Joshua Series #1
Journey to the Promised Rest
“The Long Road to Rest”
Introduction
The book of Joshua begins with this historical account.
Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, "Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Joshua 1:1-2
Ok! Let’s say we just picked up the Bible for the first time and knew nothing about the story but decided to start with this book. What would we need to know before we could make any sense of this book? Who is Moses? Who is Joshua? Who are the people to whom the LORD refers? Who is this God? What land is He talking about? Why is He giving it to them? What does it all have to do with me? Is there any value beyond the historical and geographical information?
In order to answer those questions we first must go all the way back to Genesis 12. An interesting reference to Joshua in Hebrews stimulates us to explore a deeper symbolism.
Today will be mostly background and a brief overview of the book so that we may get our bearings before we zero in on the specific details. It is like an orienting map that helps make more sense of the details. Joshua is about to lead the people of Israel into a land God promised Abraham, their forefather, hundreds of years before. The account of the founding of the nation of Israel began with one man God chose to bless.
Because Abraham believed God’s promise of land, seed and blessing, God made a covenant with Him and promised that he would become the father, actually not just of Israel but of many nations. The story of his calling and encounter with God is recorded beginning in Genesis 12. Genesis ends with the fourth generation from Abraham. Abraham fathered Ishmael by a handmaiden before the promised miracle son Isaac. We are still dealing with the conflict between those two today. (Muslims consider Ishmael the promised child.) Isaac gave birth to Jacob and Esau (more family conflict still around today). Jacob whose name God changed to Israel, gave birth to 12 sons who became the 12 tribes of Israel.
Joseph was one of those sons who was sold into slavery by his other brothers and ended up in Egypt. God used the situation to protect this fledgling little nation from annihilation in the famine. Joseph became second in command of Egypt during the famine because “God was with him. The Hebrews flourished during that time both materially and numerically.
Many years had passed since Joseph and the Egyptian rulers forgot how he had saved them from the famine. Now they were concerned with the rapid growth of the Hebrews and feared they would align with some foreign power and attack them. They began to put tighter restrictions and eventually practiced male infanticide to eliminate any more threat to their nation. This increasingly grew more torturous as time when on and the people cried out for deliverance. It had been nearly 400 years of slavery under the Egyptians. That is where Genesis ends and Exodus begins.
Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. Exodus 2:23-25
Exodus is the account of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and journey to the land promised by Abraham. God prepared and called Moses to lead the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Exodus records the key events from the supernatural deliverance through 10 specialized demon-defying plagues ending with the death angel killing the firstborn of all who did not put the sacrificial blood on their door posts (Passover). The Egyptians were glad to see them go and even showered them with gifts as the left hoping to remove the curse from the land.
Note this was payment for the service rendered over the past 400 years. The hard labor at the end prepared the people for the long journey ahead of them. There was not a weak one among them. The deliverance ended with a grand elimination of the entire Egyptian army who pursued them after God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to deny their exodus. They were all swallowed up when God closed the Red Sea on them after the Jews had gone through on dry land.
What followed was a series of tests and trials as these 3 million people traipsed across the desert. They demonstrated just how shallow their trust in God really was. They complained, they cried, they accused God of genocide, they tried to replace Him, they threatened to return, they grumbled about the scarcity of the water and the monotony of the food God gave them every day. On their way to their new homeland God stopped at Mt Sinai when He had originally called Moses. There, Moses went up the mountain to again meet face to face with God. God crafted this new nation’s constitution. He gave them instructions as to how to live with each other and please God. He gave them instructions on how to avoid the diseases they encounter in pagan Egypt. He also gave the instruction on building a worship center; a focal point that would keep God as the center of their community. The book of Exodus outlines those instructions.
At the same time God provided instructions regard how to approach Him. He provided worship instructions in the book of Leviticus.
Following this layover, they took a census of the people (They had lost a significant number due to rebellion and disobedience.) The book of Numbers gets its title from this census. From there they headed out again on their journey to the Promised Land. More complaining and rebellion along the way. Finally they reach the entry point to the Promised Land a place called Kadesh-Barnea. Moses commissioned 12 spies (One from each tribe) to go in and check out the land. The spies come back with glowing reports of the fruitfulness of the land but 10 got hung up on the giants they encountered. The two dissenters names were Joshua and Caleb.
They insisted the God was giving the land to them as He had promised. The majority report discouraged the people and they again murmured and complained. They accused God of bringing them there to kill their children. By this time God had had enough of their complaining and He refused to let them enter the land because of their unbelief. He pronounced judgment on that generation. Because they accused Him of genocide of their children they were sentenced to wander around in the wilderness until all those 22 and over were dead; except Joshua and Caleb who believed God’s promise. The great deliverance from Egypt is an illustration of our great deliverance from the kingdom of darkness through faith and the blood of the Lamb which saves us and slams the enemy.
The trip from Egypt to Kadesh-barnea illustrates the kinds of things we need to learn after salvation like what pleases God, trusting God in difficult situations, warfare, worship etc.
The Promised Land is not heaven. The Promised Land is the victorious life of faith and rest in spite of the difficulties around us. It is living in the “heavenlies” mentioned in Ephesians where God has promised and provided blessings to those who will appropriate them by faith. (Eph 1:3) It is the spiritual dimension where we are seated and hidden with Christ in God. (1:20:2:6)
It is also where the enemy tries to stop that peace and faith-rest life. (Eph 6:12) It is the place where God through His church demonstrates His power and glory THROUGH the church to the demonic powers still occupying the spiritual sphere. (Eph 3:10)
What Paul declares in Ephesians, Joshua pictures in Joshua. There is victorious walk with God after salvation that is centered in a spiritual dimension and plays out in a fallen world. Hebrews indicates that this is a walk of faith that involves resting and trusting in the power of God to do what He has promised and give me rest in the midst of conflict. There will be more about that later. That calm assurance and trust in the promise of God was what God had for the Israelites that day at Kadesh-Barnea but they turned on Him rather than trust Him. As a result they wandered around for nearly 40 years as the older generation dropped dead along the way.
Many of us are still wandering around without peace and rest. We have refused to really trust God. We are saved but we have failed to access the storehouse of blessings promised to those who trust Him. God still loves us. God still provides along the way as He still did for the Israelites. But is not home. We are living outside of our inheritance
It is tents not houses.
We live like nomads not residents.
It feels like a desert rather than a land of milk and honey.
We experience hunger and thirst rather than satisfaction.
We struggle with conflict rather than community.
All because we fail to trust God to bring us into His rest. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. Those who come to Him must believer that He IS and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Numbers records the events of that 40 years of wilderness wanderings. Toward the end of Numbers the people have come full circle back to Kadesh-Barnea. It is a test for the new generation; will they trust God to bring them into their inheritance. Deuteronomy is all about reminding the new generation of the things the older generation learned at Mt Sinai (Exodus).
Deuteronomy is all about preparation to claim their inheritance. Take the land promised by God. In Exodus, God told Moses to teach their families the truth about God and what please Him. They didn’t. The kids didn’t have a clue. Moses had to start all over. It only takes one generation to produce a nation of pagans. All it takes is a failure to pass on the truth of God to our children.
Moses reviewed their history in the first part of Deuteronomy. He lamented how God prevented him from leading them into the land because of them. (3:26) He focused on the refusal of their parents to trust God. He urged them not to follow their example and prepare to live in their inheritance. He urged them to obey the law and keep the commandments given by the Lord. This is the theme of Deuteronomy. “Be diligent to keep His commandments.”
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
He warned them that even when they got in the land, God would remove them if they failed to keep His commandments. He included some basic principles of claiming territory presently occupied by the enemy. Some have failed to reclaim areas in their life presently occupied by the enemy because they were never surrendered to God and are currently being used by Satan.
Paul in Romans urges us to stop offering the members of our being to Satan for his purposes but offer ourselves and members to God as those who have been made alive in Christ in order to be used to promote righteousness. We evict the enemy and offer all of our mental, emotional, physical capabilities, talents, and gifting for kingdom purposes.
Others may have kicked out the enemy at one time but have allowed him to regain territory.
God wants us to live in our inheritance now because it affects what happens tomorrow.
Joshua is all about evicting the enemy from occupied territories of our life and living for God.
So many titles could be assigned to this book.
Road to Spiritual rest and Victory
Life in the Heavenlies
Journey to the Victorious Life
The Life of Faith and Rest
Conquest and living
Battling and Building
Deliverance and Blessing
The Amazing Race
I like that title because it resembles the kinds of things that happen on the show.
There are short term goals and the long term prize.
The difficulties along the way strain physical, mental, emotional and relational limits.
The tasks require teamwork.
There are victories and defeats.
There are short periods of rest while looking finish the race and enjoy real rest.
Each team must put their entire focus on the race.
It is a race. The Bible often refers to the Christian life as a race. Hebrews 12 instructs us to lay aside every sin and encumbrance and run with endurance the race set before us all the way fixing our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith; Jesus. Paul concluded his life with the declaration:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. 2 Timothy 4:7-8
Israel’s historical journey graphically illustrates the journey of every Christian.
Bondage to an outside influence
Salvation supernaturally and mercifully provided by another outside influence
Wilderness journey where we learn truth, trust, obedience, purity, discipline and warfare
Daily Victory through faith in the one who saved us
Possession of promises and blessing
Discipline toward greater obedience
Restoration to fellowship
The pattern of every follower of God has to do with cycles of bondage, salvation, dry periods, faith, salvation, renewal all thought their life. The book of Judges demonstrates the cycle over and over (seven times).
Sin, Slavery, Supplication (Prayer), Salvation, Silence (rest)
The key is to learn the secret of living in the rest part of the cycle for longer periods of time.
The truths illustrated in Joshua and expanded in the New Testament provide insight into experience that rest.
Joshua provided some principles of possessing and living in our inheritance; our rest.
Not rest from foes but rest from fear.
Not rest from battles but rest from bondage.
Not rest from conflict but rest from captivity.
Not heaven eventually but the heavenlies with Christ now
Jesus entered that rest and offers it to every follower who will trust Him. Hebrews warns us,
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12-13
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. Hebrews 4:1
"TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS." For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Hebrews 4:7-9
My hope for our study of Joshua is to learn about entering into the promises rest of our spiritual inheritance. I hope we can learn both strategies and gain insight into the things that will keep us from living less than what God intended. I hope to discover character traits of good leadership. (Everyone is a leader of someone.) I hope to find principles for not just personal victory but victory in our church community.
Moses did not allow the tribes settling on the east side of the Jordan River to settle in but required the fighting men to join the other tribes in their quest to eradicate the enemies from their territories. God requires us to do battle beside one another not against one another.
No war can be won by a single person. Ephesians enlightened us as to the need for prayer for each other in our warfare against the unseen enemies continually looking to destroy us.
Please be in prayer for me as I prepare. Please be in prayer for us as a Christian community of believers that we will learn to live in the heavenlies with victory and rest.
CONCLUSION
We have talked to God today about what troubles us.
We have invited Him into our life struggles.
We have meditated on His great salvation.
Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried He carried my sins far away.
Rising He justified freely forever.
Coming He’ll glorify us and transform us into the likeness of Jesus
We have embraced Him as the focus of our life; the air we breathe.
Now is the time to submit to Him.
What has God said to your heart? I am confident He has said something. If not, you aren’t listening or you aren’t connected. Answer Him. If you heard His voice, don’t be like those who refused to trust him and died without ever entering and enjoying their inheritance in the Promised Land.
