Joshua 5

VERSES 1-7.-Properly this is the first day in the land.,Verses 8, 9.-Here we get the reproach of Egypt rolled away. Circumcision takes place in the land. A man can now drop himself in every form; as we get it in Colossians: " Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth;" and this you cannot do until you are upon heavenly ground.
What a wonderful thing it is for a soul to be able to say, I have no will of my own! This is circumcision-the wonderful sense of having no will here.
Gilgal is properly speaking the robbing room. Here you are putting on your clothes. You have crossed the Jordan, you have got to the memorial, and now you are getting on your clothes. You are a circumcised person, which means that you are keeping the knife to your flesh. It is the heavenly man getting himself into condition for battle.
As I was saying, the Holy Spirit never leaves you altogether; but, if you allow the flesh to take an undue place, you will find, when you get into a difficulty, that He will say, I will not help you now; you must find out your helplessness. " He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption." The Spirit must be attended to and respected. The moral character of the saint must be kept up; whatever God claimed of man must be rendered; the law must be kept. I am subject to the government of Christ, though He has been rejected in this world; I am in millennial favor though not in millennial circumstances. He is not. in 'office yet, so to speak, but I give Him His rights; I acknowledge Him as Lord over my house and over God's house, though I am afraid of the word " Lord " too much, because He is not Lord over the church. But suppose He were on the throne now, would you and I go on differently in our houses and in our business? I think the saints often feel about Him as a child does during its father's absence; it says, " He is not here so I will just do as I like"; whereas, the fact is, Christ is just as near to me, and is to rule me just as really, as if He were on His throne. The great snare of the church has been anticipating the millennium before it has come; but in one way we ought to see to it that Christ rules now in our houses just as much as He would do were He here in millennial power, otherwise we have joined the rebels. I might walk up to a man in the street, and say to him with truth, You are a rebel because you have never bowed to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the King. And you cannot have a king without a kingdom, The only thing Christ possesses thoroughly are the bodies of the saints; " all flesh " is given unto Him, but He takes possession through His saints. The two spheres therefore where He rules are your houses and God's house.
The first thing, then, is circumcision; and it is an immense thing before a man takes the ground of testimony, he must come out in a moral condition suitable to it. Hebron tells us the sane story. The great moral connected with Hebron is, that where there is a grave there is a throne.
Verses 10, 11.-Now we have the passover and, the day after the passover was eaten, the manna ceased. You are brought into the land, and set up in divine strength in it, both in one day. It marks our peculiar position.
Verses 12-15.-It is very interesting to see how the Lord presents Himself in a particular aspect to His servant, in order to make that servant up to the work which He commits to him This is very much to my mind what a gift is now. He presents Himself to His servants in the aspect which will sustain them in the particular line of service He has marked out for them, so that they can reckon upon Him to support them." Moses could always fall back upon the blessing " of him that dwells in the bush," no matter what the failure of the people. The manifestation of the Lord to His servant determines very much the character of His gift. For instance, Jeremiah sees an almond rod-that is power; and a seething pot-that is judgment on Jerusalem; and these two things were the character of his work. The Lord gives the soul that particular communication from Himself that gives the needed knowledge of Himself. To Paul the word was " a witness of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear to thee." No doubt he increased in gift. It is very interesting to see that the Lord will give you a particular support in that line of things to which He has called you. He says, This is what I have called you to, and I will give you an -apprehension of myself that you can always derive from and fall back upon in your service. Joshua could always say, I have the One with the drawn sword; so he could only go on to victory. He may have learned to hold out His spear at Ai from this very thing.
This, then, is the rise of the heavenly man; you have him now ready for warfare-ready for testimony. People give up the testimony, though they do not want to give up the position; and so we shall find it in Joshua. The people give up pushing forward, and leave the very ones in the land who, Joshua warns them, would vex them.
At first Joshua does not know who this man with the drawn sword is; he asks, " Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? " And then the Lord introduces him into a scene entirely outside of man, so he is to take off his shoes; he is in a place where flesh cannot get a footing. The Lord always wishes to get us near to Himself, and, to do that, flesh must be set aside.