Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1690
Delivered on Thursday Evening, September 28, 1882
“And the Lord was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled from there the three sons of Anak.” Judges 1:19,20.
WE frequently use Canaan as a type of Heaven, and the Jordan, through which Israel passed, as a symbol of death. Dr. Watts has taught us to sing—
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,
Not Jordan’s stream, nor death’s cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore!” This is thoroughly poetical and may be made exceedingly instructive, but it is not quite accurate if we undertake a careful consideration of the whole matter. If the New Testament is to expound the Old, then there is another lesson to be learned from the land which flowed with milk and honey. “We that have believed do enter into rest,” that is to say, all believers in Christ have crossed the Jordan and have come into the promised rest. The Covenant is already fulfilled to them in a great measure—they are living under Messiah’s sway within the bounds of His Kingdom—and every precious thing which God promised them is theirs.
They dwell in the “land which the Lord thinks upon.” “Your land, O Immanuel!” The type, therefore, may best set forth the case of the instructed and advanced Believer who has passed through the first, or wilderness stage, of his life, and has now come into a higher condition, actually enjoying spiritual privileges and sitting together with Christ in the heavenly places. To him, however, this condition of exalted privilege is not a state of undisturbed repose—on the contrary, he wars a constant warfare, wrestling with spiritual wickedness. The Canaanite is in possession and the Canaanite is to be driven out. Our natural tendencies and corruptions; our sinful habits and lusts; the warping and bending of our spirit towards evil—all this has to be overcome—and we shall not possess the land so as to enjoy undivided tranquility until sin is utterly exterminated.
What Joshua could not do, our Lord Jesus shall fully accomplish—the enemy within shall be rooted out and then shall dawn the day of our joy and peace—when we shall sit, every man, under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall make us afraid. That perfect victory shall be ours, but not yet. Taking this as the Truth of God, which we shall illustrate by our text, we notice that the work of Israel was to drive out and to utterly exterminate those condemned races which were in possession of Canaan. One tribe was chosen to lead the van in the fierce campaign. Joshua, their heroic leader, was gone—who should lead the way? The power of the Canaanites, in his day, had been broken, but now that he was dead, the old races began to build up, again, even as we oftentimes find our sins, which we thought were all dead, suddenly finding fresh courage and attempting to set up their empire once more.
Then Israel went to God and enquired, “Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his hands.” The tribe of Judah, then, was commissioned to lead the way and we see three things in its conduct of the enterprise. First, the Lord’s power was trusted and magnified, for “the Lord was with Judah, and Judah drove out the inhabitants of the mountain.” Secondly, by this
very tribe, this right royal tribe, the Lord’s power was not trusted and, therefore, restrained, for, “Judah could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
Yet, as if to rebuke them, they had a singular incident set before them for the vindication of God’s power and, of that, we read in the 20th verse. Caleb, that grand old man who still lived on—the sole survivor of all who came out of Egypt—had obtained Hebron as his portion and he went up, in his old age, when his bones were sore and set, and slew the three sons of Anak, even three mighty giants, and took possession of their city. In this way the Lord’s power was trusted and vindicated from the slur which Judah had brought upon it!
I. Let us think upon our first head, which is, that by the tribe of Judah THE LORD’S POWER WAS TRUSTED AND MAGNIFIED. “The Lord was with Judah.” Oh that the Holy Spirit may be with us! The people had wisely consulted their God and it fell to Judah’s lot, by Divine appointment, to lead the van. In that work the tribe prospered. Read the chapter when you are at home and you will observe a series of great victories. “Judah went up; and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men. And they found Adonibezek in Bezek: and they fought against him and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites. But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God has requited me.” Thus they overcame the monarch who had domineered over the land and had been a terror to all the little kings.