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Our last lesson discussed how Joshua's life reflects some of the characteristics that God looks for in those whom He chooses to raise up and train as His leaders and warriors. We learned four important things from Joshua's life:
God works those things into our lives as we grow in Him. They are the baseline or springboard from which He can begin to thrust us into the destiny that He has chosen for us.
But there is another important thing that God develops in us as we grow and mature in His call for our lives. That is our intimacy with God and our hunger for Him. We are not born with hunger for God, it does not come naturally to us. It is something that grows and develops in us as we begin to see God more in our life and as we respond to Him.
Joshua developed a hunger for God as God prepared him to move into his destiny and calling. Let's take a look at how it developed for Joshua.
At some point in Joshua's life, Moses selected him as his personal assistant (Exodus 24:13, Exodus 33:11, Numbers 11:28). That probably happened after the battle at Rephidim, though is possible that Joshua became Moses' assistant before that battle. The Bible does not tell us specifically how and when Joshua started assisting Moses. We do know that Joshua was a "young man" (Exodus 33:11), but he was over the age of twenty (because he was the exception to God's rule that those over twenty would not be allowed into the promised land).
When Joshua started to work for Moses, he began to have some direct and tangible experiences with God. For instance, Joshua went with Moses when God called Moses up on the mountain for forty days. God only called Moses, not Joshua -- but Joshua was permitted to go with Moses because he served as Moses' assistant. This young man got to enter into the glory cloud with Moses; he was allowed to come into the very presence of God. And that had a profound effect on him.
Note that God did not permit anyone other than Joshua to accompany Moses. In fact, God gave very strict instructions that the mountain be roped off so that no one would touch it by accident and have to die. God did permit a very small group of top leadership to come part way up the base of the mountain, in order that they could experience and worship God. We see this in Exodus 21, verses 1-2 and verses 9-11:
1Now He said to Moses, "Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near; nor shall the people go up with him."But those top leaders were not allowed to go further up the mountain or to come deeper into God's presence. God called Moses to go higher up the mountain, and Joshua was allowed to go with him in his role as Moses' servant. Look at verses 12-13:9Then Moses went up, also Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, 10and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. 11But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank.
12Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.' 12So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God.
This must have been an incredible experience for Joshua, coming directly into God's presence and being surrounded by God's dark cloud and glory.
The Bible does not tell us if Joshua heard every word that God spoke to Moses when he was on the mountain with Moses. Personally, I suspect that Joshua was not privy to most of Moses' conversations with God. For instance, in Exodus 32:7, God told Moses about the golden calf. This was followed by a discussion in verses 8-14 where God wanted to destroy the Israelites and raise up a new people from Moses' children, but Moses pleaded with God to spare them. Then Moses and Joshua walked down the mountain together, with Moses carrying the two tablets of the law (Exodus 32:15-17). Joshua heard a loud noise in the camp but did not know that it was idol worship. He thought the camp was being attacked and he was hearing the sound of war. That meant Joshua must not have been present when God told Moses about the golden calf. I suspect that Joshua was not present for most of the discussions that God had with Moses. But he was there on the mountain top with Moses, in the midst of God's glory and demonstrated presence.
There are two possibilities of what happened with Joshua on the mountain. One is that Joshua accompanied Moses further up the mountain and was left behind to set up a base camp and wait forty days for Moses. In that case he would have been on his own during that time in the presence of God, waiting for Moses to return. The other possibility is that Joshua accompanied Moses to the top and the two of them "camped" together. But each day, Moses would leave Joshua and the camp and go privately with God to receive the Law. Scripture does not give us enough information to know which of those two scenarios it was.
I like to think that Joshua and Moses camped together at the top of the mountain. Each day, after talking to God, Moses returned to the camp to sleep and to chat with Joshua. I can sort of imagine Joshua waiting eagerly for Moses' return each evening to find out what God had told Moses that day. Perhaps Joshua meditated on what Moses told him during the day while Moses went away to be alone with God. I bet a hunger for God built inside of him as he spent those forty days with Moses in the glory cloud on top of Mount Sinai. I can imagine Joshua sitting by himself in their camp in the midst of God's glory cloud watching Moses walk out of camp. I can also imagine him praying and calling out to God and trying to get God to speak directly to him. I wonder if God ever sent an angel to Joshua during those 40 days in response to his prayers. Who knows what sort of supernatural experiences Joshua may have had with the Lord.
Whatever Joshua's experience was, that forty day experience on Mount Sinai had a profound effect on him. Exodus 33 tells us what happened next in Joshua's life. Look at verses 7 to 11:
7 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. 8So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. 9And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. 10All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. 11So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.
Moses came back from Mount Sinai and set up a tabernacle where people could come to pray and seek God. Moses himself when to that tabernacle to pray on a regular basis. And whenever Moses came there to pray, God showed up in a tangible way and met with him.
Look at Joshua's response to all of this. Joshua got so hungry for God that he forgot all about his job as Moses' assistant. All he wanted to do was to stay at the tabernacle to pray and seek God. Joshua never left that tabernacle, he was there all the time. That means he was there when Moses went in to pray and when God's glory descended on the tabernacle.
Joshua was not hungry for position -- he already had a great position as Moses' personal assistant. In fact, he risked that position (for a season) to abandon Moses and seek God. Joshua was more interested in seeking God than he was in working for Moses. Why? Because Joshua developed a real hunger for God, one that drove him to become a man of prayer and to wait before the Lord. He entered a season in his life where his main activity was praying and seeking God. And out of that, He developed a deep personal intimacy with God.
What effect did this passion for God have on Joshua's life? How did developing intimacy with God change Joshua?
We see a reflection of it in Numbers 11:28, where Joshua became zealous to protect the purity of God's anointing. Numbers 11:16-30 tells the story. Moses gathered 70 elders to pray for them to receive an impartation of his anointing. Unfortunately, two of the elders were unable to make that meeting and were not anointed. However, they started to prophesy, even though Moses had not laid hands on them. Joshua was upset about that because he wanted to protect the purity of God's anointing. He did not want anyone doing "God stuff" unless they operated in God's Spirit and anointing. In other words, Joshua developed a real purity and dedication to God as he spent time in God's presence.
We also see that this hunger for God produced strong faith in Joshua. He was sent to spy out the promised land with 11 others (see Numbers 13 and 14). Ten of the spies came back with a bad report because they looked through the eyes of their own limitations and saw the inhabitants of the land as undefeatable. But Joshua looked through the eyes of faith and saw God's anointing/empowering instead of man's limited abilities. Joshua had spent a lot of time in God's presence and that is what gave him the ability to see by faith instead of by his natural circumstances.
Finally, we see that hunger for God and intimacy with God groomed Joshua to become God's next leader. Moses was not allowed to cross over the River Jordan into the promised land, so God chose Joshua to take Moses' place. God said this to Moses in Deuteronomy 3:28: "But command Joshua, and encourage him and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you will see."
A lot of fruit was produced in Joshua's life as he hungered for God and developed intimacy with Him: purity, faith and anointing.
God wants to develop those same things in our life as we hunger for Him. He wants us to spend regular intimacy time with Him and to grow in our personal relationship with Him. God wants us to seek Him and come into His presence on a regular basis, to be "carriers" of His presence. And as we do this, it produces the same fruit in our lives that Joshua saw. We can walk in purity, grow in faith, and see God's anointing increase in our own lives.