Joshua 1

Joshua — Steve Gregg

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Joshua 2 - 3

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Joshua 1

JoshuaSteve Gregg

Steve Gregg discusses the first chapter of Joshua, focusing on the importance of meditating on the book of the Law day and night. He emphasizes the need for courage and strength when facing challenges and reminds listeners of God's promises to the Israelites. He also warns against falling into immoral behavior and encourages listeners to always strive for their best.

Transcript

Alright, we're going to turn to the first chapter of Joshua now. We've taken a long time getting here having two sessions of introductions to the historical books, of which Joshua is the first in that collection, and then two sessions we've had as an introduction to Joshua. It might have felt like we're never really going to ever look at the text, but we are, and that starts now.

After the death of Moses, the servant of Yahweh, it came to pass that Yahweh spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses, from the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.

No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.

Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you, and do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

So this is the commission that God gave to Joshua directly. And I've often wondered how did this word come to Joshua? No doubt when Moses was alive, which was just immediately before this, because Moses had just died. The word of the Lord came to Joshua as to everyone else through the prophet Moses.

And so here we have the word of the Lord coming to Joshua after the death of Moses. But in what way it's not made plain. We know that Moses would go into the tabernacle of meeting and there the cloud would come upon it and and God would meet with Moses and communicate with him there.

I don't know if that's what was happening here or not. At one time I thought, well, maybe this is just referring to what God said to Joshua through Moses before Moses died. Maybe Moses gave him this commission and it was from the Lord.

But that's not true because it says, as I was with Moses, I will be with you. So obviously this is after Moses is gone. So, you know, there's all kinds of ways that God spoke to people in the Old Testament, dreams, visions, Solomon got his information through a dream that God gave him about, you know, ask what you want.

And he asked for wisdom. Sometimes Abraham would get a word from God by God appearing in a human form, coming like a man to visit him. And that's usually called a theophany when God appears in a physical form.

Maybe that was true. After all, later than this, a few chapters later, Joshua did meet the captain of the Lord's host, who many people believe is a theophany. That is, is an appearance of God or Christ.

We don't know how this encounter with God is given. I don't think it's just kind of a still small voice. We are told, though, back in the book of Numbers that when Joshua was commissioned to replace Moses, it says that Eliezer, the priest, will stand before him and he will inquire of the Lord by him.

This probably referred to the fact that the priest had the Urim and the Thummim, which were a device in the in the bag that he wore his chest, what's called the breastplate of the high priest. The Urim and the Thummim were a couple of stones. And in some way or another, they were used to ascertain the mind of God.

Although they may have been just good for yes, no answers, not forgiving complete oracles, we don't know. We're not even sure how the Urim and the Thummim work, but we do read that the Urim and the Thummim were often consulted and the high priest had those on his person. And Eliezer was the priest.

So when it says that Joshua will inquire of the Lord by Eliezer, it may simply mean on questions of yes or no. Shall we go to battle? Should we not go to battle? Those kinds of things. That's what the priest could tell using the Urim and the Thummim.

But this is a complete oracle spoken. So I suppose if we're trying to picture this conversation, this delivery of this information to him, we might be wise to picture it as Joshua maybe going into the tent where Moses used to go to meet with God. And we know that God gave talks to Moses in there.

And that may be how it was going on. We can see, however, though, that Joshua truly is Moses' successor because God only spoke like this to Moses before this. And now he's speaking to Joshua, making Joshua at the very least qualified to be called a prophet because he's receiving direct words from God, as other people did not.

Now, it begins by God saying, Moses, my servant is dead. And so it's now the mantle of Moses has fallen upon his servant just as the mantle of Elijah fell on his servant, Elisha. Many times it is the case that God will choose a person to be a leader who began as a servant.

Servant to a previous leader, perhaps, or just a servant. Remember, Jesus said, he that would be chief among you must be the servant of all. Doesn't mean that when you become a servant that you're going to become elevated to a high position necessarily.

I believe Jesus is saying that being a servant is the chief position, not that it is a means to attaining a chief position. That being a servant of all is the lofty position that all people should seek if they hope to be chief in God's sight. But we also see because it is the chief position, when God wants to pick a chief, to pick a man to give a position of authority, where would he look? More, but among the servants.

And Joshua had been quite a servant to Moses. He had been a servant's heart when Moses was 40 days up in the mountain fasting, and the people were not allowed to even touch the mountain. So they had to stay away from it.

Joshua alone was allowed to touch the mountain. He was halfway up the mountain waiting for six weeks for Moses to come back. And I don't know if anyone was bringing him food.

No one could bring it to him. He might have been fasting too. He gets a lot less credit because he's not the focus of those stories.

But he was quite a guy when the Bible says that when Moses was not on the mountain, after he'd come down, Moses would go into the tent of meeting and then he'd leave and go home to his tent. But Joshua would stay at the tent of meeting. He's like the bodyguard of the tent or he's the sentry or something.

Joshua was on the job full time serving whatever was needed. And now he's stepping into the big shoes of the man that he was serving previously. And he says, Moses is dead.

Now therefore go over to this Jordan. They have to cross the Jordan because that's the, if you picture it, you've got a map in your books, but you may already know the geography. The eastern boundary of the promised land is the Jordan River.

And they had not entered yet. They were east of the eastern boundary. They had to go west across the river into the land.

And so crossing over Jordan is the transition, of course, into the promised land from not being in the promised land. So you rise, go over this Jordan, you and all the people to the land, which I'm giving to them, the children of Israel. And he says, every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, as I said to Moses.

Now, this indicates that although God has made a promise, there's some responsibility to apprehend it. Personally, OK, the land is yours, but you have to go walk on it. You have to go.

You have to go there. You have to go into that zone. And at this point in time, there's some serious dangers there because there were already people occupying some of those places and they were not going to welcome the Israelites in with open arms.

And so you need to go in and face the danger. You need to go in and take on the task of trusting God to give you the victory. There's a promise, but it's not just going to be brought to you on a silver platter.

You take the promise of God and by faith, you do the responsible thing that has to be done to see the results. So you got to move. You got to walk.

You got to march. And the places you set your foot will be places where God has gone ahead of you and already said, OK, this is a place you can have. Now, he does mention boundaries in verse four from the wilderness of Lebanon, which would be the northern extremity.

And he says to the river Euphrates, which would be obviously the east. And he mentions the Great Sea, the Mediterranean, as the western boundary. He does not, in this case, mention the southern boundaries.

On other occasions, that is mentioned as the River of Egypt and other passages. But the point here and the main one of concern is the reference to the Euphrates, because the Euphrates was really quite a far distance from the Jordan. And the Jordan always was the official boundary on the east of Israel.

But some tribes, two and a half tribes, live east of the Jordan, but they were kind of outside the land. They were in trans-Jordan. That was not quite in the land.

But Euphrates was much further east, hundreds of miles. And it may be, and I said this during our introduction to Joshua, it may be that we are to understand that they could have occupied all of that too, all the way over to Euphrates, if their foot had tread there, if they had not settled for the amount they got and settled in. We know that they kind of stopped their battles before everything was done.

Not before they had secured their territory, though. They secured the territory, but they didn't drive out all the Canaanites. We'll see that is acknowledged very frankly throughout the book of Joshua.

They didn't drive out the Jebusites. They didn't drive out these people. They did obtain the land and those people simply lived under their tribute to them, or at least under their control somewhat.

But they didn't do all they could have done. I think once they had secured the boundaries and saw some houses and fields and saw a possibility of a settled existence after years of wandering, they probably thought, I'm good with this. This is good enough for us.

And it's hard to know whether they should have continued driving out all the Canaanites and not just settling down and getting lazy. And whether they should have even gone all the way to the Euphrates. It's hard to say.

We're not really told specifically. God never raises any complaint about them not going to the Euphrates, but he mentions the Euphrates more than once as the boundary of the amount of land he's willing to give them. Now, I pointed out during our introduction to the book that there actually are a couple of places in later historical books that indicate that the rib Euphrates was reached by the umbrella of Jewish authority in the time of David and Solomon.

Because in 2 Samuel 8 3, it tells us that David went and defeated a certain king as he went to recover his territory by the Euphrates River, which sounds like David had previously had territory there, lost it, and he went out and recovered it. But that would mean, of course, that sometime in David's time, there was Jewish control, Israeli control over that whole region over the Euphrates. And likewise, in 1 Kings 4, verse 21, it says that Solomon, who was also the king of Israel after David, that all the kings of the region all the way to the river Euphrates served him and paid tribute to him and so forth.

So in a sense, God did give them that territory. It never became part of officially part of what was called the land of Israel, but it was nonetheless under Israel's control, at least during a certain time. Now, God never did say that he was going to give it to them unconditionally and, you know, in a sense that they couldn't lose it.

In fact, he said the opposite. In Deuteronomy, chapter 28, he's very explicit. Moses says to Israel in Deuteronomy 28, in the first 15 verses, if you are obedient to me, I'll elevate you, Israel, above all the nations and you'll be blessed in the field, you'll be blessed in the cities, you'll be blessed in the fruit of your womb, you'll be blessed in your cattle and blessed in the needing pot and in your grain, granaries and so forth.

You'll be blessed all over the place. And then in verse 15 or 16, he says, but if you're not obedient and if you break my covenant, then I will set myself against you and you'll be cursed in the field and cursed in the city and cursed in the needing pot and cursed in the womb and cursed in their cattle and cursed in your granaries and so forth. And in that section in the latter part of Deuteronomy 28, which goes much longer enumerating the curses than it's spent talking about the blessings, it says, and I will consume you from the land.

I will drive you out and consume you from the land I've given you. If you're rebellious against me, the land is not going to be like yours unconditionally. In another place, in Leviticus, God said to them, the land is mine and you are strangers with me here.

It's not their land, it's God's land. And they were able to live there on his conditions. We saw just, I think, in one of our earlier lectures that he talked about how the land was vomiting out the inhabitants of it.

It's in Leviticus 18, I think it's verses 24 and 25. He lifts a lot of the occultic and sexually immoral behaviors of the Canaanites. And he says to Israel, now you better not do these things.

These are an abomination to God and because of these things, God is causing the land to vomit those people out. But then he says, and this is Leviticus 18, he says in verse 26, you shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who sojourns with you for these abominations, all these abominations the men of the land have done who are before you. And thus the land is defiled.

He says, let the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. Now, it doesn't sound like God saying this land is yours no matter what. He's saying the reason I'm driving out the Canaanites is they did these horrible things.

If you do those horrible things, I'll drive you out too. You don't have an unconditional land grant here. You are on my land.

We have a covenant together. If you keep the covenant, this land is yours as long as you keep the covenant. If you violate the covenant, well, then it's not yours anymore.

So when God gives anything, it's really alone. You know, God really owns everything. In one sense, in Psalm, I think it's 115, if I could be wrong.

It says, the heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's, but the earth he has given to the sons of men. But in another Psalm, Psalm 24, it says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Now, he's given the earth to the sons of men, but it's really his.

He still is the, he holds the deed to the whole earth. He's given us, you know, he's allowed us to be tenants on his land and he can wipe us out any time he wants to as he proved during the flood. If he doesn't like the way the tenants are handling the property, he can just wipe them off and he'll do it again someday.

But that's exactly how it was with the promised land too. It was God's land and he was given it to them as tenants on his land. In fact, that's how Jesus described it in his parable, the vineyard.

The vineyard was Israel and the vineyard owner leased out the property to tenants so that they produce fruit and give it to them. This is at the end of Matthew 21. So we read many times of God saying, I'm giving you this land, I'm giving you this land.

And we, and he doesn't always tell about the conditions, but he does sometimes. He doesn't have to repeat the conditions every time in order for them to be implied. So, you know, even today, when we ask the question, what about the status of that land now? Does that land belong permanently to them? Well, are they following God? Are they following Christ? I don't believe they are.

Many of them aren't even following God according to the old covenant, much less the new. So it's hard to argue on any biblical basis that they have some kind of an unconditional grant to that land. And I should make my point clear because people who say these kind of things sometimes are misunderstood.

I'm not saying that I have any objection to Israel having that land. It doesn't bother me whether they have it. But the question is not whether I have any objection to it or whether it's right or wrong even for them to be there.

The question is, is it a biblical mandate that they should have that land? That's an entirely different question. Because we could say, it's okay that we have this land, this part of North America. We took it from other people.

They were here first. Arguably it was theirs and we took it by force from them. Okay, fine.

Might not have been the nicest thing to do, but that's how all countries are where they are now. Every country on every piece of geography in the world took it from someone who was there before them. There's just never been, you know, there's no people living in the same spot, who are the same people who always live in that spot.

We kind of deal with things as they are. So we have the, it's okay that this is our country and our land now. But that doesn't mean we have a biblical mandate to it.

It doesn't mean that, you know, if enemies came and took it over that somehow we have to say, well wait a minute, we had a permanent title to this land. No, nobody has a permanent title to any land. And Israel even didn't have a permanent title unconditionally.

It was a permanent title conditionally. And therefore had they been obedient, there would have been no one who would have ever had any right to take them away. Unfortunately their history does not exhibit consistent obedience.

In fact, it's almost consistent disobedience. Now verses five through nine are a promise that certainly is intended to encourage Joshua. In fact, we have no doubt of that because so many times, at least three times in the section, he tells them be strong and of good courage.

Apparently Joshua was facing an intimidating situation. We know he was. The situation he was facing had intimidated 10 out of the 12 scouts that Moses had sent into the land 40 years earlier to see if the land was good.

It was good. The land was very attractive, very productive. They brought back large samples of the produce of the land.

Very impressive. But despite the attraction, it had terrifying aspects to it. Giants, cities walled up into heaven, fierce enemies.

And 10 out of the 12 scouts said, there's no way we're going to take this place. We might as well head back to Egypt. Now, of course, no way probably was a true reflection of the natural state of things.

Probably Israel naturally couldn't have conquered the land. But Joshua and Caleb were the only two spies who disagreed with the rest of the world. God's going to give it to us.

God is able to give it to us. God is able to conquer these giants. And so he expressed faith early on.

And that's, in fact, his reason for being put in charge at this time. And yet he is still facing a situation that even 40 years earlier intimidated everybody but him and possibly him a little. He just stated his faith in God.

I don't think Joshua was looking at this picture and saying, no, these guys are no trouble at all. You know, I think he saw that they were trouble, but he just believed God could help. And so he's facing that which would intimidate almost anybody and probably somewhat himself, too.

And so God says, no man should be able to stand before you all the days of your life. And I'm going to be with you like I was with Moses. And at the end of that verse, I will not leave you nor forsake you.

Now, we sometimes wonder about the promises of God in the Old Testament. Are they ours? Sometimes it seems like Christians apply promises to themselves that are originally made to someone else. And we wonder, is that legitimate? The case I often hear is where Jeremiah says, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

Plans of good and so forth. Almost all Christians say that's one of their favorite texts. And other Christians say, well, that's not really for us.

That was written to the Jews in Exodus and Babylon. That's not spoken to us. Or that if my people who are called by my name shall humbly themselves and pray and seek my face, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land.

You know, Christians quote that all the time about their land. And other Christians say, wait a minute, that's not really made to us. That's made to Israel.

That's not a promise to everybody. And at one level, that's true. However, Israel was a type of the church.

They were the people of God. And while it is true, perhaps, that the promises God made to them are not applicable just across the board without modification, they do embody something of God's intentions toward his people. And even this promise that's made privately to Joshua, I will never leave you nor forsake you, is quoted in the New Testament as if it applies to us.

In Hebrews chapter 13, verses 5 and 6, it says, let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man can do to me, or what can man do to me.

Now, the quotation that the writer of Hebrews gives to us, he gives it as if you should know. You should know this promise is given so you don't have to be afraid of anything. What is the promise? It's the promise, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

This promise was made twice in Deuteronomy to Israel, and once in Joshua, 1, 5, to Joshua. It was never made to the church directly, and yet the writer of Hebrews assumes that we can claim that. We can expect that promise to be true of us.

What God promised to them, he has not made lesser promises to us. If anything, greater promises. The writer of Hebrews also says in chapter 10, that the new covenant, or chapter 8, excuse me, is based upon better promises than those of the old covenant.

So there are promises in the old covenant, and the promises to us are not worse, but better. And so it's not necessarily too great a stretch to take these promises that God made in the Old Testament and say that, at least in some sense, they may well have application to us. At least in the germ of what God is saying about his faithfulness, or about his attitude about things, probably, in general, they can be taken as continually true of his people, including us.

And so it's not so wrong, because this was a promise given essentially privately to one man, and yet the writer of Hebrews acts like we should all take it for granted that it's to us as well. In 2 Corinthians 1, I think it's verse 20, Paul said, all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus through us. So God's promises, he's talking about Old Testament promises, I'm sure, they're all confirmed to us in Christ.

But not always without modification, because of course promises of prosperity, for example, and of health, that are conditioned upon Israel's faithfulness to God, sometimes those have their fulfillment in a spiritual way, a spiritual prosperity, spiritual health. And it's not necessarily the case that Christians can expect to always have a lot of children, for example, if they're obedient to God, although that was promised. There are promises of God that are of a physical sort in the Bible, but which have their spiritual correspondence in the spiritual blessings in heavenly places that Paul says God has blessed us with.

Now, he tells them in verse 6, be strong and of good courage. Again in verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. In verse 9, have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage.

He says in verse 6, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. God made the promise, and Joshua is going to be the one to deliver on that promise. I promise to give your fathers that, and I'm going to use you to divide that inheritance to them.

He says, but you don't have to be strong and of good courage that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. And don't turn to the right or to the left from it. That's just a figure of speech.

It just means don't deviate from what God said to do. Don't take liberties on the commands of God. God said to do it, he meant it, and don't modify it.

He says, so that you may prosper wherever you go. Now the word prosper in modern English is often used to speak primarily of financial, improved financial circumstances. And it certainly can have that meaning.

But the word prosper in somewhat older English, the original meaning of prosper means to succeed generally. To prosper in your endeavors means that you are successful in reaching the goals that you set. So Paul, for example, in Romans chapter 1 says, pray for me that I might have a prosperous journey.

He doesn't mean that he'd pick up a lot of money along the way, but that he'd successfully get across the Mediterranean without sinking to the bottom like so many ships did. That he'd be successful in what he's endeavoring. Whatever your goal is, success in that goal is prospering.

That's how the term is used in scripture. So it's not necessary to assume it's talking about financial prosperity. But he says you'll prosper wherever you go.

This book of the law, verse 8, shall not depart out of your mouth. And that always seemed like a strange thing to say. Because when you think of what departs from your mouth is what you speak, it almost sounds like you're saying you should not speak the words of the law.

You know, the words of the law should not depart from your mouth. But I think what he means is the book of the law shall always be in your mouth and never cease to be there. You shall always be speaking according to the book of the law.

It's not saying it shall not proceed from your lips as spoken words, but rather it shall never cease to dwell in your mouth. It shall not depart and go somewhere else and not be there anymore. So you shall always have the law of God, as it were, on your lips and available to speak and speaking according to the law of God at all times.

He says, but you shall meditate in it day and night. Now, you have no doubt read other passages where you've heard of meditating on the law of God day and night. In fact, the most famous is Psalm 1, one of the most famous psalms.

And that psalm makes the contrast between a man who is blessed and a man who is not blessed. It says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law, he meditates day and night. And it says he'll be like a tree planted like rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its feast and its leaf does not wither. And whatever he does will prosper.

Sounds like this passage, doesn't it? David wrote this after Joshua's time. And no doubt David was influenced in his, in his phraseology by his knowledge of this promise made to Joshua. Meditate on the law day and night and whatever you do will prosper.

I might want to say something about that here because that is a very, a very relevant thing to godly people of any time. And that is meditating on scripture. In fact, David Ross, the director of this YWAM base, wrote a book called Meditating on Scripture or Biblical Meditation or something like that.

He actually wrote a whole book about meditating on scripture. So really, it's a precious subject to me anyway. You know, I don't know if I look back over my 40 years in ministry, if there'd be many people who'd say that what I've done has prospered because I've never been extremely, never had a lot of money.

I've never had, I've never been very well known. I've had some tragic things in my past and so forth. But I don't know if people would just say, well, there's a prosperous man.

I don't think my kids want to prosper the way I have prospered. I think they'd like to prosper in a different way than that. On the other hand, on the other hand, for the most part, I feel and I've always felt like a very prosperous man, not in the sense of the physical measures or markers of that, but just in the sense that I've always just felt fed.

I felt well fed spiritually and physically. God's always taken care of all my needs. And although I've never been rich, I've never been in debt either.

You know, I mean, I've never had less than I needed. And so I consider that prosperity because although I don't have a lot of money, I don't have anything in the bank, yet I'm more rich than 90% of Americans because they're in debt. They're underwater.

I'm at least above the water, on the surface. And that's prosperity. In fact, frankly, being poor in America is being rich by world standards.

So we really do prosper, but I'm not even thinking of that kind of prosperity. That's not really the prosperity I've ever sought. I mean, I could have made more money, I suppose, if I wanted to.

That's just never been one of the things that I ever thought about. There's too many more exciting things than that, like knowing God and serving God and promoting the kingdom of God and seeing people's lives changed and so forth. And while I will say that I wouldn't expect anybody looking on to describe me as prosperous, even in that sense, because I'm not really well known or don't have broad influence, but I've always felt very satisfied in God.

I've always felt that what I'm doing with my life is very gratifying and that when I face God, I'll be glad for the way I live my life. To me, when you're feeling content, that's prospering. And I will say this, I don't think that I would have this same sense of well-being and inward prosperity if I had not always, in my adult life at least, since I was 16, always meditated day and night on the scriptures.

In fact, even as a child, I did more than the average kid. I've told this story to some, but most of you have never heard it. Even in second grade, I remember they showed me a film strip.

They showed the school, the second grade film strip. You young people don't know what a film strip is. It's a set of slides on a strip of film that they project on the wall.

And it was about how the solar system came about, how the sun shot off from itself from sunspot explosions, gaseous masses of flame that were held in orbit and cooled down into planets and so forth, and the earth started that way and all that. And I remember just not being willing to... I never heard that there were people who didn't believe in the Bible because my parents and my grandparents, everyone I knew who were adults, believed the Bible. So I didn't know a teacher wouldn't, and I didn't know that people who had any education wouldn't.

But I remember thinking, that just doesn't sound right to me. I wasn't sure why, and I remember walking around during recess, the whole recess, thinking of that. And thinking, well, what the Bible says is something different than that.

And I told my teacher that when I came back in from recess. I said, you know, I think that film strip was wrong because they said that the earth came off of the sun. But in the book of Genesis in the Bible, it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the sun was made later.

So I don't think they were right. And the teacher said, oh, I guess they forgot that. And that's what she said.

I guess they forgot. But I guess they did. But the interesting thing to me is that I didn't.

And I was not a particularly holy kid. I was not a particularly righteous, loving, even very well-intentioned kid. I see sometimes in my youth that I was a fairly rotten kid.

But I did have this interest in the Word of God. I read it when I was young, as a preteen and stuff. And then when I went into the ministry, I just couldn't think of anything else.

And sometimes I had to support myself in regular kinds of work because as a teenager I didn't have full-time ministry yet. I had part-time ministry initially. And so I had to work part-time.

I always would choose the kind of work where I didn't have to use my brain on the job, for the job. I was a window washer, a janitor, assembly line worker. Actually, the only job I ever had to think about, I had to count change.

I got fired for not counting right again. But the jobs that I enjoyed most were the jobs where I could just be, you know, cleaning the floor and meditating on the Word of God. It wasn't like I thought, boy, there's an obligation.

It says in Psalm 1, His delight is in the law of the Lord. And in His law, He meditates day and night. You will meditate by nature on whatever you delight in.

You fall in love with somebody, you'll meditate on them all the time. Every free moment you've got, they'll be on your mind. You've got some kind of a goal in life and that's where your affection is now.

You'll be thinking about it in all your free time. If you love the Word of God, you won't have to discipline yourself to meditate on it. You'll hardly be able to get it off your mind.

And I just have to say, I haven't got much. I have no education formally, but whatever I've learned, I've learned from meditating on the Word of God because I just couldn't get it off my mind. And I relate with Joshua in this.

In fact, I do for another reason too. This particular passage, I don't usually tell this story, but I can't resist because it's one of the few cases where somebody said he had a prophecy for me and it turned out to be right. I've had many people approach me over the years and say, I've got a prophetic word from God for you.

And I think, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But this guy was a guy who was in our church, Calvary Chapel Santa Cruz. And Calvary chapels are not highly charismatic type churches.

You don't hear a lot of prophecies and certainly not a lot of tongues in their meetings. But they believe in it in general. And there was this one guy who kind of stood out in that fairly often he'd get up and give a prophecy in a meeting.

And I've been in churches where I've heard a lot of prophecies and I just usually think they're hokey. But his prophecies, they just weren't very hokey. They seemed credible.

They seemed like, well, you never know for sure. But I thought, this guy sounds like, the more I hear of him, the more I respect his credibility. But I didn't know him well.

But I was at an elders' meeting one evening at the home of one of the elders and this guy called for me. And I'd never had a conversation with him. We didn't really know each other.

He said, Steve, the Lord gave me a scripture for you. He gave me a word for you and a scripture. And when he said that, Joshua 1.9 came to my head.

Of course, I knew it as a song, but there was no reason for it to come to my head. I mean, he didn't indicate anything about the scripture. There had been no reference to that passage at any time in my recent past.

It's just when he said, I have a scripture for you, I thought, Joshua 1.9 came to my head. And it turned out that the scripture he had in mind was Joshua 1, verses 5 through 9. And then he gave me that scripture. And then he also gave me like a personal word from the Lord, which I won't go into in detail now, but it seems like it came through.

But God knows that I'm skeptical about personal prophecy. I really am. When someone says, I have a word from God for you, more often than not in my past, I've been fairly convinced they didn't after I heard it.

But God knowing my skepticism, I think, gave me this sign, as it were. He told me before the guy told me what the scripture was that he was going to give me. And it turned out to be the same scripture.

And that could have been any scripture, but it turned out that we both had the same one in mind quite independently. So this scripture has always struck me as, this really was a word to me. This really was something God wanted to encourage me with.

So these verses have always been important. But it does say in these verses, meditate day and night on the word of God. I didn't have to be told to do that.

I've been doing that for decades before I got that word from this guy. But it certainly was something I resonated with. Because he says, if you don't turn from it, if you meditate on it day and night, if you don't ever allow the word of God to cease from being in your mouth, then whatever you do will prosper.

And while, like I said, I've had some serious disappointments in my life, I've got no complaints about how God has prospered me in my life. And I feel like, I frankly feel, and I've always felt, at least most times, spiritually prosperous. I've had my low spots too.

Anyway, let's move on. Verses 10 and following. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people saying, pass through the camp and command the people saying, prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God has given you to possess.

Now, God made a promise that God was going to do something, but Joshua didn't consider that to be a warrant for making no preparations. You see, just because God says he's going to do something doesn't mean he's going to do it while you sit by on your hands and do nothing. You do the responsible thing.

It's like, I like what Keith Green said in the course of that song, He'll take care of the rest. It's really excellent theology in sort of a little simple rhyme. He says, you just keep doing your best, pray that it's blessed, and he'll take care of the rest.

And that's really just a good summary of everything we need to know. You do your best, as God expects you to do the best you can. But you pray that God will bless you, because you know that the best you can may not be good enough, certainly not without God's blessing.

You may do the best you can and fall flat on your face, because the best you can isn't enough. But you're still expected to do your best. You're not supposed to pray and sit around and wait for God to do something if there's some responsibility involved, if there's some preparations to be made, if there's some action that is part of a duty involved.

You do what you can, and you do it the best you can. And then you pray for God to bless what you're doing, and then he takes responsibility for the outcome. This was really the contrast that sometimes people have made, both Christians and non-Christians, especially Christians have made this kind of contrast with reference to God, that God is not requiring us to be successful.

He requires us to be faithful. We have to do what we can, but we know that we're not going to be successful unless he gives success. And if we don't succeed after we've done our best, that's not our problem.

We don't have to be success-driven. We need to be faithfulness-driven, faithful to our duties, faithful to our responsibilities. Joshua was told he'd prosper, he'd be successful.

God would give him success in everything. But Joshua didn't just say, cool, I'm going to sit and watch this happen. He said, okay, we'd better mobilize.

We'd better get prepared. We'd better get ready to march. We'd better do our best, come up with our best strategies.

We'd better do, you know, the thing you would do if it was your responsibility to lead an army. And then we'll see God keep his promises. Now, verses 12 and following says, Now, this side of Jordan means outside the land.

Remember, they were on the west side of Jordan having this conversation. The land is on the east side of the Jordan. But Gad and Manasseh and Reuben were three of the tribes that had a lot of livestock.

And when they had conquered two kings on the western banks of the Jordan, they noticed there's a lot of grazing land, very desirable for herdsmen to have their livestock. And these three tribes, Gad and Reuben and Manasseh, approached Moses and said, you know, do you mind if we just kind of live here? Now, Moses didn't want them to discourage, you know, the other tribes from going and taking the promised land. And he was a little upset with them about that.

But they said, no, no, we will go in and help fight the battles. And we'll help the other tribes win their territory. We'll leave our wives and children right here with our livestock.

And we'll cross the Jordan with you. We'll put ourselves in danger along with our brethren. And we'll fight the battles of the Lord over there with you.

But when it's all done, can we inherit the land over here instead? And Moses actually gave them that grant. But he said, you better make sure that you do fight those battles. You don't just settle down here.

This all happened in Numbers chapter 32. If you want to cross reference that Numbers 32, tell that story. Now, although Moses granted them that concession, it didn't really turn out to be a very good thing for them because geographically, the land west of Jordan was unprotectable, indefensible.

It was easily overrun by invaders. Whereas in the promised land, they had the river as a natural barrier to invasion for the most part. And they only had to defend against attacks from outside coming from the north or the south.

They had the Mediterranean on the west. But over in the land of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the Nassites, there was really nothing to protect them. They had nice grazing land, but they were really sitting ducks to invaders.

And they didn't really make a very wise choice. It seems to me that if God said, I want you people in this land, then they should have thought, well, we like this land here, but God said maybe over there is actually better for us. It's always better to do what God said to do, even if it looks like something else.

Even something God will permit is less than what he commands or less than his best. When you say, well, I'll just take this because this appeals to me and God isn't forbidding it. Well, then it often is not something that will turn out well.

It says, but you shall pass in verse 14 in the middle of the verse. You shall pass before your brethren armed, all your mighty men of valor, and help them, until the Lord has given your brethren rest as he gave you. And they also have taken possession of the land which the Lord your God has given them.

Then you shall return to the land of your possession and enjoy it, which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave you on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrise. So they answered Joshua saying, all that you command us, we will do. And wherever you send us, we will go.

Just as we heeded Moses in all things, so we will heed you. Only the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words, in all that you command him shall be put to death.

Only be strong and of good courage. So now the people tell Joshua, be strong. I wonder if he was exhibiting signs of nervousness or something.

I mean, God had three times within a few sentences, I say, be strong and good courage. And now the people are telling him, now you just be strong and courageous. Don't be afraid.

Sort of like when Paul had to tell Timothy, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and power of the sun and light. Apparently that was because Timothy had a tendency to be timid. Paul said that to him, he said, don't be ashamed of me or of the gospel.

God has not given us a spirit of fear. When he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, if Timothy comes to you, make sure he's among you without fear. Don't intimidate the poor kid.

So sometimes people have been told again and again, don't be afraid, because they tend to be afraid. Joshua, if in fact he was afraid, is the more commendable for it, because he has taken the right approach to something that was scary to him. Sometimes we think that courage means that you don't have the good sense to be afraid of something that's really scary.

If you don't have the good sense to be afraid, it doesn't take courage. It's just stupidity. You walk into danger and you're not afraid, because you don't know it's dangerous.

Well, then you're just dumb. But if you know it's dangerous, but you know, I got to go there anyway. This is not going to be fun.

This is not going to be easy. This is perilous for me, but it's my duty. And so I'm going to face that peril.

I'm going to face the fear. I'm going to not allow my fear to turn me back. That's what courage is.

And it sounds to me like maybe Joshua had the good sense to know this is a scary mission. This is a dangerous mission. He's doing something that's crazy if God isn't on your side.

But God is, and therefore he's encouraged to take encouragement and be strong. And he did. As far as we can tell, we don't find any lapses in Joshua's courage at any point in the story.

Well, we need to take a break, and then we'll come back. We're not going to take a whole hour on every chapter, but the first chapter often... Well, I could take a whole hour on any chapter, anytime I want to, but we don't have the time. We'll be on any verse.

Yeah.