THROUGH THE BIBLE - Joshua 2..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Very good, brethren. As I said, I want to speak to you about the good promises of the Lord, the good promises of the Lord.

And I want to do so from Joshua chapter 21. And that is because here in Joshua chapter 1, chapter 21, we do not only have a couple of verses that particularly speak about the good promises of the Lord, but also because in Joshua chapter 21, we have the fulfillment of one of the good promises of the Lord. As you remember, we have been going through this book of Joshua, speaking about this allocation of the land. You remember each one of the tribes is receiving a portion of the land. Not only the tribes are receiving a portion of land, but even Joshua received a city as an inheritance.

And now in the last couple of chapters, we find ourselves dealing with the Levites. As you remember, the Levites were not supposed to receive a portion of the land. Remember that? Who was the portion of the Levites? The Lord was the portion of the Levites.

But as we're going to see here in this chapter 21, it's not that the Levites are going to exist and survive only on the spiritual provision of the Lord. But the Lord is also going to provide for them the physical provision that they need. And that is going to be in 48 cities that are going to be allocated and going to be given to the Levites. If you remember, as I have said already, the Levites were in the ministry of serving the tabernacle of the Lord. There were four different types of clans in the Levites.

The first one was the Sons of Aaron. Remember Aaron? The Sons of Aaron. The Sons of Aaron were supposed to be the priests. After that, we have the second clan of the Levites who are the Kohathites.

The Kohathites were supposed to be in charge of the tabernacle and all the holy items of the tabernacle. After that, we have the Gershonites. The Gershonites also were in charge of the articles or the decorations of the tabernacle. And finally, we have the Merorites. who was another clan of the Levites who were in charge of all the external parts of the tabernacle.

Initially, they were entrusted to carry and to take the tabernacle from one place to another, but they were also serving there in the tabernacle. What we're going to be reading here in chapter 21, May Your Brother, May Your Sister, is the allocation of the physical provision for the Levites. For these four clans, 48 cities are going to be distributed to the sons of Aaron, to the Kohathites, to the Gershonites and to the Merorites. 48 cities are going to be distributed among them out of the inheritance that was given to the tribes of the people of Israel. And just from that very point, just from that statement, there we learn just a couple of things, my dear brother and my dear sister.

The first one is that the Lord provides for the physical needs of those who serve Him, right? The Levites, in this case, are going to receive the physical provision. And that physical provision, brethren, is through the people of God. It's the tribes, once they have received the land, out of the inheritance that the tribes have received, they're going to give these 48 cities to the Levites that are going to be scattered all throughout Israel. And why are they going to be scattered?

Because the Israel or the Levite is the one that was entrusted with the teaching ministry of the Word of God. We're going to be reading this here, brethren, and this is a fulfillment of a promise that God had given to Moses before. And we're going to read it here, all the details of the allocation of these cities to these four clans of the Levites. So having that in our minds, let us come now to the text, 45 verses we have, my dear brother and sister. We're going to be reading the details of that allocation of those 48 cities to the four clans of the Levites, the sons of Aaron, the Kohathites, the Gershonites and the Merorites as a fulfillment of a good promise of the Lord.

Let us then read these verses and may the Lord speak to us, even as we read, that we will do it in faith and by the Spirit. Let us pay attention to each one of the words, my dear brother and sister, let us read together. This is Joshua chapter 21. Then the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came to Eleazar the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the people of Israel. And they said to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, The Lord commanded through Moses that we be given cities to dwell in, along with their pasture lands for our livestock.

So, by command of the Lord, the people of Israel gave to the Levites the following cities and pasturelands out of their inheritance. 4. The Lord came out for the clans of the Kohathites. So those Levites who were descendants of Aaron and the priest received by lot from the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin, 13 cities. And the rest of the Kohathites received by lot from the clans of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan and the half tribe of Manasseh, 10 cities.

The Gershonites, received by Lot from the clans of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan, 13 cities. The Mererites, according to their clans, received from the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, the tribe of Zebulun, 12 cities. Cities. Let's see what cities were given. Verse 8.

These cities and their pasture lands the people of Israel gave by law to the Levites as the Lord had commanded through Moses. Out of the tribe of the people of Judah and the tribe of the people of Simeon, they gave the following cities mentioned by name, which went to the descendants of Aaron, one of the clans of the Kohathites who belonged to the people of Levi, since the Lord fell to them first. They gave them Kiriath Arba, Arba being the father of Anak, that is, Hebron, in the hill country of Judah, along with its pasture lands around it. But the fields of the city and its villages had been given to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, as his possession. And to the descendants of Aaron, the priest, they gave Hebron, the city of refuge for the manslayer, with its pasturelands, Livnah with its pasturelands, Jethir with its pasturelands, Eshtemoa with its pasturelands, Holon with its pasturelands, Debir with its pasturelands, Ein with its pasturelands, Juthah with its pasturelands, Beth-shemesh with its pasture-lands, nine cities out of these two tribes.

Then, out of the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its pasture-lands, Geba with its pasture-lands, Anathot with its pasture-lands, and Ammon with its pasture-lands, four cities. The cities of the descendants of Aaron, the priests, were in all thirteen cities with their pasture-lands. Second clan. As to the rest of the Kohathites belonging to the Kohathite clans of the Levites, the cities allotted to them were out of the tribe of Ephraim. To them were given Shechem, The city of refuge for the manslayer, with its pasture lands in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer, with its pasture lands.

Gibzaim, with its pasture lands. Beth Huron, with its pasture lands. Four cities. And out of the tribe of Dan, El Teke, with its pasture lands. Gibethon, with its pasture lands.

Aijalon, with its pasture lands. Gadrimon, with its pasture lands. Four cities. And out of the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanak, with its pasture lands. Agadrimon with its pasture lands, two cities.

The cities of the clan of the rest of the Cahothites were ten in all with their pasture lands. Next clan, 27. And to the Gershonites, one of the clans of the Levites were given out of the half-tribe of Manasseh. Golan in Bashan with its pasture lands, the city of refuge for the manslayer. And Beshtera with its pasture lands, two cities.

And out of the tribe of Issachar, Kishan with his pasture lands, Dabirath with his pasture lands, Jarmuth with his pasture lands, Enganim with his pasture lands, four cities. And out of the tribe of Asher, Mishal with his pasture lands, Abdon with his pasture lands, Hilkat with his pasture lands, and Rehov with his pasture lands, four cities. And out of the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with his pasture lands, the city of refuge for the men's lair, Hamath Dor with its pasture lands, and Katan or Kartan with its pasture lands, three cities. The cities of the several clans of the Gershonites were in all 13 cities with their pasturelands. Next one, 34.

And to the rest of the Levites, the Merorite clans were given out of the tribe of Zebulon, Jokneam with its pasturelands, Karta with its pasturelands, Dibna with its pasturelands, Nahalal with its pasturelands, four cities. And out of the tribe of Rumen, Bezer with his pasture lands, Jehas with his pasture lands, Kedemoth with his pasture lands, and Mephath with his pasture lands, four cities. And out of the tribe of Gad, Ramat in Gilead with his pasture lands, the city of refuge for the men's lair. Mahanaim with his pasture lands. Hirshbon with his pasture lands.

Jaser with his pasture lands. Four cities in all. As for the cities of the several Meroite clans, that is, the remainder of the clans of the Levites, those allotted to them were in all 12 cities. The cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the people of Israel were in all 48 cities with their pasture lands. These cities each had its pasture lands around it.

So it was with all these cities. Now, verse 43. Thus, The Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their fathers.

Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands." Verse 45. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. Amen.

This is the reading of the word of the Lord. And as I said, my dear brother and sister, after we have explained and see here how the Levites received a portion of their lands, not only a spiritual portion, but also a physical portion for their needs and how the Lord has fulfilled that promise that was given to Moses. Now we see here in these last verses, this glorious statement that speaks of the good promises of the Lord. And the reason why I want to speak to you and to me and to us about the good promises of the Lord is because that is the main intention of the author, Joshua, perhaps, of this chapter 21. We have there that glorious verse in verse 45 that says, Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed.

All came to pass. The promises that the Lord had made for the people of Israel, unto the people, or for the people of Israel were not only promises, they were good promises. And what we are told about those promises, my dear brother and sister, very clearly is that those promises were fulfilled. And Joshua, not only wanting to use that word being fulfilled, he's going to present the fulfillment of those promises in the negative and also in the positive. We have there in verse 45 that he says, Not even one word of all the good promises that God gave to Israel failed.

Not even one word. In the negative saying, not even one of the words that the Lord spoke to the people of Israel failed. But being the negative not enough for Joshua, then also in the positive, it says in the end of the verse, all of them came to pass. All of the good promises of the Lord given to the people of Israel were fulfilled. Not one word of those good promises failed.

All of them came to pass. But what are those promises, brother? What are the promises that George is speaking about here in verse 45 of chapter 21? Well, he has given us those promises in verses 43 and verse 44. Two promises that comprise all the promises that God gave to the people of Israel as they enter into the land.

Two important promises that will help us to understand the nature of the good promises of the Lord for His people. Verse 43, you have the first promise that was fulfilled, that not even one word failed. It says in verse 43, "...Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that He swore to give to their fathers." The first part of the first promise given to the people of Israel was the land.

The land, as we are told there in verse 43, was to be taken by possession and also the Israelites were to be settled in the land that the Lord was given. That is the first part of the promise that God was given to the people of Israel. And the second part of this promise of God, this good promise of God for the people of Israel is given to us in verse 44. The first one was the land, the second one you can see there in verse 44, and the Lord God gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their fathers. The second part of the promise was rest.

The promise of the Lord for the people of Israel was that they were going to take possession of the land and settle there. And secondly, that they were going to be victorious over all their enemies and that they were going to have rest, that the works and their deeds and all the things that they had to do to take possession of the land will come to an end. They will enter into the land and they will have rest. They will be victorious. They will have peace in this new land.

land that the Lord was given to the people of Israel. This is what we clearly see there from this good promise of the Lord. But there's a couple of things, my dear brother and sister, that we have there in the text that will help us to see not only the plane and the meaning of those letters there, but to go deeper into the intention of the author and what we have here in verse or in Chapter 21 of the Book of Joshua. Let me share with you, according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, a couple of things that we ought to see here from those verses of the nature of the good promise of the Lord for Israel and for His people. A couple of things that if we see, we're not only going to see the heart of the Lord towards His people, but also we're going to see the great fulfillment in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

A couple of things from this text that if we observed and we see as it is written there, we are going to be taken, I hope, by the Spirit to see the love of Christ and the faithfulness of Christ and the promises of God in Christ that are always yes and amen and always all the sovereign decree of the Lord for us in the person of Jesus Christ. A couple of things that are very important for us to have in our mind. The first one, my dear brother and sister, is that I want you to see that the nature of these good promises of God for His people is covenantal in nature. Once again, the nature of these good promises of God for the people of Israel is covenantal in nature. Did you pay attention to the language that is used for those two promises in 43 and 44?

It says, And thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore. Literally, it's an oath that was given. An oath was given. The Lord gave the land to the people of Israel that the Lord had swore to give to their fathers. The name that we have here for the Lord is Jehovah or Yahweh, the covenantal name of the Lord.

And here the author calls our attention to not only Israel entering into the promised land, but the oath that God had given to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. The people of Israel were entering into the land and receiving this promise because of a covenantal relationship that had with Abraham, God had with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and of course, with the people of Israel through Moses. The same vocabulary we see there for the 2nd promise in verse 44. You see there, verse 43, "...sworn the Lord swore these to the fathers..."

in verse 44, about the rest, the 2nd part of the promise we have, "...and the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their fathers." These promises given to the people of God were covenantal in nature. If the Lord was fulfilling these promises in this very moment, it's because he had entered into a covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. And it's by virtue of that covenantal relationship of the Lord with the chosen people of God, that these promises are now given and fulfilled to the people of Israel.

But that takes us to a second important thing that we are to see here, because covenantal is not only a legal term in which now God is going to commit himself to fulfill this promise. Here, my dear brother and sister, we see the glorious, the glory better of what this covenantal relationship entails between God and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Moses and the people of Israel. And that is that God has entered into a special relationship with these people. Now, we use that word many times, so many times that at times we diminish the powerful value of what that word means, relationship. But God had entered into a genuine relationship with the people of Israel through this covenant that was started with Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob, and now with the people of Israel.

a relationship with these people that had been chosen from all the nations to inherit the land and to have peace and to have rest from all their enemies. And this relationship is not only a relationship that is a legal abstract term, but rather is a covenantal relationship in which the presence of the Lord was among the people of Israel. And that presence and that connection, that relationship was glorious and was also very, very manifested between the people of Israel and God. Let me show you how that relationship is seen in verse 45. This was a personal relationship, if you want, God with His people.

Verse 45, we have these words there in English that say, Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. That is a very good and beautiful translation that we have there in English that speaks of everything that we need to know about that verse is completely given to us in the English translation. However, let me just show you a little bit of the more literal meaning of some of the words of this verse that you can just simply find yourself even beyond this pulpit or beyond this time. Some of the literal meaning of those words there, because Joshua is trying to speak something very important about the relationship between God and the people of Israel and the good promises that God has given to the people of Israel.

There are three or four words that are translated very accurately in our English language, but they could be translated more literally and will give us a little bit of a greater glimpse into this verse. The first word, my dear brother and sister, is the word promises. that word promises you see there in verse 45 i don't know what other translations will have this is the esv the word promise in verse 45 is literally translated word so no promises but literally translated word is the same word as the previous one word okay The second word that I want you to pay attention there in verse 45 that will give us a greater glimpse into what Joshua is trying to communicate is the word made. It says not one word of all the good promises or the good words that the Lord had made. That word there literally is speak.

Speak. OK, that is the second word that is literally not make, but speak. And then, thirdly, the other word that I want you to pay attention to is the word failed. That is a very good translation in English, but that word literally means fall to the ground. Fall to the ground.

Something that falls. That's the way you pronounce it, right? Fall. Falls to the ground. That is the word fail.

And then, finally, the word came to pass, which is only one word. It's also, again, a very good translation that gives sense in our English understanding, but the word literally means to enter or to arrive or to go in to arrive. So literally we have here something like this. And the intention of the other is to show us this good aspect of the promises of the Lord. Not one word of all the good words that the Lord spoke to the people of Israel fell to the ground.

All of them arrived." Brethren, brethren, not one word of all the good words that God spoke, not to everyone, but that God spoke to the people of Israel fell to the ground, but they arrived. Brethren, this is a very powerful language that speaks not only of a legal thing that he is now deciding to do because of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but rather, my dear brother and sister, he has chosen a people unto himself and he speaks words unto them and not even one of those words is going to fall to the ground. In other words, all of those words will arrive to completion, as he has said, that he will bring completion for each one of the words. My dear brother, my dear sister, this is the good words of the Lord.

Think about the words of men. How many times have your words fallen to the ground? How many times your words or someone else's words have fallen to the ground? How many times your words or my words or someone else's words have not arrived, have not entered in? How many times these words have literally falling to the ground.

My dear brother, my dear sister, the words of our Lord and Savior always enter and arrive to the point that He has intended. Not even one of His words will fail. Not even one of His words will fall to the ground. This is this glorious covenantal relationship that He entered with His people. But brethren, you remember that this relationship with Israel was contingent upon obedience.

Because, brethren, they are not going to take possession of the fullness of the land. They are not going to defeat all the enemies. And it was good that it was like that. Why? Because then they will be pointed to their inability to fulfill the requirements of the Lord.

And more importantly, one greater than Joshua will come. The Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen. All the words that the Father has spoken to the Son have not fallen to the ground. They have arrived to the point that they needed to arrive. And all of those who are united in the Lord Jesus Christ receive the words of the Lord, not falling to the ground.

This is the good promises of the Lord, my dear brother and sister. These are the good words of the Lord that what He has said unto us by virtue of the Lord Jesus Christ, it will come to completion. His character is excellent. His heart is perfect. There is no evil in Him.

Everything that He says is true. And what a glorious blessing it is to know this God. What a glorious blessing it is to be united to Him in the Lord Jesus Christ, because apart from Christ, brother, the same thing applies. God has given promises, not only to His people, but to this world, that there is going to be a day in which the living and the dead are going to be judged. And that is actually going to take place.

And just as He has given these good promises unto His people, the promises that He has given unto this world of what He's going to do will come to pass. And brethren, what a terrible thing it will be for us all to be found on that day outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, and receiving the fulfillment of the promises of the Lord, and to judgment on their own. But brethren, Praise be the Lord, that by grace through faith He has set unto Himself a remnant from this world. He has saved a people unto Himself for whom this glorious statement will be set, and that they come to me and enjoy the joy of the Lord, enter into the rest of the Lord, faithful servants enter into the presence of the Lord. Why?

Because He died upon that cross, my dear brother and sister, because He gave His life for us, that we will have His life and enjoy eternity with Him. Not even one word of the Lord will fall to the ground. All of them will arrive and make it in. Amen.