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Now, this present session is one of those unusual sessions, in that I'm allowed to speak without any questions at all, at the beginning, in the middle, or the end. Thank you for the marvelous freedom that that gives me, you'll see. You will be encouraged to hear that it is scheduled as a very short session. But now let's begin to look at the contents of the first of the three sections in the first part of Joshua. I've listed them for you on the overhead. There is chapter one, God's charge to Joshua, followed by Joshua's response to the charge. Then Joshua's charge to the two and a half tribes, who'd already got their inheritance east of Jordan, but now were required to come across with Israel according to their promise and fight until the battles had all been won. Joshua's charge to the two and a half tribes and the response of the two and a half tribes to Joshua. We could sum it up if we pleased. Joshua's obedience, and the obedient captain in his turn expected obedience from his followers. The second major element is the story of Rahab. Her justification by faith, and then her justification by works. Well, when Joshua sent across spies to spy out the psychological state of the Canaanites, they discovered in Jericho itself a woman and her family that had been converted to faith in God. And she had turned from idols to serve the living and a true God. It is a significant thing that God knew it, of course. And directed the spies. It was not by chance they came into her house. And the arrangements were made for her salvation. In a book that is full in its first half of the judgment of God on the pagan civilizations of Canaan, it is a significant thing that this story comes here before any word or description of the judgment. That God was aware of people that in their hearts had repented of their sin and idolatry, had turned by faith in the living God. God knew their hearts and organized salvation for them. And the story of her salvation and the basis of it given us at great length in that chapter two. Then the objective, taking up two chapters, three and four, the threefold description of the crossing of Jordan. In typical Hebrew style, the story is not told beginning logically with the beginning and working logically step by step until the end. It is told three times over, from three slightly different points of view. And we shall notice that in the, uh, threefold description, the first of them concentrates, among other things, on the wonder of the miracle. Today the Lord will begin to do wonders among you, Joshua was told, and so were the people. The second story of the crossing, the second description, concentrates on the twelve stones that were taken out of Jordan from the place where the priests' feet had stood and put upon the bank that they might be a memorial, so that in time to come, when the next generation should ask, what were these stones for, they might be told about this extraordinary miracle by which God had brought Israel into the land. The memorial of the crossing. The third and the final description of the crossing of Jordan deals, among other things, with its historical significance. As it is explicitly said at the end of chapter four, uh the stones shall remind Israel how that they came across on the dry land. But as verse, uh, twenty two uh, to the end of the chapter, uh, say, this is what the children have to be told. Then you shall let your children know, saying, Israel came over this Jordan on dry land, for the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you until you were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us until we were passed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that they may fear the Lord your God forever. The historical perspective of the crossing of Jordan. It wasn't an unprecedented miracle. It matched the earlier miracle. Getting Israel out of Egypt involved a miracle. The parting of the waters of the Red Sea. Now, over forty years later, getting them into their inheritance involved a miracle, and a similar miracle at that. And Israel are to be reminded, and their children in the generations, of the two miracles and the similarity between them that puts the entry into Canaan into its historical perspective. And when that comes home to us, we shall remember it. When in the last book of Joshua, as Joshua is giving the nation his farewell address, and the responsibilities that now lay upon them and the decisions that they must make, he first of all puts their position in the land of Canaan in its historical perspective, and begins with Abram in his pagan days when he lived beyond the big river, way out in Ur of Chaldees, and lived amongst a pagan society, how God called him out from beyond the river to become a pilgrim, looking ahead to the great inheritance that God would one day give his people. And Joshua brings the story down now to the crossing of the Red Sea, and finally to the crossing of Jordan. Three rivers, so to speak, to put salvation of Israel in its historical context. We do desperately need it, my brethren, in our modern day. To put salvation in its historical context, it is so easy to represent salvation to a modern youth as the latest gimmick for cleaning teeth and keeping your life clean and all this kind of thing, and an optional process, escaping the great historical basis of salvation, all down the centuries. You can choose to be part of that great historical process, or not to be. Our Christian salvation is not a little bit by itself. It's the end fruit of the great historical process of God's salvation in our earth. Excuse that outburst of preaching, but I do have my weaknesses now and again. See. So let's come back to look briefly at the contents, or to start looking at the context of this section one. The first is God's charge to Joshua personally. You'll notice it is not addressed to the nation. It is a charge to Joshua, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this 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, to you have I given it as I spake to Moses. And he defines the borders. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee. Notice it is personally addressed to Joshua. 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 thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous to 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 have good success whither thou ever 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 shalt thou have good success. Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. God's personal charge to Joshua. Calling on him for his obedience of faith, his meditation in the law of God, and his determination to put it into practice, and God's special presence with him, as it had been with Moses. The book thus begins with the obedience of Joshua, the great captain of Israel's salvation. And I shall not mind your typology here, if you can't resist thinking of the greater than Joshua, on whom all our hopes depend, the great captain of our salvation. Oh, how we worship God for his obedience. The law shall not depart from your mouth, says God to Joshua. And then we think of our Lord. It would have been the responsibility of his parents to teach him the law. It's doubtless they did. But before he entered his public ministry, he was tempted of the devil and showed his utter obedience to the law of God. As to each temptation, he replied, it stands. His obedience to the law. I have not come to destroy it, says Christ, but to fulfill it in the fullest sense of that term. Not merely to fulfill it just literally, but to fulfill it in its deep underlying spiritual principles. And we think of him as he crossed the book, Brook Kedrod, stood in the garden. Peter drew his sword to try to stop the arresting party from arresting our blessed Lord. And Christ told him to put up his sword into his sheath. And said to Peter, according to Matthew, do you not think, Peter, I could at this very moment call to my father, and if I called, he would send me twelve legions of angels. We mustn't deny what our Lord says. He could have called, and God would have given him. Don't please ask me to explain the whole question of the sovereignty of God. This you must allow me, that Christ's obedience was voluntary, wasn't it? Ah, yes, my good brother. Oh, listen to the calculation in the heart of the Son of God at that supremely critical moment. He could have called. The Father would have given him the twelve legions. But how then shall the scripture be fulfilled? That thus it must be. His obedience is rightly written, isn't it? He became obedient unto death, all the way to death, and that the death of the cross. It is not saying too much to say that our very salvation depends on the obedience of Christ. As it is written in he- in Romans chapter five, by one man's disobedience, sin entered into the world, and death by sin. By that one act of disobedience, the many were constituted sinners. But so, by the great act of obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the many are constituted righteous. Praise God for the obedient captain of our salvation. The obedient captain expected obedience from his followers. As our captain does from us, of course. And so chapter one tells us now, first of all, the response of Joshua to God's charge. Look at verse 12 of chapter 1, uh, verse 10 of chapter one. Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, prepare you victuals, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it. His response to God's charge? Well, I will ponder it, Lord. No, not. Response to the charge, rise and go over Jordan. First thing he says to the officers of the army, gentlemen, we're going across Jordan. That's the fulfillment of obedience, not just in word, but in deed. He calls the two and a half tribes and reminds them of their solemn promise made before Moses and made, in fact, before Joshua, that if they were allowed to have the inheritance east of Jordan, then they were allowed to have that inheritance on these terms, that they would not seek to settle down east of Jordan, but would be prepared to pass over the armed men in the vanguard of the armies, united armies of Israel, and fight with their brethren. They would not go back to their inheritance until the war was finished. Now, this matter of the two and a half tribes and their inheritance east of Jordan will come up more than once in this book. And it's telling you no secret to say that on times the two and a half tribes have had a very bad press. They are said to have been world borderers, if you see what I mean. Stayed too near where they got in, to use another phrase, and weren't prepared to go right all full, uh, uh, all the way across the Jordan into the Promised Land. And Eastern Jordan wasn't really the Promised Land, and all that, and represent worldly Christian. That kind of thing is based on a complete misapprehension. It was Moses that gave them that inheritance east of Jordan. And the territory and much more east of Jordan was given to them by the very covenant of Genesis fifteen, right up to the river Euphrates. Would be quite false to say that they were world borderers and were content to live outside what was really the Promised Land. That is not true. But the condition that they would, uh, be allowed to settle there east of Jordan, because it was good grassland and they had much cattle, the condition was that they should be prepared to leave their wives and children in stockades and themselves pass over armed and fight in the vanguard of the army till the whole of, uh, of Canaan was conquered, and then, and then, and then only would they return. Joshua's book tells the story how they honored their promise, and only when Joshua finally permitted them to go back to their inheritance, did they go back. The point had to be made, however, right from the start. There couldn't be two sections. There couldn't be two little wars. There could be no splinter groups. The nation had to enter its inheritance as one united nation. Under Joshua. Gentlemen, that is still true. There are not different armies under the great captain of our salvation, are there? There's only one army. It owns allegiance to him and is under his direct control. So Joshua got the response he was looking for from the two and a half tribes. Yes, certainly they would cross over any man that disobeyed would be sentenced to death. And so the way is cleared for Joshua to go over. And he sends the spies across. Now, it is an interesting thing, not that I know much about it, but the book of Joshua, as also the book of Judges, contains description of the various military tactics that these men used. The ones that are described at length are all different. There is, of course, the job which in a modern army would be done by the sappers, getting the people across a river. Then, of course, there's the intelligence gathering that Joshua did with the spies. There's the technique of besieging a city. How do you get into the city? Whereas with AI, the opposite was necessary, not how did you get in, but how did you get the people out of it? There was, of course, the question of a forced march when they were came to the rescue of the Gibeonites. They marched all night. And a surprise attack upon the investing forces. Then there was the importance, on that occasion, of the mopping up activity, so that the army, shattered and defeated, should not be able to get back into its fortified cities, and so forth and so on. The tactics used, the military tactics in the book, and it's the ones that are described at length are all different and form an interesting topic in themselves. We are ourselves engaged, gentlemen, not in physical warfare, but in warfare. We need to be wise as to what tactics to use, do we not? But one thing I mentioned now as we finish, said God to Joshua as he was about to take Israel across the Jordan. Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of Israel. That as they feared Moses, so they may fear you all the days of your life. The exaltation of Joshua. How was it done? All the military tactics he used, and the prayers he uttered in the course of the battle. I mustn't stay to elaborate on it now, my time is done. It is a topic we shall have to recur to, God's deliberate exaltation of Joshua in the way that the miracles were done. And when you hear of it, you'll say, well, there's that man again. God exalting Joshua by the miracles he did. How can you resist the, uh, thinking about him of whom Joshua was but a prototype. God hath highly exalted him because of his obedience unto death, and at the death of the cross, God hath highly exalted him, given him a name that is above every name, and in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So we conclude our prayer. So, Lord, we pray. It is our heart's sincere desire that I will use the study of thy word this week to exalt the name of thy dear Son before our eyes and in our hearts, that our life from now on shall be the more conformed to his will and subserve the purpose of thine exaltation of the Savior, for his name's sake. Amen.