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Many years passed away.
Joshua and the Israelites spent those years in fighting with their
enemies; and God helped them, until almost all the land was
conquered. Joshua was now an old man, and God called to him and
said, "Thou art old, but all the land is not yet possessed:
soon I will give the whole country to my people Israel, as I promised; and
now divide the land, and give possessions to all the tribes."
Joshua obeyed, and gave to each tribe a part of the land; but he gave none
to the tribe of Levi. Why? Because that was the tribe of
priests; their possession was the sacrifices offered to the Lord, and they
wanted no more. But forty-eight cities, in different parts of the
country, were given to them; there they lived, and had schools where the
young Israelites were taught to worship and praise the Lord. The
tribe of Reuben, and the tribe of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, had
their possessions on the other side of the river Jordan. They had
asked Moses for that part, because they liked it best; and Moses had said,
"If you will come over Jordan with us, and help your brethren to
fight against their enemies, you may have possessions where you wish; but
you must not live idly here, while the others are busy fighting; when the
land is all possessed, you may return, and you may leave your wives and
children here now, but you must go over Jordan and help your
brethren." Then the three tribes promised to obey, and they did
as Moses said; and now, when their enemies were conquered, they went home
to live in peace. The Israelites were very glad to have those quiet
possessions in their beautiful land. And
does God give no possession, no home, to His people now? Yes, and a
better home, a better possession than Canaan: but it is not in this
world. The home of God's people is in heaven; their possession is
there. Canaan was a type of heaven; and beautiful as Canaan was,
heaven is much better. Do we wish to go there? We have enemies
as the Israelites had, and we must conquer them before we can have our
heavenly possessions. How can we conquer them? We must do as
the Israelites did; we must ask God to fight for us, and to make us
conquerors by His power, not our own. Jesus Christ is better and
stronger than Joshua; and if we ask Him, He will save and deliver us from
all our enemies, and bring us in safety to our happy home in heaven.
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