The Expositor's Bible: The Book of JoshuaBlaikie, William Garden
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Joshua
Blaikie, William Garden
Bible. Joshua -- Commentaries
where the need is greatest and the fight is hottest, and so render to
his Master the greatest possible service. A crowd of noble names
comes to our recollection--Williams, and Judson, and Morrison, and
Burns, and Patteson, and Keith-Falconer, and Hannington, and
Mackay--men for whom even the Anakim had no terrors, but rather an
attraction; but who, serving under another Joshua, differed from Caleb
in this, that what they desired was not to destroy these ferocious
Anakim, but to conquer them by love, and to demonstrate the power of
the gospel of Jesus Christ to change the vilest reprobates into sons
of God.
And even now there are other Anakim among us for whom the fate of the
Canaanite giants ought to be reserved. Anakim within us--greed,
selfishness, love of ease, lust, passion, cruelty--all, if we are
faithful, to be put to the edge of the sword. And there are Anakim,
tremendous Anakim, around us--drunkenness, and all that fosters it,
despite the paltry excuses we so often hear; sensuality, that vile
murderer of soul and body together; avarice, so cruelly unjust, and
content to gather its hoard from the thews and sinews of men and women
to whom life has become worse than slavery; luxurious living, that
mocks the struggles of thousands to whom one crumb from the table or
one rag from the wardrobe would bring such a blessed relief. With
giants like these we need to wage incessant war, and for the necessary
spirit we need constant supplies of the faith and courage that were so
remarkable in Caleb. He followed the Lord _fully_; believing that if
the Lord deserved to be followed at all, He deserved to be followed in
full. What was there to gain by following Him one half, and
surrendering the other half to the world? Could he count on God
helping him if he went with but half his heart into His service, and,
like Lot's wife, looked back even when flying from Sodom? "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy strength, and with all thy might."
The tendency to compromise is one of the besetting sins of the day. In
the army or the navy, if one is to serve God at all, one must serve
Him wholly. Decision is eminently requisite there, and Christians
there are commonly more whole-hearted and consistent than in many
circles nominally Christian. Decision is manly, is noble; it brings
rest within, and in the end it conciliates the respect of the
bitterest foes. Courage is the ornament of Christianity, and the crown
of the Christian youth. "FEAR NOT" is one of the brightest gems of the
Bible.
CHAPTER XXIII.
_THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND._
JOSHUA xv.-xix.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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