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It is nothing but a pleasure to be with you, gentlemen, on this occasion, and I thank you heartily and sincerely for your welcome and for your readiness to come together to work with me in the study of God's word, and in particular the book of Joshua. In other times and in other countries and in other places where these, this kind of study has been pursued, the organizers have allowed me to commandeer and to force march, uh, other members of the study group, so that they introduce the sessions, and I merely commented afterwards. Your present organizers, I must tell you, decided that that was far too light a thing to let me get away with, and have ordained that I should be made to work as much like a man as I could, and therefore to me is assigned the duty of leading the formal sessions.
That does not, of course, preclude your contribution as well as your questions to this series of studies. And in those sections that are designated general discussion and questions, let me remind you there will be opportunity for you to contribute your understandings and insights such as the Lord has given you into the understanding of this book. And I shall be setting, sitting in, of course, upon those, uh, uh, sessions in order to profit not only from the general conversation, but from listening to the insights that the Lord has given you. And I mean that sincerely.
Please regard these sessions as a working together as we wait on God that he may speak to us through his word. Now, the book of Joshua has endeared itself to the hearts of Christian peoples from the very earliest centuries onwards. Christians such as Justin Martyr early noticed that the name Joshua is simply the Hebraized form, uh, uh, the the Hebrew name of the Grecized form Jesus. And very speedily, they drew attention to the similarities between the work that Joshua was given to do for Israel and the work that our blessed Lord Jesus has done and is doing for us.
Their insight was true. But if we are going to put these things in their true perspective, then surely our first task must be to observe what part these great events, herein recorded in the book of Joshua, what part they play in God's developing purposes for his ancient people, Israel. To put Joshua then into its historical context, we shall need to go back first to Genesis chapter fifteen, to the program that God outlined to Mo- to Abraham on that occasion.
Following Abraham's justification, Genesis fifteen six. God made once more his promise that he had brought Abram out of the Ur of Chaldees to give him this land of Canaan to inherit it. Upon Abram's inquiry how he should know for certain that he would inherit it, God ordained that Abraham should, uh, bring together the necessary sacrifices for a covenant sacrifice. And then God bound himself by covenant in Abraham's presence that he would give this land of Canaan as an inheritance to Abraham and to his seed.
He indicated, however, that the land would not be given to Abraham immediately, nor indeed to his immediate successors. And we take up the story in verse thirteen of Genesis fifteen. He said unto Abraham, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterward they shall come out with great substance. But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age, and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.
This then was God's announced program for Abraham and his seed. They were to be given the land for an inheritance, but not at once. For four hundred years, they would go down to Egypt and be eventually held in bondage in that country. At the end of it, they would be brought out, and eventually they would be brought to Palestine and be brought in. All that happened, as we know, from the subsequent history in Genesis and the book of Exodus and the book of Numbers. Israel were detained in Egypt by the Pharaohs and put in bondage, making their bricks in the slave labor camps of Egypt.
Then God sent Moses as their deliverer, and by the Passover lamb and by God's power at the Red Sea, Israel were brought out of the house of bondage and set on their glorious pilgrimage towards their illustrious inheritance. For forty years, in spite of their wandering, Moses persisted with them as their leader and eventually brought them to the very borders of the Promised Land. But just when it might have seemed that Moses would complete the program and bring them in, Moses faltered, Moses failed, and Moses never brought them in.
Allow just a moment or two for the poignancy of it to sink into your hearts. And Moses, that eminent man of God, was there ever a greater in pre-Christian centuries? Who had done so much, who had seen God's wonders, who had persevered so strongly in spite of Israel's in ungrateful criticism. Moses, who brought them to the very verge of the Promised Land. Moses was not able nor allowed to bring them in. And a sorry end to the story of God's program that would have been, were it not for Joshua.
The book of Joshua now before us is going to tell us this, that what Moses could not do, in that he was weak through the flesh, actually, gentlemen, um, Joshua did. He brought God's people into their inheritance, and thus fulfilled, for the time being at any rate, fulfilled the original program that God had given to Abraham and confirmed, uh, with an oath. So as we study Joshua, this shall indeed be our first emphasis.
It is the story of what Moses could not do, but what Joshua did. He brought Israel into their inheritance then, and at the first level, of course, we shall read it as their physical inheritance. He brought them into the land of Canaan, subdued all their enemies there, and set them loose eventually, each tribe to in e- e- enter into and take possession of the inheritance given to each. But, if you have first sated your imagination historically, and watch those happy faces and those diligent fingers and those learned surveyors going about their delightful task of dividing the inheritance among the Israelites and stretching their lines over the land and putting in their pigs, uh, getting a fat salary, I suspect, but never mind, like s- surveyors do, and dividing up
the land for an inheritance to each tribe. And if you have sated your imagination to watch the looks on the faces of those, now where will my bit be? Will it be a nice piece of loam soil, uh, uh, that can grow grass aplenty? Easy to the plow, easy to the sower, and a great reward to the reaper? Or will my inheritance fall to me on the rocky soil halfway up a mountain beset with bears and lions and pine trees that would take a giant to develop? Where shall the lines fall to me?
If you have sated your imagination long enough, thinking of the actual historical and literal distribution of the physical inheritance, then you will be ready for the poetry of later generations, will you not? Who, beginning by thinking of the literal physical inheritance given to them by the surveyor's line. Use that literal inheritance as a metaphor for a bigger inheritance. I ask you to read with me the words of Psalm sixteen to take one example of this extended meaning of inheritance in the Old Testament.
Psalm 16, verse 5 and 6. The Lord, says the psalmist, is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. That's the parcel of ground originally that was given to each man, like Naboth and his vineyard. Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me, that is the surveyor's lines. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage.
So now we are moving forward even within the confines of the Old Testament itself, not into typology, gentlemen, but into metaphor. Metaphor drawn from the actual receiving of a physical lot and inheritance in the land to the extended notion of a much more spiritual inheritance. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Because that is so, the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. It might, for all I know, have taken great grace on the part of some whose inheritance fell on the rocky bare patches of a mountainside, to believe in his heart that though his portion didn't look so good as somebody who got a luscious acre down in the plain, yet behind the lot stood the Lord.
And behind the green grass or the rocky mountain stood the blessing and the determination of God to do them good. And as they learn to accept their inheritance from the Lord, they began to see that the lines had fallen to them in pleasant places. I call your attention to this at this early stage, because one of the things that the book of Joshua will r- raise in our minds is, how far is it legitimate to use typology in its interpretation. That question we shall discuss from time to time in desultory fashion as we proceed, but let us notice it early on.
You don't have to wait till the New Testament before you find the saints of God beginning to see in the book of Joshua and its story of the distribution of the inheritance more than just the historical and physical inheritance. Great saints of God see beyond it to its spiritual dimensions. Moreover, that notion of a lot, a certain portion of the inheritance that is given you, is still in the Old Testament developed yet further of an Israelite's future inheritance.
Let us read the last words of the book of Daniel, the prophecy of Daniel and chapter twelve. Says the man above the river to Daniel, Daniel twelve verse thirteen: But go thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
We needn't, uh, try to decide, need we, whether the angel was referring to three literal acres and a cow in Palestine, in Canaan, in the millennium, or in some further sense. You will see how already those things have blended in the mind of the psalmist. Our point simply is to notice how that this concept that began with the distribution of a physical inheritance in Canaan to the people of God became extended even in the Old Testament to their present spiritual inheritance, and then to the glorious inheritance that were awaited them in the future to come.
Having said that, let us ask now the question, what relevance this ancient story is or has for us. For that purpose, let's first go back once more to Genesis fifteen and verse six, where it is recorded that Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. I need spend no long hours convincing you, gentlemen, that Genesis fifteen verse six has momentous relevance for us.
Nor am I indulging in typology when I point out that this verse, Genesis fifteen six, uh applies directly to us, as it did to Abraham. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He was justified by faith without works. He is not, therefore, a type of us believers. He's just one more example. He's the early example of an actual man who walked around on two legs, on good shoe leather, we hope, uh, and was actually justified through faith in God.
His case formed a legal precedent. For if Abraham was justified by faith, so may all men be justified by faith. It's a legal precedent. It's a piece of case law. If Abraham was justified by faith, then all thereafter may be and must be justified on the same terms. And you will immediately recall all those places in the New Testament where this verse is cited as definitive, authoritative case law, establishing the fact that we're justified not by works, but by grace, through faith.
If Genesis fifteen six is relevant to us in our day, therefore, the next question comes naturally. Is the rest of Genesis fifteen relevant? That is the story how God made covenant with Abraham to give him this inheritance in the land of Canaan. Is that relevant to us of this day and age? Now, I'm aware that some of you may be inclined at this stage to say not at all, and if that is your opinion, I should do my best to change it. And if I do not succeed, I suspect you'll do your best to change me.
But at any rate, we may treat each other as serious students of God's word and consider the viewpoints each of the other. I wish now to put forward the thesis that the rest of Genesis fifteen is as relevant to us as it was to Abraham. And my appeal is to the epistle, uh, of Paul to the Galatians, first to notice the general argument of Galatians chapter three and then to notice its specifics. You will observe that in Gen- Galatians chapter three, Paul raises once more, in verses five following, the question, on what terms are we justified?
Once more he cites his authority, verse six of Galatians three: Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Know therefore that they which be of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. If, gentlemen, you have believed in God as Abraham believed, and you have been justified thereby, Scripture will call you here in Galatians three seven sons of Abraham. But then do see, in the verses that follow, Paul is not content to prove that we are justified by faith.
Justification by faith, certainly, but certain other things as well. He talks as of the blessing of Abraham, verse fourteen, coming upon us Gentiles. He talks in verse fifteen of a man's covenant and compares it with the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis fifteen. Look at Galatians three seventeen. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect.
This is the covenant made by God with Abraham four hundred years before Sinai. Genesis fifteen. So the blessing is by faith, as well as justification. And the covenant, Paul will argue, is according to grace and by faith and not by works. And what does this covenant secure? Verse eighteen: For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more a promise, for God has granted it to Abraham by promise.
And now Paul is piling up his argument. Not only justification is by faith, by grace, but, uh, the blessing of Abraham for us Gentiles on the same terms, the covenant on the same terms, the inheritance is secured by that covenant on the same terms, and finally the promise. All these things, because they are by faith through grace. Back home, his argument logically, the justification is by faith. So then the general argument.
But what are the spec- specifics? What is this inheritance that was promised by a covenant to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before Sinai. It is the inheritance listed in Genesis fifteen. It is the inheritance into which Joshua brought the Israelites. And perhaps you say, yes, that's excellent, my good brother, but leave it there, because we, you know, are not interested in that inheritance. That was for the Jews. That, uh, concerned physical land here on earth, uh, certain territories in the Middle East.
While that was good for Israelites and will be again, we would remind you that we belong to the church, and our inheritance is a spiritual inheritance in glory, and it would not befit our dignity nor our special position as the church for us to be interested in a physical inheritance of land in the Middle East. Gentlemen, if you serious- seriously think it would beneath your spiritual dignity to be interested in in- inheriting certain lands in the Middle East, because you are a heavenly people. Now I just ask you to consider whether you would think it beneath the interest of your Lord and Master Christ himself, to be interested in inheriting certain lands in the Middle.
Is it so that your exalted Lord is so heavenly that he shall not bother to inherit the land of Canaan? Is it your view that our Lord has, uh, abandoned all hope or desire to inherit the earth and has gone off to spiritual realms, forever abandoning this physical world. Is that your view? I hope not. Ha! Jesus shall reign wherever the sun doth his excessive journeys run. His kingdom stretch from shore to shore.
The moon, the moon shall wax and wane no more. You say, do that, does that demand you're bringing back Jesus Christ onto earth? Well, I have no objection to his coming. But you don't have to be here permanently all the time to inherit something, do you? To own it, to take possession of it. For all I know, some of you have great estates in South America tucked away somewhere, away from the tax inspector, and uh, uh, while you're not there, and you run them by bailiffs and things, you, you inherit them, they're yours.
You inherited it from your great-grandfather, who was a pioneer. So our Lord shall, even from his exalted position in glory, inherit the earth, and the acres of Palestine included. Is it true, the rumor that's going about, that when he inherits the earth, you shall inherit it too? And on what terms shall you inherit it? We'll say, but is our inheritance merely the, uh, few acres, square acres in the Middle East?
Not necessarily. If we take Paul's argument in Romans four, he extends the terms of the inheritance, doesn't he? Romans four verse thirteen. For not through the law was the promise to Abram or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect. So here the promised inheritance that shall be inherited comprises nothing less than the whole wide world.
The promise made to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world. So the future inheritance is not confined to a few acres in the Middle East, but extends worldwide. Notice, incidentally, as we leave Romans four, the argument that Paul is building upon this observation. That this inheritance is altogether of faith, that it may be according to grace, says sixteen. to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
All here, as in Galatians then, asserting the principle of grace. The inheritance is by grace through faith, and not simply justification, but the inheritance, be it of Canaan, be it of the world. Let us therefore now turn back to Galatians chapter three so that we might see it spelt out in Paul's logic. On what terms we, as also Israel, of course, come into the good of this inheritance that was covenanted by God to Abraham and to his seed.
Paul argues like a lawyer. He makes the general remark about legal covenants in verse fifteen: I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one maketh it void or adds thereto. That we know still in our legal arrangements. Once a covenant has been signed, sealed, and settled, you cannot add thereto or make any changes. The general principle of legal covenants is now applied to a specific covenant.
Verse sixteen observes, now to Abram were the promises spoken, and to his seed. And he says not, and to seeds in the plural, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. But how and on what terms are these promises to be fulfilled to Abram's seed? Here comes now the development of the legal argument. Now this I say, a covenant confirmed beforehand by God. The law which came four hundred and thirty years after does not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect.
For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more a promise, but God hath granted it to Abram by promise. So Genesis fifteen and following said the inheritance was promised to Abraham and his seed. It was by promise. And, says Paul, when God promises you something, and that promise is an unconditional promise, it will be fulfilled not on the grounds of your works and merit, but solely on the grounds of God's grace and your faith. Moreover, once it has been sealed by a covenant, no other condition can subsequently be added to the terms of that covenant.
Now, by what covenant and by what terms was this inheritance given to Abraham? It is important that we look to Genesis chapter fifteen to remind ourselves. Was this covenant that God made with Abraham in those far off days a two-party covenant, where Abraham had conditions to fulfill, and then God had conditions to fulfill, such as if either party fell down and didn't fulfill the his particular conditions, the covenant was null and void. No, indeed it wasn't. See it with your own eyes, gentlemen.
Be sure you have seen it because so much depends on it. If it were twenty square acres in in the Fraser Valley that were at stake, gentlemen, you'd be very keen on the exactitude of the legal terms, wouldn't you? And if this is worldwide inheritance, you ought to be infinitely, uh, uh, uh, careful with its terms. What was the nature of that covenant? In the ancient world, when covenants were formed, they could be formed in this fashion. The parties concerned would take certain sacrificial victims, cut some of them in half, put them in two rows, and those who had conditions to fulfill, and therefore now bound themselves to fulfill those conditions, solemnly and ceremonially walked between the pieces.
If only one party had something to fulfill, only one party walked between the pieces. If both parties had conditions to fulfill, then both parties had to walk between the pieces. If you are ordering your architect and builder to build you a beautiful house here out in the valley, and you'll say, I want a nice little thing with five bathrooms and two hunting lodges, uh, you'll see, and a fishing pool and a swimming pool and ten bedrooms where I can entertain my guests, and I want it to these specifications. And the builder says, yes, very good, but you will have to pay me five million.
You both sign that the builder will give you this house up to these specifications, so he has something to fulfill. He signs on the dotted line. You have a condition to fulfill when it's all finished, you must pay the five million, so you sign on the dotted line. If either of you falls down on the conditions you have undertaken, the thing is null and void. Or worse even could happen to you. When God promised this inheritance to Abraham, the thing we must notice is who walked between the pieces. They would walk, those people would walk who had conditions to fulfill.
Who walked? Well, Abraham didn't. He arranged the two rows of sacrifices, did he not? Then as evening came, like a good many more, he fell asleep. So he didn't walk between the pieces, nor did he, when during his sleep he had a vision, did he see himself in his vision walking between the pieces? Did he? The only one to walk between those pieces was a symbol of the divine presence. Let your heart leap for joy. You are multi, multi, multi millionaires. And if you have any sense, gentlemen, as you have an abundance of it, you will ask the Lord at this moment, Lord, how shall I know I shall inherit?
You would if you were good Jacobs, anyway. And, uh, the reply is, here is my covenant. That's how you will know. And who has conditions to fulfill? And who must walk between the pieces? And the answer is God. It is a one party, it was a one party covenant where God bound himself to give not only justification but inheritance to Abraham and to his seed in response to their faith. And now Paul makes the argument, the legal argument in Galatians chapter three.
For an inheritance confirmed beforehand by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards does not disannul, so as to make the promise of no effect. You cannot take the law with all its moral demands, the law given at Sinai, and s- take them and put them back as conditions that must be fulfilled into the covenant that God made four hundred and thirty years before with Abraham. That's illegal to do it.
No respectable lawyer would dream of doing it. And the God of heaven isn't going to act illegally. Cannot add conditions from the Mosaic law, put them back into this first covenant, and put them there as conditions that must be fulfilled if we would inherit our inheritance. Let Paul make another legal point, and that ought to suffice us for the moment. You cannot alter a covenant once it has been made. You cannot alter its conditions.
You cannot alter the people it specifies as the beneficiaries. The covenant was made to Abraham and to his seed. You cannot now alter those terms. If one of these days, gentlemen, you get a, a letter from a lawyer, I don't know how you do it here, this is how they do it in our country, you get a letter from your lawyer, it drops onto your mat, and being opened, it says that your great uncle Harry has died, uh, it will say in Texas and has left you, uh, left the family, uh, all kinds of possessions in his will.
And if you like to attend the reading of the will by the lawyer, you might hear something to your, your good, you see. So you turn up. And the lawyer puts on his learned spectacles and reads, uh, and uh, there's so much money left to Aunt Agatha, and there are a few consolidated shares left to Brenda, your cousin, and there's his Cadillac left to Thomas Dulce, his country lodge to Georgina, and his townhouse to To- to to Benjamin Dulce, and uh, with that, the will comes to an end. And you'll say to the lawyer, carry on, carry on. No, he says, I'm at an end.
You can't be, he says. Why not? Well, because you hadn't said what's left to me. And the lawyer says, who are you? Well, I'm Frederick, you say. What do I get? And the lawyer looks again and says, but there's no Frederick mentioned here. You say there must be because I was he, I was his darling. I, I mean, I'm sure I'm in the will. Well, there's no Frederick here, says he. Well, then you say you better just write it in because I'm sure he meant to put me in. No lawyer would do it, would they? And this great inheritance, be careful now, hasn't got your name in, has it?
The inheritance was covenanted to Abram and to his seed. And that seed, gentlemen, is not all the natural seed of Abraham, is it? That seed is Christ the Messiah. The land of Israel is covenanted by God to the Messiah. Abram and his seed. And I can tell you now, you cannot spit in the face of the Messiah and still claim that you have title deeds to the land.
The land is covenanted to Abram and to the Messiah. Would you say that rules us out then? Oh no, listen to this glorious thing. Yes, it is true that the thing is covenanted to Abraham and his seed, which is Christ. But as many of you, says Paul, have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. So that as God looks at you, you are in Christ. Therefore, if you be Christ's, verse twenty nine of chapter three, then are you Abram's seed.
And if you're Abram's seed, praise God, you are heirs according to the promise. Heirs of what? Well, heirs of the great inheritance promised and covenanted to Abraham and his seed in Genesis fifteen following. Oh, let your heart leap for joy. And now we begin, and then we must stop because the clock says I'm already five minutes over time, but we began, you know, with the notices a little bit late, so forgive the time running on.
Now we must begin to put things together. Gene- uh, Joshua is the story of how Joshua brought God's people into the promised inheritance, thus fulfilling at its first stage the covenant promise made by God to Abraham in Genesis fifteen. We then notice that historically, where Mo- while Moses brought them out of Egypt and brought them to the verge of the Promised Land, it wasn't Moses who brought them in.
Moses failed to bring them in. But what Moses historically didn't and couldn't do, that Joshua did. And in saying that, I'm merely citing plain straightforward history and not typology, gentlemen. Straight, straight fact of history. I couldn't prevent you drawing the theological conclusions, could I? You've heard Paul at it this last half an hour. Moses and his law. They could never bring God's people into their inheritance of any kind. Not historically did he do it, nor for us now still.
For if the inheritance were of the law of Moses, if it were conditional upon keeping the law of Moses, that would make the promise of none effect, because none of us can keep that law. Therefore, God's promise would never be fulfilled. But it is of grace through faith that the promise may be sure to all the sea. What Moses couldn't do, and what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin did.
For he is our Jo- Joshua. The ancient Joshua was but a prototype of the Joshua to come. More of that, let us pause for a few moments before we come back to these things in our second session. At this juncture, gentlemen, I shall appear to wander, if not from the truth, but from the topic before us. But the point of my wandering, I hope, will become apparent as we proceed. In our first session, we were thinking together of Paul's legal arguments in Galatians chapter three, according to which he shows that not only justification, but the inheritance is given to all who believe solely on the grounds of grace and faith.
The natural question arises in the minds of people who were brought up under the law of Sinai. Well, if that is so, what then is the law? If we are not justified by the law, if the inheritance is not conditional upon keeping the law, well, when what is the law? What was it for? And to answer that question, a question doubtless put to Paul many times in his discussions in the synagogues, Paul proceeds in chapter three and four.
Among his arguments in chapter four from verse twenty one onwards is an argument drawn from the stories of Genesis itself. It refers to the fact that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid and one by the free woman. And you will remember how that came to be. God promised to Abraham and to his seed the glorious inheritance. God promised that he would give the seed to Abraham by a miracle of his grace. But between the promise and its fulfillment, Abraham and Sarah grew impatient and fell to imagining that when God promised to give them the seed, he really meant simply to exhort them to do their best to produce the seed.
Sarah, with an alarming twist of mind, at breakfast one day with Abram, observed, Abram, my dear, I've been thinking. And he said, really? I- I- she said, yes, I- I've been thinking about this, um, this promise that God made to us, that he's going to give us seed. Yes, isn't it marvelous, said Abram. Well, so you might think, she said, but I, you know, there's a snag. God has overlooked something. I'm barren. And what is more, he doesn't s- he seems not only to have overlooked it, but to be a little bit obstructionist himself and inconsistent, if I might say so, she said, because the Lord has actually gone and shut up my womb.
So, I mean, there's no chance of the promise being fulfilled. And I've been thinking, Abram dear, she said, that what God really meant was that, I mean, he he gives us wits, doesn't he, and he means us to use them. He didn't mean he was going to give us a son just like that. He meant, of course, well, use your wit too, Abram and Sarah, and and God helps them that help themselves and all such things. And so, uh, I mean, get to it and uh, but we can't, said Abram, as you've just observed. I mean, you're you're barren and I'm I'm old. Oh, but we can, we have the resources, she said. I mean, I've got my handmaid Hagar. She's young and healthy. You take her.
And so I have the faith to believe, said Sarah, that if we do that, uh, we shall come at the promised, uh, seed. So Abram was persuaded and took Hagar. And when Hagar saw that she had conceived, says the ancient story, she began to get uppish, like servants will, out of their station, and despised her mistress. And say he- uh, uh, Sarah wasn't for putting up with it, and dealt with her harshly until she ran away. But the angel of the Lord met her and said, my dear, this is no time for you, carrying a child as you are, to be wandering in this host- hostile, uh, desert.
I'm going to give you a son. I will bless him, but for the time being, I'm going to send you back into Abram's home. And back into Abram's home, Hagar had to go, and eventually Ishmael was born. And according to the story, Ishmael was in Abram's house from Genesis fifteen. as you see, I've written it for you on the board. All through those long years, difficult years they were, because Ishmael was a wild ass of a man, according to the angel, there would have been many difficult scenes in the tent, as Abraham tried to discipline this wild ass.
But anyway, he was in that home until chapter twenty one. the promised seed was actually born. The first paragraph of Genesis twenty one records the birth of Isaac. But then the second paragraph of Genesis twenty one records that upon the birth of Isaac and his weaning, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking and demanded of Abraham that Ishmael and Hagar be cast out. Abraham was loath to do it, but God said, Abraham, yes, it must be done.
So according to Genesis twenty one, Ishmael and Hagar were put into Abram's home until the promised seed actually came, that was Isaac, and immediately upon the coming of the promised seed, Ishmael and and Hagar were cast out. It is that that Paul has in mind when he observes what then is the law. The law was added, he says, verse chapter three verse nineteen, because of transgressions, till the seed should come.
And what, uh, uh, uh, Paul is observing then, that there is an historical analogy. Genesis fifteen, Abram justified by faith and given the promise of the promised seed. Meanwhile, Hagar and Ishmael sent back into Abram's home until the promised seed, that is Isaac, uh, should come, whereupon Ishmael is cast out. Now look what Paul is doing. He is not an allegorizing gentleman. For he starts with the self same historical situation.
He takes us back to Genesis fifteen, to the literal and historical Abraham, how he was justified by faith and not by the law. But he then observes that just like Hagar and Ishmael were put into Abraham's home until the promised seed Isaac was born, so now Abraham being justified by faith, eventually the law was put into and over Israel until Abraham's seed, not merely Isaac, but his seed, which is Christ, should come.
And when the promised seed, which is Christ, should come, and did come, the law was put aside. Do you see the analogy? I repeat, contrary to some people's notions, this is not allegory. What Paul is doing is pointing out to us that this first instance is a prototype of the second. The first flimsy little aircraft that flew across the Atlantic, or anywhere at all, two yards over McLaren's plowed field, hmm, was a very poor contraption made of brown paper, wood, and elastic bands, and a little glue and spit.
But it did, uh, embody certain basic principles of aerodynamics. The trouble was, those flimsy affairs kept breaking down, though they weren't types which are also said to break down, I gather. The big jumbo jet airliner that passes over nearly in the stratosphere is a very different thing, but it flies because it embodies those same basic principles of aerodynamics, aeronautics, but at a tremendously higher level of engineering and expression.
And that is a relationship that you will find very frequently between Old and New Testament. The Passover delivered historical Israel out of Egypt through the blood of a Passover lamb which sheltered them from the wrath of God. So was a principle of redemption worked out in those historical circumstances. It was real history. But if you look at the great sacrifice of Christ, you will see those same principles of deliverance, deliverance from the wrath of God by the shed blood of an innocent victim. You will see that principle embodied and expressed at an infinitely higher level.
When you and I were redeemed from bondage to the prince of this world, by the blood of our Passover lamb, which is Christ. The relationship is one between prototype and full and final and perfect expression. So here, the Hagar and Ishmael put into the home until the promised seed Isaac should come. Historical. This historical too. Starting at the same historical point, but now with a stretched version.
Gentlemen, if you should pont- uh, walk one of these days in New York, you will see an amazing sight. You will see a kind of a limousine affair. The manufacturers first made a short version, and that was expensive enough, you'll see some kind of a Cadillac or something. And then when that was an excess, uh, a success, they produced a stretched version. Goes from here around the corner to the next street, you'll see. So they do with airplanes, don't they? They produce one airplane that flies, and then they bring out a stretched version of it. And so God has done in history. This is a stretched version of that. Abraham justified, promised the seed, but the seed was not only Isaac, but on and through Isaac, eventually to our Lord himself.
And the law was put in between until the promised seed should come. Why do I say all that? Why? Because on that same principle, we may use the story, the historical story of the literal Joshua as a prototype of our blessed Lord. You heard me doing it in the first session. I need just remind you of it. It was God's purpose that Israel should be brought out of Egypt and eventually brought into their inheritance, and Moses started it.
And he brought them to the borders of the Promised Land, but then couldn't bring them in, but what Moses couldn't do, Joshua did. Take that historical sequence and stretch it, gentlemen. You can start again with the promise made to Abraham. This is literal history of the great inheritance promised to the seed. But in between times came the law. Which will say what the law could not do, in that it is weak through the flesh, Christ did.
Do you perceive the analogy between Joshua and the Lord Jesus? To appreciate the force of that analogy, we go back and notice that though Joshua did bring Israel into their physical inheritance and give them rest, he never gave them full and complete rest. There were always enemies remaining. Nor did he ever bring them into the full inheritance that God had in mind when he made his promise to Abraham. And therefore, as the writer to the Hebrews would say, because Joshua didn't finally and fully bring them into the rest.
There remains a rest for the people of God, into which our blessed Lord Jesus brings his people. So you will find, at least for my contribution in these studies, I shall constantly be using the stories in Joshua as a prototype of the way our blessed Lord Jesus has and will bring us into our inheritance. But now we must turn to another basic, uh, task.
Before we proceed with the detailed exposition of the book, we must spend some time studying its structure and then its patterning. And I would like, if you will, uh, tolerate it, actually to get you looking through the pages of Joshua, to see how the historian himself has arranged his material. Joshua. So that I can convince you, if indeed I can, that this, uh, analysis that I have put up behind here on the wall is not some arbitrary analysis thought up by myself, but is the ordering of the material that the historian himself has given us.
Notice, therefore, chapter one begins. After the death of Moses, the Lord said to Joshua, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. It begins dramatically with the command to go and take Israel over Jordan into the land of their inheritance. The chapters following now tell us how Joshua set about doing that.
He prepared the troops in chapter one, he sent spies in chapter two, then in chapter three he gave the, uh, o- orders for the day to the officers of his army and through them to the people. And then came the momentous event, when the ark of the Lord went before the people down into the bed of Jordan, and the waters passed, parted, the waters parted, and Israel went through on dry land. And so the command was fulfilled.
The command of chapter one, go over Jordan and take the people to their inheritance, now brought to its glorious achievement in chapter four. And I ask you to notice how the historian emphasizes the fulfillment of that command and the achievement of this objective. Three times over, he emphasizes it. Look at chapter three verse seventeen. And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground until all the nation were passed clean over Jordan.
So he's got them over. Well, just in case you didn't notice, uh, let's look at chapter four, Verse ten. for the priests which bear the ark stood in the midst of Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Moses to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua. And the people hasted and passed over. And it came to pass when all the people were clean passed over. They did get clean pass over, you know. Well, in case you hadn't noticed it, well, let it be told a third time.
Verse twenty three: For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you until you were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were passed over. From the point of view of telling of the story, you will see, gentlemen, that chapters one to four are one unit. The command issued at the beginning of the chapter one, take them over Jordan into their inheritance, now reaches its fine, its climax and the fulfillment and its achievement.
Three times over, we're told the people passed clean over Jordan. Number one objective fulfilled from the point of view of a story writer telling his story. Notice that when the story is fulfilled, we start up in chapter five, look at verse one: And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites which were beyond Jordan, westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites which were by the sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was their spirit in them anymore, because of the children of Israel.
Notice that remark about the king. Hold it in your head while we just backtrack now to notice that in the first major section, there are three main elements. There is chapter one with the, uh, uh, uh, command to cross Jordan, and Joshua's immediate response to it. Then comes the story of the spies and Rahab in chapter two. Then comes the story in chapters three and four how that they actually did cross Jordan, and the commanded objective was achieved.
Now comes this note about the king. Israel is in the land, and the kings, now their hearts begin to melt because of what's happened. In the rest of chapter five you have preliminary exercises. Joshua had to take knives and circumcise the people. Then remarks are made about the food they ate. They ate old corn of the land and the new corn of the new harvest. And then that mysterious and marvelous episode, when the man with the drawn sword appeared, saying, I'm not for you or against you, I'm come as captain of the Lord's host.
Preliminary exercises. Then in chapter six, the actual taking and destruction of Jericho and the salvation of Rahab. Followed in chapters seven and eight by the story of the destruction of Ai. A longer story now because at first their attempt to take AI met with disaster because of Achan's sin. Until Achan's sin was dealt with, operations were held up.
But when Achan's sin was dealt with, then AI was taken and destroyed. Come therefore to chapter eight and verse thirty. With, uh, Ai destroyed, there is the notice that then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones upon which no man had lift up any iron, and so forth.
And they wrote the law. They pronounced the blessings and the curses, and thus the law was established. What shall we group that with? Does it stand as an independent story in its own right? Well, perhaps it does. Perhaps it's not much to do with what went before, nor much to do with what went after. What shall we bracket it with, if anything? Well, if you care, look at chapter nine and how chapter nine opens, and that may give us a clue. Chapter nine opens, and it came to pass when all the kings which were beyond Jordan, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and on all the shore of the great sea in front of Lebanon, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite heard thereof, that they gathered themselves together to fight with Joshua and with Israel with one accord.
So now you are getting a repeat. One in the first section, one, two, three, and then the objective ach- uh, achieved, recorded by the stones that were set up, recording the achievement of the objective. Now look at this section two. Once more, preliminary exercises. Just like in the first section, there was the command to cross Jordan and the preliminary issuing of orders to the two and a half tribes and others. Then secondly, here in the second section, the destruction of Jericho with the salvation of Rahab.
Incidentally, standing opposite to the promise that was made to Rahab that she would be saved when the armies came to destroy Jericho. Then thirdly, the destruction of Ai and Achan. While we're concerned with this bit about the establishment of the law of God in Canaan, um, where shall we put it? One hint is this, that beginning section two, as we saw, that's chapter five in its early verses, was the remark that the kings heard what had happened, and their hearts melted within them. And now at this point, nine one, uh a very similar formal remark that when the kings heard of it all, they gathered together to fight.
Do you notice how the formal announcements, the formal general announcements are beginning to stake out the different sections of the book? And here again, if we might anticipate, in chapter nine, the first chapter deals with the covenant that the Israelites made with the Gibeonites. Secondly, there comes the account of the attack by the Southern Confederacy. The Southern Confederacy of kings, according to chapter ten, came, was made against not the Israelites, but against the Gibeonites.
For when the kings heard that the Gibeonites had made peace with Israel, the southern kings formed a confederacy and came to attack the Gibeonites. These are the southerners then, and God sent Joshua to deal with them, and God dealt with them himself as well. Then comes chapter eleven, and this is the story of the northern confederacy, how they came against Joshua and Israel. The only people that ever did come to attack Israel itself, actually. It was the Northern Confederacy. The Southern attacked the Gibeonites. So the patterning is beginning to repeat itself.
Three major elements in each section. Here the, uh, first objective commanded Joshua by the Lord and by Moses to bring the Israelites physically into Canaan achieved, and its achievement marked by setting up stone. Now here, after the formal announcement of the king's hearing, three major paragraphs, the preliminary exercise, then the destruction of, uh, Jericho, then the destruction of Ai, and what that made possible, the establishment of the law as Moses had commanded.
The law of God established in that evil country, just as Moses had commanded. Jericho and Ai being wiped out, it freed Israel to go up north through the mountains to, uh, uh, uh, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and do what Moses said, establish there the law. Second objective. Now you say, why bother with this? Because, um, it will affect our interpretation, will it not? If indeed this establishment of the law is the immediate objective of the taking of Jericho and Ai, then when it comes to expounding this, how can you establish the law in Canaan?
We shall find these, uh, that the, uh, uh, events surrounding the, um, preparation and then the actual destruction of Jericho and Ai are relevant to this matter of establishing the law. Here then in into the kings start, here in nine, the kings start, and once more three major, um, three major elements. Covenant with the Gibeonites, the attack of the Southern Confederacy, the attack of the Northern Confederacy. And we say, well, the objective in section one was clear enough, and it was achieved.
And now we have an objective in section two and that was achieved. What about the third section? Was there any particular objective there achieved? Yes, there was indeed. Look at the actual statements of the text. This is chapter eleven, And it is verse twelve. And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and he smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. Verse fourteen: they left not any that breathed.
As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses. So the Lord, um, uh, so Joshua took all that land, we'll see. Verse nineteen: there was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took all in battle, for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, to come against Israel in battle, that he might utterly destroy them, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.
Now notice that. These three objectives were all objectives that God had commanded through Moses. God commanded Joshua, Moses commanded Joshua to take Israel over physically into their inheritance. Joshua did it. Moses commanded, you'll read it in the book of Deuteronomy, that when they got into the land, they should set up these altar, this altar in Mount Ebal and Gerizim, establish the law, pronounce its blessings and its cursings. And Joshua achieved it. And Moses commanded that all kings and authorities throughout the length and breadth of the land should be destroyed.
And chapter eleven is telling us several times over, so we take it in, what Moses commanded and what the Lord commanded through Moses was in this particular fulfilled as well. All rule and authority were put down as the Lord commanded and as Moses commanded Joshua. And with that, you have the, uh, r- uh, list in chapter twelve of kings that, uh, Joshua dealt with. And the land had rest from war.
Look at twelve eleven, uh, twenty three, and the land had rest from war. Three major sections, therefore, dealing with the first phase of the conquest. And in that first phase of the conquest, three major objectives, and the three major objectives achieved, and the land had rest. Chapter thirteen starts the second division in the book, and we shall have to come back to that to see the importance of the fact that the conquest of the land was in two parts, the first phase and the second phase.
That will prove very important when we come to the understanding and the application of these stories, to distinguish between the first phase and the second phase. Look now to the second phase then, chapter thirteen. 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 very much of the land to be possessed. Verse 7, now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh. Why to the nine and a half tribes?
Well, the chapter goes on to explain that Moses had already given the other two and a half tribes their inheritance east of Jordan. What remained for Joshua to do was to give the other nine and a half tribes their inheritance west of Jordan. And so, in the first paragraph now of thirteen and onwards, you have the story of how the inheritance was assigned by Moses to the two and a half tribes, and how they went and entered into it. And then comes the story how Judah was given his inheritance, you'll say.
Uh, this we begin in, uh, chapter, uh, fourteen onwards, and verse six of that chapter in particular. Then the children of Judah drew nigh unto Joshua in Gilgal, and Joshua proceeded to give the Judahites their inheritance. And the story goes on through chapter fourteen, through chapter fifteen, and right to the end of chapter fifteen. Chapter sixteen begins, and the lot for the children of Joseph went out from Jordan at Jericho.
So now here in section four, the inheritance assigned to the two and a half tribes. Moses had done that. East of Jordan. Second major part, inheritance assigned to Judah. Third major part, inheritance assigned to Joseph. But before the text goes on to tell you about the inheritance that was assigned to the other tribe, look at the detail that is given us in chapter eighteen verse one. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and there set up the tent of meeting, and the land was subdued before them.
Notice that it is highly significant. You've only got the tribes, uh, the two and a half tribes, the Judahites and the Josephites settled, when the historian interrupts to tell you that at this point, another enormous objective was achieved. Now they had got sufficient of the land under their control that they could actually set up the tent of meeting in this place called Shiloh. Hitherto, the tent of meeting had been in the camp, closely guarded by the Levites and then by the soldiers, armed to the teeth.
Anywhere the army went, the camp went, the the tent of meeting went, or if it remained behind, it had to be protected by a special squad of soldiers. Now the land was so far pacified and inherited that you could set up the tent of meeting in Shiloh. It is recorded as a very significant thing, and of course it was a very significant thing. One of the great objectives achieved was a marvelous objective, not only establishing the law, but actually setting up the tent of meeting. So then I've listed it here as objective achieved, tent of meeting set up in Shiloh.
You will notice that the next section deals with the divisioning of the land between the remaining tribes. That was done in a different way from what it was with Judah and Joseph. As you will read in chapter eighteen verse three, Joshua said unto the children of I- uh, of, of Israel, how long are you slack to go in to possess the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you? Appoint for you three men for each tribe, and I will send them, and they shall arise and walk through the land and describe it according to their inheritance, and they shall come unto me, and they shall divide it into seven portions.
So this time, the land was first surveyed, the details written in a book. They came back to Joshua before the tent of meeting, and there they cast lots for it, and the seven tribes were given their particular inheritance. But then, when we have been told that what their inheritance was, in chapter, uh, uh, nineteen you have the formal observation at uh verse fifty one, they made an end of dividing the land. There follows in chapter twenty that they were required out of their various inheritances to provide cities of refuge for the manslayers, the accidental homicides.
That's chapter um twenty. Chapter twenty one tells us that other cities had to be set aside by the tribes out of their inheritance. This time the inheritance, uh, uh, had to give the cities for the Levites. And what did that achieve? Well, if here the great objective that was achieved was the tent of meeting set up in Shiloh, you will see at once that the provision of cities for the Levites achieved the maintenance of God's service within that tabernacle.
No use setting up a tabernacle, is there? Unless you've got Levites to carry on the service of it. And how will you have Levites carrying on the service, uh, if you can't support them? The other objective achieved by this distribution and this was the provision of provision of cities of refuge for the salvation of accidental homicides, and that the inheritance should not be polluted with the blood of innocent victims slain. That leaves, gentlemen, just three stories for the remainder of the book.
Joshua's, uh, dismissal of the two and a half tribes to their inheritance, followed by Joshua's first address to Israel's leaders, followed by Joshua's third address, second address to the leaders in the nation. But you see, in these last two sections, it's not an objective actually achieved, but an objective to be achieved. And so at last it was here. Joshua raised a stone that it might be a witness to them of their commitment, that God helping them according to their ability, they would maintain the service of Jehovah uninterrupted.
That was the ultimate objective that was put before them and witnessed by the stone. Now I've exhausted your patience, I leave off, but what I've been trying to do is to show how the writer himself has arranged his material. We shall have to come back and study it just a little bit more later on, but I shall take leave to do that in our, uh, in my third session. But I cease now and make way for your question time.
