Joshua 1:10-15

Aspects of Human Character

Jos 1:10-15

THESE opening paragraphs present Joshua in several interesting aspects, which we may profitably consider and personally apply: for there is nothing old in them, in the sense of outwornness; what is old in them is old in the sense of venerableness, ascertained reality, enduring energy and virtue. In that sense we must never give up what is old. Whatever is effete, exhausted, evidently done, you may shake off into forgetfulness, because however good it once was, it has served its time, and the age longs for some new inspiration, and clearer, broader, direction and guidance.

First of all, Joshua comes before us as a man with great official antecedents. He does not succeed a little man: he begins what, from the human point of view, is a rivalry that will strain his energy and test his quality. Men cannot go from a leader like Moses and follow some inferior personage, as if he filled up all the space and represented what was necessary to satisfy the heart's hunger. This web cannot be continued, as to the weaving of it, by an apprenticed and unskilled hand. Our call is precisely the same.

Every age succeeds an age marked by greatness peculiarly its own. We are born now into a grand civilisation; it admits of no indolence, or reluctance as to work, and it cannot be satisfied by what is petty, perfunctory, and inexpensive as to the strength which is laid out upon it History brings its responsibilities. To be born immediately after such and such leaders have played their part in the world's theatre is itself to have a cross of no mean weight laid upon the shoulder. We may close our eyes and think nothing about these things, but we do not thereby make them the less realities, nor do we thereby destroy the standard of judgment which they force upon us and by which our life will be tested. To close the eyes is to play a foolish part Every man should say, Whom do I succeed? Whose are these footprints near the place whereon I stand? Has a giant been here a great leader, a noble sufferer, a patient student, a father great in love, a mother greater still? then my responsibility begins with their greatness and goodness; what I have to do the soliloquist should say is to go on: where they have been great, I must try to be greater still, or if not along their line, along some line of my own, so that the ages may not stagger backwards but with steadiness and majesty of strength advance from one degree to another as the light increases to the perfect day. Thus we honour our ancestors; thus we bury Moses not in the grave of forgetfulness, but by turning his strength, wisdom, patience, foresight, and energy into elements which contribute to the sustenance and ennobling of our manhood. Now it has come to pass that every man is in a great historical succession. That succession may not localise itself in his particular family, but we do not live within the four corners of a measurable house: we are citizens of the world; whatever was done in the past was done for our sakes, upon whom the end of time has come for every age has an end of time to itself: every age must look for the Lord and say He will be here present at midnight at the crowing of the cock, ere the dawn has time to whiten the east and purple the mist-shrouded hills. Be ready! watch! Let those who have wives be as if they had none; let those who have fields ready for reaping be as if they had none; his chariot-wheels are sounding: he will be here today to-morrow: in that expectation we should live! It is in vain to say it is not realised in what we call localisation, or narrow fact: he comes when he moves our heart to an expectation of his coming; he descends upon us when he so ennobles our prayer as to make us feel more in heaven than on earth. So we have a great past; and that great past creates a solemn present, and forecasts a brilliant future, and clothes all life with responsibility and honour. So far, there is nothing old in the story of the soldier-prophet: he followed a great man; we follow men also great

In the next place, we find Joshua as a man with a definite purpose, a purpose which Moses could not have carried out. One man completes the work of another. Moses was a legislator: Joshua was a soldier, in every line of his story the soldier is evident. How he listens; how acute his attention; look at him he is all ear! Nothing can miss the observation of a man who looks like that when a voice from heaven speaks to him. He asks no questions, raises no difficulties; he receives hi marching-orders, and rises. The soldier is born in the man-not the petty fighter, not the pugnacious aggressor and self-promoter, but the valiant man, the heroic man, the man who sees only the purpose and hears only the command, who has no ear for objection, but a great capacity for inspiration. This is the secret of strength. Joshua did not attempt a hundred things: he concentrated his strength, for he had for the time being only one thing to do. What is there old in this state of affairs? Nothing that need awaken our contempt, or content us in our disregard. Why do not men succeed today? Often because they have no purpose, and not seldom because they have more purposes than one. To have a hundred purposes may be to have no purpose at all. Some men run away in multiplicity of vocation: they diffuse themselves, and by unwise attenuation their strength is gone, and when they strike they miss the object of their blow or smite it with a feeble hand. Every man should ask himself, what is my purpose in life? What have I to do? Am I prophet or soldier or minstrel? Am I commander or servant? Is it mine to create new heavens and a new earth, or mine to be diligent in heaven's light and make some corner of the earth greener and happier than it was before? That question may be put by every one, by the simplest and obscurest. Blessed is that servant who is found waiting, watching, doing the work of the moment, and satisfied with it because it is preparing him for some larger duty yet to be disclosed. How criminal it is to fritter away strength; how often we hear the moan of old age to the effect: Had I but pursued one definite line for the last twenty years, had I but been constant to the thing I could do, without making experiments in things I could not do, how different would have been my lot today; but I was here and there and yonder; I ran with the crowd, I scattered my power, and today I have nothing to show; I have been a truant, a runner after bubbles that gleamed in the air and which, had I caught them, would have fallen to nothingness in my grasp. Why not learn from that moan? Why not vow to be some one thing, to pursue that one thing steadily? And why not vow especially to keep within the line of your obvious talent? along that line you will find honour and restfulness and gladness of heart: it is enough for you. Few are the men that can take up more lines than one. He who is faithful in the least shall be promoted to rulership, and shall be surprised that steady regard for one object in life has secretly and unconsciously prepared the industrious servant for the rulership of five cities, or ten. Power grows, capacity enlarges; thou knowest not how.

In the third place, Joshua comes before us as a man with a divine qualification. God "spake" to him. God promises not to "fail" him: "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee" ( Jos 1:5 ). What did God want in return? Cheerfulness: "Be strong and of a good courage.... Only be thou strong and very courageous... turn not... to the right hand or to the left," be strong and of a good heart. So Joshua did not go to war at his own charges. Is there anything old and outworn in that happy reflection? Inspiration cannot cease until the Holy Ghost expires. It is the very function of the Holy Ghost to inspire; without that function he has, so to say, no mission amongst men; the very fact of his being the Spirit of God invests him with the continual prerogative to inspire and qualify his Church. We may all be divinely qualified; and unless we are so qualified our work ends in a cloud blown away by the veering wind. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." "If ye being evil" broken-minded, dim of eye, and feeble altogether "know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more " what a challenge to the contemplation and measurement of magnitude! "how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask him." "Ye have not because ye ask not, or because ye ask amiss." There is nothing that a man can do of his own strength. Inspiration must not be confined to what is too narrowly called the Church. No man can go forth to his labour to do it with real skill and with pureness of motive without being divinely qualified. He who handles the graving-tool handles it with fingers God made, and uses metal which God created in the earth. We must not have a Church God, a Sabbath deity, an altar available only one day in the week: we must live and move and have our being in God. The Lord inspires the letter-writer, the reader, the father, the merchant, the poorest labourer in the poorest sphere. Are the insects not regarded? Does a worm move in the mould apart from the eternal throne? "The earth is the Lord's, and the "fulness thereof;" and if any man has arisen to mark off the world into "sacred" and "secular," "religious" and "profane," he has not studied geography in God's sanctuary. Let us, then, seek divine qualification that we may do our poorest work well and treat our one talent as if it were a thousand, for if the talents be few in number they determine the consequent responsibility, only "be strong and of a good courage;" "only be thou strong" we read again "and very courageous," rise to the work, take pleasure in it; if you do the work as an addition to something else of a different quality, what wonder if it be a joyless task and if the reluctant heart has only one prayer prayer for eventide and release from toil? The Church is lacking in courage: she allows every one who pleases to arise and insult her; she soon loses heart; she says The enemy is too strong for me: I will keep within doors. So saying, what has she lost? A comprehensive and just sense of her mission; she has lost God!

What does all this issue in but in divinely-promised and divinely-guaranteed success. "Thou shalt make thy way prosperous.... Thou shalt have good success.... Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed."... "Only be thou strong and very courageous." Let the youngest student hear this word and obey it Take heart again. If you are weary tor the moment, rest awhile. Do not abandon the study: tomorrow you will come to it with a conqueror's heart; the pages will almost turn over of themselves, and he who wrote the difficult lines will annotate them and turn them into gracious simplicity, "only be thou strong and very courageous." The meaning is that you may rest, sit down awhile, recover strength: but whilst expending your energy you need not surrender your courage. Hope wins; gladness conquers; confidence in God beats down the mountains and lifts up the places that are below the valley. These are the guarantees of success. The issue will be good. Virtue, it is proverbially known, is its own reward. There is a mystery about this which the heart knows full well. Being busy in the right way, how the time flies! There is no time to the truly-inspired worker; he has but one complaint which he translates in some such words as How short the day is! It is no sooner dawn than it is evening! How have the hours flown away! What is the voice of the sluggard in regard to this same matter of time? a voice of complaint: the hours are leaden-footed: they will not move, they are a burden; and the heart dies for want of what is called excitement. True work brings its own heaven with it. The true toiler lifts up his head from his task, saying I began it in God's strength, I have carried it on in divine energy, and I am only sorry that I cannot do more of it and do it better, God permit that tomorrow may be as this day and more abundant. Christian workers all bear this testimony; there is no break or flaw in the massive and noble witness. All history testifies that to serve God is already to enter into rest.

Whilst Joshua comes before us so, there is an aspect or two in which the divine Being presents himself worthy of our notice. He comes before us in this record as removing men. He said unto Moses Your work is done. It is for him to say when the tale has been completed. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? Is there not a dial by which the shadow makes known to men when the evening approacheth? We are all immortal until our work is done. Do not fret yourselves about the latter end, let it come in God's time. To die now in the fulness of your strength and hope would be indeed a species of murder, but you will be led gently down the easy slope, step by step, little by little, until you say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ; I want to sleep, I long to see the upper world." Do not be in bondage all your lifetime through fear of death. When death does come to the true Christian worker and waiter, it will come as a veiled angel; and when you are shut up together in the chamber you will have sweet converse and call the interview the beginning of heaven.

God comes before us as explaining his own method towards man. Canaan was promised as a gift, and now it must be fought for! Long ago we heard that this land was to be presented, and now as the history evolves we find that it is to be conquered! This is the divine method in all things. "I will give thee," is the one word; "rise and do battle," is the completing word. We value what we labour for; we treat with contemptuous disregard that which costs us nothing. We enter into rest by the gate of labour. We enjoy Canaan because we have toiled after a divine manner for it. So with heaven: it will come as a kind of reward for industry and labour, faith and love, prayer and patience. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things." It will seem as if the Lord had permitted us to fight our way to heaven and to have won it by dint of valour. Nor do we claim any merit herein, or look upon heaven as a prize for superior strength. It pleases the Lord to accommodate himself to our modes of expression: so we shall have as a reward what we could not have obtained as the result of labour: our faith will be credited with the miracles which were wrought solely by divine grace; rulership will be given as a prize when it never could have been won as a reward. We need have no fear of corrupting the mind upon these questions, and so bedimming our vision as to lose full, clear sight of the divine glory. What we have to remember is this: God is king; God is the source of inspiration; God calls whom he will to such and such offices: the distribution of honour and place is with God, but he called all Israel to the land, to its possession and enjoyment; they were not all equal to Moses, they were not all equal to Joshua, they were not all commanders and mighty men, but the wise wife and the little ones and the whole host were all regarded by the divine love. So it is in the greater scheme of things divine which we call Providence, or by the nobler name of Redemption. We are not all called to bear the mantle of Elijah, or to play upon the harp of David, or to sing in the lofty strains of Isaiah, or to see the mystic symbolism of Ezekiel; we cannot argue like Paul, or love like John, or pray like Peter. Some are called to high places and to great honour, and are clothed with responsibility as with a garment, but, blessed be God, whilst there can be but few leaders, few commanders, few prophets and poets and legislators, the great call of God is to every man under heaven: "He that believeth shall be saved;" "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." So, whilst we speak of sovereignty and appointment, and distribution of place and honour, we are not speaking of the great matter of human salvation, for the Gospel is to be sounded unto all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues. Wherever the Gospel is preached it is to signify love, welcome, offered pardon, offered heaven. For such a Gospel praise be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Selected Note

All the after life of Joshua is the carrying out with a remarkable simplicity of unquestioning faith this first charge of his God. His obedience is immediate.... At once he assumes in all its breadth the office so committed to his hands, and as God's vicegerent "commands the officers of the people" ( Jos 1:10 ).

The first command was one which showed his great faith, and tested strongly the obedience of the people. The river Jordan lay between the camp and the land of their promised inheritance, and it must be passed over by them at the very outset of their march. But how could this be accomplished? Even if it were possible, with difficulty and risk, to transport over it a chosen handful of warriors, how could he possibly carry over the mixed multitude the women and the children, and the flocks and the herds? Even over the fords of Jordan, under the most favourable circumstances of the river, this would have been almost impossible; and at this season of the year, when, from the melting of the snow upon the highlands, Jordan war greatly flooded (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest), it was more than ever impossible ( Jos 3:15 ). Yet down to these threatening floods, on the hopeless errand of passing over them, all the people are ordered to inarch. Surely, it must have been a sore strain upon the simple faith of the young commander to issue such an order. But his faith was strong, and he commanded, and was obeyed.

Samuel Wilberforce, D.D

Prayer

Thy word is exceedingly comfortable to our souls, thou Father of spirits, thou God of eternity! We know thy words are good and full of power: they fill the necessity of our heart to overflow, yea, even to abundance, as of fulness upon fulness, until there is not room enough to receive thy gift. Thou dost speak from the sanctuary of eternity, and thy words come with all the infinite power of thy majesty; yet are they gentle, gracious, like the soft rain upon the tender herb: they come from a great height, but thou dost cause them to fall without burdensomeness, and they refresh and cheer and satisfy us as no other words have done. We bless thee for any measure of constancy in thy kingdom which we have been enabled to realise and to manifest There have been many who have said, Turn to the right-hand; and others have said, Turn to the lefthand; but because thou hast been with us, an abiding inspiration and a daily light, we find ourselves still in the sanctuary, standing upon the rock, clinging to the blessed Cross, looking to the Son of God for redemption and all the mystery of pardon. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. We would have no other delight; all other joys would we know in this lofty passion to love the Saviour, to know him more intelligently, and to serve him with a profounder obedience. Thou wilt not decline our prayer, or cause a cloud to come between thy throne and this poor earth: when we so cry we know that we have the answer even whilst we are breathing the prayer: for this is the will of God, even our perfectness, the completeness of our manhood, the subjugation of our will to right and truth and love. So we know that we have thy reply, may we know it still more confidently, and rejoice in deepening peace, and in ever-increasing strength, and in continual delight which makes the heart young and the hand strong. As for our sin, take it up in thy mighty power and love, and bury it where no man can find it, and thou thyself forget where the burden has been laid. Amen.