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PREVIOUS KYB STUDY Introduction to Joshua Hello my name is Maree Stavert and I’ve been in KYB for more than 20 years. It’s been a huge blessing to me and I trust that it is to you. I want to welcome you to the book of Joshua and I hope that you are really looking forward to this term’s study. My favourite book of the Bible is always the book that I’m studying at the moment, but Joshua is a long time favourite and indeed my third son is called Joshua after the Joshua we meet in this book. As we begin, let me ask you a question. Have you experienced a time when you felt that God was asking you to do something that was beyond you, even impossible, so that you felt totally out of your depth, and certainly out of your comfort zone? I felt a bit that way when I was asked to do this introduction, and I still do, even as I’m beginning to do it. Perhaps you’ve encountered this sort of situation at work, or in your family life or in serving in your congregation. Pause now, for a moment, and discuss together times of challenge like this that you’ve experienced. The time I recall most in my life was when my sister was killed and I inherited her three, very upset little boys. Along with my own four children, that meant we had 6 boys and a girl between the ages of 3-12. I said to God at the beginning, and for a very long time, I can’t do this. I gradually learnt that my response was both right and wrong. It was right because, of course, I couldn’t do it. It was right because only God could, and as time went on, I could look back and see what God had done and how God had carried me through. But it was also a wrong response because God expected to work through, and use, every faltering step that I took in obedience, and even through my failed attempts at obedience. In all our weakness, God worked through my husband, myself, and our family. I often felt that God’s answer to my “I can’t”, was “I know you can’t do it, but I can, and so together, we will.” This is what we see in the book of Joshua. God made promises to His people, and God now keeps that promise. But, how does He keep it? He expects the promise to be fulfilled through the people’s obedience. God had promised a land to His people a long time ago in His promises to Abraham. If you’ve got Bibles, turn with me to Genesis 12:6-7. Genesis 12:6 tells us that Abraham came to the great tree, the oak of Moreh at Shechem. Keep Shechem in your mind, it’s an important place in the book of Joshua, a place of making covenant promises. We’re going to meet it in Chapter 8 and at the end of the book in Chapter 24. Verse 6 says the Canaanites were in the land then, as they still were in Joshua’s time to be dealt with by God; but God’s promise to Abraham was in verse 7 “to your offspring, I will give this land.” Hundreds of year’s later after bringing His people out of Egypt in the Exodus and through the parting of the Red Sea, God brought them to the southern edge of His promised land in order to keep His promise, and in order to give them the land. But Numbers 13 & 14 tell us how the people’s courage failed. Their spies into the land reported powerful people and fortified large cities. Compared to these, the Israelites looked like grasshoppers. Only two spies out of the 12, Joshua and Caleb, tore their clothes and according to chapter 14:7 said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only don’t rebel against the Lord. Don’t be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” What was the people’s response to this? Verse 10 says the whole assembly talked about stoning Joshua and Caleb. And, what was God’s response? God said that none of that adult generation, who saw his glory and his miracles in the Exodus, would see the land that He promised. Why not? Verse 23 says, they had treated God with contempt. Only Caleb and Joshua would see the land. In this passage you notice that we see the character of the men God chose to lead the people into the land. In our study we look much more at Joshua, the man and the leader. But now, almost 40 years later, the next generation of God’s people returns to the eastern border of the promised land. In Deuteronomy Moses addresses them on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan river, where they had already taken control of some land. There Moses renews the covenant between God and his people. God also renews the promise of the land. According to Deuteronomy Chapter 31:3, “The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said. And the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. The Lord will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." And then God gives a command promise to Joshua in verses 7-8 – “Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." So, a huge task, that seemed too large to the generation before, causing them to draw back overwhelmed, is now presented to this generation. Will they be obedient? And, if they are, will God be faithful to His promises? These are the big questions as we begin the book of Joshua. We’ll look at them in the community of God’s people, but also at individuals in the book. Will Joshua himself, with the promise and command to him, be obedient? People like Caleb and Zelophehad’s daughters and Achan will have the same challenge come to them. Will they be obedient ? As this book begins, we see the colour of the people’s obedience. At God’s command, he leads the people and priests into the Jordan river – a river in full flood in spring time. They see God open the way just as he did at the Red Sea. At God’s command on the other side of the river, they don’t move to the attack, but stop, even though they are vulnerable, in enemy territory. They stop to circumcise the men and celebrate Passover. At God’s command, they don’t attack the fortified city of Jericho but march round it for 7 days, with the Ark of the Covenant at the front and the sound of trumpets (in a way that military minds might describe as stupid or insane). And so, the author clearly wants us to notice the nature of the people’s obedience. We’ll study the quite radical obedience – doing what God commands even when it’s definitely not the world’s way. So why does God ask him to act in this way? So that when they enter the land and they can safely take Jericho, not one of them can say that they did it. It’s totally clear that God enables the crossing of the Jordan, by the sheer surprise and shock of the crossing. God puts fear into the hearts of their enemies and keeps their camp safe from attack. It is God who takes Jericho. Isn’t this still how we are to live as God’s people who have God’s promise of eternal life? God commands us. We know we aren’t able, but after we’ve tried to be obedient, and after it’s done, we know it’s really God who’s done it. It is God who has enabled it by the power of His spirit. I’m sure you’ve worked this out already, in your discussion earlier about the too hard times of life. You see, the Israelites were real people just like us. So how they walked with the Lord, and how we are called to walk with the Lord, are so very, very similar. In Chapter 7, immediately after Jericho, Israel is confronted with a crisis because of the disobedience of one man to God’s command. It seems hard for us to understand this. It may even make us uncomfortable as we read of God’s judgement. God needed the people to see that obedience is that important. When there’s genuine faithfulness and obedience amongst God’s people, as there is here in Joshua, God often acts swiftly and severely against the first seed of disobedience, so that it’s cut short, lessons are learnt, it doesn’t spread, and God’s people are kept on track. In fact, an action of judgement like this is really an action of grace and mercy from God. But, when disobedience is widespread, God will often let it take its natural course, because its natural course is to total disaster. Surely that is the greater judgement. In Acts 5, the story of Ananias & Sapphira is a New Testament example of God acting in the church, just as He does with Achan in Israel. Another hard issue that we’ll confront is the warfare of total destruction and of driving the people totally out of the land, which God commanded. We need to beware thinking that the God of the Old Testament is a God of judgment - harsh and cruel - and that the God of the New Testament is somehow different – a God of love. We’re to understand why this is not so. So three points about this – First of all we go back to Genesis 15:16 – God tells Abraham that his descendants will return to the land from Egypt, but not for a very long time. Why? “For the sin of the Amorites (another word for the Canaanite people) has not yet reached its full measure”. In other words, God will only judge and destroy them, and give their land to Abraham’s descendants, when their wickedness fully deserves His total judgement. Leviticus 18:24 – 30 says that the Canaanite fertility religion so defiled the land that it vomited out these inhabitants. Earlier in the chapter there is a list of the kind of actions these people did that brought God’s judgement. The chapter also warns that if Israel acted like this in the land, Israel would be vomited out by God even as the Canaanite nations had been. Secondly, this total destruction was only for the nations in the land. Deut 20:16-18 explains why. It tells us that if the people were not destroyed they would reach out and teach God’s people to follow all the detestable things they did in worshipping their gods. And, God’s people would sin against the Lord their God. In the ancient world, all war was seen as “holy war”, because all war was for the glory of one’s god. This was not so in Israel. The destruction of the Canaanite peoples is the only so called “holy war” authorised by the Lord. In fact, in Deuteronomy 20 verses 10-15, we’re given God’s totally different instructions for warfare against other peoples. You might like to read these verses together. Thirdly, the story of Rahab in the book of Joshua in chapters 2 & 6, helps us to understand this issue and God’s actions. You see, Rahab is a Canaanite. By God’s command, she should have been killed and devoted to the Lord, as all of Jericho was. So why wasn’t she? Because she turned, in faith, to recognise and give loyalty to the God of Israel. The rest of the people of Jericho had the same access to the knowledge of the Lord that she did, but they didn’t turn to Him. God’s mercy and salvation is there for all who come to Him in faith, whether in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. God’s judgement is on those who reject him, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The book of Joshua is structured in two key sections. The first half, Chapters 1 -12 is about the conquest of the land. We’re going to do that in studies 1 – 6 in our books this term. In chapters 1-5 we see the people entering the land and we see their preparation for conquest. Then in chapters 6-12 the taking of the land is described. We’ll notice the strategy involved. The Israelites enter the land from the east into the centre of the land, which they take, thus preventing a united stand against them by the Canaanite peoples. Chapter 10 then describes the southern campaign and, in Chapter 11, the northern campaign, in order to take the whole land. This series of campaigns took several years. You’ve got a map in your study book, after the introduction, which will help you to picture this. Then in Chapter 12, we end with a roll call of all the great victories of God and of the people. But conquering the land is not the whole story of Joshua, nor is it the whole picture of obedience and so we come to the second part of the book which is about the settlement of the land. We cover this in Studies 6 – 9. This section contains some long lists and names that you probably wouldn’t want to try and read out loud. Don’t despise and don’t skip! The fulfilment of God’s promise to His people was as much about good administration and faithful organisation, as about mighty battles. The challenge that it presented for obedience was possibly even greater – it still is, isn’t it? The main centres and power forces of the land had been defeated. But now the clans of each tribe needed to settle their allotted land, and drive out the remaining forces in their area. Would the people be faithful in this? In the lists we begin to read - Judah could not dislodge; Ephraim did not dislodge; Manasseh did not drive them out completely; the Danites had difficulty; and then, we begin to read of compromise solutions like targeting a different area of the land because it’s easier, or making the Canaanites forced labour instead of persisting to drive them out. In Joshua 23, Joshua, the leader, says that not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed. Every one was fulfilled. But he also warns the people about the survivors of the nations still living amongst them in the land. If Israel intermarries, associates with them, and worships their gods, instead of persisting in driving out the people, then the Lord will no longer drive out the nations before Israel. Instead, these people will become snares and traps for Israel, until Israel itself perishes from the land. And so the big challenge of the last three chapters is the question of keeping the land. Will Israel remain loyal to the Lord? Will Israel be strong and careful to obey everything written in the book of the Law of Moses? Will Israel be careful to love the Lord? In the final chapter at Shechem, Joshua asks Israel to choose, and he declares “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. The people respond, “we will serve the Lord because he’s our God”. But will they? You see obedience that lasts, comes from a relationship of love between God and His people. It’s a relationship that keeps growing. Have you ever been to the 50th or 60th wedding anniversary party of a couple who are even more committed to one another now than they were on their wedding day? It’s something very special. Well, the relationship between Israel and the Lord wants to be like that. Joshua urges the people to yield their hearts to the Lord and to continue to walk faithfully in that loving relationship with the Lord. But will they ? The book of Joshua is a great story to read but it’s much more than a story or a history. The Jews put the book of Joshua among the four prophets – Joshua, Judges, Samuel & Kings - because they didn’t simply see it as a story or even history. It was there to teach them how to apply the books of Moses to their daily living. It was there to encourage and challenge and warn them. That’s what prophecy does, and it does just the same for us. I trust that this term this book will encourage and challenge and warn us as God’s people today. It reminds me of the chorus of the very famous hymn, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be joyful in Jesus, but to trust and obey”. As we finish, why don’t we pray for God to be with us as we study this book. Almighty Father, Your word is always sure; what You promise, You fulfil. Help us to learn now from Your promises and faithfulness to Your ancient people. We pray that what we read in Joshua will encourage us to trust You, as Israel did, and will lead us not to disobey You, as they also did. Thank you for Jesus our Lord, in whom all Your promises came to fulfilment. Help us to understand that to trust and to obey is the way to joy in Jesus, and by Your Spirit help us to be people who trust and obey. Amen.
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