Introduction

If we were to abstract the entire Book of Joshua into a single sentence and give it a title, what would that title be? Let us examine what this book is about from chapter 1 to chapter 24.

What do you think of the title Obtaining the Promised Land? I had always thought of it as such a title, but upon closer inspection, this book primarily describes a single individual, Joshua, and how he diligently followed God.

So, let us consider whether this book describes Joshua or the Israelites obtaining the Promised Land. Of course, if you say it is about obtaining the Promised Land, that is a good title. But after much contemplation, I believe another title is better: Serving God Wholeheartedly.

If we reread this book carefully from beginning to end, does Serving God Wholeheartedly resonate more with us?

Today, we must ask ourselves whether we are wholeheartedly following God. If you are not wholeheartedly following God and your focus is solely on your children, your spouse, your family, your parents, or your siblings, and you are preoccupied with them, I believe it will be difficult for you to wholeheartedly follow God. Returning to the New Testament, the requirements are even higher. If you want to become someone who wholeheartedly follows God, you must forsake everything to follow Jesus. What kind of person should we be today, and do we need to carefully consider this?

Obtaining the Promised Land is the result of wholeheartedly following God. In the days of the Israelites, who was responsible for them obtaining the Promised Land? It was because God remembered Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He remembered the covenant He made with them. God fulfilled His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through the Israelites. Originally, God intended to completely destroy these people in the wilderness, but Moses interceded before God, and it was God’s grace and mercy that brought the Israelites in.

Emulate Joshua, Be a Person Who Wholeheartedly Follows God

During Joshua's time, why were the Israelites able to enter? Because there was a man named Joshua who wholeheartedly followed God. I tell you, sometimes I often ponder such things. I say, God, I want to be a devoted person.

To wholeheartedly trust in God, wholeheartedly follow God, and wholeheartedly keep and obey all of God's words—how wondrous this is. Brothers and sisters, you must know for certain that if you receive grace in a small group, it is because your small group leader is wholeheartedly following God; if you receive grace in a pastoral district, it is because your pastoral district leader is wholeheartedly following God; if you receive grace among us, it is because I am wholeheartedly following God. In fact, our obtaining the Promised Land is inseparable from the vessels chosen by God!

So, brothers and sisters, do you want to be someone who obtains the Promised Land or someone who wholeheartedly follows God? That is why I have summarized the Book of Joshua as Wholeheartedly Following God, or you can call it Wholeheartedly Trusting in God.

Our church can reach today because someone once wholeheartedly followed God. Not only did someone wholeheartedly follow God, but I also have an expectation: can we wholeheartedly follow God from birth to death, throughout our lives? That is the most important thing. God's promises will not fail, but why do they fail in many churches? Is God not faithful? No, God is faithful, but people are often insincere.

We must begin to carefully consider that the Book of Joshua describes how Joshua wholeheartedly followed God and how Joshua would surely cause this people to inherit the Promised Land. I encourage all the brothers and sisters among us to aspire to be like Joshua, like Moses, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, like David, Samuel, Daniel, Isaiah, and even like the later Apostle Paul, not to mention that we truly desire to be like Jesus.

Do we still have many doubts in our hearts now? I can tell you that if you do not have the word wholeheartedly in you and only have your own things, you cannot serve this God! You cannot serve this God. But if you only have the desire to obtain the Promised Land in your heart and do not have the word wholeheartedly, you also cannot serve this God. You may obtain the Promised Land, or you may not, but I can be sure that you are not someone who leads others to obtain the Promised Land.

So, brothers and sisters, can we emulate Joshua and be people who wholeheartedly follow God?

Do Not Be Afraid, Only Be Strong and Courageous

When Joshua led the Israelites to obtain the Promised Land, if we open the Book of Joshua, the opening describes Joshua's fear. Who is not afraid? In the past, the severity of the spiritual warfare to obtain the Promised Land was unimaginable, and even today, we are still trembling with fear. Let us read these passages together:

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:1-9)

How well these words are spoken! Brothers and sisters, do you know what kind of people God would say these words to? God would say these words to those who are wholehearted. These words are so good! I dream of obtaining them. In the early years of establishing the church, the church was not victorious, and all that was seen was desolation. I wondered how to enable the brothers and sisters to obtain the promise and how to draw on God's promise. God's promises will not be abandoned, although what is seen with the eyes is desolation, I know that God's words will not be abandoned!

At that time, I was also reading this passage from the Book of Joshua: Be strong and very courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. When I read these words, my heart was filled with strength!

Over the past years, as we have come all the way here and begun to enter a state of victory, I am truly grateful to God. We are climbing upwards step by step, entering the Promised Land step by step. What do we see today? Today, what we see is what is seen in the Promised Land, and we are beginning to continuously draw on God's promises.

A few days ago, a brother's mother had stomach cancer, and her stomach and lungs were filled with fluid. Then his leader told me: I have arranged a schedule for her, arranging for people to continuously pray with his mother. Recently, his mother has improved a lot, really improved a lot! Do you know how full the schedule is? That is, every period of time, there are people there to lead her in prayer.

We really do not lack people who wholeheartedly follow God among us. Later, I was thinking about such things: if there were no such arrangement, I think the mother of this brother with stomach cancer among us might have been finished. A few days ago, this brother's mother was taken away by a demon, and she began to have a crooked mouth and eyes, rolling her eyes, and exhaling directly without inhaling.

Then they followed what I taught them, because my own mother had also been like this several times, rolling her eyes, having a crooked mouth and eyes, drooling, and her whole body convulsing, looking like she was about to die. I grabbed the inside of her thigh and prayed. Then I told the brothers and sisters among us, and later my mother recovered. That is not an easy thing to do because watching someone about to breathe their last is really not an easy thing.

After they heard about such things, they also practiced the same approach. This brother grabbed the inside of his mother's thigh and prayed, and he rescued his mother again, snatching her back from the hands of the devil.

God Is Choosing Leaders Like Joshua

So what is it that enables us to inherit God's promises? It is wholeheartedness. Today, you must know that leaders play a huge role among us, among God's people. Without a wholehearted leader, the Israelites as a whole would not be able to enter the Promised Land.

We can boldly say that God is choosing people like Joshua in this generation. I have a desire that all the brothers and sisters among us would be like Joshua, able to lead the brothers and sisters into the Promised Land!

Brothers and sisters, God's promises are right before us. No matter how many there are, in Jesus Christ they are all yes! Today, we must completely abandon the old theological concepts. Those old theological concepts also know that there are God's promises, but they cannot兑现 God's promises. If we cannot 兑现 God's promises, what should we say? Has God's promise been abandoned? Absolutely not. God is still faithful, but people are often insincere.

But today, we must become like Joshua, and no one will be able to stand up against us all the days of our lives. As God was with Moses, so He will be with us. God will never leave us nor forsake us, so we should be strong and courageous. Because we will surely cause these people to inherit the Promised Land.

Only be strong and very courageous, carefully obey all of God's laws, do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that we may be successful wherever we go. This Book of the Law must not leave our lips, and we must meditate on it day and night, so that we may be careful to do everything written in this Book of the Law. Do you know what the book before the Book of Joshua is called? The book before that is called Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, there are either blessings or curses. Keeping and obeying God's words is a blessing, and not keeping and obeying is a curse.

So today, we brothers and sisters must all be very careful, preferring to be people who wholeheartedly follow God rather than people who are sloppy, careless, and perfunctorily following God. If you perfunctorily follow God, you cannot serve God. Joshua has the right to tell the Israelites of that generation that you cannot serve this God.

Why? Because what they lack is not anything else, but the word wholeheartedly. I tell you, what kind of person is someone without the word wholeheartedly? It is an adulterous person. Married to a husband, seeing other men who are better than her husband, her heart flutters. Marrying a wife, seeing that his wife is not better than others, his heart flutters. I think this is a fatal thing! Brothers and sisters, I encourage everyone to begin seeking one thing, seeking God's mercy on us, so that we may have a resolve in our hearts, so that we can begin to wholeheartedly follow God.

In fact, the Book of Joshua describes such people, that is, in this city of Jericho, the first city that the Israelites had to destroy when they entered the Promised Land, there was a Rahab, a person who wholeheartedly sought God. Later, what happened? This family was saved by God in the city of Jericho. This is a very wonderful thing because Rahab wholeheartedly sought, and as a result, God sent two spies into Rahab's home, causing Rahab's family to be saved.

Later, they crossed the Jordan River. Do you know why the waters of the Jordan River parted? It was because of a man, Joshua, who wholeheartedly followed God. This path had never been trodden before, yet the Israelites, led by Joshua, traversed it. The Jordan River dried up, and three million Israelites crossed it as if walking on dry ground.

But if you and I were to witness such events, to experience such things, would you be willing to be like Joshua? Or would your heart still be set on the benefits you seek to gain? Brothers and sisters, God is seeking vessels to use in this generation. I long for all Christians in this generation to be like Joshua, for you and I to become like Joshua, like Rahab, able to lead people to the Promised Land!

The Lord God Is Our Commander

If we continue to read through the Book of Joshua, many excellent points are made. Did you know that God is our commander? If we wholeheartedly follow Him, God will surely fight for us, and we need not fear. Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River and camped at Gilgal, where he circumcised all the males. It took them many days to heal. In this condition, could they fight? No, they could not.

What if the people of Jericho attacked the Israelites at this time? We dare not even imagine it. They could not fight; wouldn't they just be waiting to be beaten? But you need not fear, nor be dismayed, you need only wholeheartedly follow God.

No matter how dire the situation, we need to diligently obey God's Word. By performing the circumcision, the disgrace of Egypt was rolled away. Today, God will remove the disgrace of Egypt from us. Therefore, we must not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord God is our commander. It is God who leads us in battle. What do we have to fear?

In truth, if you look with spiritual eyes, although the Israelites were circumcised, were they relying on their swords and spears? No. Joshua saw a man with a drawn sword in his hand, who said to Joshua, I am the commander of the Lord's army. If we open our spiritual eyes, we will see that people like Joshua, leading the Israelites to diligently obey God's Word, performed the circumcision on the west side of the Jordan River.

What will you see? You will see God's army surrounding them layer upon layer. Today, we also need not fear. Today, we need to trust in God. Today, we need to wholeheartedly follow God. Later, Jericho fell, and Rahab's entire family was saved.

Does our heart trust in money, or in God? If we have someone like Achan among us, who coveted what belonged to God, what happened? The Israelites were defeated at Ai. Every time I read this chapter, I think: God, how I long to establish a holy and glorious church among us! Constantly clearing out the rubbish in the hearts of our brothers and sisters. Constantly cleansing those among us who are not wholeheartedly following You, who are unwilling to follow You. May all our brothers and sisters be those who wholeheartedly follow You, removing the accursed things from among us.

You know, several things have happened among us that have deeply moved me. I truly thank God for His faithfulness. I have uploaded all our e-books to Amazon! Later, we counted 55 books. I truly thank God, for because we diligently obey God's Word, we wholeheartedly follow God, and we value God's Word greatly, we studied the Bible, one book after another, and wrote 55 Bible study materials.

We upload e-books to Amazon, and next, we will hold activities. We will freely give what we have freely received. We long for this earth to be filled with people who glorify God's name. We desire to diligently obey God's Word, to have God's Word never depart from our mouths, and to wholeheartedly follow God all our lives.

Diligently Obey All of God's Commandments

After removing Achan from among the Israelites, they continued to conquer and take possession, advancing forward and constantly reclaiming the Promised Land. This was a very miraculous day. After reclaiming some lost territory, in the presence of the Israelites, according to what was written in the Book of Moses, they pronounced the law on Mount Ebal, reciting all the blessings and curses, all that was written in the Book of the Law. I believe this passage is from Deuteronomy. If you wish, you can read Deuteronomy and the study guide to Deuteronomy, called Blessings and Curses, which I wrote in two large volumes.

If you want to live well, you need to diligently obey God's Word. If you diligently obey, you will be blessed, but your eyes cannot only see the blessings, you must have a heart that wholeheartedly follows God.

Brothers and sisters, do you know that in Joshua Chapter 8: blessings and curses determine victory and defeat; Chapter 9: those who do not resist God will survive; Chapter 10: those who are enemies of God will perish; Chapter 11: Joshua did not neglect to do anything; Chapter 12: living victoriously on earth. These Gibeonites, who pretended to have come from a very far place to see Joshua, were they not deceiving Joshua according to God's will? Later, these Gibeonites said to Joshua and the Israelites, Now we are in your hands, do to us whatever seems good and right to you.

So Joshua saved them from the hands of the Israelites, and the Israelites did not kill them. Do you see? Joshua is a man who wholeheartedly follows God, and he deeply knows God's will. Do not think that these Gibeonites were meant to die, these Gibeonites were meant to live, Rahab was meant to live. We must know that the methods these people used were not very sophisticated, but the methods they used were also very good methods, were they not? It was the best method they could think of.

Until many years later, the Gibeonites were still preserved by God. If anyone tried to kill the Gibeonites, they would be cursed. Later, King Saul killed many Gibeonites, and Saul's descendants were cursed.

If we wholeheartedly follow God, we will receive much grace and mercy from God. We freely receive God's grace and mercy from God, and we share this grace and mercy. We do not share God's judgment. Our God acts justly, loves mercy, and mercy triumphs over judgment. What does our God require of us? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God, is it not?

Therefore, we must completely remove the religious flavor from among us. Religious flavor cannot please God. Later, Joshua defeated many, many kings. I tell you, for those who wholeheartedly follow God, no one will be able to stand before him in all his days. Do you want to be such a person?

You know that later, Joshua conquered cities and destroyed all the people in them, leaving no one alive. Why? Those were the ones devoted to destruction. Does diligently obeying God's Word seem a little inhumane? Is it really necessary to do it this way? It truly is necessary. You will find that among us, we will treat Achan and those who resist God in the same way as God commanded.

Of course, it will not be as bloody as in Joshua's time, but today we still have the commitment to wholeheartedly follow God. As long as it is what God commands, we will not neglect to do anything. As long as God commands, we will do it well, for the Lord will do this to all the enemies you are going to fight. So do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, only be strong and courageous, for God's people will possess the Promised Land.

The role of leaders in the church is very important. Later, Joshua led the Israelites to kill thirty-one kings in the land of Canaan, leaving no one alive. That was very resolute and thorough. Today, if you want to be Santa Claus, that is not God's mercy. If we become like Joshua, we will be filled with God's grace and mercy.

Those who resist God, who are enemies of God, will perish. Those who do not resist God, even the Gibeonites, even though they deceived Joshua and his people, was that not pleasing to God? Those who do not resist God will live. Later, Joshua implemented everything according to what God commanded Moses, even the cities of refuge were established according to what God commanded Moses.

If you and I were Joshua, would we clearly remember what God had commanded Moses? Maybe we would forget. Those among us who are careless must change, we must be rigorous, we must rigorously know what God once commanded us! Let all the words in the Book of the Law not depart from our mouths, let us still be wholeheartedly devoted to God when we enter the Promised Land, diligently obeying all of God's statutes, ordinances, and commandments, so that we may prosper in the Promised Land that God has given us.

Serve the Lord Your God with All Your Heart

I also ask you as Joshua did: Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. If you decide to serve the Lord God, today, be a person who is wholeheartedly devoted to Him. If you are not a person who is wholeheartedly devoted to Him, all you will see are the benefits God gives you, and you will not be able to wholeheartedly serve Him.

You shall set up a stone in this place, just as Joshua did at the end of the Book of Joshua. Of course, I do not mean a literal stone, but a testament to all the words we have spoken with God. Never forget that our God is a holy God, a jealous God.

If we are careless, we cannot serve this God, and He will not forgive our transgressions and sins. If we forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, the Lord will turn and bring disaster on you and consume you, after having done you good.

Can we firmly say today: God, I want to serve You with all my heart, I just want to serve You with all my heart! May our words become a testimony for later generations.

Now let us read Joshua Chapter 1 again:

[Joshua 1:1] After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide:

[Joshua 1:2] “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.

[Joshua 1:3] I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.

[Joshua 1:4] Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

[Joshua 1:5] No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

[Joshua 1:6] Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

[Joshua 1:7] Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

[Joshua 1:8] Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

[Joshua 1:9] Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

We will conclude here. May God make us all people who wholeheartedly follow Him, Amen!