GENERAL SUBJECT
CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY OF JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH
Message One
God's Charge, Promise, and Encouragement to Joshua
Scripture Reading: Josh. 1:1-9
I. Joshua is a type of Christ in the following aspects:
A. The Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name Joshua is Jesus (Heb. 4:8; Acts 7:45), which means "Jehovah the Savior," or "the salvation of Jehovah" (Matt. 1:21; Num. 13:16):
1. Christ as our Leader is our real Joshua as the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2:10; 4:8) to lead us into glory and into the rest of the God-promised land with Christ as our perfect peace and full satisfaction (2:10; 4:11; Deut. 12:9; Matt. 11:28-30).
2. Joshua typifies Christ as grace replacing the law, signified by Moses (Josh. 1:2a; John 1:17); it was when Moses the lawgiver died that Joshua came in to bring the people into the good land (Josh. 1:1-4); he typifies the Lord Jesus as our Leader bringing us into the enjoyment of Himself as our rest, as the reality of the good land (Deut. 8:7-10; 12:9; Phil. 1:19; Eph. 3:8; Col. 1:12; 2:6-7; Heb. 4:8-9; Matt. 11:28-29).
B. In the war against Amalek (Exo. 17:8-16), Amalek typifies the flesh as the totality of the fallen old man; Joshua typifies the present and practical Christ as the indwelling, fighting Spirit, the One who fights against the flesh and puts it to death (Rom. 8:9-13; Gal. 5:16-17, 24):
1. The purpose of the flesh is to keep us from entering into the full enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as our good land.
2. God's economy delivers us from the flesh to the Spirit so that we may participate in the blessing of the riches of the Triune God—Rom. 7:17—8:2; Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:3-14.
C. At the age of forty Joshua joined Caleb, as two of the twelve spies, as ones who had hearts full of faith by taking the word of God as their faith to care for God's interests for His people to possess the good land; only two overcomers among God's redeemed in the wilderness, Joshua and Caleb, received the prize of the good land—Num. 13:30; 14:6-9, 27-30; Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:3, 5; Heb. 11:5-6; Phil. 3:13-14; cf. Acts 6:5:
1. According to the record in Numbers 13 and 14, the people of Israel had an evil heart of unbelief; Joshua and Caleb exhorted and warned the people by saying, "Do not rebel against Jehovah" (v. 9); these words indicate that not to believe in the Lord is to rebel against Him—Num. 13:31-33; 14:1-3, 6-11; Deut. 1:26, 32.
2. If we are going to fully possess Christ as the good land, we must ask the Lord to save us from having an evil heart of unbelief; to have such a hardened heart is to fall away, to turn away, from the living God—vv. 25-26, 28, 35-39; 9:23; Acts 6:5a; Heb. 3:7-13.
3. Our Christian walk is by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7); thus, we must continually look away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:1-2); our faith is not of ourselves but of Him who imparts Himself as the believing element into us that He may believe for us (Gal. 2:20; 2 Pet. 1:1).
4. We need to realize that for a Christian, unbelief is the greatest sin; if we grasp hold of God's Word and believe His Word, all will be well; when we live by our feelings and do not exercise our spirit of faith and turn our heart to the Lord in order to believe in the divine facts in God's Word, which is His covenant, His will, to us, we are rebelling against the Word of God, insulting God, and making Him a liar—Deut. 1:25-26; Heb. 3:12, 16-19; 4:2, 6; 11:1; Rom. 3:4.
5. We should not be threatened or frightened by the clouds of our convictions, feelings, and environments; we must live under the new covenant and not believe in any failure, weakness, darkness, or negative thing; we are the covenanted people, and we have a verse of promise to meet every situation—Gen. 9:8-17; Rev. 4:2-3; Lam. 3:22-23; Rom. 8:1; 2 Cor. 12:9; 2 Tim. 1:10; 2:1; Jude 24; 1 John 1:9; 1 Cor. 1:9.
6. Our spirit is the "bank account" of the resurrected, pneumatic Christ as the reality of all the bequests of the new covenant; by the law of the Spirit of life, all these bequests are dispensed into us and made real to us; because the church people are a people under the covenant, we can actually be called the church of the covenant—Isa. 42:6; 49:8; Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 16; Heb. 8:10; John 16:13.
II. "No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you nor forsake you. Be strong and take courage, for you will cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them. Only be strong and very courageous, being certain to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you. Do not turn away from it to the right or to the left, that you may have success wherever you go"—Josh. 1:5-7:
A. For Jehovah to tell Joshua that, as He was with Moses, He would be with Joshua was a great matter; at one point the Lord told Moses, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest" (Exo. 33:14); because Moses was a person very near to God's heart and according to God's heart, he had God's presence to a full extent.
B. In the New Testament the presence of Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning "God with us" (Matt. 1:23; 18:20; 28:20); Christ as the Spirit of reality, the life-giving Spirit, is Emmanuel, the presence of the Divine Trinity in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).
C. We should continually exercise our spirit of faith to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, signified by the good land, as the pledge of our inheritance today, which is a sample of our full and eternal inheritance of the wonderful Christ in the next age and for eternity—2 Cor. 4:13; Eph. 1:14, 18; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5-6a.
D. We should take the Lord as our strength and our courage to magnify Christ under any circumstances, which is to experience Him with the topmost enjoyment (Phil. 1:20; 4:11-13); we can always declare, "Jehovah is my light and my salvation; /Whom shall I fear? /Jehovah is the strength of my life; /Whom shall I dread?"—Psa. 27:1.
E. Death once reigned over us (Rom. 5:14), and we were under its slavery, continually fearing death; since the Lord destroyed the devil and nullified death (Heb. 2:14-15; 2 Tim. 1:10), we now have no more fear of death and are released from its slavery.
F. "Jehovah will not abandon His people, /Nor will He forsake His inheritance" (Psa. 94:14); "The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear. What shall man do to me?" (Heb. 13:6); "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31).
G. We need to be those who fan into flame our God-given spirit, which is not a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sober-mindedness (2 Tim. 1:6-7); our feelings are altogether a lie; we should always believe and declare that we are strong, that we are full of love, and that we are very clear; then we can "be strong and take courage" (Josh. 1:6) to enter into and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land.
H. We should not turn away "to the right or to the left" (v. 7) from the holy Word concerning the heavenly vision of God's eternal economy, so that we may have success wherever we go by walking worthily of the Lord "to please Him in all things" (Col. 1:10); thus, before our translation we can obtain the testimony that we have been "well pleasing to God" by continually believing that God is and we are not (Heb. 11:5-6; Gen. 5:21-24).
III. "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall muse upon it day and night so that you may be certain to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and take courage; do not be afraid or dismayed. For Jehovah your God is with you wherever you go"—Josh. 1:8-9:
A. Joshua was to be occupied with God's word and let the word occupy him (cf. Col. 3:16); by being occupied and filled with the word, he would have prosperity and success in taking the God-promised land.
B. The key to Joshua's carrying out all that is written in God's Word and the key to his prosperity, success, strength, and courage in taking the God-promised land were for him to not let God's word depart from his mouth by musing upon it day and night; the words your mouth show that musing was mainly practiced by speaking aloud:
1. The Hebrew word for muse is rich in meaning; it implies to worship, to converse with oneself, and to speak aloud; to muse on the word is to taste and enjoy it through careful considering—Psa. 119:15, 23, 48, 78, 97-100, 148, cf. vv. 9-11.
2. Prayer, speaking to oneself, and praising the Lord may also be included in musing on the word; to muse on the word of God is to enjoy His word as His breath (2 Tim. 3:16) and thus to be infused with God, to breathe God in, and to receive spiritual nourishment.
3. To muse upon the Word is to "chew the cud," like a cow eating grass (Lev. 11:3); when we muse upon the word of God, we receive it with much consideration and reconsideration; just as a cow chews its cud, we may do this while we are pray-reading the word early in the morning so that we may receive nourishment by reconsidering what we receive from God's word.
C. The psalmist said, "I will muse upon Your precepts /And regard Your ways. /I will take delight in Your statutes; /I will not forget Your word"—Psa. 119:15-16:
1. When the psalmist mused upon God's word, it became his delight, his gladness and joy (Jer. 15:16), and he would not forget God's word; thus, it became a constant and eternal nourishment to him (Psa. 119:105, 130).
2. By musing upon God's word, we remember His word and are enlivened by it—"Remember the word to Your servant /In which You have made me hope. /This is my comfort in my affliction, /For Your word has enlivened me"—vv. 49-50.
D. Musing upon the word is even richer, broader, and more inclusive than pray-reading, for it includes prayer, worship, enjoyment, conversation, bowing down, and even lifting up our hand to receive God's word (v. 48); to lift up our hand unto the word of God is to indicate that we receive it warmly and gladly and that we say Amen to it (Neh. 8:5-6).
E. When we touch the Lord's word with our spirit in this way and remain in continual fellowship with Him, we should have a feeling of being bathed, warmed, refreshed, moistened, and supplied by the word in the Bible; the one thing, the best thing, we should do is to touch Him, worship Him, believe in Him, absorb Him, enjoy Him, pursue Him, and gain Him—Psa. 27:4; Phil. 3:8, 14.
F. When we truly take time to muse upon God's word, we are being infused with God to glow with God and to shine forth God (2 Cor. 3:15-18); this is why we sing, "Pray to fellowship with Jesus, /Bathing in His countenance; /Saturated with His beauty, /Radiate His excellence" (Hymns, #784, stanza 6).
G. Because our Lord and our God has commanded us to enter into and enjoy Him as the reality of the all-inclusive good land, we should say Amen to His word to be strong, to take courage, and to not be afraid or dismayed, for Jehovah our God is with us wherever we go, as we disciple all the nations to make them the kingdom people until the end of this age, the time of His coming—Josh. 1:9; Matt. 28:20.