The Book of Joshua marks a transition from the Law of Moses to the practical outworking of that law, detailing the fulfillment of God's promises as Israel enters and conquers the Promised Land, emphasizing obedience and God's active involvement.
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it's the story of how God was seeking a
bride for his son each book is different
from every other book I'm trying to give
you the keys for you to unlock it for [Music]
[Music]
yourself now it's the sixth book in the
Old Testament and in English it just
seems to Carry On from the fifth we have
the five books of Moses Genesis Exodus
Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy and the
story finishes at the end of Deuteronomy
with moses' death and then Joshua just
seems to pick the story up at exactly
the same point and Joshua Moses
successor carries on the leadership of
God's people so what's
different and why is this book not read
annually in the synagogue where as
Deuteronomy is you see in our Bibles it
looks no different does it it just
carries straight on and the story
continues but to the Jew there is a
profound difference between
Deuteronomy and Joshua Deuteronomy is
part of the law of Moses Joshua isn't
quite a different book and of course if
you really think about it Deuteronomy is
packed with what I've called legislation
it's packed with the laws of God there
isn't a single law anywhere in the Book
of Joshua or in any of the books that
follow it we are out of the law country
or in a word we are out of the
foundation of the
nation we are now into the outworking of that
that
Constitution so the first five books of
our Bible are the basic constitution of
the People Israel that's their
foundation and the rest of the Old
Testament is how it all works
out so that when you put the Book of
Joshua which is the first non law book
in the Bible against the first five
books you see a remarkable change I've
tried just to indicate this see the next
six books are all what we call
history in the next uh video that I'm
going to make with you I'll show you
that the Jews don't call these books
history at all they actually call them
prophecy but I'm afraid we tend to think
of them as history and the story
continued but when you read those five
books and then these six books then you
realize the contrast between them this
is the
law the foundation of Judaism and they
usually call the first five books the
Torah which means
instruction and basically every Jewish
rabbi is instructed in those five books
and they're read through once a
year but here we have have in the Jewish
scriptures these are called the former
prophets we don't ever think of them
like that and in the next video we're
going to look at
why here we have God's promises to them
but here we have the Fulfillment of
those promises how God kept his word
here God says what he will do but here
he does it and once again this Grace
gratitude theme comes
out the grace of God is very clear in
the first five books in the next six we
shall see quite a bit of gratitude not
quite enough but quite a lot he the
Redemption hear the righteousness hear
the legislation in the law of Moses but
hear the application of that law to
their life and how it all worked out in
practice here are the promises to bless
obedience and in Joshua their obedience
is blessed they do what God tells them
in Jericho's walls fall even though what
God told them to do seemed crazy
irrelevant and useless but they did it
and God blessed them and the land was
given to them because they obeyed
God but I'm afraid there are also some
examples in these books of the opposite
of where they were disobedient and they
were cursed and unfortunately though
Joshua tells us how they were given the
land the second book of Kings tells us
how it was taken away from them
again it's the tragic story now of how
the promises to bless them if they were
obedient and to curse them if they were
disobedient these books tell us actually
how those promises were fulfilled they
were blessed at first and then they were
cursed and from Joshua through to the
end of Kings it's the sad story of how
they got the promised land and how they
lost it again
the Book of Joshua is mainly a book of
obedience but the seeds of Disobedience
are there they got Jericho all right but
they didn't get the next town
AI because they were disobedient so the
seeds were already there of losing the
land but it didn't happen for many
centuries and then they lost it totally
again so here the Covenant was
established between God and the People Israel
Israel
but here it was
expressed it was practically applied to
their life and so we can see the first
five books as cause and the next six
books as the
effect and you can explain everything
that happens in these books in terms of
what was said
here so that we we are into a different
part of the Old Testament in English
unfortunately we don't notice that
because there are no separate headings
it's just one book after another but I
hope you can see that there is a sharp
contrast and we're into something quite
different now one of the big questions
about all these historical books is did
it actually
happen and I want to mention now a trend
in modern scholarship which is very
dangerous and that is to say that the
truth in the Bible is not historical or
scientific but truth of moral and religious
religious
value now let me spell that
out people widely believe that the Bible
is full of truth but what kind of
Truth and to say it is a book of moral
and religious truth but not necessarily
scientific or historical truth is a very shaky
shaky
position behind this distinction lies
the concept of
myth or leg if you like or saga and the
idea is that it doesn't matter whether
it actually happened or not but it still
has a truth to teach us do you follow me
now of course there are parts of the
Bible that are like that Jesus parables
are all technically
myth it doesn't matter whether there was
an actual prodigal son or not the
important thing is the story has a truth
in it do you follow me and it's very
clear that jesus' parables are like that
that he made up the story to communicate
a truth but when you start saying the
whole Bible is like that then you are
into very different territory do you
follow me so when you start saying that
the stories in the Bible like the story of
of
Jericho they have a
truth but don't believe that they
actually happened
they are
myth containing truth not lies but
truth now that development has happened
a pace it virtually treats everything in
the Bible as Parables do you follow me
that there are all just legendary
stories made up to convey moral and
religious truth to us something like eso's
eso's
fables and none of eso's fables actually
happen but they all contain a truth if
you've read them you know
now that began in the 19th century to be
applied to the Book of
Genesis and it began to be said Adam and
Eve didn't ever actually live it is a
myth it is a story to communicate a
truth and the truth is that if you tell
somebody not to touch something they
want to go and touch it and that's the
truth in Genesis 3 you follow me I'm not
now advocating this I'm just trying to
explain to you what's been happening so
at first Adam and Eve were were regarded
as Fable as Parable as Adam Adam was
every man not a particular man he was
every man and Eden was everywhere not a
particular place but contained a truth
which could be dug out of it to get at
that truth you have to
demythologize the story you have to get
rid of the story part and just keep the
truth part of it well it soon began to
apply to others to know next and Noah's
flood didn't happen but the story of the
flood has a moral or religious truth in
it for us so the Bible became not a book
of history but a book of values that's
the favorite term that's being used
nowadays it's got value but it's moral
and religious not historical or
scientific then it began to be applied
to Abraham Isaac and Jacob then Jonah
began to be treated as a myth even
though he's presented as a factual man with
with
genealogy in the book of kings and now
it has even got right into the New
Testament and in fact many now Church
figures question whether the Virgin
birth actually
happened but it is a story with a truth
in it you see it's got value for us but
not historical then it finally was
applied to the resurrection of Jesus
himself and we have Bishops saying that
it doesn't matter if jesus' bones lie
rotting in the Middle East that doesn't
affect the story of the resurrection and
the story contains the truth that Jesus
influence went on after his
death now this is a process that uh was
particularly applied to the Book of
Joshua and the story of
Jericho and the reason why all this
developed was to make the Bible
acceptable in a scientific age because
this enabled the Miracles to be
dismissed as
stories and not actual events and you
can see the motivation behind this well
now what's wrong with that because you
see the Book of Joshua is full of what a
scientific age says are impossible
things the walls of Jericho is are not
the biggest problem the biggest problem
is the Sun and the Moon standing still
for a whole
day and if it wasn't them that stood
still but the Earth that stopped
revolving why wasn't everybody flung off
into space when the whole Earth stopped
with a
jerk and so that is claimed to be a myth
the truth in the story is that God wants
to help us win our
battles but the historical truth is not
there now I hope I've said enough to
show you this development it is very
widespread so when you turn to the Book
of Joshua you're faced with rivers
drying up and walls collapsing and Sun
and Moon standing still what do you make
of all that in a scientific
age well let's assume that there are
fiction for a moment and that they are simply
simply
Legends so we cut them out we
demythologize the
book what's
left if you cut the Miracles out of the
books of the Bible you are left with a
purely human
history and you might as well study the
history of ancient
Tibet I'm sure you'd find some value in
that but this is serious once you cut
out the miraculous part and say that's
ridiculous it it couldn't
happen you are actually cutting out
God's part in
history and you're only left then with men's
men's
part and what's the point of studying
men's history 3,000 years ago I see no
point in it at all I might as well
lecture to you on Chinese culture in the
Ministry or whatever it is see it it's
as it's as irrelevant as that because in
fact the miraculous is absolutely
fundamental to The Bible History so
fundamental that if you cut that out
there really isn't anything left worth
studying now let's take this a little
further than
that Joshua presents us with real people
places real places the Jordan River is a
real place you can go and see it I've
baptize people in it Jericho is a real
place I've stood on the ruins of it
Jerusalem is a real place you can go and
stand in the
streets and the people the Canaanites
were real people archaeology
demonstrates this the Israelites are
real people their descendants are still
with us furthermore the Book of Joshua
claims to be written by I
Witnesses it's written in the first
person plural we marched around the
walls of
Jericho now that's a direct claim of
people who said we were there we saw
what happened why should it be thought
that a scholar in the 20th century
ad knows better what happened than
someone who was actually there it's a
strange Prejudice that comes to such a
conclusion so the claims to be a record
of events written at the time and one of
the frequent little phrases that comes
in the book is and it is there to this
day so people could go and check up on
what had been recorded now to dismiss
all this as myth is a very arrogant
thing to do unless you have very good
evidence furthermore
archaeology has been busy confirming a
great deal of Joshua
I'll tell you more about the archaeology
of Jericho in a moment but there are
other cities that they conquered cities like
like
hadzor uh and Lish and a number of other
cities and archaeologists have been busy
on all these cities and what they have
discovered is that over a period of 50
years the entire culture of all those
cities changed radically to a much simpler
simpler
lifestyle they were very sophisticated
cities they were very elaborate wealthy
cities with a culture of their own yet
over the space of 50 years all these
cities have been utterly destroyed and a
new City built on them of a very different
different
culture that's a remarkable thing for
archaeologists to have discovered and
the dating of that change exactly fits
with Joshua's account of how they took
those cities over a period of 50
years now let's be quite clear that
archaeology cannot prove a miracle
because it can only examine the results
of the miracle and wasn't there to
observe what happened at the time
archaeology can find Fallen
walls but it can't find out who knocked
them down for that we either have to say
it was a sheer coincidence and they fell
at just the right
moment or we've got to say it wasn't
chance at all and that God was also busy
at the time
and to God knocking a wall down is
nothing absolutely nothing now there are
also parallels to some of the events in
Joshua for example the Jordan River
regularly dries up in time of flood now
that sounds a contradiction but I'll
tell you how it happens it is a very Meandering
Meandering
River as it goes down the Jordan
Valley and in flood when it meanders it
undercuts the
banks on the curve and very often even
to this day when it undercuts one of the
big Banks the bank Falls in and
temporally dams the stream until it
rises and gets over the dam and it may
stop for four or five hours so these
things haven't just happened once they
happen again furthermore big buildings
do collapse I don't know how many
cathedrals in England have lost their
spires and Towers this way they've just
s ly
collapsed now I'm not trying to explain
the Miracles away but I'm saying these
are not isolated events what is
significant about them in the Book of
Joshua is that they happened at exactly
the minute that God said they would
happen and happened just when they were most
most
needed so you've still got a problem
even if you try and explain it away in
naturalistic terms the heart of the
issue is was God involved or not and if
you remove the supernatural events you
remove the Divine activity and you
reduce the Bible to human activity and
it then becomes like any other history
book of no more relevance to us today
than ancient
China you see the Bible is not the
history of
Israel there is so much excluded it's
not a complete history of Israel Joshua
covers 40 Years yet most of what
happened in those 40 years is not recorded
recorded
and the fall of Jericho fills about
three chapters it's out of all
proportion to be a history of Israel it
is actually the history of the god of
Israel the Bible is not the history of
what Israel did but it's the history of
what the god of Israel
did and if you cut out what he did you
cut out most of it because the reason
why certain things are given a lot of
chapters and other things no chapters
when God was doing something a lot of
attention is given when God wasn't busy
no attention
that's how the Bible is selected because
every history is a selection of events
according to what the historian thinks
is important or
significant and the Bible historians say
the only important things in our history
are what God
did because it's not just the history of
the god of Israel it's the history of
God and Israel it's the history of their Covenant
Covenant
relationship and it's the history of how
they got on with each other and how they
didn't get on on with each other and how
God reacted to what they did and so it's
a history of the god and Israel what he
said and did he's the real hero of the
drama can I put it as strongly as this
if God had not intervened on their
behalf they would never have got the promised
promised
land it's as simple as that because
humanly speaking it was an impossible
task for a bunch of ex-slaves who had no military
military
training to go in and take a well
fortified land and replace a culture
that was far superior to theirs in
humanistic terms it's impossible so if
you cut the supernatural out and you cut
God out you've got nothing left of what
we call the history of the Bible it is
not the history of Israel there must
have been many many things they did that
are not
here we can put it like this the
Covenant of SI I was like a
marriage the betrothal began with
Abraham that's when God became engaged
to this people at SII he got married the
rest of the years in SII were the
honeymoon it was a good deal longer than
intended but the bride wasn't ready to
look after a home
yet so uh the honeymoon lasted far far
longer but Joshua Begins the marriage
their home from their honeymoon now
they're setting up house together God
and Israel in the place he wants them to
live together the place he's chosen now
how did the marriage work out that's the
real question and I'm afraid it worked out
out
badly but since God hates divorce he
never let them go that's the beauty of
it he refused to divorce them had every
reason to so we have this sad story of a
marriage that didn't work out
but the faults were all on the wife's
side and God constantly called Israel my
wife I'm your
husband and when she went after other
gods he said now you've become an
adulteress and even a
prostitute but it's all in marriage
terms all the way through the Old
Testament what happened in SII was a wedding
wedding
service but a wedding is one thing and a
marriage is another and working out the
marriage after the honeymoon that's when
the real task
begins and or doesn't
begin well now let's uh look next at the
shape of the
book I always find it helpful to see the
overall shape of a book the structure of
it the outline and once I've got that I
can fit the bits in too often I'm afraid
we read the Bible in bits can you
imagine reading an Agatha Christi
novel 10 sentences at a time once a
week can you imagine I mean by the time
you got to chapter8 you'd have totally
forgotten what happened in chapter 1 and
yet we treat the Bible that way which is
the craziest way to read it the best way
to read the Bible is right through a
book at a time that's why I'm making
these videos to get you into the book
every sentence in a book takes its
meaning from the book that's the context
of every text and a text out of context
is a
pretext and if you can understand that
you'll understand everything else I say
let's look at the outline of Joshua
then it's a sandwich in three parts two
Thin slices of bread and a lot of
filling in the
middle there is chapter
1 and then chapters 23 and 24 other
bread in the sandwich and they are all
about this man
Joshua and the the prologue if you like
is his commission from
God and the epilogue is his final sermon
and death and burial so this book covers
the life of Joshua from the age of 80 to
the age of 120 40 years interestingly
enough that's exactly the same period of
moses' Life covered by Exodus Leviticus
Numbers in Deuteronomy from 80 to 120 40
years so these two men had the
same period of leadership the difference
was that Moses was a
lawgiver as well as a leader Joshua was
only a leader and lawg giving is
finished in the
middle chapters 2 to 22 is a simple
account of how they took the land that
God had promised them in spite of the
fact that it was already
occupied chapters 2 to 5 talk about
entering the land how they got over the
Jordan and into the promised land for
the first time one lovely little touch
is this the day they got over the
Jordan what is it
stopped mana mana stopped and for the
first time they had fruit and corn
flakes and they had a proper meal in
interesting as soon as they got over the
Jordan God stopped feeding them now you
got to feed yourselves he said but he'd
given them a land flowing with milk and
honey so that's entering chapters 2: 5
chapters 6 to 12 were how they conquered
the land and the strategy is
terrific you you divide to conquer and
so Joshua drove a wedge straight through
the middle of the Promised Land and
having divided the enemy troops into two
halves so they couldn't line up against
him he then cleaned up the North and
then he cleaned up the South brilliant
strategy and God showed him how to do it
but uh so he conquered the center first
then the South sorry then the south then
the north I gave it to you wrong way
round and then in chapter 12 we have a
list of
24 kings that Joshua
defeated now of course a king wasn't
necessarily a king over an Empire uh the
leader of a a tribe would be a king a
shake if you like uh but there 24 kings that
that
he then came the task of dividing the
land up between the tribes who'
conquered it so we have three simple
Parts in the middle of Joshua entering
the land conquering it and then dividing
it up and that's when they had a
national lottery but more of that
later literally true they had AAL
lottery for it and I'll tell you why in
a moment lotteries are
biblical right up to the day of
Pentecost and then they become
wrong and I'm sure you know where that
is but remember they chose the
replacement for Judas as scared by
Lottery well they did it not because
they were appealing to
chance but I'll tell you why they did it
later but they had a national lottery to
divide it now have you got the shape of
the book Joshua a sandwich his call and
commission which came from both God and
the people that's going to be a very
interesting point then he led them to
enter the land to conquer it and divided
it properly among the different tribes
and then he preached a final sermon to
them a magnificent sermon choose this
day who you will serve as for me in my
household I'll serve the Lord tremendous
dying you remember a man dying words
don't you and that was his last message
and then he's
buried well having got the shape let's
begin to look at it in Greater
detail very simple structure and a very obvious
obvious
outline I have to point out that I'm
afraid the chapter divisions in our
English Bible are so often in the wrong
place I wish I'd been able to do it but
uh in in fact I honestly believe it
should never never have been done I
believe very firmly that the Bible
should never have had chapter numbers in
it and never verse
numbers you would then have to know your
Bible but we become text people as if
God just gave us a box full of
individual verses that we can quote to
support anything we wish to prove and
the Bible's become a source of proof
texts for people and you can prove
anything you like from the Bible I can
prove atheism from the Bible there's a
verse that says there is no
God in the
Psalms then goes on to say the fool has
said in his heart there is no God but
there are the words there is no God you
can prove anything from the Bible by
proving texts but the context God gave
us a library of books he didn't give us
one book he gave us a library of books
and each book has its own character and
we must study the book as a whole if
we're really going to understand the
bible message
so let's look at his commission first he
was 80 and the call came to him from two
directions I like this I believe we need
this double call if we're going to
remain faithful to God you need a call
from God and you need a call from God's
people and if it's really a call from
God God's people will recognize it and
confirm it too many people say God has
told me to do this and it hasn't been
confirmed by God's people other people
have been forced into Christian work
because God's people have told them to
and they haven't heard from God about it
but when you've got both I'm now in a
traveling Ministry it's not what I would
have chosen but I live out of a suitcase
but I heard a direct call from God
through a prophetic word but I checked
it out with elders and the elders after
weighing it carefully said this is of
God and that's made me secure Hallelujah
I can do it knowing this double
confirmation God and his people look for
that double call so Joshua was called by
God it said God said Moses is dead well
Joshua knew
that but God said Moses is dead now
you and he said I will never leave you
nor forsake
you that's the
promise Moses got them out of Egypt you
ought to get them into
Canaan and those two tasks are very
important he says you will prosper and
be successful it doesn't mean you'll
become wealthy the word Prosper has been
misunderstood in the Bible it doesn't
mean wealth but there's a Prosperity
Gospel that has got hold of a lot of
people but Prosper prosperous means to
achieve what you set out to do that's a
wonderful promise May the Lord's people
Prosper not may they become wealthy but
may they succeed in what they said to do
for the
Lord and God said there are two
things are very important number one your
your
morale when you go into
Battle Tactics are important strategies
important but the thing that will win
the battle is
morale World War I turned on General
Montgomery he became insufferable in
Victory as Winston church will put it he
was unconquerable in battle but unu
sufferable in Victory or something but
nevertheless the Battle of Al alamain
North Africa that squeaky little voice
we're going to beat this chap
ruml we're going to win this battle and
a new voice of morale raised the eth
Army in the desert in World War II and
that was the turning point of the war
and it was largely on
morale and that's why God said to Joshua
your leadership will depend on
morale be of good courage M you must be
courageous you must say we're going to
win your courage will take the the
battle to Victory very important point
but the second important point is
morality and he said Joshua you must
keep my statutes you must obey my
laws morale and morality the two things
that God requires of a leader
interesting aren't they
well Joshua went and told the
peoplei now your leader Moses is dead
and do you know what the people said
they said be strong and courageous and
the people actually repeated word for
word what God had told him privately
what a lovely confirmation what a
witness and the people said this and you
may smile at this but they actually said
to him just as we fully obeyed
Moses we will Now obey obey
you now you've laughed at that but
actually you
shouldn't because they had this is a new generation
generation
remember the older generation hadn't
obeyed Moses but these were young men
this was a new whole new generation and
they had already conquered Moab Moab and
Ammon when they obeyed Moses they so
they weren't quite so disobedient as you
thought when I read that they genuinely
meant it they said we obeyed Moses we're
going to obey you now but be strong and
of a good courage we don't want a leader
who who gets cowardly or who gets doubts
about the
Crusade may the Lord be with you as he
was with Moses they said so now we come
to the actual heart of the
book and uh he led them to enter the
land conquer it and divide it all
related to the land the land the land
and that dominates the whole book now
Jordan was the barrier it was in flood
and it was 20 ft deep there are no
Bridges and the Fords were all well
underwater at this time of year it's the
flood time the Rainy
time the first thing he does
before entering is to send spies
in but he's not going to send
12 he sends two
perhaps he remembers that the two spies
came back with a good report but he only
sent two not 12 now listen faith is not fool
fool
hearty Jesus emphasized sit down and
count the cost before you go to battle
it's very wise to sus out the situation
to find out what you're
facing full hard in US is not faith and
there's a very narrow dividing line
between the two some people who do
things by faith are really being foolish
they haven't thought it all out they
don't know really what they're taking on
and that is not faith faith isn't Blind
Faith looks at the situation sends the
spies in now find out what's the
situation and above all he didn't want
to report on the military might he
wanted to report on their
morale what's their morale
like now that they've seen us coming
well the spies found lodging in a brothel
brothel
rahav she became an ancestor of
Jesus the most incredible
story a
prostitute and she took them in and she hid
hid
them and the men of the city heard that
spies had come in and they came looking
for them and she hid them under straw in the
the
roof and when the men had gone she sent
them West she said don't go back to the
river they'll be looking for you go
further west into the hills and then in
a few days go back she saved their lives
why did she do it she said because I
believe in your
God he's going to give you this
land and I want to be on your
side that's Faith incredible faith and
one result is that she is held up in the
New Testament by two of the writers in
the New Testament as a wonderful example
of faith not a good woman but a woman of
faith and God can do more with a a bad
woman who's got faith and a good woman
who doesn't have faith we often forget
that so here was this prostitute and she
hid them and saved their lives and so
they actually remembering the blood of
the Passover Lamb they said hang
something Scarlet out of your
window and we won't touch it we'll pass
over your house interesting isn't it so
she hung something that looked like
cord and therefore her house was the
only house that didn't fall
down well now that's what happened
before uh what happened
happened
during the Crossing into the see well
the the Jordan dried up but it dried up
just as the priest's feet who were
carrying the ark touched the
water yes it means that further up the
river the bank caved in and Damned the
Stream tempor but why did it do it at
just that
moment see there's so many coincidences
in the Bible that statistically it can't
be it just cannot be the odds are much
too high and so the people got
across on dry land virtually whereas the
earlier what was really happening this
generation had never seen the crossing
of the Red Sea
so God's doing it for them
again that
lovely they'd heard about the Red
Sea but did they really believe that God
could do such things they were a whole
new generation so now they know the god
of their fathers is with them too that's
I believe what it
happened a repetition of the Red Sea for
the new
generation well I think my time this
talk has gone so we'll stop there and
we've got a lot more to do in the next
talk so come back and we'll continue
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