This leads to the fifth characteristic, which is that Joshua obeyed the Lord completely. This was the most striking of his characteristics. If you go back to the very beginning of the book, you’ll recognize that in the first words of God to him, this is what he was encouraged to do: “Be careful to o
Growing in the Christian life is no mystery. Christians have known what it is in all ages. It's studying the Word of God. It's praying. It's fellowshipping with Christian people. It's worshipping. It's working for God. It's witnessing. It's testifying. Those are the things through which you grow. An
I think this is a good point to look back over this campaign and its details and see what it teaches us about the characteristics of strong leadership, which Joshua showed. There probably are other things that can be said about Joshua on the basis of other texts. But just looking at this one campaig
Now our story picks up at that point. The routed armies were led by five kings. These five kings were apparently together directing the military operations. And when they saw the battle go against them and recognized that they were in great personal danger themselves, they hid in the cave near the t
In the middle of Joshua 10 there’s an interesting change in the nature of the narrative that describes the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Up to this point in the story, there have only been three real battles. There was the attack on Jericho and the destruction of that city; the attack on Ai and its
The second lesson is that we ought to expect great days of victory in our service of God. We don’t see them every day. There ought to be periods of great victory in our lives where, because God has given us a task to do and we believe that He’s going to be faithful to us in helping us accomplish tha
I don’t think these words are poetical. I think they refer to a real event. I don’t know whether God actually stopped the sun and the moon, though He could have. I incline to the view that the impression is that this is what happened, that the day was longer, that light prevailed for a long period o
Yesterday we concluded our study by mentioning the first explanation for the miracle of the sun and moon standing still. The second explanation is that the sun and moon appeared to actually stop because the earth itself actually stopped. Now as I say, anybody who believes in an omnipotent God in the
By this time, the battle had gone on for some time. The sun was passing through the sky and perhaps was soon to set over the Mediterranean to his right. He must have recognized as soon as he looked up and saw the sun that he didn't have enough time to achieve the kind of victory that the military si
There’s a verse in the tenth chapter of Joshua that has been used to a great effect by Leland Wong, an evangelist out in California. It’s Joshua 10:13, which says, "The sun stood still." At the top of his letterhead, Leland Wong has printed three verses. The first is this one from Joshua 10. The sec
Francis Schaeffer in his study of the Gibeonites points out that the thing that happened to them is not identical with, but is quite similar to, what happened to Rahab. Rahab was the harlot of Jericho, an immoral woman; but she had heard about the Jewish God. And when the spies came, she said, “I kn
Perhaps you can apply how the Israelites regarded their treaty by supplying specifics from your own experiences. You get into something that perhaps was wrong for you, but you said you would do it and now you have to stand by it. You said, “Well, I’m in a business venture, but it’s costing me.” Well
Yesterday, we looked at the first two points from Ephesians 6 about our spiritual warfare. The third is that we’re to carry the offensive weapon, our sword, which is the Word of God. It means we have to know it. We have to be able to use it. We have to have it at our disposal. Some people say, “Well
To put it in very basic terms, we cannot say, "This is the path that seems good to me" and, therefore, choose it. What we have to do is inquire of the Lord and follow His direction as we find it in Scripture, regardless of whether or not that is the path that seems good to us personally. Israel thou
As we come to Joshua 9, we’re told about another group of people living in Canaan. It’s hard not to admire the Gibeonites because, after all, what would you do if you were in their position? They were residents of Canaan, the country that the Jews were attacking. They came from one of the mountain s
The other reason why this passage is tremendous is because this altar of uncut stores was not constructed, as we might suspect, in the valley between the two mountains. Rather, they were told to build it on Mount Ebal, the mountain of the curses. Why was it built on the mountain of the curses? It wa
There is also something else we need to see. This matter of the reading of the law at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim was not only given to teach the principle that blessing follows obedience and judgment follows disobedience; it was also given to explain the way of finding God’s favor when we do disob
This is precisely what we have recorded as being fulfilled in Joshua 8. All Israel were standing on both sides of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, facing the priests who carried it. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses, the servant
Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim are in the high country about 25 miles north of Ai and a little bit to the west. Now Ai, as we saw when we were studying these initial battles, was at the high end of the approach road that Joshua and the armies used as they moved into the country from the Jordan. Jerich
It’s agreed by most Old Testament scholars that the heart of the Old Testament law is the book of Deuteronomy, and that the heart of Deuteronomy is the list of blessings and curses that are found in chapters 27 through 30 of that important book. Deuteronomy presupposes an eternal covenant establishe
So when we look at this battle of the Jewish troops at Ai, we learn a great deal from the fact that there was no miracle this time. But notice that even though it was won by non-miraculous means, the victory was every bit as complete and every bit as much of a triumph as the victory that had been wo
Let me also point out that it’s not merely that God operates in different ways in different people. God also operates in different ways in our own lives, entirely apart from other people. At one point in your life, you have a particularly thrilling experience. Things just seem to go so well for you.
Now, there are great lessons in how Israel went about the capturing of Ai. One is that God uses different methods when He deals with His people. We don't like that because we like everything to work exactly the same every time. We like God to be a computer, where as long as you push the buttons in t
You know, in the Christian life when you and I run into difficulty, we have a tendency to think that probably what the Lord is teaching us is that this isn't the way we should go. We should bypass the difficulty in order to find an easier road. I think younger people today are particularly susceptib
