Okay, Deuteronomy chapter three. The book of Deuteronomy, the
word Deuteronomy means second law. That's what it means. And this is where Moses, before
the children of Israel, entered into the promised land. He read,
as they'd been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, and
the book of Deuteronomy gives us an account of that, as well
as the book of Numbers. But before they entered into
the promised land, Moses read the law to them a second time,
and he gives some commentary on it. This is not a different
law that was given to them, different than the one given them from
Mount Sinai, the original law, but this is just another reading
of that same law. That's what Deuteronomy means,
second law. And the Book of Deuteronomy,
it begins by Moses going back and recounting how God commands
Moses and Israel to leave Mount Sinai and to make their way to
the Promised Land. And as you know, they came to
the brink of the Promised Land. They sent those spies over, 12
spies, and the spies came back with the report. You had a majority
report. from ten of them talking about
how strong and how big the people were. It was a negative report. We can't take this land. We can't defeat these enemies.
And then Caleb, you remember Caleb and Joshua. Caleb, his
name means faithful dog. And he represents the faithful
of God. God-given faith, and Joshua,
who we're going to talk about today. His name means Savior. That's what Joshua means. And
he was a picture of Christ. But at that time, both Joshua
and Caleb were pictures of believers. And they came back and said,
look, you're all thinking about this wrong, wrongly. This is
not up to us. This is not conditioned on our
power or our acute wisdom or anything like that. This land
is ours. And I think it was Joshua said,
we just need to go over and have it. We just need to go over and
possess it. God's given it to us. But the children of Israel
would not have it. And they disbelieved God. And
so God told him, you can read it over, Hebrews 3 is a good
commentary on this, where it says in verse 16, let me, I'll
just read you this, Hebrews 3, 16. For some, when they had heard,
did provoke. Now what he's talking about is
a provocation of God. They provoked the Lord. And they
went against Moses too, God's messenger. And how be it not
all that came out of Egypt by Moses? Not all of them provoked
him. Joshua and Caleb, Moses, Aaron,
and I'm sure there were others. But verse 17 of Hebrews 3 says,
but with whom was he grieved 40 years? It says, was it not
with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness,
and to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest? That the rest there being the
physical land. The promised land. And of course
that's a picture of salvation, the rest that we enter in of
salvation. We'll talk about that in a moment.
But he said, but to them that believe not. And he says in verse
19 of Hebrews three, so we see that they could not enter in
because of unbelief. And that shows you how grave
and great this sin of unbelief is. Many preachers and commentators
say that unbelief is the mother of all sins. I would have to
agree with that. That's how Satan was instrumental
in bringing about the fall of man, by questioning the word
of God. Don't believe God, believe me.
God said in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely
die. I'm telling you, you shall not surely die. Don't believe
God, believe me. And of course, Eve was deceived.
Adam took sides with Eve against God, unbelief. And so it is the
mother of all sins. And I think about Holy Spirit
conviction as described in John 16, when he talks about the Spirit
will come and he will convince the world. And the first thing
he says, he's gonna convince the world, that's the world of
God's people, you know, God's elect. First thing you're gonna
convince them of is of sin, because they believe not on me. And so
unbelief is the mother of all sins. Without faith in Christ,
everything is sinful. Because the only way we can measure
up that word sin, meaning fall short, is to be in Christ. So
anyway, the book of Deuteronomy recounts that, and only Joshua
and Caleb would enter the promised land over in Deuteronomy chapter
one. Just back a page or two. I think it's in, yeah, it's in
verse 35. He makes this statement. He says,
surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation
see that good land which I swear to give unto your fathers, except,
or save, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it,
and to him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and
to his children, because he hath wholly or fully followed the
Lord. Caleb believed God. Now we know
that faith in anybody is a gift of God's grace. This is not saying
that Caleb was a better guy than the rest of them. Or that Caleb,
you know, people today, you know, they believe that they're saved
because they make the right choices. And the Bible tells us that nobody's
gonna make the right choice except the Lord of glory enter in. and change them, the new birth.
You can't see the kingdom of God, let alone enter it until
you're born again. And then it says in verse 37,
and the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, this is Moses
speaking, we'll talk about that in just a moment, saying thou
shalt not go in there, in thither, Moses was not gonna go in, but
he says in verse 38, but Joshua, the son of Nun, which standeth
before thee, he shall go in thither, encourage him, for he shall cause
Israel to inherit it. So you have Joshua and Caleb.
Now Joshua has the prime position in bringing Israel in. He's the
leader. He's going to cause Israel to
inherit it. Now that's God using Joshua. This is not Joshua's power or
Joshua's goodness. Joshua's like all of us, he's
a sinner saved by the grace of God. So understand that. As they went through the wilderness
on the way to the Promised Land, and as they wandered in the wilderness,
they met with some enemies. And two of these enemies we read
about, one of them was a king named Sihon. He was the king
of Heshbon. And Sihon, the king of Heshbon,
brought his army to stop Israel and their wanderings. And the
Lord God defeated Sihon and his army and gave the land to the
Israelites, the land of Sihon. Now this wasn't in the promised
land yet, but he gave it to them. And then there was another one
named Og, O-G, Og, and he was the king of Bashan. And he came
against Israel with his army and God defeated Og the king
of Bashan. You can read about that in Deuteronomy
2 and in the first verses of Deuteronomy 3. So here they were
attacked by these two kings and God defeated them because God
intended that the nation Israel, according to a promise that he'd
made to Abraham years before, that they were gonna obtain,
they were gonna be kept intact, not that generation, but the
next generation, and they're gonna take the promised land.
They're gonna enter into it. And so God was faithful to his
promise. And I always think about that.
I always, Lamentations chapter three is one of my favorite verses
of the Bible because he's talking about salvation here when it
applies to us. And he says in Lamentations,
let's see, it's 321. It says, this I recall to my
mind, therefore have I hope. And here's what he says. It is
of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His
compassions fail not. That's us, folks. I mean, right
now, you say, well, you know, I'm trying to do my best, Lord.
Well, I hope you are. But it's still of the Lord's
mercies that you're not consumed, because His compassions, Nothing
can separate us from the love of God. And he says in verse
23, they are new every morning. This is an everyday thing for
us. There's not a day that I can wake up and go through and say,
well, now that day I didn't really need the Lord's mercies. I was
good enough. No. The realization of God's mercy
towards me and saving me in spite of myself is new every morning.
every day, and then he says, he says in verse 25, I got confused
here. Here it is, verse 23. They are
new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. Our salvation is conditioned
not on our faithfulness. Now Lord, we pray, keep us faithful.
Keep me faithful. Don't let me look elsewhere.
other than Christ, don't let, run the race of grace looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Believe in him,
rest in his righteousness at all times. Don't let him, but
salvation, my salvation is not conditioned on my faithfulness,
but on God's faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. And
he won't let his people go. And always when I think of that
verse, I think of another favorite verse, Psalm 130 in verse three,
which says that, if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, Lord,
who would stand? And then verse four says, but
there is forgiveness with thee that thou might be glorified,
that God might be honored. So, all right. Well, look at
Deuteronomy 3.21. It says here, and this is Moses
speaking, And he says, and I commanded Joshua at that time, now this
is after the defeat of those kings and they're about to go
into the promised land. He says, saying, thine eyes have
seen all that the Lord your God have done unto these two kings,
this Sihon and this Og. And notice how Moses puts it.
What you've seen, Joshua, is not the work of the great man
Moses, What you've seen is the work of God. You see there, who
has the preeminency? And he said, unto these two kings,
what God hath done. Israel couldn't have defeated
Sihon and Og and their armies. Israel cannot defeat any of the
armies that are, any of the kingdoms that were in Canaan at that time,
the promised land. And you'll see that when you
talk about Jericho. They couldn't have defeated Jericho. But who can? God. And that's the way it is with
us. We can't defeat sin. We cannot defeat the devil. We
can't come against the world. We can't even defeat ourselves,
the flesh. Didn't Paul say that? He said,
I want to be righteous. I want to follow Christ perfectly. But I can't do it. Why, Paul? You need a 12-step program? What do you need? I need the
grace and power of God, that's what I need. Because the flesh,
sin within me, keeps me from going the full way of righteousness.
That's why these guys who talk about having a righteousness
within themselves, they're just lying to themselves. The only
righteousness we have is the imputed righteousness of Christ.
So he says here in verse 21, so shall the Lord do unto all
the kingdoms whither thou passest. So when you go over to Jordan,
When you go into the promised land, God's gonna do the same
thing to those kingdoms. Somebody said there was about
31 different kingdoms in Canaan at that time, I don't know. He
says in verse 22, you shall not fear them, for the Lord your
God, he shall fight for you. You've heard those words before,
haven't you? Remember Moses standing on the shore of the Red Sea?
Israel complaining murmuring disbelieving Moses's stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord which he will show you this
day These Egyptians that you fear so much you'll see them
no more forever the Lord shall fight for you You see all these
things that our enemies they can kill us they can defeat us,
but they cannot defeat Christ How do you know that he arose
from the dead I? He ascended unto the Father.
He ever lives to make intercession for us. And that's the whole
point of this. Their victory was never in their
hands. It was never conditioned on them.
Their deliverance from Egypt, their crossing the Red Sea, their
making it to the promised land, it was never conditioned on them.
And that's the way it is with our salvation. It's never conditioned
on us. is always conditioned on Christ
and he has fulfilled completely 100% all the conditions of our
salvation. Well, that's what grace is all
about. Grace is not God helping you to help yourself. Grace is
not God doing a work in cooperation with you or else it won't get
done. He brings us to cooperate. But
it's all Him. It's all Christ. And that's what
this is all about. What is it? He said in Romans
8, verse 37, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us, so that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
Christ conquered sin, He conquered Satan, He conquered the curse
of the law, and He conquered death for us. He did it. It wasn't me and Jesus doing
a great thing, or however they sang it. It was Him, all Him. Christ is all and in all. Well,
look at verse 23. We'll read a few verses here.
Moses said, I besought the Lord at that time saying, O Lord God,
thou hast begun to show thy servant thy greatness and thy mighty
hand for what God is there in heaven or in earth that can do
according to thy works and according to thy might. Moses isn't bragging
on himself, is he? He's bragging on God. There's
no God like our God. God forbid, Paul said, that I
should glory, boast, except in the Lord, in the cross of Christ.
And so Moses, you know, he had been told by God that he wasn't
gonna enter into the promised land. He's gonna get this far. And so Moses, being human, He's
a sinner saved by grace. Listen to what he says in verse
25. I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is
beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain in Lebanon. Let me go over. You
say, well, Moses, you're not believing God. Well, Moses did
believe God, but can you imagine that? Can you imagine Moses doing
all that the Lord used him for? And Then you come to the border and
you can't go over to the land of promise. And he just had a
human desire. But the Lord was wroth, he says
in verse 26, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes. And notice
there, he says, but the Lord was angry with me for your sakes.
What does that mean? Well, you know what happened.
We studied that back in Numbers. When Moses, you know, back in
Exodus, you know, remember the rock? They wanted water, they
had no water, and they complained. God told Moses, here's the rock.
You strike that rock and water will come out. That's a picture
of Christ. That rock was Christ, Paul said in 1 Corinthians. I
think it's 1 Corinthians 10. So there's salvation in Christ,
the rock, the water of life. He's our rock. Strike it once. What's that a picture of? That's
the one time, sufficient, powerful, efficient death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. By one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. You don't need to strike him
twice. He doesn't need to die twice. That's why religion has
so messed up the truths of God's word, hasn't it? You know, the
Catholic Church, when they have Mass, what are they doing? They're killing Christ again. That's what it's about. And so
when they take what they call the Lord's Supper, when the priest
puts the wafer on their tongue and they drink, they say that
actually turns in to the body of Christ and to the blood of
Christ. They call that transubstantiation. I mean, they say it actually
turns in. to his body and his blood. And
they go to John 6 where he said, those that don't eat my flesh
and drink my blood. And Christ is talking symbolically
there about faith, faith in his death. He said, this is my body
which is given for you. That's the humanity of Christ
offered upon the altar of his deity for the sins of his people.
And the blood is his death, the propitiation. And people can't
see past the elements. Well, Moses, as you know, in
the book of Numbers, came upon another time when there was no
water, and there appeared the rock. I'm not gonna get into
all that about, you know, the rock following him and all that.
But God said, now Moses, go out and speak to the rock. Just speak
to it. It's like preaching the gospel.
I'm not up here crucifying Christ again. He was crucified one time. I'm just telling you about it.
I'm just speaking to you when we meet together, when we take
the Lord's Supper. Those are symbols of something that's already
been done one time. And so he said, Moses, speak
to the rock. And Moses was angry. Again, he's
a human being. And he acted out of anger. And
he hit that rock not once, but twice. And he misrepresented
the truth of salvation in the person and work of Christ to
the people. And so it says here, he says,
but the Lord was angry with me for your sakes. You did not sanctify
the Lord God before the people. So for their sake, they're gonna
learn this lesson, see? They're gonna be taught this
lesson whether they learn it or not. I was a teacher for years,
I taught a lot of good stuff. I don't know if they learned
it or not. But that's what he's saying. For their sakes, and
he says, and he would not hear me. Moses says in verse 26, God
prayed to God, he would not hear me. And the Lord said unto me,
let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter.
It's settled, God said it, that settles it. Don't speak to me
anymore of this matter, Moses. And he says in verse 27, get
thee up into the top of Pisgah. And that was the mountain. And
these mountains, you know, sometimes you'll see different names for
the same mountain. Sometimes this mountain is called
Abarim. Sometimes it's called Pisgah.
But it was the mountain that Moses could climb up on and look
out over the promised land. He could see it. And so he says,
lift up thine eyes westward and northward and southward and eastward,
and behold it with thine eyes, for thou shalt not go over this
Jordan. Moses was not gonna go over.
Well, somebody had to lead him. So look at verse 28, but charge
Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him for he shall go
over before this people and he shall cause them to inherit the
land which thou shalt see. And so he says, so we abode in
the Valley over against Beth Peor. So the Lord told Moses
to appoint Joshua. Joshua would cause them to inherit
the land. In other words, it was all of
God, but Joshua would be the instrument to lead them over.
And what we see here is Joshua is a great, glaring type of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he is. Now all of
this transpiring in Providence in history, May seem to so many
people say, well, God wanted to do this, but Moses did that,
and then God changed his mind. But here's the point. God, the
scriptures tell us who God is. They tell us about God. They
tell us that God never changes. Is God a perfect God? Now if
you're a perfection, why would you need to change? And if you do change, it change
either has to be for the better or for the worse. God can't get
any better. He can't get any worse. The Bible
tells us that God is the controller. He's the sovereign of all things.
He declares the end from the beginning. Everything that's
happening here as we're reading it in history because we're so
limited, I mean everything that we have When we see these things,
we're just creatures of time, we have to speak of them in time
terms, but God's eternal and infinite. So as we see these
things going forth, it may look to our minds like, well, you
know, God was gonna have Moses bring them into the land, but
Moses messed up, so God changed it. No, that's not what happened.
God's working all things after the counsel of his own will,
and this end right here, God declared it from the beginning.
The end that's going to come about today, God's already declared
that from the beginning. He's working all things after
the counsel of his own will. So my point is this, everything
we're seeing here is what God sovereignly intended to do from
the beginning. He's not a cosmic chess player.
You make your move, he makes his counter move. He's not a
cosmic janitor. We mess it up and he comes behind
us cleaning up the mess. That's not what God is. Not the
God of the Bible now. The God of this generation's
like that. But not the God of the Bible. And here's the point. Why couldn't Moses lead them
in? Well, as you look at the history, there were times that
Moses himself was a type of Christ. He was God's prophet, bringing
the word. He was the deliverer. He was
the mediator between God and the people. All of those things. He was the law giver. He was
their leader. But all in all, as we look back
on it, Moses represents the law. The law of God. Now Moses himself
was a sinner saved by grace. He was a believer. But in his
office, he represents the law. And the law cannot bring a sinner
into the promised land of salvation. It takes somebody else. And that's
where Joshua comes in. Now, the Apostle John wrote this
in John 117. He said, the law was given by
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Well, let me
give you these things briefly about Joshua being a type of
Christ. Number one, Joshua was made the leader of Israel by
divine appointment. God told Moses, you appoint Joshua. Well, Christ was made the leader
of spiritual Israel before the foundation of the world. He was
appointed by the Father to be the surety of his people who
would come and substitute himself and redeem us from our sins.
The death of Christ was a done deal in the mind of God from
the very beginning. It wasn't God's contingency plan.
It wasn't plan B. It was the only plan from the
beginning. And as it unfolded in history, it may look to us
like, well, this happened, then something changed, that happened.
That was all God's plan. And that's the way it was right
here. Joshua was gonna lead them into the promised land. Picture
of Christ leading us into the spiritual promised land, which
is salvation. Secondly, Joshua, the name Joshua
means savior. Jesus is a Greek transliteration
of the Hebrew name Joshua. He shall save his people from
their sins. Moses is the law, Joshua is the
savior. Thirdly, Joshua was the servant
and successor of Moses. Well, Christ was the servant
of the law. Did you know that? In the fullness
of the time, God sent forth his son, what? Made under the law. To do what? To redeem them. Christ
is the law keeper. We're not law keepers, we're
law breakers. We're sinners. But the law has
to be kept, justice has to be satisfied. And that's what Christ
did as the servant of the law. He told the Pharisees, I didn't
come to break the law, I came to keep it every jot and every
tittle. Righteousness had to be established, the righteousness
of the law. And that's what Christ did. And
Joshua was a type of Christ. Fourthly, Joshua was the captain
of Israel's deliverance from the wilderness into the promised
land. Well, Hebrews 2.10 says that Christ is the captain of
our salvation. He represented his people. He
went under the law. He died and he was buried. He arose again. Righteousness
was established. His rule is a rule of righteousness. Number five, Joshua led the people
of Israel through the Jordan River. And you think about it,
it was at the Jordan River that Joshua was elevated to that position. You know, it was at the Jordan
River that Christ was made known as the savior of his people in
his earthly walk. Remember when he was baptized
in the Jordan River? And he told John the Baptist,
suffer it to be so for us to fulfill all righteousness. And
the father spoke from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased, hear ye him. The spirit descended on him like
a dove and his earthly ministry started. And the Jordan River
in the Bible represents death, it's an emblem of death. And
who can bring us across the Jordan River of death but Christ? So
he's a type of Christ there. And then, number six, the Lord
God through Joshua overthrew the walls of Jericho through
instruments that appeared weak and even foolish to men. Now
we'll look at that later on. Do you remember the story about
how Joshua fought the battle of Jericho? They had ram's horns
that they blew and the people shouted and the walls came tumbling
down. They didn't have cannons and
tanks and all of that. These weak instruments. Well,
think about Christ. He was a tender plant, the scripture
says. A root out of a dry ground. This
human being without sin, but look how weak that he appeared
when they were torturing him, and when we hanged him on that
cross. And that mass of flesh on that
cross, suffering and dying, and crying out, I thirst, he said.
He's the savior of his people eternally. Isn't that something? And then lastly, Joshua led the
people into a Sabbath rest in the promised land. You read Hebrews
chapter four on that. It speaks of Joshua. In fact,
in Hebrews four, I'll just say that when it mentions the name
Jesus in verse 8 of Hebrews 4, that's the name Joshua. And it
says, for if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not
afterward have spoken of another day. They had rest in the promised
land, but it wasn't eternal rest. It was not eternal rest. It was
a Sabbath of sorts, but not an eternal Sabbath. So if Joshua
had given them an eternal Sabbath, this is the point of the writer
of Hebrews, if Joshua had given them an eternal Sabbath, then
Joshua would not have later spoken of another one, which he did.
And the Sabbath rest that Joshua spoke of that's eternal is that
Sabbath that comes by Christ. and his finished work in bringing
us into the rest of the promised land of salvation. Okay.