James Nisbet Commentary - Joshua 23:14 - 23:14

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James Nisbet Commentary - Joshua 23:14 - 23:14


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NOT ONE GOOD THING HATH FAILED US

‘Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.’

Jos_23:14

Life is a book which can never be understood by reading one of its chapters. And those who have lived less years than Joshua have yet lived long enough to know, from actual experience and observation, that very few, when they look back upon a long course, ever regret what they once called their failures and their trials; while many regret, bitterly regret, many things which they once called their prosperity!

It is only with promised things that we have to do. It is ‘the good things which the Lord our God spake concerning us.’ Faith hath its province only within the promise. If you go out of a promise you may have a general hope, but it is not faith. Has any one distinctly promised thing not come to you? Have you ever yet earnestly prayed for any spiritual blessing, then waited for it, and that blessing has not come? And once more—if it hath not come, it may be only because its time has not yet arrived. It may be on the road now—for God promises what, not when.

Let us now look at some proofs of God’s exceeding faithfulness.

I. National blessings.—Our national blessings are very great. After all our doubts and fears ‘our land has yielded her increase.’ Bread is cheap. Wages are high. Work is abundant. A spirit of peace and contentment prevails.

II. Blessings in the Church.—In the midst of our distractions our Church has great tokens for good. We have not separated one from another: and our Church is whole. Every section of it is instinct with life and energy. The number of churches has grown with unprecedented rapidity over the land. All the means of grace are multiplied. The clergy are much more earnest; the communicants have greatly increased, and are increasing. Foreign missions were never so well supplied, either with money or with men. The great duty and privilege of intercession for missions has been recognised. And perhaps, above all the signs of good, such a spirit of evangelisation for the conversion of souls at home has been poured upon the Church as perhaps has had no parallel in the Church’s history.

III. Individual blessings.—One characteristic I am sure there has been in the history of God’s dealings with every one of us: we have been always in a system of beautiful balance: the joys and the sorrows, the encouragements and the disappointments, the trials and the strength, the need and the supply have been in a strange equipoise. The whole government of God has been compensatory. We all have our dark passages—our mysteries, our gnawing grief—known only to ourselves; and the heavy discipline of a Father’s hand. We could not quote Joshua’s words if we had not. All those to whom those words were spoken had experienced, most painfully, the trials of life. They had wandered in a desert for forty years. But the Presence had never left them; the manna and the water never ceased.

As life goes on, things which were matters of faith, in earlier years, are matters of fact and experience in later life; and we ought to be bolder and more trusting every year we live, if it were only for this—because theories have become realities; and we have proved what we once could only take upon trust—the faithfulness of God: so that this is our argument: ‘Thou hast been our succour; leave us not, neither forsake us, O God of our salvation.’

—
Rev. James Vaughan.