For all things, God is the great Antecedent! Because He is, we are and everything else is. We cannot think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being there-and being there first! Joshua had this to learn. He had been so long the servant of God's servant Moses, and had with such assurance received God's word at his mouth, that Moses and the God of Moses had become blended in his thinking; so blended that he could hardly separate the two thoughts. By association they always appeared together in his mind. Now Moses is dead and lest the young Joshua be struck down with despair God spoke to assure him: "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee!" Moses was dead, but the God of Moses still lived! Nothing had changed and nothing had been lost, for nothing of God dies when a man of God dies. "As I was-so I will be." Only the Eternal God could say this!
