Joshua 20

Hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to be at Joshua chapter 20. Remember back way in the day when we talked about these cities of refuge? Where do people go if somebody is accused of murder or it's manslaughter? What do they do? Well, today it's going to come to reality. What are those cities going to be and where will they go?
Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to get to read your word. Father, we pray that you would please help us to understand it. We pray that it would give us direction, even for our souls. Lord, we need your spirit to teach us. We need you to help us. And so Father, we pray for it in Jesus's name. Amen. Here we go. Joshua chapter 20. It's a shorter chapter, only nine verses.
The Lord also spoke to Joshua, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint for yourselves cities of refuge, which I spoke to you through Moses, that the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there, and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
And when he flees to one of those cities and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declares his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, that they shall take him to the city as one of them, and give him a place that he may dwell among them. Then, if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hands, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.
So they appointed Kadesh in Galilee. I'm going to open up the screen here so if you're watching with the video you can see that. If you're listening you might want to go look at the video later if you want to see the map. So they appointed Kadesh in Galilee.
So Kadesh here is where that's talking about. in the mountains of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, so here's Shechem, here, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah, so here's Hebron down here.
And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho, eastward, they assigned Betser, which is in the wilderness on the plain. So here is Betser. So here's the Jordan River on the other side of it. There's Betser. and then from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead. So here's Ramoth here. So there's Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad and Golan in Bashan. So here's Golan. You may know or hear of Golan even today when you hear about things going on in the Golan Heights, right? So that's where this is.
So from the tribe of Gad and Golan and Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh, these were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwelt among them, that whoever killed a person accidentally might flee there. and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation." So this was a place of safe haven. This is one of the places where our ancestors legally used to look to for innocent until proven guilty, right? Somebody has killed someone and they know there might be heat between the people, but you need to have a place where this person could go to And you could gather witnesses and find out, did this person have premeditation? Was there bad blood between the two of them? Had anybody heard of a plan that he was going to kill them? Or was this really an accident? Was this a tragic mistake?
And so you got to give time for that peace to settle, right? The guy's not on, it's not quite prison, but it's not quite house arrest either, because he's eventually going to get to go home. But there's got to be time for things to settle. So this is one of the ways that the Lord is preserving, protecting life.
And you'll notice as we look at the map here, I'm going to point to, right, whether it's Kedesh or Golan or Ramuth or Betzer or Shechem or Hebron, right, these different places are throughout on the east and the west side of the Jordan River. Why? Right.
This is so that no matter where somebody was, they could flee and get there. There was a plausible way, a possibility for them to actually go. If it was just one place, if it was just Kedesh, way up here, then somebody, if this tragedy happened down in Judah, down by the Dead Sea, how would they go all the way up north like that? They might be overrun, but this gives them a good chance of being able to actually get there.
So I think the Lord strategically had these cities set in place for that reason. What's this about, right? So A, what's this about? Well, this is about the cities of refuge. These six cities of refuge that are on both sides of the Jordan River given. Why are those cities there? Well, those cities are there in case there was manslaughter or somebody who killed someone and they need to figure out whether it was manslaughter or murder. So this is about justice being carried out and a plan for that.
What's the best verse to summarize this, right? So B, what's the best verse to summarize this? In my Bible, I have verse 1 and 2 and 3 underlined, right? And then from there it kind of goes on into all the contingencies type type stuff but they need cities and here's the reason why in the verses seven through nine actually talks about where those cities are and stuff like that so i think one through three one and two especially uh one two and three are especially the verses that i think summarize this portion so last c calling what are we called to do well Do we love justice?
Do we presume innocence? Do we think the best of people? And yet, do we uphold that there's a jury of peers, right? Did you notice it's the congregation who's judging? There's so much of our law that we don't realize sometimes mirrors biblical law for a reason. I'm not saying that it does perfectly. There's a lot of English common law in American law, but there is a purpose for some of what we see in our nation and some of the principles that our founding fathers looked to at one point. We also have a lot of Roman law that's built into our system. This is not a history lesson on that per se, but the point being that God cared about justice amongst his people. Do we care about justice today?
Bye. Do we look at people and see them as automatically guilty until they must prove their innocence, or do we, hold on, wait, let's get the evidence, let's find out, let's see what's actually happening here. What is going on? Do we jump to judgment?
But also do we see, right, I'm one of those people who do not like when I get the jury duty letters, but are we the type of people who are actually willing to serve because we want justice, both for the accused and for those who may be getting prosecuted, and so are the victims as well.
So we must be those who are about truth, right? Because God is that God who has set up this system, and so we get to serve this God of justice. I think we get to love this God of justice and serve this God of justice. So I think we are called to walk in the light as He is in the light, to love truth as He is truth. And so I think this has a lot to show us as these different cities were given for purpose, for refuge.
But you know what? Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God, because we know, we know from the words of Jesus that if we've ever hated somebody, we've already committed murder in our hearts. And so what's our refuge? What's our strong tower? But God Himself. Well, may the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. May you run to Him for refuge always. And I'll see you next time. Bye.