Part 1: Obedience | Part 2: Plan | Part 3: Presence | Part 4: Trust

God continues to speak to Joshua, instructing him on how to handle what’s coming.

… being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go (Jos 1.7b).

 In the New American Commentary, David M. Howard notes,

“It is striking that God’s instructions here to Joshua are not about military matters, given that Joshua and the Israelites faced many battles ahead. However, the keys to his success were spiritual, directly related to the degree of his obedience to God. The keys to Joshua’s success were the same as those for a king: being rooted in God’s word rather than depending upon military might.”

Now, Israel’s military experience was relatively sparse; after the current Israelites’ parents had fought the Amalekites shortly after the Exodus (Ex 17.8ff), Israel had little to no combat experience, so far as we know, until the new generation began its journey north on the east side of the Jordan, eventually defeating the Amorites and Bashon (Nu 21) and then, apparently, the Midianites (Nu 25.16-18). So Howard’s observation is noteworthy; even the aging Joshua’s experience in strategic warfare was apparently limited.

But it was not God’s priority. The Lord could advise him militarily along the way, and he would do so routinely. The first priority, however, was obedience, and that priority continued throughout the military campaign; obedience is a major theme throughout the book. As Joshua told the eastern tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh after the campaign, they had fully obeyed all that Moses laid down initially and all that Joshua later commanded, in keeping their promise to participate fully in the western campaign (Jos 22.1-3). And the author of Joshua observes at the end that Israel served God all the days of Joshua’s life (Jos 24.31).

Now, we know that some Israelites worshiped wrongly at times, most obviously at the golden calf incident (Ex 32) and concerning Baal-Peor (Nu 25). God had predicted that, and a lot more, to Moses (Dt 31.16ff). But God’s assessment of Joshua’s ministry seems to be that in the main, Israel followed Yahweh and not the Canaanite gods.

Obedience matters.

When just one man in Israel disobeyed, the conquest went badly awry. Because of Achan’s sin, Israel was defeated at Ai, and 36 innocent soldiers died, their families thereby deprived of their husbands and fathers (Jos 7.5).

God’s plan, then, was for Israel to do the hard work of taking the land. He would intervene spectacularly on their behalf by opening the Jordan for crossing, as we’ve noted earlier, by collapsing the walls of Jericho (Jos 6), and by lengthening the daylight to give time for human effort to win the battle (Jos 10), but He begins with their obedience. 

What about us? We don’t have a land to conquer, but we do have other commands to obey. And we also have advantages that Israel didn’t have: 

• Christ has obeyed the Law perfectly for us; we are already credited with obedience in Him (2Co 5.21). 
• The Spirit has written God’s Law on our hearts; with His help, we are inclined to obey (He 10.15-17).  “Like Joshua, Christians do not succeed spiritually because they obey God’s Law. Instead, God through Christ enables them to have victory over sin” (Richard S. Hess, Tyndale OT Commentary). 

With these extraordinary privileges and powers, let us demonstrate our trust in God’s plan for us by obeying him every day, morning and evening, in good times and bad.

We can do that, with God’s enablement.

Next time, some thoughts on that enablement.

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Part 1: Obedience | Part 2: Plan 

God has assured Joshua that he has promised Israel the Land and that his plans will be accomplished. But there is in all of us this thread of fear, of doubt. “There’s a plan, but …” 

Mike Tyson, former world heavyweight boxing champion, famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” 

Yes, God has a plan, and he wants the best for us. But is he now just standing on the dock, smiling at and waving to Joshua as Israel sails off into unknown seas? 

I speak as a fool. 

The Lord has more to say before he sends Joshua and his men into combat: 

No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you (Jos 1.5). 

God is not Pollyanna; there will be hard times. There will be those who “stand before” the people of Israel. And Joshua knows as well as anyone what they will be like; he surveyed the Land with eleven other men and saw, as they did, that 

the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. ²⁹The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan (Nu 13.28-29). 

These words come, of course, from the 10-spy majority, who counseled not even trying. But Joshua (and Caleb) had disagreed, because they believed God’s promises. And now God gives this believer added incentives to obey. 

First, they’re going to win. 

Nobody will be able to defeat them militarily. 

And second—and this is key—God will be with them. He’ll be right there. 

Now, I find that interesting. God obviously doesn’t need to “be right there” in order to see and know what’s going on. He doesn’t need to “be right there” to act on Israel’s behalf. He can do all his holy will from his holy hill, from the high and holy place (Is 57.15) where he dwells. Distance is no obstacle to him. 

But the transcendent God is also immanent—“with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Is 57.15 again)—because he can be, and because he wants to be. He loves us, and he’s not inclined to engage in bicoastal relationships. If I may say this reverently, he wants to be close; he wants to snuggle. 

I think there’s another reason that God makes this promise to his people at this transition point: he knows that they are bolstered, strengthened, by the assurance that he is with them. 

Have you ever seen a little child’s face light up when he sees his parents in the audience at the elementary school program? He smiles, and he may even wave. All the decorum flees; he’s just delighted that Mom and Dad are there. 

We don’t stay children, but we all have that spirit within us. We feel better when our loved ones make their presence known. And we are similarly bolstered by knowing that God brings his omnipotence to our struggles. 

God’s words to Joshua don’t stop there; he notes further that he has proved himself faithful in the past (“as I was with Moses”). We’re also bolstered by having experienced this sort of thing before. As Paul notes (my paraphrase), “Trials bring endurance, and endurance brings experience [of success], and experience brings confidence [in future trials]” (Ro 5.3-4). 

He will not “leave” us. The Hebrew word speaks of loosening your grip and letting something fall—like what I do when I fall asleep on the couch while holding the remote. 

God doesn’t do that, and he won’t. He’s awake, and he’s present, though he doesn’t really need to be in order to be effective. 

We’re gonna be okay. 

So what does he ask of us? 

Next time. 

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

Part 1: Obedience 

God has issued a command to Joshua—one that sounds dangerous. You don’t just wade into a flooding river with all your stuff, and hope for the best. But Joshua, who believed God’s promise to give his people the Land when 10 of the other 11 spies didn’t, believes him now, and he will obey. And, undoubtedly to everyone’s astonishment, the river will stop for them and, metaphorically speaking, motion them to cross. 

But they don’t know that yet. God continues his speech to Joshua by telling him what lies ahead. 

³Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. ⁴From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.  

Now, they do know this. God is simply repeating a past promise (Dt 11.24), the very one that Joshua (and Caleb) believed when the other spies didn’t. 

And the people also know—or should know—that God keeps his promises. Back when he had appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he had introduced himself as “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Why this description, and not another, such as “the Creator of heaven and earth,” or “the infinite, eternal, and unchanging God,” or “the God of wonders”? 

I think the reason for his choice of words to Moses is clear. God had made promises to those patriarchs, promises that included a numerous people (already fulfilled in Egypt), a blessing on all peoples through a “seed” (a promise not then fulfilled), and most specifically in view here, a promise of the Land on which Abraham’s sandal had walked. 

As Moses stands at the burning bush, that promise has not been fulfilled—but it’s next in line. God is effectively saying, “My people, Abraham’s descendants, are out of the Land, enslaved in Egypt. This must not stand. Go down there, and I will do what it takes for you to lead them Home.” 

That’s promise number 2. And, as we all know from reading the rest of Scripture, promise number 3, the universal blessing through Abraham’s “seed,” will be fulfilled when David’s Greater Son, the incarnate God, pays the price for our sins at the cross and opens the gates of salvation to all who will come. 

God remembers his promises—for centuries—and he keeps them without fail. 

Decades after the burning bush God repeated that promise to Moses, with specifics: 

²⁴Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be (Dt 11.24). 

And now God, remembering those specifics, repeats them to Joshua as this newly appointed leader gazes east across the Jordan. 

So God assures Joshua that the plan is in place, and the Land will belong to Jacob’s people. In modern parlance, it’s in the bag. 

So what of our transitions? We typically don’t have circumstantial specifics as Joshua did, but we do have specific assurances about God’s character—he is faithful, gracious, merciful, good—and about his relationship with us—he loves and cares for us, providing all that we need for spiritual success (which is the most important kind of success) and providing our needs for all the days he has planned for us. And when those days are over, we will be “absent from the body, and … present with the Lord” (2Co 5.8). Further, “we shall be like [Christ], for we shall see him as he is” (1J 3.2). 

So. What lies ahead? In this life, the assurance that God is working his good plan and keeping his promises; and in the next, eternity with him. 

Sounds like it’s all good. 

Now, we know by just looking around that this “all good” includes hard things, things that we would consider “bad.” What about that? 

God’s not finished talking to Joshua yet. We’ll look at his further words next time. 

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash

I’ve already published a couple of posts on my retirement, one on the why and one on the how. Now I’d like to exegete a biblical passage that I think sheds some light on a major life transition. It has already informed my thinking, and I’m confident that it will inform others facing transitions—retirement, perhaps, or other significant events. 

A significant pivot point in the biblical metastory is the move from Deuteronomy to Joshua. That crevasse is of course the end of the Torah, the five books of Moses, and the beginning of what the Jews call the Prophets, specifically the Former Prophets (which, in the main, we Christians call the books of History). It’s also the end of the leadership of Moses, whom we might call the first constitutional ruler of the nation of Israel, and the beginning of the leadership of Joshua, who to this point has been presented primarily as just a servant of, or aide to, Moses, and as one of just two believing spies of the Promised Land. 

That means some uncertainties. We’re leaving the familiar, the proved, the era of competence (more or less), and stepping out into the Great Unknown, facing challenges not previously experienced and the hard work of stewarding a new bailiwick and lifestyle. 

Sounds to me like retirement. :-) 

To this point in the biblical story, God has brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt; preserved them through 40 years of wilderness wandering; led them northward through hostile territory (Edom, Moab) on the east side of the Jordan; and brought them to an encampment at Shittim* in modern Jordan, across the Jordan River from Jericho, poised to enter and conquer the Land.  

 But now Moses is leaving. How on earth can Israel go on without him? 

Now, there’s a danger in trying to apply biblical narrative to a current situation. I’m facing a transition, but I’m not Israel, and God has not promised me a specific piece of real estate and the military might to expel the current owners. 

But there are similarities. I am one of God’s people, and he has made covenant promises to me as a member of his body, the church, and he is and will be as faithful to those promises as he has ever been, and I am at a point of transition, and Paul tells us that the Old Testament stories were indeed preserved in Scripture as examples for us (1Co 10.11). 

So what did God say to Joshua in his time of transition? And what do those words tell us about God and about His plans for us? 

God Is Great, and He Is in Charge 

He begins by reminding Joshua of the Most Important Thing: 

Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel (Jos 1.2). 

The past, with all its familiarity, was under God’s sovereign direction. But God has given his people the unknown future as well, and he will see that his good will is done. And by implication Joshua and the people of Israel, like Moses, are God’s servants too, and the sensible thing for them to do is to obey him.  

So he gives them a command: “Go over this Jordan.” 

Now, at this time of year the Jordan was at flood stage, raging with whitewater and overflowing its banks (Jos 3.15b). That’s not something you just amble into, especially when you’re carrying all your stuff in wagons or in your arms. 

Retirement doesn’t mean you just quit showing up at work and begin every day by asking, “Hmmm; what do I think I want to do today?” There’s stuff you need to get done—logistical, financial, procedural stuff—and if you don’t, unpleasant things, some of them involving potentially hostile government officials, will happen. 

Gotta learn the new stuff and execute it precisely. Or else. 

But God had brought Israel through the Red Sea ahead of Pharaoh’s pursuing armies, and he had fed them and preserved their clothing—even their shoes! (Dt 29.5)—through forty years of wilderness wandering, and he was certainly able to get them across this crazy river. 

So they obey. They step into the river, and in that instant the flow stops and a path opens for them to cross in safety. 

God can do that. He’s in charge. 

He’s in charge through our transitions too. Obeying him is safe. 

Well, then; what about tomorrow? 

We’ll get into that next time. 

* Some people find this word embarrassing. I’ll note, first, that in Hebrew it is pronounced “shuh TEEM,” with the emphasis on the last syllable. I’ll also note that the word means “acacia trees”; the acacia is the tree you see on the African savannah all the time. It often leans to one side; I think of it as looking as though someone smacked it hard on the side of the head. 

Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash