What was Joshua's mandate? What unique plan and purpose did God give to Joshua as an apostle?

Joshua's mandate was to complete Moses' mandate.

That is a bit of a letdown isn't it? After all this training; after all that you have suffered through this guy, you finally get to take over and you say,

"So where do I start Lord? What do I do? What do I change and introduce? What new foundation do I lay?"

God says, "Nothing; you don't change a thing. You fulfill the mandate that Moses failed to fulfill. You finish the job that I gave Moses to do."

I can imagine Joshua thinking,

"Well really if I was Moses I would have done things a bit differently. I mean the guy just had no strength. He fell on his face all the time instead of standing up to people. He was a weakling. The guy was so analytical he just never accomplished anything.

"I can't be that kind of leader. I have to do things a bit differently. I have to improve things a little bit; add a bit of power to it and something more exciting. Let's just change this whole thing and put some life in it."

It is tough especially if you are an expressive. But God says,

"You will do exactly what I told Moses to do, and you will not depart from it to the left or to the right."

You can read it there in Joshua 1.

Become Another Moses

God said, "Joshua, I have a job for you to do. I want you to memorize everything that Moses wrote, and I want you to speak like Moses. When you open your mouth I want to hear you talking Moses. You don't let his words leave your lips, but Joshua every time you speak I want to hear Moses."

Talk about losing your identity. That is tough! Joshua's mandate was to speak and to act like he was Moses, until it came to the point where somebody who didn't know any better would have looked at him and thought,

"Hey, Moses has changed. He seems to have more life in him these days. I'm sure he must have tinted his hair. He's looking so different. Man, he's lost some weight. I could swear he's grown taller."

Joshua acted and spoke just like Moses. It isn't terribly difficult to do that when you have been discipled by the guy. You start to pick up his expressions and you start to act like him and preach like him. You begin to think like him after a while. That is what the training was about.

Overcoming Insecurity

That is a tough one to do when you have just taken charge all on your own. And Joshua had one little thing that he had to overcome as he now took charge by himself and went on his solo flight as it were.

It is the same thing that you will have to overcome as an apostle. When you have completed your training and you finally step into that place that God has been gearing you for, the first thing you will have to do is to overcome insecurity.

You know a child can be so tough when his dad is there to back him. He will face the biggest bully on the block. But let him discover that dad's not there and it is another story.

I was once an assistant pastor of a church and I excelled. People loved my ministry and I was doing very well. I really thought I was doing great and said,

"I can handle this church on my own."

That was until my senior pastor went on vacation and asked me to take charge while he was away. That is when you see what your insecurities really are.

Here was Joshua. He had no recourse because Moses was gone. He was on his own, and now he faced the prospect of leading a million odd people there. Now you have to stand up, and do you know what people will say?

"When Moses was here we used to do it this way. And you know Moses used to always say this. And if we faced this in the past, do you know what Moses would have done?

"Oh, I miss the guy so much. Don't you wish Moses was here again? We had such wonderful times when Moses was here."

They were liars! They fought against him, and complained, moaned and groaned all the time. But wait until the guy is not there and all of a sudden those were 'the good old days'.

Here you are now, trying to step into the shoes of somebody who was far greater than you, and you have to try and live up to that. It is not an easy task to face.

If God has called you to be a Joshua apostle, that is exactly what you will face. You will have your time and season under a senior person where you can function in the fullness of what God has given you.

But the time will come where suddenly they are taken away. Then you will stand on your own, facing a crowd coming at you like a bunch of bulls. You will be saying,

"What am I going to do? Moses, what should we do? Oh dear, Moses isn't here. What are we going to do?"

Well there is only one person you can talk to now. And you had better have learned to hear Him, because you will have to make a decision all on our own.

Whatever you decide is what will happen. And if you make a wrong choice, guess who is getting the bullet? It is you. You have the buck and it stops here now. That is the most difficult stage that the Joshua apostle faces.

Start With Leaders

How does the Joshua apostle overcome the insecurity that he or she faces? Well the first thing you do is you start to act like a leader and you start to give orders.

The first thing Joshua did was to call the appointed leaders together. He gathered the commanders of the tribes and he gave them instructions. In Joshua 1:10 and 11 it says:

Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying,
Pass through the host, and command the people, saying, Prepare your provisions; for within three days you will pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land, which the LORD [Yahweh] your God is giving you to possess it.

Joshua started with the leaders because they understood what it meant to be a leader. Those guys had been there. They had their time when they were first appointed to leadership, and they knew what it was like when you first stepped into it.

So he started with those who would have understood him and who were closer to him. It was also important that he started with them, because as he did so they would bring the people into order.

Joshua didn't appear on National Television and say,

"I have been appointed to take Moses' place. Now I would like to put out a referendum and have a vote to see if all of you people are prepared to support me as the new leader."

Joshua was not appointed by the people. He was appointed by the Lord. Joshua didn't give the people a chance to vote. The chances are they may have voted him out because they didn't know him yet.

They didn't know what kind of leader he was yet. He had to come to the place where he had proved his leadership, and where the people would be fully behind him.

So Joshua began with the commanders and he gave instructions. He needed to get the people used to the idea. Why did Joshua do that? He was just acting like Moses. What would Moses have done? He would have said,

"Okay guys we're going to cross the Jordan."

He would have called all the leaders together and said,

"We are crossing the Jordan in three days. Get all the people ready."

That is exactly what Moses would have done. Joshua was acting just like Moses. That is a good starting point. Don't come and make a new announcement and say,

"We are now changing our foreign policy."

People don't like change. So don't try and step in and change it all and say,

"I'm in charge now and we are going to do it differently."

That is a good way for everybody to turn around and desert you. Then you will be left as a leader of none. Don't rock the boat.

You say, "But I'm meant to be an apostle. I'm meant to change things."

Moses already did that. You are stepping into his shoes and fulfilling his mandate, not yours. Don't change it and don't break it; it's working.

Next the Tribes

Once Joshua had spoken to the leaders then he started to speak to some of the others. He spoke to the two and a half tribes that Moses had given an inheritance to across the Jordan. He gave them instructions and said,

"Remember Moses said to you that your wives and children can stay here because this is going to be your land. But you must still come over with the rest to fight and do your bit."

He asserted his authority there, speaking once again like Moses.

He said, "Don't forget that this is what you were told. This is what Moses said to you."

He used Moses' name right up front. It is always good to hide behind somebody else. You should use it. Don't be so insecure as to think,

"Well I can't use somebody else's name. I have to show them what a big strong leader I am."

Do you know what they will say?

"Well Moses told us to do that, but he's dead now. Who are you?"

He stood behind Moses' authority and he spouted him. He said,

"Moses said this. Moses said that; now do it."

Finally the People

Finally Joshua spoke to the people themselves. By that time they had already heard the instructions coming down through the commanders. They had already started to get used to the idea, so they said,

"Well we had the instructions from the old before. The new guy's just doing the same old thing."

They were like sheep and they obeyed. It got them into the flow. That is a good way to start when you take over. Just keep the flow going. Get people used to the way they were doing it, before you start changing it.

People respond to strong leadership. Moses was a strong leader after a fashion, but you know the people were often complaining against Moses. Every time they did so he fell on his face or did something insecure. He cried out to the Lord and waited for Him to vindicate him.

God had raised up somebody now who was a stronger leader than Moses. He wasn't going to fail like Moses did, and Moses failed because he was not as strong a leader as he should have been.

So Joshua stood up, gave the instructions, laid it on the line and said,

"This is what we will do."

He didn't take a vote. He didn't give them any options or ask anybody's opinion. He stood up as a leader, took the bull by the horns and said,

"This is it. We're going to cross over."

What did the people do? Did they all throw up their arms in despair and say,

"Who do you think you are?"

No, they did what all sheep do. They said,

"Yes sir; anything you say, boss."

Joshua 1:16 and 17 says:

And they answered Joshua, saying, All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us, we will go.
In the same way that we listened to Moses in all things, so we will listen to you: only the LORD [Yahweh] your God be with you, as he was with Moses.

Then they took it even further. They said in verse 18:

Whoever rebels against your commandment, and will not listen to your words in all that you command him, he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage.

Do you know that they never told that to Moses? They never once said to Moses,

"How dare anybody speak against you! Let's kill him."

There was something different about this leader. There was something that inspired confidence in the people and made them want to just give their all. They said,

"We're going with you. We're going to go all the way. We'll do exactly what you tell us. Don't dare anybody stand against it."

Suddenly there was a unity of purpose in the nation of Israel that had never been there before. God had raised up a new leader; a true leader after His own heart.

Now Joshua had to follow through. Moses and Joshua faced two totally different scenarios, and I want you to see why Joshua succeeded where Moses appeared at times to fail. I want you to see the task that Joshua had that Moses didn't have.

You see Moses always had a problem getting the people to follow him. Why was this? Why did the people battle to follow Moses, and yet they so easily followed after Joshua?

I will answer that in the next chapter.