We have pointed out that the whole of the New Testament is the spiritual and present-time counterpart of the book of Joshua: from the setting aside of one nation and its loss of the inheritance through unbelief, to bringing into being by resurrection, out from that nation, a new people—a new nation—by way of the Jordan, that is, by way of the Cross; and under the absolute government of the Holy Spirit, as represented by the Man in Joshua 5 with His sword drawn in His hand, the Captain of the host of the Lord.
And the object of it all is to bring the people of God into their full inheritance in Christ. The New Testament has to do with that in a spiritual way.
Those are the various aspects of this one inclusive and comprehensive purpose: that God, from eternity, has had an elect people in mind to bring into the fullness of His Son, Jesus Christ.
But then we have said that, when we take up the first chapter of this book of Joshua, as we have read it, we can find that condensed into two or three verses in the New Testament. Those verses are in the letter to the Colossians, chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.
I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;
that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ,
in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
If you take those three verses back to the beginning of the book of Joshua, you know what it is all about.
Here the emphasis of the apostle is upon standing fully assured—having absolute assurance, certainty, and confidence—and that has to do with our really coming to know what the Lord really wants, and all that He wants. To stand fully assured about that.
You read that first chapter of Joshua, and you have to say, “Well, there is no doubt about what the Lord means there.” You are entirely without any question on the matter. You are fully assured, from the Lord’s side, as to His mind.
“And unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding.” Understanding is a great factor in assurance. If you have not got understanding, you have not got assurance. Understanding what the will of the Lord is is a tremendous thing for assurance and confidence.
To really understand what the will of the Lord is—that is the first, the primary thing that we need to understand.
I do trust that every one of you is set wholly and strongly upon that understanding. There is no passive interest with you.
See, when you begin this book of Joshua, you find yourself in the atmosphere of a tremendous energy. There is nothing petty in this whole book, and the whole book is represented in the first chapter. Things are positive, definite, strong—nothing weak here. It is all emphatic and imperative.
That is a necessary state of heart and mind to come into the full inheritance. Make no mistake about it: we do not drift into all God’s will. We come there by a very definite concern to know what the will of the Lord is.
Now, I am not speaking about your day-to-day affairs, either privately or in business. I am not speaking about knowing the will of God about this and that in the makeup of life. I am speaking about that whole will of God lying behind being called by His grace into fellowship with His Son.
Everything else will fall into line when that is settled, and will be given its meaning and value by God. All things will work together for good when we are in line with His purpose. What the will of the Lord is—I would have you know; understanding of that.
And then, as we have already seen, in relation to that full and whole and entire will of God, there is a great warfare. The atmosphere becomes charged with conflict.
So the book of Joshua shows—a book of warfare all along. We therefore need to be fully assured and have clear understanding of why it is that the enemy contests this thing so bitterly. There is no doubt that he does.
It is perfectly clear. We have already said that immediately you go beyond a certain point in the spiritual life, in the Christian life, and seek to move on with God into the greater fullnesses of His purpose, then you come into a new realm of spiritual opposition and antagonism, arising from every quarter and coming along every line and by every means.
Why is that so? It is, again, important that we should be filled with understanding on that matter.
Well, you have only got to read that letter to the Colossians—and its twin letter, the letter to the Ephesians—and you will discover why the conflict.
It is no less a conflict than that into which the Lord Jesus, under the anointing and government of the same Holy Spirit, immediately was led in the wilderness. He came out full and clear. The enemy had been trying to get at Him in different ways, but at last the whole thing is dragged up: “The kingdoms of this world, and the glory thereof.” Oh, it is out now. Now we know what it is all about.
That is no small issue. “The god of this age,” “the prince of this world,” “the prince of the power of the air,” “the evil ruler of this world’s darkness”—all these titles of the adversary indicate that he has a mighty kingdom and a mighty range of influence that he must preserve at all costs.
Christ and His Church are destined to oust him from his kingdom, to take it from him, and to supplant him in it for the ages of the ages. To have understanding on that is to bring some assurance, some confidence, some strength.
We need to realize that no less an issue than that lies behind the conflict which so often focuses down upon fragmentary and seemingly mere incidents—although designed to put us out instead of our putting him out. That is it: full assurance of understanding.
There is nothing so weakening and destructive as lack of understanding. Ask the Lord to open our understanding.
Now, this understanding rests upon several things. First of all, it rests upon a vital union with the Lord Himself.
There is this constant repetition, re-emphasis, and reiteration: “I am with you. I am with you.” Indicating the union between the Lord and His people.
That is the simple but fundamental beginning of this whole matter of the will of God. You will never know it until a real, living union is established between you and the Lord Himself. You will not understand what the will of the Lord is for your life and in your calling by His grace.
Again, it is basic to an understanding of the whole conflict in which we are—this union and this oneness with the Lord Himself. It is only when that union is established that the conflict begins.
Now note: while Jesus was the divine Son of God during thirty years of His life, there was something that happened at His baptism. The Holy Spirit came in a particular way and united Himself with the Son of Mary.
And then the trouble began. Then the enemy came out. Then the conflict started. It was to get in between those two in some way that the enemy was making his assaults.
Now, I cannot stay with the theology of that and the doctrine of that, but there is no doubt about it that all along the enemy’s object was to get between Christ and His Father, to drive a wedge there, to separate Them. That would be his great triumph. That should be his whole battle, if he can do that.
This union, this union, was essential to all the purpose of God. And this union was essential, as it was basic, to the whole triumph in the conflict.
Do remember this: what the enemy is after is to get you away from the Lord. Put it how you will—make a breach, create a gap, then widen it as fully as he can until you find you are here and the Lord is not here; the Lord is there somewhere else.
You will find he does that in a thousand ways. He is doing that because he knows that while you and the Lord are together, and continuing together, his hopes fade and vanish.
This assurance and this understanding rest upon our union with Christ, made and preserved.
And, of course, as I have indicated, that means our having the Spirit—our having the Spirit.
A Christianity without the Holy Spirit is something that very, very much gratifies and serves the enemy. An unspiritual Christianity, a Christianity that is not really the Christianity of the Holy Spirit—the enemy loves that. He loves it, and he will sponsor that. He will seek to build that up. He has a great deal of success.
Many, many who bear the name of Christians might well be challenged as Paul challenged those at Ephesus at the beginning: “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?” Did you receive the Holy Spirit?
Having the Spirit is the basis of understanding what the will of God is, and of understanding the whole purpose of our salvation, and of understanding all the wiles of the devil and the fury of the oppressor.
But that is not enough. This full assurance of understanding can only become ours progressively, not all at once, as we walk in the Spirit.
The Lord Jesus, because the day of the Spirit had not yet come, meant this when He said so much about abiding: “Abide in Me, and I in you.” Abiding, keeping by. That is explained later in the epistles as being the life of walking in the Spirit and by the Spirit.
Our growing understanding, and therefore our growing assurance, depend upon our abiding in, and walking in, and by the Spirit. This is all implicit in Joshua, if you look.
And then one other thing: it rests upon the knowing of the power of His resurrection.
That could occupy all our time this afternoon and more. But, in a large way, this whole book of Joshua rests upon the power of resurrection. This people was a resurrection people.
They stood, in the first place, over against the generation that died in the wilderness. They lived while that generation died. They went through Jordan, the figure of death, and came out of death triumphant on the other side. They are a resurrection people.
And there is more than that in this book. The whole inheritance into which they came was to be the constant experience of the power of His resurrection.
We learn a lot, you know, along that line. We come to a great deal of understanding and a great deal of assurance in that way: in this battle with death, and in our being allowed from time to time—if not taken into it—to go into experiences where it seems more death than life, where death seems to be more powerful than the life of God in us.
Well, when we are really having an experience of that order, and the sentence of death seems to have been passed, and we, like Paul, despair of life, then we learn something. That is Pauline. We learn something about the power of His resurrection.
And by that understanding we are made strong. We are brought to a greater measure of the full assurance of understanding.
There is something to learn in these death experiences. Oh, that we were more on the spot, if I may put it like that, when we are in them, and say, “There is something in this that we must wring out of this experience of death which is going to be”—may I use another phrase, rather vulgar—“stock-in-trade,” or ammunition, against the enemy.
You will learn something. We are coming out of this by the power of His resurrection, and it is going to count in the matter of the inheritance.
And so the enemy would overwhelm us in those dark hours, and swamp us, and carry the whole thing too far. Blessed be God, the Spirit is with us, and there are a thousand resurrections for that very reason.
This is the fourfold basis of full assurance and understanding, and the apostle calls that “the riches.” Riches! We are wringing them out of the land. We are digging them out of these mines and these hills of the heavenly country.
That is a great phrase, is it not? “In whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.”
Remember the word concerning the land: “Out of whose hills thou mayest dig iron and brass.” They are hidden resources, but they have to be dug out. And it is real, paid work to get hold of the values of a deep and dark place in spiritual experience.
Oh, that sounds all very good and right and inspiring. Do you notice, if you look at Joshua 3, something that is very often overlooked took place?
Joshua rose up early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel; and they lodged there before they passed over.
And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the midst of the camp;
and they commanded the people, saying—
They lodged before the Jordan three days before going through it, or, as it is here, over it. They lodged three days.
This is not something to be rushed. This is not something to be just the result of an impulse.
“Oh, it is a great idea, this fullness, this inheritance, these treasures of wisdom and knowledge—wonderful, wonderful, most entrancing.” But stay. Stay. You are in for a big, big, and long fight.
You are not going to come into this inheritance without real cost and real conflict. Stay. No offence.
Many a Christian life would have been saved from wrecking if there had been a little deeper and fuller consideration of what it all meant at the beginning.
What is it we are called to? Are we called to a religious picnic? A life of spiritual joviality? What are we called to?
No, Jesus left no one, no one, in the dark about the cost of discipleship. But how different is the appeal today! You would think that it is just all going to be one unbroken joy ride.
It is going to conform to the idea of the man who was very fond of skiing. He said, “My idea of heaven is one eternal swish downward and no walking back.”
You would think that is the Christian life from a lot of things that you hear. The result is that many do not go very far. They either stop too soon, or they just lose it all together.
So, before taking the plunge, may I put it that way—before committing yourselves, before going into that Jordan—the three days’ pause.
Weigh it up. You mean this? Be faithful with one another.
While we so fondly emphasize the will of God in all this, while we make the appeal, “Go on, go on,” while we speak of the riches and the glory of the inheritance, the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, we must be faithful.
And we may say, “Take time to face the whole thing. Lay a sound foundation.” You will be able to say afterward, when the difficulty comes, when the enemy comes in like a flood, “Yes, but I weighed it up. I weighed it up. I faced what it would involve. I calculated.”
“I am not where I am on a flimsy impulse. Mine is a soundly considered position. I know why I am where I am.” A very important difference.
The whole camp had a pause for three days before they made their advance. Now, of course, that need not be taken literally, but it does represent a state of heart—a pacing of things with God, a reckoning in His presence.
There was another aspect of this, as you notice. During the three days they prepared the victuals. “Prepare ye victuals,” said the ministers of Joshua to the people.
It is only, perhaps, another aspect of the same thing. You have got to have something to move on with. You have got to have some support for this. You really have got to have resources for this movement.
Presently the manna ceases; the old corn of the land is fed upon. The situation may change, but there is a crisis. Here is a crisis. Here is a turning point. And to carry you through this crisis, you must have some real spiritual foundation, some substance.
Here, of course, is the point at which there is the whole necessity of soundly instructing young Christians, or young converts, or those who are wanting to go on further with the Lord: that they should be instructed, provided with the Word of the Lord on this matter.
What a sorry, sad situation exists—our spiritual immaturity, weakness, and defeat—because just there at the crisis there was not an adequate basis of the Word.
Oh, let us lay a foundation truly and surely for this whole matter. You see, we have got victuals; we have got resource; we have got substance to go on—something for us to draw upon.
Now, let us pass on in this book for a minute. You read over to Joshua 13:1:
Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years; and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.
Then Joshua 18:3:
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, hath given you?
Now, Joshua 13:1 looks like a contradiction of what I was saying earlier about the young man, Joshua. If you think like that, well, think a second time. It could be a pamphlet for the old men here—not discouragement.
The main part of Joshua’s work began at that point. Up to that point, it is true, he had led them in battle. He had led them against the many enemies, and he had subdued the country.
But he had not yet brought them into their full inheritance. From this point, you notice, it is all settling in the inheritance, settling in the inheritance. And Joshua does a great deal after this—a very great deal indeed—in consolidating. That is the point: consolidating everything.
Well, the message is twofold. Firstly, that we must not stop until all that God intended has been entered into.
The tragedy, of course, of these people, as I have said before, was that they stopped too soon. They stopped too soon, and then you have the book of Judges for that very reason—the most tragic book in the Bible.
The letter to the Hebrews is one strong argument against stopping too soon. Having laid the foundation, let us not go over it again, but let us go on. Let us go on.
Let us fear therefore, lest, a promise being left of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.
That is the great burden of that letter, is it not? The object of it: go right on.
There are two sides to this. There is, of course, the imperative. You have the tenses, have you not—the tenses in Joshua 1. The imperative: hence, we must. We must, because the Lord wills it and calls us to it.
There is the perfect: “I have given.” It is yours. Sure. There is the active: “Go in and possess.” It must be.
But that “must” may sound hard, may seem to put an onus and a burden, a strain, on the Christian life. But remember: when God says it must, He means it can.
God’s commandments are God’s enablings. When He says, “Thou shalt,” He means, “Thou canst.” And because it must be and it can be, then it should be. It should be.
Those are the two sides: the imperative and God’s provision for all that He wills. What He requires, He makes possible; and He provides. Indeed, He commits Himself to it.
It is a wonderful thing, dear friends, that difficult, hard, painful, and costly as may be this way of the fullest purpose of God—all the conflict which is bound up and associated with it—it is just marvelous that you do survive, and more than survive.
If there is any realm in which the miracle of His sovereign grace and sovereign power is manifested, it is in this realm of the fuller purposes of God.
Life in such a realm is a life of the wonderful works of God. Perhaps that is why He allows it to be such a contested and difficult way: that He might show His wonderful works.
That is how we must read the Word of God. That is how we must read Abraham, and Paul, and others—that is, men whose lives, to us, were subjected to the most terrible testings, trials, sufferings, adversities, silences, and disappointments, and yet who at last triumphed so wonderfully. And we have their record.
It is a marvelous trial. You cannot read the eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews without marveling. I do. I marvel every time, because I say to myself, “I could not do it.” And we all know that we could not do it.
Listen:
These all died in faith, not having received the promises.
What are you going to do about that? Promise, promise, promise—and die without realizing it; die without receiving it. One after another died without receiving the promise, and yet it says they died in faith.
They did not die saying, “God promised, and He has not fulfilled. God is not faithful to His promise. I give it all up. I cannot believe God any longer.” No. They all died in faith, not having received.
I say, “I could not do that.” But what can? The grace of God can. It is a long list, is it not? A long list.
And so, what God calls to, He enables for. It can be, because from God’s standpoint it must be.
Now, I think I am going to leave it there for the present. It is so easy to overload the vessel, although you are drawing it out.
But I would sooner know that you were able to grasp and cope and comprehend and reduce this to some very practical issues, than to go away just overwhelmed with a mass of details.
You can see clearly, I trust, the clearly defined lines of God’s will—God’s purpose for us in having called us into fellowship with His Son. You can see what it involves us in.
But you can see that God has committed Himself to it: “I am with you, whithersoever thou goest,” when you are on this line. Shall we sing?