_JOSHUA'S CALL._
JOSHUA i. 2-5.
Joshua has heard the Divine voice summoning him to the attitude of
activity--"Arise!" Directions follow immediately as to the course
which his activity is to take. His first step is to be a very
pronounced one--"Go over this Jordan": enter the land, not by
yourself, or with a handful of comrades, as you did forty years ago,
but "thou and all this people." Take the bold step, cross the river;
and when you are across the river, take possession of the country
which I now give to your people. The time has come for decided action;
it is for you to show the way, and summon your people to follow.
It was a very solemn and striking moment, second only in interest to
that when, forty years before, their fathers had stood at the edge of
the sea, with the host of Pharaoh hurrying on behind. At length the
hour has come to take possession of the inheritance! At length the
promise made so many hundred years ago to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is
ripe for fulfilment! You, children of Israel, have seen that God is in
no haste to fulfil His promises, and your hearts may have known much
of the sickness of hope deferred. But now you are to see that after
all God is faithful. He never forgets. He makes no mistakes. His
delays are all designed for good, either to chasten or to try, and
thus confirm and bless His people. He will now bring forth your
righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noon-day.
There were two things that might make Joshua and the people hesitate
to cross the Jordan. In the first place, the river was in flood; it
was the time when the Jordan overflowed its banks (Josh. iii. 15),
and, being a rapid river, crossing it in such circumstances might well
seem out of the question. But in the second place, to cross the Jordan
was to throw down the gauntlet to the enemy. It was a declaration of
war, and a challenge to them to do their worst. It was a signal for
them to assemble, fight for their hearths and homes, and strain every
nerve to annihilate this invader who made such a bold claim to their
possessions. All the children of Anak whom Joshua had seen on his
former visit would now range themselves against Israel; all the seven
nations would muster their bravest forces, and the contest would not
be like Joshua's battle with Amalek, finished in a single day, but a
long succession of battles, in which all the resources of power and
skill, of craft and cunning would be brought to bear against Israel.
According to appearances, nothing short of this would be the result of
compliance with the command, "Go over this Jordan."
On the one hand, therefore, compliance was physically impossible, and
on the other, even if possible, it would have been fearfully perilous.
But it is never God's method to give impossible commands. The very
fact of His commanding anything is a proof of His readiness to make it
possible, nay, to make it easy and simple to those who have faith to
attempt it. "Stretch out thy hand," said Christ to the man with the
withered hand. "Stretch out my hand?" the man might have said in
astonishment,--"why, it is the very thing I am unable to do." "Rise up
and walk," said Peter to the lame man at the Beautiful gate. "How can
I do that?" he might have replied; "don't you see that I have no use
of my limbs?" But in these cases the helpless men had faith in those
who bade them exert themselves; they believed that if they tried they
would be helped, and helped accordingly they were. So too in the
present case. Joshua knew that he and the host could not have crossed
the Jordan as it then was by any contrivance in his power; but he knew
that it was God's command, and he was sure that He would provide the
means. He felt as if God and the people were in partnership, each
equally interested in the result, and equally desirous to bring it
about. Whatever it was necessary for God to do he was assured would be
done, provided he and the people entered into the Divine plan, and
threw all their energies into the work. Not a word of remonstrance did
Joshua offer, not a word of explanation of the Divine plan did he ask;
he acted as a servant should;
"His not to make reply,
His not to reason why;"
his only to trust and obey.
This faith in Divine power qualifying feeble mortals for the hardest
tasks has originated some of the noblest enterprises in the history of
the world. It was a Divine voice Columbus seemed to hear bidding him
cross the wild Atlantic, for he desired to bring the natives of the
distant shores beyond it into the pale of the Church; and it was his
faith that sustained him when his crew became mutinous and his life
was not safe for an hour. It was a Divine voice Livingstone seemed to
hear bidding him cross Africa, strike up into the heart of the
continent, examine its structure, and throw it open from shore to
shore; and never was there a faith stronger or steadier than that
which bore him on through fever and famine, through pain and sickness,
through disappointment and anguish, and, even when the cold hand of
death was on him, would not let him rest until his work was done.
Often in the spiritual warfare it is useful to apply this principle.
Are we called to believe? Are we called to make ourselves a new heart
and a new spirit? Are we summoned to fight, to wrestle, to overcome?
Certainly we are. But is not this to tantalize us by ordering us to do
what we cannot do? Is not this like telling a sick man to get well, or
a decrepit old creature to skip and frisk like a child? It would be so
if the principle of partnership between God and us did not come into
play. Faith says, God is my partner in this matter. Partners even in
an ordinary business put their resources together, each doing what his
special abilities fit him for. In the partnership which faith
establishes between God and you, the resources of the infinite Partner
become available for the needs of the finite. It is God's part to give
orders, it is your part to execute them, and it is God's part to
strengthen you so to do. It is this that makes the command reasonable,
"Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Faith
rejoices in the partnership, and goes forward in the confidence that
the strength of the Almighty will help its weakness, not by one sudden
leap, but by that steady growth in grace that makes the path of the
just like the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the
perfect day.
It was a great thing for God to announce that He was now in the act of
turning His old, old promise into reality,--that the land pledged to
Abraham centuries ago was now at length to become the possession of
his descendants. But the gift could be of no avail unless it was
actually appropriated. God gave the people the right to the land; but
their own energy, made effectual through His grace, could alone secure
the possession. In a remarkable way they were made to feel that, while
the land was God's gift, the appropriation and enjoyment of the gift
must come through their own exertions. Just as in a higher sphere we
know that our salvation is wholly the gift of God; and yet the getting
hold of this gift, the getting linked to Christ, the entrance as it
were into the marriage covenant with Him involves the active exertion
of our own will and energy, and the gift never can be ours if we fail
thus to appropriate it.
As soon as God mentions the land, He expatiates on its amplitude and
its boundaries. It was designed to be both a comfortable and an ample
possession. In point of extent it was a spacious region,--"from the
wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river
Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea,
towards the going down of the sun." And it was not merely bits or
corners of this land that were to be theirs, they were not designed to
share it with other occupants, but "every place that the sole of your
foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses."
It was in no meagre or stingy spirit that God was now to fulfil His
ancient promise, but in a way corresponding to the essential
bountifulness of His nature. For it is a delightful truth that God's
heart is large and liberal, and that He delights in large and
bountiful gifts. Has He not made this plain to all in the arrangements
of nature? What more lavish than the gift of light, ever streaming
from the sun in silver showers? What more abundant than the fresh air
that, like an inexhaustible ocean, encompasses our globe, or the
rivers that carry their fresh and fertilizing treasures unweariedly
through every meadow? What more productive than the vegetable soil
that under favourable conditions teems with fruits and flowers and the
elements of food for the use and enjoyment of man?
And when we turn to God's provision in grace we find glorious proofs
of the same abundance and generosity. We see this symbolized by the
activity and generosity of our Lord, as He went about "preaching the
gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all
manner of disease among the people." We understand the spiritual
reality of which this was the symbol, when we call to mind the Divine
generosity that receives the vilest sinners; the efficacy of the blood
that cleanses from all sin; the power of the Spirit that sanctifies
soul, body, and spirit; the wisdom of the providence that makes all
things work together for good; the glory of the love that makes us now
"sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is." And once more it appears in the glory and amplitude of the
inheritance, of which the land of Canaan was but the type, prepared of
God's infinite bounty for all who are His children by faith. Our
Father's house is both large and well furnished; it is a house of many
mansions; and the inheritance which He has promised is incorruptible
and undefiled and fadeth not away.
It is a grand truth, of which we never can make too much, this
bountifulness of God, and the delight which He has in being bountiful.
It is emphatically a truth for faith to apprehend and enjoy, because
appearances are so often against it. Appearances were fearfully
against it while the Israelites were groaning in their Egyptian
bondage, and hardly less so, despite the manna and the water from the
rock, during the forty years' wandering in the desert. But that was a
period of correction and of training, and in such circumstances lavish
bounty was out of the question.
The most bountiful man on earth could not pour out all the liberality
of his heart on the inmates of a hospital for the sick; he may give
all that sick men need, but he must wait till they are well before he
can give full scope to his generosity. While we are in the body we are
like patients in a hospital, and the kindest feelings from God toward
us must often take the form of bitter medicines, painful operations,
close restraint, stinted diet, and it may be silence and darkness. But
wait till we are well, and then we shall see what God hath prepared
for him that waiteth for Him! Wait till we go over Jordan and take
possession of the land! Two things will be seen in the clearest
light--the supreme bountifulness of God, and the sinfulness of that
impatient and suspicious spirit to which we are so prone. What a
humiliation, if humiliation be possible in heaven, to discover that
all the time when we were fretting and grumbling, God was working out
His plans of supreme beneficence and love, waiting only till we should
come of age to make us heirs of the universe!
It is natural to ask why, if the boundaries of the promised land were
so extensive, if they reached so far on the north-east as the
Euphrates, and if they extended from Lebanon on the north to the
confines of Egypt on the south, there should have been any difficulty
about the two and a half tribes occupying the land east of the Jordan,
where only by a special permission they obtained their settlement. For
it is plain from the narrative that it was contrary to God's first
intention, so to speak, that they should settle there, and that the
land west of the Jordan was that to which the promise was held
specially to apply. It will hardly do to say, as some have said, that
the extension of the land to the Euphrates was a figure of speech, a
poetical fringe or ornament as it were, intended to show that places
adjacent to the land of Israel would share in some degree the radiance
of its light and the influence of the Divine presence among its
people. For the promise of God was really of the nature of a charter,
and figures of poetry are not suitable in charters. It is rather to be
understood that, in the _final_ purpose of God, the possession
included the whole of the ample domain contained within the specified
boundaries, but that at first it would be confined within a narrower
space. If the people should prove faithful to the covenant, the wider
dominion would one day be conferred on them; but they were to start
and get consolidated in a narrower territory. And the narrower space
was that which had already been consecrated by the residence of the
fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The country west of Jordan was the
land of _their_ pilgrimage; and even when Lot and Abraham had to
separate, it was not proposed that either should cross the river. The
little strip lying between the Jordan and the sea was judged most
suitable for the preparatory stage of Israel's history; but had the
nation served God with fidelity, their country would have been
extended--as in the days of David and Solomon it really was--to the
dimensions of an empire. The rule afterwards announced was to be
virtually brought into operation--"To him that hath shall be given."
Hence the view taken of the settlement of the two and a half tribes
east of the Jordan. It was not illegitimate; it was not inconsistent
with the covenant made with the fathers; but it was for the time
inexpedient, seeing that it exposed them to risks, both material and
spiritual, which it would have been better for them to avoid.
One geographical expression, in the delimitation of the country,
demands a brief explanation. While the country is defined as embracing
the whole territory from Lebanon to the Euphrates, it is also defined
as consisting in that direction of "all the land of the Hittites." But
were not the Hittites one of the seven nations whose land was promised
to Abraham and the fathers, and not even the first in the enumeration
of these? Why should this great north-eastern section of the promised
domain be designated "the land of the Hittites"?
The time was when it was a charge against the accuracy of the
Scripture record that it ascribed to the Hittites this extensive
dominion. That time has passed away, inasmuch as, within quite recent
years, the discovery has been made that in those distant times a great
Hittite empire did exist in the very region specified, between Lebanon
and the Euphrates. The discovery is based on twofold data: references
in the Egyptian and other monuments to a powerful people, called the
Khita (Hittites), with whom even the great kings of Egypt had long and
bloody wars; and inscriptions in the Hittite language, found in
Hamah, Aleppo, and other places in Syria. There is still much
obscurity resting on the history of this people. That the Hittites
proper prevailed so extensively has been doubted by some; a Hittite
confederacy has been supposed, and sometimes a Hittite aristocracy
exercising control over a great empire. The only point which it is
necessary to dwell on here is, that in representing the tract between
Lebanon and Euphrates as equivalent to "all the land of the Hittites,"
the author of the Book of Joshua made a statement which has been
abundantly verified by recent research.[3]
[3] See "The Empire of the Hittites." By William Wright, D.D.,
F.R.G.S. London, 1886.
To encourage and animate Joshua to undertake the work and position of
Moses it is very graciously promised--"There shall not any man be able
to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so
will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." The
invariable success promised was a greater boon than the greatest
conquerors had been able to secure. Uniform success is a thing hardly
known to captains of great expeditions, even though in the end they
may prevail. But the promise to Joshua is, that all his enemies shall
flee before him. None of his battles shall be even neutral, his
opponents must always give way.[4] No son of Anak shall be able to
oppose his onward march; no giant, like Og King of Bashan, shall
terrify either him or his troops. He will "onward still to victory
go,"--the Lord of hosts ever with him, the God of Jacob ever his
defence.
[4] The promise is not inconsistent with the fact that Joshua's
troops were defeated by the men of Ai. In such promises there is
an implied condition of steadfast regard to God's will on the part
of those who receive them, and this condition was violated at Ai,
not by Joshua, indeed, but by one of his people.
And this was no vague, indefinite assurance. It was sharply defined by
a well-known example in the immediate past--"As I was with Moses, so I
will be with thee." In what a remarkable variety of dangers and trials
God was with Moses! Now he had to confront the grandest monarch on
earth, supported by the strongest armies, and upheld by what claimed
to be the mightiest gods. Again he had to deal with an apostate
people, mad upon idols, and afterwards with an excited mob, ready to
stone him. Anon he had to overcome the forces of nature and bend them
to his purposes; to call water from the rock, to sweeten the bitter
fountain, to heal the fiery bite, to cure his sister's leprous body,
to bring down bread from heaven, and people the air with flocks of
birds. Moreover, he had to be the messenger of the covenant between
God and Israel, to unfold God's law in its length and breadth and in
all its variety of application, and to obtain from the people a hearty
compliance--"All that the Lord hath said unto us, that will we do."
What a marvellous work Moses did! What a testimony his life presented
to the reality of the Divine presence and guidance, and what a solid
and indefeasible ground of trust God gave to Joshua when He said, "As
I was with Moses, so will I be with thee."
And this is crowned with the further assurance, "I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee,"--an assurance which is extended in the Epistle to
the Hebrews to all who believe. We are so apt to view these promises
as just beautiful expressions that we need to pause and think what
they really mean. A promise of Divine presence, Divine protection and
guidance and blessing all the days of our life, is surely a treasure
of inexpressible value. It is no slight matter to realize that this
is in God's heart--that He has a constant, unvarying feeling of love
toward us, and readiness to help; but we must believe this in order to
get the benefit of it; and, moreover, He must be left to determine the
time, the manner, and the form in which His help is to come. Alas for
the unbelief, the suspicion, the fear that is so prone to eat out the
spirit of trust, and in our trials and difficulties make us tremble as
if we were alone! What a profound peace, what calm enjoyment and
blessed hope fall to the lot of those who can believe in a God ever
near, and in His unfailing faithfulness and love! Was it not the
secret alike of David's calmness, of our Lord's serenity, and of the
cheerful composure of many a martyr and many a common man and woman
who have gone through life undisturbed and happy, that they could
say--"I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right
hand, I shall not be moved"? God grant us all that, like Abraham, we
may "stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief but that being
strong in faith we may give glory to God, and believe that what He
hath promised He is able also to perform."