Allotted
Inheritance in the Promised Land
It must
have been a little nerve-racking for those families. And I’m not talking about the families on the
east coast after the storm came through.
And I’m not talking about the families of the politicians during these
recent elections either. I’m talking
about all of the families of the Israelites who had gathered in the city of
Shiloh one morning. Because those
families were there for a very important reason: to see what part of the
Promised Land they would receive as an inheritance. Now Joshua had already led them to the
Promised Land and they had defeated many different cities and kings and
nations, but they had yet to divide up the land and distribute it to each of
the tribes of Israel. And so now that
Joshua, their leader, was getting old, and now that many of their enemies had already
been cleared out of the way, it was time to divide up the land that their Lord
had given them. And so they all gathered
in Shiloh to find out what portion of the Promised Land they are their extended
family would move to and settle in for generations to come. And it had to have been a little
nerve-racking!
Can you
imagine standing there, waiting to find out where you are going to spend the
rest of your life by the roll of the dice?
Think of you and your family coming over to America for the very first
time, gathering in a city like Kansas City right in the middle of the country with
millions of other people, and drawing the state you are going to live in out of
hat! “You are your extended family are
going to live in… Florida. You and your extended
family are going to live in… Vermont.
You and your extended family are going to live in… Idaho.” It sounds a little ridiculous, doesn’t
it? But that’s exactly what the
Israelite nation did there at Shiloh.
The tribes of Israel were there, the land was before them, and they
divided it into sections by “casting lots.”
Casting lots was done quite a bit in Old
Testament times, but we don’t know exactly how they did it. It may have been like picking names out of a
hat, it could have been similar to drawing the short straw, it could have
likely been stones that were marked and either thrown down or individually
picked out of a container. In any case,
we can imagine the excitement and the anxiety those Israelite families must
have had as they stood there in Shiloh and found out for the very first time
where they were going to establish a home, not only for themselves but for their
relatives for the next few hundred years.
Daniel’s
Allotted Inheritance
Of course,
once the land was distributed, those territories were very special to each of
those tribes. It was more than just a
national pride; it became a pride in a physical piece of ground that their
ancestors had lived on and worked on for hundreds of years before and something
their descendants would live on and work on for hundreds more. So imagine the distress these Israelites went
through many, many years later when they were torn away from that allotted
inheritance. God sent the Assyrians and the
Babylonians and they deported the Israelites to different countries, away from
the Promised Land the ground their ancestors had inherited so long before.
One of
these Israelites who had been taken away from the Promised Land when he was
just a boy was a man named Daniel. He
was a prophet and a leader of the people as they lived in Babylon, the land of
their exile. But Daniel would have loved
to go back and see the land he had left.
Unfortunately, he was too old to go back. He would end up dying in a foreign country. And so think of how excited Daniel must have
been near the end of his life when the Lord gave Daniel a promise that not only
must have been a thrill to hear, but something that must have also reminded
Daniel about the Promised Land he had known when he was just a boy: “As for you, go your way till the end. You
will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your
allotted inheritance.”
Daniel
probably barely remembered the “allotted inheritance” he had left in
Israel. Daniel had been very young when
he left and now he was an old man. He
had lived a long life away from the Promised Land, the Inherited Land, where he
was born. It was a land that he still prayed
for, a land he longed for, but it was a land to which he would never make it
back. He would never again set foot on
the allotted inheritance that had been given to his family almost 1000 years
before. And so to hear this promise from
his Lord must have filled Daniel with an incredible amount of joy: “At the end of the days you will rise to
receive your allotted inheritance.”
Daniel was not ever going get back to the allotted inheritance he had
left on this earth, but he was about to receive an allotted inheritance in
heaven. What an exciting thing to look
forward to! The lots had already been
cast! The stones had already been
picked! His name had come up! And he was about to enter a land that had
been prepared just for him! A land that
was far better than the land he had left behind as a boy. A land that would not have to be protected or
taken care of. A land that would never
be defeated. A land that he would never be
forced to leave again.
What We Should
Be Allotted
You hear
every once in a while about a wealthy person who dies and ends up not giving
any of the inheritance to the children or grandchildren. The inheritance is left to a charity or an
organization or a church, but the relatives don’t get a penny. And those children and grandchildren are mad,
aren’t they! They expected the inheritance! They were looking forward to the
inheritance! They wanted the inheritance
because they were family! Of course, in
those situations they usually look over the fact that they weren’t very nice to
that wealthy relative while he or she was still alive. They might not have even talked to that
person for the last ten years of his or her life, but those children and grandchildren
still expected an inheritance despite the way they had treated the one now
dead. And so what inheritance do you
expect. What inheritance are you looking
forward to? As you stand in front of the
Judge and he makes the final decision about what is in store for you after this
life, what will be your allotted inheritance?
Put
yourself in a situation similar to what the Israelites had to experience at
Shiloh. You gather together with
millions and millions of other people around the throne of God. The Lord is there himself, distributing out
the land. He’s pulling names out of a
hat and announcing where they are going to live for the rest of eternity. “Luke, you will be living over here among the
lakes and the pine trees… Rebekah, you will be living over here in the
mountains and the valleys… John, you will be living over here next to the river
and the springs…” And then he gets to
your name. What is he going to say? Where are you going to go? What is your inheritance going to be?
What if the
Lord said this: What if he looked straight at you and said, “Your allotted
inheritance is… nothing. Not up here
anyway. Not in my land.” What would you say? Would you hesitantly raise your hand and say,
“But Lord! I thought I was OK. I thought I was your child! I thought we were family!” “You were my child,” the Lord would reply. “There was nothing wrong with my adoption of
you in baptism. I made good on my
promise. You were my child. But look at how you have lived your life
after that! You’ve been nothing but
trouble! You’ve been rebellious! You’ve been disobedient! You’ve been disrespectful! You’ve been blatantly forgetful,
undependable, and completely selfish!
You were continually ignoring my Word!
You routinely disregarded my directives!
And you constantly put yourself above me. How could you expect to still be my child and
receive an inheritance from me when you have acted that way your entire
life? Who do you think you are? You aren’t good enough to be my child! You aren’t worthy of that title or the
inheritance my children get! Your
allotted inheritance isn’t up here with me.
It’s down there. In the eternal
dungeons I originally prepared for the devil and his angels. That’s your land now. That’s what you can look forward to.”
And if
the Lord said that to you, who of you could argue? I certainly wouldn’t be able to say anything if
the Lord said that to me… because it’s all true! I have
been nothing but trouble to the Lord throughout my life! I have
been rebellious and disobedient and disrespectful - I’ve been all of those
things! I don’t deserve to be called his
child or to receive the inheritance he has prepared for his adopted children. I have earned myself the opposite: the place
of punishment, hell and all its consequences.
We will all receive an allotted inheritance in the end, but the
inheritance we have actually earned for ourselves is less than pleasant.
What Christ Was
Allotted
So what
is your Lord going to say to you on the day of judgment? What inheritance can you expect? Do you still expect something good? Something glorious? And if so, can you be sure that’s what he’ll
give you? Yes! You can be sure you will receive a wonderful
inheritance! He’s not going to pull our
name up and pronounce that our allotted inheritance is the land of eternal
suffering in hell. And he’s not going to
do that because all of that has already
been allotted to Christ.
The Son
of God comes to this earth with the name “Jesus.” And not only is he the Son of God, he is the
only true Son of God because he is
God himself who has existed from all eternity.
And so what does this Son of God receive because he decided to come down
to this earth and live like one of us in our place? Hell.
He was allotted all of the suffering and torture and pain of hell. This Son of God, as a perfect child, painstakingly
follows every one of his Father’s commands while he is here on this earth. And what does the Son of God receive for his
obedience? Hell. He was allotted all of the suffering and
torture and pain of hell. This Son of
God, always faithful and forever loyal, places his Father’s will above his own
every time. And what does the Son of God
receive for his efforts? Hell. He was allotted all of the suffering and
torture and pain of hell. This Son of
God was pegged to a couple wooden planks for sinful human beings. This Son of God bled from his head and his
face and hands and his feet and his back and his side for sinful human
beings. This Son of God hung there for
sinful human beings as sinful human beings mocked him for hanging there. And what did the Son of God receive for his
selfless sacrifice?
“My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus cried out when he was there on the
cross. His Father had actually forsaken
him, he had abandoned his own Son so that Jesus was actually experiencing the
real punishment of hell there on the cross.
All of the suffering and all of the torture and all of the pain of hell
for every sin that had ever been committed all at once. That was the Son’s allotted inheritance. That was his reward for all of his work. That’s what he received so we wouldn’t have
to.
Our Allotted
Inheritance in the Promised Land
And that’s
why our Lord is not going to send us there: he already sent his Son there. The punishment has already been paid; the
land has already been occupied once, it doesn’t have to be occupied again. Oh, there will be people there! There are plenty of people in hell
already. But not you. Because you are still a child of God. You might not act like it sometimes. You might not feel like it sometimes. And you will never deserve it at any time. But you are anyway. Because God’s promises never fail. He forgave your sins through the death of his
Son. He brought you to faith by the work
of his Holy Spirit through the Word. And
he will one day give you exactly what a child of God can look forward to: life
forever with him in heaven. Your
inheritance is not determined on how well you have treated your Father; your
inheritance is determined by how well he has treated you.
And you
can be sure what you will inherit.
Because the words that were spoken to Daniel so long ago were not just
for him. These words are for everyone
who believes in Jesus as their Savior.
These words of your God are for you: “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the
end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.” The lots have already been cast! The stones have already been picked! Your name has come up and your inheritance is
waiting: the Promised Land, the Paradise of perfection. It is a place far better than you have ever
imagined. It is a place you can look
forward to. Because it is a place your
Lord has guaranteed that you will receive.
Amen.
“Blessed is the
nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.” -
Psalm 33:12
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