Moses gives Joshua the charge to be strong and courageous,
to neither fear nor be dismayed. He
knows that Joshua will need these characteristics in order to lead this people
but also to follow the Lord. The Lord
leads us in strange places like the valley of the shadow of death and there is
frequently reason to fear where He leads.
Moses also knows and is deeply cynical and pessimistic about this
people. He is absolutely certain that they
will wander and stray from the words of the Lord, he has seen too much of their
character these forty years. He calls
them to come that he might witness against them. Joshua does the same as he winds up his own
life and leadership of the people of God when they say they will follow the
Lord. His response is that this will be
a testimony against them when they fail to be faithful to their promise.
It is difficult to see the “rapture” in this picture, even
the elect are tempted to believe the lies.
Jesus says that there will come terrible times prior to the coming in
glory of the Son of Man. We are to be
prepared for these days with faith not fear.
Our enemies will come against us to destroy us and yet we are to have
faith and stand in the knowledge and the Spirit of God. The rebellion is against the Lord and we as
His emissaries and representatives. The
true church will be revealed through this trial and those who are the Lord’s
will receive Him with gladness and He will gather them from the corners of the
earth. We must heed the charge Moses
gave Joshua to be strong and courageous.
There are two things we need to do, believe in the heart and
confess with the mouth. What is in our
hearts is true to the extent we confess it with our lips. Truth is an important concept, and what is
true is what we confess. Truth overcomes
fear. When we truly believe we no longer
fear rejection by others for our confession of Jesus as Lord and Savior. In our worship we confess that we believe
amazing things about reality that don’t make sense in a scientific way and
those truths should cause us to live differently from others. If we believe God is creator and we are
created in His image, it should cause us to think differently about the rest of
creation. If we believe in the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead then we should think differently about
death. If we believe He will come again
to judge the living and the dead, our lives should reveal that we live
according to His will and pleasure.
There are many changes necessary to bring our lives into line with what
we believe, it behooves us to think about the meaning of the confessions we
make.
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