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Skip Heitzig: We have looked at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We have covered the first five books of Moses. Now read quick recap. Genesis is a book of beginnings. It's the beginning of the heavens and the earth, the beginning of mankind. It is also the beginning of a nation through Abram, Abraham. The nation of Israel is isolated in that book as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's Genesis. Exodus is a book of deliverance. The book opens up with bondage in Egypt. And just like the nation of Israel was mediated through the lineage of Abraham, the deliverance of Israel is mediated through the leadership of Moses.

They are delivered out of Egypt on their way to the promised land. When we get to the book of Leviticus, it's a book of worship. It's how do I approach God? That issue is answered in the book. I approach God only through a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice. God is holy and a sacrifice must be made so that an approach can be made. When we get to the book of Numbers, it's a book of wandering. Wandering because they did not keep all the commandments that God had previously given in the law. So it's their failure to believe, thus their wandering in the wilderness.

Get to the book of Deuteronomy, which we covered last time. It's a book of repetition. God repeats what he already said in some of the earlier books of Moses. He does it through Moses to a brand new generation. The young ones need to hear this stuff. And so Moses gives three farewell speeches on the plains of Moab overlooking the Jordan, overlooking Jericho in the distance, which leads us now to the book of Joshua. Joshua is a bridge. It's a bridge between the first four or the previous four books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the next seven books.

What do I mean by a bridge? Those previous four books are Israel outside the land. The next seven books are Israel inside the land. So this is the bridge between the nation being out of the land and inside the land. God promised them a long time before this that he would bring them into what he called the promised land. Not that it's a a perfect lush environment, but it's the land God promised them. It was what he had for them. And God is the author and the finisher of our faith. What God promises, God will do.

I love that about God. I love that God's love is stubborn love. God says, I'm going to do this. And they weren't up to the task. They weren't up to the faith to believe that God would do it, but God did did it anyway. So we come to Joshua and Joshua can easily be divided. I love how these books just sort of naturally fall into place. The first portion of the book of Joshua, chapters one through five is Israel entering the land. Entering the land, chapters one through five. Chapters six through 12 is the nation conquering the land.

And then the last portion, chapters 13 through 24, the nation is distributing the land among the 12 tribes. Now just a recap again, the entire generation that left Egypt is dead except their kids. This is now a new generation that has come of age. And there's only two people that are left from the previous generation that has died. We know their names well by now. That is Joshua, the author of this book, and his buddy Caleb, who we'll see in this book. We're just going to touch on a few things. It's a 24 chapter book.

We're doing it in a single hour. Now anytime you come up to a book that happens to have as its name the same name as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we take note. Joshua is the anglicized version of the Hebrew word Yeshua, which happened to be Jesus's name. He was known as Yeshua ben Joseph, Jesus the son of Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth. It was a common name. Most kids named Yeshua or Joshua were named after this Joshua. But before the evening is over, I want to touch just a little bit as we close especially on how there are similarities between the two.

So we begin at the beginning. In chapter one verse one, the entering of the land of Canaan. Now Josephus, remember that name? He was a historian Flavius Josephus wrote the the antiquities of the Jews. He was sort of a contemporary of Jesus. He wrote that Joshua was born in Egypt as a slave. And when he was 80 years of age, he was conscripted by Moses at the command of God as the successor. And he followed Moses and he became his aide or assistant. We'll see that in the text. You might want to call it an intern.

Jog your memory a little bit. Up to this point, Joshua has been like the general of Israel's army. Back in Exodus, the 17th chapter, it was general Joshua who led the charge when they had a battle against the Amalekites. Moses got Joshua to be the leader of that to get the army and to attack those who were attacking them. Now some believe that Joshua was an officer in the Egyptian army before the Exodus. Maybe, maybe not. What's interesting about that, it's possible because there are Egyptian texts that have lists of soldiers with Semitic names. And Joshua being Jewish, a Semite, would have a Semitic name.

Obviously he does. And archaeologists have found Egyptian soldiers with Semitic names. So perhaps that fits the account. Joshua chapter one verse one, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of What's his name? Nun. Okay, I always have to say that because um I I know Catholics weren't in the Old Testament, but I just want to really underscore. Otherwise somebody's going to read that and go, uh-oh. Son of a nun, that's not good. So it's son of Nun. That's the Hebrew pronunciation.

Moses's assistant or intern or aide saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Typically when somebody died, it was a 30-day mourning period. That's the funeral. That's a public mourning. And that time is passed and it's now time to move on. Moses, this great man of God, this this leader who is bigger than life, he was legendary. He saw miracles of God. He's dead. And I love how practical God is. Moses is dead.

Get going. There's a good lesson for us. Nothing of God dies when the man of God dies. God has someone else up his sleeve. When the man or woman of God dies, God does not. In fact, new vistas open up. And it happens with Joshua. Verse three, every place the sole of your foot will tread on, I have given to you as I said to Moses. Go down to verse six. Be strong and of good courage for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Verse eight. This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you, Joshua, you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. Something internal, something external was commanded. Internal, be of good courage. External, stay in the word. I'm giving you a land. Remember the commandments. Pass those on. Live them. Be a man of courage. Be a man of the word. Now they're entering the land of Canaan. Why is it called Canaan?

Because a group called Canaanites live there. That's all. A bunch of different groups and the amalgam of that groups is given the title the Canaanites. Now the land of Canaan I believe is a representation of something else for the modern believer. How are we to apply the book of Joshua in Old Testament book to our lives? What does Canaan represent? Well that's a good question. I'm glad you asked it. Um historically, traditionally people have interpreted the land of Canaan and crossing over the Jordan River into the promised land as the Christian dying and going to heaven.

So the river Jordan is like death. Once you get to the other side, you're now in heaven. The promised land. And some hymns reflect that. For instance, you're familiar with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. The lyrics are when I look over Jordan, coming for to carry me home, I see a band of angels coming after me. Coming for to carry me home. That's a hymn. Sorry about that. Represents in that hymn Jordan as dying and going to heaven. There's a problem with that. If the promised land, the land of Canaan represents heaven um you better be looking forward to a fight because once they get to the other side, there are battles after battle after battle that they face in taking that land.

Rather than looking at it that way, I think it's best to see it as the victorious life now because the Christian experience is not a playground. It is a battleground. And the spirit-filled life would be more representative of the land of Canaan than dying and going to heaven. It's the experience that God wants you to have now. He didn't want you to be wandering around.

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Give at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. Now let's return to today's teaching.

Skip Heitzig: He wants you to hold on to his promise and experience just like they experienced a second baptism. The first baptism, they went through the Red Sea. Paul calls that a baptism. The second time they went through a body of water, another kind of a baptism was the Jordan River. And now they're in the promised land. They're enjoying a spirit-filled life. Even though there will be battles, victory is assured them. Joshua chapter two, it begins. Now Joshua, the son of Nun. Very good, class. Sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly saying, go, view the land, especially Jericho.

So they went out and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab and lodged there. Now the rest of the chapter shows her hiding these two spies on a rooftop, covering them up so nobody could find them. Interesting that Joshua sent two spies. Why only two? Because Moses had sent 12. Well, Joshua would know that 10 proved to be worthless, right? Only he and Caleb, those were the two spies that saw the land and said, we can take it. Let's go for it. The other 10 didn't believe God. So Joshua is saying, I don't need those 10.

Let's just get two because Deuteronomy said by the mouth of two witnesses every word will be established. So rather than going by tradition, he goes by the word and sends in two spies. Now they go to Rahab's house. Interesting thing about Rahab, she's a harlot. Most of us know that. A woman of ill repute, a woman of the evening. But she ends up showing up in the genealogical record of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament. She's also found in Hebrews 11 in what we call the hall of faith. Hebrews 11 says, by faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace.

When I was in high school I still have my senior high school annual. And if I go to the back of the annual, there's several categories, most scholastic, most spirited, most athletic, best dressed, most likely to succeed. Remember those categories? They were in my annual. I was in none of those categories. I didn't make any of them. That's that's what we do in in in human circles. We have those kind of categories. In God's annual, he has another category, most unlikely to succeed. I'm in that category. I made that one. God has chosen the foolish things of this world, the Rahabs, the uses and the mees.

And decides, I can do something great through those people if they submit their lives to me. Well, she's in Jericho. And she tells the spies that everybody in Jericho has heard about your God, heard about the Red Sea, heard how you defeated those two kings, Og and Sihon. We know all about you. And she said, I want you to know that our hearts melted within us when we heard the reports. She gives a very different report than the 10 spies gave years before when they went to spy out the land and they said, we are grasshoppers in our sight, grasshoppers in their sight.

And their hearts, the spies' hearts melted within them for fear. Come to find out God put the fear of the children of Israel in the Canaanite hearts. Now they find out the whole truth. Rahab was the only one who makes a confession of faith in the city of Jericho. She says, your God, she says to the two spies, is the Lord God. And she makes a special request in this chapter to spare her life and the life of her family. She makes a deal with these two spies. I'm going to spare your life. I'm not going to rat on you.

I'm not going to tell you tell people that you came in tonight and that I hid you. I'm going to let you escape, but the deal is you got to spare my life when you take this city. So verse 17 of chapter two. So the men said to her, we will be blameless at this oath of yours in which we have um made you have made us swear unless when we come into the land, you bind this line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down. And unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father's household into your own home.

So here's the picture. Jericho is a walled city. Rahab's house was no doubt on the edge on the wall. She would let down a scarlet rope out of her window, a scarlet, a red rope. When they were marching around the city that one home could be designated. They could see that scarlet cord going down and that was the house to be spared. It was marked. And what this reminds me is in the Exodus at the Passover. There were homes that were marked and you had to mark them with scarlet, right? Blood on the lintels and the door post and you had to remain inside the house and the death angel would pass over them.

Joshua chapter three, we come to the crossing of the Jordan, the border from the east and the west. Now the priests were to go first. And they would carry the ark of the Covenant. Some of you who were here earlier saw our little model of the ark of the Covenant march up here on stage and go down. It was a box. And it was a box that was approximately 45 in long by 27 in wide by 27 in tall, roughly. Had a gold lid inside. There were three items, the tablets of the Law, um a pot of manna as a remembrance of God's provision, and Aaron's rod that budded miraculously.

Those three items that spoke of their past history were in the ark. The priests and crossing the Jordan were to carry the ark on their shoulders and go first. It was a symbol that God was with them. Remember God promised, my presence will go with you. So they would go first and they would march across the Jordan. Verse 14 of chapter three. So it was when the people set out from the camp to cross over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the Covenant before the people. And those who bore the ark came to the Jordan and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water.

And then notice the parenthetical statement. For the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest. That water was not going to budge until the priests did what with their feet? They got to get their feet wet. They had to dip their feet in the water. Then it opened up. You will not see many of God's promises until you get your feet wet, till you take the promise and just say, I'm going for it. I believe it. I'm just going to walk forward and I'm hoping this baby will open. If not but it did.

They had to get their feet wet. And if you and I don't do that, we're not going to see very much. So verse 16, the waters which came down from upstream stood still and rose in a heap very far away at Adam. Adam is identified in modern terms by a little area called Tell el-Damiyeh. Not that I expect you to remember that, but it is a real place that archaeologists believe is this place of Adam. The city that is beside Zaretan. Now now you understand. So the waters that went down into the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, that is the Dead Sea, failed and were cut off and the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

Now over the years, people have tried to come up with natural explanations of this event. And they say well, back in the year 1267 there was an earthquake and there was. It's on record. And the the banks of the Jordan River went into the river and stopped the flow of the Jordan River for 10 hours. Then they'll point to something that happened in 1929. And same thing, earthquake happened in the same area. And it stopped up the river for 21 hours. So those are natural phenomenon. It has happened before. However, none of those examples happened at what the Bible says happened here.

What happened here? It was at flood season. It's very very different. So the timing was exact. The waters heaped up, which is not a natural phenomenon. The bottom dried up. Then they crossed over. Then the waters filled in where they were before. Now most of the year the Jordan River is about 100 ft wide in this area, at least before all the farming that siphoned the water in more recent time, about 100 ft wide. At flood stage, it's about a mile wide. So it's not like those earthquake that put some of the banks and and kept the water from flowing.

It's a little bit different. And when I find things like this in the Bible, rather than thinking I have to find a natural explanation, I'm really okay with God just pulling off a supernatural miracle so that the children of Israel don't go, oh, coincidence, there's an earthquake today. Isn't that cool? They're walking through going, this is God. This is God because at the exact time the toes of the priests hit the water, those waters opened up. Another quick note. Fast forward to the New Testament. There's a guy down at the New Testament times just before Jesus shows up at that area, same area of the Jordan River named Jay the B.

That's my nickname for John the Baptist. Jay the B is baptizing. It says in John chapter one verse 28, these things, John's baptism, were done in Bethabara. Do you remember that word in your New Testament? These things, John the Baptist baptizing, were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing. Bethabara means the house or the place of passage. So John was baptizing where the children of Israel once crossed 1,500 years earlier.

Guest (Male): We're so glad you joined us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before you go, don't forget about Pastor Skip's brand new devotional Soaring Above It All. This one-year devotional gives you a panoramic view of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, helping you better understand God's word and stay engaged with it every day. Request your copy as our thanks when you give $50 or more to help bring clear Bible teaching to people around the world. Give today at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. See you next time.

Guest (Male): Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Catch all the burden on his word. Make a connection. Make a connection.

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