Joshua 1:1-9
Introduction to the study
Intro: In our age, there are many misunderstandings surrounding the Christian life. A trip to the local Bible bookstore bears this out. The shelves are lined with books that claim to be able to teach us how to make the Christian life easier for the believer and the church more acceptable to the world. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing easy or acceptable about the Christian life. It is not always easy to live for Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will never be acceptable to the world. We are not out for a day in the park! We are not on a playground; we are on a battleground!
We are engaged in warfare with a spiritual enemy who is far more powerful than we are, Eph. 6:12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
In our own strength, we cannot defeat our enemies! The good news is this: our enemies are nowhere near as powerful as our God. 1 John 4:4b, “…because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
Thus, even in the midst of our battles, there is always hope for victory. Rom. 8:31, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” Rom. 8:37, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
In fact, the Bible tells us that we are the recipients of victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Cor. 15:57, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” While we are engaged in the battle with evil, there is the expectation that we can and will walk in victory in our lives. For me, this is what the book of Joshua represents.
As this book opens, Moses the great leader of Israel has died and a new leader named Joshua has been appointed to lead the nation of Israel into Canaan. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Israel is about to take possession of the land God promised Abraham many centuries earlier. Gen. 12:7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
This book is about the battles Israel faced in order to claim that promise from God. Joshua is a book about warfare, painful defeats, suffering and great victories. It is a book that has much to teach the modern Christian much about obtaining spiritual victory in our lives.
We like to sing songs about Canaan Land and we seem to have the idea that Canaan Land refers to Heaven. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When we get to Heaven, there will be no more wars, there will be no more enemies, there will be no more suffering or death, there will be no more sin. All of these are present in the book of Joshua and are dealt with in its pages. No, Canaan Land is not Heaven. It is a picture of the victorious Christian that is available to every child of God, and every church today! It is a picture of victory in the midst of struggle.
As we journey through this powerful, special book, our desire is to help our church move past the pain and problems of the past into the peace and power of the Lord’s rest. It is our prayer that, through the teaching of the Word of God, we will witness The Dawning of a New Day in our lives as individuals and in our church.
This first study is something of an introduction to the book which shall be treated proper in our next study titled; Canaan Land Is Just in Sight. As we delve through this, we wish for you to listen carefully to what the Lord has to say to Joshua concerning the land of Canaan and about how to claim it. These verses will help us to understand what it takes to go from wandering around in a wilderness of defeat to living in a land of victory. There are some truths we need to understand as we look at this topic, Canaan Land Is Just in Sight next week. We encourage you to take advantage of these study series and launch into God’s best for your life.
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