THE PRIMACY OF GOD’S WORD JOSHUA 1:1-9
Josh 1:1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: 2 "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them--to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Great Sea on the west. 5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
The writer of Joshua uses the word STRONG AND COURAGEOUS three different times in the first 9 verses, each with a different emphasis.
The first time he uses those words, he describes the POSSESSION that God has given His people. And in verse 7, he explains that after He has given us the POSSESSION in verse 6, he clearly shows us the PERSEVERANCE that is required of us to claim the PROMISES that He mentions in verse 9.
In vs 6 He says "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them."
As Joshua stood there and received his instruction from the Lord he had to be awed. He could see for miles in every direction, mountains in one direction, the ocean in another, incredible expanse every where he turned. And God describes the possession as he tells him, "3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Great Sea on the west. 5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life".
Think of it! The land is yours, everywhere you walk, go in and clean it up, and clean it out. No one will be able to stand against you, because it is God who has gone before you.
When you stop to think about it isn’t that what God gives the believer? Christ has won the victory for us and by faith we are able to claim it, because it is His to give. The incredible expanse of the Christian life that God gives, the entire vista is ours! If we are devoted to Him, we can not measure it.
I think it’s safe to say that we can compare our Christian walk with the entire book of Joshua. If you look at verses 3 and 4, He mentions the desert and He mentions the great river. If you are a believer, growing in grace, walking with the Lord, I guarantee you’ve seen, or are going to see some dry places and some very deep water, right? And if He mentions in verse five that no one can stand against you, you KNOW that there’s going to be someone who going to try to do just that, right? It’s almost like the writer of Joshua knew what we as believers would be going through years later. The same battles that Israel fought against a physical foe we battle on the spiritual front. For many of us, while we are confident of our salvation in Christ, it still seems that almost every day there is conflict. Sometimes that conflict is a skirmish, other times, it’s a knock-down, drag-out, full blown battle.
Why is that?
From the moment we believe, we have Christ’s promises of peace of conscience, and rest for our soul. We can claim all the promises that our new found faith confers. We have God’s assurance that He will never leave or forsake us, that He gives us peace that passes understanding. We are forgiven, redeemed, a new creation As I Corinthians 1 reminds us: We are in Christ!
But at the same time, it is at our conversion that the battle between the flesh and the spirit begins. God loves us, but He loves us enough not to let us stay the way we are. There is much to be conquered- our tongues, our anger, our pride, our lust, our idols. Sometimes, as we well know those battles are horrific and painful. As God’s word convicts of sin, we are to confess, repent and forsake areas of our life that do not honor God. Most times this is a painful process that we would rather not go through, but John 15 reminds us that this is a integral part of our growth, (John 15:2) "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."
But God doesn’t give us the entire victory all at once. There are victories that God has to give quickly, lest we perish, but there are other battles that must be fought daily. We can give sin no quarter, we must never be complacent in our walk. As we yield, as we trust and obey, God gives us the victory. He that begins the good work will complete it. We can always be confident of the outcome, but it is a battle that will never end this side of glory.
But once God gives us the possession, he asks this; that we trust and obey. we must persevere in doing all that His word instructs and commands, for it is in meditating on His word that we have the power to win the battle, and are able to claim the promises.
7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
Note the use of the word "very". This adds a very strong emphasis to the sentence. It gives the sense of vehemence, and strength to the command "be courageous", and seems to indicate that "obey", "do not turn", meditate, do let it depart" will not come easy. You and I both know that there are many distractions that would keep us from the regular reading and study of the Bible. It takes a disciplined concerted effort to stay in the word, to read it, study it, and meditate on it on a regular basis. Many times that is one of the biggest battles that we fight. God know our propensity to try to do things on our own, our self reliance. He knows that left to our selves, our lives would be chaotic, sinful messes. That is why He gives the commands of verses 7 and 8. Imagine what it would be like without God’s word to guide us through this Christian life, left to our own devices, trying to apply our logic to everyday situations. Would any of us survive?
As a young father, one of the great delights I had was putting the presents for my children under the Christmas tree each year. The bigger ones that required assembly would always make the night a little longer than it should have been, because I always prided myself in my ability to figure out how things work, and how to fix them. But it always seemed that the estimation of my ability always exceeded reality. After many frustrated attempts to assemble the toy led to a completed product that looked nothing like the picture on the box, with many parts left over, I finally had to relent and FOLLOW the directions that came with the package. Strange how easy it was after that.
God’s word has a way of shining light on so much of life. It ought always to be the guiding force in our lives, but unfortunately it is not. Many times it is only when need drives us to our knees that we realize that careful obedience to the principles in God’s would have saved us much grief. It ought to be the regular, consistent diet that feeds us and gives us our strength. It ought to be our regular focus, the established norm that nothing is attempted, nothing is spoken or decided until it is filtered through the Word of God. It is by meditating on God’s word that our minds come to understand it’s precepts, and hearts are changed to the point where we diligently obey those precepts.
Look at Mark 9. When Christ cast out the demon from a man, the disciples were amazed and asked why they were not able to cast out this demon. Jesus told them that "this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting". Through prayer and fasting. Now notice, that prior to casting out this demon, Jesus did not have to leave to pray and to fast for a while before casting out the demon. He did it immediately! How? Because prayer and fasting was a way of life for Him. It was His practice. It was natural for Him.
If we are to succeed in life, if we are to prosper, we must mediate on and in his Word.
Meditation on the Word of God is one of the most important means of grace. There can not be growth in grace and spiritual maturity without it. Like Christ, walking in the spirit must become a way of life for us. It must be a daily, consistent practice.
Note Deuteronomy 32:46 " Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law". One of the marks of the man God calls blessed in Psalms 1 is that " his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night." Meditation on the Word of God is not optional for success, it is requisite. And it is the most important thing that we need to impact not only our lives, but the lives of others as well.
I remember as a new believer, I heard about a Godly man who had memorized the entire book of Hebrews, and I remember thinking "he is a godly man to have done that". But the more I thought about it I had to change my thinking to " he is a godly man, because he has done that’. God’s word changes us, molds us and makes us as we meditate on it But understand that it is not just the meditating that changes us, but what we are meditating on that transforms our way of life. The prophet Haggai says ( 1:7) " Consider your ways." Luke 9:44 tells us "Let these sayings sink down into your ears"
I remember when I was a little boy, 8-9 years old, and my best friend’s mother asked if I would like to go to church with them. My parents thought it was a great idea, so, for approximately three years, I attended church and Sunday school in a small Baptist Church in Duarte, California. It was there that I learned to memorize scripture verses for Sunday School. I was not converted at that time, but the fact that I was weekly memorizing Bibles verses would have a profound effect later on in my life. I dearly loved to see those little gold stars go up next to my name every time I quoted a memory verse to the teacher. But I was not converted during that time.
I had heard the gospel in hundreds of messages and in many revival meetings as a boy growing up, but it wasn’t until I was about 27, and in the sewers of life that I desperately prayed for God to help me. Almost immediately the first part of II Tim 3:16 came into my mind " all scripture is given by inspiration of god and is profitable for......." . Profitable for what, I didn’t know. That’s all I could remember. But I started reading the bible for the first time in many years, and some days later, I was in front of a pastor who clearly explained the gospel and I was saved.
Now the point is not to give you my testimony, but to point out that when I was in my greatest time of need, when I was in great distress, when I was in a make-or-break situation in my life, God did not bring to mind one of the humorous stories from one of the sermons I had heard. He didn’t bring to mind one of the snappy illustrations that the preachers had shared. The thing that pointed me to God when I was in the sewer of life, was not a story, or an illustration, or an impassioned altar call. It was God’s word.
He brought to mind HIS WORD. It was His Word that opened my eyes. It was right after the morning I had prayed to make Christ the Lord of my life, that the Scripture verses I had memorized as a child came flooding into my mind. I started attending church, and reading and studying my bible at every opportunity.
God will never bless our efforts at witnessing unless we use His Word. God will never honor our words as evangelists, as preachers, as missionaries, unless our words revolve around His Word. He does not honor our arguments, however persuasive. He does not honor our passion, or our zeal unless our passion and zeal revolve around Jesus Christ and His Word. It must be absorbed into every fiber of our being by reading and meditating on it.
Finally, if we have the possession, and we persevere in His Word, there are promises for God’s children, assurances that we are never in the battle alone.
When I think of the promises of God, I’m reminded of the story of the young man who had a dream to go to America. He scrimped and saved, and did everything in his power to save enough money to buy a ticket on a boat bound for America. The day came when he had precisely the amount of money needed, and he went immediately and purchased that ticket. The ship was to leave the next day, so with great excitement, and with all of his possessions wrapped neatly in a blanket he boarded the ship, and settled down for his great journey. After the first couple of days, the young man had exhausted the meager supply of food that he had been able to scrimp and save in his blanket, and he began to get hungry. He knew that if he could only survive for a few days more, he would enjoy all the riches that America promised.
It was that evening that a steward found him preparing to sleep in a secluded corner on deck. The steward confronted him, accusing him of being a stowaway. Protesting his innocence, the young man produced his ticket. The steward apologized, but then asked "but why are you sleeping here on deck, when you have quarters below"? When the young man replied that he had only enough money for the passage but no room, the steward explained that the room was included in the price of the ticket. As the steward led the astonished young man to his room, they passed the large dining room where a sumptuous meal was being laid out. The young man peeked in and saw that the room was filling with people, and the steward told the young man that he could be seated for dinner in about fifteen minutes, as that was included also.
So many times we understand that we have redemption, and we look forward to the beauty of Heaven, but we are ignorant of so much that is in between. We fail to grasp all that God has prepared for us.
2 Pet 1:3-4 tells us "According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: {4} Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.....
The God we know through Christ Jesus is a God of promise. His promises are unmerited blessings. Some are conditional, some unexplainable, but all are a result of God’s grace. His promises are guaranteed through the total victory won in Christ. They are ’yes and amen’ in Jesus. In Christ alone, we find fulfillment of each promise, and in Him we become recipients of His grace.
Let’s look at just some of those promises?
He has promised to supply every need we have. Phillipians 4:19 tells us " my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus". Notice, God has obligated Himself only to the extent of our needs. That includes food, clothing, shelter, companionship, love, and salvation through Jesus Christ. It would not include all the things we think we need, the luxuries that we have come to think of as needs.
God has promised that His grace is sufficient for us. (II Corinthians 12:9) Ephesians 2:8 tells us that He has made provision for our salvation by His grace through faith. It is through an obedient faith that we have access into the grace of God according to Romans 5:2.
I Corinthians 10:13 gives us the assurance that God has promised that His children will not be overtaken with temptation. Instead, He assures us that a way of escape will be provided. Jude wrote: "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present your faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Jude v 24).
God has promised us victory over death. He first resurrected Jesus by way of assuring our resurrection. Peter said: "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses" (Acts 2:32). Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (I Corinthians 15:3,4). And later on in the same chapter he adds: "but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 15:57).
God has promised that all things work together for good to those who love and serve Him faithfully (Romans 8:28). It may be difficult for us to comprehend this and fully grasp how this is accomplished, but God has promised it, and He will always deliver.
God has promised His people eternal life (John 10:28-29) "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. {29} My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand."
In closing, let’s make some application.
First, of primary importance, you need to be rightly related to a mighty and holy God through Jesus Christ. Not just because your life situation needs to be made better, not you want to make your life a little easier, but because of our sin, we have offended a righteous and Holy God, and need to come before him and confess our sin, and know that our only hope is that God makes us righteous through Jesus Christ. We need to possess that which Christ has already secured for us.
Second, Scripture has the answers for all of life’s problems. If you suffer from guilt, God’s Word has the answer. If you are depressed, God’s Word has the answer. If your marriage is in trouble, if you have an anger problem, an addictive behavior problem, if you have hurts that you can’t even talk about, the Bible has the answers. There is nothing in all of our experience that God hasn’t already given both the answer and the power to overcome it. We must to make time daily to read it and study it. It will change us.
