Gods Sabbath

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E NTERING INTO G OD ’ S S ABBATH R EST

The league with the Gibeonites was not a total disaster, but neither was it God’s arrangement either. As a result, Israel suf fered with problems and difficulties arising from this contract for a long time afterwards.

The Lessons of History

Joshua’s life story contains lessons of great importance to those living at the present time. It is not a matter of judging or criticizing that great and godly man, but of rightly evaluating the outcome of the moves he made. It was for the edification and guidance of His people in all ages that God ensured the record was preserved. Joshua himself would have had it no oth er way. As we study Joshua’s life, the lessons within it should sweep away all sense of our self-sufficiency and self-confidence that we are secure in God’s rest, and instead instill a “fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” Hebrews 4:1 (NKJV). Joshua was a mighty man spiritually, who had personally met Christ in the form of a man of war (see Joshua 5:13), seen mar velous workings of divine power over a long period, witnessed the evil effects of human planning, and seen the counter-results of leaving God to be the Plan Maker, Problem Solver, and Bur den Bearer. If a man of such spiritual caliber could revert to his own ways as Joshua did, are we not in even greater danger of do ing the same thing? We have every cause to fear that we shall come short of the promise. With intense earnestness we need to study such stories repeatedly until this lesson has been burned into our deepest spiritual consciousness by the Holy Spirit, and we truly know and follow God’s ways. Every experience we have studied so far confirms the fact that when God’s people accept His general orders and then proceed to make their own specific plans, the result is failure, loss, impos sibility, and defeat. Instead of the work going forward in power to destroy the kingdom of darkness and evil, the forces of iniqui ty triumph and God’s cause is set back by decades. Throughout history, its ultimate triumph has now been delayed by millenni ums. By contrast, on every occasion when God’s general and spe