Dennis Tuuri

Joshua 1: Preparation for Conquest

Joshua 1, our subject is preparation for conquest. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.

There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong, and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee.

Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage.

Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals, for within 3 days we shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it. And to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh spake Joshua, saying, Remember the word which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord your God hath given you rest and hath given you this land.

Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan. But ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and help them until the Lord hath given your brethren rest as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the Lord your God giveth them. Then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the Lord’s servant gave you, on this side Jordan toward the sun rising.

And they answered Joshua, saying, All that thou commandest us, we will do. And whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go. According as we hearkened unto Moses, and all things, so will we hearken unto thee. Only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses. Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words, and all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death.

Only be strong and of a good courage. We thank the Lord our God for his word and we pray now that he would illuminate this word to us by his Holy Spirit. Please be seated. Younger children may be dismissed now to go to their Sabbath schools if their parents desire that.

I begin this afternoon series of talks going through the book of Joshua and this is going to be a lot different for me in terms of style. I plan to cover a chapter a week basically, maybe a few exceptions as the text indicates, but I want us to move right through this book and then after that I want to move into the book of Acts.

It’s my belief that there are a good many correlations that can be made between the book of Joshua and the book of Acts. Some rather obvious. The Pentateuch, the beginning of the Old Testament, the book of Joshua appended on is the bridge between the Pentateuch and the rest of the scriptures and really in a very real sense a bridge between God, his laws, covenant people, and the rest of history as well and certainly the rest of the scriptures. The book of Joshua begins, by the way, with a connective word “and” which connects it back to what precedes it, the first five books of the scriptures. Acts, of course, follows the four books of the gospel and is kind of the link between the gospel account of our Savior’s life and then into the epistles and again into church history.

And so both these books are very similar in their placement in the canonical text. They’re very similar as well in terms of many other correlations which we will see as we go through this text. And I want to cover them both fairly rapidly. I think it’s important that we do careful exegesis of individual words and phrases at times during biblical preaching. But I think also it’s very important we don’t lose the flow of certain books as we go through them.

And that is particularly true of what I’m going to try to do this next year or so as we go through Joshua and Acts and show some correlations. I think Joshua is a very important book for us right now as well and we’ll talk about that a little bit later this afternoon and then into this study as well.

So basically this series is going to be different and we’re going to be going fairly quickly, picking up high points, drawing correlations to the New Testament church and the new covenant, and then looking at some points of application.

That’s going to be our basic modus operandi for the next year or so. Now I talked about Joshua’s relationship to the new covenant and one of the big themes that we’ll be seeing, and I’ll touch on briefly now of course, is that Joshua is the same name as Jesus. So there’s a real correlation in name alone between Joshua and Jesus. Indeed, the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament produced much later in history, uses Jesus, the Greek term, as Joshua.

For the Old Testament, Jesus means “he shall save,” as does Joshua. The same word basically, same name. And so it talks about the salvation of God’s people, even though it’s a book of military conquest. And that in itself is worth contemplating quite a bit, the relationship of military conquest to salvation. And we’ll talk about some of those themes.

Joshua follows—well, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I’ll just save that comment for a couple of minutes from now. Essentially, I’m not going to do a real overview of the book at all. I want to move right through it. But there are three basic sections of the book of Joshua. The first half of the book is the conquering of the land. And you think of Joshua as the book of conquering, but really that happens by the end of chapter 12 out of 24 chapters. So that happens halfway into the book. The bulk of the rest of the book is concerned with the distribution of the land that’s been conquered to the various tribes.

And then there’s three or four concluding chapters of various laws. So you have the theme of conquering, distributing, and obeying as the three basic divisions of the book. Or you could say conquering and distribution. And the obeying is part of the distribution because it does relate to land laws. But in any event, that’s what’s going on as the big theme of the book.

So what I want to do today will be similar to what we’re going to try to do as we go through this study.

And I want to begin with the little picture. And by that I mean what this chapter means in its historical setting, the little picture. And then I want to talk about the big picture. What is all this conquest all about? And we’re going to make application to ourselves today. We have to understand the bigger context for what’s going on in the book of Joshua. And then I chose arbitrarily, I’m sure, and you can choose a lot of other themes, but I chose some themes of this first chapter that seem to have particular relevance throughout the rest of the book and throughout the rest of the scriptures as well as kind of a synopsis of the salvation that Christ, the greater Joshua, the greater Jesus, is ushered in for us.

So we’ll look at those themes and then we’ll look at relating that to our picture today. So that’s kind of what we’re going to try to do this afternoon and I want to get through this fairly quickly.

Okay, first of all, the little picture. Basically, what you have in chapter one, you might have noticed as we read it, is first you have a time frame given. And then after that time frame is given—that is, the death of Moses—then we have a series of four speeches. And that’s really it to the first chapter: an introductory sentence which gives us the time frame, the basic picture of what’s going on. And then in this story from the Old Testament, real history, but nonetheless a story to be interpreted using understanding of literature. The literary devices used in this first chapter are four short speeches. There’s a speech from the Lord to Joshua.

Then there’s a speech from Joshua to his officers. And then there’s a speech from Joshua to two and a half tribes. And then there’s finally a speech on the part of the people back to Joshua confirming their obedience to what he’s told them to do.

So first the time setting, and this is important. Of course, you, most of you probably know what’s going on here. We’ve had 40 years in the wilderness. The people refused to act in obedience and faith early on, in terms of after the immediate deliverance from Egypt. The 12 spies came back. Two spies—Joshua and Caleb—brought a good report. The 10 brought back a bad report. They were afraid of the giants in the land, etc. And so God then curses that generation and everyone 20 and above dies off in the wilderness. And so as they all die off, only two are allowed to enter into the land, and that is Joshua and Caleb from the original generation of Israelites.

And so they’re at the end now of 40 years. 40 literal, long, dusty, disillusioned, death-like, despairing years in the wilderness. It has not been a nice time. Now, yes, there’s been manifestations of God—water from the rock, manna from heaven, etc. But they are under the curse of God in the wilderness. Make no mistake about it. And as they move into Canaan, they’re going to move into the blessing of God.

This first chapter is a real nice picture, isn’t it? Didn’t you like all those words we just read? I mean, everything’s going right. God is promising his people victory. And Joshua was a great man, following a great man, Moses. And the people are acting great. We’re going to obey you. You get a little worried when they say, “Just as we obeyed Moses in all things.” A little worried there, but I think the thrust of that from God’s perspective, from God’s intention in the chapter, is to affirm the people are ready to act in obedience.

Now, so it’s a great picture. They’re coming out of curse. They’re coming into blessing. That’s the big time picture being given here. But it is after the death of Moses that all this happens. And there’s very important correlations there. We’ll talk about those more next week as we talk on Easter Sunday about death, burial, and resurrection.

But obviously, we see the death of Moses, the type of Jesus Christ, the great prophet, the lawgiver. We also see, and we’ll talk about this some next week, the death of the high priest, Aaron, just prior to the preparation for going into the land. A very important point which many people miss. But you see, it is the death of the typological Jesus, both as prophet and high priest, that gives advent to the coming of Joshua. The typological Jesus—the people of God marching forward to take God’s order into all the world.

And so you see the king image here, the conquering, the head of the host, the captain of the host, Jesus, following his typological work on the cross of death and resurrection. And that’s very important for us to see. It has implications for us. After all these things are given as a model, an illustration of what the Christian life is like as well: our necessity to die to self, resurrect, and go forward in the power of the Spirit.

In a way you could say that Joshua is the spiritual Jesus—that is, the Holy Spirit brings Jesus to his people after Jesus’s greater exodus, as it were, typological of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. In the New Testament, his death, burial, and resurrection, his ascension to heaven. And then Jesus comes through the Spirit. The Spirit comes to minister Jesus to his people. And in the book of Acts, we have Jesus in the person and work of the church, guided, directed, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who teaches them what Jesus’s command word is. We see the body of Jesus Christ in terms of the church then marching into history, marching into victory, and conquering the whole world with the preaching of the gospel of the Savior.

And so there’s many correlations here. The setting is: Moses the servant is dead, but God the master is not. His work now continues and takes a definite turn to blessing and conquering.

Then we have these four short speeches that I just mentioned. First, the first speech is the Lord to Joshua. In this speech, the Lord gives Joshua essentially the commission to walk in obedience. He gives him a command to go. He gives him promises that he will be with him, etc. Let’s just read through those verses beginning at verse one.

“Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass…”—that’s the time frame. And then this first speech: “The Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister.”

Okay, “Moses’ minister”—the servant of Moses. And there’s much to commend Joshua as a leader here who would learn through servants. In any event, God then speaks to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, “Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan. Thou and all this people,” all this people—another common theme that’s going to go out throughout this book in various places—the stress upon the unity of the people of God as they move into blessing “unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.”

Here in this small picture, the land, the entrance into the land of Canaan, is a very important thing. I’ll be talking about this a little bit later, but as we read through this stuff, you know what we want to do. Usually what people want to do is they either want to talk about the historical facts that happened and acknowledge them or they want to talk about the spiritual lessons for us today. But I think that in terms of God’s word, spirit and what he has people do come together and make one picture.

And the picture that is presented here in the book of Joshua is that in terms of the salvation that God ushers in for his people, although not as full as the salvation for us, still that salvation has a lot to do with land—with a very concrete substance. And we do not want to slip into a way of thinking that somehow the physical world is not important or not real or just symbolic or whatever it is. The blessings of the physical universe are real to us and they’re tightly tied up with the salvation pictured in the book of Joshua.

They’re going in to possess a land for a specific reason. Okay? To all his people. “Unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.”

So he’s telling them here, you’re going to go possess the land which I have already given to you. The command to go in and occupy is premised upon the reality of God’s sovereign gift of this land to his people. He has already accomplished the transfer of ownership of this land from the Canaanites to his people. It is a done deal. But they still must walk forward and possess that which God has already accomplished for them. Okay?

“From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast.”

He gives them these borders, which they never fully occupy, by the way. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But in terms of the little picture here, he gives them the command to cross over to possess a land greater than they actually end up possessing. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit.

The mention of the river Euphrates is significant here. It is one of the four rivers that is mentioned in terms of the placement of the Garden of Eden and the four rivers that go out from Eden to water the whole world. And we’ll talk about the significance of that model as well here in a couple of minutes.

“There shall not be any man able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

God gives this assurance of continuity of his presence. That is the basis of all blessing—the presence of God himself to Joshua. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” That is the basis for the confidence that Joshua is to have to be strong and courageous to do it. The presence of God with him, not his own might or ability, but the presence of God. And God assures him of that presence at the very time he commands him to go forward and perform this work.

“Be strong and of good courage, for unto this people shall thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.”

Now we see the command to be strong and courageous tied to the written word of God. The Pentateuch was established. They had a written word, a written revelation from God. And so we are very much like Joshua in that we have the presence of God with us. And that presence is primarily mediated through his written word. Joshua is not called upon here to observe great miracles primarily, although that will happen, but rather to cleave to the written word. Then miracles may happen, but he is pointed back to the object of his faith, his strength and his encouragement: the same revelation that we have, a written word from God. And he is to do according to all of that law.

“This book of the law written code shall not depart out of thy mouth now you could—it must fill our mouths in more ways than one. We consume that word. It should be more important to us than the food we eat. The three times a day we eat food normally, most people, is a picture of our need for the word of God. And when we eat food, we should think on a regular basis, on a frequent basis, and remind our children to think of the importance of God’s word coming into us, to feed us on his word. The food is a picture of that.

Additionally, that word is to form the substance of our words as well as our thoughts. And so his mouth, Joshua’s mouth, is to be filled with pronouncements not of his own making but of God’s word. That antipodal response—again, using God’s very words back to him. That is to fill Joshua. That is to give him courage and strength, and that is the presence of God with him.

“Thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success.”

The same word taken into the soul and meditated upon, muttered over—that you could use that sense of the term, repeating things over from the scriptures to ourselves, pondering them, turning them over in our minds, chewing as a cow, etc. You’ve heard all the illustrations. The point is that Joshua was commanded not simply to know this word, nor simply to speak this word, but to meditate upon this word, and as a result, salvation was his through God the gracious one.

“Have not I commanded thee, be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

So in this first speech we have the commissioning of Joshua, the reliance upon the presence of God mediated through his word, meditated upon, studied, obeyed, and spoken by Joshua to the end that he might lead the people of God into heavenly blessings while on earth.

The next speech is from Joshua to the officers of the people.

“Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people saying pass through the host command the people saying Prepare you victuals. For within 3 days you shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.”

Short speech, but a very important one. The officers—with the shoterim that we’ve talked about, what I believe are the Old Testament precedence of the deacons in the New Testament. Those that take the word of God, minister to them through the teaching of the Levitical members of the community, take that and organize the people as an army, as a community to walk in obedience to that word. And so the officers do this in terms of the people. Very important connective link for the ordering of God’s people.

Interestingly, he tells them to prepare victuals. This could be a general word of provision, although it is usually specifically oriented to food. It’s a very interesting thing because we have a transition here from curse to blessing. But we also have a transition from less responsibility to more responsibility. They’re still eating manna here. The manna will not cease totally until they enter into Canaan, till they set foot in Canaan. And then the manna will cease because then they’ll be responsible to grow and produce their own food. Even then it’s grace from God because they’ll be walking into orchards with fruit on them—orchards that they didn’t plant, which the wicked did, who are now dispossessed.

And so God reminds them here in this charge spoken through Moses, there is a change happening in their lives. They must take fuller responsibility for providing the advancement of the visible kingdom of God in the Old Testament time.

Three days. We’ll talk about more next week. It’s repeated several times in the first two chapters for very obvious reasons.

Then the next speech—to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh spake Joshua, saying, “Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God hath given you rest and hath given you this land.’”

See again there the correlation between rest, salvation, and blessing and land. Their rest was in the land. This goes back to Numbers 32. These two and a half tribes didn’t want to cross over the Jordan for whatever reason. They said to Moses, “We’d like to settle on this side of the Jordan. Is that okay?” He got a little concerned. He said, “Well, now I don’t want you somehow holding back the people of God or getting trying to get out of the conflict here.” But if everything’s understood that you may have this land if you agree to go in and fight for your brothers in Canaan, then he allowed them to do it. And that’s what happened.

And so Joshua here is reminding these two and a half tribes of their commitment that they had given Moses, and Moses had instructed them of the need to provide for community salvation, as it were, to fulfill their community obligations to the extended group here of Israel in the Old Testament, and not simply to their own families or their own tribes. Very important, again, in terms of preparation for conquest.

“Your wives, your little ones, your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of Jordan, but you shall pass over before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valor, and help them.”

Okay, it’s interesting here as well, by the way, that in spite of the original plan being to have them reside in Canaan, already we have an expansion of the borders of the land which God’s people will glorify and beautify for him to include land on this previous side of the Jordan. We see here already another picture of the expansion to come as God’s people go out eventually to fill the whole world in the book of Acts. And that is prefigured here by an extension of the land of the people and their effect upon it.

“Until the Lord hath given your brethren rest as he hath given you and they also have possessed the land which the Lord your God giveth them. Connection again between rest and land. The picture being a biblical one of the soundness and the spirituality of blessings that are physical.

“Then ye shall return unto the land of your possession and enjoy it. You see, we are to enjoy it, of course, but only after they’ve fulfilled their obligations to the rest of the tribes by helping in the conquering, which Moses the Lord’s servant gave you this side Jordan toward the sunrising.”

And then finally the last speech, and that is the people.

“And they answered Joshua. They—I believe—refers here not simply to the two and a half tribes but to all the tribes that have been instructed to prepare for the conquering of the land. They answered Joshua saying all that thou hast commanded us we will do. And whatsoever thou sendest us we will go. According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee. Only the Lord thy God be with thee as he was with Moses.”

They see the importance. This is an educated populace, as it were. They see the importance of the presence of God with their leader to the end that God’s presence is with Joshua. They will follow him as they followed Moses.

“Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words, and all that thou commandest them, he shall be put to death. Only be strong and of a good courage.”

Remarkable statements by these people. Certainly, I think, as again, given to us as an example of our response to the greater Jesus as he calls us to follow him into victory in all things. These people respond, “Yes, we’ll follow you. May God be with you.” And if we disobey you and your words, knowing that you’re a man of God and a leader called by him, then we agree that the death penalty should be placed upon us.

Remarkable. So this covenant that they enter into with Joshua is indeed a self-maledictory oath, is attached to it, where they agree that if they rebel against the command of God as issued through Joshua, they indeed should be cut off and executed. And then they finally one more time, the fourth encouragement to Joshua to be strong and of a good courage. God tells Joshua that three times. And now God uses the people themselves, the congregation, repeating his own words again in obedience to their image of him in encouraging their leader to be strong and to be courageous.

Okay, so that’s what’s going on in the context of the conquest of the promised land in the little picture. However, there is a bigger picture, which I think is very important for us as we consider what is happening here.

The Big Picture

What is this conquering all about? You know, you read these stories from the Old Testament, you think, well, that’s a nice war story, but what does it got to do with me?

Well, what is really going on here? What does it mean for them? Why does God want them to conquer this land and to fill it? Well, partly we can understand why this is if we read Genesis 15:16. Turn in your scriptures to Genesis 15:16. He’s speaking here to Abraham. And in verse 16, he says, “In the fourth generation, they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”

This land that the people of Israel are going back to is the land that was originally promised as part of the Abrahamic covenant, the covenant of grace administered through Abraham, the same covenant of grace, of course, that we’re involved with. But here, we are told that the reason why the particular timing would come to pass is when the sin of the Amorites is filled. When those whom God chooses to dispossess have made known their rebellion, have become full of rebellion, as it were, and full of disorder, full of curse. Then God brings his people forward to cast them out of the land.

And he tells them in other places as well, don’t think I chose you because you’re such a great people. I’m having you do this to take these people off of my land. Their squatters. And so he brings forth his people in holy war against these people. Make no mistake about it, this is a real war. They’re going to kill lots of people here: men, women, and children. And it could offend your sensibilities unless you understand the big picture of what’s going on here.

What is our responsibility in the world? Why are we here?

Well, to obey God, to live a life of faith. Sure. To what end, though? To glorify God. How do we glorify God? Well, Jesus tells us how we glorify God in the Lord’s Prayer. When he tells us that we are to pray that God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God put Adam in a garden and he told Adam to do two things in relationship to that garden. To dress it and to keep it—to guard it, to keep it, to prevent it from pollution and from attack, prevent it from those forces that would be in opposition to God and his word and would create disorder in the garden. Adam didn’t do too good that way. But the other task Adam had, and we often think just in terms of that one, the other task Adam had was to dress the garden, to mature it, to bring it from beauty to beauty, from glory to glory. And indeed, we ourselves go, as the Psalms tell us, from glory to glory, and strength to strength.

Our job, you know, wherever we put the soles of our feet, is to turn that area of our life and calling into a thing of beauty for the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what we are to do with our lives. That’s what Joshua and the people of Israel were called to do with Canaan. They were called to go in and possess a land and to pray that God’s will might be done on that piece of earth in that land as it was in heaven.

Now, they’ve been fully equipped to do that because they have that word, which is the standard, the blueprint that tells them what God’s world should look like and what that beauty of the earth, of physical setting, of the social setting, of the relationships we have with men, of the buildings we build, etc. He gives the models for all those things in that Pentateuch, that written word that he has provided them with as he now calls them forth back to that area where the river Euphrates, which came from the garden of Eden, flows.

He calls them to take that land back and to move from wilderness to garden. But not simply to move from wilderness to garden—to change wilderness into garden. And they were called then to go back to that land and remove the pollution of those who are in radical rebellion against God and to take that land, to claim it for God, and to make it a place of beauty and blessing for him. That’s what conquest is all about.

God’s presence with his people instructing them, motivating them through his Holy Spirit to bring order, peace, and blessing to the environment in which we live. That is the big picture of what God calls us all to do. And it’s important that we remember that as we think through Joshua and its relationship to what we do as well. We have our own gardens to dress and to keep. We have our own areas of responsibility in which we can be like Joshua marching forward, conquering by bringing God’s order, God’s law, God’s patterns he has given us in his holy word into that area of endeavor.

The Spirit hovering over the world of creation—remember, Kim Frasier preached on this a month or two ago—very important—when he talked about how the Spirit was the agent not for the original creation, that’s Jesus Christ, but for taking that creation then and modeling it and moving it in order away from formlessness into form, going from glory to glory. That Spirit is motivating the people of God in the Old Testament to move forward in obedience to the greater Jesus, the greater Moses, the greater Aaron, and to bring order to God’s world. In the book of Acts, that Spirit is seen bringing Jesus Christ to us.

To what end? That this creation that God has given to us might be beautified and glorified, that we might glorify him in all that we do and say, and that we might enjoy it.

What’s the best place in the world to go and have a relaxing time? It’s a garden. That’s what I did last week. At least I like gardens an awful lot. I went to Victoria, my wife and I did, and spent a couple of days up there. And what a picture of blessing and modeling what I’m talking about here and what would happen in the land of Canaan as God’s people were obedient to him.

We went to the Butchart Gardens. Those of you who are familiar with it, it’s a good picture of our whole lives really. We have there a big empty quarry originally. A man who made Portland cement, made millions off of it, dug out lime and whatever the other ingredients were for cement there, created a big mining quarry. He used that cement for good purposes to glorify and beautify the earth, to create buildings and dwellings for men and for businesses and for churches. That’s what that cement had gone into.

But then his wife took up the task of taking that land that had been left as a quarry, ugly, bare, and a big hole in the ground essentially, and made a wonderful beautiful one of the most beautiful gardens in the whole earth is made now there in that place in this old quarry. At one end there’s a sunken garden and at the end of that garden there’s a beautiful fountain with many different jets that are animated. At night in the summer you can see colors playing upon the different patterns. You can sit there for 3 or 4 hours for the patterns to change. And I tell you, I go there and I think about what God commands us to do: to go forward and work that his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven, to beautify our environments, to take them from desert and wilderness and create gardens of blessing and order wherever we go.

To take relationships that we enter into that may be rough and difficult, and over time, by the application of God’s word and strongly and courageously following that word as it instructs us in our relationships, bringing beauty, harmony, and order to our inner relationships one with the other as well. That’s what the big picture, I think, is through all of this.

I think it is extremely important that we realize the relationship of heaven and earth that we are to see, work for, look for, and develop in the world around us. Again, so often we think somehow that all of this is not important. It’s the heavenly realities that we will get to heaven eventually and that’s all makes all this bearable—it’s a vale of tears, or a veil of tears, whatever you want to call it—in the meantime. But no, that’s not it at all. God wants us to enjoy the life he has given us here as we work hard, diligently, courageously, and strongly to bring beauty and order to this atmosphere and to the environment in which he’s given to us.

That is man’s chief end: to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That’s what we’re trained to do here in holy worship. By the way, we come here and we go through a pattern of things that we do, bodily gestures that we perform, an order that we found throughout scripture. We’ve diligently discovered in that scripture a basic order of worship and we perform that worship for God and he delights in it because it is a picture of the pattern through which he wants us to work all things in life—to take a hold of things, to give him thanks for things, to break them apart as we break the communion bread, to distribute things, to evaluate them and to declare thanksgiving to God for all things through Christ our Savior, to come forward to his presence, to confess our sins, to hear his word and be commanded to go forth in terms of that word and restructure our relationships, restructure our physical settings, restructure our workplaces.

To take a hold of the families that God gives to us, not be passersby merely going through, but to take a hold of them in the wilderness conditions in which we may find them and move them to a garden by taking a hold of them and managing them according to God’s word.

That’s the big picture, and that’s what we’re trained to do here.

Military conquest when understood from this perspective is spiritual activity. There is no division between the spiritualization of what’s going on here and the actual task that God has called them to do. It’s not, you know, you don’t want to get into a position of pitting the right attitude over against the right actions. God says that those actions and attitudes come together. The actions are determined by his word and the attitude and thanksgiving for that word is behind them as well.

But if a military man goes out and gets the job done, it’s a good thing. If he goes out and gets the job done with an understanding of what God is accomplishing, that’s a better thing. But it’s still a good thing even if he accomplishes it. Why? Because we bring a picture of God’s order to the world.

Here in Oregon, we’ve had homeschooling legislation that we’ve worked on for a number of years. One perfect example: people involved at many levels, understanding what the big picture is. What we’re trying to do here is raise up a generation of children who restructure every area of society to bring in under the dominion the crown rights of King Jesus. Other people involved just because they want the government off their back. Nonetheless, they’re involved and their involvement brings a degree of greater order, a greater semblance between laws on earth and the laws that govern heaven. This has happened as a result of people with lots of different attitudes, lots of different reasons for what they’re doing. But ultimately, the Holy Spirit is operating in the context of his people, bringing all these elements together and changing the earth increasingly into the image of heaven. That’s what’s happening. And that’s what’s happening in the book of Joshua. These things are brought together. And as these men march forward into physical conquest, they march forward in the greater picture of bringing God’s order, God’s curse to the Canaanites, God’s blessing to the Israelites as they march forward.

Let’s look at some themes of preparation for this conquest.

Now, in light of these larger pictures, first, there’s a military theme of comprehensive conquest, but also a need for courage and strength.

Comprehensive conquest absolutely required. Every place that your foot treads, every place that they march on, they will possess in terms of the military action that they’re going forward to do. And they do that pretty much by the end of chapter 12. It is conquest. It’s not hereditary rights to the land ultimately that’s being portrayed here. It is the conquest of the land by those that God has given possession to for his own reasons. The land does not belong to the inhabitants of the land. The land belongs to God. And he calls them to comprehensively conquer that land. But he tells us as well to comprehensively conquer all that we are involved with. Every area of our life.

Who do we look to as guidance for wherever our foot treads? You’ll walk around this building today. You’ll walk to a meal. You’ll walk to a communion service. You’ll walk up to somebody and you’ll talk to them. Wherever your foot treads, the conquest, the reordering of life according to the image of heaven given in the scriptures for us, should be our understanding of what we are doing as we press forward under the greater Joshua, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where does your foot tread? Where will it tread this week? And that is the extent to which conquest is yours as well in Jesus Christ. You must understand the need to take the law of God wherever your foot goes. Where that foot treads has implications. Jesus Christ has crown rights over all of creation. And so we see the importance of that.

Secondly, though, in terms of this military conquest, there is a need for courage and strength.

Joshua and this people faced a situation that closely paralleled Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea. In each case, the obstacle occurred at the beginning of the leader’s ministry. Both were impossible to solve through natural means. Both demanded implicit and absolute obedience upon a miracle-working God. How are they going to get across the Jordan River? We find out later in chapter 3 that the Jordan is at flood stage. It’s way up. It’s overflowing its banks. How are they going to get across? They don’t ask God how they’re going to get across. They get ready for what he will accomplish because he has given his word that he is with them wherever they go.

We have our own Jordans that we must cross as we move forward under Jesus Christ. We have tough times very often: physical illness, damaged personal relationships that we can’t see how it’s going to get better, tough things to go through. God tells us, “Be strong. Be courageous. Don’t give up. Keep the faith. Understand that God’s presence is with you as you move to reorder your life and whatever spirit is involved with to make it more like the image of heaven, to bring God’s glory, to bring God’s heavenly will more to bear in that earthly calling of yours.”

We must have strength and courage to perform the actions that God has called us to do.

Joshua required this re-exhortation to strength and courage three times from God, one time from the people. This was the same Joshua who had already led this nation in victory against the Amalekites in the time when Moses was still alive on the other side of the Jordan. And this is the same Joshua who went over and was not like the 10 other spies, but who knew that the land could be possessed if God said so. And yet, this Joshua required encouragement and exhortation from God.

And so do we. And we need to encourage and exhort each other, particularly when we see us facing the difficulties of a deep Jordan River overflowing its banks, where people have reached the end of their rope. We don’t want to tell them it’s not the end of your rope, things could get worse. We want to tell them at the end of your rope, when you feel your capabilities strained and stressed, by God he’s with you. And because he’s with you, you can be strong and courageous to go forward conquering.

Hebrews 12 says that for the endurance that’s required to run the race of faith, we look to the author and finisher of our faith, the greater Joshua, Jesus. Jesus, it says, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. He endured based upon the fact that God was with him and that there was joy set before him.

There are covenantal themes then that this leads into as well in the scriptures, in the book of Joshua. The military themes of conquest, the need for strength and courage, have alongside of them the covenantal themes of the assurance of God’s presence and the need for obedience. The gospel is always promise, but it is also always a call to obedience. These two aspects of the covenant of grace and the gospel of Jesus Christ must never be separated.

For the joy that is set before us—the presence of God now into the future and finally in a greater sense in heaven—for that joy, we persevere in the commands that God has given us to do as well.

Moses—rather, Joshua—is continually affirmed, confirmed that God will be with him and therefore he can conquer. Hebrews 13:5 and 6. Let’s turn to that passage of Scripture. We have a quotation here from the book of Joshua. And it’s interesting the context in which the writer of the book of Hebrews puts it.

Hebrews 13:5 and 6: “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man shall do to me.’”

In the original text in Joshua, the idea is that God won’t abandon you. He won’t drop you. He won’t take off. He stays with you. The presence of God is the greatest blessing, when fully understood, that we can ever hope for in this life. All other blessings are pictures of that. And covetousness rejects the presence of God and instead says I need something other than the presence of God to continue on and to be steadfast.

The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us of the truth, the covenantal truth that God’s presence is the greatest blessing we can hope for. It is joy itself to know that the Lord our God is with us, that he’s with us as we cross those Jordan rivers, as we enter into the call to march forward and to reorder our lives in obedience to God’s law.

For that joy set before us, then we need covenantal obedience as well linked to it. And so throughout Joshua’s speech to Moses—or Moses’ speech to Joshua—you see these two aspects of the covenant.

Joshua 1 and Psalm 1 both tell us that a life of blessing, a life pleasing to God, does not arise from a mystical experience or warm feelings or from a new gimmick advocated by a current book we might read, etc. No, the blessing that Joshua 1 and Psalm 1 tells us about comes from the word that God has already spoken and from obedience to that word. Joshua was told to meditate in that word. And Psalm 1 says that those who meditate in that word will be blessed by God and have a life pleasing to him.

The basis for the understanding of God’s presence with us and the need for obedience in terms of the covenant is the covenant word that he has given to us. That written word that is emblematic of his relationship to us and his nearness to us as well.