Joshua and Judges: The allotment of the land, part 19 - Predestination; Jos 14-17.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The allotment of the land, part 19 - Predestination; Jos 14-17.  

 

Announcements/opening prayer:  

 

In our study of the book of Joshua we arrived at the allotment of the land to the tribes. Caleb received the land that Moses had promised and then Judah was given the south by lot, and sure enough it was the same area as Caleb's land, also a son of Judah. This revealed beyond a doubt that the lot was not a game of chance, but was fully under God's control. Next came the allotment to the sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim. The land allotted to them still possessed the remnants of the Raphaim, supposed giants who had chariots of iron for war. Caleb's land also contained people who had survived Joshua's campaign, but Caleb was confident that the Lord would empower him to drive them out. In contrast to his faith, the sons of Joseph asked for another plot of land and gave the excuse that they were many in number and so would need the extra space. This was a lie. They were not the most numerous tribe. They were afraid to fight the enemy or too lazy. Either way, they were rejecting God's predesigned course and failing to realize that God knows best. It was in the best interest for the sons of Joseph to fight the people in the land and to labor to clear the great forests that grew in the land.

 

Each believer in the church age has been given a custom made plan that contains lessons and paths of growth that only fit the individual. This is predestination.

 

And so we began a study of predestination. We started in Eph 1.  

 

EPH 1:4 In love

 

EPH 1:5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

 

EPH 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

 

EPH 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,

 

EPH 1:8 which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight

 

EPH 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him

 

EPH 1:10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him

 

EPH 1:11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,

 

EPH 1:12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

 

And then we moved to Rom 8:

 

ROM 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren;

 

ROM 8:30 and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

 

Five words tell the magnificent story written by God for the church age believer: Foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, and glorification.

 

Foreknowledge describes the aspect of God's omniscience which sees the future. God always knew those who would believe in His Son, long before the creation of the world. To these He placed boundaries in which they were protected as saved people.

 

This led us to Heb 2.

 

HEB 2:5 For He did not subject to angels the world to come, concerning which we are speaking.

 

HEB 2:6 But one has testified somewhere, saying,

 

"What is man, that Thou rememberest him?

Or the son of man, that Thou art concerned about him?

 

HEB 2:7 "Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels;

Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor,

And hast appointed him over the works of Thy hands;

 

HEB 2:8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet."

 

Man was designed to rule over God's creation, but man gave that gift away. Satan usurped man's reign and man willingly gave it to him. But God will not be overthrown. His  design, His good pleasure, His plans will not be undone. God did the unthinkable and actually became a man. He humiliated Himself, condescending to be a man with all its limitations and the Son of God became obedient to the Father's plan, to the point of death, even death on a cross. He took upon Himself the judgment for the sins of all mankind and He restored to man, now under Himself as Lord, what man had so carelessly gave away. This grand unfolding of history reveals something of God's foreknowledge.

 

God has predestined man and not angels to rule. Angels have always been servants. The believer has been given a plan in which he is to rule in life, not over people, but overcoming the sin nature, world system, and KOD.

 

From this we came to see that the good of this plan is God's good and not the good of the world, which is from a whole different place. When man fell, he acquired the knowledge of good and evil, but as a fallen man, this knowledge was immediately flawed and depraved. This reprobate idea of good is what man stands on and believes will save him, but this is blindness.

 

The church age believer lives on the high plains of heaven and does not devolve into the realms of man's faulty knowledge of good and evil. He seeks only for the will of God, which God promises to reveal.

 

The path of our study has brought us to one of the most fundamental and foundational of truths. Our ways are not man's ways and our good must be sought in Christ and not in the world, not even some improvement of the world's ways, for it is not even of the same kind.

 

Christ said, "Judge not," and by saying this He took from us all semblance of man's knowledge of good and evil.

 

This led us to look at Christ in the gospel of John and ourselves in relation to Him. Heavenly all the way.

 

Christ came into the world to do the will of the Father and by that will He sanctified us and entered us into the Holy of Holies in heaven with Him where there is not a whisper of man's deprived notion of good and evil.

 

HEB 10:5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

"Sacrifice and offering You hast not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me;

 

HEB 10:6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.

 

HEB 10:7 "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come  (In the roll of the book it is written of Me) To do Your will, O God.'"

 

HEB 10:8 After saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor has You taken pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the Law),

 

HEB 10:9 then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will." He takes away the first [the Law] in order to establish the second [Him].

 

/"To do Your will." The believer no longer lives in the domain of man's faulty knowledge of good and evil. He now resides in the will of God: singular, clear, pure.\

 

At the beginning of Christ's ministry He was tempted by Satan. Satan tempted Jesus' relation to the plan and will of the Father and Christ repelled each temptation with the will of the Father as spoken in His word.

 

HEB 10:10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

HEB 10:11 And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

 

HEB 10:12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

 

HEB 10:13 waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

 

HEB 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified [in Him you are complete].

 

HEB 10:15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

 

HEB 10:16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws upon their heart, And upon their mind I will write them,"

He then says,

 

HEB 10:17 "And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."

 

HEB 10:18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

 

HEB 10:19 Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,

 

HEB 10:20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

 

HEB 10:21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

 

HEB 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

 

Evil conscience = knowledge of self, others, the world, and God through a fallen concept of good and evil.