The extent of the conquest.
A few detached considerations occur to us here.
I. GOD WELL NOT BE WORSE THAN HIS WORD. The reduction of the whole land had not yet been effected, but it had been rendered possible if Israel were disposed to follow up his advantage. The list of cities captured covers nearly the whole extent of Palestine, and Canaan had been deprived of all capacity of resistance. So it is with the Christian who has entered into covenant with God. The mastery over sin has been placed in his power. "Sin shall have no more dominion over him," unless he pleases. Every part of his nature is under the dominion of Jesus. Satan and his angels can but cower and submit, unless the Christian prefer accommodation to warfare, and allow himself to be led into alliance or fellowship with evil. It is the making marriages with Canaan, entering into amicable relations with the enemies he has subdued, that betrays Israel to his ruin. God has placed everything in his power. If he will not destroy his enemies when he can, he has but himself to blame.
II. ISRAEL'S POSSESSION IS A VARIOUS ONE. The land of Israel had various characteristics. Mountains and fertile plains, strange deep depressions, declivities, desert, dry arid ground, all formed part of the land flowing with milk and honey. So in the Christian life there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. The heights of rank and intellect, the fertile soil of usefulness and energy, the depths of poverty, ignorance, and absence of mental power, the various inequalities of fortune, the trials of sorrow and adversity, the dryness of soul in prayer, the privation of sympathy and consolation—all these are various elements of the spiritual life, regions on the map of the spiritual Canaan; but all are subject to the power of Jesus, and may, if we will, be made useful in His cause. As the most arid or the most rocky soft in Palestine became, by man's industry, highly productive, so the oil, olive, and honey, the figs, and pomegranates, and vines of our spiritual Israel, may be raised, if we will but be fellow-workers with God, out of the most unpromising natural disposition.
III. JOSHUA'S VICTORIES WERE CAREFULLY KEPT IN REMEMBRANCE. So may the Christian, at the end of a long career under the guidance of God's Spirit, look back to the former triumphs he has achieved by His aid, provided he does so in no spirit of Pharisaical boasting, but in gratitude to Him who "has done so great things for him." Many a victory over enemies without and within, many a recollection of a hard fought field, will occur to the veteran in Christ's army when, in the evening of life, he turns his thoughts backward to review the past. And so will the student of history as he reflects on the manifold difficulties encountered by God's Church, and the number and power of the confederacies arrayed against her, enumerate with loving pride the cities she has destroyed, and look forward with confidence to her final triumph.
HOMILIES BY R. GLOVER