Joshua (Old Testament)

• Joshua (Old Testament)

124:6.7The third day they passed by two vil­lages which had been re­cently built by Herod and noted their su­pe­rior ar­chi­tec­ture and their beau­ti­ful palm gar­dens. By night­fall they reached Jeri­cho, where they re­mained un­til the mor­row. That evening Joseph, Mary, and Je­sus walked a mile and a half to the site of the an­cient Jeri­cho, where Joshua, for whom Je­sus was named, had per­formed his renowned ex­ploits, ac­cord­ing to Jew­ish tra­di­tion.

• Joshua (Old Testament)

135:6.1Early in the month of March, A.D. 25, John jour­neyed around the west­ern coast of the Dead Sea and up the river Jor­dan to op­po­site Jeri­cho, the an­cient ford over which Joshua and the chil­dren of Is­rael passed when they first en­tered the prom­ised land; and cross­ing over to the other side of the river, he es­tab­lished him­self near the en­trance to the ford and be­gan to preach to the peo­ple who passed by on their way back and forth across the river. This was the most fre­quented of all the Jor­dan cross­ings.

• Joshua (Old Testament)

135:9.5These forty days were a dif­fi­cult pe­riod for John and his dis­ci­ples. What was to be the re­la­tion of John to Je­sus? A hun­dred ques­tions came up for dis­cus­sion. Pol­i­tics and self­ish prefer­ment be­gan to make their ap­pear­ance. In­tense dis­cus­sions grew up around the var­i­ous ideas and con­cepts of the Mes­siah. Would he be­come a mil­i­tary leader and a Da­vidic king? Would he smite the Ro­man armies as Joshua had the Ca­naan­ites? Or would he come to es­tab­lish a spir­i­tual king­dom? John rather de­cided, with the mi­nor­ity, that Je­sus had come to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven, al­though he was not al­to­gether clear in his own mind as to just what was to be em­braced within this mis­sion of the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of heaven.

172:1.3Je­sus talked with Si­mon about Joshua of old, whose name­sake he was, and re­cited how Joshua and the Is­raelites had come up to Je­ru­sa­lem through Jeri­cho. In com­ment­ing on the leg­end of the walls of Jeri­cho falling down, Je­sus said: “I am not con­cerned with such walls of brick and stone; but I would cause the walls of prej­u­dice, self-righ­teous­ness, and hate to crum­ble be­fore this preach­ing of the Fa­ther’s love for all men.”

153:2.5“What new sign is it that you seek at my hands? I de­clare that you al­ready have suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to en­able you to make your de­ci­sion. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to many who sit be­fore me this day, you are con­fronted with the ne­ces­sity of choos­ing which way you will go; and I say to you, as Joshua said to your fore­fa­thers, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve.’ To­day, many of you stand at the part­ing of the ways.

166:3.2“You have been taught that only the chil­dren of Abra­ham will be saved; that only the gen­tiles of adop­tion can hope for sal­va­tion. Some of you have rea­soned that, since the Scrip­tures re­cord that only Caleb and Joshua from among all the hosts that went out of Egypt lived to en­ter the prom­ised land, only a com­par­a­tively few of those who seek the king­dom of heaven shall find en­trance thereto.

96:5.9When Moses turned over the com­mand of the He­brews to Joshua, he had al­ready gath­ered up thou­sands of the col­lat­eral de­scen­dants of Abra­ham, Na­hor, Lot, and other of the re­lated tribes and had whipped them into a self-sus­tain­ing and par­tially self-reg­u­lat­ing na­tion of pas­toral war­riors.

96:6.1Upon the death of Moses his lofty con­cept of Yah­weh rapidly de­te­ri­o­rated. Joshua and the lead­ers of Is­rael con­tin­ued to har­bor the Mo­saic tra­di­tions of the all-wise, benef­i­cent, and al­mighty God, but the com­mon peo­ple rapidly re­verted to the older desert idea of Yah­weh. And this back­ward drift of the con­cept of De­ity con­tin­ued in­creas­ingly un­der the suc­ces­sive rule of the var­i­ous tribal sheiks, the so-called Judges.

96:6.3Des­per­ately Joshua sought to hold the con­cept of a su­preme Yah­weh in the minds of the tribes­men, caus­ing it to be pro­claimed: “As I was with Moses, so will I be with you; I will not fail you nor for­sake you.” Joshua found it nec­es­sary to preach a stern gospel to his dis­be­liev­ing peo­ple, peo­ple all too will­ing to be­lieve their old and na­tive re­li­gion but un­will­ing to go for­ward in the re­li­gion of faith and righ­teous­ness. The bur­den of Joshua’s teach­ing be­came: “Yah­weh is a holy God; he is a jeal­ous God; he will not for­give your trans­gres­sions nor your sins.” The high­est con­cept of this age pic­tured Yah­weh as a “God of power, judg­ment, and jus­tice.”

135:6.7John was a heroic but tact­less preacher. One day when he was preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing on the west bank of the Jor­dan, a group of Phar­isees and a num­ber of Sad­ducees came for­ward and pre­sented them­selves for bap­tism. Be­fore lead­ing them down into the wa­ter, John, ad­dress­ing them as a group said: “Who warned you to flee, as vipers be­fore the fire, from the wrath to come? I will bap­tize you, but I warn you to bring forth fruit wor­thy of sin­cere re­pen­tance if you would re­ceive the re­mis­sion of your sins. Tell me not that Abra­ham is your fa­ther. I de­clare that God is able of these twelve stones here be­fore you to raise up wor­thy chil­dren for Abra­ham. And even now is the ax laid to the very roots of the trees. Ev­ery tree that brings not forth good fruit is des­tined to be cut down and cast into the fire.” (The twelve stones to which he re­ferred were the re­puted memo­rial stones set up by Joshua to com­mem­o­rate the cross­ing of the “twelve tribes” at this very point when they first en­tered the prom­ised land.)