Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2086
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 12, 1889
“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Everyplace that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.” Joshua 1:2,3.
UNDER the leadership of Moses the children of Israel had been journeying towards the land of promise. Owing to their waywardness, what might have been done in less than a month occupied many years. They wandered up and down in the wilderness, sometimes close on the border of their inheritance and other times lost in the great desert. Alas, many of God’s people are still in this unsatisfactory condition—they have come out of Egypt—the depths have swallowed up their adversaries and they are on the way to the promised heritage. But they have not yet entered into rest. They will, we trust, ultimately reach the peace of God which passes all understanding, for they have sufficient faith to prove them to be God’s people and therefore, the Lord will surely bring them in.
But, assuredly, they make a great deal of marching for very small progress. For lack of faith they go about when, with a step, they might possess the promised Canaan. Today my earnest prayer and desire is that going towards the promised heritage may come to an end with you this day and you may enter into heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus by an immediate act of faith. I want the Lord’s people so to persevere in their seeking, by Divine strength, that they may get out of the great and terrible wilderness and come to Mount Zion and the heavenly Jerusalem and enter into their heritage, according to that word, “We which have believed do enter into rest.”
Our friends have come as far as that first verse of our Lord’s invitation, “Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” And they have a measure of that rest which comes of pardoned sin and confidence in Jesus. The pity is that they have not advanced to His next word of exhortation, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me: and you shall find rest unto your souls.” This is a rest discovered and enjoyed through willing service—“You shall find rest unto your souls.” Many people are saved in one sense but in another sense they are seeking salvation.
Oh that we may come to be saved in every sense—may salvation be ours in the broadest, widest, deepest, highest meaning of that blessed word! May we not only be saved from but saved to! Saved from sin—that makes us safe. Saved to holiness—that makes us happy. May we realize our completeness in Christ this day and cease from the wanderings of fear! It is time that we took possession of that goodly heritage which the Lord has made our own, for in Christ Jesus “we have obtained an inheritance” and have the earnest of it in our possession of the Spirit of God. Hear the watchword of the morning, you that have tarried long enough in the wilderness—“Arise, go over this Jordan”!
If I read the whole verse it is a command to myself—“Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.” For our help in this desirable step, first let us take a survey of the inheritance. Secondly, let us glance at the title deeds. And thirdly, let us make a move towards taking immediate possession. For all this may the Holy Spirit make us sufficient!
I. First LET US TAKE A SURVEY OF THE INHERITANCE. I cannot carry you to the top of Pisgah. And if I could, you would probably reckon that you ought to die there. Your time has not yet come for that journey to the sky— but I would invite you to view the purchased possession with the eye of an enlightened understanding and then to cross over the Jordan of indecision to possess the country.
I would say of this inheritance which God has prepared for His saints and has given to them by a Covenant of Salt that it is exceedingly broad. We read here in this Book of Joshua, “From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun,
shall be your coast.” These people did not conquer all the country but were content with the narrow bounds of Canaan. They began their enterprise bravely but soon showed a contracted spirit.
Moses, in the 34th chapter of Numbers, which is well worthy of careful reading, gave them a little map or ordnance survey of the inner country which they were commanded to conquer and out of which they were to drive the inhabitants with the edge of the sword. The various races of Canaanites had brought upon themselves the curse of a righteous God. Their existence upon the face of God’s earth had become a calamity to mankind by reason of their horrible vices. They were doomed to utter extinction by the justice of God, as other races have been whose story profane history records. The Israelites were appointed to be their executioners. But they did not accomplish their task—after a little while they began to make treaties and marriages with the doomed people and their intended victims became thorns in their sides.