Joshua 23

Now we come to what will lead to the loss, the forfeiture, of the heavenly standing. We have seen that it is the purpose of God to have us in that standing, and that to that end there is no measure to the power that He will give us; He would have us in the enjoyment of it, We have seen the failure, through want of purpose of heart, of the two and a half tribes; but now that the land has rest from War, and that the possession of the other tribes is a settled thing, the servant of God sets forth to the people how they would forfeit all this great possession-how it would come to pass by their leaving the inhabitants of the land in their midst, and their being corrupted by them. This would lead to their departure from God, and then they would-quickly lose everything; forfeiture would come. A person may be dispensationally right, and yet be " wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," as the Lord says to Laodicea. As Moses had said to them in Deut. 28 " Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things." A person is sometimes far more careful to reach a point than to maintain it. This is 'just what Israel was. It is evident if you do not enjoy what you possess, that you are not entering into the value of what you have. So the apostle says, "Rejoice in the Lord." It is not possible that the Lord should allow a person to be brought into a high position and yet leave him there when he is incompetent to maintain it. People often think position is everything, but position always requires condition. It is right, certainly, to stand up for position; but, I repeat it, the moral gain from position is condition.
False worship becomes the snare of the land. Deuteronomy gives us the difference that there is between the wilderness and Canaan, and between Egypt and Canaan: The eighth chapter gives us the wilderness and Canaan; the eleventh, Egypt and Canaan. When you come to the wilderness trials, it is not false worship that is your danger, but in Canaan this is the snare. In the wilderness it is more your own private trials and the like-you are pining for something that you have not got. But now that the people are dwelling in cities that they never built, and possessing vineyards that they never planted, false worship becomes their danger. Joshua, the leader, sets before them what would cause their failure-departure from the Lord their God; he is, like Peter in his second epistle, as the shepherd of the flock looking at what will cause it: the tendency is failure.
The snare is association with the people who belong to the land. That is man. It is always man that is the thing to be afraid of. You cannot read the Psalms without seeing that man is the oppressor: Balaam's advice holds good to this day: try and get them to be social; try and get them to mix with you. It is the old principle, that, by thus acting, the very best thing becomes the very worst. I have heard it maintained that the epistle to the Ephesians could not have been written to that church, because they were warned of such gross evils. But that is exactly the case; it is the man that goes highest that is the One who falls lowest; one high up, if he do fall, it must be a great fall. So the church of Ephesus when it fails takes the lead in failure.
There is nothing more seductive than man. Solomon was drawn away by marrying strange wives. Nothing shows such a lack of spirituality in a saint as his getting on in worldly company; and by this I do not mean grossly bad people, but people with whom he cannot have communion. It is then the Nazarite loses his hair. The moment you fall to the level of a person, you have lost your power with him; you have lost your hair, which is the sign, I may say, of your singularity. But how about business? you ask. Well, business is like a horse in a mill: it is no pleasure to the horse, but it is his work, and he gets it done and over as soon as he can. People who keep worldly company always show it in their ways; it is curious to see how even staying one week in a worldly house often makes one trim oneself up in one's dress to suit them. A man rubbing up against a whitewashed wall gets the color of it. And what does not appear at all worldly in worldly company, looks very much so when you are out of it. The burden of every epistle is, keep clear of the world. But, say-'some, I shall not get into their religious ways, if I mix with them; I shall have nothing to do with their false gods. You cannot be sure of that; if you get into the world you will get into its lusts, and it says, " covetousness, which is idolatry"- covetousness, the wish to obtain anything which God has not given you. Your great power against the enemy is fasting and prayer: fasting, refusing to minister to the man; while prayer keeps you dependent on God; you must take the place of separation from them. But, you say, this will be a very strait-laced life. And so it would, were it not that I have a better thing.. Canaan is larger than the world, and it is larger than the wilderness. In the wilderness there are no cities to dwell in, no vineyards to enjoy the fruit of; and in Egypt I have to water with my foot-nothing without toil; whilst in Canaan I have the rain from heaven. It is a miserable thing when a Christian thinks every one in the world is better off than himself. Canaan is a type of the heaven we are now in, and of the spiritual blessings that we now enjoy in Christ; there are enemies there, and it is not the Father's house, but we have enjoyment there, and the tabernacle is set up there. It is the enemies there that are our danger; Jude tells' us of men who have " crept in unawares " who are " spots in your feasts," "wandering stars; " it is the people who have crept in who have done the mischief; " cursed children, ", as Peter calls them. Each has his peculiar difficulty to overcome, each will meet with enemies; as John says, the snare of "babes " is men; the snare of " young men " is the world. The " fathers " have no snare; I do not mean they do not have trials, difficulties, and so on, but they have found rest of heart in Christ-" him that is from the beginning."