Farewell to Israel’s Leaders (Part A)

Well, the Lord, your God, is He who has fought for you. I have been at times, I don't feel God's fighting for me. I think God's letting me down.

I don't write it out that way. I don't feel it. And I say, Lord, I don't believe this.

I just feel it. God loves those who love Him. Make no mistake about that. God will not waste your love. God will not take it. Your love is just not what I want it to be. You see, Daniel, that's how a man loves me.

When you love like that, then you come see me. That is not God. That is Satan. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Joshua.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the Book of Joshua chapter 23 with a brand new message called, Farewell to Israel's Leaders. While Israel is resting in this partial peace, the enemy is fortifying itself and is trying to simply survive and outlast the Jews, and then it will turn into out influencing them. Matthew 13 gives a serious warning about this very thing to us today. It says in verse 24, another parable, he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Now comes the lesson. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares or weeds among the wheat and went his way. That's the tactic of Satan is while we're not guarding, watching over, paying attention, posting guards, Satan creeps in and he sows his seeds of discord and he goes his way and he lets the natural processes do its thing.

This has been from the beginning and we have been warned about this and we can greatly reduce the effectiveness of the enemy by applying ourselves. Where it says Joshua was old and advanced in years, he's almost 110 years old now. Longevity of those ancient heroes.

Seems to me that this was something God granted to those whom he needed to have around, to have a lasting and longer influence than what would be standard. Moses talked about life being about 70 years, yet Moses lived almost twice that. And here is Joshua at 110, we get that from chapter 24. Joshua the man, still a victim of time.

Time is a force, just rolls on. Incidentally, the song, you know, his truth is marching on. No matter what's going on, God's truth is going on. Over the decades, I've come into the pulpit, no matter what's going on in my life, there's the word of God. There are the lessons.

It still goes on. And this is the case, look at now at verse two and Joshua called for all Israel, for the elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them, I am old, advanced in age. Well, all these men, the elders, the heads, the judges, the officers, and their families, they have problems like everybody else.

They deal with issues just like we do. Family matters, children, moods, personal matters, internal conflicts, you name it, but God's word marches on. Joshua himself had issues. I don't mean necessarily personal issues, you know, they're kooky or anything like that, but he had loved ones.

And I'm sure many of them, or some of them at least, could be difficult. And he still was this legend amongst the people of righteousness. And his heart was very much concerned with the people, otherwise he would not call the leaders and he knew, he understood, if we have any chance of prolonging righteousness in the land, we have to have a healthy head.

Because if the head is sick, everything is sick. And that's why he's calling the leaders to this speech that he is giving them. And so here are the leaders of the people. They're apparently meeting where Joshua lives in Timnath. And it was his inheritance. The next speech he gives in chapter 30, chapter 24, will be at Shechem, 35 miles to the north. There he is, 110 years old, and he's still getting around.

Well, 35 miles in those days, you didn't have traffic or lights, so probably was a delight almost to get out to the fresh air. What he had to say was serious enough to stress in these, what we call two chapters, but what the nation received from their hero. It's good to have heroes. It's good to have them in the scripture, and it's good to have them in real life.

It's good to have, you know, our King Davids, our Samuels, Daniels, great men, Joseph, and then amongst the apostles also. Just a common, a man like Ananias who God sends to Paul. How did he single him out of so many people on earth? He singles him out as this flash to us in a pan, but what a flash it was. God doesn't bypass who he needs to use. He can find the resources amongst us. He singles us out and he sends us, and then it's okay for men to have those figures in scripture that are females that they admire.

I've made no, I've not hidden it. My favorite is Abigail. I love her character. What a woman of faith. In real life, the heroes that we have, we can also have unbelievers that we admire. We don't, not in the faith, of course, but as people go, you can learn so much sometimes from just decent people that you otherwise would not pick up.

I mean, just because you become a Christian doesn't mean you get to have class and all the things that make you a fine contributor to your surroundings, and I have had quite a few good men in my life that I've learned from. I still remember. I had Captain Christie, one of the captains in the Marines. I just admired him.

Cool as a cucumber, as you would say. Probably listening online right now. So, it's good for young men and young women to have people they admire, and Joshua was that type of man, and so were these leaders in their little villages. Not everybody could get to see Joshua, to hear him speak personally. There's over two million people in the land. They're all spread out, some of them on the other side of the Jordan. In those villages were admirable people, just as it is in any good church.

I think in this one we've got a bunch of them, men and women alike. Deuteronomy 34, verse 9, going back to what Joshua is stressing. Now Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him, so the children of Israel heeded him and did as Yahweh had commanded Moses.

See, this is the figure that's giving, going to give this speech. This is the man who the people love, and a great void was created when the Lord called Joshua home, but it's really not mentioned for us, historically speaking. Verse 3, you have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to all these nations because of you. Yahweh your God is he who has fought for you. Isn't it nice he's not saying, yeah, because of you things are a mess. He's saying God loves you.

He's done these things for you. Now what Christian would come to the Bible and read that and say, well, that doesn't count for me. That was for the Jews back then. Well, I don't think any Christian would do that. I think we come to God's word to be strengthened, and there is one example. To help take away the initiative of the initiatives of the devil, we've got to know how he fights. Familiar with his tactics. If familiar enough, Satan will tell us that the miracles of God were not miracles. He will try to persuade us to not believe what we know, what we've seen with our eyes.

He is a liar from the beginning. He's trying, he's going to tell future generations, you don't know what you know. How many times do our children go off to the universities and come back spiritually, spiritual idiots, because they've listened to people who don't have a clue as to what they're talking about when it comes to Jesus Christ. But they know a lot about the devil's propaganda.

Serious business. Talking the immature and the weak out of their faith, rendering the witness of God untrustworthy. You say, well, what are you talking about? Well, that's what Joshua is talking about. He's saying, you have seen all the Lord your God has done. Don't throw that away.

Don't count that as nothing or of no value. And he's going to remind them throughout this chapter that God fulfilled his promises, and you saw it. And don't for one moment pretend that you did not see it. Future generations did not see it, some of them, because of unbelief, not being mixed with faith, their lives. Samuel, well, David, let's take David first. Just thank you, God, for the life of David in the scripture. The first time I really gave an in-depth personal study to myself on a Bible character other than the Lord was David.

Wrote down by pen and composition pads, 1 and 2 Samuel, every word, and just tried to organize his life as best you could. And here, David was hounded by Saul because David was righteous. And Saul hated David's righteousness. It was an irritant to him. He tried to kill him, shamefully also. Not just, you know, here, just poison him, he'd just go away. Just kill him and everybody would know what was going on. But anyway, David was so worn down after a while.

He probably went on for almost a decade. And his experiences with Saul, running part maybe four, six years. David said in his heart, now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There's nothing better for me than I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines. And Saul will despair of me, to seek me anymore in any part of Israel. So I shall escape out of his hand. Thank you, Lord.

Here's this mighty king and he's just opening his heart and somebody recorded it. David, I'm sick of it. I just can't take it. I'd rather go to the enemy than run from this Saul anymore. God, what are you doing? He's your anointed. I could kill him. I could have killed him twice, but he's your anointed.

You put this in my life. David here is talking to himself. That's the problem. He's not talking to God. He had been talking to God. He didn't get him anywhere.

He'd been crying out. If I had wings, I'd fly away from this stuff. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

And here I am wanting. So he made the mistake and it ended up him acting like a fool and then acting like a fool to survive to get out of the tents. He takes Goliath's sword probably to offer as a gift to appease his enemy friends.

You look at that and you say, have I been there in my life where I say, now I shall perish because of some stupid thing in life. That's where David was. Joshua comes along and he says, remember all that God has done.

To David it was, remember the day you were anointed over your brothers and the oil rolled down your face in front of everybody and Saul hated you because he knew it and Jonathan loved you because he knew it. You'll be all right David. Just stick it. Stick in there. Don't give up. He didn't give up. He just had those moments and he recovered. In fact, David recovered from every mistake he made.

He made big ones. He says, Joshua does to the people because of you for the Lord, your God is he who has fought for you. I have been at times, I don't feel God's fighting for me. I think God's letting me down.

I don't write it out that way. I just feel it and I say, Lord, I don't believe this. I just feel it. God loves those who love him. Make no mistake about that. God will not waste your love. God will not take your love is just not what I want it to be. You see Daniel, that's how a man loves me.

When you love like that, then you come see me. That is not God. That is Satan. First Corinthians, Paul tries to stress this. He says, for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Bible and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Bible. You see, he's saying, God died for you. I gave you what I got.

Christ died for you according to the Scriptures. This was deliberate. It was thought out. It is older than the universe. It's been in the heart of God from eternity past.

You by name, by face and all of your faces from the time you were born to the time you go to your grave. The love of God does not fade. God does not love the infant in the nursery more than the oldest saint in the sanctuary because love does not fade.

We pull stuff like that, of course, because they're so cute and they can't slap us and hurt us, but the older ones can. Verse 4, see I have divided to you by lot these nations that remain to be an inheritance for your tribes from the Jordan with all the nations that I have cut off as far as the great sea westward. His Joshua was saying, I've seen it. I lived it. You did too.

I'm not letting you forget this. I'm old. I'm about to go home to the Lord. I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness which I shall receive and not me only, but all those who have loved his appearing. You see, to love God is to be loved by God.

You can't love God without him loving you first. And so this see I have divided to you by lot. Remember we went through the allotments. Here's yours. You say I don't like it.

I didn't get enough. God says make it work. That's all.

Just make it work. God has the right to plan and to achieve, and he has the right to use us to do it. We have the privilege of being responsive regardless of how clumsy we are, how easily irritated and offended and potentially mean we can be. God still uses us.

That makes us near invincible from hell's perspective. God's prerogative, his prerogative is to judge the nations because he is God. If he can judge these nations, he can do whatever he wants to do, and if he says he can love me, then who's going to stop him? Psalm 44, the psalmist reflecting on these events many centuries later, he says we have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us the deeds you did in their days in days of old. Have you ever said you helped Daniel out? Why won't you help me? You've done your you're setting your word that you'd never leave or forsake.

How come I can't find you? And then he goes on the psalmist, you drove out the nations with your hand, but them you planted. You afflicted the peoples and cast them out, for they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arms save them, but it was your right hand, your arm, the light of your countenance because you favored them. See, that psalmist knew God's love. He looked at the scriptures.

He saw Joshua's record. He saw that God had given them the land. Jesus, he talks about his right to judge the nations. That means to judge the planet because he owns it, and he says when the Son of Man comes in his glory. See, when they were looking at him when he spoke those words, he was in his humanity.

The only time his glory really flashed visibly was at the transfiguration and then of course at the resurrection. The Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, and he's going to be crowded, and he will sit on the throne of his glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. So Joshua is saying the nations, they have been judged because it is the God that judges them that loves you, that separates the sheep from the goats, and you have to take it by faith at many points in your life as a believer. Those are the rules.

You can't change them. You have to take what God says by faith, not by experience. Thus Job says, though he slay me, I will trust him. Who would say such a thing except a man of faith? A faithless one would never say that. A faithless one says seeing is believing. The faithful say believing is seeing.

We have eyes not in the back of our head. We have eyes in eternity. Verse five, and Yahweh your God will expel them from before you and drive them out of your sight, so you shall possess their land as Yahweh your God has promised you. He's hitting these promises. He's saying, lads, God is going to fulfill his word.

Be part of it. And you say, well, they never did really lay hold of these promises. What would have been the story had they not gotten so much that they did get?

It would have been worse. Of course, after a while, they began to think because Messiah was coming from them, they were exempt from judgment. They were wrong. God said, I can still bring Messiah from you and not wipe you out and make you pay.

And that's exactly what happened. Well, Joshua 24 is one of many places in the book of Joshua where he names these people because none of these original people remain in the land. They're all gone. You will not meet a gergashite.

And if you do, he's lying. The Amorites, the Pezerites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the gergashites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, but I delivered them into your hand. They're gone.

Promise fulfilled. It wasn't as choreographed as we would like it. The Bible is not that way. We want a clean cut, the jagged edges all over the place, but the cuts are made nonetheless. I've had some big trees I've been cutting up in my yard that fell in the storm, and some of my cuts, they're not clean, but they're cuts. And that wood is almost gone.

And that's the story. What is the objective? To get to heaven and hear him say, well done, good and faithful servant. All of us will look in back of ourselves at least one time when we get to heaven. When he says that, when he says good and faithful, who are you talking about?

I've heard of this before, but he's got to be talking about somebody else. So you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you. Wickedness was greatly reduced by the efforts of this generation. Had they not made such an impact on the land that they did, looking at the glass half full rather than half empty, if they did not make such an impact, then the future generations would have had no chance. There would have been no Samson and no Shamgar. That's a wonderful name.

Sounds like a superhero. Killed a hundred with an ox go, Shamgar. Anyway, Psalm 37, verse 11, but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Wickedness is exalted to a large degree, but it's going to end. And the meek shall inherit the earth.

The ones that put Christ first, them second, at least in their heart. Because the flesh, of course, is just a vicious, savage, invasive, critically vine, noxious to the core. Doesn't die a natural death and resurrects daily, but the time will come when it will no longer be there. Verse 6, therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, lest you turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left. He says, follow the word of God, or else you're going to get out of the lane. You're going to crash. You're going to take Ve'er off, go somewhere you don't belong.

You're going to trespass. Stay with the word of God. And we become Christians and we say, yes, that's what I want to do. And there's the fight. Forces pushing us, pulling us away. Alignment ruined.

All sorts of problems. And God is just saying, I need you to just stick with me. And we're saying, I need you to take these problems away. And well, whose will will be done? God doesn't have the same view that we have. It's ours that's more emotional. Who would want to follow a God that let the Bethlehem children be slaughtered?

Those who see beyond the grave, that's who. Very simple answer. Those children could have been spared more than we would ever know. Tough stuff. No way around it. If you've got a better idea, I'd like to not hear it, because I've heard enough of them to know there's no better way. Peter said, where else are we going to go?

This is it. We've heard the Gentiles, what they believe. We've heard what the rabbis say. We've heard what you say.

This is right. Not everybody agreed with Peter. Many of them left. They couldn't get past that sermon. Happens often. I don't whine anymore to God about that.

It's pointless. Anyway, it takes God-given courage to live up to the Christian life. It's a hard life. Make no mistake. The Christian life is not, you know, well, what's that song? Dancing and walking through the tulips, the Tiny Tim song. I'm glad I can't remember it. No, don't say it.

Tiptoe through the tulips. I said it. Have to cleanse the pulpit tomorrow. It's not the Christian life or anybody else's life. Acts chapter 14, Paul was careful to let his congregation know you're going to suffer. As Christians, it's going to be hard. Surprise. Acts chapter 14, and when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

Make a nice bumper sticker. Understatement from a man who was shipwrecked, beaten, hounded, chased, vilified by those he loved. We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God, but we enter, and there we inherit the most beautiful things ever. Sometimes in my low points, I feel the devil saying, why preach the gospel? To have a Christian life like you, you have to suffer these things because it's worth it. Because at the end is more than a pot of gold.

The street's gold. Everything is wonderful and painless. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Joshua right here on Cross Reference Radio.