Introduction: Joshua had lived a long and full life. He was born in Egypt, and lived as a slave. He crossed the Red Sea under Moses' leadership. He was one of the twelve who spied out the land of Canaan. He assisted Moses as the Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness. He took over the leadership of Israel on Moses' death, and conquered the Promised Land. As long as he was alive, Israel stayed faithful to Jehovah, but as soon as he died, Israel went apostate. This raises some interesting thoughts about leadership:

I. Revival comes from the grass roots up, but leadership comes from the top down.
People are sheep. Don't look to the crowd for knowledge of right/wrong, and what to do. Don't govern a nation or a church by taking polls, or testing the wind. Don't make decisions in a federal court, or in a presbytery, based on what is "politically correct" at the moment. "Everybody else is doing it" is the refrain we often hear, but that should make no difference to God's leaders. They are not here to give people what they want, but what they need (consider God's command in Exodus 23:2).

II. Leaders must give people a worthy example to follow, and people must follow their leaders (Hebrews 13:7). Whatever leadership position you now have, do it with all your might for the Lord. Parent, church leader, civil government, school teachers, Sunday School teacher, etc. Give your leaders respect, and follow their good example.

III. Be careful about choosing leaders (I Timothy 5:17-22). We should all do what we can to get and keep good leaders in the Church: pastors, elders, deacons and so on. This is not an area in which to be careless. Choose elders carefully. Then preserve good elders through discipline.

IV. We need to pray for our leaders (I Timothy 2:1-2). "All that is necessary for the wicked to triumph is for good men to do nothing." When our leaders start leading in the wrong directions, good need to take action. The first action should be prayer.

V. Train replacement leaders. Joshua neglected to do so. See 2 Timothy 2:2.

VI. Leaders must not be content with half victories (Judges 1:27-35 and 2 Kings 13:14-19). Half victories are failures. Strike the enemy until he is destroyed and will not come back to do you harm. Church leadership needs to address the contemporary issues, the actual points of attack. Martin Luther said: "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ...Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." For example, If I preach great sermons on the incarnation of Jesus, when the contemporary issue in the church is justification by grace alone through faith alone, then I am not giving practical leadership. Furthermore, if those who love the Lord win the day in the General Assembly, say by a 75% vote, but do nothing to remove the 25% who attacked the truth, then they have been content with a half victory, and the enemies of truth will return to do battle again next year.

Conclusion: We live in a time when we have a great need for strong godly leadership, because of the infiltration of the church by the secular culture. We need to be able to stand our ground, and not be blown about by every changing wind of doctrine. Pray that God would bless his church with good leadership!