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Dr. Mann discusses how the Israelites' possess and distribute the land promised to them. He explores scripture with the concept of land as a promise and blessing from God, highlighting how humans are stewards of the earth.
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Dr. Mann discusses how the Israelites' possess and distribute the land promised to them. He explores scripture with the concept of land as a promise and blessing from God, highlighting how humans are stewards of the earth.
Listen to Joshua 18-19 The land of Israel, a promise and blessing from God by Cross City Church MP3 song. Joshua 18-19 The land of Israel, a promise and blessing from God song from Cross City Church is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 45:26. This high-quality MP3 track has 36.784 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 28 Aug 2025. Stream and download Joshua 18-19 The land of Israel, a promise and blessing from God by Cross City Church for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
Dr. Mann discusses the importance of Joshua chapters 18 and 19 in the Israelites' history as they finally possess and distribute the land promised to them. He emphasizes the significance of taking possession of what God has given, relating it to believers in Jesus Christ already possessing everything in Him. Drawing connections to Genesis, he explores the concept of land as a promise and blessing from God, highlighting how humans are stewards of the earth. The discussion delves into the creation account, emphasizing God's blessing of the land and placing life on it, ultimately leading to the creation of humanity in His image. Alright, it is always good to be able to come and I just spend this time with you. So you mentioned to me earlier that Brother Jimmy and Brother Jack weren't here and then Eddie's talking about how if I make any mistakes there's nobody to correct me. I've got plenty of people who are willing to correct me so believe me on that but even if I do say something wrong and somebody says something about that I'm just going to say well let me tell you what Eddie said and anything that I said is going to be forgotten so I've already got a strategy for how I'm going to deal with this. It will work. It will work. Let's go ahead and look at Joshua chapter 18 this morning. I want to do something that I want to dig into a particular area that I touched on last week and I think that there's so much more here that will help us in our understanding of why Joshua chapter 18 and Joshua chapter 19 is critical in the life of the Israelites. We don't fully understand I don't think the central place that Joshua 18 and 19 plays in the minds of the Hebrew people. They are finally possessing and distributing the land that they had been expecting for so long and this morning I want to help us understand as we read through the Old Testament why this would be such a critical event in the life of the Hebrew people. I want to go back to Joshua chapter 18. I'm just going to read the first few verses and hopefully make some connections about how all of this built up this sense of anticipation for the Hebrew people. So Joshua chapter 18 let's just read beginning at verse 1 and I'm just going to read a few verses here. The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh. So the Jack is going to talk to us more about Shiloh in the next couple of weeks but Shiloh as I mentioned last week was kind of the first capital city of the Israelites. This is where the tabernacle was first set up. It would go through a few different moves and changes before it finally landed in Jerusalem about 380 years later. And so Shiloh would be a very prominent place for them and we see why beginning here. The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and they set up the tabernacle or the tent of meeting there. The land had been subdued before them. Now that line there, the land had been subdued before them, that's critical. And that word there for subdued it's similar to the word that we read in Genesis chapter 1 where when God created Adam and Eve he told them to go and take dominion or to subdue the creation and here the people of God had subdued what God had already put in their hand. When Brother Eddie was praying he made the comment that God has already won the battle. We're just living in this season where that battle that has already been won, you and I are living it out. And that's what's going on here. God had already won the battle but they were taking possession of the land that God had won for them. And so in verse 2, seven tribes among the Israelites were left who had not divided up their inheritance. And so Joshua asked the Israelites, how long will you delay going out to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors gave to you? Now think about what that means for just a moment. How long will you delay in taking possession of what God has given to you? Do you realize that as believers in Jesus Christ we already possess everything that God has in store for us? We simply need to pray and ask God to help us to take possession of those things. No matter what occurs in our lives today, we already possess everything in Jesus Christ. That's why the New Testament teaches us that we are co-heirs with Christ. And everything that the Father has given over to Jesus, we receive those. That's why Paul in the New Testament, his favorite way to describe salvation is that we are in Christ. Your life and my life today is bound up in Jesus Christ so that everything that He possesses we possess. And even when we don't fully realize everything that is in our hands, we can know this, that in the mind of God we are already seated in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ. We possess it already. We simply need to continue to be faithful until that which we possess we experience. Because our possessions are not determined by our current experiences. Think about that for just a moment. What you possess is not defined by what you experience. That's why the Bible refers to it as faith. How does the author of the book of Hebrews define faith? It is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things not yet seen. It is there, we are just waiting for it to be fully realized in our lives. So the Hebrew people stand at this moment in the life of their history and they are waiting to distribute that which they already possess. So Joshua says in verse 4, appoint for yourselves three men from each tribe and I will send them out. They are to go and they are to survey the land. I'd like for you to note just a few things as we read through this. I want you to notice first of all that back up in verse 3 as we discussed briefly last week, that word LORD is in all capital letters, L-O-R-D. That is the covenanted name of God. The Jews refer to him as Yahweh. In Exodus chapter 3 when Moses says, whom shall I say sent me? God says, you tell them Yahweh, the I Am has sent you. What does it mean for God to say that he is the I Am? It is to say that he is everything that we need for him to be. Jesus reiterates this in the Gospel of John when seven times he refers to himself as the I Am. God, I'm hungry. Jesus says, I am the bread of life. I thirst. Jesus says he is living water. I'm sick. Jesus says in John chapter 11, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the light of the world. Seven times Jesus refers to himself as the great I Am, connecting himself with the covenant name of God, the great I Am in the Old Testament. But that word for land, it's more than merely real estate. When God says he has given them land, he's not merely saying I've given you a nice piece of property. Rather what he is saying is that because I am the God who lives in covenant with my people, I am giving to them everything that I have promised. Now I want to take that word land and what I hope to do is I want to go back to the book of Genesis and I touched on it last week. But there is a thread. You remember W.A. Crystal? W.A. Crystal used to preach every New Year's Eve. He would preach up until midnight. And he would preach what he referred to as the scarlet thread of redemption. And he would take this thread of the redeeming activity of Jesus Christ from Genesis to Revelation and he would weave that thread throughout the text of Scripture until he would get to the end and he would tie it together and he would show us how redemption in Jesus Christ is threaded throughout the text of Scripture. I want to do something similar with this idea of land this morning. So let's go back to Genesis chapter 1 and I want to show you just a few things that God is signifying for us here. Genesis chapter 1 and we want to find this thread that runs through Scripture. And sometimes it's translated from the Hebrew to our language as land. Sometimes it's translated as earth. But in the original word, it's the exact same word and so I gave us an example of that in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 where there in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now, I said that the original word there is the word eret, C-R-E-T-Z. That's the way the Hebrews would read that. That word there for earth becomes a promise of God. And here in Genesis chapter 1, it's a blessing. Jump down to verse 9 and 10 of Genesis chapter 1. Somebody said this morning, are you going to go back to Genesis? Well, I went back to it so much unintentionally last week, I thought I maybe ought to do a little bit more of it this week because apparently it's down here rumbling around and I just got to get it out. And so Genesis chapter 1 verse 9, God said, let the water under the sky be gathered into one place and let the dry land appear. And that word there for dry land, it's the word erets. And what God's going to do is God is going to take the water and God is going to take the land and he's going to claim them as his own and he is going to give them to us as stewards. And he's going to emphasize in the creation account in Genesis chapter 1, the land. All right. So verse 9, God said, let the water under the sky be gathered into one place. Let the dry land appear. God called the dry land earth and the gathering of the water he called seas. And God saw that it was good. Now, jump down to verse 24. And then God said, let the earth, let the erets, let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds, livestock, creatures that crawl and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And so God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds and all the creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Now, if you read closely, what you see is that God is emphasizing how what is good about all of this is that God has taken the land that he has created, the land that he has claimed, and he is blessing it by placing life upon it. And ultimately, the life that he is going to place upon it is going to be humanity. Verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. And this mankind is going to rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock. And they are going to rule the entire erets, the whole earth and the creatures that crawl on the erets, the whole earth. And so God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, the erets, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the erets. Now, the reason that I'm pointing this out is because what I want us to see is I want us to see how in the very act of creation, what God is doing is he is creating the fullness of blessing that he has given to his people, to those who are created in his image. But there is a problem. I might have to start walking around. I'm getting a little excited this morning. Is that okay? But there is a problem. Everything that God had given to Adam and Eve to bless them with so that humanity might be blessed. In Genesis chapter 3, they give it away for temporary pleasure. What God had created for eternal blessing was sacrificed for temporary pleasure. The serpent comes into the garden and says, did God really say? And where Satan began to tempt them to forsake the eternal blessing for temporary pleasure was in causing them to question the word of God. Did God really say? You know, I've discovered in my own life that when I intended to pursue my temporary satisfaction instead of depending upon God's eternal blessing, begins when I start to question the word of God. Did God really say? Because you see, what keeps us focused on God's promises is that we are men and women who love the word of God. We believe it. We read it. We pray it. We meditate and reflect upon it. And it feeds our souls. But when we are tempted to walk away from the eternal promises and blessings of God to pursue temporary satisfaction, it begins when we lose our love for God's word. And that's what Adam and Eve did. And so what God does is that the very land that He created for them became cursed. He said to Adam, no longer will the land freely yield its fruit. But now you're going to have to fight against thorns and thistles. And by the sweat of your brow, you're going to have to provide for your home. Because the land that was a blessing became cursed because they misused it for their temporary satisfaction instead of for their eternal blessing. And notice what happens. Jump forward, fast forward to Genesis chapter 6. Genesis chapter 6 at verse 5. When the Lord saw the human wickedness was widespread on the earth. Was widespread on the eras. And that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time. The Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth and He was deeply grieved. And then the Lord said, I will wipe mankind whom I created off the face of the earth together with the animals, the creatures that crawl, and the birds of the sky. For I regret that I made them. Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord. And then it repeats in verse 11. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with wickedness. And of course, how does God then judge that wickedness? He begins the process of uncreating that which He had created. Because where we began with creation was God formed the dry land. And on that dry land He placed Adam and Eve and He placed the creatures that would produce after their time. And the blessing that God had given to Adam and Eve was the plushness of the garden, the fruitfulness of all of those vineyards, that they lived with the creatures that God had created, and yet on that very same earth, that very same land, Adam and Eve rebelled by questioning God. God removed them from that garden. And that evil continued to spread like a cancer, like an infection, until God observed that every thought of mankind was evil. And so God began the process of uncreation. He flooded the land again so that it was covered in water. The blessing was lost in the judgment. But God had grace. Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord. Look up at chapter 7, verse 11, and I'm going to bring all this into Joshua 18 and 19 before we get done, by the way. I'm not wandering around in the wilderness, right? I've got a destination. Genesis chapter 7, verse 11. The 600th year of Noah's life in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, on that day all the sources of the vast watery depths burst open. The floodgates of the sky were opened and the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. On that same day, Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, entered the ark along with Noah's wife and his three sons' wives. God uncreated the heavens. Remember when we were reading back in Genesis chapter 1, the act of creation began by creating an expanse between the sky and what would later become the dry land. The separation that occurred in the dry land begins to appear and now, in the language of scripture, the heavens burst open and the waters began to flood the earth, that act of uncreation. Jump up to chapter 8, verse 1. God remembered Noah as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him on the earth, and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, the land, and the water began to subside. The sources of the watery depths and the floodgates of the sky were closed and the rain from the sky stopped and the water steadily receded from the earth and by the end of the 150 days the water had decreased significantly. And so creation, separation, dry land, evil, the heavens opened, the water covered the earth again, grace, the waters began to recede. Once again, mankind would set foot through Noah upon the land, upon the blessing, but we think everything is going to be good until we get to Genesis chapter 11, verse 1. The whole earth has the same language and vocabulary. By the way, I'm reading from the CSV version today, I don't know, do you like it? It's a good verse. The reason that I'm using it is because somebody gave it to me for free. No, it is a good translation, yeah, praise God, it is a good translation, but I'm learning it a little bit here, but you know, it's free, it's a good letter and everything. So, alright, verse 1, Hebrew, ah, Hebrews. Verse 1, alright, chapter 11 in the book of Genesis, verse 1. The whole earth had the same language and vocabulary. As people migrated from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar and they settled there. And they said to each other, come, let's make oven-fired bricks. They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar and they said, come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let's make a name for ourselves, otherwise we will be scattered throughout the earth. And the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. And the Lord said, if they begun to do this as one people, all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. So, pause right there for just a moment. Adrian Rogers, when he would preach this, he had a way of titling sermons. His title for this sermon was Humanity's High Rise to Hell. I've remembered that, yeah, it's a great title, I wish I could do that, but that's what he always called his sermon. But the emphasis here is that what humanity is doing is they are building this tower, what they called a ziggurat, it's a huge idol. They're building this huge idol and what they're wanting to do in the construction of this huge idol is they're wanting to build it all the way up into the heavens. Now hang on for just a moment. Where was the location of God's blessing given to humanity on the land? They wanted to go to the heavens. You see, they wanted to escape the current blessing of God, once again, for what they thought they would be able to accomplish on their own. They wanted to get to the heavens themselves. Doesn't that describe so much of humanity today? We're going to get to heaven because, well, we have constructed for ourselves a tower that will take us all the way to the heavens. And in so doing, they were rejecting the blessing of God to pave their own way. Keep reading verse 7. Come, let us go down there. By the way, you'll notice subtly contained within verse 7, very much like in Genesis chapter 1, God refers to himself as us. Do we see here a shadow of the Old Testament teaching of what would be described for us as the Trinity in the New Testament? I think we do. Let us, Father, Son, and Spirit, let us go down, let us confuse their language so that they will not understand one another's speech. And so from there, the Lord scattered them throughout the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore, it is called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth. And so what we see here is, once again, we see the judgment of God. We saw creation, the separation, the dry land, Adam and Eve. Did God really say? They doubted God. They were removed from the garden. All of the thoughts of humanity were wicked all the time. God began the process of uncreation. The waters came down as the heavens opened up, and everything was being uncreated. But God had made a promise to Noah, never again would he destroy the earth by a flood, rainbow in the sky, remember it. So God would not do that again. But this time, what God did was not the flood, because he promised he wasn't going to, but now he confused their language, and he scattered them, because they tried to leave behind God's blessing to achieve their own satisfaction. But then something monumental happens in Genesis chapter 12. Notice verse 1. The Lord said to Abraham, go from your land, your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on the earth, all the peoples on the land will be blessed through you. And Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, becomes the hope of all of the Jews forever, because what God promised Abraham was threefold. He promised him a land. Leave your land, go to a land that I will show you. He promised him a lineage. I will make you into a great nation, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. He will give him a land. He will give him a lineage, and he will give him a legacy. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you, and anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. And God's promise to the Jews through Abraham was, I will give you a land, I will give you a lineage, and I will give you a legacy. And when we make our way all the way up to Joshua chapter 18, in the minds of the Hebrews, Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, that God has been building toward all the way back at Genesis chapter 1, is coming into possession. They are getting their land. They are getting their lineage, all of the tribes distributing the land amongst themselves, and they are looking for the legacy that everybody who blesses them will be blessed, and everybody who curses them, the Canaanites and the Midianites and the Jebusites and all the otherites, they would be cursed. And so in Joshua chapter 18 and 19, when all of the Hebrews are gathered together and that land is being distributed, they see Genesis chapter 12 and the promise of God being fulfilled in their very lives. Now, you know what is so beautiful about everything that occurs up until that point? Is that we see at work, when we read Scripture carefully, we see at work the invisible hand of providence, God's hand working, even when we don't fully see it. You know, we can take comfort in that today. We don't always see God's hand, but we can know by faith that whatever God is doing, it is good. You see, because throughout Genesis and throughout Exodus, what we see is we see the promise of God made to Abraham being threatened. In Genesis chapter 38, when it looks like the lineage of Judah is going to be cut off because the sons of Judah did not have any children, Judah being the lineage of the Messiah, and it looks like that lineage is going to come to an end with the sons of Judah because none of them had an offspring, and God uses the evil deception, and this is chapter 38, go back and read it, God uses the evil deception of the daughter-in-law of Judah to keep the lineage going. Four hundred years of slavery to the Egyptians, it looks like the lineage, the plan of God is going to come and suffer defeat, and God sends Moses. Before that, there was justice sold into slavery to the Egyptians. A harsh famine comes on the land. Looks like the lineage is going to die in poverty and starvation until God directs them back to Joseph, the very one that had been sold into slavery. The pages of Scripture have hidden within them the subtle hand of God's providence. Providence means that God guides history toward His desired end. Think about what that means for you. We don't always like what occurs, and God doesn't always cause what occurs. Providence doesn't mean that God causes everything, providence means that God governs everything. I want to use two analogies here. First of all, the analogy of bowling. Do you like bowling? No? I didn't either. It's because I was terrible at it. But you have the lane, and on either end of the lane, I liked it when you could put the little bumper in there. That was really good. And you had the gutters. And what God has done in providence is that God doesn't always cause what happens in the lane. He allows it. That's different than saying He causes it. But God has put up boundaries so that it can't go beyond God's allowance. So when we look at things that are going on in the world and we wonder, where is God? Well, God has established His boundaries, and it's not going to go outside of what God allows. That's providence. God is moving all of this world and governing it toward His desired end. But God's providence is not only at the macro level, the big level, God's providence is also at the micro level. He has our lives in His hand, which means He has your life in His hand. The second analogy I want to use, you remember the old football games back before they had video and all that? You had this big green football field, and you'd plug it in, and it had some kind of imbalanced motor on it, and that little green piece of tin would just vibrate, and they'd put those little plastic football players on top of it, you'd plug it in, and it would just rattle and shake, and those players, do you remember that? Yeah? You see, what God often does, is God allows the world to be shaken so that we will move toward Him. God allows the ground beneath us to rattle and tremor and shake, because the truth is that if you and I got too comfortable, we'd be quite content to stay where we are. That was why the Israelites complained in the wilderness when their world was being shaken. Moses, why didn't you just leave us in Egypt? At least we had food and water there. But God has to rattle our world to get us to move. And in this providence, God gives us rest. Knowledge of God's providence allows us to rest, because it assures us that our life is not random or out of control. Providence means that God is actively sustaining the world and directing things toward His wise purposes. When we believe this, we can stop striving to manage every detail of life on our own. Are you a micromanager? You want to have everything under your control. God doesn't allow us to do that. You remember in Acts chapter 17, when Paul is on Mars Hill, Areopagus, and he's wandering around on Acts chapter 17, and there he sees that idol to the unknown gods, right? They have all of those idols constructed. And in Acts chapter 17, Paul is wandering around, verse 22, Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and he said, People of Athens, I see that you are extremely religious in every respect, for I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship. I even found an altar on which was inscribed to an unknown God. Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. Now notice what he says about God. This is Paul's understanding of what God is doing, led by the Spirit. Verse 24, The God who made the world and everything in it, He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live in shrines made by hands, neither is He served by human hands as though He needed anything, since He Himself is everyone, life and breath and all things. And now notice his understanding of providence. Verse 26, From one man, God made every nationality to live over the whole earth and determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, we are His offspring. In other words, what Paul says about the earth is that God has established the time. God has established the boundaries. For what purpose? So that men might seek after Him and know Him and worship Him. You see, in the Bible, the events of what is occurring today are under God's providence so that you and I will seek out God and want to know Him. And that means that even when the world around us is shaken, we can rest knowing that God has it all under control. One of the hymnists would write it this way, This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears all nature's things and round me rings the music of the spheres. This is my Father's world, I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees and skies and seas, His hand of wonders wrought. This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise, the morning light the lily white, declare their maker's praise. This is my Father's world, He shines in all that's fair, in rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere. This is my Father's world, O ne'er let me forget, that though the wrong seems all so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world, why should my heart be sad? The Lord is King, let the heavens ring, God reigns, let the earth be glad. In other words, what Joshua 18-19 is, is that Israelites' realization that these hundreds of years of suffering are giving way to the realization of God's promises. And even that realization is but a shadow of what God is really doing. You see, because we read in Revelation 21 that there is a new creation, and that I saw a new heaven, and I saw a new earth. Now read that with the story of Genesis in mind. Creation, beautiful rivers, vineyards, trees, animals, they're perfect. Skunks don't stink, mosquitoes don't sting. Bye. Uncreation, flood, judgment, scattered. Recreation, gathered, a new heaven, a new earth. The first earth had passed away. The sea was no more. Judgment was no more. The new earth was not covered in the sea of judgment. I also saw in verse 2, the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. And then I heard a loud voice from the throne, look, God's dwelling is with humanity. And he will live with them. And they will be his people. And God himself will be with them and will be their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Grief, crying and pain will be no more. Because the previous things have passed away. And then there was one seated on the throne who said, look, I am making everything new. He also said, right, because these words are faithful and true. You see, Joshua chapter 18 and 19 is a shadow of God's promise of eternal blessing. It's not the division of real estate. It's the realization of God's fulfillment of his promise. And yet it is but a shadow of that ultimate fulfillment. And so today, you and I, we can live with confidence and courage, resting in the hand of God, not shaken by the chaos of this world, because you and I can truly sing, this is my father's world. Father, we thank you so much for the truths of your word. And when our memories are often short, we pray, oh God, that you would remind us, that you would remind us how rich is your word and how real is our hope and how genuine is our faith. While we wait for that new city, that new heaven, that new earth, where there we will dwell with you. No more death, no more disease, no more destruction, only joy. May we rest in that, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, good to see you this morning. Thank you so much for being here.
