Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

“Good Success” in our Spiritual Warfare.

“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 a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware 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 I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” (Joshua 1:3-9.)

We will now examine the blessed principles, by the observance of which we may enjoy the sure presence of the Lord in almighty power, and good success in our spiritual warfare.

Mark the first thing that is presented — the land is ours: God has given us, in the grace of His heart, the best of blessings, in the best place, and in the best way; “All spiritual blessings; in heavenly places, in Christ.” “All is yours,” He says, but then we must drive out the enemy and place the sole of our foot upon every inch of ground, and take possession. He has marked out the bounds, and none can dispute our title to what He has bestowed. No hostile power can stand against His people — God is for them; “If God be for us who can be against us?” The possessions are His, but in His people, under Christ, He takes them into His hand.

Such is the boldness with which we have to face the foe; no fear of the result, He “hath not given unto us the spirit of fear.” But all is ruin where these conditions are not observed. In place of “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life,” we find, further on, that they “could not stand before their enemies,” and the Lord said, “Neither will I be with you any more” (Joshua 7:12). How solemn! The walls of Jericho, around which the victorious Host had walked but a little before, had fallen down flat; and now the people are smitten before the men of Ai, “and the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.” The “accursed thing” was permitted; disobedience brought its defeat and bitterness. “Covetousness,” which desired the wedge of gold, and “idolatry” of heart, which saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, had been allowed; until defeat proved that the Lord’s presence and power was forfeited while they remained, and a discomfited Host finds what a reality His presence had been, though unseen, and how the sin of one of their number was felt by all: “One member suffered and all the members suffered with it.”

It is interesting to see, in passing and alluding to this chapter, that as obedience was the condition of their strength and of the Lord’s presence with them, so again by obedience restoration is effected in the judgment of the sin. Even the judgment of the offender, and the recovery of the presence and manifested power of the Lord for them. This obedience, too, by which such is effected, is seen in those who suffered, rather than in the offender. One would almost have thought that it should have fallen upon him, but it is upon Joshua and the people that the activities of obedience now devolve; thus the offender is discovered, the evil cast out, and the people restored.

So it is also in Matthew 18:15-22. Upon the aggrieved devolve the activities of grace towards the offending one — not upon the erring one. When all had failed in the effort made for his recovery, the very obedience of the aggrieved one was the means by which all came to light, and was judged and cleared away. Such is God’s way.

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” As if the Lord were to say, If I was with you through the desert solitudes, where your needs and your necessities were all my care; how much the more will I be with you now, when you are occupied with my battles in the land, and my warfare is your care. Moses recalls this persevering, unchanging, perfect love which had been displayed in the desert, in those touching words, “He knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee, thou hast lacked nothing” (Deuteronomy 2:7). And here the Lord recalls His ever watchful presence and care, as if to remind them of its solicitude and perfection, that their hearts might trust Him whose battles were now to be fought, and whose land was to be taken from the enemy’s hand. “I will not fail thee” in the exigencies of every hour of need and toil; “nor forsake thee” in the wisdom and power needed in possessing the land.

How bright and real are those words spoken at times to the heart of His servants as the difficulties increase, and the power of the enemy displays itself: “Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them.” Adversaries there are, but the word is, “In nothing terrified by your adversaries” (Philippians 1:27). You may appear as grasshoppers in your own sight, and they as giants; the cities may be walled up to heaven; no matter: the higher they are the more complete will be the proof of what My power can accomplish by an obedient people.

Paul at Corinth (Acts 18) meets the opposition and blasphemy of the enemy; but the Lord speaks to His servant, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no one (oudeis — man or devil) shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.” Many were there to whom the word of life was to be ministered, and who needed to be put in possession of the land — their “own things.” Paul was to divide to them their lot — their heavenly possessions, and the word was, Be of good courage, “be not afraid.” Timothy might have been discouraged at the defection and the general state of things — another day of deep ruin; but again the word to him was, Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” And Paul can write those wondrous words, “I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2).

“Only be thou strong and very courageous” — why is this again repeated? Why this solicitude that courage and strength may be there? “That thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee.” Courage and strength were needed to obey. God’s strength is with us in the path of His will, and not out of this path most surely; and we need courage to do His will in this evil world. Take up God’s word as the standard by which to walk, and men will tell you that the times are changed — (so they have!) — that things are not what they were, and the like. Besides this, we need courage with self to obey the word of God. Who is not conscious of the unsubdued will of the flesh, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be? We need special courage with self that we may do His bidding; we need courage one with another; with the world; with relations, with all. We may have to walk alone in the pathway, but if so, we walk with Him whose word it is. It needs then this courage to obey, and God knows the end from the beginning: He foresaw all that would come, and He gave His word in view of all. Thus we can trust that He has not spoken one word too much, and there is not one word which is not needed, even if it may seem of little moment in our eyes. He looks at the enemy and exhorts us to “Be strong and of good courage;” He looks at ourselves, and again He speaks, “Be thou strong and very courageous;” “Turn not from it (the word) to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.”

But if there is courage needed to obey, that we may prosper in our spiritual warfare, it needs too, that we should meditate on the Word that we may know the mind of God as revealed therein. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate thereon day and night.” The word of God carries with it the great fact, which we find growingly each day, that God has revealed the truth — nay Himself, in the midst of a scene formed and systematized through man’s departure from Him. Divine light is needed for our path through it, with its snares and pitfalls, and we have a watchful enemy to meet and overcome; therefore, we should live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. The day may be bright, or the night may be dark, the great thing is to have the word of God stored up in the heart, and treasured there in the love of it, that we may be kept from the paths of the destroyer. “By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer,” speaks the Spirit of Christ in Psalm 17, and “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,” in Psalm 119:11. “Meditate upon these things,” says the apostle to the young servant Timothy, “give thyself wholly unto them, that thy profiting may appear unto all.” (1 Timothy 4.) And so we find, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful: but his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” Now mark the result, “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” (Psalm 1.) The heart is carried along in the channel of God’s mind, and thus the constancy of communion with Him enables the heart to live in another sphere and order of things than the motives of the scene we are passing through. But it is in the heart — the affections, in which the word must be hid. Intellect will not do, or clearness of thought — but the heart in treasuring up His words is kept near to Him in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and thus we know that we are in Him. “For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).

We now come to a word of deep blessedness, and nothing can compensate for the absence of such an assurance from the Lord. “Have I not commanded thee?” sustains the heart in the midst of the scene through which we have to tread our way, with the presence of Christ, in almighty power. To have God’s command steadies the heart in the midst of it all. To find a difficulty by the way, and not have such an assurance is bitterness indeed. The more tender the conscience the more deep the pain, when we are not assured of having His command if difficulties arise. We have to be exercised and sifted in heart, that we may seek His face in the exigencies of the journey, but He gives the consciousness of “Have I not commanded thee?” in unwavering certainty to us. The heart may cry out, in the sense of the peril that a false step might entail, without having His word — “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee.” But He never fails the heart which cries, but assures it with His calm and quiet “Come”! Then all difficulties vanish like the morning cloud; or they only serve to unfold His resources and ways to us, when we know we are in His pathway here below.

In a dream Paul is directed to Macedonia; and they gathered that the Lord had called them to preach there, and they go across. For days they seem to have no work to do; then a few women are found at a river side, and are blessed through the Word; and then Satan comes to hinder and deceive. What a lesson we learn in these men walking for days apparently at leisure (that which tests the soul’s condition often but too well), with girded loins. The enemy does not meet them unprepared, but finds these soldiers of Christ armed with the whole armour of God, and Satan is frustrated, and the damsel delivered from his power. But the deliverers are soon cast into the inner prison, with bleeding backs undressed, and their feet are set fast in the stocks. What a moment of anguish, had not Paul had the clear sense in his soul of “Have I not commanded thee?” and thus, without a single care, he and his fellow-soldier prayed and sang praises to God at midnight, in that unquestioning confidence, and that trustfulness which an uncondemning heart bestows.

Again take Moses: Forty years before he had assayed in fleshly zeal to deliver his brethren, and had failed. Forty years of discipline finds him a broken man; distrustful of his own powers and unwilling to go when sent by the Lord. His mission begins — he shows his signs, and demands God’s first-born from the hands of Pharaoh. He is driven from his presence, and the people, whose minds he had wrought upon by the visions of freedom from the lash of Egypt, are driven back to their toil with heavier tasks than before. Now comes the solemn moment for this man Moses, who would be a deliverer to his brethren. They turn upon him, and charge him with the increase of their burdens and that their savour was abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh. (Exodus 5:21.) Moses returns to the Lord in this bitter moment of his history, and the Lord gives him a charge — a defined mission to His people and to Pharaoh; then all is clear. “Have I not commanded thee?” really makes all simple, and no matter what difficulties may arise hesitation is gone, and this blessed soul-sustaining word is the solace of the heart of him — nay of all — who have wrestled with Him, as it were, that He might speak it to our souls. Then the rejection of our brethren, if we have to bear it; the sorrows of service, whatever they may be, are overborne by the words, “Have I not commanded thee?” “Be strong, and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest”! If He be with us, no matter how rough the water. Yea the waters may seek to engulph the ship, but if He be in it all is well.

In the remaining portion of this chapter we learn a solemn lesson in one way, and a blessed lesson on the other,

On one side we find the type of those who seek to take their place on this side of the Jordan — death and resurrection applied to us by the Spirit of God. Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh, do not go back to Egypt — still their hearts linger on this side of the land of promise, seeking rest — not where the calling of God had contemplated. Joshua had not given them this portion; but the well-watered fields on this side of Jordan seemed to be a proper place for their flocks and herds, and their wives and little ones. They “came short” of the purpose and calling of God, yet they are not apostate, by turning back again to the land of Egypt. So far, they are “enemies to the cross of Christ … who mind earthly things.” The things of heaven, as risen … with Christ, have no sweetness to the taste of those whose wills led them to settle where Israel wandered. Solemn truth, too, that henceforth they are looked upon as distinct from Israel. They have a history of their own, outside the land; like Lot’s history in Sodom, so distinct from that of Abraham on the mountain-top with God.

The day came too, when it could be said of them, “In the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheep-folds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks? In the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.” (Judges 5.) The ear was opened to hearken to that which took possession of the heart, and it was deaf to the call of the Lord. Yet there had been a day too, when Moses refused to come out of Egypt without those “wives and little ones” whose prosperity now was their hindrance in entering the land.

How we see this every day around us. Parents urgent and earnest in seeking to have their children converted, and thus severed from the land of Egypt; yet when the prospects in this world of those children are at stake, a midway course is chosen; the land of promise, where the Lord carries on His warfare is refused, and ease accepted. Still this did not bring with it the rest which was sought; for those who sought rest without going into heavenly places had still to go to war.

On the other side, it is very sweet to find how that the Lord cares for the wives and the little ones of those who fight His battles for their brethren. We may leave them to His care as a tender Father and a more than Husband, conscious that He can care for them when we are not with them, while engaged for Him. We could not care for them ourselves even if with them were He not to do so, and He can do so without us when occupied in His affairs. This may be done in various ways. Epaphroditus may “labour fervently” for his brethren in prayer. Perhaps to some bed-ridden saint was Paul indebted for those great gifts whereby the hearts of many were gladdened in the fields of his labour for Christ, and so a note of praise ascended to Him who had put it into the heart of some such lowly saint thus to pray. See 2 Corinthians 1:11, etc.