1: Advancing into New Territory

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Scripture Reading: Joshua 1:1-9 nkjv

“So Great a Salvation”

“MOSES, MY SERVANT IS DEAD. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan.” What a time of transition! Moses, Israel’s liberator, leader, and lawgiver for forty long years in the wilderness was gone, and a new leader stood at their head. As God’s people camped along the eastern bank of the Jordan River, forty years of wilderness struggle stretched behind them, as did the graves of the previous, rebellious generation. The surviving, assembled host had experienced God’s provision, His judgments, and His direction. This new generation had learned both to obey God and rely on Him. After a lifetime in the desert, they were tough, battle hardened, and anticipating the fulfillment of God’s promise to the patriarchs—the possession of the land which God had sworn to them.

The Lord’s hand-picked successor was Moses’ long-time adjutant, Joshua, a brave, obedient man of faith who “wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.”² Because he lived so long in Moses’ shadow, it’s easy for us to overlook that he was with Moses during the first forty days on Mount Sinai,³ that he spent time alone with God in the pre-levitical tent of meeting,⁴ that he had led Israel’s armies in the field,⁵ and that he had been for decades a Spirit-filled leader of the people.⁶

It was to this specially chosen man, Joshua, that God was now saying, “You could not go over Jordan, while My servant Moses was alive; but now that he is dead, it’s time to cross over. And you will find that having gone over, every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon have I given you.”

God had given them the Holy Land, the land of Canaan. But having given it to them, He also said that possessing the land would be an act of faith, and would be conditional upon their being “strong and courageous.” The Lord repeated this requirement three times.⁷ And the children of Israel confirmed their intention to comply by echoing the phrase back to Joshua (yet a fourth time!⁸)—“only be strong and courageous”—which is an act of faith.

There is an experience beyond that of the normal Christian, beyond elementary salvation. Some people like to say, “I’m a believer only in a simple gospel.” We do not believe in just a “simple gospel”; we believe in God’s “so great a salvation.”⁹ This is a salvation that’s worthy of the God who gave it to us, a salvation worthy of the Son of God perishing in agony and blood on a cross before a jeering crowd of Jews and Gentiles. We believe that the worth of God’s Son measures the extent and greatness and fullness of the salvation that God has given to us.

The gospel is not just that Christ Jesus came into the world so that our sins might be forgiven. It’s very much greater than that. Before the Lord Jesus came on the earth, people had their sins forgiven. God is a merciful God. And God made a demonstration through Moses of how sins could be covered by the sacrifice of bulls and sheep and goats. So sin was covered. God forgave sin in ancient days, even as Christ forgave sin before He went to the cross. That is not the whole gospel, only a very elementary part of it.

As previously stated, the gospel is far greater than that. The gospel is good news that God is willing to come and indwell people. He had never done that before! The gospel is the announcement of God’s Kingdom. When the disciples were sent out, the gospel they were sent to preach was “the kingdom of God has come near to you.”¹⁰ The kingdom that the prophets foretold is now here; that which was due has now arrived, and you must enter into it.

Then Jesus unfolded the only way into it. It was by being born again, born from above, born into the kingdom, adopted by God as His children. The Lord Jesus revealed that it is only by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, whereby we become a new creation, that we are made worthy and able to be in that kingdom. Moses gave the law, but Christ Jesus gives the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Thank God that we know our sins are forgiven and we’re on the way to heaven. But there is an experience of enjoying heaven here. As Isaac Watts puts it,

The men of grace have found
Glory begun below.
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow.¹¹

It’s a place where God is real, not imaginary, where He is present and witnesses to the truth of the great salvation that He has given to us. In this experience where the fruit of the Spirit is manifested, we will leave behind the wilderness of this world, even while we’re living in the world. We’re in the world, but not of it.

Its type in Scripture is leaving the wilderness of life under the law, and entering into the Canaan of His perfect love, life under the Holy Spirit. Many good Christians have desired it. Many denominations have preached it under different terms. Some call it “the rest of faith.” Others call it “coming into the fullness.” Others call it “the experience of perfect love.” Others call it “the baptism in the Holy Spirit.” Another phrase for it is “entire sanctification.” Whatever you call it, it’s the same experience.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, the great Baptist preacher, who was a strong Calvinist, and who objected to anything of an Armenian nature, and especially to Methodism, still preached an experience of sanctification. Spurgeon said, “There is a point in grace as much above the ordinary Christian, as the ordinary Christian is above the worldling.” Of those who have had such an experience of grace, Spurgeon said, “Their place is with the eagle in his eyrie, high aloft.”¹² An eagle and a sparrow are both birds; but the powerful eagle soars much higher and farther than the low-flying, tree-flitting sparrow. Every good man and woman has desired this “point in grace.” And every Spirit-taught preacher has preached it.

John and Charles Wesley, who issued that very fine collection of hymns in their day, put amongst those hymns one that expresses this, but which you will rarely find in any hymn book, especially in a modern one:

O glorious hope of perfect love!
It lifts me up to things above,
It bears on eagle’s wings.
It gives my ravished soul a taste
And makes me for some moments feast
With Jesu’s priests and kings.

…

Rejoicing now in earnest hope
I stand, and from the mountaintop
See all the land below.
Rivers of milk and honey rise,
And all the fruits of Paradise
In endless plenty grow.

…

Now, Oh my Joshua, bring me in,
Cast out my foes—the inbred sin,
The carnal mind remove.
The purchase of Thy death divide,
And O, with all the sanctified
Give me the lot of love.¹³

The Book of Joshua is God’s wonderful introduction to this experience. It comes just after the five books of Moses. Tradition considers it to have been written by Joshua (with the exception of the last few verses).

Israel needed to have another leader, because Moses was not allowed to go into the promised land. He represents the Law, and the Law cannot bring us into the promised land. “Speak no more to Me of this matter,” said the living God,¹⁴ the great Jehovah, to Moses when Moses pled that he might be allowed to go into the promised land. And we cannot enter the “promised land” experience under Moses; we must have a new leader—Joshua.

Yes, God declared to Moses, “Speak no more to Me of this matter.” How could he who represents the Law lead us out of the wilderness into the promised land? Moses, the old leader, has to die, as God reveals in His New Testament, where the apostle Paul makes it so clear. Moses represents the Law, while Joshua represents Jesus.

Joshua is the same word as Jesus, only it’s the Hebrew form of it. Yeshua, meaning Savior, comes to us in the Greek as Iēsoũs, or Jesus, which also means Savior. Paul tells us:

• ⁴Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. ⁶But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.
• Romans 7:4-6

That’s God putting it for you plainly, in the clear words of the Apostle Paul—the difference between life under Moses, and life under Joshua.

We saw that Joshua means savior. What does Moses mean? Moses means drawn out. He was named Moses, under God’s inspiration, by the daughter of pharaoh, a princess of Egypt, “because,” as she said, “I drew him out of the water” (Exodus 2:10).¹⁵ So Moses, the one drawn out, is the one who brought out the children of Israel from Egypt. In Acts 7 as Stephen was speaking before the Sanhedrin and explaining what God had done, he said,

• ³⁵“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.”
• Acts 7:35-36

That was Moses’ job, to bring God’s people out of Egypt. But Joshua’s commission was to bring them in to the Promised Land. And Steven notes the same contrast, when he says that the “fathers” and the tabernacle were

• ⁴⁵ …brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David….
• Acts 7:45-46

So Moses “drew them out” of Egypt; Joshua brought them in to Canaan.

Now God had to give Moses his Spirit before he could be leader of the children of Israel. Then what did God do for Joshua? In the book of Numbers, it’s revealed that God did exactly the same for Joshua. And we find there that God revealed to Moses that he was to lay hands on Joshua and pass on his authority to him.

• ¹⁸And the Lord said to Moses: “Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; ¹⁹set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight. ²⁰And you shall give some of your authority to him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.…²²So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. ²³And he laid his hands on him and inaugurated him, just as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses.
• Numbers 27:18-20,22-23

Life Under the Law

What happens under the Law, under Moses? Well, you’re fairly safe, although you have to be very careful that you don’t break the law. (Not that you should break the law under the Spirit. God forbid!) Under the Law, the full penalties of the Law must be exacted upon you, as Moses found to his cost. Where is life under the Law spent? It is spent with God, but it’s a life spent in the wilderness, a land of thirst and hunger, but also provision.

A Land of Thirst

Yes, in the wilderness, you will thirst. God reveals in Exodus how the Israelites thirsted. In the beginning of the wilderness wandering, the Scripture says, “Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter” (Exodus 15:23). What were they doing at the waters of Marah? It was their only hope to save them from the serious thirst that had come upon them when they left the land of Egypt.

• ²²So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah.¹⁶
• Exodus 15:22-23

Exodus chapter 17 reveals thirst again:

• ¹Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. ²Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, “Give us water, that we may drink.…”
• Exodus 17:1-2

But God made provision for them. So it says in Exodus 17:6 that God showed Moses the rock of Horeb, and there God said, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And you remember how the psalmist makes so clear that those waters that gushed out were rivers abundant enough to provide for at least a million and a half people, with millions of cattle, all thirsty and needing water to drink.¹⁷

That’s one plight in the wilderness—thirst.

A Land of Hunger

What about hunger? That was a challenge in the wilderness, too. We read:

• ²Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
• Exodus 16:2-3

Responding to the hunger, God met that need, too, as recorded again in Exodus. He gave them “angels’ food,” sending manna from heaven (Psalm 78:24-25). And later on when they desired flesh, He sent an abundance of quails (Exodus 16:13) that covered the ground to the thickness of three feet (that is, two cubits; Numbers 11:31-32). But the manna was a daily provision (Exodus 16:21), and the children of Israel had to learn to their cost that it was only a daily provision, by God’s decree; if they gathered the manna and left it until the next day, it bred worms and stank (Exodus 16:19-20).

Abundant Provision in Canaan

But what was the provision of God in the promised land under Joshua? And what is the spiritual significance? When at last the Israelites came to the promised land, as forecast by Moses prophetically, God had promised them an abundant provision.

• ¹⁰“For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; ¹¹but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, ¹²a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.”
• Deuteronomy 11:10-12

What a land to possess, what a land to go forward in! It’s a land which the Lord your God cares for “from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.” All the time God overlooks it and cares for it. This is the land of Canaan. This is the land of spiritual rest, a land of plenty. Oh, it’s so unlike the land you came out of—Egypt, the land of slavery, which is a type of the world. Yes, you have come out of the world, although I am sure that some of you are still in the wilderness. You said goodbye to the world and left it behind you. But why be content to remain in the wilderness, when God is opening up before you a spiritual land that the Lord your God cares for “from the beginning of the year to the end of the year,” where He supplies everything?

What is the spiritual significance? “It’s a land,” says Moses, “which drinks water from the rain of heaven,” and there are fountains and depths of water that spring up on the hills and in the valleys. It’s mercifully, wonderfully provided for with springs of water. So what is the spiritual significance of that land? In John 4 Jesus tells you about an experience that He’s willing to give, even to sinners, even to the worst of sinners. Jesus says,

• “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again” (that is the water of a well that Jacob once dug), “but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
• John 4:13-14

That is the spiritual counterpart of the land of Canaan, where God gives you water that springs up, whether you’re on the height of the mountain, glorying with God and God’s people, or down in the deep valley with sorrow. God has promised you an everlasting springing up that will go on year after year until at last years are no more; it will last for all eternity!

There is also fruit in the land of Canaan, and bread enough and to spare. Once the children of Israel “ate of the produce of the land” after crossing over Jordan, the manna ceased (Joshua 5:11-12). Manna wasn’t needed any more. In the promised land, you’re not “being fed” anymore; you now will get your own food directly from God! And woe unto you who just go to church week by week, only getting what the ministers provide for you. That shows that you are still in the wilderness, still being fed by manna. God’s saints receive directly his blessed seed, and they sow and reap their own harvest. God Himself opens scripture to them. God Himself speaks directly to them. They no longer have to eat from what others feed them, except as God Himself feeds them that way. They are able to get their spiritual food directly from God, and that in abundance.

Those of you who go to church every Sunday morning full will get far more than the others who go empty and desire to be filled up. Emptiness which needs filling—that’s old covenant; that’s a wilderness experience. The saints of God don’t have to “come to be filled” on Sunday morning—they need to come full to share. That’s koinonia, fellowship! “For we, though many, are one bread and one body,” as Paul makes so abundantly clear (1 Corinthians 10:17). The spiritual counterpart of the fruit of the land of Canaan, the promised land, is the fruit of the Spirit produced in you and out of you: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

So many believers are content to be in the wilderness, but there’s such danger there. Think of the peril of breaking the law. There are dear people in bondage, so fearful and afraid. Fear is engendered in the wilderness, but not in the land of Canaan. There fear is gone. God proves that to us: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment” (1 John 4:18). We’re not tormented by fear anymore. We’re not afraid of God anymore. He’s our loving father. By the Spirit, we call Him Abba, Father, looking directly up into His dear face, using a term whereby we speak to Him directly. It could be roughly translated as “my father.” It means you are talking to God directly as your own dear, wonderful father.

In contrast, the peril of breaking the Law is revealed in Exodus 32. That chapter describes the making and worshiping of the golden calf (vv. 1-8), and how the people were singing and dancing around their idol, breaking the Law, as Moses returned to the camp. He smashed the two tables of the Law which God had written with His own finger (Exodus 31:18), because already the children of Israel had broken God’s Law. Then Moses took action:

• ²⁵Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained (for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies), ²⁶then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. ²⁷And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let every man put his sword on his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.’” ²⁸So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day.
• Exodus 32:25-28

That’s the peril of the Law—there’s death in it. But, oh, the blessing of life in the Spirit! The Holy Spirit has come, and the land of spiritual Canaan has been opened. God opened the land of Canaan when He gave Peter the keys of the kingdom. Peter unlocked the door for the Jews to the spiritual “land of Canaan” at Pentecost,¹⁸ when the Holy Spirit came:

• Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.
• Acts 2:41

Do you see the contrast between the two passages? Under the Law, “about three thousand men of the people fell that day”; and God uses almost exactly the same words at Pentecost: “and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” Why? Because of the truth revealed in 2 Corinthians 3:6—“…the letter [that is, the Law] kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The Law kills. You who want to abide under the law, who want to walk in the wilderness—the Law kills in the end. It’s the Holy Spirit who gives life and glorious deliverance.

Two Baptism Experiences

So there are two experiences. One is coming out of Egypt with Moses, going through the Red Sea and into the wilderness; that represents the first baptism, baptism in water. Now, baptism in water does not bring you into the promised land. Baptism in water is only confirmation that you are under the almighty governance of God, and you’ve exchanged Pharaoh for Jehovah. Baptism in water only means you’ve come out of Egypt. It means you repented of your sins, and your sins are forgiven. You’re not forgiven because you are baptized; rather, you’re baptized because your sins are forgiven. You’ve come out of Pharaoh’s domination, a type of the god of this world, and now you’re under the covenant-keeping God, Jehovah. This change is marked by a baptism, and the Apostle Paul reveals what that is in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2—

¹Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, ²all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea….

That’s your first baptism. It’s not very much to exalt over. But it’s something you’re glad about—you’ve come out, you’ve left Egypt!

Ah, but, there is a second baptism that God reveals, which is the one true baptism in Christ, as in the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5) that Paul taught. That baptism is not baptism in water. That baptism is the only baptism that Jesus bestows, the baptism in the Spirit. Remember that the Apostle John clearly wrote that “Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples” (John 4:2), lest you should make a tremendous mistake in confusing water baptism, with Spirit baptism. Jesus doesn’t baptize in water; He baptizes in the Holy Spirit! He immerses you into divinity. The God who was only outside of you comes to dwell inside you as well! You are saturated with the living God. So now you can walk in God. Now you can walk in the Spirit, as well as enjoy the indwelling of the Most High that transforms us. That’s the second baptism!

So we read that when the children of Israel came through and out of the wilderness, they were on the eastern shore of the Jordan, ready to go through it with Joshua. You’ve got to go through Jordan. What did God do at the Jordan when the children of Israel went through it? Joshua tells them what will come to pass:

• “And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.”
• Joshua 3:13

And that’s exactly how it came to pass!

• ¹⁵…as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), ¹⁶that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down into the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.
• Joshua 3:15-17

They crossed over the Jordan, dry shod, representing the second baptism. You cannot get into the promised land under the Law; you can only get into the land of obedience to the Holy Spirit—

…a land of corn, and wine, and oil,
Favored with God’s peculiar smile,
with every blessing blest…¹⁹

by being baptized in the Holy Spirit. It’s that which brings the joy; it’s that which begins to develop the fruit of the Spirit.

In our Spirit-given Canaan we receive the blessings of freedom in the Lord, and of right worship, where God has released our spirit that once was bound, to praise Him by His Holy Spirit. Now worship is full, for worship is a bird of two wings: one wing is praise and the other wing is prayer. And we never mount the skies unless God blesses us by teaching us to use both wings. Otherwise, we only flap around on the ground with one wing. No, two wings are needed. For praise acknowledges the greatness of our God, in wonder and adoration. And prayer acknowledges the greatness of our God, that He only is the one who can supply our needs and supply the needs of those for whom we pray. That’s intercession. And that acknowledgment of God’s greatness in our intercession is yet another expression of worship. In my personal experience, I have found that fifty percent of worship is waiting in obedience; we wait, we listen, and obey with hearts full of worship.

“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.”
–1 Samuel 15:22–

An Unexpected Reality of Canaan

We must not neglect another aspect of entering into spiritual Canaan: conflict! Satan is angry. Do you remember how God led Moses and Israel after they first left Egypt?

• ¹⁷Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” ¹⁸So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.…
• Exodus 13:17-18

Why? Because the children of Israel, a slave people, had come out of Egypt unprepared for armed conflict in a new land. God didn’t let them fight or have war.²⁰ You don’t know what war is if you live in the land of the wilderness, just out of Egypt. God has to spare you; you’re such a tender people. You haven’t yet received the dúnamis, the power of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised (Acts 1:8).

So many people think that the New Testament is given that they might follow a new book of rules, and if they follow that book of rules, they’ll be good Christians. I tell you, nay! The New Testament is not a new book of rules that are better than the old ones. God never improves on Himself. God doesn’t have to experiment. God doesn’t grow. God can’t teach you better things now because He’s learned better. He’s the living God. Oh, you must realize that the reason you don’t yet have the battles and the trials and the temptations that other people have is because of your spiritual immaturity. You’re as little children. If He led you “by way of the land of the Philistines,” where you saw war, you would backslide.

For this reason, it is warriors, “strong and courageous,” that God takes into the promised land, and that’s why God disciplines them. God is forging them in the fire so that through all eternity they’ll be God’s great ones, perhaps even doing things that angels cannot do. Angels have never been beset as we have all our days by temptation and spiritual attack. Praise God, when you’re baptized in the Holy Spirit, when God Himself indwells and empowers you, when you’re in the fullness of the new birth, there’s a weapon to use—the sword of the Spirit. Now there’s a shield to lift up—the shield of faith. Now there’s a helmet to wear—the hope of salvation. Now there’s a breastplate—the righteousness of saints. Armor and weapons—this is how God now dresses you, because you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, because now you are indwelt by God. Now He’ll take you through and you’ll know war—and victory!

Did not Jesus find it so after He had received an anointing of the Spirit down on the banks of the Jordan? The Spirit drove Him into the wilderness, where He was amidst the wild beasts and tempted of the devil. That is what happens when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. But God can’t do it otherwise. There is war, ongoing conquest, all the way through in the land of Palestine, the land of Canaan, the Holy Land. The devil is still fighting for dominion in people’s lives.

So many chapters in Joshua will tell you of battles and victories. Only one chapter records a battlefield failure, the defeat at Ai. It was caused by someone who didn’t fully follow the Lord his God, but chose to secretly walk in disobedience to God’s declared will. Because one man of the company hid “a goodly Babylonian garment” and gold and silver in his tent in his hunger for the things of this world, Israel suffered defeat. But after that transgression was put right, there was victory after victory throughout all the onward march in Canaan.²¹

Conquest and victory are God’s intention for you, and He will bring you into them. Have you realized that it was only after Pentecost that the disciples were persecuted, though they were completely ignored before Pentecost? Think of it—the disciples ran away during Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemane; but no one was chasing them! “They all forsook him and fled.”²² Jesus, the one full of the Spirit, was arrested, but not those weak, enervated disciples. The disciples went away and shut themselves up in an upper room and locked the doors and the windows; yet no one was after them. But after Pentecost, they were cruelly persecuted.

I think of those disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesus, recorded in Acts 19:1-7 at Ephesus. Have you noticed? It’s only after those men, “about twelve” of them, were filled with the Holy Spirit that God began to move and the devil was stirred up²³—Jesus had begun His conquest of the city and its surrounding province²⁴ through the ministry of Paul! In two years’ time (19:10), a “Bible school” had been established (19:9), everyone in the province had “heard the word of the Lord Jesus” (v. 10), God performed “unusual miracles” (not just “ordinary” miracles; v. 11), and there was large-scale confession and repentance (v. 18), resulting in the wholesale public rejection of occult beliefs and practices (v. 19). “The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed” (v. 20). Jesus’ conquest made the devil exceedingly angry; but the best the enemy could do was to instigate a noisy, but impotent, tumult (vv. 23-34), which changed nothing (19:35–20:1). God has the victory every time!

How Do We Enter Into God’s Canaan?

Well, how do we enter in? How do I get into this good land? It’s by faith, not by works. By works you remain in the wilderness forever. It’s by faith that we enter into Canaan. In Numbers 13:30-33 we’re told how God brought the children of Israel up to Kadesh Barnea on the very borders of Canaan. And they wouldn’t go up “because of unbelief”!²⁵ God had sent them evidence of the beauty of the land, for men had brought back grapes from Eshcol, and pomegranates and figs (Numbers 13:23). But they wouldn’t go up because of unbelief. So the people had to turn back into the wilderness until all that generation had died, until at last God brought forth the new generation to go up into the promised land.

How do we enter into Canaan while we’re living in the world surrounded by unbelief? God reveals in the epistle to the Hebrews the danger of this awful unbelief and how it hinders you from going up into the promised land:

• ¹⁹So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. ^4:1Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.
• Hebrews 3:14–4:1

The people of God who came out of Egypt were the people of God in the wilderness. But God had something greater for them. The greater thing was the land of Canaan, where they could believe and enter in. Paul challenged the Galatian believers with a series of questions to make it clear to them that we enter in by faith:

• ²This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?— ³Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? ⁴Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? ⁵Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
• Galatians 3:2-5

It’s “by the hearing of faith” that the blessing of Abraham²⁶ could come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, and that we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Have you entered into the promised land? Many people do. In our day and generation many have entered into the promised land. But they’re cluttering up the entrance so much, that it’s difficult for other people to enter in! Oh, many have entered in and camped out on the other side of Jordan, and so are almost blocking the way in. God said go on and possess the land. God never told Israel to simply camp on the other side of Jordan. God said go on to “every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon” (Joshua 1:3). And that will leave room for other people to come in when they see that you’ve gone on into the land and are producing the fruit of the land. There are so many cluttering up the other side of Jordan, not displaying the fruits, that people see them and then don’t want to enter into the land.

Go on! What does God say in Galatians 5:16? Precisely this:

Walk in the Spirit,
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

If you don’t walk in the Spirit, you will be showing the lust of the flesh. If you’ve already just crossed over and camped out and not claimed your full inheritance, then go on into holiness, go on to trust God for a pure heart, go on in the land where you walk by faith and not by sight! Walk in the Spirit; move forward! Then you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh, says the living God through the Apostle Paul. If you are being led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Oh, brothers and sisters, won’t you go on with God? If you are led of the Spirit, you will be walking and you will keep walking.

The Theme Song Changes!

Finally, in the land of Canaan, there’s a new song. The old song that you sang in the land of the wilderness, even though you were under God’s protection, is not the song of Canaan land. The song of the wilderness is the song of Moses, Psalm 90, “a prayer of Moses the man of God.”²⁷ Some people have the strange idea that all the psalms were written by David. But look at the headings of the psalms and you’ll find that quite a number were not written by David at all. It’s called the Book of the Psalms, not the Book of the Psalms of David.

Psalm 90 is a perfect example. It says that it was written by Moses.²⁸ It is an account of the wilderness wandering, written by the man who wasn’t allowed to pass over into Canaan. With that in mind, consider the context of these words:

⁹For all our days have passed away in Your wrath;
We finish our years like a sigh.
¹⁰The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
–Psalm 90:9-10–

God said, “You shall turn and walk in this wilderness for 40 years until all this generation has died out”; and God saw to it. All that generation died out in 40 years; they couldn’t live over that time. That’s why “the days of our lives are seventy years. If they come to eighty years, it’s but labor and sorrow.”

This verse has been misinterpreted to mean that God limits human age to 70 or 80 years. Well, now many people live to 90 and beyond. When I was in England recently, a dear old friend in Manchester sent his love to me. He’s 105. How do we reconcile his age with the supposed limitation of Psalm 90:10? Simply this: it’s a psalm for a people in the wilderness who could not go up because of their unbelief; they had to perish in the wilderness. The limitations of Psalm 90 were for that generation, not for us.

Canaan’s New Song

On the other hand, Psalm 91 (which a tradition tells us was written by Joshua), is a different psalm altogether. It’s the psalm for those in the next generation who would not perish in the wilderness, who were watching the old ones die out. So it says:

He shall cover you with His feathers,
And under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
–Psalm 91:4–

Unlike the older generation,

⁵You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,
⁶Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
–Psalm 91:5-6–

I don’t know the particulars of how the faithless generation died, but they died somehow. Perhaps some died through Arabians’ arrows, some by pestilence, some by heatstroke. But they died.

A thousand may fall at your side,
And ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.
–Psalm 91:7–

That’s because you’re the next generation, you’re the hallelujah generation—praise God!—the generation that goes up into the promised land, the land of obedience to the indwelling Holy Spirit.

No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling…

“With long life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.”
–Psalm 91:10,16–

“With long life will I satisfy him,” not “threescore years and ten.” Good old Caleb was 85 when he went into the promised land, and he lived for many years after that.

We could say that Psalm 91 is the psalm of those who are baptized in the Holy Spirit, born of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ for endless years and endless generations.

And we don’t merely say “amen” to Psalm 91; we say a glad glorious “hallelujah!” to it. It is the psalm of those who’ve gone on with God. We look back and remember when we left Egypt. We remember our Red Sea baptism. We remember that “great and howling wilderness.”²⁹ We remember our sins and our griefs and our fears. And we remember how God at last brought us when we heard the word that there is a better land to live in. It seemed too good to be true. But we believed God, we trusted Jesus to baptize us with the Holy Spirit, in childlike faith, and He did it. Now we testify that we’re in that good land,

A land of corn, and wine, and oil;
Favored with God’s peculiar smile,
With ev’ry blessing blest;
There dwells the Lord our Righteousness
And keeps His own in perfect peace
And everlasting rest.³⁰

And some of you are saying now,

Now, O my Joshua, bring me in,
Cast out my foes—the inbred sin,
The carnal mind remove.
The purchase of Thy death divide,
And O, with all the sanctified
Give me the lot of love.

Amen! Go up! “Only be strong and very courageous.” Enter in, trust the Lord for a true, full, rich, perfect baptism of the Holy Spirit, which He’ll gladly bestow upon you; and you’ll go up and ever on in the land, because the water of this inner well springs up forever, even unto eternal life.

And do remember that along with the blessings of going that way, you will be heading into spiritual conflict. The land has to be conquered in order for you to possess it. But God has means of preparing you for victory, as we shall see in the next chapter.

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