“BE STRONG AND OF GOOD COURAGE.”
-JOSHUA
1:1-11.-OCTOBER 5.-
JOSHUA, the newly
appointed leader of Israel, had been Moses’ “minister” or servant, not in a
menial sense, but in that higher sense in which we speak of “ministers of the
Lord”, Ministers of State, Prime Ministers, etc. He was eighty years of age at
this time, and hence must have been forty when Israel left Egypt. He was of
the tribe of Ephraim, of one of its leading families, his grandfather,
Elishama, having been a captain of the army of the Ephraimites, 40,500 in
number, at the organization of the Israelites soon after the exodus. We find
Joshua with Moses as his special companion, in Mt. Sinai; we find him again as
the representative of Moses, the general of all Israel in the first battle
fought with the Amalekites; we find him again one of the leading men of all the
tribes, sent to spy out the land of promise, and on this occasion he and Caleb
were the only two whose faith in the Lord enabled them to return a favorable report,
and, as we have already seen, in the giving of this report these men hazarded
their lives;-so great was the chagrin and disappointment of the Israelites, and
so fully were they in sympathy with the report of the majority.
All these events seem to indicate that Joshua was a man of large faith and
large courage; moreover, we remember that notwithstanding his high position as
Moses’ chosen minister, he seems to have been entirely void of that ambition
which led to the overthrow of Korah, Dathan and Abiram and many of the princes
of Israel, and which previously had affected Miriam and Aaron. Although he is
not mentioned as being so meek as Moses, we may from all these considerations,
judge that the one whom the Lord chose for Moses’ successor was indeed a meek
man, and that his courage, exemplified in every feature of his history, was the
result of his faith in the Lord and not the result of self-confidence. The
lesson to be drawn from this by spiritual Israel is the one mentioned by our
Lord; namely, “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted.” (Luke 14:11.) In this Joshua was a type of our Lord
Jesus who, in turn, is the pattern which must be followed by all those who
would be finally acceptable in the Lord. The Apostle’s argument along this
line, to all the spiritual Israelites, is, “Humble yourselves therefore under
the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”-I Pet. 5:6.
Israel unquestioningly accepted the Lord’s choice of a leader. As a
people they were evidently learning something by their experience in the
wilderness training school. At the beginning of their sojourn they were
scarcely willing to recognize even Moses; but now they had come along so far as
to be able to see that the Lord was their real Leader, and that even though
Moses had died without bringing them into the promised land, God who had made
the promise of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and themselves, was abundantly
able to accomplish his promise, and hence they were willing to accept whatever
leadership the Lord should indicate. Spiritual Israelites, too, are to learn
the same lesson; human leaders are important in their way-in so far as they are
the divine choice-so far as we can see fulfilled in them the Lord’s promised
guidance of his people. But we are never to think of human leaders as
indispensable; and God is likely to do again as in this case of Moses; namely,
to remove a trusted leader and to appoint another in his stead, to the intent
that his people may learn that he is their real Leader, that with him as their
Guide they will surely have success, and that without him all earthly
leadership would be in vain.
As we have seen, Moses prefigured the Law, the school-master which was to
bring God’s people to the promised land, to the promised blessing, restitution,
etc. We have seen that as Israel was unready to enter in and to possess the
land because of lack of faith in the beginning and, therefore, had its
wilderness journey extended to forty years, so on account of lack of faith at
our Lord’s first advent they were prevented from joining with him in the
restitution work and were made to wander to gain further experiences and
leadings during the past nineteen centuries; and now at the close of these
experiences, they, as well as spiritual Israel, are again on the borders of the
land of promise-the Millennial Kingdom. This time Joshua will take command, the
Jordan will be crossed and the gracious promises begin to have their
fulfillment. Meantime, the Joshua class, the Church, has been in process of
development, and after the great time of trouble which is near at hand, the
world in general will be ready to follow the leadership of Jesus as it is
written of that time, “Many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up
to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will
teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.”-Micah 4:2.
As, meantime, Joshua needed encouragement, so now the Lord’s consecrated
ones, the members of the body of Christ, need encouragement, need to have
pointed out to them the sureness of the divine promise, its lengths and
breadths and depths, just as the Lord pointed out to Joshua the land of
promise, from the wilderness to Mt. Lebanon, and eastward to the river
Euphrates and westward to the Mediterranean Sea. Does faith waver and are we
inclined to wonder how it will be possible for the new dispensation to
accomplish such wonderful things as are necessary to be accomplished for the
blessing and uplifting of the world of mankind? If so let us look backward and
see how the divine power was exercised in a miraculous manner, not only through
Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea and in the giving of the manna, in the
victory of the Amalekites and in the water from the rock, but let us also
notice how the Lord’s providences were miraculously with Israel in various ways
during the period of their favor, and let us remember that this same power of
God in still larger measure is to be with the antitype of Moses, with the new
Leader of the world, the great Messiah-Christ the Head and the Church, his
body, in the work of blessing and restitution on behalf of all those who shall,
under that full enlightenment, desire to be the people of God. As it was God
with Moses and God with Joshua that brought the victories, etc., so it will be
the power of God with the Church that will bring the coming victories. “The
Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.”
(Psa. 110:5.) “I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” (Psa. 2:8.) Again the
Apostle declares that the Millennial victory of Christ shall be by and through
the Father’s power. (I Cor. 15:27.) As none were able to stand before Joshua
as the Lord’s representative, so none of the great forces of evil and the
obstructions now in the pathway of the fulfillment of God’s promises shall
stand; all must fall before the antitypical Joshua. “As I live, saith the
Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” (Rom.
14:11.) Satan himself shall be amongst these great enemies to be overthrown and
utterly destroyed, and all of his works of evil-death itself being finally
completely blotted out as an opponent of those in harmony with God and approved
by him,-all others having been destroyed in the Second Death, which is not an
enemy either to God or to those who are in accord with him or to any principle
of righteousness or truth or goodness.
The land of promise is here mentioned as being the “land of the
Hittites”. Higher Critics were once inclined to think this reference to the
Hittites an egregious error because they could find no record of such a people,
and because from their standpoint the Bible is to be considered on a lower
plane than are the secular histories of the world. However, all this has been
changed because in the last few years excavations made in Assyria have
disclosed ancient tablets whose testimony fully corroborates the statement that
the Hittites were at this time a mighty people. Those who discount the Bible
statements are at a disadvantage, while those who accept them are sure to be on
the right side and, sooner or later, to have confidence and faith justified by
evidences.
Three times in this lesson is Joshua encouraged by the Lord, “Be strong and of a good courage,” “Be thou strong
and very courageous,” etc. (vs. 6,7,9.) There are
different kinds of courage; one sort is begotten of egotism and self-reliance,
another kind is begotten of a recklessness which fails to take into account the
difficulties of the situation, but the courage which the Lord inculcates and
which all the spiritual Israelites are to seek to possess is the one which,
while coolly and calmly discerning the trials and difficulties of the way and
while humbly realizing its insufficiency for the occasion, is supported by a
faith in the Lord-a trust in the divine promises which enables them to be
strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. This was to be Joshua’s
courage and it is to be ours in respect to all the things of the present life,
as well as in respect to all the things of the Kingdom, confidence in the Lord
whose servants we are, and whose work he has commissioned us to perform. The
expression, “Turn not from it (the Law) to the right hand or to the left” does
not signify a turning aside completely, but rather, according to the original,
it means, Require neither more nor less than the divine standard; seek to keep
as nearly as possible in absolute alignment with the divine Word. We find some
Christian people disposed to add to the Law of God in great complacency,
feeling that in thus getting in advance of the divine requirement they are
showing the Lord a special zeal for righteousness. Some of the Pharisees of the
Lord’s day were thus disposed to add to the Word of God and to lay heavy
burdens upon the people beyond what the Lord had required of them in the Law.
The Lord’s faithful ones are not to do this any more than to subtract from the
divine requirements. Truth is truth; God’s Word is God’s Word; we are not
authorized to take from it or to add to it. Many today have come to realize
that the Bible does not teach an eternity of torment, and yet feeling that this
doctrine may possibly help through fear to drive some into church membership,
or to deter some from grosser forms of sin, they are rather inclined to favor
the doctrine even though they admit it to be a blasphemy against the divine
character, and in total violation of all principles of righteousness. Those
who would be of the Joshua class are to learn that it is not their right or
privilege to make laws or to ignore those already made, but so far as lies
within their power to observe the divine principles of righteousness laid down
in the divine Word, and to teach the same to others, leaving the consequences
with the Lord.