Lord we do thank You for the time You brought us to and for the vast hunger for Your Word that's here represented by so many people even in the middle of a school year; to come and go through the Bible and understand what Your plan is from the beginning for the world and in particular, for our lives. Father, we consecrate ourselves to You even as the Children of Israel would do at the Jordan River itself and we pray Lord that You would use us and cause us to possess all that You have for us. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
When God makes a promise you can be sure that He's going to fulfill it. The Bible says that He's the Author and the Finisher of our faith, so when God promises to do something, He's going to bring it to fulfillment. God has had a goal for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that is to occupy a piece of land that was Canaanite territory. Of course the Canaanites weren't too excited about the Children of Israel being in that part of the world, as today, there's lots of people that aren't too excited about Israel being in that part of the world. But it's the land that God promised to give them. They are there, at the brink of the land and about ready to cross over the Jordan River. There's a great passage of Scripture in Deuteronomy, I think it's chapter 6 where Moses said, "God brought you from there that He might bring you in." In other words, the goal of God wasn't to just take them out of Egypt but to take them into a land of promise. You can look at that in your own life. God's plan and purpose didn't end with you just turning from your past life, but He has a whole brand new life for you to enjoy with all of the promises and all of the blessings that He wants you to enjoy. That's part of it. Since we're in a new section, we'll just quickly review. The book of Genesis talks about beginnings: the beginning of the universe, the beginning of sin, the beginning of God's solution to eradicate sin, and the beginning of a special family that would grow into a nation and that would bring forth the Messiah. All of that is the book of Genesis. By the time we get to the book of Exodus, we see that the family has grown into a sizable nation, from 70 people to an entire nation. The only problem is that now they're oppressed in the land of Egypt. God raises up a deliverer, (that would be Moses), and brings them out. That takes us to the book of Leviticus. It's all about worship; how to approach God through a sacrificial system and a priesthood all pointing to Christ. We saw that the book of Numbers was a book of failure. How that God wanted them to enter the land and it says that it's an 11 day journey from Mount Sinai to enter the land of promise and they manage to turn that 11 day march into a 40 year meander. They wandered around the desert for 40 years. The book of Deuteronomy is three farewell speeches by Moses. He's 120 years old. It's a new generation he speaks to and Deuteronomy bridges the gap between the first four books of the Bible and the next seven books. The first four and even the fifth, Deuteronomy itself, is Israel outside of the land and the next seven historical books will be Israel inside the land that God promised.
Now we come to the book of Joshua. Joshua can be divided into three slices. It's very simple: in chapters 1 through 5 they're entering the land, in chapters 6 through 12 they're conquering the land, and in chapters 13 through 24 they are distributing the land. Tonight we'll only have time for entering and part of the conquering. Let's jump into Joshua chapter 1, verse 1, where they start to enter the land. "After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying: 'Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them-the children of Israel.'" According to Josephus, Joshua was born as a slave in the land of Egypt and when he was 80 years old he was commissioned by Moses. It was sort of like Moses himself in that when he was 80 years old was commissioned by God to be the deliverer. Josephus says that at age 80, Joshua was given the command of the Children of Israel. He was Moses' assistant, aid, or helper. We understand from way back in the book of Exodus, around chapter 17, that Joshua served as Israel's first military commander. When they had that battle with the Amalecites, Joshua was the guy heading it up. Some scholars actually believe that at one time Joshua was in the Egyptian army. That's a fact that not many people know or talk about but many scholars believe that before he was even in the wilderness with Moses, he served in the Egyptian army. That sounds strange except that there's enough archeological evidence to suggest that there are lists of names - Jewish, Semitic names - that have been discovered by archeology, of Jewish, Semitic people serving in the Egyptian armies. So it could be that Joshua was one of them and so he had military experience and he became the General. Verse 3: "'Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.'" So the land was a gift; they didn't deserve it, they didn't earn it, but God gave it them and in fact promised it before they were even around. He had promised it to Abraham. Though it was a gift, like any gift, you have to receive it and you have to open the package. Here was the deal, "It's yours, however, it's only where the soles of your feet walk that you will actually enjoy." As we mentioned last time, God promised to the Children of Israel, (and it's outlined here in the dimensions), 300,000 square miles. However, they only occupied, with David and later on Solomon, 30,000 square miles of all that God promised them. So they actually enjoyed only one tenth of all that God gave to them because they actually walked upon it and dared to take God at His promise. Verse 5: "'No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.'"
I will never forget a very unusual experience I had in the land of Israel. I remember a little boy who was growing up in the land. I watched him grow up because he was our tour guide's son and every year when we did tours, he was a little bit older. I was over there one time when this young kid was now an army soldier and I was able to go to his swearing-in ceremony.
They had this long hike through the desert sun and it culminated on top of this mountain in Judah. They had a torch light ceremony and a band and their relatives came. The swearing-in service was interesting because there were two tables. On one table there were a stack of guns. On the other table there were a stack of Bibles. As the soldiers came up they would give each soldier a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other hand, the Old Testament - the Tenach - and they were quoting from this very verse of Scripture, Joshua, chapter 1: "Be strong, be courageous for the Lord your God is giving you the land." The idea is that you fight for it but you do it because it's God who has given you this right to inherit this land. Verse 8: "'This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.'" They're going into a new land, the land of Canaan. Canaan in the Bible represents something. Joshua is more than just a historical book filled with military campaigns. By the time we get to the New Testament we find that it is a representation of something else. The question is, what does it represent? If you were to follow the theology of some of the ancient hymn writers, you would think that the land of Canaan represents heaven. One of those hymns is, "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," and here're some of the lyrics: "When I look over Jordan, coming for to carry me home, I see a band of angels coming after me, coming for to carry me home." That ancient hymn sees crossing over the Jordan River as when you die and you enter the land of Canaan and that's heaven. That's not what it represents because if Canaan represents heaven, then I hope you like to fight when you get to heaven because it takes them seven hard years of battle after battle to settle the land and its tough and hard going and there are trials. Then there are another 18 years of settling and distributing. Crossing over the Jordan does not mean death. Entering into land of Canaan speaks of Believers today entering into the rest that God has promised them, Hebrews chapter 4, and taking in all of the promises by faith that God has given us; enjoying God's provision now, not waiting for heaven, but enjoying His blessing right here and right now.
Chapter 2, verse 1: "Now Joshua the son of Nun sent out two men from Acacia Grove to spy secretly, saying, 'Go, view the land, especially Jericho.' So they went, and came to the house of a harlot named Rahab, and lodged there." The rest of the chapter tells how this harlot took in these two spies, brought them to the roof, and hid them under some flax so that when people from the city came in to inquire, they couldn't be seen. Then she goes on to tell these two spies about her faith in the God of Israel. It's a very unusual story. Let me just give you a little picture of the topography of the land. When Israel invaded Canaan, around 1440 -1450 BC, the land of Canaan was a bunch of individual city states that had their own governmental structure. They weren't big cities but they were walled cities and that is because they used to fight each other; they were at odds with each other and it was not a unified area. The city itself was its own country and its own state and it would fight neighboring cities unless there was an outside force invading them; then suddenly they united against the invading force. So the Children of Israel are that invading force at this point. The first city, right around the middle of the land, is the city of Jericho and this is where the two spies come to. It's interesting that there are two spies because back in chapter 1, verse 8, we read that God tells Joshua to keep everything that is written in the law, "Do it all." How many spies did Moses, his predecessor send into the land of Canaan? Twelve of them. Why did Joshua only send two and not twelve? Because he was one of the two that gave a good report and he figured, ten of them were worthless anyway, I don't need them, all you need is two. Deuteronomy says, "By the mouth of two witnesses every word will be established." Thinking back historically to Numbers 13 and 14 where he was one of the two who gave the good report by faith and was allowed to enter the land, he sends out two instead of twelve. These two meet Rahab and as we see here she was a harlot. Rahab becomes famous because of this chapter and this incident. We'll see her pop up in the Bible in the future, for instance in Hebrew chapter 11 Rahab will be mentioned in the Hall of Fame or as we call it, the "Hall of Faith." In fact it says in Hebrews 11, "By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe when she received the spies with peace." Also, Rahab is mentioned in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I remember at the very back of my high school annual there were little sections of special people: best dressed, most spirited, and most likely to succeed. By the way, I was not in any of those categories. In fact if there had been a category called most unlikely to succeed, I might have shown up in that picture. It seems that God works with a very unusual principle; God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Rahab would be in that little section, most unlikely to succeed, or at least, most unlikely to appear in the genealogy of the Messiah of the world; a harlot. But her faith was stellar. As these two spies come in she says, "Look, we've heard all about you guys, everybody in Jericho is afraid of you; we've heard how the Lord opened up the Red Sea and brought you in on dry land; we heard about how you defeated those two kings on the other side of the river; and we're terrified of you guys. Then she says, "The Lord your God, He is God." It would seem that she and her family were the only ones in Jericho that believed that. Everyone else, though they were in fear and they might have been convicted, they didn't make a statement of faith or move toward the God of Israel; except for Rahab.
There're a lot of people today who in their heart of hearts know that there is a God and that they should get right with God. There's even a conviction in their heart whenever they hear the Bible preached or they see you at work. Every time you're around them they get a little tense because they know that they should get right with God and you represent Him. What they'll do is erect walls of doubt; walls of their own good works; walls of unbelief or excuses of why they can't become a Christian. Like the people of Jericho, they live behind their walls but it's those few like Rahab who said, "I believe in your God." Verse 12: "'Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father's house, and give me a true token, and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.' So the men answered her, 'Our lives for yours.'" Verse 17: "So the men said to her: 'We will be blameless of this oath of yours which you have made us swear, unless, when we come into the land, you bind this,'" rope or cord or thread, "'line of scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you bring your father, your mother, your brothers, and all your father's household to your own home.'" As the people of Israel would march around Jericho in the next several days, they would be able to see that there was one window of one house, (and some of the houses were built right on the wall), that had a scarlet thread hanging over it and they couldn't miss it. They told the army, "Destroy the city, but spare the people who live in that house; you can tell by the scarlet thread." We even talk about the scarlet thread of redemption and we've used that term in this study through the Bible; we use that terminology based upon this text. The scarlet thread takes our minds back to the Passover when the death angel came by the houses and passed over the homes that had the marks of scarlet on them; the blood of the lamb smeared on the lintels in the doorposts. Meaning, everyone inside that house would be kept safe. Therefore everyone inside the house with the scarlet cord would also be kept safe.
Verse 23: "So the two men returned, descended from the mountain, and crossed over; and they came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all that had befallen them. And they said to Joshua, 'Truly the Lord has delivered all the land into our hands, for indeed all the inhabitants of the country are fainthearted because of us.'" I know Joshua is thinking, "I knew it! That's what I said 40 years ago! Those other ten yo-yos were saying, 'We're so fainthearted because of them.'" But the truth of the matter is that God had put a fear in their hearts for the Children of Israel.
Chapter 3 is the crossing of the Jordan River. It's a beautiful story and we'll read just parts of it. The priests were to go first; not the army or the generals but the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant because it was a symbol that God would go before them and open up the way. God had said, "'As I was with Moses, Joshua, so I will be with you also.'"
Verse 12: "'Now therefore, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.' So it was, when the people set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest), that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam." Adam is present day Tel El Damya, it's an
Arabic term; and it's a little outcropping of dirt, but that's where ancient Adam stood. "The city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down into the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea," (we would call it the Dead Sea), "failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho." This is a miracle. However, it's funny that people feel the need to give natural explanations to Biblical events. I've read them all. I've read that, "Probably what happened was that an earthquake occurred." Maybe so and maybe it was an earthquake because God can do anything He wants in any way He wants. Some will point back to December of the year 1267 when an earthquake shook the banks of the Jordan River and for ten hours the water stopped flowing. Others point back to July 11, 1927, much more recent than 1267 how another earthquake happened and stopped up the waters for 21 hours. That's all cool and great however, this is different. This was flood time and the Jordan River was 100 feet wide at this point normally, but at flood season it's over a mile wide. Maybe it was an earthquake, but something to notice is the exact timing of it; the waters "heaped up" the Bible says; were not just diverted, and the bottom was dry. They walked across on dry ground. It's best to see this as a miracle. Get used to it. There a lot of them in this book. The biggest one is the first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth." If you get over that miracle, the rest is duck soup; pretty easy stuff.
It's interesting that the priests went and as soon as their feet touched the water, the waters opened. It wasn't that the priest came to the water's edge and said, "Okay we're not going to go any further. God, go ahead and open up the water and then we'll go over." "No, you have to get your feet wet first. You have to actually believe that what I said I'll do I'm going to do." I think there are a lot of promises that God will say, "You've got to start walking in them as if they're already happening." You've got to get your feet wet a little bit or you're not likely to see much happen. Take God's promises at face value and walk and believe them. A side note before we get into chapters 4 and 5. John the Baptist will show up here 1500 years later. He will be baptizing down by the Jordan River at an interesting place. In John chapter 1, verse 28 we read: "These things were done at Bethabara beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing." Bethabara means, the house of passage and it's believed that here is where Joshua and the Children of Israel crossed over 1500 years before.
In chapters 4 and 5 the Lord instructs Joshua to instruct the leaders to get stones out of the river bottom once the water stops and people cross over, (it was a 20 mile passage where they crossed if you follow the geography). Two to three million people cross over and then God says, "Go get twelve stones representing each of the twelve tribes from the riverbed, bring them up on the other side and pile them up. If you're ever in the area on vacation, and you're passing by and your kids say, 'Hey dad, what's that pile of stones sitting there?' You can say, 'Oh let me tell you about it.' That's when God did a great miracle in our generation, not just our parents' generation which happened at the Red Sea, but our generation - this is what we saw and it happened right here.'" Chapter 4, verse 19: "Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho." I take you to this verse because Gilgal becomes headquarters or base camp. As soon as they enter the land they go to this little area called Gilgal and they spread out their tents and that will become their base of operations for taking over the land before they move anywhere else.
Chapter 5 verse 1: "So it was, when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel." Let me tell you what this means: there's no better time to attack than right now because the moral of the Canaanites is down pretty low; they're fearful, they're afraid, they've heard about the Children of Israel, and they've heard what they did to those two kings on the other side of the river. "Their heart melted" - they're distressed. Now is the time, from a human standpoint to attack, but not from a spiritual standpoint. Because there's some unfinished business that the Children of Israel have to take care of with God before they go any further. Number one, this new generation of males hasn't been circumcised, which was part of the covenant of the land. Number two, they haven't kept the Passover for a long time. There are some spiritual priorities they have to keep before they're going to go anywhere else. Consecration must precede conquest. Sometimes we get so busy in our lives and the Lord would say, "You know what? Stop, trust, wait." Don't make haste is the Bible term. Don't hurry it up to much; "Get your heart right with me before you move any further." Verse 2: "At that time the Lord said to Joshua, 'Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.' So Joshua made flint knives for himself, and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way, after they had come out of Egypt. For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness, on the way as they came out of Egypt, had not been circumcised." The parents of this whole generation disobeyed God and they're dead and now the new generation has entered the land so they keep this ritual. Let me tell you something about the ritual. It was a physical operation but the physical operation was symbolic of a spiritual operation and here was the meaning: God wants us to cut out of our lives that which is fleshly so that we can focus on that which is spiritual. For 40 years in the desert, even in the midst of all those trials, they didn’t have their focus on the Lord; they were concerned about their flesh. God wanted their spirits to be uppermost. In Deuteronomy chapter 10 we read, "Circumcise your heart and be stiff necked no longer." They had been stiff necked; they had focused on the flesh and not on the spirit and it was their history. Before Steven was stoned in the New Testament, he stood before the Sanhedrin and he said to the Jewish elders, "You stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and in ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you also now." God had been trying to get a hold of them for a long time and especially now with the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ whom they had rejected. Chapter 5, verse 12: "Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year." For 40 years they had lived by sight: they saw a fiery pillar every night, in the day time there was a cloud that was over the tabernacle that moved whenever God wanted them to move, and they had manna every day which God provided for them in the wilderness. So they had some visible token of reminder of the presence of God. As soon as they enter the land, it's over. You say, "How sad." No, it's not. It means they're growing up. It's more mature to live by faith than it is by sight. Anybody can walk out of their tent in the morning and go, "God's here." "How do you know?" "Well, look." When is the last time you saw a cloud hanging over, burning up and then at night a fire going off and then manna on the ground; it was a visible reminder. To wake up when there is no visible sign of the presence of the God and say, "I believe by faith that God is with me," is a sign of spiritual maturity. In the New Testament we are called to live by faith and not by sight.
Chapters 6 through 12 is the conquering of the land but before we get into chapter 6, we see the most important part of the battle of Jericho in chapter 5, verse 13: "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man," do you notice in your Bible as it is in mine that it's a capital "M"? "A Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, 'Are you for us or for our adversaries?'" In other words, "Are you a friend or a foe?" Listen to the answer. "So He said, 'No.'" That's an interesting answer to that question, isn't it? "Are you for us or against us?" "No." Let me try that again, "Are you for us or against us?" "No." Notice the follow up, "'But as Commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.' And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, 'What does my Lord say to His servant?'" So there's Joshua in the tent; he's the big wig, he's the General, he's the leader. He sees a guy with a sword and thinks, "Who does that guy think he is?" He takes out his sword and asks, "Are you for us or against us?" "Excuse me, but I'm in charge Joshua, and you're second in command." Joshua is somehow convinced, falls down, worships and calls Him Lord. Verse 15: "Then the Commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, 'Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.' And Joshua did so." Joshua was ready to fight and this commander says, "Before you fight, you have to worship," so he bows down and takes his sandal off. This is very similar to Moses' commission at the burning bush; he takes his sandals off because he's on holy ground. This is an interesting person. Who is it? There are a lot of guesses and similarities. In Genesis 18, Abraham was at his tent and three visitors came. One of them was addressed by Abraham as the Lord. Around chapter 32 of Genesis it says that Jacob wrestles with an angel, or a man, until the breaking of the day. Yet he refers to Him as the Lord and it says that he struggled or wrestled with God. He sees and wrestles with a man and the Bible says he wrestles with God. Then we have this case of Joshua and Moses at the burning bush. Many people think that this is an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament; pre-incarnate, pre-New Testament - it's called a theophany or a Christophany - Jesus appears in the Old Testament. This is what I want to get to: this commander appears before the battle of Jericho as if to say, "You're not in charge Joshua, I am." The reason for the victory at Jericho is because of this little incident. You see, if we forget who's in charge and just go rushing out, we're going to be defeated. Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." Last time I checked, nothing means nothing. I looked it up in the Greek and nothing also means nothing. The key to victory is letting the Lord Jesus be the uppermost and forefront of the battle. Public victories are a result of private visits with the Lord. It's not by might, it's not by power, it's not by the ingenuity of Joshua but it's by the Spirit of God. What a picture this is of the general on his knees in prayer worshipping before the Lord, before the commander of the Lord's army whom he calls the Lord, all before the battle.
I've visited Edinburgh and Scotland before and visited the house of John Knox. I was reading that Mary, Queen of Scots, said that, "She feared the prayers of John Knox more than she feared all of the armies in Europe." One man, on his knees, not afraid to say anything to anyone, but in his prayer life moved mountains. 
Chapter 6, verse 1: "Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua: 'See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do for six days.'" God is giving him the strategy to take the city and it's a weird strategy and doesn't make sense. In ancient times, it took months and sometimes up to a year or two to take a walled city and you can see why. The walls of Jericho were at least 45 feet tall and you'd have to build a mound and bring arms, siegeworks, battering rams, ladders, surround the city and starve the population by keeping them from going out, and it took months. God says, "Listen, you're not in charge, I am, just march around city for six days." Verse 4: "'And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.'" Let me just throw this in, they had to march for seven days and one of the days would have been the Sabbath. I thought that on the Sabbath you're not supposed to do customary work and if you do it seven days in a row you're going to break the Sabbath. Once again, as it says in the New Testament, the Sabbath was made for man; man wasn't made for the Sabbath. Here is an exception to God's rule. Verse 5: "'It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.'" Again the principle: God has chosen the foolish things of this world. What could be more foolish than this plan? Imagine General Joshua coming to his army saying, "Well, I've talked to God." "What did He say?" "I've got a battle plan and it's going to be really good. This is what we are going to do. We're going to go out there and march all around the city." "And then we're going to attack?" "No, then we're going to go home and get a good night sleep." "Right, and then the next day we're going to attack?" "Well, not quite, the second day we're going to march around the city again. Then we're going to go home and we're going to do that for seven straight days." "Oh, I get it Joshua, we're going to psyche them out and then we're going to attack!" "Well, not really. On the seventh day we're going to march around the city seven straight times." "Okay, I get it, we're going to mess with their heads, and then we're going to attack!" "No, we're going to blow our trumpets." "And then attack?" "No, as soon as you blow the trumpets, the walls will fall down!" "Oh, Joshua, I'm so sorry, I didn't know the job was getting to you that much. You've been out in this hot Canaanite sun a long time. You're losing it!" That was God's plan. Picture yourself a Canaanite, you're living in Jericho, you're up on the walls, you're ready for them, you see them coming on the horizon and they're surrounding the city but they're not attacking. You're terrified at this point, because the Bible says, "Their hearts melted within them." They were terrified of them and everybody in Jericho had heard of their reputation. When they see them marching on the first day, they are terrified. Then they go home. You're there in Jericho around the campfire that night saying, "Why did they march around the city and go home?" The next day you seem them come out again and you're bracing yourself and you're still scared but you're wondering. They march around and go home. By the third or fourth day, you're not as terrified. In fact, by the fourth, fifth and even sixth day, you're making fun of them and mocking them. "These guys, all they do is march and blow horns! Not a problem! They can't do anything at all. They're so idiotic and foolish." They'll sing a different song on the seventh day. I'll tell you why I'm painting this picture for you. To the world, we Christians can look pretty foolish. They see us marching to a different drummer; praying to an unseen God; listening to an unseen God and they will often mock you and say that you're foolish. If you ever feel foolish being a Christian in this world, just know something: it's only the first or the third or the fourth day of the march. Just wait until the seventh day! You may look pretty foolish right now and they're all mocking us and making fun of us and they say we're stupid to believe what we believe in, but just wait on the seventh day when God pours out His wrath on this world and the walls of this world come crumbling down, then the real fools will be revealed; like those people of Jericho as God would judge their city.
Verse 20: "So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city'" I don't know but I can only imagine how intense that shout of those fighting men of Israel must have been. Remember, they haven't been shouting for a long time, six days. They're just walking and going home so all of that pent up emotion and energy comes out in this loud victory shout which must have intimidated the Canaanites in Jericho. There was the blowing of the shofar, and then the trumpets and then a victory shout.
In chapter 7 you think you're in a whole different book. It's so different from the previous chapter. They're on the second city, the city of Ai. Verse 1: "But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things," or the devoted things, "for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel." You say, "Now wait a minute. He did it and God is mad at all of them?" That's right. Verse 3: "And they returned to Joshua and said to him, 'Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.' So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai." We won't read the rest, but what happens as they go on is that not only do the people run away from this small, little insignificant town of Ai but 36 Israeli soldiers are also killed. Why are they defeated and why do they run away? Because it says that a guy by the name of Achan took of the accursed things, the devoted things. Here's the deal. God said, "When you go into the land, the very first city which is Jericho, you can't take all of the spoils of war. You have to take the spoils of war and devote them all to the Lord for His work and His purpose and they'll be dedicated but you can't touch them for yourself. There's this guy named Achan, whose name means trouble, who brought trouble on the whole group of the Israelites by seeing something, a Babylonian garment and some money, and he took it for himself. Therefore he is punished and so are all the Children of Israel. Here's a very important principle. We can never sin as Believers, without affecting other people. If one Christian gets cold, the temperature of everybody goes down. That's why we need to encourage one another daily and not say, "Oh, just forget him." Encourage them; stoke those fires up again; disciple them; and tell them how to get right with God and how to walk with God. So Mr. Trouble, Achan, sin, brought trouble on the Children of Israel and caused the death of 36 people and he himself will be killed; he dies and is left for dead.
I'll briefly sum up chapter 8. Joshua does what Moses commanded. Moses said, because God said, "'When you get into the land you go to the center of the land and you divide the people of Israel up in two and some will be on one mountain and some will be on another mountain and they'll shout out blessings and cursings and the people will say, "Amen.'" That is what Joshua does. He takes them to the heart of the land, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and they go through this ritual of, "If you obey God, you'll be blessed; if you disobey God you'll be cursed and here're the consequences." Also, Joshua reads to them the first five books of Moses, the Pentateuch; the laws that had been recorded up to that point. Joshua chapter 8, verse 35: "There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them." Can I just say that was a long a day? He read, not the Bible from 30,000 feet but the Bible from three feet. He went over every verse of Scripture that we have zoomed over in the past nine or ten weeks. The women, the men the kids and the strangers all had to be in that service and they listened to it. Here's the point, Joshua made sure that the Word of God was central in their community.
I love when you come into this church that as you walk through the doors that the pulpit is always at the center; it's there by design so that people realize that the center of what goes on here is the preaching, teaching, believing, and living of the Word of God. "Man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Joshua made that statement here.
Joshua, chapter 9: his strategy has been to divide and conquer the land so he goes right in the middle and takes Jericho and Ai. Then he turns southward. Now that the land is divided there is no coalition that can go from one line to the other and he takes the southern kingdom and then he'll turn around and take the northern kingdom. However, there was a group down south called Gibeonites and they only lived seven miles from the town of Ai but they dressed up like they had come from a far place, Chapter 9, verse 3: "But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they worked craftily, and went and pretended to be ambassadors. And they took old sacks on their donkeys, old wineskins torn and mended, old and patched sandals on their feet, and old garments on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. And they went to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, 'We have come from a far country; now therefore, make a covenant with us.'" God said, "Don't make a covenant with any of the people of the land," and they knew this so they said, "We don't live in this land, we come from afar. Look at our provisions, they're old." So the Children of Israel thought, "Well, okay that's good enough for me." You know what their problem was? Verse 14: "The men of Israel did not ask counsel of the Lord." Never underestimate waiting on God in prayer. Never overestimate your ability to assess the situation apart from God; you're in trouble if you do. I suppose if somebody would have stepped forward that day and said, "Well you know, I don't know if we should trust these guys or not; we haven't prayed about it." Somebody would have said, "Oh, you're always so negative." I'm sure that would have happened.
Today, in the church of Christ, we need people with discernment and if you have the gift of discernment, it's a spiritual gift. I'm just going to tell you that it's not an easy row to hoe because those that have discernment know that when you utter your discerning words people get all angry and uptight that you would dare be so negative about this or that, or that brother. It's one of the crosses you bear when you speak a true gift of discernment. They didn't pray about it and it cost them. They made a covenant with the people of the land they couldn't go back on.
In Joshua chapter 10, the Gibeonites are attacked by a coalition of cities from the King of Jerusalem and Joshua comes to the rescue because they made a covenant. Verse 8: "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand; not a man of them shall stand before you.'" They made a covenant with the Gibeonites and now they have to rescue them. Verse 11: "And it happened, as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horon, that the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died. There were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with the sword." The hailstones were miracles; they were very selective; they didn't fall on everybody; they were smart bombs landing on only the enemies. Later on when you get to the book of Revelation, chapter 16, remember this, because we're going to see it again it a more dramatic way. It says, "Hailstones come from heaven upon the earth and they weighed 125 pounds." I don't know if some of you remember going to the ice house when you were a kid and buying a block of ice. I worked at an ice house for a summer; it was a great place to work in the summer. They had 25 pound blocks of ice and they were pretty big and heavy. A block of ice weighing 125 pounds careening from space would decimate anything it hits. God will turn hailstones upon the people of the earth as one of His final judgments in the tribulation. You say, "Why hailstones?" The Old Testament spells it out. The punishment for blasphemy is stoning. God will stone a blasphemous world from heaven.
We'll look more at that next time and we'll talk about a miracle that happens here, but I want to sum up a verse. Chapter 11, verse 23 sums up this whole campaign of the south and the north. "So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had said to Moses; and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war." Chapter 10, verse 29 through chapters 11 and 12 summarize all of what I just said: the central campaign, the southern campaign, the northern campaign and how they take the land, and verse 23 of chapter 11 summarizes it.
In conclusion, the promise land was not an easy place. It wasn't a place where they were just going to go and hang out like in a French Rivera town and soak in the rays, lay by the beach, and enjoy the good life. They had to fight for seven years and then take 18 more years, 25 years altogether, to settle and distribute the land.
The Christian life is very much like the land of Canaan. When you become a Believer you come to rest in Christ, yes, but as soon as you pray that prayer, it's almost as if you can smell the smoke of the battlefield. Understand that the Christian life is not a playground, it is a battle ground; there are spiritual battles to be fought. I have to tell you that you can't be a spiritual pacifist. This is one battle that you can't just say, "I don't believe in fighting," because you'll die. The devil will beat you up. By you receiving Christ, you have declared war on the kingdom of darkness in your life. Satan won't take that lying down. But, the good news is that you're on the right side. Charles Spurgeon said, "There's something comforting in the thought that the devil is my enemy. I'd rather have him for an adversary than for a friend." "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." You're on the right team and you're on the right side. God would say to you, "I've given you the land, now walk through it, take it, get your feet wet if need be, and take all that I've given to you.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the night that we've spent looking at a very crucial, pivotal point in Israel's history; one that they would remember the rest of their generations. Just as their forefathers crossed the Red Sea, this new generation crossed the Jordan River and You brought them into the land, the land flowing with milk and honey; the land of promise; though it wasn't an easy excursion. Yet Lord, they had victory as long as they prayed and used discernment and walked by faith and not by sight. So Lord, I pray for Your people, that more than just getting information on these Wednesday nights, there would be transformation by Your Holy Spirit as these principles become very real in our own lives. In Jesus' Name.