Will you turn again to the book of Joshua? Remembering the chapter that has been read to us, chapter 1, just add to it two thousand years from chapter 5.
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?
And he said, Nay; but as prince of the host of the Lord am I now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?
And the prince of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And Joshua did so.—Joshua 5:13-15
So today we are made to contemplate the matter of the Holy Spirit, the people of God, and their inheritance.
The New Testament, especially from the Gospel of John onward, is the counterpart of the book of Joshua. When you come to the end of the four Gospels, you find yourself at that selfsame place at which you stand just before the book of Joshua opens.
That is, one nation has come to the border of the land of promise, which border is, in this case symbolically, Jordan. That nation had come to the border and lost everything through unbelief. That is how it was before this book of Joshua opened.
That is exactly how it was at the end of the Gospels. The nation to whom all the promises made their fulfilment came to that borderland and, through unbelief, lost everything. For the last two thousand years they have been dying in the wilderness, experiencing a living death in the wilderness.
But a new nation springs into being. It is that with which we have to do when we open this book of Joshua, and it is that with which we have to do when we pass from John into Acts: a new nation risen out of the death of the old, and now going in and on to possess.
The ark of the covenant went its lonely way through the Jordan. Remember that the Lord commanded that, as the ark moved ahead through the river, a space of two thousand cubits was to be observed between it and the people.
It was taking a lonely way, a way which it alone could take. We all know that this represents the Lord Jesus Himself, and its passage through the Jordan typifies His passage through the cross.
“I am alone,” He says, “yet not alone, for the Father is with Me.” There is a sense in which He took a lonely way through the cross. Really, no one else can go that way as fully as He went. Thank God it is not necessary.
He first met all the overflowing of our Jordan: God’s judgment, God’s wrath, God’s separation. A lonely way. “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He cried to heaven.
Yet He went that way for us, that we might not be overwhelmed by Jordan, and that there might be a dry passage to lead the way through for us. I do not think, dear friends, that we really make enough of what He has borne for us, and how little we have to bear because of it.
If we know something of the cross, if we know something of the fellowship of His sufferings, we know nothing of the judgment of God that rested upon Him. None of it has to do with judgment—not one whit.
The ark went its lonely way to lead them through. So He, by the cross, has opened a way—a way into the inheritance.
At that point Joshua comes into view in full stature, as representing and indicating the instrument of God for spiritual fullness. In a few minutes Joshua will be instructive in that light.
Joshua does stand for the life and energy of the Holy Spirit. When the captain of the Lord’s host, the Holy Spirit in figure, joined Himself with Joshua and joined Joshua with Himself, all that issued and proceeded was by the energy of the Holy Spirit. It is all the Holy Spirit in charge and in action.
Joshua, then, speaks of the Holy Spirit uniting Himself with a vessel for the purposes of the inheritance.
You remember when Joshua first came into view in Exodus 17, in relation to Amalek. Amalek, the type of the flesh, came out to prevent and to straddle the path of Israel, that they should not come into the inheritance.
The flesh always does that. Satan and the flesh are ready allies in this matter, and he, by the energy of the flesh, would always keep the Lord’s people out of the inheritance.
Joshua comes in, then, again to Amalek. You see, well in advance, even when he first comes into view, he signifies that which is of the Spirit against the flesh: the warring of the Spirit against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit.
Joshua is there as the energy of the Spirit to deal with this obstructing, hindering element, with the inheritance always in view. That is important: remember that and keep it in its place.
Must we walk in the Spirit and mortify the flesh? Undoubtedly. Not just for its own sake, but because the great inheritance in Christ is in view.
In Exodus 33, Joshua is referred to on the next occasion. He is spoken of there as a young man, departing not from the Tent of Meeting. I think that is a very beautiful touch in this whole story and spiritual background, and in the case of Joshua himself.
A young man who departed not from the Tent of Meeting. And, of course, you know that that was not the tabernacle, because the tabernacle was not in existence at that time.
What was this tent? Well, you have to go back to the beginning. When Moses went up into the mount to receive the law and the pattern, and came down, Israel had broken loose, made the calf, and were worshipping it, saying, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
Joshua was there. But when Moses came down and heard and saw what had happened in the camp, all he did was to take a tent, a Tent of Meeting, right outside the camp. And there, from outside the camp, he cried, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come unto me.”
That was the tent in which Joshua, the young man, abode and from which he did not depart. It is all full of significance, is it not?
First of all, that tent out there did suggest or imply absolute separation from everything of Satan’s realm. Satan had captured the gold of the sanctuary and had it made into a calf for his own worship. Satan had turned the hearts of the people from the Lord to himself and corrupted everything.
If the inheritance is going to be entered upon and appropriated, all that has got to be put aside. That touch and taint and corrupting influence of the evil one amongst the people of God has got to be destroyed and removed, and everything of God has got to be taken out of his precincts.
Joshua, therefore, abiding and not departing from the tent, says so clearly: this man, this man of the Spirit, this man who is to bring into the inheritance by the energy of the Spirit, is a man who abides beyond the taint and touch of the powers of evil.
He is not in that world. He is out of that realm altogether. He abides in the Tent of Meeting.
I like to think that there was one man who was not a priest, and he was not Moses—just a man of the people—who was allowed to dwell in the house of the Lord.
But then it says, “Joshua was a young man,” Exodus 33:11, “a young man who departed not from the Tent of Meeting.”
Speaking of freshness—freshness with everything: vision, purpose, a future, freshness of youth, a life of energy in the Spirit. No touch of time, age, or old age here.
It is a very blessed thing. Oh, that we were all characterized by this youth! Now, here is where our watchfulness and prayerfulness must be observed.
It is always such a great joy to meet with young Christians who are just reaching out for everything of the Lord—not satisfied with being just saved, not just taken up with the activities of the newly saved, but who are really after all that the Lord means for them.
It is good to meet them like that because, you know, some of the Lord’s people know it all and have heard it all for years. You can hardly say a thing, even about the book of Joshua, that they have not heard and do not know all about.
“Oh, well, you have gone over that ground again.” And they are so stale, and everything is so stale. It is like bread that has been locked up for years—absolutely dry. You cannot say anything to them. There is no freshness.
But then you come to this group—young Christians—and there is life, there is freshness, and you can get and give like that.
Now, that is not a matter of years. It is not a matter of years; that is a matter of spirit—a matter of spirit.
And it ought to be like that. If we are going to come into the inheritance, we have always got to have an appetite for it. There must always be this bigger spirit, this energy, this reaching out, this consciousness that, however much we know, we know nothing.
We see so much before us, the land of our distances that our eyes have seen, and with all that we know, we really are only touching the fringes. It ought to be like that to the end.
A spirit of youth and youth-energy—oh, do lay that to heart. Sometimes it is very difficult to give a message amongst people who know it all and have heard it all before. There is a sense of heaviness and hard going simply because there is not this drawing out of a spiritual energy to know, to know, to apprehend.
Joshua was a young man who departed not from the Tent of Meeting.
Now, when you come to this fifth chapter of the book of Joshua, to those verses that we read just now, you come perhaps to the very heart and essence of the book of Acts.
With the end of John, the Man comes into view. With John, the land comes into view. With that, the Spirit takes over.
He takes over this whole matter of the inheritance and of leading the people of God into possession. But He takes over to bring them into possession along the line of conflict.
Yes, He takes over in relation to the inheritance, but note how immediately it becomes a matter of conflict. If that Man standing with a sword drawn in His hand, declaring Himself to be the captain of the host of the Lord, is in figure, if not in reality, the Holy Spirit—as we believe He is—then He has a sword drawn.
He has not come with an olive leaf. He has come with the sword, and it is drawn.
There is not going to be one whit of this inheritance possessed without conflict. You can make up your mind for that. It is going to be like that.
There is going to be a withstanding from all quarters. As soon as the matter of any spiritual increase comes into view, then, strangely, sometimes mysteriously, a state of conflict gets into the atmosphere, and it comes even from Christian people.
Be satisfied with what is called the simple evangel and simple evangelism, and so on, and you meet no conflict. Everybody applauds and accepts and is on your side.
Set your heart upon the whole purpose of God, and you find yourself at once in a realm of terrible conflict. Satan is not going to allow this church to reach its determined destiny if he can prevent it.
Every step is going to be challenged. “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it.” Yes, but there will be a battle over it. There will be battle over your possessing what God has given you.
Even though God has predestined and predetermined, and it is settled in the foreknowledge and counsels of God, it does not mean that we are going to come into it willy-nilly. With all the divine sovereignty, with all the divine power, and with all the divine wisdom associated with the purpose, strangely enough, there is a battle over every inch of it.
In John, then, Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all the truth.” That is Joshua 5:13-15. The Spirit has come to guide them into all truth—that is, all the truth that is in Jesus. That is Acts.
When He came on the Day of Pentecost, fulfilling the promise and bearing the explanation of the Lord Jesus, He came to guide the church right into its inheritance.
Why cannot we be too emphatic about this? Because of these inadequate, if not wrong, ideas about the Holy Spirit and Pentecost and so on. Let us understand, dear friends, that the Holy Spirit came for no less and no other purpose than to take the church right on into all its inheritance in Christ.
And if our ideas of the Holy Spirit are not so poised and directed, we are in some way arresting, if not subverting, the very purpose of the Holy Spirit’s coming.
In type in Joshua, in reality in Acts, that is the purpose. The church has got to be brought into that inheritance for which it has been eternally predestined in Christ.
And this is going to be a conflict which will not end until the land has been overcome in finality.
Well, in the book of Acts the Holy Spirit does take over in the matter of the inheritance, and He takes over for the conflict of the inheritance. It is not very far into that book before you find the conflict is on.
From Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders, through Stephen, to the world and the pagan rulers—there it is, complete. But the Holy Spirit is with the church in the conflict. He has linked Himself up with that instrument for the great purpose of God.
There is a sense—a very real sense—in which, though you look through the incidents and see what looked like tragedies, it can be said concerning this union of the Holy Spirit with a vessel here on this earth that no man has been able to stand before it all the days of its life.
There has been withstanding from men and from the devil—awful withstanding—but the church has gone on. The testimony has never ceased in the earth, and even when sometimes it seems to be driven underground, it comes up again. It goes on.
Well, you see then the Holy Spirit coming, uniting Himself with the instrument, the vessel, and the conflict arising. You pass over to the letter to the Hebrews, and you find yourself in this battle.
It is all about the inheritance, as you know, spiritually. The Spirit is there urging the church, urging the believers, to go on—go on—not to go back, not to stand still, but to go on.
And there it is said that Joshua did not bring them into the rest. It was type; it was figure. That final fullness in Christ was never entered into under Joshua, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit are going to bring the church into the final fullness.
When you come to the book of Revelation, this whole issue of the inheritance seems to change a little and resolve itself into a matter of overcomers.
Whatever date you put upon the book of Revelation, you get the whole dispensation, or the end-of-the-dispensation, situation. You find that the church as a whole has not gone on—does not go on.
A large proportion of the church has either declined, fallen back or away, or has stood still in this matter. Perhaps the conflict has been too fierce, the cost too great, the world too attractive, sin too subtle. But there it is.
As you find at the end of the book of Joshua, the enemy was not finally cast out. You had the tragedy of the book of Judges.
So in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, the enemy has not been fully and finally worsted and cast out. He still has territory amidst the people of God. So there arises the whole question of the overcomer.
The overcomer company or body is that which will go on and will satisfy the Lord in the whole matter of His purpose.
You see where we are? All this surely indicates our position. Oh, we are in the dispensation of the counterpart of the book of Joshua, in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, whose one inclusive object and purpose is to bring God’s people into possession.
All who will be led into that fullness, all who will go on—not a select company, but all who will. Paul’s great words are that we might present every man complete in Christ. Every man.
God’s thought is for us all. Do not say that may apply to some good, large people who have capacity and a different make-up from what I am. No: every man complete in Christ. That is God’s purpose. The Holy Spirit can do it with every man if He gets His way, if He gets His ground.
But here, this morning, dear friends, though you may have heard it many times and be familiar with this truth, it is something the Lord has said must be mentioned here again, must be spoken of here again.
We must once more come back to what is here. Now you see, because of such a tremendous withstanding—such a tremendous withstanding all round—of any kind of real coming to God’s end, progress toward that end, withstanding of every kind, you have this threefold reiteration to Joshua: “Be strong and of good courage. Be strong. Be strong.”
That is our side. That is ours. It is just in that very connection that Paul uses those words. He is bringing into view fully the forces, the cosmic forces, which are set against the church and its inheritance—the principalities and powers. He said, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.”
There must be no weakening. There must be no letting go. The discouragements will be many. The heartbreaks will be many. Perhaps the disappointments will be many. Situations will sometimes seem to be impossible; the prospects hopeless ones.
But you and I have got to heed this word, because so much hangs upon it. So much hangs upon us—for ourselves. The inheritance in fullness hangs upon this: “Be strong.” No weakening, no letting go, no letting down.
But it may be, you see, that those who will be strong may be a strength to others. For others there is a responsibility upon us to be strong. It is not only for ourselves, but it is vocational to be strong.
And then: “I will be with thee, whithersoever thou goest.” Do not take that out of its context. You cannot be sure of that if you cut it from its context.
The context is that “whithersoever thou goest” must be in relation to God’s full purpose. He cannot be with you on any other ground. You cannot count on that promise otherwise; it will not prove true unless you are right on the line of His full purpose.
Then He is with us whithersoever we go. He commits Himself: “I will be with thee. I am with thee.”
But you notice that this is said in the first chapter in a twofold connection. Firstly, it is in connection with leading this people over: the responsibility of spiritual leadership.
Spiritual leadership—I emphasize and underline that word spiritual. Do not think of leadership as official. Leadership is not official. You are not made a leader; you are not appointed a leader; you are not given a badge with “leader” on it, or a uniform, or a dress.
You are a leader or you are not. It is a matter of your spiritual quality and strength.
And spiritual leadership means that you are exercising an influence on others to bring them on, to lead them on into God’s full intention for His people. That is the effect of your life: others, because of you, are being drawn on, helped on, led on.
If you have accepted that responsibility and are seeking to fulfil it for others’ lives, then this word, “I am with thee,” is yours.
But then, in the second case: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth.” Give heed unto it. Then, “I am with thee.”
Your whole life must be based upon and governed by the Word of God. You must not be above the Word of God, superior to it. You must not be apart from it. You must be able to substantiate your position by the Word of God.
Now, does the Word of God say this or that? Dear friends, the whole question of your inheritance and of your influence depends upon whether you adhere to that Word.
Sometimes it will not be a matter of understanding the Word, but the Word is there. It is said. Do not argue; do not be superior in judgment, please. It is said.
Oh, that there were a good deal more—oh, much more—of this government of the Word of God. That is why we have got to read it, consider it, give heed to it.
“Observe,” this is what it says here: observe it, observe it to do it. Do it. Are you reading your Bible in order to find out exactly what it does say?
If the Word of God says, “Children, obey your parents,” it says that. Do it.
If the Word of God says, “Husbands, love your wives,” it says that. Do not say, “Oh, but—oh, but.” No, He said that.
If the Word of God says, “Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands,” it says that, and no one can take superior ground. You see what I mean? I am picking things out, not to emphasize these particular points, but to emphasize this point: observe, to do.
You will be blessed if you do that. If you do not, you will not come into the inheritance, and you will have no sphere of real spiritual ministry.
Oh, big questions hang upon this. But the main thing is, “I am with thee.” When it is like that, we can take that promise with assurance.
“I am with thee,” unless this is true—that we are seeing that this Word of the Lord does not depart from us, that we observe it to do it—the presence of the Lord and our entering into our possessions in Christ are both governed by this thing.
Oh, read your Bible to see what it really does say, not what your interpretation is, but what it says. I know that there is a great deal fuller meaning in all Scripture than ever we have seen, and we shall get more and more light on it.
But first of all, first of all, what does it say? What does it say? Am I in line with that? Big things hang upon it.
“Be strong. I am with thee. I will not leave thee. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. This Word shall not depart from thee. Observe it.”
Now, I think that is quite enough for us to face for the moment.
We are thinking in these days about the advent of the Holy Spirit. That is what is occupying us just now.
This is why the Holy Spirit came, and this is the ground on which the Spirit is with us. This is the purpose which the Holy Spirit has taken up in His coming.
He has taken over, and in all the conflict He is sufficient to see us through.