Old Men Conquer Giants. Devotion: Joshua 15.

Monday of Trinity 13

August 30, 2021

Joshua 15

Old Men Conquer Giants

God apportions the tribes of Israel their inheritance in the promised land.  But all the land we read about as belonging to Judah has not been conquered yet.  God says it is theirs, but they have to take it.  The cities of the Philistines—Ekron, Ashdod, Gaza, Ziklag—all of which are listed here (15:31, 45, 47) will still be controlled by the Philistines at the time of David, five hundred years later.  Jerusalem will fall to David.  God says to Israel, “It is yours,” yet they aren’t able to conquer it for five hundred years.  These cities are given to Judah for an inheritance, yet they have to go forward in faith in the Lord and conquer them. 

The Lord has done this sort of thing before.  Abraham had lived in Hebron as a stranger and an alien, though the Lord promised him he would give him the land.  Abraham bought a field in Hebron, along with the cave in it, as a place to bury Sarah.  That was the extent of his holdings in the promised land for five hundred years.

God also promised Israel this land when He brought them through the Red Sea and right up to its borders.  But when the spies came back from their reconnaissance of Canaan, Caleb and Joshua alone brought back a good report to the people of Israel.  Caleb said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”  (Nu. 13:30)  But the other spies terrified the people with talk about the sons of Anak, giants who lived in the land.

God promised this land to them, but they had to believe that He would be with them to help them take possession of it.  They had to go fight for it.

Caleb believed, and as a result, in his old age he went  up and drove the giants out from Abraham’s old campground.  “And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak.” (Josh. 15:14)  Not content with carrying out the Lord’s work there, he offered his daughter in marriage to the man who would capture the nearby city of Debir.

Caleb was confident that Israel could conquer the promised land from the giants when he went in as a spy at forty years old.  At eighty-five years old, he was still confident, and he drove the giants out (Josh. 14:7-12). 

His victory and his confidence came from the Lord.  He believed the Lord would keep His promise to Abraham and give them that land.  By faith in God’s promise he was bold and fought the giants as an old man, and by faith he was victorious.  Later King David, in the same faith, would slay the giant Goliath.

This is the faith that animates the Church Militant, Christ’s Church here on earth, in the midst of its war with the devil, world, and flesh.  We go into battle with boldness because our Lord Jesus has overcome the giant who controls this world—the strong man, Satan (Luke 11:21-22).  So we too will overcome the devil and the world by faith in Jesus. 

Our victory looks different though.  Caleb conquered men with a sword and fire and took their land.  We overcome with the sword of God’s Word and our faithful witness, when we confess our faith in Jesus and suffer for it.  These weapons tear down Satan’s strongholds in the hearts and minds of people.  We gain them, our brothers, together with the promised eternal inheritance (Matt. 18:15, Heb. 9:15).  We win this as we hold fast to Jesus Christ in His Word and in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  He has gone before us into the inheritance of life everlasting.

Now I will cling forever

To Christ, my Savior true;

My Lord will leave me never,

Whate’er He passes through.

He rends death’s iron chain;

He breaks through sin and pain;

He shatters hell’s grim thrall;

I follow Him through all.  Amen (LSB 497 st. 6)

The Promised Eternal Inheritance. Devotion: Numbers 25-26

Monday of Trinity 5

July 5, 2021

Numbers 25-26

The Promised Eternal Inheritance

In the New Testament, eternal life is not something you earn; it is something you inherit (Luke 10:25, 18:18, 1 Cor. 15:50). 

The New Testament carries this language over from the Old.  The land of Israel is described in the Old Testament as the inheritance of the descendants of Jacob.  At the same time, both the people and the land of Israel are called “the Lord’s inheritance.”  In all the other nations on earth, people worship false gods and serve sin.  But Israel belongs to the Lord alone. They are called to be His people, sanctified by faith in Him, walking according to His commandments, dwelling in the land made holy by His presence.

But when Israel becomes unholy and worships idols, the Lord rejects them and expels them from His land.  He warns them that He will do this as they are entering the land to possess it (Deut. 4:25-27).

But His judgment falls on them already on the plains of Moab, when Israel is enticed by the Moabite women to sexual immorality in service to their idol Baal.  The Lord sends a plague on Israel because they have provoked Him to jealousy.

Israel could not enter the promised inheritance until atonement was made.  In fact, they couldn’t live at all until God’s wrath was averted. 

Atonement came in a strange form.  First the Lord commanded that the chiefs of Israel be hung up in the sun before the Lord—that is, hung up to die, probably impaled.

Then Aaron’s grandson Phinehas took a spear and ran it through one adventurous Israelite and his Moabite strumpet.  The man had taken her into his tent in the sight of Israel as they were weeping in repentance before the tent of the Lord.

We are likely to be appalled at the zeal of Phinehas, but the Lord says that his jealousy made atonement for the people of Israel (Numbers 25:13).  “Phinehas has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy” (Num. 25:11).

But how could impaling two fornicators atone for Israel’s sin?  It couldn’t, except outwardly, just as the sacrifices Israel was commanded to make couldn’t really take away sin.  They were outward regulations until the true atoning sacrifice would come.

But Phinehas’ zeal for God’s holy name, that it should not be profaned among the people of His inheritance, pointed to the jealousy that would atone for the sins of the world.  Rather than slay the adulterers and impale the idolaters on earth, Jesus gave His holy, divine body to be hung up on a cross and run through with a spear, so that our sin might be atoned for and God’s wrath turned away.  In His zeal He did away with all sin, from root to branch, not just one wicked man and woman, one grievous fall.  His death renders the whole world clean, without any spot. 

And now God dwells among all who believe in Jesus as His inheritance, His priestly people.  And we also have an inheritance in Christ among the holy ones, the saints (Eph. 1:16-18).  We inherit not just the land of Israel, or even the whole earth, but as true Levites, our inheritance is the Lord.

Like Phinehas, we are priests of the Lord, and He requires His holy priests to be zealous.  We are to be zealous and repent (Rev. 3:19), daily [cleansing] ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1). 

But it is the Lord’s zeal that has given us an inheritance among the saints.  On the night of His death He left us His body and blood in the sacrament, by which we are made totally clean from all sin.  And in Holy Baptism we were adopted as heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.  We were given a share in Jesus’ death that atones for our sin, and in His resurrection to new life as a people for His own possession, zealous for good works (Titus 2:14). 

My loving Father, here You take me

To be henceforth Your child and heir.

My faithful Savior, here You make me

The fruit of all Your sorrows share.

O Holy Spirit, comfort me

When threat’ning clouds around I see.  Amen.  (LSB 590 st. 2)

Devotion: The Promise To Our Fathers. Acts 26

Wednesday after Trinity

June 2, 2021

Acts 26

The Promise to our Fathers

When Paul gives his defense before King Agrippa, he says, “Now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day.”  (Acts 26: 6-7)

What exactly was it that the Israelites were hoping to attain by their service to God?  What had God promised Abraham and the Patriarchs?

He promised to bless them and all the families on earth through them (Gen. 12:2-3).  He promised that they would inherit the promised land of Canaan (Genesis 17:8).  But elsewhere St. Paul says He promised even more: “The promise to Abraham and his offspring [was] that he would be heir of the world.”  (Rom. 4:13)

Of course in his lifetime, Abraham did not inherit the land of his wanderings, much less the promised land.  He bought a cave in which to bury his wife.  That was all he owned in the land of Canaan.  He would not own the promised land or inherit the world until the resurrection of the dead, when God gives the new heavens and earth to the righteous, and weeds out of His Kingdom the wicked (Matthew 13:41-43). 

That was the promise the Israelites were hoping to attain.  Paul says, “I am on trial because I have the same hope as all the Israelites, and I am preaching that this hope and promise has been fulfilled.  God has raised the dead.  The resurrection has begun.” I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”  (Acts 26:22-23)  “Jesus is proclaiming light and resurrection from God’s right hand through me.  That is why He appeared to me on the road to Damascus—so that Jews and Gentiles may attain to the promise of Abraham by faith in Him.”

When God called Abraham, He told him, “In your offspring all nations will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3).  Paul explains in Galatians 3 that this blessing comes to us through Jesus’ crucifixion.  There He became a curse for us, bearing the curse God’s Law declares on all who do not continue doing everything in it in thought, word, and deed (Gal. 3:13-14).

When someone receives this blessing, believing that it has come to us through Jesus’ crucifixion, he receives, the promised Holy Spirit (Gal. 3:14).  Elsewhere St. Paul calls the Spirit the guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1:14).  The Holy Spirit is the guarantee or pledge from God that we will rise from the dead and inherit the earth with Abraham and all the righteous.  We will live in the new heavens and earth and see the glory of God.

This hope animated Paul.  It made him fearless in the face of persecution.  Because he knew his preaching was Jesus’ preaching and that it came with the Holy Spirit, he had hope that it would even convert Herod Agrippa, whose relatives had tried to kill Jesus as a baby and then mocked him before He was crucified.

We have been given the same hope as Paul.  The resurrection of the righteous promised to Abraham has begun in Christ Jesus.  The blessing of Abraham, the forgiveness of sins, has come to us through Jesus’ crucifixion.  God has laid the curse of all your sins on Jesus.  Believing this, you have received the Holy Spirit, who guarantees your place in the new heavens and earth at the resurrection. 

Jesus lives!  I know full well

Nothing me from Him shall sever.

Neither death nor pow’rs of hell

Part me now from Christ forever.

God will be my sure defense;

This shall be my confidence.  Amen.  (LSB 490 st. 4)