LESSONS FROM JOSHUA
Poul Madsen
IN the New Testament we are exhorted to share in suffering as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Joshua provides a good example for us, since this phrase, 'good soldier', describes his whole life from a young man to old age. The first mention of him is when he was given the great responsibility of leading Israel into battle and he was told that there would be more battles ahead (Exodus 17:8-16).
But he also fought another kind of battle. When Moses pitched a tent of meeting outside the camp, his servant Joshua did not depart out of the Tent. A good soldier does not flinch when the battle is on, but nor does he neglect to seek God when there is no danger. We suffer most of our defeats on the inner front, as we allow the enemy to tempt us away from personal close contact with the Lord. No doubt this action of Joshua's made him the more ready to triumph in faith when ten of his fellow spies reported that it was impossible to enter the land.
We see, then, that this young man did not develop all at once, but grew as he faced one test after another. Perhaps his most difficult test was that of being just a servant; he had been in the limelight when he fought against Amalek and was prominent with Caleb in resisting unbelief, and then he just had to serve Moses day by day through the years. It is always easier to give orders than to receive them, but for forty [38/39] years Joshua served under orders from Moses. The good soldier of the Lord Jesus needs spiritual character as well as spiritual equipment; his first qualifications must be endurance, humility and conscientiousness.
The good fight is the fight of faith. This means that we must learn to fight with quite different weapons from those which our carnal natures would employ and above all we must listen to God. "Now it came to pass after the death of Moses ... that the Lord spake unto Joshua" (Joshua 1:1). Moses was dead, but the Lord never dies. Joshua was to die as we read at the end of his book -- but the Lord never dies. We are grateful for those whom the Lord raises up as leaders, but they all must disappear. The promises of God, though, do not change or diminish with the passage of time. But in addition to His promises, we must listen continually to His commands: "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth ... that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein" (1:8).
A good soldier of Jesus Christ makes obedience his first business. Joshua had lots of things to attend to, his workload was enormous, but he was careful to preserve unbroken his fellowship with God and he listened unceasingly to God's speaking. He was different in many ways from the subsequent Judges, for they were often only instruments which God used, but Joshua was a true servant. He was also used, but as this happened he was changed and became more and more like the One whom he served.
Did Joshua make use of God? No indeed! God does not allow Himself to be used by us nor drawn into our human plans. When he asked the divine Man, "Are you one of us or one of our enemies?", the answer came back, "Neither!" (5:14). Joshua was made to know that the Lord really is LORD. Joshua had walked with the Lord for forty years and had known many experiences of His power and wonderful interventions, but when the Commander of God's army revealed Himself, Joshua fell on his face, trembling and conscious of his own nothingness. It is when the Lord in His grace reveals Himself that we appreciate what unworthy and insignificant creatures we are, and yet we can respond to Him in total confidence because He provides the holy ground of our true relationship with Him.
According to John the victory which overcomes, or rather has overcome , the world is our faith. Spiritual warfare is the same as obedience; it is following the Lord. This was how the Lord Jesus fought His battles and won His victories, by being obedient unto death. It was in this way that Paul fought his battles. If you want to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, then obedience must be your weapon, and with this you are unconquerable. Lack of obedience means sure defeat.
When God's people had gone over Jordan and encamped in Gilgal, Joshua did what humanly speaking was a very foolish thing. There, in the shadow of this strong enemy city, he deprived all his soldiers of their fighting strength by having them circumcised. From a military point of view this was great folly, for all his warriors were incapacitated for some days and could have been incapable of resisting an attack. What use was a fighting force deprived of its strength? The answer is, of course, that they were fighting God's battles and had to do so in God's way. God held His hand upon Jericho while Joshua's soldiers were incapacitated, and even when the battle came, He did not need human wisdom or strength for the conquest of the city.
Joshua's subsequent orders seemed not only foolish but ridiculous; the army had to walk round Jericho each day for six days. They may have been mocked by its inhabitants, they may have felt foolish, but they walked round in faith each day. I don't think that it got any easier as the days went by, but it need not have become harder either, for they were waiting for God's moment. Had they attacked, they might have been defeated, and certainly many would have been killed and much confusion could have resulted, but when the Sabbath came and they had completed their seventh circuit, the whole city fell into their hands.
In our spiritual life we have to face impregnable areas but victory will come as we follow the principles of faith here demonstrated, faith which has neither wisdom nor strength of its own, but relies on and obeys God's Word. We may know mountains of difficulties but we can face them with equanimity if we remember the prophet's words: "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit ... the mountain shall become a plain" (Zechariah 4:6-7). We must be careful not to be sidetracked by the modem emphasis on power. Spiritual power is a great secret and cannot [39/40] be alienated from the Lord Himself. Christ won His victory by going the way of the cross. Spiritual warfare can only be waged in this way, but through the grace of Christ we are called to share His victory.
One of the New Testament lessons concerning spiritual warfare may be rather difficult to understand in practice; it is found in Paul's reminder that "no soldier on active service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life ..." (2 Timothy 2:4). This does not mean that he has no daily affairs of this life to attend to, but it does insist that he should not allow himself to be entangled in them in such a way that they govern his life so as to weaken his relationship with the Lord.
From his youth Joshua was a man of prayer. He did not leave the Tent (Exodus 33:11). Now even for a busy person, the right kind of prayerful spirit can deliver from the wrong kind of entanglement. All who have some experience know where the boundary lies between being faithful in one's daily occupation and being governed by it, between doing the job and getting entangled in it. However, this knowledge can be blunted if we neglect daily intercourse with the Lord and sensitivity to Him. It is not easy but it is possible to have the right priorities and to seek the kingdom of God first. It is a great triumph when business people can do this. I am not sure that it is any easier for those who are active as so-called fulltime workers, since they have their own perils of being entangled in activities which can hinder spiritual communion with the Lord.
It may be profitable to consider the spiritual implications for us of the command that Jericho and its inhabitants should be destroyed: "The city shall be devoted, even it and all that is therein, to the Lord; only Rahab the harlot shall live ... and ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when ye have devoted it, ye take of the devoted thing; so should ye make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy unto the Lord ..." (6:17-19). It had taken four hundred years for their iniquity to be fully ripe, but now this nation was quite ripe for judgment in the sight of God. So the judgment came. What was more, though, the Israelites were not to take for themselves any of the silver or gold or other valuables, but were to put them all in the treasury of the Lord. What does this mean to us?
Is it not a part of this command that the soldier of Christ is to avoid entanglement in the things of this life? What is more natural to us than to take hold of personal gain in the things of the Lord? That way lies a snare which we must avoid at all costs. Personal gain must never be allowed to influence our service for the Lord, whether that gain is direct or indirect, open or in secret. If we fail in this respect, we are defeated in advance. This is not only a matter of finance, though it does include that, but a larger realm of never allowing human values to motivate us in our service for the Lord. What the eye can see, what the flesh can covet, what can minister to our personal sense of importance or greatness; all this must be ruthlessly rejected if we are to share Christ's spiritual victory. We may regard the commandments of God to Joshua as fierce and extreme, but it is imperative that we be high handed and extreme with ourselves if we are to be true to our calling.
We are given the tragic story of Achan to emphasise this truth to us. He took of the devoted thing, hiding his action from others but not being able to hide it from God, with disastrous results. No-one can fight the Lord's battles successfully if he allows money or any other personal consideration to entangle him and come in between himself and the Lord.
One more area of entanglement remains to be mentioned. In a final, passionate appeal to his people, Joshua warned them that God would only go on delivering them and making them victorious if they avoided alliances with the people of the land (23:6-13). It soon appeared that Israel was not able to obey this injunction, with the consequent series of terrible tragedies described in the book of the Judges. Defeat after defeat came to them, their knowledge of the Lord proved fleeting and superficial, and though they were given temporary and limited deliverances, they failed to follow the example set before them by Joshua, that good soldier of the Lord.
And what about us? We are not supermen. But nor was Joshua. He was, however, a man of prayer and a man of the Book, and that should be true of all of us. We can make our way prosperous and we can have good success, if we give priority to the Word of God and seek grace and strength to persevere in obedience to the Lord of the Word. [40/ibc]
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