I.　"We need to be one with God in His history, moving and energizing in His loving overcomers; that is, we need to be one with God in life, in living, and in our entire doing today on this earth! We need to write God's today's history! We need to march on as one with the energizing God! In Him! With Him! By Him! And for Him! We need to be vital, living, and active!" (Life-study of Joshua, p. 3).

II.　The book of Numbers reveals that the redeemed and sanctified Israelites were formed into a holy army of God, which was to proceed by following God's leading and was to fight for Him throughout their journey—1:1-3:

A.　The Bible shows us that God's intention is to have a people formed into an army to take Christ as their meaning of life, testimony, center, Leader, way, and goal and to proceed on and fight for God so that He may gain the ground on earth and have a people built up as His kingdom and His house, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—vv. 1-3; 2:1, 34; Eph. 6:10-20; 2:21-22; Rev. 21:2.

B.　The picture in Numbers shows us God and His chosen people mingled together as one entity to conquer the enemy on earth—chs. 1—2.

C.　The formation of the children of Israel into an army to fight for God typifies the New Testament believers being built up into the organic Body of Christ to fight for God and with God for the carrying out of His economy—Eph. 4:16; 6:10-20.

D.　On the negative side, Canaan signifies the aerial part, the heavenly part, of the dark kingdom of Satan—Num. 21:1-3; Eph. 2:2; 6:12:

1.　The Canaanites typify the fallen angels, the rebellious angels who follow Satan, who have become the powers, rulers, and authorities in Satan's kingdom—Matt. 12:26; Rev. 12:4, 7; cf. Dan. 10:13, 20.

2.　The fighting of the children of Israel against the Canaanites that they might possess the good land typifies the spiritual warfare of the church as a whole against "the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies"—Eph. 6:12.

E.　There is an exceedingly real spiritual warfare in which we must engage; we must fight the battle for God's interests on earth—vv. 10-12; 1 Tim. 6:12a; 2 Tim. 2:3-4.

F.　We are always at war; therefore, we should constantly be under the sounding of the alarm—Num. 10:1-10:

1.　In God's thought, the children of Israel were continually at war; at any time they could hear the alarm for fighting—vv. 5-6.

2.　We have suffered a great deal because we did not have the consciousness that we were in a battle.

3.　To sound an alarm causes us to be remembered before Jehovah our God and to be saved from our enemies—v. 9.

G.　In order to take the land, God's people needed to deny themselves, sacrifice themselves, give up their own interests and preferences in all things, and risk their lives for the carrying out of God's economy—Phil. 2:21, 30; Rom. 16:3-4.

H.　Both in the church life and in the Lord's work, we must resist the temptation to have our self-choice for the purpose of taking care of our own welfare; we need to learn not to have our own preferences but to be according to God's ordination and arrangement—Num. 32:1-33.

I.　With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, those who were qualified and ready to take possession of the good land were the younger ones—Deut. 1:35-36; Num. 14:31:

1.　The second generation did not pass through as much as the first generation did, but they received the benefit of what the first generation experienced.

2.　What the older ones experienced was effective in building up the younger ones; therefore, God could prepare from the second generation more than six hundred thousand men with a rich inheritance and strong background who were qualified to be formed into an army to fight for God's kingdom.

3.　The principle is the same with us in the Lord's recovery today; what the older ones have experienced is being passed on to the younger ones and will be very effective in building them up and preparing them to fight for God and with God.

J.　God's army was prepared and ready to take the good land under the blessing of God in His Divine Trinity and also under the blessing of Moses, the man of God—6:22-27; 2 Cor. 13:14; Deut. 30:16; 33:1.

III.　The book of Joshua reveals that in order to take the good land, the people of Israel had to prepare themselves to move with God in His move and to enter into a full coordination with God in His move—6:1-16:

A.　Joshua 1:1-9 indicates that although God had given Israel the good land, Israel still needed to take the land; they needed to cooperate with God by rising up to fulfill God's commission to possess the land.

B.　The response of Israel to Joshua implied their willingness, their readiness, and their being in one accord not only with Joshua but also with Jehovah their God, as expressed by their blessing Joshua in the name of their God—vv. 16-18.

C.　The basic principle in the New Testament economy is that God must have man to match Him, to be one with Him, and to coordinate with Him—1 Cor. 6:17:

1.　In order for God to regain the earth from the usurping hand of the enemy, we need to be in full cooperation and coordination with Him in the principle of incarnation—7:25, 40; Phil. 1:27.

2.　In particular, this principle of incarnation is for the destruction of the satanic power in its usurpation of the earth—Matt. 6:10; 12:28; Rev. 12:10.

D.　The children of Israel were buried in the death of Christ, and then they were resurrected in the resurrection of Christ—Josh. 4:1-11; Rom. 6:3-6:

1.　They passed through Christ's death to bury their old man and to become a new man in Christ for the fighting of the spiritual warfare—2 Cor. 10:1-5.

2.　God's intention is to join us to Christ in an organic union between us and Christ so that His history might become our history—1 Cor. 6:17.

E.　In order to possess the good land, we need to deal with the flesh, enjoy the Lord's table, enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the produce of the good land, and see a vision of Christ as our Captain—Josh. 5:2-9, 11-15.

F.　The victory of Israel over Jericho was won not by their fighting but by their blowing the trumpets and exalting Christ by bearing the Ark, through their faith in God's word of instruction—6:1-16:

1.　The silence of the people signifies being one with the Lord to carry out the matter in the Lord's way without the expression of any thought, opinion, or feeling—v. 10.

2.　Israel marched around the city with the Ark, a type of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, on the shoulders of the priests; the spiritual significance of this scene is that it is a picture of the corporate God-man— God and man, man and God, walking together as one person.

G.　The record in Joshua 22:10-34 about the building of another altar shows us that we must avoid division and be one people, one Body, one universal church, to testify for Christ.

H.　We need to be one with God in His heart's desire and in His move on earth— Eph. 1:5, 9; Rev. 14:1-4.

IV.　"We all need to know what the recovery is, where the recovery is, and what kind of persons can take the recovery on. We all need to see that in the Lord's recovery today we are on a battlefield. We should be today's Joshua and Caleb, fighting against Satan's aerial forces so that we can gain more of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ, setting up and spreading the kingdom of God so that Christ can come back to inherit the earth" (Life-study of Joshua, p. 61).