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All right, so this entire chapter, Joshua 16, basically just has to do with describing the children of Ephraim's inheritance. That's pretty much what this chapter is about. It's a very short chapter, so it's probably going to be a shorter sermon tonight, but I want to go into a little bit of the symbolism and just remind you, you know, throughout the entire book of Joshua, kind of what the book of Joshua is about. Now, I've already taught in previous chapters, you know, some of the symbolism regarding the Promised Land, right, and receiving the Promised Land and how we will one day receive our inheritance in heaven. This is the physical inheritance that the nation of Israel was receiving on this earth, and we can make many applications of the Promised Land in heaven. But there's also another major symbolic theme, if you will, in the entire book of Joshua, and I brought this up previously as well, I believe, in other sermons, is that this is very representative of the Christian life. Because when we, you know, there's some applications where you can talk about the Promised Land, you know, with the heavenly Jerusalem and things like that, and it definitely makes sense and it's definitely applicable. But one of the things that happens throughout this book is that the children of Israel constantly fighting, right? They didn't just like waltz right into the inheritance and that was it. They're fighting, they're working, they're striving, they're, you know, they're pushing things farther and farther and they have to keep it up and keep up the fight and really go. And Joshua does this battling and fighting like his entire life. And even, we saw a few weeks ago, you know, he's kind of like at the end of everything, at the end of his life, and God's still saying, and there's still a lot more battles to be won. There's still a lot more fighting to be done. There's still more work to do. So I think the bigger theme of Joshua is that of our Christian life. Because we are to be warriors in this battle, in this spiritual fight, for our whole life. Right? Starts the day you're born again. When you become a child of God and continues until you breathe your last breath. And then ultimately we do get to enter into his rest. We enter into the rest of Jesus Christ once we're done fighting and working and striving down here for what's right. And that's one of the main themes of the book of Joshua and one of the main takeaways that we should get and especially just continue to bear in mind as we read these stories. These aren't, this isn't just, you know, history, well that's interesting, right? It's not just some boring history book or even exciting history book. It's something that has a lot more truth and meaning to it because it's scripture. Because we can get doctrine from it. We can learn a lot more than just some facts about certain battles. There's much more applications to be made. Now turn if you would here. Keep your place here. You don't have to keep your place here because we're not going to read through every single one of the border towns that describes Ephraim. Turn if you would to 2 Timothy chapter 4. Because this is how the Christian life is. We go from battle to battle. And we need to stay true to the Lord, stay true to God's Word even when it's unpopular like Joshua and Caleb did, right? They were in the minority when they brought back the report of the Promised Land. When they sent out the spies, Joshua and Caleb were among them, 10 of them were saying, well yeah it's good but we could never do this. The people there are too strong for us. We can't do this. There's no way we could fight this. We needed to stay back here and Joshua and Caleb were saying, no, the Lord promised it to us. We can do this. God is with us. We can win this. Let's just go in and claim our inheritance and say that the Lord is going to fight our battles for us. They stuck with it early on. They stayed true to the Word. They stayed true throughout the wilderness. When God said, okay, because of all you, you know, you other 10 that were overruling the two righteous people and you don't want to go in there and you said that your children were going to be killed and everything else, well now you're going to die in the wilderness. You're going to wander about until your generation of your children do get to inherit the Promised Land just to prove a point that they will go in there and they will successfully inherit it. But Joshua and Caleb, through those 40 years, they could have gotten bitter, they could have gotten worn down, they could have gotten broken down, but they didn't. They kept going. They stayed true to God's Word. And then even through the setbacks, right, they get these great victories and then something happened. Remember with the sin of Achan and the battle of Ai. And they were running, fleeing before their enemies. Another opportunity they could have been like, oh no, we just got to quit. This is too much. I knew we couldn't do it. But they still stayed true to the Word of God and continued pressing on and fixed the matter that was wrong and fixed the problems. It wasn't perfect. They made the mistake of making that deal, making that league, right, with one of the nations of the heathen. But they still pressed forward and kept fighting and kept going. And they were able to stay the course until the end. You know, of all the people in the Bible, Joshua seemed to have maintained his course just pretty good the entire time. We don't really see anything really majorly wrong with Joshua. He's a very, very good example in the scripture. We see many other people who are great men of God but also had major flaws. Joshua, and again, you know, again, Joshua's not perfect, but he's one of our best examples as far as not really slipping and falling hard and getting into some really wicked sins. So, he's a very good example. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse number 6. This is the Apostle Paul now near the end of his life after all the work that he's done. And again, another great example of someone who's been through trials and persecutions and you know, fastings and being a night a day and a day in the deep, you know, just shipwrecked and in perils of robbers and perils among his own countrymen. He's been stoned, he's been, you know, all these various things happening to him that can get him out of the fight but he maintained the course and he's finally able to say this in 2 Timothy chapter 4, one of his last writings, it says, for I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. He's referring to his own death, his own physical death. I'm getting ready to leave this world. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith henceforth, so from here on forward there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day and not to me only but unto all them also that love is appearing. There is a crown for us to win and to fight for and to strive for. And Apostle Paul, I mean, would to God I can say at the end of my life I become an old man full of days and I can look back and say, I fought a good fight. I kept the faith. I didn't end up denying God. I didn't end up going the wrong way and look back on the end of my life and say, hey, from here forward I know there's a crown laid up for me because I stayed true unto the end. And this is what we all need to keep in mind to help keep you going because it can be what is rough along the way. It's not always going to be the excitement of the victory. The excitement of the victory continues to edify us and will stir us up and keep us going. We just had a great event last week and yeah, that's exciting and I don't know about you but I'm still kind of pumped up from that. It's great, right? It keeps me just, oh man, I just want to keep doing more. But it wears off, right? And then we'll get another victory and we'll go victory to victory. But you know what? Eventually there's going to come a time where there's some type of a defeat. There's some type of a setback. There's going to be some opposition. There's going to be some persecution. It's going to bring you low and you might feel like you're all alone. And we need to remember to have this type of faith like Joshua had, like the apostle Paul had, to keep pushing forward, to keep moving forward. Now, why am I going into all of this? Because we need to take heed to ourselves and what we see in this chapter with Ephraim, we see a major mistake and something that never should have happened, especially with the tribe of Ephraim. The last verse or the last two verses in the Bible of Joshua 16 says, and the separate cities for the children of Ephraim were among the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages. Now verse number 10, and they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day and serve under tribute. And that one verse carries a lot of weight in the history of Israel and the history of Ephraim, just the fact that they did not drive out all the Canaanites that the Lord said to drive out. Turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 48, we're going to go through a very brief history of Ephraim, just as a people, and how ultimately and truly they had been blessed. And if you're going to take away anything from the sermon tonight, it's going to be remember Ephraim, because I'm speaking to many people that have been blessed and have advantages. Ephraim had many advantages as a people, we're going to look through some of that. Verse number 15, Genesis 48, we're going to see here this is when Israel is blessing Joseph and his children. Remember Joseph receives the double portion. Look at verse number 15, the Bible says, and he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads and let my name be named on them and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. So he's blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, he's blessing the children of Joseph and he's just blessing them to just become these huge nations, these multitudes, God, please bless them. And then Joseph sees that his right hand here, we'll read verse number 17, and when Joseph saw his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him and he held up his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father, not so my father, for this is the firstborn, put thy right hand upon his head. So what was customary is that the firstborn child was going to receive the greater blessing because he's the firstborn. But what Jacob is doing here, Israel's doing, is he's actually blessing the secondborn son, not the firstborn, with the greater blessing, he's blessing both of them. So it's not like one of them is not being blessed, but he's giving the greater blessing unto the younger child. So right off the bat, that's not something that Ephraim would have expected, but something he was blessed with. It's an extra blessing for Ephraim to receive the top blessing here. Look at verse number 19, it says, and his father refused and said, I know it, my son, I know it. He also shall become a people and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day saying, in thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh, and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. So there's one example of Ephraim just getting a great head start as far as receiving this awesome blessing. Now one of the things that's another blessing for Ephraim is that Joshua, if you didn't know this, Joshua was the head of the tribe of Ephraim. That was his tribe. That's who he led. So as Joshua's leading this battle into the promised land, he's representing the tribe of Ephraim. So what better leader can you have outside of Moses, but when they're going into the promised land, Moses wasn't with them anymore. They had Joshua leading the way, setting the pace, going forward, his zeal, his dedication, his faithfulness to the word of God, just pushing the way forward. That was the tribe of Ephraim. They could take a little bit of pride and say, hey, that's our guy. That's our leader, right? Ephraim literally, and I meant to bring the map. Now I mentioned previously, there's a lot of screwed up maps and things out there online, but this is such a very simple concept, and I'm going to try to do this, but I am horrible when it comes to maps. Okay, so let's just say, I know it kind of looks like Illinois or Indiana or something, but this isn't a good representation, but when it came to their inheritance, which is what we're reading about here, Ephraim is like right in the middle, and they had tribes all around them, and he had Manasseh over here, and Manasseh, and they had Judah and Simeon, and they had, if you were going to take a place in a nation to be the most secure, right, to have the best advantage over all of your enemies, wouldn't you think it would just be right in the dead center, because you've got all the rest of the tribes basically surrounding you. That was the advantage that Ephraim had. They had Joshua as a leader. They received a double blessing, which means they had a lot of people. They were blessed with having multitudes of people. They were not a small tribe. They had people. They had a great position within the nation. They had a great leader. Every advantage you could possibly want, but what happens? They still don't drive out the Canaanites out of their land. Now I don't believe it's because they couldn't drive them out. They had all the advantages. They could have. I mean, definitely, for one, if they just had the faith, they easily could have driven them out. But I'm not quite certain that it was necessarily a lack of faith that caused them not to drive out the Canaanites, because we saw this before, there becomes this pattern. Once the first group, the first tribe allows for the Canaanites to dwell among them, and they become tributaries or servants to them, it starts to become much more of a pattern throughout some of the other tribes, where now there's multiple places where they're not expelling all of them. I think, personally, I don't have all of the solid evidence for this to just clear-cut tell you this is exactly the reasoning behind it, but when you see a group of people that you can now take over and have them do your work for you, that can become enticing and give you an incentive to not want to just completely expel them, because you think, hey, we're in charge now, we're very powerful, God's with us, we can handle this, we can control this group of people, and they're going to serve us, and then we'll have the benefit of having these servants as well as having this land and everything else. You can see where that way of thinking might creep in. Now whether or not they're guilty of this, this is still a temptation that we need to remember, and the application is, in your life, in your walk with God, the Canaanites were evil, they were wicked, that's representative of sin in your life, allowing to just hold on to some little sin, some secret sin, some pleasure that you just like to have because you think, hey, I'm spiritually really strong, I'm not going to let this ruin me, I'm not going to let this take over me, I've got control over this, but I'm going to hold on to this and just allow this to stay in my life. Well what ends up happening to Ephraim? Ephraim turns out to be one of the more wicked tribes as you start reading through the Kings and Chronicles, and especially you get into Isaiah and Jeremiah, and you see Ephraim is confederate with the wicked with Syria, with the wicked people, and they're turning against their own people, and Ephraim is kind of leading the way and being really wicked, and I think it all stems back from them not being able to expel all the wicked Canaanites that God said needed to just be wiped out, and God warned them and said, look, you cannot leave these people with you, they're going to be a thorn in your flesh, they're going to draw you away from serving the Lord, you're going to end up learning their ways, and they're going to infect you basically, they're like a cancer, and when you allow just extremely wicked people to remain among a righteous group of people, you know, a little leaven leaven at the whole lump, the Bible warns about that regarding doctrine, but also when you just allow extremely wicked people to be accepted and to just be inside of your land and just right in the dead center, it's going to eat you from the inside out, and when you allow some pet sin that you just don't want to get rid of because you enjoy it too much and you feel like, well, no one's ever going to know about this, this is my sin and I'm just going to hold on and keep this, it's going to lead you into all manner of other sin. It will, I guarantee you, mark my words, if you're sitting there today thinking, no, I can handle this, I've got control over this, I can drink a little bit, I can watch a little bit of porno, I can do this, I can do that, it's not going to affect me, I guarantee you it will. I guarantee you it's going to take you way, way farther than you wanted to go, I guarantee you it's going to cause you to get into way more sin than you ever wanted to because you held onto that one and didn't just expel it out of your life. Guaranteed that's the way sin works, every single time I do not know one person that can maintain a righteous life while still maintaining some sin consciously just holding onto that sin. That's a wicked heart and it's going to destroy you, it's going to lead you into all wickedness. That's what happened to Ephraim and that's what's going to happen to you if you decide to do that. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, turn a few wood please to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse number 12 says, Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. You think you're standing, you think, oh I've got everything all covered, I've made it, you know, nothing's ever going to make me fall, well you better take heed, you better watch out, you better remember Ephraim. Every advantage, every advantage and they ended up going down the tubes and it all started just by not getting rid of what the very first, what God told them, get rid of all the inhabitants of the land, I'm with you. They saw all the great miracles, they knew God was with them and they still allowed that people to dwell among them and it destroyed them. 1 Corinthians 10, 12 is that verse, but let's get this all now in context, we'll go back up and read verse number 1. The Bible says, Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. So he's giving them, he's laying down his foundation of talking about the fathers, right, the ancestors and giving a lot of the symbolism that happened, you know, along the wilderness, he said, look, they all ate the manna, God was with them, they were baptized when they went through the Red Sea and they crossed the Red Sea and all this stuff, and he's giving them a lot of the spiritual applications, but he's saying, look, they all participated in this stuff, because we're going to end up ending at verse number 12 where he says, Take heed, therefore, right? So because of all this, you need to take heed. Remember that the children of Israel, God's people, went through all of this stuff and they were cared for and had God with them and they had that spiritual meat and they drank of the spiritual drink with that rock was Christ, he says, but even though they had all that, but with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. He's saying in a nutshell, look, they were all saved, too. They were all blessed of God. Look, you're saved. You're a child of God and God will bless you and will be with you. But if you get into all these evil things and start lusting after the flesh and lusting after all these wicked things, he says, they're examples. Look what God did to them. You can expect the same thing in your life. Don't think that you're above that. Don't think that you won't be chastised and you won't be punished the same way that the children of Israel were. And we have plenty of examples in the Old Testament about all these various things that they did and the punishments that happened. I mean, people died, thousands, tens of thousands of people died because of their own lust, because they want to satisfy the lust of their flesh and because they got into fornication and because they were just lusting after this literal flesh. I mean, that's when they were saying, oh man, we're sick of this manna. We don't like this. We don't like what God's providing for us. Wouldn't God, we could have some flesh to eat. Right? And they wanted some birds. They wanted some chicken. And God made it, God said, okay, you want some food? I'll make it come out of your nose. I love that passage. It just shows you how much God hates complainers and murmurers. Hey, be happy with what God's provided you with. God provided them with food that they didn't have to work for at all. They just go outside and just gather up the food and it's ready to go. It's there for them and it's a promise to them. It's not something you even have to wonder about. Is God going to provide for me today? They had it every single day, day in, day out. But they became complainers and spoiled. See, when they were hungry, when they were in bondage, that food was a miracle and a blessing and they loved it. But after a while, they forgot about the hard times and then they started to get bored. Oh, this again? And their whole attitude changed, became a complaining attitude. And you know, we live in a very blessed nation. There's few things that drive me nuts more than people who are ungrateful and do not recognize the blessings that they have, even just living where they live right now. We can invite Pastor Bogart up and have him give a little bit of a testimony on the way things are in other parts of the world, how it is not as wealthy and people don't have the things that people have here. When you hear people complaining, oh, my cell phone plan or my phone, like I don't have the newest $1,000 phone to play on, to play my games on, right? And they think something's wrong with the world and the president's got to buy me a phone and, you know, and oh, my air conditioning went out for a day and I was kind of uncomfortable. You know, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And you know what makes it the worst is when you start complaining about where you're at and complaining even about God or just about why you have to go through this and poor me. That is a wicked attitude to have and if you have that attitude, you need to get right with God and learn that God hates murmuring and complaining and we need to be content with such things that we have and not just, if you live in the United States of America, not just content with what you have, but very, very, very thankful for all of the blessings that you have between vehicles and all the luxuries that you enjoy today is truly a blessing to be very, very thankful for, getting on your knees and saying, thank you, Lord. And shame on me if I ever become ungrateful or complain or murmur about what I don't have or look on things other people have or whatever. You have every advantage in the world. You can go out and preach the gospel. You can go to the dollar store and get a Bible. You have audio Bibles. You have so much today. Every advantage. Don't be like Ephraim. Don't think you can be righteous and spiritual but also hold on to your pet's sins. Don't think that you could just be so puffed up and have every advantage to where you think there's no way I'm ever going to fall. We're right in the center of the nation. We've got every defense. But they got eaten from the inside out. And you hold on to sin in your life, you'll be eaten from the inside out. It's going to attack your heart. Let's keep reading here. Verse number 6. Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters as were some of them as it is written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day free in 20,000. 23,000 people died because of the sin of fornication. Fornication is rampant in this country. It's not even frowned upon anymore. Just in the span of one or two generations it's been turned on its head. It used to be something that was really looked down upon and really publicly shamed when people would shack up together if you have unmarried people living together. Now it's the norm. Now you've got parents going, oh, okay, honey, you want to go live with your boyfriend? Sure. Go ahead. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. It's wicked as hell. Verse number 9. Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for in samples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. But we've got a little bit of hope here in verse number 13. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it. That's hopeful, but that also puts all of the responsibility and burden on you. Take heed to yourself. Take heed that you don't fall. Realize when you are faced with some type of temptation, something in your flesh where you might feel the desire to lust after something you shouldn't, God's already made an out for you. But it's up to you to choose to take that out. You have to choose to remove yourself from the situation. God will make sure that that is available and open to you, but you have to do it. You may end up getting yourself into a situation you ultimately can't get out of, but that's because you already ignored God's escape for you. Don't let it get to that point. We've got a lot of examples. What we learned from tonight, the example of Ephraim. Don't be like Ephraim. Hey, we have the blessings. You can really do something great with the blessings that you have. I mean really great. As a father, especially a father who wasn't saved from a really young age, thankfully I was saved relatively young. I was twenty years old when I got saved. That's pretty young. I'm very thankful for that. But I'm even more excited at the opportunity for my children to grow up hearing from God's word every single day and what they're going to be able to do with their lives if, if they choose to actually make the most of their blessings. They have the choice just like everyone else. And kids, my kids especially, listen up. Because this sermon is one of the most important sermons for you to listen to. Because you're going to have decisions to make in your life. And you've been blessed with a tremendous amount of blessings that you probably won't even understand for a long time to come. But you have to decide whether or not you're going to serve the Lord and remain faithful. And stay true to the end as Joshua did. As Caleb did. As these great men of God did. These great examples from the scripture. The Apostle Paul. And with the head start of the blessings that you have you can go on and do way more than your parents. You can serve the Lord even greater. And if you, you know, regardless of your history, you are where you are right now. And you, everybody here has been blessed. To one extent or another. Let's take it and make the most of it. And if you have any, any sin, any of those hidden sins that you have going on in your mind right now going, yeah, you know what, I've been holding on to that. Get rid of it. It will destroy you. Get rid of it. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for your instruction and for all the warnings that we could receive from your word. God, I pray that you would please help us to just mortify this flesh. Mortify the deeds of the flesh. Lord, help us to strengthen our spirit and to just not allow for any of this wickedness or any sin or any sinful lust to fester it within us. But that we could try to stamp it out so that we could have a good testimony. Especially at the end of our life that we can stay the course and not faint and not grow too weary and get out of the fight, Lord, but that we can just maintain and continue moving forward and pressing on from battle to battle until you decide to take us home, Lord. We love you and we just ask you for your encouragement tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.