Reader's Version
- Scandalous Scripture: The Bible We Don’t Read in Church
- Part Nine: The Rest Joshua Couldn’t Give
- Sermon by Gene Simco — Reader’s Version
- I heard a story about a guy who spent years telling his wife, “If we could just get a house with a pool, I’d finally be happy.”
- Eventually, they bought the house with the pool.
- A few weeks later, his wife caught him online looking at boats.
- She said, “Wait. I thought the pool was supposed to make you happy.”
- He said, “It did. But now the pool looks empty.”
- She said, “You understand you can’t put a boat in the pool, right?”
- A few weeks later, she caught him online looking at real estate.
- She said, “Seriously? Now what are you looking for?”
- He said, “A house with a bigger pool.”
- She said, “You need to learn to be happy with what you already have.”
- A couple of weeks later, she walked by and caught him online again.
- She said, “Please tell me you’re not looking at houses again.”
- He quickly closed the laptop.
- She said, “Wait… was that a dating site?”
- He said, “Relax. I’m only looking at women who already own lake houses.”
- At that point, apparently the problem was not the house, the pool, the boat—or perhaps even the wife.
- He got what he thought would make him happy, and almost immediately he needed something else.
- We do this constantly. We spend years saying, If I could just get there. If I could get the house, the job, the relationship, the money, the retirement, the Promised Land—then I could finally rest. Then we get there, and somehow we are already looking for the next thing.
- Israel finally enters the land God promised them, and almost immediately Achan sees a garment, some silver, and some gold and decides, I need that too. He is standing in the Promised Land, and he still cannot rest.
- That may be one of the real stories running underneath the book of Joshua.
- As always, a disclaimer is appropriate. This series is called Scandalous Scripture: The Bible We Don’t Read in Church. Joshua contains several stories everybody does read in church—Rahab, Jericho, the walls falling down. We will certainly visit those stories because they belong to the movement of the book, but we are not going to park where everybody normally parks. We are going to look more closely at the parts of Joshua that are harder, stranger, and usually passed over.
- We finished Deuteronomy with Moses standing on the edge of the Promised Land. He could see it, but he could not enter it. Now Moses dies, and Joshua has to take over.
- Joshua 1:1–9 opens with God telling Joshua that Moses is dead and that the time has come for him to lead Israel across the Jordan into the land God promised. God assures Joshua that He will be with him just as He was with Moses and will not fail or abandon him. Then the command comes repeatedly: be strong and courageous.
- But notice what surrounds that command. Joshua is told to be careful to obey all the instruction Moses gave him. He is not to turn to the right or to the left. He is to meditate upon the Book of Instruction continually so that he will obey everything written in it. Only then does the text speak of prosperity and success.
- That should sound familiar after Deuteronomy.
- Last week we spent an entire message hearing Moses say, in effect, Listen carefully. Obey what God actually said. Do not add to it. Do not subtract from it. Israel’s covenant blessings and curses were tied to covenant faithfulness. Joshua now receives the same charge. Moses is gone, but the Word Moses delivered has not changed.
- Everybody remembers the other part:
- “Be strong and courageous.”
- It is on coffee mugs, wall art, graduation cards, and Christian motivational posters.
- But Joshua 1 is not saying, Believe in yourself. Chase your dreams. Go conquer your personal Jericho.
- Joshua’s courage is tied to something specific. God has given him a task. He must lead Israel. He must obey Torah—all of it. He must not turn to the right or left. And God promises to be with him.
- Joshua also has plenty of legitimate reasons to be afraid. Moses is dead. He is inheriting a difficult nation. Fortified cities are ahead. Enemy armies are ahead. And Joshua has just watched an entire generation die in the wilderness.
- So courage cannot mean the absence of fear.
- Courage is obedience when there is something legitimate to fear.
- Reader’s Note: Does the Bible Really Say “Fear Not” 365 Times?
- You have probably heard the popular Christian saying that the Bible contains “Fear not” 365 times—one command for every day of the year. It is memorable, encouraging, and completely inaccurate.
- A survey of the primary biblical vocabulary shows why. The Hebrew root most commonly associated with fear, יָרֵא — yārēʾ, and the Greek φοβέομαι — phobeomai, occur hundreds of times across Scripture. But Scripture does not treat fear as though it were always sinful. In many passages, fear is commanded, commended, or identified with wisdom and proper reverence toward God. The familiar “fear not” formulations amount to far fewer – only around 80 times, even when several English variations are counted together.
- Proverbs 14:16 is especially interesting because some English translations soften the wording into “cautious.” The Hebrew is much more direct: חָכָם יָרֵא — ḥākām yārēʾ, literally, “a wise person fears,” and then turns away from evil. The Greek Septuagint preserves the same idea: σοφὸς φοβηθεὶς ἐξέκλινεν ἀπὸ κακοῦ — sophos phobētheis exeklinen apo kakou, “a wise person, having feared, turns away from evil.”
- Scripture certainly warns against fear that produces unbelief, cowardice, paralysis, or disobedience. But it also speaks positively about fearing God, recognizing danger, respecting legitimate authority, and understanding consequences. Proverbs repeatedly connects the fear of the LORD with wisdom, while Philippians 2:12 tells believers to work out their salvation μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου — meta phobou kai tromou, “with fear and trembling.”
- So the biblical message is not, “Never fear anything.”
- It is closer to:
- Fear rightly. Trust God fully. And do not allow fear to keep you from obeying Him.
- For a fuller treatment, see the BibleBelievingChristian.org article “Is Fear Sin? What the Bible Really Says.”
- https://www.biblebelievingchristian.org/post/_fear
- That is the kind of courage Joshua is going to need.
- Entering the Land
- Now Israel is finally preparing to enter the land, and Joshua 2 gives us the familiar story of Rahab. We are not going to park here because everybody parks at Rahab, but there is something important about her that we need to hold onto. The spies enter Jericho, Rahab the prostitute hides them, and then she tells them what she knows. She has heard what God did in Egypt. She has heard what happened to Israel’s enemies. And this Canaanite woman, living inside the city Israel is preparing to conquer, confesses that Israel’s God is the God of heaven above and earth below.
- There is an interesting contrast here. Israel repeatedly struggles to trust the God whose works they have personally witnessed, while Rahab hears what God has done and believes. She leaves the apparent security of Jericho and places herself among the people of God. We will come back to her later, because the New Testament does something remarkable with Rahab, but for now we simply need to remember that before Israel has even fully entered the land, an outsider is already responding to Israel’s God by faith.
- Then Joshua 3 through 5 brings Israel across the Jordan. The priests carrying the Ark step into the river, the water stops, and the people cross on dry ground. Twelve stones are taken from the Jordan and set up as a memorial so that future generations will ask, “What do these stones mean?” The answer is essentially: remember what God has done.
- And this is where we need to remember Exodus 14, because Joshua itself explicitly tells us to make the connection. In Joshua 4:23, Joshua explains that the LORD dried up the Jordan before Israel just as He had dried up the Red Sea for the previous generation.
- That is not a small detail. The wilderness story is being framed by two miraculous crossings. At the beginning, Moses stands before the Red Sea. God divides the waters, Israel crosses on dry ground, and they leave Egypt behind. Now, forty years later, Joshua stands before the Jordan. Again the water is stopped. Again Israel crosses on dry ground. But this time they are entering the inheritance God promised.
- The first crossing brought them out.
- The second crossing brings them in.
- The Red Sea marks deliverance from slavery; the Jordan marks entrance into the promise. And the parallel also confirms Joshua as the successor to Moses. The same God who worked through Moses is now working through Joshua. The leader has changed. God has not.
- After the crossing, the new generation is circumcised at Gilgal, and then Israel celebrates Passover. Everything in these chapters is calling them to remember: remember the covenant, remember the rescue, remember who brought you here. They are not entering the land because of their own power. They are standing there because God kept His promise.
- Then something changes.
- Remember the manna?
- The manna stops.
- For forty years God had provided food in one particular way. Every morning in the wilderness, there it was. Then Israel enters the land, eats from its produce, and suddenly there is no more manna. God has not stopped providing. The method changed.
- That is worth remembering because sometimes we become so attached to the way God provided yesterday that we mistake the method for God Himself. We assume that if He does not keep doing tomorrow exactly what He did yesterday, something must be wrong. But Israel no longer needed wilderness manna. The God who fed them from heaven in the wilderness could now feed them from the land He had given them.
- Faith trusts the Provider, not merely the provision.
- Then Joshua 5:13–15 gives us another strange scene. Joshua is near Jericho when he looks up and sees a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword. Joshua approaches him and asks, “Are you friend or foe?” The answer is fascinating: “Neither.” He identifies himself as the commander of the LORD’s army. Joshua falls facedown before him and asks what he should do, and the commander tells him to remove his sandals because the ground upon which he is standing is holy.
- Joshua essentially asks, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
- And the answer is essentially, “No.”
- Joshua wants to know which side the commander is joining, but Joshua has the question backward. The question is not, God, are You on my side? The real question is, am I on Yours?
- We do this constantly. Politics does it. Churches do it. Individuals do it. We decide what we want, choose our position, and then ask God to endorse our side. But God is not campaigning to become part of Joshua’s army. Joshua is standing before the commander of the LORD’s army.
- And then Joshua hears language Moses heard before: take off your sandals; you are standing on holy ground. Joshua may be replacing Moses as Israel’s leader, but Joshua is not replacing God.
- Joshua 6 then gives us the story everybody knows. Israel approaches Jericho, but this is hardly a conventional military strategy. For six days they march around the city once each day while the priests carry the Ark and blow their trumpets. On the seventh day they march around the city seven times. The priests sound the trumpets, Joshua gives the command, the people shout, and the walls collapse. Israel enters the city, and Rahab and those with her are rescued.
- But one detail becomes extremely important for what happens next. Jericho has been placed under חֵרֶם — ḥērem, meaning that it has been devoted to the LORD and removed from ordinary human use. In this context the city is devoted to destruction, while the silver, gold, bronze, and iron are to go into the LORD’s treasury. Israel is specifically warned not to take what has been devoted.
- The Septuagint translates ḥērem here with ἀνάθεμα — anathema, the Greek word for something devoted over to destruction or placed under a curse. The Septuagint uses it directly in Joshua 6:17, and the same term becomes familiar in the New Testament as a word for being accursed.
- So the command is clear: do not take what God has forbidden.
- And immediately after the victory everybody remembers comes the story almost nobody teaches.
- Achan: Buried Under the Tent
- Joshua 7 turns from the enormous victory at Jericho to a much smaller city called Ai. The scouts look at it and essentially say, “We do not even need everybody for this one. Send two or three thousand men.” Joshua sends about three thousand.
- It looks like an easy victory.
- Except Israel loses.
- The men of Ai drive them away, about thirty-six Israelites die, and the army loses heart. Joshua falls before God, confused and grieving, and then God says something surprising:
- Israel has sinned.
- Not merely, “Achan has sinned.”
- Israel has sinned.
- One man has secretly taken what God prohibited, but Israel is a covenant people. Hidden covenant rebellion has consequences beyond the person who believes his sin is private.
- Eventually the search narrows. Tribe, clan, family, Achan. And when Achan is finally confronted, his confession almost gives us the anatomy of temptation. He saw a beautiful Babylonian garment, silver, and gold.
- I saw. I coveted. I took. I hid.
- And where is it?
- Buried underneath his tent.
- Think about the setting. God is giving Israel an inheritance. They have finally crossed the Jordan. They are standing in the land God promised their ancestors. And Achan looks at something God has forbidden and decides, I want that too.
- God is giving him an inheritance, and Achan begins manufacturing one of his own.
- That may be one of the central human problems running underneath this entire book. God promises something good, but we do not trust Him enough to wait for what He gives. So we grab. We covet. We take. We hide.
- And the irony is striking. One of the things buried beneath Achan’s tent is a beautiful garment from Babylon. We should not turn that detail into an allegory the text itself does not give us, but anyone who knows where the biblical story eventually goes cannot completely miss the irony. Babylon will eventually become one of Scripture’s great pictures of earthly luxury, wealth, pride, and opposition to God.
- Israel has barely entered God’s inheritance, and Achan already has the treasure of Babylon buried underneath his tent.
- So the question begins coming toward us: what are we burying under our tents because we believe it will give us something God has not given us? Money, status, sex, recognition, security, power, something everybody else has, something we have convinced ourselves we deserve?
- Achan gets what he wanted, and it costs far more than he imagined.
- Joshua 7 does not end neatly. Achan is taken to the Valley of Achor along with what belongs to him, including his household and possessions, and severe covenant judgment follows. This is one of those passages where we should not pretend the difficulty is not there simply because modern readers find it uncomfortable. The text presents the consequences corporately in a way that clashes with our highly individualistic assumptions. It does not stop to explain how much Achan’s household knew, whether they participated in hiding what was underneath the family tent, or exactly how responsibility was distributed among them. Those are fair questions, but we should not pretend the text answers what it does not.
- What Joshua does make unmistakable is that sin buried beneath one tent was not harmless private behavior.
- Thirty-six men had already died at Ai.
- Israel could not simply say, “That was Achan’s personal business.”
- The covenant community had already been affected by what one man believed he could hide.
- Achan thought the treasure was safely underneath his tent.
- The consequences were already everywhere.
- Achan Couldn’t Wait
- Joshua 8 makes Achan’s sin even more tragic. After the defeat at Ai and the judgment of Achan, the LORD tells Joshua not to be afraid or discouraged. This time Israel is to return to Ai with the fighting men, and God promises to give the city into their hands. Then comes one striking difference from Jericho: this time they may keep the plunder and livestock for themselves.
- Think about that.
- Achan stole forbidden treasure from Jericho, and one chapter later God allows Israel to take spoil from Ai. He grabbed something God had not given him shortly before God was going to permit Israel to receive something similar.
- How much do we destroy because we refuse to wait?
- Achan saw something he wanted and apparently decided that if God was not going to give it to him now, he would take it for himself. But trusting God includes trusting His timing. Faith is not merely believing that God can provide. Sometimes faith means believing that we do not have to grab what He has not yet given.
- After Ai, Joshua goes to Mount Ebal, and anyone who was with us in Deuteronomy should recognize what happens next. Ebal. Gerizim. The altar. Torah. Blessing. Curse. In Joshua 8:30–35, Joshua carries out what Moses had instructed Israel to do once they entered the land. He builds the altar, the Law is read publicly, and the blessings and curses are proclaimed before the people.
- Last week Moses told them, When you enter the land, do this.
- Now Joshua does it.
- And Achan has just demonstrated the seriousness of everything Moses said.
- God meant what He said.
- Trusting What We See
- Joshua 9 gives Israel a completely different kind of test. The Gibeonites know what has happened to Jericho and Ai, and they understand that Israel is advancing through the land. Rather than meet Israel in battle, they resort to deception.
- Israel had been commanded not to make covenant alliances with the peoples of the land they were dispossessing. So the Gibeonites construct an elaborate story designed to convince Joshua that they are not from nearby at all. They put on worn-out clothes and sandals, load old sacks and cracked wineskins onto their donkeys, and bring bread that is dry and moldy. They claim that everything was fresh when they left home, but that their journey has been so long that it has all worn out along the way.
- Everything looks convincing.
- The leaders of Israel inspect the evidence. They examine the food. They hear the explanation.
- Then Scripture gives us one devastating sentence:
- They did not ask counsel from the LORD.
- Achan trusted what his eyes wanted. Now Israel trusts what its eyes see.
- Both reveal the same deeper problem: we can become so convinced by what is in front of us that we stop asking God whether we understand it correctly.
- The Gibeonites obtain a covenant through deception, and when Israel discovers the truth three days later, the oath cannot simply be ignored. Israel must now live with the consequences of a decision made on appearances without first seeking the LORD.
- Not everything that looks obvious is true.
- Joshua 10 then gives us one of the stories everybody knows. There is a battle, Joshua prays, and the sun stands still. It is an extraordinary account, but once again we are not going to park where everybody parks.
- Later in that same chapter, five enemy kings flee and hide in a cave. Joshua has the cave sealed until the battle is finished. Then the kings are brought out, and Israel’s military commanders are instructed to place their feet upon the kings’ necks. Joshua has them executed, and their bodies are hung on trees until evening.
- That should sound familiar after Deuteronomy. The conquest is far more graphic than the children’s Bible version, but the larger story is moving us somewhere important.
- Joshua 11 through 21 moves largely through conquest and inheritance. The land is divided. Caleb receives Hebron. Zelophehad’s daughters finally receive the inheritance that had been promised to them in Numbers. Cities of refuge are established. Tribe after tribe receives its territory.
- Then Joshua 21 gives us what should sound like the happy ending. God gives Israel the land He had promised their ancestors. They take possession of it. They settle there. The LORD gives them rest from their enemies, and the text emphasizes that not one of God’s good promises to Israel failed.
- They got the Promised Land.
- They got the inheritance.
- They got rest.
- Surely now they finally have everything they need.
- Hold onto that.
- Phinehas Returns
- Joshua 22 gives us another fascinating callback to Numbers.
- Remember Phinehas?
- He is Aaron’s grandson—the same Phinehas we encountered in Numbers 25 when Zimri and Cozbi openly brought sexual rebellion into the camp. Phinehas responded with violent covenant zeal, and the plague stopped.
- Now, years later, the same man is sent to investigate what appears to be another serious covenant rebellion.
- Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have returned to the territory east of the Jordan. Near the river they build an enormous altar. When the western tribes hear about it, they immediately assume the eastern tribes have established a rival place of worship and are turning away from the LORD. Israel actually begins preparing for war.
- And who is sent to investigate?
- Phinehas.
- That choice carries some weight. Phinehas has seen what covenant rebellion can do to a community. And during the confrontation he explicitly brings up Achan. One man’s hidden violation did not affect only Achan; judgment fell upon Israel.
- So this scene carries both memories with it: the covenant zeal of Numbers 25 and the corporate consequences of Joshua 7.
- But this time there has been a misunderstanding.
- The eastern tribes explain that the altar is not intended for sacrifices at all. They fear that future generations west of the Jordan may someday tell their descendants, “You have no share in the LORD.” The altar is therefore meant to stand as a witness that the tribes on both sides of the Jordan belong to the same God and the same covenant people.
- Phinehas and the other leaders accept the explanation, war is avoided, and the altar becomes a witness rather than a rival sanctuary.
- There is something worth noticing there too. Phinehas takes covenant faithfulness seriously, but this time he investigates before he strikes.
- Was the Promised Land the Final Promise?
- By Joshua 23 and 24, Joshua is old. He gathers Israel for his final challenge, and we arrive at another famous wall-plaque verse.
- Joshua 24:15 says, “Choose today whom you will serve.” Joshua contrasts the gods their ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, the gods of the Amorites in whose land they are living, and YHWH. Then comes the familiar declaration: “As for me and my family, we will serve the LORD.”
- That is the part everyone puts on the wall.
- But keep reading.
- A few verses later, in Joshua 24:19, Joshua tells the people something far less decorative:
- “You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy and jealous God.”
- That part rarely makes the plaque.
- Why would Joshua say that immediately after calling them to choose whom they will serve? Because covenant faithfulness is serious. Israel cannot casually pledge loyalty to YHWH while continuing to carry foreign gods and divided loyalties. Joshua is forcing them to understand the weight of what they are promising.
- They have received the land.
- They have received the inheritance.
- They have received rest from their enemies.
- Yet Israel still has the same human heart.
- And that should make us ask the question that will eventually carry us into the New Testament:
- Was the Promised Land ever the final promise?
- The Rest Joshua Couldn’t Give
- When we get to Hebrews, we find the New Testament giving us the theological commentary we need for Joshua. One of the great themes of Hebrews is that Jesus is superior. The book is written to believers deeply rooted in Israel’s Scriptures and covenant history who are facing persecution and pressure, and there is a real temptation to retreat into what they had known before. Throughout the New Testament, returning to the Law of Moses as the basis of covenant standing or righteousness is treated as a rejection of the sufficiency of Christ. So the preacher of Hebrews keeps making the same argument from different directions: do not go backward. Jesus is better.
- He is superior to the prophets. He is superior to the angels. He is greater than Moses. His priesthood is greater than the Levitical priesthood. His sacrifice is greater than the sacrifices of the old covenant. His covenant is better. His promise is better. Again and again, Hebrews takes something Israel knew and treasured and says, in effect, Christ is the reality toward which it was pointing.
- Then Hebrews turns to the wilderness generation and eventually to Joshua. Israel had been delivered from Egypt. They had seen God’s works. Yet unbelief kept an entire generation from entering the land. Hebrews uses that story as a warning and then reaches Joshua in Hebrews 4:8–11:
- “Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.”
- There is a fascinating Greek detail hiding underneath our English translations. Joshua’s Hebrew name, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ — Yehoshua, comes into Greek as Ἰησοῦς — Iēsous. That is the same Greek name used for Jesus. So when Hebrews 4:8 says, “If Joshua had given them rest,” the Greek actually says, “If Iēsous had given them rest.” Context tells us that this Iēsous is Joshua son of Nun, but the shared name creates a striking theological contrast.
- Joshua really did give Israel a kind of rest. Joshua 21 says that Israel received the land, settled in it, and received rest from its enemies. But Hebrews tells us that could not have been the final rest, because Scripture continued speaking about another rest still to come.
- Joshua got them into Canaan.
- Joshua could not give them ultimate rest.
- And now we can see the two Iēsous. The first Iēsous leads Israel across the Jordan. The greater Iēsous leads His people into God’s ultimate rest. Joshua gives them land; Jesus gives them life. Joshua gives them an earthly inheritance; Jesus gives them an eternal inheritance. Joshua defeats earthly enemies; Jesus defeats sin and death. Joshua brings them into Canaan.
- Jesus brings us home.
- We have already seen this theme elsewhere in Hebrews. The people of faith did not ultimately receive everything for which they were hoping in this life. They lived as strangers and exiles, looking beyond the earthly places in which they lived toward something greater.
- And now remember Rahab.
- Hebrews 11:31 says, “It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”
- Rahab appears right there among the people of faith. Hebrews 11 begins by telling us that faith shows the reality of what we hope for and gives evidence concerning what we cannot see. Abraham and the faithful are then described as strangers and exiles seeking a homeland. Hebrews 11:15–16 says, “If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
- That changes the way we read Joshua. Rahab leaves a doomed earthly city. Israel enters an earthly Promised Land. Yet Hebrews reminds us that the faithful were ultimately looking beyond all of it toward a better country and a heavenly homeland.
- Then Matthew does something remarkable. Rahab appears in the genealogy of Jesus. This Canaanite prostitute who entered Israel by faith becomes part of the family line through which the greater Iēsous eventually comes. Rahab enters Israel by faith, and generations later Jesus comes through that line.
- When Will It Be Enough?
- That brings the story very close to home, because the real question becomes: when will it be enough?
- For those who do not know much of my story, I grew up in a middle-class family and was very involved in church. But I eventually ran away from the faith. I got kicked out of my parents’ house, played in rock bands, and spent years doing all kinds of things that took me farther from God.
- When Heather and I met and I was first beginning my martial arts business, we were poor. At times we experienced homelessness. We went through periods when we were sleeping on the mats at the gym. When you live that way, it is very easy to believe that the thing standing between you and happiness is simply having more.
- So we worked. And worked. And worked.
- Eventually the businesses became successful, and we accumulated a pretty good amount of wealth. We went from sleeping on gym mats to living a very comfortable lifestyle. Sports cars. Luxury watches. Nice things. And I would always have another goal, another thing I wanted to acquire, another level I thought would finally make me feel as though I had arrived.
- But it became a hamster wheel.
- I could finally get the car I thought I had always wanted, drive it off the dealership lot, and almost immediately be looking back toward the next car I wanted.
- Eventually we reached the point where we had made enough money to semi-retire in our thirties and move to Naples. That became another goal. We would move here, open a couple more businesses, continue receiving residual income from what we had built in New York, and finally we would have reached the Promised Land.
- We reached it.
- And we still were not happy.
- That is where Joshua becomes painfully contemporary.
- We still believe in promised lands. If I can just get the house, then I will rest. If I can make enough money, then I will rest. If I can retire, then I will rest. If I can find the relationship, then I will rest. If my political side wins, then I will rest. If I can just get there, then I will finally be okay.
- Israel got there.
- And Hebrews says:
- That still wasn’t it.
- Achan is already standing inside the Promised Land, and he still wants something else.
- That is us. We can receive exactly what we prayed for and immediately begin looking for the next thing: one more Babylonian garment, one more pile of silver, one more achievement, one more thing buried beneath the tent whispering, Then you will finally be secure.
- You can get everything you thought you wanted and still discover that you do not have rest.
- So we need to stop grabbing what God has not given us. What are we burying underneath our tents because we believe it will give us something God has not given? Money? Status? Recognition? Security? Power? Sex? Something everybody else has? Something we have convinced ourselves we deserve?
- Achan gets what he wanted, and it costs far more than he imagined. He saw, coveted, took, and hid. Then, one chapter later, God allowed Israel to take the plunder from Ai.
- Trust God enough to wait. Do not destroy tomorrow’s blessing because you refuse to obey Him today.
- We also need to ask God before simply trusting appearances. The Gibeonites looked convincing. Israel inspected everything except its own assumptions. They examined the worn clothing, the cracked wineskins, and the old bread, but they did not ask the LORD.
- Not everything obvious is true. Not everything attractive is good. Not every open door is God’s door.
- Sometimes we need to stop and ask, Is this really from God, or did I manufacture it because I wanted it? And there is another possibility Scripture tells us not to ignore: could this be drawing me away from God rather than toward Him?
- Jesus Himself calls Satan “the ruler of this world.” That does not mean Satan owns the earth or possesses sovereignty over it—God does—but Scripture does describe a present world system that can entice us away from God. James 1 warns about the instability of divided loyalty, and James 4 becomes even more explicit: friendship with the world places us in opposition to God. First John warns us not to love the world or the things in the world, because the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life are not from the Father. Even the temptation of Jesus shows Satan offering earthly kingdoms, authority, and glory in an attempt to draw Jesus away from His mission.
- That does not mean money is evil. It does not mean success is evil. It does not mean every opportunity should make us suspicious. It means earthly blessings can become spiritual distractions when they pull us away from God’s purposes. We have to discern where our desires are taking us and what they are producing in us.
- That brings us back to Joshua standing before the commander of the LORD’s army. Joshua asks, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” But that is the wrong question. God is not asking to join our agenda. The question is whether we are aligned with His.
- It is worth examining what we have bought into and then asked God to endorse. What causes, ambitions, desires, or plans have we already decided are right, and now we are simply praying that God will join our side? Are we asking God what He wants, or are we asking Him to bless what we already chose?
- And then we come back to courage.
- Courage does not mean having no fear. There are things worth fearing. There are consequences worth fearing. But fear cannot be allowed to become disobedience. God told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous,” not because Joshua was naturally fearless, but because God was with him.
- Christian courage is not confidence in ourselves.
- It is confidence in the One who is with us.
- And that brings us right back to faith. Sometimes we cannot see where obedience is taking us. We cannot see what God is going to provide. We cannot see what is on the other side of the Jordan. Hebrews says faith gives reality to what we hope for and evidence concerning what we cannot yet see.
- We trust because we know who is with us.
- The Promised Land Was Never the Final Promise
- Ultimately, we have to stop asking earthly things to give us heavenly rest.
- The land could not do it. Money cannot do it. Politics cannot do it. Success cannot do it. Another person cannot do it. Even getting everything you thought God promised you cannot do it.
- Joshua could get Israel into the Promised Land.
- He could not give them the promised rest.
- Only Jesus can do that.
- Moses brought Israel to the edge. Joshua brought them into the land. God gave them an inheritance. God gave them victory. God gave them rest from their enemies.
- And Hebrews still says:
- There is something more.
- The land was real. The promises were real. The rest was real.
- But it was never final.
- The first Iēsous could lead Israel into Canaan. The greater Iēsous leads us into the presence of God.
- So stop looking for eternal rest in temporary things. Stop digging underneath your tent trying to manufacture an inheritance God never promised. Trust the Provider. Trust His timing. Trust His presence.
- And rather than simply saying that Joshua was “pointing beyond” himself, I think the theological connection is clearer this way:
- Follow Jesus—the greater Joshua—into the rest that Canaan, and the first Joshua, could never finally give.
- The Promised Land was never the final promise.
- Jesus is.
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- ©️Copyright 2026 Gene Simco Most Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scriptures in brackets reflect the original Biblical languages.