Christ in the OT - Christ,..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. very good welcome to our wednesday bible study thank you very much brother let's let's open up our bible please to the book of acts acts chapter seven acts chapter seven and we are going to continue with with our studies on Jesus Christ and his people in the Old Testament, trying to see the shadows or the types that portray the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. And I want us to start from a very important concept that is going to take us into the topic that we're going to be addressing this evening, which is Joshua.

So we've done Adam, we've done Abraham, and last week we did Moses. And now we're going to move into Joshua. But before we get into the person of Joshua as a type, as a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a very important concept that I want us to meditate upon before we get into it. That is found in Acts chapter seven in verse thirty five through thirty eight. So let's read carefully.

Verses 35 through 38, and we're just going to be paying attention to a concept that is found in verse 38. So this is Acts 7. This is the word of God. This is Stephen, when he is given his speech before the Pharisees and he's speaking about the whole Old Testament before he is stoned. And in verse 35, he's speaking and he's speaking about all of that in the Old Testament.

And he says in verse 35, This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led the mount, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses, Stephen speaking here, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him and Mount Sinai and with our fathers who received living oracles to give to us.

Now, Stephen is speaking about the Old Testament and particularly he's speaking of Moses. And here in verse 37, he says that God was going to raise a prophet like Moses, which is what our brother Bernie addressed last week. But in verse 38, he gives us a very interesting detail because he's going to speak about the people of Israel, the ones who were freed from Israel or from Egypt, from the bondage that they were in Egypt. And these people that were taken through the wilderness, in verse 38, he says, this is the one, this is Moses, who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai. So here, Stephen is given an important word to the people of Israel who were taken from Egypt and who were freed and who were taken through the Red Sea into the wilderness and the people that were promised the land.

He calls them the congregation. And these, brothers and sisters, is a very important word. He says this is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness. And this word is very important because this word is translated here in our Bibles as a congregation. But it's exactly the same word that the New Testament uses for the church.

So you may remember when when we did probably our first or second sermon, I think that was the second sermon that our brother preached on Matthew 16 and verse 18, speaking of the confession of Peter. saying that on this rock I will build up my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church. That church, it is exactly the same word that is used here in this chapter 7 by Stephen when he's giving this speech. Now, why is this very important? It's very important, brothers and sisters, because there is a sense in which the church of the Lord Jesus Christ did not start at Pentecost or with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The church of God or the congregation of God or the people of God have been around since salvation was available. So the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament, it is called or is spoken about in the Old Testament as the congregation that it was in the wilderness. Now, why is this very important, brothers and sisters? This is important because when we are addressing the types or the shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ, we always have to attach the Lord Jesus Christ to his people. So Jesus Christ is a savior insofar as there are people who need to be saved.

So for God to provide a savior, there has to be a people that need to be saved. So that means, brothers and sisters, that from the very moment that salvation was available, that is when sin enter into the world and then after that, the Lord did not execute the judgment that Adam and Eve deserved. and salvation was available, then the people of God also started just with the promise of the Savior. So every time that we're speaking about types and shadows that portray the Lord Jesus Christ or that speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're also speaking of types or shadows that somehow communicate something of the people of God throughout the ages. So the church, brothers and sisters, is not only what we have here.

It is not only what happens after the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, but the church or better the people of God have been around all the time since salvation was available to the point that Stephen calls the people in the wilderness, the congregation or the people of God or another translation may say even the church that was in the wilderness. So just as the promise of the Savior is established from the very beginning of the book, from the very beginning of Genesis, also the nature of the people of God are established from the very beginning. So when we remember the promise in Genesis 3.15 that the offspring of the woman was going to crash the head of the serpent or the offspring of the serpent, then we are receiving some information about also the church that is going to start. Now, brothers and sisters, Keep your attention with me, because this evening, as I said, we're going to be addressing Joshua as one of the types of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's very important for us that we understand that Joshua, as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, is established upon all the previous promises that were given of salvation. So we have already addressed the first promise of salvation that is started from Genesis 3 15 given to Adam. That as I said already that the offspring of the woman was going to crash the head of the offspring of the serpent. That was the promise given to Adam and Adam being a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. But after that promise was given, we have already also addressed the promise that was given to Abraham.

And the promise that was given to Abraham contains very important elements. If you go with me, please, to Genesis chapter 12, this is very important for us to remember and to keep it in our minds, that promise that was given to Abraham, because in Genesis 3.15, brothers and sisters, a Savior is promised. Salvation is needed. Death has entered into the world because of sin.

And a Savior is promised in Genesis 3.15. But when it comes to Genesis 12, another nuance of that promise is going to be given, as our brother has already addressed. But there are three elements in Genesis 12 that I want and we want you to keep on top of your mind, always present in your mind. Because when the Lord is speaking to Abraham in Genesis 12, He's going to say from verse 1 to 3, Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

So a part of the promise that was given now to the people of God was not only that a Savior was going to be given, the offspring of the woman that was going to crush the head of the offspring of the serpent, but now it's a land that is promised to Abraham, who is the father of faith. And not only that, but in verse 2, there's another component of that promise. It says, "...and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." So it is not only a land that was promised for the people of the Savior, but it's also that He was going to make them a great nation.

He was going to multiply them. There was going to be many of them. And not only that, but there's also a blessing. Verse 3 says, And I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you or curses you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Brothers and sisters, from the beginning of redemption, when death entered into the world, the promise of life given to the people of God always contained this promise of a man who is going to come, is going to save us, is going to redeem us.

But this man comes with a land, this man comes with a place for the people that he's going to save and he's going to make these people many. He's going to multiply them and they are going to receive a blessing. So, in the mind of the people, in the times of Abraham, the coming of the Savior was for the establishment of a kingdom that was on earth, that there was going to come someone who was going to restitute the Garden of Eden, kind of like reveal the Garden of Eden and the people of God was going to be in the Garden of Eden again and they were going to multiply. So, when brothers and sisters, when Moses comes, if you go to Exodus chapter 3, In Exodus chapter 3, when Moses comes, he has in him more than likely the people of Israel would have seen a type of fulfillment of this man that was going to redeem the people. If you go to Exodus chapter 3 and in verse 7, Exodus chapter 3 verse 7, That promise that was given to Abraham in Genesis 12 of a land that was going to be given to the people of God and a blessing and a multitude that is a great nation.

The Lord is going to speak again to Moses, even with the same terms. So in Exodus chapter 3 verse 7, it says, Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people. You remember that the Israelites were under bondage who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So here in this promise that is given to Moses, we can see the elements that were given to Abraham in chapter 12 of the book of Genesis, that the Lord were going to give to his people a land and this land was going to be a blessing.

It was to be a land that was flowing with milk and honey. And these people who had multiplied under the bondage with Egypt, they were many already. They were supposed to continue multiplying now in this land. So, Moses comes as a type of this redeemer. Imagine, for instance, Adam and Eve, when they had Cain and Abel, and then one of them, Cain, killed his brother.

And then he was ejected from the presence of the family. So then Eve would have said, what is it going to happen now? The Lord has promised me that out of my flesh, out of my loins, a man would have come who was going to be the redeemer. But now I don't have a son because he's dead. And the other one has been ejected or removed from the presence.

He would have thought or they would have thought that Seth who is the third son that they had would have been the promise. That would have been the mentality of the people of God throughout the ages. They were expecting and waiting for this man who was the offspring of the woman who was going to bring liberation or freedom to the people of God. Moses was the prophet of God through whom this salvation was brought to them. The Lord was bringing this salvation to the people of Israel through Moses.

But we know that Moses failed. And we know that in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, if you go to the last chapter of Deuteronomy, you will see that Moses, as you know, and as our brother explained last week, that Moses completely failed. Well, not completely failed, let's say, not use the word completely, but he did not make it personally into the promised land. The people of Israel had seen in the wilderness and Moses himself had already seen also in the wilderness. And for that reason, Moses was not allowed to enter into this land, which the Lord promised in Exodus chapter three.

I'm going to take you out of the land of Egypt and I'm going to bring you to this land, which is flowing milk and honey. And all the people will go into that land and they are going to subdue all the enemies. Moses was not able to bring that promise to fulfillment. And this is the information that we have in Deuteronomy chapter 34. This is the death of Moses.

Moses does not make it in the flesh into the promised land. If we read in Deuteronomy chapter 34, it says, Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negev and the plain that is the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, so he showed him all of these places, which was the promised land that he had promised in Exodus chapter three. Now he speaks to Moses and says, this is the land of which I saw to Abraham in Genesis 12, to Isaac and to Jacob.

I will give it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there. Now, just a parenthetical comment. Actually, Moses does make it. into the promised land.

Actually, He enters into the promised land. He does not do it in the flesh. But you remember the Transfiguration, when in the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord sees Moses and Elijah. It is in the Spirit, it is in glory that Moses now enters after his sin has been forgiven by the Lord until his flesh has received judgment upon death, then Moses enters into the promised land when he sees the Lord Jesus Christ in the Mount of Transfiguration, when he is seeing Moses and Elijah, and then the other three disciples were witnessing the transfiguration of the Lord. So Moses made it into the promised land.

But in verse 5 it says, So Moses, it says, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, that he was not going to enter into the land. And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite to Beth Peor. But no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. I remember that Moses, when he was 40 years old, he left the land of Egypt when he was in Egypt and he spent 40 years in the land of Midian.

And then he came back when he was 80 for the liberation of the people of Israel. 40 years, the people of Israel, they spent in the wilderness. And he died when he was 120 years old. His eye was undimmed and his vigor undated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days.

Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. But now pay attention, please, to what he says, verse 9. And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

But what I want you to pay attention to is that the Bible calls Moses the servant of the Lord, the one who was going to bring this salvation to the people of God. But he was unable to enter into the promised land. And upon his death, when he was 120 years old, there is going to be someone who is going to take his role and who is going to replace him. And this is Joshua. There's something very interesting about Joshua because Joshua would have been probably 28 to 27 years younger than Moses.

But if you go to numbers, if you go to numbers, please go to numbers. Let me see. numbers 11 this is why I should take notes Numbers 11. Very good. If you go to Numbers 11, in Numbers 11, we are told something very interesting about the character of Joshua.

And I want you to start paying attention from this point. Very with much attention, please, because there is a time in the wilderness in which the Lord is going to appoint some elders for the people of Israel so that the elders will serve the people of Israel, not the whole burden will be on Moses. So we're going back in time here. And the Lord is through Moses appointing 70 elders to serve the people of God. And chapter 11, verse 24, it says, So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord.

This is numbers 11, verse 24. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him, that is Moses, and put it on the 70 elders. And as soon as the Spirit, this is the Spirit of God, rested on them, the 70 elders, the 70 elders prophesied, but they did not continue doing it, they did not continue prophesying.

Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And then pay attention to verse 38, And Joshua, the son of Nun, The assistant of Moses from his youth said, My Lord, Moses, stop them. But Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake?

Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit on them. Now, this little verse, verse 28, actually gives us very interesting information about Joshua, who is the person that is going to replace Moses. Here we are told, that Joshua was the assistant or the servant of Moses. And he says, from his youth. And then he says something, my Lord Moses, stop them.

And then Moses, are you jealous for my sake? So here we have Moses anointing the 70 men to be servants within the people of Israel. But then Moses, or Joshua better, when he sees them prophesying, he says, are you going to stop them? And then Moses asking, are you jealous for my sake? But the two words that I want you to pay attention to is that first of all, Joshua was the servant of Moses.

And the second thing is that the Bible calls Joshua a servant of Moses from his youth. Now, this is very interesting because Joshua is only 28 years younger than Moses. So that is when Moses is dying, when he was 120 years, then Joshua would have been 90 or 92 years. And even from the time that the Lord returned or that Moses better return for the liberation of the people of Israel when he was 80, Joshua would have been something around 50 years old. So he would not have been a young person, but rather the Bible or the Bible calls it a young servant to Moses.

The reason why the Bible calls it young is not so much putting emphasis on the age of Joshua, but rather the spirit that was within Joshua. This is a spirit that he was a servant of Moses. When I say spirit, I'm talking about his attitude, about his personality. He was a servant of Moses and he was a person that was faithful to everything that Moses was commanded or that was commanded from the Lord through the person of Moses. Brothers and sisters, This is very important because Joshua was a faithful servant of the Lord by serving Moses.

And in the character of Joshua is where we find the type and the shadow that points to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when we are trying to understand types and shadows that point to the Lord Jesus Christ, it is very important for us, brothers and sisters, to understand the historical context of that type so that we will have a very well-rooted typology or connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want to point you to actually just simply two things that are going to tell us what is the role or how is Joshua a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is, the first one, I want to show you his role as a humble servant of Moses then the second thing is that I want to show you his mission the role of Joshua and then the mission that was entrusted to Joshua so that we will understand how Joshua was a type of the Lord so three things that I want I want you to go to Joshua chapter 1 because that will be the place where we are going to be seeing these things or some of the things there and Three things, brothers and sisters, that I want you to see of this Joshua, the servant of Moses, this man who was not young in age, but rather he was of a humble spirit, that he was a servant of the Lord by serving Moses in everything that Moses required of him. The first thing that I want you to see in verse 1, I'll just read verse 1 in chapter 1, it says, After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all these people into the land that I'm giving to them, to the people of Israel. from the very beginning of the book that holds the name of Joshua. We don't even have a name for Abraham or Moses, but we have a book for Joshua. The very thing that we are told is that this Joshua, brothers and sisters, as I've said already, it is Moses' assistant or it is Moses' servant. So three things that I want you to see from the story of Joshua.

The first thing is that Joshua, brothers and sisters, was a man of war. Joshua was a man of war. Now, just pay attention to this because these are the only two things that I want to show you. The role of Joshua. And the second thing is the mission of Joshua.

And in the role of Joshua, I want you to see that Joshua was a man of war. And we see that in Exodus chapter 17. Go to Exodus chapter 17. In Exodus chapter 17, before the law is given to Moses of something that we have already studied together through our corporate reading of Scripture, you might remember what took place in Exodus 17, something that we have already covered. In verse eight, pay attention to this story, brothers and sisters, please.

Hold your mind on this and pay attention to this. I'm going to try to develop the argument for the typology of Christ from this point. It says in verse in chapter 17, verse eight, is speaking about an aspect of the character of Joshua. Then Amalek came and fought with Israel. I've read a theme.

So Moses said to Joshua, this is the first time that Joshua is going to enter into action in the history of redemption. Exodus 17, verse eight. So Moses said to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses told him.

Remember that this Joshua was a servant of Moses, just as Moses was a servant of the Lord. This Joshua was a servant of Moses. Verse 10. So Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, with Moses, Aaron and Har, went up to the top of the hill. Whenever now pay attention to this, because he's Joshua, the one that is the commander of the Israelite army.

But something very spiritual is going to happen here in verse 11. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands grew weary. So they took a stone and put it under him.

And he sat on it while Aaron and Har held up his hand on one side and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with a sword. So Joshua, brothers and sisters, was a man of war. And we see here the people of Israel entering into one of the first battles against people who were not Israelites, the Amalekites in this case.

And he's commanding the people of Israel in this war. But we see something very spiritual that is happening and taking place here. And that is that Joshua, even though he was the commander of this army, He would prevail only when the Lord Jesus Christ or when the Lord in heaven better, when God in heaven would work through the servant Moses to the point that in verse 14 it says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua. And I will utterly blot out the memory of Amulek from under heaven. and Moses built an altar and called the name of it.

The Lord is my banner saying a hand upon the throne of the Lord. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation through generation. Brothers and sisters, think about it. The people of Israel had spent hundreds of years in slavery in the land of Egypt. They would have not known how to fight or how to be people of war.

However, this Joshua commanded by Moses is now entrusted this task of taking the people of Israel are going into battle. But these men only prevail by the supernatural workings of the spirit of God through the people or through Moses. And even we are told something very interesting that Moses wrote this in a book and that he recite all of these things to the ear of Joshua. Now keep that in your mind because the role of Joshua was a role in which he was a man of war. But Joshua was not only a man of war.

The second thing that I want you to remember about Joshua is that he was a man of faith. He was a man of faith. Please go to Numbers 14. Go to Numbers 14, because the character of this humble servant of Moses now develops not only from being a man of war, but now he is going to show us something about his character in Numbers chapter 14. I said, right?

You might remember You might remember, brothers and sisters, the story of Moses. You might remember the story of Moses and how he sent. You remember the story of the 12 spies that he as he a couple of years after coming out of Egypt, he will send 12 different spies to go into the land and to see the features of the characteristics of the land and to bring a report. He sent 12 different spies from each one from a tribe of the people of Israel. And you may also remember that from the people that came with the report, they came with a report that was actually untrue.

If you go in chapter 13, we can read that in chapter 13. We can see the report of the spies in verse 27. This is the report of the spies that Moses sent. It says, And they told him, We came to the land to which you sent us. This is the report that is given to Moses.

It flows with milk and honey. Remember, these are the words that are given to Moses in Exodus chapter three of this land that flows milk and honey. And this is its fruit. However, they will say, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there."

Now pay attention to verse 29. The Amalekites, remember the Amalekites of the first battle, the Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. Now, the Lord had already prevailed over the Amalekites through Joshua and through the person of Moses. And the Lord had promised already that there was going to be an enmity between the people of Israel and the Amalekites.

But then these people come and they say the land that we saw was a land with with all the fruits that we require. But the people that that live in that land are big and are strong and are powerful. And they had Fear upon that report when the people of Israel, brothers and sisters, when all the people of Israel heard the report to listen to the report of these 10 men, because you remember that out of the 12 spies, there were two men who will give a different report. Right. That is Joshua and Caleb.

But from the report, when this report was given, this was the reaction of the people of Israel in Chapter 14. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. This is the people of Israel after they heard the report of the ten spies. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would thou we had died in the land of Egypt, or would thou we had died in the wilderness?

Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. Now, brothers and sisters, just think about that statement and all the things that even our brother has said from Exodus and when he was explaining Moses, that after these people had seen all of these glorious things that the Lord had done, these people, after all the things, the glorious thing that they had seen, now these people doubt.

The promise of the Lord of bringing them into this land from which flows milk and honey. But now pay attention to verse five. It says, Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. Remember this word congregation, the congregation in the wilderness, the people of God, the church of God in the wilderness. Verse six, And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caliph, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, The land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land.

If the Lord, now pay attention to this statement of faith, if the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Read that in verse 8. If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, as the spies were reporting. Do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us."

That is, we can easily defeat them. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. Then all the congregation..." This is the response of the congregation to this statement on faith.

"...then all the congregation set to stone them with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of the meeting to all the people, of Israel. Brothers and sisters, this Joshua was not only a humble servant who was a man of war, remember that a man of war, Joshua was a man of war, but he was also a man of faith. He had believed, brothers and sisters, the promise that Moses had given that we are going to make it into that promised land.

We're going to enter into that promised land. So when he saw with his eyes, and Caleb also, they saw with their eyes The might and the power of these men who dwell in the promised land, they did not have fear, but rather they trusted in the promise of the Lord that they were going to make it into that promised land. Brothers, Joshua is not only a man of war and a man who is filled with faith, but more importantly than that, he's a redeemed man. Because after this rebellion of the people of Israel, the Lord is going to bring judgment upon the people of Israel. These people of God who were in the wilderness, God is going to bring judgment upon them.

because of their disbelief or unbelief, because their lack of faith, after they had seen all the things that the Lord had done, and after they had even received the promise of God Himself, that they were going to be taken into the promised land, these people did not believe, and therefore they are going to receive the judgment of God. If you continue in chapter 14, there in Numbers, in verse 26, We are told of the execution of the judgment of God upon the people of Israel. It says, And the Lord spoke to Moses, verse 26 in Numbers 14, And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long shall this wicked, again the word, congregation, grumble against Me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, As I leave, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you.

Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, And all of your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. but your little ones who you said would become a prey..." This is the complaint that they had brought to the Lord. They said, our little ones are going to become a prey, they are going to take us, they are going to destroy us. They say, verse 31, "...

but your little ones who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know, the land that you have rejected." But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in the wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness, according to the number of the days in which you spied out the land." Forty days that was. A year for each day you shall bear your inequity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure. I, the Lord, have spoken.

Surely this I will do to all these wicked congregations who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die. This is the execution of the judgment of God upon his people. the people who had received the promise of salvation, to make it into the promised land. It says that only those who are 20 years of younger, plus Caliph and Joshua, they will not receive this judgment and this execution.

But something very interesting, pay attention to verse 35. It says, I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely I did this. will I do to all these wicked congregation?" The question that we need to ask ourselves is, did all the congregation actually died?

The answer to that is no, but I want you to see the language of the Bible, of how the whole covenant community was recipient of the judgment of God, and then God says that, All these wicked generations will perish in the wilderness, but Joshua and Caleb, and even the younger... kids or children, they did not perish in the wilderness. They actually are going to make it into the promised land. This is a covenantal community judgment that God pours upon the people. But the important thing that I want you to see, brothers, is that the role of Joshua is that he is a man of war and that he's a faithful man and that he is a redeemed man, that he did not receive the judgment that the congregation in the wilderness deserved.

This brings us back to Joshua chapter 1. Go to Joshua chapter 1 because now I do want to show you, if you know something of the character of Joshua, then I briefly just going to summarize for you the mission that these men of war, that these men of faith, and that these men, redeemed men, who had not received the judgment of God in the wilderness, You can see now what is the role of this man. And now we have a beautiful passage that we've read many times in chapter 1. Let's just read it until verse 9. It says, After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, Moses, my servant, is dead.

Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all these people, into the land that I'm giving to them, to the people of Israel. Moses is dead. They have seen the land in front of them. And now all this wicked generation who received judgment, they have died. They have perished in the wilderness.

Now the Lord is given to Joshua the privilege of entering and conquering the land. In verse 3, Every place that the salt of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness, And this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites and the great sea to where the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, I will be with you.

I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause these people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and be very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have a good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you, wherever you go. Brothers, The servant of Moses, the servant of the servant of God, is now becoming this man of war, this man of faith, this man who had gone through the judgment of God. Now he is receiving from God himself the mission to conquer the land and to enter into the land that Moses had not been able to enter because of the sin of the congregation and because of the sin that Moses himself Joshua was entrusted with the mission of conquering.

He was a man of war. He was given the mission to actually go and battle and having lots of victory to many people, different nations and different kings, so that he will indeed conquer the land. When you go through the book of Joshua, it is actually, brothers and sisters, a book of war. Every in every chapter, there's either planning of war or there is war in which the people of Israel enters. And there's many famous passages that you may remember, the walls of Jericho that are falling or the battle at Ai or the 31 kings that Joshua defeated.

And when you go through the book of Joshua, you can see this one and another time and another time and another time how Joshua These men of war who had been trained in the art of war, but was empowered by the faith of Moses himself, the faith that came from the Spirit. This redeemed man was entrusted with the mission of conquering the land. And not only that, but he was also entrusted with the allocation of the task or allocation of the land to the people of Israel. Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important because when the people of Israel would have entered the promised land, they would have thought that this was the fulfillment of the promise given in Genesis 3.15, the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham, which in a sense, in a material sense, this is the fulfillment of the promise that is given to Abraham of a land given to the people because they indeed enter into the promised land.

And just as Moses, remember that he opened the Red Sea? And then he walked through the Red Sea or the people walked through the Red Sea, the people of Israel, just in a similar way. Also, Joshua is going to stop the waters of the Jordan and the people of Israel are going to walk through the dry land of the Jordan. And in that moment, the Lord is going to exalt Joshua just as he had exalted Moses. Joshua was entering into that land and in the moment that they entered into that land, in their eyes, in their hearts, in their minds, this would have been the land with milk and honey that would have brought rest and peace to the people after the many hundreds of years of slavery and after the 40 years of the wilderness in which they had not found Rest so I want you to see something very important in Joshua 21 because in Joshua 21 go just jump all the way to Joshua 21 In Joshua 21 We can see how Joshua defines the conquering of this land in verse 43 21 verse 23 thus the Lord Joshua 21 verse 43 If you read the whole book in just one seat of Joshua, you will see how the first 12 chapters, as I said to you, are just war after war, war after war, war after war.

And then from chapter 13 onwards is the division of the land. But then in chapter 21, verse 43, it says, Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possessions of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn or promised to their fathers. The Lord indeed gave or gave the people of Israel rest and peace.

Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. The Lord had fulfilled the promise given to Abraham and also the promise that had given to Moses. The people had found rest and peace.

However, brothers and sisters, when you continue reading the book of Joshua, you are going to see a conflict. You're going to see a conflict between the statement that we have just read and the reality of what happens after this statement is read. There's going to be a difficulty, a contrast between two different situations. Because the entering, pay attention to this, the entering of the people of Israel by the hand of Joshua into the promised land, it happened only through and by the defeating of many enemies. 31 kings were defeated by Joshua.

But when the people of Israel entered into the promised land, there was a contradiction or a difficulty or a tension, because even though now they had defeated these many people, there were many people that wanted to still kill them and defeat them. Go to chapter 23, please. Just a couple of chapters after that. When a man of war defeats his enemies, usually more enemies will arise. When a man of war wins battles and wars, then more enemies will arise.

See the tension that then will take place in chapter 23. It says, a long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel, because they have entered and conquered the promised land, and they have divided the promised land, for all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, I am now old and well advanced in years, and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off from the Jordan to the great sea in the west. The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight, and you shall possess their land just as the Lord your God promised you. Now, verse six, pay attention.

Therefore, be strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you, or make mention of the names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them a bow down to them. But you shall cling to the Lord your God, just as ye have done to this day. For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations, and as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. No man of you puts to fight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as He promised. Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you, and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them, And they with you know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you. Brothers and sisters, just in a very concise summary of all of these things, The people of Israel had entered into this land. However, they remain under the threat of their enemies. The rest that they had in the land, yes, they obtained the land and they conquered the land and they enter into this glorious land. However, there is a condition given by God, and that is that if you want to remain in that land and if you want to persevere in that land, if you want to remain in that rest, then it is required of you not to mix with your enemies and to keep them away.

If you mix with your enemies, and if you enter in marriages, and if you have alliances with your enemies, then the Lord Himself is going to execute judgment upon you, and He's going to remove the rest in which you have entered. The rest that the people of God have entered into, brothers and sisters, was a rest that was conditioned to the obedience of the people of God, to the precepts that God was required of them. They were to continue obeying the Lord, loving the Lord and not mixing with all of these other nations and all other peoples. Had they done that or if they did that, they wouldn't be receiving judgment of God himself. This rest, even though it was accomplished, it was not a rest once for all.

That's why the author of Hebrews, if you go to Hebrews, just to finish there, that's why the author of Hebrews will tell us how Joshua is the type of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go to Hebrews chapter four, after the author of Hebrews has spoken through chapter three and through chapter four of the rest of the people of Israel and the rest in which they did not enter because of their lack of faith. Then in your Bibles, they're in chapter four of the book of Hebrews. The Lord, in verse eight, he is going to compare the type of rest that Joshua provided for the people and the rest that we have in Christ. And three majestic and glorious verses are going to be given to us in chapter four, verse eight.

He says, for if Joshua had given them rest, this is the congregation and the people of God. God would not have spoken of another day later on. This is another day of rest. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest also rested from his works as God did from his.

Before this, brothers and sisters, before this statement that we have just read, the author of Hebrews has spoken of the inability of the people of Israel to enter the rest of God because of their lack of faith. And he said that even the rest that was promised to them in the land was not the ultimate rest, because even David, who came afterwards, spoke of another day of rest. And then he says, the author of Hebrews, that just as God, when He was in creation, He created everything in six days and on the seventh day He rested, there is an eternal rest. that is available for the people of God. And then in verse 8, as we have just read, he says, For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

So then... remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. And this is the rest that the people of God have, brothers and sisters, for whoever has entered in God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Brothers and sisters, the people of Israel, when they entered into the Promised Land by the hand of Joshua, they were required to remain in obedience. They were required to remain in obedience to the covenant, in obedience to the Lord Himself, not to mix with other hidden or Gentile nations.

If they disobeyed, then they were breaking the covenant and the rest that they had was going to be taken. And actually, this is what happens through history. The people of Israel violate the principles of the covenant and God himself uses Gentile nations to come and take the people of Israel and to take them captives because they have mixed with the hidden and with the Gentiles. Why? Because this promised land, this promised physical land, was only a shadow of the true rest that the people of God, not only after the Lord Jesus Christ came, but the congregation and the Church of God throughout the ages, from the very beginning, were supposed to look to.

This is an eternal rest and rest that only can be given by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the author of Hebrews says, brothers and sisters, the author of Hebrews says that the rest that is of God, God's rest, it is when we can rest from our works. That is, that when a person truly, by grace through faith, enters into Christ, is united to Christ, that person indeed can rest from the works that give a person righteousness, because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. So that person can rest eternally, that he is not supposed to keep the law to remain in that particular rest. But Christ has fulfilled already all the requirements of the covenant of God.

And therefore, by grace through faith, a person enters into that eternal rest And the promised land is not a land that belongs to this world, but it's actually a land that is reserved and kept for us in the new heavens and in the new earth. So then when judgment comes upon the world, when judgment comes and all of this that we see, the creation is put through fire and everything is redone as new heavens and new earth, This is the eternal land that is given to the people of God, but not because they have been able not to mix with the hidden or not to mix with the Gentiles, but because actually Christ was the one who was able not to mix with the flesh and the things of this world. He remained pure. He remained perfect. He obeyed the law perfectly.

And he was the perfect Israelite that completed all the requirements of the covenant. And when he went upon the cross being God himself, He obtained all the sufficient power and the divine necessity to transfer those blessings onto the people that would have faith. Jesus Christ, the word just Jesus Christ in the Greek is Jesus. And when you translate that to the Hebrew is Joshua. And when you actually read the Old Testament in the Greek, Joshua is translated as Jesus.

And even if you have other translations of your Bible, you will see that this Joshua in the New Testament is translated as Jesus, because both of them have exactly the same name. God in Christ is the conqueror. He is the man of war. That is, as in Hebrews 2 says, verse 13, he came to destroy the works, not of the hidden, not of the nations, but he came to destroy the works of the devil. He was perfect in everything that he did, and he conquered on behalf of the people of God, the Israel of the heart, the circumcised in the heart.

He accomplished, he obtained this promised land, and that is the eternal Rest. So, brothers and sisters, there is no need anymore for the people of God to fight enemies unto eternal righteousness. We are supposed to fight the enemies of the flesh unto conformity to Christ. That is that, in a sense, the people of God are to fight the, spiritually speaking, Canaanites, which is the devil and sin. These are the schemes of the world.

When the Lord Jesus Christ says that there was going to be enmity between the Amalekites and the Israelites, this is a shadow, this is a form of speaking of the enmity, spiritually speaking, of the hidden, the Gentiles, the scheme of the flesh against the spiritual scheme. And in that sense, the church, the congregation of God is to fight and to remove the enemies from among the presence of the congregation. But when it comes to obtaining the ultimate blessing, the Lord Jesus Christ has fought that fight already. He is the man of war who has accomplished all of these things on behalf of the people. And he has obtained for us the eternal rest.

Amen.