[0:00] Good morning. Is it coming through? Are we good? Okay. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
[0:13] Father God, Lord, we just come to you on knees that are bending. We praise you for the many blessings you've given us. For as I spoke earlier, I said, I praise you for the moms that you've brought to us.
[0:28] I praise you for the brothers and sisters in Christ, the children that are here, because we know you made it all possible.
[0:39] We praise you for sending your son to die on the cross for us, and we praise you for loving us the way you do, for bringing us together and teaching us. Lord, I just ask that I'm going to go sit down in the back, and I want you to preach this message, Lord.
[0:54] I don't want it to come from me. I want it to be from you. Because you're just so awesome, the things you do. I pray all of this in the name of Jesus. So a new beginning.
[1:10] Joshua 1, chapter 1, verses 1 through 18. We're like at the very beginning here, okay? But I do got a couple historical things I want to share with you.
[1:23] Mark, go to the next slide. So the Greek name for Joshua is Lesawis, which is closer Greek pronunciation of the imperial Aramemic, Yeshua.
[1:37] So who was it that was Yeshua? It was Jesus. But they called Joshua, Jesus' son of now, or of none.
[1:48] So if you look in your Bible, it says of none. But I thought that was interesting, that Joshua basically was pronounced Yeshua, which is the same way we pronounce Jesus, Yeshua.
[2:02] But there's that divider there. So you know they're not trying to say that Joshua was Jesus. It's just the way the name kind of comes together. And I thought it was interesting.
[2:14] Another historical thing, because we're going to kind of talk about the promised land a little bit, is the fact that if you look at what the promised land was, where it extended to, and where it went to, the Israelites owned almost all of the Middle East.
[2:32] They went all the way to Syria. But we know Israel doesn't go to Syria, don't we? Because if you look it up, Israel is just like a little slither like this.
[2:46] And what was the promised land? It was a very large area that God was promising to the Israelites. That they only ended up with a small slither of it.
[3:01] Another historical fact that I wanted to share that with you, because I thought it was important as we get into the book of Joshua, because we're going to talk a lot about the promised land.
[3:13] So let's go ahead and look at the first few verses. If you can go to the next slide, Mark, thank you. For after Moses the Lord's servant died, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses' assistant.
[3:25] So we see here where Joshua was Moses' assistant, our right-hand man. Moses, my servant, is dead. Get ready. Cross the Jordan River. Lead these people into the land that I am ready to hand over to them.
[3:39] I am handing over to you every place you set foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend to the desert, and the south to Lebanon.
[3:50] And in the north, it will extend all the way to the great river Euphrates, and in the east, including all of Syria, and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, to the west.
[4:03] So here we see God is telling Joshua, look, this is all going to be yours. All you've got to do is go over there, and I'll make it happen.
[4:15] Remember, God is the one that's saying, I'm going to make it happen. Not that they're going to make it happen. God's going to make it happen. Because God, this is the promise.
[4:26] If we look back further in Genesis, to the very beginning, when he first promised lands to Abraham, this is the land he promised. Over and over again, he promises this.
[4:40] Go to the next verse, Mark. Thank you. No one will be able to resist you all the days of your life, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
[4:51] I will not abandon you or leave you alone. Now comes the very first time we start to hear this next set. Be strong and brave.
[5:03] Be brave. You must lead these people in the conquest of the land that I solemnly promised their ancestors. I would hand over to them.
[5:14] Make sure you are very strong and brave. Do you hear that? Strong and brave again. Okay? Carefully obey all the laws my servant Moses charged you to keep.
[5:25] Do not swerve to the left or to the right so that you may be successful in all you do. This law scroll must not leave your lips. You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it.
[5:40] Then you will prosper and be successful. I repeat, be strong and brave. Don't be afraid and don't panic for I, the Lord your God, am with you in all you do.
[5:53] So can I get someone to say be strong and brave? Be strong and brave. We see this is repeated over and over again to Joshua to be strong and brave.
[6:11] He also tells them, you know those ten commandments that I gave you? You need to memorize them. You need to not move from the left or the right. You need to keep them in your heart.
[6:22] You need to always obey them. You need to know them like the back of your hand. And he says, I will protect you.
[6:33] That's what I hear in that. God's saying, I got this. How many times has God told us that? Over and over again, God tells us that.
[6:46] So if we go look in first Psalms, we're going to look in Psalms chapter one, verses one through six. And it says, blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.
[7:07] But whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaves does not wither.
[7:24] Whatever they do prospers. Have you ever noticed along the rivers out here, if you look at all the trees, how many of them trees, no matter what time of year it is, they look healthy, don't they?
[7:39] And we see that here in Psalms. And it says, that person is like a tree planted by a stream of water, which yields its fruit in season.
[7:49] So if we're honoring God and doing God's will by keeping those 10 commandments, God's going to bless us. It's like we're the tree and he's that stream going by.
[8:03] Go to the next one, Martin. Not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
[8:18] For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. And you know this first, you know, nine verses, that's kind of what I got from it.
[8:29] Is that right there in Psalms? He's telling Joshua, look, you need to memorize these verses and you need to keep them always.
[8:41] And you need to honor me in all you do. And I will prosper you. And he says that to us as well. If we memorize the Bible or memorize Scripture or read our Bibles and keep that and praying as things we do daily, God's going to honor us and take care of us.
[9:06] He's going to prosper us. I'm not saying you won't have hard times because believe me, we all have hard times. But God gives us a way to get through those hard times because it's God that's the one that's bringing us through it, not us.
[9:24] Not our neighbor. Not that guy three blocks down. Not some guy we met on the street. It's God that's bringing us through it. It's God that takes care of us in every way imaginable.
[9:40] And he's telling Joshua this right away. Go to the next set of verses, Mark. As we move into Joshua 10 through 13, it says, Joshua instructed the leaders of the people, go through the camp and command the people, prepare your supplies for within three days you will cross the Jordan River.
[10:07] and conquer, and conquer, and conquest the land the Lord your God is ready to hand over to you. Joshua told the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, remember what Moses, the Lord's servant, commanded you.
[10:22] The Lord your God is giving you a place to settle and is handing this land over to you. And see, you know one of the things I got from this right away was that Joshua didn't linger.
[10:36] He immediately went to the tribes and said, look, this is what we're doing. God said, we need to go do this. And that tells me that Joshua is listening to what God has to say.
[10:56] When God tells you to do something, do you linger and put it aside? No. Glenn, you got that, don't you? We do a lot of times.
[11:07] We linger. We put it aside. We don't know that it's from God because we're not close enough with God. But when God tells us to do things, we need to be like Joshua and do it right away.
[11:23] That's what I'm talking about, brother. Out of the mouth of babes. And move to the next verse, Mark. says, your wives, children, and cattle may stay in the land that Moses assigned to you east of the Jordan River that all of you warriors must cross over armed for battle ahead of your brothers.
[11:45] You must help them until the Lord gives your brothers a place like yours to settle and they conquer the land the Lord your God is ready to hand over to them.
[11:56] Then you may go back in your allotted land and occupy the land Moses the Lord's servant assigned to you east of the Jordan.
[12:08] He's giving specific instructions to them. Specific instructions.
[12:21] Does God give us specific instructions? Should we listen to those specific instructions we need to give them? We should. But how many times do we?
[12:34] That's the question I have for you. Joshua shows us here that you just need to do it right away because he's sending the men to be the ones to stand up against those that are in the land that belongs to the Israelites.
[12:48] Yes. Yes. It tells us that Joshua wanted to do what God wanted him to do.
[13:00] He wanted to follow what God had commanded him to do. It shows you that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of the leader that he had because before that he had Moses teaching him.
[13:15] Before that he had Moses showing him how to do this how to commune with God and know that God was going to take care of them. Go to the next set of verses Mark real quick.
[13:30] They told Joshua so this is the Israelites talking to Joshua now. We will do everything you say we will go wherever you send us just as we obeyed Moses so we will we obey you but may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.
[13:50] Any man who rebels against what you say and does not obey all your commands will be executed. Be strong and brave. Hey isn't that is that like the fourth or fifth time that we've heard be strong and brave?
[14:09] That tells us that God wants us to be strong and brave. He wants us to stand up to evil. He wants us to stand up to those that would do sinister things.
[14:25] He wants us to honor God. He wants us to know that Jesus Christ died for us. He wants us to know that we were forgiven because we did as we were asked to do by God.
[14:48] He actually commanded us but you know when you tell me Mark you gotta go do it I usually don't do it but if you say Mark would you do this I go and do it right away. That's why I use the word asked.
[14:59] It's important for us to understand that. That God wants us to be strong and brave. God wants us to know that he's got us.
[15:12] He's lifting us up. He's holding us tight in his arms and he's pushing us down that road that he wants us to be on. And it doesn't mean that road is an easy road.
[15:24] How many of us have been there for our brothers and sisters when they had times of trouble? How many of us love God so much that we love our brothers and sisters in Christ?
[15:44] I can remember Glenn telling a story one time about how when him and Renee were first married and they were having troubles and they came out to their car and somebody left an envelope on their car was something to help them with their troubles.
[16:03] I can remember time after time when I was underemployed that God brought me through those tough times. And I can remember God prompting me to go to the school that I went to and he took care of me the entire 18 months I was in that school to make sure that our bills were paid and everything.
[16:28] And we had food on our plates. That's what God does when we're strong and brave. And when we try to follow the words that are in the Ten Commandments and in the Bible.
[16:45] When we try to read our Bibles. And don't go to the left or to the right and we stay focused on that path straight in front of us. That path that God has laid for us.
[16:56] That path that his son Christ died for us for. Joshua leads us down that path as we begin.
[17:07] As he's leading the Israelites. And as the Israelites have said as long as you have God at your back we are for you. So John I tell you that as long as you have God we got you.
[17:24] Hit that right Glenn. Hit that right Roger. Mike? Am I not right? Steve?
[17:38] And that's what's important that we honor those that God has put in charge and we take care of them. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God we just thank you for this wonderful time of fellowship.
[17:52] We thank you for this lesson. We thank you for what you wanted to teach us. Please continue to guide us and love on us and move us in the direction you would have us go.
[18:03] I pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.