HIGHLIGHTS IN JOSHUA
Number 13
NO DISCOURAGEMENT
Joshua 13
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WE have now reached a part of the book of Joshua that I must confess does not fill me with much enthusiasm. The contents is necessary but being mainly statistics I myself do not find that they yield much that nourishes my soul. I am willing to confess that this is a fault in me. I just mention my difficulty to explain the fact that we shall not be having much output from this section of God's word in these sermons.

Chapter 13 is mainly statistics concerning how the land was divided amongst some of the tribes of Israel but there are thoughts from verse 1, 14 and 33 that I believe have truth for our encouragement, and these I would share with you. The overall theme for this sermon is encouragement and discerning the place where we can face and overcome the discouragement that often afflicts Christians in their earthly pilgrimage.

Verse one tells us that Joshua was now an old man, but yet the work of possessing the land as an inheritance for Israel was still incomplete. There was still so much land to possess, even though a great deal of land had already been possessed. I have no doubt that Joshua had already contemplated this problem before God had spoken to him here. It would have been an ever increasing worry as the years went by that there was still so much to be done. No doubt he would have been discouraged that he had failed so greatly in the task that he had been given. All the victory up to this time would be forgotten in the sense of failure at the great deal which had not been done and still remained to be done.

If we can see, as I am sure is valid, that this history of the Jews possessing the promised land is a parable of the spiritual life of the Christian and of the life of the church, then there is a parable here which relates to the individual Christian's life and a parable here which relates to the life and work of the church of God. We are seeking to gain the promised land of heaven. We are pilgrims marching to Zion. The individual believer is seeking to grow in life and character as befits a child of heaven. The church is working to the same purpose and to bring people into the kingdom of heaven and fit them for that glory. Yet both in our personal lives, and in the life of the church, there is still so much to be done. In the discouragement of this perception, all the victory and gains of the past seem to be overwhelmed and we seem to have done nothing at all. We need to be encouraged to have a right perception in this, which God gives Joshua here. Let us consider it together.

GOD UNDERSTANDS

The first thing that we can learn here is that God knew all about the problem and understood it perfectly. It was the Lord who brought the matter up. Perhaps Joshua had been a little reluctant to broach the subject directly with God because he may have felt that he had let God down. Because of this feeling he would have been lacking in peace and a sense of the goodwill of God towards him. Because God understood this he brought the subject up so that his servant may be comforted and assured that God did not see things as he did, and that Joshua was still in his love and approval.

Even if Joshua found all the successes in the past fading in the sense of failure because of all that remained to do, God had not. We must never let the sense of what is still to be achieved rob us of the blessing and joy of what has already been achieved. It is a fact that the nearer a believer gets to the Lord, the more they feel their sins and failure. This is a direct result of being nearer to the Lord. The Lord's holiness is brilliant light that shows up all the dirt that is still there in the life. We see more clearly how this dirt makes us unfit for the presence of the Lord. Thus there is the temptation to be cast down and to discount all the real progress thus far.

We must get the understanding of God and the right perspective which comes from this. God has not forgotten that perfect work of his Son which he has brought us to rest our souls upon, and that in spite of the dirt we find so discouraging, we are truly covered by the robe of the perfect righteousness of Jesus, and that in God's sight there is no blemish in us. We need to remember the victory which Christ has won for us which has brought us into the reality of new birth, and that the real person now is not the sinful flesh which is causing us so much shame, but the new person created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. When we remember this glorious Gospel truth, then we are lifted up with the assurance of God's smile and favour. We know that this is what the Lord sees and affirms us as his saints in Christ.

Further, although we seem to see no real progress in holiness because of the sinfulness of our flesh, the facts are otherwise. There has been progress, which even if we do not see this progress others see it and glorify God for it, and God knows it because his Spirit has worked it in us. It is so painful to come away from some conversation with another person, and remember all the pride and vain glory that has crept into our speech, and the lack of love that has marked so much of what we have said. We must repent of this, but this is not the real person. We would not feel this shame if it were. It is because we are the new person in Christ produced by new birth that we feel this pain and shame. We would not feel the failure and lack of progress in our spiritual lives if we were not new born. In fact there is encouragement to be found in the sense of failure we feel.

The same is true in the life of the church. The sense that the church seems to be making little ground, and that few seem to be being converted, and that their seems to be still so much unloveliness in the lives of the people of God, sometimes overwhelms us. God comes and reassures us that things are not as bad as they seem. He reminds us that the work is not ours but his and he is not failing, and progress is as he has appointed. It is right that the church should face these issues of seeming failure. It is through this realisation that God is able to lead his church forward, but we must not be cast down. As God came to Joshua, God comes to his church and says he understands and that all will be well.

GOD'S ASSURANCE

Then in verse 6 God gives Joshua the assurance that he needs. God says he will drive out the nations where the land has not been yet possessed. The Israelites will continue to engage the enemy, but Joshua need not fear, for God will drive out the nations before the advance of Israel. Thus the victory and the possession of the land is sure.

In fact Joshua should not have been discouraged, because he should have remembered the fact that it was not he who had driven out the enemy and gained possession of the land. but it was God going before him. So what God had done before he would continue to do. The important thing is the promise of God, which expresses the purpose of God, which purpose God will see does not fail.

This is also true in the life of the believer and in the life of the church. The believer is one of God's chosen people, one of the elect. God has promised to bring the believer to glory. This is his purpose. We must not forget that the fact we believe and love the Lord is because of this purpose of God and it is the Lord that has worked salvation in us and brought us to faith. 'The work that his goodness began, the arm of his strength will complete, his promise is yea and amen, and has never been forfeit yet'. So says one of the verses in Toplady's great hymn "A debtor to mercy alone". This expresses the truth truly. If there is much to possess still, so much failure to be overcome, God has pledged his word that he will bring us through to victory and glory.

So it is with the work of the church. The church is not struggling in its own strength with a little help from God. The fact is that God is going before driving out the enemy before his people. God has a plan which involves the salvation of all his elect chosen before the foundation of the world. All history revolves around this great purpose of God to save his elect. In time we may see failure and weakness and defeat, but the overall pattern is not so. God has promised us the promised land of heaven and he will see that we possess it.

OUR STRONG ASSURANCE

The next thing to observe is the provision God makes for the Levites and in the Levites for Israel. Here we are led to the strong assurance of the Christian which is the answer to all discouragement. We are told in verse 14 that the offerings made by fire to the Lord were the Levites inheritance. God made this their one purpose in life which was to be the great blessing of the nation. It was because of this important ministry that God made provision that a tithe was paid to the Levites by all the tribes and people of Israel so that they would have maintenance and food. Because of this important ministry they were given no land as their possession for this would hinder them in their ministry of sacrifice.

The offering made by fire was a reference to all the sacrifices for sin that the Levites made on behalf of the people. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. The sacrifices were necessary to maintain the relationship with God which was the blessing of Israel. Nothing that defiles can come into the presence of God. Atonement for sin was necessary for the people to be able to come to God. The penalty for sin is death. For the Israelites to escape this punishment a substitute must be found to die in their place. This was the purpose of the animal sacrifices. The animal took the guilt of the offerer and bore the punishment of his or her sin, and by this blood shed the sin of the offerer was purged.

This sacrifice was the heart of Israel's life and was their assurance and strength. It was through this sacrifice that they were reconciled to God and under his protection and care.

All sinners need a priest to mediate before God for them, and a sacrifice to atone for sin. In Israel they had the priestly cast in the tribe of Levi and the sacrifices that they offered, but as Paul tells us in his letter to the Hebrews these Old Testament sacrifices were not sufficient, and so had to be repeated. These Old Testament sacrifices were a stop-gap until Christ, our true high priest came, who offered himself a perfect and complete sacrifice for sin, and on the merits of his sacrifice mediates effectively for us before God and so gains our complete and total forgiveness for ever and our reconciliation with God. We need no other priest than Jesus, and there is no need for any more sacrifice for Jesus offered a perfect sacrifice once for all for us.

The Israelites found their assurance of the continued love and care of God in the sacrificial ministry of the Levites for them. We find our assurance of being in God's love from faith in the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, and the fact that Christ as our High Priest ever lives to make intercession for us, presenting the infinite merits of his sacrifice for us, so keeping us always in the love of God. This is our assurance and the answer to all discouragement. We have no trust in ourselves or the works that we do. These give no encouragement whatsoever. We trust in the work of Jesus for us, his priestly ministry provided for us by the love and grace of God. This is a perfect and sure encouragement that can never fail us, just as the Levite's ministry was the encouragement for the Israelites.

THE PLACE OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Lastly we come to verse 33 where we read of the Levites "The Lord the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he promised them". Here is the place of permanent encouragement, which is the blessing of every believer in Jesus.

The Levites had no land in the Palestine, but they had something much better. What they were given as an inheritance was the Lord himself. Their privilege was to come and minister before the Lord and come into his presence and dwell in his favour and love. It was the sacrifices they offered that brought Israel into fellowship with God, and it was the privilege of the Levites to engage in this ministry which brought them into a closer relationship and experience of the Lord than any of the other tribes.

It is the privilege of every believer in Jesus that we have access into the holiest of all through his blood. This means that because of his work and sacrifice for us, we are pure in God's sight and can come into God's very presence, that is his very throne room, and commune with him face to face spiritually. We are his children whom he welcomes with open arms. Our inheritance in Christ is the Lord himself.

What an encouragement this is. Life here on earth has many degrees of sorrow or happiness. We are conscious how poor our performance is. Sometimes we are depressed with the feeling that we are making no progress, and we grow discouraged and cast down. However, in Christ, our inheritance is the Lord. He is our God and Father, and he will never let us go, and whatever our feelings or experience at any one time, the everlasting truth is that we belong to the Lord, by the purchase of the precious blood of Christ, and whatever our experience in this life, we are journeying most surely by God's plan and purpose, by his grace and power, to the place of everlasting joy in eternity. We are members of the Kingdom of heaven and heaven is our home. The Lord is our inheritance. The ups and downs of this troubled life will come to an end in the glory land.

CONCLUSION

So let us be encouraged as we dwell on the fact that the Lord knows our feeling of progressing so slowly. He has all in hand and will drive out the enemies before us. His plan is invincible. He has given us Christ, our priest and sacrifice, in whose priestly ministry we are forever reconciled to God and in his love. We are the Lord's and he is our everlasting inheritance. There is nothing in heaven or hell, in earth or sky, that can take from us this sure encouragement.