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Now, here's more about an unforgettable journey with Skip and Lenya Heitzig. Hey, quick question: What if the Bible came to life right before your very eyes? Join us in Israel, April 5th through the 16th in 2027, for an unforgettable experience that will change the way you read your Bible. Together, we'll explore places. Like Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Garden Tomb, where some believe Jesus rose from the dead, and many of the places where Jesus taught and ministered.
Plus, you'll have the opportunity to attend the Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem and hear from Christian leaders like Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, Anne Graham Lotz, and Skip. We'd love to experience Israel with you. You can learn more and reserve your place to. At connectwithSkip dot com slash Israel.
Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. In Chapter Six, they march around the city. In Chapter Seven, they run like scared kids because they're a little bit overconfident, having taken the city of Jericho. They come up with a smaller city, the city of I A I. Remember how the flight attendants would say, "I I," that's this city.
I.
So I was a small town. Jericho had fallen. The children of Israel are feeling really good about themselves. They're flush from the victory, and they now come to the little town of I. Feeling very overconfident, we don't need to do anything here.
We don't need to talk to God about it. We just need to—we'll do this in an afternoon, a quick mop-up. They get defeated in I. You are not most vulnerable when you are down and out. You are most vulnerable when you are up and in.
When you have success and you feel really good about who you are, that's when you're most vulnerable. Children of Israel felt really good about Jericho. It's like, man, we did good.
Well, actually, you did nothing. You tooted your own horn a whole bunch of times, but those walls didn't come down because, well, I blew my horn really well. It was a miracle of God.
So you did absolutely nothing, and you should be depending on the Lord.
Well, what what happened here? Not only were they overconfident, but there's a guy named Achan. Name means trouble. Who saw a Babylonian garment, some silver, some gold? Stole it, brought it to his tent.
Nobody knew about it. God knew about it. Microphones always on with God. Cameras always rolling with God. God saw it.
Joshua gets wind of it. He gets eliminated, along with his family, and thirty-six total died because of this. He is taken out and he is eliminated. Achan's sin affected other people. Our sin affects other people.
You cannot sin without having that hurt others around you. That's the thing about sin. It's just, it's just, it's my life. It's my body. It's going to affect others, and so it is in the church.
When one Christian heart grows cold, the temperature of others around you gets diminished just a bit.
So that's why we need to be encouraging each other and holding each other accountable. Remember Jonah when he sinned, he didn't just experience the consequence alone. There were people in that boat who experienced the storm along with him. And those unbelieving soldiers and sailors were saying, "How do we get this storm to stop?" Jonah said, "Throw me overboard." But they were affected by his sin.
So it was with Achan. In this chapter, chapter eight, Joshua builds an altar, and I'm taking you to the end of the chapter. They finally defeat Ai because they pray about it. They talk to God about it, and they build an altar. They go to the central portion of the land, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.
If you remember in previous studies, Moses told them to do that once they get into the land. And Joshua takes and copies. Get this. Get he copies the whole Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses. He copies them by hand, and then he reads them out loud.
Look at verse thirty-five, chapter eight. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them. This is not the Bible from thirty thousand feet. He was going through the Bible from three feet. He read.
This was a long church service. As Moses read. All those books of Moses that we just covered at thirty thousand, he read them all word for word to them.
Now Joshua chapter nine gives us his strategy. What happens is Israel enters the land right around the midpoint geographically. He takes, they take Jericho and Ai, which is right in the central portion of the land, across from the plains of Moab. Thus, dividing the land north and south.
Now they're in the middle. There's a wedge between north and south.
Now they can begin a southern campaign and then a northern campaign.
So the strategy is divide and conquer.
South of them, just a few miles away, were a group called the Gibeonites, and this chapter talks about them. Gibeonites, if they would have done a little due diligence and again prayed to the Lord. They wouldn't have been hoodwinked, but the Gibeonites were about seven to ten miles away. That's where they lived, but they dressed up in these rags and they looked really like they were travelers from a distant land. And they came up to Joshua and they, "Hey, man, we've been traveling a long time from a faraway country." So Joshua and the children of Israel make a pact with them.
God said, "Don't make any pact with the people of the land." They make a pact because they're fooled. In chapter fourteen, or chapter excuse me, eight verse fourteen, it says the men of Israel. Here's the problem: did not ask counsel of the Lord. Please make a note of that.
Sometimes our failure is merely praying about it. When we pray about things, God gives us discernment about things, and I love people in the body of Christ that have the gift of discernment. It's hard to have that gift because you see certain things, you feel certain things, you're aware of certain things that nobody else is. But had they prayed. They would have saved themselves a boatload of trouble.
So they make a deal with the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites become woodcutters and water carriers in the tabernacle. Chapters ten, especially the end, all the way to chapter twelve, is a summary of the conquest of the land, south and north, and a list of the kings that were defeated. In this chapter, the northern kings form a coalition together, and they attack Joshua and the children of Israel. Children of Israel win.
By the way, just got to throw this in. There's a city it's mentioned here in this coalition, called Hazor. If you go to Israel today, you're driving north from the Sea of Galilee. You see this little hill, and it's the city of Hazor.
Well, I had not been there for years until this last tour. I said to my tour guide, "Look, I know the day's really packed, but we got to go see Hazor." So. We went, and for people who had been to Israel before, this was a first. It was a first for me in ten or fifteen years. But if you go to Hazor today, and you open the book of Joshua, where it says that Joshua and the children of Israel did not burn any of the cities in the northern coalition except for one, they burned Hazor to the ground.
You can see in the soil remains, the archaeological soil to this day, the ashes from the fires that were lit by Joshua and the children of Israel in the conquest, plain as day right before you. It's a marvel of a miracle that you can see thousands of years removed, even to this day. Look at chapter eleven, verse twenty-three. There's a summary verse of all of this conquest.
So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had said to Moses, and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war.
So can you see? This is the Promised Land. And yet, the smoke of war is everywhere in the Promised Land. Once again, the Christian life is not a playground; it is a battleground. Suit up, wear the armor of the spirit.
Don't be surprised by that.
Some people I meet are spiritual pacifists, and I'm not getting down on pacifists per se, though I could, but I won't right now. But there are spiritual pacifists. They just don't like the idea of spiritual warfare.
Well, then, if you don't fight, you will fall. You have to realize that once you come to Christ, great, you're on your way to heaven. Great, you're bearing fruit for the Lord. Because of that, you're a target, and the battles will come your way. I want you to not be alarmed by that.
I want you to take a little pride in that. I want you to think, really. Satan is mad at me. I am glad. In fact, I am honored.
I love the fact that I can do things that Satan hates. I can tick him off. I am going to think of all sorts of ways I can do that. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, "There is something comforting in the thought that the devil is an adversary. I would sooner have him as an adversary than as a friend." I love the fact that Satan hates my guts because I hate his.
Because he's doing everything he can to stop the work of God, and if getting into the battle and making him angry is part of it, ooh, I'll think of all sorts of ways.
Now let's come to the last part of this battlefield of a book, and that is chapters thirteen through twenty-four, the distribution of the land. Chapter thirteen, verse one.
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 to be possessed. This is Connect with Skip Heitzig. Your generosity helps share clear Bible teaching with people who need the truth and hope of God's word. And as Christmas approaches, we'd love to thank you with two meaningful resources designed to encourage faith in you and the people you love. The Daily God Journal by Pastor Skip will guide you through Scripture and prayer every day for an entire year.
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Now here's more from Pastor Skip. This is the land that yet remains of all the territory of the Philistines and all that of the Geshurites, verses three through six. God lists from south to north of these lands not yet taken. Verse seven.
Now therefore, divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and half tribe of Manasseh. Don't you love God's honesty? Hey, old man, you're old, but you can't quit yet. Not time to give up and go to a retirement home yet. There still is stuff to do.
There remains land to be taken. I love that. Getting old scares a lot of people. Josh was just getting started, and God reminds him: not done yet. In Joshua chapter fourteen, it's the day everyone has waited for.
For forty years, they have waited for this day. This day is payday. Chapter fourteen is the beginning of the divvying up by tribe of the land of Canaan, as it will be done in the next several chapters. We won't look at them. It's tribe by tribe.
They cast lots, chapter fourteen, verse one. These are the areas which the children of Israel inherited in the land of Canaan, which Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel distributed as an inheritance to them. Their inheritance was by lot, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses. Go down to verse six. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal.
And Caleb, that's his buddy. It's that other good spy years ago. Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenazite, came to him. Said to him, "You know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as was in my heart.
Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of this people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord." That's his testimony. It's not a bragamony. It's a testimony. I wholly followed. I believe what God said.
So Moses swore on that day, saying, "Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God." Now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said. These forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel wandered in the wilderness, and now here I am this day, eighty-five years old. I love. I'm a guy who's not ashamed of his age. I'm eighty-five years old.
So what? He says. You know, it's funny. Age is a funny thing. I I seldom meet somebody goes.
I love the age I'm at. I meet young people who go, "Man, I can't wait till I'm just a little older." Then I meet people a little older who say, "Man, I wish I was young again." And it's funny, isn't it, how we monitor age? At first, "How old is your baby?" Eight and a half months, fourteen point two five months, and then we go from months to half years, four and a half. And then we go by whole years. Then we go by decades.
Oh, he's in his thirties, forties, and then there comes a point you just don't ask. Right? It's just nebulous. He goes, "I'm 85 years old." He goes over his nation's history. He starts talking about the good old days, and I'm sure some of the younger people in the crowd rolling their eyes going, "Here he goes again.
I've heard these stories before." But the point is, here's a man who stayed faithful. In the daily grind, year after year, generation after generation, for forty years, I'm just going to tell you the hardest thing is staying faithful over the long haul. Pray that God will keep you to the end, faithful over the long haul. Verse eleven, he says, he's eighty five. He's eighty five.
Now listen to what he says. Eighty five year old guy saying, "Yet I am as strong this day as on the day Moses sent me." Really?
Okay. Just as my strength was then, so my strength for war, both going out for coming in. How could he say that? Because his strength was in the Lord. God hadn't changed.
He figured God can still do what he once did.
Now therefore, give me this mountain. Love this verse of which the Lord spoke in that day. For you heard how that the Anakim were there, and the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. You know, here's a guy you just can't stop, Caleb.
He's sort of like Jaws too. I remember when Jaws one came out. Just frightened everybody. Then it's like, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, and it's Jaws too.
So it's like the Canaanites. Just when you thought it was safe to live in the land of Canaan, he's back. It's Caleb too, eighty-five and still alive. Love this guy. Here's a man not stuck in the past.
He didn't say, "Oh man, remember Josh? The good old days? Yeah, that was then. This is now." I find people do this a lot in Christian movements. They look back to some past peak.
Oh, do you remember in nineteen whatever when God did this and that? Do you remember the Jesus movement, bro? Wasn't it so cool the Jesus movement, man? In the seventies, dude. Word up!
Jesus is still moving in 2018 and beyond. He hasn't gone anywhere, so he's ready to rock and roll.
Next several chapters, the land is apportioned by tribe. Chapter 18, they move their headquarters from Gilgal, that little place on the side of the Jordan River by Jericho, and they move it for. Geographic and military reasons to a more central, elevated location—the place called Shiloh. Verse one, chapter eighteen: The whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, set up the tabernacle of meeting there.
Now I'm pausing because I'm going to tell you something in a moment. They set up the tabernacle in Shiloh, there, and the land was subdued before them. This is the first permanent placement of the tabernacle in the land of Canaan, and it will stay there at Shiloh for the next three hundred and sixty-nine years. That becomes HQ. That's central, and that is Shiloh.
Chapter twenty-three and twenty-four. We'll finish up Joshua's final message. Chapter 23 probably spoken to leaders. Chapter 24 to the whole group. Verse 2 of chapter 23, Joshua called all the Israel elders, their heads, their judges, their officers.
Said to them, "I'm old, advanced in age. Maybe never said that before, but God told him, so I figured, okay, it's got to be the truth. I'm old." You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you. For the Lord your God is He who has fought for you. See, I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain to be an inheritance for your tribes from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off as far as the great sea westward.
Verse fourteen: Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth. And you know in your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass. Not one word of them has failed. To me, one of the most significant statements in the Old Testament.
To me, it shows that Joshua believed in what we call the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Scripture, that the words themselves are inspired, and all of them are inspired. It's not when there's concepts and allegories. No, this is the word. All the words, all of them are inspired by God. Chapter twenty four, verse fourteen.
Now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river, that is, Euphrates, and in Egypt. I am sorry, in a Nile River and in Egypt, serve the Lord. And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, say it together, all of us, we will serve the Lord. Do you mean that?
Let's do that. We will serve the Lord.
Now I had more to say in this verse, but time's up.
So I'm going to finish at verse 26 down to verse 28. Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God. He took a large stone, set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. Joshua said to all the people, "Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which he spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you." Lest you deny your God, so Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.
Then Joshua kicks the bucket. He dies. He and Eleazar die, and that ends the book. I said though this is a book that has Jesus' name on it. Moses did not enter the land.
The children of Israel. Did not enter the land under Moses, the children of Israel entered the land under Jesus, Joshua. The law couldn't help them inherit the land that Moses gave, because the land was a gift that God gave to them by grace.
So Joshua, the namesake of Jesus, brought them as a free gift of grace into the land of Canaan. I just want you to keep that in mind, and I want you to remember this when we get to the book of Revelation. See, big smile, trusting in your brains to be able to do that. The book of Revelation turns out to be the book of Joshua on steroids. What do I mean?
Here we have the conquest of Canaan. Book of Revelation, we have the conquest of the earth. In the book of Joshua, he sends out two witnesses. In Revelation, there are two witnesses that God sends to the earth. In the book of Joshua, there are seven days of trumpet blowing.
In the book of Revelation, there are seven trumpet judgments that are on the earth. In the book of Joshua, there's an Old Testament alliance, a northern alliance of kings that fights against the children of Israel. We see a coalition. Emassing themselves on Jerusalem in the end of days, Revelation thirteen. It's headed by the Antichrist, also a coalition.
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