“At that time there was no king in Israel, and it was also at that time that the tribe of Dan was looking for a place to claim ownership of and settle in, since they had not yet been given any land of their own among the tribes of Israel.”-Judges 18:1
Verse 1 contains a puzzling statement.
It says the the tribe of Dan “had not yet been given any land of their own among the tribes of Israel”.
Huh?
That doesn’t seem right now, does it?
Because we know for a fact that before Israel even entered Canaan, Moses assigned each tribe a specific piece of territory inside the Promised Land.
And then afterwards, Joshua established the borders and size of each of these territorial allotments.
So what gives here?
Well, here’s the deal.
It’s one thing to be assigned a territory…
And it’s another thing to take it over by booting the Canaanites out of that territory per God’s divine command.
Recall there was a land lottery held to determine which tribe would get what territory.
However, don’t be fooled by the word “lottery”.
When we think of a lottery, we have this image in our minds that we buy a ticket and if we win then all we have to do is show up and pick up our prize.
But the land lottery conducted by Moses was different.
The whole purpose of that lottery was to divvy up the land ahead of time so the tribes wouldn’t be fighting over which territory belonged to whom.
Another purpose, and this is key to our discussion here, is that each tribe was responsible for driving out the native Canaanites from the territory they had been assigned.
Let me say that again.
Each tribe was duty bound to drive the Canaanites out of the territory assigned to them.
And if they didn’t do it, they lost some or even all of that territory.
The territory the tribe of Dan received was filled with Philistines…
And they proved to be one of the fiercest enemies Israel would ever face in her history.
We know they were tough because Dan ended up throwing in the towel in their fight against the Philistines…
They were like screw it.
We don’t wanna risk life and limb trying to drive those guys out of our assigned territory.
It’s just too much work.
And that’s our takeaway for today folks.
The Lord has reserved a territory of great blessings for you…
But you gotta fight for it man…
Yes, times will be tough.
And perilous.
But the rewards will be oh so great if you persevere.
The members of Dan assumed that since God had not already driven out the Canaanites ahead of them, the timing wasn’t right for them to take it over.
In other words, they let outside circumstances dictate their behavior instead of the Will of God.
Read that last sentence again because there’s a whole other sermon contained in it.
The ancient gentile thought pattern of the day was to assume that outside circumstances reflected the wills of the gods.
Unfortunately, Dan fell for this way of thinking…
The consequences were so devastating this tribe ended up being ERASED in the final book of Revelations.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“but the one who stands firm
to the end will be saved.”
-Matthew 24:13
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