Old Testament Reading: Joshua 9 & 10
Psalms Reading: Psalm 99
New Testament – Jesus: Luke 24
Before I knew the significance of what God did through his people of old, that everything done points to his Messiah, Jesus the Christ, Joshua was my favorite Old Testament “character.”
It was Joshua who was met by the captain of the Yahweh’s army. It was Joshua who led the children of Israel into the promised land. It was Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho, blowing trumpets and shouting as the walls came tumbling down. It was Joshua the Lord helped using hailstones to defeat his enemies, and it was Joshua, a man, whom God listened to, to make time stand still.
And yet, Joshua cannot compare to our Lord Jesus and what God has done and will do through him.
We mustn’t be foolish. We must know and understand what the prophets said about Jesus to fully understand how significant he is to us. Praise be to God through him that we can gain that wisdom through the help of the holy spirit that was poured out by him because he earned that right. Now everything made new is through him.
Jesus himself taught these things about himself after his resurrection to the men on the road to Emmaus. Beginning with Moses, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.
I’m going to begin explaining some things I’ve learned about him and God’s plan of salvation, beginning in Joshua.
As Joshua, the son of Nun, conquers the land promised by God, he is met with a people who are not the children of Israel, but fear Yahweh and believe that he will do for Israel what he has said, by destroying all the inhabitants of the land to give it to God’s chosen people.
These people were the Gibeonites. They deceived the leaders of the children of Israel into making a covenant with them to save their lives. The terms of the covenant granted them life as slaves in exchange for not being destroyed.
It was a mistake to not seek the counsel of Yahweh prior to entering this covenant, but we see that God continues to work with his people through their failures. They continue to break the terms of their own covenant with God time and time again, but God is forgiving and merciful, just like he is with us after we entered the New Covenant with him through his son Jesus.
Watch the parallels of this story with end time prophesy. It’s quite remarkable.
The people of Gibeon, now servants to the children of Israel, called on the name of their leader Joshua (same name as Jesus) to be saved when they came under attack by the current King of Jerusalem, Adoni-Zedek (meaning Lord of justice or Lord of righteousness; yet he was not really THE lord of justice -that is reserved for the true Lord of Righteousness, our Messiah Jesus) and the other 5 Kings of the Amorites.
God saves Joshua’s servants (Gibeonites) through Joshua (Jesus). . In a similar manner, he will save the gentiles, us, who were not God’s people, but are His after we become the servants of his Son Jesus. He confuses the enemy as Joshua pursues them and He sends hailstones to give Joshua (Jesus) the victory.
To the five Kings who went up against him, he kept them in caves covered by a large stone, sealing them in until the time is right for his people to put their enemies under their foot (literally).
On the day Joshua (Jesus) defeats the Amorites, he, a man, asks God to make time stand still, and God listens. There was never a day like it before or since the time of the writing of Joshua, a day when the LORD (Yahweh) listened to a human being. Surely the LORD (Yahweh) was fighting for Israel!
One greater than Joshua, and all those God answered in the past, is now seated at the right hand of God! Because of this, we can come to the throne room of God in his son Jesus’s name and have confidence that he will hear us, humans, too.
We are privy to know and understand the gospel as recorded in our bibles in the New Testament, which is something Jesus’s own disciples, who walked with him on earth, didn’t have.
Let us do our part in understanding the scriptures (the Old Testament) and the words of our Lord Jesus (the gospel; the Much of the New Testament) through the spirit, to hear the words he spoke, that all things which are written about him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44).
Let us pray to the God of Jesus that we would not be foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, rather, let our hearts burn within us. “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).
Praise be to God that the servants of his son Jesus (Gentiles) can be forgiven because God listens to a man (our Jesus), and accepts us through him.
We were a people who were not God’s people, but were grafted in through God’s son, a man whom he chose to save us through, as the mediator of a better covenant, with better promises.
I cannot wait for God to listen to the man Jesus of Nazareth again, our better Joshua, our Messiah, to make time stand still for us in the Kingdom of God.
-Juliet Taylor
Questions:
- What parallels do you see between Joshua in chapters 9 and 10 and Jesus regarding end time prophesy?
- Why is it important to know all that is spoken about Jesus Messiah in scripture?
- How do you feel knowing that God listens to you, a human, when you come to him in his Son’s name?
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