The Book of Joshua illustrates God's faithfulness in fulfilling His promises to His people, emphasizing the necessity of both divine intervention and human cooperation, obedience, and faith for victory and entering into His promised rest.
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it's the story of how God was seeking a
bride for his son each book is different
from every other book I'm trying to give
you the keys for you to unlock it for [Music]
yourself well now after they crossed the
Jordan they stayed at gilgore for quite
some time they put a can of stones they
took 12 Stones from the bed of the
Jordan and made a little can of them at
gilgal as a reminder for future
generations of how God dried up the
river for them Rememberance is a very
important part of Old Testament piety
you constant being told to remember what
the Lord had done for you of course
Christians are the same we take Bread
and Wine to do this in remembrance we
need constant reminders of what God has
done for us in the past and their
favorite way was to erect cans of stones
and especially 12 Stones one for each
tribe they also did something else this
whole new generation had not been
circumcised and so all the men of this
new generation were now circumcised it
meant they had to stay in Camp until
their bodies recovered and they were in
pain and they were very vulnerable to
attack at that time had the Jericho
people realized they could have marched
out and really uh walked over them at
that time but they didn't and after a
few days they were ready to go the Mana
stopped as soon as they crossed the
Jordan and because on the other side
it's very fertile if you go to Jericho
today it's a whole Oasis the best
grapefruit and oranges you'll ever taste
are in Jericho I see some of you have
been and so as soon as they got over
they had fruit and vegetables and food
again and they called the place gilgal
which means rolled away because God had
rolled away the reproach of Egypt they
could forget Egypt now they were
in now a rather strange thing happened
Joshua decided to have a personal
reconter of the uh town to walk around
it by himself and he went by night he's
walking around this town when he came
across an armed
man and he said uh whose side are you on
the said
answer whose side are you on are you on
no and then the personage went on to say
the important thing is whose side you on
Joshua you on God's
side and it
was the captain of the Lord's
host I believe that means a senior Angel
an archangel I don't believe it was the
son of God but I believe it was a senior
Archangel captain of the Lord's host but
you're entitled to what you believe what
happened was Joshua was being reminded
that he is not the highest
officer in the Lord's
army that he's an under officer it's a
gentle little reminder so they set about
conquering the
land and uh as I've told you they drove
a wedge in the center first
and then cleaned up the South and then
cleaned up the north brilliant
strategy now there's more space given to
the first two towns than any others
later that's because the first two towns
were terribly significant one positively
and the other
negatively one was a complete Victory
and the other was a disaster Jericho was the
the
victory now Jericho is still there even
ancient Jericho the modern Jericho is a
mile down the road now here are some
rather poor photographs but this is
looking across the Jordan Valley to the
hills of Moab beyond the Jordan is
running there here's the Oasis of uh
Jericho and in the middle of it is this
heap of
rubble it Towers above everything else
it's just a big heap of dust apparently
it's what we call a
tell now the word tell simply means the
ruins of a city or at least of many
cities that have been built on top of
each other as a City was destroyed so
they built another on the top of it so
gradually a man-made Hill emerges you
may have noticed in some old villages in
England that the front doors of the
Cottages are way below the street level
that's because the street has been built
up and up and up on top of itself and a
tell is formed that way and so
archaeologists one method is to take one
layer off and then the next and then the
next but that destroys each layer as
they go down another method is to take a
slice right out of the middle and see it
like a sandwich cake and then notice the
particular Potter in each laay and date
it and so on that's what they've done
with this mound it's just this long
Mound here looking down on it from the
air this is what you would see here are
all the fruit trees of the Jericho Oasis
but here is the old Old Testament City
nobody's living in it now it's just a
heap of rubble and ruin as you can see
but they've
actually uh cut a trench right across
the middle there and Unearthed the
oldest building in the world which I'll
show you in a
moment they have discovered that Jericho
is actually the oldest city in the whole
world to our
knowledge it actually dates from 8,000
BC and and in fact there is one building
in it which I'll show you now a round
Tower with a spiral staircase inside it
you can't go down they've had to put a
grid over it because it was people were
wearing the stones away but this round
fortification is 8,000 BC it's 10,000
years old you're looking at and that is
the oldest building in the world and
they found that by digging this trench
right through the
middle they've also found a lot of
features of the city and one unusual
feature is that it had double
walls two walls the outer wall and then
a 15t gap and then the inner wall the
outer wall was 6 feet thick and made of
rock and the inner wall was 12 ft thick
and made of brick now this is the kind
of problem that the Israelites faced
that's a mighty big
so let's uh take those pictures
Jericho that's a very oversimplified
cross-section of uh the tell and you can
see how the different ages of cities
have been built on top of each other
there's not much of Joshua City left
just a little bit here
that's the late bronze City the time of
Joshua the main road that you drive
along is here the bus will take you
alongside this mound of dirt and the
spring which supplies all the water for
Jericho is just alongside it lovely
fresh water but if you remember in
Elisha's day that spring became
radioactive and had to be cured with a
miracle again but here we have the
different cities the Neolithic city the
pre potery age then the
early the Neolithic Pottery age then the
early bronze the late bronze just that
little bit Iron Age and finally bits
that are later but now it's just a rough
Dusty thing and they found various bits
of wall here that's where they found the double
double
wall um now then because of that
wall Jericho was very limited in size
but the population grew so what did they
do they decided to build
houses over the two walls bridging them
actually just to find more space so it
was a very crowded little city with
houses actually sitting on top of the
6ot wall then the Gap and then the 12T
wall the walls were about 30 ft
high now bear in mind that it was
already on these layers of previous
cities can you see that the walls with
the extra weight of houses on top of
them are not very strong can you see
that again I'm not trying to explain the
miracle I'm trying to show you the
situation as it
was a slight Earth Tremor would bring
the whole lot
down whether it was an earth Tremor that
God used to do that or not we don't know
it could even have been quite feasible
that in fact a loud sustained noise
would have done
that and it's very interesting that God
told them to blow these horns that I've
just blown here and it says immediately
when the horns blew the walls came down
you know that some singers can bust a
light bulb if they get the right note it
may well be that God knew that those
walls were already precariously balanced
on these slopes and had the extra weight
of houses just asking for a collapse
whatever I don't know the fact is that
God said you march around it seven times
once a day in total
silence and on the eth day you
blow and they blew these horns which
night or
whatever and you can imagine all those
horns blowing on the same note and the
people shouted as loud as they could and
after 6 days silence I should think that
was pretty unnerving for the inhabitants
anyway but the walls collapsed and the
houses on them except for
one because you remember the prostitute
rahav her house was on the
walls so God saved one bit of
wall and the Scarlet thread out of the
window saved her life and her family
that's how she became the great great
grandmother s the great great great
grandmother of King
David and the great great great great
great great great great great great
great grandmother of Jesus
himself and put in the genealogy in
Matthew 1 it's an amazing
story well they didn't even have street
fighting and they just walked into the
City and took it but God said this city
is the first
fruits it's mine you don't touch a thing in
in
it and that way God told them the
victory was mine not
yours you don't deserve anything from
this city this is my victory you can
conquer the other cities and you can
loot the other cities but you're not to
loot this
one and we know that a man did because
the next place they went to was a place
called AI further up the
hill that's all that's left of AI That's
the best photograph I could get of AI
it's just a heap of ruins
but it was a flourishing
City and they made two errors two
overconfidence and Joshua said we don't
need many troops for this
one it's easy conquering this
land how fatal it is to think that
because God has blessed you once he's
going to do it again or because you've
had a success in one sphere that that
will be repeated
so often when I've been at an occasion
where God has really been present and
blessed us the immediate reaction of
people Afters we must do this again and
I've said no you must not do this
again because you think you can go out
and do it as you did before that's what
Samson said I'll I'll go out as before
you can't repeat
God and they were overconfident and
thought that only a few troops would get
AI more than that a man called
akan had stolen something from Jericho
he saw some nice clothes and he thought
well they're no use to
God but I could make use of them and he
saw some gold as well and he took
it now when Joshua's troops first
attacked AI they were routed and they
fled and Joshua came back to God and
said God why have you let that happen
now the word will go around the whole
country we are not
Invincible we're finished and he blamed
God for
it and God said Joshua it could be your
fault you
know find out who took the Forbidden
thing in
Jericho and that's when they called the
tribes together again they used
Lottery and by lot they settled on this
tribe then they got the different Clans
together and by lot they settled on this
clan then they got each family the clan
together and by lot they found the
family of
akchan now why did lot's work in the Old
Testament the answer is very simple they
believed that that God was in control of
any every
situation and that when just for sake of
argument when they tossed a
coin god could catch it and turn it the
right number of times to tell them what
what he wanted that's the theory
theologically it's thoroughly sound if
God can pull walls down of Jericho he can
can
certainly determine lots and they used
Lots deliberately so that men had no
influence in this situation now we do
that as well we toss a coin for who goes
into bat first at a cricket match that's
to stop any person choosing but the
difference is that when they cast slots
they believe it allowed God to choose
because he could control the lot and
that's why they did it right up to the
day of Pentecost after that God's spirit
guided them so we don't need to toss
coins now we've got the spirit to guide
us but in the Old Testament days that's
what they did the priest carried two
stones inside his breastplate a black
and a white stone and they were called
the araman the tumin and one meant yes
and one men no and they would go to the
priest and say does God want me to marry
this girl or not and the priest would
close I and pull out a stone if it was a
black stone the answer was no and if it
was a white stone the answer was yes I
wish we could have guidance that way now
it it would be very much simpler and
easier just to go to the pastor and say
pick a stone for me and then you know
what to do actually God wants a more
personal relationship with us than that
he wants to work it out much more
personally but that was the way they did
it and we shall see that's how they
divided the land later so they cast lots
and the lot fell on aen as later
the sailors on a ship heading for Spain
cast lots and the lot fell on
Jonah you find this again and again that
God controls the lot he doesn't control
the national lottery in our country but
he does control the lot in the Old
Testament that's
important so AI was a disaster and aan
and his family had to die they clearly
knew what he'd done and they welcomed it
they would L to the clothes and the
gold but one man's sin caused the people
of God to
fail it's almost frightening isn't it
that one member of a church could have
the same
effect when there's sin in the camp you
can't sin to yourself it can affect everybody
everybody
else and the people of God well finally
they reached Mount ebol and they obeyed
Moses Moses said when you get to the
mountain in the center there are two
mountains ebol and gazim he said you
just stand on both mountains some of you
and and on one mountain you shout the
blessings and on the other Mountain you
shout the
curses and if you go to those two Hills
today they're just near sheim and
there's a kind of Amphitheater both
Hills are Hollow on the face towards
each other so can you imagine a huge two
new natural amphitheaters you can hear
perfectly right across the valley and
there they stood and they shouted the
blessings and the
curses and a reminder of the Covenant
then they went on to the
South want to go back to the outline I
don't know what I've done with it yes I
do they cleaned up the South and that's
when the sun Stood
Still they were attacked by five Amorite
Kings led by the king of Jerusalem a man
who called himself Lord righteous isn't
that interesting because Jerusalem was
still in enemy hands and he led five
Kings to attack them in the valley of
ion here's a photograph out of a book as
you can see of the valley of ion with
the sun where the sun Stood Still that's
happened at this point they began to div
the land and they did it with a national
lottery so that there would be no human
influence on the choice and Joshua sent
out surveyors and they came back with a
complete survey of the land
um there's a little map here that might
uh just show you it's a fascinating
little land only the size of
Wales uh it has it's the only green bit
in the Middle East the Arabian Desert is
this side and the Nega desert South uh
the rain comes the Mediterranean and
drops on these Hills first and then on
the Hills over the rift valley that's
all it is that's the promised land but
it was divided up surveyed and they
gave by lot the portion to the tribes
two and a half tribes wanted this part
of the land over the other side of the
Jordan in trans Jordan as we call it
today and so Moses had made them promise
that they could have that land provided
they came came and helped their other
tribes to conquer this side and if they
helped their Brethren to get this land
they could then go back and settle that
way so that's what happened two and a
half tribes settled here and the other 9
and a half or 10 and a half No 9 and a
half settled on this side and the land
was divided and everybody was happy with
the division that occupies quite a few
chapters in
Joshua there were of course special
cities there had to be six cities of
Refuge three either side of the Jordan
where people guilty of manslaughter
could flee and not
be uh killed for having murdered and
there were also cities for the Levites
it's all there in the Book of Joshua so
we come to the last two chapters the
final epilogue where he preaches This
Magnificent sermon there are just two
things I want to say about this he's an
old man he's 120 called at the same age
as Moses 80 but now he knows he's going
to die it's amazing how many people in
the Bible know when they come to die and
even Christianity you know is a way of
death as well as a way of life there as
a man in beckfield wrote to all his
relatives when the doctor told him he'd
reach the end of the road and he said
come and stay with me come and see how a Christian
Christian
dies what a
challenge so the Great Men of God when
the time comes they know they're going
and they usually leave behind a message
for which they'll be remembered the
first thing we notice is the office of
leadership Joshua did not appoint a
successor Moses did Joshua didn't why
not because from now on one man couldn't
handle the people were
scattered one man would be inaccessible
to many of the tribes from now on each
tribe had to have its own elders
that's a very significant move it
actually failed and the people wanted
onean leadership again and demanded a
king but it was not God's will God's
will was that Elders in each tribe
should take over the leadership because
that means that people have immediate
access to the elders and that's a very
important principle once you build a
hierarchy with a man at the top he becomes
becomes
inaccessible and uh it's very important
that the will of God for his people was
local Elders in immediate contact with
the local people but they didn't accept
that and it didn't work but that was
God's will so he reminded them of the
Covenant and he reminded them that God
had promised not only to bless but to
curse and he promised both and he said
God always keeps his
promises he brought us into this land
but he won't stop dealing with us now
interesting that Joshua gave all the
credit for getting the land to
God took no credit himself though he'd
LED them he said God brought us in God
fought for us God gave us this land god
did it and you should be jolly grateful
to him so he made them take an oath of
loyalty to
God and in chapter 24 a unique thing
happens he speaks in the first person
singular as he does in chapter 23 but
but in chapter 24 I means
god he is now prophesying and his last
message was Prophecy from beginning to
end and though he still says I whereas
in chapter 23 I means
Joshua whereas in chapter 24 I means
Yahweh always the god of
hosts and this is what God says through
Joshua he says I have done all this for you
you
and there's just one statement of gods
that I love so I gave you a land on
which you did not
toil and cities you did not build and
you live in them and you eat from
Vineyards and Olive Groves you did not
plant you didn't but I gave them to you
I've given you all this and now out of
gratitude Joshua speaks again in his own
name so fear the the Lord and serve him
and be faithful to him and throw away
all other
gods that's when he makes that
magnificent statement as for me and my family
family
we serve the
Lord now I said that's the
choice you've got the
land whose God is going to be your God
now now that you've got what you want
very significant challenge
and they said we will serve the Lord so
he said right I'm going to put that on a stone
stone
here and he set up a stone of witness
three times they said we will serve the
Lord the last few verses are three
burials the burial of
Joshua the burial of Joseph's
bones do you know all the way for 40
years they'd carried a coffin out of
Egypt as well as everything else they
actually carried a coffin all that way
with Joseph's bones in it because his
dying wish was bury me in the promised
land and now at last they bury Joshua
they bury Joseph's bones and they bury
eleader the son of
Aaron so there's a triple funeral that
rounds off
this book and it says this that as long as
as
Joshua and his generation of
leaders lived the people were faithful to
to
God but when the next Generation came
things went badly wrong one of the
biggest problems is passing the faith On
to the Next
Generation really is for a second
generation of Christians children to be
as enthusiastic as their convert their
converted parents who first came to the
lord it's not easy and it's a problem
that has followed the Christian church
for a long time each generation has to
ReDiscover God for themselves and though
they may hear what God did for their
parents and grandparents that doesn't
make the children go so let's summarize
Joshua as I read Joshua these are the
lessons I
learn I can sum it up in two simple
sentences without him
they couldn't have done
it but without them he wouldn't have done
done
it now those are the two very important
lessons there's a balance here it's so
easy to go overboard and put all the
responsibility on God or to put it all
on us but there is a Biblical
balance without God we can't do it but
without us he won't do it
notice the change of verb it's not
without us he can't it's without us he
won't and this is the beautiful balance
it goes all the way through the Bible
With God all things are
possible without him he chooses not to
work with us he needs us he wants us we
are called to be co-workers with God if
Joshua and the people of Israel hadn't
cooperated with God it wouldn't have
happened and yet without him and without
his intervention they couldn't possibly
have done it now that's the beautiful
balance so first of all we see a lot of
divine intervention in the Book of
Joshua we see God's words and we see his
deeds he makes his promises and he keeps
them he made a solemn Covenant which he
never broke not for one minute did God
go back in his word he had sworn by
himself by myself by God I'll stay with you
you
if it means punishing you I'll punishing
you and blessing you I'll bless you but
I'm going to stay with you it's for
better or worse for richer for poorer
I'm your God God cannot tell a
lie I once made a list of things God
can't do because you know when you think
of God Almighty you think he can do
anything no he can't there are many
things God can't do and the first thing
I wrote down was God can't tell a lie
and I finished up with a list of 31
things that God can't do do and with a
shock I realized that I could do every
one of them does that make me greater
than God no thank God there are some
things he cannot
do tell you one thing he can't do he
can't change the
past once it's happened even God cannot
change it he can change its
effect and its result but he can't
change the event so God himself can't
undo the cross it's
happened God cannot tell a lie he cannot
break a promise he just can't it's
against his whole nature he couldn't
promise you something and then not do it
that's God I think the things he can't
do are as wonderful as the things he can
do and he cannot break his word now
we've broken our promises I'm sure but
he can't it's against his whole
character he cannot make a promise to
isra and then go back in it thank God
for that it says God gave to Israel all
the land he promised to their
fathers he did it and his deeds he says
at the beginning of Joshua I will fight
for you and I will drive them
out I'll do it that's the meaning of the word
word
Emmanuel now I'm going to give you four
possible meanings of that word and I
want you to vote on it which you think
is right meaning number one God is with
us meaning number two God is with
us meaning number three God is with us
and meaning number four God Is With
Us Now it only means one of those four
things let's take a quick vote God is
with us how
many God is with
us God is with us
God is with
us well that's pretty evenly divided but
um the fourth was right the fourth was
right Emmanuel means god is on our side
the emphasis is he's going to fight for
us not them so the emphasis is on us God
is with us and Emmanuel sums up the God
who said to Joshua I'll fight for you
I'm on your side if you're on my side
and so we have the division of the
Jordan River the collapse of Jericho's
Wars the cessation of the Mana another
battle which they won because of An
Almighty Hailstone the lengthening of
the day in the valley of ion another
time God sent
hornets and even while the enemy were
marching towards them these Hornets came
now if you can imagine a swarm of
hornets I tell you you don't stay in
fight you run and that's how they won
one of the biggest battles just through
Hornets see God controls the insect
world again and all this was his doing
and it was marvelous in their eyes but
the other side is equally
important God does it through human
cooperation he didn't fight by
himself they had to be in the
battlefield they had to go and God
fought for them now this is the balance
some people just say oh well leave it to
God he'll do it all other people talk as
if they can do it all and you find sorts
of Christians but the balanced
Christians pray as if it all depends on
God and work as if it all depends on
them there's a kind of beautiful balance
in the Bible here without them he
wouldn't have done
it they had to go in and he said every
bit of land you stand on I'll give it to
you but you got to go and stand on it so
without them he wouldn't have done it
their attitude if their attitude
remained one of confidence and their
action one of obedience they would win every
every
battle but if their attitude became
self-confidence and their action became
Disobedience they'd lose every battle
and that's why though the Book of Joshua
covers 40 years the two major parts of
it are the story of Jericho and the
story of AI if you learn the lessons of
those two towns then you're set for the
conquest of the land interesting isn't it
it
well the Bible as I've said earlier is a
very honest book and it says they did
make three
mistakes only three when they took the
land the first was at
AI they were defeated by Superior troops
because they had too much
self-confidence the second I haven't
mentioned was where one of the tribes
already in the land tricked them and
they tore their coats and they put on
old shoes and they blackened their faces
and they came to the Israelites and they
said We've Come From A Distant land
because we've heard God is with you look
at our clothes look at our shoes we've
walked hundreds of miles because we hear
about your God they'd only come from
around the
corner and because they put on this show
it says Joshua didn't ask the Lord about
them and he was fooled and he made a
peace treaty with them a devastating
thing to do and only then discovered
that they were just living around the
corner and this was their way of escaping
escaping
defeat and they didn't ask God about it
so they were tricked and the third time
was when the two and a half tribes that
were going to live on the far side of
the Jordan finally went off to claim
their territory and when they crossed
the Jordan they put up a can of stones
and the tribes on this side of the
Jordan said hey they've built an altar
so they're not going to be part of us
and misunderstanding arose among God's
people and they said to them we're going
to fight you and they gathered an army
to go and defeat the two and a half
tribes internal
misunderstanding and the two and a half
tribes said no no we we've done that to
remind our children and our children's
children that we came from your side of
the Jordan and that we belong with you
and the misunderstanding was removed and
peace came back so even among the people
of God there can be
misunderstanding when you don't ask God
about things well what's the Christian
application of Joshua very simple in the
New Testament Joshua is used as an
example of Faith Rahab The Prostitute as
an example of Faith again and
again aen is used as an example of sin
in the people of God and their
corresponding uh event in the New
Testament is ananas and
saf which exactly corresponds to the sin
of aen in the old people of God you
remember the
couple and then of course it's used for
salvation because in fact Joshua's name
means salvation it was originally hosia
but Moses changed it to Yeshua which is
the same as Jesus and means means God
Saves when my wife and I moved to the
village where we live the postmaster was
called Mr
godsave and it was delightful going to
visit Mr God Save The Postman but
actually in Hebrew he would be Mr
Yeshua or Mr Jesus Mr God save and
finally what is the promised land for
the Christian that we're to be brought
into not heaven when you sang when I
tread the verge of Jordan I wonder what
you were thinking about were you
thinking about death because the
promised land for us is not heaven the
promised land is
Holiness because the promised land is
rest from
Battle it's the promised land of Victory
when you've won the battle and you can
enjoy what God has for you and of course
whenever you overcome a Temptation you
have a little foretaste of the rest
don't you you've won the battle and
there's a rest from the conquer from the
conflict there remains a Sabbath rest
says Hebrews 4 for the people of God
Joshua didn't get people into that
rest and there remains a Sabbath rest
for us to get into and it's to cease
from our own
works it's to take a holiday from
yourself and
rest actually most holidays we take
ourselves away with us that's not rest
is it but to take a holiday from
yourself and cease from your own work
work is to enter into the promised land
of God's rest and enjoy his Victorious
Life the best book on Joshua I've ever
read is Alan redpath's little book
Victorious Christian Living do get that
book it's how the Book of Joshua enables
Christians to enter into their Promised
Land of rest from
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