From the very beginning God reveals his power, his justice, his grace and his faithfulness to his people.
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Transcript
Dan:
Well, hi everyone. And welcome to episode 38 of training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan, and as always, I’m here with my father, David Jackson, and today we are starting well, last week we did an introduction to Joshua. This week We’re actually starting the book of Joshua. We’re looking at Joshua chapter one through to the end of chapter four, and that is a fairly big chunk. But at the same time, we , haven’t finished. One of the key stories that people know from Joshua, Joshua starts off with the commissioning of Joshua, where he kind of gets chosen to replace Moses as a leader of the people. U h, why is this?
David:
I, I must admit, I think there’s, there’s an element of comedy in this whole section, but there’s also an element of sheer terror, I would say. So Moses has died up in the mountain. they’re still up on the mountain with all the people of Israel are up at the Plains of Moab and God, Moses hands, the Baton to Joshua and says, here you go sport. And then God has this big speech to him. And some of this stuff is like those sort of Bible memory verses you put up on the wall
Dan:
Be strong and courageous
David:
Be strong and courageous. I have fond memories of a big brother saying to his little brother, be tough. We won’t mention names, but it was interesting when I was reading through this in Hebrew, I got a bit of a surprise verse seven. I’ve always heard the words only be strong, very courageous, but that word for be strong is the word that’s used for. “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. So it’s actually, I want you to harden up and harden yourself up because you’re going to have a hard time and then have some courage because I’m going to invite you to go and invade a country and drive out who knows how many Kings and how many armies and it’s going to be bloody. And you’re about to go to war sunshine. Oh, and by the way, Joshua is 80 years old.
Dan:
God likes to choose them when they’re old. you’ve still got plenty of years left Dad lots lots to achieve.
David:
He lived for another 30. We live in hope. But this , this idea of, you know, you’re 80 years old, you’ve spent 40 years leading Israel through the wilderness. They’ve whinged and grizzled and rebelled and been a pain in the backside all the way through. And now God’s going to turn around and say, okay, we’ve come to the highlight of your career. Joshua, toughen yourself up, have some courage. Let’s go, oh, and by the way, do it by the book. So you get this beautiful thing. This comforts me enormously do according to all of the Torah, all the instruction that Moses my servant commanded you don’t deviate left, or right. This book of the Torah will not depart from your mouth. You’ve got to mumble on it, meditate on it. Think on it day and night, pay careful he’s going over and over this thing, isn’t he. But it means that he’s actually got in his hand at the point where Moses dies the five books of Moses. And I think that speaks louder about the authenticity of our Bible, but there is, you’re going to do the invasion by the book.
Dan:
He then sends him some spies to go and check out Jericho, which is now kind of first major city as you cross the Jordan moving from moving east to west. Yeah . So he’s going to cross the Jordan. he sends in spies in to have a look at this city, the first kind of Fort that’s there, and they’re going to encounter Rahab Rahab. is going to rescue them and protect them for a bit and lie on their behalf and get them out of the city. And there’s a point in here where they have talks about everyone being fearful of Israel and their God, this where we should be focused or there’s something else in the story that’s important,
David:
Right ? Is really gotta be the star of the first half of Joshua. Hasn’t she, you know , I think, I think we talked last week a little bit about, you know, God chooses this woman out of the whole city to make an example of her and everybody else. She says, everybody’s heart is melting. Their spirits are just vaporized . They’re terrified. And one of the things that struck me, if you stand on the mound , the tel where the ancient city of Jericho is, you can see if they could have , they’d have watched Israel across the Jordan on dry ground. No , that’s just two or three kilometers down the road or five kilometers down the road on a clear day. This would have been, you know , they’ve heard about Og and Sihon and you know , here on warfare, slaughtering everybody and they’re coming and we’re the first stop on the way. And they know what the plan is. Everybody’s been talking about the fact that the Yahweh gave this people, the whole land of Canaan and we’re first, you know, obstacle on the way. You can just imagine the fear that’s there. And this lady with her background, I mean, why would she think God would have anything to do with her? I’m not sure whether she was just a regular King’s cross prostitute or whether she was a shrine prostitute selling herself as an act of worship. But to think that she would even have the remotest possibility of being saved by Yahweh, but that’s the desperation, you know , what else have I got to lose? Let’s give it a shot, hide the spies and ask them to save me and my family. And they do. Yeah . And it’s , and that says a lot to people, I think because we , we don’t have the courage to go to God and say, you know, I’m a sinner I’m a mess. I need to be forgiven. I’m guilty. We avoid that. Like the plague, because we don’t see what’s coming in terms of judgment. And we don’t see the face of God looking at our sin and we don’t see the cross. This lady, there was nobody at the gate that struck me. There’s nobody evangelizing Jericho under the new covenant. You know, we’d be all out the front gate saying repent, repent. You know, the army is coming, no warning for these guys, but here we are, she gets saved. Yeah.
Dan:
And I think it’s also important to notice that the spies who go in make the promise that she will be rescued and we’ll join the people that like they’ve got that authority
David:
And they do something remarkable. If anybody touches your family, you can take my life. They guarantee her safety with their life. That that’s a commitment.
Dan:
Okay. So the spies come back. Everything’s good. It’s not like last time they’re keen to go. And now I have to cross the Jordan river, which is currently in flood mode. I think pretty sure at the time of the crossing. Yeah. God
David:
God doesn’t muck up . Does it , you know, we’re going to do a dry crossing of a river. Oh , that would be just boring. Let’s do it in flood season case you missed the point. This is God at work.
Dan:
Yeah. And I think it’s , it’s an amazing story with the guys carrying the Ark , putting a foot in the water. And then the water stops in it. When I was in Jerusalem in Israel and they were talking about this, they talked about actually the, the stepping into the water was not, it wasn’t like they were walking in on shallow. It was kind of like jumping into the deep,
David:
Do you trust me, take a step. Or they give you Indiana Jones, you know ,
Dan:
Just flood stage, you know, the waters, aren’t still, they’re not, you know, you’re not looking at this beautiful kinda lake that you gonna walk across. It’s a rushing thick, deep river that they’ve got to step into.
David:
Yeah. And it’s scary. I mean, we went out to the Nepean river a while back and took photos of the Nepean in flood. And it’s about the same size as what you would see at Penrith. So that was, that would be a pretty scary thing to do. And they haven’t just stopped dead and you walk out on dry ground carrying that box on your shoulders. Wouldn’t you just be looking around going, okay. How far out here do I have to go?
Dan:
And it’s very much a replica of the crossing of the red sea as they left Egypt, they left one land and they’re entering into the other one. They’re almost baptisms. Like it’s kind of symbol, like in that kind of sense as well.
David:
Yep . You have that whole concept. You have to water barriers that you cross. One is to get out of here out of Satan’s kingdom and the other one’s to get into God’s kingdom. And between those two water barriers is the wilderness. And so, yeah. the African-American slave gangs used to sing Michael row, the boat ashore. U m, you know, I’ve got a home on the other side of Jordan, all those s orts of pictures, they got the connection. This is a picture of us coming home, coming home to new, new creation, very exciting stuff.
Dan:
Then they pick up a whole bunch of rocks and make piles. What’s the point of this while this is , uh , memory ? Or is it more significant than that
David:
I, I like this, this stuff, I must admit you pick 12 tribes, one man from each tribe, pick up a rock, bring it over to the other side. Then you go back and you pick up another 12 rocks and you pile them up where the priests are standing, holding the ark while everybody crosses. And once you got that pile, all organized, you skedaddle across. Then the priests can come across and bring the Ark out of the water. And then the floods come back and you’ve got this little post of big rocks in the middle of the River saying, That’s where they stood. And you’d take the other 12 rocks and you carry them up to Gilgal where you’re going to camp and you make a little mound of rocks up there. And Joshua’s point is okay, you guys are going to remember today, you were here, you saw it. You’re going to have to be going to go and settle. Have your farms, bring your kids down here for a picnic, sit them down, show them the rocks, tell him the story. And point out the rock , the rock that uncle Fred pulled out of the middle of the river and let them tell their children and their grandchildren. That rock is still there. And we do that with war memorials because we don’t want to forget lest we forget, but this time we’re not forgetting the people who died we’re forgetting what God did. And so I look at this, I look at that sort of , uh , a monument that Memorial. And I think, yeah, it’s about teach the kids, get the story across. This was a generation. I think this is the only generation in Israel’s history that actually did teach the children because their generation, and the next one we’re faithful. So, so that all the peoples of all the earth will know that the hand of Yahweh is mighty and you will fear Yahweh your God forever. That’s how that chapter ends . Yeah .
Dan:
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