Joshua, The Fulfillment Of God's Promises. Series

Back into the deep dive into scripture; Joshua. Joshua 14:1-6 and Joshua18:1-8.

We had previously, last year, looked at Joshua and the defeat of Jericho, we had journeyed that far in the Old Testament, my first few sermons of 2025 were about living victoriously in Christ. But back to Joshua the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land. That being the land that was promised to (who?) Abraham and his descendants, around 400 years earlier, Genesis 12:7. This is a declaration that God reiterates with Issac, Jacob and Moses. Remember that the land was not given immediately to Abram as he was known then because, “The sin of the Amorites had not yet reached its full measure.” The reference for that is Genesis 15:16. Note that God exists outside of space and time as well as in it, he knows the future and was merciful, loving and longsuffering. The Amorites sin took another 400 years to reach its full measure. There are a few fairly heavy concepts in just that paragraph. Don’t get stuck there let’s move on.

The Hebrew people had crossed into The Promised Land, we remember that as they put their feet into the Jordan River the water backed up all the way to a place called Adam. Then they went onto conquer many cities, including the city of Ai and here you were thinking AI was a new thing. There is lots of depictions of what happened in the book of Joshua, warfare, defeat of the inhabitants of the land apart from one cunning group called the Gibonite’s who came up with a cunning plan, that was so cunning it could have in Edmond Blackadder’s words; “Have been a Fox, who was just appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University.” You can read about that in chapter nine.

Straight up, the Hebrew people, this newish nation of the descendants of Jacob, AKA Israel, were going through the promised land AKA Canaan, following the instructions of The Lord clearing out those who were in the land and establishing their own territory. The book was written most likely between 1400 and 1370 BC by Joshua son on Nun, yip the man himself.

So we come through much conquering of the Canaanite peoples, taking of land, this is fairly gruesome stuff but they took the Promised land. Eventually, the Amorites time was up.

We come to chapter 14, and it is quite an interesting read. We get a description of the division of the land of Isreal; this is tied to how Moses had divided the land. We will come back to this soon when I discuss chapter 18. In verse 6 of chapter 14 this old bloke called Caleb, old I said, well he’s 85 years old, there might be a few here who consider that youngish. Well Caleb rocks up to Joshua and reminds him of an earlier time, back when they were in their early forties. Remember back in Numbers 13, there were 12 men sent into spy out the land, including Hoshea of the tribe of Ephriam and Caleb from the tribe of Judah. Moses changed Hoshea’s name to Joshua. Caleb was the one out of two spies who reported that, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” When the others chickened out. As a result, Caleb is given the land that God had promised him he would have, some forty-five years earlier. That land was Hebron. So, we have had this man of courage, of determination come to the leader of the people ‘Joshua’ and remind him of an historical promise of God.

Right then we see another of God’s promise fulfilled, it may have taken time. The negativity of other people may have interfered with that promise, but the promises of God are always fulfilled, they are (will be) landed, they are (will be) completed. That’s two in this message already. The nation of Israel scores the Promised land, and Caleb scores Hebron. There were other promises fulfilled as part of these being landed also. Promises to Isaac, Jacob and Moses. A condition for these promises being fulfilled was connected to what God said to Joshua in Chapter one of Joshua, verses 5b-7 “I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and of good courage; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them….being careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you; turn not to the right hand or the left, that you may have good success wherever you go….etc.”

I started with a comment about chapter 14 with the land was divided between the tribes, it all appears to be a done deal, but if we look at chapter 18, it’s a bit murkier than that, not quite straight forward. As the first two verses of Chapter 18 state. “The whole assembly/congregation of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. The country was brought under their control, but there were still seven Israelite tribes who had not yet received their inheritance.” The revised stand version of the scriptures has Joshua saying, ”How long will you be slack to go in and take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?” These people had just been called slackers by their leader, not a good reputation to have or image to carry.