Joshua 10:29
Turn in your copy of God’s word
to Joshua chapter 10. We are going to do like you might
do on your iPhone. If you listen to a podcast or
something and you put it on 1.5 X or 2.0 and it talks fast. We’re going to, we’re going to
zip through about what a chapter and a half, two chapters. of
Joshua, it has one major, major theme. So I think you’ll be glad
that we’ve done it. And I think you’ll also get much
out of it. So chapter 10, verse 29, just
a quick little overview. Chapter 10, 29 through the end
of 10 is finishing off the Southern countries in the conquest. And then chapter 11 up through
Well, the whole thing is going to be the same thing with the
Northern kingdoms. We haven’t fought in the North
yet in Israel and the conquest, but that’s going to happen there.
And then there’s going to be a summary in chapter 12 of all
the Kings defeated by Moses, then all the Kings defeated by
Joshua. And I’ve called this message
31 down because it’s going to list 31 Kings. And God says to
count our blessings, name them one by one. So we’re gonna read
through God blessing Israel with the defeat of their enemies.
All right, so starting at chapter 10, verse 29, and I’ll read through
the end of chapter 12. Then Joshua and all Israel with
him passed on from Makeda to Libna and fought against Libna.
And the Lord gave it also and its king into the hand of Israel.
and he struck it with the edge of the sword and every person
in it. He left none remaining in it
and he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Libna to Lachish
and laid siege to it and fought against it. And the Lord gave
Lachish into the hand of Israel and he captured it on the second
day and struck it with the edge of the sword and every person
in it as he had done to Libna. Then Horam the king of Gezer
came up to help Lachish and Joshua struck him and his people until
he left none remaining. Then Joshua and all Israel with
him passed on from Lachish to Eglon and they laid siege to
it and fought against it. They captured it on that day.
They struck it with the edge of the sword and he devoted every
person in it to destruction that day as he had done to Lachish.
Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron.
And they fought against it. And they captured it and struck
it with the edge of the sword and its king and its towns and
every person in it. He left none remaining as he
had done to Eglon and devoted it to destruction and every person
in it. Then Joshua and all Israel with him turned back to Debir
and fought against it. And he captured it with his king
and its towns. They struck them with the edge
of the sword. They devoted to destruction every person in it.
He left nothing, none remaining, just as he had done to Hebron
and to Libna and to its king. So he did to Dabir and to its
king. So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the
Negev and the low land and the slopes and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted
to destruction all that breathed. just as the Lord, the God of
Israel commanded. And Joshua struck them from Kadesh
Barnea as far as Gaza and all the country of Goshen as far
as Gibeon. Joshua captured all these kings
and their land at one time because the Lord, the God of Israel fought
for Israel. Then Joshua returned and all
Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal. When Jabin, the king
of Hazor heard of this, he sent to Jobab, the king of Madon,
and to the king of Shemron, and to the king of Akshaph, and to
the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Erebus
south of Shinaroth, and in the lowland, and in the Naphthor
on the west, to the Canaanites in the east, and the West, the
Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill
country, and the Hivites under Heman in the land of Mizpah.
And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number
like the sand that is on the seashore, and with very many
horses and chariots. And all these kings joined their
forces And they came and encamped together at the waters of Merom
to fight with Israel. And the Lord said to Joshua,
do not be afraid of them for tomorrow at this time, I will
give over all of them slain to Israel. You shall hamstring their
horses and burn their chariots with fire. So Joshua and all
his warriors came suddenly against them by the waters of Merom.
and fell upon them, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel,
who struck them and chased them as far as great Sidon and Misrathmeim,
and eastward as far as the valley of Mizpah. And they struck them
until he left none remaining. And Joshua did to them, just
as the Lord said to them, he hamstrung their horses, he burned
their chariots with fire. Joshua turned back at that time
and captured Hazor. and struck its king with the
sword, for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms.
And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting
them to destruction. There was none left that breathed.
And he burned Hazor with fire and all the cities of those kings
and all their kings Joshua captured and struck them with the edge
of the sword, devoting them to destruction, just as Moses, the
servant of the Lord, had commanded. But none of the cities that stood
on mounds did Israel burn, except Hazor alone, that Joshua burned. And all the spoil of these cities
and the livestock, the people of Israel took for their plunder.
But every man they struck with the edge of the sword until they
had destroyed them. And they did not leave any who breathed,
just as the Lord had commanded Moses, his servant. So Joshua did, he left nothing
undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses. So Joshua took
all the land, the hill country and all the Negev and all the
land of Goshen, the lowland, the Ereba, the hill country of
Israel and its lowland from Mount Halak, which rises towards Seir,
as far as Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon.
And he captured all their kings and struck them and made war
a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made
peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants
of Gibeon, They took them all in battle, for it was the Lord’s
doing to harden their hearts that they should come against
Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction
and should receive no mercy, but be destroyed just as the
Lord commanded Moses. And Joshua came at that time
and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from
Dabir, from Anab, and from the hill country of Judah, and from
all the hill country of Israel, Joshua devoted them to destruction
with their cities. There was none of the Anakim
left in the land of the people of Israel, only in Gaza and in
Gath and in Ashdod did some remain. So Joshua took the whole land
according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua
gave it for an inheritance to Israel, according to their tribal
allotments, and the land had rest from war. Now these are
the kings of the land whom the people of Israel defeated and
took possession of their land beyond the Jordan, toward the
sunrise from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon, with all
the Araba eastward. Sihon, the king of the Amorites
who lived at Heshbon, and ruled from Erewer, which is on the
edge of the valley of Arnon and from the middle of the valley
as far as the river Jabot. the boundary of the Ammonites,
that is half of Gilead, and the Ereba to the sea of Shinaroth,
eastward, and in the direction of Beth Jeshimoth to the sea
of the Ereba, the salt sea, southward to the foot of the slopes of
Pisgah. And Og, the king of Bashan, one
of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at
Edreai, and ruled over Mount Hermon, and Selachoth and all
of Bashan to the boundary of the Geshurites, and the Magithites
over half of Gilead to the boundary of Sihon, the king of Heshbon. Moses, the servant of the Lord,
and the people of Israel defeated them. Moses, the servant of the
Lord, gave their land for a possession to the Reubenites, the Gadites,
and the half-tribe of Manasseh. And these are the kings of the
land whom Joshua, the people of Israel, defeated on the west
side of the Jordan, from Baal, Gad, and the valley of Lebanon
to Mount Halak, that rises towards Seir. And Joshua gave their land
to the tribes of Israel as a possession according to their allotments.
In the hill country, in the low land, in the Ereba, in the slopes,
in the wilderness, and in the Negev, in the land of the Hittites,
the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites. And the king of Jericho, one.
The king of Ai, which is beside Bethel, one. The king of Jerusalem,
one. The king of Hebron, one. The
king of Jarmath, one. The king of Lachish, one. The
king of Eglon, one. The king of Gizir, one. The king
of Dabir, one. The king of Gidar, one. The king
of Horma, one. The king of Arad, one. The king
of Libna, one. The king of Abdullam, one. The
king of Magda, one. The king of Bethel, one. The
king of Tapua, one. The king of Hafer, one. The king
of Aphek, one. The king of Lasharon, one. The
king of Madon, one. The king of Hazor, one. The king
of Shemroneron, one. The king of Akshaph, one. The king of Tanakh, one. The
king of Megiddo, one. The king of Kedesh, one. The
king of Joknium and Carmel, one. The king of Dor and Naphath-Dor,
one. The king of Goim and Galilee,
one. And the king of Terza, one, in
all 31 kings. This is the word of the living
God. Sometimes we wonder why it’s necessary to read names. You know, the 9-11 memorial will
come up, what, 21 years sometime soon. Sometimes we wonder why
do we still read names? You know, why do we keep the
memory alive? It’s important, isn’t it, to
see how God was at work. And I hope you notice throughout
this passage of scripture a number of themes that popped up. A number of themes that ought
to have caught our eye. The first of these themes is
over and over and over and over. It says that Joshua and the people
of Israel obeyed the Lord God. They did as the Lord God commanded. Now tonight we confessed our
sins. We did that this morning. Hopefully you’ve done it in your
quiet time in your private time. And the reason we confess our
sins is because we have not done as the Lord, our God, commanded. One of the things we notice in
the Old Testament is God is very exact. Look at the ceremonial
law. If you sinned, this is how you
are to make atonement for your sin. You’re to take this kind
of sacrifice, that kind of animal. And you’re to do this to the
animal and that to the animal and give it to the priest. And
he’s to do this and that. God is very specific. We know
from time to time in the Bible, there are people who don’t take
God at his word and they don’t do what he says. Remember Nadab
and Abihu offered strange fire before God, before the altar.
God struck them dead. They did not obey the voice of
God and how to offer Authorized fire. So they offered strange
fire. He took their lives. Or how about Uzzah when the ox
cart was carrying the ark from the house of the man who had
kept it for some time. He was bringing it back to Jerusalem. David wanted the blessings of
the presence of the ark. And instead of having the Levites
put the acacia poles through the ark. Having the Levites carry
it, they built a special ox cart for it, thinking this will be
just fine. God will be happy. The ox carts
bopping along the road and the ark kind of slips off and Uzzah
reaches out his hand and touches the ark to stabilize it and God
puts him to death. And we could go through several
other examples in scripture where God says, do it this way, do
it my way, do it exactly. And the people of God come up
with their own plan. They’d be like Adam and Eve in
the garden. Here’s a passage that tells us
in a very long drawn out battle where war is waged against some
mighty and great people that over and over and over they did
as the Lord, the God of Israel commanded. Now, did you catch
that it’s mixed in there with just as Moses commanded? It’s
maybe a little way to equate not God and Moses, but when a
servant of the Lord speaks, particularly Moses, he’s God’s mouthpiece. And so they heard the voice of
God through the servant Moses, and they took to heart that God
was speaking to them. I wonder sometimes how exact
we are in our Christian life or maybe how imprecise we are.
Maybe we think good enough will do. And I don’t mean good enough
for salvation. Our salvation rests in Christ
and his finished work alone. We understand that, right? Anything
our hands can do can remove our guilt, only the work of Christ.
But God does expect us as children with new hearts to live in obedience
to him, not in a way that saves us. We don’t stack up these merits
and he says, oh, you’re such a good little boy, a good little
girl. I’m going to love you a little extra today. That’s not the way
it is. But we do live in a way that pleases him. But I wonder
how precise we are. We’ve come up with a little phrase
in America. God doesn’t care what you believe as long as you’re
sincere. Oh, I bet God sits in the heavens
and just gets a warm fuzzy over that one and says, oh, these
Christian people, what would I do without them? How could
I possibly get any more glory out of the creatures I have made
than out of this bunch who think that they have it all figured
out? What an interesting set of theology we come up with.
But do we do as the Lord has commanded us? According to his
word, according to his prescription, according to his wise and holy
ways, this now coming through Jesus who has saved us. That’s a good theme to think
about, a good thought to consider. Another interesting theme in
this passage, I hope you caught it as we read it. It says of
their conquest, they captured all of these kings and all of
their land all at once. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a
pill every morning and all of our sin problems go away? Wouldn’t
it be nice to take a pill every morning and all of our worries
and doubts just flee? Wouldn’t it be nice to pop a
Christian pill every morning and we’re not going to have any
dangers and toils and snares and struggles and hardships? This is how God chose to work
in this particular era. He gave them into their hands
31 kings, almost in two swipes of the flyswatter, right? What’s the old story? Seven flies
with one blow, something like that. I think about, oh, reading
Farmer Boy. I know some of y’all have been
reading through the Laura and Mary stories. Farmer Boy tells a story
about the hardscrabble boys. They lived up on hardscrabble
hill and they were giving teacher trouble and it was their job
every winter to run off the teacher. Well, they ran into Mr. Course, I think, who stayed at
mom, Paul’s house. And Paul taught Mr. Course out
in the barn one night how to use a horse whip. And the hardscrabble
boy showed up to school the next day and all the kids were sitting
in fear that they’re going to beat up the teacher and break
up the school for the winter. And Mr. Corse got out the horse
whip, and he took care of the hardscrabble boys. And word got
around, you don’t mess with this new teacher. Well, that’s sort
of the idea here in this battle we’ve read about in the north. So you think about all we’ve
read, they cleaned up the southern mess. Now they’ve moved up in
the northern hill country. And because of what happened
in the southern hill country, Hazor and those fellows decided
we’re going to get together about 15 little kingdoms. And did you
catch how big their army was? They came out as a great horde,
almost as numerous as the sand on the seashores. That’s usually
a positive allusion to the number of Abraham’s offspring. But here
it says they got a big army. They’re big and nasty. They’re
the hardscrabble boys out of the northern hill country. And
they’re coming to tell Israel, you’re not coming into our land.
You’re not coming into our cities. You’re not coming in. And I think
in a sense here, God gives Israel a great mercy. He lets them capture
all the kings of the land all at once. I mean, you think about
31 kings, 31 battles, 31 siege works, 31 protracted, drawn out
battles. And God in his wisdom, he gets
the Southern kings to come out at once. and their pride and
Joshua whoops them. And then you go up north and
there’s a dozen or better that come out against Israel. And,
and Joshua has to be thinking to himself, this couldn’t be
any easier. God is fighting, but he’s brought
the Kings and their land out all out at once. And God has
taken care of them. Now here’s the dark side of this. That’s not the way it always
is for us. Sometimes it’s a day at a time. It’s a battle at a
time. It’s a hardship at a time. Sometimes it’s two or three hardships
at a time, and we get finished with one hardship and we find
ourselves in the next. We call that adding insult to
injury, right? And sometimes that’s the way
the Christian life is. I don’t know what y’all listen
to and who y’all hear. I hope you’re not listening to
these folks, but if you listen to a lot of American preaching
on radio and TV, it’s seven keys to a happy life. And they guarantee
it, money back. Well, they keep it, but it’s
got to pay for the planes and things. But that’s what you hear
on American pop uh, psychology, gospel radio,
if you want to call it that, uh, such a mixed bags. If you
love God and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you can
live a happy, victorious life. That’s what God wants for you.
Well, what about Job? Right? That’s always the question.
I want to say, what do you do with Job? That’s in the Bible.
Job was miserable. Job was taking a piece of pottery
and scraping the boils that came to him. His suffering was great.
It was immense. And not only that, who needs
enemies when you have friends like Job’s, right? Those were
miserable comforters all. And so while Israel captured
the kings and their land all at once, that’s not always the
way it is for us. Nevertheless, we still do as
God commands. And we also do is this third
little thing that I think is helpful. We do this as well. We remember that the Lord, the
God of Israel, fights for us. That’s one of the great things,
I think, of this passage of scripture is God keeps on fighting. God keeps on fighting. God keeps
on fighting for his people. Long time ago, when I was an
assistant pastor down in the Charlotte area, We were preaching
through the book of Joshua, the senior pastor was. So he goes
on summer vacation and he leaves me with chapter 11 of Joshua.
Well, he had just preached chapter 10 and preached this wonderful
sermon about how God fights for his people. So I was sitting
there beating my brains out, reading all these books, what
can I preach on? So I came up with this wonderful sermon title,
God Continues to Fight for His People. And I thought to myself,
that’s not very exciting. But now some years later, I think
about that and think, actually, that rather is exciting. Because
you know how it is with our friends in the world, the people that
we know and love in the world, they’ll stick by us, you know,
sometimes through one hard time or maybe two. But come round
two or three or round four, we wonder where they are. Not so
with God. God continues to be the Lord,
the God of Israel, and he fights for us day by day, week by week,
month by month, year by year, decade after decade. And we can
look back in our lives and see how God has been faithful. One last theme I think we ought
to think about from this passage is this. As Christians, we continue
to live in a Canaanite infested land. Now, I know the promised
land was a real place. It had real cities. It had real,
real enemies. We don’t fight against flesh
and blood any longer. We fight against the rulers of
this present darkness. We fight against the evil of
this age. We fight against Satan and his minions. We fight against
the world and all that it offers. And we continue to fight our
own internal struggle with our remaining sin. And so the Christian
life is to be lived in the midst of battle. The world offers so
much to us. It’s shiny, it’s glittery, it’s
catchy. And before long, if you get sucked
into the world, you’ll be away from God, away from his church,
away from his word, away from his people. And then you’ll be
just like all the worldlings. If Satan has his way, he’ll have
you believing all sorts of lies and empty promises and all the
accusations. You’ll take your eyes off Christ.
And if we live according to our flesh, we’ll be self-indulgent.
living wicked lives. And so I think we have to remember
what God tells his church in the book of Ephesians, be strong
in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We put on the whole
armor of God. We put on the helmet of salvation. We put on the breastplate of
righteousness. We put on the belt of truth,
the shoes that have us ready to run ahead with the gospel
truth. We carry the sword of the spirit.
And these are all pieces. You men who’ve been in our Monday
study over the last year, we understand these are all pieces
of Jesus armor. These aren’t things that we put
on and buckle on. These are things that he has
earned and achieved for us. And so as we live the Christian
life and fight the Christian battle, we do it in God’s way,
according to the way he’s commanded us. Sometimes they’re little
skirmishes and long drawn out wars, but the God of Israel fights
for us. That’s Christ. It’s his armor
we wear. I think of David putting on Saul’s
armor to go fight Goliath. It was, it was too big. It was
not, uh, not just right. It was not snug. And so he had
to cast it aside. Uh, but Jesus armor fits us just
right. And so every day of life, uh,
every battle we fight, we ought to do it. God’s way, he’ll win
the battle for us. He’s given us all that great
provision in Jesus. One of the great things that
I think this passage helps us think about is our future. We
don’t read Revelation very often. We don’t understand it. But if
you want to understand Revelation, the book of Revelation, very
simply, it simply is this God wins. Jesus is the victor. And so there’s all kinds of things,
strange things portrayed in the book of Revelation, things we
don’t understand, things we misinterpret, things that sell books really
well. But get back to the basics, Jesus
wins. But God is bringing us into a
promised land, a promised land that’s already been cleaned out,
promised land where there are no enemies, there will be rest.
from our wars and our hardships. And Jesus will be right there
in the center of that heavenly sanctuary. And the lion will
dwell with the lamb. The children will play by the
snake hole. That’s what Isaiah tells us.
And we look forward to that day. But until we get there, we’ve
got to keep plugging away, keep fighting, keep pressing on, keeping
the faith with our eyes on Jesus. and our eyes on the heavenly
city. So let us take encouragement in these things. Pray with me.
Our Lord and God, we thank you for these words that remind us
how you gave 31 kings into the hands of your people. They kept
the faith. They fought the good fight. You
gave the victory and you’ll do the same for us in our battles
that are not against flesh and blood, but against the spirits
and the forces of evil, give us strength and encouragement
for the battle ahead. In Christ’s name we pray, amen.