[0:00] Okay. Tell you what, I'll just talk really loud. We've been in the middle of a refueling outage. I had the opportunity.
[0:11] Matt said, are you sure you want to preach because you're in this refueling outage? And I'm sure John would be glad to take the switch with you. But I had already been thinking about it, you know, from weeks past.
[0:24] I'm like, no, I'll do it. It's just it's an introduction to the book of Joshua. You guys know that we've been doing different books. We just finished with Philemon. Now we're back in the Old Testament.
[0:36] We're doing Joshua. Before we get started, let's pray. Father, I thank you for loving us. I thank you for your word. I thank you, Lord, that there are so many lessons that we can learn from your word, Lord.
[0:49] All we have to do is just look in there and study it. And Lord, as we do that, we'll become better people. And know what it is that we should do to be people of you, Lord.
[1:06] People that are redeemed by you. And people that call you, Lord. Help me, Father, now as I go through this. Help me, my mind, to not wander.
[1:22] Lord, you just speak through me, please. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Okay. First off, let's go back in Genesis to a man named Abraham.
[1:35] Abram. In Genesis 12, 1 through 7, the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.
[1:45] I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.
[1:59] And all peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he set out from Haran.
[2:14] He took his wife, Sarah, his nephew, Lot, and all the possessions they accumulated, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
[2:29] Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Morah at Shechem. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
[2:42] And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring, I will give this land. God further defined the boundaries for the promised land in Genesis 15, 18.
[2:56] He said, On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, To your descendants, I give this land. From the wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.
[3:08] And then he says, The land of the Canaanites, the Canaanites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Pezzarites, the Araphites, Amorites, the Canaanites, the Jezusites, and the Jebusites.
[3:24] All those people were in the lands, but God has now given that land to them. All they had to do was go take it. In Genesis 17, God reiterates his promise to Abraham.
[3:41] And he says, The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you, and I will be their God.
[3:55] Well, time passed along. Abraham passed. And God now appears to his son, Isaac, and he says, Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you.
[4:12] This is in Genesis 26. For to you and your descendants, I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father, Abraham.
[4:24] I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give all these lands. And through your offspring, all nations of the earth will be blessed.
[4:40] And then, the Lord appeared to Isaac's son, Jacob. So listen to what's recorded in Genesis 28 where he appeared to Jacob in Jacob's dream, the stairway to heaven dream.
[4:54] And it says, And he had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven.
[5:05] And the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said, I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham, the God of Isaac.
[5:17] I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out into the west, into the east, into the north, into the south.
[5:28] All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you. I will watch over you wherever you go. And I will bring you back to this land and will not leave you until I have done all that I have promised you.
[5:44] So we've seen God make this promise to Abraham, then to Isaac, and now to Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel.
[5:55] Jacob's name was Israel. And we know that Israel had 12 sons, right? The 12 tribes of Israel. And you know the story how that Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers because they were jealous of Joseph.
[6:12] They sold him into slavery. He wound it up in Egypt. What happened in Egypt? He ended up, you know all this, all the stuff that happened to Joseph in Egypt, but he ended up being second in command in Egypt.
[6:28] And because of Joseph and his faithfulness to God, he was able to save all of Egypt as well as his family.
[6:40] Remember, his family had to come to Egypt because there was a famine in the land that they were staying in. So now they're in Egypt where they end up staying, who knows how long, about 430 years they were in Egypt.
[6:57] 400 of those years they were in captivity. They were slaves to the Egyptians because they had gotten so big, so many of them, they were scared of them.
[7:07] So they made them slaves. And we know the next thing that happened was Moses, now, was raised up by God to lead the people out of Egypt.
[7:24] And take them where was he going to take them? To the promised land that God had promised Abraham and Isaac and now Jacob. So as they're heading out, which should only have been a few days travel to get there from there, it took them 40 years to get there because they were unfaithful to God.
[7:47] They had doubts. They didn't, they just didn't believe that God was going to do what he said he was going to do. So now they're wandering around for 40 years and we get to the point where they're at the edge of the promised land.
[8:10] And Moses is passing on. And who's next in line to take his place? It's Joshua. This book of Joshua is what we're going to look at next.
[8:23] And this is going to be recording for us then entering the promised land. And that promise of God is being fulfilled in Joshua.
[8:35] 2 Timothy 3.16 says, This book of Joshua is no different.
[8:56] It's scripture inspired by God. There's going to be numerous opportunities in this book for us to be reproved.
[9:07] For us to be corrected and instructed in righteousness. So you want to make sure you want to be here every week. So that you can be reproved and instructed in righteousness.
[9:20] In this book, there's two main divisions. The first 12 chapters cover the capturing of the land of Canaan. And then chapters 13 through 24 describe the distribution amongst the 12 tribes of the land.
[9:39] We're going to see in this book where God is going to intervene with miracles. He's going to make massive city walls just fall down because people are obedient to Him.
[9:55] We all know the battle of Jericho. In here we're going to see how God rained down huge hailstones. Big enough to crush men.
[10:06] And God is going to kill more enemy than Israel is going to kill with the sword just by raining hailstones from heaven. That's in this book of Joshua.
[10:18] In this book, we're also going to see where God is going to stop the sun and the moon. At midday, because they needed more daylight to round up the enemy and destroy them, He's going to stop it.
[10:32] And for a whole day, the sun is not going to set. It's going to be up. That's in this book of Joshua. We're going to see where God has used harlots or prostitutes to further His agenda.
[10:50] So, this book records the fulfillment of the promise that God had promised Abraham centuries before.
[11:05] So, Abraham died never having realized the promise that God had given him. All those people had died before they realized.
[11:15] So, does that, in Abraham's eyes, do you think that should make God a liar? You promised this to me, God. And now I'm dying and I didn't see it.
[11:29] Hebrews 11 says, By faith, Abraham, when called to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went without knowing where he was going.
[11:42] By faith, he dwelt in the promised land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise.
[11:57] For he was looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder was God. And then verse 13, it says, All these people died in faith without having received the things they were promised.
[12:13] However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. So, to them, God had promised it.
[12:26] It was a done deal. They didn't need to see it. They saw it by faith. It was done. God promised it.
[12:37] The end of the story. So, that makes me question us. How is our faith? Do we cling to God's promises or do we worry and fret sometimes?
[12:53] Do we doubt God? Do you not believe that he's trustworthy? So, are you prepared to consider God's promises as a done deal?
[13:08] God, we have a lot of problems sometimes in our lives, in our marriages, with families.
[13:18] We have all these things and we really fret over these things. But, are we just looking to God's word and he's promised us things. He's promised that things will work together for good for us.
[13:32] He's promised us a home in heaven. He's promised us one day there will be no tears, no more sorrow, no more pain. These are things that sometimes we forget.
[13:46] We forget God's promised that it's going to be alright. I'm in control. No matter what you see is going on you, I'm going to work it out. So, why isn't it a done deal for us?
[14:00] Why do we still doubt God? Why do we still worry? That's just a challenge to you this morning. So, I urge you in this little bitty short message that I've been giving you, this introduction, to just rest in his promises.
[14:20] Don't worry, be happy. Because, instead of focusing on the problems at hand, focus on the solutions that God has promised already.
[14:37] Don't worry about it. You know, you may have health issues. You know, there's something that's going on in your life that really, really bothers you. Just rest in God.
[14:47] Let Him have it. And just rest in that promise that it's going to be alright. And if we have that attitude, then that kind of helps us along to get through it better.
[15:00] And that's my message to you, and I hope you guys come every Sunday to see what kind of life lessons we can learn out of the book of Joshua. I think it's a record.
[15:12] Thank you.