SERIES: Joshua: Victory through Faith
God, the Promise Keeper
SPEAKER: Paul T. Stolwyk
Introduction: Pinch hitting behind Mike is an interesting experience, because I’m never quite sure what I am going to get to preach on. I’ve been quite fortunate in this Joshua series, because I’ve gotten some sweet passages to preach from, like Joshua 4 and the account of the stones of remembrance, and Joshua 8 and the second battle at Ai. Mike has gotten the difficult assignments in this book—dealing with the theological question of why God seemed to have a scorched earth policy, and dealing with issues of sin, obedience and keeping one’s oaths.
I was beginning to think Mike was being nice, until I found out what I drew this time. Turn in your Bibles to Joshua 15. For those of you who may be new to your Bible, Joshua is the fifth book in the Bible. The first 14 chapters outline the Conquest of the land of Canaan by God’s people. Chapters 15-21 describe the allotment of the land of Canaan to the people of Israel. Look at what we have here.
Chapter 15: some boundary descriptions and a ton of Hebrew names I can’t pronounce.
Chapter 16: some boundary descriptions and a ton of Hebrew names I can’t pronounce.
Chapter 17: looks like the department of redundancy department.
Chapter 18: same ole, same ole
Chapter 19: more of the same.
Chapter 20: establishing cities of refuge
Chapter 21: allotment of the cities for the Levites
I asked him if he had any suggestions. He told me I was free to do whatever I wanted with these chapters. Oh, that’s helpful! To make matters worse, last Friday we were talking in his office and he was telling me how he was going to visit family and friends and maybe go to the beach during the next 3 weeks. Then as I’m leaving, he asks me how my sermon was coming. What scared me was the sick joy I sensed in his laughter. If revival comes this morning he’ll have to repent. I got pretty sick on Thursday, and I was this close to calling Gene Moniz and asking him if he could fill in for me and preach these chapters.
But God has inspired the Word through the human author, and God intended all of this to be here. That brings hope and encouragement and truth to the original readers, and to us. So, despite Mike’s teasing, I went to work. I actually read these chapters word for word, well almost. I skimmed some of those names.
But finally I came upon the key to understanding why this whole section is here. It’s to be found in chapter 21 beginning in verse 43. Look at it with me. It is a summary of everything we have seen thus far in the book.
“So the LORD gave Israel all the land HE HAD SWORN to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. The LORD gave them REST on every side, just as HE HAD SWORN to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”
Joshua has played the role he has played because from the time of Abraham, through the leadership of Moses, God had promised His people that the land of Canaan would be given to them and once established, they would experience rest. And what we see here at the end of chapter 21 is a very emphatic statement. God’s word for us today from chapters 14 through 21 is very simple: when God makes a promise, He is always a promise keeper. When God makes a commitment to do something, nothing will keep him from fulfilling His oath. When God makes a public vow in His Word, there is no reason to doubt that He will fail on His pledge. Chapters 14-21 in this great book are in the Bible to painstakingly and in excruciating detail show us this truth.
I want us to consider two main truths this morning. First, the main idea of these chapters is that …
God HAS kept His promises to His people.
The nation of Israel was organized into 12 families or tribes. The conquered land gets divided according to these 12 families. Over 36 times in these 8 chapters, the word “inheritance,” is used to describe the allotment of the land to these tribes of Israel. After the boundaries are outlined for each family, we are told, “This is the inheritance of Benjamin, for its clans… These towns and these villages were the inheritance of Zebulan…. These towns and their villages [are] the inheritance of Zebulan, clan by clan…. These towns and their villages [are] the inheritance of the tribe of Issachar… This is the inheritance of the tribe of Asher….”
1. The promise of an inheritance. What is an inheritance? An inheritance is a promised gift we receive from someone else. It is a gift that we receive because we have a relationship with the giver and the giver has made a choice to give us a gift. The repetition of the word “inheritance” is telling us that the land allotted to the people is not the spoils of war, not perks of performance, not the luck of the draw. It is an inheritance, a promised gift that comes only because the people of Israel have a relationship with the living God.
Their inheritance was not dependent on their performance, though their forefathers had missed out on the promise because of their disobedience. It was not dependent on their excellent fighting skills. The land was their possession because God had made a public promise that he would give it to them. And when God makes a vow, He keeps it. God promised an inheritance. He delivered. In short, God is a Promise Keeper.
2. The promise of rest. Chapter 21 tells us that God not only fulfilled his promise of giving them the land as an inheritance, but he also fulfilled his promise of giving them rest. Look at verse 44 of chapter 21: “The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them.”
Imagine for a moment being one of the Israelites. You’ve been lugging your family belongings around the desert on a camel. No regular showers. Having babies in the desert. Fighting off pagan people for 7 years. Now you are given the deed to a piece of property and you go and drop your bags. WHEW!!!! No more battles. No more fighting. No more living out of a suitcase. No more cleaning up after battle.
But God did two other things to promote rest in the land. For over four years the people had been living in a mobile community. Life was now going to different. Life would become more organized, more predictable. A new society would have to be established. So, God has the leaders do two more things that will promote peace, harmony, and rest in the new community of Israel. These are found in Chapter 20 and 21. In chapter 20:1-6, the Lord says 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 he flees to one of these cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his case before the elders of that city. Then they are to admit him into their city and give him a place to live with them. If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not surrender the one accused, because he killed his neighbor unintentionally and without malice aforethought. He is to stay in that city until he has stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then he may go back to his own home in the town from which he fled.”
In a new society one of the first things to establish is a system of justice, a way for people to live peaceably with one another. At a time when revenge was commonly practiced, the cities of refuge were places of legal sanctuary for people who unintentionally killed someone else. These were safe havens where someone could flee and seek a trial before his peers. If found innocent of premeditated murder, then he would live in the city of refuge. No one from the offending family could harm him while he lived in asylum.
Joshua establishes six cities of refuge. They are interspersed throughout the conquered land, so that a city is easily accessible to anyone in Israel. Doing this ensures that the people will be at rest with one another.
God gave them rest from their enemies, the opportunity to rest with one another, and the opportunity to find continued rest with Him. In chapter 21, communities for spiritual growth and activity are established for the people. Look at the first three verses with me.
“Now the family heads of the Levites approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the other tribal families of Israel at Shiloh in Canaan and said to them, ‘The LORD commanded through Moses that you give us towns to live in, with pasture lands for our livestock.’ So, as the LORD had commanded, the Israelites gave the Levites the following towns and pasture lands out of their own inheritance.”
The Levites were responsible to be teachers of God’s Word, the theologians, the counselors, the worship leaders. In 48 cities, all across Israel, each tribe gave up specific city land and pastureland outside the city to the Levites. The presence of God’s Word was readily accessible to all the people of God.
God had made his promise in the days of Moses. He swore an oath to them that they would enter the land and find rest. God does not make promises he does not intend to keep. When he swears to do something, He delivers. God is a Promise Keeper.
God WILL keep His promises to His people.
In the book of Colossians, Paul tells us that much of what we see lived out in the OT is “a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality however is found in. Christ.” (Col. 2:17). One of my OT professors at Trinity illustrated this by saying that in the OT we often get just a taste of the reality to be found later in Jesus, like the little Whitman’s box of samplers that give us a taste for the big box of chocolates that will come later.
This especially holds true here, because the same promises of inheritance and rest are carried into the New Covenant relationship that believers have in Jesus. This account of God keeping His promises, of leading His people into the inheritance and rest of the promised land, is like the little box of Whitman’s chocolates. It gives us a taste for a bigger box, a box which contains a better inheritance and a better rest than what we have just looked at. The big box has Jesus’ picture on top. When we open that big box of chocolates, we also find…
1. The promise of an inheritance. The promise of an inheritance is found all over the pages of the New Testament. It is an essential part of God’s new covenant relationship with us. Peter writes in his first letter
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an INHERITANCE THAT CAN NEVER PERISH, SPOIL OR FADE—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)
In Joshua, we have an inheritance that is temporal. The land could still be and was overtaken. In fact, the Israelites’ inheritance has been fought over ever since. It is the Whitman’s sampler. But in the big box, for those who trust and follow Jesus, the inheritance is eternal. Peter tells us that our inheritance in Jesus Christ can’t be taken away. It doesn’t rust or wear out or go sour on us. Peter tells us that our inheritance is in heaven, a lasting relationship with the living God that will extend past the time of our earthly years.
One of the spurious notions out in the marketplace of ideas is that everyone has their name written into God’s will simply because they are human beings and haven’t killed anyone. What they do not realize is that no one’s name is on God’s last will and testament until we personally do business with Jesus and ask him to forgive our sins and to come into our life as chairman of the board. When we do, God takes out his pen, pulls out his will, and adds our name. Our name gets added to the list of people who will one day inherit eternal life.
Someday, Jesus is going to return and pull God’s last will and testament out of the safety deposit box. And we are all going to be sitting around the conference table, listening to Jesus share how God’s inheritance is to be given out. Many people are not going to hear their name because they are just presuming that their name is on that will.
For those of us who have done this, our inheritance is very safe. Peter tells us that we “are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is to be revealed.“ No one is able to get to the safety deposit box and tamper with the will. God promises that His people will one day be given an inheritance. Nothing can prevent him from keeping His promise. He can be trusted. God is a Promise Keeper.
As we wait, we are privileged to get a little taste of what is to come. In Ephesians 1:14 Paul writes, “Having believed (in Jesus for your salvation), you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession.” Like the down payment on a house which guarantees that we are serious about our promise to buy a home, God gives us his Holy Spirit to come and dwell inside us as a down payment guaranteeing His promise to give us our inheritance. As we allow the Spirit of God to rule in our hearts, we begin to experience unexplainably the ability to love the unlovable. We experience deep inner joy, even though we have tremendously difficult circumstances. We find our hearts with a settled peace that God can be trusted with our futures.
When we open that big box of chocolates, we find not only a promise of an inheritance but also …
2. The promise of rest. The promise of a rest is also a foundational aspect of the new Covenant relationship found in the blood of Jesus Christ. In the book of Hebrews, we read in chapter 4, beginning in verse 8: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”
Then there is an exhortation for those who have not placed their faith in Jesus and committed to live in obedience. “Let us therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:8-11)
In Joshua, we find a rest that is temporal. After a period of resting, the nation of Israel has experienced over three thousand years war and strife. It is the Whitman’s sampler. But in the big box, for those who trust and follow Jesus, the rest is eternal. The writer of Hebrews compares it to the rest God has been enjoying since the moment he finished creating. This has been a long rest.
There will be a time, still in the future, when those who are following Jesus
will rest from their work, just as God rested from His. This is biblical retirement, when the works that we have been appointed to do will be completed and we can enter the lasting rest.
The sweetness of rest is best appreciated behind the backdrop of work. The six weeks leading up to our marriage were some of the craziest of my life. Besides planning the wedding and finishing our premarital counseling and continuing our ministries, I moved all my priceless single guy stuff one last time to a new home, (99% of which I no longer own 7 years into marriage), we traveled to Chicago to interview for a new job and look for a place to live, we made plans for moving since we would begin graduate school three weeks after our wedding, and we were doing our normal workload at Barnes Hospital and McDonnell Douglas. We’ve all had times like that.
Early in our marriage, Carol and I had a signal for when we needed rest. It went like this [sound effect of waves]. That’s the sound of the waves lapping quietly on the sand on Captiva Island. That is where we went on our honeymoon. We would walk to dinner as the sun was setting, by ourselves, absorbed in our relationship. Just listening to the sound of the waves. [sound effect] That is the sound of rest. Multiply that by some outrageous number and maybe we can begin to imagine what eternal rest will be like.
There is much joy and fun in living, but there is a lot of pain and war and struggle now. There are children with disabilities, and downsizing, and eternal job searches. There is divorce and death and the senseless destruction of a plane that carries 16 French students to Paris. There is gnawing fear that God may not bring a mate. There is relentless fatigue caused by the responsibilities of life. There is frustration as we offer Jesus to others who don’t seem to want to have anything to do with Him.
But there is a big box of chocolates. God promises that His people will one day experience rest. [Sound effect]. God is a Promise Keeper. He will keep his promise. He can be trusted.
As we wait, we are privileged to get a little taste of what is to come. Listen to how Eugene Peterson translates Jesus’ well-known words in Matthew 11:18:
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest (for your souls). Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn an unforced rhythm of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matt 11:28-30, The Message).
Do you know what we would have if Jesus hadn’t risen from the grave? We would have a dead guy. A dead guy who said some nice things. But we don’t have a dead guy. We have a risen Savior, who is loose. And He invites us to come and spend time with Him in communion now, to experience a little [sound effects] now. If you are tired, ask your spouse to give you some time to just go away and spend time worshiping Jesus alone, quietly. Mike has encouraged our staff to take a half day each month to do that. Let me encourage you to do the same.
Conclusion. If you still have your Bible open to Joshua, look at the last verse of chapter 21. Let me try to read it with some of the emotion that I think the author wants us to hear in his words. “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.” (Joshua 21:45)
WHEN GOD MAKES A PROMISE, HE IS ALWAYS A PROMISE KEEPER. When God makes a commitment to do something, nothing will keep him from fulfilling his oath. When God makes a public vow in His Word, there is no reason to doubt that He will fail on His pledge.
We have only looked at two of God’s promises. There are plenty more. But you and I have to be in the Word of God on a regular basis so that we can hear them. While we wait for the final fulfillment of the inheritance and the rest, there are plenty of other promises that God has made to us that are in His Word, that He will keep.
“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion in Christ.” (Phil 1:6)
“He is at work in you to will and to act according to His good purposes.” (Phil 2:13)
“Cast your cares upon him because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 1:7)
Bill McCartney, the founder of the Promise Keepers movement didn’t originate the idea. God did.
Prayer: Father, you tell us in your Word that you are not slow in keeping your promises, as some understand slowness. We believe you Father, that you are waiting patiently for the perfect day to bring Jesus back. We long for the day when we will experience the rest and inheritance that is ours simply because of our relationship with Jesus. Until that day, we ask that you graciously give us little tastes of what is ahead. Some need it right now. Give them rest and manifest the fruit of your Spirit in their lives. We commit ourselves to serve you until Jesus comes in all his glory. Amen.
DATE: July 21, 1996
Tags:
Promises
Rest
Inheritance
Cities of Refuge