Joshua 10:1-28
Let’s give our attention to God’s
Word, Joshua 10 verses 1 through 28. As soon as Adonai Zedek,
the king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured Ai and
had devoted it to destruction, doing to Ai and its king as he
had done to Jericho and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon
had made peace with Israel and were among them, he feared greatly
because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities,
and because it was greater than Ai and all its men were warriors.
So Adonai, Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoam, king of Hebron,
Pyram, king of Jarmath, to Japhia, king of Lachish, and to Dabir,
king of Eglon, saying, come up to me and help me and let us
strike Gibeon. for it has made peace with Joshua
and the people of Israel. Then the five kings of the Amorites,
the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmath,
the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered their
forces and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon
and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent to
Joshua at the camp of Gilgal, saying, Do not relax your hand
from your servants. Come up to us quickly and save
us and help us. For all the kings of the Amorites
who dwell in the hill country are gathered against us. So Joshua
went up from Gilgal. He and all the people of war
with him and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said to
Joshua, do not fear them for I have given them into your hands.
Not a man of them shall stand before you. “‘So Joshua came
up upon them suddenly, “‘having marched up all night from Gilgal.
“‘And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, “‘who
struck them with a great blow at Gibeon, “‘and chased them
by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, “‘and struck them as far as Azekah
and Makedah. “‘And as they fled before Israel,
“‘while they were going down the ascent of Beth-horon, “‘the
Lord threw down large stones, from heaven on them as far as
Azekah, and they died. There were more who died because
of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword.
At that time, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the
Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel. And he said
in the sight of Israel, son, stand still at Gibeon. and moon in the valley of Aijalon.
And the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation
took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the book
of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst
of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There
has been no day like it before or since when the Lord obeyed
the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. So Joshua
returned and all Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal. These
five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave at Makeda. And it
was told Joshua, the five kings have been found hidden in the
cave at Makeda. And Joshua said, roll large stones
against the mouth of the cave. Set men by it to guard them,
but do not stay there yourselves. Pursue your enemies, attack their
rear guard. Do not let them enter their cities
for the Lord your God has given them into your hand. When Joshua
and the sons of Israel had finished striking them with a great blow
until they were wiped out and the remnant that remained of
them had entered into the fortified cities, then all the people returned
safe to Joshua in the camp at Makedah. Not a man moved his
tongue against any of the people of Israel. Then Joshua said,
open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to
me from the cave. And they did so and brought those
five kings out to him from the cave, the king of Jerusalem,
the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmath, the king of Lachish
and the king of Eglon. And when they brought those kings
out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said
to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, come near,
put your feet on the necks of these kings. Then they came near
and put their feet on their necks, and Joshua said to them, Do not
be afraid or dismayed. Be strong and courageous, for
thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you
fight. And afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death, and
he hanged them on five trees. And they hung on the trees until
evening. But at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua
commanded, and they took them down from the trees and threw
them into the cave where they had hidden themselves. And they
set large stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain
to this very day. As for Makeda, Joshua captured
it on that day and struck it and its king with the edge of
the sword. He devoted to destruction every person in it. He left none
remaining. And he did to the king of Makeda,
just as he had done to the king of Jericho. Amen. This is the word of the
living God. Strange as it may be, it is indeed
his word, full of grace, full of power, and for us. Back in
the year 2000, just in time for graduation, there came out a
little book, and I’m sure I’m gonna offend somebody. The little
book was called The Prayer of Jabez. Anybody remember it? Oh,
I had a friend who graduated from college that year and she
had a stack of them. That’s what everybody was giving
out. And it’s from a little obscure passage, 1 Chronicles 4, verse
10. And Jabez said of him, Jabez
was gonna have an enlarged territory. God was going to protect him
from temptation and the hand of God would be with him in all
he did. And so a little book was written off the charts sales
internationally all over the world. Uh, not just books, t-shirts,
the whole thing, sermon series, the whole works. Um, not only
were the sales off the charts, but the, Oh, this is where I’m
gonna get in trouble with the heresy off the charts. How come
for 4,000 years of church history up until that point had nobody
said, Oh, this is the prayer. Everybody ought to pray. Um,
well it’s because of American marketing, right? And it goes
well with our name it and claim it culture. If you name it and
you claim it, you ask and you receive, God will provide it
for you. And I think a really good sequel
had not, I think Bruce Wilkinson was the guy’s name, not received
so much, I don’t know, static for writing this book. The sequel
would have been The Prayer of Joshua. And everybody would have
been going around five years later at their graduation saying,
son, stand still. Right. That’s sort of the idea
of American Christian culture. We name it. We claim it. We ask and we receive. That’s
not the way God works. Does he always answer prayer?
Yes. Does he answer prayers according to your will? Not necessarily. Does he answer them according
to his will? Of course he does. There was a joke on the Babylon
Bee several years ago. A man praised this prayer, son
stand still. That was so he could get the
Chick-fil-A and still order off the breakfast menu before they
shut it down at 1030. I’ve had that happen before I
get there at 1035 and it’s lunch. I don’t want lunch. I want breakfast,
right? So I wish this prayer would work Here’s here’s what
I want us to think about as we think of this passage we need
to use Scripture appropriately When Jesus taught his disciples
to pray he gave us a model and When our shorter catechism explains
to us the Lord’s prayer, it has a really strong definition of
prayer. It says, prayer is the offering up of our desires unto
God for things agreeable to his will with thanksgiving in our
hearts and in the name of Jesus Christ. And that’s a critical
statement there. We offer up unto God our desires. Yes, there is that. but for things
agreeable unto his will.” We would never say, God, this is
what I want, and be like the four-year-old, and they don’t
have Toys R Us anymore, right? Get me this, right? If you’ve
not witnessed a Walmart tantrum, man, you are missing out on life.
Just cruise Walmart. Stay a little extra longer in
there. Go to the toy aisle especially. and you’ll see one, get me this,
get me this. Isn’t that how we treat God sometimes?
Get me this. But our prayers ought to be steeped
in the will of God, the desire of God. You know, does God want
to enlarge our territory? Well, he might, but he also might
not. Does God want to keep you from
all temptations? No, sometimes he lets you fall
into them, so you’ll see how sinful you are. and how much
you need Christ. Does God want to put his hand
on you and bless you in every way? Well, just ask Job. Just
ask Job how that worked out for him. Sometimes in this fallen
world, life is not all rosy, name it and claim it, ask and
receive. Sometimes our God is silent.
Sometimes our God answers speedily, but it’s all his will and for
his glory and our good. Well, as we think through this
passage tonight and want to have a right view of scripture, we
also want to have a right view of God’s character, God’s actions,
and God’s promises. And I think we’ll see these on
display as we zip through a couple of the themes from our passage.
First thing I want us to think about tonight is we see God’s
character and his actions and his promises, and we get a right
view of scripture. I had fun writing this little
point. Shooting fish in a barrel. Y’all have done that before?
Dangerous. Shooting fish in a barrel, you
know, or what’s that great movie, Second Hand Lions, where there’s
two old guys, you know, they come into a pile of money and
they’re just living the life out on a farm and they don’t
go fishing with fishing poles, they go fishing with 12 gauges. This is like shooting fish in
a barrel. Since we left our story last
week and the Gibeonite deception, we find out a little bit more
about the Gibeonites. We already know they weren’t
poor and from a far away land. We already know that. But our
passage tells us they were actually the greatest city in the area.
They were a royal city and their men were mighty warriors. So
this is how to describe little cities in the time of Israel,
the time of the conquest, you would have a hilltop, a little
spit of dirt, a little sandy desert dirt. And on the top of
the hill, there might be a 30 acre city. And in that 30 acre
city, you might have several hundred inhabitants. And often
there was a council of elders and a leader. Now, if they were
small, they didn’t have a king. But if they were a bigger hilltop,
maybe with 50 acres, who knows the number, whatever, they would
have a king. So apparently Gibeon had a king.
Gibeon had a mighty army. Gibeon were mighty warriors.
Now these other five little cities that were mentioned, maybe were
a little smaller. And so what happens is these
five kings under the leadership of the king of Jerusalem, they
find out that Gibeon has deceived Israel and made a covenant with
them. And they broke the local code. Because these little city
states have to bind themselves together to win against bigger,
larger enemies. And so Gibeon, or what we might
call in our modern day terminology, they’re sellouts. They sold out, they protected
themselves, and they didn’t bring any of the other nation states
or hilltops. into this treaty. And so this
confederation of five cities led by Jerusalem, they come together
and say, let’s go to Gibeah and let’s take care of them for their
bunch of traitors. Well, Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmath,
Lachish and Eglon, they set out, they make their way to Gibeon.
They come, I guess, to the base of their fortification. and they
call them out, come on out here, you bunch of traitors. But the
other hope is maybe they’ll draw out Israel and Joshua, and they’ll
be able to put an end to the enemy that is Joshua and the
army of Israel. Well, really Almighty God. And
so the forces are lined up there at Gibeon and Gibeon sends to
Joshua and says, well, help, right? There’s people coming
out against us. They asked Joshua for help. Keep your word, keep
your promise, keep your covenant. And so remember the conquest,
we’re going into the promised land. Remember the ban, got to
kill all the inhabitants for the judgment against them has
risen up to God and their wickedness deserves God’s wrath. It’s going
to come through Joshua and his army. taking care of killing
all that inhabit the land. They’ll inherit their cities,
their vineyards, their wells, their walls, and all the rest.
Well, Joshua keeps his word. That’s what good men do. They
keep their word. They keep their oath. They keep their covenant.
And it’s interesting when he’s going to ask God to make the
sun stand still, what does he tell the fighting men of Israel?
Don’t stand still. You read the history books. They
have a 15 mile Uphill, this starts to sound like what your parents
told you. I went to school, walked uphill, both ways in the snow,
right? This really was that. It was
a 15 mile uphill march, and they marched all night. I mean, this
was a Navy SEAL, test of endurance type battle. And Joshua, keeping
his word, brings the mighty men of Israel all night up to the
edge of this battle, And along the way, God makes promises to
him. We’ll think about those for a
moment. But I want you to think about how God gives them a great
and interesting victory here. We mentioned it’s like shooting
fish in a barrel. Israel has to exterminate. They
have to remove. They have to ban. They have to
kill scores or dozens of nations, not scores, dozens. Well, 2012, what’s the difference?
Bunch of handfuls, right? Bunch of nations they have to
get rid of. How nice is it of God to use a foolish thing like
making a treaty with Gibeah to bring five and actually one bonus
comes in at the end. Six nations are just gonna come
out and say, hey, here we are, kill us. That’s what Joshua is
going to do. After they make their 15 mile
uphill all night march, they’re gonna chase them down the hill
30 miles. until God gives their enemies into their hands. How
gracious of God here to say, I’m gonna let you shoot fish
in the barrel. They’re not gonna have to have six different fights,
six different AIs and six different Jericho’s and six different whatever
battles. This is gonna be all at once,
take care of business, move on to the rest. of the conquest. So that’s it, shooting fish in
a barrel. A second thing we want to see from the passage as we
consider having a high view of the scripture and seeing God’s
character and his actions and his promises, we want to see
that the Lord is on the side of Israel. The Lord is on the
side of Israel. Maybe some of you have listened
to Handel’s Messiah. Good Christmas music. Good music
and wonderful words that retell the story of the promise of Messiah,
the coming of Messiah, and the work of Messiah. There’s another
wonderful piece of Handel that maybe you haven’t listened to.
It’s worth a listen. It’s Handel’s Israel and Egypt. And it’s a very dramatic piece.
It goes through the plagues. It goes through all the drama
of Pharaoh lording over and enslaving Israel. And then it goes through
all the drama of God rescuing Israel through the hand of Moses,
through the sea, through all that God gives them. And I think
two of the most moving pieces in that work fit right in with this passage. They came to my mind as I read
this passage last week. The first is a little passage
or a little song that they sing called Yahweh is a man of war. Yahweh is his name. Some of y’all
know Bob Kara who preaches here from time to time. He teaches
New Testament down at RTS Charlotte and When I had Hebrew there,
our Hebrew teacher was on sabbatical. So he was our Hebrew teacher.
And on our final exam, which every person dreads, you’re going
to have to translate Hebrew. There was something I just could
not figure out what it was. And then I began to read and
read and read and look at the word, look at the word. What
is this? And somehow handles Israel and Egypt, which my parents
had dragged me to as a kid. Oh, what torture came to my mind. And I was able to translate Yahweh
is a man of war. Yahweh is his name. And I went
up and told him that after the class, I said, I don’t know Hebrew
very well, but I’ve heard handles Israel and Egypt. And that’s
how I translated that passage. Cause, um, the, the song just
kept coming in my head. So that’s one of the great songs,
thousand reasons to listen to handle. Right. The other one
is he gave them hailstones as rain. And if you listen to it,
the kettle drums are just beating. He gave them hailstones in the
chorus of voices. He gave them hailstones. And
you get the sense that you’re getting pelted, well, by voices,
but with the hailstones. And so that’s what happens when
the Lord is on the side of Israel. He is going to give Israel the
victory. And he gives them these hailstones. Some say these hailstones weighed
a hundred pounds. Could you imagine a hundred pounds? That’s why we read Revelation
six. God’s judgment, uh, God’s routing of his enemies is no
thing, uh, to sniff it. Uh, when God wants to take care
of his enemies, he does it well. We should, we should know that
as we read the old Testament. We should know that when we see
Jesus on the cross. God did not withhold his wrath
from his own son. He poured out his wrath. That’s
why Jesus sweat drops of blood from his pores in the garden
of Gethsemane. When he prayed, if there be another
way, Lord, let this cup pass from me. He knew his father gave
hailstones for rain. And he knew what would come down
on him on that cross the next day. The Lord is on our side. Yahweh is a man of war. He gives
hailstones for rain. We say, as James, the brother
of Jesus, teaches us, with the Lord’s help, or if the good Lord’s
willing, we do this. Isn’t this a better attitude
than the Naaman and claimant prayers? Isn’t this a better
attitude, depending on the character and the actions of Almighty God,
if the good Lord’s willing, with the Lord’s help. And I wanna
say something else that might make a person or two of you mad,
but that’s all right, I’ve already done it once or twice today,
maybe, who knows. We speak of the miracle of birth,
right? Sometimes we speak of the miracle
of sunrise. Well, we don’t wanna know exactly
how it all happened, but you know, grandbaby’s born and well,
There’s just ways God puts that into place. Remember back in
the garden, when God made the world and everything, what did
he say to plants? Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. What
did he say to people? Be fruitful, multiply, fill the
earth. When he flung the stars in the sky, when he flung the
moon in the sky and the sun, what did he say? Make it day,
make it night, make it day, make it night. Seeds, harvest, seeds,
harvest. Marriages, babies. There is no
miracle in childbirth. That’s just ordinary providence. How does God govern his world?
He governs his world by his ordinary creation and his ordinary governance. Now, hailstones from heaven,
that’s extraordinary. Sun standing still, moon standing
still, Lazarus rising from the dead, Jesus rising from the dead,
that’s extra special. But if you wake up tomorrow and
the sun rises, well, it should have, right? That’s just the
normal course of events on this world. God uses the ordinary
cycles of this world. We overuse that word miracle,
but God sometimes does out of ordinary things. And he says
to Israel, he says to Joshua, I’m on your side. Um, you keep
your word to the Gibeonites. You go up, you fight the battle.
You don’t fear these people. Not a man of them will stand
against you. How is that possible? Given the,
I don’t know if you go to war, there’s a pretty high chance
you’re going to get nicked or cut or shot at or wounded or
shrapneled or something. But God says, Hey, don’t worry
about it. Don’t you fear? Not a man will stand against
you. I’ll give these enemies into your hands. And it says,
of God, what it said of him when we studied Joshua last week,
or not Joshua last week, Jacob the other Wednesday night, when
Jacob went back into the promised land, after his sons had tricked
Dinah’s family, remember that one? Tricked them into circumcision,
and Jacob said, you’ve made me a stink to the nations, they’re
gonna come after us, and God put a terror on the enemies of
Jacob, and he had safe passage, and it says here, He threw all
these Canaanites into a panic. And then the large hailstones.
Not a man moved his tongue among or against the people of God.
How many times do you go down the street or you go to work
or you just do something normal, go to the grocery store and somebody
probably runs their mouth against you? Pretty often. So how could
you not be in a nasty war and somebody say boo against you? God, he’s on their side. He holds their tongues. He brings
the hailstones. He throws into a panic and he
ends up letting Israel put their feet on the necks of these kings
that made an alliance and said, we can take care of God’s people.
And what does God say? No. The Lord is on our side and
he’s on our side. If God is for us, who can be
against us? If God did not spare his own
son, how much more love could he show and kindness to us? Our God is a king. I love in
the shorter catechism when it speaks of Jesus as our prophet.
Jesus is our priest and Jesus is our king. As our prophet,
he speaks his word to us so that we know his will for salvation.
As our priest, he offers himself up as a sacrifice to make atonement
for our sins. He sits in heaven, hears our
prayers, ever lives above to make intercession. But as our
king, I love how it says, as our king, Jesus rules us and
he defends us. And he takes care of all his
enemies and all our enemies. He’s like a big brother walking
his little brother to school. Nobody’s going to pick on little
brother. And as you make your way on the pilgrimage to heaven
with Jesus as your big brother, you will not get picked on for
God is for you and no one can be against you. So the Lord is
on our side. Now there’s another little interesting
thing in this passage, the Kings, they’re, they’re in a hole. That’s
the last thing we want to think about. They’re in a hole. Some
of you can remember back to December 13, 2003, Operation Red Dawn. Operation Red Dawn was hundreds
of hundreds of U.S. soldiers, special forces, Delta
forces. looking for Saddam Hussein. And
they got wind through interrogating hundreds of people and probably
doing all that stuff that we heard about on the news that
probably was not very nice, the waterboarding and whatnot. But
anyway, they figure out where the guy is and they go looking
for him. Well, they searched this farm. They searched it high,
they searched it low, and they could not find him. Well, a soldier
on the way back to the helicopter when they were all going to get
out of there, apparently kicked at something on a floorboard
of a farmhouse. And he opened it up and looky
who’s down the hole. There was Saddam Hussein with
about three quarters of a million dollars. I think he had a Glock
handgun and he had some other kind of weapon and he gave up
rather quickly. This was the man who lived in
big palaces. Remember he had golden toilet
seats. He had all kinds of wonderful
riches. And he ends up in a hidey hole, a spider hole, I think
they called it. But just by chance, they found
him. They looked high and low, didn’t
find him. Somebody kicked a rug or something, and there he was.
And this is the same here. As they’re pursuing their enemies,
they pass by a cave. Hey, Joshua, those five kings,
they’re chickens, right? They’re hiding in the cave. Uh,
the Lord had fought for Israel. These men again, shooting fish
in a barrel. How about it? How about it, Lord?
Uh, they’re jailed. And so they pile up rocks. They
come back later after executing justice on their enemies. They
come back and they pull these men out. They put them to death.
They put their feet on their necks, making their enemies,
their footstool, and they are executed before the side of Israel. And for, I think a, Seventh time
in our passage, a heap of rocks is placed to show God makes river
crossings. God makes memorials. God punishes
Achans for disobedience and God punishes kings for rising up
against his people. Well, how do we think about this
passage? It has a couple of interesting things. It has the sun standing
still. It has hailstones coming from
heaven. And there’s that interesting little phrase, this was the only
time a man, God ever listened to a man. Well, we could get
off the rails really, really quickly. We could say about the
sun standing still, oh, it was poetic. Oh, it’s, you know, June 21st, right? Isn’t that
the longest day of the year? That’s what happened. Or we could
say God. God did it. Joshua prayed, God,
give me a little more daytime. We’ve got some more enemies to
take care of. And I think the reason it says that it’s the
first time a man ever listened to God is it’s so striking that
as soon as Joshua prayed it, as soon as Joshua prayed it,
the day was lengthened. It’s like a whole other day added.
Now, I have this file. Cause I used to save everything.
I have this file of some email. Remember when everybody got all
excited about emails, now they do it on Facebook. But they forwarded
this thing, you know, scientists have found a whole day missing.
Y’all read that? Okay, that’s neat. But the Bible
says it, isn’t that enough for us? And so when it says God made
the world and everything in it in the space of six days and
all very good, that’s it. That’s all we need. If it says
Jesus rose from the dead because by the power of the spirit, God
raised him, is that good enough? Or do we need a thousand books
on, well, this is, this is how it could have happened and why
it could have happened. No, God said it, that settles it. Oh,
y’all don’t know that little saying. I believe it. Okay. That’s
what you’re supposed to say. Bible says it, or God said it,
that settles it. I believe it. So do we explain
away God? No, we just take him at his word.
He made the sun stand still. Why did he listen to Joshua?
so that somebody in the 21st century could write a book on
prayer and sell a million copies and mess up people’s exegesis
or their understanding of how to interpret the Bible. Thank
the Lord no on this one. This is what God was accomplishing
and he does it. How about the hailstones? You
know, we have these imprecatory Psalms. Lord, my enemies are
all around me. Get them. Don’t go around praying
for hailstones on your enemies. Don’t pray for a meteor from
the sky to come take out your neighbor who’s playing their
music too loud. That’s probably not gonna how it’s gonna work.
I would recommend that going and shorting out their electricity.
You know, that could, no, I’m kidding. God sometimes does supernatural
things. In fact, when Jesus tells about
the end times, what does he say the people will cry out? They
want the mountains to fall on them because they’re in terror
for almighty God. Well, God answers prayer. God fights for his people. God
is with you through all your troubles in this life. He may
let you suffer through some of them. He may let you see triumphs. But here’s the hope. We may have
some ups and downs and some difficult times in this culture in which
we live in this world in which we live. But at the last day,
we do know this. There will be a full humiliation
of all the enemies of God and Jesus will be putting his feet
on the necks of those who’ve spoken against him and who have
done great harm to his people. And so we need not fear not.
God can withhold the tongues of our enemies. He can withhold
the swords of our enemies and he can throw people into a panic. And so we worry and we want to
vote right and we want to do whatever it takes humanly possible.
I think sometimes God just wants us to pray and to trust him and
to sit back and watch him do wonders. And that’s how he often
operates. And we’ve seen that throughout
the story of Joshua and in the life of Jesus. Let’s go before
God in prayer. Lord bless us to believe you
and to trust you. And most of all, to know you
more, your character, your actions, uh, your promises, uh, help us
to, to, to rest in you and your ability to fight for your people.
This we ask in the name of Christ. Amen.