Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

2 Joshua 5:6. Tonight we are to consider the children of Israel at Gilgal, and proceeding from there to the fall at Jericho. At Gilgal they renewed the covenant of circumcision, which covenant reminded them of the promise to Abraham, and was a token of their confidence in that prom ise. They kept the Feast of the Passover, which memorialized their liberation from Pha raoh in Egypt. They began to eat the fruit of the land; a new experience entirely for them. They not only had a new country in which to dwell, but new food to eat. Dur ing their journey in the wilderness they were enabled to eat manna, rained down from hea ven as a special miracle of God for the feeding of His people, Israel. He worked this miracle for them because there was not enough in the land to support them, and since God Himself was responsible for their being there He must see to it that they had food to eat. Hence the manna- But now they are across the Jordan, and in Canaan, and it is distinctly said, “The manna ceased.’' And there is good reason for it ceas ing, because there is plenty of fruits of various kinds and everything else for them to eat in Canaan, and God never wastes His products. He never bestows needless blessing on people. It would be well for us to realize this perhaps more than we do in prayer. There is no doubt we are praying God constantly to give us things we do not need. We ask God for blessings when we have not used those He has already given us. And this is one reason why God with holds of times the answer to our prayers. Until we use up what God has given in the way of special blessings, we have no right to expect Him to give us others. And so we find these Israelites really in their Canaan experience, without the manna they had lived upon hereto fore, and now partaking of the fruit of the land in which they have come to dwell. Then we have the revelation of the Captain of the Lord’s Host. If you have read the story I have no doubt you have been struck with that. It is one of the most striking things in the whole of this story. As Joshua was meditat ing, and thinking on what he was to do and how he was to lead these Israelites now that they were in this new land, there appears a man before him in military attire with drawn sword in his hand, and Joshua approaching him asks a very significant question: “Art thou with us or with our adversaries?” The man an swers at once: “As Captain of the Lord’s Host am I come.’ And then Joshua falls down and worships before him- Then we have the first part of the campaign for the capture of Canaan revealed. Now, it is well for us to stop here and ask this question: What right had the Israelites to take possession of the land of Canaan? Have you ever thought of that? Here these people have invaded this land that belongs to other people. AVhat right had they to invade that land and take it from THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF JAN. 29, 1914. THE FALL OF JERICHO 'Re*c>. Len G. "Broughton, T), D., of Christ Church, London Reported for The Golden Age by M. P. H. —Copyright Applied For. the people that occupied it? In the first place, because God had promised the land to them. And because of God’s promise they had a per fect right to enter. Not only had God promis ed, but God had commanded them to enter. So, by virtue of the promise of God and the com mand of God, they had a right to enter that land. But let us go a step further. Upon what law of equality had God the right to give them a land that belonged to and was occupied by other people? Surely that question must have struck you as you have perused this story. What right, I say, had God to give these people somebody else’s territory? By what law of justice can we justify that transaction First of all, all lands belong to God and are for the highest welfare of the race of man. We some times talk about land as “the land of Ger many,” “the land of France,” “the land of America.’ There is no such thing, strictly speaking. There is no “land of England,” “land of France,” “land of Germany,” “land of America.” These nations may occupy cer tain lands but they are not their lands- They are God’s lands. God has never transferred His right of ownership of the universe. The lands of the universe make up the universe, and we no more own the land on the surface of the globe than we own the globe. The earth belongs to God, and never mind what man may have done, how many battles he may have fought, how many victories he may have won, how much money he may have spent, how much blood he may have shed, he can not wrest from the hand of God that which is His. The same thing is true with reference to in dividuals. We talk about “our lands. ’’ There is no such thing as “our lands.” Never mind whether we are referring to the ground on which the house we live in stands, or whether we refer to huge agricultural possessions, or what-not. These things are primarily God’s, and the nation only has the right to occupy the possession of God in proportion to the extent that it gives itself to carrying out the purpose of God in the possession, and that purpose is to bless humanity. Whenever a nation, there fore, ceases to use its territory as a blessing for humanity, it ceases to have a right to occupy the lands of God. But so long as a nation ad ministers the property of God as their own oc cupation for the welfare of the race, and thus carries, out the plan the programme and the purposes of God in the possession, they are at liberty to possess, though they never can own. Ihe same thing is true with reference to the individual. An individual, just so long as he uses it to carry out the purposes of God in the possession of that property. And that purpose is to bless humanity. I have no right to occu py the property of God for my own individual selfish needs. My right to occupy the property of God in any sense is in proportion to the way I co-operate with God in carrying out His pur poses in blessing humanity- According to this principle the Canaanites had failed to use the property of God in Ca naan, for the blessing of the race, but for the damning of the race. For the inhabitants were not climbing God-ward, but moving hell-ward. And inasmuch as they were thus abusing God’s property, He had a perfect ethical right to turn other people on them and drive them out of the land or bring them to subjection. We have a number of illustrations of the same thing occurring today. I think of one tonight which is so close to my own heart. Just over the border of the United States there is the country of Mexico. A great coun try. A country literally dotted with gold mines, silver mines, coal mines and copper mines, oil wells, and rich agricultural fields. One of the richest countries in all the world. And yet, today perhaps the poorest. Its pov erty is the outcome of its miserable govern ment, and its miserable government is the out come of its miserable Church, and its miserable Church is the outcome of miserable Rome. I know what I am talking about. There is no country on earth more priest-ridden than Mex ico. There is no doing anything with these people until the power of Rome is broken. They are there, occupying God’s property—one of the richest sections on the globe—occupying it, and every day defeating the purposes of God in giving to the world that rich country and God has put up with that kind of thing until He can not —I say it reverently—He is not, going to put up with it any longer.. They must either stop abusing the purposes of God or He is going to turn some one else on them, as He did in Canaan, and bring them to subjection, or perhaps turn them out of the land entirely- I have been of late giving my odd times to studying certain phases of history, bearing up on the work we are doing in connection with our Bible Class, endeavoring so far as I can, to get the movements of God in Bible history, that Imay see the motive of God and the method of God for our present-day life. And, my breth ren, it is simply wonderful to see how, in the ages of the world God has intervened when men have persisted in perverting His purposes and destroying the thing He has most at heart, namely, the welfare of the race. God has broken in on nation after nation, in all sorts of ways, broken them to pieces, shattered them, in order that His property may go to the pur pose for which He intended it. Do you think Cod is going to keep a rich country like the country of Mexico with its great gushing oil wells, enough oil in that country to support the whole world—do you think He is going to keep that country with its great agricultural fields, its great gold and silver mines, as it is at the present day? Why there is scarcely any pos sibility of getting these things out of the coun try. You can not work in the country. You can not develop enterprise in the country, be cause it is ever at war with itself, and at war with everybody else around it. And God does not propose to allow those rich treasures to go idle on that account. There is a lesson here for us m England. God is not going to allow any people to occupy His property unless they use it for His glory and for the upbuilding of the race of men. That is the object of all this possession of God. (Continued on page 14.)