Joshua 2
Study 2
Chapter 1 – Fundamental Conditions Of Blessing
Introduction
Last week as we began our studies of the book of Joshua we focused our thoughts particularly upon the way in which God for many years had been preparing Joshua for the work to which He was to call him, namely the work of leading the people of God into the actual possession of their Inheritance which God had promised to them.
The scene before us as we come to study chapter 1 is that of God’s people standing once again on the border of Canaan staring out across the Jordan, observing the glorious inheritance which lay before them. An inheritance which God had given them. An inheritance which they owned, but which as yet they had not actually taken possession of and enjoyed. It had been theirs 40 years earlier, but their unbelief, their fear, their lack of willingness to trust God and step out in faith and obedience resulted in that particular generation of God’s people forfeiting the opportunity of enjoying the blessings that God had set before them. Instead of living in the enjoyment of the fullness of the blessing of God, they wandered for forty years in the wilderness. It was not what God had wanted for them. It was far removed from the sort of life they should have and could have been living.
Now the opportunity of laying hold of and possessing their inheritance was once again before them. The question was would they go in and possess it. Reading through the narrative in Joshua 1 we discover several fundamental conditions that had to be fulfilled by both the leader and the people if they were to succeed where the former generation had failed. And I want us to consider those conditions this evening.
But I don’t want us to consider these things merely as an academic exercise aimed at informing our minds about something that happened over 4,000 years ago I want us to see the relevance of these things to us the people of God today.
God has given us, his redeemed people, a rich and glorious spiritual inheritance in Christ. His desire is that we His people, individually and collectively, would enter into and enjoy all the blessings which are already ours in Christ. Our being chosen in and redeemed by Christ, our title to and assurance of eternal life, these are undoubtedly important parts of our Spiritual inheritance, but important as they are, they do not constitute the totality of our inheritance. There is more, much, much more besides. On a personal level there is the entering into the experience and enjoyment of living the Christian life as God intends it to be lived; There is the joy of getting victory over sin in our life, of having the peace of God reigning in our hearts; of living in the assurance that we are indeed God’s beloved and redeemed people; Of growing closer to Christ and becoming more like Christ. There is the joy of being able to witness for Christ and seeing others through our witness being united to Christ. Then on a corporate level as a Church there is the joy of making very real inroads into what is currently the enemy controlled territory around us in our community and tearing down Satan’s strongholds.
We have a glorious spiritual inheritance, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and God intends that we should actually take possession of these blessings. That all that he has given us in Christ and all that he holds out to us in Christ should become a reality in our own individual experience and in our experience as a corporate body of God’s people.
The problem is that far too often like the Children of Israel of old we, as individual Christians and we as Churches fail to appropriate, fail to take possession of and hence fail to experience and enjoy those spiritual blessings that are ours. Our spiritual lives and our spiritual experience are more often than not far removed from what they should be and could be and that for the very same reasons that kept the children of Israel back from possessing and enjoying their inheritance – fear, unbelief, lack of faith, disobedience and an unwillingness to go forward with God.
Israel failed in the past, but God in grace gave them a further opportunity to posses and enjoy their spiritual inheritance. God as it were is saying to them, ‘look, 40 years ago you had the opportunity of experiencing the blessings I wanted to give you. You fluffed it then, you wasted that opportunity and missed out on the blessing. I am giving you another chance. I am setting before you once again the possibility of blessing. It’s up to you whether or not you are going to lay hold of this blessing.’
Joshua 1 marks the opportunity of a new beginning for God’s people. An opportunity to put right the mistakes of the past and to know God’s blessing in their life as a people in the days ahead. Perhaps this evening God is as it were saying in essence the same to us. Saying to us as individuals, saying to us as families and saying to us as a congregation – ‘I am setting the prospect of blessing before you. Blessing that I want you to experience and enjoy. The opportunity to enjoy such blessing has been set before you in the past but you didn’t take it. Well I am going to give you the opportunity again.’
As I say Joshua 1 sets before us certain conditions that had to be fulfilled before the people then could enter into and enjoy the blessings God had in store for them, conditions which must also be fulfilled by us if we are to enter into the enjoyment of the spiritual blessings that God holds out to us as part of our glorious inheritance in Christ.
Well lets turn to the text to consider some of these conditions. In the first place their had to be among the people
1) An Submissive Acceptance of the Providence Of God:
As I said earlier, when the book of Joshua opens the people of God are standing on the very edge of the border of Canaan once again. However this time around there is one major significant difference from the last time they stood here, and that difference is highlighted in opening words of the book “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, The Lord said to Joshua Moses my servant is dead…”
Israel had suffered a great loss in recent days. They had lost their great leader. The man who had led them out of Egypt, the man who had guided them through the wilderness, the man who had spoken as it were face to face with God and had communicated the mind and will of God to them, this great leader was now dead. God in His sovereign providence had removed from his people someone who, looked at from the human perspective, one would have thought they could not have done without, particularly at a time such as this. Someone whom God had used in such a mighty way for their good in the past. Someone the people over the years had come to respect and upon whose leadership qualities they in many ways depended. Taking Moses from them at this point in time was undoubtedly a huge blow to the people. If only the Lord had allowed him to remain among them for a little longer. If only he had been allowed to lead them into this new situation they were now facing. But such wasn’t the case. God had taken Moses out of their midst. The land was before them but Moses was no longer with them.
God however was not going to leave them without a leader. Just as in his sovereign providence he had taken Moses from them, so too in His sovereign providence he had given Joshua to them. God was graciously providing them with a new leader. And whilst it was undoubtedly a huge task for Joshua to undertake, and I am sure that he had to come to terms with his own personal feelings of inadequacy in respect of these new responsibilities that had been placed upon his shoulders, it was also vitally important that the people quickly came to terms with and accepted the new situation they now faced and the new era in leadership that was about to begin. Had they not accepted the fact that the Moses era was over; Had they not accepted the fact that God had brought about a new situation in their life as a nation. Had they not accepted the fact that Moses was gone and that things were going to be different from what they had been used to for the last 40 years or so; had they not accepted the new leader God had now given them, then they would never have taken possession of their inheritance. They would never have gone on to enjoy the victories over their enemies and the blessings God had in store for them in Canaan. They had to recognise and accept that in the Sovereign plan of God Moses had a work to do among them – and he had done that work and done it exceptionally well. But now his work was over and someone else was called to lead them, someone with different gifts, someone with a different personality and so on but someone who under God could and if they were willing and obedient would lead them forward into the enjoyment of even greater blessings than that which they had experienced under Moses. God’s people had to come to the point of accepting the new situation they found themselves in. They were not to dwell on or yearn for the past, that was now gone, they had to take things as they now were and go on from there. There had to be an acceptance of the providence of God.
And you know brethren if we in our personal lives and if we in our family lives and if we in our corporate life as a congregation are to go forward with God and enter into and enjoy all the blessings he has in store for us then we must accept God’s providential dealings with us in our lives. Sometimes those providences will be hard for us to accept, dark providences perhaps or strange seemingly irrational providences which we cannot understand and which might perhaps initially discourage us, which might perhaps make us feel angry or bitter. I am sure that there were those among the Israelites who felt initially discouraged when Moses died; I am sure there were those who standing on the border of Canaan couldn’t understand what God was doing in taking such an experienced, gifted and now much loved and respected leader from them at such a crucial point in their life as a nation. I am sure that many of them would have preferred for Moses to still be around. But he wasn’t. In the providence of God it wasn’t to be. And they had to accept that and go on from where they now where. Had they not done so they would never have taken possession of their inheritance and experienced and enjoyed all the blessings that the Lord had in store for them and was holding out to them.
And so it is in our lives, whether we consider them on a personal, family or congregational level. We have to accept things as they are and not as we would wish them to be, and we have to go forward with God from the situation and circumstances that in the providence we find ourselves in.
Now let me try to draw this out a little bit with one or two practical examples.
You take a Christian who suffers some dark providence in their life, a dark providence such as bereavement and who cannot and does not come to terms with and accept this particular providence of God. Their non-acceptance of the new situation they find themselves facing can have a very detrimental effect upon their Christian experience. They may perhaps be bitter or angry with God because he has taken their loved one from them and consequently their fellowship with God diminishes, they don’t feel that nearness to God they once enjoyed. They lose either in part or altogether their assurance of their salvation; Because of their non-acceptance of the situation they perhaps neglect the Word of God and loose out on the comfort and strength and hope that they would otherwise have enjoyed from it. They perhaps neglect the place of worship and the fellowship of God’s people and so loose out on what might otherwise have proven to be a real source of strength and blessing to them. They haven’t accepted God’s providential dealings with them, they haven’t accepted the new situation they are now facing. They are wanting things to be as they had been, wanting to turn the clock back, which of course cant be done. And because they haven’t accepted God’s providential dealings with them in their lives they are unable to go forward with God and consequently they often forfeit blessings they might otherwise have enjoyed even in the midst of their sorrow.
But then look here is another Christian who suffers the same dark providence, another Christian who is faced with the trauma of bereavement, but who even in the midst of their deeply felt grief at their loss nevertheless accepts it as the Lord’s doing, humbly and submissively accepts it as His will, and seeks to go forward with God in that spirit. And what do you discover, - that dear soul even though they have suffered a heavy loss actually enters into as it were a whole new experience of spiritual blessing as God himself and the things of God becomes even more real, important and precious to them than they have ever known. And whilst there is no denying that, that dark providence they experienced was not easy to come to terms with, they nevertheless accepted it as the Lord’s doing and subsequently and consequently went on to know and to enjoy God’s blessing on their lives, often in a way and to a degree that they hadn’t previously experienced.
And of course bereavement is only one example of dark providences that the child of God can experience. I know that some of you folk have been through other dark providences – situations and experiences in life which humanly speaking you would not have wanted to have taken place, circumstances where you would have wished it had been different to that which you actually had to face. But you came to terms with those circumstances, you accepted those providences dark and difficult though they were, it wasn’t easy, it took time, but you did accept them, and in the wake of your acceptance of those circumstances and going forward in obedience to and faith in God you have known spiritual blessing in your life which you would never have known had you wallowed in self-pity and non-acceptance of the providence of God.
And of course this principle, acceptance of God’s providence, is an important principle for a congregation to remember whenever God takes a minister from their midst in order to relocate him in some other congregation or in some other sphere of service, or even as with Moses when the spiritual leader is removed from them by death. The loss of their minister, for whatever reason, can be a terrible blow to a congregation but it is something with which they have to come to terms, a providence that they have to accept if they as a congregation, are to go forward and to go on to know and enjoy God’s blessing in the days ahead. And if God in His goodness provides them with another minister, another leader, they are to accept that providence and the new situation it brings them into and go forward from there, giving thanks to God for the past blessings under their former minister but not becoming paralysed in relation to future service by constantly looking back to and hankering after the past.
Had the C.O.I wallowed in self-pity in the wake of Moses removal from them, had they not faced up to and accepted the fact that Moses was gone but that there was still much work for them to do and much blessing to be enjoyed, had they refused to accept, submit to and work under their new leader Joshua, they would never have entered the promised land. They would never have enjoyed the spiritual blessings God had in store for them.
This then, I suggest, is the first condition that has to be fulfilled if we as individuals, if we as families and if we as a congregation are to enter into and enjoy the spiritual blessings which God holds out to us as part of our glorious inheritance in Christ – there must be A Submissive Acceptance of The Providence of God.
The second condition of blessing is found in v2 and that is
2) A Clear Awareness of The Plan of God:
Look at v2 “Now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land…”
God made it very clear to Joshua and through Joshua to the people what His plan was for His people. He didn’t want them to go back into the wilderness and turn their backs on that glorious inheritance which lay before them, he didn’t want them to stay put and settle down on the east side of the Jordan where they could merely see their inheritance but not actually enjoy it. He didn’t want them to go back. He didn’t want them to stand still. He wanted them to go forward and to possess their inheritance and enjoy all the blessings that lay before them. This was God’s plan, this was God’s will for his people. “This is what I want you to do" “this is where you are, this is where I want you to go” “I have brought you out of Egypt but I want you to now go on into Canaan- I want you to know and enjoy the blessings I have planned for you.” You see God’s plan and purpose for His people not only included their redemption from bondage in Egypt, it also included their living in the fullness of the blessing of their inheritance. They had been delivered from Egypt, YES! But God never intended that having been delivered from Egypt they should then spend the rest of their days wandering about the wilderness. He had much higher things planned for them. God wanted them to move out of the wilderness and into Canaan. It was their unbelief, it was their lack of faith, it was their disobedience that had kept them in the wilderness all these years. They shouldn’t have been there. God had planned for them to enter into Canaan and to enjoy the blessings that he had in store for them in that land. That plan included waging war against and overcoming their enemies. Battles had to be fought. Victories had to be won. Enemy strongholds had to be captured. Opposing powers had to be subdued. And it was only as the people recognised that this was all part of God’s plan & purpose for them and it was only as they began to give themselves to the fulfilment of that plan and purpose that they then began to actually possess the land and experience the blessings God intended them to enjoy.
Standing on the border of Canaan, God once again makes them aware of His plan and purpose for them - “get ready to cross the Jordan into the land I am about to give you.” They are made aware of God’s plan & Purpose for their life as a people.
And brethren if we are ever to enter into and personally experience the rich spiritual blessings that God has in store for us then we need to have a clear awareness of God’s plan and purpose for us as believers, for us as families and for us as a congregation.
Take it on the level of individual personal experience. In bringing us to personal faith in Christ God has redeemed us from our state of bondage in Sin. But in redeeming us it was never God’s intention to stop there. His plan for us does not end with our deliverance from sin’s bondage, No! On the contrary this is only the beginning of God’s redemptive plan for us. God intends that we who have been redeemed should then go on in our Christian lives, going forward with him day and daily in faith and obedience to actually experience all the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ the He so much wants us to enjoy.
And brethren before we will ever begin to really enjoy the rich spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ, and I mean by that the experience and joy of day and daily living the Christian life as it should be lived, the life God intends us to be living, we need to realise that God’s plan for our lives subsequent to our redemption includes our entering into real spiritual conflict with anything that stands in our way of our enjoyment of our inheritance in Christ. We need to be aware of the fact that God’s plan for us includes our declaring war against sin in our life. We need to realise that God is calling us to go and to do battle against those well fortified areas in our own life where sinful habits, sinful attitudes, sinful desires, worldly motives and so on dwell untroubled. And it is only as such a war is waged, such battles fought and such victories gained that we will begin to enjoy the blessings that God wants us to experience.
And brethren this second condition of spiritual blessing, that of having a clear awareness of what God’s plan and purpose is for us, not only applies to us as individuals it also applies to us as families and as a congregation.
God in His Word has given us clear guidelines as to what His will is for us in the realm of our family life. He has given us clear instructions with regards to how we are to function in our different roles within our families, how we are to relate to and conduct ourselves with respect to one another, the principles which are to undergird family life, the priorities we are to establish, the primary goals we are to pursue and so on. And it is only as we come to a clear understanding of these things and seek to apply ourselves to the actual fulfilling of God’s plan and purpose for us as a family that we will begin to experience the wonderful blessings which are associated with being in the centre of God’s will in this area of our lives.
Similarly with regards to congregational life. As a congregation God holds out the prospect of blessing. But the enjoyment of blessing is directly related to, on the one hand our coming to an awareness of God’s plan and purpose for us as a congregation and on the other the actual pursuance and fulfilment of that plan. And the degree to which each is actually realised, actually achieved by us as a congregation will largely determine the measure of blessing we will enjoy. For example one aspect of God’s plan and purpose for every local congregation of His people is that they be His witnesses within their local community. That is that they reach out into their community with the gospel. Now if a congregation either doesn’t know that this is part of God’s plan for them, or if over the years they have lost sight of and forgotten that this is the case and consequently are not taking practical steps to fulfil God’s will in this respect, then they are not going to enjoy the blessing of making any inroads into the community around them. They are not going to enjoy the blessing of seeing people being saved through their ministry and added to their numbers. To use the military analogy of the book of Joshua, they are not going to begin to wage war against the strongholds of Satan with which they are surrounded and if they are not waging war then there is no possibility of them having the joy of seeing those strongholds overthrown.
Take another example. It is part of God’s plan and purpose for congregations of His people that a spirit of unity and genuine Christian love prevails among them and that this is something that ought to be actively pursued by and nurtured among the membership. Now if a congregation doesn’t have a clear awareness of this they will not take active steps to pursue that divinely established goal and thus they will miss out on the blessings associated with the achievement of that goal, blessings which God wants them to experience and enjoy.
So here are two fundamental conditions of spiritual blessing; there must be among the people of God A Submissive Acceptance of the Providence of God and A Clear Awareness of The Plan of God.
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