Morning Light – February 26th, 2015: When Your Inheritance is Delayed (Video)

Joshua Chapter Eighteen: When Your Inheritance is Delayed. In this chapter Joshua helps the seven remaining tribes to receive their inheritance. They had struggled and settled into a pattern of waiting and hoping for things to change and nothing was happening. Is this where you are in your life? There are simple yet powerful steps you can take to revitalize the promises of God in your life and see forward momentum in your situation to bring your destiny from a distance hope to a living reality!

Joshua Chapter Eighteen: When Your Inheritance is Delayed. In this chapter Joshua helps the seven remaining tribes to receive their inheritance. They had struggled and settled into a pattern of waiting and hoping for things to change and nothing was happening. Is this where you are in your life? There are simple yet powerful steps you can take to revitalize the promises of God in your life and see forward momentum in your situation to bring your destiny from a distance hope to a living reality!
[Jos 18:1-28 KJV] 1 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them. 2 And there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes, which had not yet received their inheritance. 3 And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long [are] ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you? 4 Give out from among you three men for [each] tribe: and I will send them, and they shall rise, and go through the land, and describe it according to the inheritance of them; and they shall come [again] to me. 5 And they shall divide it into seven parts: Judah shall abide in their coast on the south, and the house of Joseph shall abide in their coasts on the north. 6 Ye shall therefore describe the land [into] seven parts, and bring [the description] hither to me, that I may cast lots for you here before the LORD our God.
In this chapter we find seven tribes of Israel who have not yet received the inheritance God had given them. Many times we have a promise from God and receive it with great enthusiasm only to find years later that it isn’t coming to pass. Prophetic words grow stale and over time situations change and they don’t even fit our lives any longer. Unbelief can sink in at this point if something doesn’t take place you live your life in a limbo of contradiction. Did God change His mind? Have we disqualified ourselves in some way. Numbers 23:19 says this:
[Num 23:19 KJV] 19 God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it]? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
If God does not change His mind about His promises then why do we have so much contradiction to His promises in our lives? In dealing with this among the remaining tribes to receive their inheritance Joshua asks this question: “… how long slack ye to possess the land?” The word slack here means to: “relax; to drop; to be disheartened; to forsake”.
To Relax: 1 Thes. 5:7 says to despise not prophesying. Sometimes we just take a cavalier attitude toward the promises of God as though they are a casual thing. This is very popular today in Christian circles. It was costing these seven tribes their inheritance and it can cost us the fulfillment of the promises of God. We need to be sober minded about what God has spoken into our lives.
To Drop: We initially receive the word and we pour over it thanking God and believing that it’s going to make a difference in our lives. Then we set it aside and push it to the back of our mind without any further attention. 1 Tim. 1:18 says to war with the prophecies that have gone out over your life. Failure to do so results in things that WOULD HAVE COME TO PASS being neglected and lost.
To Be Disheartened: There are always giants in the land. We receive the promise of God but there are people and situations and circumstances in direct contradiction to what God has said. The contradictions are real but the promise or the prophecy is a matter of faith. We allow the actual to kill the potential. We decide that the promise doesn’t apply to us. That the prophet got it wrong. We don’t have the energy to stand in faith – and a promise that was ready to be fulfilled is lost UNNECESSARILY.
To Forsake: We just don’t believe in what God has said. We don’t believe in the prophetic. It isn’t in our paradigm and out of religious tradition and old habits we refuse to think differently even though our lives are not improving. 2 Chron. 20:20 says believe the prophets so shall you prosper. We must contrast our lives to the image that the New Testament portrays. Either abandon our ways or abandon the scriptures – we need to come to a place of intellectual and spiritual honesty.
Joshua called on the seven remaining tribes to DO SOMETHING. They actually did two things:
1.) They sent men to tour the land. To stir up again their faith and motivate them to move toward what God has promised. Shake things up. Get out of your familiar atmosphere and setting that is only reinforcing unbelief. Break the hold of the familiar spirits in your life that are predicting to you by the monotony of your life that nothing will change.
2.) They consulted the Lord again. Go back to the word of God. Listen again to your prophetic words. Write them out. Get a fresh prophetic word. Stir up the gifts that are in your life. Act promptly. All this time the inheritance was there waiting. You inheritance is out there waiting for you but God’s spirit will not always strive with man. Don’t delay because you are demanding God to do things they way you think He should or with the people you think it should involve. Sometimes the promise of God will come to pass by a process you can’t anticipate and involve people you had no idea would be a part of the process. Abraham thought Lot would be a part of the good things God promised him but nothing happened until Abraham surrender his ideas about Lot and embraced the sovereignty of God over his life.
7 But the Levites have no part among you; for the priesthood of the LORD [is] their inheritance: and Gad, and Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh, have received their inheritance beyond Jordan on the east, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them. 8 And the men arose, and went away: and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, that I may here cast lots for you before the LORD in Shiloh. 9 And the men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book, and came [again] to Joshua to the host at Shiloh. 10 And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD: and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions.
Gen. 49:10 connects the idea of Shiloh with the coming of Christ. The name Shiloh means “tranquility and rest…” The promises of God are long in coming to pass and the seven tribes were restless. Joshua (a type of Jesus) brought them to Shiloh (tranquility and rest) so they could hear from God again. This is also a type of the prophetic. Rev. 19:10 says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. God wants to bring this testimony from a place of tranquility and rest. Many prophets think their role is to make everyone uncomfortable and restless. This is the exact opposite of this picture here. 1 Cor. 14:3 says that prophecy is for edification, exhortation and comfort. Change comes hard. It is costly and uncomfortable. The prophetic in scripture, particularly the New Testament is there to lovingly yet resolutely provoke us to move toward God’s best for our lives.
11 And the lot of the tribe of the children of Benjamin came up according to their families: and the coast of their lot came forth between the children of Judah and the children of Joseph. 12 And their border on the north side was from Jordan; and the border went up to the side of Jericho on the north side, and went up through the mountains westward; and the goings out thereof were at the wilderness of Bethaven. 13 And the border went over from thence toward Luz, to the side of Luz, which [is] Bethel, southward; and the border descended to Atarothadar, near the hill that [lieth] on the south side of the nether Bethhoron. 14 And the border was drawn [thence], and compassed the corner of the sea southward, from the hill that [lieth] before Bethhoron southward; and the goings out thereof were at Kirjathbaal, which [is] Kirjathjearim, a city of the children of Judah: this [was] the west quarter. 15 And the south quarter [was] from the end of Kirjathjearim, and the border went out on the west, and went out to the well of waters of Nephtoah: 16 And the border came down to the end of the mountain that [lieth] before the valley of the son of Hinnom, [and] which [is] in the valley of the giants on the north, and descended to the valley of Hinnom, to the side of Jebusi on the south, and descended to Enrogel, 17 And was drawn from the north, and went forth to Enshemesh, and went forth toward Geliloth, which [is] over against the going up of Adummim, and descended to the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben, 18 And passed along toward the side over against Arabah northward, and went down unto Arabah: 19 And the border passed along to the side of Bethhoglah northward: and the outgoings of the border were at the north bay of the salt sea at the south end of Jordan: this [was] the south coast. 20 And Jordan was the border of it on the east side. This [was] the inheritance of the children of Benjamin, by the coasts thereof round about, according to their families. 21 Now the cities of the tribe of the children of Benjamin according to their families were Jericho, and Bethhoglah, and the valley of Keziz, 22 And Betharabah, and Zemaraim, and Bethel, 23 And Avim, and Parah, and Ophrah, 24 And Chepharhaammonai, and Ophni, and Gaba; twelve cities with their villages: 25 Gibeon, and Ramah, and Beeroth, 26 And Mizpeh, and Chephirah, and Mozah, 27 And Rekem, and Irpeel, and Taralah, 28 And Zelah, Eleph, and Jebusi, which [is] Jerusalem, Gibeath, [and] Kirjath; fourteen cities with their villages. This [is] the inheritance of the children of Benjamin according to their families.
Finally when your inheritance and the promise of God is long in coming – go back to the specifics. If these tribes went out after other cities than these particular cities then it wouldn’t work. Many times we hear a prophecy or we look at a promise in God’s word and then go and do things our way and get confused when nothing happens. What are the conditions? What are the specifics? Are you in the place and doing the things with the specific people that God promised you? When we try to change the promise or the prophetic word to our personal ideas we will be stone walled and many times rather than questioning ourselves we question God or the prophetic word. Go back to the last thing you know God told you and reestablish your trust. God loves you. He hasn’t changed His mind about your future. He wants to demonstrate His goodness. Make yourself accountable afresh and anew and refuse to languish in stagnation and delay. Do something about what God said. Move toward His promise – things will change and begin to happen!