Joshua 1:10-18
Our reading tonight will be Joshua
chapter one, verses 10 through 18. And I think you’ll remember
that we covered one through nine, then we looked back at one through
five, and I think we looked at the other week, chapter one,
verses 10 through 12, and talked about the promised land. So tonight
we’ll look at verses 10 through 18 as a whole, and Joshua preparing
the people to cross over the Jordan. So hear God’s word with
me. Joshua 1, beginning at verse
10. And Joshua commanded the officers
of the people, pass through the midst of the camp and command
the people, prepare your provisions for within three days you are
to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the
land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. And to
the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,
Joshua said, remember the word that Moses, the servant of the
Lord, commanded you, saying, the Lord your God is providing
you a place of rest and will give you this land. Your wives,
your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that
Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the men of valor among
you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help
them. until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to
you. And they also take possession of the land that the Lord your
God is giving them. Then you shall return to the
land of your possession and shall possess it. The land that Moses,
the servant of the Lord, gave you beyond the Jordan toward
the sunrise. And they answered Joshua, all
that you have commanded us, we will do. And wherever you send
us, we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all
things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be
with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your commandment
and disobeys your words, whatever you command him shall be put
to death. Only be strong and courageous.
Amen. The word of the living God. Seven
years ago, when our family moved to Burlington, we had been, as
it were, living in tents. We had sold our house in another
town the previous year, anticipating that I would get a call to a
church and everything would just work out timing-wise. Well, that
wasn’t the case, and so we packed up our house. We stored everything.
I think boxes in one parent’s garage. We had furniture in two
different storage units. And we kind of lived hodgepodge
for about 10 months. And so when we determined we
were coming here, we came over and looked at houses and landed
on a house. And about a week before we were
to close on the house, we had some things we needed to do over
this way. So remember, we brought a trailer full of yard equipment
over. And we asked the person we were
purchasing the house from, she had the house empty already,
could we put our yard equipment in the shed? And it was like
a little claiming of the house, right? We were gonna get it in
a week, but we put something that belonged to us on that property. And you remember, Abraham at
the time of his death only owned as a possession in the promised
land, cave that his wife was buried in, his only possession.
God had promised this land will be your land. This will be the
land of your offspring, your heritage. And so we had a shed
and he had a cave. But nevertheless, it was putting
a flag in the ground, right? It was taking a little piece,
a little corner of that land. So it’s a triumph, isn’t it? To get a piece of property. It’s
a triumph, a wonderful thing, I think, to be in possession
of something. And so for the Israelites, here
they are on the edge of the Jordan River. about to cross over the
Jordan and to battle with the people of Jericho. They’re not
in full possession of the land. It’s gonna take a really long
time. In fact, it’s gonna end up taking
into David’s life to fully possess the land. But you’re talking
about seven years of war ahead of them. That’s what they’re
facing. So the time has come for Israel
to go in. And I want us to just remember
very quickly what God has said to Israel so far. In the first
part of chapter one, God has instructed Yahweh. Remember,
he said, Moses, my servant is dead. You’re it, tag, you’re
it. And God, Yahweh, our covenant
Lord, has instructed Joshua. And God says to him, I’m gonna
be faithful to my promises to you. Everything I have promised,
I will do. But you therefore must obey me
and do all that I command. And so you remember, do not let
the book of this law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day
and night. Don’t go to the right, don’t
go to the left, stay on the straight and narrow path. You must therefore
obey me and do all I command. I’ll be faithful, God says. Now
we turn to Joshua giving commands as the leader to Israel as they
prepare to enter the promised land. Soon, they’re gonna own
more than a cave, more than a tool shed in the promised land. And
it’s gonna take lots of faith and it’s gonna take trusting
and obeying, and that’s not something that their parents did very well.
Remember, they died in the wilderness because of their faithlessness,
because of their rebellion against Almighty God. So I want to think
about a couple sections of this passage tonight. First, Joshua
to the leaders. And then Joshua to the Eastern
tribes, there’s a special case for them. And then the Eastern
tribes are gonna speak back to Joshua. So that’s how we’ll think
through these verses. So first, Joshua to the leaders.
In verses 10 and 11, we have Joshua’s words. He commands the officers of the
people pass through the midst of the camp. and command the
people, prepare your provisions for within three days, you’re
gonna pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the
land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. In our
house, growing up, we called this trip mode. My dad would
walk through the house, you know, pack your bags, you got your
toothbrush, you know, you got your beach clothes, your swimsuits,
you know, everything, whatever trip we’re taking. made sure we had what we needed.
Then the day of the trip, oh boy, trip mode. Get your bags
in the car. Don’t overload the car. You know,
this, that, here, there. We always called it trip mode
and it usually wasn’t real fun. It was kind of a little testy
around the house. Well, Joshua is in trip mode
here and he is now the new leader of the people and this is the
first exercise of his, really, of leadership. Moses is dead, but now Joshua. God is with him and the people
know it. In fact, in a couple chapters, when we get to chapter
four, once they cross over the Jordan, the Bible is gonna tell
us that God exalts Joshua in the midst of the people. If they
had any doubts about looming Jericho and its big walls, God
exalts Joshua before the whole encampment of Israel. And they
know without a shadow of a doubt that he is God’s man. But here
is God’s man, Joshua, first in command now, no longer second
in command. And he’s been told by God and
he’s been told by the people both, don’t be afraid. And you gotta understand, this
is a big undertaking. This is roughly seven years of
warfare they’re facing. Remember, he’s one of the spies
who scouted out the promised land. And so he knows the land,
he knows the terrain, he knows the enemies, he knows how big
they are. But this repetition, do not be afraid, be strong and
be courageous, lets us know Joshua is, well, he’s afraid. And I think maybe the thing he’s
most afraid of is the people. These are the children of the
murmurers. These are the children of the complainers. These are
the children of the rebellions. These are the children who God
broke out against in anger in the encampment of Israel throughout
the wilderness. And so there’s all kinds of factors
and all kinds of dynamics taking place that would give Joshua
reason to be afraid. But both God and the people say,
be strong and courageous. And don’t you think they remember,
you were strong and courageous when we fought against the Amalekites
and won that great battle. You were strong and courageous
when you spied out the land. And there are several other instances
we could give where Joshua was strong and courageous. In fact,
it was only Joshua and Caleb who came back out of spying the
land and said, we can do this. Everybody else chickened out.
Everybody else wanted to stay put. and live among the snakes
and the lizards and the cactus, but be strong and courageous.
And this maybe helps us think about church leadership. Church
leadership is a very difficult proposition. I have a friend
in, well, he’s not in ministry any longer. He was a head of
me in seminary and he pastored some churches. But about 20 years
ago, he stepped out of ministry and went into business. And he
said, Brian, he said, I can’t do ministry. He said, this is
why. He said, you have a group of
people that see you as their employee. And generally, when
they see you as their employee, it’s to unplug the toilet. It’s
to make sure the yard guy does his job and to handle all complaints
and whatnot. And he says, and then you have
a group of all volunteers, and none of them really do what you
ask. And I thought, well, that’s kind
of a low view, a dim view of church. But it can be very true,
and it can be very demoralizing. And so church leadership is a
very difficult task when you have an all-volunteer army who
thinks you’re the one employee and that they should get to do
things how they wish, that sort of thing. And yes, sometimes
that can be the case. But here, I think, is the worst
or the hardest part about church leadership. Just as Joshua had
enemies, Jericho, or the Amalekites, or the Canaanites, we do church
against the world. We do church with the devil kicking
at us. And yes, we have sinful people
in the church, and maybe that’s not even the hardest part of
it all, but we have a uphill battle as church leaders. And
so here is Joshua standing on the Jordan River and he’s basically
rallying the troops. And he’s saying, in three days
time, we are going to cross this Jordan and we are going to the
outskirts of Jericho. Now, can you imagine moving two
and a half million people? Can you imagine the logistics,
the complaining? This isn’t just an army of men.
This is women and children and old and young. This is all kinds
of people. And so what an amazing task. Well, Joshua speaks to the leaders
here. And I think what we’re gonna
positively see is they listen. I think we should be encouraged
that they recognize God’s man for God’s task. And though he’s
in trip mode, they get in trip mode with him and they go. The
second speech we have in this passage is Joshua to the Eastern
tribes. And you find that speech in verse
12 says to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of
Manasseh, Joshua said, remember the word that Moses, the servant
of the Lord commanded you saying, the Lord, your God is providing
you a place of rest. and he will give you this land.
Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain
in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the
men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers
and shall help them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers
as he has to you. And they also take possession
of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you
shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess
it. It is the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave
you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise. Well, a little history
lesson here. Back sometime before this event,
these two and a half tribes of Israel saw that the land of Gilead,
that’s what it would become, east of the Jordan, so they’re
not gonna cross the Jordan and take possession of land. They’re
gonna stay on the east side of Jordan. They saw that this was
a good land for grazing and for raising sheep and cattle and
livestock. And so they made this request
sometime back, can we settle here? Now Moses got really upset. You can read about it towards
the end of Numbers, I think, or towards the end of Deuteronomy.
Moses got really, really upset about this because he assumed
that they wanted to take possession of some land. They wanted to
settle in some land and it was a good land, a grazing land.
There was green grass in summer and good for raising cattle and
livestock. But he assumed that that meant
they did not want to go across the Jordan and help the other
tribes, the other nine and a half tribes as it were. that they
would not help them make conquest of the promised land. So don’t
you think if you’re gonna wage war for about seven years to
take over a land and clean it out, you would want 12 tribes,
not nine and a half. So you can see why Moses became
outraged at this request. But after the heat of the moment
cooled down and everybody talked through things, Moses realized
it would be good for these people to take possession of this land.
And so they made an oath that day, they made a treaty, they
made a promise. You’ll get the land, but you gotta go help us
take our part of the promised land. Because as you see, it’s
easy. They’re already there. Their women and children are
able to be left behind. It’s a place of peace. And it’s
already a simply and easily conquered place. So, you gave your word,
it’s now time to keep your word. It’s kind of a one for all, all
for one sort of approach here. It’s also a sort of let’s get
this straight now, you’re going with us. You know what happens
when you go on a trip and you get into the place you’re staying,
you pop your suitcase down and you kind of put a few things
out and then you lay on the bed? You guys do this really quick,
don’t you? And your wife’s ready to go. She’s ready to go see
something, go do something. And what are you going to do?
Oh, this bed feels really good. So you’re just going to go ahead
and nap a little bit, maybe flip through all the cable channels
that you don’t have at home, that kind of thing. Well, that’s
what Moses or that’s what Joshua is saying here is you’re not
getting the cable hooked up just yet. OK, you’re going to you’re
going to drop off your wives and children and livestock and
probably leave behind some servants. And it’s not a complete abandonment
of the women and children, but you’re going with us. And actually,
he says, you’re going in the front. You’re going to lead the
way into the promised land. And it helps us, I think, think
of church unity. It helps us think of putting
others first. It helps us think of serving. Sometimes we say in the church
80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people. I think it’s
more like 100% of the work gets done by about 7% of the people.
It’s really lopsided. You know, sometimes that’s the
way it has to be, maybe in a mission church or in a old church that
needs to get back moving in a healthy way. But generally speaking in
a church, it should be all for one and one for all. There’s
something each of us can do to contribute towards the whole
ministry of the church. You know, so many of our churches
today are so cluttered up with events and activities and ministries,
or we should put ministries in quotation maybe, and you’ve got
all these factions and all these cliques and you have all these
priorities, and the real priorities are way down here, and the main
priorities become the little sideshows. That seems to be the
way it is in the American church. But God is saying to all Israel
here, we’re going to go across together. We’re going to go across
and we’re going to see that all are settled, all are provided
for, all receive their inheritance. And so we see a call here for
unity among God’s people. Think of the book of Hebrews.
I think of chapter 13, verse seven, and I think it’s verse
17, maybe. And it talks about our response
to our leaders in the church. And this is the Brian paraphrase
of it, because I don’t have it memorized. But basically, and
I can say this two ways, don’t be so hardheaded, you’re not
easy to pastor. That’s a good way to think, isn’t
it? I think it is. It’s biblical
too, it’s right there in Hebrews. You can look, my paraphrase.
But also it says, make it put a smile on your leader’s
face when they think of being your leader. And that’s a real
strong call here from this passage, isn’t it? Two and a half million
people. Could you imagine being Joshua?
Could you imagine Moses? Your leader is dead. He’s got
to lead these people and he’s got to trust in the Lord, but
he has to have them follow him. And so what a godly response
from the Eastern tribes. We see in verses 16 to 18, and
that’s the last section we want to look at. Look at what they
say. The Eastern tribes, they answer Joshua, all that you have
commanded us, we will do. Boy, can’t you hear the sigh
of relief? All that you have commanded us, we will do. And
wherever you send us, We will go, think of the edge of the
promised land. They’ve got long ways to go up
into the territory from the South. Just as we obeyed Moses in all
things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be
with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your commandment
and disobeys your words, whatever you command him shall be put
to death. Only be strong and courageous. So the Eastern tribes
response to Joshua was a wonderful response. They’re gonna inherit
the land that they had just taken from Og and Sihon, who were kings
of Bashan. They were the kings of the Moabites.
They’ve put them to death and now this land is, Well, how does
it go? This land is your land. This
land is my land. This land is no longer your land. It’s now
our land. It’s Gilead, it’s grazing land. And they respond favorably
to their covenant that they made some time ago. We’ll go all the
way into the promised land. But could Joshua want any more
favorable of a response? They were saying this as kind
of as an oath. They were saying this publicly
before the rest of the Israelites. And don’t you think this was
contagious throughout the camp? Just as you command us, we’re
gonna do it. Just as we obeyed Moses, we’re
gonna obey you. Wherever you send us, we will
go. We’ll fight to the death and to the depths of the promised
land. and we will put to death anyone who rebels against you.
Now, I don’t think we need that part in the church today, but
don’t you see a functioning people of God here? They’re gonna make
their conquest. They’re gonna take their spiritual
journey into the land where God will give them rest. What a wonderful
and sweet passage this is when we really think of it. Well,
how do we wrap our minds and our hearts around a passage like
this for our edification? Well, we’re not on a conquest
for land, you know, we’re not the Crusaders, we’re not all
this wacky, you know, build Zion mess. But nevertheless, we are
serving God’s kingdom in this world, and everywhere we go,
and as we pray, thy kingdom come, don’t we think about the territory
that Christ wants to take? And that territory is not a physical
land, it’s not a geographical place, it’s the hearts of men
and women and boys and girls. And how can we be great witnesses
if we don’t have unity? Or if we don’t have leadership
or if we aren’t strong and courageous, trusting in the Lord with all
our heart. You know, I think about the church
in America today and I think it’s in a positive way going
to shrink. I think COVID and culture and
other things have really brought to the forefront who is the real
church. But don’t you think the more
we are faithful, the more we stick to God’s commands and we
put our faith in the little things that he promises will accomplish
great things, the world may look in and say, you know, I think
I’d like to settle with you all. I’d like to be among your people
and worship your God and live your ways because something about
it is wonderful. So I think we can take great
encouragement from this passage to seek first God’s kingdom and
to pray that we might gain territory in the hearts of men and women
and boys and girls across our land. Pray with me.