Joshua 19:10-16 | Episode #1243

July 22, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 19:10-16

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply

God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes, where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus

that God would open his word to

you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today.

Word of God, please speak to the

hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Foreign.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Joshua, chapter 19, verses 10 through 16. It is. It's a. I'm gonna throw a word at you this morning, and you're not going to associate it with where it actually came from. And that word is Zebulun.

Zebulun.

Is that a planet on Star Trek?

No, no, no, no.

Zebulun is one of the tribes of Israel. Zebulun was the last. He was the sixth son of Leah. And if you'll remember, Leah was Abraham's second wife. He worked for seven years and got the wife. Well, got the older sister when he wanted the younger sister. So then he worked another seven years and got the younger sister. And Leah had a son, had a sixth son. And his. His name means promise. Because. Because Leah thought that once she'd have a. Had a half a dozen sons for Noah, that he would honor her.

And he did. He did.

He placed her in a high position of honor. And Zebulun was one of the tribes. And really when you. When you begin to look at the tribe of Zebulun and you begin to look at the story of. Of Zebulun, that's really all you get. And that's really all there is. But you know the name. You know the name and you go, well, how do I know the name? Where does that name come from? Well, it comes from the Bible. It actually comes from. It actually comes from a prophecy that was. That was given to us by Jeremiah, not Isaiah. And it's Isaiah, chapter nine, verse one. And that prophecy is spoken of regularly

during Christmas, and that's why you remember it.

It's spoken regularly during Christmas. The prophecy itself is. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed as when at the first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and that's another tribe we're gonna deal with. And afterward more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan and Galilee of the Gentiles. And what that prophecy is is that it takes us actually to Matthew chapter

four,

where that prophecy is used. In the Christmas, I guess the Christmas, the story of Jesus's birth. And it tells us that, well, the land of Zebulun, this is Matthew, chapter 4, verse 15. The land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned. Now, that's a prophecy as to the Messiah and where the Messiah would be from.

And.

And Galilee is the place where it's from. And interestingly enough, if you go to the Sea of Galilee, which would be naturally why they would call that region Galilee after so many years. Once you go to the Sea of Galilee and you go over to the west, Naphtali is 10, 15 miles from

the Sea of Galilee.

And it's part of what was thought of during Jesus's time as Galilee, where Jesus was grew up. And the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun are the location where Jesus grew up. Now that makes it. Well, that makes Zebulun very, very important because our Lord grows up in that territory. You thought, you say, well, I thought Jesus was the tribe from the tribe of Judah.

He absolutely was.

He's the lion of the tribe of Judah, as the revelation tells us. But obviously Jewish people mixed everywhere. And over the next century or 1200 years, they mix up and they live different places. And Joseph, Jesus's earthly father, was living in Galilee. His family was living in Galilee. But what that leads us to the other prophecy, that he would be born in Bethlehem, because Joseph's family was from Bethlehem. His family lines, his place of promise was in Bethlehem. And so when Jesus goes to, When Joseph takes Mary, who is with child, to Bethlehem, he leaves Galilee and goes to Bethlehem and then goes back to Galilee. And we see that when Jesus is 13, when they come to the temple again, and Jesus, when they leave to go back to Galilee, Jesus Stays in the temple. It's where Jesus was from. And it's an interesting place to study. Now you go, well, is that all you got to really say about Naphtali?

Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much.

And the reason why that is Zebulun and Naphtali are. Are two of the tribes in the north. And although they had a great reputation for being mighty fighting men, and they provided David 50,000 men for battle, so they did have a repute for being willing to go to war and fight for God. They were part of the northern tribes. And they did not drive out all the Canaanites from their land. And ultimately they were carried away into

oblivion, really, when the Assyrians attacked.

And so what do we get from this story? What do we get from this story? Well, what we get from this story is that Zebulun is an important place. It's an important place because Jesus grew up there, but it's also an important place because not only did Jesus grow up there with his Judean Judah, his

stepfather, his human father, was from Judah,

he also grew up around a lot of Gentiles. And the reason it's called Galilee rather

than Zebulun is because, well, those tribes no longer exist in that area. And the Jewish people that do exist in that area are generally not totally from Judah and Benjamin.

And so those tribes are the two tribes that are in the south that don't go into exile with the Assyrians. And like I said, there are other

people from the other tribes who moved

there to the south once they started worshiping other gods in the high places.

But

Zebulun ceased to exist about 600

years after they took their country.

And the reason they ceased to exist

is because, um, they did not wholly give themselves over to God and they weren't obedient to God fully.

And that is a very hard thing to learn.

Any disobedience is disobedience. And we don't obey God because He gives us rules.

And we don't obey him because necessarily the rules are good, because they are

all good and because he does give them.

But we obey God in its purest

form, when we obey God in the purest form of it. We obey him because of our faith. We trust Him. We do what God says because we trust Him. And we know that he is all knowing, all powerful, omnipresent and good. And that he is doing what is in our absolutely best interest. And he is at work in our lives to glorify Himself and to give us his good, his joy, his peace, his purpose.

And so we do what God tells us to do. And we live out what God tells

us to do for his best, for the very best that he has for us. And we do that because we trust Him.

Sure, you can follow the law because

it is the law and it is good, and it is God.

And you could do it just based off of those empirical truths. But the truth is that we honor

God the most because we have come to know him from those truths, and we love him, and so we trust him and do what he says. Obedience is an important aspect of that.

And a failure to do what God

has told you to do is unbelief also. And the tribe of Zebulun is one of those tribes that ended up doing that. And so now you have Judeans living in Galilee, up near the Sea of Galilee. And those Judeans, primarily all the disciples were Judean.

Not all of them, but almost all

of them were Judean. And. And they are the ones who come and change the world where it should have been Zebuluns who changed the world, but they didn't because they were not obedient. They failed to do what they had clearly been told to do. And ultimately it rotted away their inheritance. And that is a sad story, but it is a beautiful story that Jesus, he came back and retook that place, and we'll come back and take it again. And I praise God that that's the case. And it is a good word from God.

And by the way, Zebulun has always

been a part of the new Israel.

Since 1948, Zebulun has been clearly right

in the middle of the Israeli territory.

And so Jesus is going to come back and he's going to set it all right, and we're going to have

his very, very best.

And so even in disobedience of generations

behind us, even when we face those disobedient generations that came behind us, we don't have to walk in that disobedience. We can see the goodness of our days. And we don't have to live under the curse of those came before us. We can break those curses.

Sins of the Father passed to the

second and third generation. And then the next line, the rest of the verses. But the grace of God is unto a thousand generations.

So sure, we get the issues of our parents and our grandparents passed down to us, but we get all the grace that they had and then all the grace that God has for us unto a thousand generations.

And we can break those curses and we can live in peace, and we can live in life. And so I pray that we will learn to do that and we'll learn to do it well and that we'll walk in it.

As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless

you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.