Expository Sermon on Chapters in Joshua
by Maylan Schurch
Bellevue Seventh-day Adventist Church 9/14/2019
©2019 by Maylan Schurch
To watch the YouTube live-stream of this service, click the following link (the sermon begins at the 1:03:34 mark):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhvnOAFle-M
Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 31.
As many of you know, for the last several weeks we’ve been looking at Old Testament Bible books one by one, and seeing if we can discover Jesus in those books. John chapter 1 calls Jesus the Creator, and when He walked several miles with a couple of His friends to a little town called Emmaus on the evening of his resurrection day, He gave them a long Bible study about what all of the Old Testament Scriptures had to say about Him. So He was back there back then, playing an active role.
He once told his disciples that no one has seen God at any time, yet divinity showed up from time to time in the Old Testament. It’s overwhelmingly likely that this was Jesus Himself. And during our visit to the book of Joshua this morning, we will actually see Him appear in person.
In 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
So if “all Scripture” is profitable for us, then that must mean the book of Joshua has something to say to us, too, especially since Jesus Himself does show up there.
But in order to set the stage for Joshua’s book, we need to read from one of the final chapters in the book which comes just before it, Deuteronomy 31. What’s happening here is that Moses is just concluding his four-decades-long leadership of the people of Israel. The Israelites are on the borders of the land of Canaan, God’s Promised Land. God has said that Moses himself cannot travel with the people, but that Joshua would be their leader. So Moses is giving final instructions to the people before he dies.
Deuteronomy 31:1 – 6 [NKJV]: Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said to them: “I am one hundred and twenty years old today. I can no longer go out and come in. Also the LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not cross over this Jordan.’ The LORD your God Himself crosses over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua himself crosses over before you, just as the LORD has said. And the LORD will do to them as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites and their land, when He destroyed them. The LORD will give them over to you, that you may do to them according to every commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”
As I read these verses this week, and then kept on reading through the first part of Joshua, one sentence stood out for me. It was a sentence I found again and again. It’s in verse six: “Be strong and of good courage.”
I mean, what an appropriate exhortation to give to this particular group of people. Moses was speaking to the children of the original group of Israelites he had led out of Egypt. The moms and dads of those he was speaking to had not been strong and courageous when they needed to be. Instead, they were just the opposite–weak and cowardly–and this led them again and again to fear the future and then try to hurry back to the past. Finally, for their own good, and for the good He had planned for the nation, God marched those people around the desert for 40 years while these obstinately non-strong, non-courageous grownups were laid gradually to rest.
“Be strong and of good courage,” says the New King James version. More recent translations will say, “Be strong and courageous.” Actually, the word “good” does not show up in Hebrew beside the word “courage.” The old King James translators inserted it, to make it read “good courage.”
And there was a reason they did this. When I looked up the Hebrew words used here for “strong” and “courageous,” they are both literally strong words. The word “strong” means “strong,” and the word “courageous,” or “courage,” also can mean “strong.” In fact, the Hebrew word behind “courage” actually contains a lot of stubbornness in it. It is sometimes used to speak of someone who is stubborn. In other words, somebody who has this kind of courage feels it very firmly, very stubbornly. It’s not wishy-washy, in-the-moment, fair-weather courage, but “good courage,” extra powerful courage. No one is going to shake him or her out of that courage.
What about us? Do you and I need strength and courage today? Do all the people driving past out there on 140th Avenue need courage? Well, in Luke 21:26, Jesus said that the last days of Earth’s history would be times when “men’s hearts were failing them from fear,” and you and I need courage to counteract that fear. We also need to get word out to everybody else that it is possible to have strength and courage in these dreadful days.
Out on the South Dakota prairies where I grew up, I would often see large herds of cows in the fields. I’d be walking along a prairie road, and I was always delighted when the cows were close up against the fence. If it was a hot summer day, and just a slight breeze was blowing, the cows would walk into that breeze, because that would keep some of the flies off them. But when the cows came up against the fence, they couldn’t go any further, so they just stood there.
Most large groups of cows contained a bull. The bull was always bigger than the cows, and you would seldom find the bull pressed up against the fence like the cows were. The bull would be standing some distance away, very large, very still, once in a while giving forth a hoarse bellow.
So when I saw those cows close to the fence, I would walk slowly toward them. Now, any of these beasts, if they wanted to, could have trampled me flat into the prairie grass. But you could always spook the cows. They would move cautiously back as I approached, and when I got really close, one of them would turn tail and start to run. And most of the other cows would do the same thing.
But not the bull. Even if the bull were close up to the fence with the cows, that bull did not go anywhere. He just stood staring at me. That bull was strong and of good courage. He knew that he needed to protect his herd, so he just waited to see what I would do. I never saw a bull which I could startle. And of course I also never stepped over the fence and got in there with him.
Okay, so if you and I need to be strong and of good courage, especially here in a time when human hearts are failing for fear, let’s find out more about this.
If we remember what we just read in Deuteronomy 31, we can start to form what you might call Sermon Point One. In the Deuteronomy 31 passage we just read, we see the reason the Israelites could legitimately be strong and of good courage. And the reason was that a very powerful God had very powerful plans, and if the Israelites carried out those plans under God’s guidance, then they were going the same direction as God, and could have confidence in Him.
So how could we state this as Sermon Point One? Here goes:
I can be strong and courageous when I am following God’s plans.
Remember how often Jesus had to say to His disciples, “O you of little faith”? They’d all be in a boat on stormy Galilee. Jesus would be asleep, and the rest of the disciples would be screaming with terror at the wind and the waves. He would wake up, quiet the storm, and wonder aloud why they had not possessed more strength and courage.
Because another reason Moses could assure the Israelites that they could be strong and stubbornly courageous is found in Deuteronomy 31:6:
Verse 6: Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”
So we can be strong and courageous not only because we are carrying out God’s agenda, but also because He is coming right along with us. Just as Jesus was with those disciples in the boat, God was with the Israelites as they were getting ready to take the land He had given them. He traveled with them in that cloud, and met with Moses and others in the sanctuary.
But what about today? Is heaven with us today? If we are carrying out Jesus’ plans, Jesus promises that He will be with us. The last part of verse six says that “He will not leave you nor forsake you,” and in the last verse of the gospel of Matthew, after Jesus tells His disciples about His mission for them—to carry the gospel everywhere—He tells them, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And Matthew adds an “Amen” to that.
Now let’s find out something else about being strong and courageous.
Verses 7 – 8: Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.”
Here’s what I would call Sermon Point Two:
Not only can I be strong and courageous when I am following God’s plans, but I can be strong and courageous when I enlist others to help in God’s plans.
Moses himself knew how true this was. There he was, a few months after he had led the Israelites across the Red Sea and out to Mount Sinai, and even though he was following God’s plan, and even though he could see that divine cloud hanging above the tabernacle, he was getting discouraged.
And Moses’ father-in-law knew exactly what needed to happen. In Exodus 18, old Jethro visited his son-in-law, watched how busy he was, and suggested that he delegate a whole lot of the judging work to other people.
And here on the borders of Canaan, Moses formally puts Joshua in charge.
And Jesus did the same. He was intensely busy, but He took time to train 12 disciples, then 70 disciples, for work they would be doing after He went away. In John 14 He promised that these trainees would do even greater work then He was able to do.
And there is strength, and courage, in numbers. If you’re on our church email list, you might remember that a few days back I sent out a thank you that Bob Grady had written to all the people from this congregation who had gone up to Sunset Lake camp to work on some benches for an outdoor arena. People I’ve talked to who were involved in that project had a wonderful time – partly because they were encouraged by everybody who came out.
And every summer when this congregation does its vacation Bible school program, scores of people volunteer, because they realize how fun and mutually supportive it is to carry out God’s plans together.
Now let’s discover what actually may be the most important truth about the strength and courage we can have as we face the future. Watch what happens starting in here in Deuteronomy 31:14.
Verses 14 – 18: Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, the days approach when you must die; call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of meeting, that I may inaugurate him.” So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of meeting. Now the LORD appeared at the tabernacle in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood above the door of the tabernacle. And the LORD said to Moses: “Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods.
Can you imagine what it must’ve been like to be these two leaders – the older and the younger – listening to what God had to say? Because it’s very clear that God is nobody’s fool. God knows the future, and He knows exactly what is going to happen during the many apostasies the Israelites will go through during the next several hundred years. I mean, to hear God describe this, it’s almost like, “What’s the use?”
But it’s important to remember that even though we might think this way, God does not. God does spell out very clearly what’s going to happen. And maybe, after all, considering what these two men have been through over the last 40 years, maybe it’s not much of a surprise to them.
But watch what happens as we finally enter the book of Joshua.
Joshua 1:1 – 7: After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, it came to pass that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous . . . .
Are you a pessimist, or an optimist? Or are you a realist? Well, from what we’ve heard God just say, it looks like He is a realist. He pulls no punches when He talks about the future. He knows what’s going to happen, and not all of it is going to be good.
Yet still He can turn around and tell Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage.” He tells this to him twice just in these verses.
You know what that says to me? It says something that I’d like to turn into Sermon Point Three:
Not only can I be strong and courageous when I am following God’s plans, and when I enlist others to help in God’s plans, I can be strong and courageous even in the face of staggering discouragement.
In fact, if Joshua had been a different type of leader, listening to God’s dire predictions,he might have been strongly tempted to say, “I don’t need this. I shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’ve had forty years of it. Choose somebody else.”
But Joshua didn’t flinch. Other Bible people – such as Moses – were not shy about arguing with God, or expressing their timidity to God. Moses was a “Choose someone else” type of person, at least at the start.
So what kept Joshua’s heart filled with an almost stubborn courage, a courage which refused to slacken? Who knows? Joshua never included a really personal memoir in the Bible book that carries his name. I have a feeling, though, that Joshua had such a love, such a trust, such a deep personal relationship with the God of Israel that he was willing to stand at the head of God’s people and lead them forward, no matter what. If it was important to God, it was important to him.
Shelley and I stopped by a Fred Meyer store yesterday, and I saw lots of blue Seahawks jerseys, some of them with the number three on them. No matter what happens at the game tomorrow, these people will be on the side of the Seahawks.
Now let me show you just one more event from the book of Joshua. Turn to Joshua 5. By now the Israelites are across the Jordan, but have not yet captured Jericho.
Joshua 5:10 – 12: Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. And they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day. Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year.
And now, the battle of Jericho is soon to begin. And watch what Jesus Christ Himself does to encourage Joshua.
Verses 13 – 15: And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.
Now, the Lord has been talking to Joshua all along. But here He decides to actually appear before Joshua with military equipment, with sword in hand. Now, we know this is definitely Jesus, because He introduces himself as the commander of the Lord’s army. He looks human enough that Joshua has to ask the apprehensive question, “Are you for us or against us?”
Jesus introduces Himself, then immediately tells Joshua to remove his sandals because he is standing on holy ground. This can only mean that this commander is divine. And since Jesus later said that no one has seen God at any time, this must be Jesus. So here is Jesus, appearing to someone with exactly His own name. “Jesus” and “Joshua” are exactly the same name. “Jesus” is the Greek transliteration of “Joshua” or “Yeshua.”
So it seems as though Jesus knew that Joshua needed to see the evidence that the Lord has an army, and that the Lord’s army would be the one who would win that Jericho battle. And if Joshua had been feeling the least bit timid at this point, which maybe he was, Jesus’ appearance removed every doubt.
In fact, let’s lay down Sermon Point Four, a final reason we can be strong and courageous:
I be strong and courageous when I am following God’s plans, and when I enlist others to help in God’s plans, and even in the face of great discouragement. Finally, I can be strong and courageous because God’s army is fighting the battles.
We are in a war, of course. Right here in our neighborhoods, right here in our schools, sometimes even right here in our homes. I’m not going to spend any time listing the appalling challenges we face, but you can read about them on the news, and you can weep about them as they happen to yourself and your family in this tragically twisted world.
But to you and to me, God earnestly says, “Be strong and of good courage, because I am with you.”
Would you like to raise the hand of a Christian soldier right now? Would you like to pray for victory – as God defines it – this coming week?