After the Death of Moses

Joshua 1:1-9

reading will be Joshua 1 verses
1 through 9 and as you’re making your way there let me remind
you as our singing of Psalm 78 did just a little bit of where we are in the history of
redemption. So we have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, the first five books of Moses. Now, now
we have Joshua, one of the, um, kind of one of the first history
books, one of the first books named after, um, the person it’s
about Joshua’s ministry about 60 years, uh, is going to be
highlighted for us. But remember Genesis, we’re studying
it on Wednesday night, uh, creation, The creation ordinances, marriage,
work, worldview, who God is. There’s Adam, Noah, Abraham,
the 12 patriarchs. It ends with Israel and Egypt
because of the famine. Then there’s Exodus, the departure. God rescues his people from slavery,
from sin, from provision. The Exodus in Egypt is a type,
a shadow of the Exodus at the cross when Jesus rescues Israel
from sin. But there’s also great provision
in Exodus. There’s the law and the tabernacle.
Then you come to Leviticus, a little bit of a tedious book. It’s about
the Levites, their ministry, the holiness, the worship, the
purity of Israel. Then you get to Numbers, which
simply means in the wilderness. Remember disobedient Israel,
everybody 20 and up would die in the wilderness. Um, so numbers
is about the wilderness wanderings until they come at last to the
edge of Israel at the Jordan. That’s where we find ourselves
now, uh, as we come to Joshua. Uh, and then Deuteronomy, the
second law, uh, the law is given, the covenant is reestablished
or, um, People are reminded of God’s covenant, his work, his
law, his promise to his people. And so he charges them, Moses
does before he dies, go into the land and live for God. Now
we come to Joshua. We come to a military conquest
of the promised land. We have Joshua’s eyewitness account
of events. And so we begin our study by
reading and looking tonight at verses one through nine. of the
first chapter. And it says this, after the death
of Moses, The servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua,
the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over
this Jordan, you and all the people into the land that I am
giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the
sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, just
as I promised to Moses. From 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. 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. I will
not forsake you. Be strong, be courageous, for
you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore
to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous.
Be careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant,
commanded you. Do not turn from it to the left
or to the right hand, that wherever you may go, good success you
will have. This book of the law shall not
depart from your mouth. but you shall meditate on it
day and night so that you may be careful to do according to
all that is written in it. For then you will make your way
prosperous. Then you will have good success.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do
not be frightened. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord,
your God is with you wherever you go. I hope as you hear God’s
word, you begin to feel the weight of the themes that were put on
the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and they come right
to us in the New Testament. Doesn’t that sound like Jesus’
great commission? Wherever you go, I will be with you. Well, in the modern day world,
in the life of the church, such as it is, we have this phenomenon
when there is a pastoral transition to purchase key man insurance. Key man insurance recognizes
that most churches are built up, most churches are maintained
and sustained by a man and his personality. And that is a terrible
thing. That is a terrible thing to happen.
It should be that if the pastor were to get hit by a bus or some
other inglorious death, that the church could carry on by
picking a man who would do the same thing. And it should be
that the church is not built on personalities, but built on
Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, these churches
buy key man insurance because without it, an organization cannot
continue on. They cannot pay their mortgages.
They cannot pay their expenses and they cannot sustain their
many and extensive ministries. I served in a church where it
took nearly eight years to draw down draw down all of the obligations
that had been built up. There was a massive mortgage. There was huge overhead. There
were over 50 acres of land. And over eight years it took
lots of time to renegotiate loans and to draw down expensive staff. that could no longer be sustained
because that personality was not there to draw in the funds
to pay for all these sorts of things. Many churches will carry
this key man insurance because they have to carry on an extensive
ministry. Transitions in pastoral ministry
can be very tricky. It shouldn’t be that way. They
can be very costly. You can lose time, you can lose
people, you can lose giving, you can lose continuity. Think
about transitions in the real world. Last year on April 1st,
we all thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but Roy Williams
says, I’m done at Carolina. And he was on the golf course
the next day. Go just nine miles or so up the road in Durham,
and we’ve been watching a man lie in state for a year, Coach
K. I’m going to retire. And this
has been the last hurrah, so to speak. I think I prefer Roy’s
way a little better, though I am a Coach K fan. Every four years
in our nation, we have what we call a peaceful transition, so
to speak. It’s critical. It’s critical
for a large organization to transition well from one leadership to the
next. And here we are at a critical
juncture in the life of Israel, the fulfillment of God’s covenant
promise to Abraham, I will give you this land. It will be the
inheritance for your offspring. That promise and that fulfillment
is now 400 years later coming to fruition. Some of you Wednesday
nighters in our study of Genesis will know that just a few weeks
ago, we left Abraham only owning a cave for the burial of his
wife. That’s all of the promised land
that they own. at this particular point when
we land here 400 years later, the book of Joshua, but we’re
going to see over the next many chapters, Israel will enter the
land and God will dispossess, uh, dispossess it from the enemies
and give it as the possession to his children. We want to think
of, uh, two, two big headings tonight. Uh, one is the command
of God. The other is the word of God. And we wanna think of these two
headings in light of what Israel is facing, what Joshua’s facing.
Now I know I say to you all the time, when we read commands in
the Bible about the church, they’re about you plural, they’re y’alls.
They’re not first person singular, you do this, God loves you. They’re
generally y’alls, right? So when God says love one another,
be the church, do the church, worship God, it’s a plural command. Well, I hope y’all noticed as
we read these first nine verses, God is speaking directly to Joshua.
You get to hear it. But God made himself known to
Joshua. First, let’s think about the
command of God and it’s the content of verses one through five. After the death of Moses, God
comes to Joshua, and he says to him, Moses, my servant is
dead. Those must have been terrifying
words for Joshua to hear, but he gives him comfort immediately,
just as I was with Moses. Just as I was with him in everything
he did, so I will be with you. Moses served about 40 years after
the burning bush. He was 80 years old. God was done with him though.
He sinned against God. God took him on Mount Nebo. He
showed him the promised land and he, he put him to death.
Um, but what did it say about Moses just before his death?
He said he still had strength and there was no dimness in his
eyes. But friends, when God is done
with you, he’s, he’s done with you. Uh, Moses, my servant is
dead. Those words must have rung in
Joshua’s ears. For 40 years, Moses served the
living God, and it’s been now 30 days since Moses has died. This is probably one of the shortest
mourning periods before God says, time to get back to work. Breaks
over, enough of this mourning, as it were. And so the plan of
redemption, both eternal And in these few hundred years since
God made a promise to Abraham to give him this land, must carry
on. And so Joshua, the son of Nun,
about a 60 year old man, and you can’t put it into our 60
year old terms. God’s man. And so it doesn’t
matter what age he is. He’s going to have strength and
vigor, but, but he’s 60 years old. He’s going to serve a little
while longer into his hundred and twenties, I believe, but
he’s going to take over from Moses and he’s going to lead
the people of Israel into the promised land. This is a military
conquest. He’s going to take them over
the Jordan. It’s another body of water to
cross. and they’re gonna receive their inheritance that God has
given to them. So the covenant promises of God
are going to be kept, and they are gonna be fulfilled to the
second generation out of Egypt into the promised land. Remember,
the first generation died in the wilderness. And God promises,
I’ll be with you. Now, one of the best known Christophanies,
that’s an appearance of Christ, And most agree it’s an appearance
of Christ. There’s very little debate about it. But one of the
best known Christophanies comes to us in the book of Joshua.
Jesus, the wilderness captain, makes an appearance. We’ll mention
more of it in a few moments, but he makes this appearance
to Joshua. And so when God says, I will
be with you, he really means it. Now, I don’t want to cheapen
this, venture of Joshua and Israel into the promised land. But God
does call us to do hard things. He calls us to be married. He
calls us to have children. He calls us to be in the church.
Sometimes he calls us to lead the church, to be pastors and
elders and deacons. He calls us to do hard things
in the world. Maybe your vocation, your calling
in this marketplace has been a difficult one. Maybe you’re
persecuted for it. You endure hardship before it.
But we can take comfort in God’s not only his charge and command
to Joshua, but his provision. If God asks you to do something,
he always gives you the means to do it. And he never leaves
you. He never forsakes you. And so
that’s the first part of this passage. It’s rather simple.
It’s a changing of the guard. God is going to continue to be
at work in the life of Israel through another man, now Joshua. The second heading we want to
consider is the word of God. Verses six through nine tell
us wonderful things that God says to Joshua, be strong and
courageous. Love the word, live the word,
read the word, meditate on the word, all these things. But I want us to jump ahead for
a few moments to the next book, the book of Judges. Judges is
the book of chaos. Judges is a book where there’s
no leader in Israel. Joshua’s dead. Moses is long
gone. And God in his wisdom, God in
his probably wrath and displeasure lets Israel wander again. They wander leaderless for a
good stretch, a good period of time. The period of the Judges
is best known by the little phrase, and Israel did what was right
in their own time. eyes. Oh, how awful for God to
leave them in that condition to say, fine, if you’re going
to be obstinate, if you’re going to be difficult, if you’re going
to do it your way, uh, I’ll, I’ll let you stew in your own
mess as it were. And so the tragic words of judges
two verse 10, uh, tell us there arose a generation in Israel
that did not know the Lord, their God, or what? he had done for
Israel. So as we are about to explain
God’s command to Joshua to love the word, live the word, read
the word, meditate the word, do the word, teach the word,
all the rest, you’re going to see that, well, just a generation
later, it fell apart. The wheels came off the people
of God there. Children knew nothing. That’s
why we sang Psalm 78 tonight. It’s a, it’s a Psalm that says,
parents, we know the work of God and we must teach it to our
children who must teach it to their children, who must teach
it to their children, who must teach it to their children. I
think we say pretty often in the life of the church, wouldn’t
it be nice to have young people? Wouldn’t it be nice to have children
in the church and, and, It’s in the providence of God that
we are where we are, but it’s also in the disobedience of God’s
people. We’ve not taught generationally
who God is and what God has done. And so we’ve got to recapture
a generation. We’ve got to bear witness to
all that God is. But here God gives careful instructions
to Joshua. We’re in March Madness, so pregame
talk, right? We’re going to go out there and
we’re going to win. And this is how we’re going to go out
there. And when we’re going to play offense and defense, we’re going to get
more points than the other team. You know, that, that kind of
X’s and O’s chat. Well, what are the careful instructions
of God to Joshua? Be strong and courageous. Remember
Joshua was one of the few spies who came back and said, we can
do this. Everybody else chickened out. Oh, the, the, the people
of the land are too big. They’re big and hairy and mean
and scary, right? Not Joshua, he says, we can take
them. They’re no match for our God. Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened. He goes
on to say, be careful to do according to the law of Moses. The law
of Moses given at Mount Sinai for the people of God to believe,
to obey and to teach. And if they live and believe
and do the law of Moses, God will prosper them. If they don’t
turn from the right or to the right or to the left, God says,
I’ll give you good success. Everything you do, all the work
of your hands will prosper. Just a little aside for us. Does
it work out that way? If I do A, then I’ll get, and
I do B, I’ll get C. We can live for God. We can obey
God. We can worship God. We can keep Sabbath. We can tithe.
We can raise our children. We can go to work. We can live
on a budget. We can do all the things. And guess what? We still
live in a fallen world and it may not all work out. Our children
may not walk in the faith. We can have financial devastation.
Markets can tumble and on and on. But does that mean we turn
to our own ways and go down to Egypt? No. But God is giving
a principle here to Joshua and to us. Be strong, be courageous,
don’t be frightened. I’m bigger than the boogeyman,
right? I can give my people water from
a rock. I can open up the sea and they
can cross it on dry land, then the sea will close up and tumble
and kill their enemies. We’re gonna see him stop the
waters of the Jordan that they may cross over. They’re going
to march around Jericho and it’s going to come tumbling down.
God is going to be with them. He must simply be strong, courageous,
not be frightened and stick to the word. So a little on this
word of God. You should know the word of God.
You should talk the word of God. You should do the word of God.
You should meditate on the word of God. After all, it’s there
for a purpose. God reveals himself. He reveals
his word. We speak of this often when we
think of our first chapter of the confession of faith. God
at various times and in various ways revealed his word, his will
to his people. And in final form, we have God’s
word and will and ways in these 66 Bible books. And in order
that we can fight against the flesh or our remaining sin, in
order that we can win the battle against the devil and not live
the ways of the world, God has given us this book of the law
that should not depart from our mouths, we should talk of it.
We should know it, we should do it, we should meditate on
it. This word of God will come to pass. How do you know God’s
word is true? Well, he proves it. And one of
the great ways we know that God’s word comes to pass is at the
events of the cross. God took our sin and placed it
on his son. God took our sin, placed it on
his son, and his wrath came on his son for our sin. His son
died the death we should have died. He entered into the grave. descended into hell, as we say
in our creed. And he rose again on the third
day and is now ascended into heaven, ruling and reigning and
interceding and priesting on our behalf. That’s what we know
to be true. Now, Joshua didn’t have that,
but Joshua does get a Christ event. I mentioned earlier, there’s
a great Christophany in the book of Joshua and in Joshua chapter
four, As Israel crosses over the Jordan on dry land, God holds
back the spring floodwaters of the Jordan. Israel crosses over
tribe by tribe behind the Ark of the Covenant, and the Word
of God says, God exalted Joshua in the eyes of all Israel. They’ve
forgotten about Moses. But they get over towards Jericho,
and it’s time to plan their battle strategy. And Joshua’s out one
night before the Battle of Jericho. He’s looking up at the city,
he’s praying, and a man with a sword appears before him. And Joshua says to him, are you
friend or foe? And he says, I am the commander
of the Lord’s army. Take off your sandals for where
your feet are is holy ground. And it says, and Joshua did so. We’re going to see signs of God’s
faithfulness. I’ll be with you. I’ll send my
son. And we’re gonna see signs of
Joshua’s faithfulness. Holy ground, take off shoes.
Yes, sir, right away. What a blessing it is to enter
this book of Joshua, to consider God’s faithful covenant promises
to his people being fulfilled before their eyes and before
our eyes. And I pray that in our coming studies, it will be
of great encouragement to each of us. Let’s pause and pray together.