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.