We will be looking tonight at the land that was given to the tribe of the children of Judah, with all the names of the cities and their borders. This may seem tedious to us maybe…but remember, to them, this certainly was not! They were homeless. Nomadic…at the end of a seven year marching war that began when they passed through the Jordan River to Gilgal.

I mean can you image being completely homeless…and then God provides miraculously for you a grand mansion! Would you want someone to describe to you the features of the home? The number of rooms? The boundaries and characteristics of the grounds? Of course you would!

Ever get something after having nothing like it before ever? A little obsessive about it aren’t ya? I remember my first car. What a beater! 1980 Toyota Celica. Half red, half metal. No stereo, power nothing. Didn’t even run. But it was mine. I paid $300 for it. Threw a clutch in there and then went to work. Polished that faded metal! Shined them bald tires! I even sewed up the ripped seats! This is embarrassing but I knew nothing about car radios then and so I installed a small amplifier with a full-range speaker box in the hatch trunk and ran a walkman to it!  

But look, it was mine! I had never had a car before! And before long I knew every inch of that car! Every squeak, every little thing to know, I learned…why? Because I cared man…maybe no one else did but that’s kinda where we are in the Book of Joshua.

And after all that we’ve been through with them, to now read of all they have gained, all they have inherited, may just inspire us to keep going ourselves…whether we are staring at the Jordan wondering how we will ever get across…or facing the giants of the Anakim and wondering how we will ever get those bills paid or ever make that thing right again…or maybe if we’re on day 3…marching around some sort of Jericho in our own lives…trusting God and yet wondering if He really will do all that He has said…maybe as we read through all of these provinces and cities and towns and borders…maybe someone here will be comforted and encouraged…keep going…keep trusting…

God sees you. He sees where you are at. What’s on your mind. What’s in your day ahead…He sees the future…Satan doesn’t! But God’s already worked out a plan of peace to give you a future and a hope, to not leave you as orphans but to come to you, to show up maybe in a way only you will see or know…only if you’ll trust Him and keep trusting Him…just as Joshua did even through outrageous odds and illogical circumstances…to bring his people…the children of Israel to where God was leading them…and don’t forget this…which is still called the Promised Land!

And so this may be a bit tedious and certainly a pronunciation test for me…but not to them, and maybe not to the person next to you…maybe even not to you…

Joshua Chapter 14 Verses 1 – 5

• So one small point here. We commonly think and speak of the “twelve tribes of Israel,” but practically speaking, there were 13 because although Israel had twelve sons, the descendents of one of his sons, Joseph, divided into two tribes which were Manasseh and Ephraim. (Manasseh was the oldest mind you!) This explains why you have 2 and a half tribes on the east side of the Jordan river and nine and a half tribes on the west side of the Jordan river…and then one with no inheritance…because that adds up to 13.
• And there’s a bit of tragedy in the mix here because Joseph wasn’t the oldest, was he? Reuben was. (But neither was Jacob now was he? And neither was Cain, now was he?) Therefore Reuben should have the birthright, the first pick of the land, but he forfeited it by a ridiculous sin back in Genesis 35, maybe you remember. He took his father’s wife Bilhah…and as a result was stripped of his birthright and it fell to Joseph. And so we’ll see is that the greatest portions of lands went to Joseph (Jacob’s favorite and first born of his promised wife, Rachel) and then to Judah. Who was actually his fourth born.
• What’s going on there? Well the number 2 and number 3 sons in terms of birth were Simeon and Levi and those two were notorious for their unrestrained anger and cruelty. Eventually the tribe of Simeon fades and assimilates into the tribe of Judah while Levi’s portion is the sacrifices made to the Lord and the Lord Himself (as we read last week in Chapter 13).
• And so what we’ll see is that Judah gets the southern part of the land and Joseph gets the northern part and the rest of the tribes get small portions of their portions. That’s basically what the next couple of chapters are going to cover…
• But this is a type man…2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him…” He looked until He found…Rueben, nope. Simeon, Levi, can’t do it…Judah…found him…and so Judah, fourth in line, becomes the greatest…and the Joseph…the stand out…the different one…the one who was sold and yet believed on the Lord and became even the ruler of his captors…the double portion! You know what that involved…leaving the other 10 behind…and putting in work through the two…just like what happened with Joshua and Caleb…

Joshua chapter 14 Verse 6

• It’s back in Numbers 14. God said in Numbers 14:23-24, “Those who rejected Me will not see the Promised Land but My servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land and his descendants shall inherit it.”

Joshua Chapter 14 Verses 7 - 11

• How would you like to go down in eternal history as the one who “wholly followed the Lord?” What an amazing honor! And notice the result…even at 85 years old he is as strong as he was 45 years ago!

Joshua Chapter 14 Verses 12 – 15

• I love this! Old as he is…he is so strong in the Lord! The Lord said it, I believe it! I’m not backing down. He’s almost looking for the fight just to see God’s faithfulness again! He could have asked for an easy place…shady pines on down the way…HA! But dig this, he knows that these foes must be faced…and he’s just the guy to do it! He could leave the work to someone else, but he doesn’t…he wholly follows the Lord…I love that!

Here are some of the pictures of the blessing of the second born in the Bible.

• Cain and Abel (Cain had no blood offering)
• Isaac and Ishmael (Son of the flesh)
• Jacob and Esau (Sold his birthright to serve himself!) (Esau marries the daughter of Ishmael and from them come the Amalekites and the Edomites!)
• Joseph and his brothers. In a way, even Joseph was a second-born son because he was from the favored second-born wife, Rachel!
• Manasseh and Ephraim.

Significant to see the type that God blesses not the first born as culture would say, as is man’s way…but the second. To break through the cultural crud of man and to show us that we too must seek the second-born. To be born again…to overcome the flesh (Ishmael) by the power of the acceptable blood offering of Jesus (Abel) and to get over self-service (Esau)! Jesus made this clear to Nicodemus in John Chapter 3…you have been born of water…first nature, flesh, worldly, carnal…but you must be born again! Second nature, second-born, alive in the spirit!

The church is the second born as well. Jesus being the first born from the dead…the church is the second. Mankind being the first born after Adam…and then those born to the Second Adam…the second-born…the born-agains! It’s a quite interesting study…and a very very deep rabbit hole if you’d like to really dive in…but for us, tonight, we turn our attention to the tribe of Judah…