turn to Joshua chapter 1. And let's read verses 1 through 3. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this book. We pray, Lord, as we think about it tonight and just get an overview of it, we pray that you'd help us to get a better understanding of the content and the purpose of this book. And so we ask that your Holy Spirit would be our teacher and guide now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we're going to be looking at the book of Joshua for the next, I don't know, maybe two or three weeks. And the book of Joshua follows the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, is the first section of the Hebrew canon, Genesis through Deuteronomy. And Joshua is the first book in the second section of the Hebrew canon, referred to as the prophets, the former prophets. In the Pentateuch, the first five books, the old... That looks like the same thing here. Okay. The book of Joshua gets its name from the author, from the military leader who was God's choice for Moses' replacement. And the name Joshua means Jehovah is Savior. And there is a real connection in thought between Joshua leading the people into the promised land and in the New Testament what the Lord Jesus does for us because the name Jesus means Savior as well. And so we see in the book of Joshua that Joshua finishes what Moses began. Moses was God's servant and he had to be replaced and Moses had sinned, and he was no more useful to the Lord. He was not the one that God wanted to lead his people into the Promised Land. He had many reasons for that. But God has many servants, and when one tool gets dull, he has other tools sharpened and ready to go, and Joshua was that man. Now, typologically, Moses must die before the children of Israel could go into Canaan. Israel had to wait until Moses died and was out of the way. Moses represented the law. And by way of contrast, Joshua, Savior, represents Christ and his grace. And grace alone can lead us into the inheritance that is ours. And so the law must be left behind as inadequate before We can enter into our spiritual inheritance by faith, following Joshua, we following the Lord Jesus. Deuteronomy was characterized by anticipation. That book, Moses brought the children of Israel right up to the border of the promised land. They never got in, but they had great anticipation of entering in. But Joshua realizes what Moses anticipated. In the book of Joshua, Israel actually possesses the land that God gave to them. And think of who this book was written to. It was written after the years of wandering, and it was written, really, to the descendants of the Jews who conquered the land, who entered into the promised land and conquered the land and learned to rest in their land. And it was written, in part, as a reminder of how it came to pass that the Jews ended up in this promised land. How it ended up that Jews, with all the struggles they had in the past in Egypt, how they ended up with a land that flowed with milk and honey, they were able to rest under their own fig trees. God's promises were fulfilled. God's command to enter had been obeyed, and God's protection and power was over Israel, and they were experiencing God's victory. And so this is in part the reason for the book of Joshua. And without that historical reminder, what do you think the next generation would assume? They knew nothing about their history. They'd assume, well, we've always been in this land. Life has always been good for us. No, they needed a reminder of the past, of where they came from, and how they ended up in that place of rich blessing. And it's good for us as Christians as well. We can get settled in our Christian life and forget of where we would have been had the Lord not delivered us. It's so easy to take blessings for granted. Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt to a redeemed position. And once Moses led them out of Egypt, they were a redeemed people. And what Moses did was really a picture of redemption. They took the Passover lamb, they slew the lamb, they shed its blood, they applied its blood to the doorposts, and the price was paid. in type, in symbol. And then the exodus out of Egypt applies another aspect of redemption. Redemption not only speaks of the price paid, redeem, one of the terms for redeem means to purchase, to pay the price, but another term for redemption means a deliverance. So the price is paid and the result is a deliverance. So the exodus out of Egypt speaks of this deliverance aspect of redemption. The Jews were redeemed from former bondage in Egypt, and that's a picture of the believer, the sinner delivered from his former life, from his former bondage to sin. And once the blood was shed, the Jews were set free. They had been redeemed. That was their new position. They were free, redeemed. They were set free by the blood of the Lamb. And this also is a picture of the believer in our unchangeable position as redeemed by the blood that can never change. So Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. But Joshua was the one that led the Israelites into a whole new experience in the Promised Land, redeemed people beginning to experience the blessing of their redemption. And as so often is the case with Christians, it took a while after Israel was redeemed before they actually entered into the blessing of their inheritance. They wandered around, they aimed, they wandered aimlessly for a long time. They had to learn how to walk by faith. They had to learn how to trust the Lord. It takes time to learn how to experience our salvation by faith. And after being redeemed, The believer today needs the same. The same is often our experience. We get saved, and we're on cloud nine, and then we might wander around for a while before we get settled in our faith and begin to learn more and more about how great our salvation is and all the riches that we have in Christ. And then when we learn how to experience them by faith, that may take some time. Moses led two groups of Jews to the border of the promised land, and we saw that in numbers. The first generation came up to the border and then turned around in fear. They applied the blood, they were redeemed and set free, but they refused to enter in by faith, and they lost four decades. Let me see here. The second generation, they also came to the border of the promised land, but they entered in. They entered in by faith, and they possessed their inheritance. So just as the Israelites in the book of Joshua entered into their physical inheritance, that's a picture of the believer today entering into our heavenly inheritance, our heavenly and spiritual riches. And we just read about the importance of this in the first three verses, where Moses, the servant of the Lord, died. Then in verse two, Joshua calls the people to cross over the Jordan. and to go into the promised land. And God says, wherever your foot shall tread, that have I given you. All they had to do is walk by faith and they would possess their possessions. They would possess their inheritance. And so this is an important statement in the book of Joshua. Now, in the typology in this book, There's general agreement up to the point where the Israelites are about to cross over the Jordan River. And almost unanimously in Christendom, the symbolism here is agreed upon. Egypt is a picture of the world and the grip, the bondage that it has over sinners. Pharaoh is a type of our adversary, the devil, the god of this world. The Passover lamb was a picture of Christ and his shed blood. And the Exodus is a picture of our deliverance out of bondage. And the Red Sea is a picture of our victory over our enemies. God told them there, don't fight. Sometimes they were to fight, but there he said, stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord. and then their wilderness experience, a time that... Many believers spend wandering and learning how to walk with God, learning how to follow the Lord's leading. And so there's pretty much a general agreement on those points in the typology, but most understand crossing the Jordan. I don't know if I should say most, but most, maybe a century or so ago and before, most understood the crossing of the Jordan to be a type of physical death. The believer is pictured there in that understanding. They cross the Jordan River and they enter into heaven. And so the Jordan is the experience of death that leads us into the promised land of heaven. Take out your hymnal and turn to hymn number 45. It's a good hymn. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but... In hymn number 45, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, Here, I think the author misses the point on the symbolism of crossing the Jordan River. Look in verse 3, he says, when I tread the verge of Jordan. And so he pictures himself just about on the edge of, he knows he's going to have to go through Jordan, he's going to have to experience death, and it says he's anxious about death and hell. So he's a little in sorrow in his faith, He's facing death, and then he asks God to land him safely on the other side. And so this is kind of a prayer, Lord, help, assure me that I'm going to make it into heaven. And the other side of Jordan, the Canaan land, is interpreted as heaven. And that's very common. Look also in hymn number 689. I don't think we've ever sung this here before, but the title is, I am bound for the promised land. I'm heading for the promised land. And clearly in this hymn, the author in verses 1 and 4 looks at Canaan as heaven. And he sees himself in the wilderness side of the Jordan, in other words, his earthly life, looking over to the other side of Jordan, to heaven, and he sees himself, I'm bound for that place. That's where I'm heading. That's my next stop. I'm going to die and go to heaven. So these were some very common views of the symbolism behind the Jordan River. And then we also have some common views in the old African-American spirituals. They spoke of crossing the Jordan River in two different ways that I could see. One, they spoke of it as crossing the Jordan was death, and what that meant to them was the end of the harsh realities of the life as a slave. They saw death as a way of escape, and so it certainly was that. although I would question whether that's the intended symbolism. Great application, maybe. And also, in some of those spiritual songs, they saw crossing the Jordan as entering into freedom. They were leaving slavery in Egypt behind, and when they went into the Promised Land, that was freedom in their way of thinking. And some of them spoke of escaping from the southern states and entering into the northern free states, and that was the Canaan land to them. That was the promised land of freedom. And let me just... I'll read some words to one of those old spirituals. It says, I'll meet you in the morning when I reach the promised land. On the other side of Jordan, I'm bound for the promised land. And some of them spoke of meeting there. And some of them also, some of these old African-American spirituals had code language in these words, and they all knew that this meant, I'll meet you in Illinois, or something like that, so it was very interesting reading some of the history of some of these songs, but they also made the same, what I would call a mistake, a simple mistake, an understandable mistake, and it's really close to what the symbolism is. They viewed it as death. But crossing the Jordan River can't really be a type of death and entering into heaven because read the rest of the book of Joshua. It teaches us that once they entered into the promised land, they fought war after war after war. There were many enemies that needed to be fought and cast out, and that's certainly not true of heaven. There are no wars in heaven, in God's, in the third heaven. There are no enemies in that land. So that's not an acceptable understanding of the promised land. the symbolic meaning of it. A better interpretation is that the crossing of the Jordan does speak of death, but not physical death. It speaks of death to self, the crucified life, crucified with Christ and reckoning ourselves to be dead. In other words, it speaks of a life of total and absolute surrender to the will of God. And when a believer reckons himself to be dead unto self and alive unto God, he surrenders his life to the Lordship of Christ. And that's when the real spiritual conflict begins. The devil already has the carnal Christian, but it's the believer who walks by faith, the believer who is dedicated to Christ in serving the Lord, he's the target of the devil. And so, for believers today, we should expect, if we're walking with the Lord, we should expect to face enemies and battles. Satan isn't going to bother those that are walking in the darkness. He goes after those that are walking in the light. And so, here we see a believer, one that's totally surrendered to the Lord, dead to self. When he comes to that place where he's willing to surrender to the Lordship of Christ, he enters into that promised land of blessing, and then he begins to experience all of the salvation, all that salvation was intended. Not just having a ticket to heaven, but also all of our riches and blessings in Christ. Merilunga called the Book of Joshua the Ephesians of the Old Testament for this very reason. In Joshua, the Israelites pictured a people redeemed through the blood of the Passover lamb. They were redeemed. Then at the border, they were anticipating entering into their physical inheritance in Canaan on the other side, and all they had to do was walk into the land, and wherever their foot tread, that land was theirs. to possess the land simply meant to enter and walk by faith. And once in, they had to face their enemies, they had to cast out the enemies, they had to possess the land, claim it by faith, and experience the victory and power of God. And so, entering into Canaan illustrates a believer experiencing, possessing his inheritance in heaven. And think of that in the book of Ephesians. We're familiar with Ephesians, I hope. In the first three chapters, Paul speaks about our redemption, all the different aspects of our salvation through blood, our new position in Christ. And then in Ephesians chapter 4, Paul speaks about walking by faith, walking worthy, walking in the light, walking uprightly. And then in chapter 6, Paul begins to speak about facing our spiritual battles. Once we are redeemed, that's our position. Once we understand our position, we begin to experience the benefits of our position as we walk by faith and claim those blessings, then we can experience spiritual conflict and battle. And that's in perfect sync, the book of Ephesians is in perfect sync with what we read in the book of Joshua. There's another book, there's another hymnal, rather another hymn in our hymnal, we sang it just a little while ago, Dwelling in Beulah Land. And this hymn, I believe, has a more accurate rendering of the topology with respect to the Promised Land. Here he calls it Beulah Land. And Beulah Land comes from Isaiah 62, where God said that Israel, the land would no longer be desolate, but it would be Beulah Land. It would be married. It would be, in other words, blessed and joyous and happy and fruitful. The first thing we note in this hymn is that the author thinks of himself as dwelling in Beulah Land. Now, he's not physically in heaven, but he's dwelling in heavenly places. He's dwelling in that promised land, the promised land of the believer. That author's point is that we're to dwell in our position. We're to dwell above. We're to abide above. And as we do, we experience God's blessing. In verse 1 of that hymn, it says, there's earthly strife all around us down below, but nothing can move me from enjoying Beulah Land. When we're dwelling above, there can be conflict in our life down here, but as we abide above, we can enjoy that peace in Beulah Land and nothing can move us from it. And then in verse 2, the author speaks of, there are storms of doubt on earth. But the believer, he saw himself in the castle of God's safety. I think an allusion to John Bunyan's book. And he says, nothing of earth can reach us in Beulah land. So as we dwell above, The doubts that might be experienced on earth can never harm us. And then in verse 3, he says, I won't be alarmed by the chaos on the earth. Instead, I'm in Beulah land. And the chorus says, I'm living there by faith. He's not in heaven yet, but he's living in the heavenly places. He abides above. He's feasting there. He's drinking at the fountain. He's nourished from above. and God meets all his needs down here below. And so I think that author had a more accurate understanding of the typology in Joshua, and it's a very fine point between physical death and reckoning self to be dead, but an important one. And then just one more note and we'll close on this. It's also interesting to note the contrast between the two crossings of water that God brought the Jews through, the Red Sea and then the Jordan River. And they both speak of salvations of the separation that takes place when a believer puts his faith in Christ and is saved. The Red Sea speaks of separation from Egypt and the world in bondage to sin. Crossing Jordan speaks of separation unto Christ and all of our spiritual blessings that we might enjoy them after a period of wandering in the middle, wandering in the wilderness. So these are some of the important spiritual lessons that we can get from the history in the book of Joshua. This does not mean it's an allegory, these are real historical accounts, but God built into some of the early history of Israel some spiritual lessons for us to learn. So we're not just learning ancient books and ancient history, it has real meaning and value and application for us today. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the book of Joshua. We pray that we might see some important lessons and truths in it, Lord, that we can apply to our lives. And we just ask that your Holy Spirit would help us to have a better grasp of this book. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.