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Just before we begin, one small announcement. Whatever rough houses are developed here this evening in this school, I'd like you to know I'm not the headmaster. We are currently studying the book of Jo- Jo- Joshua, and we began on our last session together. Some of you are here for the first time, so let me briefly recap what we attempted to do then and what our presuppositions of our study is. We are studying Joshua as a book of the Old Testament, believing it is the inspired word of God.
We, of course, are not oblivious to the fact that, uh, this word of God ought to have effect upon ourselves, ought to change us, and those of you who have such responsibilities to, um, uh, be the subject of eventual sermons. While that is so, we are, uh, coming to it not in the first instance looking to how we may apply it practically, but trying to understand the book as it stands, as the word of God, in the conviction that God has not written any part of his word, uh, uh, uh, and made a mistake and written something that isn't practical.
Therefore, trusting that this does have the eventual practical application, we are trying to study the book as it stands, not simply to make sermons out of it here and there, but in the conviction that the book is God's own sermon, and that our God means every word, so to speak, and knows how to teach and to preach himself. And if this is God's sermon, then we apply ourselves in the first instance to the book as it stands and try to see what it means, uh, so that then we may be eventually guided to how it should be applied. To that end, we thought of it first in its, uh, context in the whole of the Old Testament, historically.
And we began by remembering the covenant God made with Abraham, Genesis fifteen, that he would give Abraham and his seed the land of Canaan for their inheritance. He would not give them that land at once. Their see, his seed was to be a stranger for a while in the land, and then his family clan would go down to Egypt, and there would be for four hundred years or so, and eventually afflicted. Then he would bring them out, and he would bring them back, uh, to this land and give it to them for an inheritance. And we observed that in the course of the ongoing history of the Old Testament, that that is what happened.
Uh, after Isaac and Jacob, uh, Joseph was sold to Egypt. The, uh, whole family clan eventually decamped to Egypt. Their family developed into a virtually a nation there and was there for several hundred years. Then came the oppressing Pharaohs, and God sent Moses to deliver his people out of Egypt, which he did via the Passover and the Red Sea and the building of the tabernacle, and so forth and so on, till eventually the nation, having been delivered out of Egypt, came to the borders of their promised inheritance. But at that point, Moses was not allowed to take them into their inheritance, quite apart from the difficulty of the tribes themselves, but even the second generation that were due to go into the land, Moses was not able to take them in, and that because of his failure in that he rebelled against the Lord with Aaron on a certain occasion in the wilderness.
At that dramatic point, we therefore observed that the great, uh, purpose and plan of God to give Israel this land as their inheritance would have fallen down completely in the end if it had depended upon Moses. The marvelous gospel story of the book of Joshua is that what Moses couldn't do, that Joshua did. Joshua, therefore, the captain of Israel's salvation, was the one given them by God to take them into their inheritance, thus fulfilling the immediate program of God for his people. Now, uh, that, uh, put the book in its, uh, uh, biblical and historical setting, and we notice, therefore, uh, uh, that it was a question of bringing Israel into the promised inheritance.
We noticed that, uh, that bringing Israel into their promised inheritance, uh, uh, concurred with another situation of which God had forewarned Moses. God, uh, forewarned Abraham. God, speaking to Abraham, said, your nation will be, uh, in this foreign land, uh, for four hundred or so years and will be mightily oppressed. After that, I'll bring you out and bring you into Canaan. Not yet, though, because the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. So the timing of the bringing of Israel into their inheritance wa- was affected by this question of God's judgments that God foresaw would one day fall upon the Canaanites.
Now, that is a thing that we do well to remember when we come to understand what is happening in the book, and also when we come to apply its lessons to ourselves. From time to time, we shall need to recur to that observation, that the entry into the inheritance coincided with God's judgments on that sinful, evil, and unrepentant civilization, uh, do see. And in that, uh, in that, uh, uh, connection, God didn't say, take Israel to a nice oasis, five-star oasis like Kadesh Barnea, and say, now look, gentlemen, um, I'm going to leave you here for the next ten years or so.
Uh, enjoy yourselves, a very pleasant oasis, you'll find plenty to do, and uh, it'll be an easy time for you. I've just got to go ahead to Canaan and do a job of disinfecting the land of this evil civilization, and when I've disinfected it and got rid of all the Canaanites, I'll come back for you and bring you in. God didn't do that. When God executed his judgments upon that evil civilization in Canaan, he made Israel join with him. That also is a thing, as I say, that we shall have to consider w- when we try to understand what is happening here, and secondly, at what level or levels we shall apply the lesson of the book of Joshua to our own day and age, and perhaps also to the future that lies ahead.
That simple observation, uh, nonetheless, that the major theme of of Jo- the book of Joshua is bringing Israel into their inheritance, raised in our mind a very elementary question. And, uh, if you won't be offended by my repeating it, uh, let me tell you who were not here last week, that raised the question, uh, what the meaning, uh, for us is in New Testament times of this concept of inheritance. For this concept of inheritance that begins in Genesis and come to- comes to full flowering in the book of Joshua is a theme that, of course, uh, develops throughout the Old Testament.
By the time you come to the Psalms, the psalmist is already using the idea of inheritance as a metaphor. Psalm sixteen, the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. The lines meaning the surveyor's lines, as the inheritance was surveyed out and given to the tribes, and you can imagine the situation where Joshua standing there with Eleazar, and each tribe looking on to see what bit they're going to get, and uh, uh, his nibs, uh, you know, the elbow, he gets a nice beautiful green patch there, and the other chap's looking, and how next, and how many more of those before we come to the old rocky part. And if it so happened that the surveyors got and and surveyed a nice bit of rock with very little earth on it and gave it to you, your godly grace was, uh, tested somewhat as to whether you felt like at that stage writing a psalm full of poetry and saying the lines have fallen to me in very pleasant places when Jude had got a spectacular, luscious bit of ground, you see.
Now, you see the point, don't you? The, the idea of inheritance is already in the Psalms being used by the poets as not really a, a physical thing, but beyond it to the inheritance portion that God has given to the psalmist. And when you come to the book of Daniel, who spent his life outside the land in, in Gentile situations, and now as a very elderly man was being given a vision of the future, the almost the last words of the prophetic angel to Daniel in the Book of Daniel in chapter twelve is, go thy way, for thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
That also is a word connected with the parceling out of the land, that people got their lots. The idea of inheritance in the Old Testament, of course, uh, uh, is the one of the crucial ideas in the book of Ruth. The situation where, as you know, this family headed by Elimelech and his generation had their inheritance, had their lot, three acres and a cow or whatever it was, do you see? But famine intervening, uh, uh, Elimelech, he found he couldn't make a go of it, and he decamped to Moab with his wife and two daughters, and you know the, or two sons, and the sons married Moabite girls, and this, that, and the other happened.
And the whole question of that story now is the grief of the widow Naomi, who not only lost her husband and her two sons, but was unable herself to manage the inheritance. And horror of horrors, the things that she feared most of all is that the name of her dead husband would die out from his inheritance. Keeping the name on the inheritance was for a Jew of the time an exceedingly important thing. Raises interesting questions, of course, whether Gentiles have their inheritance. And that's a question, uh, uh, the answer to which you'll give me, uh, rather than me giving you.
Eh, you'll see. Uh, you'll remember the lovely story of Ahab and Naboth. That sinner Ahab was bad enough left to himself that when he got Jezebel at his elbow, he was ten times worse. You'll see. And having taken up, like royalty do, can't think of what next to do, so take up some charity scheme or other, or horse racing or polo or whatever you may like, Ahab, he took to gardening in a big way. And it so happened that Naboth Vineyard was, uh, unfortunately located just where A- Ahab wanted to develop a choice bit of his vineyard, you see. So he went along to his chap and said, pray sell me your vineyard.
And he said, no, he said, don't talk silly. Why you can't, no, you can't say no to me. Pay you whatever you like. I'm not interested in money. This is my family's God-given inheritance. I wouldn't sell it for millions. Well, he ended up dead over that, who Jezebel's diplomacy, as it's so called. Uh, you'll see. But here are interesting ideas running through Old Testament based on this notion of inheritance that was given to Israel, and how the more godly in Israel regarded it as a very sacred thing, not to be bartered for anything if they could help.
Therefore, they had their rules that if some man fell on poverty and couldn't manage his estate, he could sell it, but then, uh, his next of kin, if he had the money, had the right of redemption and the duty of redemption to buy it back so that the inheritance did not forever fall out of the family. So here are very big ideas in Old Testament. What I put to the assembled throng on the last occasion is that when they, uh, reassembled here, they were going to tell me briefly, what does the New Testament mean when it talks about our inheritance? That it does so, just let me remind you, it does so very frequently, of course, in Romans, uh, chapter four and, uh, the whole of Galatians nearly, but particularly chapter three and four.
and Ephesians marvels that we are co-heirs with the saints of God and, uh, so forth and so on. Eh, uh, uh, and uh, Peter talks about uh, uh, our being begotten again unto a lively hope, unto a inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, and all such things. So I cease at this point, gentlemen, and there are those among you who are anxious to talk at this stage and to help us over this, uh, initial thing that we shall have some concept in our heads about what our Christian inheritance is. The importance of that will be that as we learn lessons from Joshua and what inheritance meant at that stage and what Joshua had to do to bring the people of God into their inheritance, and then when we come to the second part of the book, how the people of God themselves, uh, gra- grasped hold of their inheritance and developed it.
As we think of that, we shall say, well, now, has it any lessons to us? We have an inheritance, if only we could think what it was, uh, do you see? We have an inheritance, and there might be hints here and there for us from this book, you see. So now don't all speak at once, because that's rude. If you were knocked on the head with a brick and told to speak on pain of death, what do you mean by your Christian inheritance, what would you say? Mm-hmm. Some of you are very soon going to die. Start talking. Is it, uh, God himself?
God himself? Yeah. That's a good idea. Can you embroider that a bit? Well, I'm thinking about something, uh, this chap called Gooding said at one time in the past. Horribly unreliable, not to, not to be quoted in. Um, it was Exodus nineteen four, I think, uh, where it says, uh, where the Lord God speaks to the people and he says, you've seen what I've done to Pharaoh, how I've borne you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself. Mm-hmm. Obviously, we're heading to the promised land, but he had to redirect their thinking and say, you know, let's get it clear. Mm-hmm. I'm what you should.
Yes. Uh, uh, one of the psalmists before said, talking of these things says, the Lord is the portion of my cup. And con- What the Lord said to Abraham, I, um, am my shield and my Sing great reward, yes. Yes, and the other way, the converse is true, the Lord's portion is his people. Yeah. And Ephesians, echoing that term, in its first major prayer, asked for enlightenment, the eyes of our hearts being enlightened, that we might know what is the riches of the glory of God's inheritance. So, yes.
Say something in Old Testament about us, um, someone, someone praying somewhere, and he prays to God to make us thy inheritance. Yes, that is so. That sounds like Old Testament to me, but yes, I believe I do remember the phrase. I would like you to do, gentlemen, uh, to say, uh, don't be afraid to say the obvious, but I told them last time here, I was attempting to talk on the book of Joshua in Egypt in the summer, you see, and uh, uh, they're very kind and said it was interesting. But the question they had is, but what is our inheritance? And I said, well, it's incorruptible and undefiled and it fades not away. And they said, well, obviously, thank the Lord for that, but then that it won't fade away is marvelous, but what is it anyway?
You'll see. So what should I have said to that question to start with? Would it be what's sometimes loosely called the Christian life, otherwise known as, uh, living in the spirit, eternal life, or, uh, the kingdom of God? And here now. Yeah. Our present inheritance. Yes. Mm-hmm. Uh, n- now, now talking to husbands and wives, uh, uh, Peter says you should treat each other properly as heirs of, inheritors of eternal life, of the grace of eternal life. Our present inheritance. Everybody agreed that our i- inheritance is present then.
Mm-hmm. No. No. Opposition over here. Is this Labour or Conservative? Side of the house. Your, your pardon? Democrat. Um, Peter, it's reserved and it's kept for us. There must be a sense in which we're going to enter into the fullness of it anyway. I see then. So it's future. In a sense, yes. And present. It says it's reserved in heaven, didn't it? Reserved in heaven. This, yes, that was what that passage says. Both. Both. Both? Cool, man's greedy. Both? But, uh...
It must be. God's economy, there is no Yes. past, present, or future. Oh, it's eternal. Mm-hmm. I see. Perhaps. Yeah. Does it not have to be both? If you're, you are being kept for it by the grace of God, there is an assurance that, uh, that you're going to receive it, and also you begin something of the enjoyment of that inheritance by the presence of the Spirit in your personality. So now? Yes, now. Yes. And then. Yes. So if, uh, you listen to the Lord's words, uh, when the young ruler said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
You would say to yourself, but you can have eternal life now, old chap, if you bow to the conditions. Uh. And inherit it now. Yeah, the, the quality now and the quantity in the future. Oh, yes. Well, gentlemen, what do you think? There's another, um, side, uh, it seems to me as well, and that is that we don't entirely lose sight of the, the, the physical and material when we come to the New Testament. Um, Romans four talks about the promise to Abraham and extends it from the territory we're looking at in Joshua to being the whole world.
Ah. The meek shall inherit the earth. Um, so there, there is a physical material, dare I say, side. So now we can be too quick to spiritualize it all the way. I know that. That was meant to be helpful, Danny. On the other hand, uh, I, I must say I have, I have generally regarded what God has in store for me as more to do with what he will make me to be, or what he is already starting perhaps to make me. This is the idea of the, the life that starts now and goes on through. In other words, um, we do not, um, yet know what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.
Uh, and the, the New Jerusalem, as it's described, is itself, uh, shining with the glory of God. So our inheritance. It seems much to be a possession that you, that you go on and you say, now that's ours, but it's what, it's what God makes me in his glorious Mm-hmm. If I were to take an analogy and change the word inheritance to heredity, Yes. and you would say, uh, uh, uh, these gentlemen sitting here, each one has his own portion. I'm not sure they're all satisfied with it, but, um, uh, to see, they look reasonable inheritances to me, if you see what I mean.
But, uh, our inheritance is ourselves. What we inherit. The portion that God has given us physically, through our genes, through our talents, through our energies. And that's glorified. And then our character glorified, yes. More than our external possessions. Yeah, it's more what God had in mind when he first Mm. gave mankind. Mm. What was the ultimate goal? What did he intend us to be? I see, yes. Hold on to that, dig your toes in there. And what would you say if I said to you, uh, does Christ have an inheritance? The bride.
Well, when it is said in Romans eight that we're heirs of God and joint heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ, what does he inherit? What? Us? Ah, I see. All things, it says, isn't it? Heir of all things. Heir of all things. Pardon? Yeah. I think about Daniel handing over to the Son of Man. The meek shall inherit. Gentlemen, I don't want to delay us tonight because the, the hour goes on ahead, doesn't it?
But who knows? Well, perhaps, but perhaps we all know, uh, uh, and uh, haven't not recently thought about it, uh, perhaps we could, uh, sharpen our categories a bit in our thinking, couldn't we? Because it is a major theological term in the New Testament, is it not? Major theological thing. The Egyptians certainly brought me up with a pause, you see, I was wa- waxing eloquent at that point, thing describing this all that fades not away. They asked the simple question, but what is it that doesn't fade away, you see? You tell him he knows. Now somebody looking for a pizza delivery.
Yes, yes. Righto, well then, uh, uh, uh, that in itself, of course, is a, is a, is a major study of a theological term in the New Testament, has many facets and many levels of meaning, doesn't it? Uh, just to remind you of what has been an argument in some circles in times past when people have tried to apply the book of Joshua to Christian experience. Some have said it, uh, well, entering your inheritance is going to heaven, and they have quoted Peter, the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, fades not away, reserved in heaven for us, you see. And others have said very learnedly, looking through their spectacles, no, it can't be that, because when Joshua got the people into their inheritance, they had a lot of fighting to do.
And when we go and get home to heaven, we shan't have any fighting to do. Uh, you see, some of us will miss it. Uh, uh, but you see, uh, what, uh, therefore, uh, the better analogy would be to take, uh, Joshua's entry into the inheritance, uh, uh, uh, with what Paul is talking of in Ephesians. We are seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, and yet, according to chapter six, there is warfare to be done in the heavenly. And, uh, I'm, like our friend here, very greedy. I want to have both, do you see?
It is perhaps a little bit more, uh, complicated than that, and thank God, uh, if the inheritance were very simple, it would lose its attraction, wouldn't it? I hope it is as complicated as God can make it. It will be rich then, won't it, Warren? Mm-hmm. So that's one great level, and having observed that, therefore, the very big, uh, contours in which we studied this book, then we came down to looking at the book itself, you'll see. And we decided to try and get our fingers around the contents of the book, not just to make a list of contents for content's sake, but to see what goes with what, to follow the thought flow, to watch for the minor and major climaxes through the book, do you see?
Uh, we notice that the first twelve chapters came- come to their end with a long list of the, um, cities and the kings that Joshua destroyed. The end of chapter eleven tells us that then the land had rest from war. With that long list that comes in, uh, you get a division of the book into two parts for the next very chapter. thirteen, tells you now Joshua was old and called Israel and said, there's much land to be possessed even after I've gone, and this is what you have to do now that I'm gone, you'll see, and how the land was actually distributed, and so forth and so on. So here are two major parts.
This is how the land was conquered. This is how it was distributed. They are two quite separate operations historically, though doubtless some of it overlapped. So we took the first half and began to to to uh try and follow the thought flow, uh uh what major stories are there, what goes with what? Where does one story begin, and where does it end? The major thought flow. And on that, we noticed that the very first words to Joshua, Moses is dead, now get up, Joshua, and cross Jordan and take the people with you. The command actually to enter, to get their feet physically across Jordan into their inheritance.
And that being the story here, we ask, well, had Rahab, the next story, anything to do with that? Well, obviously, superficially even. Yes, because Joshua sent spies out, uh, before he committed his troops to cross that river that was now in flood. That was a military device. They weren't looking to see what kind of a land it was. They knew that from the spies that had gone in forty years before. Now two spies just were sent in, not to reconnoiter the whole land, but to give Joshua a report on the psychological state of the people in Jericho. Was the king preparing to attack them if they, when they tried to cross Jordan, and such like things?
And you see that from the report of the spies, uh, when they come back, sa- saying that there are great panic in the city and they're fortifying it, and the Jericho is straightly shot up as for a siege. That was important military information. Of course, there's far more, uh, to the story of Rahab than that, but even superficially, you see the flow of the thing. They've got to, uh, go over Jordan. There are certain preparations and exhortations to be done here. Now the spies are sent out to reconnoiter Jericho itself, and now comes the crossing of Jordan, told in three major parts, and we shall come to that, uh, uh, in, uh, presently, told there are three major descriptions of the crossing of Jordan, Jordan, and we noticed that, uh, the thing that was repeated was that they did it as Moses commanded.
Twice, if not three times over, the phrase occurs, it was done as Moses commanded. And so they got across. And the first, uh, uh, great story, therefore, comes to its climax. They actually got across, and everything was done as Moses commanded. And with them now safely across, we notice that chapter five tells, begins by saying, when all the kings, and it mentions a whole list of them, heard of what had happened, you'll see? They, uh, became, uh, panic stricken, do you see? The attack upon Jericho doesn't start at once.
It has a chapter of preliminaries, as I've used as vague a term as I can get to describe these preliminaries. The circumcision of those that had not been circumcised in the wilderness, the keeping of the Passover, uh, the cessation of the manna and eating the old corn of the land at Passover time, and then the tremendous vision of the, uh, captain of the Lord's hosts that had come to control the execution of the judgments of God. So that when Joshua saw him and said, uh, are you for us as- or against us, he said neither. When God rises up to judge, he is absolutely impartial.
He's not for one or another. And this was the captain of the Lord's host, come to lead the armies of Israel in the execution of the judgments of God. The importance of those preliminaries, therefore, are self-evident, even if we don't understand them, they're going to be very important. Now here comes the actual destruction of Jericho. And thirdly, the assault upon Ai. That turns out, however, to be a long story, much more complicated than the capture of Jericho, because the first time they assaulted the city, they were repulsed, and it was discovered that was because of Achan's sin.
And this is, however, not a separate story from the Jericho one, because the sin was that Achan had taken the gold and the silver and the Babylonian garment in defiance of the curse that God had pronounced upon the city. And in spite of the strict command that they were not to touch anything, if they did, they would bring the whole nation under a curse themselves. And he did that nonetheless, and so here he had to be dealt with, and Israel had to clear themselves of the curse before they could find victory in Ai. That being done, they went up and sacked Ai, and we said to ourselves, well, now they've sacked Ai. Uh, so is that the climax?
We then found that there were some verses at the end, six verses indeed, and they announced not the attack on the next city in the list, but they announced another one of these things that fulfilled what Moses had commanded. He commanded it explicit in Deuteronomy that when they got into the land, they would go to go up through the land to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, there build an altar, and there write out the law, there assemble the people, pronounce the blessings of the Lord, and the people were to say amen. And the curses, and the people were to say amen. That great ceremony that happened, uh, you'll see it at those two mountains, as Moses commanded.
We said, oh, that's very interesting to ourselves. This is as Moses commanded, and this is how they fulfilled Moses' command about crossing Jordan, twice to three times mentioned. This ends with another great objective that Moses had commanded, that they now achieved. When that, uh, event bit is finished, you'll see the gate, the Jericho, the chapter of Jericho and the chapter of Ai opened the gate to go and do that bit and fulfill it before they went to any other cities. Now we come to a different story, and the whole story of the Gibeonites, the people that, um, Moses had said they should be destroyed because they lived near at hand and they weren't a city of a far off, and they came and deceived the Israelites and made out they were came from a far off, and the, uh, the Israelites, Joshua indeed made a covenant with them and discovered too late that they came from just around the corner.
They weren't from a far off, they were from near at. Yet they made a covenant that they couldn't break, and so the Gibeonites, uh, were allowed to live on under the terms that Moses had imposed. They became servants to Israelites and servants to the altar. And the next story runs on, you can't break it, because when the kings of the south heard that Gibeon had made peace with Israel, they came to attack the Gibeonites, not Israel. They came to attack the Gibeonites, and the Gibeonites sent an urgent message to Joshua, come quickly and save us. And Joshua, at God's command, brought the army on a, on a forced march and, uh, uh, dealt with the enemy, defeated them.
This is the story of the defeat and the salvation, the saving of the Gibeonites. You'll see. And the, uh, that opened the way to a whole lot of cities in the south that Joshua then, uh, destroyed along with their kings. The Southern Confederacy ver- ver- virtually annihilated. Then, uh, the chapters eleven and twelve deal with the Northern Confederacy. When they he- heard what was happening down the south, they gathered together and came to attack Joshua himself and his armies. The first lot of enemy, according to the book of Joshua, that actually came to attack Israel.
This was the northern confederacy, and uh, they were dealt with, and then Joshua map m- mopped up the rest of the country, much of it in the south and elsewhere, the remaining country and all the kings, and a list of the kings taken, and the, uh, first major climax, the land had rest from war, even though you're going to read of war in the next section, but in one sense the land had rest from war here. And of course, that is a major climax in the book. Then comes the list, just a list of s- names of kings and cities that Joshua destroyed. Yeah? So, as you see here, we decided that there were, uh, three major objectives in this first half: crossing of Jordan, the establishment of the law of God in Canaan, uh, the, uh, elimination of all the kings, all rule and authority, so that finally the land would have rest.
Three major objectives, and once more, when you come to this objective here, four times over, as Moses commanded, as Moses commanded, as Moses commanded, as Moses commanded, Joshua destroyed all the kings. That pattern, as Moses commanded, coming at the end of these three major sections of the book, of course, is an exceedingly significant thing. As that we must notice when we're expounding the various sections. It was doing what Moses commanded, what God commanded through Moses. And, uh, some of us, uh, the more fanciful kind, when they heard that on the last occasion, were tempted to think of a verse in the New Testament.
What Moses could not do, Joshua did. And then with eyes on Galatians, we said to you now, according to Paul, Moses couldn't bring you into your inheritance, whatever that inheritance is, could he now? But Christ has, and does, and will. Hmm. And while Moses couldn't do it, and he was weak through the flesh, according to Paul in Romans eight, that Christ has done, that the righteousness of the law, the righteous demand of the law, should be fulfilled in us.
So you'll notice that, uh, that pattern that is developing through this first half of Joshua. Moses couldn't do it, God provided Joshua to do it, to bring God's people into their inheritance. That doesn't mean that they should now say goodbye to Moses, it's no use. They had to achieve the objectives that Moses had, uh, set. Yeah? If that is so, gentlemen, I want now to move on tonight, and with your help, uh, to begin to examine a little bit more closely this first big objective here. Why I do that is because you've often heard it preached, and doubtless you've preached it yourself, I suspect, you'll see the crossing of Jordan and what it means.
So let's do that. It's one of the major objectives, and uh, if in our reading of the book we can get these major objectives in our mind, not only what happened then, but the lesson they have for us nowadays, that will be a very big thing in the book. You'll see. Source of many sermons, if we're looking for sermons. But, uh, uh, uh, so then, with these fact that there are three and not one, the major objectives are three at least. We can't just say, and the great objective was to bring them into their inheritance, can we? We've got to do a little bit of thinking, because now it's going to be the differences between them that are more significant than the similarities, yes?
God sometimes repeats the same thing word for word. When he observes that we're very slow on the uptake, he'll repeat the thing three times. He doesn't always waste a lot of space doing that. There are three major objectives. The big thing is, uh, will be one of the more important things is how do they differ? What's the difference between the three major objectives, and what are they? Now we've noticed, to help us on our way, that there are not only three major objectives, there are 3 major ob- obstacles. To actually get the people into their inheritance, and you can't enjoy the inheritance unless you're in it, can you? What ho? Had to get them in first.
And that was meant getting them across Jordan, but at Jordan in flood. That was a very dangerous thing, very serious barrier to a commander with an army of foot soldiers opposite the city that was armed to the teeth. So here was the big obstacle. The obstacle to getting the law established in the shadow of Mount Skoritsim and Ibal. Well, here were the two cities that are quoted as examples of the obstacles, unless being in the floodplain of Jordan, unless they got rid of Jericho and Ai, they couldn't have proceeded north, do you see, and left their women in the camp and just proceeded north.
The Jerichos might have come out of their city in the meantime, you see. So these cities had to be got rid of before they could achieve this. Yeah. You'll see how the thought flow is going to de- to develop. Righty ho, we have to keep that in mind. Now we notice that there are three major miracles. The miracle here is the waters of Jordan, uh, standing still to make a passage for the Israelites to go through on the dry ground. The miracle here is the falling down of the walls of Jericho. The miracle, miracles here is, first of all, the raining of s- very mighty great stones down from heaven upon the f- fleeing enemy, and then the miracle of the standing still of the sun and the moon.
Why just those three miracles? Why not miracles all the way? Every turn of the road. Be fun, wouldn't it? Mm-hmm. You had miracles every day, morning, noon, and night, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They'd almost cease to be miracles, wouldn't they? Be ordinary things. But that raises an interesting point. Because when they came to get the inheritance, Israel had to fight, and that was when they fought in obedience to God. They were helped by God. But a big distinction is made between that, on the one hand, and these miracles, which Israel could not have done anyway.
Fight as hard as they like, they couldn't have done it. And in each, there is one set of miracles. We shall want to know how they cohere. Yeah? Why didn't God rain stones out of heaven on Jericho City and bash it down? Israelites wouldn't have had to fought then, would they? Sizeable enough meteor coming down from aloft on the top of Jericho might have blotted it out in one go, might they not? Selective missile. So, you'll see, and as far as the military operations go, you'll notice how they are all different.
This was getting on across Jordan was a job for the sappers in the army, wasn't it? Engineers. If God hadn't been opposed with a miracle. Here it was, how did you get into a city with mighty great thick walls? With AI, what? Here they took the ark around seven days. It's interesting, uh, tactic. Why didn't they take the ark around AI? Worked there, why didn't it work here? Even at the l- low level of military tactics, why did God sometimes do a miracle and not others? And how will you account for the variety of the tactics involved, even at the military level?
And then it will have its meaning at the, the spiritual level, won't it? Here was a question of, um, first of all, a forced march overnight, bringing Joshua against the enemy when they didn't expect it. And then as the enemy were fleeing, God rained down stones from heaven. This was a mopping up operation. Not enough to beat the enemy if the majority of them managed to run off and live to fight another day. So this is a mopping up operation in military terms, and that is why Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, not to win the victory in the fight.
The fight was already a battle, was already over. It was the mopping up. So even from a military point of view, these are different things, aren't they? I mentioned that so that we don't make too rash, uh, a generalization when we come, say, to this first one or any one of them. We must bear in mind the differences. That said, of course, now this one is going to be easy, isn't it? They crossed the Jordan. What is the significance of crossing the Jordan? What is the nature of the miracle that God did?
And if you are afraid of being fanciful in your application, start with the history. Why that miracle then? And what do you normally say, gentlemen, when you preach? Okay. Uh, something very simple, and that is the obvious.
The, these obstacles in this sec- second section here, Jericho and then AI, were man-made obstacles, weren't they? You were fighting against the enemy. Not here. The Jerichoites were behind their walls and their barred gates, strictly shut up. It was a natural barrier, something nature had put there. And so the Jerichoites were quite content to say, well, they not come across that Jordan very easily anyway.
And if they do, our city is barricaded. So there were two things that they were relying on. Now, how Israel dealt with the man-made fortifications of Jericho, that's the second section. This isn't. It's how Israel faced the barrier put there by nature. Well, that's a, sorry for that kindergarten stuff. That's just reading it at the superficial level, yes. The new birth?
You mean, uh, here also, uh, if you want to enter your inheritance, you cannot do it apart from the miracle that's more than nature. You're born physically, that won't get you into your inheritance. You must, um, be born spiritually. Hold on to that insight. We are by nature in trouble anyway. Yes, yes. So. How does the actual miracle, the way what God used to get them across? Something that God did almost entirely on his own.
Yes. In other words, he didn't say swim hard and I'll give you powers and support you as you swim. Well, soldiers have had to do that, haven't they? They didn't have any gunpowder to get wet, but um, soldiers have had to do it. God didn't say that. Something that God did. This is a miracle, not him giving them some strength, an actual interposition in. Might be an idea then if, uh, I think some of you are a little jealous of your sermons.
There's nothing copyright, gentlemen, uh, you have to remember that. If you come out with a brilliant idea, uh, of a sermon, and then you find that before you had time to preach it, some other wretch who's been at this school has gone and preached it. Well, that's the penalty of attending here. Um. Let's, um, look at the actual context for a moment. Let's come to chapter two and what Rahab had seen. Verse eight, chapter two: And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof, and she said unto the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you.
You see, and how you dealt with the kings on the, uh, the other side, you see. As soon as we heard it, verse eleven, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Here's a story of a woman's conversion from paganism. This is gospel at that level. She's coming to discover who the God of Israel is, as distinct from all the idols of the surrounding nation and of Jericho.
He's the God that dried up the Red Sea. He's the God, therefore, not only of heaven, but of earth. And people come to see that they're halfway to getting converted, aren't they? There's that famous description of conversion in one Thessalonians one ten. You turn to God from idols, to serve the living and the true God. And to, incidentally, to wait for his son from heaven. Even Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath. Rahab got saved. She believed he had discovered the true God of the universe, God in heaven above and on earth beneath.
Nothing would keep him out of Canaan if he decided to come in, river or no river. There was no natural barrier, no barrier in nature that keep- would keep God out. Decided to come in. Israel had been faced with the Red Sea. God disposed of that. And he's coming in. Nature cannot give him any obstacle, nor can human barricades. She got converted. And when the spies left her, she put at their command the old, uh, uh, red sash in the, in the, in the window, and as she waited and looked over the battlements, because she had a house on the wall with the window going outside, you see.
Waited for the armies of God to come. She knew what they were coming for. They were coming to destroy Jericho, with Joshua at the head of them. And she turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for Joshua, com- commander of the hosts of the Lord, to come and execute the judgments of God on that city and those nations. And when he came, according to the oath that had been sworn to her in the name of God, when he came to destroy the city, he would save her, Joshua, her deliverer, from the coming wrath.
And her conversion, this is a genuine story. She's not a, she's not a cardboard character out of some, uh, historical comic or something. She actually got converted. She turned from her paganism to the living God. If you look at the, uh, story of the actual crossing, it's in three bits. Let me try and convince you of that. You'll say, uh, but chapter three, Joshua rises up in the morning. The officers went through the camp after the three days. They took up their position, verse one, lodged there before they passed over, you see.
The officers went through the camp, they commanded the people, when you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the priests, the Levites bearing it, then shall you remove from your places and go after it, but leave a space. Here the marshal of the forces, the marshals are going out to marshal the people. Their, their, their cue to start moving is when they see the priest with the ark. But they are not to crowd it, they are to, to, to stand back a, a distance so that there shall always be a space, and they can begin to see the ark, to see where it is doing and what is going, right ho. Uh, there should be a space. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore.
This is something quite going to be supernatural. And Joshua said to the people, sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. If you were preaching a gentleman, you would say, now, congregation, please get ready. I know you're blase. You've heard about Jupiter and the, the, the old, um, probe on Jupiter a few billion miles away, whatever it is. How marvelous that is, marvelous, marvelous, marvelous. But I hope you haven't exhausted all your store of wonder, because now I'm going to tell you a wonder you'll scarce believe. You must be prepared in your hearts to see and visualize a wonder.
What? What's a wonder going to be? If you don't get it across to the congregation, you haven't got it across everyone. Oh, take up the Ark of the Covenant, verse six, and, uh, Passover before the people. They took up the Ark of the Covenant, went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. That's the second thing you have to get hold of. God is going to do wonders. And secondly, God is going to provoke Israel's faith in Joshua. You believe in God, well, believe in Joshua also then.
I shall command, so Joshua's in control, he commanded the priests. I shall command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, when you will come to the brink of the waters of Jordan, you shall stand still in Jordan. And Joshua said to the children of Israel, come hither and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, hereby shall you know that the living God is among you, and that he would without fail drive out from before you all these nations. Verse eleven, behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man.
And it shall come to pass when the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. Twice repeated. You've had it with n- uh, with uh, Rahab, now you've got it twice here. The Lord of the whole earth. Uh, when the feet- priests' feet then shall the rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off, even the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand in one heap. It came to pass, when the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, that the priests bear the ark of the covenant being before the people, and when they that bear the ark were come into Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brink of Jordan, for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the time in harvest.
The waters stood up, and this, that, and the other. Uh, the, the waters were wholly cut off, and the people passed over right against Jericho, right under its nose. And the priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant, now mentioned for the second time, Ark of Covenant, verse fourteen, Ark of Covenant, verse seventeen. 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. That, taken literally, gentlemen, is how Israel got through Jordan. What is the story? Now here's what you've got to believe.
That the God of ten billion galaxies, God in heaven above, and God of our whole planet. When Israel were going into Gordon- Jordan, he himself came down. And went through the River Jordan. Before them. If you look at uh one Chronicles thirteen, you'll have the story there of how David brought up the Ark of the Lord to Jerusalem. And the Ark is described. No wonder the people got in a flurry.
The Ark is described with a cherubim on which God the Lord sits enthroned. When Israel massed into the streets and watched that Ark, that column of Levites bringing the ark, 1 Ch- one Chronicles thirteen, watched it procession into Jerusalem, into the streets of Jerusalem. Israel firmly believed, whether you believed or not, Israel firmly believed that the Almighty God of the universe had enthroned himself on that ark. It was God that was coming. It was a coming of the Lord. They believe that literally.
This isn't me. I not got round to in- interpreting it or applying it typologically. I'm just reporting you the historical fact, what Israel believed. And so it was here. The miracle was that to get Israel through this barrier of nature, the High Lord of heaven, of heaven and earth, came down, presents himself on that ark, went before them into Jordan, and when the waters of Jordan saw their creator, they blushed and passed asunder to let their creator through. Mm.
I could have done a better miracle than that. I could have started off by saying, wouldn't it have been mighty convenient if the Lord was coming down from heaven to earth to get his people through? Why on earth didn't he just veer a little bit to the west and come down on the west side of Jordan instead of the east? Then he wouldn't have had to cross it, would he? Make any difference to God coming down from heaven, which side of the Jordan he... been more convenient and direct, wouldn't it? And he needn't have gone to all that palaver of himself going through the Jordan, dear me, he needn't. In fact, he could have, now I come to think about it, he could have spoken a word from heaven and poof, and the Jordan parted across, and that was that.
Or get an east wind like he did for, that's an idea, uh, when Israel came out of Egypt and he blew the east wind for three days long, and the thing parted, you see. Well, he could have done it any how he liked, but the story is that to get Israel through the barrier of nation, of the nature in front of them, God himself came down and went through it. Gentlemen, do you know of any similar stories from the New Testament? That is a wonder that not even Michael the Archangel will ever get over.
For you see, military speaking, to cross the Jordan would have been a very hazardous occupation, with foot soldiers, no bridges, the Jordan plain being bad enough, but it's full of scrub, tangled old scrub. And now with the Jordan in flood, overflowing its banks in all directions, you couldn't see where the banks were, and the swirling waters, and the tangled mass of plants. To get a few hundred thousand soldiers going through that and slipping and sliding all over the place, there could have been panic, uh, do you see, and disaster, could there not? Folks trampling on top of each other and drowned, and I don't know what have you. The danger, therefore, was of death, of course, through nature.
And to get us into our inheritance, at whatever level you take it, gentlemen, now I'm going to be myself fanciful, but I'm not saying it's a type, I'm leaving that as a prototype and telling you about the New Testament story, that there is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, but how on earth you're going to get to heaven? Just suppose you're going to get in. Your first big barrier to face is not Satan and his hosts. The barrier of death, gentlemen. Inheritance incorruptible. That'll be something, won't it?
How do we mortals get into an inheritance like that? Well, listen to the context in, in Peter. Begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and defiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. That is the story. But since the children were partakers of flesh and blood, as Hebrews two puts it, he himself partook of the same, that through death. If you want a wonder, you stand and watch the Blessed Lord, the Ark of the Covenant, in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, and you watch him going out in front of his people, and his feet meeting the verge and going down to the bottom of Jordan's River, standing in the mud, so that the
rest of us might pass through unscathed. Mm-hmm. Well, that's only how, how I would read. I don't know how you do it. How do you normally preach it? I don't speak too much. It's nine o'clock. Um, how do you normally preach it? What else do you say? Is there a sense in which the, uh, waters of Jordan somehow represent God's punishment or wrath because of sin? Thinking, uh, whenever the Lord is baptized in the River Jordan, Mm.
went down under, on it almost as a picture. It is, isn't it? That, and it is another barrier to the inheritance. Oh, surely, you see, yes, it is so, that is so, Danny. Uh, Jordan, by dint of its historical use by John Baptist, becomes, for instance, the great river of the baptism of repentance, doesn't it? And the confession of sin, and therefore the judgment of God. How could we have a death in itself? So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. The great barrier, the the the corruption, both spiritual and physical. How could we ever hope for an inheritance?
Is it not fairy story? And the story of the Lord of heaven and earth come down, and going on a front and into Jordan and right down to the bottom of Jordan. That is, in metaphorical terms, the story of our great gospel. And the first, uh, telling of the story, you'll see, uh, comes to its great climax. Verse seventeen, three seventeen, and the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground until all the nation were clean passed over or passed clean over Jordan.
You sense the, the subdued excitement of the historian, and it was achieved. The whole lot passed clean over Jordan. Marvelous. And you think the story's at an end. No, it isn't. He's going to tell you the story twice more. It's the way Hebrews have, of course. The second description of the story comes from verse four to verse fourteen. You've been given a hint there's going to be a second bit because at three. verse twelve. Joshua said, now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, for every tribe a man. It doesn't say what for. So it keeps you guessing because now you're going to hear what for.
You'll see. He commanded them, saying, take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm. That's four two, four three. Twelve stones, and carry them over with you and lay them down in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night. So he told them to do this, verse four and five, and the purpose of it, that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask in time to come, saying, what mean ye by these stones, then ye shall say unto them, because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever.
So it's the same story, and we're going to be told when it comes to its climax. They stood there till all the people were passed over, but now there's this different slant. As the historian fastens on one particular feature of the crossing, not only that the Ark of the Lord went down, but these twelve men, one for a tribe, were told that when they got to the bed of the river, they were to each to take a big stone up and put it on the west bank of the river. There those stones were to stay for all generations to come, that when their children and descendants would ask them, what do these, what are these stones here for, Dad? Dad would reply, but this is how we came into Canaan. That the Ark of the Lord went before us and stood in the bottom of the river, and we, our ancestors, you know, not we weren't there, but our ancestors picked up these stones actually out of the bottom of that river, and there they are, look.
People actually stood down there, and they're now up here on the bank. That's point number one of this section, a memorial. Yeah? Why, gentlemen, at the historical level, why do you think that was important? Why, if you were writing the story, would you make a whole second description, make a real meal of it and have a s- you'd already got them all across here, why do you turn back and tell the story again and fasten on this feature? Because of the short memory. Well, but what would it matter so long as they were in, my boy? I mean, grapes taste nice and grapey, don't they?
And bananas and things and oranges and, uh, uh, so long as you're enjoying the land, what does it matter how you got in, particularly if it's your ancestors or three or or four hundred years ago? I mean, imagine the teenagers saying, we weren't that, doesn't mean anything to us, Dad, you harking on this history stuff. The point being, you wouldn't speak like that if you were conscious of the foundation. No, no. Oh, that's right. Israel were never to forget how the nation came into their inheritance. If the nation lost that sense of how they got in, goodness me, how worldly they could become.
They become like just old Canaanites who got it simply by their own thought and effort and cleverness and idolatry and gods galore. Deifying sex, deifying war, deifying the storm god, deifying I don't know who. If they forgot how the nation got in. Be it doesn't matter if it was hundreds of years ago, the point remains the same. Ah, Jim. Breaking of bread, that's the same thing. That is the same thing, old boy. On peril of your life do you let a church forget the breaking of bread. Forget how you got into the inheritance.
This before they crossed, these were the directions before they crossed, you shall do this. And as you point out, sir, William, sir, that before the Lord was crucified, it was just before he was crucified, he gave directions to how we were to remember and never forget. Clustering round the story of the breaking of bread, you see, are the tremendous theological facts of our salvation. If our Lord died for our sins, he must have been sinless, as it would have been useless. If one man could die for the sins of the world, he must have been more than man, he must have been God.
You try and tell a genuine believer who remembers Calvary that deny the deity of the Lord Jesus, he will instinctively observe and feel that it cannot be, because if Jesus wasn't the Son of God, then there was no redemption. And our subsequent devotion and our enjoyment of our inheritance. Right from the start. It's a story of how God came down from heaven and stood in the depths of Jordan to let his people into their inheritance.
And the ark came out the other side, of course. Oh, but that isn't the whole, the second description has another detail to, to, to say, one or two details, do you see? And the children of Israel, verse eight, did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the Lord spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and they carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and they laid them down there. Now notice another set of stones, verse nine. And Joshua set out up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests stood, which bear the ark of the covenant.
They are there unto this day. Two lots of stones then. Peace be to all critics who think this is a doublet. It ain't a doublet. Israel were to remember not only that, uh, God came down and stood there and brought them through, and they brought up from Jordan the stones. They were to look back and say, you know, our ancestors were down there once. Down there where now the waters roll over the top. They were down there. To get into the land.
It's a funny story, isn't it? When the ark was there, they had to be there too. Who fancy that? I'd suggest any sort of, uh, remote parallel, some fanciful parallel in the New Testament. This is a little lost by the NIV. Can you comment on the... How is that lost? The idea of the stone being set up. Mm-hmm. In the middle of the river. Mm-hmm. What does it say then?
Well, it just says in the notes, um, it says in the note for verse nine, an alternative translation suggests that Joshua set up a second pile in the middle of the road. Well, they have rescued themselves by that note, yes. If it weren't for that, you should take it back to the man that sold it to. Mm-hmm. Two stones. Under pressure from No, that's not, but, uh, people dispute as to what stones these are, and of course it's a long suggested thing that there was only one lot of stones, and that verse nine is a repetition of what verse eight has told you.
Yes, it says, see, the NIV translates that Joshua set up the twelve stones Mm-hmm. that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot of the place. Well, the, the, that had been is not there, is it, as far as I'm aware, that Joshua set up twelve stone in the midst of Jordan. You can say in the place where the priests of the, uh, which bear the out of the covenant had stood, but that leaves it that he set up these stones there, Josie? Uh, uh. The Israelites, the twelve men, took up the stones from the bed of the river and put them on the west bank. Twelve men did that.
Joshua put these other stones in the bed of the river. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Uh, and wh- why they did that was given the explanation is given you in verse ten. For the priests which bear the ark stood in the midst of Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people according to all that Moses commanded Joshua, and all the people hasted and passed over. It was to celebrate that the ark had been down there, the pre- the feet of the priests had been down there, down there all the while till all the people had passed. Mm-hmm.
The one set of stones said, look, we came through and we emerged. Here we are on the bank. The other set of stones said, but pray remember that the ark was down there all the time until all the people had passed over. Mm-hmm. I want to say that myself, that, uh, in a prototype is true, uh, to the, uh, the New Testament fact. We were talking about how you get into your inheritance. You will begin by saying that the Lord of the whole earth became incarnate and went through Jordan for us.
He died for us. And in his resurrection, we are raised. The other side of that coin is to remember that once we were down in Jordan with him. So, isn't it, is it, um, relevant that the stones which remain in the Jordan would, um, tell us of a work that only God can see? Well, yes, well, uh, yes, perhaps so. Perhaps the Jordan is so muddy at that stage that no one else could see it, if you like.
But there were two sides to the thing, weren't there? The ark went down and the people passed over, and look, we came through it and we're on the other side, and here are the stones to show that, uh, uh, we're on the other side victorious. And the other thing is to look back and say, yes, but when it all happened, we were down there. Suggesting baptism. Well, how, how not, you see, sir? They are the twin sides of the New Testament, eh, whether you take them in the symbols of bread and wine that says Christ given for us, or baptism as, as our dying with Christ. He died for us, we died with him. Or whether you take it in the theological sense. You see, he died for us, but we died with him.
That's a great mystery, isn't it? Yeah, sure it is. And you see the wonder of it, gentlemen, the superb story, the sheer wonder of it, that we can talk so glibly about it, that in one great sense I died with Christ. Your Christian gospel is an absolutely fantastic affair, you know, if you can believe it. Great God of the universe, upholding, uh, in the image of the unseen God, upholding all things by the word of his power.
You think of the multi-million galaxies and this, that, and the other in this universe. He upholds everything. And for my sake, went down into death. And I was planted in the likeness of his death, and I died with him. I can understand how some people don't believe the gospel, can't you? Sheer immense wonder of the business. Oh, yes, well, it says that, you see, and, uh, uh, they passed over.
We were told that enough times. They passed when all the people were clean, passed over, verse eleven, You'll get it into your head, they passed over. That the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests in the presence of the people, and the children of Reuben and children of Gad and the half-tribe Manasseh passed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses spake unto them. About forty thousand ready armed for war passed over before the Lord unto battle to the plains of Jordan. I suspect, having come through that, they felt their military courage rise. Don't you? Hmm. On that day, the Lord magnified Joshua. Cool, gentlemen, what a way to end a sermon.
That's what he promised, didn't he? I shall magnify you today that Israel may know that I'm with you as I was with Moses. And to see this vast miracle happen, not only magnified God, but magnified Joshua. That was going to be the secret of a lot of things. If he was going to lead them into the tough campaigning, the fight against the enemy, and I don't know what have you, it was absolutely vital for that warrior force that they should come to have absolute trust in Joshua. Therefore, God himself did this mighty great miracle, the God of heaven and earth come down and let it be seen before the people that Joshua was his high command and that he was doing it through Joshua, that the people might trust Joshua and follow him wherever he went into the battle.
And that it is, gentlemen. I mean, I'm almost preaching you a New Testament. If I weren't careful, I would be. Is it pushing it too far to take the picture of the ark in the bed of the river as representative of God in the world until everybody has been safely delivered? Well, yeah, the old Copas hymn was getting near it, wasn't it? The blood of Christ shall not lose its power, till all the ransom host of God are saved to sin no more. Because you see, now, uh, William, you reach this, this is this complicated business, and we shall find it, I'm glad you raised that, we shall find it as we go through constantly.
Uh, just as you think you've tied down the meaning of one of these stories to one level, you'll find it has another level. We've been happily talking here tonight, haven't we, about Christ's death at Calvary for us. So he's conquered death, yes? What, finally? And you're all immortal? Oh yeah, you say, I'm in our inheritance already. So you are. Good, God bless you. Yeah? Or are you, in spite of being in the heavenlies, still, still subject to corruption and a grave?
Ah, but there's coming a day when this will be fulfilled in the, the higher level. And every redeemed child of God will, on that same basis, be brought through into our eternal inheritance, yes? So if that were true, shout for joy, wouldn't you? Doctor, can I ask you about the stones in the river? Yeah, surely. If they are a, a reminder Mm. that the Lord was down in there. Yeah, mm. And that's the Mm. Is there another reminder that, uh, the Lord was down in there, the marks in his hands and his side?
Oh, surely, yes, yes. You see, uh, so I know some people nowadays, and I speak as an old, decrepit old, you know, curmudgeonly old age pensioner. And they say that the Lord's Supper is too mournful. But, uh, hmm. Uh, one can't help noticing that the great orchestra of heaven tunes to the theme. Thou were slain, redeemed us to God in thy blood, it will be the foundation of the joys of heaven. And you won't catch anybody there saying it's too mournful to think of that too much, you know.
There are no, there's no more expensive coin in human experience than suffering. And the jewels of heaven will have been forged at Calvary. The wealth of it. To be an heir to that, the products of that suffering, how would you put a price on it? The wealth of it, the sheer wealth of it. And if we forget it, we shall not enjoy our inheritance.
Well, we shan't. And heaven would cease to be heaven, really, if we could forget Calvary, you know. For amongst all the glories, he will widen tempted, I mustn't preach. I was going to say, I better not say it, but if I had been going to say it, if I, I would have said that, that, uh, of all the glories and the marvelous things that God will do for you in an endless eternity, none will be bigger, and none will tell out God's heart to you more than did Calvary.
And if you want to motivate people to follow Joshua and fight, ho ho. We will listen to Paul. What motivated him? Oh, we haven't finished the story, sorry. There's a third part of this. All good sermons should have three divisions, shouldn't they? Why on earth is there a third part? And that goes from verse fifteen to twenty four. What, gentlemen as preachers, would you sense is missing in your exposition of this crossing of Jordan, so that now you'd say, yes, but we can't let the people home yet. Oh, we can't finish the series yet.
We must have this third section because that does round off the... Yes, well, tell me how it rounds off the Fifteen to twenty four. They feared, you see, verse 14, while you're thinking, they feared Joshua as they feared Moses. Marvelous. You notice that anyway, let me jabber it, verse sixteen, the Lord spake to Joshua, saying, command the priests that bear the ark of the testimony that they come up out of Jordan. And the, um, the imperceptive might say, but you told us that they came up.
Verse eleven says they came up. Why do you now tell us as though it hadn't happened that, uh, uh, the Lord said to Joshua, command them to come up? But that's a Hebrew way of telling a story. You tell it to its climax, one climax, then you go back, not all the way, but part of the way to fix on some other aspect of it, uh, that otherwise you hadn't, uh, commented much on. And now you tell the story again, emphasizing that aspect of it, right to its end. And then you come back and you fasten on another thing and tell the story right to its end. That's a very humble way of telling a story. You listen to two, uh, women talking in the supermarket, they tell their stories like that, you see. You might think superficially they told you the story three times over, but no, they've, it's different emphasis each time, you see.
The resurrection, the emphasis on the emergence. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And the text is going to tell you what the, the itself will preach you the lesson, you see. That's a wonderful thing about the word of God, doesn't leave you to preach, it preaches itself, yeah? And the point of this next bit, the priests that came out, you see. The emergence, and then the effect, the waters of Jordan returned unto their place. The people came up on this day, yeah, and the twelve stones. Now we get this repeated. Is this a doublet, as the dear historico critico people would say?
Or is this, what point is this making? When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, what mean these stones, then you shall let your children know, saying... Now, what is the significance, gentlemen, if you were preaching it, of these next verses, the verses that tell you the significance, what are they saying? They're not surely meant to just be repeating the same aspect of the sign that the second description gave, when your children shall ask you in time to come, what shall you say? They're not just repeating it, are they? In ver- in verse twenty four, has that given us two two reasons, uh, that were being drawn out that everyone might, uh, know the hand of the Lord?
Yes, yes, yes. This is Israel's testimony to the world, is it not? And then their own personal. Mm-hmm. It was just as the historical thing that, uh, Moses con- uh, Joshua contrasts his generation with the younger set that were now with him, so that there's a comparison that the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until you were passed over, as the Lord God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us. That there are a few left of the first. Out to these, their generation, the Lord has dried up Jordan before you, like he dried up the Red Sea before us.
He's making that two point, beginning and end of the story. And then he gives you the point of it. I mean, God did this, not merely for our benefit, to get us into our inheritance. That is the new thing in it, isn't it? That all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, and that they may fear the Lord your God forever. That's Israel's testimony to the world at large. Now you see that that is not just idle talk. When the spies came to Rahab, and she'd foxed the officials, the government, or the authorities with her funny story, and they'd gone chasing over the mountains to find these spies, and uh, the gate was shut, and then Rahab came up and had a word with them.
He got them on the roof, covered up with some reeds and things. And uh, she then began her s- her story. She'd been converted. We've come to know that your God is the God of gods in heaven above and on earth beneath. How? We heard how he dried up the Red Sea. That led to her conversion. Now, a similar thing of similar magnitude is happening to this generation as they come into the care, into the inheritance, as happened to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. The similarity between the two things, of course. And if you're thinking in terms of your prototypology, of course, you would want to say that there's only one death of Christ, and his death of the death of Christ was like the Passover for us, yes?
That delivered us from the wrath of God and delivered us from the power of the Pharaoh. That same death of Christ, here in prototype, brings us into our inheritance. In actual fact, it's one thing, isn't it? The one death of Christ. But now both those actions had for their purpose, among other things, the advertising of God through his people, through the world. Yeah?
I'd like proclaiming his death. And what so? That the world may know. And of course it is. In that sense, I know we have to be culturally attuned, and we have to seek the right approach under the Lord's guidance to each person before us or each, uh, uh, audience that's in front of us. If you're on Mars Hill, you have a different approach from if you're in the synagogue. That said, the great gospel that God makes known his power through, and as believers who have experienced the death of Christ for us, and our death with him, and that he's begotten us again to a living hope unto, uh, uh, by his resurrection from the dead unto an inheritance and all that.
That is our message to the world, yes? That is the gospel. Witness the New Testament at large. Mm-hmm. Chairman, sir, the hour is at half past nine. Do you think that the multitude might, um, fade by the way? Any, well, anyway, yes, let's, let's, I was going to say I had a break, but one thing I'd like to do, if I may, is supposing we have, um, five minutes.
I don't know how you feel, gentlemen. I'm in your hands. I'm rather, uh, afraid I talked a lot tonight. My job is to get you to talk, but I yield to temptation. Um, if we're anywhere near right in expounding this and then applying it, we started, you remember, not with typology. Please let me point that out. I hear all sorts of voices in my head telling me I'm fanciful, you see, so, uh, we didn't start with typology, we started with the military operation. We started with Rahab's literal conversion, not a type of a conversion, actual conversion.
How that she'd heard how God dried up the Red Sea and had come to the conclusion he was God of heaven above and earth beneath. And then for the, for the operation of getting Israel through the waters, the great miracle turned out to be precisely that. It was the God of the whole earth. Come down to deal with this natural barrier of a very literal river that could have, uh, been the end of, uh, uh, the death of hundreds of Joshua's troops. That's where we started. And we allowed ourselves to think of the wonder of those times, uh, uh, thirteen hundred BC, fifteen hundred BC, some people say nowadays, when the God of the whole earth came down from his heaven to take his people through Jordan.
And to see it even in the ritual he used then is an amazing thing. That's where we started. Having started that, we turned to the New Testament and thought we saw parallels. Well, if we've been fanciful there, we can forget this. The New Testament is true, that to get us into our inheritance that doesn't fade and pass away and is incorrupt. The barrier of nature, the barrier of death, sin, the death, the law of sin and death had to be met and was met by the Lord of heaven and earth, coming down and going through death for us. In other words, the present reality matches the prototype, has got much more detail in it than the prototype.
If that is so, you see. And then we found, uh, reasons to think that some of the, the we saw the rationale of there being three descriptions and not just repeating each other, three different aspects of that crossing, and that how it fulfilled the objective Moses set before them. Yeah, when we saw that, eh, now there remains a big question, doesn't there, before, uh, we pass on, on our next occasion, perhaps, to these things. Uh, how would you... preach these first two paragraphs... in that context?
Or would you say, well, that's just staging, oh boy, you, I mean, that's just, that's just putting in the necessary of the story up till now. This is the stage, that's just the stage, this is the story, this is just the staging. You go to a play in a theatre, you don't keep looking at this, the floorboards on the stage, do you? I mean, you've got to have something to walk on. Uh, do you see, uh, uh, you look at the play, this is the play, this is just the floorboards of the... Or is it more than that? I was wondering about, um, this may be totally ridiculous, but I was wondering, uh, you talked a lot last time about the psychological state.
Mm-hmm. Of the people in the city. Mm-hmm. And I was wondering about that, um, that here they were, they sort of put man-made barriers around them as well as the natural barrier outside, and fear seems to be the major psychological state. Surely. My, I mean, you don't have to go too far in New Testament, I suppose, to talk about people who see Fear. Death subject to bondage and so on. Yeah, surely, surely. Is, is there anything there in terms of, you know, ex- exposing the, the condition of, of people before you come to talking about the great answer of this.
I mean, it's not just that, I suppose, a, a natural barrier of death, but there's also all the psychological complexes and all kinds of things, or is that crazy as my way off? Well, not deeply crazy. Not incurably so. Do you see? No, because if you, if you ask what these spies were doing, they s- they said they were not there to spy at the whole land from Dan to Beersheba, were they? They didn't come back with loads of grapes and saying the land is a good land. They weren't there for that purpose. They were there to recognize the psychological state of Jericho.
And when Joshua got the half of the people across the river, that difficult situation, would they come out and attack and all that kind of thing? And when you listen to the, uh, uh, the people in Jericho, there are those that are hostile, of course. They'd have executed the spies on the spot. But they were straightly shut up because of the siege, the, the, what they feared was the siege. Because, now we must not forget that the context is God has now come. The armies of God are assembled on the borders. They have come to execute the judgments of God on this evil civilization.
That you should have a study of what their psychological state would be here. That is very natural. Under the looming judgment, the marvelous story is that one woman gets saved. And before you hear, uh, of any actual judgment falling, first the story of salvation, that is magnificent gentlemen. And how she got saved, and what salvation meant for her. Can't resist to tell you, gentlemen of faith, it's a magnificent story. You're thinking of judgment, and how could the God of heaven and the God of Jesus, there must be something wrong with the Old Testament.
How could you ever believe that this was the God of heaven sending Israelites in to slit the throats of all these folks? How can you possibly recognize it? It cannot be inspired. It must be that these Israelites, like the Hutus and the Tutus, um, uh, wild savages out of the wilderness and came into Canaan and found a civilization that they didn't understand, and like the Huns and the Goths sacked them, so these barbarians sacked these cities and thought it was their God that told them to do it, and we can't think, we can't believe that it was the God of heaven that told them to do it. I don't know how you deal with that problem, gentlemen. I don't know that I can, but if I'm pushed to it, I say, but wait a minute, these judgments were terrible, yes.
Don't let us let that consideration, uh, blind our eyes to the fact that these judgments were temporal judgments. Literal, physical, temporal judgments. What happened to the people after death, that's another story. But these temporal judgments remind us that there is coming an eternal judgment, compared with which this is a very small thing. Secondly, we do well to remember the sinfulness of those civilizations, don't we? You see, they were given to, among other things, child sacrifice to their gods. Burning infants, uh, infants and older children to their gods.
What would you have God to do with a civilization like it? And if God took exception to their putting their infants through the fires to Moloch, what do you suppose God is going to say to modern people that, in this last twenty years, have killed millions of unborn children over twenty eight weeks in the womb? They were given to sexual perversion.
It was all tied up with their religion. And if sexual perversion, as we now know, has been responsible for the ravages of AIDS. If it's like that now, it would have been like that then. What would you have God do? This is a story of the judgments of God are going to be poured out. And in one sense, Joshua tells us, if we take one level, gentlemen, I'm not denying all the other levels, in one level, this is the prototype of the coming of the Son of God with the armies of heaven, to take the vengeance of God on them that know not God and obey not the gospel.
They will come with the armies of heaven. And you'll see, uh, to execute, uh, uh, judgments, the New Testament epistles are s- tell you quite straight. The wonder of this salvation is, as we said earlier, here's a Gentile woman under the message of God's judgments. She'd heard it forty years before when they had come out of Egypt. And all Pharaoh and the judgments that fell on him were in the end a mercy, for God made Pharaoh a vessel of wrath, that is, a vessel to advertise God's wrath against sinners if they will not repent and continue to defy him.
And in God's mercy, it had led to her conversion. And God is merciful. It was four hundred years before that, that he had told Abram that one day he would have to judge them, but not at once. And now when he's about to judge, look at the mercy of this. What kind of a woman was she in that pervert society? This is a harlot, Solitrophy. you see. Her profession was to offer pleasure without love, and love, so-called, without loyalty.
All this world wants love, doesn't it? Doesn't like the judgments of God. And what is love? That love, her trade, do you call that love? And the sacrifice of infants to the gods, is that love too? And are all the perversities, they love as well? What is love? He says, I've come to believe that your God is the true God of of heaven above and on earth beneath. Uh, now show me a kindness.
He says, I've been loyal to you, chaps. You owe your life to me. Listen to a woman pleading for her life. Now, now, now she says, uh, uh, save me, Lucy, and my family, and let them live. Save them alive. And the spy said, yes, we'll do that. Just to say so wasn't enough. She had men galore in that house, and while they were there, they'd said all sorts of sweet nothings and endless promises. And when she shut the door on them and they went out into the night, she never heard of them again.
How could she be sure that these men that she protected at the, at the risk of her life would not forget about her, and when the invading armies came, she would perish with the, the rest? She only knows one thing to do. She's decided that their God is the true God. Swear an oath. Give me a token. Swear in the name of your God. And here is an individual soul facing the judgments of God and the horribleness of life, now reaching out to discover the living God a- and trying to find out some loyalty in this universe.
And a God of love who will ever be loyal to his creatures, gives his servants the authority to swear their oath in his name, that he shall be saved. That's magnificent, you know. That's what true love is. Question of loyalty. And when the actual judgment fell, the the twice over in this section, reference is made to Rahab in, in detail, how that with the Jer- walls of Jericho coming round, the spies were detached, and you go and save Rahab and all who are in her house, wasn't just one woman, anybody in her house, how she was brought out and incorporated in the Israel of God.
And the ancestors of Messiah, if you please. If I had a woman like that in my ancestry, I should keep it dark enough. I wouldn't have Burke's peerage announce it to the world. See? And the Blessed Lord in the New Testament, as he comes into the world, has it announced that amongst his ancestors was this woman. That's the God of heaven. That's the true God. Salvation for Israel in prototype here, but it's salvation for the Gentile as well. Mm-hmm.
And the red in the window, they, has she let them down? Now she's got nothing to, as she looks forward to the army's coming. Nothing to cling to but the word of God and God's oath and promise. Mm, and gentlemen, what else have we got anyway in this world? If there is the Lord of heaven and earth, is he actually loyal to us? Or is that a childhood myth told us by our mums to, to help us to sleep in the dark at night? That's a magnificent preface to this and to these judgments here. Well, what is this? We'll go and have some tea now. But gentlemen, I've often heard this thing preached about, no, great sermons about, no, keeping the Bible and obeying the Bible and learning to obey the word of God, and they're, they're true, aren't they?
They're all true. But have those commands here... Are they an integral part of this message, so to speak? Or would it matter whether they were here or there or there or in Ecclesiastes or, or in the Epistle to the Romans? What is their function here? Do you get the question? There we go.
