LEARNING DAILY

 

Joshua 11:23. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all the Lord had said to Moses; and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war.

 

Verse 23 above is a summary of the book of Joshua. He had led Israel for about five years in their conquest of the Promised Land (I think my math is correct as I read Joshua 14:6-13). Read on through Chapter 12 “as the 31 kings defeated by the Israelites is given. All can be verified historically to have been defeated by Israel through the power of God and according to His promises” (DJSB). As God had promised, wherever he stepped, He gave him the land. It cannot be presumed that all Canaanite resistance was gone; pockets of resistance would still be around. What is to be remembered is that wherever Joshua went, no one was able to stand against him.

 

There was another group of people in the Promised Land that is not mentioned. The people known as the Philistines inhabited five major cities (John Gill’s Commentary) and the surrounding area. Joshua left them alone and rest from war came as a result.

 

As I read through some commentaries to gain some insight to this particular verse, I came across an interesting application for the idea of rest. Several related the taking of Canaan to the Church Age. The taking of land by Israel is related to the battle for people’s souls in the Church Age. This battle will last until all those who will say yes to God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ have done so. Once that is done, there will be a battle that will end the Church Age – the Battle of Armageddon. At that time the enemy, the devil, will gather those following him to try to stop King Jesus from establishing His kingdom on earth. He will fail and will be thrown in to the lake of fire and the bottomless pit for 1000 years. This will not be much of a battle! The Bible tells us that at the end of the 1000 years (known as the Millennium) the devil will be loosed for a short time to attempt war against King Jesus only to be defeated and bound for all eternity. At this time God’s people will rest from war for all eternity.

 

Is the end of the Church Age near? I wish I could tell you it is; only God knows that. Signs that the Lord Jesus gave us in Matthew 24 of His word give us a pretty clear indication that His return for His true Church is very near. His rest sounds really good to me! Live your life on the narrow way to His kingdom like His return could be today! Keep your spiritual ears open for that trumpet to sound and be diligent about living for Him. Remember that He kept His promises to Joshua about taking the Promised Land. He will keep His promise about His return for us.

 

From now on DJSB will be used to note information or quotes from the David Jeremiah Study Bible and LSSB will refer to information and quotes from the Life in the Spirit Study Bible.  I have added Jimmy Swaggart’s Expositor’s Study Bible to be referred to from now on as JSESB.