Joshua 10:1-15

To log onto UNITYINCHRIST.COM’S BLOG, Click Here

Share on Facebook

Joshua 10:1-15

“Now it came to pass, when Adonizedec king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them; 2 that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty. 3 Wherefore Adonizedec king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying, 4 Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gebeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. 5 Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. 6 And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. 7 So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour. 8 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. 9 Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night. 10 And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. 11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. 12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. 14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel. 15 And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.” Map of land of Canaan during Joshua’s conquest: https://www.thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney2/27-the-israelites-move-into-canaan/the-israelites-cross-the-river-jordan/

Introduction: The Southern Campaign

[Audio Version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED621]

“Chapter 10, what a remarkable chapter, and maybe the greatest miracle in the Scripture put before us. A chapter that is literal, and historical, but a chapter that is filled with types, Romans 15 tells us the things that are written afore time are written for our hope, for our learning, that we might have hope through the Scripture. 1^st Corinthians 10 outlining the journeys of the children of Israel, saying that those things are there for us in type, Christ was the Rock, that we would learn not to murmur, that we would be able to stand as our day of trial comes, learning from the examples and the picture given there. And as we come to this chapter, we come to the battle over Jerusalem as it were, we come to this character named Adoni-zedec, Adoni-zedec, the lord of righteousness is what his name implies. We remember back in Genesis chapter 14 we encountered Melchizedek, who was the Prince of Righteousness, this is Adonizedec, the lord of righteousness, but we’re going to find out that this ‘lord of righteousness’ here is a hater of God’s people, who would make war with the nation of Israel. So he is an imposter, and he represents something, and under him are aligned the other kings of the heartland of Israel, and the southern territory. This is the most significant battle in the Book of Joshua, we have the last miracle, and yet the greatest miracle in the Book of Joshua contained in this chapter. Again, maybe the greatest miracle in some ways, in the natural phenomenon in the Bible. And there’s a picture, look, Jerusalem, Jerusalem I believe is the epicenter of the Universe, I believe the Universe is geocentric, I believe the Universe, just as the Bible says, God made the heavens and the earth, and he made the stars and other planets in their places around the earth to mark times and seasons. I believe the earth is the center of the universe, because it says before the foundation of the world, the Lamb was slain. So I believe that all the oceans and all of the things of the planet are centered around Jerusalem, and Jerusalem and its territories are centered around a hill called Golgotha, and Calvary, because before any of it was made, any of it was formed, that was the place where redemption was foreordained, before there was anything physical that was made, that’s where the eternal issue of our salvation and forgiveness was settled, before the stage was set for it to be enacted. So even then in the Old Testament, Satan knowing the importance of Jerusalem and that hill where the cross would be. For those of you, if the Lord tarries and we make this trip to Israel, one of the remarkable things is to look at this area of Golgotha, and to stand there and think, ‘2,000 years ago as it were, all of my sins were here, they were present, he bore our sins upon the tree,’ Peter says. Before I was born, before I knew any of them, before I was aware of any of my failings, Christ paid for them. Before I committed a single sin, he shed his blood, he knew my sin better than I knew my sin, in fact he knows my sin today and tomorrow, better than I know, he was completely familiar with it because he bore it all and he paid the price. And what took place there was appalling in one sense, it was a monstrosity, it was the purest Being in existence, the holy Son of God, taking upon himself the sin of the world, of every rapist and tyrant and pervert and murderer, and all selfishness and bitterness and unforgiveness and lust and anger, him baring the sin of the world, something that had never been seen, that should never have been seen, that be looked upon in some ways there, and the Father then executing his wrath in full measure upon that sin-bearer. ‘Herein is the love of God manifest, not that we loved him but that he first loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation, the place where wrath is satisfied,’ and it was in Jerusalem, it was in the center, and it was at the top of the ridge, in a place called Golgotha and Calvary. So there always is a spiritual contest over this place. And there’s only one King of Jerusalem and Lord of Jerusalem, that’s Jesus Christ. And this lord who was over Jerusalem is Adonizedec, this lord of righteousness we will encounter is an imposter, a picture of the antichrist. There are interesting corollaries between the Book of Joshua and the book of the antichrist, you have two spies in Joshua, and you have the two prophets outside of Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, you have the sun, moon and stars, miracles here, you have that in the Book of Revelation, you have the anti-christ in the Book of Revelation, you have Adonizedec here, just it can go on and on and on, it’s a very interesting corollary. But here we are introduced to the battle for the heartland. Now look, Israel is never what it should be until the right king is put in place. Israel never expands to the point it should expand to until the right king is there, historically. When we watch the history of the nation, under Saul it never amounts to what it’s supposed to be, it isn’t until David, whose at Hebron for seven years, it isn’t until finally he comes to Jerusalem, and you have the right king in the right place, that the land is united, and all of the tribes [all 12 tribes, not just Judah, the Jews] come and Israel becomes more powerful than it had ever been, its borders expand to the nearest of the description all the way to the river Euphrates and so forth, remarkable description, it isn’t until you have the right king in the right place. And this picture then is historic and literal, we’ll see that, but it’s also a picture of what goes on in the heart of the individual, there with the right King who has to be upon the throne. Not some Adonizedec, not some usurper with all of these other kings aligned under him, trying to hold onto the center, the heart of all things, but the right King, the right Joshua [Yeshua, Jesus] coming and having victory. So it’s a very interesting, interesting chapter with some very interesting pictures brought before us as we look at these things.

There Is No Spiritual Progress Without Warfare

It says, “Now it came to pass, when Adonizedec king of Jerusalem” now that’s the first time we hear Jerusalem mentioned, we heard Jebus before this, but this is the first time you have the word Jerusalem in the Bible, so it’s significant, “when Adonizedec king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it;” now that’s wrong, he had heard that, but that’s misinformation, the LORD had taken it, Joshua had utterly failed without the LORD’s direction, “as he had done to Jericho” he hadn’t done that to Jericho, the LORD did it, “so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them; that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.” (verses 1-2) Gibeon was a great city, it wasn’t no hobunk town. So Gibeon had a reputation of being a stronghold of greater warriors. When Adonizedec and these other kings hear about what had happened, no doubt they had heard about the parting of the Jordan River, no doubt they had heard about the walls of Jericho falling down, no doubt they had heard about the victory at Jericho, it says, and then at Ai, and perhaps they heard how then they built an altar and they worshipped and read the Word of God in the middle of the land, in Shechem there, they heard these things, and that Gibeon which was a powerful city had gone and made an alliance with them, made peace with them, that they’re troubled. Verse 3, “Wherefore Adonizedec king of Jerusalem sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying, Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel” (verses 3-4) now I don’t know who would name their kid Adonizedec, let alone Hoham, king of Hebron. So, historically, literally these kings would come, they represent the backbone of the land, the heartland on the high ridge running south, and it was to be the southern campaign, with the destroying of the most powerful kings in the land. They want to take Gibeon and make an example of Gibeon, because Gibeon had made peace with Israel, they want to destroy it and destroy all the men to convince the rest of the strongholds in Canaan not to defect to the Israelites and to make friends with them. So you have a historical picture there that militarily makes a lot of sense for Adonizedec and these other kings. I think the interesting picture for you and I is, when there is anything, now remember last week we looked at this, it was an act of compromise on the part of Joshua, and they [the Gibeonites] were drawn into the service of the LORD and Tabernacle, and they were hewers of wood and bearers of water. But on the side of the Gibeonites it was wisdom, they surrendered, they acknowledged a stronger power, they submitted to Joshua and the children of Israel, and they did that willingly. When the enemy sees anything in your life that comes under subjection to the true Joshua, to the King of kings and Lord of lords, there’s going to be warfare. There is no spiritual progress without warfare. Again, we read through the New Testament, principalities, powers, shields, helmet, buckler, sword, wrestling, fighting the good fight, we go through all of those things, and then we’re shocked as soon as there’s any resistance. That’s just a reality. We are so stimulated, we live under a stimulus that no other generation has ever lived under. I was talking to Jeff Leck about this the other day, ‘Do you realize, we get up when the alarm clock goes off,’ now my alarm clock is set on family radio because there’s people on there that drive me out of my mind, so soon as I hear that voice I get out of bed and turn it off, that gets me up in the morning, just my own philosophy. But immediately it starts in the morning, there’s stimulus or sounds, and then of course I get a cup of coffee, forgive me, I have one cup a day, usually, I have this great organic Ethiopian, it’s just wonderful. But I have this cup of coffee, and I turn the news on to see if we’re in green, red, yellow or whether we blew up or are alive and still here [this had to have been given sometime close to after 9/11], ah, and then on the way usually to work I put on the radio, I get here and immediately there’s things going on, people, they’re on the computer, they’re on their iPods, cell-phones, and that goes all day long till you get home, watch the news and to check your emails, and then your cell-phone’s ringing. And the human brain, in our culture, from the time we get up in the morning till the time we go to bed, has undergone this series of stimuli that is not meant to do, and then we lay in bed and wonder why we can’t sleep. What was it like, you know, a hundred years ago when you went out in the field in the morning and you plowed, and you saw your wife at the end of the day, when it got dark you went to bed, there were no lightbulbs. What was it like when, I think the mind is made to think, it’s made, I don’t think under stimulus all day long it has opportunity to exercise itself. The way we’re structured, we work our biceps, we work our quads, our triceps, just in the things we do. I think the mind, it’s made to think, it’s made to read certainly, it’s made to observe, it’s made to come to conclusions. But when it’s bombarded all day long with stimulus and that’s all that goes on, I think we lose tract of so much that God has for us. And I think there are spiritual forces that love for us to be distracted, that…because I think when we are tuned into the Lord, when we take time with his Word, when we take time to pray, when we remove ourselves from all that stimulus, then we are sharpened to another stimuli that’s all on the vertical and not on the horizontal, and we learn to hear his voice, and we understand his presence, and we become a little bit keener about what is warfare and what is not. And the more real he is to us and the more his presence is real to us and the more real his voice is to us, that’s when we tell everybody we believe Jesus died for us and he’s risen and he’s alive, the more real our relationship with Jesus is, the more astute we are in recognizing the warfare and the different spiritual things that go on around us. And I think it goes on all the time.

The Five Kings Of The Heartland Of Israel, What They Mean To Us Spiritually

And here we have this picture, and these kings kind of garnered and gathered under Adonizedec as the first place in the Book of Joshua that any of the kings are named. We heard about the king of Jericho and Ai, there’s no names. This is the first time all of a sudden we’re given a series of names, and I think of course that then that must be significant. Adonizedec, we talked about the lord of righteousness, king of Jerusalem, only Jesus is King of Jerusalem. So we know this is an imposter. What, in our heart, in the heartland, what form of righteousness is there that’s an imposter? Certainly it’s self-righteousness. To me, Adonizedec has to be a picture of that, with Jerusalem the City of Peace, you and I, human beings can actually have this false sense of peace, because they have a false sense of righteousness. And self-righteousness is a blindness to the depravity of our own lives and to the powerful grace that God extends to us. He is glorified when we realize what we really are made of, and the price that’s been paid upon the cross in Jerusalem, at Golgotha, and we love him because he first loved us. We are less judgmental to those around us when we are keenly aware of our own necessity of grace. We get this false idea ‘Ya, I need grace, but I don’t need as much as that guy,’ that means you don’t understand grace at all. Because one sin completely disqualifies us from, one failure is filthy rags. So there is this imposter, Adonizedec, that would take Jesus’ place, and he is king of righteousness or lord of righteousness, no there is no self-righteousness, there’s no righteousness aside from Jesus Christ, there is no Adonizedec that should have any throne in God’s City or God’s Heartland or God’s place [within you] except Jesus Christ alone. And this Joshua, which is a picture of our greater Joshua, will come to dethrone him and to have victory here. But the idea is, first of all, self-righteousness, and what self-righteousness does to us. It causes us to be critical, it causes us to look down our nose at other Christians [or other people] like we’re better than they are, we’re more spiritual, we’re more deserving. You know, in marriages, how much more peace there would be if the wife and the husband would realize how undeserving they are of their next breath of anything. Instead of bickering and fighting, when I’m fighting with my wife I’m confessing her sins to her and she’s confessing my sins to me. Neither one of us are confessing our own sins to the Lord, which puts everything in perspective. How often can one hold onto anger and to bitterness and to other things, how often we can even justify immoral behavior? The things that we allow to go on in our lives when self-righteousness has the throne, to any degree is remarkable, we justify, justify and justify. So, we’re given these names Adonizedec is the one who garners the other ones underneath of him. We come to Hoham, he’s king of Hebron. Hoham in its root has the idea of “to crush, to destroy, to be destructive,” and Hebron is an easier word, it means “alliance,” it means “fellowship,” it means “to have communion.” In the negative sense there’s a form of it that means “to cast a spell, a trance,” but the interesting picture here is, is that aligned under Adonizedec, self-righteousness, any real communion we would have or fellowship is crushed, it’s destroyed. He’s one of the kings that aligns himself there under Adonizedec. We have then this other king, Piram is named, and he is king of Jarmuth. Piram, the root of it, it’s a word that speaks of “a wild ass,” and the root of it means “to run wild” from the verb form, look, that kind of animal, we think that it means one thing, in Israel that was an animal that was held in some regard because it had this incredible ability as a survivor in the desert, to survive where nothing else was around, it was tough, it was a survivor. But you couldn’t break it. You couldn’t make a domesticated animal out of it, it served no purpose. So you have this king here, Piram king of Jarmuth, Jarmuth means “to be haughty,” or “to be self-exalted, to be lifted up.” When we are self-righteous, man oh man, we run wild sometimes don’t we, and we’re haughty, we’re self-exalted. We’re told through the mercies of God…12 chapters he takes to get there, ‘I beseech you by the mercies,’ those first 12 chapters, ‘to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, don’t be conformed to this world…and that you have a sober estimation of yourself,’ (Romans 12:1-3) understand what you really are. Here we have this wild king of haughtiness and self-exaltation, one that would lift himself up. You have Japhia, which means “to shine,” or “to show oneself,” it’s a show-off, you know any Christians like that, show-offs? I don’t, besides the one I see in the mirror every day. He’s king of Lachish, ah Lachish an interesting word, means “to be impregnable.” When somebody’s puffed up with pride, when somebody is like that, they’re impregnable, if they’re self-righteous and have that attitude, you can’t get to them, you can’t reason with them, they think they’re spiritual, they talk spiritual, they act spiritual, they’re haughty, they’re lifted up, and that person, terrible to be around. My poor wife. All issues of the heart, you know, it’s as if when these things are conquered, the land falls under the control of Jehovah the Living and True God. And you know what it’s like to be around someone who thinks they’re something, who thinks they know something, ah, theology, I’m always around someone who wants to argue with me about theology, you know, knowledge puffs up, love edifies. I think of Paul in Romans 8 talking about the fact that we’re, God has chosen us for him, that we’re predestined, and people want to argue about all this stuff. Paul says “What do we say to these things,” that’s the proper response, “if God be for us, who can be against us.” That should be our response to all of that stuff. Not some heady dueling with one another, where we forget to put away our sword when we get back into the camp. Interesting, king of Lachish. Debir, which is a very tough word, it has the idea of an oracle or of declaring, speaking forth, and he’s king of Eglon. Eglon has the idea, you know, we’re going to run into a guy there that’s overweight, it has the idea of being fat, of a fat calf. But the verb form has the idea of jumping in circles. So somebody who’s always talking, somebody whose always telling spiritual stuff, somebody whose always jumping around and won’t stop, you listen to them, they go round and round, ‘Please stop, my ears are gonna bleed, if I faint you’ll feel terrible, you need to stop talking now.’ When we get to heaven I won’t be living next to them. But here’s this remarkable picture, the only place where kings were actually named as we come here in this chapter, and it’s in regard to the issues of the heart, it’s in regard to someone who claims to be the king of Jerusalem whose an imposter, this Adonizedec, some false king of righteousness. And this whole issue placed before us, both historically, both literally, and in picture, in type I think, for us to deal with, for us to look at, to take inventory. Look, “we’re to guard our heart with all diligence, because from it flows the issues of life.” You know, it’s much different, you see someone whose struggling with some type of sin, outwardly, most of the time, there’s no denying of that, ‘Ya, I’m messing up, I gotta get victory here, I’m really blowing it.’ If I talk to somebody I know whose been drinking, and I talk to ‘em, I want them to say ‘Ya, I’ve been drinking, this has been driving me crazy, I’m bummed out,’ I know exactly what to do then, I know exactly what I’m dealing with. Most of the time there’s outward sin, but the things of the heart are things that go on, and they’re not on the screen. You see, sometimes I think things, or sometimes I have some things that go on in here, and if the Lord said to me, ‘Don’t let that stuff go on,’ you know you’re supposed to bring every thought into captivity of Christ, the weapons of your warfare, they’re not carnal, they’re powerful to the pulling down of strongholds.’ ‘In fact this Wednesday night we’re going to put up on the screen all of these things going on in your heart and mind’ (the Lord saying this to him in this imaginary conversation) I’d get sick right before church and wouldn’t come, and call in and say ‘One of you guys, can you come in and do it.’ What would you let go on, because it’s in there (in your heart, mind) and it’s not seen? we allow things to live in there that we will put to death outwardly. You know, we need to put to death, when I got saved, you know fist fighting, and drunkenness and drugs and immorality. So when we put those things to death, they’re observable, we know that they’re wrong. But somehow as time goes on, you know, God is dealing with us about intents, about thought, about pride, about bitterness, about these issues. And it isn’t until he takes the heart, that he’s really Lord of all. Well, we want him to be our Saviour because we want our fire insurance, and that’s not dumb, that’s smart. But what about when he’s asking us about pride, or bitterness, or unforgiveness, or judgmental attitude? What about when he’s telling us, you know, ‘You give me your heart. I know you want this, ‘to put that in my hands, I want you to let me have the whole thing, part of the problem is the problem of the heart.’ But what an interesting picture here, we have in this historical scene for us to make application, and for us to look at these things.

The Forced-March To Gibeon--When God Says He’s Already Given Us The Victory, Why Is It So Difficult?

They go to war against the Gibeonites, because they had made peace with Israel, “Therefore the five kings” verse 5, “of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gebeon, and made war against it.” for defecting. “And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us.” (verse 6) (now we’re going to have Gilgal mentioned five times in this chapter, that’s significant.) Now we have an interesting picture here. Remember how the children of Israel went to war against Ai, and they were defeated, and thirty-six Israelites were killed in battle, those are the only military casualties in the entire Book of Joshua, those 36 against Ai, ‘Only send three or four thousand, it will be fine.’ There has to be repentance, there has to be bringing those things back to God, to ask the LORD to forgive us, ‘we didn’t pray, we went up in our own strength, there was sin in the camp, we didn’t realize.’ So when they go back the next time, the LORD, remember, he tells them ‘Take the whole army, set these guys here, these guys behind the city, go with a smaller group against them again, they’re going to think they can come out and do to you what they did to you the first time, and you start running like you’re scared again, and they’re going to chase after you, when that happens, then your come in from behind,’ and God uses their failure to grant them victory. As often, he will use the failures in our lives to do something, so that in the future we become stronger, we recognize more clearly our mistakes, we don’t fall into the same thing again. And in this picture here, he’s using now this thing with the Gibeonites, that shouldn’t have gone on, Joshua and the children of Israel should have prayed, they had made a covenant with those who were in the land (the Gibeonites) that were to be destroyed. But now God is going to use the Gibeonites and their failure again, to give them this great victory, and those of Gibeon are basically saying, ‘the five strongest kings of the land have gathered against us, in the open field, they’re out in the open, they’re here for your taking, come, protect us, they’re gathered together against us.’ “So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour. And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.” (verses 7-8) now it’s the prophetic past tense “for I have delivered,” it’s a done deal, ‘I’ve already delivered them into your hand.’ “and there shall not a man of them stand before thee.” And “Joshua therefore” because the LORD said ‘Don’t be afraid, it’s a done deal, I’m with you,’ “Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night.” (verse 9) Now look, he has to go to the troops and say ‘Let’s go.’ This is a 12-hour [forced] march, Gilgal up to the area of Gibeon is about 25 miles, but it’s a 4,000 foot elevation, uphill all the way. Now I don’t know about you, but when the Lord tells me, ‘Don’t sweat it, I’ve already given you the victory,’ I’m thinking ‘Then why do I have to walk all night uphill? Can’t you just make the walls fall down, what’s all this about?’ [my battles all seem to be that way right now, even though there’s victory, I’m too tired to enjoy any of it.] ‘Ah, can’t we set up half a dozen guys and chase ‘em downhill, till they get here, and then we’ll kill them all like we did before?’ This is a very interesting picture, the LORD is going to say, and he says ‘Don’t be afraid, I have already given you the victory,’ and to get to the place of battle they have to go all night without sleep, it’s uphill all the way, it started about 2,000 foot below sea-level, they’re going up to about 2,000 foot above sea-level, so they’re making about a 4,000 foot ascent, 25 miles, and when they get there the battle starts, God slows down and stops the sun and moon so they can fight an extra long day, I’m thinkin’ ‘What’s the deal? You’ve already got the victory, don’t be afraid, just bring your Bengay, gonna be a looong day.’ Isn’t it an interesting picture? listen, God’s sovereignty, man’s responsibility, it’s all through the Bible. God is going to do the greatest victory in the natural that we read about through the Scripture, the whole solar system’s going to be effected, not just the earth, not parting an ocean, that’s small stuff compared to this day. He’s going to do something remarkable. And they’re going to go all night without sleep [on an uphill forced march, militarily speaking], then they’re going to go all day in battle, and then God’s going to extend the day so they can fight almost another day without sleep, I don’t know what it was like coming home after this. The next time Joshua said ‘Hey, the LORD told me, Don’t be afraid, he’s already given,’ they probably all ran in the other direction, you know. Just this is so interesting, because sometimes we think, ‘Hey, if the Lord has blessed us, and the Lord has given to us the things he’s said he’s given to us, why do we find ourselves in a contest sometimes? Why do we find ourselves sometimes so exercised by the things that he’s said he’s extended to us by his grace?’ Because there’s something in this where he wants our participation, we’re co-labourers, we’re yoked to a yoke with Christ, there’s a privilege to this. We’re going to be in battle, whether we like it or not, as believers. Now if you’re here tonight and you’re an unbeliever, and all of this sounds crazy to you, I understand. Ah, what we’ll do at the end of the evening, is we’ll give you an opportunity to get saved and ask Christ into your heart, and then you go home and read the chapter, and it will make a lot more sense than it does right now, just be patient. As believers God has given to us great and precious promises, whereby we’re partakers of the divine nature…we think of all the things he’s said to us, and we find ourselves sometimes so much in the thick of the battle, we find ourselves so much exercised by walking with him in righteousness. And there’s something in that of him raising us, look, we have that nature, from the time we’re little. I think of times in my kid’s lives, they had one job, Take out the trash. And it’s like ‘Ooooh,’ ‘Take the trash out, it’s always overflowing, ‘Well I can fit more in,’ it’s like trash art, it’s like an ice-cream cone, it piles up, and it’s balanced, you know, it could be in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not, that a trash can this high can have trash in it this high. But there’s something in us, we don’t want to do the smallest thing, we don’t want to serve in the smallest capacity, we don’t want to give beyond our comfort zone, and God is willing to allow us to participate. If we’re going to face difficulties anyway, and we are, we all are. You know, I’m 58 now, and all my friends know the names of specialists [medically] now. It wasn’t like that years ago. Getting old ain’t for sissies, we’re all going to face tests, we’re all going to face struggles. And if we’re going to do that anyway, then let’s do it when the sun stands still in the Valley of Ajalon and the Moon, let’s do it where we see the supernatural hand of the Lord in the process, let’s do it where we’re yoked in the yoke with him. If we’re going to face struggles and difficulties anyway, let’s do it next to Jesus Christ, let’s do it walking with him, so we can see his power, we can see his majesty and we can see his love, and we can see the things that he would do for us and for the unsaved people around us. Because all of that is available to us, and it is all held out to us.

The Battle Is The LORD’s, It’s Supernatural

He says to Joshua, ‘Don’t be afraid, look, I’ve given you the battle, it’s yours, the enemy’s, no sweat, it’s done.’ “Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night.” (verse 9) And the reason “he came unto them suddenly” the way he did that, they didn’t expect them to make this climb all night, all night from Gilgal, 12-hour [forced] march, 25 miles, 4,000 foot ascent, “And the LORD discomfited them before Israel,” I don’t know what your translation says, I’m glad I have King James when I get there, because I like “discomfited.” I don’t look it up in the Hebrew because I don’t want to know what it means, because I have a picture in my mind of the Three Stooges running in ‘Woob-b-b-b-b’ running into each other, I like my own idea of “discomfited,” if you don’t mind. “And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.” (verses 10-11) Now you have a remarkable picture here, the LORD chases them, Joshua and the army come up to the area of Gibeon, and they go to war against them. They’re fighting against them, they start to flee, they come over the ridge of the mountain and begin to go down to Bethhoron, there’s about an 800 foot drop in elevation almost a thousand foot. So you imagine these guys tired, they marched all night, now they’re fighting, they have this battle, and it says they come by the way of Bethhoron, Beth is house, “horon” is “the house of caverns,” some translations translate it “the house of wrath.” And it says “and smote them to Azekah,” that word means “to be fenced in,” “and unto Makkedah” that means “to herd,” so we have this wonderful linguistic picture of the LORD fencing them in and herding them in, as it were, to the house of wrath. There’s so much beauty here, as Joshua and the children of Israel are pursuing them. Verse 11 says “And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children slew with the sword.” Now we get a very interesting picture here. As they come over the top of the hill, the children of Israel are weary I’m sure, the going down to Bethhoron is a fairly steep slope, but it goes down, you can go there today, there are these terraces, so it goes down a ways, it’s level, then it’s terraced down away, then it’s terraces, down away, and they start to chase them down. As they get to them, first of all it says “great stones,” now I just assume that’s the hailstones we’re talking about, but every other place in the Old Testament that phrase is used it’s talking about stones made of rocks. So it may just be a linguistic picture here of the hailstones, or the you know, the sentence for blasphemy was to be stoned, I’m not sure exactly what the picture here is. But “the LORD cast down great stones from heaven,” some people say it was an earthquake, was a natural phenomenon, well that’s because you don’t believe nothing. Look, it wasn’t a natural phenomenon because only the bad guys get hit. When an earthquake arrives or huge hailstones fall out of heaven, they’re indiscriminate, they just smash anybody who gets under them. This is supernatural, because when it comes down it only hits the bad guys, so God’s involved. I mean, I go through this today, I read ad-nauseum from all of these scientific explanations, all of this, you know, well wait, what about God? What about the virgin birth, what about Jesus walking on the water, what about the first verse, “God created the heavens and the earth,” what about the parting of the Red Sea? What about the Captain of the LORD’s host standing in front of Joshua, and says he’s the one whose in charge of the battle? What about the flood, recorded in 230 cultures around the world of the flood--and it’s not a historical reality? I don’t have any problem with what we’re going to read here at all. It says these stones, these great hailstones, then getting more specific, coming down on them, imagine, it says “more which died of the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.” So, you have to imagine the children of Israel coming across this ridge, and then it’s dropping down to Bethhoron with a series of terraces, and they’re looking down, and these stones, these hailstones start coming down out of heaven, and they’re watching their enemies be flattened [militarily, like watching them run into a field of artillery fire, God’s artillery fire]. More are being slaughtered by the hand of God than by their own energy. You know, they may have complained all night about that uphill walk, but if they knew what they were going to see at the top of that hill, none of them would have complained. And the same is for you and I, this is an uphill walk, “but we have an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away.” The first look we have at the Lamb of God, with the marks of slaughter upon him, not one of us will complain about anything that we did for him, anything we gave to him, any time we yielded to him, for any time we turned the other cheek and went the extra mile, there won’t be a single complaint when our eyes come across that ridge and we see that Lamb of God, there won’t be a single regret. I imagine there were conversations in the camp, ‘Man, I don’t know about you, man, Lord forgive me, I was griping all the way up, I had to walk up here at night,’ and after, they must have been saying, ‘Did you see that?’ you can just imagine some of the conversations as these hailstones slaughtered the enemy. “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” (verses 12-13) [is it any wonder that the Gibeonites became devout servers in the service of the LORD’s Tabernacle as “hewers of wood and drawers of water”? From this point on, as we have historically seen, they become loyal to the Levites and the Tabernacle and later the Temple service of God.] Now I have a copy of the Book of Jasher, but I’m sure it’s a much later version, not this original book of Jasher that it’s talking about here. It’s a book of songs and it mentions this. “So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.” (verse 14) that is, you could read that and read that and read that, you know I think of the Book of Ezekiel, the LORD talking about the nation of Israel, and he said ‘I sought for a man, to stand before me in the gap, that I might not smite the nation, and I found none.’ “I sought for a man,” not a denomination, not a church movement, not a Rock Band, “I sought for a man,” in the Book of Ezekiel, “to stand in the gap before me, that I might not destroy the nation, I found none” in the days of Ezekiel. What do the prayers of one individual that are animated by faith, genuine faith, what do they mean to God? First of all, I read this and I think, ‘Joshua, what were you thinking when you said that?’ It isn’t like Joshua had read the Book and said ‘Guys, wait till you see this, I love chapter 10, this is going to blow your mind.’ ‘LORD! Sun stand still!’ And he says it in the hearing of the Israelites. I wonder what his army is thinking, ‘Man, we marched all night, this has been a long day, this guy is having a hard time,’ he says it in the hearing of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, and thou Moon, in the valley of Ajalon,’ these are principle deities by the way, of the Canaanites and the Amorites, the Sun and the Moon, will not serve them this day, but as it were serve the children of Israel. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” (verse 13) Gleason Archer has written a whole piece on this phrase, “hasted not to go down,” brilliant scholar, what he says, it’s not saying that the sun and the moon, the whole process ceased, but it slowed to the point, because look, you know, scientists are troubled by this. Now look, first of all, if you go online and you Google “Long day, Joshua’s long day,” you’re going to read about Harold Hill and this guy from NASA, and that’s not true, that’s all been debunked, it’s a great story, and it’s a great sermon illustration, it just ain’t true. What is true, is that if you go and Google there, and you look, you find that in Egyptian history [probably under Amenhotep II’s son reigning at the time, 1406BC], and Herodotus speaks about it, Babylonian history, Greek history, there’s record of a long day. There’s a Chinese emperor, 1400BC that writes of a long day. There are American Indian, South Sea Islanders, Aztec and Inca records of a long night. The point is, something happened here. Obviously, “Sun, stand still,” ‘Well he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, the sun don’t…’ look, every day on the news they tell you what time the sun rises, sun sets, and the sun ain’t going up and going down, the earth is turning, but that’s just a phrase we use to describe what we observe. Obviously, for the sun to stand still, the earth had to slow down on its rotation. Now it didn’t say the earth jammed on the brakes and went ‘Errrt!’ and the oceans sloshed out of the basins, that’s not what it says. I don’t know how many hours it would take to slow the earth down, so that there wouldn’t be major destruction, I’ve never done it before, God obviously knows. And the gravitational pull would have slowed the moon down somewhat in it’s rotation. Very interesting picture, as we read about it. Now look, I’m not a computer guy, all you computer folks, go Google these things and look them up, and there’s all kinds of information for you out there to look at in regards to this. You know, I look at it and I think, ‘What’s the LORD doing here?’

The LORD Will Supernaturally Lengthen Our Day Of Battle, When We’re Really Willing To Deal With The Hard Issues

There’s a day in your life when you’re finally, you and I, when the day comes in all of our lives, when we’re really willing to deal with the hard issues, when we are really, really willing, really willing to dethrone any self-righteousness, and let the Lord be the Lord, Lordship, really willing to let that…I’m growing in that, all of us growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if we’re really willing to do that, we’re willing to make any uphill march that’s necessary. If we are really willing to come to terms with things in our lives that need to change, we’re really willing to bring them into the open and deal with them, the Lord will lengthen that day. The Lord will set that battlefield so the door doesn’t shut on that chapter until something genuine happens. When we get genuine, and we are really willing to repent, we watch in the church all the time, you know I hear men say ‘I have a problem with pornography, I can’t get victory, I can’t get victory,’ well I guarantee you if a nuclear bomb goes off in Chicago, you’re going to get victory, ‘Oh Lord, I got victory! No more for me, Lord, no more of that stuff,’ because, you know, the fear of the Lord is clean. Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 19 says, ‘this is your problem, you’ve left off the fear of the LORD. Because you no longer have the fear of the LORD your own sins are going to correct you, your own backsliding is going to reprove you.’ The truth is, for any of us, if we are really willing to get the heart before the Lord, it may be an uphill climb, but you know, he’ll lengthen the day, he’ll join the battle, he’ll give us victory, or he isn’t who he says he is, and we might as well close up the doors of the church and go home. If Jesus Christ is not the Lord of lords and the King of kings, and if his Gospel doesn’t have enough power to transform our lives, then we’re kidding ourselves. We need to be careful, like the Laodiceans, that we don’t become lukewarm, we don’t become settled in, we don’t become comfortable. The truth is, we don’t have to have all kinds of psychological excuses, ‘Well this happened, that happened, and I can’t get victory, and I have tendencies toward this,’ it’s sin, the issue is sin, and he’s the Lord of lords, he’s the King of kings, he’s paid the price, and through the power of his Holy Spirit we can have life-changing power. I’m not saying every single thing happens overnight, but I’m saying, yes, if you’re willing to join the battle, if you’re willing to do those uphill drills [forced marchers] and say ‘Lord, I want this to change,’ he will lengthen the day of battle. He will join the battle. He will supernaturally make sure that the greater part of the victory is his, and that more are slain of the hail than of the sword, or he isn’t who he says he is. And the Church [greater Body of Christ] has lost track of that. We haven’t lost track of coffee shops and rear-screen projections and everything on the horizontal that makes us comfortable and draws crowds in, and somehow, and I don’t know what the next generation of church is going to be like, you know, with their big home entertainment centers, with all of the comfortableness that anybody could want. And yet when we go through Church History and look at revivals, there were broken hearts, and there were tears, and there were people who were under conviction. I remember the JESUS MOVEMENT, I was there [and so was I, see https://unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/REVIVAL.html]. Heroine addicts would accept Christ and come down, people on LSD, you have to understand, people high on a trip would accept Jesus, snap! and come right down! Men would get saved and go read their Bibles to figure out how to be better husbands and fathers, there was conviction, there was genuine conviction, God’s Word, God’s Book, God’s on the throne, he saved me, he washed me, he cleansed me, my righteousness is from him, it’s not my own, overwhelmed with the love of Jesus Christ, overwhelmed with the blood of Jesus Christ, overwhelmed with the power of Jesus Christ, willing to bring things in our lives before him, Lord, lengthen the day, let’s put this to death, ‘Lord, let not any of this escape so that we have to battle it again tomorrow, Lord, just remove the night of sleep and let tomorrow roll right into today, so that we can get this done now.’ And I believe he's the same, I believe he’s the same. I believe he loves us, I believe he’s powerful, and I believe when I get down to doing business with him, as it were, responding to his grace, his love, his power’s there. His power is there. And he’s not through with me by a longshot. When I think of Paul the apostle saying ‘I have not yet apprehended that which I have been apprehended for, I haven’t yet taken hold fully why he loves me,’ is what he’s saying. ‘How do we apprehend one such a man, who slaughtered the Church, who made men and women blaspheme the name of Jesus at the point of a sword, who destroyed and persecuted God’s people, and he loves me? that outweighs all of my credentials, all of that is like dung,’ he says, ‘that I might know him, because I haven’t yet apprehended that which I have been apprehended for.’ Remarkable, remarkable picture here. “And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.” (verse 14) again, in the natural realm, probably greater than any miracle that took place in the Bible, in the natural. In the supernatural, certainly the cross and resurrection of Christ outdoes it. But in the natural, “there was no day like that before it, or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.” “And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.” (verses 14-15) What was that walk home like? They had to be plum tuckered out in the physical, all that uphill all night long stuff, all the fighting during the day stuff, all that for a whole day. And did the LORD add an extra, when it says a whole day is it talking about a whole extra 8-hours, 12-hours? Imagine, imagine them coming home, walking past piles of ice and dead bodies, looking around at what the LORD had done. What was it like for them to come back to Gilgal and look at the walls of Jericho, laying flat on the ground, to come back into the camp and see the piles of stone there as a memorial, coming through the Jordan River. What was it like? Their wives and their kids saying “That was the longest day ever, it seems like you were away for two days Dad.” You know, just what was it like? What was it like to come back at the end of that day and say grace at your table, looking in the faces of your wives and kids, and say “I want to tell you, I don’t know if I could put it in words”? Coming back to Gilgal, the place of consecration, coming back to the place of memorials, looking around thinking ‘What has God done? What has God done?” What a day, there’s been no day like it before it, and there’s been no day like it since, where God listened to a man on the battlefield that said ‘Make the sun stand still, let’s stop the process till we get the battle over with, stick your finger in the gears of the solar system and make everything just stop, and besides that LORD, it’ll blow the minds of scientists for years to come, this will be great.’ What a day. Let’s have the musicians come, we’ll sing a last song, read ahead, there’s some important things that continue in this whole scene, read ahead and we’ll come to that, Lord willing, if he tarries, next Wednesday. But let’s lift our hearts, let’s stand, let’s pray, I’d just encourage you, as I read through this, and I look at my heart, just to say ‘Lord, here I am, if you want me to climb up hill all night tonight, you want me to pray when I get home till midnight, to 1 O’clock, till 2 Lord, you have me, I’ll climb uphill tonight, if you want me to walk past some of the things tomorrow I normally involve myself in, you want me to give myself to your Word, to prayer, you want me to fight the battle longer tomorrow than I normally do, come home tired, when I think I have all kinds of rights to bark at my wife and kids, my husband because I’m such a hard worker, Lord you have me. Lord you know the things that I allow to go on in my heart, Lord, where no one sees, you need to be King there, I know that. Lord I just give myself to you as I lift my voice, I lift my heart also.’ What a great time as it were to come back to Gilgal, to sit, to look, to take in inventory, to see all that he’s done and all that he’ll continue to do by his promises, and just tonight as we lift our voices, to also lift our hearts and say ‘Here I am Lord, here I am, give me my marching orders, Lord, as it were.’ Not self-righteousness, not that we’re more righteous by doing, but we love him because he first loved us, we respond when we realize that. These men were greater responders after this battle than they had ever been, how amazed they must have been to go home that night and sit, and look at one another and just see each other the next day, they probably just shook their heads, tears in their eyes…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Joshua 10:1-15, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]