Joshua

Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind, the story of Joshua. Strong, courageous, and he trusted God for the outcome. And that characterized his entire ministry, where he crossed over the Jordan, and God did give them every place where he set his foot, as long as the people were obedient. After Moses died, Joshua took over as leader of Israel. They'd been wandering in the desert for decades, but now they were on the cusp of entering the Promised Land. We continue our look at the great men and women of the Bible here on Renewing Your Mind. Today, a story of loyalty and courage.

Here's Dr. R.C. Sproul. I'd like to begin our brief capsule survey and profile of Joshua by looking at the opening words of the book that bears his name in the Old Testament, the first chapter of Joshua, beginning at the first verse. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all the people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. Then he goes and God describes the parameters of those lands that he has already delivered into the hands of Joshua, and he says, no man will be able to stand against you all the days of your life, and as I was with Moses, so shall I be with you.

I will not leave you nor forsake you. Now hear the admonition that God gives to Joshua. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you will divide in inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Now listen to the second exhortation. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you.

Do not turn from the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate it on it day and night. The third exhortation, verse 9, have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage.

Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I think there's something strange about this threefold exhortation that we find at the very beginning of the commissioning of Joshua, to be the successor of Moses. Moses led the people out of Egypt, and we remember that he took them to the entrance of the promised land and was allowed to go onto Mount Nebo and to gaze into that land that had been promised centuries before to their fathers, but himself was not allowed to lead the people in. That privilege and that task was given to Joshua. Why was Joshua selected to be the successor of Moses? Here we see God ordaining him and commissioning him and reminding him three times, Look, if you're going to do the job that I have commissioned you to do, you need to be two things.

You need to be strong, and you need to be courageous. Because remember that the fundamental task that God is giving to Joshua is a military task. It is a task of conquering a hostile nation. And how strong were the forces of the entrenched Canaanites perceived to be at that time?

Overwhelming! The odds, humanly speaking, that Joshua faces in this military expedition are all stacked against him. And so if he's going to succeed as the military leader, he has to have strength, and he cannot be paralyzed by fear. He's got to operate on a heavy dose of courage.

But that courage is directed really in two ways. First of all, he has to be courageous in his military task, but is that the only position God is calling him to? He's also given the responsibility of being the successor of Moses, who is the judge over the people. He's not only the military leader of the nation now, he's the spiritual leader of the nation. And God said, you're going to have to meditate in my word and in my law and in my testimony day and night, and you don't turn away to the left or to the right. And in order for you to be effective as the spiritual leader of my people, you have to be educated?

Is that what he said? No, he said, you have to be strong and you have to be courageous. You realize how much moral courage it takes to be an authentic spiritual leader, to not play the political games of compromising in order to please everybody, to be the leader of a holy nation. A man must have unbelievable strength of character and moral courage to make the decisions. And if you look at the life of Joshua, you will see the life of a man who is a man, not only of brilliant military strategy and knowledge and tactics, but a man of keen and acute spiritual sensitivity, a man of integrity. I think of Joshua as the Stonewall Jackson of the Old Testament. I really do.

If you come into my house, you'll find something about me and my heroes. The portrait that will jump out at you in my living room is I have this great big frame portrait of Stonewall Jackson. I admire Stonewall Jackson because he was one of the most brilliant military geniuses that the United States has ever produced. He kept the whole federal army talking to themselves in that campaign in the Shenandoah. He was undermanned, understaffed, undersupplied, overwhelmed in terms of the strength of his opposition, and he was like a phantom, so highly mobile. He rewrote the military textbooks on mobility.

Did you know that? And he was a godly man. The life of Stonewall Jackson, the great biography of Stonewall Jackson, the authorized biography of Stonewall Jackson, there have been many written, but the greatest one that was ever written was written by his aide-de-camp, his personal military advisor, who was Major Robert Dabney. Have you ever heard that name?

How many of you have heard of Robert Dabney? The clergy put their hands up. In Presbyterian history, you have the Northern Presbyterian Church and the Southern Presbyterian Church, and the two greatest theologians in the history of the Southern Presbyterian Church are a man by the name of Thornwell, and the other one is a man by the name of Robert Dabney, the same man. Stonewall Jackson had as his military aide the best theologian he could find. And before he went into battle, he would pray with his troops and he would say to his men, the battle is ours.

The outcome is God's. And he was the kind of general who rode in front of his troops and was a model of integrity and courage. But our lecture today is not about Stonewall Jackson. It's about Stonewall Jackson, Joshua. I mean, everything that Stonewall Jackson was, Joshua even was greater. He surpassed Stonewall Jackson in terms of courage, in terms of military brilliance, and in terms of spiritual integrity. Again, I mentioned that there's something odd about this threefold exhortation to be strong and be courageous, because strength and courage already were Joshua's middle name.

Remember I asked a few moments ago, why was he selected? Why did he lead the people into the Promised Land and not Moses? Do you remember when the people of Israel camped at Cades Parnia and they sent out the spies into the Promised Land? The spies went out to spy at the land. They commissioned to bring back their reconnaissance advanced scouting reports.

What man goes to war without first assessing the strength of the enemy, Jesus said later. These guys went out and they saw grapes like they never saw in their life. They saw land flowing with milk and honey. What else did they see? The Anakin, the giants. And those spies come running back and said, hey, I got a great place for us to go, Egypt, okay, to the rear march.

Okay, it is time for strategic withdrawal. That was the message of the spies. They said, you won't believe those people. They're giants. We're like grasshoppers in front of them.

We don't have a chance. Moses asked them for a report and they're all crying the blues. They're all ready to surrender without a battle.

Everybody mentions every humanly possible reason why they shouldn't move ahead. Ten out of twelve wanted security. Caleb said, hey, this is incredible land. Joshua said, let's go. God is with us.

Let's go. Strong, courageous. And he trusted God for the outcome. And that characterized his entire ministry where he crossed over the Jordan and God did give them every place where he set his foot. As long as the people were obedient, Jericho crumbled to the earth. The walls fell down before the army of Joshua and the people came in to possess the land. They crossed the Jordan and the promised land, that land that had been promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, now came into the possession of the children of Israel until they came to the city of Ai where they're totally unexpected, where all the other people were fleeing in fear from now the most feared person were not the giants, but Joshua. But at Ai, the people sinned and did not carry out the instructions that God had given them. And God led them to defeat. But Joshua, read the story, handled it with such spiritual sensitivity.

It's amazing. But my favorite story about Joshua takes place early on in his book in chapter 5. After the children of Israel celebrate the Passover, we read in verse 13 of chapter 5 where it says this, It came to pass that when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and he looked. And behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries?

Let's stop right there. Joshua hanging around Jericho. Remember, he's a professional soldier.

He's been to West Point or better in the ancient world. And now he notices a soldier who shows up, a warrior that catches his eye. He doesn't recognize him, but it is obvious just from the man's appearance that it is a formidable opponent. Have you ever seen two high-powered men get in the same room or they size each other up? It's like two tigers that meet in the jungle. Nothing is said, but there's all this unspoken evaluation going up. There's a jockeying for a position.

There's a pecking order. I remember a few years ago when some psychiatrist announced an evaluation of football teams in the NFL where he said that there's a structure, an organizational structure on every football team where there is a father and a mother and the favorite son and that there's all these structures and that there's a pecking order that's clearly established on a football team as there is in a henhouse. In the Pittsburgh Steelers, who was the mother? Do you know who the mother hen was? Mean Joe Green.

We've got a football fan over here. And that's why there was some tremendous dynamic lost on that team when Mean Joe left. A tremendous void. It had nothing to do with playing ability. It had to do with the dynamic of the cohesiveness of the group. Well, men always non-verbally size each other up and fall into a pecking order. And it's very rare when two titans clash.

But when two titans fight for king of the hill, it's like two stags that meet in the forest, two giant bucks that lock horns to the death. And all of a sudden, Joshua, who wasn't afraid of anybody, sees this guy and he knows right away, uh-oh, uh-oh, there's a tiger here. And so he's got one question in his mind.

What's the question you would have? Is this guy on our team or is he on the other team? I can remember the most intimidating part of football games is when we would come out of the locker room on the field for warm-ups before the game and we would watch the other team come out on the field. And what are we looking at? How big they are.

How mean they look. And so much of the psychology of the competition and the warfare is settled among men before the whistle even blows to start the game by that sizing up process, and that's what Joshua was doing. And so he goes up to him and he says, well, I'll read it. He said, are you for us or for our adversaries? Now that question is an either-or question. What's the answer?

First part of the answer. What does the warrior say? No. Did you ever get cute with a sales clerk in a store where they kind of say, is this cash or charge?

I can't resist saying yes. Then you want to say, wise guy. It's one or the other. But that's the question. Are you for us or for our adversaries? Now that is an either-or question.

The idea is here's a soldier. It's got to be for one side or the other. So you expect that the answer is going to be I'm for you or I'm for the other side.

Instead, the answer is no. But as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. No, Joshua, it's not a question of whether I am for you or for your adversaries.

The question is, who are you for? Because I'm taking over. Hey, Joshua, I'm the new CO. I am the new chief executive officer. I am the new commander in chief. I am the general of the day.

How about that? Look at it. He says, no, but as commander of the army of the Lord, or captain of the Lord of hosts, I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. And he said to him, what does the Lord say to his servant? This is the first record that we find anywhere in Scripture of the strongest, most courageous military leader in history up to this point committing an act of unconditional surrender without a fight. Joshua meets this warrior and he gives up. He's on his face.

Whatever you say, I will do. He got in line immediately. Who was this soldier? We don't know. We know that Joshua worships him. We know that Joshua surrenders to him. We know that Joshua obeys him. And some call it an angel.

But the title suggests, as Calvin indicates, and others argue, that what we have here in this text is a Christophany, an Old Testament, pre-incarnation appearance of Christ himself. And when he appears, Joshua challenges him. Who are you for? You for us or you for them? That's not the question the captain says. You don't ask me questions. I ask you questions. I'm the captain of the Lord of hosts. I'm the commander.

I'm taking over. And Joshua's on his face. Here's the point. No matter how strong, no matter how courageous, no matter how heroic Joshua was, he never forgot who he was. He never became political.

He never stretched out his hand for the throne. He knew how to give orders, but he knew how to take orders. He was courageous enough to lead and courageous enough to what?

To follow. And when Christ appeared, he surrendered. And we have this idea in our culture that to be a man, to be a real man, to be much a man is to surrender to nobody. Nobody is going to tell me what to do. That's one of the stupidest statements that could ever come out of the mouth of a man. Real men don't make statements like that because there's lots of folks out there that can come by and tell me what to do.

And I would say, yes, sir. Because they're stronger than I am. They're more courageous than I am. They're smarter than I am.

And I'd be a fool not to follow them. But the quintessence of foolishness would be to try to get God on your side under your leadership, under your authority. But that's what we do. We pray and we say, OK, God, now I appreciate what you did yesterday.

You did a great job on the battlefield there. Now I'll give you your assignment for tomorrow. We think that our prayers or our petitions are mandates for the deity to go into action. And we forget who is in charge. And this happens not only individually, but it happens corporately with churches. Jesus Christ is the Lord of His church, not a general assembly, not a session, not a presbytery, not a convention. Christ is the Lord of the church. And as a Christian, your conscience is to be held captive, not by the institution, which is only a secondary source and you're supposed to respect it and listen to it and all of that, but your conscience is captivated only by Jesus Christ. Only Christ has the right and the power and the authority to bind your conscience because only God has the authority, ultimately, to bind your conscience, and Christ is God.

He is the captain of the Lord of hosts. And that's what I like about Joshua was that he knew who was Lord. There was never any question in his mind where his fidelity and his loyalty, his devotion and his commitment were directed. God commissioned him, God gifted him, God enabled him, and God blessed him.

He was strong and he was courageous and humble enough to be on his face before Christ. That's what made Joshua one of the great men of the Bible. We're glad you've joined us today for Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb, and each week, we return to Dr. R.C. Sproul's series, which surveys the lives of Scriptures, heroes, and heroines, and we invite you to return every Saturday as we continue through this series. Whether it was Moses or Joshua or Paul or Peter, God used broken and frail people to carry out the details of redemptive history. Our resource offered today helps you connect the dots of these great stories and helps you see the narrative of the entire Bible. When you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we will send you Dr. Sproul's series, Dust to Glory. He examines every book of the Bible in 57 messages, and we include an extra disc which contains the study guides for the series. So request Dust to Glory when you go to renewingyourmind.org. You can also call us with your gift at 800-435-4343. Well, as I mentioned earlier, there are heroes in the Bible, and there are also heroines, and next Saturday, we will meet one of them, the Old Testament judge named Deborah. We hope you'll join us next Saturday for Renewing Your Mind. ? ? ?