It's a pleasure to be here and to share with you from the thoughts from the Word of God and particularly in view that you've just had your heart and mind directed toward our blessed Lord Jesus, this tremendous triumph at Calvary, this perfect manhood and the effectiveness of his perfection in his own person, proving his deity. And because of this, you and I are urged to have a victorious life. That's what I would like to talk to you about from out of the book of Joshua, a victorious life. And chapter one gives us the exhortation and the wisdom that there is possible for you and me to be victors in our spiritual experience. It's a delightful thing to have a relationship with the Lord, to be assured of his care and provision. But it's a very treasured and valuable thing to know that we belong to the Lord. But there are aspects of your life in mind that you and I should enter into and have a better handle on. that there are experiences for you and me that we can be enlarged and enriched in our own lives. And this is the general theme of the book of Joshua by picture. We have in chapter one of Joshua the source of spiritual strength and courage. Now before we read the chapter, it would be good for us to notice that in chapter one there's a number of references to the word strength and courage. And it would be careless of us to miss this. Notice in verse six, be strong and of good courage. Verse seven, only be thou strong and very courageous. Verse nine, have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage. The latter part of verse eighteen, only be strong and of a good courage. The adjective good is not there. It's better translated courageous. Be strong and courageous. This word first appeared, the word courage or courageous, first appeared in Deuteronomy when God was speaking at the end of the book through Moses to the children of Israel. And he urged the nation of Israel in Deuteronomy thirty-one to be strong and courageous. And then in the very next sentence, Deuteronomy thirty-one, seven, and then in verse eight, he turns and says to Joshua, Be strong and very courageous. Why? Because you and I are weak. Because you and I are fearful. You and I are timorous. You and I are doubtful. You have many apprehensions. Many things rise in our mind and spirit, and nigmas and questions in life and concerns, and God knows that you and I need the exhortation. But He is not causing us to hear an exhortation merely. He is trying to express to you and me, I understand. I understand where you are in your spiritual life. I have a thorough comprehension. Why turn to this man, Joshua, and say, Be strong and courageous? for the very simple reason he was fearful. He had a tremendous weight of responsibility. Moses has died. It's one thing to be a subordinate and a co-director and an associate. It's one thing to be a minister and an aid and an helper to a great man. It's one thing to be close to him and see him make decisions and work alongside of him, but then suddenly and abruptly to have the tremendous load of more than a million people in their welfare The plans and the purposes of God hanging upon you and weighing you down. What do you need? Just some encouragement. And what do you need when you take a look at your life and the prospects in front of you raising a family, giving guidance or direction to a youth group, assuming the responsibilities of a local church? What do we need? We need the assurance of a vigorous, effective, victorious kind of life. And we need encouragement for it. We need some kind of guidelines. We need something to give us that extra impetus, that warming, strengthening ministration to our soul. Now the nation of Israel were promised that they were to have this promised land. They were to be inheritors of this property. It was given to them, but they were going to have to fight to possess it. It was going to be their obligation to get a hold of this land and make it their own. You and I have been saved by the grace of God. Our souls have been delivered from a judgment to come. We are thankful for that. Most of us assembled here last evening and we took of emblems, the mark and the memorial of the death, the burial, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We praised him for saving our soul. We are thankful for having our sins forgiven. But then our life just becomes kind of static after that. And the greater part, we constantly look back to Calvary, look back to our conversion, muse upon the forgiveness of sins, and somehow have a whimsical kind of apprehension that, well, something's going to happen in the future, and maybe the Lord will come and I'll go home to be with Him. Is that victory? Do we need courage and challenge for that kind of a life? No, there's something missing, isn't there? When the nation of Israel stood on the far side and looked at the Red Sea and saw the floating carcasses and the debris of the enemy, they could hear the naying and the thundering of the hoofbeats in one moment and the crescendo of those waves coming and the destruction of their enemy, what did they do? They sang the praise of God and they could look back constantly to God's deliverance. But God not only wanted to deliver them out of Egypt, He wanted to bring them into something, a kind of life that would be different. A kind of life that would not be a wandering movement through a wilderness. It would be a rest. It would not be a narrow provision of eating just enough manna day by day, getting just enough water to live. No, we wanted them to come into a bounteous provision where there was fruit, plants that they had ever planted, trees already growing, bearing fruit. buildings, villages, cities, wall places that they had never done anything for that they would possess and make their own. God wanted rest and bounty and spiritual vigor and triumph. Now he wants the same thing from you and me. He says, you have a divine nature planted within you. You have a tremendous inheritance. You have the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. You have gifts to be used to minister to the body of Christ. You not only can just close your eyes and pray and ask blessing for other people, but you can enter into the presence of God and minister unto the Lord like the priests of old. There is something richer and fuller and deeper and grander that requires strength and courage for you and me. You and I... are challenged to live more victoriously. And here is Israel. They're back in Shittim right now. They're out of sight of the Holy Land. There's approximately a million of them. Lots of children. Nobody over sixty. Interesting. You see, they've all died in the wilderness. And this man, Joshua, needs a little special word. Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun. Moses minister, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise and go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, and to the land which I will give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river the river Euphrates, and all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great seas, or the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not be any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be strong and of good courage. For unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shalt thou not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you, Vittles, for within three days you shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth to possess it. And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the half of tribe of Manasseh spake Joshua, saying, Remember the word which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord your God hath given you rest, and hath given you this land. Your wives, your little ones, your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan. But you shall pass before your brethren, armed all the mighty men of valor, and help them until the Lord hath given your brethren rest, as he hath given you. And they also have possessed the land which the Lord your God giveth them. Then you shall return unto the land of your possession and enjoy it. which Moses the Lord's servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sun rising. And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou commandest we will do, and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go. According as we have hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee. Only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses. whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment and will not hearken unto thy words and all that thou commandest him he shall be put to death only be strong and of good courage when elizabeth the second was born i have no doubt that she was brought into this world and laid in satin a lovely cradle And that little newborn child was rested there under the crest of the house of Windsor. She was born to be a monarch. She was born to make decisions. She was born to have and wield influence. God knew ultimately where that woman was going to be and how she would spend her life. And there was a tremendous inheritance for her. But she knew nothing about it. At birth, she had no knowledge that she was to be the Queen of England. She had to be trained. She had to be tutored. She went through years of discipline, guidelines. And then in our age and in our lifetime for most of us, her son, Charles, is being guided and trained because the Lord willing, and he lives, he shall move into that position. But it's something that we grow into, and this is what God wants for us. It's time for us who have been born into his family to start growing into our inheritance. And we need to have behind us the assurance that you have an inheritance, something very special from the hand of God, a purpose and a goal that He has designed for you and for all of His people. In the book of Ephesians, it mentions five times the fact that you and I have privileges that God calls the heavenly places. and before the foundation of the world, God knew that you would have every spiritual blessing in Christ given to you. All these things are yours. Everything that belongs to any believer are yours. See, or tense? It's something that's been done by God. He has blessed you in heavenly places with all blessings. Everything that is spiritually good in Christ Jesus. Our Lord brought, in according to Hebrews two, such a triumphant victory, liberating us and freeing us, bringing us into this wonderful life. And now it's time for us to be encouraged. God has an inheritance for you. He has it for the nation of Israel. You notice in verse one, he says, the Lord spoke unto Joshua, the son of Nun. Joshua had been prepared for this. You have been prepared. The preparation of God has gone on in your lifetime. Now Joshua's preparation to be this leader, to be this victor, to be this spiritually alive, capable demonstration of what Christ can do for you and me, Joshua is going to do for this nation. But you see, he had preparation. He knew what it was to bear the wit of the Egyptian slavery. He knew what it was to see the children of Israel suffering and anguishing. He was just a boy then, but he perceived it. He could see. He could understand. When he moved out with the rest of the company, there were a demand made upon them very early when they were attacked by the Amalekites in Exodus chapter And in that particular attack, Moses turns and says, Joshua, you lead the army. And so he's being prepared to assume responsibilities. God was working in his heart. A little bit later in that same experience, he's taken up and he has to look around and says, Joshua, why don't you come with me? We'll go up the mountain. And Joshua ministered and served. The preparation of God, the little things in his lifetime that he didn't understand and know about then were all being meshed together by God to use him as a special vehicle. Do you think God has overlooked you? Shame on you. Do you think that the things that you have gone through are mere coincidence? You know much better than that. You know that the weakness of your body and the trial, the economical pressure, the social demands, your education with or without it. All the experiences that you have gone through, God is using and working the preparation of God to bring you into the place where He wants you. That's the first basic principle in this chapter of six principles for spiritual courage and growth. the strength that we need and the courage that we need to grow and possess our inheritance this is not to be saved this is because we are God's people God has prepared in your life to bring you into a spiritual inheritance to make you a victor to make you a possessor of good things to enrich your life and they're yours as much as they are for this man Joshua the preparation of God that's the first simple principle the second is the plan of God or the purpose of God. Notice in verse two, Moses my servant is dead. Therefore go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give them. God had a purpose. Therefore the foundation of the world God had a purpose for you. You have come into the value of it at the salvation of your soul. You were born into the family. Now, this week, we want to draw you and beckon you and urge you to be strong and courageous and to step out and possess the good things. more than just knowing that you're saved, more than merely serving, to enter into the sphere and realm that He has provided where there is a conflict, for we wrestle not against principalities and powers, or flesh and blood rather, but against principalities and powers in these heavenly places. God has caused you to be seated in heavenly places. And there we are positionally in our land, in the throne, the opportunity to be with Him and round Him and working with Him and possessing these things. And yet we're still back in the wilderness wandering around, eating meager fare, hoping somehow that things would get along and secretly wishing that the Lord would take us out and take us home. Well, we're not going to possess our inheritance when we're home with Him, like we can here. Here is the place where you can possess your great promised inheritance. And you and I have been privileged to be here for these years. God has a purpose. He announced it way back there to Abraham. He said, Abraham, all this land is yours, from the Euphrates to the sea. This whole tremendous property is yours. Whatever you put your foot upon, Joshua, you're going to have it, but you're going to have to do it. All the blessings written in the book are yours and mine, but it's going to require conflict. But God has a purpose. The preparation of God is the first basic principle for you and me being strong and courageous and having a victorious life. Preparation of God followed by the very plan of God or the purpose of God for your life. Now if you drop your eye down in verse five, as I was with Moses, I will be with you. There is the presence of God affirmed. And you have the presence of God. After you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. You've been made a partaker of the divine nature. And that has the potential in itself to give you all that is necessary to be victor over the pollutants of this world. Everything that Joshua had in a practical sense, you and I have in a spiritual, real sense. A word of encouragement. We can be victorious Christians. I don't know what victorious Christians mean to you, but in the framework of our thinking, I'd like to say that to be a victorious Christian is to step into the spiritual provision that God has made for you. No longer the restlessness, no longer the sin-sayer, but rather a bounteous life, a life of rest, but a life that will involve conflict. Because just as this man Joshua had to face the Jebusites and the Hittites and the Canaanites and the Amorites, we have spiritual wickedness in high places. We have spiritual enemies, seductive, the world, the flesh and the evil ones, in constant conflict, and oftentimes too often the winners in the battle. But you have been prepared of God You are fitting in to the purposes of God, and you have the presence of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. When you believe you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. As best as I understand, He is with you and in you until the day of your translation, until you and I are made immortal. We put on immortality and are snatched away into His presence. And then I'm not just exactly sure, though, the relationship of the Holy Spirit to me in that new state. But nonetheless, here on this earth, here we have our conflict. You have the presence of God as much as it meant to Him. Can you see Joshua? Apprehension, concern, thoughtful of all these people, the varied needs. And God says, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. If you are a child of God, the lack is in myself and in yourself, not in God's provision. God has prepared us, He has a purpose for us, He has affirmed His promise that He will be within us and give us His presence. And then you'll notice in verse six, Be strong and of good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land. Thou shalt divide for an inheritance the land. Mr. Darby translates it, Thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land. You have the power of God. I sometimes think that the power of the flesh and the power of the world and the power of my weaknesses and frailties is much more strong than the power of God. At least that's been my experience. But I am thankful in any little degree into which he has enabled some kind of an intrusion to have a victory over the natural instincts of my temperament or my person or my character. Some little enabling to capacitate me, and then I know that God is powerful. And if he can be a help to you and to me today or yesterday, he can be for tomorrow. And day by day, as we move along, he will capacitate us. Thou shalt divide them their inheritance. Our blessed Lord has brought us into a place of great victory, of spiritual possession, not merely to be forgiven and saved and on my way toward heaven, but to know what it is to be in fellowship with God, to serve and minister as a priest in his presence, to magnify Him, to walk in this world as a regal priesthood, to declare the power that He has wrought in your life and mine, that He's delivered us from darkness and brought us into life. That unique special enabling, that provision that you are at the threshold of, and some of us have from time to time enjoyed. You know what I'm speaking of. Wonderful privileges of a child of God. Be strong and have good courage. God is enabling us. He's given us all that we need. He has given us the power adequate for it. Thou shalt give them this inheritance. And then if you would in verse eight, number five, the provision of God. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. some of the unfair attack that is made in the educated world around us upon the Bible. And they declare things like, these are stories. These are interesting little Jewish narratives handed down. You see, there's no vindication for that. There's no validity to that. Joshua himself knew that. For you see, Joshua was writing the book as they went. In Exodus chapter seventeen and verse fourteen, Moses turns to him and says, and write that down in the book. Chapter thirty-one we find that that book was preserved and put in the ark. Inside the ark was the writing of what you and I called the Pentateuch. The whole Pentateuch had been written and Joshua had it in black and white in front of him available to him to look at. How it was done, the marvel of it, the intricacies of it. That's beyond my scholarship. But the Word of God makes it clear that the book was there, it was written. They had the black and white. And the strong foundation to your faith is the written Word of God. Souls have died to preserve it into your language in order that you and I can read this book and yield our lives to it. What a tremendous privilege and blessing is ours. Do we not have this same provision? We have more than He. Notice in verse eight, this book of the law, we would say, the Lord said to him, you've got the Pentateuch. You've got adequate for any blessing that you need, any effort that you have. You have the Pentateuch. And today God says, and you have the historical books and the poetical books, not only the major but the minor prophets. and the Gospels and the Book of Acts and all the Pauline epistles and all the other pastoral epistles and the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. You have everything that you need in provision for your spiritual welfare. But you see, I must read the book. Not as a mere volume. I must allow it to involve my life. I must read it not just as information for Sunday school lessons or for little quick devotionals to give somewhere or something to speak at the Lord's Supper, but I need it to speak to my soul. I need it to enter into my heart and life. Thou shalt not depart out of thy mouth. Now you know this book, Joshua. You know that it was written and put in there. Deuteronomy chapter thirty-one, God says through Moses, now it's going to be taken out and read to the people, and the people are going to have to listen to it and bring the children and every stranger in the land, and put it there and read it out, and everybody has to hear, and then think about what they've heard and go back home and muse on it. For you see, they only had the one copy. And then they put it back inside and the Levites would carefully lay it inside the ark and preserve that Pentateuch. You have a book and you have one in your best pocket at work or you have it in your desk or you take it with you on vacation. You have an access to it at any time you desire. Are you reading your Bible? I said, well, John, I'm at a Bible conference. Of course I am. I don't mean it that way. You know the way in which I mean it. Is God speaking to you through his word? That's his provision. God's done the preparation. And God has his plan and purpose. And God has affirmed his presence and his power. But now the grand provision is that thou wilt not allow this book to depart out of thy mouth. It has to be in my heart to be in my mouth. Out of the abundance of my heart, the mouth-speaker. Is the book in your heart? Are you thinking about the Word of God? Do you muse on it and memorize some of it and see how it fits in and compare with other portions of Scripture? Do you speak it to others? It delights me when I hear somebody just instinctively quote a phrase that's appropriate to a circumstance and it's applicable to a situation where someone is able to dig out and apply a verse to a practical experience that another has had. It's a delightful thing. Am I speaking of it? And I'm meditating day and night. The meditating of it means that I must mull it over in my mind and reflect, muse and think about what it really means to whom it was written and how it applies to me. This is the only way that I shall possess my inheritance. This is the only way that God has provided in a practical material fashion for you and me to have some resource for our spiritual vitality. Be strong. Be courageous. You have everything that you need. And then there's one more thing. Notice verse fourteen, the last phrase. Help them until the Lord has given your brethren rest. That's the people of God. So we've had six principles before us. the preparation of God in our lifetime, the very plan and purpose of God before us, the presence of God in the Holy Spirit, the power of God through the Holy Spirit, as He was with Moses, so with you and with you and me. Then the provision is this blessed book, and now the people of God. He turns to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. Two and a half tribes that didn't want to be in the promised land. where most of us dwell really in sight of spiritual things but still not quite in the wilderness at the threshold of all the good things but we don't want the conflict we're thinking about our home and we're thinking about our business and we're thinking about the efforts across the river and get into the promised land and it just isn't worth it I go to the meetings and I attend but and there's so many of us on the eastern side of Jordan and he says but you can't stay there you see you have to help the others and you must labor and work with them. We have a responsibility for one another, that I assist you into your inheritance. Your spouse needs encouragement. Your children need strengthening and instruction. That brother or sister in the local church, that dear friend of yours, does not need your tears of sympathy. They need your encouragement to get into their promised inheritance. They need your example. Don't drag your feet. Don't be a deterrent to the work of God. Don't be those that are hanging back in an apprehension and a concern to the rest. For that's all Joshua had, all their lifetime. He kept turning to those two and a half tribes. Come on now, do what's right, be what's right. And they insisted they'd rather be back on the other side to feed their cattle. They were the first ones that went into idolatry, first ones into the captivity, first ones to be absorbed and lost. No, we must be close and stay. You have the people of God, and sometimes the people of God have to probe us a little bit. God gives some a gracious gift of encouragement and exhortation. Others let us just go ahead and try to say and do the best we're able. But we do need to encourage one another with your example. By your possessing your spiritual inheritance, by you having a victorious life, By you being a victor over the world, the flesh and the evil one, you help your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ to be part and parcelable with their great inheritance, the people of God. Are you needing courage and strengthening for a spiritual life? I believe as we trace through this and see, we're not going to be looking verse by verse at the book of Joshua, but rather taking highlights and five simple steps, hitting the highlights, going all the way through the book, getting the tone of victory, conquering, obtaining, and moving on doing God's pleasure. And at the end of the week, I am sure that the Spirit of God will answer your desires, refresh and strengthen you in your like-precious faith. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we are thankful for this opportunity. We bless thee and praise thee for the one who was the Son of God and the Son of Man. Our souls rejoice in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are so thankful that we can see Jesus and look forward to that time when he shall reign and rule and have dominion and fulfill thy plan and purpose. Gracious God, our Father, in some little measure we ask thee that thou wouldst give us strength and courage and the spiritual appetite to step into our role and not only be an encouragement to others but to possess the full spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. We ask this in the name and for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.