beginning in verse 13. In accordance
with the Lord's command to him, Joshua gave to Caleb, son of
Jephnueh, a portion of Judah, Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. Arba was the forefather of Anak. From Hebron, Caleb drove out
the three Anakites, Shishai, Ahimon, and Talimai, descendants
of Anak. From there, he marched against
the people living in Debir. In Hebrew, it's actually pronounced
Devir, formerly called Kiriath-sephir. And Caleb said, I will give my
daughter, Aksa, in marriage to the man who attacks and captures
Kiriath Sephir. Afnael, son of Kenaz, Caleb's
brother, took it. So Caleb gave his daughter Aksa
to him in marriage. Now, we got halfway through a
lesson on this last week, primarily by way of introduction.
And what we're going to look at this week in more detail is
how the gospel is pictured in the giving of, well, in Othniel conquering
Devere and then Caleb's daughter being given to Othniel as a wife. Now in this story, we have six
things. We have a city to be conquered.
We have a conqueror. We have a bride given by her
father. We have a conqueror who volunteers
to the task for the sake of having this bride. We have a contingency. which states that in order to
have the bride, the conqueror must be successful in his conquest. And we have a successful conquest
resulting in the bride and the conqueror being wed. And these
all picture various aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ. First,
we have a city to be conquered and deposed of its king. Now, this city, which is called Kavir, or excuse
me, Davir, but is also called by the name Kiriath-sephir, and
also Kiriath-sanna. But these words, the Kiriath, Kiriath means city of, and the
rest of it means like records, laws, writings, that sort of
thing. And it's believed by many that
this city, that Dvir, that it was where the official records
of the land of Canaan were kept. Not only that, that it probably
contained a library in which the collected knowledge of the
Canaanites was kept. Just like, you know, a university
library or something like that. But what you can see pictured
there then, this city represents man's wisdom, man's ideas of
morality and righteousness. It represents the thoughts and
ways of man. And we use that, you know, generically,
it represents the thoughts and ways of all human beings. But we can also see that this
city could be a picture of any one of God's elect. because we
are by nature, are we not, we are of the thoughts and ways
of man. That's how we're born. And the
interesting thing is when you consider the book of Romans in
chapter 12, it says, I beseech you by the mercies of God that
you present yourselves living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, And
then he says, and be you transformed by the renewing of your mind. You see, the gospel does bring
about changes on the outside, but the changes you see on the
outside are merely the fruit of the changes that God brings
about on the inside. The gospel changes our mind. That is, it changes our way of
thinking. That's essentially what repentance
means, to change your mind. And the gospel accomplishes that. And the gospel accomplishes it
because it's the power of God into salvation, and part of the
work of salvation is to change our mind, change the way we think,
how we value things, but there's also, in a sense, as
Paul puts it, throughout our lives as believers, we are actively
involved. He said, be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, and we do that, that is our part in
that, so to speak, is by attending to the preaching of the gospel,
and meditating on the truth of the gospel, and then to consciously,
as much as we can, consciously bring our thoughts and ways into
subjection to the gospel. However, before that ever happens,
before we ever, shall we say, are actively involved change
in the way we think, the city of our mind must be conquered. Because all those walled cities,
they had what King James calls them kings, and I guess that's
a good enough word, but it's a pretty small domain that they
were over. Nonetheless, there was someone within the city who
was the boss, who was in charge, a monarch. Well, within us, as
we are born in this world, there's a monarch in our minds, isn't
it? And it's us. We ourselves consider ourselves
to be the king. There's a poem, I can't remember
who wrote it, but it's called Invictus. And it is a bold-faced description of man's pride. Not just a description, whoever
wrote it, I mean he is shaking his fist in the face of destiny,
in the face of the world, and while he probably doesn't realize
it, in the very face of God. And the last line in that poem
is, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. And if you are among God's chosen,
the time will come when the Lord Jesus will come to you and say,
you need your mind changed about that. You are not the master
of your fate. You are not the captain of your
soul. I am. And so this city, John Bunyan
wrote a book. He's the one that wrote Pilgrim's
Progress. He also wrote a book called The
Holy War. And in The Holy War, it's like
Pilgrim's Progress in that it's an allegory. There's a war against
a city, and the name of the city is Mansoul. And in the gospel,
God goes to war against the soul of a man. and he takes the city. There is no such thing as a believer
who does not submit to God. People, and I've seen this, you
know, on Facebook, you know, I don't believe in lordship salvation.
I know what they mean by Lordship Salvation, and I don't believe
in that kind of Lordship Salvation either. There is a version of
that, and this is what happens any time there's man-made terms. There's different definitions
of them, and sometimes the man-made term is really very poorly used,
but they have this idea that your life has to be characterized
by obedience to Christ, to at least a certain degree before
you could rightfully claim to be saved. If you aren't, you
know, living right, you're not saved. And my thought was, well,
where's the line? You know, if that's it, is it
75% of the time? Or anything above 50%? But I will say this, now that
kind of nonsense, I don't believe in that at all. But I know this,
no one has ever been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ without
them willingly and gladly submitting to him as Lord. We don't claim
to be real good subjects, do we? But we do own him as Lord. And our grief does not come from
whatever restrictions on our natural lives we may feel have
been imposed on us by our Lord. Our grief comes from the fact
that we are so poor following the way of our Lord. That's where the grief comes. It says in the book of Romans,
if you will confess with your mouth Jesus to be Lord and believe
in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, which is a
simply, you know, God raising him from the dead, that means
he's Lord. So you're confessing with your mouth and believing
in your heart, essentially the same thing. Jesus Christ is Lord.
But that city, the city of letters, the city of records, the city
of wisdom, the city of knowledge. It's all human, and it must be
captured. Second, we have a conqueror.
His name is Ophnel. They can't be, they're not for
sure exactly what the name means, but most think that Lion of God,
Lion of God. You see the E-L at the end of
the name Othniel? It's one of those compound names
and they're very common in ancient times. And that E-L is the generic
word for God. And so just about any name you
see in the Old Testament that ends in E-L, the name means something
of God. Daniel, Doniel. God is judge. I'm not sure exactly
what the name Michael means, but it is something of God. Gabriel,
the angel, something of God. That's what those names mean.
The Othniel, if it's not Lion of God, at least it means something
powerful. And this Othniel is of the tribe
of Judah. right along with Caleb, his uncle. And so he is the lion of the
tribe of Judah. Now we've heard that name before,
haven't we? Remember when in the book of Revelation, John
sees this scroll sealed with seven seals, held in the hand
of the one who sits on the throne, God. And the cry goes out, who
is worthy to take the scroll from the hand of him that sits
on the throne and loose its seven seals? And John says, and I wept
because there were none found worthy. Think of that, in all
of heaven, they couldn't find anybody worthy. But then one of the elders came
up to him and said, do not weep, for the lion of the tribe of
Judah has prevailed, and he is worthy to take the scroll and
open its seals. Jesus the Christ, the son of
the living God, He is the lion of the tribe of Judah. He voluntarily
undertook to conquer and conquer he did. It speaks of him in the book
of Revelation as one who is, remember just exactly how this
went, that he went forth conquering and to conquer. I mean, that's
pretty well emphasizing, you know, our Lord is not up in glory
waiting to see whether or not his hopes and desires work out. The scriptures say Jehovah is
a man of war. And he is, he is conquering. He besieged and besieges the
souls of his people. and being stronger than the king
who temporarily reigns there, he binds that strong man and
spoils his house. He comes in and takes our natural
way of thinking that makes us to be king, and he binds that
up. He takes us off the throne and
sets himself there. And third, we have a father betrothing
his daughter to him who is able to conquer the city. Of course,
this represents God the father. Caleb, in this story, representing
God the father. And he says, whoever can take
that city can have my daughter as a wife. Now, that's no small
thing. Now, in our day of feminism,
and I don't want to get in a big discussion about feminism, except to say this. Sometimes
they misunderstand the significance of the social structures that
have been in place in the past. And, you know, I heard or watched
a video or something of this woman, and she was complaining
about that whole part of the wedding. You know, it says, who
gives this woman to be married to this man? You know, I'm not
property to be given away. That's not what this is about.
It's not. In nearly all cultures, until
the Industrial Revolution, in all cultures, the responsibility
of the welfare of the household rested completely upon the man
in the house. And that was because about the
only way to make a living involved physical exertion. Men are bigger and stronger than
women. But men provided for the house, and men protected the
household. And men protected, they were
supposed to anyway, protected, this sense of protection was
most keenly felt toward the women in the house. Of course, little
boys would have been protected, but you know, boys reached a certain age, they
were considered men and they were supposed to be protectors
instead of protected. But a man protected his wife
and a man protected. He had a duty and an inward sense
of responsibility to protect his daughter. And what this did,
that means these women were precious to them. Not like property. Oh yeah, I'm sure some men looked
at them that way. But that's because people are
sinful. I remember when my daughter was
married. Now I realized I could not tell
her who to marry. I realized she was not my property.
She was already outside of my house making her own way in the
world. Had her own job, her own apartment. But I walked her down
the aisle. And for the first time and only
time in my life, instead of being the one asking who gives this
woman to be married to this man, I was the one being asked that
question. And it may be the most difficult
question I was ever asked. Because my daughter was precious
to me. And I didn't want to turn her
over to anybody else. I was glad for the man she was
marrying. He's a good man. But as I see it, I bestowed great
honor on my son-in-law by willingly giving him my daughter. Caleb was a mighty man in Israel. His daughter was valuable, precious
to him. To this point, he had been responsible
for her. And for him, To offer her as
sort of a reward for the accomplishment of something he wanted done was
a great reward indeed. It would have conferred, whatever
Caleb was, it would have conferred the same character to the conqueror. has betrothed his daughter to
whoever conquers this city of man. We have the conqueror taking
on this battle for the possession of the bride. And fifthly, we
have him being successful in doing it. By the work of the cross, he
deposed what the Bible calls the God of this age, the devil
himself, deposed him. And individually, through his
spirit, he comes to the individual people who are the elect of God
and deposes their own self-proclaimed authority and rules in their
hearts. And then sixth, he comes forth
as a successful bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing
as a strong man to run a race, and he claims his bride, and
she is given to him. The book of Revelation talks
about the wedding feast of the Lamb. Now, we are, by the ordination
of God, who are the elect of God have been betrothed to Christ. The wedding is yet to come. It will come, as we're going to see in the
morning message, at the end. And I can't tell you what all
that means, to be wed to Christ, not simply betrothed to Him.
But we know this about the difference between a betrothal or engagement
and marriage in this life. Throughout the courting or dating
process and engagement and marriage, there are increasing levels of
intimacy. You know, when you first set
your eyes on someone that attracts you, What is it you want to do? Well, you want to begin to know
that person. Find out if the initial attraction is legitimate. And you begin
to know that person. And the longer that process goes
on, the more you learn about and the more intimate the things
you learn about them are. And once you're engaged, there's
another level of intimacy. Of course, in dating, you know,
you've got your dating and quote, going steady or whatever they
call that these days, where you consider yourself exclusive.
You know, you're not going to date anyone else. Engagement.
There is a level of intimacy there. And you may share things
about yourself with the one you're engaged to that you haven't shared
before because this bond is being formed. But once the I do's are
done and marriage is entered into, then the full range of
intimacy is allowed and entered into. So much so that the scriptures
say that the two become one. We are now betrothed to the Lord
Jesus Christ. We know him, he knows us. And
the more time we spend thinking about him and prayer to him and
all this, the more we get to know him. And you know, Paul
said that I may know him, that my knowledge of him may become
deeper and more intimate. But the time is coming, Paul
says in 1 Corinthians 15, when we shall know even as we are
known. Now what will that be? I don't
know. I think that's beyond our ability
to grasp what it must be to be so united to Christ, not only
by decree of God, But in our own experience, that it might
be said, we are one. But such shall be the experience
of all God's people. All right, you are dismissed.