LESSONS FROM THE LANDS

Due to some requests, I am posting my sermon yesterday, August 19, 2012 here in my blog.

 LESSONS FROM THE LANDS

Joshua 13
by Rev. Arnel R. Vasquez

We are done with chapters 1-12 of the book of Joshua in our sermon series.  The previous sermon gave us the answers to the following questions:  Why are we losing our battles?  How to win our battles? What if our battles are getting bigger?  What if our battles are getting bigger and bigger?

Joshua 13 is about distributing the lands among the tribes of Israel.  After fighting the surrounding nations and overcoming them for many years, now is the time to reflect on what lessons could God be teaching the Israelites and us.

First, GOD OWNS EVERYTHING.  This is an eternal truth but becomes a sad truth. It is now a cliche.  People have this tendency to forget that everything was created by God and there's nothing that we have that does not come from the Lord.  Isaiah 26:12 says, "Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us."  While it is true that our successes can be attributed to our study, talents and abilities, we need not forget that our mental and physical faculties all come from God.  

Applying the said truth to the book of Joshua, we will learn two significant things:

• God owns all lands.  The book of Joshua is about possessing the Promised Land.  God owned the lands where foreign nations lived.  And God owned the land that God promised to the Israelites.  The disputes over territories is one of the most violent.  Even a family is disintegrated once a fight over a piece of land enters the picture.  The truth is, it is the land that owns us.  Nobody can walk without a ground to step upon.  Unless you are a ghost.  When we die, we will be buried six feet below the ground.  The land came before us and it will outlive us.  The people know how precious land is.  They know that life comes from the land.  Since God owns all lands and life comes from the land, it leads to the next truth.

• God owns all lives.  This is the reason why God can justify His commandment to annihilate totally all the enemies of the Israelites, men and women, young and old.  God is the giver of life and God can take it anytime God wishes.  The Bible tells that God can give life and God can also take it away.  I would not go to a great detail to justify God's command to take the innocents lives.  That can be another sermon.  

Another vouch how people tend to forget the concept of  proper ownership is the recent issue between our Senator Tito Sotto and an American blogger, Susan Pope.  It is through Facebook that I learned that Senator Sotto was accused of plagiarism.  Plagiarism is defined as, "the unauthorized use of close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."  According to Pope, Sotto copied the idea from her blog, word for word without proper recognition to his source.  But our Senator argued that he has done nothing wrong.  That Sarah Pope is just a "mere" blogger.  Sen. Sotto's argument was later followed by the insincere apology by his chief of staff, who, although admitted that their writer's really copied from Pope's blog, but was sarcastic in tenor.

It is really a shame that the one being accused of plagiarism is a Filipino Senator.  It is more humiliating that "repentant" spirit cannot be seen and heard from the guilty.  His lawyer seemed to display a greater heights of arrogance.  Why are these happenings?  Again, people tend to forget that God is the real owner of things.  And people have this tendency not to be good stewards.

Again, this truth is what God would like the foreign nations to learn as well as the nation of Israel.

Second, GOD GIVES TO WHOM GOD WISHES. Since God is the owner of everything, God has all the right to give it to anyone God wishes.  God chose  a slave people and a small nation to make them a model of what a nation should be.  Other nations failed to honor God.  They worshiped idols.  They made a god of themselves. They had not been good stewards.  They owned the land as only for themselves.  They did not offer their lives to the Lord.

For God, God needs a new settlers of God's land.  A nation who would honor God.  A grateful people who will value the land.  A nation who would dedicate their lives for  God.  And God chose Israel to fulfill these calling.  And so God is giving them the Promised Land.  The land is not unoccupied land but God is driving its previous occupants away because they failed to live according to God's plan and purpose.

Others are crying "land for the landless."  But others are telling that it should be "land for the tillers."  Land according to God's purpose, should be used to sustain life and to benefit more people.  It should not be claimed as one's property for one's own whim.

The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 gives an extraordinary principle.  Those who have will be given more and those who do not  have any, would be taken away of some more.  God gave the land that God took away from the foreign nations.

Third, GOD WELCOMES ANYBODY TO HIMSELF.  It should be known that the Israelites were joined by non-Israelites when they exited Egypt.  The Gibeonites, though out of deception, was able to ally with Israelites.    But the most powerful testimony of  God's embracing love to humanity is that of Rahab (Joshua 2).  Rahab was an example of a person that people would choose the least. She is the epitome of an unqualified person.

• First, she was a woman, a second class person in the society.
• Second, she was a Cananite, a foreigner, a people doomed for destruction.
• Third, she was a prostitute, a sinner and an outcast.

The proof of her lowly class in the society was the location of her home.  You see, the land of Jericho where Rahab lived had two walls, the inner and the outer wall.  It was in between that walls that Rahab had her house.  Thus, the moment the city of Jericho is attacked by the enemy, those living between the two walls will be the most vulnerable.

Rahab knew she was among the disadvantage.  But her faith tells the otherwise.  That is why, when two Israelites spies came to her inn to seek refuge, she protcted them.  She invoked of God's protection the moment God destroyed Jericho.  And God fulfilled God's promise to Rahab.  Her whole family was spared from death and destruction.  Not only that, she married later an Israelite named Salmon, who was the ancestor of Boaz, the ancestor of David and the ancestor of Jesus.

Indeed, God welcomes the unwelcome.  God embraces the repentant.  God honors the heart of a person more than her face.

It has been weeks now since the last time Ayan  went to our house.  Some of my posts are about him.  So to give you a background, please read some of my posts here in my blog.  Before Ayan stopped visiting us, two of my well meaning members, told me to discourage Ayan from visiting us.  I know that their concern is valid.  It is dangerous to keep a person who was once hooked to drugs to one's house.  I admit, they were able to persuade me.  But like I said, even before I talk to Ayan, he already ceased coming.

But there is one important lesson that I learned about Ayan.  Recently, there is somebody who I just found out, came to our house and had a sleep over.  I am not comparing people because I believe that all persons have their own strength and weaknesses. I do not want to go into details.  I just realized that there is an area in a person's life that cannot be destroyed by drugs.  In those times that Ayen stayed with us, he had shown me so much respect.  He exemplified a person who is so grateful to his keeper.  He washed the dishes himself.

Honestly, such display of respect and gratitude I missed even to some of "most" christians in the church.  I even encountered Christians who need to be taught about good manners and right conduct.  Christians who utter the word "pastor" but do not know the real meaning of the word.  Sad to say, these Christians are blinded by their own ignorance and arrogance.

In our midst are the modern Rahab.  Those who are disqualified by the peoples' standards.  They need people who would make them realized and feel that there is a God who is willing to embrace and accept them.

In each one of us there is a little Rahab.  Tainted by dark past. Outcast by the people.  But as God chose slaves and lowly people for a model nation and a Cannanite and prostituted woman. We can also have this confidence that in God there is a home.  In God, we have a future.

Friends as we journey towards or live now in our own Promised Land, let us remember the LESSONS FROM THE LANDS.