Gooding, David: 1 - Introduction and Overview

Now let's begin to read, and read this afternoon extensively to quieten our spirits before the Lord, and also to lay a foundation for the meditations that we shall have in the ensuing days. First of all, the book of Genesis, please, in chapter fifteen. Genesis 15, verse 5. And he, God, brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to tell them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land, to inherit it. And he said, O Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he took him all these and divided them in the midst. Verse twelve. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them. And they shall afflict them four hundred years, and also that nation whom they will serve I- will I judge, and afterward they shall come out with great substance. But thou shall go to thy fathers in peace, thou shall be buried in a good old age, and in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. With that we turn to what shall be our main study this week, the book of Joshua, and begin to read there in chapter one. Joshua chapter one. Verse one. Now it came to pass after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, 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. Chapter three and verse 17. And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all Israel passed over on dry ground until all the nations were passed clean over Jordan. Chapter eight and verse twenty four. And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they pursued them, and they were all fallen by the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all Israel returned unto Ai and smote it with the edge of the sword. And all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. For Joshua drew not back his hand wherewith he stretched out the javelin until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Verse thirty. Then Joshua built an altar unto the Lord, God of Israel, in Mount Ebal. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stone upon which no man had lift up any iron. And they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel. And all Israel and their elders and officers and their judges stood on this side the ark and on that before the priests, the Levites, which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, as well the stranger as the homeborn. Half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded, that they should bless the people of Israel first of all. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the assembly of Israel and the women and the little ones and the strangers that were conversant among them. Chapter ten, if you will, verse eleven. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, while they were going, while they were in the going down of Beth Horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Zakar, and they died. They were more which died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Aijalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar, and the sun stayed in the midst of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day, and there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. And finally, a passage in the New Testament that will help us to focus the way the New Testament deals with this Old Testament book and applies it to us. The epistle to the Galatians, if you will, in chapter three. Epistle to the Galatians, chapter three verse thirteen. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto. Now to Abram were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, a covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise, but God has granted it to Abram by promise. And the Lord give us good understanding of his holy word. Once more, by your kindness, it has fallen to me to lead us in our devotions each day. And greatly daring, I have chosen this year that we should meditate together in the Old Testament book of Joshua. Greatly daring have I done it, I do admit. For there isn't a missionary, I am persuaded, on the face of the earth, but what doesn't know his Joshua forwards, backwards, and sideways on. Not a missionary who hasn't used it to preach to his Sunday school, to his Bible class, and in particular to the believers. Nonetheless, it seems to me that sometimes it is the familiar passages of Holy Scripture that coming to us afresh in our times of contemplation and devotion, that are calculated to comfort and encourage our hearts in the Lord. Joshua, of course, has been a book that all down the centuries has spoken directly to the hearts of God's people. How would it not? For if Joshua be the Hebrew form of that hero's name, in the Greek translation his name becomes Jesus. And as early as Justin Martyr, the great Christian apologist, you will find the early Christians reading their book of Joshua and irresistibly being drawn to make the parallel between Joshua of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New. As any schoolboy knows, Yahoshua talks of Jehovah our Savior, and so does Jesus. Sophisticated missionaries and servants of the Lord, though we may be, who shall tell us that we mustn't indulge ourselves a little these early mornings and the days that are to come, and let ourselves sit back and thoroughly enjoy the contemplation of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thus shall we refresh ourselves. Thus shall we re- prepare ourselves again to go back to the fray, and along with the captain of the host of the Lord, continue our fight against his enemies and ours. Joshua of the Old Testament, we are told, by the grace and appointment of God, led ancient Israel into their rest. It is a concept we shall meet time and time again in the ancient history. So the land had rest, and God gave his people rest from war. For all that, as we readily recognize, the rest into which Joshua brought his people was but partial and temporary. And perhaps the earliest commentator on the book of Joshua was the writer to the epistle, of the epistle to the Hebrews. And he comments, does he not, in his chapter uh three and four, that if Joshua had really given the people rest, then God would not have spoken again centuries later in Psalm ninety five of another rest, saying, today, if you will hear his heart, harden not your heart, and don't be like your predecessors in the wilderness who sinned against God, to whom God swore that they should not enter into his rest. You who live in this later epoch, to you is the promise given today, if you will enter it, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Joshua did not completely fulfill the ancient promise given to Abram and to his seed, and there remaineth a rest for the people of God. Then the writer to the Hebrews adds categorically, we which have believed. Thank God for that past tense. Not as commonly in scripture, we which do believe, but we which have believed do enter into that rest. And as this week we gather from our field of service, from labors variegated and abundant and exhausting, who shall blame us if we indulge ourselves a little bit again and allow our hearts wearied with toil and our minds fretted with thinking. To lie back a moment and sense and feel again the delightful calm of that rest into which our Savior brings us. The joy that comes when he is near, the rest he gives so free from fear, the hope in him so bright and clear is more than tongue can tell. Take off your burden, my brother, and with me enter afresh into the rest of God, that at the end of this week you might rise up again to shoulder the loads that God has given you to carry. It was greatly daring of me to choose Joshua, wasn't it? For another reason. All the theologians present will know the arguments that ply backwards and forwards about the proper interpretation and application of the book. You see, the question we have already alluded to, that rest into which we do in fact enter who have believed, is it now? Or lies it still in the future? Is it the rest that we enjoy here on earth through trusting Christ and ceasing from our works for salvation? Or is it a prospect that lies before us, into which we have not yet entered, which awaits us at the end of the pilgrim road? And when we think of the question thus, we go back to our book of Joshua. What is this business of entering into the inheritance in the land of Canaan? What, pray, did it mean for Israel? And what lesson has it exactly for us? Crossing Jordan, for instance, and entering the promised land. What would you say that is? Ah, popular theology says there's no difficulty, along with John Bunyan of England and his Pilgrim Progress. Why crossing Jordan, the way far over Jordan? It means nothing less than passing through death and entering the Father's house above. Oh, what a blessed prospect it is. And here comes alas the sophisticated theologian. No, no, no, says he, crossing Jordan, going to heaven, of course not. And for this obvious reason that when Israel crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan, they met Anakim and Jerichoites and Hivites and Jebusites and Perivites, all of them with ugly faces and big beards and long spears and shields and fortified cities. Then was there endless fighting to do? How could you possibly call it entering into rest and entering into heaven? Ha. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, what is it then? Ah, say the sophisticated, it's not entering into heaven, my boy. It's, um, being seated now with Christ in the heavenlies, to be sure it is. That sounds hopeful. But as Ephesians chapter six reminds us, in those very heavenlies must we war with spiritual might and main, contesting every inch of the inheritance against principalities and powers, the world rulers of this darkness, for which struggle we must take to ourselves the whole armor of God. Entering Canyon, say the sophisticated, is not heaven at all. Ah. Well, if it must be, it must be. And we shall have to fight. And perhaps from Joshua we shall learn how to fight in this great warfare. And yet there remains a little question, doesn't there? If we give ourselves, first of all, as all Bible students should, to consider the formal structure of this ancient book of Joshua. It is formed of two parts, is it not, as far as I can make out, and did those two parts, chapters one to twelve, form the first part, and chapters thirteen to the end form the second part. Chapter twelve is a summary list of all those many cities that Joshua fought against and destroyed in order that he might bring Israel permanently into rest. Pray look, if you will, to the last verses, then, of, uh, chapter eleven. It says in chapter eleven, as this book of Joshua reaches its first major literary climax. So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord spake unto Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes, uh, and the land had rest from war. Ah. So we better believe the historian. By the time we get to chapters eleven and twelve, then we have entered into rest. So now I have a real problem because you've confused me. The first bit was our fighting, was it, in the heavenly places against principalities and powers. And then when we get to chapter twelve, we shall have to say, now the fighting is over and the land has rest. Well, what is chapter thirteen onwards? Heaven? That won't work either, will it? Because curiously enough, although the re- land had rest from war by the time you get to chapter twelve, when you open chapter thirteen and read the remaining chapters, lo and behold, after the land had rest, Israel is to be found still engaged chasing the enemy off this part and that part of their inheritance. So how comes it that way, that after the land had rest from war, they still had to fight. And it seems to me that if we would understand the structure of this book and the significance of its formal layout, then we must consider two basic things about this history. The first answer to our problem is as follows, that in the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites, there were two phases, were there not? Distinctly marked both in Deuteronomy and in Numbers and in the book of Joshua, there was the first phase when Joshua led the united armies of all the tribes into battles all the way around Palestine to break the back of the enemy resistance. While that first phase was proceeding, no tribe was allowed to settle down. You will remember those, uh, the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. How they too were obliged to follow Joshua over Jordan River and not permitted to settle down in their inheritance east of Jordan. They must, like all the other tribes, go out, eh, with Joshua to war, for the obvious reason. And when the armies took Jericho, no tribe was allowed to settle there. And when again they took Ai or any other city, no tribe was allowed to settle. This wasn't the time for settling down. For you see, if any tribe had been allowed to hide off and settle in Jericho or Ai or east of Jordan, the armies of Israel would have been depleted, wouldn't they? And then would have been no match for the massive forces that were waiting for them behind the ramparts of the fortified Canaanite cities. So there had to be the first phase, when Joshua, captain of the hosts of the Lord, was leading his people, fighting those battles that would break the resistance of the enemy and open the land to Israel. It took a long time and lasted until Joshua was now very old, but at last it was completed, and the land had rest from war. That was what Joshua did. And then when he was old, then there came the second phase of the conquest, did there not? When Joshua sent the tribes away, each to its own inheritance without him, and each tribe for itself had to go and fight to take over the cities and the countryside assigned to them. This week, we shall have no more time but to concentrate on that first phase of the campaign, and it will talk to us not simply about our efforts to enter into our inheritance. It must talk to us, must it not, of something that lies prior to our efforts to enter the inheritance. It must point us to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, to the enormous battles he fought, that he might break the power of the enemy and open the land for us to go in and inherit. This week, then, we shall be largely engaged in thinking about our basic salvation. To test whether we are on the light right lines in focusing ourselves like this, let's approach this historical book from another historical angle. And if you can manage to keep awake, I want to draw quite an extensive analogy, and it runs like this. You will remember, will you not, in the book of Genesis in chapter twelve, God promised to Abraham to give him seed, and thus Abraham should inherit the land. That promise was renewed to Abraham in the book of Genesis chapter fifteen, that all the land of Canaan would be given to Abram and to his seed. So first came the problem, how Abram should be given seed when he and Sarah were already old. And you will remember the story how they were asked to wait and wait and wait and wait until at length the promised seed came. And you will remember too how becoming impatient in the early days, Sarah and Abram and Abram and Sarah knocked their heads together, which perhaps wasn't wise, and came up with a ha- with a with a way of helping God to fulfill his promise. And Abram was persuaded to take Hagar, and from her he begat Isaac. And when Sarah saw that Hagar was getting a little bit uppish because she was the child of Abraham, Sarah persecuted Hagar, and Hagar fled with her child yet to be born. And God took Hagar and Ishmael, and he put them back into Ha- Abraham's dwelling place. And what a difficult and trying time it was for Abraham, wasn't it, when that brat of a boy Ishmael was born? A wild ass of a man he was and proved to be. His hand against every man, and every man's hand against him, and controlling the young outlaw was difficult enough. Oh, for those long years when no promised seed appeared, and all Abram had was this, uh, wild ass of a boy, son of a slave woman, sharing his tent and home with him. You can imagine the sigh of relief when at last, long last, it must have seemed centuries, the promised seed was born. So says Genesis chapter twenty one. With that, the very next chapter paragraph in Genesis twenty one tells us this, that immediately the promised seed was born and came to the time of weeding. God gave the command, cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the bondwoman and her son shall not inherit along with the freeborn Isaac. It was only shortly after that, the promised seed being born and growing up, that the promised seed was sacrificed upon an altar on Mount Moriah. Yes, that's the original history, and I've not strayed from serious and solemn and straightforward and pedestrian history. But listen, as I proceed with my analogy, listen to what Saint Paul has to say about that very chunk of history in the Epistle to the Galatians, chapter three. For there Paul takes the history and he stretches it a bit, doesn't he? Like you do with limousines here, you take our mini miners and profiting from their design, lo and behold, when we come here to see these mini miners, you're gonna come and cut them a bit, and you stretch them till it takes a week to pass them on the highway. Yes, so does Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, doesn't he? He takes that bit of history from the Abraham and the promise of the seed to the fulfillment and the promised seed actually coming in the form of Isaac. And he says, my brethren, let me stretch that bit of history for you. Still keeping to history. We haven't got to typology yet, goodness me no. We'll keep to history, you'll see. The promise was given to Abraham that he should have the seed. But oh, how many centuries passed before the seed came. And who was he? Ah, the seed was not Isaac, but Isaac's greater son, our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And you will observe, says Paul, that in those intervening centuries, eventually, just like God put Hagar and Ishmael in Abraham's tent until the promised seed Isaac came, so did God take Israel while they were waiting for the coming of the promised seed, and God put Moses and the law in their midst until the promised seed should come. But all my brethren, says Paul with a tremendous sigh of relief, well, the promised seed has come. Ha, you're no longer under the law, are you? You are under Christ. And it is common knowledge that when the pre- blessed seed was born, then the law had finished its function as a way of life. That is, as a way of justification. And the promised seed coming to manhood was like at, uh, Isaac, only more so, sacrificed upon Mount Calvary. Paul has taken the earlier history and stretched it to cover the whole of Jewish history. And not till the coming of the Savior was the promise of the seed finally fulfilled. That my example, and now the analogy. It's a long business, this analogy, isn't it? Never mind, perhaps it will help us. In that same promise to Abraham in Genesis fifteen, God promised him not merely a seed, but he promised Abram an inheritance. Nothing short of the whole land of Canaan, with much more besides, did God promise Abraham in that long distant day. One day they would come into that glorious inheritance. In the interval, God said that they should spend some time in Egypt, and so they did. And then God said that he would bring them out with great substance, and so he did, and we rejoice in the story, for he sent Moses to bring the people out of Egypt and teach them the law of God and teach them the rudiments of redemption. And Moses led them out of Egypt towards their great inheritance that had been promised to them via Abraham by. But if Moses could bring them out of Egypt, there was one thing that Moses could not do. Moses could not bring them into their promised inheritance, and he died before they entered in. Poor old Moses, for all his wonder, there were things that Moses could not do, and Israel would have been outside their inheritance still, had not God in his wisdom raised up Joshua the Savior, and what Moses could not do, that Joshua did, and he brought the people finally into their inheritance that God had promised to Abraham. And we as Christians listen with both our ears pricked up, don't we? It was Joshua, was it, that brought them into their inheritance? No, says the Epistle to the Hebrews, and yes. Well, he did in a way, but then he didn't. He brought them in, but the land was never fully subdued. And if Joshua had brought them in, God would not have spoken of another rest centuries later. What rest is that? And who shall bring us into that rest? And now you see the point of my analogy, don't you? Of course you do. For I'm stretching history too, like Paul and like Americans with their minis. George say, ha, you start with Abraham once more. Justification, yes, and redemption from Egypt, yes, all that. But how would Israel ever come into their full inheritance? Not until the greater than Joshua came, died and went down into his Jordan, and came up again in resurrection life to lead the people clean over Jordan into their full inheritance. And thus this week we shall be thinking historically of the great acts of our greater than Joshua, even Jesus Christ our Lord. How by his coming he brings us into our inheritance. As we think of that, we think, do we not, of a very serious matter. When God promised the inheritance to Abram, God observed that Israel must be kept waiting for some centuries. Not for four hundred years would they come into that rest, even into its first phase. Why not? For, says God, the cup, the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full. The divine wisdom had so ordered it that when the time came for Israel to enter in, the time, the iniquity of the Amorite would have come to its zenith. Then two things would happen. The armies of Israel would come, and as agents of God, they would execute the wrath of God upon that debased and diseased society. And the wrath and judgments of God being executed, and the nation of Canaan being, uh, put out. God would give the inheritance to his people, Israel. And therein is a very solemn thought, isn't it? And God preached it to them through the clear sermons of Moses. Look, said he to Israel as they stood on the brink of entry into Canaan. Now please observe why these Canaanite nations are being thrown out and, uh, you are given the land. They have become so abominable in their practices that the very land is spewing them out. God proposes to give you the land instead. Don't you go and do the same thing. For I'm telling you straight, says God. You may be my chosen people, but if you, being in the land, imagine that you can be misbehave and do as the Canaanites did because in your thing blue-eyed boys, and you can do what you like just because you're on my side. Then I shall teach you a very severe lesson. If you do what the Canaanites do, I shall throw you out as I threw them out. When Israel crossed over the Jordan, they hadn't long to wait to find out God was true to his word. Take the incident of Jericho. God said, when you attack and and enter the walls of Jericho, you shall devote everything. Everything must be slaughtered, and don't you touch it. For Jericho is now cursed under the judgment of God, and you too will be cursed. And a very early heap of stones was erected in the valley of Achor to remind Israel that they weren't God's blue-eyed boys. If they touched that cursed thing, they would suffer the same judgment as Jericho City. Do you begin to tremble in your shoes? Well, perhaps not you. I do a little bit. I've read my Moses, you see. And I say, well, la. If God is going to be so severe against sin like that and curse every sin, not only of the old, uh, heathen Gibeonites and such like, but of me, David Gooding, as well. However am I to get into the inheritance? Tell me, now we're at it. What are the conditions of getting into the inheritance? You say, Mr. Preacher, don't bother your head. I wouldn't if I were you. We are a heavenly people. We belong to the church. You don't need to be troubling your head as a inheritance in Canaan. No? Oh, you're not as greedy as I am. I'm aware, of course, that I shall inherit the heavenlies with Christ, but I'm not quite altogether convinced I ought not to inherit, uh, Palestine as well. Are you? Tell me, is the Lord Jesus going to inherit Palestine? Or not? Who say, yes, he will. He'll inherit Palestine. Come, come, of course he will. I mean to say he'll inherit the whole earth. You don't think that's a little bit in, you know, not as it should be, that our Lord should be so interested in earth? Shouldn't he be interested in heavenly things? Well, you say don't be so stupid, man, don't. Of course, our Lord has an inheritance. The whole of heaven is his. But listen, ask of me, says God to the Messiah, and I'll give thee the uttermost parts of the earth as well. I tell you, my brethren, there's not one square inch of territory, neither in heaven nor on earth, but what our Lord shall inherit it all. And I've read in the Bible somewhere that we're heirs of God and joint heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ. Are we not? What, you lot? On what ground do you suppose and presume that you're going to have this inheritance? Oh, I thank God we're not, uh, we're not dependent on some verses and analogies from the Old Testament to decide that matter. The Epistle to the Galatians is abundantly clear, and so is Romans four. That promise made to Abraham, and all those blessings, and that inheritance, ah, and that covenant. They come to us on these terms, that Christ was made a curse for us, and we who had broken God's law and were under its curse and had failed every test that Moses proposed, and therefore merited destruction equally as any old Canaanite ever merited it. Uh. The glorious news is this, that in our great Joshua Jesus Christ, we may enter that inheritance. For the promise to Abraham and to his seed that he should be heir not only of Canaan but of the world was not given to him when he was in circumcision, but before he was circumcised. It was given him by that same promise by which he was justified by faith, Genesis fifteen, and in that very same breath given a covenant that guaranteed him the inheritance. Oh, how lovely we are to think together of our great Joshua, who brings us, even us sorry sinners, into the great inheritance. One small observation more, then, and we may go to tea. The first half of the book of Joshua, as we have all perceived, is in three parts, and relates to us three objectives that the great Joshua set before him and which he actually achieved. Oh, what a heart-stirring story it is. Ha. The first objective, made clear in chapter one, says God to Joshua, Moses, my servant, is dead, rise up and take Israel over Jordan. Ha. Some objective wasn't easy. You may think it was easy. Well, then think again, my brothers, my sister. Moses led a whole generation out of Israel, out of Egypt, and he tried to persuade them to go into Palestine. But when they put their noses across the border from Kadesh Barnea and found out what Palestine was like, they one and all said, oh, Moses, no, no, no, Moses, oh, goodness me, you cracked up this Palestine to be such a wonderful land, and we were expecting such marvelous things, but oh Moses, now we see what it's really like. Oh no, Moses, goodness me, we wouldn't want that. I mean, if we'd have known that that's what Canaan was likely to be, we wouldn't have come, Moses. You just imagine that, journeying all through the wilderness, getting to the promised land, putting your nose across the border, and deciding that what you didn't want to go in after all. Curious, wasn't it? Do you think anybody will journey towards heaven and get his nose across the cel- celestial threshold, have a look in, uh, and decide after all they didn't want to go in? You say, no, of course not, don't be so silly, don't. Don't you be quite so sure, perhaps? I mean, how would you know what heaven is going to be like anyway? Have you sat down and seriously considered it? What has got to be to be all eternity there, I mean to say, my brother, my sister. Ah, I mean, suppose God, when you got home to heaven, invited you to sit at his table and began the conversation in Leviticus. Could you endure it for very long? And if it turned out to be Ezekiel... foolish, I hope you won't talk about those things. I find them a bit of a bore now. You do? Well, if you were to find his word a bore now, I mean, ought you to reconsider whether you should go to heaven, because if we were to say the same things in heaven as he says in scripture, and we find them a bore. Ah, no, you say we, we, we love the word of God. I'm glad to hear it. Sorry for that homiletical aberration. Dorsey. Uh-huh. But I was going to say, a whole generation with Moses as their leader failed to get into the land of Canaan. Ah, but what Moses could not do. Yes, that Joshua did. Did you notice that verse? According to his instruction, the ark stood in the bed of Jordan, and it stayed there until the nation of Israel were clean passed over. Oh, praise God, and shout hallelujah. The objective achieved at last. Oh, praise God. You'll say, dear dying lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power till all the ransomed saints of God are saved to sin. No more. Oh, what a blessed Savior we have. He brings us in now. He shall bring us in eternally. There was a second objective, wasn't there? For they were not merely to come into the land, mm-hmm, but when they had conquered Jericho and Ai without waiting to conquer any other city, they got themselves at full speed through the gap in the mountains and came to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, just like Moses has commanded. Moses was good at commanding things, as I say, he wasn't always good at, uh, getting the folks to carry them out, but he commanded that when they got into the land, they would go to Mount Ebal and Goritsem, you'll see, and they were to build an altar, and they were to collect some stones, and they were to write the law upon the stones. They were to assemble Israel, some of them on one mountain and some of them on the other. They were to recite the blessings of the law, and at each particular blessing, the people were to say amen. Then they were to recite the curses of the law, and at each particular curse the people were to say, Amen. And what were they doing? They were establishing the law of God in that land of Canaan, scene of man's ultimate rebellion against God. Oh, my dear friend, let's get it clear, and if my phraseology has misled you, let me make it abundantly clear. Salvation by grace through faith does not mean we live as we like, do we? Does it? The aim is that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled. The question is how, isn't it? And to that question we must address ourselves on another occasion. There were stiff enemies to fight in order that the law of God might be established in the land. But from this moment, we rejoice in what is written. Stiff as the opposition at Jericho was, and more difficult even at Ai. God commanded Joshua at length to lift up his hand in which the javelin was, sign to the ambush behind Ai to rise up and capture the city. But more than that, glorious symbolic gesture as the great captain of salvation raised his javelin, and he did not withdraw his hand until the last of the opposition on the road to Gerizim and Evil was eliminated. Oh, thank God for it. For what the law could not do, and it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sin and for sin condemns sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. And that final story is delightful, isn't it? Not only getting him in the land, not only establishing the law of God in the land, but destroying the very last enemy in the very last city, so that all enemy opposition having ceased, and not a dog barking his tongue against them, Israel might be brought at last into their full inheritance and come to their final rest. Ah, and there's that lovely so- story that as God began to deal with the enemies and the stones rained down from the heavens upon the enemy as they fled, then Joshua, taking courage, stood in the sight of Israel and addressed the living God, and he said, Sun, stand thou still, and moon, stand still in the va- valley of Aijalon. You know, the sun stood still, and the moon hasted not to go down until Israel were avenged of all their enemies. With what rejoicing of heart shall we read the story? How they took those defeated kings and put their feet upon their necks. And we shall listen to the echo of the New Testament in our hearts. All the enemies, yes, persuaded that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, principalities, powers, mights, and dominions, let them be never so many. None of them shall prevail at last. Why, the very last enemy that shall be destroyed shall be destroyed is death, and with it his satanic majesty himself, consigned forever to the lake of fire. Oh, my brothers, you are more than conquerors through him that loved you. The God of peace and rest shall tread down the old serpent under your foot now, very shortly, and may his name be praised and his son be exalted in our thinking. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank thee together for the experience of the ages that thou hast recorded for our learning. We thank thee too for turning the history also into vivid thought patterns and models for thinking with, that we might grasp with our imaginations what we learn with our intellects and come thus to a greater appreciation of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Be pleased to use thy word in these coming days to magnify him in our midst. So may we lay hold of the victory he has won for us, that in our turn we may be loyal to him and more than conquerors through him that loved us for his name's sake. Amen.