people. Now, Joshua is a type
of Christ. We know that. We see that his
name is even used sometimes in the New Testament. In a place
of his name is used Jesus. And the reason that is, is because
the names mean the same. It means salvation or Jehovah
salvation. That's what the name means. When
you read the name of the Redeemer, when you read the name of Jesus,
you'll find with it the word save, or salvation, or Savior. When you just read the word name,
talking about Him, you'll read Savior, salvation, save. He shall bring forth a Son, thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among
men whereby we must be saved." This is His name, salvation,
Jehovah's salvation. Now in this text, Israel has
been brought by God, the children of Israel, they've been brought
to the edge of the promised land. But God won't allow Moses to
lead the children of Israel into the promised land. Instead, the
Lord has raised up Joshua, and Joshua is going to lead the children
into the promised land. What is the significance of this? We see the end of Moses' rule
here. and the beginning of Joshua's
rule here. What's the spiritual lesson in this? What do we learn?
Remember we learned in John 117, the law came by Moses. Moses is a picture and a type
of the law. That's what he is here. But grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. Joshua is a type of the Lord
Jesus. The Lord will not allow for Moses to lead the children
into the land of promise because you and I, sinners in need of
mercy and grace, in need of righteousness wrought in another, by another,
by Christ Jesus. The Lord will not allow us to
be brought into His presence through our doing, through the
law, through anything else. We have to be brought by Jesus
Christ our Savior alone. That's the only way God's going
to receive all the glory and God's going to receive all the
glory. No doubt about that. Alright, let's see some things
about this. I titled this message, Joshua, the end of Moses. And
I titled it, thinking on this scripture, Christ, the end of
the law for righteousness. Joshua, the end of Moses. Alright,
here's the first thing I want you to see. Jesus, the Savior,
The Lord and the Savior of His people served under the law.
Now, in the type here in the picture, Joshua served under
Moses. He served under Moses for many
years. We read in Galatians 4. You want
to look there with me. Galatians chapter 4, verse 4. When the fullness of time was
come, that appointed time, God sent forth His Son, That's who
we're talking about, the Lord Jesus Christ. Made of a woman. The children were flesh and blood.
The children He came to redeem, so He took part of the same.
Made of a woman. Made under the law. That's where
His children were. They were under the law. Under
that curse of that one transgression in the garden. Under the law.
And He came to redeem them that were under the law. to buy them
out from under the law, to pay everything that was owed to buy
them from under the law that we might receive the adoption
of sons. All right, Christ Jesus became
obedient. and He fulfilled all righteousness
of the law. We read here about Joshua, and
it says here, the Lord told him, you take this book of the law,
and Joshua 1.8, He says, don't let it depart out of your mouth,
meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe and
do according to all that's written therein. For then thou shalt
make thy way prosperous, then thou shalt have good success.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, my meat, My bread, my life is to
do the will of Him that sent me. And so many times we hear,
He came to John the Baptist, and John the Baptist said, I
have need to be baptized of you. And he said, thus it behooves
us in fulfilling all righteousness. He said, everything that's written
in the Law and the Prophets is written of me. Don't think I
came to destroy the Law and the Prophets. I came to fulfill them.
Everything He did, He had the Law of God in his heart. He had the law of God on his
thoughts. He had the law of God on his
tongue. He had the law of God in his
hands and his walk and everything he did. And he was doing that
as a representative for his people to fulfill a righteousness that
his people couldn't fulfill. And then his children had broken
the law. His children had sinned against
God and transgressed against God and Adam. By one man's sin
entered into the world and death by sin and death passed upon
all men for all have sinned. but it's by one man that many
are going to be made righteous, and that one is Christ. And He
became obedient even unto the death of the cross. He went to
the cross and He was made sin for His people that He might
make them the righteousness of God. He satisfied the justice
of God, the law of God, the wrath of God, and He put away the sin
of His people. So now, in all points, He has
completely, totally, thoroughly fulfilled all the righteousness
of the law. Everything. Everything. Now, that's what we see here
in what was commanded Joshua. He's going to be the one leading
these people and he's the one who's told, take this word of
my law and you eat it and you live upon it. And thus you'll
be the deliverer of my people. Alright, here's the second thing.
Now, those born of the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of Christ
our God are no longer under the law, they're no longer under
the rule of it, but are led and are under the rule, the motivation,
the constraint, the teaching, the revealing, the being upheld,
everything by the Spirit of Christ our God, working in the inner
man. Now watch this. You remember
how the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, he gave an illustration of
a woman married to a man. And he said, as long as she's
married to that man, the law bears witness. The law says she
has to stay married to that man. If she leaves him or departs
from him, she's an adulterer. Whoever she marries or whoever
marries her is an adulterer. He says, but if that man dies,
she's free to marry another. The law says she is. The law
says, free, marry another. The same law that forbid it before
now says, it's free, you can marry another. And he said, wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law body of Christ,
that you might be married to another, even to Him who's raised
from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God, real
fruit, living fruit, true fruit, not that stuff that we called
fruit and we pretended was fruit, but was just an outward show
of A pretense. Real fruit. Heart fruit. Fruit
that only Christ can produce. Fruit that only the Spirit of
God can produce. Fruit like love and long-suffering
and mercy and kindness. These are things that we could
get everything all molded and reformed on the outside, but
we couldn't produce that fruit. We couldn't produce the fruit
of seeing a brother in error and having the discipline of
loving him and and going to Him and trying to point Him to Christ
and teach Him the Word of Christ and remind Him of these precious
promises by which God says a sinner will be brought out from that
bondage and brought out from his error. We didn't have the
fruit of being able to ask God truly and say, Lord, teach this
my brother, teach, edify him, protect him, help him, teach
me how to deal patiently and gently with him. We didn't have
that fruit. We didn't have it. We had that
dead fruit of saying, I wish you'd teach him. Teach him something. He needs to know something. Even
our prayers was dead fruit. And then we had that fruit now
of patiently waiting, after we've done that which God's given us
to do, of patiently waiting on God to reveal it in him and teach
him and do it. That's the discipline the believer's
under. Mercy and grace and love and
forgiveness. with the Word of God, asking
God and waiting on God. Well, now we see here, He says,
you're free to be married to another. Free to be married to
another. The law has ended. That rule
has ended. You're free to be married to
another. Now we see it in our text. Deuteronomy 34, 5. Moses
is a type of the law. It says here, Moses the servant
of the Lord died there in the land of Moab according to the
Word of the Lord. He died. Now, I like this. I want you to see this. Now,
you remember Romans 3.21, and I reiterate this time and time
again to you, and I want you to get this. Now, be sure. I
know folks like to debate about objective and subjective faith
and all those things, but listen to this now. In Romans 3.21,
it says, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. It's revealed. And it's witnessed. Just like that law that said
you cannot be married to another. Now that law says, okay, you're
free to be married to another. The Law and the Prophets, everything
the Law of God said, and everything the Prophets say, everything
in this book is bearing witness to the faith and the fidelity
of one. And that's Christ the Lord. And
so that's what we read here. It's witnessed by the Law and
the Prophets in Romans 3.22. And the King James Version reads,
and mark it if it doesn't read this way in whatever translation
you're using, Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ. It's the fidelity of Christ.
It's the faith of Christ. It's the righteousness of Christ,
wherein we behold the righteousness of God. And it's unto all and
upon all them that believe. From the faith to faith that
He gives. We behold Him and rejoice in
Him. But the righteousness is in Him. Now we see this in our
text. If you don't understand that
and you don't believe that that's what that text is saying, you'll
miss this and you won't rejoice in this. But every verse of Scripture
is given to point us to Christ and to show us where salvation
is. Watch Deuteronomy 34, 9. For Joshua, the son of Nun, was
full of the spirit of wisdom, for because Moses had laid his
hands upon him." Now you look at that carefully. You remember
who Moses is? Moses had laid his hands on Joshua. The law came by Moses. Moses
is a picture of the law. Moses is a type of the law. And
the law, Moses, bore witness and laid his hands on Joshua.
Moses was a prophet. The law and the prophets bear
witness that the righteousness of God is manifest in Christ.
Moses laid his hand on Joshua. And you have a picture there
of the prophets bearing witness. This one is the one that's going
to lead you. This one's the one that's going to save you. This
is the righteousness of God. And the fact of the matter is
Joshua here being full of the spirit of wisdom because Moses
laid his hands on Joshua, Christ Jesus is the spirit of the wisdom
of the law and of the prophets. Remember we saw last week that
he asked the prophet before he ever came into this earth, all
the prophets spoke by the spirit of Christ and they spoke about
Christ. He's the spirit and wisdom of
everything the law and the prophets say. He said, they are they which
testify of me, everything about them. So both the law and the
prophets, they bear witness of Him. They lay their hand on Christ
declaring loud and clear to everyone that has ears to hear, Christ
Jesus is the power and wisdom we've been declaring to you since
God first gave the first word. It's what we've been saying to
you the whole time. The Savior by which God's children
shall be delivered into the land of Canaan. Here's the third thing.
Jesus our Savior is the governor and he's the commander over all
the children of Israel. He is. Now watch this. When this was revealed in the
children of Israel, when it came to them and they heard it, they
hearkened unto the witness. They obeyed Moses. They obeyed
the Lord. by obeying Moses. And they obeyed
Moses. And they followed Joshua. They
did it all. It all culminated in them following
Joshua. Look at Deuteronomy 34.9. The
end there says, And the children of Israel hearkened unto him. the Law and the Prophets. You
know what you're going to do when God reveals Christ in you,
when He reveals that the righteousness He's been declaring in this Word?
You're going to look into these Scriptures and you're going to
behold that the Law and the Prophets all bear witness of Christ. And
you know what you're going to do? You're going to believe God
by believing the Law and the Prophets, and you're going to
obey God and obey the Law and the Prophets. How? By believing
on Christ Jesus and following Him. That's what they did. The children of Israel hearkened
unto Him and did as the Lord commanded Moses. That's what
happens every time the Lord speaks into the heart of a sinner. Look
back now at Galatians 4 again. Galatians 4 again. I meant to
tell you to hold your place there and I forgot. Galatians 4. Look
at verse 6. And because ye are sons, You see, God provided this one
Joshua before these children of Israel ever knew He was the
one that was going to lead them. God provided His Son before you
and I ever even knew. We were sons before we knew we
were sons. We were sons in His Son before
we knew we were sons. And he says, Because ye are sons,
he sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, and no
longer under that rule of Moses any more, but now your son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. That's a good word. That's a
good word. They were under that rule of
Moses. Now they're under the law of God. But He served His
purpose. Moses served His purpose. The
law served His purpose. And when Christ is revealed in
a sinner, now they come under that light and easy yoke of Christ
the Lord. And they follow in Him. We're
no longer looking to the law to deliver us. We're no longer
looking to the law to motivate us. We're no longer looking to
the law to be the force that we use to try to to get some
kind of compliance in one another, we use it. I'm using it today.
I'm sitting here reading what Moses wrote right here today.
And the law's good if a man use it lawfully. If we use it, what
was it given for? To shut our mouths and point
us to Christ. And if you use it for that purpose,
it's good. It's good use of it. But it wasn't
made for a righteous man. It wasn't made to curb and constrain
and bind a righteous man. And all those who were washed
in the blood of Christ and born of the Spirit of God are righteous
in Christ. It wasn't made to bind and yoke. It was made to
point us to Christ. And we see Him. We see that really
indeed all along. The Spirit of the Law and the
Spirit of the Prophets, everything they've been saying is Christ
is all our salvation. I want you to see this in Galatians
3. And I think you can put a capital
L here on this word faith. Verse 23, Galatians 3. Before faith came, before Christ
came, before He enters into our hearts, we were kept under the
law. Shut up unto the faith which
should afterwards be revealed. He is the one that's going to
have to be revealed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. It's revealed in the face of
Christ Jesus. He said the light shined and we saw the glory of
God in the face of Christ Jesus. and wherefore the law was our
schoolmaster to bring us into Christ that we might be justified
by faith. But after that faith has come,
after Christ has come, after He's entered in and we behold
Him, we're no longer under that schoolmaster anymore. For you're
all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Alright, now
let me give you a few things here real quick and I'm running
short here. It's not that the believers without
law to God, In fact, it's not the believer who is without law
to God. You know who's without law to
God? Those who turn again to the law are without law to God.
That's true. That's true. The believer obeys
everything the law declares by slipping under the light and
easy yoke of Christ our King, under his direct leadership,
under the rule of Christ Jesus, who is our God, who is our lawgiver,
who is the fulfiller of it, who is our life, who is our righteousness,
who is all and in all. were passed from death to life,
from bondage to complete redemption. Listen, it can't be more clear.
If ye be led of the Spirit. Just as if I went over here and
I took my son by his hand and I said, come child, let's go.
Who's leading him? I am. If I'm led of the Spirit,
I'm led of Christ Jesus, the triune God of glory, my Savior. I'm led of Him. He's got hold
of me. And just like my son, if he starts
trying to let go of my hand, he don't stop that. It don't
stop me from leading him. I keep on holding on to his hand.
The grip that I'm trusting is the grip that he's got on me. Oh, wherefore, you're no more
a servant but a son." Now, Paul said, now if you've been known
of God, why then do you turn again to those weak and beggarly
elements? The carnal mind, to be carnally
minded is to mind those things, to mind fleshly obedience, to
mind outward obedience. I'm not saying, brethren, that
we don't have it. The believer has a has a desire
to walk honorably before God, a desire to adorn the doctrine
that we believe, the Savior we believe, the God of the doctrine
we want to adore and adorn Him. And because we know that, and
we know that's the heart of our brethren, that's all the more
reason not to turn again to those weak and beggarly elements. It's
all the more reason not to look upon the poor erring brother
and become offended. The Lord said, if you're right
eye offending, you know when my eye offends me most? When
I start using it to be a fruit inspector and start looking at
you and see your error and your sin, I get offended. And not
only I become an offense, He said, pluck that out. How? I
can't look at all that in you if I'm looking at Christ. You
can't. That's how you pluck it out.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Isn't that so? We know no man
after the flesh. If you see error in me, I see
error in you. I know what that is. That's the
old man. If I saw that in the Apostle
Paul, I'd be looking at Saul, not the Apostle Paul. Can we
understand that? Can we delight in that? Will Christ really lead me? Will
He really direct me like that? Listen, vested with all the authority,
with all the power from God. You know what Joshua did? He
led Israel to victory and He led them to possession of the
land. Just like God said He would. That's what He did. Our Lord
Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. King over the hearts
of all heathen kings. King over the hearts of all sinful,
wretched, lost men who think they are kings. Kings over the
hearts of all those that He, by His Spirit, has made kings
and priests unto God. He is King of kings and Lord
of lords. Able to turn the king's heart
whether so ever He will. Joshua led Israel right into
Canaan. Moses led them up to it and they looked at it. Joshua
led them right into it. What the law couldn't do in that
it was weak through the flesh, God sent in his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh that the righteousness of God might be fulfilled in
us. He's already delivered us into the land. We're already
there. It's as good as done. That's
right. Well, he conquered all their
enemies. And every promise that God made
to physical Israel was fulfilled in Joshua. And so it is that
this book, this gospel we preach, it's not conditional promises.
God will do this if we do that. That's what the legal covenant
was. This gospel is the promises of what God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit will do to save His people. And everything He's promised,
it's not Maybe it's yes, and it's amen
in all these promises. Every one of them are in Christ
Jesus. All of them. So where else we
want to be? But in Him. Trust in Him. Follow in Him. He did it every... Paul said, I'm persuaded that
He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him. He's
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession for them. Paul said he's able
even right now to subdue all things unto himself. That means
that erring brother, that erring sister. So you know what Paul
said? He said, let us therefore as
many as be perfect, as many as be matured in this understanding
and realization that he is this powerful. Let us be thus minded
and if anything you be otherwise minded. You know what Paul said? God shall reveal even this unto
you. He's able to subdue all things
unto himself. Well, let me end with this. When
I hear this, when I hear about this love and this joy and this
long-suffering, this gentleness, this goodness, this faith, this
meekness, this temperance, which are God's able to, the fruits
of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ. And I see my failure. I see it makes me want to take
the yoke of that taskmaster, my old taskmaster's yoke, and
grind it into powder. It makes me want to take this
pointer finger and break the thing and not use it anymore. But then I see how far short
I come. I see how I fail and how miserably
I fail. And I feel like a harlot departing
from my God and not being faithful to just trust Him. But you know
what also I have a promise of in this time? You know what Joshua
did when he came to Rahab the harlot? When he saw that scarlet
line in the window, he saved her and didn't destroy her house. Oh, lay hold of Christ, believe
on Him, trust Him. Trust Him in spite of yourself.
Trust Him in spite of everything you are. And He promises, God
our Father promises, when I see that scarlet line that I'm pleased
with, and you just, all your hope is in that scarlet line,
that blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'll spare you. I'll
spare you. That's our hope. That's our hope. All right. Amen.