Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No. 03 – January 2002
The Challenge to Faith
Sermon by Rev. R. Adams on Joshua 1:2-3
Scripture Readings: Hebrew 13:1-9; Joshua 1:1-9
Suggested Hymns: BoW 135 (vss.1, 2, 3, 5 & 10); 450; 149; 314; 533
Congregation of our Lord Jesus.
The book of Joshua is concerned with new beginnings for God’s people. Forty years of wandering in a wilderness was drawing to a close. Under Joshua’s leadership, Israel was poised to enter the land of promise. The Israelites could cease their wandering. At last, Israel can begin to think ahead to a new beginning in a permanent home.
The text is concerned — at least in part ― with God’s promise to the Israelites that they would inherit the land. However, the main issue here involves more than just the Israelite invasion and occupation of a land. The main issue here has to do with faith. The same issue touches our lives and our faith today. For just as God gave a promise to Joshua, that “No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life” (vs.5a), so too has God given an eternal promise to the faithful: “everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1John 5:4).
Unfortunately, we don’t always feel that our faith can overcome much at all. Instead, we often live as spiritual paupers – without any spiritual strength at all. Many of us have a weary sense of need for new spiritual beginnings. Hence from this perspective, Joshua is an excellent example of faith overcoming. In Joshua’s example, the outworking of his faith presents him with a series of challenges. In principle, those same challenges also face us.
1. FAITH CHALLENGES US TO BELIEVE
“Moses my servant is dead” (vs.1). Moses is no longer around to lead the Israelites. Joshua is challenged to take up the leadership where Moses left off. And what does God say to him? “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you…” (vs.5b).
Was God with Moses? In order to answer such a question in his own mind, Joshua was challenged to look back over the years of his life and trust God at His word. He was challenged to remember the multitude of Israel huddled on the shores of the Red Sea. To remember the panic weeping through the Israelite ranks, as the Egyptian army bore down on them from the desert, and then pursued them onto the dry seabed. Joshua was challenged to remember the screams of men and animals as walls of water collapsed back into the void. Joshua was challenged to remember the following morning as Egyptian dead washed up on the shore. “That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore” (Ex.14:30).
Had God been with Moses? Or was it just a dream?
And what about that battle with the Amalekites, at Rephidim, in the desert? Joshua was in command of Israel’s untrained soldiers at the time. While Moses was holding the staff of God aloft, things went well for Joshua’s men. But when Moses tired, and let his arms droop, the battle went against the Israelites. So Aaron and Hur supported Moses’ arms, until the battle was won. On that occasion, the LORD had spoken for Joshua’s benefit, “…I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Ex.17:14).
Had God been with Moses and the Israelites when that happened? Or did a bunch of ex-slaves win a battle in their own strength and ability?
Joshua was challenged to look back over his forty years as Moses’ assistant to remember and believe that God had always kept His Word. For God also said to Joshua, “Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you…” (vs 7). Joshua was to meditate, day and night, on what God had said in the past: “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it” (vs 8).
Scripture is always challenging us to believe what we read in its pages. We are called to believe what God has promised us in His Word. We’re led to this point of belief, not by looking forward, first of all, into a mess of trouble that might be confronting us – that demands all our attention, and perhaps drives us to panic. Instead we’d be best served by first looking back to see if God has been with us, as He was with Moses.
In today’s church – that is, among present day Christians – the popular push is to forget the past. The past is “old hat,” so we’re told. It’s not relevant to the new direction we want to follow. But that’s not what God is saying to us in His Word. Could the Word of the eternal God ever be ‘old hat’? In answer to that question, God challenges us to re-learn Joshua’s lesson all over again.
As the writer of Hebrews puts it: “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” (Heb.13:7). We’re challenged to imitate those before us, who took up faith’s challenge to believe. In the words of the psalmist, we’re challenged to “taste and see that the LORD is good; [for] blessed is the man who takes refuge in him” (Ps 34:8).
“Tasting to see that God is good” is to look back and prove God at His word – before launching out into new directions. “This is the victory that has overcome the world… even our faith” in what God has shown us in our own lives… in the lives of others… and in what He has written for our instruction.
2. FAITH CHALLENGES US TO ACT ON OUR BELIEF
Now comes the challenge to act on faith: “…get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land…” (vs.2b). The Lord challenges Joshua use his faith, to put that faith to work. Moses is dead, and all that remains of him is his example from the past. Now Joshua, reassured by the knowledge of that past, will in turn lead God’s people by his own example of faith.
If Joshua ignores the challenge, nothing will be accomplished through him. On the other hand, by acting on his faith into leading some two million, fretful people, will present its own obstacles. For instance, the Jordan River isn’t some minute, little creek you can hop over in two steps. In the first place, it flows through a deep gorge one of the deepest valleys on earth – 380 metres below sea level, with steep cliffs on both sides. To make matters worse, the river is in flood at this time of the year. So, crossing the Jordan with an entire army is going to be a problem in military logistics that only a soldier might appreciate. And if and when you get over that hurdle, hostile people are bound to be waiting on the other side, ready to kick any interlopers right back into the gorge. You can expect the enemy Canaanites to oppose the Israelites in any way they can.
But taking up the challenge of faith is not to sit back, waiting for God to do everything. God gives us brains, and He expects us to use them. Acting on faith is to do what is in our power to do, while we let God take care of those things that are beyond our control.
So, Joshua takes up the challenge, but note that we don’t see him jumping in blindly. He can’t do much about the Jordan River. But at the very least, he can send spies to sound out the opposition. And when he does, he discovers there is NO opposition.
Joshua did what he could. And in acting on his faith, he confirmed for himself what God has already promised: “I am about to give it to the Israelites… as I promised Moses.” God has already taken care of the enemy. People on the other side of the river were “melting in fear” (Josh.2:8). The nearby city, Jericho, is shut up tight.
I’ve heard a story of an evangelistic meeting – I believe it’s true. The man who was leading the gathering challenged his assistants to feed the people gathered there: “You give them something to eat. Go and see what you can find” (Mark 6:35). Well they did what they could. They came up with “five loaves and two fishes.” Not much, you might say, but considering Him who was leading that meeting, it was more than enough.
Does the Lord expect us to do more than we are able? Faith is a challenge to trust God to take care of those things outside of our control. The amazing thing about acting on our faith in this way… it is enough.
3. FAITH CHALLENGES US TO TRUST THE LORD’S PROMISES
“I am about to give it… to the Israelites… as I promised Moses.” Joshua led the Israelites to the flooded Jordan River, and God parted the water again, just as at the Red Sea forty years earlier. What a tremendous encouragement for Joshua, to see God at work twice in the one lifetime. Then there was Jericho, walls tumbling without the lifting of one Israelite finger. God was indeed “giving [the land]… as He promised Moses.” And the Israelites went in and occupied the land that God had promised them – though not all of it. The Israelites never did occupy all of the land promised to them. The enemy persisted in some places.
And then, in the course of time, “Joshua son of Nun… died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance…” (Judges 2:8-9). And we’re left wondering about God’s promise to Joshua, “I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life” (vss.3-5; cf also Deut.11:24 “Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea”).
If we think of the ‘promised land’ as a metaphor for the ‘spiritual life’, then the passage suggests that you and I can have all of the ‘spiritual life’ that we want… every bit of it that we care to take. God will never give you more of the ‘spiritual life’ than you are ready to take. So on this understanding, if you’re not satisfied with the degree of your real experience of victory, it could be because you haven’t really wanted any more. There may be some truth behind this understanding.
In any case, Scripture tells us, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew… neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals…” (Judges 2:10ff).
Before Joshua died, he had this to say, “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the… promises the LORD… gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that… God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the LORD… has given you.” (Josh.23:14-15,12-13).
These words warn us to listen to Scripture very carefully. If all God’s promises – including the one to give “every place where Joshua set his foot” – were fulfilled, as Joshua said they were, then this promise – which has inspired some bizarre behaviour in some people – was also fulfilled and in fact was a promise that remained in force “all the days of Joshua’s life” (vs.3, 5), just as the text says.
The more significant fact about Joshua, insofar as our faith is concerned, is that he was pointing ahead to Jesus – historically and figuratively. “Joshua” is the Hebrew form of “Jesus.” And that should cause us to think about that passage from 1 John: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1John 5:4). What does God promise us? Jesus, Himself, said it: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
These passages should alert us to one fact: if our faith is to overcome the world, it can only be by faith in Jesus – that He has already overcome the world for us. We ought not to expect God to give us what He promised only to Jesus… or only to Joshua.
What we are not able to do, Jesus has done for us. Our faith is protected in Him. Whatever the world can deliver up to us will not overcome our faith. The worst it can possibly bring will not overcome the faith of the faithful. That’s His promise. That’s our victory. In the name of Jesus…!
Amen!