Septuagesima
Joshua 1:1-11; Hebrews 3-4
The Land of Rest
“After the death of Moses… it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua…” That is from Joshua 1:1. When the book of Joshua opens, the Israelites have just completed 30 days of mourning for Moses. You will remember that God had sentenced the people to wander for forty years in the wilderness for embracing the ten spies discouraging report, and refusing to enter the Promised Land. Most of that time they camped at a place called Kadish Barnea (Numbers 32:8). The old generation had died off, their corpses fallen in the wilderness. The forty years were up. It was time for Joshua to lead the people over the Jordan into Canaan. Their tents were pitched on the east of the Jordan River, on the plains of Moab. Joshua gave the order, “Prepare yourselves… Within three days you will cross over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you…” (vv. 10-11). The people were finally going to enter the land the Lord promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen. 17:8; 28:4). The boundaries were posted north and south, east and west. God had drawn them. Wherever the foot trod was theirs, if they would be brave and faithful. On this Septuagesima Sunday let’s examine Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land, and then we will go to the Book of Hebrews to see what it says about rest.
I. God tells Joshua, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” This sounds like Jesus’ promise when He promulgated the Great Commission, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” When doing something difficult, it is good to know that God is with us. Joshua had that assurance, and we can have it too. The Holy Spirit brings Jesus Christ to us in our dangers or duties. Joshua must fill the sandals of Moses, command the troops, and defeat the denizens of Canaan, namely the seven nations: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. “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.” In essence, God tells Joshua “You will succeed in conquering the land. I will be with you the whole time. Place the twelve tribes where they belong. Give them that good land and let them rest from their wanderings in the desert.”
In order to do this Joshua must annihilate the inhabitants of Canaan. Why? Baalism and the cult of Molech dominated their thinking and behavior. For example, Baalism was a fertility cult, in which sexual license was part of the liturgy. Molech was no better. At the height of frenzied merrymaking, a lad was roasted. Such practices could only prove a cancer in society. Viciousness and fear were the byproducts of such a faith, yet Baal and Molech exercised a lustful fascination that the people could not resist. This was the kind of enemy God commanded Joshua and the Israelites to wipe out.
Outside of Canaan the policy was different. The Feast of Tabernacles taught the Israelites they were to evangelize the other nations, not exterminate them. The priests slaughtered seventy bulls every year during the eight-day Feast of Tabernacles. These seventy animals represented the 70 nations of the planet (Gen.10). Basically, the Church of the Old Testament made atonement on behalf of all Gentile nations, and this ritual spelled out that all cultures must be brought into covenant with the true God, all nations would stream to Zion (Is. 2:2-4). Did Israel do a good job of propagating the faith? No. A poor job! You can see this reluctance in Jonah, who embarked on a ship going the wrong direction so he wouldn’t have to obey the Lord and evangelize Nineveh. He only changed his mind after three days in the belly of a whale.
II. The Lord commands Joshua to study the Bible and meditate upon it. We see a high view of Scripture in Joshua 1:7-8. [Read them.]
“This Book shall be in your mouth; you shall meditate in it, and observe all that is written in it.” For us, this means the Scriptures are to be studied and scrutinized. There are few things that promote spiritual growth like time interacting with God’s Word. Some churchgoers depend on preaching alone to give them all they need to know. This won’t do. One or two sermons a week only cover a miniscule part of the Bible. God says, “You shall mediate in it day and night,” not just once a week. You and I need frequent exposure to the Bible, and time to chew on it. Reading several chapters a day can be a nice supplement to what you learn on Sunday. Reading the entire Bible in a year would encourage your faith.
III. Moreover, covenantal sanctions come out in this passage. When God’s people study the law of God and obey it they often experience success and blessings. When they disobey the law, they usually experience failure and curses. We are now talking in terms of the covenant, not exactly in terms of justification. Covenantal sanctions come into play when our obedience to God’s law leads to blessings, and our disobedience brings us curses (things such as defeat, poverty, and barrenness). The term for this dynamic is called sanctions, covenantal sanctions. Bishop Sutton wrote a book on the topic called, That You May Prosper. To be sure, good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Job was a blameless and upright man who suffered tragedies. History tells us about tyrants who prospered and succeeded. Another thing: we cannot pin God down and demand that he prosper us and give us success like the “health and wealth” people claim. Such manipulation is pagan. It is true that God promises Joshua prosperity and success if he obeys, but this depends entirely on God’s timing and His good pleasure. God is in control, and He will not be pinned down or pushed around just because we think we deserve His blessing. That being said, over time, and in general, God blesses His people for their faithful obedience to His law and He curses them for their disobedience. (Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy is a key chapter on sanctions.)
The same applies to countries. Obedient nations prosper in strength and righteousness; disobedient nations decline into weakness and wickedness. Imagine what would transpire if the politicians of America would heed what God says to Joshua, “…be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it”? These are timely words for our culture.
IV. Now let us switch from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Joshua comes up only twice in the New Testament. Deacon Stephen mentioned his name in passing just before furious Jews picked up stones to kill him. The Book of Hebrews speaks of Joshua. His name appears in that great passage on rest. We will give some time to this subject now. Hebrews 4:8 asserts that Joshua’s rest is incomplete and unfulfilled until one enters Christ’s rest. What is Joshua’s rest? How does it differ from Christ’s rest? Let’s read Hebrews 4:7-8. [Read them.]
Hebrews quotes Psalm 95. In that Psalm, David declares that if the people will prepare their hearts, and not harden them like the rebellious generation of Moses, they will enter the Promised Land of God’s rest. According to archaeological research, Jericho fell around the year 1,400 B.C., about the time Joshua entered Canaan. If David wrote Psalm 95, he probably composed it around the year 1,000 -- 970 B.C., since he died in 970 B.C. Hebrews calls attention to the chronological distance between David and Joshua. “For if Joshua had given them rest, then [God] would not afterward have spoken of another day.” 400 years after Joshua led the Children of Israel into their rest, David says, “Today you can enter your rest if you don’t harden your heart.” Joshua’s rest for Israel was life in the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey, the land where grapes grew the size of golf balls, a land bursting with pomegranates and figs and wine and wheat and olive oil. Joshua’s rest consisted of life in this land. Yet 400 years later God tells the people in the Promised Land there is another rest yet to be attained. There exists a rest that transcends the rest of Joshua. His was only a shadow of the true rest, the rest of Christ. This is the rest that is set before the readers of Hebrews, the one they must enter for eternal life, and it is offered to you and me today if we will but hear the voice of the Lord and not harden our hearts. “There remains a rest for the people of God.”
What is so special about Christ’s rest? Why is it better than Joshua’s? Hebrews says that it is a Sabbath rest (v. 9), similar to what God experienced after creating the universe in six days. In this rest we cease from our works as God did from His. There is joy surrounding a celebration of the Sabbath, in which one joins in the praise and adoration of God. The Early Church saw the Sabbath as the seventh day, and the Sunday following the eighth day. Somehow the Sabbath rest of the eighth day points to eternity, the whole world a Promised Land, free of sin, the Lamb of God on His throne, the marriage Supper of the Lamb, and the beatific vision. Hence, the rest the children of Israel experienced when Joshua led them into the Promised Land was only a shadow of the greater rest that Jesus, the Greater Joshua would produce by His victory on the cross. How can I enter the rest of the Greater Joshua, you ask? If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you surrender your life to Him, you enter it. Hebrews 4:3 declares, “For we who have believed do enter that rest.”
On Wednesday Don Feher and I attended a Christian Businessmen’s lunch. We met an interesting man named Al Enderle who handed us his written testimony. In it Al attests to an utter lack of peace and rest in his life before coming to faith in Christ. He tells about some other stars who suffered the same hollowness: “Three men whom I used to think had it all together were O. J. Simpson, Eddie Murphy and Harrison Ford. Time and perception have a way of changing things. O. J. Simpson said before his wife was murdered, “I sit in my house and sometimes I get so lonely it’s unbelievable. Life has been so good to me. I’ve got a great wife, good kids, money, my own health – and I’m lonely and bored – I often wondered why so many rich people commit suicide. Money isn’t a cure all.” After considering his accomplishments and wealth, Eddie Murphy – one of my favorite motion picture stars – said, “There has to be something more to life.” And another favorite actor, Harrison Ford, said when asked what he wanted from life, “You always want what you ain’t got.” When asked what he didn’t have, he replied, “Peace.”
To lack God’s promised rest means to be spiritually stranded, stuck in the desert. The desert means a life of monotony, boredom, and meaninglessness, apart from Christ, bereft of hope. Christ’s Promise Land of rest has three stages to it. No doubt the New Heavens and New Earth, is Christ’s rest in its fullness. This is our greatest hope. Before the final rest of Heaven, we enjoy a portion of Christ’s rest now through faith. That is why most Christians undergo an inner transformation and relaxation when they repent of their sins and surrender their lives to the Lord. The Holy Spirit gives them a foretaste of their final rest in Heaven. That is the first stage in Christ’s rest. The second stage is death. When we die in Christ, our spirits go to be with the Lord, and that rest is superior to anything on earth. That is the second stage of the rest of Jesus Christ. The third and last stage is what we have already spoken about – the New Heavens and New Earth after the Lord’s Return, the City of God. We receive from the Lord well-rested physical bodies that delight in Christ’s rest in all its fullness and glory.
What does this Hebrew’s teaching on Sabbath rest have to do with the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”? St. Augustine thought this Hebrews passage made the Fourth Commandment no longer binding on the New Testament Church. Since Sabbath rest points to the eighth day, Heaven, it is the one commandment out of the Ten that is abolished in Christ. The Puritans took the same passage to mean the very opposite. If Hebrews states that in Christ we rest from our labors like God did on the Sabbath after six days of work, then we should continue to emulate God on a weekly basis, working six days and resting on Sunday, the New Testament Sabbath. This belief became a strict Sabbatarian view. The truth probably lies somewhere between St. Augustine and the Puritans.
According to our Prayer Book, rest is a comfort to the weary. Jesus says, “Come unto me all ye who travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” That phrase “I will refresh you” can be rendered, “I will give you rest.” A former member of St. Luke’s, a mother of several children, told me that that sentence was for her one of the highlights of the liturgy. Raising kids kept her so perpetually fatigued that the promise of rest was one she relished. Do you relish it? We all should relish the promise that Heaven will be a land of rest. Our glorified bodies in the New Creation will never get weary; never get tired. In the frenetic activity of our lifestyles lurks an emptiness; a vacuum that only Christ can fill. Come now to Jesus to receive rest for your souls. Come to the Lord’s Supper, and as you come thank the Lord for the rest you now experience, and the promise of Christ’s full and perfect rest for all eternity.
Let us pray.
