JOSHUA.
Joshua was a man who walked by faith, and you will find the key to his character in three words—courage, obedience and faith.
Courage, obedience and faith. And he dared to be in the minority.
Now, friends, there are very few men at the present time who like to be in the minority. They always want to be in the majority. They want to go with the crowd. But when a man has laid hold of the Divine nature of God, and has become a product of the Divine nature, he is willing then to go against the crowd of the world and be numbered with the minority.
Where Joshua met the God of Israel first we are not told. We do not catch a glimpse of him until the man is about forty years old. The first sight we get of Joshua is as he comes up out of Egypt. We are told that after Moses had struck the rock in Horeb and the children of Israel had drank the water that came out of that rock—and that rock was typical of Christ and of God’s pure throne—Amalek came out to fight them, and after they had got a drink of this pure water they were willing to meet him.
We find that Joshua’s first battle was successful, and that his last one was successful. He never knew what defeat was. He was successful because he believed in the Lord God of Heaven—because he had perfect faith in God. Moses went up into the mountain to pray, and while he was praying Joshua was down fighting Amalek. And when Moses held up his hand Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed.
“And Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands—the one on the one side and the other on the other side—and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
His hands were up until Amalek was defeated.
There is only one thing against Joshua. He was opposed to the preaching of Eldad and Aminidab. He did not like to see Eldad and Aminidab out there preaching in the camp, because they did not belong to the Apostolic body. So he says to Moses: “I wish you would rebuke Eldad and Aminidab for preaching in the camp. I do not want them to preach there.”
But Moses said: “No! I will not rebuke Eldad and Aminidab. That’s just what we want. I wish to God there were more of them.”
After Moses rebuked Joshua we never hear him complaining any more about Eldad and Aminidab. That is the only thing on record against him. The next thing we hear of is the matter of those twelve spies, and I will pass over that. You remember how they came back, and Joshua and Caleb were the only two out of the twelve that dared to bring in a minority report. But now the forty years’ wilderness journey is over, and during all those forty years you can not find any place where Joshua or Caleb ever murmured or complained. They were not of that kind.
Now, as I said, the forty years’ wilderness journey is over, and Moses is about to leave. He went up into Mount Nebo, and “God kissed away his soul and buried him.”
Then Joshua was commanded to take charge of the army. The word of the Lord came to him, saying: “Joshua, arise and go over this Jordan. Moses, my servant, is dead.”
There was no president, no general, no marshal about it. There was no title at all, but just merely: “Joshua, arise and go over this Jordan.” Now, Joshua just obeyed, and here you will find the secret of his wonderful success. He did just what the Lord told him to do. He did not stand, like many people would have done, and say: “I don’t know how I am going to get these people over. Hadn’t you better wait, Lord, until the next day? How am I to get these three million people over this angry flood? Hadn’t we better wait until the waters recede?”
No! Joshua did not say that. He had got his command from God: “Arise and go.” When the Lord gave orders, that was enough. He had got His word, and he brings these children of Israel down in sight of the swollen stream. Faith must be tried. God will not have people whom He can not try.
Joshua brings them there in three days, in sight of the angry flood, with not a word of murmuring. If he had brought them there forty years before, what murmuring there would have been! We will get trained—every one of us.
They had had their faith tried in those forty years in the wilderness, and now they murmured not. There was not a word of complaint. But forty years before they would have asked, when they had got opposite Jericho: “What is He going to do? How are we going to get over? We’ve got to have a bridge or a pontoon. And even if we get over, they will see us and defeat us. They will slay us here on the bank of Jordan. Guess we had better turn around and go back.”
That is about what they would have said, what they would have tried, and what they would have done forty years before. But now Joshua tells the people that the priests are to walk out in front of them, and that the moment the priests touched the water—the moment the soles of their feet touched the water—the water was to be cut off.
There was faith for you! When those seven men took up the ark God was with them, and the moment the soles of their feet touched the water the waters were cut off, and they passed into the middle of the stream and put down the ark.
That ark represented the Almighty. He was in the ark, with the ark right there in the midst of death—for Jordan is death and judgment—right in the middle of the stream. He held that stream in the palm of His hand. And now the people pass beyond—three millions of them.
You can hear their solemn tread. Not a word said on their march through death and judgment until Joshua led them on to Resurrection Ground. After he had got them all over, he told twelve men—one from each tribe—to take each a stone and set them up where the priests stood, so that when their children asked “What mean ye by these stones?” they could tell how the Almighty brought them through dangers into the Promised Land.
Now, after they had placed their stones, the ark was brought up out of the Jordan, and the waters rolled off. Instead of moving right on at once to Jericho, the children of Israel stopped to keep the Passover. They were in no hurry. They were willing to worship God. They kept the Passover, and after that they started for Jericho. Jericho was shut off, undoubtedly, and surely the hearts of those people were filled with fear. Here the children of Israel had come to their country and their God had brought them through the Red Sea with an out-stretched arm. Surely there was a strange God among them. Jericho had no such God as that. He had defended them and led them, and had given them light and life after that.
But now Joshua just takes a walk around the walls of Jericho. God had ordered him to take it, and he must. And as he was walking around, viewing the walls of Jericho, all at once a man stood right in front of him with a drawn sword right over him, and God said: “No man can be able to stand before you all the days of your life.” And Joshua steps right up to him, and asks: “Art thou for us or for our adversaries?” The stranger answered: “I am captain of God’s host, come to lead you to victory.”
Then Joshua fell on his face, and God talked with him. How many men of the present time would have laughed at Joshua if they had been in Jericho! How much sport they would have made of him! If there had been a Jericho Herald, what articles would have come out! The idea of taking the city in that way! The ark was to come out, and the priests were to blow rams’ horns. That was very absurd, wasn’t it? Rams’ horns!
Well, the seventh day came, and they were up quite early in the morning. Here were these seven men blowing their rams’ horns, and the people going around for the seventh time. At the end of the seventh time Joshua says: “Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.” They shout, and down tumble the walls of the city. Then they went up and entered Jericho, and every man, woman and child of that city perished. God had given the order, and His commands were obeyed.
Now they move on to Ai. You know, after a victory is gained over some large town they attack and take the little outlying towns. So, in this case, they moved right on to Ai. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, and they came back and told him that just a few thousand men could take Ai; and they go up and are repulsed. Then Joshua rends his clothes and falls on his face, and asks God what the fault was. He knew the fault was in the camp—not God’s.
When they went into Jericho they were told not to touch one solitary thing. But there was Acham, who saw a nice garment—perhaps he thought it would be a nice dress for his wife. He also saw two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold, and he coveted all these things and took them. He hid them, but he could not conceal them. He had to confess that he had sinned against the Lord God of Israel. Those men of Ai were so humbled that they could not stand before the Lord.
After leaving Ai, we read that Joshua came to Mount Ebal, and there a wonderful thing took place. On one side, on the slope of Mount Gerizim, were half of the children of Israel, and on the other side, on the slope of Mount Ebal, were the other half. There were three million people gathered there, and the whole law of Moses was read over to them.
It was a solemn sight. Moreover, all the law of God was read—not a part, but the whole. Joshua read the blessings and cursings. He did not stand up there like some one reading a moral essay and say that they must be good for they were going into the Promised Land; that there were blessings for them, and said nothing about the curses. No; he did not do that. He read all.
It says here, in the eighth chapter: “And all Israel and their elders and officers and their judges stood on this side the ark and on that side, before the priests, the Levites, which bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as he that was born among them; half of them over against Mount Gerizim and half of them over against Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.”
Now, mark that. “He read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.” If Joshua had been like many of the present day, he would have said to himself: “I will read the blessings, but not the cursings. I do not believe God is going to curse a man if he does wrong, so I will read the blessings and omit the cursings.” But, thank God, he read the whole law—the blessings and the cursings. He did not keep back any thing. “And there was not a word of all that Moses commanded which Joshua read not.” Thank God for such a man! That is the kind of men we want nowadays—men who will not cut the Bible to pieces like the king who took out his penknife and said: “I don’t like that; cut that out. I don’t like this; cut this out.” So they cut and slashed the Bible until very little was left.
The thirty-third verse of the eighth chapter says they were all there—“as well the stranger as he that was born among them.” You see, Joshua made no distinction. He read to the stranger as well as to those that were of the children of Israel. It was all read.
And now Joshua is ready to move on. The law had been read, they had worshiped their God, and they were ready to move on. Undoubtedly the nations throughout that land had heard how this solemn assembly had met on the mountain side and the law had been read. Now they are ready to move on again. They had been there about three days.
Some one now comes to Joshua with startling news. The messenger begins with the question: “Joshua, have you heard that there is a confederacy formed to oppose you? Instead of meeting one man you are to meet five. They are coming down from the mountains with great regiments of giants. Why, the mountains are full of the sons of Anak—full of giants—and some of them are six feet high. Why, they are so big that they would scare our own men to death. Why, one man came out and just shook his little finger at our men, and scared them out of their lives. There was not a man who dared to meet them. The whole land is full of giants. Do you know that they have formed a confederacy? Five kings are coming down against you with hordes of these giants.”
I see the old warrior. He does not tremble at all. He had received the word of God: “Joshua, be of good courage. No man shall be able to stand against you.” He moved on in his godly armor and in the name of his God, and he routed his adversaries. The hour was growing late, and he commanded Sun and Moon to stand still, and they obeyed him. So there were two days in one. He found the five kings hid away in a cave, and he took them out and hanged them. He took thirty-one kings and kingdoms. He just took that land by faith.
Now, some people ask: “What right had he to come over and take that land?” If you will read the fourth verse of the ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, you will see what right he had. “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying: ‘For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land.’ But, for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.”
That is why He drove them out. Their cup of iniquity was filled, and God just dashed it to pieces. When any nation’s cup of iniquity is full, God sweeps them away.
Now, mark the Scripture: “Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land; but, for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God hath driven them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord swore unto thy fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” “Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people.”
They were a stiff-necked people. It was not for the righteousness of the children of Israel that the Lord gave them this land. He hated these nations on account of their wickedness.
Now, Joshua has overcome them and driven them from the face of the earth, and this brings out one noble trait in his character. When he came to divide up the land, Joshua took the poorest treasure himself, that he might be near the ark. And there, on Mount Ephraim, he died at the ripe old age of one hundred and ten years. During all those years not a man was able to stand before him. See the contrast between his dying testimony and that of Jacob! Jacob’s self-reproach was: “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been.” He had a stormy voyage.
Look and see this old warrior going to rest. He had tried God forty years. He had heard the crack of the slave driver’s whip, down there in Egypt. But probably he had a praying mother, who talked to him about this King of the Hebrews, about the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and he believed in that God. When Moses came down into Egypt he found this young man just in the prime of his life. Joshua recognized in Moses that he was an instrument of the Almighty, and that the King of the Hebrews had sent him there to deliver His people.
Joshua had tried God forty years in the wilderness, and when eighty years old he was called into the Promised Land. He had tried God thirty years in Canaan, and now, at the age of one hundred and ten, the aged and invincible warrior is going home. But he is not going to die like an infidel. He knows he is about to die, and he calls for all the tribes of Israel and their elders. These come up from the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Simeon, the tribe of Zebulon, and so on; and they are gathered at Shiloh, to be there to hear the old prophet and patriarch.
That man of God speaks, and what does he say? What is his dying testimony? How we all linger around the couch of our dying friends! How anxious we are to get their last words!
Well, let us turn back. What are the last words of this man who has tried God and proved God? These are the words: “I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you. All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.”
Not one good thing has failed! God has kept His word. God has made His word good. “Not one good thing hath failed.” What a dying testimony! How glorious! In the beautiful sunset light the old warrior sank away, like he was going to sleep. In the dusk of a beautiful Summer’s evening he passed away. There is the old man’s dying testimony. He could tell the people of God. He was the only one left. The rest had gone. Moses had sunk into his desert grave, and the other leaders of the tribe of Israel had passed away. But now he was going to die in the Promised Land.
Truly, he was a man of courage, obedience and faith.