to Joshua chapter one, Joshua. You know, looking into the Old
Testament is like looking into a photo album, all these pictures. You know, over at the house,
Vicki has all these photo albums, I mean, from, and they're by
year, they're by day, weeks, months, year. I mean, it's just,
And you can go to each album and just see this year, and this
year, and this year, and the things that went on, and the
differences. And that's what it's like looking
into the Old Testament. It's like looking into a photo
album. In this photo album, we have pictures of our Lord. You know, it's, in this day,
We have this, we don't have it, but they have this picture of
what they call, the one they call Jesus Christ, which is not.
We know that's not him. But they have this picture, and
they'll have it hanging on the wall, and they'll have it hanging
in church buildings. The pictures that God's given
us of his son is in the Old Testament. This is where pictures of Christ
are. Not hanging on a wall, but it's in his word. And we have
a beautiful picture here of Christ in Joshua. I titled this Jesus
Christ, our Joshua. He's our Joshua. And what a picture
we have here. And let me read to you the first
The first nine or 10 verses here, let me look. First nine or 10
verses. First nine verses in the book
of Joshua. And you will see here as we go
along how clearly this represents Christ. Now after the death of
Moses, a servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord
spake unto Joshua, a son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses,
my servant is dead, now therefore arise, go over this Jordan. Thou
and all this people unto the land which I do give to them,
even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of
your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said
unto Moses. From the wilderness and this
Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all
the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the
going down of the sun shall be your coast. There shall not any
man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As
I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee,
nor forsake thee. Be strong and of good courage,
for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the
land, which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be
thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do
according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded
thee. Turn not from it to the right
hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever
thou goest. This book of the law shall not
depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day
and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is
written therein. For then thou shalt make thy
way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have
not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage.
Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God
is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. You can see Christ in
every one of those verses. He's in every one of those verses.
Now, Joshua's name in Greek means Jesus. It means Jesus is what
it means. You can see that in Acts 745
and Hebrews 4a when it speaks of Jesus led them into the land
of promise, the land of Canaan as Joshua. And his name means
Jesus. And his name that Moses spoke
and gave over in Numbers 13, Jehoshua is J-E-H-O-S-H-U-A. That's the way it's pronounced
there and spelled. And it means salvation. Salvation. Our salvation is a
person. Jesus Christ is our salvation. He doesn't just give it to us,
though he does. But he is our salvation. He is our help. That's another
one of the names. Now, our Lord here speaks to
Joshua and he tells him to take the children of Israel over into
the land of Canaan because Moses And Joshua was about 85 here. He's not a young man. He's been
with Moses all the way through this. He's about 85 years old. He died when he was about 110.
But he didn't die until he settled Israel in Canaan. But Moses was
not allowed to take Israel into the Promised Land. Look up in
Deuteronomy chapter 34, which is on the same page of my Bible
here, Just a page back. In verse four, and the Lord said
unto him, unto Moses, after he had taken him up on Mount Pisgah,
and he let him see it. This is the land which I swear
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give
it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it
with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over you're not going to go into the
land of promise, into that Canaan. Why? You remember when God told
Moses to smite the rock, and water came out of it, and he
did. And then later on, Israel murmured, complained, and God
told Moses, speak to the rock. And Moses, out of anger, smote
the rock again. And because of that, God said,
you're not gonna go, you're not gonna go into the land of Canaan
because Christ was crucified one time. He was smitten. The Lord Jesus Christ was smitten
one time. And Moses did it twice. He smote
that rock twice. And because of that, God said,
you're not going over. But here's the providence of
God. Here's the wisdom of God. Moses represented the law. The
law cannot deliver anyone into glory. The law cannot deliver
me into God's presence. That's the responsibility and
the work of Jesus Christ, our Joshua. Isn't that beautiful? You know, when this is all happening
to Moses, and he did that, and the Lord said, you can't go over
there, you're not going over, this is gonna fall to Joshua.
You and I, listen, you and I living on this side of the cross, we
see it clearly, don't we? They didn't see that as clearly.
This is written for us, also. These are examples for you and
I. This is why this is being written,
it's examples for you and I. We can so clearly see, we can
see that the law cannot deliver anyone. The law can't justify
you if you're guilty. The law can only justify a person
who's not guilty. And the only way I am not guilty
is through Christ and Him crucified. My substitute dying in my place,
that really happened. And because of that, because
God put me in Christ, Christ died for my sins, I'm not guilty. And now I can be delivered up
into glory, and the law is not going to present me before God's
presence. Who does it say is going to present
us before the throne spotless? Jesus Christ. He's gonna present
us spotless. He's gonna do it. So law was
not, I mean, Moses was not allowed to do that because he represented
the law. This responsibility fell to Joshua. It fell to him. And he, not only
is he gonna do it, he did do it. He did do it. And his name here, Joshua, is
not, you know, Now, as I've said this before, we give our kids
names, and we don't really pay a lot of attention to meaning
nowadays. But this had, you know, God didn't
do that. God gave, when he gave a name, it had a meaning. Thou
shalt call his name Jesus. Why? because he'll save his people
from their sins. He's the savior. His name means
savior. He's salvation. He's our salvation. See, his name has real meaning
to it. It's not just a cute name. It's
a name that has real meaning to it. And it indicates his person. It indicates his character. It
indicates his work. It indicates everything about
him, his name. We are saved, how? In his name. There is no other name given
among men whereby we must be saved. There's one name that
God the Father recognizes. That's the name Jesus Christ. Christ said, and we'll see this
later in the next message, whatsoever you ask the Father in my name. That name means something. It
reveals the character of that person. It reveals the work of
that person. It reveals the glory of that
person, Jesus Christ. Now, as we see here, look in
verse one. Now, after the death of Moses,
the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto
Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister. He served Moses. He served the law. He was obedient. If you go back and read some
of Exodus and so forth, Deuteronomy, you'll see that he served Moses.
You know, he was one of the spies that was sent into the land of
Canaan to spy out the land. Whatever Moses told him to do,
he did it. He did it. Everything Moses said,
Asked Joshua, or told Joshua to do, he did it. Our Lord, listen,
our Lord was made of a woman, made under the law. And whatever
the law said to do, the moral law, the ceremonial law, whatever
it said to do, he did it. He kept the law, he served it,
he kept the law. And he kept it perfectly. He
kept it perfectly first in his heart. He said, oh, how I love
thy law. You see, you can't keep the law
unless first it starts with love. If you don't love, you're just
doing it. You know, if a person like the Pharisees, they kept
the law outwardly because that's what it said to do. They didn't
love it. They didn't love it. Christ loves God's law. He loved
it. He said, my meat is to do the
will of him that sent me. My meat is to keep his law and
to do his will. That was what he got up in the
morning for. That's what he went throughout the day for. He constantly
did it. He constantly kept the law. And
you'll see this as here it is, this book in verse eight, look,
this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but
thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou may observe
to do according to all the written therein. He did it. The Lord
Jesus Christ kept the law. He kept the law, he served the
law as Joshua served Moses. And then listen here, and the
whole government of Israel was on his shoulders. It was on his shoulders. And everything, everything Concerning
the land of promise concerning the children of Israel listen
was given to Joshua Moses my servant is dead verse
2 now therefore arise go over this Jordan thou and all this
people God's given them to Joshua to take it to the land of promise
We were given into the hands of Jesus Christ to save and to
bring home a to that land of promise. That thief said, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. And he said, this day thou shalt
be with me in paradise. You're going to be with me. I
will bring you into paradise. The Lord is bringing us. Now,
would to God I could get a hold of this more than I do. He's
bringing us to glory. And we have some heartaches along
the way here, I know that. But I'll show you the next, we'll
see in the next message. He said, your sorrow shall be
turned into joy. I'm combining these two messages.
But your sorrow's gonna be turned into joy. But here, he says here, my servant
Moses did. Now rise, go over this Jordan,
thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them. It's yours. All things are yours
in Christ. Now find out what you have in
Christ. You know, if all things are mine in Christ, wouldn't
it interest me to find out what I have in Christ? He said, I've given it to them,
even to the children of Israel. I've given it to them, even,
to just put emphasis on it, even to the children of Israel. He didn't give it to anybody
else. He gave it to the children of Israel. That's a fact. Every place that the sole of
your foot, Joshua, shall tread upon, that have I given unto
you, as I said unto Moses, from the wilderness and this Lebanon,
even into the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land
of the Hittites, and into the great sea toward the going down
of the sun shall be your coast. I give it to you. All things
are given to Christ. You see, this is just an example.
This is just a sample of the greater Picture of the greater gifts given to
Christ. All things are given to him.
God has vested everything in his son. He's turned absolutely
everything over to his son, the universe, the ruling of the universe,
angels, fallen angels, the elect angels, all human beings. God
has turned it over to the Lord Jesus Christ. And every person
in this world is in his hands. He said over in John 17 too,
Father, you have given me power over all flesh. There's no one
that's outside of my power. Not very many people recognize
the power of Christ. You do, you believe. But he has
power over all flesh. And he rules over all flesh.
And like the ocean, he said to the waves of the ocean, hither
here shall you come and no further. God will allow a person to go
to a certain point and then he'll say, that's enough, that's it. You look at these kingdoms that
look like they would stand forever. I mean, at one time, Egypt ruled
the world. At one time, Rome ruled the world. I mean, you go back and look
at the kingdoms, and it looked like they would just
go on and on and on. But where are they at now? Where's
the power of Rome at now? Where's the power of Egypt at
now? I was thinking the other day,
I was thinking about this. They were such a great nation
at one time, but we, this nation right here, could blow them off
the face of the earth if God let it, if God turned us loose
on them. They couldn't stand before even this nation now,
but at one time there was no nation that could stand before
Pharaoh. You know why? God's on the throne. Christ rules over all. And every
period of time, every kingdom serves his eternal purpose. It's doing that right now. It's
serving his eternal purpose. Aren't you glad of that? I'm
so glad of that. I can sleep at night because
of that. I see these people, you can see these people on TV,
they're freaking out and just falling apart. You're not falling
apart, are you? We pray about things. We pray
over things. We do. We pray for peace. We pray for
peace. If we prayed for it more than
we complain about it, we'd probably have more of it. We'd have more
of it. But the government was laid on
his shoulders, as it says, and I said that the government was
laid upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ, the government of the
world, the government of the universe, and the government
of the church is laid upon his shoulders. And it's Joshua who
led the children of Israel into the land of Canaan. It's going
to be Christ who leads us into glory. He's gonna bring us into
glory, to God's eternal, holy presence. And we're gonna be able to stand
there. We'll be able to stand. And Joshua, all things were given
to him. He brought the children of Israel
into the land of Canaan, and he's the mighty conqueror. Look in verse five, there shall
not a man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.
There's not any, any person, the devil, you name it, can't
stand before Christ, can't resist him. He said the gates of hell
will not prevail against you. It will not keep the gospel out.
You know the gospel, a person can't even keep the gospel out
of their heart if God sends it to you. If it could, not one
of us here would believe. Unless God subdues us, we would
not believe. But thank God for the power of
God, for the power of Christ to be able to subdue us. Power
over all flesh, even mine, even mine. But Joshua is the mighty
conqueror. He conquered many kings. You
know, if you read, when you read Joshua, we may have to go through
this book after I get done with Psalms, but it took about six
years when he subdued the kingdoms that were in the land of Canaan,
brought all those kings and subdued them. You know, Joshua never
lost a battle. He didn't lose a battle. I know
we had that incident with Akin when he stole that piece and
put it in his tent. And when they went out to battle,
there's 36 men died. There's several, 3,000, I think,
went out to battle. 36 men died, and Joshua ran his
clothes and said, you know, what happened here? I mean, what's
going on? And the Lord said, they're sinning in the camp,
basically. And you know the story. That's where it came down to
Akin, and they found that, and they was put to death. He was
put to death, but Joshua didn't lose any battles. Nobody, nobody,
no king, no matter how strong they were, were able to stand
before Joshua. None, none are able to stand before
Christ or resist him. When you read the Gospels, when
you read the Gospels, Is there anywhere in the gospel
where you read when the Lord said to a demon, a devil, a demon,
come out of him or come out of her? Do you read if any of them
say no? Do you read if any of them said,
no, I don't think so, not today? They bowed to him. They called
him the Holy One. They said this, we know who you
are. You are the Holy One of Israel.
We know who you are. When he cast Legion out of that
demoniac, they asked him if they could be cast into those swine.
They didn't want to be cast out of that part of the country.
And he let them go into those swine. They all went down to
the water and drowned. No one can resist Christ. None can stand before him. Satan
can't stand before him. He said, the prince of this world
is judged and cast out. He said, I saw Satan cast out
of heaven. Guess who cast him out? The Lord
did. The Lord cast him out. He defeated
Satan, the king of evil. He conquered sin. which is, you
know, sin like a tyrant king. Listen, this sin nature we are
born with, like a tyrant king reigns in our hearts. And it
controls you. It controls you. I'm telling
you, I don't care how intellectual a person is, when that nature
rises up, they give in to it. They give in to it. It's too
strong. And when, you know, when Paul wrote over in the Romans,
he said, sin shall not have dominion over you. He's not talking about
any particular sin at that point. He's talking about that nature
of sin. It will not rule you. I can, and you who believe, you
know this, but I can tell you, sin, now I know this, sin at
one time ruled my life. It ruled me. I did things I knew
better than to do. I knew better, but I did them
anyway. I did it anyway. I'll never forget
the first time I was, I probably shouldn't even tell this, but
the first time I got out and I'd gotten drunk, I came home that next day and
my dad, now my dad was strict. He was strict. And I had my, something was wrong
with my car and I had a hood up on it. Here came dad. I thought,
oh no. And he came over to the car and
he was helping, he's going to help me. And he goes, son, have
you been drinking? I said, no. I said, no. He said, you been drinking? I
said, no, I haven't. Because I knew better. I knew
better. I knew not to do that that night.
I knew not to carry on like that. And he caught me. It got me. But that old nature took over. Peer pressure, I was with a bunch
of guys. Peer pressure took over. Don't
think you can resist peer pressure. It'll get you every time. That sin nature, that sin nature
will not rule you no more. It will not be your master. Christ
is your master. He's your master. And all the promises, listen,
all the promises that were given to Joshua concerning Israel came
to pass. You know, the word of God tells
us that all the promises of God in Christ are yea and amen. We will have them. We will have
them based on him, not based on me. based on his person and
work, not me, not my marriage, not anything. I couldn't do anything
right, not completely. I mean, not without sin. Paul said, when I would do good,
evil is present with me. That which I would do, I don't. That which I would not do, I
do. But you know what? That which Christ would do, he
did. That which he would not do, he didn't. And that's our
righteousness. That's our righteousness. Our
Lord fulfilled all the promises of God, and in Him, we are complete. In Him, we have everything. And then, this is so good, this
is why I said we may have to go through this book next. You
know what he does? You know what Joshua did when
they first went into Canaan? You know who he saved? A harlot. Rahab and Jericho. Those spies came in and over
in chapter two, and she said, I heard of your Lord. I've heard
of your God. I've heard of you all. And I've
heard of you. And she believed what she heard.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. She heard
of him. She never met Joshua. She never met him. He hadn't
come over yet. But she met these spies here,
and they went back. And whenever Israel came in to
destroy that city, and the wall fell down, she had this red line
hanging out the window, this scarlet line hanging out the
window. That's what she was told to do. And she did, because she
believed them. And whenever they came in, Joshua
told them, you don't bother her. He saved a harlot who became
the mother of Boaz, who became the father of Obed, who became
the father of Jesse, who became the father of David. David's
great-great-grandmother was a harlot. And she's in the genealogy, if
you go over into Matthew chapter one, she's in the genealogy of
our Lord. Isn't that interesting? I was reading and some of the,
some of the writers said, well that's, that she really wasn't
the mother of them at, at Salmon, I think, her, her, her husband.
They didn't, I know, as I read that, and they was trying to
say, well she really wasn't the mother, this is historical, da,
da, da. And that's self-righteous, scared
to death, scared to death we're gonna put a Gentile harlot in
the genealogy of our Lord who saves sinners like me and you. He put her in there, he didn't
have her name taken out of there. No, that's you, you, you and
I are in the genealogy of Christ. The spiritual genealogy of Christ,
we're in his genealogy. Isn't that beautiful? Joshua. Jesus Christ is our Joshua. All
right.