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Last night we began to consider together the second half of the book of Joshua, and found that it dealt with the practicalities of distributing the conquered land as inheritance to the various tribes. Now that process was in two parts. The first part, beginning in chapter thirteen, recorded the earlier grant of inheritance by Moses to the two and a half tribes east of Jordan, an integral part of the promised inheritance, and then proceeded to say- tell how Joshua and Eleazar Eliezer divided, divided uh, the territory and gave some to Judah and the other portion to the Joseph tribe. The second part, section five of the book, was the apportioning of the inheritance to the rest of the tribes, Seven of them, and was done not down in Gilgal, but was done later in Shiloh. So let us think about the distribution of the inheritance, with its encouragement to us to enter into our present spiritual inheritance to the greatest degree possible, and to prepare ourselves for the inheritance that lies ahead of us in glory. Let us remind ourselves of what we found last night. That though the distribution was carried out by Joshua and Eleazar the priest, and was done by lots, it was not completely mechanical and automatic. The stories that are embedded within the geographical lists of the surveyors show us, as we found last night, show us first Caleb, associated with the tribe of Judah, though himself not a Judahite, came claiming what Moses had promised forty five years beforehand, promised him in the name of God. Mos- uh, uh, uh, Caleb had believed it then, he carried on believing it, though it was forty five years before the promise was fulfilled. He cla- cla- clung to the promise and came claiming what had been promised. It involved him in fighting, of course. There were still giants in Hebron, and he chased them away. But it stands as an encouragement to us, surely, that when it comes to our entering into our inheritance, there is, of course, a side of it, you may say, that is already predetermined. We didn't choose the Savior, he chose us. We didn't choose which part of the body we would be, he chose that. And thank God for it. I don't have to feel inferior to you, though sometimes I do, but I don't have to, because do you know what? I can please God in my little way, because he set me in the body as pleased him. And you, for all your great conquests and labors for the Lord, that's all you manage to do when you're doing your very best, is to please the Lord. So you and I are equal, aren't we? Well, that is the motive, anyway, of all true service, that we please the Lord. And therefore we trust him that he has given us our individual characteristics. And as we were talking the other day, behind all the sad story of the human fall, and nature herself that groans in travail unto now, we dare to believe behind it is the providence of God. He knew us and all our circumstances before we were born and what we should do. Oh, thank God. It is not by mindless accident. There is a heart behind creation and the loving intention of a creator. It is sometimes says that- said that God owes nobody anything. I know what they mean who say that. But you fathers that have fathered children, feel a responsibility, don't you, for the children you have fathered? To have fathered them and to walk away from them and say I owe them nothing. Would be a very curious form of fatherhood. Peter tells us that let those that suffer according to the will of God commit themselves unto God as unto a faithful creator. God owns responsibility for the creation he has made. In spite of my waywardness, as my creator, he owns responsibility for me and is faithful to me, and I tell you how faithful. He loved me with the creator's love and gave his son for me. While, in a sense, therefore, we do not choose our gifts or our personalities and so forth, nor our place in the body of Christ. Yet when it comes to entering our inheritance, there is room for the exercise of our choice, isn't there? Listen to old Caleb come claiming what was promised. And there are a multitude of promises, exceeding great and precious promises, laying hold of which we add in the power of our faith the Christian virtues which are necessary for the formation of our eternal character. And then there were... after the island, exile... who asked for more. That is allowed, gentlemen. You can ask for more. And Paul is on record... how he constantly asked for more, not merely for himself, but for his fellow believers. All of us have the Holy Spirit. We are allowed to ask for the working of the Holy Spirit, as in Paul's prayer in Ephesians one, that God would grant us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. And according to his prayer in Ephesians three, that we might be strengthened by his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may come to take up his abode with us ever more fully. We can ask. It is in that sense, I judge, that our Lord spoke his parable in Luke chapter eleven when the apostles asked him to teach them how to pray. And among the other things he said was as follows: Which man of you should have a friend come to him at midnight and should find he had nothing in the cupboard, no food to put before him. But it's unthinkable to a Middle Easterner of that time if he had a guest come, never mind what hour of the day or night. soon as the guest arrived, he must offer the guest food. It's unthinkable he shouldn't. A guest comes, it's the middle of the night, but the man has no food. He pops on his slippers and goes to his friend's door, hammers on the door. The friend mumbles a reply from underneath the blankets. I'm in bed with my children. Go away. I wouldn't go away. I've got a friend come to me, and I've nothing to put before me. I want some bread. Oh, go away. The man wouldn't go away. Kept on knocking. I tell you, the man in bed, says Christ, he got up and gave the man, not because he was his friend, but because of the man's sheer shamelessness. Hm. Coming at that time of night and hammering on people's doors for a loaf of bread. Absolutely shameless, and wouldn't go away until he got the bread. But then you see that was the man's system of values. It was impossible for him to have a guest come and not feed him. And shall not your Father give, not the Holy Spirit. Will not the Father give Holy Spirit to you? It's open, gentlemen, for us to pray. We have the Holy Spirit, of course, but to pray as Paul did, that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation. We need to pray it as we read God's holy word and get the facts therein. All but to pray that God shall, by his spirit, illumine our eyes and speak to our hearts, that we might know it is God's word because of the self-evident conviction of the evidence and the light that the Holy Spirit pours upon it. And we need to pray. We're allowed to pray. I don't say we need to, we are allowed to. Ha! To pray that God would grant us to be strengthened with our, in our inner man by his Holy Spirit, to the end that Christ may dwell in our hearts. That we, being rooted and grounded in love. I'm a long way from there yet, gentlemen. Don't upset me too much, will you? You might find my roots are not too good sometimes. Being rooted and grounded in love, we may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth and height and depth, to now know the love of God that passes knowledge. Yes? We're allowed to pray. But our Lord encourages us to think that the answer might depend upon our, our importunity, as the old King James says it. You could translate it shamelessness, if you like. Because if you can do without it, you will. I don't know how your medical system works here in, in America. I must confine myself to Britain, and to Britain in the older days, when there were things called general practitioners. And they actually visited patients in their home. You just imagine it. A long time ago now. But in those days, of course, if you had somebody desperately ill during the day, you rang up the doctor and he would come as soon as he could. But imagine a mother and the child of four is running a high temperature at the night and vomiting and goodness knows what, and she fears for some serious illness. Appendicitis, or who knows what it is. Shall she ring up the doctor at half past two in the morning or not? And risk his wrath if he comes out and finds it's merely a stomach upset or something. He has to decide. Can she do without the doctor? But if she decides that no, it's not just a stomach upset of a baby, it's grandpa with a heart attack. Ah, absolutely shameless. Doctor, you'll have to come. You must come. Oh, I'll be there tomorrow. No, you must come now, the man's having a heart attack. The doctor will come because of her sheer shamelessness. You can't do without it, you see. My brothers, if we can get through life without the great ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, so we shall. But we don't have to. We're allowed to ask, and ask for more. And if the ground is dry, like it was for Othniel and Exar, we can ask for the upper and nether springs of water, according to the promise of our Savior. On the other hand, our idealism must not hide from us the realities. And therefore, even in this section four, the first distribution to the great strong tribes of Judah, and then the Joseph's tribes, Ephraim and the half of Manasseh. They were given their inheritance, but look what is said in certain verses about it. As for the Judahites, look at chapter uh fifteen verse sixty three. As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Udo could not drive them out, but the Jebusites dwelt with the children of Israel at Jerusalem until this day. Would you allow me to emphasize the actual phraseology? Doesn't say they didn't drive them out. It says they couldn't. I think that implies that they had a go at it. And failed. Jerusalem was destined one day to be the capital city of Israel. It was not until David's day that they were able to conquer, uh, uh, the, the city and turn it into Jerusalem city. That is the realism of the situation. Chapter sixteen, talking about the Joseph tribe, verse ten says, and they did not drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Getza, but the Canaanites dwelt in the midst of Ephraim unto this day. Doesn't here say they couldn't, it says they didn't. Why they didn't is not said. I suppose they regarded the next b- that what they did as the next best best thing until this day. They became these Canaanite servants to do task work. All right, the Gibeonites did that when they were pardoned and brought in. So it is repeatedly said. Chapter seventeen verse twelve: Yet the children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities, but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. They had strong will, had Canaanites. And it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxed and strong, that they put the Canaanites to taskwork and did not utterly drive them out. Again, it says they couldn't. Fine, they made an attempt, and apparently they did the best they could in the situation. It's always a bit dangerous, isn't it, with Canaanites? This is the reality of the situation. When it comes to outward practices, where we have complete control, that is one thing. When we ha- come to weaknesses of personality and disposition, that can be another thing. Sometimes believers strive and struggle with a weakness for years and do the best they can with it. We need to be sympathetic and realistic. But now let's come to what is an exceedingly important verse. With Judah and now the Joseph tribes being given their inheritance and being now beginning to move forward to occupy their inheritance. They were able to do and achieve one magnificent objective. We have been studying the objectives in the first part of Joshua, and notice how important they are. The objective of crossing the river, the objective of establishing the law, the objective of putting down rule and authority. Now notice this objective in section, uh, four of the book. The whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there, and the land was subdued or lay subdued in front of them. Which last phrase explains why they were able to put it there. Because now with the tribes of Judah, and more particularly the Joseph tribes, settled in that part of the world, it became possible for the first time to erect the tent of meeting there without excessive danger of being attacked by the Canaanites. Hitherto, I presume, the tabernacle had been left down at base camp in Gilgal. From it, the ark had been taken to process around Jericho. And of course, when that was over, the ark went back to the tabernacle at the base camp. And all these long years, Israel was situated at the base camp in Gilgal. But now the tribes were beginning to enter on their inheritance and occupy several parts of the land, and if that were so, some of them would now be living, living permanently at some considerable distance from the tabernacle and the, uh, the ark and the altar. That could not be allowed to go on too long, could it? It became a number one necessity, as soon as was physically possible, to get the tent of meeting way up into the north there, in some secure place, where it could function for all the tribes that had now got their inheritance, and even for those tribes that hadn't yet got their inheritance, for the next verse will tell us that the remaining seven tribes came and assembled before the tent of meeting there in Shiloh. It preaches us a lesson too, surely. In all our efforts to extend our inheritance and to fight the good fight of the faith, we have to remember what is central to our Lord's wishes, to provide him a meeting place with his people. Isn't that so? So they did, on this occasion, that the nation might have their central tent of meeting and still be gathered, so to speak, as a nation around the Lord. Important. Because what use our progress, if in the end we've lost the sense of the need, as the people of God, to gather together to the name of Christ and experience the blessing of public fellowship with the Lord. We notice, therefore, that they didn't leave this until the whole land was subdued. But when enough of the land was subdued, they brought the tabernacle up from the base camp at Gilgal and placed it at Shiloh. Eventually it became disreputable, particularly in the days of the high priesthood of Eli and his sons Hophni and Phineas. It became an absolute scandal. But only think of its days, even when it was beginning to decline in spirituality, what tremendous worth came out of Shiloh. We can mention one thing, can't we? It'll be in your mind, where Hannah, dear old Hannah, brought her firstborn child. That's about four years old when he was weaned, and gave him to the service of the Lord in Shiloh, and learned there as a child to hear the voice of God. That is a dramatic scene, fit to touch the hardest heart. As we see the little child running to Eli, Eli, you called me. And he said, no, son, I didn't go to sleep, you're dreaming. And the voice came again, Samuel, Samuel. And the child ran to Eli. You called me, you did call me. And Eli, the aged old man, now nearly blind, who had failed to discipline his sons and stood by while they blasphemed and desecrated the most holy things of God in that tabernacle. Eli recognized that God was passing him by and was speaking to a child, and he said to the young sandal, go back and lie down, and if the voice comes again, say, speak, Lord, thy servant heareth. Those hallowed moments were experienced in Shiloh, and from Shiloh there arose one of the greatest prophets that ever walked, walked the acres of Israel in the form of Samuel the prophet. What things can happen, brethren, when faithful men and women meet as the dwelling place of God, and even a little child can come to hear the voice of the living God spoken direct to that child. With that happy thought in our hearts and minds, let's break off now. We haven't the time to begin a major section, so let us go forth and pray that in our day and generation, when we meet together as God's holy people, God may deign, so to speak, that his voice may be heard by the up and coming generation, that it might not be mere tradition and brethren rules, if I may coin a term, but the voice of the living God speaking to our modern generation. Jesus would I know more than racist you.