A Gracious and Covenant-Keeping God

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn over in your Bibles with me to the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 21. Joshua chapter 21, and we'll go through the whole chapter together this morning. It's been really great as we have worked through the book of Joshua and seen God's covenant faithfulness the whole time.

He brought His people across The Jordan River, when He parted those waters, He made the walls of Jericho fall. He defeated Ai. He went on and defeated all the different coalitions of kings who were against the Israelites. He divided up the land. And now we come to the very last people to get their portion. The Levites.

And like last time, instead of reading it all at once, we're going to work through it section by section together and see how God's faithfulness, His graciousness, and His covenant-keeping nature go through this entire chapter. roadmap for you, maybe a table of contents for you to look at as we go through.

First Point

First we're going to see in verses 1 through 3 that it's by faith the Levites are going to ask for this land. And then in verses 4 through 8 we're going to see that it's God himself who allotted these cities to the people. And then there are verses 8 through 40 we're actually going to list out what those cities are and see that by faith the people of God actually obeyed. And then lastly, verse 41 through 45 gives us a summary, not just of this section, but everything that has come before it, showing us that God is gracious and is a covenant-keeping God. So first, verses 1 through 3. Let's read those now. Look with me.

Joshua chapter 21, Then the heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their common lands for our livestock. The children of Israel gave the Levites, from their inheritance, at the command of the Lord, these cities and their common land. See, it was God Himself who had told the Israelites to do this. In Numbers chapter 35, the first 8 verses, the Lord Himself had said when they entered into the land, they were to give them these 48 different cities. They were not going to have any actual territory, but instead they were going to have little bits, little towns all throughout Israel. And time and time again, as we've gone through the distribution of the land, there was this refrain.

But the Levites had no inheritance. For the priesthood was their inheritance. Their inheritance was serving the Lord. that's great that they have you know the the priesthood as their inheritance but their kids still needed new shoes right their wives still needed to eat they still needed to have the ability to perform the priesthood and so the lord provides for them for that yeah they're not going to get an inheritance as in a whole territory but they do need to be able to sustain themselves but notice where we are in the whole book of Joshua. When did the Levites get their cities? Did they come right away and say, the Lord commanded, you better do it right now, give us our cities? No. Did they do it in the middle of the distribution of the land?

Say, hey, hey, don't forget about us. No. The Levites showed their humility and their patience by waiting, waiting until everybody else's households were settled, waiting until everybody else's land was distributed, and then came at Shiloh and asked Eleazar and asked Joshua, remember what the Lord did. Remember what God had commanded. This is their act of faith. Trusting. God commanded it, so we ought to do it. And so their faith is on display here for it. And what actually happens?

Look with me at verses 4 through 8 as we see God appointing the different allotments for them. Now the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites and the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin. The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by the lot from the families of the tribes of Ephraim, and the tribe of Dan, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh. And the children of Gershon had thirteen cities by the lot, from the families of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. The children of Merari, according to their families, had twelve cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common lands by law to the Levites, as the Lord had commanded by the hands of Moses."

Well, to understand this, we need to understand a little bit of family history. And just as a note and chalk and talk, I'm going to actually show those family trees and where some of these cities are so you can get a visual of this in the afternoon. But Levi has three sons. Remember, you have Jacob. Jacob has his 11 children. And then you have, of those 12 tribes, you end up with Levi. And with Levi, he has three sons. Kohath, Gershon, and Merari. Each one of them have different jobs. The Levites, all of them have a job when it comes to the tabernacle. Some of them take care of the tent. Some of them take care of the metal things.

Some of them, like the Kohathites, take care of the holiest of things. But not all Kohathites are priests. Kohath had a descendant, and his name was Aaron. And it was only Aaron and his children who were to be the priests themselves, the ones actually making the sacrifice, the one actually burning the incense, the one actually having the high priest to go into the Holy of Holies. And so we start with the priests in verse 4. They are Kohathites, but they're a subsection. These are the sons of Aaron, the priests.

The rest of the tribe, not the tribe, but the family of Kohith gets 10 cities in verse 5. Gershon, one of the other sons of Levi in verse 6, he gets 13 cities. And then Merari in verse 7, he gets 12 cities. Notice that the allotment is from all the tribes. All of them give in. But there's a question. It's great that the Lord you know, determines the lots. But that doesn't mean that people are actually going to do it. So let's look at what happens in verse 8 through 40.

And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common land by lot to the Levites, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. So they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah, and from the tribe of the children of Simeon, these cities which are designated by name. Just to let you know, as normal, I'm going to butcher these, just keep reading. which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, for the Lot was theirs first. And they gave them Kiriath Arba. Arba was the father of Anak, which is Hebron, and the mountains of Judah, with a common land surrounding it.

But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and as his possession. Now isn't that interesting? Caleb is the one who says, give me Kirjath Arba. I know there's giants who live there. There are Anakim there, and I'm going to go destroy it. I'm going to go conquer that town. And what does he do when he turns around? It's time to give the Levites cities. This man of God continues to live by faith.

And He gives Hebron, the city itself, the city proper, to the Levites. Verse 13 continues, Thus to the children of Aaron, the priests, they gave Hebron with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Libna with its common land, Jetir with its common land, Eshtimoa with its common land, Holon with its common land, Debir with its common land, Ein with its common land, Jeta with its common land, Beth Shemesh with its common land, nine cities from those two tribes. And from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common land, Geba with its common land, Anathoth with its common land, and Almon with its common land, four cities. All the children of Aaron, the priests, were 13 cities with their common land."

So verses 9 through 19, there we got the city specifically given to the priests. What about the rest of Koheth? Well, they come in this next part, verses 20 through 26. And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the children of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from the tribe of Ephraim. For they gave them Shechem with its common land in the mountains of Ephraim, a city of refuge for the slayer, Gezer with its common land, Kibzim with its common land, and Beth-horon with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Dan, Alteca with its common land, Gibethon with its common land, Ejilon with its common land, and Gathrimon with its common land, four cities. From the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanakh with its common land, and Gathrimon with its common land, two cities. All the cities with their common lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kohath. So that's the wrap up of the Kohathites. So one of the three sons is done. So now we move to the next son, Gibeon.

Also to the children of Gershon, the families of the Levites, from the other half-tribe of Manasseh, they gave Golan and Bashan with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer. and Eshterah with its common land, two cities. And from the city of Issachar, Kishyon with its common land, Daburath with its common land, Jarmuth with its common land, and In Ganim with its common land. four cities. And from the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its common land, Abdan with its common land, Helkath with its common land, and Rehob with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer.

Hamath-dur with its common land, and Kartan with its common land, three cities. All the cities of the Gershonites, according to their families, were 13 cities with their common lands. Son number two has been given his cities. Now for the final son, the Merarites.

And to the family of Merari, the rest of the Levites, from the tribe of Zebulun, Jachnim with its common land, Karta with its common land, Dimna with its common land, and Nahalal with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common land, Jahaz with its common land, Kedemoth with its common land, and Mespaath with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth, and Gilead, with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Mahanaim, with its common land, Heshbon, with its common land, and Jazir, with its common land, four cities in all. So all the cities of the children of Merari, according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites, were, by their lot, twelve cities. And then the summary in verse 41. All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were 48 cities with their common lands. Every one of these cities and its common land surrounding it. Thus were all these cities.

You know, we might read a passage like that and go, oh man. But let me suggest to you that there's a few things to look at here. First is that God cares about things being done well and orderly. The administration of the nation needed to be done. And so this was important to the long-standing nature of Israel. But also, just this past week on Saturday, Terry was over here speaking of the generosity of your forebears in the faith. who gave and gave and gave, even sometimes out of their, not their plenty, out of their want to go and care for others.

You know, the Levites didn't have to obey. They had fallen wills just like us. It very well could have been at this point, we could have expected something very different. That the Levites said well we don't really want to do this whole sojourning in the land thing we really want our own land and so we're just gonna go move over to Moab and conquer that we're just gonna have our own land it could have been that they came to Eleazar into Joshua and Joshua said you know what guys everybody's just tired we're just I know that God promised that but let's just just be content okay just live in Shiloh and around that and you'll be fine or it could have been that the people heard this command they said hold on we're the ones who conquered these cities we're the ones who killed the Kings we're the ones who took over the houses we're the ones who did all the hard work why do these guys get to walk in here and get the best cities it's not hard too hard to imagine that is it that One side or both sides would disobey God's commandments, but this is next to a miracle here.

The Holy Spirit is so working in these people's hearts that they obey the Lord. By faith, they obey God. God had been gracious and God had been faithful to these people. The question at this pregnant moment was, would they be faithful to God's commands? to give, even out of their own inheritance.

But we also have to ask, why would God scatter them all over the place? I mean, they got cities in Simeon, they got cities in Judah, they got cities up in Ephraim, and over in Dan, and on the other side of the Jordan River, they got half Manasseh over there. Why are they all over the place? Why didn't God put them in one location? Because God continued to be gracious.

Matthew Henry, when he was writing on this passage, he said something I wasn't expecting. He said, you know what happens to a bunch of Levites when you get them all alone by themselves? They might be tempted to become lazy. Nobody's watching them. Nobody's making sure that they're still maintaining holiness. If they're not accountable to anybody, then they're likely to start failing. And so the people of God are able to ensure that the Levites are continuing on with the work. But not all of them are at the temple all the time.

So what are they supposed to be doing? They took the people to censor the book. They told the people all throughout Israel, reminding them week after week after week, here are the promises of God, here's what God said to Moses, here's what the law is, here is what we are to be as a people. And so both the people keeping the Levites accountable, but also the Levites being the constant covenant reminders to the people.

In a real way, they live their lives as a picture. of this ongoing reality that they don't have a permanent home. They're sojourners in the land. That's what God actually called the Levites. His sojourners. Never going to actually take down deep roots and be able to buy another field and establish their own colony, you know, have their own town hall. There's no Levite town hall. Because the Levites don't have a town, they have cities, but they don't They don't have enough area around to have their own government. They live as sojourners. They're living as sojourners in the land, in their little isolated cities, apart from the rest of their families, to continue to remind people of God's covenant, to remind people of who God is and what He's done. But then the very last few verses of this passage really get at the carotid artery of this whole issue. Look with me at verses 43 through 45.

So the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he had sworn to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around according to all that he had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel.

All came to pass. This is the heartbeat of the passage. This is the rhythm of the book of Joshua. God is faithful. God promised and God was going to do it. Be strong and of good courage, Joshua. Do not be afraid. Keep my words in your mouth. Meditate on them day and night. Because God is going to continue to be faithful.

Now His people are called to live by faith. And He had done it. At this point, they had conquered all the kings who had come against them. At this point, they had done all this. God had given them the land. God had made a promise to Abraham hundreds of years before.

Remember, Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Just one dude. Builds up a family. He doesn't even have an heir, a wife, her maidservant. servants, but he doesn't have a son by his wife, Sarah. And in that place of absolute destitute, God says to him, I'm going to make your descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky. And here they are hundreds of years later, and they have to give 48 cities just to the Levites. God had promised Abraham.

He said, you see the ground you're standing on? Look around, buddy. All of it is going to be yours. I wonder how the Israelites felt when they were making mud bricks in Egypt. Was God really faithful? Had he forgotten his promises? And now here they are.

God had been faithful bringing them out of Egypt. God had been faithful bringing them through the Red Sea. He had been faithful to them when they went through the wilderness. He was faithful with them when he brought them through the Jordan River. He was faithful with them when they saw the walls of Jericho fall.

And now they're looking around. And the whole land is theirs. Yeah, there's still work to do. They gotta get it. They gotta fight for it. But it's theirs. God has been faithful. He's kept His covenant. He's remained true to His promises. And He's not slow to His promises either. The problem is, we're pretty myopic people. Right? We want things like right now. We got microwaves because we can't pop popcorn on the stove anymore. Right? We want instant popcorn. We want instant gratification. We want stuff to happen right away. You tell me a promise, it better be there tomorrow.

But that's not the way the Lord works. See, to us, it might seem like a thousand years, but to the Lord, it's like a day. He made this promise to his people that he was going to give them rest, but it was going to be a better rest than just the land. He had made promises to King David that someday he would have a son who would sit on his throne forever. And it was hundreds of years later that Christ appeared on the scene.

He's made promises to you, hasn't He? He's begun a good work in you, hasn't He? He's going to bring it to completion. He promised us that He wouldn't leave us as orphans and He gave us His Holy Spirit, but He's told us He's going to come back again. We might think, Lord, where are you? Jesus, why aren't you coming back yet? Oh, He's faithful. He's coming back. It's going to happen. because He's a covenant-keeping God. He's gracious and He's faithful. He still remembers His promises, and He will conquer His enemies. The question is, have we given up the faith? Notice these words in this section, 43 through 45.

So the Lord gave to Israel which he had sworn to them. Then verse 44, And then the Lord gave them rest all around, comma, according to all that he had sworn to their fathers, period. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them, semi-colon. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hands, And then the very last four words of verse 45, all came to pass. God doesn't do things half-heartedly.

This is what the book of Hebrews is getting at. The land was meant to be a picture, to point us to Christ. That in Jesus Christ, we have an eternal rest. In Jesus Christ, we have an inheritance. And God has done all the work. That's why Jesus said, it is finished. All that is left is for Christ to return. He's done everything for us.

So now we live by faith. Not by sight. We live by hope and His promises. The Israelites had to live by faith. So must you. Don't give up the good fight. There are going to be days when it's hard. Where it seems like there's more shadows than there is sunshine.

The Lord hasn't changed. The Lord remembers His promises. God is gracious, and He is faithful. Thank God He is the one who accomplishes His covenant. Because we're honest, we're no different than them. Go read the book of Judges. The Israelites are going to fail. But God is so good, so gracious, that He sent Jesus Christ. And Jesus is the one who secures the promises for us. And it's in Jesus we have an eternal rest. So go to Christ. Go to the one who has subdued all his enemies. Go to the rest you have for your soul in the true Joshua. Jesus Christ, God with us.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would take these words and give us hope that we might live by faith. Lord, we pray that you would take the words that were spoken here this morning, and may any of them that were wrong, or unwise be burned away like dross. And Father, may we have the pure gold of the gospel remain with us in our souls forever. In Jesus' name, amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural Southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.