Joshua 19:32-39 | Episode #1246

July 27, 2026

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

Joshua 19:32-39

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. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Joshua, chapter 19, verse 32 through 39. We've come to the tribe with the coolest name, Naphtali. I love it. Naphtali is a. Well, it's fun name. It is. It is a. It is a really cool name. It is. It is one of the. One of the northern tribes that did all the things that all the other ones did. Now it is cool in that obviously Galilee is where Naphtali is. The area called Galilee is, generally speaking, completely in Naphtali. Okay. And so I know Issachar is partially Galilee also, but Naphtali definitely was Galilee. It's where Jesus grew up. It's where Jesus began his ministry. It was where Jesus called his disciples. It's a cool place in many, many, many regards as far as scripture, but it's not very much a cool place as far as Naftali's involved. It's cool cause of its location. It's cool cause of. It's really a neat place because of the one who lived there, and that's Jesus. But it is. Well, it is not anything else. And from Naphtali, why? Because Naphtali is gone. Naphtali has left the building. They are out of there by the time Jesus comes along. They've been taken into captivity and spread among the nations. They don't exist. They're not there. And so when you're dealing with Naphtali, you are dealing with a place where the tribal territory is there, but they're gone. And so what is going on. Why are all these tribes destroyed? And I think that I have not really gone into some detail about this. What they did was they allowed some Canaanites to remain in their territories, and then they used them as forced labor. Now you go, well, what does that mean, slaves? Not exactly the way you think of slavery. But remember, slavery has many forms and functions all over the world. It's been going on since the beginning of time. Slavery is still going on even today in parts of Africa, in the Middle east and Southern Asia, some of those areas. Slavery is still a part of the world that we live in, a heavy part of the world that we live in. We do not have slavery, and most of this hemisphere doesn't have slavery, and most of Europe doesn't have slavery because we fought wars to end it. But they had bond, servitude. Slavery, you can call it all kinds of things. In some ways, it's not slavery. In some ways, when you say bond, servitude, it's not really a slave in the sense that you're getting a recompense for your efforts. And you've said, I'll live with you and work for you and do whatever you need for me to do, and you're going to give me this as a reward for it. Although it has a lot of the look of slavery or servitude anyway. And so why did the Israelites, why did they do that with the Canaanites? Well, they did that because that is where they came from. They came from Egypt. And in Egypt, they had been in servitude. Now, they had been in servitude in a much more harsh way, in that they were forced to live in their own area, and that's called Goshen. And they were forced to work for the Egyptians, and they received generally food and water, and they did have places to live of their own. But the truth is that they were in servitude. They were in servitude to the Egyptians. And so they learned this process. They learned this idea from the Egyptians. They got it from them. And as they enter into the promised land, even though the generation that would have known that was dead, it was passed on, and the sins of the pot father passed to the second, third generation. And so when they got into the land and their thoughts were, well, we'll drive most of the Canaanites out, we'll kill the bad ones and keep the good ones, and we'll use them to build our nation, to build our nation up, and we'll use them as Servants of ours, they place them in servitude. And so when these people practice their religion, practice their culture, and did that around the Israelites, rather than the Israelites being like to them and changing them, the Canaanites changed the Israelites. And over time, the Israelites became more and more like the Canaanites and became more and more involved in their cultic practices, which involved some very, very evil things, such as child sacrifice and many, many other issues as far as sexual worship and things like that. All those things were out there and they involved themselves in it because why they were around them. And you become who you hang out with. Bad company corrupts good character. We know that Scripture teaches that. And when God told them to drive them out, he told them to drive them utterly out. Don't leave them. And they didn't do it. Why? Because they brought their culture with them, the culture they come from in Egypt. And many, many, many, many ways Christians try to do that. They try to bring the world's culture, the culture that they grew up in, the culture that their parents passed on to them, especially if they're first or second generational Christians, they try to bring those cultures with them. And when they do, those cultures are like rust. They're like rot, they're like moths in a closet. They slowly eat away at the foundations of your new faith, your new walk, your new life. And slowly, before you know it, you slowly drift toward. Well, I mean, I guess the only way for it to be said is you slowly drift toward a relationship with that world again. You go back to where you were from. As scripture says, as a dog returns to its vomit, you go back to living that lifestyle. And because you didn't start walking by faith, and because you didn't do the things that God had told you to do, and that's clearly what God had told them to do. You already told them to separate themselves from them, to drive them out, to not allow them to remain with them. And they did not do it. They did not believe God in what he said. They didn't act upon it in the way God said to act upon it. And they ended up, well, they ended up back enslaved to sin and taken into captivity by the Assyrians. And they ceased to exist as God's people in the world, as a unique people in the world. They ceased to be that. And all that was left was the southern kingdom, which involved Benjamin and Judah and many of the other tribes, tribal people from the different other tribes who had left the northern kingdom because the northern kingdom had become corrupt. And we know about migration from areas of the world that have become utterly corrupt and utterly godless and how that works out and how things take place when that happens. We're experiencing that here in Alabama. We have many coming to get away from godlessness and corruption in other parts of the country. And because our area is so beautiful and because the lake is so beautiful, we have many who are trying to get away from the things that are going on, where they come from. And I'm glad to have them. Good to have people who are searching for God and searching for godliness in the world. And so when that happened, they slowly slid back toward what they came from. And that's a good lesson to learn even for now, that we do not need to slide back toward the things that we have gotten away from that are in the world. We need to continue chase after godliness and not take on the practices that caused the problem in the first place. And the practices that the Israelites involved themselves in, which ultimately led to their destruction was this practice of keeping these people from this other culture in servitude to them. And eventually that rotted them out from the inside. And that is a great cultural lesson for today. It's a great cultural lesson for today for where we live and who we are. Because what we need, what we need to do is hang on to and walk by faith and teach those who come to walk in faith and to walk in the goodness of God that comes from. Well, scripture comes from the teachings of Jesus and is what makes this place attractive because it's a place where you can come and freely worship God and not be under the oppression of what is in many ways godlessness and Marxism that is taking root in other parts of the world and this country. And so I would just say to you that it's a great cultural lesson that we learn here. We don't need to bring the practices of the world into our society. We do. We have a way. We have the way. We have a light. We have the light. We have a purpose. We have the purpose of God available to us. And thank God he's placed us here at this time, at this place, so that we might live it out and so that we might give it to others, those who search for it, and we might have the fullness of life from 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.