Secondly, Joshua received a specific call, which we find in Joshua 1. Now when we talk about a call, we have to say that there is a sense in which all of us at all times as Christians have a general call. None of us is left to do nothing. We are all called to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

The third thing that is impressive about the early life in the faithful past of Joshua concerns the earlier incident where Moses sent the spies into the Promised Land. There were twelve of them on that occasion. They went in, and their job was to search out the land from north to south and from east to west—from Dan to Beersheba, and from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. They were to search out the kinds of people who lived there in the cities to bring a report. They went all through the land, and then they came back and could tell where all the tribes were and what the people were like. The twelve spies agreed on what they saw and said, "It is indeed a marvelous land flowing with milk and honey. It is exactly the way the Lord said." They even brought back some of the produce of the land.