GOD'S COMMISSION TO JOSHUA
Pastor James J. Barker
Text: JOSHUA 1:1-9
INTRODUCTION:
- Joshua is first
mentioned in Exodus 17:9. "And
Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek."
- The Amalekites
had initiated an unprovoked attack upon Israel at Rephidim. God gave Israel a great victory that day
(cf. Ex. 17:8-16).
- Joshua proved
himself a strong soldier and leader. Exodus 17:13 says, "And Joshua discomfited
Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword."
- Joshua went on
to become Moses' assistant ("minister" or "servant").
- In Exodus
24:12, we read, "And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and
be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments
which I have written; that thou mayest teach them."
- "And Moses rose
up, and his minister Joshua: and Moses went up into the mount of God" (Ex.
24:13). Moses took Joshua with him,
and he left Aaron and Hur in charge of the people.
- Unfortunately
Aaron was not as strong a leader as Moses and Joshua, and things got out of hand
while they were up in the mount (Exodus 32).
- In Joshua 1,
the Lord informed Joshua that now that Moses was dead, the mantle of leadership
had fallen to him. We have here in
Joshua 1, God's commission to Joshua.
I.
GOD'S WONDERFUL PROMISES (1:3).
- After the death
of Moses, the LORD told Joshua to pass over the Jordan River, along with all the
people of Israel, to take possession of the land which the Lord had already
promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants (1:1,
2).
- The LORD gave
this wonderful promise to Joshua, "Every place that the sole of your foot shall
tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses"
(1:3).
- God promised
the Israelites the land, but they had to appropriate that which God had promised
them.
- First, they had
to enter the land.
- Then they had
to conquer the land. This meant
battling fierce adversaries.
The warlike Canaanites had strong fortified cities, but if the Israelites
trusted the LORD and obeyed the LORD, He would surely give them the victory (cf.
6:1-5).
- There are many
lessons for us in the life of Joshua.
If you consider the boundaries of the promised land, you will note that
the Israelites never appropriated the entire area promised by
God.
- The territory
actually conquered and possessed in the time of Joshua was much less than what
had been promised (1:4). For
example, they never conquered Lebanon.
- Even during
their greatest era, the days of King David and King Solomon, the Israelites
never conquered the entire promised land.
- Today, of
course, Israel occupies only a small portion of the land promised to them by
God. They will acquire all the
promised land when the Lord Jesus returns in glory.
- Why didn't Israel acquire all their land under
Joshua? Apathy, unbelief,
carnality, and disobedience kept them from claiming all that God wanted to give
them.
- There is an important lesson here for us. God has given us wonderful promises but
we have to appropriate them by faith.
- The Scofield Study Bible (and many others) says, "In a
spiritual sense the book of Joshua is the Ephesians of the Old Testament. 'The
heavenly' of Ephesians is to the Christian what Canaan was to the Israelite and
blessing through divine power (Joshua 21:43-55; Eph. 1:3)."
- Ephesians 1:3 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ."
- God "hath blessed us," not "will bless us" or "may bless
us," etc.
- We tend to think of these blessings as some vague
spiritual blessing waiting for us in heaven, but these "heavenly places in
Christ" are right here on earth.
- Just like the Promised Land was right here on
earth.
- Many people think "crossing the Jordan River" symbolizes
leaving this world and going to heaven, but that is not true. Israel had to conquer the Canaanites and
Hittites and other fierce adversaries when they entered into the Promised
Land.
- But we will fight no battles up in heaven. Our battling days will be over when we
get to heaven.
- Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
- We have to appropriate these abundant blessings just as
the Israelites had to appropriate theirs.
They fell short of the blessing, and sadly we often do
too.
- In Joshua 13:1 we read, "Now Joshua was old and stricken
in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and
there remaineth yet very much land to be
possessed."
- Many a Christian has grown old and realized all the
spiritual blessings they missed out on because of their lack of faith, and their
prayerlessness, and their disobedience, and their worldliness, and their
carnality, etc.
- Let us claim the promises of God (1:3). The Bible is
full of them. Our Lord said, "And I
say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you.
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to
him that knocketh it shall be opened" (Luke 11:9, 10).
- One day in the Philippines, I was greatly
discouraged. I climbed into the
sidecar of friend's tricycle (a motorcycle with a sidecar). It was a beautiful
Sunday afternoon. We just finished lunch, and he was giving me a
ride.
- And on the wall of his tricycle was an old sticker, and
the sticker said this: "In trying times, don't quit trying. Never give up! Pray. It works!"
- And there were two Bible verses on that
sticker.
- "And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men
ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1).
- "Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak:
for your work shall be rewarded" (II Chron. 15:7).
- The Holy Spirit gave those words to the prophet Azariah
to deliver to King Asa. And II Chronicles 15:8 says that when Asa heard these
words, "he took courage" (cf. Joshua 1:6, 7).
- And I believe with all my heart the Holy Spirit gave me
those words that day. And when I
went back to preach that evening the Lord gave us a great
meeting.
II.
GOD'S ABIDING PRESENCE
(1:5).
- You will recall
that the LORD said to Moses in Exodus 33:14, "My presence shall go with thee,
and I will give thee rest."
- Moses then said
to the LORD, "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence" (Ex.
33:15).
- God gave Joshua
the same assurance, that His presence would be with Joshua (Josh. 1:5; cf. 1:3,
7).
- And we have the
same assurance today. Our Lord said
in Matthew 28:20, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Amen."
- Hebrews 13:5
says, "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (cf. Josh. 1:5, 9b).
- In the New
Testament we see, the Lord is not only with us, He is in us. Colossians 1:27
says, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
- Our Lord said,
"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing" (John
15:5).
- And, "If ye
abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall
be done unto you" (John 15:7).
III.
GOD'S WORDS OF
ENCOURAGEMENT (1:6, 7, 9).
- Three times the
LORD said to Joshua, "Be strong and of a good courage" (1:6, 7,
9).
- Joshua had good
reasons for being encouraged.
·
He had the promises of God
(1:3-5). The great Baptist
missionary to India, William Carey, said, "The future is as bright as the promises of
God."
·
He had the
presence of God (1:5, 9). FB
Meyer said, "Let us cultivate this habitual recognition of the
presence of God, it will lift us above all other fear. Let us build our cottage
so that every window may look out on the mighty Alps of God's presence; and that
we may live, and move, and have our being beneath the constant impression that
God is here."
·
And he had the Word of God
(1:8). "So then faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). "The law of the LORD is perfect,
converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple"
(Psalm 19:7).
- This brings us to my last
point.
IV.
GOD'S METHOD OF SUCCESS
(1:8).
- Critics have claimed that the Bible did not appear in
written form until several centuries later. But Joshua 1:8 says, "This book of
the law shall not depart out of thy mouth..."
- God's method of success is vastly different from man's
method of success (1:8). Howard Taylor, the son of Hudson Taylor, the founder of
the China Inland Mission, also served as a missionary in
China.
- Howard Taylor knew a commanding officer in the Chinese
army who realized that his troops needed spiritual, and religious, and moral
instruction.
- But being a
heathen with no knowledge of the Word of God, this commanding general decided to
write his own book of instruction.
- And once a
week, he had a teacher read to the soldiers out of this book that he had
written, and encouraged them, using this book as his basis and his text in
religious and spiritual and moral things.
- One day, Howard
Taylor came and preached the gospel to the people, the teacher (who served as
sort of a chaplain) of those Chinese soldiers was engrossed with the enthusiasm
and the refreshing spirit by which the missionary opened his book and preached
the gospel to the people.
- So one day, the
chaplain teacher came to him and said, "What kind of a book is this that you
have? The book we have, written by our commanding officer, I have read and
re-read. I have spoken out of it and spoken out of it and we are weary of
it. We are tired of it. We have wrung it dry. It's a
dreariness. We've heard it again and again and are tired of it. But
your book, what kind of a book do you have? It seems to be to you ever
fresh and ever interesting and you never seem to weary of its
revelations."
- This provided a
wonderful opportunity for Howard Taylor to explain the Gospel to this heathen
teacher.
- Joshua 1:8
explains the great victories enjoyed by Joshua. Joshua obeyed the Word of God his entire
life, and then when he was old he said to the people of Israel, "Be ye therefore
very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law
of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the
left..." (Josh. 23:6).
- Joshua and his generation obeyed the Word of God, and
the Lord gave them many remarkable victories. But the succeeding generations turned
from the Word of God (cf. Judges 17:6; 21:25).
- Rejecting the authoritative Word of God, the children of
Israel fell into gross sin, idolatry, apostasy, confusion, and
anarchy.
- And this is exactly what we are seeing here in America
today.
- The great statesman,
Daniel Webster, sounded like a prophet when he said this over 150 years ago,
"If we abide by the principles taught in
the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our
posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a
catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound
obscurity."
- It happened to Israel.
- It happened to England.
- And it is happening right here in
America.
- Back in 1951, the chief justice of the Supreme Court,
Frederick Vinson, said, "Nothing is more certain in modern society than the
principle that there are no absolutes."
- But the Bible is a Book full of absolutes. We must stand on the absolute
authority of Scripture. God has revealed Himself to us through the pages of
Scripture, and that is why we must uphold it as our absolute authority (cf. John
17:17; 3:16-18, 36).
CONCLUSION:
- The message of
the book of Joshua is that God keeps His promises.
- God promised
the land to Abraham and his seed, and Joshua was the man chosen by God to lead
the children of Israel into the Promised Land.
- The great theme
of the book of Joshua is that God has given us these great promises but we must
appropriate them by faith.
- We must trust
and obey God.
- God told Joshua
to cross the Jordan River and enter into the Promised Land
(1:2).
- Joshua obeyed
God and he led the children of Israel over Jordan. This is recorded in Joshua chapter
3.
- Crossing the
Jordan River is not a picture of dying and going to
heaven.
- Crossing the
Jordan River is a picture of dying to self, and entering our spiritual
inheritance here and now.
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