A New Start (Joshua 1)

What comes to mind when we think about the Book of Joshua? One answer is battles because Joshua fought a lot of battles against the different people groups who were living in the land. The obvious lesson connected to those battles is that the blessings of Canaan had to be fought for, a picture of how we obtain and retain spiritual blessings from God, as Paul indicates in Ephesians 6 in his passage on the importance of spiritual armour.

A second detail that comes to mind from this book is the faithfulness of God to his promises. Even a brief survey of the history of Israel reveals that detail: God made promises to Abraham, then living in Ur of the Chaldees, a man with little prospect of having children because his wife was old; God allowed them to become a nation of slaves in Egypt; and having been delivered from Egypt at the Exodus, they often proved to be a troublesome lot, with most of a generation not being allowed into the land of Canaan because of their sins. Yet here they are about to enter the land.

A third detail is that God had his man ready when the crisis came. The crisis was the death of Moses, their great leader, who had been in charge for forty years. Yet God had prepared Joshua for this moment. How long had he been preparing Joshua? Forty years at least, because he was there when Moses led the people out of Egypt four decades previously. What was the evidence that Joshua was prepared? More than one answer could be given, but the one that I would mention is that he believed that God could and would keep his promises, an attitude he had displayed when he and others saw the size of the inhabitants in Canaan.

So Joshua 1 describes how God spoke to Israel at the commencement of a new stage in their history. Instead of being wanderers, they were going to be settlers in the land the Lord had promised to give to them. Rather of being under a long chastisement as a people, they were going to experience the liberty that God gives to an obedient people as he provided them with successive victories.

The chapter has lessons for any group of believers who reach a moment of change. They don’t need to be undergoing the same situation to receive the wisdom described here. Some changes may be large, others may seem small, but if they are made in the fear of God we can anticipate blessings from heaven.

Learn about God’s faithfulness from the past

Joshua was told by the Lord that he would know the same divine presence as Moses had experienced during his years as a believer. We need therefore to ask in what applicable ways the Lord was with Moses because he would not give to Joshua some of the experiences of Moses, such as when  had when he received the Ten Commandments from God or when he was give the details about the Tabernacle. So here are some suggestions.

The Lord was with Moses despite the mistakes that he had made. There are two mistakes recorded of Moses. One was when he tried to liberate the Israelites by his own resources when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster who was persecuting some Israelites. The outcome was that Moses had to flee from the presence of Pharaoh, but that did not mean he had to flee from the purpose of God for his life. Although he had to spend forty years in the desert, the time would come when God would bring him back into his place of leadership.

The second occasion was when Moses lost his temper with the children of Israel because of the way they tempted God. That action meant that Moses was prevented from taking Israel into the Promised Land, but it did not mean that the Lord withdrew his presence from Moses. Instead the Lord continued with him and used him as his servant until the end of his life.

This gracious response by the Lord is also seen in the way that Jesus dealt with his disciples. They failed him in many ways during their years of training and afterwards. Have you ever wondered how long it took them to begin fulfilling the great commission that he gave to them to go into all the world? They did not do so right away. Instead, it took a few years. But the Lord continued to use them as his servants.

Joshua would make some mistakes later. The obvious one was when he was deceived by the Gibeonites and he ended up having to defend them rather than destroy them. He failed, as it were, yet the Lord continued to be with him.

The Lord gave to Moses clear guidance about how he and the children of Israel should live. Those details are found in the books of the Bible that we call the Pentateuch. God spoke often with Moses and ensured that he as the Lord’s servant knew what to do. While Joshua was not given the amount of detail that Moses received, he still was given guidance by God regarding many situations. And he could use the instruction that Moses was given as well because most of it was not limited to the time of Moses.

When we come to the New Testament, we see that Jesus gave much instructions to and through his disciples. He did not leave them in the dark regarding spiritual progress. He taught them patiently about many wonderful things that he was going to do. It was possible for each of them to be well-informed, and if they were not the fault was theirs.

Joshua was commanded to meditate on the words of God continually. He was to speak to himself about them. The word translated ‘meditate’ has the meaning of mumbling to oneself. I suppose Joshua was to ask simple questions of each verse. What does it mean? What is it speaking about? By doing this, he would hide the Word of God in his heart.

As we look at ourselves at this time of change at the beginning of another year, we must look back and learn important lessons. I would suggest that here we have two such lessons. The first is that our God does not deal with us according to our failures, but restores us and continues to use us. And the second is that our God speaks to us in his Word, the Bible, and tells us how to live for him. We have it as a lamp for our feet, and a light for our path, and we should remember that the man who wrote those words also failed many times.

Learn to see the future through the promises of God

Joshua was reminded by God of the great promises that he had given to Moses, promises about the extent of the land that they could have which had originally been given to Abraham. They had already made some of that territory their own because three of the tribes – Reubenites, Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh – had captured their territory on the east side of the Jordan. We could say that Israel at this moment of significant change were enjoying a partial fulfilment of God’s promises, but that the future held out for them an even greater fulfilment of his promises.

Is that not where we are at this time? We have known some fulfilment of the promises of God, but no matter how many have been fulfilled, there are many more awaiting fulfilment. We can think of those promises in different ways. For example, some of us only know the fulfilment of what we can call temporal promises, things to with this life. If that is all that we have known, then ahead of us are the promises connected to salvation. Others of us have discovered the initial stages of salvation – we have believed in the gospel and discovered that we belong to the family of God and have enjoyed some of the blessings that mark his family. Yet ahead of us potentially are many answers to prayer, many evangelistic successes, many contacts with God as his love and peace are given to us.

God delights to keep his promises. We should observe the way that he described his promise to Joshua. He mentioned the fullness of it geographically, even although he knew that the Israelites could only progress by capturing one area after another. God delights to say to us how big his promises are. Peter reminds us that we have been given great and precious promises. We have promises for this life and we have promises about the next life. We are promised things on earth and we are promised things in heaven. So it should be straightforward for us to look at the future through the lens of God’s promises.

Learn to do things together

How were the children of Israel to gain possession of the Promised Land? It would not be handed to them on a plate by God. Instead they would have to put a great deal of effort into overpowering the various tribes who would try and prevent them from experiencing the fulfilment of God’s promises. When we come to discovering the riches of God’s promises to us, we must take seriously the existence of powerful enemies. The Bible reminds us that we face conflict with the world, the flesh and the devil. Progress is not made by avoiding them. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6 that we must engage in spiritual warfare to obtain victories. The use of the weapons is not easy, and I suspect that the hardest one in the least is real prayer, which is in a sense calling down from heaven the riches that God has promised. If we have not received them, we have not called long enough.

Joshua would not fight by himself. It is possible to read this chapter and deduce that God was promising solitary success to Joshua. The truth is that the Lord was speaking to Joshua as a representative of the people. He had his role to fulfil, the officers had their roles, and the people had their roles. There had to be mutual participation in the campaign. Joshua would only be a success if the others did what God had called them to do. It is the same in the church. Everyone must be involved.

Moreover, there had to be such a desire for progress that all had to take part, even those who had already tasted victory. We can see from the account that the tribes whose inheritance was on the east of the Jordan had already defeated the hostile people who previously lived there. There was the possibility of them not getting involved in the Lord’s work. Things like that can happen in a church too. Someone may not go to a Bible Study because they already know a lot about the topic. But that is not the point. The three tribes had made progress, but they had to help the other tribes to make the same progress. Indeed they had to be first in the line-up. We can imagine the encouragement it would be to the other nine tribes to see the three tribes fighting for their brothers.

The final detail that we can see at this moment of change was the personal dedication that marked those under the leadership of Joshua. They wanted to see the growth of the kingdom of God and therefore they assured him that they would be dedicated to the Lord. Their dedication to God would be seen in their close following of God’s chosen leader, Joshua. For us, the leader is not Moses or Joshua or any person in the church. Instead, our leader is Jesus and we are called to obey him and serve him, and indeed to say to him the words of verse 16, ‘All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.’

-->

A new start led to a great experience in Israel’s history as they served God and received his help in several different ways. We too can know his help as we begin this year wondering what he has in store for us in providence.