Joshua 5:1-15

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Joshua 5:1-15

“And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was their spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel. 2 At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. 3 And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of foreskins. 4 And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. 5 Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised. 6 For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 7 And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. 8 And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. 9 And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day. 10 And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. 11 And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the Passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. 12 And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. 13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? 14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? 15 And the captain of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.”

Introduction

“Joshua chapter 5 begins by saying, “It came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea,” the Mediterranean “heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel,” notice the author, Joshua, says “until we passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.” (verse 1) they understood, isn’t it interesting, these heathen kings and cultures understood, and I think if the heathen cultures today that perceive so little, in that day understood the significance of what they heard. Isn’t it interesting? God’s going to do something very interesting, he’s bringing, if you’ve read ahead, you know he’s bringing the children of Israel into the Promised Land. They’re going to come to Gilgal. Before they go to war he’s going to ask them to be circumcised. That’s not the good way to start a military campaign in enemy territory. I’m thinking ‘Alright Joshua, God’s speaking to you, you go back and ask one more time and make sure in regards to this one.’ And it says God did it when these heathen kings are terrified and shut up in their fortresses. Again, God’s people there, will be crippled for a number of days by this process. But there is no danger at all, because these kings heard, those at Jericho heard and saw, but the other kings heard, it’s telling us that their hearts melted because of what they heard of God’s Word and of God’s doing, and it changed their lives and determined their behaviors. Look, we have to believe today, you and I, and people around us, as we go to share the Gospel with unbelievers around our lives, that men’s hearts can still melt by what they hear of God’s completed work. Jesus Christ has moved more out of the way than the Jordan River to forgive us, and to take those humans like you and I, and proclaim upon us forgiveness and say that we’re sons and daughters. The word of what he’s done still has power to melt human hearts. And it’s interesting to see what’s happened here as we look at this, we see after, it says “It came to pass, when all of the kings…heard what the LORD had done, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more,” because those on the walls of Jericho stood there and they saw the Jordan River stacking up, drying up, millions of people crossing on dry land. It was at flood-stage. They say at flood-stage in this day, sometimes the Jordan River was a half-mile wide, right under the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge,

the Delaware there is about a half a mile wide. So if you want to get a sense of that, imagine that body of water drying up to dry land immediately so people can walk over it without slopping in mud, and the river running quickly at floodtide just beginning about 20 miles upstream just starting to stack up in a huge pile, again, like the Hoover Dam, only with no Hoover Dam in front of it. Ah, very unnerving experience for the enemies of God’s people, and they watched this whole process. And then they see the children of Israel come over, they had been watching from the walls of Jericho, the pillar of fire by night, the pillar of cloud by day, and word of all of this has spread, they had been thinking they would have some time to prepare, they’re over there, they’re going to have to build boats or barges, or whatever they must have been thinking, and all of a sudden they watch this process where these priests carry this ark down to the river, they step in it, and all of a sudden the river just disappears, falls away, and starts to pile up upstream. This is bad news for Canaanites.

Before There Is Conquest There Has To Be Consecration—‘Symbolizing Baptism, Conversion & Accepting Jesus Christ Into Your Life’

So, that’s the context of all of this, it’s in context of that it says “At that time” while all of this is taking place “the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.” (verse 2) or flints or stones. “And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.” (verse 3) Now we can imagine why it was called that, this is several million people, we don’t need to think about that. But here, God takes them, we know that God dealt with Moses, as he was going to Egypt because his son was not circumcised, and God threatened his [his son’s] life there, because that is the very sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham, that was very much attached to the children of Israel, to their future, and to this Promised Land. And you can read that in Exodus chapter 4. Here, God’s saying to Joshua, ‘I want you to take now this generation, because the generation that had been circumcised had died in the Wilderness.’ Here’s a whole new generation that hasn’t experienced that, they cross over the Jordan River miraculously, they pile up these twelve stones at Gilgal as a memorial, they come there, and make their encampment in enemy territory, and Joshua comes, and they’re waiting to hear ‘OK, what do we do now, sharpen our swords, get our bows and arrows ready?’ and Joshua said ‘No, no, no, no, now what we’re going to do now is we’re going to circumcise the army.’ And you ask, ‘Are you sure? Double check on that, Josh.’ “And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel [the army]…And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.” (verses 3-5) We don’t know if it was the indifference of the parents, certainly there was unbelief in that generation, for all they had seen, they perished in the Wilderness because they turned away from Kadesh Barnea in unbelief. So, for some reason or another they had not continued to practice what they should have continued to practice, those that were in Egypt, we’re told, were circumcised. Now for 38 years, evidently that had not happened. Numbers 14 says it was a breach of the promise. And now before they can enter into the Promise of God, which is the Promised Land, they need to be reminded that this is a sign of a covenant relative to the land that they’re going to enter. For you and I, Roman 15 says ‘that the things that were written afore time were written for our learning and our instruction, that we might have hope.’ You know, application to our own lives, how do we make that here? Well even in Deuteronomy there were things that were set out a bit more clearly, God said in Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 16, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” And he said in the end of Joshua, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” We’re told clearly in the New Testament that this is a picture, it says “And you are complete in him, in Christ, which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in the putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” It tells us in Colossians 2, it’s clearly a picture of cutting away the carnal nature of the flesh. God is saying to the children of Israel, in type and in picture, and in something they should have understood from Deuteronomy, he’s saying ‘before there is conquest, there is consecration. I’m not going to take you in without it, there’s a sign of a covenant here, for I have made it with Abraham centuries before this. That covenant was relative to faith, and through the sign of that covenant, it was between me and him and his seed after him, relative to the land that you’re entering into, but more than just a sign in the flesh,’ God said, ‘it was a sign of the attitude of the heart, of putting away of stiff-neckedness’ where they were rebellious against God, cutting away the things of the carnal nature, cutting away so there would be a true love for God. So Gilgal becomes a place of consecration. Before God allows them to go into battle, they’re right in the face of the enemy, before they enter into any struggle as it were, God says the first thing that happens here is there is to be consecration. And the picture for you and I obviously is, look, here we live in the days we’re living in, and we’re looking to God for his promises in the day that we’re living in. We’re living in a culture that is desperately dependent upon us. We might not realize it, but this culture is desperately dependent on you and I to be on fire for Jesus. The message that they’ve got to hear from us is going to change their destiny. And it says ‘Before you enter into any of that, your own life needs to be consecrated.’ You know, there needs to be the cutting away of carnality from your own life before you can ever be effective in the lives of others. You know, we go tell people about Jesus Christ, that he’s forgiven our sins and that he set us free, set us free from what? Well set us free from hell, from death, set us free from the bondage of our old nature, he set us free so that we can live a different way, we have a new birth, we have a new beginning, and God is not gonna use an unconsecrated people to reach an unconsecrated world. He’s gonna use a consecrated people to reach an unconsecrated world, because our message is, that he sets us free, that he’s done something to change us. And here, just this interesting picture as he brings them to this point, he challenges them in regards to this, it says “For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not shew them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers” that was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob “that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way.” (verses 6-7) though they should have done that. “And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole.” (verse 8) I guess that goes without saying, wasn’t a lot of soccer the next day, everybody just kind of relaxing [their wives probably waiting on them hand and foot] “that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole” until they were healed up. And again, at the mercy of God. Here they are before Jericho, this fortified city, here they are in enemy territory, and they obeyed this commandment of Joshua in faith. They did this in faith. Imagine how vulnerable they must have felt, but they trusted the Word of the LORD. And look, in our lives, when we get saved, how often does the Lord tell us, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, he tells us when we’re reviled not to revile again. You know, it’s a huge thing for us to trust the Word of the Lord when we feel vulnerable. We learn to operate a certain way in this world our whole lives. And all of a sudden he tells us that he’s going to take up for us, he’s going to protect us, he’s going to keep us in his hand, he’s our strong tower and our rearguard, that he’s given us a spiritual helmet of Salvation, a Breastplate of righteousness, the Sword of the Spirit, he’s asking us to take these things in faith, and that he will take up for us, and there’s a challenge there. There’s a challenge for us, because it isn’t the way the natural mind works. But he’s testing us, he’s challenging us, he’s training us the way we raise up our children. And that is even to the point sometimes feeling vulnerability, where his Word is beckoning us to do something that the natural mind says ‘Well if I do that, somebody’s gonna step on me. If I just turn the other cheek, Lord am I letting this person make a doormat out of me?’ And sometimes there’s that challenge there for us. Camping in front of the enemy and disabling ourselves? What army has ever done that? Get the history books out and give a little lesson here. ‘They remained in their camp until they were whole.’ “And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.” (verse 9) Now “rolled away the reproach of Egypt” just, the things of the old life for you and I, there’s some debate over specifically what that might have meant in regards to Egypt. Certainly there was idolatry, certainly there was the things he had passed to the next generation of carnality relative to Egypt. Here the reproach of Egypt itself is removed, in the sense that they’re no longer slaves, they’re now in the Promised Land by a miraculous hand, and they’re back in the covenant that God made with Abraham when he had him circumcise himself and his servants in the very land where they’re now encamped in. This is something that generation after generation had longed for, and now they’re seeing that. They’re in this place, he says “Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.” You read in Genesis 17, verses 7 and 8, he talks about in verse 11, the importance of this process of circumcision relative to the covenant that God had made. Now look, Gilgal, Gilgal, Golgotha, some try to build a bridge there, Gilgal is a place of memorials. Gilgal is a place where every day when they go out and march around the city of Jericho for seven days or the six days, that they’re going to come back, and every day that pile of stones will be there at Gilgal, reminding them of the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, reminding some of that they had seen when they were children, the walls of water as they crossed the Red Sea. Gilgal becomes a place where they remember every time they come back, it was a place of consecration, it was a place where we crossed and came into where God protected us, where we entered back into the covenant he made with Abraham relative to the land. We’re going to read that they take the Passover now, and it’s only the third time they celebrated the Passover as a nation [since they left Egypt]. They celebrated the Passover on the night they came out of Egypt, then it tells us in Numbers chapter 9, to Mount Sinai they celebrated it the second time, but they had not celebrated that all the years between then and now where they are at in Gilgal. And now again, before they go into battle, there’s something else that’s going to take place here, they’re going to celebrate the Passover, and it tells us that it’s on the 14^th of the month [Nisan], which means God leads them in the Wilderness for forty years, and happens to bring them into the land on the very same day that he took them out of the land of Egypt. Isn’t God amazing with his timing, how he does that? How coincidental [the rabbis have a saying, “that with God there is no such thing as coincidence.”] And some of them will remember, some of them will remember, not the ones born in the Wilderness, but some of them will remember the night they came out of Egypt, the bleeding of the lambs, the crying of the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, the noise of that night, the eeriness of it, some of them will be remembering, and they’ll be looking at those 12 stones realizing we just crossed another Red Sea as it were, we have entered into, by the miraculous hand of God, and our lives are indebted to him, that it’s been through the blood of the Lamb. Gilgal is a place where we go back to memorials. We remember what God has done to bring us into all of this, we remember that it was the blood of the Lamb that was shed, how often we need to go back there, that’s why the Lord gave us the Bread and the Cup, it’s a Gilgal for us, as a place of memorial. Because our memories need memorials. And the older I get, the more my memory needs memorials. Gilgal becomes that place for them, that is filled with remembrance, so important, so remarkable, as they come back each time.

Circumcision (or baptism, conversion) Must Take Place Before They & We Can “Eat the Passover”

So they called the place Gilgal, it says, “And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal,” good place for us to encamp, in Gilgal, “and they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.” (verse 10) Now, interesting, it tells us this in Exodus, you don’t have to turn there, I’ll turn there, it says “When a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as one that is born in the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.” It tells us specifically in Exodus 12 that no uncircumcised person is allowed to eat the Passover. So we have this remarkable sequence here. And now that they are partaking of the Passover, look it tells us they kept the Passover on the 14^th day of the month [of Nisan, the first month in the Hebrew calendar], at evening in the plains, isn’t it interesting, in the plains of Jericho, right in the enemy’s presence, again, you know. And again, just imagine this. They come into the land, if you look over in verse 9 of chapter 6, it says “And the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rereward [margin: “gathering host”] came after the ark, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets.” So the men of Israel go forward with arms, with swords, with arms, but the picture here is, ok, here are these guys, they’re armed for battle, they fought the Amorite Sihon, and Og king of Bashan, they defeated the Amalekites long before, Joshua then in charge of the army. Now they come into the land, the first thing that happens when they come into the land, is there is the consecration, the remembering of the covenant, that they are a covenant people, so there is the circumcision. After the circumcision, you think ‘ok, alright, we got our swords ready,’ ‘No, no, the next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have a feast [the Passover feast] before we go into battle.’ And it happens on the very day of the Passover, the 14^th of course, God’s timing, remarkable. It doesn’t seem sometimes so practical, does it. ‘He prepareth a table for me,’ David would say ‘in the presence of mine enemies.’ And here they are. How often he does that, even in our lives. When it seems impractical, he’s providing something else for us, he’s doing something else. You know, are these good things? What’s going to happen here at Gilgal? What’s going to happen here is going to be the kernel of their courage, it’s going to be the seed of their faith as they go, in regards to Jericho, and Ai, and the victories they’ll have, with the sun standing still in the Valley of Ajalon and so forth. Here all of it is being planted. It doesn’t seem practical, and in some ways it’s the most practical thing, before you and I face the world, before you and I face our enemy, and we have an adversary, before you and I face the standards of this world, it’s so important for God for you and I to understand, there needs to be the cutting away of the old nature, as it were. There needs to be the coming to the table and remembering it’s through the blood and the broken body of Jesus Christ, and that we have access to anything. We need to have our Gilgal, and in the sense, those things that might seem impractical, they really lay the foundation for us in our pilgrimage and in our journey. And there’s a wonderful picture of that here I think, as we look at this. So on the 14^th day of the [first] month, at evening, on the plains of Jericho they celebrate this. Now look, verse 11 says, “And they did eat of the old corn [grain] of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn [grain] in the selfsame day.” And then it says the day after that, “And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn [grain] of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” (verse 12) So the manna keeps sabbath as it were here. Look, this is the Passover, then there is the next day after the Passover [which is a Holy Day, marking the first day of Unleavened Bread, see Leviticus 23], and then the day after that is resurrection day. [Actually, Jesus went into the tomb on a Wednesday afternoon on 30AD, just before sundown, and three days and three nights after that, on a Saturday, or weekly Sabbath right near sundown, 72 hours later, he arose and passed out of the tomb. The women came to the empty tomb the very next morning, finding he had already arisen. Many Sunday-observing Christians don’t fully understand the timing of God’s Holy Days or about the day or year Yeshua died on], that is the day that the manna ceases [the day after the first Day of Unleavened Bread, the day following the Passover day]. That is what Jesus tells us ‘I am the true bread” John chapter 6, “that comes down from heaven. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and they are dead, but any man who eats of this…’ what an interesting picture. That’s when the manna stops. Not on the Passover, not on the [Holy] day after the Passover, but on the day after the day after the Passover, which is resurrection day [Jesus having been resurrected the evening before around sundown]. Isn’t it an interesting picture, they’re eating now the old grain of the land which had been promised to them. They’re partaking now of something that has become reality in their hands, Abraham had eaten there, Isaac had eaten there, Jacob had eaten there, and now so many of these people, including Joshua, who had never been in the land now partaking of the fruit of the land by God’s design and God’s leading. “And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn [grain] of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” (verse 12)

Joshua Has A Face To Face Encounter With the LORD

How remarkably. And it says “And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said, unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?” (verses 13-14) ‘Are you for us, or are you for the bad guys? Na, neither’ is the idea. But, there’s a third option here. “And the captain of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.” (verse 15) sound familiar? Joshua did so, that goes without saying. Joshua, it says, that he was “by Jericho,” what was he doing there? He’s alone in this scene. The river’s been crossed, the land has been entered into, circumcision has taken place, the Passover has been celebrated, Joshua has received instruction through all of those things, and now he’s alone. Now he’s wondering, ‘LORD, what’s the next step?’ and Jericho is sitting there in front of him, double walls, fortified city, walls are thirty to forty foot high, the outside wall is six to ten foot thick, the inside wall we estimate 15 to 20 foot thick. It is a fortification, and Joshua’s thinking ‘Grappling’s, swords,’ it’s like pea-shooters against a battleship, he’s alone, no doubt he’s thinking, and praying I believe, he’s walking there, he’s looking, he’s wondering ‘What will the LORD do?’ And as he’s there, it says ‘he lifts up his eyes and looks, and behold, or consider this,’ “there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua” ‘thinks, Well if this is one of the bad guys, I’m ready. If this is someone else from camp, he shouldn’t be out here,’ whatever he thinks, “Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain [or the Prince] of the host of the LORD am I now come.” Joshua immediately now knows, “And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?” (verse 14) Joshua had been at the tent of meeting for years. Joshua had gone with Moses to the tabernacle, Joshua knew that God said “I am the LORD thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt make unto thee no graven image, of things in heaven, things in the earth…thou shalt not bow down before them,” and yet Joshua falls down on his face, bows down before this person, and “this person” does not refuse his worship. Here he is, I believe, face to face with Jesus Christ [who is Jesus? See John 1:1-14, and https://unityinchrist.com/prophecies/1stcoming.htm]. You know, I’ve been in Israel, at the wailing wall, and have had opportunity to talk to some of the Hasidim, the Orthodox Jews, and say ‘Who was this?’ and they’re troubled with this. Because it says it’s a person, it says ‘he is the prince of the LORD’s host, or captain of the LORD’s host,’ it doesn’t say specifically right here, it seems further down to indicate it’s Jehovah, it’s the LORD. He says ‘who is this, this personage?’ and he says the same thing to Joshua that the burning bush, Yahweh-God said to Moses, and they [the Orthodox Jews] wrestle with it, they struggle with it. Obviously we have a picture here of the LORD before Joshua. The day that Joshua lived in, I think, he was looking at the impossibility of the task that was in front of him. I think that if we look at the impossibility of the task that is in front of us, we are quiet, if we perceive, I think there is still, as it were, a man with a drawn sword, he’s the same. For whatever is going to happen is going to happen through spiritual power, “not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” No doubt the archangel, Michael, taking his place over the nation of Israel, he has a specific duty, there is only one archangel, he’s always singular, he has a specific duty over the nation of Israel. We look at the Middle East, we look at all the problems there, we need to remember, there are spiritual forces at work, there are drawn swords today. Around you and I, I believe there are angels that are ministering spirits, a few times as the church began [Calvary Chapel Philadelphia] one time over the old building somebody was driving by, they came to me and then they said, “We looked, and over the top of the church we saw this huge angel, swinging his sword back and forth.’ I like that, if he protects us all like that. Once someone, it was a young man, a teenager, during the service, talked to his father, came up here and said he saw angels standing here. Good, I like that. But if we’re perceptive, there are drawn swords today, there are things that are ready to take place in the world that we live in, and they will be undertaken by spiritual powers, not just by human endeavor. The invasion of Russia in the Middle East, God said ‘I will put a hook in thy jaw’ [and this comes after Jesus’ 2^nd coming, which many sincere born-again Christians mistakenly believe that takes place before the 2^nd coming of Jesus (see https://unityinchrist.com/ezek/Ezekiel%20pt3-2.htm and scroll to the title Eastern Alliance of Nations Attacks Millennial Kingdom of Israel and read starting from there to the end)] and he talks of the principality and power who stands behind it whose name is Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, like the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece in Daniel chapter 10, who evidently is bound for a thousand years, then loosed again at the end of the Millennium, because we hear of Gog again there, causing trouble one more time. Interesting, he [Joshua] bows down, he begins to worship. “And the captain of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.” (verse 15) “is holy” in a defiled Canaanite land, the place where he, Yahweh, was standing is holy. I like to think when we’re gathered here, it says where two or three of us are gathered together in his name, that he’s there in the midst. I like to think that in this unbelieving nation, that we come to a place, and because of his presence, it’s holy, it’s holy. Not because of the carpet or because of the pews, but because he dwells in the midst of his people, right in Canaan-land with everything that’s defiling, he says ‘Loose your shoe from off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’ “And Joshua did so.” “Now Jericho” ok…

Joshua 6:1-5

“Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. 2 And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. 3 And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. 4 And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. 5 And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.”

Introduction

“Jericho, ok. Now that all that is settled, “Now Jericho” I like the way it says that. “Now Jericho was straightly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.” (verse 1) I know you wish there were people that were straightly shut up, but we’re talking about a city. “none went out, and none came in.” because they were terrified, they had a sense of God’s power, Rahab had told them about that. “And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.” (verse 2) Now it seems this is still the scene, with the Captain of the LORD’s host, and he is here called Yahweh, capital L, capital O, capital R. capital D indicates Jehovah, Yahweh. “And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.” Now this is what is called “the prophetic past tense” in the Hebrew, it’s speaking of something that’s going to take place as if it’s already been done. And he’s saying to Joshua. ‘You know, your enemies are already defeated, Joshua, you’re out here, I brought you through the Wilderness, I fed you with manna for forty years, pillar of cloud during the day, pillar of fire by night. I brought you through the Red Sea, I brought you through the Jordan River, I provided, I’ve taken you through the process of circumcision, the process of the Passover, and what you need to understand now, this is going to be a religious war, this is not going to be by your own strength and by your own might. The things you want to see happen can never be accomplished that way.’ And this flies in the face sometimes of our pragmatic, logical western civilization. I think so much of the time the challenge for you and I is to really believe, because we all face Jericho’s. There’s something that he wants to do here, he says ‘I’ve given it to you.’ He’s given eternal life to us, he’s talked to us about an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, it’s reserved for us, it’s already ours. He tells us that he’s taken us from our past life, and he’s brought us into his promises. But you see, we all have a Jericho, don’t we, we all when we come down say ‘But Lord, this, Lord that, Lord I grew up in an abused situation,’ and they kind of all differ, but somehow there’s that double-wall, it couldn’t even be a single wall, ‘Lord, you don’t understand this problem.’ It’s almost as if he wants to take something in our life, the first thing, the biggest thing, the strongest thing, and he just wants to lay it waste in front of us. And we come and we realize, he transformed me the day he brought me in, he changed me, he did something I could never do in my own life, and how wonderful and how many of us remember that in so many ways. Look, that’s not just ‘I was a Hell’s Angel, I was shootin heroine…’ no, some of us were just self-righteous, some of us had no ability to receive love at all. Some of us had put up our Jericho’s we had built our walls, it was the only way we could survive when we were young, because we were hurt so often and so repeatedly, that we built a double-wall, we were never going to be vulnerable. We let those things happen in our lives because that was our means of survival, where there’s some thing in our life that nobody else knows about that’s a stronghold, and God is giving this picture because we all have our Jericho’s and there something he wants to fall down in front of us without our assistance and without our sweat. And as I look at this, I think, you know, in your lives this evening and in my life this evening, there are still things he’s knocking down. There are things in my life I have tried to knock down that just don’t go down. I puff and I puff, and it just doesn’t go down. And after all of these years, he still says ‘If we’ll come, you’ll seek me, if you’ll bend just your knees, with your heart, if you’ll get before me, I am still in the process of changing your life, and conforming you into my image and into my likeness.’ And I am so thickheaded, I am still learning Jericho 101. And he never tires of teaching me, never tires of teaching me. You see with our kids, we say ‘How many times do we have to tell you that!!!’ He just says ‘Let me tell you again.’ John says ‘I give you not a new commandment, but an old commandment,’ Peter says ‘As long as I’m in this tabernacle, I want to put you in remembrance of these things,’ and there’s a tenderness about the Lord in regards to these things. And I look at this and I think, “Now, now, now that we’ve come and said ‘Lord, ya, I’ll consecrate my life, ya, Lord, I realize though I can’t even do that except for the blood of the Lamb, your price Lord, what you’ve done.’ And then to see him, the sword is in his hand. This is his battle, the battle belongs to the Lord. ‘Alright, now, now let’s look at Jericho.’ Now that we got A, B, C, we got all of that straight, now, Jericho.

‘Now Joshua, Let’s Look At Jericho’

It says ‘It was straightly shut up, tight, locked down, no one went out, no one came in.’ “And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.” (verse 2) ‘it’s yours.’ Now look, all the way back in Genesis chapter 15, verse 16, God had said to Abraham, ‘I am taking your descendants down into Egypt for 400 years, and in the fourth generation they’re going to come out, because the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet come to a full.’ God was measuring time morally, and for these Amorites and Canaanites and Hittites and Jebusites, God had tremendous compassion on them, and he has waited hundreds of years. And yet they hadn’t turned, and this harlot who lives on the wall is a testimony to his grace, that even a Canaanite, and even a Canaanite prostitute could hear of this God who sets slaves free, and cared for the trodden down and less fortunate, and she in her own heart could reach out, and God would send to her, the spies came to her house, and she was spared. So, God now, the sword is drawn, the iniquity of the Amorite has in fact come to the full. And it isn’t just the children of Israel, those who swing physical swords, but the battle is in the LORD’s hand in regards to all of these things. And it says, in light of that now, Joshua understands this battle will belong to the LORD, and he says “I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.” (verses 2b-3) God says ‘Alright Josh, this is what we’re gonna do, I’ve given the city unto you,’ he’s got his sword drawn, ‘you’re going to go on out, you and all the men of war, you’re going to march around the city one time, come back to the camp.’ ‘ok,’ ‘and you’re going to do that for six days.’ And Joshua’s thinking ‘I’ve gotta explain this to my generals and my army,’ and he says “And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.” (verse 4) So these rams’ horns are specific to the priests relative to the feasts and so forth, so this is a religious war, these are not the silver trumpets, these are the shofars, these are the rams’ horns which are specific to certain things in the religious life of Israel. “And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.” (verses 4-5) Joshua’s thinking ‘Why didn’t I think of that? I was wondering how we were going to get in there.’ Just imagine what the LORD is saying to him here. You march around this city for six days, on the seventh day seven times, that’s 13 times around the city. Why? Every day they’d march around it one time, by the seventh day they knew certain colored stones, they got familiar with the walls, big rocks, and they knew where that red rope was hanging down from one house up on the wall. And the spies didn’t learn about this battle plan until here. So Joshua’s gonna say ‘This is what we’re gonna do, and the walls of Jericho…’ it says “fall flat,” it really means they’re gonna just crumble down. And the two spies are saying ‘wait, wait, we promised Rahab, that if she got her family in the house they would be safe.’ So are they going around the wall looking up to see if Rahab, saying ‘Spppzt, get out of there!’ every day they look at this, they look at this red rope hanging there, and every day they go back to the camp and look at that pile of 12 stones. They think of the miraculous God who brought them across the Jordan, every day back in their camp, back in the place of memorial and consecration where they took the Passover. Every day that’s the place where we should start, and we should end. In Israel there was always the morning and the evening sacrifice. Every day, every morning they’d start up with the sacrifice of the lamb, and at the end of every day. When I lay in bed at night, usually I lay there before I go to sleep, I want to be with him in sacrifice just…I get up in the morning, think ‘Lord, you died for me, shed your blood for me.’ When I’m enjoying a cup of coffee, I’m watching the news, I’m alive, I’m breathing, just give me life, at the end of every day, and here, every day back to Gilgal, back to the place of the Passover, back to the place of the memorial stones, every day. ‘Six days, and the seventh day seven times, thirteen times around.’ Why is that? Why did he want them to see it that many times? Listen, all of our Jericho’s are taken the same way, all of our Jericho’s are taken the same way, we’re told this in the Book of Hebrews. It says “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about for seven days.” They didn’t fall down the fourth day or on the fifth day. Look, there’s a great discipline here. Verse 9, if you look down, it says “the armed men,” they walked around that city in a tedious fashion, every day with their own swords, their own arms, and God was saying, ‘No, that’s not the way it’s gonna be, you’re going to walk around the city and look at it again, and you’re going to do it again tomorrow. I want you to have this in the context of what I’m going to do, my work.’ We’re going to find out everything in the city of Jericho was under the ban, dedicated to the LORD, it was the first battle. Every other city would be a lesser city, every other battle would be a lesser battle, they’d be able to take the spoils of war. But from this one it was consecrated, it was his, they were to understand coming into the land, that this is the way it was going to be. And I think there are things, you know every Jericho falls the same way, by faith, by faith. Please just take note of this, faith is never repulsed by the impractable. Look, I’m telling you, we live in a church today, again, and I think about it, and I watch it, it’s loaded for bear on the horizontal, we look at a church today, that’s got, filled with psychobabble, it’s got all kinds of rear-screen projectors, coffee shops. I like coffee shops, but that’s not how you build a church, I just like to supply all you coffee-drinkers to keep you awake during the studies, but we didn’t build the church that way. The point is, we’ve got all of this stuff, but faith is never embarrassed by the impractable. Faith is still saying, prayer. ‘Well wait a minute, this person’s life, you don’t understand Pastor Joe, my father, my mother, they’re miserable, they threaten us, they can’t believe we go to that church, they think we’re a cult, they can never forgive, I was abused when I was growing up, we’re never going to be able to love them,’ and we say ‘We’ll walk around this, put your sword away.’ Your weapons and everything you have and all the natural resources you have is never going to amount to anything in the face of what you’re going through right now. Prayer, faith is never afraid of the impractable, the Word of God, I believe it still changes lives, it changed my life, it is still changing my life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the foolishness of the preaching of the Gospel to confound the wisdom of this world (1^st Corinthians 1:25-31). Paul said when he came to Corinth, he said ‘I don’t want to be known for anything among you but the testimony of God,’ he says. And again, that’s subjective, that’s not a testimony about God, it is God’s testimony. Again, Mike McIntosh has a testimony, I’ve listened to his testimony many times, I love to hear his testimony. When Greg Laurie was here he shared his testimony with us. And I hadn’t heard it for years, and I know he had gone through some things, just to hear him say ‘My mom was married seven different times, I went through these foster parents,’ it’s his testimony. Paul says, “And I, brethren, when I came unto you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1^st Corinthians 2:1-2) That’s the testimony of God, ‘that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes will not perish but have everlasting life.’ That’s God’s testimony. God has a testimony. It’s not a testimony about God, it’s not that we try to explain God to people, so that with their intellects they can take hold of all of that. What is God’s testimony? God’s testimony is that he sent his Son to die for us. It seems so impractable. Paul says, ‘The Jews, they want a sign, and the Greeks, they want wisdom, but the power of God is in the foolishness of the preaching, that’s how lives are transformed.’ Paul says ‘I didn’t come that way, I just came declaring unto you the testimony of God, for I determined…’ he had to determine that, because he’s one of the not-many-wise that were chosen. He doesn’t say ‘not any wise,’ he says “not many wise,” he’s one of them, he’s a wise man, a scholar, a student, and academician, he’s a wise man who studied. And he has to say “I had to determine to not to know anything among you…except Jesus Christ and him crucified…and I was with you in weakness and in fear and with trembling, and my speech and my and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and the power” here’s the reason “that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.” That’s what he’s saying to people here marching around Jericho, ‘I don’t want your faith to stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God, this land is being given to you, these promises are being offered to you on the basis of a covenant. Remember it every day when you come back to Gilgal. You see the supernatural way I even brought you into the land, remember the blood of the lamb, the celebration of the Passover, do it every day and come back, and go out and look at it again the next time, 13 times around those walls, the most impractable thing you could ever imagine happens.’ And these men, it says, were armed, they had the practical tools to try to do something. God said ‘No, this is not gonna happen that way.’ And in this logical, pragmatic Western world we live in, when we have so much, and we have so many ways of doing things in the natural, I think God is trying to captivate our hearts sometimes, and say ‘No, it’s not gonna happen that way this time, it’s not going to happen that way this time, because ultimately I don’t want your faith to stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God, so I want you to walk around this Jericho, this thing you’re wrestling with that’s never going to change, walk around it again, look at it again, look at the impossibility of it, the walls are double walls, you don’t have the tools to get in there, walk around and look at it again, make sure you’re convinced you can never do it on your own. And in simple obedience I want you to obey me and do the things that I asked you to do, relative to this,’ the writer of Hebrews tells us “By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had compassed the city for seven days.” He says to Joshua in verse 4, “And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.” That’s 13 times around, “And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.” (verse 5) it shall fall, literally under it, it shall collapse, fall downward, except for one little pinnacle of wall with a prostitute’s house and a red rope hanging on it, she needed that red rope to get down cause the rest of the wall was gone. “the wall of the city shall fall under it(self), and the people shall ascend up.” the idea is, then the army goes up into the city, every man straight before him. And Joshua no doubt is thinking, ‘How do I tell my army this? How do I tell my army this?’ ‘How do I tell my mom that I went to church for years, and nothing ever changed in my life, I was drinking, I was gambling, I was taking drugs, and religion never did anything for me, how do I tell her that just by simply trusting Jesus my life has been transformed. How do I tell the person I still love that’s caught up in this situation or this sin? How do I just tell them that God’s testimony is that he loves them and sent his Son to die for them, and if they simply trust him, they can be emancipated, they can be set free, they can be changed, their lives can be changed, not just for now, but for eternity.’ Paul says that’s the very wisdom of God, that’s the very wisdom of God, right from the beginning, he wants to transform our lives with his power, that as we enter into our pilgrimage and our journey, the other battles that are ahead of us, that our faith would not be standing in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. Same picture that we have here. You know, I think God wants us to be infinitely practical, there’s so much instruction about taking care of our wives, taking care of our children, taking care of our homes, there’s so much practical instruction in the Scripture about our character and the way we should live [see https://unityinchrist.com/Proverbs/Proverbs%201-1-33.html]. But there are other things, when God asks us to trust him, there are things in your life and in my life, that maybe you wouldn’t want up on the screen here where everybody else could see them, I’ve got one of those. We’ve all got lots of those. And in the privacy of our lives, God tells us, ‘If you’ll trust me, that fortress will disintegrate before your eyes,’ ‘the weapons of our warfare, they’re not carnal, they’re powerful, to the pulling down of strongholds, that we should be bringing every thought into the captivity of Christ.’ Paul says “I’m not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it was the power of God unto salvation.” What could possibly be in front of us this evening in our own lives, the lives of our friends, and the lives of our countrymen, this nation that we live in, the neighbourhood that we care about?...the day is coming, it tells us, when every knee shall bow, things in heaven, things on earth, things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. What is there that can resist his will? And in the multitude of practical instruction that he gives to us, what sets us aside from unbelieving people? and look, unbelieving people, you know, we have responsibilities to work, to buy food, and we hear so much through the election about medical care and insurance and taxes, we’re all in that practical world, and as Christians we’re to set an example, we should be the most practical in so many ways. But there’s something that sets us aside from all of that, and that is the God that we love, who is weaning us away from trusting in ourselves, and our own strength. He allows us to encounter strongholds, threats sometimes, where he’ll say ‘No, you just consecrate yourselves, now don’t fight, don’t put on the gloves, don’t get in the ring, you stay outside, I want you to be a spectator, and I don’t want you to be a participant.’ Because the minute you put the gloves on and start swinging you’ve taken something personally, ‘I just want you to stand back, just consecrate your life. You let me fight your battles, my sword is drawn, this is all on the basis of a covenant, I have given you the land, your enemies are defeated, I want you to walk around your impossibility, and I want you to look at it, I want you to do it again, do it again, and do it again, and do it again, until you are thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of any resource you have coming to bear.’ And then, in simple faith, if you walk around it seven times, and you give a shout of victory, and you watch that fall down…it’s easy to read, I hope I don’t have one of those this week. You know the Lord says ‘Hey, you told everybody else, I want to see you try it here, you know.’ What a wonderful God we serve, and what a covenant keeping God we have. And how even in the walled citadels, of our conscience, and of our bitterness and of our hurt, of our brokenness, he comes to us, with the balm of Gilead, with the ointment for our healing. He beckons us to trust him, and consecrate our lives, to let him fight our battles, to do the things that set us aside from practical monotony, strictly known by the unbeliever, to be exercised by us, but to live in that world above that they know nothing of, trusting him that our faith would not stand in the wisdom of man but in the power of God. Amen? Let’s stand, let’s pray, we’ll have the musicians come. Read ahead, because next week the walls fall down next week…[transcript of Joshua 5:1-15 and Joshua 6:1-5, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]