Joshua 23:6

Be ye therefore very courageous.

On Christian courage

In the first place, in your relation with your fellow-creatures, in your intercourse with the world, it requires much courage and resolution to be sturdily upright and just. When your interest, your feelings, your wants, nay, even your future independence, are on one side, and the plain dictates of duty and religion on the other, then it is that you must “be very courageous”; and not turn aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left. Here is the trial: to prefer the praise of God and the approval of the conscience, with loss, with disgrace or derision, and even poverty for life, to the mean and dishonest acquirement of every worldly good. Courage is requisite even in doing good. Our good actions may cost us much trouble and even expense, much opposition, much vexation, and much misrepresentation; for our good may not only be evil spoken of, but it may be to ourselves a positive evil in a worldly and temporal point of view. On some occasions we may have to encounter the resistance of the indolent and the selfish; the thwarting malignity of envy, that will never either co-operate or commend; the sneers of the niggardly, who revenge an extorted charity by slandering the man that shamed them to it; and the unkind constructions of the worldly, who never attribute disinterested motives to a prominence in well-doing. On other occasions, we may be induced to benefit others, even against their will; to succour the worthless and ungrateful; to weary ourselves in long, and perhaps for the time fruitless, attempts to soften the obstinate, persuade the wilful, reform the profligate. In all these cases we want also a bold and patient decision of character. Again, it requires courage to forgive injuries and endure wrongs, as well as, on the other hand, to ask for forgiveness and to make reparation. Yet the Christian must do both when necessary. Courage is required, again, in maintaining truth and sincerity. I do not mean by this merely avoiding flagrant falsehood and equivocation; but acquiring habits of open and frank avowal of our minds, except where we may give needless pain or offence. No deference to rank or circumstances, no indolent aversion to differ from others, no ill-timed timidity, or desire to ingratiate, must prevent our bold and determined reprobation of what is decidedly wrong, however glossed by fine language or supported by sophistry and cunning. Courage is very necessary also in setting a good example. We are “neither to love the praise of men more than the praise of God,” nor to “follow a multitude to do evil.” The real Christian may want resolution to maintain a Christian example; he may shrink from singularity; he may fear a laugh, an obnoxious name, or misrepresentation; he may think it too precise and severe to protest and strive against received customs and opinions, though plainly at variance with the Word of God; or, lastly, he may distrust his own steadfastness and perseverance. Yet all he wants is courage--courage, not to go about setting the whole world right, not to put on a garb of austerity and intolerance that does not belong to him or his religion; not to declare war against practices and amusements which sweeten the busy occupations of life and are decidedly innocent; but to be “steadfast and immovable” in the plain, straightforward course of Christian duties of every kind. Again, courage is most requisite in striving against all the inward corruption of our fallen nature. In the first place, the Christian has to contend with wicked thoughts and tendencies, or inclinations. When allowed to grow to maturity they become headstrong passions, lusts, and appetites, whose power is generally in proportion to the time they have been indulged. At that fearful period, the courage required is, as it were, that of plucking out an eye, or cutting off a limb! for habit has by that time made the indulgence quite necessary to the sinner’s happiness, and even comfortable existence. Courage is again necessary, under this head, in getting the better of our natural selfishness. Pride and vanity and pretension are also vices that need no common courage and resolution to master them. They are, however, most unchristian tempers, and must be subdued. But, lastly, it is in perfecting holiness in the heart--by purity, vigilance, discipline, and perseverance-that the Christian warrior has most need of courage and resolution. His enemies are so strong and numerous, and the fort he holds so easily surprised and taken, that he has need of “the whole armour of God,” that he may “have victory, and triumph against the devil, the world, and the flesh.” (A. B. Evans, D. D.)

To keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses.--

The supreme excellence of Holy Scripture

I. The book commended: “All that is written in the book of the law of Moses.”

1. Observe it was to the written law alone that Joshua directed them.

2. From that day to this the will of God has been made known to us in writing.

3. The evidence of the Divine authority of the New Testament is of the same description.

4. Oh, let the written Word of God, infallible truth, be elevated far, far above the writings of men, however excellent.

II. The exhortation respecting it: “Be ye therefore very courageous,” &c.

1. “Keep it”--treasure it up in your hearts; lodge it in your memories; inscribe it on the tablet of your mind.

2. “Do it.” We are not to keep the Holy Scripture as a curiosity in a cabinet; not to hide or bury it, but to practise it. If the Scriptures do not exercise a practical influence over us, they will only increase our condemnation.

3. Observe the universality of the injunction, “All that is written in the book.” There is to be no reservation nor exception--no selection of favourite doctrines or of agreeable duties, but “all that is written” is to be read, believed, obeyed I

4. There must be no deviation from the narrow way--“that ye turn not aside therefrom, to the right hand or to the left.” This is the chart--be careful to steer by it! This is your map, your guide, your lamp; beware of the smallest deviation! (Isaiah 30:21).

5. “Be ye Very courageous to keep and to do all this!” He had said in the previous verse that God would drive out their enemies before them; and now he says, “Be ye very courageous”--but not to fight with sword and spear, but with spiritual weapons--moral courage: be bold for God--much courage is needed: for want of it Peter denied his Lord. “Be not ashamed of Christ”--“confess Him before men.”

III. The consequences of obedience or disobedience to this exhortation may be learned from scripture and experience. Wherever God’s written Word was known and read and honoured, religion has flourished; and where that Word has been neglected, religion has decayed. (Dean Close.)

Turn. .. not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left.--

Obedience

1. What motive has the Christian to obedience? Looking to be saved only through the righteousness of another, what is there to induce him to walk righteously before God Himself?

(1) Gratitude, or responsive love. The Christian is plied with reminders of what the Lord hath done for him by Christ to open to him the heavenly Canaan and to give him an inheritance, and his grateful heart responds to the heavenly logic, “Take heed that ye love the Lord,” “Serve the Lord in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things He hath clone for you.” “If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”

(2) Hope. “Ye shall possess their land as the Lord your God hath promised you.” Christ is made the author of eternal salvation to them that obey Him; and he that nameth the name of Christ must depart from iniquity.

(3) Fear. “When ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God ye shall perish quickly from off the good land.” And similar are the rules with regard to entering heaven, of which land Canaan was a figure. Disobedience entails exclusion.

2. But what kind of obedience is necessary, or rather what do we learn from our text, will obedience require or call for?

(1) Courage. “Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do.” Many look down upon a Christian as a poor, mean-spirited creature, and only half a man. But he is the highest kind of man. In proportion as he acts up to his principles he is a bold, courageous hero, and may stand up among the bravest and noblest, and suffer not by the comparison. Is it a mark of courage to submit to the operator’s knife, and a still higher mark to operate upon oneself? This the obedient servant of God does. He plucks out the right eye, he cuts off the right hand of forbidden indulgence; that is, in obedience to God’s will he will give up inclinations which cost him as much as plucking or cutting. Is it a mark of courage to face the cannon’s mouth? Aye; but it is a higher mark for beings constituted as we are, naturally proud and sensitive, to brave the mouth which sneers and jeers at piety, so that we are often a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

(2) Completeness. “Be ye very courageous to keep and do all,” &c. The moral law of Moses, though no longer it can be so kept as to give us a right to eternal life, is to be our guide and rule in our present life. For the ten commandments expanded contain all the precepts, duties, and dispositions of a servant of God, just as buds contain all the leaves of that flower which opens out into such fulness of detail. And the Christian is to keep and do all.

(3) Carefulness. “That ye turn not aside,” &c. The path of obedience is generally a middle path, and we must seek to have such views of God’s Word, under the teaching of God’s Spirit, that our love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that we may approve things that are excellent; or, as it might be rendered, “discriminate things that differ,” and ever hear a voice behind us saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” The extreme opposite of wrong is not right. We go safest between extremes. The pendulum swings as far to the right hand as it does to the left, and because some persons go to extremes one way, we are apt to go to extremes the opposite way. Some are all for privilege, others all for duty; but we must turn not aside to the right or left. Thankful for privileges, we must do our duty. (H. C. Mitchinson, M. A.)