, below Mount Hermon, as far as the entrance to Hamath. All the inhabitants of the mountains, from Lebanon, as far as the brook Misraphath, and all the Sidonians.

Them I will drive out from before the children of Israel. Only divide it by lot to Israel as an inheritance, as I have commanded you. Now therefore, divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes, and half.

The tribe of Manasseh. With the other half-tribe, the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses had given them, beyond the Jordan eastward, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had given them.

Okay, so I said last time, in chapter 11, the study ended with that statement, then the land rested from war. And I think I've made the statement that the conquest of the land of Canaan was over. It had come to an end.

And it took about seven years for Israel to take the land of Canaan, but they never really possessed it fully, because even though God says, you know, eliminate all the tribes, drive them out, they never fully did that.

So they just kind of went halfway, or maybe a little more than halfway, but those nations became a snare to them, because they just didn't complete the job. So the way I look at it, it's like this. The children of Israel were like, okay, we conquered most of the land.

We kind of messed up with the Gibeonites a little bit, but most of the land is ours. So, you know, that's good enough. And I think we've seen that good enough type of attitude before. The tribes, remember the tribes that did not want to cross the Jordan and dwell in the land, two-and-a-half tribes, they saw the land east of the Jordan, and what did they say?

Hey, this land is good enough. We don't need to enter into the promised land. So that was the attitude that we've gotten most of it, and they stopped there. They weren't willing to fight those hard battles to drive out all the inhabitants of the land, even though that is exactly what God told them to do.

So they settled for good enough, and because of that, these nations were a constant problem, basically all the way through the Old Testament. And I kind of want to apply that to us today when we don't do what God does, what God says to do.

You know, we go three-quarters of the way, but we cut a few corners. We're obedient to God generally, but not fully, and sometimes we have that mindset that, hey, I'm doing all of this, that's good enough, but we're not walking in the fullness of God's blessings.

So to walk in the fullness of God's blessings, what do we need to do? Full obedience. But we, like with Israel, oftentimes we settle for good enough. So this is what we see in Joshua chapters 12 and 13.

The land east of the Jordan is being divided by the two-and-a-half tribes, or divided given to these two-and-a-half tribes. Who are the tribes? Do you remember? Right. Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

So Manasseh was split into two. The Jordan split the tribes, so one on the east and one on the west. Look at Joshua chapter 12, verse 1. These are the kings of the land whom the children of Israel defeated, and whose land they possessed on the other side of the Jordan towards the rising of the sun.

That's obviously the east. So the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, they received the land east of the Jordan River. Moses had agreed. They went to Moses. Moses interceded before God, and God agreed that, yes, I will allow you to dwell in this land.

So God agreed to it. They didn't really sin. I don't think it's a matter of sin, but again, instead of working hard and going for the A they settled for the C-, I think. That's how I'm going to illustrate it.

And God's people are supposed to be a cut above. I mean, this is what God expects of his people, to go for that A+. Flip over to chapter 13, verse 1. It says, Now Joshua was old and advanced in years.

I don't know, I didn't even find this funny. It says, Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, You are old and advanced in years, and there remains very much land to be possessed.

This is the land that yet remains, all the territory of the Philistines and all that of the Geshurites. And then he goes on. So who's one of the main, if you read through the Old Testament stories, who's one of the main enemies of Israel?

The Philistines, right. Of all, Babylon is the big enemy. But if you read 1st, 2nd Samuel, yeah, it's the Philistines. Well, the Philistines shouldn't even be there. So the reason that the Philistines are still a snare so many hundreds of years later is because they didn't do the job right in the first place.

So if you just fight those hard battles initially, then it's going to be easier later on. Otherwise, you cut corners and do it halfway at the beginning, and then it's just a constant battle forever. So which would you rather have?

Work hard at first, do the right thing, or do a pretty good job, but not the full job, and then struggle forever? Well, the answer is obvious. So these are some lessons that we want to learn from this chapter that we've got to fight those hard battles.

You know, it's easier not to fight. What did you say? When you're young. Yeah, and when you're young, preferably, if you can. But yeah, fight those hard battles. Put in that extra work now, you know, and then if you do that, especially when you're young, it's gonna be easier later on.

Now, what's the most famous battle in the Old Testament? I guess this is a matter of an opinion, but the Battle of Jericho. Okay, I was thinking, as far as, I was thinking David and Goliath is probably the most famous, even though it's only two guys.

To me, that's probably the most well-known battle in the Old Testament. David was a cut above, wasn't he? I mean, David did the right thing from a very early age, and he fought those hard battles, but who is his adversary?

Goliath. And Goliath was a Philistine. Goliath was also a giant. Look at Joshua chapter 13 verse 12. It mentions Og, who was the king of Bashan. Also in chapter 12 verse 4, it mentions the giants. So Og, it says, he was a descendant or a remnant of the giants.

Now, who knows anything about Og? There's one statement that kind of stands out in the book of Deuteronomy about him. Does anyone know it? It mentions his bed, and it's giving the size in cubits, but basically Og's bed was about 13 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Now, it doesn't mean that he was that big, but if you need a bed that was that huge, that tells you that Og was probably like Goliath, 9 feet tall, 10 feet tall. And, you know, for those people who scoff at these things, that, oh, you know, the Bible talks about giants, you know, isn't that ridiculous?

Well, there is that man, I think his name was Robert Wadlow. He died in 1940. He's known as the tallest man who ever lived, at least in recent history. He was about 9 feet tall, and there's pictures of him, and if you look at him standing next to someone who's average height, 5 '7", 5 '8", the man was a giant.

Check out the pictures. It's pretty remarkable. So there's nothing, nothing really hard to believe about somebody in ancient times being 9, 10 feet tall. So Goliath was a giant. He was a Philistine. Eventually, yes, through David, Israel got victory over the Philistines.

They got victory over Og. Og is mentioned something like 20 times in the Bible. And what happened to Og, king of Bashan? What happened to him? He was defeated. He was killed. So the spiritual lesson with Goliath being killed, Og being killed, God's people had the strength and the faith and the ability to what?

Overcome giants. So what's the application for us? I think of Romans 8, 37, where it says, in all these things, we are what? More than conquerors through him who loved us. So the Lord supplies his people with everything they need, with everything we need, and if God is for us, who can be against us?

But again, we need to be willing to fight those battles. And some of the battles we need to fight are battles with ourselves, with our own flesh, crucifying the flesh daily. You know, if you keep the flesh in line, you know, 80 of the time, well, then you're gonna have to deal with that 20%, right?

So fight those hard battles. When the Lord calls upon his people to do something, you have to believe that God is going to equip his people to get the job done. When you see a command in Scripture, do you believe that God will give you the ability to do what he asked you to do?

I think so. So to receive the fullness of God's blessing, if anything, we really cap our own potential. I think decisions we make, there's maybe things we have done in the past that we have limited ourselves through our own bad choices, maybe.

Maybe, you know, you grew up and, you know, your parents' bad decisions hindered you to some degree. But if there's any lack, one thing we can say, if there's any lack, the lack is not in God. So if God tells you to do something, just know he will give you the power to do it.

Exhibit A is all that Israel has accomplished. They went from being slaves to conquering the most powerful nation, empire on earth. And now they're conquering the land of Canaan. But what do we do oftentimes?

I don't know about you, but I'm often tempted to take the path of least resistance, right? You know, you shouldn't do this, but you know that's gonna be hard. This path is much easier and it's still pretty good.

So it's not even an issue of right and wrong or righteousness and sin. Sometimes it's just a matter of best and, again, good enough. Does this, can you relate to any of this? Yeah, I think so.

It goes along with our Sunday school lesson that will be going up over on Sunday.

Yeah, you know, back when you were in school, if you wanted the A, you knew you had to study for it. And, you know, there's a lot of people that knew they didn't have to study and they'd get by with the C.

And, uh, I was more of a B student. So I figured, Hey, that's better than a C. It's not an A, but you know, we don't want to adopt that mindset. It's not good to have that mindset anyways. We don't want to adopt it with spiritual things.

I talked about this a few weeks ago. So here's David. David is kind of that A plus kind of guy. I mean, he is, Saul was the man who is literally head and shoulders above everybody else physically. But David spiritually, I think was head and shoulders above everyone else.

And just know this, that when you fight those battles and you want to do something great for God, what's the response going to be? When David fought with Goliath and he said, I'll take, take on the giant.

Remember the sermon from a few weeks ago, his, his critics were his own brethren. So not only do we need to keep this in mind for ourselves, when we see somebody else, uh, really fighting those battles, striving in the Christian walk, Hey, don't, don't shoot arrows at them because that's the mindset sometimes that, Hey, you know, who do you think you are?

You think you're better than everyone else? Well, it's a good thing to want to do better. So just some things to take away from all this. Uh,.

Any comments so far? No weapon that's fashioned against us will stand. The.

Battle belongs to the Lord. Amen. Amen. So this is, this is the way Israel is, is behaving at this point. Um, the two and a half tribes, they want to hang back. They want to dwell east of the Jordan. God says, okay, here's the land, but still look at verse 13, Joshua 13, verse 13.

Nevertheless, the children of Israel did not drive out the guests, rights, or the Mayak of fights, but the guests, rights, and the Mayak of fights dwell among the Israelites until this day. And we'll talk more about that in a moment, but look at chapter 14.

Uh, this section is titled the land divided west of the Jordan. Okay. So that land to the east has already been divided. Now it's the land west. So this, this is the land of Canaan that's being divided.

Joshua 14 verse one. These are the areas which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eliezer, the priest, Joshua, the son of none in the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed as an inheritance to them.

Their inheritance was by lot. So they cast lots as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses for the nine tribes and the half tribes for Moses had given the inheritance to the two tribes and the half tribe on the other side of the Jordan.

But to the Levites, he had given no inheritance among them for the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim. And they gave no part to the Levites in the land except cities to dwell in with their common lands for their livestock and their property as the Lord commanded Moses.

So the children of Israel did and they divided the land. Now, do you have all the tribes kind of straightened out in your mind? You know who they are? Who, who can stand? I'm not going to call on you to do it.

Who could, who could recite all 12 tribes? Where's their 13? Of course there's the two halves, right? Joseph was split into two, Ephraim, Manasseh, and then Manasseh was split into two and there's two half tribes.

So it's how many tribes is there? So this can be kind of a confusing thing. So here are two and a half tribes east of the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, half tribe of Manasseh. The nine and a half in Canaan are Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, Benjamin, and then the other half tribe of Manasseh.

Now I have notes, but Tanya can attest. I do know them by heart, right? Okay. Don't give me that skeptical look. But just to go back to verse five again, as the Lord had commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did and they divided the land.

Okay. Remember the land rested from war, generally speaking, but these other tribes are still there. So there's going to be battles. So is that a contradiction? Well, did the land rest from war or did it not?

Here's what John MacArthur says about all this. I think this is really helpful. He says, they obeyed in some things, but not in all. See, there are some verses that make it sound like Israel did what God said and they conquered the land.

And then there's other statements like, no, these tribes are still there. And it's like, well, which is it? So they obeyed in some things, but not in all. Some land had not yet actually been occupied by the Israelites through the previous general victories.

Pockets or areas still lie untouched by specific invasion and occupation. When Joshua allotted areas to individuals and tribes, they bore the challenge to drive out lingering resistors. If not, they would disobey God's mandate to be resolute and conquest according to Deuteronomy 11, 22 and 23.

Failure to do this thoroughly is a sad theme in the book of Judges. So you see what's happening. They did conquer the land, but as, okay, Reuben, this is your land. And there were still some stragglers.

Okay, Judah, this is your land, but the Jebusites were still in Jerusalem. So each tribe had a responsibility to kind of finish the work. So John MacArthur says, this is a sad theme in the book of Judges that they really didn't complete it.

Who knows what the book of Judges, what's the theme or the cycle that keeps repeating through the book of Judges? Yeah, yeah, it's probably the darkest time in Israel's history. Here's how it went. The children of Israel would forget about God.

And because of that, God would allow their enemies, who are these other tribes that they left in the land. So then it comes back to bite them in the book of Judges. The Lord would allow their enemies to rise up and afflict them.

And that's what it took to get the Israelites to say, to cry out to God in repentance. So they would do that. God would hear them. He would raise up a judge who was like a military general. And he would defeat their enemies.

And then they had peace in the land. And after a generation of peace, what do people do? They go right back to their old, their old behavior. And then the whole thing starts up again. And it's the same cycle all the way through the book of Judges.

So I think the spiritual application is clear. We're not fighting physical battles, as I think I've probably said about a hundred times since we've started studying Genesis, going through now, through Joshua.

We're not fighting physical battles. We're fighting spiritual battles. And those things that we leave undone, those things that we know God wants us to deal with, and yet we don't deal with them, that just means you're going to be dealing with it forever.

You know, in this life, you're going to be dealing with it continually, if you don't do it right now. So is that a pretty clear application? Deal with the things you know you need to deal with. Otherwise, it's going to come back to bite you.

Okay. And then in this chapter here, chapter 14, I think Caleb is, Caleb is another guy who's a cut above, you know, Joshua and Caleb. Caleb, because of his faithfulness, Caleb, he, he's not a tribe, he's a man, and yet he inherits quite a piece of land.

So because Caleb fought so hard for God and did the right thing, he gets this great inheritance. He's given longevity. Here he is, an old man, and he's like Moses. He's this old man, and he's still as strong as he ever was.

And God gives him and his children an inheritance. We're just going to read verses 13 through 15. So Joshua 14, 13 through 15. And Joshua blessed him, that is Caleb, and gave him what? Hebron or Hebron, however you pronounce it.

That, that was the capital of Israel before Jerusalem. So Caleb is given Hebron. The Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, is given this inheritance, verse 14. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, to this day, because why?

He wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. And the name of Hebron formerly was Kirjaph Arba. Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim. Now, what do you know about the Anakim? And it's not Anna, Anna Kim for the Star Wars fans.

The Cost of Leaving Enemies in the Land

It's Anna Kim. Anna Kim is a giant, right? These are, these are more giants. And Israel defeated the giants. And then it says, and the land had rest from war. So just starting to wrap this up and making further application to the modern day, I think of the generations alive right now in this country.

You know, my generation, you know, my children's generation, my dad's generation. I think we've had it really good, haven't we? You hear the stories of the olden days, the people that went through the First World War, the Great Depression, World War II.

That was the greatest generation, World War II. And then after World War II, what happened? In the United States, there was peace, prosperity. If you worked hard, you could have, you know, the American dream.

I think we've, we've lived in a time, starting in the 1950s up until, up until now. We, I don't think we realized how good we have it compared to people in the past. Why do we have it this good? Right.

Right. Because people that came before us fought and they fought hard and many of them gave their lives so that we could have all of this. And what's the, what are, what's this generation doing with it all?

Right. We're totally squandering everything. We have this great inheritance and we're, we're wasting it. So when people have it good, and I think this is, it's a double-edged sword. You have it good, but that's when people forget about God.

And I think that's what you see right now in this country. Also in Europe, this happened in Europe since World War II. Things have been pretty peaceful in Europe. Most people in Europe, all they know is peace.

But it wasn't like that during World War II and before. So people alive today, most of them, they know nothing but good times and we see what's happening. God is, is cast aside and there's consequences that go along with that.

One last thing we'll look at. So you know what that means? That means we have, we need to fight the battles right now. If we want anything good for our children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren, the generations alive now, we need to fight the battles.

Maybe not with M -16s or tanks, but there's a spiritual battle. I mean, it might come to that. I don't know. I pray that it doesn't, but there are spiritual battles that need to be fought. If we just try to relax our way, you know, through the coast, through the rest of our lives and just enjoy the peace and the prosperity that we have left and we still have a lot left, it's gonna be a total mess.

I don't even want to think what it's gonna be like 20 years from now, 50 years from now, if the Lord tarries. So what do you need to do? You need to fight the spiritual battles right now. We all do. All right, look at verse 63, just about done.

Well, before I read that, Joshua 15, Judah receives their land. Caleb occupies Hebron. In verse 14, we learned that Othniel, who knows who Othniel is, he's the first judge. Othniel, we learn, is Caleb's nephew.

So Hebron was the first capital and that was then in the days of David because David fought those battles. David moved the capital of Israel from Hebron to what? To Jerusalem, right? Jerusalem would be the most famous city in all of Israel.

Look at verse 63, but as for the Jebusites, so this is in the book of Joshua right now, as for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out. Now I wonder, could they not drive them out or did they not drive them out?

But it says they could not drive them out. But the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day. Of course, that's to the day that this was written. And David, he fought and David was the one who conquered the city of Jerusalem.

He drove out the Jebusites and how many hundreds of years later was that? So you see that they're leaving things undone and that hundreds of years later, I guess it would be Joshua to David, that's what, 400 years, 400 and something years is the book of Judges.

So don't leave things undone. All right, so before we close, while it seemed like the conquest of Canaan was over, it wasn't really over because the Canaanite tribes are still there. So this is the takeaway, fight the hard battles that need to be fought right now.

It's easier not to fight, it's easier to cut corners, it's easier to kind of settle for just second best or whatever we have, but there's consequences for not doing what God commands. So fight the good fight, amen?

All right.