Progressive possession

In Joshua 13 Joshua is old and stricken in years. Back in Numbers, He was one of the 12 spies that went in at Kadesh-Barnea before the 40 years of wandering.

Jordan says, “You read on down about Caleb and he’s 83 years old when they finally get to go in. There’s a great old song that says, ‘I want that mountain which the Lord has given me.’ That comes from Caleb’s words over there to Moses. He’s 83 years old and he says, ‘Moses, you promised me that mountain over there, that I could take that and go and whip them dudes in that mountain and I want it now.’

“He said, ‘My hand isn’t any weaker and my eye isn’t any dimmer than it was 40 years ago.’ Why, you know better than that. You know well and good he’s more feeble and frail than 40 years before!

“That old boy was an optimist, man. He knew God was going to go fight with him. He wanted to see the fight! Well, Joshua’s that way. He’s old and stricken in years. ‘The Lord said to him to possess it and he goes on down and talks to him about the land.

“There’s more land to be possessed than what they possessed, and yet Joshua 11:23 says they took the whole land. Well, they took it but they hadn’t possessed it all yet and gone in to get it. There’s more promised to Abraham than they ever actually possessed, but they got all the land that that generation was going to get.

“Joshua 21:43. When He says He gave them all the land, you have to understand that they didn’t possess every piece of land at that moment that God had given it to Abraham. If they went in and took Canaan, how much of the land did God promise Abraham? From the Mediterranean to the river Euphrates. From Lebanon all the way down to the Nile River of Egypt. All the way across to the Euphrates River. They never got all that land. These people just went in and got Canaan and yet he says that ‘all the land which he sware unto their fathers they possessed.’

“The reason He can say to him in Joshua 13:1, ‘There’s a whole lot more land to be possessed than this,’ and yet he can say, ‘I’ve given it all to you,’ is that God sent Israel into the land, but the understanding was very clear in Moses (Exodus 23) that they were going to go in and take a foothold in the land and then the next generation was expected to go out and possess more of the land, and the next generation was to go and possess MORE of the land, that there was going to be a progressive possessing of the land. It didn’t happen all in one whack. They came in and took the heart of it and then they were to go out in faith and possess the rest, but it was going to be the next generation’s responsibility to go and finish the job, as it were.

“Joshua’s generation did its job; now the next generation needs to come and do it and they unfortunately fail. For example, Exodus 23:27.
Verse 30. The land is going to be repossessed progressively in stage by stage by stage. Why? Well, God is interested in the land being taken care of. Remember Leviticus 26. The land is an issue. All those passages over there in Isaiah where He talks about the LAND being married to the Lord. The land is important to God. Not just the people in the land, but the land itself too.

“They’re going to go in to possess it little by little. The issue is He
says, ‘Now go in and wipe everybody out in one whack; nobody’s going to be able to take care of the land. There aren’t enough of you to fill it all up yet. So I’m not going to drive them all out in one year unless the land becomes desolate, the beast of the field multiply against thee. I’m gonna put this generation in and they can take what they can handle. Then you raise up a next generation and they can take some more. And little by little, stage by stage, we’re going to get it.’

“Exodus 23: 31 says, ‘And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.’

“The next generation needs to be faithful and loyal. They need to keep the covenants and it’s in chapter 23 And 24 you see the last advice that Joshua gives them is to be loyal. He recognizes that the seeds of rebellion are already there and that they’re going to fail and that they’re not going to make it and that there are going to be some problems and he actually predicts these things and lays it out for them. They don’t drive them all out and so Joshua’s saying to them, ‘Hey,’ and by the way, it’s only going to be by the Second Advent when Jehovah Nissi comes Himself personally, that they’ll ever get all that God’s promised them.

“Christ when He returns runs the same circuit that Joshua in Israel should have run in taking the land. They’re one day going to receive the land based on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Joshua 23:14-16. They got a choice. They keep the covenant and get the blessings (Lev. 26) or they can not keep the covenant and get the curses of Leviticus 26. And Joshua understands that there are the seeds of rebellion and he, like Moses in Deut. 32-24 predicts Israel’s failure, literally says to them, ‘You know, you fail and that first course of judgment is going to come--that evil that Lev. 26 says is going to come.’ ”