Friday: How to Have a Happy Ending
thinkact_qklktp on 07/11/2025

Friday: How to Have a Happy Ending

Why did it turn out that way? Why was the ending a happy ending rather than an unfortunate one? Schaeffer says it’s because the people knew how to demonstrate the love of God and a concern for the holiness of God simultaneously, not one without the other. This is how he explains it:First, there was

t thinkact_qklktp
Thursday: Responding Rightly to God’s Commands
thinkact_qklktp on 07/10/2025

Thursday: Responding Rightly to God’s Commands

The story has a happy ending. When this sort of thing happens in the church today, it doesn't always have a happy ending, as we know. But it did in this situation. The tribes that had gone down to the Jordan explained what it was that they had done, and that the western tribes had simply misundersto

t thinkact_qklktp
Wednesday: Dealing with Conflict
thinkact_qklktp on 07/09/2025

Wednesday: Dealing with Conflict

But there’s something else. The war that looked like it was on the verge of starting did not begin at once. Rash people might have simply rushed to the Jordan and attacked the other people; but these Israelites didn't do that. They were willing to fight for the Lord’s honor, but they were also willi

t thinkact_qklktp
Tuesday: Loving the Lord with All Your Heart and Soul
thinkact_qklktp on 07/08/2025

Tuesday: Loving the Lord with All Your Heart and Soul

Yesterday we saw the first two things Joshua tells the eastern tribes before going to their inheritance across the Jordan. There is a third item, as he says in chapter 22, verse 5, “But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to you to love the

t thinkact_qklktp
Monday: The Importance of the Closing Chapters
thinkact_qklktp on 07/07/2025

Monday: The Importance of the Closing Chapters

Most commentaries on the book of Joshua tend to get rather skimpy towards the second half, beginning with those long chapters in the middle that have to do with the partition of the land city by city among the 12 tribes. I suppose that’s understandable. It’s hard to preach at any great length about

t thinkact_qklktp
Friday: Blessing out of Judgment
thinkact_qklktp on 07/04/2025

Friday: Blessing out of Judgment

It’s interesting that this judgment upon Levi and his descendants turned out to be such a great blessing. When we begin to think of some of the great leaders in the Old Testament, we find that a number of them were Levites. Moses, for example, was of the tribe of Levi. He was a man who was raised up

t thinkact_qklktp
Thursday: A Great Prophecy
thinkact_qklktp on 07/03/2025

Thursday: A Great Prophecy

At the end of Genesis, in chapter 49, Jacob gives a great prophecy that concerns the future of each of his sons and the people who should come from them. And when he gets to Simeon and Levi, it is this incident from Genesis 34 that he remembers. Here are his words: “Simeon and Levi are brothers—thei

t thinkact_qklktp
Wednesday: The History behind the Cities
thinkact_qklktp on 07/02/2025

Wednesday: The History behind the Cities

Now in chapter 21, we find out more about these Levitical cities. Six of the 48 cities were for refuge; but there were still the other 42 cities that were scattered all throughout the land. Joshua 21 spells it out in great detail city by city, telling us exactly where these cities of the Levites wer

t thinkact_qklktp
Tuesday: Christ Our Refuge
thinkact_qklktp on 07/01/2025

Tuesday: Christ Our Refuge

Now, we stand at the very end of the third portion, after all the land has been divided up among the tribes. In addition, in chapters 20 and 21 we find a portion that deals with the establishing of certain special cities. There were 48 cities throughout Israel that were given to the priests, who cam

t thinkact_qklktp
Monday: The Book of Joshua in Review
thinkact_qklktp on 06/30/2025

Monday: The Book of Joshua in Review

We’re drawing quite near the end of our study of this great Old Testament book. It’s an appropriate time to look back over it a bit in terms of the outline and see how far we have come and how we have yet to go. Joshua falls into four main parts. There’s a preparation for the conquest, which occupie

t thinkact_qklktp
Friday: Salvation for All Who Will Come
thinkact_qklktp on 06/27/2025

Friday: Salvation for All Who Will Come

A third parallel about these cities is that they were open to aliens as well as to Jews. It's easy to apply that. The way to salvation—the way to life through Christ—is open to anyone. It's open to you, no matter who you may be. You may say, “Well, I’m too old. I’ve lived a whole life and I’m now fi

t thinkact_qklktp
Thursday: Christ Alone and Always
thinkact_qklktp on 06/26/2025

Thursday: Christ Alone and Always

But even though it is not an exact parallel between the refuge that these cities gave and that which is found in Christ, there are still wonderful and quite instructive parallels. First, we’re told in Deuteronomy 19 that roads were to be built to these cities. That’s interesting, isn’t it? You’d exp

t thinkact_qklktp
Wednesday: The Divine Source of True Justice
thinkact_qklktp on 06/25/2025

Wednesday: The Divine Source of True Justice

Yesterday we talked about the first important thing from the creation of these cities of refuge, which was the great value on human life, rooted in God’s revealed law. The second thing about them is also quite interesting, and it’s based on what’s mentioned here in Joshua 20:9 about who was welcome

t thinkact_qklktp
Tuesday: The Need for Justice
thinkact_qklktp on 06/24/2025

Tuesday: The Need for Justice

Now what makes these cities of refuge so important? Well in order to understand why they were important, you have to understand something about the way in which justice was practiced in this society. If somebody would kill another person, whether accidentally or intentionally, the family of the one

t thinkact_qklktp
Monday: An Ordained Safety
thinkact_qklktp on 06/23/2025

Monday: An Ordained Safety

And yet, there were special cities even among all these other cities. They’re described in Joshua 20 and 21. Chapter 21 tells about the towns that were given to the Levites. The Levites, the priests, didn't have any land of their own; they were not given a tribal territory. Instead, God scattered th

t thinkact_qklktp
Friday: A Great Contrast
thinkact_qklktp on 06/20/2025

Friday: A Great Contrast

There’s a great contrast here in this story, and I’m sure it’s why it’s told at this point, right in the middle of this account of the division of the land. It’s the contrast between Caleb, who followed the Lord wholeheartedly to the very end and took the land that he’d been promised so many years b

t thinkact_qklktp
Thursday: The Second Reason for Caleb’s Greatness
thinkact_qklktp on 06/19/2025

Thursday: The Second Reason for Caleb’s Greatness

The second thing that we see in Joshua 14 comes out in this word, "wholeheartedly," which is repeated there three times (vv. 8, 9, 14). That's the same idea that is involved in Deuteronomy 6:5, which Jesus quoted when He was asked what was the first and greatest of all the commandments. He said, "It

t thinkact_qklktp
Wednesday: The First Reason for Caleb’s Greatness
thinkact_qklktp on 06/18/2025

Wednesday: The First Reason for Caleb’s Greatness

Now it’s worth asking at this point what the secret of this man’s greatness was. In fact, it was no great secret. Caleb had total faith in God, and he gave himself to God utterly. It’s not hard to see his faith. That comes out very simply in this matter of the spies’ initial report. You know, it’s t

t thinkact_qklktp
Tuesday: Observations and Lessons from Hebron
thinkact_qklktp on 06/17/2025

Tuesday: Observations and Lessons from Hebron

Now when Numbers 13 begins to tell us about the work of the spies, it doesn't give us very much detail as to how they went about their work. We don't know, for example, whether they toured around in a body or whether they divided up. We might suspect that they divided up so as not to attract too muc

t thinkact_qklktp
Monday: Caleb’s History
thinkact_qklktp on 06/16/2025

Monday: Caleb’s History

The magnificent old man to which I am referring here in Joshua 14 is Caleb, who was Joshua’s companion and fellow soldier during all these long years of the conquest of Canaan. It’s often the case that in the presence of an outstanding leader, other people are overlooked. And it’s not because the ot

t thinkact_qklktp
Friday: Living in the Kingdom
thinkact_qklktp on 06/13/2025

Friday: Living in the Kingdom

There’s also personal holiness. That’s not something that just falls upon us like a mantle. That’s something that is achieved by small decisions day by day. You have to enter into holiness step by step, act by act, obedience by obedience. Another possession are the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Accordin

t thinkact_qklktp
Thursday: God’s Faithfulness and Ours
thinkact_qklktp on 06/12/2025

Thursday: God’s Faithfulness and Ours

In the previous studies when we were looking at the battles in the south and the north, we took time to look at some of the great characteristics of Joshua. This is certainly a point where we can look at his character and say that if anything characterized this man in a complimentary way, it was cer

t thinkact_qklktp
Wednesday: The Division Completed
thinkact_qklktp on 06/11/2025

Wednesday: The Division Completed

Once Joshua had made settlement of the frontier areas, he moved into the center of the land and began the second stage of the distribution, which we have in chapters 18 and 19. There are seven tribes remaining. Because Benjamin was a very small tribe, he gave Benjamin a relatively small territory. E

t thinkact_qklktp
Tuesday: The Sovereign God
thinkact_qklktp on 06/10/2025

Tuesday: The Sovereign God

Now you have to think about that geographically. Israel has three frontiers. They’re protected, of course, on the west by the Mediterranean. So the frontiers they have to defend are to the north, south, and east. From the north is where most of the invasions of the land came later in Israel’s histo

t thinkact_qklktp