Joshua 13

FROM this chapter out a new thing comes before us. Having traced the rise and progress of the heavenly man, we now come to the story of his failures, with, however, a bright witness to the contrary in the fourteenth chapter.
The five lords of the Philistines, who gave the people immense trouble afterward, are the first mentioned as amongst the nations still unsubdued. But a very important principle comes out in connection with them. The Lord says to Joshua: " Divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance." Conquered or not conquered they are to divide it. It needs the fourteenth of John to explain it: " I go to prepare a place for you." It is not a question of whether you have entered into it, or whether you enjoy it; there is the place, the heavenly portion for you, and you ought to enjoy it. John never puts you in heaven as Paul does; but he wants you to get a certain comfort from the fact that you have a place there.
There is a warning in Deut. 11, as to being careless in the possession of the land; and I notice in people who are careless as to their heavenly calling, that they are worse off than if they had never left Egypt; there they had the water of the river; in the land they have nothing; the rain is stayed from them, and the earth yields not its fruit. A Christian is sometimes less happy than a worldly man; he is not worse off as to the future, but he is as to the present, for he has neither the world nor the Lord, and this simply because he is not faithful.
God allowed the Philistines to remain, but still you will find that decline came in through their being there, It is an old remark that people are often more careful as to their walk when they are just coming out of Egypt than they are when they are established. This is very specious. A person may be very happy in what he possesses, and yet all the time be allowing something, which he ought to destroy, to remain and be tributary to him. I say you are losing ground if you do; you would have subdued this thing once, but now you do not because it is tributary to you.
We find the tribe of Levi here without any inheritance; they were in the land, enjoying all the fruits of it, though not owning it themselves.
And this is very much the place that we shall hold in the millennium: we shall have the enjoyment of all the holy things of God, but we shall not be on the earth.
It is an immense thing for the soul to get hold of the simple fact that God delights in our having possession. God commands us to go in and possess; and there is an enjoyment connected with it-an enjoyment that eye has not seen nor ear heard.