Refuge and Influence (Part C)

To burn incense before Yahweh, to minister to Him, and to give the blessings in His name forever. Well, what blessings? The Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you, be gracious to you. Numbers chapter 6, that's the blessing that they were to give to the people forever. Now in the New Testament we have several of them. I like number six. I prefer because it is just beautiful and my preference and leading of the Spirit I believe.

I've tried the others but I always come back to that one. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Joshua. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio.

Specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Joshua chapter 7. Refuge and Influence is the title of Pastor Rick's message and he'll be teaching in Joshua chapter 21. Simeon and Levi, the slaughter of Shechem, one of the most shameful events in the book of Genesis and even the Bible. Joshua built an altar at Shechem to have the people go up on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal and pronounce the blessings on Gerizim, the curses on Ebal.

And this was the reading of the law. And Joshua will give his farewell address there also in Joshua 24. So Shechem is a significant place.

It means the shoulders. And, you know, some of the Bible commentators have tried to take the names of the cities and apply it to Christ. The problem is some of them you cannot get the definition. It's not there.

They try to get down to the root word but I think that's forcing it. But Shechem is one that it works because upon his shoulders we read in Isaiah 9 that his kingdom shall never end. Hebron mentioned here in verse 20.

Now I come back to that. Has any avenger and any kinsman ever caught up with someone who has fled to this city? Well, we don't have one of them catching up to them on the run but what we have is Abner. Abner was Saul's general and after Saul died, David embraced Abner and recruited him, brought him over. He said, I'm going to give you the army because that's Joab. He's my cousin but he's crazy. And he was. He was a homo. Joab was the nicest guy around until he decided to kill you.

And then it was you were dead. It's just go kill yourself because Joab's coming. Anyway, Joab, Abner was being chased by Joab's younger brother. And the younger brother catches up and Abner says, back off young man. I don't want to hurt you. I didn't deal with your brother. And he doesn't back off. So he just pokes him with the back of his stick and kills him.

I mean these guys, no steroids, no gymnasium, just walked a lot of places and worked with livestock. And they were just, man. So Joab, of course, we read in 2 Samuel chapter 3. Now Abner had returned to Hebron, a city of refuge.

Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him privately and there stabbed him in the stomach so that he died for the blood of Asher El, his brother. The gate of the city is the beginning of the city. It's the city hall. It's where the strategies for war are considered.

It is where the city business is. Joab must have lured him out an inch. He probably did it by talking low.

It makes him kind of get closer. Over the line. Anyway, there's an example. He was in the city of refuge. Joab would have been guilty of murder. And Joab in the end gets killed, dies a violent death. Well, verse 8 now. And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness, on the plain from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh. This is modern-day Jordan, the kingdom of Jordan.

This is on the trans-Jordan side, east of the Jordan River. And again, despite the importance of these cities in the Bible, we don't find them mentioned again. But the work of Christ is the city of refuge to us.

Verse 9. These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who dwelt among them. Whoever killed a person accidentally might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.

We might have another name for the avenger of blood, the grim reaper, the role he would be playing. But a stranger also benefited from the law. So if you were not a Jew and you were, you know, on a job site, you could have been an Egyptian and you came to Israel because that's where the work was, and you accidentally killed a guy, you could flee to the city of refuge.

So goes that story. Now, chapter 21, here we have the separation of the 48 Levitical cities. Because the Levites were decentralized.

They did not get territory of their own as a tribe, but they did get parcels of land as individuals. And they got these parcels in various cities assigned to them, these 48 cities that God directed them to give to the other tribes, to the Levites. Numbers 35, verse 8, And the cities which you will give shall be from the possession of the children of Israel. From the larger tribe you shall give many, and from the smaller you shall give few. Each shall give some of its cities to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance that each receives.

And so he's saying of the tribes, the land that they had, each tribe had to give Levites some territory, giving them equal opportunity to contribute. We'll come back to that in a moment. Verse 21, we have to do that or else we just won't get through it. And it would be just too many verses left hanging. That's why at least I do it when I say I'm coming back to it.

Plus, I like to make it difficult for people. No, I don't. The heads of the fathers' houses of the Levites came near to Eliezer the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. Verse 2, And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying Yahweh commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in with their common lands for our livestock. Well, Shiloh, you know, that's now the center of worship. Gilgal was the headquarters of Joshua, where the temple was originally when they first crossed into the land.

Shiloh was then determined to be the place of worship, and that's where it is the capital of the nation, you could say. And so as Caleb and Zeolophad, his daughters at least, Zeolophad's daughters came and Caleb came to Joshua and said, Hey, we've got land issues that have to be settled, we were promised and we want to make our claim. Well, the priests and the Levites, the priests are Levites, but the Levites are not all priests, if you understand that.

Aaron was a Levite, but only his sons can be priests. Well, anyway, they're now making their claim. The common land refers to the surrounding land, the pasture lands, around the cities that they're getting. And the cities were already there. They dislodged the people, the Canaanites that were there, and they took the cities and they're giving them the pasture lands surrounding them, those are the common lands. In latter times, this became very important to the priests.

So long as the people were obedient to the Lord, the priests were provided for and maintained their calling. But as the kings came along, and even the people and judges, all of this went crazy, David is the one that really began getting it back on track, and Hezekiah was another one that worked on keeping these things the way they should be in the land. So here we are in America, and we're looking at our rights being attacked and eroding, and just these demonic people, and that's what they are, because the things they champion, they're not human. Human beings don't come up with this stuff on their own.

They may come up with stealing and lying and things like that, but this stuff is so bizarre and wicked that you know there are demonic beings pulling the strings. Well, we're watching this happen, and it's very difficult to see it go away. Well, that's how it was very often in Israel. You had Jeremiah. Isaiah fought like a dog to keep his right, and he was very successful.

Not 100%, but more successful. Jeremiah had to watch it all happen. He sat in the grotto, in the cave outside, and he wrote the lamentations. He says, finally they did it. After all that we had going, all the proofs and the arguments and the righteousness and the almost, they finally did it, all the suffering. And well, Jeremiah right now is really not caught up with that stuff.

He is having the best time ever. Well, when the nation, as I mentioned, drifted from God, the Levites, they suffered greatly because their income was based on mainly their vocation, what they received from the temple, and then they had their lands too. And in many instances, they had to forsake the ministry because they had to feed their families, and they would go to these pasture lands that they were given, and they neglected the priesthood and the serving of the temple because of the popular demand, the culture at the time. It's okay, you younger believers, to tell people, I don't care about your cultures, go into hell. It's okay to say that to them. You can say, I belong to a different kingdom.

I have a dual citizenship. I'm here for now, but I'll be there forever. And it's much better than all this junk you have going on here. And how else are they going to learn?

Because all they're getting is one side of the story. This fool's paradise is so wonderful. Look, I got Wi-Fi. Life is good. Anyway, 2 Chronicles, chapter 31, this is, of course, that magnificent scene and David is, he's old, he's given the throne to Solomon, but he's got unfinished business, and David is now, no more politics. I'm going to throw myself into worship. I'm going to use, I'm still, you know, I really am still king, but I'm going to use all my resources to build God's house, to establish worship. He decentralizes, and then he formalizes, he does all this stuff, and so we read this with David setting it up. He commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites, that they might devote themselves to the law of Yahweh. That's what they were supposed, because that's what would save the people. Malachi, we come along, and they were going through the motions, but their hearts weren't in it.

It's what we call formal religion today, where people go to church, but they don't care. They don't care what they just heard. Unless, yeah, I should be kinder to my neighbor.

The ones I like, you know, that kind of stuff. When we come, we who are born again, and we hear God say something, it's like, he's right. We don't push back on God. Well, Malachi, they were pushing back, and he called them out.

Malachi asks them a question. Paul, when he does Romans, I know I'm bouncing around a little bit, but let me decide it. So when Paul is doing Romans, he does a question and answer format. He says, you know, is God mocked? Oh, what shall we say? Shall we sin? Questions, because he knows he's dealing with smart enough people to be able to answer the questions the right way, and he's extracting from them confessions.

Well, Malachi goes to that. He says, will a man rob God? What moron will say, yep, yep, uh-huh, I will. I mean, no one would say that in their right mind, and then he says, yet you robbed me, God speaking through the prophet. Yet you've robbed me, but you say, in what way have we robbed you? Pray tell.

I'm glad we don't use that in our language. It's good for old movies, but who says pray tell? Anyway, God says you in tithes and offerings. The priests can't function as priests because of you. Pastors can't pastor, not because of you, but because of you. You know, many men, they enter the ministry. They want to preach God's word. They want to do everything right.

Then they start finding they have to be politicians and run for office all the time. If somebody invites them to something, they have to go, or else the people might leave the church or talk bad about them, and all of a sudden their posture starts going down because their backbone is gone. It's hard, and I'm not picking at any of them. God blessed me in the past when he gave me an attitude.

He just said, don't care about what they say, care about what I say, and if you care about what I say, my people will care about what you say, and you'll care about them. You see how it works? But it's hard because you make relationships with people, you love them, and then what happens when it becomes a foot race to whose will is going to get done? Well, you have to have that attitude. You know, as much as I love you, we're better off without you if that's how you feel, not with any hatred or malice.

The door is always open to come back. Your parents are the same way. Are you going to let your kids dictate to you? You know, your kids go off to college, they pick up dumb ideas, they come back home, are you going to go and tell me more?

Are you going to shut them down? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. I paid for that? And when we see that happening, we see parents caving to their kids, oh, they're so smart, on moral issues when they know better.

All right, we've got to get through this. Verse 3, so the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance at the commandment of the Lord these cities and their common lands. Now, Jacob's prophecy concerning Simeon and Levi, we read about it last session. He said that he would divide them in Israel and scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49, verse 7, cursed be their anger, that whole shechem thing, for it is fierce and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Well, it was fulfilled. We talked about Simeon getting allotment within Judah, but then being scattered throughout the north.

Here is Levi. They're distributed as clans amongst the Jewish people. But they're sort of, you know, they're redeemed themselves when they sided with Moses, and they have this honorable position. But what appeared to be a curse proved to have within it a blessing. Cursed is their anger. And yet, here they are, carrying the articles of the temple, the articles of the Lord, things. They were looking at things nobody else could look at. They were touching things no one else could touch. And so the presence of the Levites everywhere in the land, God's intention was that it would serve as an unending influence.

It would just be, they were all over the place. And so we have the city of refuge, but then we have also this righteous influence that was constantly telling the people, God is amongst you. Several years ago, I was flying into Houston, and I was so tempted to make a corny joke, so tempted I'm not. Flying into Houston, I'm looking out the window, and I'm just noticing, because it's this one flight pattern into Houston, it's the same at least several times I've flown it, and I could just pick out the steeples. There's so many of them.

You know the devil's trying to change those into domes. That influence, that influence of the Bible in the land, God shed his grace on the purple mountain's majesty, amber waves of grain. What a beautiful song.

She wrote that going across the country looking out the window in a train, and she just compiled what she saw into a beautiful song. Anyway, God's relationship with his people was stamped throughout the land by these Levitical cities scattered about. So you did not have to go to Judah to find a Levite. They were all over the place, and it should be that way with we Christians in the workplace. I've got to find a Christian.

Wouldn't that be wonderful? I have a fire alarm, and next to the fire alarm, you have a Christian alarm, and you pull it, and the Christian pops out. Verse 4, now the lot came from the families of the Kohathites and the children of Aaron the priest who were the Levites had 13 cities by lot from the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Simeon and from the tribe of Benjamin. There's a decentralization of the tribe. The Kohathites are not the sons of Korah, though Korah belonged to that clan, but Aaron and Moses were from Kohath, and this, of course, is spreading the Levitical influence, which included the priest. In verse 5, there's Kohath mentioned, the second son of Levi. In verse 6, Gershom, the first son of Levi, and verse 7, Merei, the third son of Levi, from them the priest and the Levites come. Verse 13, thus to the children of Aaron the priest, they gave Hebron with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer. And so these were Aaronites, the descendants of Aaron. They were priests in Hebron. Verse 16, Beth-Shemesh with its common land, nine cities from two tribes. When the Philistines won the ark in battle from the Jews, they, after seven months having the ark and a lot of drama in their lives, they said, we got to get this back to the Jews.

So, of course, they put it on a cart and they sent it back. And they sent it, and they said, it's either going to go towards the Jews at Beth-Shemesh or not. Well, Beth-Shemesh was a Levitical town. These were the very clan that was responsible for carrying the ark.

It was divine. They may have had some knowledge, the Philistines, of these things, but this was a divine act. The men who shouldered the ark of the covenant was to whom it was returned. Then the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth-Shemesh, not this Joshua, we're about 400 years later, almost five, and stood there. A large stone was there, so they split the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was in it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on a large stone. Then the men of Beth-Shemesh offered and made sacrifices the same day to the Lord.

I shouldn't have read all of that, but it's too late. One of the great lessons that my pastor, Pastor Chuck, taught us about that incident is that when you put the presence of the Lord on a cart, it's where it doesn't belong. Carts are made out of boards and big wheels, and many churches are run by boards and big wheels, and not the pastors and the Levites who are to carry the ark.

That does not diminish the role of a board. You've got to have intelligent men, capable men, do so much for us. You all don't know how many benefits as a church that you get because God has godly men that He sent here.

There was no ad put in the paper for them. How they got to their position is divine. And in your prayers, remember your board members. They're God-appointed men. They're like tribal leaders. Anyway, verse 41, all the cities of the Levites within the possessions of the children of Israel were 48 cities with their common lands. Every one, verse 42, of the cities had its common land surrounding it. Thus were all the cities. So the landscape again of the nation was peppered with priests and Levites.

And what sort of men were these? 1 Chronicles 23, the sons of Amram, Aaron and Moses. And Aaron was set apart, he and his sons forever, that they should sanctify the most holy things to burn incense before Yahweh, to minister to Him, and to give the blessings in His name forever. Well, what blessings? The Lord bless you, the Lord keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you, be gracious to you. Numbers chapter 6, that's the blessing that they were to give to the people forever. Now, in the New Testament, we have several of them. I like number 6. I prefer it because it is just beautiful in my preference and leading of the Spirit, I believe.

I've tried the others, but I always come back to that one. Not that the others are diminished. Anyway, those are the God-centered servants. Verse 43, the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it, and are there at this moment.

Right now, they're there in the land. But a lot of witnessing material. That's another thing. To witness from history is very helpful. To share why the Bible can be trusted. That's what I was trying to communicate from the book of Revelation, talked about Satan's boys.

You can trust the Bible. Its prophecy validates it, and the events of history. So the Jews out the land, in the land, in the land now, as the technology is coming about to fulfill the revelation.

That is witnessing material. We move now to verse 44. Yahweh gave them rest all around according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and not a man of all their enemies stood against them. Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand. Verse 45, not a word failed of any good thing, which Yahweh had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass. And we covered that in earlier sessions. Next session, Joshua 22, the trans-Jordan warriors are sent back across the Jordan to their lands given to them by Moses, but they make a blunder.

They meant well, but they goof. And that almost causes civil war. And then of course the closing words of Joshua to the people not to turn away from the Lord. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Joshua right here on Cross Reference Radio.