40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Joshua 12:1-13:33 (Episode 193)

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

Chad and Daniel get from Joshua to Revelation and spend a lot of this episode talking about Armageddon and the return of Christ. Why does God leave things for Israel (and the church) to struggle against? The Promised Land is no new Eden, but a second Adam will come from it. All this is discussed. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Houston City Event Las Vegas City Event Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. you can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. While you're over there, you can go to the events page. You can check out the city events that are happening early next year, early 2020 city events in Vegas and Houston. February 22nd in Houston, Texas.

Chad will be there. I'll be there. Loso, Gretchen Ronovic, Scott Keith, Matt Popovich. We're going to be talking about what happens when people encounter Jesus. Chad's going to have to do some New Testament work. There's no way for him to get out of this. Well, maybe. He could talk about, like, some Theophany stuff. Who knows what he's going to do?

You have to come check it out. It's free to check it out. So you can register right there. Sign up. There's going to be a lunch. We're going to be hanging out. The city events are always a lot of fun. So February 22nd, if you're in that great state of Texas,

we would love to see you there. March 21st, Las Vegas. We're going to be talking about the Book of Galatians, the whole thing. All six chapters, six speakers. I'll be there. eric sorenson scott keith adam francisco cindy koch and blake flatley we're gonna be doing galatians and sin city also free you can register over at 1517.org just go to the events page click on that event and sign up chad what's going on man well like i was telling you earlier i'm a

little tired i've been grandparenting for let's see it's just a day before thank that's like six days in a row yeah i told my wife that uh my grand my grandsons are two and six i told my wife the first two days you're a grandparent but anything past that you've gone back into parent mode yeah yeah yeah you got yeah so the we've we've had them for us for several days now and it's been great we've we've done a lot of a lot of fun things with them but uh they have worn me out you think about adopting a couple of three-year-olds like maybe triplets or something No, I don't think I'm going to. I'm just going to enjoy being a grandparent.

The parents get back tonight, so we'll get to pass them back to mom and dad. Stacey and I can go back to our low-key, quiet lifestyle. You didn't realize how low-key your lifestyle was until you got some youth injected into that house, did you? Man, I did not. I forget you have no personal space when you have little ones around. and they never, ever, from the moment they get up to the time they go to bed, never, ever stop talking.

Constantly. Yeah. Jabber, jabber, jabber, jabber, jabber. But this is the most time we've had to spend with them as far as days in a row go. So it's been great. But it does remind me, I'm knocking on 50's door, and I don't have either the energy or the patience

that I had when I was in my 20's. This is true. this is true i i i have this i mean i'm i'm i'm knocking on 40s door and uh every holiday on the holidays you're around all sorts of little kids i mean my family's got an insane amount of little kids but i don't and uh and i realized as i watched it i'm like man i would i think i'd just be cleaning up non-stop like i just can't i can't handle this yeah that's pretty much what i've been in the last few days people all the time ask me why i only had one kid and it's not because i hate kids or anything but it my answer is well i'm one of six i already raised like five and so

like i'm done yeah you started parenting sort of early on right yeah man your siblings i think one is good for me yeah i understand completely anyway so here we are in joshua yeah man josh joshua 12 it's it's where it's going to be a break from from what we're used to for a little while yeah it is uh we've got uh we were looking at this this morning and we've got a lot of chapters coming up that are going to be fairly easy to cover because we've talked about almost everything thematically that these chapters cover in in past episodes i mean we've got the two and a half tribes that live east of the jordan river we talked about that we have a division of the land between the 12 tribes we've talked about that before at least looking forward to that and a lot

of the other issues we've we've covered as well so we're probably going to be shifting into pretty high gear for uh for the next uh next few episodes and really this so chapter chapter 12 starts us out here and it goes all the way through chapter 21 so a big chunk of joshua i mean you kind of picture joshua is like oh yeah it's all this narrative well not really i mean yeah the first 12 chapters the first 11 chapters a lot of narrative last couple chapters the last three chapters i guess narrative again but there's a there's a pretty good size chunk almost 50 of the book it's not really i mean it's got narrative in there but it's more kind of how they divvy up divvy up the land and some of the issues that are that are involved in that so uh we uh we'll cover

12 through 21 at a pretty pretty rapid pace and then we will be in the wild and wacky r-rated world of judges which should be a lot of fun we'll uh we'll be there in probably just a handful of episodes yeah judges won't be too boring it might be challenging for you and i but it won't be boring definitely will not be boring yeah judges is a lot of things boring it is not all right so uh we we didn't finish up chapter 11 last time actually this is one of those cases where i think they got the chapter division wrong chapter 12 really should have started at verse 16 of chapter 11 but uh we'll we'll forgive them that uh once more we finished up chapter 11 last time that was where we had a summary of the conquered territory now 12 is a relatively short

chapter. There's 24 verses. It's easy to divide. You got two main sections. The first is verses one through six. Verses one through six is a recap of the kings and their territories that were conquered, not by Joshua, but really by Moses. So this is a looking back. So this is the reflections upon when Og was defeated by Moses and Israel, and Sihon was defeated by Moses and by Israel, and we have a description in those verses, those first six verses, of the division of those particular territories to the two-and-a-half tribes, to the Reubenites and the Gadites into the half-tribe of Manasseh. You'll remember that those two-and-a-half tribes they wanted to basically stay east of the jordan because they had a lot of pasture land there for

their for their animals and they kind of kind of worked out a deal i guess you could say where it wasn't an ideal situation but they kind of worked out this this compromise where moses said okay we will let you have that territory east of the jordan as yours on one condition that you come over the Jordan with us and help us to conquer the holy land itself, the land that God has promised to give to us. And that's what the two and a half tribes did. They left some people behind to kind of take care of the livestock and watch over the land. But their soldiers all went with the Israelites and helped to conquer all the territory

that we've been reading about these first 11 chapters. So that's the first half of chapter 12 of Joshua. Now we pick up with verse 7 all the way through the end of the chapter, and we have a description here that's more or less a list. Most of these verses are just a listing of the 31 kings that were conquered by Joshua. So the first six verses are a description of the victories of Moses east of the Jordan. then the last verses are a description of the victories of joshua west of the jordan and that's the way it starts out verse seven now these are the kings of the land whom joshua and the sons

of israel defeated beyond the jordan toward the west so from the jordan river all the way to the mediterranean so then it then it gives them a list of uh beginning there with the ninth verse It starts with the king of Jericho, and then it works its way all the way down to verse 24, to the king of Tirzah. In all, it says 31 kings. Now, I do want to mention one of these kings in particular, just because I find it fascinating. And some of you might know this, but I'm betting a number of you will not realize a connection that we have here. so in uh let me find the verse here verse 21 we have mentioned the two kings the king of taanak and the king of megiddo now megiddo is a is a fascinating the city itself and megiddo has a

fascinating history and i will use that just as an illustration of how of how significant it is to read the Old Testament and the New Testament together, to read one and a lot of the other. We've seen this, of course, time and time again throughout the podcast, but this is one more example of that. And this example is going to help us to understand the interpretation of a specific chapter and verse in the book of Revelation.

And you all know it. I'm just not going to tell it to you yet. I'm going to save it for the end of this little discussion. So Megiddo, what do we know about the city of Megiddo? One of the things we know is that it's an old, old city. There have been archaeological digs going on for almost the last century at the city of Megiddo. It was there from the Neolithic period all the way to the Hellenistic period, so a big span of time. It was there for a long time before Joshua and the Israelites came along.

And we also know that it was a city that if it was known for anything, it was known for its wars and its battles. It has like a scarred past, you could say. I think they've uncovered 20 or 21 archaeological layers at the city. So that's like the city's destroyed. Okay, they rebuild it. That's another layer. Then that city is destroyed. So they rebuild it again.

That's another layer. and on and on the city the city builds up builds up over time and the reason the reason there were so many battles there is is because it was located at a strategic point so there was an there was an old uh sort of super highway i guess is what we would call it called the the via modus which is the way of the sea and this went up from egypt along the along the mediterranean all the way up into mesopotamia so this ancient roadway this this old super highway was a way that the egyptians would go into mesopotamia and mesopotamians would go down into egypt because of course you had trade going back and forth and megiddo was located at at a very significant point there where was there

was only a narrow passage in this particular area and that's where the city megiddo was so we have we have uh archaeological evidence from an egyptian temple that talks about a battle that took place between the egyptians and the canaanites that happened in the city of megiddo we know that uh joshua captured the city of megiddo we know that solomon fortified the city of megiddo and we also know that several battles took place just just from the scriptures themselves you know some from some extra biblical resources of other battles but we know of a lot of battles just from the Bible itself that took place at Megiddo. So Megiddo, old city, became part of the Israelite cities,

and battle after battle after battle took place there. Now, how does this help us to understand exactly this connection between the Old and the New Testament? Well, we've all heard of a particular battle that is talked about in the book of Revelation, chapter 16, verse 16, that is like the end time battle, right? This is going to be the big battle in which Christ is finally going to defeat all the forces of evil. And this is the battle that we all know as Armageddon. Is it there? There's like a movie Armageddon, right? I was just about to say, I think that you're confusing the Bible with

a giant meteor that bruce willis yeah that's right nuclear warhead in but yeah i was i was having trouble i should have looked at that before the podcast but yeah that was the movie so armageddon so when you hear i think when we hear armageddon we think yeah some like huge cataclysmic battle or event right that's kind of what we associate it with yeah well it is interesting that i mean armageddon is obviously a biblical word i mean this is where it comes from But it's a word that has somehow found its way even out of the Bible into just broad culture that you could literally name a movie, Armageddon, and just about everyone would understand that this is an apocalyptic film. This is about, like, the last thing, you know? That is interesting.

So you don't even have to be a Christian to understand sort of what's baked into the cake of the word Armageddon. Yeah, yeah. So the fascinating part of this is, so Armageddon is a Greek transliteration, meaning they just like took over the sounds from one language and wrote it into another language. So it's a Hebrew word, or Hebrew two words, that are written in Greek. And the two Hebrew words are Har-Megiddo. Har means mountain, and Megiddo, of course, is a reference to the city. So Har-Megiddo, Mount Megiddo, comes into Greek as Armageddon. So Har-Megiddo, Armageddon. And that is the Old Testament background of Armageddon.

And so when you read in Revelation chapter 16 about this battle of Armageddon, you're really reading about the battle of Har-Megiddo connected with this ancient city of Megiddo that is mentioned now for the first time in the Bible. It's going to be mentioned several other times, but this is the first mention of it in Joshua chapter 12 in this list of 31 kings that Joshua conquered. So what's amazing to me, so you trace this, you have this reference to a king in Megiddo conquered by Joshua. Then you have the city Megiddo mentioned multiple times in the Bible and elsewhere. That eventually finds its way into this apocalypse of St. John as this, you know, cataclysmic end time battle known as Armageddon. And then it works its way into Hollywood, the movies that we make today. So anyway, that's a whole background to what Armageddon is, but it's an important moment to accent what we've accented time and time again, that unless you know kind of this Old Testament background, you're not going to understand a New Testament reference. So the Old Testament background is this whole, long, war-complicated history of this particular city, and that's why this last cataclysmic battle is called Armageddon, because this place was a place of battles. It was a place where there were a lot of major battles fought throughout history. And so it becomes sort of a metaphor for this last greatest battle that's going to take place at Armageddon.

What's interesting about Armageddon is that even within Christian culture, there's a lot of fear associated with it, right? Like, you think about Armageddon, and you're like, oh, that's going to be terrible. When, biblically, like, Armageddon is, like, the last battle, right? This is where it's going to be, like, it's the best. It's, like, the last thing that happens before everything gets good. It's weird how we do this with things. We have, like, somehow turned even the second coming into a source of anxiety, right? And so, I mean, I remember this.

I mean, I remember watching that old movie from the 70s, A Thief in the Night, and just being completely freaked out about what was going to happen. And then you have the Left Behind series, and everyone's freaked out about it. And if you're a Christian, there's nothing scary about the return of Christ. We're supposed to be anticipating it, not dreading it. Yeah, we look forward to it, right? Yeah, we had a reading in church a couple weeks ago. i think it was from luke where it's like like when you see all these things happening he doesn't say run and hide in a cave put your head between your knees he's like

lift up your heads because your redemption draws nigh it's like this is good news yeah i mean we like it's not like we're entering a battle and we don't know i mean we might win we might lose i mean jesus might be victorious or jesus might get you know he might get beaten we don't know of course we know we already know the end of the story so all yeah i i maybe because i didn't come from kind of the uh uh the left behind theology background but the end time for me is like that's good news it's not anything to be scared about it's like this is great you know everything's sad it's going to come untrue like tolkien says so look forward to it don't uh don't fear it i think it's actually rooted more in in a lack of assurance of if we're really in oh yeah i can see

that too yeah i think the fear is mostly well i don't i mean i don't want jesus to return because what if i'm what if i'm not good enough what if i'm the goats and not the sheep right yeah yeah I think this is what it really is, is that you confuse faith with faithfulness and you wonder if on that day you're going to be found faithful. And if this is the criteria that you're working with, you have a lot of reason for anxiety because if you think the criteria is faithfulness, not faith, then yeah, we all have reason to be quite afraid, you know? I mean, it's the old, I mean, I remember this distinctly growing up, you know, you would be wondering, like, before you did something, like, would I want to be doing this thing when Jesus comes back?

Like, he's going to, like, catch you in the act. Yeah, I remember those anxieties, too. You know, so you always want to be, like, about your father's business. You don't want to be doing something, and I don't mean, like, bad things. I don't mean, like, do I want to be robbing this liquor store when Jesus comes back? I don't mean that. I mean, just like, do I want to be watching... Binging Netflix.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Do I want to be watching Dumb and Dumber when Jesus comes back? Because, I mean, I'm sure that that wouldn't be a very faithful thing to do. And, yeah, it's just simple things like that. Or just dreading, you know, having all this anxiety, depending on how you view the end times, you know, like, I just don't think I'm going to be able to hold up. Yeah.

I'm going to straight up apostatize, you know? Like, when they start pulling out my fingernails, it's going to be all over for me. and this is just not how the bible talks about it no no not at all i mean the way the bible talks about is the way that joshua talks about it right before they even cross the jordan god says all right i'm giving you this land it's not like if you are able to actually beat all of these superior armies then you'll have the land no god's like before you even cross the jordan he's like oh yeah yeah the land's yours i'm giving it to you i'm gonna i'm gonna fight for you and so it's just

like it's just like this with the return of christ well this is well this is something you see actually if you want to know a picture that's being painted in the in the conquest of the promised land is that i mean the promised land is you know simply a picture of of a new heavens new earth i mean like there's a lot of things going on in the promised land obviously it's a land that a promise comes out of but what that what comes out of the promised land is someone who says i'm going to make all things new uh and there's there's a bigger there's a greater promised land coming which is the all of creation restored uh but look i mean like but look at how god gives them the promised land it's not it's not as though uh this is ever i mean it's i mean

he just gives them victory after victory after it doesn't i mean it's it's so and and you see that the victories are so complete yeah and this is how we are to view the second coming that like when the second coming happens that this is not going to be some kind of struggle that he's just going to come and he's going to make all things new and that's exactly what's going to happen yeah yeah well there's just a tremendous comfort in the uh the monergistic side of this right monergistic god alone doing the work i mean he's the one giving the victory he's the one that's going to bring about the victory for joshua bring about the victory at the at the end i mean really when christ comes again it's not like there's going to be uh a battle that decides whether

he's going to win or not the victory is already being accomplished it happened when he rose from the grave yeah that was that was it so the victory has already already occurred it's just waiting for its its full its full revelation yeah it's funny if you look at the finality of all there's no close battles in the conquest of canaan right there's no close battles it's resounding victories or just utter defeats so like so when when they are believing god it's just victory after victory i mean you don't even know if they're losing any guys in these things right yeah and then the second they step out on their own it's not a close battle either it's like just completely wiped out so like so it is so it is with uh with the with the second advent right uh it's it's it's

going to be definitive it's not going to be like it's a close one yeah yeah barely made it just squeaked out into the victory there's no close ones in the bible man there's no these battles are not close yeah yeah i guess that's that's chapter 12 right that's it a little harming mcgitto harming ghetto armageddon now you now you know a little bit more about uh about armageddon And so, Josh, you might never realize that Joshua is a good commentary on Revelation, but now you know. Yeah, no one expected us to go to Armageddon in the second coming. Yeah, we caught him. Full of surprises.

Yeah, we're full of surprises. Okay, so let's jump to the next chapter here. Chapter 13, we're told Joshua is getting up in years. That's the way this chapter starts out. Joshua was old, advanced in years. He's probably, it doesn't tell us here, he's probably 80, 85, something like that. This sounds strange to us, but this is just typical Hebrew here, the way this sounds. Let me just read the verse to you. Now Joshua was old and advanced in years when the Lord said to him, you are old and advanced in years.

it sounds strange to us as english speakers to to hear that but that is a kind of repetition is just kind of typical of the hebrew way of god is not uh above stating the obvious yeah yeah right yeah he did and or repeating himself he uh god god is all about repetition so you're old and advanced in years he says and very much of the land remains to be possessed so they've they've made great strides, and they've conquered, as we saw in the last chapter, 31 kings, a lot of territory, but there's still work to be done. And then it goes on to say where this work is. So this is the land that remains, all the regions of the Philistines and all those of the Geshurites. And then it kind of spells out who the kings of the Philistines are and what particular cities

and territories still still need to be conquered now i i think it's uh it's insightful if you read those opening verses in joshua chapter 13 in connection with what we read in judges chapter 3 so listen to uh listen to these four verses from judges chapter 3 because this is going to this is going to echo what we read in the opening of joshua 13 so joshua 13 describes the land of the philistines as remaining unconquered now we get to judges chapter 3 and it says now these are the nations which the lord left to test israel by them that is all who had not experienced any of the wars of canaan only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly. And then it goes

on to say that the nations were the five lords of the Philistines and the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon, et cetera. And verse four, and they were for testing Israel to find out if they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded their fathers through Moses. Now, the reason I think it's interesting to read Judges 3, those opening verses, in connection with Joshua 13, is Judges gives you a little bit more of an explanation as to what's going on here on the side of God. So, Joshua just says, these lands remain to be conquered, or these territories remain to be conquered. But Judges says, okay, one of the reasons that God is providentially working things out this way is twofold.

One, it's a test for Israel to see whether they would obey the commands that he gave them through Moses. And secondly, it's also that by leaving these nations, he is teaching the Israelites how to conduct themselves in warfare. The reason I think this is insightful is because it shows that God wants to make sure that his people, even as he's giving them this gift, he's giving them also something against which they can struggle. So he's not like removing completely from them every testing situation. he's not removing them from completely from every hardship or every struggle that they have to face because he knows that they need it and i think that judges three is is insightful not just for understanding joshua but for understanding our situation as well i mean this is this is the situation that we call it the church militant right because we are engaged in ongoing warfare

And sure, God, I suppose, could remove every obstacle that we face. He could remove every struggle that we face. He could pull out every single thorn in the flesh that's bothering us, but he doesn't do that. he didn't he doesn't do it for us for the same reason he didn't do it for the israelites because he knows that in this life we are engaged in constant warfare and he wants he's kind of using this these struggles that we face as a way of reminding us over and over and over again this is more of his repetition that when we are weak when we're struggling with our own weakness because of the obstacles that we face, that he himself is our strength, that he's the one who is fighting, fighting for us. The promised land is not about giving you a land free from the fall.

Yeah, it's not a new Eden. No. Yeah, not a paradise, in other words. No, it's a good land. I mean, we hear this, it's a good land, it's a good place for him to be. It's a land that he has made promises about, and he has promised the Messiah to come out of it, who will restore all things.

But you shouldn't read that I'm going to give you this land, and it's going to be flowing with milk and honey and stuff, and kind of read it as this. I'm going to give you a land free of suffering, free of turmoil, free of death. None of this is true. And we see this, I mean, it's interesting that the promised land, there might not be a land full of more bloodshed in the world than this land. I mean, like just throughout its history, even after it's, I mean, Israel will be displaced. They'll go back.

They'll be displaced again. They'll be conquested by, you know, they'll be taken over by Rome. I mean, there's constant turmoil. I mean, there's nothing in the history of the land occupied by Israel that even—not only is it not all peace and harmony, it's the exact opposite of that. Yeah, I mean, there's a few very, very brief epochs in Israel's history, like in Solomon's reign, where it's relatively peaceful. But those are—the exception proves the rule in those cases most of the time. There's, there's enemies either within or without. And it's, I mean, it sits at the crossroads of the great nations of the world who are constantly

trying to control it because it's the way that they get from one to the other. So you have a, you have ongoing, ongoing conflict there. And, and this is, this was God's, God's way of training his people. He was using this land as a, as a training ground for them, because ultimately all of this is making sure that when it's time for the Messiah to come, that he has a people who are there, that this becomes a land out of which the Messiah himself will be born. And well, the idea of God was for then the Messiah to come to Israel and then for Israel and the Messiah to move out from there and to take the kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.

And I mean, that happened, at least maybe not according to the way that it was pictured in some cases in the Old Testament. But you did have the representatives of the new Israel. You had the disciples of the Lord, and they took the message of the Messiah to as far as they went. And then it went from there, and you have the expansion of the kingdom of God. So you do have this image in the Old Testament of the nations coming to Israel, but you also have this image of the Israelites, the sons of Abraham, taking the blessings of Abraham outward. So you kind of have an inward focus in the sense that the people are coming to Israel, but you also have an outward focus where Israel is going out to the nations. So this all goes back to Genesis chapter 12, where God promises that through Abraham, he will bless all of the nations. So in a sense, the Messiah gathers all to himself in Israel, and then through the message that his sent ones take out to the nations, and he takes this blessing of Abraham out to the rest of the world.

Yeah, I mean, when we hear that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, even when it appears that we are wrestling against flesh and blood, you have to believe that this is true for Israel, who it appears is constantly wrestling against flesh and blood, but the devil himself is not exactly keen on the promises of God and wars against them. And so Israel is going to be in almost constant conflict if for no other reason. The devil knows what's going on here, and he is all about destroying this promise. You can know that you're fighting a losing war, but still say, yeah, I'm going to make the whole thing miserable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we see that misery reflected in the life of Israel. And, of course, we see that ongoing conflict within the kingdom still today. even though he knows he's uh he's on the losing side okay uh that's the first seven verses the

rest of the chapter is uh kind of a summary of what we talked about i think back in numbers 21 i believe is when it was so this is the the description of the land that's given to the two and a half tribes on the the eastern side of the jordan so the rubenites gadites and the half tribes of manasseh and it's a description basically of which lands and which cities were given to them to dwell in. We do have one interesting verse that talks about the tribe of Levi. And this comes up, I think, four times in the book of Joshua, the inheritance that was given to the sons of Levi. You remember that when Joshua was, and when Moses before him was kind of spelling out who was going to inherit what, that the Levite, the tribe of the Levites

were not given a territory. They were given cities in which they could live with the pasture lands that were around those cities, but they weren't given like a geographical territory as their own. Instead, they were spread out throughout the land of Israel. And so we have a reference to that in verse 14. It says, only to the tribe of Levi he did not give an inheritance. The offerings by fire to the Lord, the God of Israel, are their inheritance as he spoke to them. So what's fascinating to me at least is that in these four references to the inheritance of the tribe of Levi, you have different things highlighted every time. I mean, they're all facets of the one inheritance, but different things are highlighted every time. So verse 14 says, what's their

inheritance? Well, the offerings. The offerings by fire to the Lord, that is their inheritance. But if you go to the very last verse of this chapter, it says, verse 33, it says, to the tribe of Levi, Moses did not give an inheritance. The Lord, the God of Israel, is their inheritance. So the first verse says the offerings are their inheritance. The second verse says that the Lord, the God of Israel, is their inheritance. And then when we get to chapter 18, we're told that the priesthood is their inheritance. So, of course, all of these are just, as I say, different facets of the same inheritance. The point being that they're not going to inherit land. Instead, God is their inheritance. That is, God and his gifts, like the

offerings by fire, or God and his priesthood that offers these sacrifices are their inheritance. The point is all the same, that for the Levites, their inheritance were these things of God, the ministry, the offerings, God himself. He was the one who was their inheritance because that was to be the focus of what they were all about. That was their vocation in Israel to serve as his priest, to be those who speak his word, to be those who offer his sacrifices. So they, among all the tribes, did not get this specific area of land as their own.

Yeah, in a real way, the promises of God, certainly the priesthood, sort of the stewards of the mystery of God, and they're to steward the promises of God and the things that point forward to the coming of Christ. This is what they have inherited, that they are going to steward those things. Yeah, and in that way, they portray for us beforehand, and I think what's a very helpful way of the ministry of Christ, because he comes as the one who is a new kind of priest, and he's the one who then offers himself. He is the mystery of mysteries, and then he becomes the one who gives us the inheritance of the kingdom of God, the inheritance of his own sacrifice, and the inheritance of those who now

share in his own priesthood as those who are baptized into him and who offer to him a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and then who turn around and bring that sacrifice, bring that gospel out to those who are around us, just like the Levites of old brought the gifts of God out to those whom they served. Amen, and that's it, man. We accomplished two chapters today. We did. Not bad.

Not bad at all. Not bad. See what we can do next time. Absolutely. Guys, if the podcast has been helpful to you, it is the end of the year, and we could use your help. So if you would like to support it,

you can go over to 1517.org slash donate, or just go over to 1517.org, and you'll see the donate button, and you can become a contributor. You can help hold the rope. Thank you so much to those of you who do that. You make all of this possible. And Chad, we will see you next week.

We'll see you here.