Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - August 2, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Joshua 1:1-6, 11:16-19, 21-23.

We have all heard the phrase “He has big shoes to fill.”  Does that mean the guy has big feet?  He has to send away get shoes big enough?  What does that mean to have “big shoes to fill?”  Can you think of somebody who had to “fill big shoes?”  How about Harry Truman? FDR was probably the greatest president of the twentieth century.  He was charismatic.  He knew just the right words to say.  Only President to be elected four times.  And he was our president in the biggest war we had ever been in.  Before the war ends, he dies and his Veep has to take over.  Nobody even knew who his Veep was.  There was Harry Truman, a nobody from Missouri, who didn’t seem to have been involved in any of the important war decisions.  The atomic bomb was almost ready to be used and Harry hadn't heard a word about it.  Now, he was our president.  As I remember it, all the grown ups around me wondered if he was capable of filling FDR’s shoes.  Some even felt that with Harry as president, the war would go on for a longer time.  But, Harry fooled everybody and became a president that we now look back on as being very good.

Another vice president didn’t fair as well at “filling big shoes” - Lyndon Johnson.  He had a lot more going for him than Truman, but he also had an unpopular war.  It wasn’t that Kennedy was as great as FDR, but, everybody liked him.  He was young, good looking and had a beautiful wife who spoke French.  And he was assassinated.  An almost impossible situation to be put in for Johnson.  He fell short of filling those shoes when he saw he may not even be nominated by his own party to run again all because of Vietnam.

So having to “fill big shoes” can lead to success or failure.  In today’s study Joshua has to fill some very “big shoes” to fill.  We're talking about a man who spoke regularly with God.  A man who had rescued millions of Hebrews from captivity in Egypt.  A man who parted the Red Sea and for an encore, drowned the Egyptian army.  I mean, Moses was a super hero and he looked like Charlton Heston.  Them were some big shoes to fill, but there was Joshua, getting the shoe horn and putting his feet in Moses’ shoes.  But, Joshua had an advantage that Johnson didn’t have.  The person fitting Joshua for those shoes was God himself.

God had given the Israelites the Promised Land as far back as Abraham and he reaffirmed this gift over and over for the next seven hundred years.  The gift wasn’t just for the benefit of the Abraham’s descendants, but, for the all nations of the world.  God specifically told Abraham that he was blessing Abraham’s descendants so that they would be a blessing for all nations.  It was theirs and they would possess it if, and only if, they remained obedient to God. God’s word was good and they would possess the Promised Land in our study today.  But, there would come a time down the road a piece when they would disobey God and worship other gods.  Then they will see the possibility of continuing to possess the land diminish and finally they would lose wars and many of them would be dispersed all over the world.  

Finally, they would be taken into captivity again only this time it would be in Babylon.  But, God didn't forget them and when they got their act together, he brought them back home.  God gave the Israelites a second chance to get it right this time.  

Why is it important to God that His chosen people get this land?  God knows that if the world is to receive the blessing he wants the world to have, humans have to be the instruments to bring the blessing.  He has the humans, but they have to have a base to serve as a blessing.  The world isn’t going to listen to people who are wandering around a desert.  If their God is to be listened to, then they have to have an address, a land that puts them on par with the other nations of the world.  This had always been God’s plan.  That’s why Canaan was specifically named as his chosen people’s homeland when the covenant was struck with Abraham. 

As our study opens today, the people are massed on the banks of the Jordan river.  For forty years they have waited for the signal to cross the Jordan and get the land that God had promised.  Why has it taken forty years to get the attack command?  The reason was Moses.  You see, Moses didn’t tell the people that God won't allow him to cross the Jordan and lead the people in conquering Canaan.  Now, Moses is God's number one man so why isn’t Moses allowed by God to go into the Promised Land?   

It all started forty years before when the Israelites were first poised to invade Canaan.  To understand what they would be up against, twelve men were chosen to sneak into Canaan and check things out, one from each tribe.  Were they just every Israelites on a grand tour of Canaan?  These were actually spies sent across the Jordan to assess their chances of beating the people living in Canaan.  When the the spies returned, ten of them warned about how big and strong the armies of the people living there were.  Oh, the land is great and what it produces is better than anything that they had ever seen, but, the risk of being killed by those superior forces was too great.  The rest people when they heard about the armies they would face said, "That's all we  need to know.  Start packing for the return trip back to Egypt.  And don't forget the galoshes for crossing the Red Sea."

Two other spies, Caleb and Joshua, argued that with God on their side, these armies would be taken care of just like the Egyptian army.  But, the people blamed Moses and Aaron for getting them in the fix they were in.  Like Oliver Hardy saying to Stan, they tell Moses, “Another fine mess you have gotten us into.”  God got upset and started to fire the Israelites as his chosen people.  Moses pleaded with God not to withdraw his support from Israel and God relented.  However, there would be consequences for their actions.  They would move back toward Egypt, all right, but they wouldn’t get there.  Instead, they would spend the next forty years wandering around in the wilderness.  That was as bad as saying you had to spend the next forty years walking around Pungo. 

During these forty years, the original people who had left Israel would die off and their children would take their place.  After the forty years only, five of the original Israelites who crossed the Red Sea would still be alive, Moses, Aaron, Moses’s sister Miriam, Joshua and Caleb.   Forced to wander in the wilderness forty years, how did the Israelites handle it?  Did they consider it just another challenge?  No!  They started complaining.  They were in a place named Kadesh which was known for all of the oasises there.  Something had happened and all of the oasises had dried up and the people were thirsty.   When Moses heard their complaint he must have thought, “This was supposed to be the new generation.  The generation who was going to get it right.”  Just like their parents before them, forgetting all the miracles God had done for them, it was "what have you done for me lately."  There were great plans for this new generation.  They were the hope of the Israelites.  But forty years in the wilderness had dimmed some of the hopes.  Moses was hearing the same old complaints that their parents and grandparents had made forty years before.

Like always, Moses goes to God with the problem.  God tells him to gather everybody around and hold up his staff and command water from a rock.  God isn’t going to waste any time.  The solution will come as fast as Moses can move and get that staff up in the air.  This probably the same staff he raised to  part a lot of water and save the Israelites from the Egyptian Army.  This time the staff will be raised to save the Israelites from not having enough water to satisfy their thirst.  God knows that the people have a legitimate complaint.  He knows that water is essential if they are to conquer Canaan and the people have to be in good shape.  God is a God of compassion and not petty flights of ego.  It is all a straight forward loving act to relieve a need that the people have and all Moses has to do is follow God’s instructions.

While God isn’t angry, Moses is fit to be tied.  God’s instructions are very simple.  Hold up his staff and command a rock to yield water.  Two things.  Hold up a stick and tell a rock to let water flow from it.  This is not a technically approved plan to drill down to a water strata and form a well.  To get water from holding up a stick and talking to some dry rocks would be a miracle.  But that is what God does.  Do you think you could have followed these instructions?  In a snit fit Moses asks the people, “Do you want US to bring water for you.”  Who was the “us” people?  Moses and Aaron.  He isn’t even going to give God the credit for the miracle water.  He and Aaron would get the hero medals.  This is where Moses steps over the line and exposes a problem.  Instead of the people focusing on God and his power, they will be focusing on Moses and his anger.  This was not God’s plan at all.  Because of his anger and disobeying God, Moses and Aaron won’t be allowed to enter Canaan.  They will see it, but, won’t even touch the land with their big toe.  Since Moses can't enter Canaan, that means that Moses has to die before Canaan can be attacked.  If Moses had it to do over again, I know he would have followed God’s instructions to the letter.  But, his anger got the better of him and he altered God's demonstration of his love for his people.. 

Now, jump forty years later, Moses knows that his time is short.  He appoints Joshua to take over for him.  When we first meet Joshua, he is a young follower of Moses.  You might say that he was Moses’ right hand man.  Moses went up on Mount Sinai and came down with the tablets on which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments.  When he gets down the mountain, what does he find?  The people had built a golden calf and was worshiping it.  When he chewed out the crowd, who was at his side?  Joshua.  Moses meets with God for a face to face in a tent outside of the Israelite camp in the wilderness.  Who is sitting there with Moses as he meets with God? Joshua.  

When the Israelites are at the Jordan and ready to go into the Promised Land, Moses takes Joshua aside and instructs him on what he will have to do when the Israelites invade Canaan.  Now, one of the big jobs he will have to do is to lead the Israelites into battle.  That means he has to know how to plan a battle and know how to use his troops.  Who better to train him as a military leader than Moses who had been trained by the best military people in the world at that time, the Egyptian army.  After all Moses had been the hero of Egypt’s war with Ethiopia.  I’m sure many hours were spent with Moses huddled with Joshua going over strategy and troop movements.

Moses goes up on a high hill and looks over the Jordan and sees the land flowing with milk and honey which he will never taste.  Think about it.  One big mistake and Moses will be forbidden by God to ever set foot on that beautiful land he’s looking at.  Can't you see Moses standing there and seeing the Promise Land that God gave to the people stretching out in front of him? So close he can almost touch it.  He won’t be a part of this grand acceptance of God’s gift.  I'm sure that Moses prayed hard for God to let him go in with the people.  Finally, God had to tell Moses again that he won't be going into Canaan.  Soon after, Moses dies and the Israelites for the first time in over forty years won’t have Moses to turn to to intercede with God when they mess up or go to when they feel like complaining.  And for the first time, Joshua has to take charge.  He has to fill Moses shoes.  And that is where we pick up our story.

Joshua 1:1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assiistant, saying, 2 “My servant Moses is dead.  Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land I am giving to them, to the Israelites.  3 Every place that the sole of your foot wiii tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses.  4 From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory.  5 No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life.  As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; will not fail you or forsake you.  6 Be strong and courageous; for you shall  put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.

Just imagine you were in the camp that day.  It was a day like every day before.  Camped on the east side of the Jordan River, the promised land just a boat ride away.  What was Moses waiting for?  What they didn’t know was that Moses knew that the people could not go into Canaan until he died.  


All of the sudden, there was a buzzing in the camp.  At first it was muffled whispers.  Then the whispers got louder.  Grown men were weeping.  Some were shaking their down cast heads.  Still others were on their knees, their hands and eyes lifted upward.  The moans swell as the whole camp seems to reeling from an unseen blow.  All work has stopped.  People are coming out of their tents and on hearing the whispered words, a shock comes over their face.  You stand there wondering what is going on.  You grab a weeping man shuffling pass you and ask what has happened.  You hear only three words, but, they are the most devastating words that you have ever heard.  “Moses is dead!”  At first there is disbelief.  It can’t be.  Not Moses!  Moses has always been there.  He always knew what God wanted us to hear.  How can we defeat the armies in Canaan if Moses isn’t there to lead us? 

For Joshua and the people, Moses was dead.  This was a new beginning.  The Moses who had smoothed things over with God when the people messed up is no longer there.  The Moses who God had used to perform big time miracles that even stunned Pharaoh.  The Moses who was unique in being the Servant of God.  And now he was dead.    

Almost as quickly, word starts to filter out that before Moses died, he had appointed Joshua as the new leader of the Israelites.  Now, the people knew Joshua.  He had been at Moses’ side when all the big things happened.  But, he was always just an assistant.  The guy helping Moses down the mountain side with the Ten Commandments.  Just a few days ago, he had helped Moses climb the hill to look into Canaan.  Is he really capable of leading us?  Can he really fill Moses’ shoes?  If the people had their doubts about Joshua’s leadership qualifications, how do you think Joshua felt?  What concerns and fears to you think he had?  

What does God tell Joshua?  Moses is dead.  It is almost an aside -  a matter of fact thing.  No flowery obituary.  If it was an obituary in our Pilot, it would have probably had a picture of Moses as a twenty year old graduate from Egypt’s West Point. It wasn’t that God was downplaying Moses.  In fact God himself alone buried Moses and nobody to this day knows where that is. 

Now God tells Joshua how he fits into the God's grand plan.  What is Joshua going to do?  Cross the Jordan.  That’s the same as saying, “Time to declare war on Canaan.”  God knew what was in Joshua’s heart - the questions and fears about the job that lay before him.  We don’t know exactly how God conveyed his message to Joshua, but, it probably was in a dream.  Anyway, God gets right to the point.  “Moses is dead.  Now you are in charge.”  For the Israelites, the death of Moses was a tragedy.  For God it opened the door to Canaan since the battle for Canaan could not start until Moses’ death.  There is a hidden message here.  No man is so great that God is solely dependent on him to work out his plan.  God tells Joshua that Moses is dead so proceed, get on with the job.  There was a time set aside to mourn Moses and give him the respect and love that he deserved, but, now is the time for action.

God’s instructions were simple enough.  Cross the Jordan.  The only thing between the Israelites and the “Promised Land” was the River Jordan.  A simple directive but not a job that could be simply done.  At that time the Jordan was flooded and was overflowing it’s banks.  There were no shallow places to wade across or bridges across the Jordan.  As Joshua surveyed the river, swollen to overflowing, he just didn’t see how they were going to get across that river right now.  Maybe it would be better to delay D day until the river goes down.  But, God didn’t see a river overflowing it’s banks.  He saw a stepping stone to the future possession of the Promised Land.  That’s the thinking Joshua had to get used to and we too.  If God is with us on the job to be done, he’ll provide a way to get it done.  And God isn’t talking about just a small band of troops swimming across.  He is saying that everybody is going over to the other side of Jordan.

Just in case Joshua wasn’t sure of what land would be their’s to conquer, God draws him up a map.  The wilderness that they had been wandering around in for forty years was theirs, that means the land back all the way back to Egypt; the Lebanon was the land to the north, probably, to the border of Syria; all the way to the Euphrates Rive which is in present day Iraq; down south to the “Great Sea”  What do you think was the "Great Sea?" The Mediterranean;.  The Jordan marked the eastern boundary.  That’s a pretty big piece of real estate.  It wouldn’t be until the reign of Solomon that most of this land would finally belong to the Israelites.  It’s interesting to note that at this time God made all of this land available to the "Chosen People" but, he didn’t mean that they would get it all right then.  God doesn’t work on a time schedule set by men, he has his own schedule.  If God’s promise is to be believed then at some point Israel will finally occupy all of this land whether the PLO and the rest of the Arab states like it or not. And believe me they aren’t the 1967 borders.  Those were man made borders not God made.

All right, God has given Joshua his orders and what land constitutes the Promised Land, but, for Joshua, he still isn’t sure that he will be able to come up to God’s mark on getting all of this done. How does God put Joshua’s mind to rest?  Just like God had been with Moses, he will now be with Joshua.  God promises that Joshua will be a winner.  Maybe not always when Joshua may expect it, but, if he gives it a little time, things will pan out.  One thing Joshua can take to the bank.  God will not fail him.  God will not desert him.  Regardless of how bleak the outcome may appear at certain times, Joshua will know that he has God’s backing and things will work out.  

Because of God’s backing, Joshua should be what?  Strong and courageous.  Most of the time we think of strong as being able to lift heavy stuff.  To have rippling muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but in God’s view, to be strong starts with a spirit that is strong.  In fact courageous also indicates strength and in particular strength that comes from your spirit.  It is almost like God is telling Joshua to be doubly strong.  Strong in action.  Strong in spirit.  This is all about being strong and courageous going into a battle which is what Joshua will face.

Joshua 11:16 So Joshua took all that land; the hill country and all the Negeb and all the land of Goshen and the lowland and the Arabah and the hill country of Israel and it’s lowland.  17 From Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir, as far as Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon He took all their kings, struck them down, and put them to death.  18 Joshua made war a long time with all those kings.  19 There was not a town that made peace with the Israelites, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all were taken in battle.___21 At that time Joshua came and wiped out Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from the hill country of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their towns.  22 None of the Anakim was left in the land of the Israelites; some remained only in Gaza, in Gath and in Ashdod.  23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments.  And the land had rest from war. 

We’re skipping way ahead.  Skipping all the action stuff concerning the battles.  I didn't want you reading the last chapter to see how the battles turned out and these verses summarize Israel’s success in defeating the Canaanites.  The bottom line is that God was faithful in fulfilling the promises that he gave his chosen people.  Verse 23 says it all.  “So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments.”

Joshua had been a winner.  He had beaten all of the kings in Canaan despite their superior arms.  Despite the fact that they had war chariots, the equivalent of tanks, today, while the Israelites were all on foot.  Against all of the odds, Joshua played God’s hand and raked in the pot.  Moses shoes laid on the floor and Joshua tried them on and they fit him like a clove.

What did we learn from today’s study?  Shoes comes in all sizes.  Some big and some small.  When leaders leave us, somebody has to take up the flag and move on or the movements stops right there.  We probably won’t be called to fill Moses’ shoes or even the president’s shoes.  But we are all called to take up our cross and follow Christ.  Those are even bigger shoes to fill.  Just as God told Joshua that he would be there for him, we have been assured that Christ will be there for us, too.  In fact he has given us something that even Joshua didn’t have, the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us to be as God wants us to be.  So, what we take away from Joshua’s shoe filling experience is that if the shoes don’t fit, the Holy Spirit will do what ever he has to to make the shoes fit.


Prayer: Father, mold our lives so that when are faced with filling one of your servant’s shoes, our feet will fit.  Amen.