Well, the whole service has been looking not just at our individual relationship to God, but covenantally our relationship to the nation. And this passage is going to be drawing out some features of that as well. Joshua 19. I'm going to preach on the whole chapter, but I'm just going to read the first nine verses. The second lot came out for Simeon, for the tribe of the children of Simeon, according to their families, and their inheritance was within the inheritance of the children of Judah. They had in their inheritance Beersheba, Sheba, Muladah, Hazar Shua, Bala, Izem, El Tolad, Bethu, Horma, Ziglag, Beth Markaboth, Hazar Susa, Beth Lebayoth, and Shar Huan, 13 cities and their villages. Ayan, Rimon, Ether, and Ashen, four cities and their villages, and all the villages that were in, all the villages that were all around these cities as far as Beolothbir, Rama of the south, this was the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Simeon according to their families. The inheritance of the children of Simeon was included in the share of the children of Judah, for the share of the children of Judah was too much for them. Therefore, the children of Simeon had their inheritance within the inheritance of that people." Father, as we dig into this chapter, we know that you have treasures buried for us in it, and I pray that you would enable me to clearly articulate these, and that your people would be blessed and encouraged. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, when we looked at the allotment that was given to the people of Benjamin, I gave about a dozen practical applications of that passage, and some of those, even though they're same kind of applications that are here, I'm not going to be repeating those for the most part. You can see, though, from the outline, there is plenty more that we can apply from this passage. And I do want, at least in the broad strokes, to let you see this is an incredibly applicable chapter. A lot of people just skip over it. Now, one of the most obvious lessons in this chapter is that land has value to God and He has given it to us as a stewardship trust. And I get that from the word inheritance. It is described as an inheritance from the Lord 13 times in this chapter. And I counted over 200 verses elsewhere that describe land as being a very good gift, an inheritance, a stewardship trust. Now that's such an obvious point and something that I have proved in the past. I'm not going to try to prove it this morning. Instead what I want to do is make some applications from that. What are some implications of the fact that God owns everything and He has given it to us in a stewardship trust? Well, first, God's kingdom includes everything, including land, including your house, including your backyard. Many people try to spiritualize everything in the kingdom, and they even make pastors as if they're more spiritual, more important than farmers, for example. But if that was the case, why would the bulk of Christ's life have been spent in carpentry? It's just not true that the common things that we are doing in our occupations are not a part of the kingdom. They very much are. You don't have to read very far in the Bible to realize God values land and animals and farm equipment and tools and physical work. He wants the citizens of His kingdom to consider their farms and all that they are and have to be a part of His kingdom. Now, that does require kind of a shift in thinking, especially in America, but it's such an important shift. Taking dominion of the soil is kingdom work. It really is. God loves it when you try to make the most of your garden and your backyard, or maybe you've got a bigger garden, like the Jameses do. He loves it when you take care of your lawns, you trim your trees, you subdue the pests that are around, and you fertilize the soil. That is every bit as much a service to the Lord, or at least it can be, as my preaching to you this morning. And there are many other scriptures that prove that beyond the ones that I've given into your outline, but I think those should be sufficient. But secondly, if God can give the land and he can take away the land from peoples like he did in this chapter, that it implies that God owns the land, and he can dispossess people of the land that he's given to them for a time being if they are poor stewards. Land is a stewardship trust, and we need to treat everything that we own as being a stewardship trust as if God owns it, because he does. We have already sung that, haven't we? Psalm 24.1 says, the earth is the Lord's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. So when you do your gardening, you can tell the Lord, Lord, I'm doing this gardening because, not just because I love doing gardening, but because I love you. And I am very appreciative of the stewardship trust that you've put into my hands. But this means that we need to look to his law for how we take care of his property. He tells us how to take care of that, and the law makes clear that God does not want us overusing the land or abusing the land, and thus he calls us to give the land a Sabbath rest, a year Sabbath rest. And I think just as the weekly Sabbath is good for our bodies, it's good for our souls, the yearly Sabbath rest is good for the land and it's good for us as well. But God doesn't want the land underused as well. That's the error of the Green Movement. The Green Movement wants to turn vast amounts of land into wilderness, but if you go through the Bible and you study, look up every reference to the wilderness, you will discover that God considers the wilderness to be a curse. It is not a blessing. And I've given you scriptures as well that indicate that when God tells people to turn wilderness into productive land, he says, that is a blessing. That is a blessing. And so God really wants dominion being taken of every square inch of planet earth. Nor does God want the land polluted. That's the exact opposite extreme that some people who overreact to the green movement take. I think E. Calvin Beisner's book on stewardship maintains the biblical balance. It's a wonderful book. But God expected Adam and Eve to take dominion of the land to improve upon it. And so when you see your house and land as belonging to God, you tend to take better care of it. Another implication of God's ownership of property is that it limits what the state can do with your property. Now, in a bit, we're going to be looking at the evil of eminent domain. But right now, I want to demonstrate that the Bible condemns property taxes as completely irreconcilable with God's ownership of all things. R.J. Rushdue, and he words it this way, nowhere in the Bible is the state authorized to tax property. Taxation of property is a means of destroying property and is a form of robbery. There was thus no land tax or property tax. Since the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof—Exodus 9, 29, etc.—a land tax usurps God's rights and is unlawful. The purpose of biblical law with reference to land is to ensure the security of man in his property A property tax of any kind is a denial of this God-ordained security. And I say amen. Now sadly, the recent attempt in Nebraska to do away with property taxes failed, but Senator Erdman and others are going to try to get the same goal achieved through other means, and I would encourage you guys to support him. It's definitely a worthy cause. The state has robbed farmers in Nebraska of land because they don't have the money to pay their taxes after two or three years of failed crops, and it is a wicked, evil thing when they do that. The bottom line is that we were not designed by God to be serfs who are simply renting land from the state and who can be evicted from the land if they fail to pay their property taxes. It's an evil. It's one of many evidences that the state has been more and more acting as if it is God. The modern state seems to have no limits to its pretensions, whether Democrat or Republican. I'm not talking about parties here. And property taxes is just one of many symptoms of the deification of the state. Now, the next implication is that God does not appreciate those who make it impossible to pass on the land to their children. The only definition in my Hebrew dictionary for the word that's translated as inheritance here, nakhalah, is this one. inalienable, hereditary property. Let that definition burn into your minds. God intended the land to be inalienable, hereditary property. Three important words. Inalienable, hereditary property. God uses this Hebrew word 193 times to describe the land. God wanted property to be passed on to stewards, and therefore told the state in many different ways to have hands off from the property. Economics, biblical economics, is one of those many ways. I'm not going to get into biblical economics, but God wanted them to have hands off. I'm just going to give you three scriptures from your outline, and I've given more in there, but that show God was furious at people, at the state, when they tried to take away the land. First Samuel 8.14 gives a definition of an ungodly, tyrannical state that God disapproves of. And interestingly, part of that definition was the state engaging in eminent domain. It warns citizens, be careful of who you vote into office, because these ungodly leaders, quote, will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. Eminent domain was considered an evil thing by the Bible, and it was certainly considered an evil thing by many of our founding fathers. Here's another example. 1 Kings 21 illustrates the depravity of wicked king Ahab by outlining his attempt to purchase Naboth's property. Just his attempt to purchase the property was considered to be evil, and then when Naboth wasn't willing to sell the land voluntarily, Ahab killed him and took his property away from him. Reminds me of the cartoon, you know, that describes voluntary taxes. It's got the state with a gun at your head. Yeah, voluntary taxes, right. The next verse shows that eminent domain can take place at the city level. Isaiah 5.8 says, woe to those who join house to house. They add field to field till there is no place where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land. So God never intended for urban sprawl to do away with farmland. And in a moment, I'll be looking at the difference between legitimate urban sprawl and illegitimate urban sprawl. There is a place for legitimate urban sprawl. But when cities gobble up farmland, God curses them. And just what we've covered so far, I think you can see, the Bible's laws on land are practical. They were intended for the good of His people. And when people throw off the law because God tests them, He puts a few laws in there that He knows people are not going to like, but when they throw off the law because of that, What happens inevitably is citizen ownership of land eventually suffers. A fifth implication is that God's gift of the land was intended for the good of all, not just for a few. Indeed, the farms that God gave provided food for the cities, cities provided the goods and the technologies needed on the farm. So there was a mutual benefit. And I didn't put the scriptures behind that point because I think the subsequent points are very well illustrated. But the last implication of this first point is that God intended the land to be owned by the families, not by the state. Interestingly, the state is only given the boundaries. They were not given the land within the boundaries, just the boundaries were given to the state. And that is very, very significant. If the state did not own the land within the boundaries, it really limited the power of the state and what it could do. But the boundaries also kept the state from expanding outward. God was opposed to empire building. You see, God wanted a small, limited state, and so in this chapter and many other chapters of the Bible, he gave boundaries to limit them, to keep them in check. Ungodly governments always tend to grow in power, whereas godly governments stay small. And you might wonder, well, how small did God intend the governments to stay? I'll just give you one hint. There is one principle in the Bible called the regulative principle of government that keeps both church and state small. Both of them, according to this principle, cannot do anything that is not explicitly authorized in the Bible. So it makes for a pretty limited government, and when I get my Lord willing, biblical civics book written next year, I'll be showing that it approximates what some modern people call minarchism. Not exactly the same, but if you were to get rid of 98% of the government, you might be close. So that would be biblical civics. Very, very small, limited state. Well, that's the exact opposite of the wretched solution that Henry George proposed in his Solution for America, American Poverty, way back in the 19th century, in the 1800s. His book, Poverty and Progress, has had a huge influence on intellectual thinkers when it comes to civics. And his solution was, the state should own all land and should abolish private property. And you might think, huh. He wasn't successful. Well, don't be so sure. If you pay taxes on your land, you don't own your land. You are a serf. You are a renter. And if you think that's wrong, hey, I paid big money for my property, I do own my land, just try not paying your taxes. And you'll see that the government will take it out from under you, and you will be left without anything. And this has happened thousands and thousands of times. Anyway, Henry George's solution to poverty is the exact opposite of God's solution. God knew that when the Bible grows, when the state grows in power, the people will suffer, just as they suffered under the pharaohs in Egypt. So don't treat this chapter as being a boring, irrelevant chapter. This chapter illustrates the Pentateuch's underpinnings of what private property and capitalism should look like. And all of the next points deal with the capitalism that God put in place. Towns and cities have value to God too. Indeed, God considers cities to be even more important, and this may be where I get in trouble, but he considered cities to be even more important than the land surrounding those cities was in terms of prosperity for the nation as a whole. Let me expand on that. Where land is mentioned 75 times in Joshua, the word cities occurs 130 times, and the word villages another 31. And in this chapter alone, city, village, and town are mentioned 28 times. Now, of course, the names of those cities are mentioned much more in the descriptions of the cities. elsewhere mentioned a ton. Each of those cities within the boundaries of Israel were said to be a good gift from God. See, not everybody is gifted to work on a farm. God's plan was for each tribe to have its cities absolutely teeming with people. Look at verses 6 through 8. Bethlebeoth and Sharuhan, thirteen cities and their villages, Ayin, Rimmon, Ether, and Eshon, four cities and their villages, and all the villages that were all around these cities as far as Baaloth, Abir, Rama of the South. This was the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Simeon according to their families. And I want you to notice that these cities and villages are called an inheritance of families. It's a gift of God, and that concept is repeated for each tribe. From the early chapters of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, cities are seen as being the primary centers of cultural development and as providing the primary means for expanding the cultural mandate. That's not an exaggeration. Cities are ultra important. And I may get pushed back on this, but the Bible treats cities as being ultra, ultra important. A biblical theology of cities shows that if cities prospered, the whole land prospered, including the farmers. And I think a couple of examples from many, many verses that could be given should be sufficient. Here's the first one. Jeremiah 29.7 says, and seek the welfare of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it, for in its welfare you will have welfare." And the word for welfare is actually shalom. It's translated various ways, as peace, as prosperity, as blessing, as wholeness. Now, it's true that the Bible also says, And it warns us that cities can result in promoting a culture of concentrated evil. But that's why God's people were to seek the welfare of the city, to pray for the city, to try to influence that city. Cities result in either concentrated evil or concentrated good. And if Christians abandon the cities and they stop trying to influence those cities, those cities will automatically slide into intense concentrated evil. And that's what we're seeing here in America. But in a righteous society, cities can also result in unparalleled good. Consider Psalm 107 verses 4 through 8. It says this, They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way. They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city for a dwelling place. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men." Now, in a previous sermon, I pointed out that There is a reciprocal relationship between farms and cities that is foundational to capitalism and is foundational to the prosperity of the nation as a whole. Both are needed and it makes logical sense because not every son can inherit the family farm. If every son inherited the family farm, over a few generations, you would eventually not have a farm. It would be the size of a postage stamp. Mathematically, it's absolutely impossible for every descendant to inherit the family farm. So what happened, God made it this way to force most of the descendants off of the farms and into the villages and into the cities And through that, it would result in what we now speak of as industrialization. It's not a bad thing. But since I already spoke to that in the past, I won't say more on this sermon. The next point deals with urban sprawl and the relationship between village and city. Take a look at verse 24. 12 cities with their villages. These were not stand-alone villages, but villages that were connected jurisdictionally to the cities. Verse 28 says the same thing. Certain villages were attached jurisdictionally to the cities. They belonged to the cities. He did that to enable legitimate urban sprawl and to avoid illegitimate urban sprawl. Elsewhere in Scripture, we find that not all villages were attached to cities. Leviticus 25.31 says that when unwalled villages were not directly attached to a city, they were just treated as being part of the country. They were on their own. They could have their own village council. Let me read that. However, the houses of villages which have no wall around them shall be counted as the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the jubilee." In other words, houses in the country and in the villages were not able to be permanently sold, at least not until they became a bona fide city. They could only be leased to a stranger until the year of jubilee, at which time they reverted back to the family that had leased it out. After the year of Jubilee, the family could decide whether they wanted to lease it out again. It remained under their control, even if they didn't farm it, it remained under their control. In any case, this kept urban sprawl of the big city somewhat in check. Cities' houses could be bought and sold at will. Mark Bartusch says this. Leviticus 25, 29 through 31 also makes a distinction between houses within walled cities and those in villages. A house within a city once sold could only be redeemed within a period of one year. A house in a village, however, could always be redeemed. And Merrill Lunger points out that as villages and towns began to grow in population, they could cease to be a village or a town and become a city. That's what happened to Bethlehem. It was once a town, it later on became a city. So right from the beginning, God ensured that cities would have room for growth by having different rules for the villages and towns tied to the protection of that city. This protected the country from having city governments expanding their reach in a tyrannical way. So it's not just the federal government, it's not just state governments that can act tyrannically or engage in eminent domain. Cities can do that too. And even if there is not a one-to-one correspondence between Israel and America, there's still principles that we can mine from these chapters. Now, the next thing I see in this section is the importance of storing title deed, the properties you own, and preserving them for the next generation. Again, some of this chapter may be ultra-boring for you. It would not have been boring at all to the people who were receiving it. They would have been excited. They would have been writing these things down and saying, yes. It was like a title deed for them that God was legally preserving. Now, an interesting example of property deeds being an act of faith is in Jeremiah 32, where Jeremiah bought land that was already occupied by the Babylonians. And he put the title deed into a sealed pot where his family descendants would know exactly where it was so that 70 years later, when they came back from Babylon, his family would be able to inherit this. Now, 70 years, that's a long-term vision. And thinking long-term about property is an important aspect of faith. It's yet another example of how much God values the land. But all that we've said so far, I think, illustrates how important it is to steward your belongings in a way that they will benefit future generations even after you're dead. Don't be selfish in your use of the things God has put into your hands. Think about future generations. Do you have a multi-generational perspective on land? I think it's at least important to think about. Now let me move on to some random lessons that the Lord has impressed me from the descriptions of each of the tribal boundaries that were given. And I'll just mention, after I made the outline, I noticed I'd already preached on the lot in chapter 15, so I'm just going to skip that. It's got a lot of cool lessons about God's sovereignty, but we'll move on to each of the tribes here. And we'll begin with Simeon in verses 1 through 9. Several commentators point out that even though these verses reflect a curse that God pronounced upon Simeon more than 400 years earlier, God actually brought a blessing out of the curse. Let me explain. Simeon had no state borders. That was a literal application of the curse. Only cities and villages were given to Simeon. In fact, verse 1 explicitly says, their inheritance was within the inheritance of Judah. Verse 9 says, the inheritance of the children of Simeon was included in the share of the children of Judah, for the share of the children of Judah was too much for them. Therefore, the children of Simeon had their inheritance within the inheritance of that people. Now, chapter 15, you may remember, that we said that the cities of the Simeonites, villages, wherever they were scattered, were under the jurisdiction of Judah. OK? What's going on? Well, this is almost identical to what happened to Levi. Levi had no territory of its own, but instead occupied farms, houses, villages, cities within other tribes. And we'll look at that when we get to chapters 20 and 21. But if you turn to Genesis 49, you will see why both Simeon and Levi, the sons of Jacob, engaged in sins that negatively impacted their descendants. 49, beginning to read at verse 5. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly, for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." And that's exactly what happened to Simeon and Levi, because the ancestors had uncontrolled anger, bitterness, and cruelty, their descendants suffered for it. Neither tribe received any tribal territory. Levites were scattered into every tribe, city, and even hamlet of Israel, and Simeonites were scattered far from each other in various cities of Judah. Some of them would later even migrate to other places, but neither tribe had a state homeland. So what can we learn from this? Well, first we can learn that our individual sins as parents can negatively impact our descendants. If you are convinced, and you should be, that your uncontrolled anger or your other sins can have a negative impact upon your children, your great-grandchildren, your great-great-grandchildren, it might motivate you to deal with those sins. Because all humans are covenantally connected No sin is just my sin. Okay, my sins impact my descendants unless I have repented of them, or unless they explicitly cut those impacts off. And there's a process to go through to cut off the curses and the sins of your ancestors. And that's the next sub-point. Don't assume that you are completely bound by your ancestors' bad decisions. You can break the curse for your nuclear family and for your own descendants through the blood of Christ. Now in this case, the curse of not only land, was turned into a blessing. God turned a curse into a blessing. Simeon's industry ended up hugely blessing Judah, and Simeon actually ended up being faithful to the Lord, just like Levi was, and they were not deported by Assyria when the Assyrians conquered the northern tribes. Now the last lesson with regard to Simeon was that it took humility on the part of Judah to allow all of these Simeonite cities to be a part of their territory. Here's what one author said. Just as the Judahites willingly and humbly accepted the Simeonites into their territory, So we must willingly and humbly accept the lowly and needy of this world. We must humbly give to, look after, take care of those who have need. Arrogance, pride, and haughtiness have no place before God. Now let's move on to Zebulun in verses 10 through 16, and there are three lessons that I've drawn out from these verses. First, Zebulun illustrates the benefits to Israel that resulted from their further diversification. Now, we've already seen there was a lot of diversification that was happening, but this goes beyond that. And I love the realism and the practicality of Scripture. Because of Zebulun's location on the Mediterranean coast, and you can see that in your maps, They engaged in international trade, shipbuilding, fishing, finance, and evangelism. And of course, much of this had been prophesied over 400 years earlier. God promised in Genesis 49 verse 13, Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea, he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall adjoin Sidon. Now, Sidon was already an international trade hub, and the international trade by which Zebulun enriched and prospered the rest of the nation cannot be overestimated. They were shipbuilders, traders, engaged in international finance, and in other ways, they fulfilled this prophecy as well as the prophecy in Deuteronomy 33, verses 18 through 19. And let me read the verses from the Deuteronomy passage one clause at a time. Verse 18 of Deuteronomy 33 says, And of Zebulun he said, rejoice Zebulun in your going out. So God commanded them to rejoice that they were going to be going out of their territory. And he's talking about their international seafaring trade. Why could they rejoice in that? Oh, he gives some reasons. First reason he gives is in the next verse, and it's related to evangelism. says, they shall call the peoples to the mountains. So that's Mount Zion where the temple was. So speaking of these citizens of Zebulun, it says, they shall call the peoples to the mountain and they shall there offer sacrifices of righteousness. So he's talking about Zebulun engaging in evangelism among the Gentiles because of their vast international contacts that they had. Their geography kept them from getting into a rut. And various commentators point out that this kind of forced them into a kind of flexibility that enabled them to be the best missionaries before the time of Christ and even during the time of Christ. Study it out sometime, and you will see that 11 of the 12 disciples that Jesus picked came from Galilee, which was in the jurisdiction of Zebulun. And this kind of flexibility that their geography forced them to have turned them into good evangelists. Now, the next phrase in the prophecy says, for they shall partake of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hidden in the sand. Craigie says on that verse, the source of their prosperity would be found in the seas, that is, in fishing, maritime, commerce, et cetera, and at the seashores, in shellfish, dye made from shellfish, glass made from sand and there may be more because a maze and another commentary believes the reference to sand is the caravan routes and so he's saying they're going to be bringing wealth to the nation from the seas and also from the caravans and so sea and land. But my main point in bringing this up is to caution us into not thinking that God had only one vocation in mind because didn't he make Adam and Eve into farmers? Now God authorizes an enormous variety of trades and occupations, and it's precisely the diversification of industry that causes a nation to advance. And if you want to look at the opposite, you can look down through history or you can just look right now. What are the poorest nations in the world, the most backward nations in the world? It's nations that have only one industry, and it's agriculture. OK, there's no diversification that's happened. We need farms, but we need the cities as well. But lest you get the impression that Zebulun did nothing but good, let me read Judges 1, verse 30. It says, nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol, so the Canaanites dwelt among them and were put under tribute. In other words, instead of obeying God's mandate, for total conquest, they decided, hey, they're going to make some money off of these Canaanites and leave them there. They're going to bring them under tribute. That's a good thing, right? Make some money. They're good capitalists, right? And God's answer is no. In this case, they're not good capitalists in what they did in that particular move. And they weren't the only ones to settle for less than what God wanted. In their case, as a result of that generation doing so, their descendants were constantly being harassed by those very Canaanites that they let live. We need to realize it's not always the generation that compromises. that gets the bad results. If God instantly gave us pain the moment we sinned, yeah, you'd be pretty motivated not to sin, but God wants us to live by faith, and so many times he allows those consequences to be down the road. But he guarantees in his word that there will be bad consequences to our actions. So Zebulun illustrates how easy it is for Christians to settle for less than what God desires of us, and that never turns out well. Now, the next lesson from Zebulon is encouraging. It shows that later generations eventually broke out of the bad habits that they inherited from their ancestors. Now, we aren't told how, but I think we can safely assume it was because they cut off the sins of their ancestors. And I just praise God for this principle. Though this generation of Zebulonites disobeyed God's orders on warfare, later generations somehow changed. They later became some of the most brave, daring, and skilled warriors. Just look at Deborah. And look at David and the comments they make about the Zebulonites. They were incredible, incredible warriors fighting for the Lord, very, very brave, risking their lives. And so I find this encouraging. Your ancestors do not have to dictate your future. Praise God. Issachar is next. And that's verses 17 through 23. And the main lesson from Issachar is that grace often reverses what nature might expect. Zebulon got a greater inheritance than Issachar did. See, Issachar was the older brother of Zebulun. You would have expected him to receive the choicer inheritance, but God in His sovereign grace sometimes reverses those things. And by the way, just as a side note, I think none of us deserve anything. So any gift that God gives to us is cool. It's good. And we should be content with it, but Zebulun God rewarded the zeal of Zebulun with a greater inheritance. Jesus said of those who are faithful, with the physical and financial things that God's willing to give us more. If we're unfaithful, he'll take away. Here's how he words it in Luke 16. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much, and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? Now I'm only going to mention one city under Asher's jurisdiction. It's the city of Kabul in verse 27. Now this was one of 20 cities in Galilee that King Solomon gave to Hiram the king of Tyre in exchange for all of the help that Hiram the king of Tyre had given for the building of the temple. And that was not a cool thing for Solomon to do. For one thing, it was unlawful. He had no authority to give those cities away. God had intended these to be the inheritance of the descendants of Asher. But he did it anyway. And anyway, what I want to point out here is King Hiram was not impressed at all, saying to Solomon, what kind of cities are these which you have given me, my brother? And the text goes on to say that Hiram called the whole region Kabul, which means good for nothing. So he was naming the whole region after the city of Kabul. But by using that name, he was saying the whole region was good for nothing. Now, there are three lessons we can learn from this. And unfortunately, I didn't put them in your outline. But the first lesson is that modern times show that what was previously thought to be good-for-nothing land can, with industry, be turned into marvelous property. And it was. But without dominion, things that are worthless will stay worthless. When God has gifted you with something that you're less than impressed with, ask God to help you to bring a lot of good out of that, to use it to the max. It's a gift of God. It was intended for good. Second lesson is that when ancestors fail to value something, it is really, really hard to change the perspective of your descendants, the next generation. Our vision of what can or can't be done is often picked up by our children. God considered it a good gift, but neither Asher, Solomon, or Hiram did. They thought that this inheritance was good for nothing. Be careful what you put down. Your kids may very well pick up on your negative attitudes. The third lesson is that Solomon had no right to give any portion of Israel to another country, since the word inheritance means it's intended to be passed on to the descendants of Asher. So that speaks to the fact that later in life, Solomon began to move away from his very limited views of government, which were godly. And as he backslid, he began to increase his statism and increase centralization of government and become more tyrannical. So even good kings can fail to treat what God has given with a good stewardship trust. Don't ever take stewardship for granted. We must always work at it self-consciously. Now for the sake of time, I'm only going to mention one lesson for Naphtali. And that is, rather than destroying the fortified cities mentioned in verse 38, God allowed Naphtali to inherit them. And they made good use of the enemy's technologies to thwart the advances of the pagan nations up north. If you look on the map, you'll see that Asher, Naphtali, and at least the later location for Dan, they really formed the first line of defense against Babylon, Assyria, all of those northern nations. Anyway, the military can be legitimate for us for the defense of the nation that the Lord is willing to bless. I'm not against the military, I'm just against expansionism through the military. But the main point is that it's okay to plunder the technologies of the pagans and use them for righteousness. I love technology, I love computers, I love the advances of science. Christians can use pagan technology for good purposes. Well, let's move on to the last tribe. God gave the final tribe, Dan, a very significant portion of land in the south. If you look up the cities, you will see that Dan's allotment was not in the north at all. And as you can see from the two maps in your outline, what God gave to Dan was in the south, surrounded by Ephraim and Benjamin on the north and east, by Judah on the south. So why on earth does the bottom map list Dan as being way, way up north? Well, it's only hinted at in verse 17, but Judges 18 expands on what is hinted at in verse 17, and it is a sordid tale. Leshem, sometimes called Laish, was most definitely not a city given to them by the Lord. In fact, that city lies completely outside the boundaries that God had authorized any tribe to conquer. Judges describes the occupants of Leshem or Laish as being a peaceful people who minded their own business. They were not under God's curse. And this means that Dan not only abandoned God's call for them to settle the territory, they despised God's inheritance, but they went and they stole an inheritance from other people. They murdered those people because any killing that God does not authorize is automatically murder. The Bible indicates that when a pagan country engages in wars of aggression that he does not authorize, the whole country is guilty of murder. And I believe America has been engaged in massive murder in most of the wars that it has unbiblically and unconstitutionally entered into in the last 100 years. In fact, like Dan's war, most of America's wars have not even been declared wars. Even the government website admits that there have only been 11 official declarations of war in America, with six declarations of war in World War II being the last ones. Now, here's the thing. The Constitution only gives Congress the authority to declare war. Okay, and Congress has not declared war since 1942 and yet America has been involved in 47 full-scale wars and There have been numerous other deadly attacks. Let me see if I can find them in my notes here. Deadly attacks on nations that are not official wars. Here's what one scholar worded it as. America is addicted to undeclared wars. American presidents have employed military forces without authorization of Congress at least 125 times, according to official records, Though the Federation of American Scientists have cataloged almost 200 military incursions in which America was the aggressor since World War II. And citizens have, for the most part, not even been aware of those bloody attacks. Now you can disagree with me. You're always free to disagree with me, you know, if you don't think what I'm saying is biblical. But I believe, biblically, America has a lot of blood on our hands, and we have a lot more to answer for than Dan did. Let's look at Dan's ungodly war. It's kid's play compared to what America has done. And I believe America needs to call for prayer and fasting and repentance for our wars of aggression. Dan didn't like the allotment God gave them, so they completely abandoned their only God-given jurisdiction. They went north, attacked Leshem, killing peaceful citizens, occupying territory God had not given, and making most of Dan's citizens guilty by implication. And I say most because there are hints that not all of Dan's citizens went along with this. Judges 18 explicitly connects the war of aggression together with the fact that Danite soldiers who did the conquest had apostatized, worshipped an idol, stole from a fellow Israelite with threat of violence, and engaged in other sins with a high hand. Now did every citizen of Dan follow suit? No. There appears to have been citizens that remained faithful to the Lord and did not join in those atrocities, but it seems that they were only a tiny minority and they ended up just being assimilated into the other tribes. David Firth explains the potential future consequences of stepping outside of God's will that are illustrated in this history. He says of Dan, the city of Leshen itself appears to be outside the territory Yahuwah had promised. If so, and it's definitely so, but he says, if so, then Dan compounded their failure to take their allotment by initiating a war against a people who did not stand under Yahuwah's judgment. Although Dan would then function as the northernmost point of Israel, it seems that through this they began a history of sin that would shape their life from that point on, indicating how easy it is for sin to become an entrenched pattern in whole communities. In the West today, we often treat sin in a highly individualized way, but the reality seen here is that sin can also be communal. When this happens, it forms in the life of that community deep roots which only the gospel can change. And the gospel can completely cleanse a nation of its guilt, but there must be official repentance and acceptance of the gospel. The gospel was repeatedly offered to Dan, and Dan refused it. Okay? And God eventually dispensed with that tribe. Why do I say that? All you have to do is read the book of Revelation and read commentaries on it. You'll see plenty of evidence of that. God sealed, protected citizens from all of the other tribes of Israel than is nowhere mentioned in the book of Revelation as being sealed. And it was forever wiped off the face of the map. See, apart from repentance, there is no hope for tribes and nations. And I'm so thankful that the state of Tennessee has called for 30 days of prayer and fasting, calling upon Jesus Christ, and yes, they explicitly mention Jesus Christ in this document that's been signed by the legislature, the senate, and the governor of that state, and I can show you copies of this, but they are calling upon Jesus Christ to forgive the nation for their sins and especially their state for their sins and for the corruption that has crept into government. It's one of the most encouraging things that I have seen in quite a long time. And I suspect that God, well, it's my prayer other states would follow suit in seeking God's mercy in the name of Jesus. But in summary, Joshua 19 illustrates we cannot take blessings for granted. Each generation must press into the Lord and seek to pursue their calling with all their heart. And I am encouraged that there seems to be a growing remnant, a huge remnant, actually, of Christians who are solidly Reformed, Reconstructionist, who preach the antithesis. They understand what the antithesis between the world and God's kingdom is. And they've got a vision for the future. And it's more people than I have ever seen in my lifetime who have a solid worldview. And I suspect God would not be raising up this size of a remnant unless he was expecting to do something great. At least that's my prayer. But whether America repents or falls under God's judgment is irrelevant to whether we as individuals should take heed to this message and receive God's blessing. We can, but we must take God's calling upon our lives seriously. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank You for the variety of instructions that we have been seeing from the book of Joshua, and I pray that we would be both encouraged and challenged to keep pressing into You and to see the comprehensive claims that You give upon this world and upon our lives individually. I pray that You would bless this, Your people, in Jesus' name, amen.