HIGHLIGHTS IN JOSHUA
Number 11
WHEN GOD IS FOR US
Joshua chapter 10
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ALTHOUGH this chapter has lessons for us in the temporal realm and concerning living in this world, it also can illustrate powerfully truth that relates to the spiritual realm and our warfare against the world, the flesh and the devil. It can also give us encouragement in the realm of the church and its work and ministry to extend the kingdom of God here on earth.

It is important also not to get bogged down with too much attention to the rather barbaric extermination of the people who had been living in the promised land before Israel came. We have already mentioned in these studies that no doubt the sin of these people had become full, and God was visiting final judgement on them by the means of Israel. We may find this concept unpleasant, but we can not avoid the Bible testimony to the judgement of God on sin, and that judgement includes suffering and death. We may not like the concept of hell, but the Bible and Jesus talked of it as a real existence. Our problem is that we are unable to see falling short of God's perfection in the serious and offensive light that God views it, so we find it very difficult to see the justice in the severity of the judgement when this is visited by God. When we are bothered with these questions, we need always to view the infinite sufferings of God and the Lord Jesus which were involved in our redemption from sin. The terrible just punish for sin God visited on himself in the person of his Son, in order that we may be saved from such eternal punishment. We need to remember that this redemption is open to all who will believe and receive it. Here is infinite love to assuage and save from his judgement.

The other reason why the extermination of the people of the land was so necessary we have also considered, and that was the preservation of the purity of faith and life of the Israelites. The history of the Israelites is a mournful testimony to how prone the sinful flesh is to turn to other gods, and the ways of evil associated with them.

In reading this chapter the New Testament verse that sprang to my mind was Romans 8:31 where Paul declares "If God is for us, who can be against us" and he goes on to prove this statement by enumerating the invincible things God has done for us in redemption, and the tremendous love that was the source of them. It is this fact of God being for his people that I want to make the centre of our thoughts in this meditation.

THE REVELATION OF GOD'S PRESENCE

All through this chapter the powerful thing is this that God was with Joshua and the people of Israel, and it was his direction and power that enabled them to overcome their enemies. In verse 8 we read God telling Joshua that he had given these enemies into the power of Israel and that there was no force or power the enemy could muster that would be able to withstand the power God had given to Israel. Because of this purpose of God Joshua was told he had no need to be afraid. In verse 10 we read that it was the Lord who threw the enemies of Israel into confusion. God was active in power against the enemies of his people, and this is what gave Israel their victory. Then in verse 11 we read how God turned the elements against the enemies of Israel, enhancing them to a lethal degree. He poured down large hailstones on the retreating enemy which killed all that they struck. In verse 12 we are told that it was the Lord that gave the Amorites into the hands of Israel. And this follows with a miracle of nature where God caused the sun to stand still in the heavens, and the day was lengthened until the whole of the enemies of Israel were overcome. So in verse 14 we have the testimony that God listened to and answered the prayer of Joshua, and that God fought for Israel.

As we read on in the chapter this testimony to the active presence of God on behalf of Israel continues. It is the Lord's presence with his people, his favour towards them, that enables them to have the victory they need and want. The suggestion is, which we have proof in the first attack on Ai, that Israel on its own, in their own wisdom and strength, would have been no match for their enemies, but with God with them they were invincible.

What we need to understand is that this presence of the Lord with his people was not just a phenomenon simply for this special time, but that it is the assurance God gives his people in Christ in every age and generation. We, generally speaking, are not wrestling against flesh and blood, although if this is our problem as it is through persecution in other parts of the world, God is still present with his people in power. Though we wrestle against principalities and powers in the spiritual realm, and fight against the power of the flesh, the temptations of the devil, and the pull of the world, God's presence is assured to fight for us. Thus we have the assurance, that whether we face the opposition of the world to the preaching of the Gospel, or whether we face the power of sin in our lives, the Lord's presence is active for us, and he will give us the victory, even as he gave Israel their victory. This assurance is in no way annulled by the many set backs we seem to suffer in our spiritual lives. It is not one battle or skirmish that matters, but the war and the final outcome. As Paul says in Romans 8 nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

THE SECURITY OF GOD'S PRESENCE

Having just touched on the words in Romans 8, I feel it is good to see from this passage why we may be sure as believers that God is with us. Israel was sure because they had experienced a marvellous redemption out of Egypt, which included, not just deliverance from slavery to the temporal power of the Egyptians, but in the Passover and the lamb slain and the hiding behind the blood of the lamb, a great deliverance from God's judgement on Egypt. They experienced the same grace in salvation as we do, and which all do who are the redeemed of God, So the security which we are going to look at in Romans 8 was the same for them as it is for us, because the Old Testament saints received grace through the Saviour and were blessed in the Saviour, the promised seed of Abraham, even though Christ had in their day yet to offer himself a sacrifice for sin.

The verses in Romans 8 that we are going to look at are from verse 31 where Paul tells us that God is for us. The first reason for this security is that God gave Jesus up for us all. This is none other than his giving Jesus up to suffer hell for us on the cross, and suffer all the painful penalty for sin in our place and for us. The argument is this, that if God gave the greatest gift of his Son, how much more will he not deny us all the lesser gifts which follow from that sacrifice. God will never deprive us of his secure salvation in every part because it would be to waste the sacrifice of his Son; it would deny the efficacy of his Son's work; and it would be a denial of his grace and love which prompted the gift of the sacrifice of his Son.

Paul goes on to amplify the security we have in Christ. He asks the question "Who can bring any charge against God's elect", that is his chosen ones for salvation. This is concerned with charging us with sin so that we are condemned by God's law and justice. Satan is always trying to do this. The law of God stands always to condemn sin. Paul's question is to make us look at the question, so that we may see the secure answer we have in Christ. Why can't any accusation be made against us which would sever us from God's love and protective action. Why! because God has justly accounted us just in his sight and with regard to his law. So Paul goes on to say we can't be ever condemned, because Christ has died, that is suffered the penalty for our sin in our place, and he has risen, proving the complete atonement he made for our sin. Jesus could not have risen if he had not met all the penalty for sin. He could only rise when death was at an end, which is the punishment for sin.

We are further secure because our victorious Lord is now at the right hand of the Father making sure that all the benefits of his atonement are poured out on his elect. He pleads effectively before the judgement seat of God that because he has died for us, God must in justice justify us sinners, because it would be unjust for God to visit our punishment first on the Saviour and then on us. If his law is satisfied fully by Christ, then there can be no sin remaining to be levelled against us. Our security is based on the work of Christ, and not on us and our working in any way, and that is why we are secure in the certainty that God is always for us, as he was for Israel in Joshua's time. Just as God made certain that Joshua would win the promised land by the power of God, in Christ we have the same certainty that we will win the promised land of Glory because God is with us. This is why Paul ends his words in Romans 8 by declaring positively that nothing in heaven or earth can ever separate us from God's love, and all the blessings that follow from that love.

TRUST AND OBEY FOR THERE IS NO OTHER WAY

The words of this paragraph heading you may well recognize as words from a hymn. The hymn's chorus goes on "to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." It is this quality that was in Joshua and in Israel through Joshua. We find Joshua expressing his trust in the Lord in verse 19 where we read Joshua affirming "for the Lord your God has given them into your hand." Then again in verse 25 we see faith expressed as Joshua says "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight." Our enemies may not be physical, but they are just as real in the spiritual realm. We must trust as Joshua did that God will give us the victory over all the attacks of sin, the flesh and the devil.

Then we have the obedience that goes with faith in verse 40 where we read "He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded." No doubt Joshua had problems about the extermination he had to carry out, and would have shown mercy if left on his own, but because God commanded it he obeyed. Such obedience goes with trust. It is only trust in the perfection, wisdom, mercy and truth in the Lord that causes the believer to obey without question, even when the command seems to be difficult to understand.

We are secure in God's presence only when we trust and obey. God has accepted us as his children, and in Christ God is our loving heavenly Father. God, as our God and Father, has taken responsibility for our lives, so that by his direction and strength we come safely through life's journey, and know the fulfilment that comes from God. God's direction and safety, his power and blessing, follows only as we implicitly trust him, and live by his direction, because this is best and the true wise course of life. We can't expect the power of God and the protection of God to surround us and operate in our lives when we are acting in disobedience to the directions of our heavenly Father. At times of faithlessness and when we go our own way, we can't expect to know the security of the Lord, and we will no doubt in time suffer defeat and loss. Because we are redeemed and God's loved children in Christ, God will never forsake us, or allow us to be lost when we fail in trust and obedience. Nor will he condemn or reject us. However, he will allow us to feel our weakness and loss when we follow our own way, and such loss as to bring us to confess that we have gone wrong in failing to trust and obey, and to the way of faith and obedience again.

God's dealings with us during these times of failure are never judgemental, because judgement is inappropriate because Christ has died and carried our judgement completely. Nor are they rejecting. They are the dealings of a loving Shepherd and Father who is seeking his wayward sheep so that the safety of the fold may be known again.

For the believer every day is lived with the prayer that the way of the Lord may be known, and with the prayer for faith to implicitly follow that way. The travellers guide for the believer, which is the Bible, is faithfully consulted every day, in order to learn more perfectly the way of the Lord, and from time to time to know the next direction in our earthly pilgrimage. The way of the Lord may not always be easy to discern, but where there is the deep desire to trust and obey, then, as Paul experienced as he sought to know the next place of witness, God will see we do not go astray.

CONCLUSION

God is with us. Jesus has promised never to leave us or forsake us. This is not just a passive presence, but an active participation of guidance and direction for our lives. The direction so that we fulfill God's purpose for us. We are secure in God's love and Fatherly care, but the security and peace of this love is only experienced when we trust and obey.