Joshua - Lesson 12

There are many times that we have to sit back and ask ourselves, “Do we really believe what the Bible says”? Let’s look at:

· Hebrews 3:1-19, Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. 7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10 That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' 11 So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" 12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15 As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." 16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

The subject in this passage is not salvation, rather the hope and faith of the believers. In salvation God holds on to us. We are kept by His power. But the hope that we have of a victorious life, a life of rest and rejoicing is dependent on our attitude toward God and our faith in His promises.

According to this passage we are to receive all that God has for us in Jesus. This means that we are partakers with Jesus in all that has been given to Him by His Father. Any Christian who dies in the desert does so by choice. He either does not have what it takes to believe God, or he does not want to, or because he is ignorant of the promises of God and how to tap into them by faith.

We have had the Gospel preached to us, not only the Gospel of salvation, but also the gospel of overcoming. Our hearing of it must be mixed with believing faith if it is going to profit us. Remember, this rest does not mean that we will not have any problems or enemies as Christians but that because of our faith our hearts will be at peace.

This past summer we studied in some depth the book of Ephesians and we learned of our life in heavenly places. This is not heaven itself but our experience of oneness with Jesus. We start from victory. We are not struggling toward it. Jesus has already won the victory so it remains for us to claim that victory through Him. This is the kind of life the book of Joshua illustrates and is trying to teach us how to live. 

The name “Joshua” means “Jehovah is savior”. Joshua thus becomes a type of Jesus. Joshua came after Moses as leader of Israel and Jesus came after Joshua with respect to God’s principles of dealing with the human race. In:

· John 1:17, For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Some versions of the Bible add the word “but” before grace and I think this adds significantly to the point that is being made

· Romans 8:3, For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.

Paul is making the point here that because of the sinful, fallen nature of mankind, no one could be saved by abiding by the Law, the Ten Commandments. Therefore the Law was powerless to save. But by God sending His Son Jesus, grace and forgiveness were now available to believers, and Jesus, being the sin offering, was acceptable to the Father on behalf of the believers.

Further, what Moses could not do under the Law in bringing the people of Israel into the Promised Land, Joshua was able to do, making him a type of Jesus in this regard. So Joshua led the people into the land to a life of victory and conquest just as Jesus provides us with victory over the world, the flesh and the Devil.

Then we read:

· Romans 10:3-5, Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them."

Here again Joshua is a type of Jesus. Moses described righteousness that one had by virtue of the extent to which they obeyed the Law, but Jesus is the end of the Law.

Now we don’t want to be misunderstood. The Law was not cancelled. The Law did not come to an end when Moses died, but as we have seen, Joshua is a picture of the fact that faith is essential to our salvation that can come, and does come through belief in Jesus. The Law never could bring salvation. You may remember when we studied the Sinai Covenant we said that the Law was given at that time as part of a governmental plan for the new nation Israel. And it was a guide for moral and spiritual conduct. It defined sin.

We will see shortly how there was disobedience among the Israelites soon after entering the Promised Land and God punished them by allowing them to be defeated at Ai. Here we see another example of Joshua as a type of Jesus.

· Joshua 7: 6-7, Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

Joshua intercedes on behalf of the people following their disobedience in the same way that Jesus is our intercessor.

· 1 John 2:1, My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense-Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

And,

· Hebrews 7:25, Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Joshua was instructed by God to divide up the land among the various tribes. In this he was also a type of Jesus who has promised us an inheritance in heaven. The next passages in Ephesians and 1 Peter speak to this matter of our inheritance.

· Ephesians 1:11-14, In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory.

· 1 Peter 1: 3-5, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

· So now according to Joshua 1:2 Moses is dead. But God is not. God’s work is not dependent on any one individual regardless of how powerful they may be.

· When we recognize that the spiritual life is God’s doing, we will begin to grow. He is sovereign and can terminate the ministry of any of His servants when He pleases.

· It is not necessary for us to understand all of God’s ways. When Moses died God needed another man for another time and another assignment.

This may be a good time to remind you that our purpose in this class is to learn more about how we can develop our faith and grow spiritually. And we need to look exclusively to the Scriptures for the answers. One of the ways of doing this is to look at what God did with some of the saints of the Bible and what instructions have been given to us.

· Exodus 6:6-8, "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'"

One of the essential things required for us to grow is to know the promises of God. In the above passage it was the great “I AM” who said these things. He said what He would do and He did it. And He never leaves Himself without a witness as we see in the 14th chapter of John.