Well, we turn this evening again to the book of Joshua, chapter 21. I'll begin by reading the final three verses. And they give to us a wonderful reminder, God's promises proved. And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers, and they possessed it and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers. And there stood not a man of all their enemies before them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught or anything of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. All came to pass. I suppose that some of you, and I have been asked this question before, particularly by younger ones, how do ministers get their texts? I preached through Joshua over the last six months in part because when I was in Sri Lanka last November, Pastor David Kaye preached from these verses. He gave an overview of Joshua to the pastors and young men in Sri Lanka. And these three verses in particular so struck me that it led me to review the whole book of Joshua and that's really what led to the studies that we've had on Wednesdays over the past six months. And these verses in some ways are very remarkable because they remind us of the faithfulness of God. They're so encouraging and so I do want to come to these But the first part of our study this evening, I just want to cast an eye over these cities that were given to the Levites. At the beginning of this chapter, the heads of the fathers of the Levites came to Eliezer, the high priest, and unto Joshua, the son of Nun. And they reminded them that the Lord had spoken of their own possession in the land of Canaan. The sons of Levi, one of the tribes of Israel, were reserved by God for his ministry. They were to engage in the work of the priesthood. That was largely the descendants of Aaron, one of the families of the tribe of Levi. And the remaining Levites were also assigned to the services of the house of God within Israel. They were to be the priestly tribe. They were to be engaged in the ministry of teaching the people the law of God. And they were not given, as you will know, some of you, a separate region. when Canaan was divided, but they were to be appointed cities in each tribe. And we see how that was fulfilled in this chapter. But what are the lessons? Well, the first lesson, and these are written for our learning. Remember, the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. for instruction, and so on. So what lessons can we draw from the assigning of these cities to the descendants of Levi? Well, the first is this, that of that which the Lord grants to us, we are to return a portion to him. And so each of the other 12 tribes They were 11 plus the two tribes, the half tribes as they were known, the two tribes of Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim. That made 12 other tribes other than the tribe of Levi. They were allotted their parcels of the land of Canaan. And then here they are instructed to designate within each of their inheritances certain towns and cities that would be given to the descendants of Levi. And so in one sense they received the inheritance and then they had to give a portion back to the Lord. There's a lesson there surely for us. Of that which the Lord has given to us in life, our wealth, our resources, then we are to return to him a portion that his work should be maintained in the earth. And notice here, it was not in one sense an optional thing, it was commanded. So in verse 2, the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in. Then again, verse 3, the children of Israel gave unto the Levites out of their inheritance at the commandment of the Lord. And then again, a little later on, the same thing is underlined. And so we need to recognize that this is a principle. And the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reminds them of this, that it is God's will that his ministers, particularly his cause on earth, the gospel cause, the cause of truth, should be rightly maintained by the people of God. Do we give to the cause of God? Or do we say in our minds and in our hearts, well, everything that I've been given, it belongs to me. I'll dispose of it as I see fit. The tribes of Israel were not permitted to think like that. They were to assign part of their inheritance back to the Lord, that his work should be maintained. The second lesson is that the Lord intends that his ministers are properly provided for. Matthew Henry observes that in this list of cities, and we only read a little bit of this chapter, many of the cities that were then assigned to the Levites were considerable cities. They were the best of the cities and lands. The children of Israel didn't say, well, we've got to give some away. Well, let's give them the worst of the land, those that are less pleasant, in less desirable locations, where the wells are particularly deep, or where the resources for the cattle are particularly poor. It was some of the best cities. We'll come to one in a little while. But there is an example for us. Do we give to the Lord of our best? The children of Israel responded in that way here. The third lesson is that these cities that were to be the inheritance of the Levites were dispersed throughout the whole of the land of Canaan in every tribe. The Levites were to have their cities. They were not all in one corner, but all over the whole of the land. And this was the Lord's will. Why? Because all of Israel were to have access to the Levitical ministry. There needed to be those that taught knowledge and wisdom, that declared the law of God and the truth of God throughout the tribes. It was God's intention that all should know his will and that all should have access to his truth. And that is still God's purpose. Of course, at the same time, the Levites were called in that respect to live carefully, circumspectly, as some would say. They were not all in a huddle, a holy huddle, in one corner of the land, whereas Matthew Henry says they could connive at one another's faults. They were in a number of cities. I didn't count them up, but several tens of cities. And so everyone would observe the conduct of the Levites. What a responsibility is placed upon us as Christian believers. We are God's ministers, God's testimony, God's ambassadors in this world. God's purpose is not that he would appoint one particular corner of the globe and gather all his people into that corner and leave the rest of the world untouched. He calls his people to be scattered throughout all the nations, that their testimony, the savour of their salt and their light could be seen. What a responsibility is upon us friends. In one sense we are spiritual priests and Levites. and the whole world is to observe our conduct. When a Christian is in a workplace, it may be that they are the only one who stands for Christ, who knows the truth, the only one who will not chortle at the profane behavior and jokes of others. We're called to be those that command Christ. It may be some of you, you go off to university next year. Perhaps you will be alone in your particular college class or in your dormitory that know the Lord, that believe the Bible. You will be watched. But the Levites had a great privilege, a great responsibility, because they were distributed throughout all the land. Of course, many of the Levites became apostate. They gave a bad name to the Lord. They were a stumbling block to the nation. But it doesn't underestimate their responsibility. John Calvin observes that The descendants of Aaron, particularly, if you notice here, they were assigned cities in Judah and Simeon and Benjamin. And we may say, well, that's an incidental detail that means very little to me. But if you look at a map, you will see that the cities that were to be populated by the sons of Aaron were all closest to Jerusalem. Now at this time, Jerusalem was still a bit of a stronghold of the Jebusites. It hadn't been fully conquered. But Jerusalem, in the purposes of God, many centuries later, would be where the temple of God would be built. And the sons of Aaron were the priests amongst the Levites, and they were already settled in those cities nearest to Jerusalem. no coincidence this was the lord who knows the future and knew his eternal as well as his future plans for his earthly temple and he had already overruled in the distribution of these cities The lot for the children of Aaron came out, and they were by lot, verse 4 we read, to have their cities out of the tribe of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. Thirteen cities. Only the living God knows the future and the detail of His plans such that He can prepare many years before what would be most appropriate. Anyway, we must move on. A final observation before we come to our text. Look at verses 11 to 13. And they gave the Levites the city of Arba, the father of Anak. Which city is Hebron? in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city and the villages thereof gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his possession. Well, you remember when we looked at Caleb a few weeks back, Caleb, because he had followed the Lord fully, he was one of two men who had been had their lives lengthened substantially so that when Israel finally left their wilderness wanderings and came into the land of Canaan, they remained as elder statesmen. Caleb had been one of those spies that had urged the children of Israel to go into the land of Canaan 40 years or so before in order to possess it, believing the promise of God. But Caleb and Joshua were outnumbered by the ten voices of unbelief. And so there were those further 38 years of wandering in the wilderness. And Caleb, as a result, was given a promise by God that he would inherit the land that his feet had traversed, and it happened to be the region of Hebron. And so we read in chapter 14 how Caleb and his future son-in-law Othniel had conquered Arba, it had been renamed Hebron, and it had become, initially, Caleb's possession. And yet it would seem as Caleb, one of the descendants of Judah, his city, Hebron, was given up to the Levites. So just think of Caleb's inheritance here. Conquered with great sweat and toil, a great act of faith, And yet it is then given to the priests, not the whole region that he inherited, but the key city. It becomes, as we read here in verse 13, one of those cities of refuge where those guilty of manslaughter, inadvertent homicide, could take protection. And it later became the royal city of David. And he reigned in Hebron seven years over Judah before the other 10 tribes of Israel asked him to come and reign over them. Well, what a privilege and what a legacy Caleb left. He didn't keep his inheritance all to himself. It may have been taken out of his hands by the elders of Judah, but as the senior statesman, he must have had some say in the assignment of Horeb, sorry, of Hebron. What a privilege and legacy, friends. If we are willing to bequeath to the Lord that which he has entrusted to us, our wealth, our time, Our talents, our energy, who knows how the Lord may use it. And he used part of Caleb's inheritance here to great effect. as a priestly city and then as a royal city. And so I just leave that thought with you. It's such an encouragement, really, to meditate upon these things. But let's come to these final three verses because there's so much to encourage us here. And there are five particular details I want us to notice in a moment. Now, in the middle of these verses, we have A threefold repetition of one key thought. And it is this that God kept His Word. Firstly, in verse 43, as the Lord swear to give unto their fathers. Verse 44, all that He swear unto their fathers. Verse 45, He withheld not any good thing. which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. There is doubtless a threefold underlining here of this telling observation. Israel, under Joshua, proved that the Lord is as good as his word. Do you believe that? Do I believe that? that God always is as good as his word. His promises, his warnings, his instructions, his commands, it will be fulfilled in every detail. And we ought to be that ourselves. If God is a promise-keeping God, then surely, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called ourselves to be as good as our word. Now, of course, sometimes we cannot keep our word. Unforeseen circumstances interfere. I'll be home, we say to our wife or husband. I'll be home in 20 minutes. and it may be that there's an accident ahead of us that blocks the road, some unforeseen circumstances prevents us, but many times we probably never ever knew. We knew that we could not keep that word that we gave, but that's a failing. We should endeavor as Christians to have this reputation about us, like God here, You know, I can trust that person, they're a Christian. And when they say something, I know that to the best of their ability, they will keep their word. They will not prove to be fickle. When they undertake to do something, they will do their best to do what they have said. And we must strive to be like that. You know, the prohibition of the seventh commandment is much more than a prohibition of adultery. It's all about faithfulness, promise keeping, keeping our word. The opposite positive virtue, the Puritans always used to say, is applicable to all of those commandments. God has couched the commandment in negative language, but it is to be applied positively as well. What's the negative? You break the covenant. You made a covenant in marriage, you broke it in adultery. That's a sin, says the seventh commandment. But the opposite is that I keep the covenant, the promise, the agreement that I made. We should be like that in business. We should be like it in our marriages. We should be like it in all our dealings with men. In the workplace, we keep our word to the best of our ability. In our dealings with our children, we must keep our word, not simply the word of promise, but if we are going to be faithful parents, then we stand together as husband and wife. And if we warn our children, or wisely we have to threaten our children with punishment for bad behaviour, it's no use relenting. Otherwise our children will say, well, dad always says that he's going to not allow me this particular reward or privilege if I don't stop doing those things, but he never means it. He always relents in the end. We are called to be those that keep our word. And it's so in the church of Jesus Christ too. Are we dependable? We've given our word to the Lord when we joined the church that we would serve, that we would be steadfast, that we would, with the Lord's help, be willing to labor alongside his people to the best of our energy and strength. Do we keep that word? Well, the Lord here reminds us that he is a promise-keeping God. He was as good as his word to Israel. Well there are five things then here, that was not one of them, five things that we can be encouraged by. Remember Canaan is a token or a type of heaven, it's both. To the ancients it was a token. Because they could believe that God would keep his word and give them an earthly inheritance, then they also looked beyond that earthly inheritance to a heavenly one. Read Hebrews chapter 11. They looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. They looked for a country, a better country, that is unheavenly. When God gave to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob his word that to his descendants, their descendants, he would give the land of Canaan, they took that as a token that he would do better than that. He would give them a heavenly country as well. And so Canaan, in many respects, as we've already noticed, is a type a picture, an illustration of that heavenly rest that awaits the people of God. And so it's in that context particularly that I want us to look at these verses. If God in every respect, and that's what's underlined here, kept his word regarding an earthly inheritance, Can we not also, with confidence, believe his word that he will give to his people, his believing ones, a heavenly inheritance? And all the detail of that heavenly inheritance will be kept in every respect. So this is the first point I want us to draw here. Look at verse 43. The Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers. They possessed it and dwelt therein. All the land to enjoy, so heaven. God is a God of bounty. He's not miserly. that he has promised freely in his Son to give us all things. He that withheld not his Son, but delivered him up for us all, We read in Romans 8, how shall he not freely with him give us all things? That's God's word. Do we believe it? Well, here is testimony. All of that promise that God gave concerning Canaan, he kept. Now, we may minimize that, but you imagine you are an Israelite, a descendant of one of those many thousands that could not believe. that God would keep his word. They died in the wilderness. Their carcasses rotted in the wilderness, we're told in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4. The descendants would have said, my forebears couldn't believe. They went into the land of Canaan as spies. They came back. They said it's a good land, but it's full of giants. It's full of people with iron chariots. There's no way that we can go into that land. God will not keep his promise, but he did. Do we have doubts? We're here upon earth. In one sense, heaven in all its glories is veiled from our eyes. We cannot see it. It's beyond our conception in some ways that God has laid up for his people a glorious, eternal realm. But we're called to believe it. He fulfilled that unimaginably, unbelievable promise to the ancient people of God. He gave them Canaan, despite the fact they found it hard to conceive. How much more shall he give us heaven? You could go through the Bible and think of all the Pictures, all the descriptions and words that the Lord has littered his word with concerning heaven. I've got eight to suggest to you, but there's many more. The first is paradise. And that, I think it's a Chaldean word that was adopted into the Aramaic used by Christ, but it means a beautiful garden. It means a place of unimaginable bliss. Heaven is paradise, the paradise of God. We read in Revelation, the Garden of Eden, it was planted. God spoke the whole of creation into existence, but then he planted a garden in Eden. It speaks of his special provision. for Adam and Eve. It was a garden in which all the fruits were given and provided. It was a place of perfection, a place of glory, but Paradis for Eden was lost on account of the fool. But Revelation gives us a glimpse of that garden restored, only improved, if it could be, for the inheritance of God's people. These are the pictures that we're given. Canaan. In one sense, it was a land flowing with milk and honey, out of hills whose hills you could dig iron and brass. It had all the resources necessary for the prosperity of God's people. Yes, it was flawed, it was marred, because it was part of a fallen world, and yet it still was a token and it depicted and it encouraged the people of God to look beyond this world to that heavenly Canaan. And we think of Christ, I go to prepare a place for you. In my father's house are many mansions, a place prepared by Christ for his bride whom he has given his life blood for. It must be a special place. The joy of thy Lord, that's heaven. The parable, enter into the joy of thy Lord, a place of everlasting rest, the crown of life that the Lord has reserved for his faithful servants into the presence of thy Lord. There's so many more words, but these verses here, they remind us that whatever God says, He keeps his word. He will be as good as his word. And so all those sublime descriptions of that inheritance which has been laid up in heaven, reserved for his people, it is to be embraced with confidence, with hope, with anticipation, with comfort in the day of trouble and pain. So there's the first of these five observations. I didn't realize the time's nearly gone. The second one here is in verse 43, the Lord gave unto Israel, and these are all shorter. They didn't earn it. They didn't deserve it. They were a stiff-necked people, but it was a gift to Israel, as he had said. I wonder how many times certainly some of the Israelites thought, why will the Lord keep this promise? When I review the nation, we are such an unworthy nation. We disbelieve, we murmur, we complain. Will the Lord still give to us that land which he has promised? He kept his word despite the unworthiness of the nation. He gave it to them. We feel unworthy, we should do, we are and the church is unworthy in so many respects of what the Lord has promised, but he will keep his word because heaven itself is the gift of grace. Thirdly, We see here in verse 44 that they were given rest from all their enemies. It doesn't mean here that the land was completely extinguished of all of the Canaanites, but there was not a man that stood before them. They were subdued. How much more, if the Lord gives his ancient people earthly rest, shall he give his people rest from all their greatest enemies, death, sin, hell, Satan, those that oppose the people of God, Christ himself, and those he has redeemed. There is that day coming when we shall know fully and finally that all those that oppose our soul and our happiness are finally subdued and the Lord will give his rest. The Apostle Paul says, I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. You know the passage. Fourthly, we see here that the Lord did not fail of all the good things which he had spoken. Verse 45. Here is an invitation to us to look beyond Canaan, to review everything God says in his word concerning redemption, concerning the preservation of our souls such that we endure his promised help in time of need, his warnings of sorrow and chastisement when we forsake his ways, We should not play fast and loose with God's word. It's here, set before us. Nothing failed. God was as good as his word in everything that he had spoken, and particularly in all the good things. There was not one good thing. then think of all that the Lord has promised to you as a believing child of God. In this life, in that life which is yet to come, in the pilgrim way, all the promises of God are sure and certain. We shall get to heaven as the children of Israel got to the end of their conquest and we shall say the Lord has been as good as his word. He spoke these words, this is my fifth point, he spoke these words to the house of israel verse 45 but who are the house of israel in the new testament when james wrote his letter we read that he wrote to the 12 tribes scattered abroad did he mean judah and simeon and benjamin and the levites he did not Those tribes were virtually indistinguishable at the time of his writing. The twelve tribes, spiritually speaking, are the believing people of God. We are the spiritual people of God and all that the Lord has written in his word is applicable to us. So what an encouragement there is for us here. May the Lord bless it to us all. We close our worship this evening. We sing together hymn 639. How soon, my God, my joys shall rise and run eternal rounds beyond the limits of the skies and all created bounds. 639.