This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is week four of our look through the book of Joshua, day three. We're going
to look at portions of chapters 13 to 14 today. And today we turn the corner a
little bit.

Last couple of days we've been talking about strategies for victories in our
life, and now we turn the corner to a place where they had achieved victory, and
they begin to possess the land, they begin to live in the land. We're going to
be talking these next few days together about how God's promises begin to be
possessed in our lives. Think about this with me.

How many of you would pay cash for a new house and then just leave it empty?
That would be silly. You wouldn't do that.

You'd move in or have somebody else move in. You'd make it a home. You would
possess your property.

Well, God has given the people of Israel a new home. They had secured it with
long years of warfare, and now it was time for them, it's time for them to take
possession. And as we see how they take possession of the land, we learn some
very important lessons about how promises are possessed in our lives.

As we said at the beginning of this book, the first half of the book of Joshua
is about how Israel came into the promised land and won battles in the promised
land. The second half is about how they settled the promised land, how they
possessed the promise. The question for you and I is, how do we do that with
God's promises in our lives?

How do we move in and feel at home with God's promises? This is so important, to
feel at home with God's promises. I know too many believers who never really get
there.

They know God's promises are true, but they don't really feel at home with them
in their own lives. They're more at home with their daily struggles than they
are with God's promises. You're going to have your daily struggles.

They're going to be there. But how do you begin to feel like those promises are
for me? Those promises are possessed by me.

As Israel took possession of God's promised land, they experienced both
successes and failures and we're going to learn from both. We're going to learn
some major lessons about how to see God's promises become more a daily part of
my life, of your life. The first major lesson is this.

First major lesson is drive out the enemy. Drive out the enemy. Thinking about
that home again, if you were moving into a new house somebody had sold you and
the old owner demanded, "I know I've sold you the house, but I'm going to move
into one room and I'm just going to live there because I used to live here, so I
feel like I have ownership rights.

I know you paid for it, I understand, but I'm going to just live here. " Would
you let that happen? We do that exact thing when it comes to possessing God's
promises.

We allow Satan to live in one room of our mind, one room of our heart, one room
of our relationships and by doing that we guarantee that he'll always have
freedom to trample through our lives, always have a finger in our lifestyles. We
can learn from Israel's mistakes here. With all of their great victories they
stop just short of completely driving out the enemy in the land.

Joshua takes the land, so they have control of the land, but there's still some
enemy and it's up to the tribes of Israel to go in and drive out the enemy
completely, but they don't do it. They fall just short of God's direction and so
they fall just short of God's promise. They could have had thoughts like, "Well,
there's just a few left.

They won't hurt anything," but I want to take a minute with you today to look at
some of those tribes that they left and whether that was true, whether they
didn't hurt anything. It is very interesting to note in the history of Scripture
the later influences of those tribes that they decided to leave because they
didn't drive out the enemy. It's a lesson not only in history, but in how
important it is in our lives to drive out the enemy.

Do not allow these places in our lives where Satan's at work, whether it's in
your thoughts, or it's in your relationships, or it's in your entertainments, or
it's in your business. You don't allow those places. You keep driving the enemy
out.

Let me walk through some of the tribes. First the Gibeonites, the Gerserites,
and the Mecathites. These are great names, aren't they?

These are all those names that we hate to read in Scripture thinking we're going
to always get them wrong. But, you know, God's given me great confidence to read
them with confidence even though I know there's some Hebrew scholar out there
who knows, "No, that should be said a little bit differently. " First, the
Gibeonites.

We looked at them a little bit last week. What happened because they left the
Gibeonites in the land? Well, first we saw the immediate mistrust of Joshua and
Israel's leaders that came because they had made this mistake.

So Joshua has a problem immediately. But later, if you read through the history
of Israel, you find that a large number of Gibeonites were later massacred by
Saul the king. And because he committed this sin before the Lord, it resulted in
three years of famine in Israel and the vengeful death of seven sons of Saul.

You ask hungry Israel, you ask Saul's sons whether leaving Gibeon really
mattered. It mattered. Or how about the Mecathites?

They were left in the land. If you go further in the history of Israel over to 2
Samuel chapter 10, you find out that this tribe later supplied 1,000 men for
battles against David. So you ask David whether or not leaving this tribe really
mattered.

Or how about the Geshurites? They were left in the land by the tribes in that
day. If you look over in 1 Chronicles 2-23, they later took the towns of Jair
because of what they did.

They took out of the tribe of Manasseh 60 different cities. Perhaps the
inhabitants of those 60 cities where they're living, a few of the enemy could be
harmful. You see, as we walk through what happened because they left some of the
enemy in their life, there are some extremely important lessons for you and I
concerning leaving the enemy in our life.

And you know, when I talk about the enemy now, I'm not talking about people. I'm
talking about sin. I'm talking about you and I making peace with some sin in our
lives.

That sin might be some lust, some sexual lust. That sin might be some words,
some ways that you use your words in anger or in bitterness or in hatred. That
sin might be some unforgiveness in your life that you hold onto because you just
can't let go of it.

I don't know what it is, but there's places in our lives where we don't drive
the enemy out and we get used to it. We begin to live with it. It's okay.

We think, "Well, it's not hurting my Christian life that much. God's still using
me. He's still working in my life.

" But I just want to remind you of three things. Number one, the enemy will
always be the enemy. Number two, the enemy will grow in strength.

And number three, the enemy will someday strike. Number one, the enemy will
always be the enemy. If I make peace with some sin in my life, it's always my
enemy.

In Joshua's day, these people never changed. They just waited for an opportunity
to attack. And Satan will never make peace with God's will.

He will offer you a false peace for a time and then he'll wait for an
opportunity to attack through that sin that you're continuing to allow in your
life. The enemy will always be the enemy. The enemy will grow in strength.

The few of Joshua's day became the thousands and the armies of David's day
because they left these few people that grew in strength until it ruined not
just a few people's lives but the lives of many, many thousands of people. If
you allow sin's influence just to continue in some part of your life, it will
inevitably grow. It's not going to stay the same.

Stop by on that lie from Satan. It's not going to stay where it is. It's going
to inevitably grow.

And the enemy, third truth is the enemy will someday strike. There may not have
been problems under Joshua, but look at what David had to face. Someday the
enemy is going to strike.

Sin is an enemy and it will not remain in that little corner. It is gathering
strength to strike. What am I saying as I talk about this?

Am I saying that somehow we can achieve a sinless perfection where we've
completely driven out every sin in our lives? No, we're going to struggle with
sin the rest of our lives. I'm going to struggle, you're going to struggle.

But the truth of the matter is you should be growing in that struggle. And if
there's a place in your life where you've said to some sin that you know should
be driven out, I'm just going to allow that one to stay. Even though you're
convicted about it, even though you know it could change, I'm going to allow
that one to stay.

I'm not going to tell anyone about that one. I'm not going to pray about that
one. That's going to be my one little pet sin.

That's the enemy. It will always be your enemy. It will grow in strength and
someday it will strike.

So my prayer for my life, for your life, is out of the example of Joshua, that
today we'll realize God, this is a place where you want to have victory. This is
not a place for me to settle for defeat. This is a place where you want to have
victory.

This is not a place for me to lie to myself and say it's never going to be a
problem. This is a place where you want to have victory. You're going to have
victory someday when I go to heaven, but you can begin to achieve that victory
even now on this earth.

Let's take a minute to pray together. And as we pray, maybe as I've been talking
today, God has brought an area of your life to mind. I know right now Satan's
working overtime to make you feel guilty about that area of your life.

Satan's working overtime to make you feel like, you know, God could never love
you because of this sin. Listen to the Lord instead. Listen to his voice of hope
and victory and bring it to him.

Ask for his victory in a new way right now. Determine, Lord, I'm not going to
fight this battle alone. Who can I bring into this with me to be praying for me?

Decide right now that instead of making, trying to make peace with this sin
that's going to eventually bring destruction into your life, you're going to
make this one other place where you drive out the enemy completely. Decide it in
Jesus' name. In fact, we do this together, Jesus.

We decide it in your name. Amen. Join us tomorrow.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to continue to learn the lesson of driving out the
enemy.