Drive Them Out, Pt. 3

And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.  And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us:  and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are of Bethshean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel.  And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only:  But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong. 

Joshua 17:15-18

I can not seem to stop thinking about how well this passage parallels our Christian lives.  Joshua challenged Ephraim and Manasseh to go up and take the mountain country.  He challenged them to not settle for where they were at the time but to press on to greater things.

At the end of the passage, he makes the statement, “for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.”

If we are going to press on in our Christian lives and do great things, we are going to encounter resistance.  In this passage, the Canaanites were strong and iron chariots, but they had to be driven out anyway.  There are things in our lives that are not going to be easy to get rid of.  There are things that are not going to be easy to do.  We can content ourselves with where we are in our Christian walk, or we can rise up and “do battle with the Canaanites” in our lives.  It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!

Drive Them Out, Pt. 2

And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.  And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us:  and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are of Bethshean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel.  And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only:  But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong. 

Joshua 17:15-18

In this passage, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are being challenged by Joshua.  He told them that, if “mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee,” they needed to “get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself…”  Basically, he told them that, even though the Canaanites were dwelling there, they should go up and take the mountain.

That is a great picture of our Christian lives.  Too often we are content with wherever we are at in our walk with the Lord.  We stop moving forward.  But there are spiritual mountains out there and they can be ours.  We just need to go up by faith and take them.  Joshua started this discourse by telling these tribes “If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country…”  He ends it by telling them “Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only.”  They had some land.  But they needed and wanted more.  They just had to go up and take it.  We can be content to live mediocre Christian lives, or we can rise up by faith and “be a great people.”  It’s all there in front of us.  Are we going to go get it?

Drive Them Out

And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.  And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us:  and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are of Bethshean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel.  And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only:  But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong. 

Joshua 17:15-18

We will look at this passage for the next couple of days.  I came across it in my Bible reading recently and I think that there are some great lessons for us as Christians in it.  Joshua is here talking with the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph.  They were in the process of dividing up the Promised Land and Joshua issued a challenge: “If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee.”

These tribes of Israel had some land.  But it was not enough for them.  So Joshua told them to go up and get some more.  He told them to go up to the mountain and take that.  The only problem was that there were Canaanites there who had “chariots of iron.”

Sometimes in our Christian lives, we are challenge to “expand our lives.”  We are challenged to be more or do more.  It usually means a lot more work, but it is worth it.  We should never be content with ourselves and we should always be pressing forward for the Lord!

The 12 Verses of Christmas #2

Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.

Joshua 2:18

I know that verse really doesn’t have any direct connection to Christmas.  It isn’t a prophecy and it doesn’t mention the name of Jesus.  But I decided to include it because of the great symbolism that it contains.

The context of the verse is Israel’s coming destruction of Jericho.  They had spied out the land and had been hidden by Rahab the harlot.  In return for this dangerous service, they agreed to spare her and her family during their sack of the city.  The sign that she was to use was a scarlet thread hung from her window.

I love the symbolism of the scarlet thread.  There is a “scarlet thread” running all through the Bible and all through the history of mankind.  That “scarlet thread” is the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  He was prophesied in the Old Testament, He came in the New Testament and He has influence the course of history and the course of individual lives.

That scarlet thread is what saved Rahab and her house.  That scarlet thread is what saves us so many centuries later.  Jesus is truly the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

One other Christmas connection from this verse is found in Matthew 1:5, where this Rahab, saved by the presence of the scarlet thread, is mentioned as a part of that “scarlet thread.”  Rahab, this harlot from Jericho, came to be in the line of the King.  What a testament to God’s mercy and grace!  What a testament to His eternal plan!

The Reason for our Strength

Have I not commanded thee?  Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.

Joshua 1:9

This verse was mentioned in a message at church the other day and a couple of things stuck with me about it.  I’ve been thinking about it lately, so I thought I would write a little about it.

The first thing is obvious: like the Israelites in Joshua’s day, we are commanded to “be strong and of a good courage.”  We are also told not to be dismayed.  Being strong and courageous and not being dismayed are good character traits that Christians need to possess.

But the thing that really struck me is the reason for these things.  I’ve often heard people tell other people to just “toughen up,” or “get over it,” or “be a man,” etc.  But that is not how the Lord deals with us.  He doesn’t just tell us to be strong and courageous and then leave us to try to do it.  He gives us the reason that we should be strong and of good courage: “the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.”  He is with us!  With the eternal and all-powerful God of the universe with us at all times, how can we not be strong and of good courage?

He has promised to “never leave us nor forsake us.”  With that kind of power not only at our disposal, but actually in us, how can we fear?  Our flesh is weak and prone to fear, but we need to remember Who is with us.  We need to remember the source of our strength is the Lord, who has promised to be with us wherever we go!

Choose You This Day

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Joshua 24:15

In Joshua 24, the Lord goes through a very long list of things that He had done for Israel.  He takes them all the way back to Egypt and tells them the story of their coming to and possessing the Promised Land.  In this story, He is careful to remind them just who it was that did everything.  They did nothing.  It was the Lord and only the Lord that brought them out of Egypt and it was Him and only Him who led them through the wilderness and it was Him and only Him who conquered their enemies one by one.  Now that they have possessed the land and He has reminded them of who gave them the land, we come to this verse.

Joshua starts out by telling the people that “if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve”.  “If it seem evil unto you”- that is quite a statement in light of the first part of the chapter.  But how many of us act as if we think it would seem evil to serve the Lord?  After all He has done for us and all of His many blessings to us, how often do we not serve Him?  When really put to the test, how often do we not “choose Him”?

Joshua had the right idea here at the end of the verse: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”.  That should be our motto today- it doesn’t matter what anyone else does.  It doesn’t matter what goes on around me; as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

All the Lord

I took…I gave…I gave…I sent…I plagued…I did…I brought…I brought…I have done…I brought…I gave…I destroyed…I would not hearken…I delivered…I delivered…I sent…I have given…
Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.

Joshua 2-13, 14

Obviously I skipped around quite a bit there in verses 2 through 13, but it was to bring something out.  The Lord tells His people to serve Him and fear Him in verse 14, and spends the previous verses reminding them why they should be serving and fearing Him.  Seventeen times in those verses, the Lords uses “I”, as in “I gave…” and I brought…” and “I delivered”.  I think He chose those words to remind the Israelites that it was He who delivered them from Egypt and gave them a land flowing with milk and honey.  It was not something that they did in their own power.  It was all the Lord.

We can apply this passage to our lives in that anything good that we may have or that we may be is because of the Lord and only because of the Lord.  He saved us.  He keeps us.  He delivers us from temptation.  He blesses us.  There is nothing good that we have done in our own strength.  It has been all Him and only Him.  And for that reason, we should fear Him and serve Him.  And we should put away anything that is coming between us and Him.  It didn’t take the Israelites too long to forget all of these things the Lord had done for them.  Let us be careful to remember from whence we came and who it was that brought us.  Let us remember to fear and serve the Lord!

He Never Fails

And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.

Joshua 23:14

God never fails.  Of course, every Christian would nod their head in agreement with that statement.  But how often do we really think about that truth and meditate on it?  Joshua is telling the Israelites to not forsake the Lord and he tells them that they know that the Lord has not failed.  Every thing the Lord said He would do for them, He did.  “All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof”.

He never failed the Israelites and He will never us.  The Israelites failed Him many, many times.  They didn’t possess the Promised Land as soon as they could have and they had to deal with some serious chastisement from the Lord because they were a rebellious people.  We are the same way- we fail the Lord over and over again.  We don’t take all that He has for us.  But we can never with an honest heart say that He has failed us.  And He never will!

Take Heed to Yourselves

Take good heed therfore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God.

Joshua 23:11

Joshua has come to the end of his life and is giving the Israelites some advice before he passes on.  He has been with them when they first saw the land, as he was one of the men who went in to spy out the land.  He has been with them through all of the battles they fought in conquering the land.  He has seen the great victories the Lord had wrought on behalf of His people.  He knows that his time on Earth is short, and so he is giving the people a little more advice.

In this verse, he tells the people to take heed to themselves that they love the Lord.  Here are a few simple things that I got out of this advice:

1. The Lord is referred to as “Your God”.
-That is the first step in the Christian life- to make sure that the Lord is “your God”.  The Christian life is a personal relationship.  It can’t just be “God”, it must be “your God” and “my God”.

2. We are commanded to love the Lord
-Sometimes we get so busy just living- doing the day to day activities of life, that we don’t love the Lord like we ought.  We don’t necessarily do anything wrong, but our love of the Lord just starts to get cold.  We need to take heed that we don’t let that happen.

3. We are commanded to take heed to ourselves.
-Sometimes it’s easy to take heed to others.  It’s easy to look around and find fault with other people who aren’t loving the Lord like they should.  But this verse doesn’t tell us to watch everybody else and make sure they are doing right.  It tells us to watch ourselves and make sure we are loving the Lord.  Sometimes that’s a little more tricky.

This advice was good advice in the day of Joshua and it remains good advice in our day.

Much Land to Possess

Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

Joshua 13:1

It’s never a good thing to be told that you are old.  But when God tells you that you are “old and stricken in years”, you know that you are getting up there.  God tells Joshua in this verse that he is old.  But the final part of the verse should have given him and should give us great comfort and encouragement.  God tells him that, even though he is old, there is still “very much land to be possessed”. 

No matter where we find ourselves in life, God has something for us to do.  If we are still living and breathing, God isn’t done with us yet.  We can always improve in our Christian life.  We can always draw closer to the Lord.  We can always pray for others.  No matter where we are, we still have “very much land to be possessed”.  It should encourage us that, though we may be old and stricken in years or are going to be old and stricken in years, the Lord is always going have something more for us to do.  Let us remain steadfast in the battle until we have possessed all the land He has for us.  Let us remain faithfully serving Him until the very end.