I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, is a reference to the plagues inflicted upon Egypt ( Exodus 6:6, 7:4, 12:12). But afterward they will come out with many possessions. This promise was fulfilled at the time of the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:35-39; Psalm 105:37). The Egyptians gave many gifts to the Israelites upon their departure.
Jericho: The Promise Fulfilled ( Full Download )
Do you want the walls that have tried to hinder you in the past to fall down right in front of you so you can march in and take what God has promised you? Begin to shout and praise God with a voice of triumph because you know who you are in Christ. Shout and praise God with a voice of triumph because you are fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is able also to perform!
The book of Joshua was written to teach us about the faithfulness of God and His ability to give His people the victory when they trust in Him. Secondarily, it also demonstrates the severity of His judgement upon sin and disobedience. The promise given to Abraham in Genesis 17:8 that His descendants would inherit Canaan has finally been fulfilled! God is faithful! As Joshua and the people trusted in Him, the Lord fought their battles. This happened at Jericho, where the only thing the Israelites did was march, blow trumpets, and trust God.
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1. Understand, beloved, this Psalm, which I am about to explain, by the grace of God, of our hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and be of good cheer, because He who promised, will fulfil all, as He has fulfilled much: for it is not our own merit, but His mercy, that gives us confidence in Him. He Himself is meant, in my belief, by the understanding of Æthan the Israelite: which has given this Psalm its title. You see then, who is meant by Æthan: but the meaning of the word is strong. No man in this world is strong, except in the hope of God's promises: for as to our own deservings, we are weak, in His mercy we are strong. Weak then in himself, strong in God's mercy, the Psalmist thus begins: I will sing of Your mercies, O Lord, for ever: with my mouth will I make known Your truth unto all generations Psalm 88:1.
3. For You have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever Psalm 88:2. It is this that I sing: this is Your truth, for the making known of which my mouth serves. In such wise You say, I build, as not to destroy: for some You destroy and build not; and some whom You destroy You rebuild. For unless there were some who were destroyed to be rebuilt, Jeremiah would not have written, See, I have this day set you to throw down and to build. Jeremiah 1:10 And indeed all who formerly worshipped images and stones could not be built up in Christ, without being destroyed as to their old error. While, unless some were destroyed not to be built up, it would not be written, He shall destroy them, and not build them up.. .. In what follows, he joins these two words, mercy and faithfulness; For You have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: Your truth shall be established in the Heavens: in which mercy and truth are repeated, for all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, for truth in the fulfilment of promises could not be shown, unless mercy in the remission of sins preceded. Next, as many things were promised in prophecy even to the people of Israel that came according to the flesh from the seed of Abraham, and that people was increased that the promises of God might be fulfilled in it; while yet God did not close the fountain of His goodness even to the Gentiles, whom He had placed under the rule of the Angels, while He reserved the people of Israel as His own portion: the Apostle expressly mentions the Lord's mercy and truth as referring to these two parties. For he calls Christ a minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. Romans 15:8 See how God deceived not; see how He cast not off His people, whom He foreknew. For while the Apostle is treating of the fall of the Jews, to prevent any from believing them so far disowned of God, that no wheat from that floor's fanning could reach the granary, he says, God has not cast away His people, whom He foreknew; for I also am an Israelite. Romans 11:1-2 If all that nation are thorns, how am I who speak unto you wheat? So that the truth of God was fulfilled in those Israelites who believed, and one wall from the circumcision is thus brought to meet the corner stone. But this stone would not form a corner, unless it received another wall from the Gentiles: so that the former wall relates in a special manner to the truth, the latter to the mercy of God. Now I say, says the Apostle, that Jesus Christ was a minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promise made unto the fathers: and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy. Romans 15:8-9 Justly then is it added, Your truth shall Thou establish in the Heavens: for all those Israelites who were called to be Apostles became as Heavens which declare the glory of God: as it is written by them, The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handywork.. ..Since, although they were taken up from hence before the Church filled the whole world, yet as their words reached to the ends of the world, we are right in supposing this which we have just read, Your truth shall Thou establish in the Heavens, fulfilled in them.
9. O Lord God of Hosts, who is like You? Your truth, most mighty Lord, is on every side Psalm 88:8. Great is Your power: You have made Heaven and earth, and all things that in them are: but greater still is your loving-kindness, which has shown forth Your truth to all around You. For if You had been preached only on the spot where You deigned to be born, to suffer, to rise again, to ascend; the truth of that promise of God would have been fulfilled, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: but the promise, that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy, Romans 15:9 would not have been fulfilled, had not that truth been explained, and diffused to those around You from the spot where You deigned to appear. On that spot You thundered out of Your own cloud: but to scatter rain upon the Gentiles round about, You have sent other clouds. Truly in Your power have You fulfilled what You have said, Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven. Matthew 26:64
30. Nevertheless, My mercy will I not utterly take from Him Psalm 88:33. From whom? From that David to whom I gave these promises, whom I anointed with my holy oil of gladness above His fellows. Do you recognise Him from whom God will not utterly take away His mercy? That no one may anxiously say, since He speaks of Christ as Him from whom He will not take away His mercy, What then will become of the sinner? Did He say anything like this, I will not take My loving-kindness utterly from them? I will visit, He says, their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges. You expected for your own security, I will not utterly take my loving-kindness from them. And indeed this is the reading of some books, but not of the most accurate: though, where they have it, it is a reading by no means inconsistent with the real meaning. For how can it be said that He will not utterly take His mercy from Christ? Has the Saviour of the body committed anything of sin either in Heaven or in earth, who sits even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us? Romans 8:34 Yet it is from Christ: but from His members, His body which is the Church. For in this sense He speaks of it as a great thing that He will not take away His mercies from Him, supposing us not to recognise the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; John 1:18 for there the Man is not counted for His Person, but the One Person is God and Man. He therefore does not utterly take His mercies from Him, when He takes not His mercy from His body, His members, in which, even while He was enthroned in Heaven, He was still suffering persecutions on earth; and when He cried from Heaven, Saul, Saul, not why do you persecute My servants, nor why do you persecute My saints, nor My disciples, but, why do you persecute Me? Acts 9:4 As then, while no one persecuted Him when sitting in Heaven, He cried out, Why do you persecute Me? when the Head recognised its limbs, and His love allowed not the Head to separate Himself from the union of the body: so, when He takes not away His mercies from Him, it is surely that He takes it not from us, who are His limbs and body. Yet ought we not on that account to sin not without apprehension, and perversely to assure ourselves that we shall not perish, be our actions what they may. For there are certain sins and certain offenses, to define and discourse of which it is either impossible for me, or if it were possible, it would be too tedious for the time we have at present. For no man can say that he is without sin; for if he says so, he will lie; if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 Each one therefore is needfully scourged for his own sins; but the mercy of God is not taken away from him, if he be a Christian. Certainly if you commit such offenses as to repel the hand of Him who chastens, the rod of Him who scourges you, and art angry at the correction of God, and fliest from your Father when He chastens you, and will not suffer Him to be your Father, because He spares you not when thou dost sin; you have estranged yourself from your heritage, He has not thrown you off; for if you would abide being scourged, you would not abide disinherited. Nor will I do hurt in My truth. For His mercy in setting free shall not be taken away, lest His truth in taking vengeance do harm. 2ff7e9595c
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