Author: Ryan Hale

God had given Moses a command that he should set up cities where people who had been party to the death of another person should have a place to go so that they could find refuge while they received a fair hearing for what had happened. Another person, presumably connected to the family who experienced the loss through the death of their family member, and referred to as the avenger of blood, may pursue them to the city of refuge, but in that place, the person should not be handed over to the avenger because he or she deserves to have a fair hearing.

Then the LORD said to Joshua: “Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood. When they flee to one of these cities, they are to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state their case before the elders of that city. Then the elders are to admit the fugitive into their city and provide a place to live among them. If the avenger of blood comes in pursuit, the elders must not surrender the fugitive, because the fugitive killed their neighbor unintentionally and without malice aforethought. They are to stay in that city until they have stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then they may go back to their own home in the town from which they fled.”

Joshua 20:1-6

The assumption was that the death was caused by accident, or unintentionally. This seems to be similar to the idea that a person could sin unintentionally, as we see in Leviticus 4 when God provided the sacrificial system to the Israelites. In these cases, the unintentional sin, or the unintentional death, should have a hearing before the judge. That situation should be understood fully and judged rightly, offering the opportunity for grace and mercy, even if repairations are also in order by the offending party. In any case, the person should not simply be left for the avenger to come and strike down the person’s life.

This does, of course, offer us echoes of our place in God. We have, in God, an avenger of blood because of his desire and requirement for justice for sin. As we sin, both against other people and against God’s commandments and in offense to his holiness and glory, our life is required. Blood is required…and nothing less.

But we also have in God a place of refuge. He has given us himself in Jesus Christ and he has taken our place by shedding his blood for us. Jesus is our refuge from the judgment of God that will come as an avenger. By placing our faith in him, we trust ourselves to God’s grace and mercy in Christ.

As the Israelites come to a pause in their fighting as they have taken over the Promised Land of Canaan, Joshua begins to divide up the land and give it to the individual tribes of Israel. Two of the tribes, the Reubenites and the Gadites, were given land on the eastern side of the Jordan River, yet their armies had crossed over and fought along with the rest of the Israelites so as to help their fellow Israelites conquer the people in Canaan.

In the end, each tribe was given an inheritance of land.

Now these are the areas the Israelites received as an inheritance in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel allotted to them.

Joshua 14:1

Here is an illustration of the land as it was divided up amongst the tribes:

As we often would reading through the Old Testament, we can think of the Promised Land given to the Israelites as both an historical act as well as an indication of things that will come in the future.

The Promised Land meant an inheritance and a place of rest for the Israelites. They had been under a hand of oppression as they were in slavery in Egypt. They had been working for the Egyptians, to build the kingdom of Egypt, but now they were entering a place of rest provided by God, a place that they no longer needed to work for others and the well-being of those others, but instead living within the land that God had given to them.

This is similar to the rest that God gives to us. As we leave the slavery of sin and our desire to be fed by the systems of the world, obeying what it has to say to us, we instead end up moving in the direction of freedom in Christ within the New Covenant that we have through Christ and his blood. In a similar way that the nation of Israel received a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of abundance and provision, we enter a life that we can live to the full in Christ. A life that is a complete blessing because we know him and we are in relationship with God. This is an outworking of the inheritance that we receive through Christ even today.

I hate those game shows, whether they are surviving, running obstacle courses, or whatever they are doing, where they put people on the show and have them start making predictions about how they are the next great… whatever they say they are going to be. They all say it, and I’m sure they all believe it. And then all but one of them gets embarrassed because they have talked a big game but then there is little that stands behind what they have said.

I don’t know – is it a special kind of person who can stand in front of a camera, in front of a show that will be broadcast to millions of people, and declare that they will do it? I can’t even imagine being willing to allow those words to come out of my mouth. Maybe it is just that type of person that the producers of those shows look for when they are casting the shows. In any case, it is amazing to me.

The truth is that most of the time, when a person declares that they are going to do something, they are probably going to fail, or it will turn out quite differently than what they originally thought. We can describe a vision for what we would like to do, but we can rarely accomplish the vision in precisely the way that we imagine.

On the other hand, we also see these types of predictions throughout the Bible. When they come from God, they come true in precisely the way that he predicts. Here is an example from a time that God made a prediction to Joshua as they fought the people who were in the land of Canaan.

The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them, slain, over to Israel. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots.”

Joshua 11:6

God makes a prediction because he has full knowledge of the past, present, and the future. He has the ability to see all things in all time. And he is the only one who can. The predictions that God makes come true, even if the fulfillment is long in coming, God will bring it to a conclusion.

Another example? How about this one from Isaiah 43 that was even fulfilled within the last 80 years?

But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your stead.

Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life.

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.

I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth —

everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made. ”

Isaiah 43:1-7

Do you see it? Through Isaiah God is saying that his people, the Israelites, who were scattered throughout the earth as a judgment and punishment for their sin, will be gathered back together once again. That didn’t happen until Israel was brought together again as a nation in 1947.

Of course, I think that this prophecy speaks to more than just the nation of Israel. As the Lord says that he will gather his people from the north, south, east, and west, he is talking about the blessing of God, the new covenant, being available to all nations. Yet it does also speak to the fact that God’s chosen people will be gathered back together again. He will accomplish this. He will do it. And he has done it, even in our lifetime.

We need to know the one who will do these things. We need to know him who keeps his promises. Men will fail, but in God we will succeed if we follow him and do as he calls us to do because his plans will succeed as they always have.

We have to check ourselves to remember by which sight we are walking, and by which sight we are moving or speaking. Very often, we react based on what we see instead of doing based on what God has said to us.

This is what happened to the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land, the land of Canaan. They took Jericho, and then after some consternation because someone had taken items from Jericho that should have been given to the Lord, they also took Ai. Now, word began to spread that the Israelites were on the march and each king and each city were making their preparations to decide what they should do to defend against the threat of the oncoming army of the Israelites.

For most of the cities, they band together, developing an alliance so that they will try to fight against the Israelites. That won’t go well.

But in the case of the city of Gibeon, they decide instead to fool the Israelites, making it look like they have come from a long way away, presumably outside of Canaan. They put on worn out clothes and worn out sandals. They bring dry, moldy bread with them, and they have wine in old, cracked wineskins. The Gibeonites make it look like they have come from far away, beyond where even the Israelites would know where they are from.

Their aim is to write a treaty with the Israelites so that they won’t come to attack them. And their trick works! All it takes to fool the leaders of Israel is to have them taste some of their bread and wine. Israel believes that they are from far away and now they write a treaty with the Gibeonites.

The Israelites didn’t, however, ask God anything about the Gibeonites:

The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the LORD.

Joshua 9:14

They have the ability to do it. God speaks to them. They have prayed when they were in trouble. They have called out to God when they are in need. But now, it seems that the Israelites feel that they are in charge. It seems that they are sensing that they are pushing forward, but now they do it by their own physical senses, their own sight. And their own sight fools them.

Instead of looking to God…instead of looking to the one who truly can see what is going on and who will be leading them, the Israelites depend on themselves. They sign the treaty based on their own understanding instead of depending on God and his wisdom.

The result is the first step in the direction of the ruin of the Israelites. The foreign people, and most importantly, their foreign and fake, demonic “gods” remain in the land. It is difficult to read about how God commanded the Israelites to wipe out the peoples in front of them as they entered Canaan, but the reason was that they should have no other gods before the one and true God, Yahweh. This is commandment number one. The most important commandment. And now, without even realizing what has happened, the Israelites have allowed the gods of the Gibeonites to remain in the land and a compromise has been made.

We have to learn a lesson from the Israelites in this case. We have to learn to inquire of the Lord regularly and at each step along the way. We have to ask the Lord for his sight in each matter instead of our own.

The Israelites had taken Jericho, and now they thought that, after that first incredible victory, God would continue to lead them forward. The way in which the walls fell was astounding. It was amazing to see such strength and power come to nothing before God’s power, and so the Israelites felt that nothing could go wrong.

As a result, as they looked forward to the city of Ai, they thought that they could just send a small fraction of their army to defeat that city. They may have been correct, except they had sinned as they had defeated Jericho. Amongst them was one who had kept some of the “devoted things”, those things from the plunder of Jericho that should have remained devoted to God. Achan had seen his opportunity to enrich himself instead of remain faithful to God’s plan and his instruction. He had taken a Babylonian robe, a bar of gold, and several pieces of silver and buried them under his tent.

So as the small detachment from the army of Israel went to fight Ai, God was not with them. Yahweh did not faithfully lead this army because the Israelites had not been faithful to him. The Israelites had violated the covenant that God had made with them, so God would not go with them. He wouldn’t honor the covenant when the Israelites had not honored it either.

But as Achan was identified and the cancer of sin which prevented the Israelites from completely following God was removed, God rejoined the Israelites and they routed the city of Ai.

Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

Joshua 7:20-21

We frequently have actions and attitudes that stand in our way of our relationship with God. We make our plans. We make our ideas. We look to enrich and glorify ourselves instead of placing the glory where it belongs, upon God, and we create the same types of problems and issues come upon ourselves.

Yesterday, I met with a man and we discussed together the parable of Jesus that says that the kingdom of God is like a treasure in a field. When the man found it, he went joyfully to sell everything that he owned so that he could buy the treasure in the field.

There is value in the other things in life, but look at the value that they have when compared to the value of the treasure of the kingdom of God. It is worth more than anything else. The man sold everything so that he could have the field that contained the treasure. And he did it joyfully! He was happy to sell everything.

In Achan’s, he thought that having the devoted things, those things that should have been devoted to God, would enrich him, and he preferred, instead of honoring God and giving all to him, to honor himself and give himself everything. He found greater joy in keeping everything for himself instead of giving it to God, and as a result, he was destroyed and the people of Israel was defeated. In the same way, if we desire to see success, we must offer and give all that we have to God so that he will be honored and glorified and we will find our joy in him.

Now that God has brought the Israelites into the Promised Land of Canaan, it is time that they will go to war. They will fight for the land.

But that doesn’t meant that the fight will be easy. The first thing that the Israelites see? The walls of Jericho. Jericho had built a fortress and the walls around the city were tall and strong, making it nearly impenetrable. How would the Israelites possibly begin to live in the Promised Land if they weren’t able to even take the first city that they came upon?

And yet despite those challenges, God has a plan in mind. The fear of the Canaanites was justified. They had heard that God had brought them through the Red Sea, and then they saw that God had brought them across the Jordan River. Beating the Canaanties won’t be a significant challenge for a God that can stand water up and make the land underneath it dry up.

In fact, this is what God says to Joshua:

Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.

Joshua 6:2

God explains that he has delivered Jericho into Joshua’s hands. It won’t happen by the hands of Joshua, nor by the strength of the Israelite army, but the Promised Land will only become the possession of the Jews by the might of Yahweh who will deliver the land that he had promised into the hands of the Jews, conquering the Canaanites who live there.

So frequently we have challenges in our lives that create fear and anxiety, but when God goes with us, our fear is undeserved. We must follow God’s lead, staying connected to him, doing what he has called us to do, and by doing this, we will see God work, see him move in his time and in his way, and we, like the Jews and the Canaanites, will learn that he is God, the one who is sovereign and able to lead us where he desires that we will go.

They were headed to war. Moses was dead and Joshua had been chosen to lead the people into the Promised Land. Joshua had stood with Caleb 40 years prior to tell the people that they should cross the Jordan River and go into Canaan, the Promised Land, just as God had told them, but the people rebelled and Moses folded, so the people were doomed to wander through the desert for 40 years until the entire generation had passed away.

What a waste…and for what? They didn’t believe that God would take care of them. They didn’t believe that they could do what God had called them to do. They looked and saw the challenges that stood in their way instead of looking at the God that was with them, so they turned around and walked away from what God was leading them into.

But now, the time had come. Now, Joshua had been chosen to take them into the next step. He believed that God would go with them. He would lead the people and go into Canaan, into the Promised Land.

However, there were people there already. It wasn’t as if the people would be happy to simply give up their land. No, they would have to take it, even if the Canaanites were strong. Even if the challenge is daunting. Even if there would be difficulty after difficulty. But God…

But God was with them, and that made all of the difference.

No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:5-9

Is God calling Joshua to a strength and a courage that is simply something that Joshua will need to muster up, pull himself up by his bootstraps, and call the people into some type of fake courage, even if he doesn’t believe it?

Or maybe we can ask the question in another way… who is the source of this strength and courage that God is telling Joshua that he should have? Is it Joshua? No, it is God! Joshua should have courage, despite the fact that he will be going into battle…despite the fact that he is going with people who have failed to have courage previously…despite the fact the enemies that they will encounter on the other side of the river are very formidable… He is to have courage because God is with him. The source of his strength and courage isn’t from him. It is from God.

And now, what about us? Is there a parallel for us? Are we in a similar situation?

Yes, we are. Jesus has called us into a “battle”, of sorts. He told his disciples that he would send them out like sheep among wolves. They were headed into the a spiritual battle that would have very real physical consequences, and the odds didn’t look very well in their favor.

In the same way, Jesus has sent us into the world. He said that he has all of the authority, so we should go and make disciples of him.

And will the world be OK with this? Will the kingdom of darkness willingly let the people go and enter into the kingdom of God? Heck no… In the same way that it happened with Joshua…in the same way that it happened with Jesus’s disciples…it now also happens with us. We are sent, and God’s words to Joshua still echo to us: Be strong and courageous.

And why? Because we are the source of that strength and courage? No, it is because Jesus promises to go with us. We should be strong and courageous because Jesus is with us as we go. My strength and courage do not come from me, but instead they should come directly from Jesus himself. In the same way that God was with Joshua, Jesus is with us.

And so now, we have to ask ourselves: Do we believe it? Will we go, as Joshua did? Will we be strong and courageous as God asked him to be because God was with him?

Or will we shrink back? Will we fold at that point of entry at the Jordan River as the unbelieving Israelites did and that Moses allowed them to do? Is Jesus with you? And will you go as a result of the strength and courage that he gives you?

Several times, I’ve heard people say here where we are that this person or that person is a good brother in Christ, and the evidence that this is the case is that they have given the person that is telling me this a good price on a particular good or service. Hmm… Not sure that is necessarily a good bit of evidence for their brotherhood.

In fact, I would tend to say that this says something negative about the person that is telling me this. I understand that it is important to be generous, and so I appreciate that the other person is trying to help someone out. However, ff we are basing our decision about whether or not someone is a good brother in Christ, we should of course be looking at other factors, not just the fact that they are willing to reduce their price for someone. What is more, I would suggest that, in the same way that the other person is willing to be generous to their brother or sister in Christ, we should be willing, and maybe even insist, on paying the full price to show complete respect in return to the person who is selling the product or service. In other words, the generosity should go both ways.

Paul was speaking to slaves who served their owners, explaining that they shouldn’t look try to get out of their duties to their masters just because both parties are believers in Christ. No, instead, they should work all the more, showing full respect toward other believers.

All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of their slaves.

1 Timothy 6:1-2

Of course, this is an even greater level of respect and generosity. Within the context of slavery at that time, I can imagine that the relationship between slave and master was not always easy. I can also imagine that the slave would want to find ways in which they could lighten their load of the work. Wouldn’t it make sense that, if they are both believers in Christ, that the master would lighten the load of the slave who is also a believer?

Maybe in a worldly way of thinking that would be the case. Maybe similar, at least conceptually, to the situation that we see above. But that is not the way of Christ. Jesus taught us that if someone slaps you, give them the other cheek as well. If someone takes your shirt, give them your coat as well. If someone wants you to go with them one mile, instead go two miles.

The point here is that we are to give so that our giving is glorifying to Christ. In this case, the slave is to give respect to the master, not expecting any preferential treatment. He is instead to hand over his work in generosity to the other person. Whether as an unbeliever, or most especially as a believer, to give full respect for the glory of Christ.

There are many reasons that we talk ourselves out of doing something that we know that we should do. I know that, for years, I thought that we should be moving onto the mission field, and said so to several friends. Gina and I had talked about it, but we never really took a step forward because we had no idea what to do. We had no one to lead us down the path. We didn’t feel worthy to do it either. We didn’t know that we could do it, so we talked ourselves out of it. We weren’t encouraged to do it, so we didn’t do it.

But could we have done it? Yes, of course. We could have done exactly what we thought we were supposed to have done regardless of what other people did or didn’t do. There were reasonable reasons that we didn’t go, but that didn’t necessarily mean that we did the right thing.

Many people do many things, few of them for the good others. In fact, it is an unfortunate truth that people frequently try to tear others down more than they try to build them up. Therefore, we have to make decisions for ourselves regardless of what is happening around us, what we want to do about it, and the direction that we believe God has for our lives. It is important to listen and take wisdom from others, but at the same time, we have to make decisions about what is right.

That is similar to the situation that Timothy found himself in while working in Ephesus. The elders had laid their hands on him to commission him in his work. He had learned under Paul, and now Paul had sent him to continue the work that he had started.

But Timothy is still young. He has had several experiences in working for the Lord, but he started very young when Paul found him and brought him with him from Lystra amongst the Galatian churches. At this point, it seems that, because of his young age, people do not always want to listen to him. They do not want to follow the leading and the teaching that he is giving.

So Paul spurs him and on and encourages him to continue in the faith and the work that he had been sent to do:

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

1 Timothy 4:12-14

We need to move ahead in the work and in the giftings that we have been given. We can’t talk ourselves out of the work that God has given us to do. There is work to do in the kingdom of God. We must diligently continue in it. Regardless of how you feel, regardless of what others might think, regardless of their judgments, it is important to wisely move forward in what God has called you to do. With counsel, with wisdom, but also setting an example by doing what you have been called to do.