God Fulfills His Promises

Alrighty, well welcome, welcome, welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at Joshua chapter 11, verses 16 through 23. We're going to have a summary of everything that Joshua's done. The guy's done a lot of stuff. Man, it's been a quick 11 chapters. Well, we're just about at chapter 11.
So, why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. No. You don't want any coffee? No. It's black gold. It's the stuff of life. Black gold is oil, not coffee. It's better than oil. The guys who drill the oil have to drink the coffee to get the oil. Yeah, it's about as good as oil. It's delicious. It oils your insides.
Okay, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for it this day. Thank you for your word. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would please help us teach us, Lord, and let us follow in your ways. In Jesus's name. Amen. All right, Joshua. Chapter 11. 16. 16 through the end. So I'll read to 20, and you read the rest. Okay, sounds good.
Thus Joshua took all this land, the mountain country, all the south, all the land of Goshen, the lowland, and the Jordan plain, the mountains of Israel and its lowlands, from Mount Halak and the ascent to Seir, even as far as Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon.
He captured all their kings and struck them down and killed them. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. all the others they took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that He might destroy them as the Lord had commanded Moses. And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel. Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel. They remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod. So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had said to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war. Well, gotta do our A, B, Cs. A, what is this? About. B, what's the? Best verse to summarize. And C, what are we? Called to do. All right, so, what's this about, Debra?
What Joshua did. What Joshua did, and what did he do? He took all the land, except for the- Just in the south. In the north and the south and the east and the west. Yeah, right, so it's kind of... So the only place he left was Gibeon for the Hittites. All right, so there's a... Yeah, so Gibeon, why didn't he take the land of Gibeon? I'm guessing in some later, in some earlier chapter, they, like, make a treaty maybe? That's right, yeah. So the Gibeonites were the ones he made a treaty with, right? So, good. He didn't let that trick happen a second time with any other peoples, right? So, good. So, for it was...
Oh, so verse 20 tells us, for it was Joshua who was a big, huge, strong man, and everybody feared him mightily, and he was just the absolute greatest and best, and everybody gave him glory. Yeah, chapter 11, verse 20, right? Because Joshua was amazing, that's why the book's written... For the Jews of the Lord.
Oh. So Joshua doesn't get the glory? Nope. Who gets the glory? God. Who's doing the... Who's doing it? God. But I thought Joshua was commanding the army. God. But I thought Joshua was doing it. God. Why does the Lord get the credit? Well now you see, all of these people If the Lord hadn't been with them, they couldn't have defeated it.
That's right. That's right. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle. The same thing he had done with Pharaoh down in Egypt, right? Yeah. So the Lord was doing this and he utterly destroyed them and that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them as the Lord had commanded Moses. It's going to happen the way that, and it was because Joshua was better than them, right? It's because the Israelites were greater than them. Nope. It's because Israelites were more righteous, more numerous, and more better in every way. Nope.
So why is God doing this? Because he promised them he would. Yeah, because he had made a promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, didn't he, to give them the land? And when now the descendants are coming in, is it because they're bigger and better and best?
Nope. No, it's because they had, the people who had been there had sinned. Right. That's why he was driving them out of the land. So don't say because we're more numerous because we're better because we're the bestest. Right? No, no, no. Uh, all right.
So he also, it's interesting, verse 20 to 23, it wants to talk about a special type of people. the Anakim, the giants of the land. Oh, where, um, where Goliath was from? Ah, some people think Goliath from Gath was a, uh, Anakim and you know, at verse 22, what's it say? Where's the only three places that the Anakim are left? Uh, verse what? verse 22, very end of verse 22. It says that they left none of the Anakim, except they remained only in three cities.
Gaza, Gath and Ashdod. All right, so there's three Philistine cities. So the Philistines have like five major cities. There's three major cities that they're left in. The fact that Goliath was born in one of... In Gath. In Gath, which is a Philistine city.
Kind of makes sense why he would fight for the Philistines. Just a little bit. Yeah, because it was from gas. Yep, right. So the point is Previously 40 years before this the Israelites had sent in spies into the land and 10 of the 12 spies came back and they said they're like Giants and we're like grasshoppers. They're gonna crush us like a bug They are Yeah, they are giants. And yet, what has Joshua, it was just Joshua and Caleb who said, no, we could do it. The Lord is with us. He's going to keep his promises. Uh, apparently those two, those two spies were right. And the other ones were wrong. Yeah. Joshua and Caleb were right.
And now they've destroyed the Anakim. There's only three cities that they have left. It doesn't really talk about, um, Caleb much. Well, we'll come to Caleb actually in a little bit. So Caleb's gonna have a special part in one of these chapters in Joshua.
So, all right, so what's this about? This is about Joshua being biggest and baddest and best. Nope, it's about the Lord helping him conquer. All right, so it's about the Lord bringing, conquering to the land through Joshua's leadership. I should say helping him, like letting him conquer.
Good. and the land rested from war. Good. We're gonna enter into a very different section. It's beginning at chapter 12. The book of Joshua kind of has a big turn in it. We're gonna do a lot of names, a lot of places, a lot of peoples. But for this, what would you underline as the best verse for chapter 11, verses 16 through 23? Probably 23. Okay, you have verse 23. I have verse 20 underlined. Interesting. All right. Let's talk about... Well, I can see verse 23. That's a good point. Okay. Okay. Uh, okay. So what are we called to do? You're called to go kill all the Anakim. Right? That's what this is telling you to do? I don't think so. But that's what you're called to do, right? You're, you're called to go conquer our neighbor's farms.
We're going to go to the Holy land and we're going to take it back from the, from the Arabs. Yeah, go ahead we're supposed to believe that the Lord will help us Defeat our enemies. Oh, so we are gonna go to war with our enemies. No Don't we have war with the rulers and the principalities of this world. Oh So we do get to go to war spiritually no swords no swords or or tanks why not because that's not what we're called to do but you just said we're at war who are we at war with then the dragon all right yeah right against satan and his and his name and his ad and his uh minions right now the point is right we're the war isn't about flesh and blood anymore That's not what we're called to do. We're called to follow Him.
One of the things that I think is amazing, did you know, I don't think you got any Jewish in you. Because I love bacon? Not because you love bacon, although bacon is delicious, but because we're not Jewish by birth. We in this story would be one of those conquered peoples.
And yet, what has the Lord done for us? Yeah, he sent his son and in his son he torn tore down that wall of hostility between Jew and Gentiles That's what Ephesians chapter 2 tells us And so we are at peace with God through Jesus Christ, even though we were the ones in this story Who the Lord could have heart in our hearts and made us fight fight against the gospel But instead God has made us his friends.
I You ready to pray? Yeah. Lord, we thank you so much for giving us your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that we would follow after you and love you all of our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes from Jesus Christ, and we'll see you next time. Bye!