Rest

In Hebrews 4:1 we read, "Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it." Just as the inheritance of the Israelites in Joshua's day was the land which was to them rest. They still had war but they were in the land and they were free. Our rest is found in Jesus Christ. He said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28 We are told that we are to rest from our own work yet we are to make every effort to enter that rest. God had given the Israelites the land but they still had to fight for it. We too are given a rest in Jesus Christ but we still have to make the effort. So what is the effort? It certainly isn't to earn that rest as it has been paid for already. Our effort is not to sacrifice that rest by disobedience. It is not that we are giving up our salvation but we are giving up the rest we have in Him. Does this sound confusing? It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian life. The rest is ours. We do not have to earn it. We must make every effort to enter into it.

My Uncle Bill

I was reading in Joshua about the dividing of the land and I came to chapter 14 and the story of Caleb. In his old age, he was 85, he still wanted to have his possession. As I read about Caleb I thought about my mother's brother, Bill. Uncle Bill was a farmer but he loved his God. He taught his children well and though he has gone to glory his two daughters and his 6 grandchildren have served the Lord faithfully as missionaries. Uncle Bill claimed his possessions in Christ and passed that on to his children. This was not something that happened when he was an old man, he died at 93, but it was his whole life. Caleb had lived his whole life with all out devotion to his God. He didn't get his possession until he was 85 but he got it.
Someone said, what type of old man do you want to be? You have to start being that person while you are young.

Possess our Possessions.

Alan Redpath said, "What the land was to Israel, Christ is to us. Mapped out in the pages of God's Word is all the territory which we are to possess: the mountains of heavenly vision; the valleys, at first seeming to be valleys of despair but which turn out to be valleys of infinite blessing; the pasture lands of rest and quiet, the cities which must be conquered, the foes which must be overthrown. ... Our inheritance in Christ is not part of Christ, but all of Christ."

How to stop the blessing.

When the Israelites were comfortably in the land then they became complacent and the blessings stopped. The blessing stopped for two reasons. First, they wanted peace at any cost. They had been at war for seven years. Sometimes the church loses out because they are more interested in peace than to continue the fight. However, we are called to be counter culture and that will mean being at war with the status quo. The second reason was that they wanted wealth. How often the church has lost its blessing because they wanted wealth more than blessing. Sometimes we even equate material blessing with spiritual blessing. We are called to possess our possessions and that means not desiring peace at any cost or materialism.

Walking from East to West

I just finished reading Ravi Zacharias' autobiography called Walking from East to West and I would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. As I read the last pages my thoughts went back to Joshua and when he and the elders divided the land they determined much more than where each family would live but what would influence their lives. Ravi is the man he is today because of those influences in his life and how those influences led him to know Jesus Christ as his Lord. It was amazing how Gos shaped this man so that he is today a leading apologetic for the Gospel.

Mathematics Anyone?

I already said that I grew up in rural Saskatchewan. The land in Saskatchewan is divided into townships which measure six miles on each side. In each township there are 36 sections which are one mile square and each section is divided into quarters called quarter sections of 160 acres each.
The problem is that a farmer had a piece of land that consisted of 3 sections as shown in the diagram. He had four sons to which he willed three quarter sections each. However the farmer loved the shape of his land (L shape) and it was his desire that each of the properties that his sons inherited would have exactly the same shape as the original farm. Can you divide the land for the farmer?
When Joshua and the elders divided the land it was to be given to a family and to that families heirs. The land was not to be sold but kept by the family. That did create some questions such as what if the land owner did not have any heirs?
Let me know if you can divide the land in the diagram above. I would like to offer a prize for the first one but ...

Treasure Map

As a kid I was fascinated by treasure maps. We would hid things in cans and then decide where to bury them. We would then draw a treasure map. Ten steps west from the barn, 15 steps east to the big tree, etc. I even helped our kids bury some treasure in our yard. The treasure usually consisted of a few coins, pictures, etc.
As a look at the dividing of the land in Joshua it is almost like making a treasure map. "This was the territory of Ephraim, clan by clan: The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon and continued to the sea. From Micmethath on the north it curved eastward to Taanath Shiloh, passing by it to Janoah on the east. Then it went down from Janoah to Ataroth and Naarah, touched Jericho and came out at the Jordan. From Tappuah the border went west to the Kanah Ravine and ended at the sea." Joshua 16:5 - 8
This all sounds so ordinary but it was the land that God had chosen for the people of Ephraim. It was no accident that God chose that land for them and it is no accident that God has placed us where we are today.

Driving the Truck

I am one of the drivers of our BFM truck and when I read the dividing of the land by Joshua and the elders it reminded me of how I get directions sometimes. Go down to the corner where the big tree is and turn left. Follow that road to the Smith farm and take the next right. An on and on go the directions. Now I am a relatively new comer to Chatham so I need directions that include street names and addresses. We now use a GPS which does help.
The dividing of the land was somewhat like those directions. They used well known landmarks to draw the property lines. However, as they did this they determined a great deal about what would happen in people lives and for the descendants. It was not down by chance, God determined where would be the best place for families to live so that they could come to know Him. Where you live is where God placed you and it is there that you can find Him.

Library and Archives Canada

Today I was surfing through the Library and Archives Canada website. I took time to look at genealogical page and found both of my grandfathers and the land that they were allotted in Saskatchewan. Because both of my grandfathers had immigrated from England I was born in Canada and raised in Saskatchewan. I am sure that had an influence on my life.
When we read through Joshua 13 through 19 we find Joshua assigning the land to the people. Where they lived was part of what they became. God has planted us where we can grow in Him. Though I live in Southern Ontario now I am thankful that I was raised in rural Saskatchewan.

Guilty of Loving His People

The main story of Joshua is not that He was punishing the Canaanites but rather that He is keeping His promise to His people. He is being extremely loving and kind to His people and giving them the land that He promised them. He is making a land where justice rules and the righteous can dwell. To do this He must destroy the wickedness that is in the land. He has to destroy so that He can bring salvation. This is not modern genocide, this is rigtheousness. The destruction of wickedness and the salvation of the righteous go hand in hand, you cannot have one without the other. There is no room in heaven for wickedness and there was no room in the land for wickedness. God gave them time to repent but He is just and judgment will come. He is also extremely loving and kind to His people. Are you part of the people of God? Today is the day of salvation.

Guilty of Righteousness

Joshua 11:20 says, "For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses."
The question we may ask is, How can God be righteous if He hardens peoples hearts and then destroys them when they do not repent?
We may say that they also hardened their own hearts. The sun that melts wax will harden clay.
We may also say that God was only giving them over to what they we already doing as we read in Romans 1.
But in the end we are only clay and we cannot call the potter to account. How quickly we want to call God to our standard of righteousness but the question comes back to us from God Himself as recorded in Romans 9, Who are you? We do not have a perfect standard of righteousness and it is the essence of extreme pride to think that we can call God to our standards, that we are more righteous and just than He.
Yes, God is guilty but He is guilty of being perfect in righteousness and someday we will understand that.
This is difficult for me to understand and I want to think that I have a perfect standard by which I can measure others but I must remember, I am not God. I do not know the end from the beginning. If He is God then let us let Him be God and not created in our image.

Guilty of Justice

A few months ago the world was outraged at a man in Austria who had raped and imprisoned his daughter. We ask how could someone do that and we cry out for justice. In Canaan there were all manner of sins being committed against women, children, weak, aliens and other vulnerable people. They were guilty of some of the worst sins against mankind but they were guilty of sins against God. They did not honour God as God. It is one thing for someone to be patient but if that person continues to overlook injustices and sins then that patience is heartless. At some point we must act against the sins. We can be patient with the drug dealer but if we continue to let that drug dealer destroy innocent lives then we are guilty as an unfaithful watchman.
God was just in exercising His wrath. He may be slow to anger but He is not above anger. God is the perfect righteous judge. He is guilty but He is guilty of perfect righteous judgment.
God in is judgment of sin has made a way of escape and that is through the cross. He was willing to pour out His wrath upon His Own Son (Isaiah 53:10). Jesus Christ was made sin for us that we may know the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Daylight Saving Time

This is my 200th post on this blog. Tomorrow I hope to continue with the topic of God and genocide but today I just want add a silly thought I had. As I was reading Joshua 10 and the miracle of the sun standing still I thought of all the ways that we as mankind have tried to change our world including daylight saving time which is like cutting off the top of your blanket and sewing it onto the bottom to make it longer.

Guilty of patence

God did command that all the people of Jericho be put to death. There was only one who escaped and that was Rahab because of her conversion. Was God guilty of genocide? God did it. Read chapter 10 and see how God assisted His people in the putting to death of their enemies. Joshua 11:20 "For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses."
How do we defend this? We cannot.
What we have here is not an example of God's guilt but of God's glory.
First, we have God's patience. This is not God losing His temper and destroying the people of Canaan. He had told Abraham that He was giving his descendants this land. Genesis 15:16 says "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
God had given these people 470 years to repent. The punishment of God upon these people finally came when their iniquity was complete. While God was being patient these people continued to go deeper and deeper into sin.
Did God harden their hearts? Yes He did. The same sun that softens wax will harden clay. The nature of their heart was to rebel against God so when God was patient with them their hearts were not softened but hardened. Romans 1 tells us that God gave them up to their own sinful desires. To see the nature of their sin read Leviticus 18 and 19. God is guilty but He is guilty of unparalleled patience.

Genocide

Genocide is defined to be any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including: (a) killing members of the group (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. In the twentieth century we have had the following:
Bosnia-Herzegovina: 1992-1995 - 200,000 Deaths
Rwanda: 1994 - 800,000 Deaths
Pol Pot in Cambodia: 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths
Nazi Holocaust: 1938-1945 - 6,000,000 Deaths
Rape of Nanking: 1937-1938 - 300,000 Deaths
Stalin's Forced Famine: 1932-1933 - 7,000,000 Deaths
Armenians in Turkey: 1915-1918 - 1,500,000 Deaths
When we look at the definition of genocide we may ask the question whether God was guilty of genocide in the killing of the people of Canaan. Some people become very upset at the killing of the Canaanites. Over the next four days I would like to answer that question. We read in Joshua 11:6, 'The LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them over to Israel, slain. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots."'

Baptism

Today we had a baptismal service at the church. First Pastor Gord preached another good sermon and because baptism can be somewhat controversial in our church (many have been baptised as infants) he was able to show how being baptised again as an adult is not disrespectful of our parents. That was an important point and he did a great job of it.
I also remembered my own baptism forty eight years ago in the Kamanistiqua River near Stanley, Ontario which is a few miles west of Thunder Bay. Pastor Harrison Weaver baptised me in that cold river water.
It wasn't baptism that the Israelites went through at Gilgal but rather circumcision. Being circumcised at that time showed that they trusted God not only with their future but their very lives. God wanted a people set aside for Himself and they needed to have the mark of ownership.
We declare the same thing when we are baptised. We declare to a watching world that we belong to Christ. Baptism is an act of faithful obedience. One lady that was baptised this morning said that before the baptism she looked around and saw some from her former church who knew that she had been baptised as an infant. For a moment doubt entered her mind but she knew that it was more important to be faithful to God than to look good in the eyes of her friends. I was blessed by her testimony. Baptisms are great moments in the life of a church.

Change of tactics

Chapter 9 of Joshua seems to indicate that the major conflict is over but it is then that Satan changes his tactics. This time it is deception. If we do not pray, if we do not know our Bibles and our doctrine then we too are vulnerable to Satan's deception. We may feel that the major conflict in our spiritual warfare is over but Satan comes and blind sides us.

Come and Save Us

When Gibeah was under attack by the other cities they sent a message to Joshua which said, "Come and save us". The interesting thing is that the name Joshua means Saviour. It is the same for us. We call out to Jesus to come and save us and His name means Saviour. The Gibeanites went to the right person for their salvation and it is important that we go to the right person for our salvation. There is no other name by which we can be saved.

The Dentist

Today I went to the dentist. He had to replace an old filling. Before he began to take out the old filling he had to put in freezing. It use to be that you would receive a needle to freeze the tooth and then the dentist would begin to do his work on the tooth. Today I received a numbing on the gum before the the needle to freeze the tooth. We do not want any pain.
I am I writing about this in a blog about Bible teaching? While I sat in the dentist chair I thought about Joshua. Just as we want to remove any pain from dental work we want to remove those parts of the Scriptures that make us uncomfortable. We do not want the killing that is part of the book of Joshua. Over the next few weeks we will have to take a look at this. I am interested in what you may think about this.

The Lost Day

The claim by some Christians is NASA Scientists discovered a "missing" day in time that corresponds to Biblical accounts of the sun's standing still in the sky.

You can read about it at: http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.asp

This claim is false. Why do so many people want science to prove the Bible? The Bible isn't true because science proves it, science is true when the Bible confirms it. Which do we trust more, science or the Word of God? God's Word says that the sun stood still over Gibeah, I don't need science to prove that it is true.