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Joshua Chapter
Twenty-three
Joshua 23
Chapter Contents
Joshua's exhortation before his death. (1-10) Joshua
warns the people of idolatry. (11-16)
Commentary on Joshua 23:1-10
(Read Joshua 23:1-10)
Joshua was old and dying, let them observe what he said
now. He put them in mind of the great things God had done for them in his days.
He exhorted them to be very courageous. Keep with care, do with diligence, and
regard with sincerity what is written. Also, very cautiously to endeavour that
the heathen idolatry may be forgotten, so that it may never be revived. It is
sad that among Christians the names of the heathen gods are so commonly used,
and made so familiar as they are. Joshua exhorts them to be very constant.
There might be many things amiss among them, but they had not forsaken the Lord
their God; the way to make people better, is to make the best of them.
Commentary on Joshua 23:11-16
(Read Joshua 23:11-16)
Would we cleave to the Lord, we must always stand upon
our guard, for many a soul is lost through carelessness. Love the Lord your
God, and you will not leave him. Has God been thus true to you? Be not you
false to him. He is faithful that has promised, Hebrews 10:23. The experience of every Christian
witnesses the same truth. Conflicts may have been severe and long, trials great
and many; but at the last he will acknowledge that goodness and mercy followed
him all the days of his life. Joshua states the fatal consequences of going
back; know for a certainty it will be your ruin. The first step would be,
friendship with idolaters; the next would be, marrying with them; the end of
that would be, serving their gods. Thus the way of sin is down-hill, and those
who have fellowship with sinners, cannot avoid having fellowship with sin. He
describes the destruction he warns them of. The goodness of the heavenly
Canaan, and the free and sure grant God has made of it, will add to the misery
of those who shall for ever be shut out from it. Nothing will make them see how
wretched they are, so much, as to see how happy they might have been. Let us
watch and pray against temptation. Let us trust in God's faithfulness, love,
and power; let us plead his promises, and cleave to his commandments, then we
shall be happy in life, in death, and for ever.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Joshua》
Joshua 23
Verse 1
[1] And it came to pass a long time after that the LORD had
given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed
old and stricken in age.
A long time — About fourteen years after it.
Verse 2
[2] And Joshua called for all Israel, and for their elders,
and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and said
unto them, I am old and stricken in age:
Joshua called — Either to his own city, or rather
to Shiloh, the usual place of such assemblies, where his words being uttered
before the Lord, were likely to have the more effect upon them.
All Israel — Not all the people in their own
persons, but in their representatives, by their elders, heads, judges and
officers. Probably he took the opportunity, of one of the three great feasts.
You will not have me long to preach to you; therefore observe what I say, and
lay it up for the time to come.
Verse 3
[3] And ye have seen all that the LORD your God hath done
unto all these nations because of you; for the LORD your God is he that hath
fought for you.
Because of you — For your good, that you might
gain by their losses.
Verse 4
[4] Behold, I have divided unto you by lot these nations
that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the
nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea westward.
That remain — Not yet conquered.
An inheritance — You shall certainly subdue them,
and inherit their hand, as you have done the rest, if you be not wanting to
yourselves.
All the nations — That is, with the land of those
nations; the people put for their land, as we have seen before; and as
sometimes on the contrary, the land is put for the people. The great sea -
Where the Philistines, your most formidable adversaries yet survive; but them
also and their land I have given to you, and you shall undoubtedly destroy
them, if you will proceed vigorously in your work.
Verse 6
[6] Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all
that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside
therefrom to the right hand or to the left;
Very courageous — For it will require great courage
and resolution to execute all the commands of Moses, and particularly, that of
expelling and destroying the residue of the Canaanites.
The right hand or the left — That is, in one kind
or other, by adding to the law, or diminishing from it.
Verse 7
[7] That ye come not among these nations, these that remain
among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear
by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them:
Come not — That is, avoid all familiar converse and contracts,
but especially marriages with them.
Name their gods — To wit, unnecessarily and
familiarly, lest the mention of them breed discourse about them, and so by
degrees bring to the approbation and worship of them.
Nor cause — Nor require nor compel the
Gentiles to swear by them, as they used to do; especially in leagues and
contracts. It is pity, that among Christians, the name of the Heathen God's are
so commonly used, especially in poems. Let those names which have been set up
in rivalship with God, be forever loathed and lost.
Nor bow — Neither give them any inward reverence, or outward
adoration. Here is an observable gradation, whereby he shews what notable
progress sin usually makes, and what need there is to look to the beginnings of
it, forasmuch as a civil and common conversation with their persons was likely
to bring them, and indeed did actually bring them, by insensible steps, to the
worship of their gods. So it is no wonder, if some things not simply and in
themselves evil, be forbidden by God, as here the naming of their gods is,
because they are occasions and introductions to evil.
Verse 8
[8] But cleave unto the LORD your God, as ye have done unto
this day.
Cleave to the Lord — By constant
obedience, entire affection, faithful service and worship of him alone.
To this day — To wit, since you came in to
Canaan; since which time the body of the people (for of them he speaks, not of
every particular person) had behaved themselves much better than they did in
the wilderness, and had not been guilty of any gross and general apostacy from
God, or rebellion against him.
Verse 9
[9] For the LORD hath driven out from before you great
nations and strong: but as for you, no man hath been able to stand before you
unto this day.
No man — To wit, whom you have invaded; otherwise some of those
people did yet remain unconquered.
Verse 10
[10] One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your
God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you.
He fighteth — Impute not this therefore to your
own valour, as you will be apt to do, but to God's gracious and powerful
assistance.
Verse 11
[11] Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love
the LORD your God.
Take heed — Now it requires more watchfulness
and diligence than it did in the wilderness, because your temptations are now
stronger; from the examples and insinuations of your bad neighbours, the
remainders of this wicked people; and from your own peace and prosperity: and
the pride, security, forgetfulness of God, and luxury, which usually attend
that condition.
Verse 12
[12] Else if ye do in any wise go back, and cleave unto the
remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make
marriages with them, and go in unto them, and they to you:
Go back — From God, and from his worship and service.
Verse 13
[13] Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no more
drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and
traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye
perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.
Traps to you — By your converse with them, you
will be drawn by degrees into their errors, and impieties, and brutish lusts.
Thorns in your eyes — When they have
seduced, and thereby weakened you, then they will molest and vex you, no less
than a severe scourge doth a man's sides which are lashed by it, or than a
small thorn doth the eye when it is got within it.
Till ye perish — They shall so persecute you, and
fight against, you with such success, that you shall be forced to quit your own
land, and wander you know not whither; which must needs be very terrible to
them to think of, when they compared this present ease, and plenty and safety,
with the pains, and weariness, and hazards, and wants of their former
wanderings.
Verse 14
[14] 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.
Of all the earth — That is, of all
flesh, or of all men; the way which all men go; I am about to die, as all men
must. To die is, to go a journey, a journey to our long home. And Joshua
himself, tho' he could so ill be spared, cannot be exempted from this common
lot. He takes notice of it, that they might look on these as his dying words,
and regard them accordingly.
Ye know — That is, you know assuredly; your own experience puts
it out of all question.
Verse 15
[15] Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things
are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD
bring upon you all evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good
land which the LORD your God hath given you.
Evil things — The accomplishment of God's
promise is a pledge that he will also fulfil his threatnings; both of them
depending upon the same ground, the faithfulness of God.
Verse 16
[16] When ye have transgressed the covenant of the LORD your
God, which he commanded you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed
yourselves to them; then shall the anger of the LORD be kindled against you,
and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which he hath given unto
you.
It will aggravate their perdition, that the land from
which they shall perish is a good land, and a land which God himself had given
them: and which therefore he would have secured to them, if they had not thrown
themselves out of it. "Thus the goodness of the heavenly Canaan, says Mr.
Henry, and the free and sure grant God has made of it, will aggravate the
misery of those that shall forever be shut out and perish from it. Nothing will
make them see how wretched they are, so much as to see, how happy they might
have been." Might have been! What on the supposition of absolute decrees?
How happy might a person not elected have been? And if he was elected, how
could he be wretched for ever? What art of man can reconcile these things?
Again, shall any of the elect perish for ever? or has God made to any others, a
free and sure grant of the heavenly Canaan? If not, how can the misery of those
that perish be aggravated, by a free and sure grant which they never had any
share in?
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Joshua》
23 Chapter 23
Verses 1-16
I am old and stricken in age: and ye have seen all that the Lord
your God hath done.
Old age
As in the snowy realms of the Alps lovely flowers open their
cheerful petals to the sky, so, notwithstanding the weight of years and cares,
many a sweet flower of hope, and trust, and love, and disinterested friendship,
and faith may continue to blossom in the aged heart, and to send out an
attractive fragrance for the happiness of others.
Jehovah the champion of Israel
The last two chapters of Joshua are very like each other. Each
professes to be a report of the aged leader’s farewell meeting with the heads
of the people. In our judgment, both reports bear on the same occasion; and if
so, all that needs to be said as to their origin is, that the author of the
book, having obtained two reports from trustworthy sources, did not adopt the
plan of weaving them into one, but gave them separately, just as he had
received them. The circumstance is a proof of the trustworthiness of the
narrative; had the writer put on record merely what Joshua might be supposed to
have said, he would not have adopted this twofold form of narrative. What was
the burden of Joshua’s address? You have it in the words--“The Lord your God is
He that fighteth for you”; therefore “cleave unto the Lord your God.” You owe
everything to the Lord; therefore render to Him all His due. God is expressly
set forth as the champion of Israel, fighting for him against the Canaanites,
and driving them out. He is here the God of battles; and the terrible
desolation that followed the track of Israel is here ascribed to the
championship of the Most High. There are some expositors who explain these
sayings in a general sense. There are great laws of conquest, they say, roughly
sanctioned by Providence, whereby one race advances upon another. Nations
enervated through luxury and idleness are usually supplanted by more vigorous
races. We cannot vindicate all the rule of the British in India; greed,
insolence, and lust have left behind them many a stain. Still, the result on
the whole has been for good. The English have a higher conception of human life
than the Hindus. They have a higher sense of order, of justice, of family life,
of national well-being. There is a vigour about them that will not tolerate the
policy of drifting; that cannot stand still or lie still and see everything
going wrong; that strives to remedy injustice, to reform abuse, to correct what
is vicious and disorderly, and foster organisation and progress. In these
respects British rule has been a benefit to India. There may have been deeds of
oppression and wrong that curdle the blood, or habits of self-indulgence may
have been practised at the expense of the natives that shock our sense of
humanity, as if the inferior race could have no rights against the superior;
but these are but the eddies or by-play of a great beneficent current, and in
the summing up of the long account they hold but an insignificant place. When
you survey the grand result; when you see a great continent like India
peaceable and orderly that used to be distracted on every side by domestic
warfare; when you see justice carefully administered, life and property
protected, education and civilisation advanced, to say nothing of the spirit of
Christianity introduced, you are unable to resist the conclusion that the
influence of its new masters has been a gain to India, and therefore that the
British rule has had the sanction of Heaven. Now, in this case, as in the
conquest of India by Britain, a process went on which was a great benefit on a
large scale. It was not designed to be of benefit to the original inhabitants,
as was the British occupation of India, for they were a doomed race, as we shall
immediately see. But the settlement of the people of Israel in Canaan was
designed and was fitted to be a great benefit to the world. Explain it as we
may, Israel had higher ideas of life than the other nations, richer gifts of
head and heart, more capacity of governing, and a far purer religious
sentiment. On the principle that a race like this must necessarily prevail over
such tribes as had occupied Palestine before, the conquest of Joshua might well
be said to have Divine approval. God might truly be said to go forth with the
armies of Israel, and to scatter their enemies as smoke is scattered by the
wind. But this was not all. There was already a judicial sentence against the
seven nations of which Israel was appointed to be the executioner. Loathsome vice consecrated by
the seal of religion; unnatural lust, turning human beings into worse than
beasts; natural affection converted into an instrument of the most horrid
cruelty--could any practices show more powerfully the hopeless degradation of
these nations in a moral and religious sense, or their ripeness for judgment?
Israel was the appointed executioner of God’s justice against them, and in
order that Israel might fulfil that function, God went before him in his
battles and delivered his enemies into his hands. And what Israel did in this
way was done under a solemn sense that he was inflicting Divine retribution. We
cannot suppose that the people uniformly acted with the moderation and
self-restraint becoming God’s executioners. No doubt there were many instances
of unwarrantable and inhuman violence. To charge these on God is not fair. They
were the spots and stains that ever indicate the hand of man, even when doing
the work of God. If it be said that the language of the historian seems
sometimes to ascribe to God what really arose from the passions of the people,
it is to be observed that we are not told in what form the Lord communicated
His commands. No doubt the Hebrews were disposed to claim Divine authority for
what they did to the very fullest extent. There may have been times when they
imagined that they were fulfilling the requirements of God, when they were only
giving effect to feelings of their own. And generally they may have been prone
to suppose that modes of slaughter that seemed to them quite proper were well
pleasing in the sight of God. For God often accomplishes His holy purposes by
leaving His instruments to act in their own way. But we have wandered from
Joshua, and the assembly of Israel. What we have been trying is to show the
soundness of Joshua’s fundamental position-that God fought for Israel. The same
thing might be shown by a negative process. If God had not been actively and
supernaturally with Israel, Israel could never have become what he was. Moses
and his bevy of slaves, Joshua and his army of shepherds--what could have made
such soldiers of these men if the Lord had not fought on their side? The
getting possession of Canaan, as Joshua reminded the people, was a threefold
process: God fighting for them had subdued their enemies; Joshua had divided
the land; and now God was prepared to expel the remaining people, but only
through their instrumentality. Emphasis is laid on “expelling” and “driving
out” (verse 5), from which we gather that further massacre was not to take place,
but that the remainder of the Canaanites must seek settlements elsewhere. A
sufficient retribution had fallen on them for their sins, in the virtual
destruction of their people and the loss of their country; the miserable
remnant might have a chance of escape, in some ill-filled country where they
would never rise to influence and where terror would restrain them from their
former wickedness. Joshua was very emphatic in forbidding intermarriage and
friendly social intercourse with Canaanites. He knew that between the realm of
holiness and the realm of sin there is a kind of neutral territory, which
belongs strictly to neither, but which slopes towards the realm of sin, and in
point of fact most commonly furnishes recruits not a few to the army of evil.
Alas, how true is this still! Marriages between believers and unbelievers;
friendly social fellowship, on equal terms, between the Church and the world;
partnership in business between the godly and the ungodly--who does not know
the usual result? In a few solitary cases, it may be, the child of the world is
brought into the kingdom; but in how many instances do we find the buds of
Christian promise nipped, and lukewarmness and backsliding, if not apostasy,
coming in their room! (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Verse 4
I have divided unto you by lot these nations.
Joshua the colonist
Great colonists as we are, and greater as, with the growth of our
wealth and therefore of our population, we are likely to be, it may prove
instructive and also interesting to look at Joshua in the character of a
colonist--the leader of the largest band that ever left their old in search of
a new home. I remark, then, that the colonisation of Canaan under Joshua was
conducted in an orderly manner, on a large scale, and in a way eminently
favourable to the happiness of the emigrants and the interests of virtue and
religion. It presents us with a model we would do well to copy. The children of
Israel entered Canaan to be settled within allotted borders; by families and by
tribes. In their case emigration was thus less a change of persons than a
change, and a happy change, of place. No broad seas rolled between tile severed
members of the same family; there were no bitter partings of parents and the
children they feared never more to see: nor did the emigrants, with sad faces
and swimming eyes, stand crowded on the ship’s stern to watch the blue
mountains of their dear native land as they sank beneath the wave. A still more
important lesson than that taught by the orderly, just, humane, and happy
arrangements of this Hebrew colony is taught us by the care Joshua took of its
religious interests. These, the greatest, yet considered apparently the least,
of all interests, are sadly neglected in many of our foreign stations; and I
have often wondered to see with what little reluctance Christian parents could
send their children away to lands where more lost their religion than made
their fortune. Whatever we do with our religion, the Hebrews did not leave the
ark of God behind them. Regarding it as at once their glory and defence, they
followed it into the bed of Jordan, and, passing the flood on foot, bore it
with them into the adopted land. Wherever they pitched their tents, they set up
the altar and tabernacle of their God. Priests and teachers formed part of
their train; and making ample provision for the regular ministration of word
and ordinance, they laid in holy and pious institutions the foundations of their
future commonwealth. Such are some of the points in which Joshua is to be
admired, and imitated, as a model colonist. Alas! while neglecting his example
in things worthy of imitation, we have followed it but too closely in the one
thing where it affords us no precedent to follow. I refer to the fire and sword
he carried into the land of Canaan, and his extermination of its original
inhabitants. We have too faithfully followed him in this--with no warrant,
human or Divine, to do so. In his bloodiest work Joshua was acting under
commission. His orders were clear, however terrible they read. God undertakes
the whole responsibility. And be it observed that the children of Israel were
blamed not because they did, but because they did not, exterminate the Canaanites--slaying
them with the sword or driving them out of the land. The duty was painful and
stern; but they lived to find, as God had warned them would happen to them, and
as happens to us when we spare the sins of which these heathen were the type,
that mercy to the Canaanites was cruelty to themselves. But, admitting that the
responsibility is shifted from Joshua to God, how, it may be asked, are the
sufferings of the Canaanites, their expulsion and bloody extermination from the
land, to be reconciled with the character of God, as just and good and
righteous? This is like many other of His acts. On attempting to scrutinise
them, mystery meets us on the threshold. No wonder!--when we feel constrained
to exclaim over a flake of snow, the spore of a fern, the leaf of a tree, the
change of a base grub into a winged and painted butterfly, “Who can by
searching find out God? who can find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is
higher than heaven, what can we do? deeper than hell, what can we know? the
measure thereof is longer than the earth and-broader than the sea.” Dark as the
judgment on Canaan seems, a little consideration will show that it is no
greater, nor so great, a mystery as many others in the providence of God. The
land of Canaan was His--“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” And
I ask in turn, is the Sovereign Proprietor of all to be denied the right that
ordinary proprietors claim--the right to remove one set of tenants and replace
them by another? Besides, the inhabitants of Canaan were not only, so to speak,
“tenants at will,” but tenants of the worst description. Let it be remarked
also, that the Canaanites not only deserved, but chose their fate. The fame of
what God had done for the tribes of Israel had preceded their arrival in the
land of Canaan. Thus its guilty tenants were early warned; got “notice to
quit”; might be considered as summoned out. They refused to go. They chose the
chances of resistance rather than quiet removal; and so--for be it observed
that the Israelites in the first instance were only ordered to cast them
out--they brought destruction on themselves: with their own hands pulling down
the house that buried them and their children in its ruins. But the children?
the unoffending infants? There is a mystery, I admit, an awful mystery in their
destruction; but no new or greater mystery here than meets us everywhere else.
The mystery of offspring who suffer through their parent’s sins is repeated
daily in our own streets. It does not alter the case one whir to say that
children who die of disease, for instance, die by the laws of nature, while
those in Canaan were put to death by the command of God. This is a distinction
without a difference; for what are the laws of nature but the ordinances and
will of God? Nor is the cloud which here surrounds God’s throne, dark as it
seems, without a silver lining. The sword of the Hebrew opens to the babes of
Canaan a happy escape from misery and sin--a sharp but short passage to a
better and purer world. Thus, and otherwise, we can justify the sternest deeds
of which Joshua has been accused. He held a commission from God to enter Canaan
and cast out its guilty inhabitants, and, like a woodman who enters the forest
axe in hand, to cut them down if they clung like trees to its soil. His conduct
admits of the fullest vindication; and though it did not, we should be the last
to accuse him. Ours are not the hands to cast a stone at Joshua. A more painful
and shameful history than the history of some at least of our colonies was
never written. Talk of the extermination of the Canaanites! Where are the
Indian tribes our settlers found roaming, in plumed and painted freedom, the
forests of the new world? Not more fatal to the Canaanites the irruption of the
Hebrews than our arrival in almost every colony to its native population! We
have seized their lands; and in a way less honourable, and even merciful, than
the swords of Israel, have given them in return nothing but a grave. Professed
followers of Him who came not to destroy but to save the world, we have entered
the territories of the heathen with fire and sword, and adding murder to
robbery, have spoiled the unoffending natives of their lives as well as of
their lands. Had we any commission to exterminate? Divine as Joshua’s, our
commission was as opposite to his as opposing poles to each other. These are
its blessed terms, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost.” Can our country and its Churches read that without a blush of
shame and a sense of guilt? Let us repent the errors of the past. Not so much
to aggrandise our island, as to Christianise the world by our colonies, is the
noble enterprise to which Providence calls us. “Go ye in to possess the
land”--these, if I may say so, were the marching orders under which Joshua and
Israel entered Canaan; and however unable they appeared, in point of numbers
and ordinary resources, to cope with those who held the soil, and were prepared
to fight like men that had their homes and hearths, their wives and children,
to defend, yet then, as still, the measure of man’s ability is God’s command.
Since it is so, what a noble career and rapid conquest were before the children
of Israel! Sweeping over Canaan like a resistless flood, they might have
carried all before them. What difficulties could prove too great for those who
had God to aid them? What need had they of bridge or boats, before whose feet
the waters of Jordan fled? of engines of war whose shout, borne on the air,
smote the ramparts of Jericho to the ground with an earthquake’s reeling shock?
of allies, who had Heaven on their side, to hurl down death from the skies on
their panic-stricken enemies? How could they lose the fruits of victory over
the retreat of whose foes night refused to throw her mantle, while the sun held
the sky, nor sunk in darkness till their bloody work was done? (T.
Guthrie, D. D.)
Verse 6
Be ye therefore very courageous.
On Christian courage
In the first place, in your relation with your fellow-creatures,
in your intercourse with the world, it requires much courage and resolution to
be sturdily upright and just. When your interest, your feelings, your wants,
nay, even your future independence, are on one side, and the plain dictates of
duty and religion on the other, then it is that you must “be very courageous”;
and not turn aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left. Here is the
trial: to prefer the praise of God and the approval of the conscience, with
loss, with disgrace or derision, and even poverty for life, to the mean and
dishonest acquirement of every worldly good. Courage is requisite even in doing
good. Our good actions may cost us much trouble and even expense, much
opposition, much vexation, and much misrepresentation; for our good may not
only be evil spoken of, but it may be to ourselves a positive evil in a worldly
and temporal point of view. On some occasions we may have to encounter the
resistance of the indolent and the selfish; the thwarting malignity of envy,
that will never either co-operate or commend; the sneers of the niggardly, who
revenge an extorted charity by slandering the man that shamed them to it; and
the unkind constructions of the worldly, who never attribute disinterested
motives to a prominence in well-doing. On other occasions, we may be induced to
benefit others, even against their will; to succour the worthless and
ungrateful; to weary ourselves in long, and perhaps for the time fruitless,
attempts to soften the obstinate, persuade the wilful, reform the profligate.
In all these cases we want also a bold and patient decision of character.
Again, it requires courage to forgive injuries and endure wrongs, as well as,
on the other hand, to ask for forgiveness and to make reparation. Yet the
Christian must do both when necessary. Courage is required, again, in
maintaining truth and sincerity. I do not mean by this merely avoiding flagrant
falsehood and equivocation; but acquiring habits of open and frank avowal of
our minds, except where we may give needless pain or offence. No deference to
rank or circumstances, no indolent aversion to differ from others, no ill-timed
timidity, or desire to ingratiate, must prevent our bold and determined
reprobation of what is decidedly wrong, however glossed by fine language or
supported by sophistry and cunning. Courage is very necessary also in setting a
good example. We are “neither to love the praise of men more than the praise of
God,” nor to “follow a multitude to do evil.” The real Christian may want
resolution to maintain a Christian example; he may shrink from singularity; he
may fear a laugh, an obnoxious name, or misrepresentation; he may think it too
precise and severe to protest and strive against received customs and opinions,
though plainly at variance with the Word of God; or, lastly, he may distrust
his own steadfastness and perseverance. Yet all he wants is courage--courage,
not to go about setting the whole world right, not to put on a garb of
austerity and intolerance that does not belong to him or his religion; not to
declare war against practices and amusements which sweeten the busy occupations
of life and are decidedly innocent; but to be “steadfast and immovable” in the
plain, straightforward course of Christian duties of every kind. Again, courage
is most requisite in striving against all the inward corruption of our fallen
nature. In the first place, the Christian has to contend with wicked thoughts
and tendencies, or inclinations. When allowed to grow to maturity they become
headstrong passions, lusts, and appetites, whose power is generally in
proportion to the time they have been indulged. At that fearful period, the
courage required is, as it were, that of plucking out an eye, or cutting off a
limb! for habit has by that time made the indulgence quite necessary to the
sinner’s happiness, and even comfortable existence. Courage is again necessary,
under this head, in getting the better of our natural selfishness. Pride and
vanity and pretension are also vices that need no common courage and resolution
to master them. They are, however, most unchristian tempers, and must be
subdued. But, lastly, it is in perfecting holiness in the heart--by purity,
vigilance, discipline, and perseverance-that the Christian warrior has most
need of courage and resolution. His enemies are so strong and numerous, and the
fort he holds so easily surprised and taken, that he has need of “the whole
armour of God,” that he may “have victory, and triumph against the devil, the
world, and the flesh.” (A. B. Evans, D. D.)
To keep and to do all that
is written in the book of the law of Moses.--
The supreme excellence of Holy Scripture
I. The book
commended: “All that is written in the book of the law of Moses.”
1. Observe it was to the written law alone that Joshua directed
them.
2. From that day to this the will of God has been made known to us
in writing.
3. The evidence of the Divine authority of the New Testament is of the
same description.
4. Oh, let the written Word of God, infallible truth, be elevated
far, far above the writings of men, however excellent.
II. The exhortation
respecting it: “Be ye therefore very courageous,” &c.
1. “Keep it”--treasure it up in your hearts; lodge it in your
memories; inscribe it on the tablet of your mind.
2. “Do it.” We are not to keep the Holy Scripture as a curiosity in
a cabinet; not to hide or bury it, but to practise it. If the Scriptures do not
exercise a practical influence over us, they will only increase our
condemnation.
3. Observe the universality of the injunction, “All that is written
in the book.” There is to be no reservation nor exception--no selection of
favourite doctrines or of agreeable duties, but “all that is written” is to be
read, believed, obeyed I
4. There must be no deviation from the narrow way--“that ye turn not
aside therefrom, to the right hand or to the left.” This is the chart--be
careful to steer by it! This is your map, your guide, your lamp; beware of the
smallest deviation! (Isaiah 30:21).
5. “Be ye Very courageous to keep and to do all this!” He had said
in the previous verse that God would drive out their enemies before them; and
now he says, “Be ye very courageous”--but not to fight with sword and spear,
but with spiritual weapons--moral courage: be bold for God--much courage is
needed: for want of it Peter denied his Lord. “Be not ashamed of
Christ”--“confess Him before men.”
III. The
consequences of obedience or disobedience to this exhortation may be learned
from scripture and experience. Wherever God’s written Word was known and read
and honoured, religion has flourished; and where that Word has been neglected,
religion has decayed. (Dean Close.)
Turn . . . not aside therefrom to the right hand
or to the left.--
Obedience
1. What motive has the Christian to obedience? Looking to be saved
only through the righteousness of another, what is there to induce him to walk
righteously before God Himself?
2. But what kind of obedience is necessary, or rather what do we
learn from our text, will obedience require or call for?
Verse 8-9
Cleave unto the Lord your God, as ye have done unto this day.
The necessity of every one’s cleaving to God who wishes well to
the support of his country
I. Sin has
naturally in itself a tendency to the ruin of any nation. We may easily see
that when a people grow regardless of the laws of God they want the greatest
obligations of obedience to the laws of men.
II. Sin makes god
an enemy. God presides with a peculiar providence over societies and
communities of men. We may learn from the history of all past ages and the frequent
smart of our own that the government of God is ever administered according to
the nature of men’s actions; that He dispenses His favour to a people, or
withdraws it from them, as virtue or vice, religion or impiety, respectively
prevail among them. But perhaps it may be said by some who are ready to impute
all successes to themselves, “What need we to call in Providence in all
difficulties?” Now this, give me leave to prove more particularly, by
considering those three main props on which the weight of states and empires
may seem to them, who look not far into things and their causes, wholly to
rely; that is, worldly providence, or policy in contriving; courage and force
in executing great designs; and a wise improvement of both these, by firm and well-grounded
confederacies. But alas! in these, barely considered, there can be no safety,
because no human foresight can reach those many accidents, the least of which
may alter the best-laid counsels; nor any human courage, though never so well
seconded, be sure to execute them, since the very execution of them is attended
with so many circumstances as may produce effects quite different from what
they proposed.
III. The obligation,
which lies on everybody who loves his country to do his duty to god, from which
such universal virtue and piety will result, as will most certainly engage god
on our sloe.
1. That all national favours flow purely from God, I will presume
has been sufficiently proved, as being beyond the single or united force of
human policy, courage, or the firmest alliances: if so, what is it more than
our bounden duty, and justice, to acknowledge unfeignedly the gift to God, who
desires no more for the giving it? He is not bettered by our thanksgivings, yet
is pleased with the gratitude.
2. We ought to break off the course of those sins which will
estrange God from us, and deprive us hereafter of all such extraordinary
successes. (Bp. Trelawney.)
Religious stability enforced
I. THE duty the
text recommends. Cleaving unto the Lord evidently implies--
1. Previous union with Him.
2. Faithful adherence to Him. Our religion must be uniform and
constant; we must not only come to the Lord as humble penitents, but also
adhere to Him as His indefatigable servants.
II. The importance
the text involves. This evidently appears, both from the solemnity of the
occasion on which it was delivered, and the fervency of the manner in which it
was urged on the tribes of Israel.
1. This duty is reasonable (John 6:67-69; Romans 12:1-2).
2. This duty is honourable. Instability in religion is peculiarly
disgraceful (2 Peter 2:20-22). It is extremely
weak and childish, and should be carefully avoided, as displeasing to God, and
dishonourable to our holy profession (Ephesians 4:14).
3. This duty is profitable. It is only by cleaving unto the Lord
that we can maintain personal piety, overcome our enemies, encounter
difficulties, rejoice evermore, triumph over death, and “lay hold on eternal
life” (Deuteronomy 4:3-4; Psalms 57:7; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).
4. This duty is indispensable. Final perseverance is necessary to
final salvation. He only that “endures to the end shall be saved” (1 Corinthians 15:2; Romans 2:7; 2 Peter 1:10-11).
III. The motives to
this duty. (Sketches Four Hundred Sermons.)
Verse 11
Take good heed therefore unto yourselves.
The Christian warfare
The Christian life is a warfare, and there are several common
mistakes made thereupon. For example--
I. When it is
supposed that the enemies to be fought against are all external foes. This is a
very prevalent error. Where conversion is believed to be always a sudden
change, and not a matter of growth, there converts are cautioned against
dangers that lie without, while left in ignorance of the greater dangers that
are still within. There are external foes, but these are not all. There are
inward foes, such as--
II. It is also a
mistake to suppose that the enemies to be fought against are chiefly external
ones. With all his warnings against surrounding foes, Joshua was most emphatic
in his exhortation to watchfulness over one’s own heart, “Take good heed
therefore unto yourselves.” In this sense a man’s enemies are they of his own
house. The greatest temptations arise from that inner tendency to corruption,
but for which the outward influences would be well-nigh powerless. Many a man
has been his own tempter (James 1:14).
III. It is a great
christian duty, therefore, for every man to bring his own heart into
subjection.
1. This cannot be done except by the exercise of constant
watchfulness.
2. Self-cultivation also is necessary. When will men learn that
religion is no dreamy sentimentalism, but a stern and living reality? “The
grace of God in the heart of man is a tender plant in a strange, unkindly soil,
and, therefore, cannot well prosper and grow without much care and pains, and
that of a skilful hand.” Let us, then, “take heed to ourselves.” Let us keep
the fortress of our own heart. Let us do battle with the foes of our own
household. Thus shall we be “more than conquerors”; for “he that ruleth his own
spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” (Frederic Wagstaff.)
Self-consideration
We can have no aspirations unless we know what we lack, and
we cannot properly cultivate our spiritual life unless we recognise the
symptoms of its vitality or decay. A gardener would be failing in his duty if
he did not notice the withering of a flower, which was only wanting more room
in which to spread its roots. A mother would be justly blamed if she was too
absorbed in making her child’s dress for a coming party to notice the pale face
and heavy eyes which fore told an illness demanding instant attention. Far
heavier is the responsibility resting on us to consider our own condition. (A.
Rowland, B. A.)
Self-judgment
No sane man fails to form some opinion of himself. We
cannot help knowing, for example, whether our temper is quick or dull, whether
our imagination is vivid or torpid, any more than we can be ignorant of the
fact that we are tall or short. But we ought not to leave this self-judgment to
transient feelings, or to spasmodic revelations--but should try to shape it by
sober thought. Some people tell us that it is best not to think of ourselves at
all, but to absorb ourselves in daily duty, leaving ourselves simply in God’s
hands, so far as religious life is concerned. No doubt this is partly true: and
we must not forget that self-introspection has its dangers as well as its uses.
It would, for example, be quite possible to subject our motives to such close
and constant scrutiny as to take away all momentum from life: but no sensible
man would be so particular about dust on the engine, as to neglect keeping up
steam. (A. Rowland, B. A.)
That ye love the Lord.--
Take heed to love God
1. Because if you do not love God, your obedience will be worthless.
2. Because if you do love Him, obedience will be easy.
3. Because there are so many things that compete for your love.
4. Because if you love God, you will love only good things, and
those in a proper measure.
5. Because if you love God, you will love what God loves, and
especially His Son Jesus Christ. (The Hive.)
God demands our love
I. It is for this
very end that national mercies are bestowed.
II. We are in
danger of perverting his goodness to a very different purpose. The caution
given in the text plainly implies this, and the subsequent history of the
Jewish nation as plainly proves that the caution was necessary.
III. To love the
Lord our God is not only the return He expects for His benefits, but the return
he demands. It is not only just and reasonable in its own nature, but it is
likewise absolutely necessary on our part--nay, it is the one thing needful,
the withholding of which shall unavoidably be attended with the most fatal
consequences. (R. Walker.)
Verse 14
And behold this day I am going the way of all the earth.
Death common to all
Death is so dim-sighted and so blundering-footed that he staggers
across Axminster tapestry as though it were a bare floor, and sees no
difference between the fluttering rags of a tatterdemalion and a conqueror’s
gonfalon. Side by side we must all come down. No first class, second class, or
third class in death or the grave. Death goes into the house at Gad’s Hill, and
he says, “I want that novelist.” Death goes into Windsor Castle, and he says,
“I want Victoria’s consort.” Death goes into Ford’s Theatre, at Washington, and
says, “I want that President.” Death goes on the Zulu battlefield, and says, “I
want that French Prince Imperial.” Death goes into the marble palace at Madrid,
and says “Give me Queen Mercedes.” Death goes into the almshouse, and says,
“Give me that pauper.” Death comes to the Tay Bridge, and says, “Discharge into
my cold bosom all those passengers.” (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Premonitions of death
The first symptom of approaching death with some, is the strong
presentiment that they are about to die. Oganan, the mathematician, while in
apparent health, rejected pupils from the feeling that he was on the eve of
resting from his labours; and he expired soon after of an apoplectic stroke.
Fletcher, the divine, had a dream which shadowed out his impending dissolution,
and believing it to be the merciful warning of Heaven, he sent for a sculptor
and ordered his tomb. “Begin your work forthwith,” he said at parting; “there
is no time to lose.” And unless the artist had obeyed the admonition, death
would have proved the quicker workman of the two. Mozart wrote his Requiem
under the conviction that the monument he was raising to his genius would, by
the power of association, prove a universal monument to his remains. When life
was fleeting very fast, he called for the score, and musing over it, said, “Did
I not tell you truly that it was for myself that I composed this death chant?”
Not one thing hath failed
of all the good things which the Lord . . . spake.
Joshua’s dying testimony to the faithfulness of God
I. Death is a way.
It leads the believer from the means and streams of religious ordinances to the fountain-head of
living waters; from the society of earthly, and at best imperfect connections,
to the company of triumphant saints, &c.
II. Death is a way
that all must go. Some journeys may be deferred and postponed a week, a month,
a year, and perhaps be wholly declined. But this cannot be put off or avoided.
III. Death is a way
which we may soon be required to take. (Isaac Bachus, D. D.)
Joshua’s last confession
With Joshua as with Simeon, at eventide it was light, the hues of
a golden sunset coloured with the tints of the rainbow, which St. John beheld
before the throne. The words that I have read to you contain a retrospect and a
prospect. He looks behind for them; he looks forward for himself.
1. We, too, have a retrospect like his, and we too have a prospect.
Let us look back at life, each from our own standing-point, each colouring with
the hues of his own experience the common outline. Begin at the beginning, and
look back at childhood. I do not think childhood the happiest time of life, and
therefore I will not say it is. And yet in the spring of our life, though it
had its biting winds and its cold nights, lest our characters should bud too
fast and in an atmosphere too genial we should grow unequally and develop too
rapidly, there were gleams of bright sunshine, showers dropping with
fruitfulness, in which our minds expanded and our souls grew. Some of us it may
be were brought to the feet of Jesus, to hear His Word. As children we knew the
Holy Scriptures, and our infant lips were tutored in prayer. But manhood is the
time of man’s glory, when we partake of the full joys of home life, when
opinions mature and cultivation grows, and experience mellows, and noble duties
open out before us, and grow into the full liberty of the sons of God, and by
faith we overcome the wicked one. Oh, how full manhood may be of pure and
generous happiness, if lived unto God, if we will but look up to Him as a
reconciled Father, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost follow the Lamb
whithersoever He went on earth! Sorrow there must be, but there is strength to
bear it; losses, but there is time to redeem them; sin, but the blood of Christ
cleanses us from all sin; imperfectness, but then we are complete in Him. And
then, as to old age, in one view of it that is the best of all. The aged man,
if he is a Christian, is nearly at home. His activities may be diminished, but
his wisdom is augmented. If not strong in action, he is great in counsel. He looks
back over a past of unbroken, unvarying love, and his song is, “Surely,
goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life; I will dwell in
the house of the Lord for ever.” Oh, I pray you, wherever in life you be,
whatever in life you have, gather up your mercies and count them; see how the
Lord’s faithfulness has given you every one of the good things that He has
promised to His people. Where you wandered, it was through your own wilfulness,
and He brought you back. When you fell He lifted you up. When you wept your
tears came to you with a message from God. You may indeed be forgetting Him;
that I know not, but this I do know, that He has been love to you, trying to
embrace you with the arms of His mercy, willing to draw you with the cords of
love.
2. There is also a prospect. “Behold, this day I am going the way of
all the earth.” “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the
judgment.” My brethren, this way is a universal way, and a sorrowful way, and a
cloudy way. (Bp. Thorold.)
Joshua intimating his own departure, and the favour of God toward
Israel
I. The
circumstances in which joshua here represents himself as placed. Time has
gathered death’s memorials on that form; and warned, perhaps, by some
communication from the world invisible, or feeling, it may be, in the pain, the
weakness, or the gathering wrinkles, that his closing hour is near, he thus
addresses the multitude around: “Behold, this day I am going the way of all the
earth.” What was dying Joshua but just the representative of dying man? and
what is Joshua dead but an instance, from the midst of ten thousand times ten
thousand of the human form, erect and strong, and animated once, consigned to
mournful silence, and the human spirit vanished from the scenes of enterprise
and life, where it thought so loftily or toiled so zealously of old? And if we
commit ourselves to the pages of recorded history, and find them full
throughout with the alternations of life and death, or mark the common course
of society and providence around us, how many an illustration may be found of
what to us is specially momentous in the idea afforded by the words, “the way
of all the earth” I
II. The appeal
which joshua makes to the people he addresses.
1. Joshua’s appeal may suggest the idea of a pious and active old
age. To earlier years and robuster vigour may belong the more stirring and
laborious forms of Christian enterprise and zeal; but age has the same
principles of duty to regard, and the same animating motives to cherish in the
heart. In the apparent proximity of death it has a consideration in some degree
peculiar, to urge it on to zealous and devoted services for God; and, oh! how
powerfully ought that consideration and many a motive else to animate the minds
of those who, “old and stricken in age,” are ready, like Joshua, to say, “I am
going the way of all the earth”! If you have given your more vigorous years to
sin, why should you delay with contrite and devout heart to give the close of
your continuance here to Christ, and piety, and God? And if you have, in some
degree, like Joshua, given your earlier life to the cause of righteousness, oh
I have you not found, in your experience of its dignity, anti blessedness, and
worth, a motive strong to keep you steadfast to the end?
2. Not only is the appeal of Joshua in the text representative of a
pious and zealous old age, but it expresses an important fact presented by the
providence of God: “Ye know,” says he, “in all your hearts, and in all your
souls, that not one thing hath failed,” &c. Of all men Christian believers
perhaps will be the readiest to perceive, and the most willing to acknowledge,
the absolute faithfulness and the gracious liberality of God; and how can they
but know that, sad as the outward condition of God’s chosen may sometimes be,
and sadder still as may be the general aspect of the earth, to neither can the
Almighty’s pledge be broken, to neither can His promise fail? (Alex. S.
Patterson.)
A man dying
I. A man dying in
philosophic calmness: “I am going the way of all the earth.”
1. It is not a strange road. All that have ever been, have gone
through it; and all that ever will be, must.
2. It is not an avoidable road. To complain is useless.
II. A man dying
fully satisfied with god: “Not one thing hath failed,” &c.
1. That God had promised “good things.”
2. That all the “good things” promised had come.
III. A man dying
with spiritual interest in survivors: “Ye know,” &c. He wished his
contemporaries and survivors to cherish confidence in God when he was gone. (Homilist.)
The solicitude and testimony of a dying man
I. The solicitude
of a noble veteran. Joshua was solicitous that the Israelites
II. The testimony
of an aged pilgrim: “And behold this,” &c. We learn here
III. The calmness of
a dying saint. What a peaceful, glowing sunset! (W. Fry.)
Joshua’s retrospect
There are certain occasions in life when it is irresistibly
natural to look back. After climbing a difficult ascent, or concluding a
tedious negotiation, or even winding up a long and troublesome letter, we like
to take a final view of the whole. Joshua had now arrived at the culminating
point of his mission.
I. The largeness
of God’s promises. To bring Israel out of the prison-land of Egypt, through the
death-land of the wilderness, into triumphant possession of the fortress-land
of Canaan, was what God undertook. If some great leader had undertaken, some
years back, to emancipate the negroes of the Southern States of America, to
conduct them over the broad Atlantic, and make them owners and masters of
military and imperial France, he would scarcely have promised any more,
allowing for the difference of the times. All God’s promises are “exceeding
great and precious.”
II. The steadiness
of God’s purposes. Just when the promise appeared utterly forgotten, its final
fulfilment was being planned. Just when the good seed appeared altogether
perished, the labourers who were to gather in the harvest were being engaged.
The rest of the history to which Joshua looked back furnished other instances
of like kind.
III. The completeness
of God’s work. God had wrought all that He had promised. I apply the subject to
the earnest expectations of the humble believer in Christ. You too are looking
forward to the end of your wanderings, to the enjoyment of absolute rest, to
perfection of spiritual condition, to the subjugation of every enemy, in a
word, to complete conformity to your Lord. Be assured that the time is
approaching when you shall look back in triumph upon all. (Homilist.)
The last words of Joshua
You can hardly overdraw the character of the patriarch warrior who
is about to surrender his command. He is one of the rare men of either economy
of whom inspiration, always faithful, has preserved no record of blemish. And
if you ask wherein lay the main charm of his character, we find it in the fact
that he himself is so much concealed behind the grandeur of his own exploits.
That is the highest order of excellence--to be self-concealed by the glory of
events whereof we are the authors. “I have sent for you,” said a great man of modern
days, from his death-bed to a youth who stood beside him, “that you may see how
a Christian can die.” Let us see how a “servant of the Lord” can die who only
saw the day of Christ from a distance. We might dwell, for a warrant in favour
of repetition, on the fact that Joshua spends his last breath in telling
something to the children of Israel which he himself admits they know already
“in all their hearts and in all their souls.” Old-fashioned doctrines never
look so new, never so precious, as when seen from the edge of the grave. But
what absorbs the interest of this spectacle is not so much the triteness of the
discussion as the motive Chat moved to its delivery. If Joshua does not say, he
implies, that because the chills of death are at the very moment creeping round
his heart and the tongue will not serve him much longer, on that very account
he stirs them up to remembrance that “the Lord has not been slack concerning
His promise.” Oh, surely, this is something new in the treatment of an old
doctrine! The last faculties of the mind before it ceases to act and move
amongst the living, turned upon the character and the honour of the great God,
and that not so much towards the man himself, but towards the other men
addressed. That a human being should be so able to forget himself, if not in
the very struggles, in the nearest prospect, of mortality, as to busy himself
entirely with the credit and the character of his Creator, that he should
gather around him the thousands who will survive him, for nothing but to wring
from them the acknowledgment that God is true--oh! you may fairly enough
conclude that the speaker is not far off the world where God will be all in
all. There is no test of a man’s chief good like death. The miser will ask for
his old strong-box to be placed beside him on the bed that he may see the last
of the deity he has worshipped whilst he lived. The husband will turn his
latest, fondest look, amongst all bystanders, towards the one sad face that
belongs to her who has weathered with him so many a storm, and proved her love
through evil and through good report. The statesman wanders in his last
delirium on the future of the country, the helm of whose affairs he is quitting
for ever. The scholar, too, seems reluctant to die till that one great work,
the study of years, has received its finishing touch; and the mechanician, or
the chemist, or the astronomer, is startled by the grim summons from the busy
calculation, or the tiresome experiment, or the sweeping survey of the stars.
And if each of these were to leave a witness from the death-bed, that witness
would turn for a topic to the favourite and the darling of the life that is
leaving him. Joshua does the same. “What will they think of my God when I am
gathered to the grave? I know Him, but do they? They do; but will they remember
what they know? Will they serve my God as if they recollected that He has never
failed them? It is not certain hearts that know forget: souls that have learned
love their own lessons. Therefore will I make this work, the honour of Jehovah,
at least as perfect as I can make it by hallowing in its behalf the faltering
of the dying lip and the clouding of the dying brain.” “I must,” says the dying
hero, “spend the last sands in the glass in putting the glory of the Divine
administration beyond all reach of reproach. Are my warriors and myself at one
upon the doctrine that the whole of an inheritance promised is as good, to
faith, as the whole of it conferred? Are we going to part agreed that Palestine
is already as truly the property of the sons of Abraham as Timnath-Serah, in
Mount Ephraim, belongs to me?” And so the good man could not rest in his grave
till he had exchanged with his brethren in arms a new vow of allegiance to Him
who has not, even in our day, with absolutely literal truth, accomplished the
fulness of what is here taken as done. Here is faith for you The captain of the
army will not die till he has overleapt centuries by a faith of his own, and
carried all his squadrons with him in the leap. One of our great warriors
ordered his ships into action with the shout of “Victory, or Westminster
Abbey!” But what should we have thought had the cry been “Victory and Westminster
Abbey!” Joshua foresaw that his own death, and the death of whole generations
of soldiers, would make no difference to the conquest of Canaan. Millenniums
are shorter than moments to “him that believeth.” This then was Joshua’s
judgment of the right business for a dying day. Beautiful ministry for last
moments, to strengthen bystanders in their trust upon God’s word. It was to
Israel almost as if a spectre spoke. You contract heavy responsibilities--you
who stand, from time to time, in the chambers of dying believers. Next to
hearing voices from heaven comes the hearing of voices from those who are just
stepping from earth. Books are nothing to the last whispers-even the last
smiles--of warriors laying down their swords, and of pilgrims sinking into
rest. I pray that we may all die leaving some witness to the faithfulness of
Christ. (H. Christopherson.)
Joshua’s farewell charge
Notice, first, that in parting he says nothing of himself. He
recalls to their minds only the source of all the power that was theirs in the
past, and all the power that could be theirs in the future. His one thought in leaving
them is to remind them of the character of God. That should ever be the thought
of the pastor who is parting with his people--that he should say nothing of
himself, or what he has done, or what, known only to himself and God perhaps,
he has utterly failed to do, but that he should be exceeding anxious and
exceeding jealous as to the character of God. The question which he seems to
ask himself as he is about to leave them is not, “What will the people think
about me when I am gone from them?” but, “What will this people think about
God? Will they serve Him as if they really believed in their heart and in their
soul that God can never tail them? Will they feel that they may, and that they
must, because of all that they know of God in the past, trust Him absolutely
and utterly for the future?” It is just possible he imagined that they might
not, and so his endeavour is in parting to make this great truth of the
absolute fidelity of God, which must be the foundation of all true religion, as
strong in them as it could be. It is easy to say, of course, that God is true
and faithful; but is there a man or woman here to-day who believes that every
premise that God, in His written Word, or in revelation to their inmost and
deepest spiritual nature, has made is actually fulfilled? What a changed world
it would be if every baptized man and woman believed in their heart and soul,
as a child believes the assurance of his father, that not one promise of God
has ever failed! Joshua called them to witness that day that not one single
promise that God had made them had failed; and yet there were the tribes that
He had promised to drive out still occupying many places in the land; there was
the Star unrisen yet that had been promised to come out of Jacob; there was the
sceptre as yet unwielded by Israel; there were many things, if you read the
history literally, that God had promised, and that, as far as mere human eye
could see, were not accomplished; nay, the approach of their fulfilment was not
discernible. And, nevertheless, he called on these men, who longed for these
things, to whom these things had been promised and had not yet come, he calls
them to bear witness that day that not one promise of the Lord their God had
failed them. To his heart of faith and to his eye of faith, because God hath
promised them, they were come to pass already; and he could not part from his
people without endeavouring to make them as deeply persuaded of that truth as
he was himself. And that, amid all the flux of time, that, amid all the great
social, political, and economic changes that have swept over the world, that is
the one foundation-truth still for nations and for men. In our national life it
is the truth we mostly need. In our national life forces are being developed
to-day into activity, of which none can at present forecast the issue. Beneath
the smooth surface of our modern life fires are seething which reveal
themselves now and again, as it were, in tongues of lurid flame that leap
through the thin film of our civilisation. Now amid all this how can we look
with anything like manly confidence to the remote, or even to the immediate,
future? We must sink, as it seems to me, into despair, if we can only think of
the schemes of rival politicians, or the impotence of social nostrums, or if we
can only hear, as words of hope, the flabby platitudes of the feeble
philanthropist. Our confidence and our hope must be based upon faith in the
faithfulness of God, in Him as the eternal I Am, who sitteth above the
water-floods, be the earth never
so unquiet. Our cardinal faith must be that the Lord, who was God in all
history, is God in history still, that He holds in His hands to-day all the
strength and all the weakness of the nation and of man. He is not the God of
the dead but of the living; and, if we will learn the lesson which He wilt be
teaching us somehow, by prosperity or by disaster, even now, as we look around
us on all the portents of the time, we may do so in the absolute confidence and
in the faith and hope which we ought to possess as we say: “No one good thing
which the Lord our God hath promised has ever failed us.” (Canon T. T.
Shore.)
What made Joshua the man he was
Joshua, when he spoke those words, was one of God’s grand old
friends. He and Caleb were the oldest men in that company. He tells them his
experience of life. It is worth while to ask what made old Joshua the man he was. It was
his character. If I met a man on the Manchester Exchange, and he told me he was building a new mill, fitting it
up with the newest machinery,
and that he would shortly turn out the finest yarn in the country, well, I
would say to him:
“You’ve got your work cut out, bur we shall see.” So I walk round that way, and
look at the new mill, with its fine machinery; see the manager--one who knows
his business--and I say, “That’s all right.” Then I walk down to the mill gate
to see what kind of raw material comes in. If the raw material is inferior,
then the fine mill, with its machines, all goes for nothing--it won’t do. The
yarn won’t wear. Now, make a man up of poor material, and he’ll not wear. What
character has a man; what is he made of? That is a great question. There are
two things about Joshua’s character to be noticed.
I. Joshua became
the man he was because he kept company with one older and better than himself.
He was Moses’ servant. Watching Moses and hearing his words moulded Joshua’s
character. My advice to young people is to keep company with folks older and
better than yourselves. Why does God let people live to a long age, if not to give
the younger generation their experience? Don’t leave home in a hurry. If father
and mother are people that pray, don’t hurry to leave them. It is the same with
old books: those used to be bound in sheepskin; nothing to look at outside, but
all inside. Nowadays they put it all outside, and the bookbinder does what the
author should have done. It is a responsibility which older people should
consider, that they ought to live so as to attract the young. This is one of
the wants of the age. Live so that your young people may say when they go out
into life, “I leave my best friends behind.” I never had such a fine compliment
paid me before as I had from my boy the other day. It was in class, and when I
came to my son Charlie, he said: “Well, father, I am only getting my eyes
opened to see what a privilege mine has been to live with such people as you
and mother are.” I wouldn’t give that away for £20,000.
II. Joshua became
the man he was because he had the courage of his convictions. There were twelve
of them sent to spy Canaan, tea of them said, “It’s no use. The country is good
enough, but it is full of giants.” “Yes, we shall go up,” said Joshua and
Caleb. Joshua was willing to be out-voted. It was ten to two, but the ten had
their coffins made before the two. Have the courage to vote for the right. One
man and God makes a strong party. Joshua’s experience was that God had been as
good as His word. There are no crises but what God can surmount them. Go and
ask George Muller. A man thought that he would give a thankoffering for his
life being spared to fifty years. He intended to give £50, and he thought he
would send the Bristol Orphanage £10. He was so haunted by this thought that he
could not wait for his birthday, but got an envelope and despatched a cheque for
£10. He got the usual receipt, and there was no more of it until the yearly
report of the Orphanage appeared. He thought he would just turn up the date and
see if his money were there. There at the very date he saw George Muller’s
words, “No money and no bread to-day, but cheque has arrived for £10.” Friends,
believe in a prayer-hearing God. Don’t be afraid to leave your case in His
hands if you are doing right. Some of these days you will have to say with
Joshua, “I go the way of all the earth.” You will have to give up going to
business and to lie in bed. Everything is growing dim, and the loved voices
seem miles away. Will some of those loved ones, writing to the son in
Australia, have to say, “Father’s last words were these: ‘Not one thing hath
failed of all the good things which the Lord spake’”? (T. Champness.)
An elevation that explains the whole of life
The traveller who has reached the highest attainable summit of the
Andes, and stands in the pure and cloudless atmosphere around them, can
expatiate over a wide and almost boundless horizon; while another who remains
in the valley below, amidst the haze of mist and vapour, must be satisfied with
a comparatively poor and trifling view of the magnificence and beauty that
surround him. It is thus with the Christian militant, in the war fare of his
earthly state, and after his release to join the armies of the blessed in the
rest of God. Here dimness and obscurity may in part intercept or much distort
the prospect of Divine mercy, and all the rich consolations of a Saviour’s
love. But when his liberated soul shall attain the felicities of heaven, he
will stand upon an elevation commanding the boundless extent of Divine
operation in the walk and world of providence and grace. His eye will be
strengthened to behold, and his comprehension will be enlarged to understand
them with knowledge, love, and wonder, increasing throughout eternity. No cloud
will be seen throughout the universe of blessedness to intercept his vision.
Every dispensation by which the Saviour visited and helped him, however
misunderstood in the days of earthly darkness and ignorance, will then be fully
explained, every difficulty solved, and every apparent contradiction harmonised
for ever. (R. P. Buddicom, M. A.)
The promise of God has its season
As the herbs and flowers which sleep all winter in their roots
underground, when the time of spring approacheth presently start forth of their beds,
where they had lain so long unperceived, thus will the waits for the appointed
time, and then comes. Every promise is dated, but with a mysterious character;
and for want of skill in God’s chronology we are prone to think that God
forgets us, when indeed we forget ourselves in being so bold to set God a time
of our own, and in being angry that He comes not just then to us.
Confidence in God’s faithfulness
Your boy comes to you and asks you to buy him a fishing-rod, and
he says, “I saw one to-day in a window, which was just what I want. Can’t I go
down now and buy it?” And you say, “No, not to-day, wait a little.” A week
passes, and the lad begins to say to himself, “I wonder if father has forgotten
all about it?” Then you put into his hands a better rod than he has ever seen
before, and the boy is overwhelmed with surprise and pleasure. And yet the main
thing in all this is not that your son received what he wanted, but the gift
won, through delay, has given him a new view of his father’s wisdom, and a new
confidence in his affection, which makes him say, “Hereafter, when I want
anything of this kind, I will leave it all to father.” And so the main thing
that a man gains, when God at last answers his prayer, is not the gift, but the
clearer consciousness that God is better than His gifts, that he has all in
God. (R. Vincent.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》