Joshua 12
The Commander – 5:13-6:5
Tonight we begin a major section of the book of Joshua and I will give
you a rough outline of this entire section.
From now until we finish the book most of the time will be spent on
chapters 5-11. This section of Joshua is
known in history as the book of the wars of God, or the book of the wars of
Yahweh. The reason is that the theme
running throughout this is God’s holy war.
And these are God’s battles, this is a living illustration of that
promise many believers are familiar with in 1 Sam. 17, that “the battle is the
Lord’s.” So these are the various
battles of Jehovah. In chapter 5-6 or
Now I want you to notice something about this outline, and I want you to notice
how the historian under the Holy Spirit wrote Joshua’s battles, the Lord’s
battles. Notice he starts out very
detailed, everything is minutely detailed for you. He gives you all the details that were
involved in handling
It might be well for us to review before moving on to this new section,
it might be well to review the spiritual lessons which we already have
learned. In Joshua 2 we dealt with the
problem of divine guidance and we found there, and again if you’ll associate in
your minds, a good way of taking up the Word of God for yourself, take advantage
of the Old Testament. The Old Testament
is pictorial, visual, and easy to remember.
And if you can associate a story or a narrative or an event with a basic
doctrine it will help you understand the thrust of that doctrine and understand
the application of the doctrine. If you
can just link in your mind some basic technique of the Christian life or some
basic doctrine, as an actual event that you can almost relive, then when you’re
troubled or you’re perplexed by applying this doctrine, think back to the
historical event and often times it will help you apply it, and become clearer
to you. It’s just a little technique in
the Christian life.
So in Joshua 2, divine guidance; what was the content of Joshua 2? That was the problem of Rahab. Joshua chapter 2—Rahab. And you remember, what were the boys… the
first thing they hit in
If you want a modern illustration of this the communist party is an
illustration. The communist party swears
up and down it’s economic determinism and nothing else that guarantees the
victory of communism and the destruction of capitalism. This is an absolute certainty. But it is going to come about how? Well, Lenin is the one that added to Marx, so
now we have Marxist-Leninism. Lenin was the one who recognized, well the
revolution isn’t going to happen automatically; communists aren’t going to just
sit in the basement dreaming about the revolution; they’ve got to get out in
the street and cause the revolution. And
that was Lenin’s basic contribution to the growing theory. So you have Marxist-Leninism. Lenin recognized that you can’t be fatalistic
like a lot of Marxists were in his day, you’ve got into the streets, you’ve got
to start the blood flowing. And so Lenin
saw this principle. So the communists, certain
that he was going to be victorious, nevertheless, drove themselves into the
battle.
In other words, you might say this: the very certainty that you’re going
to be victorious causes you to want to get involved. That’s how sovereignty works in Scripture. It gives you the certainty that you’re going
to be successful, and operating from the platform of total certainty in
victory, it makes you want to cast yourself into the battle because you know
it’s going to be worthwhile, you’re on the winning team. You have joined a winning team and it’s a
stimulant. Nobody wants to be on a
losing team, you want to be on a winning team.
That’s what sovereignty is doing, that’s what predestination does for
you as a Christian. You are predestined
to be conformed to the image of His Son.
What that simply is saying is that God guarantees you’re on a winning
team, but you’re going to be team members on that team and you are going to put
out to bring that victory about. But you
can afford to put out to bring that victory about if you’re at first assured
that it’s worthwhile to do it. So this is why predestination is an important
doctrine underlying the whole Christian life.
Why bother to put out if you’re not even sure it’s going to be
worthwhile at the end? Predestination
tells you it’s going to be worth while.
So you put out, knowing it’s going to be worthwhile. So that’s how sovereignty and free will
interplay.
Then the second thing we found in Joshua 3-4 was that before the victory
or the blessing could come, the nation had to die and rise again, similar to
what we discover in Romans 6, we’re going to die and rise again. There has to
be a death and resurrection. Another
thing we found in Joshua 4 is that we have to have a historical memory. There has to be a historical memory
perpetuated. This is why the more
apostate a culture is the more anti-historical a culture is. That’s why Russians, for example, have to
rewrite the history every time one of their rulers dies, because history is
plastic, it can be molded to be used as a tool.
But that’s not the Christian point of view; the Christian is that we
have to know our history. Then in Joshua
chapter 5 we deal with another lesson, and that was that God in His discipline
will continue until a certain point and when the discipline is removed, we are
ready for service.
We showed last time that the nation was out of fellowship, this is
national fellowship, they were two years in fellowship to start with, they got
out of fellowship, they rebounded nationally, but God put them under discipline
for 38 years. And during those 38 years
they had to walk around without a uniform; no circumcision or anything else,
they had no uniform nationally. They
couldn’t celebrate Passover. They
weren’t allowed to do this until after the 38 years. And this is analogous to the Christian. God may put you in a time of testing; we
showed you last time that the 38 years was not just spanking, it was to educate
them that God can and God will. In other
words, the lesson in creature hood that God can, it’s all through God, “Man
shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.” And the second lesson
they had to learn these 38 years was that God will. God will!
So we have God can and God will.
This lesson had to be learned the hard way for 38 years, but when this
nation came out after 38 years of intense training in the wilderness, this
generation did more in the history of
Now tonight we begin with the book of the wars of God, or the wars of
the Lord, and we’re dealing with the first section which deals with the
So we have a struggle and a holy war and we are to put on the whole
armor of God and be victorious against these powers. Notice the emphasis in the New Testament is
on the armor of God, not “whole armor.”
I hate to puncture a few preconceived notions but in Eph. 6 the emphasis
is not on “whole armor,” there are actually some important pieces of the Roman
armor that aren’t even there. For
example, the spear; the spear isn’t even listed in Eph. 6 but it was always
used by Roman soldiers. So we have parts
of the armor not there. The emphasis in Eph. 6 is the armor of God, it’s God’s
armor, not man’s armor. Why? Because the enemies are God’s enemies, not
man’s enemies. The enemies basically are
demonic forces.
Now we are going to face a problem here in this passage; why is it that
Jesus Christ shows up as commander over Joshua here? The reason is that the battle isn’t Joshua’s,
it’s Christ’s. Who is it that Christ is
fighting? Christ is fighting
demons. Turn back to Deut. 18 and you’ll
see the reference that the actual opponents in the war for the conquest of
Canaan were demons that had captured this culture, demonic forces. In Deut. 18:9-10, God warned the people. [9] “When thou art come into the land which
the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abomination
of those nations. [10] There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his
son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. [11] Or a charmer, or a
consulter of mediums or a wizard or a necromancer,” all of these things that
you notice coming in on the college campus and in our society.
Here go all the activities of these demons. Now it says later on, verse 12, “For all that
do these things are an abomination unto the LORD,” and then it adds this
phrase, “and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out
from before thee,” which is a clear declaration that one of the main reasons of
the eliminate of the Canaanites from history was their intense demon
possession. They had become slaves to demon
forces, and so as a culture, as a total culture they had deteriorated where
they were part and parcel to demons. In
the framework course we will see some of the evidences of the ancient world and
you can see for yourself evidences of these demon worshipers. I’ve been able to locate some pictures of
some of the statutes in which they actually drew pictures of what they thought
these demons looked like and you’ll be able to see them and it will be living
evidence in front of your eyes what these people were doing. They were worshiping demons. Paul tells you the same thing in 1 Cor. 10,
the things that these idols, so-called, are not neutral. Paul says in 1 Cor. 10 that the Gentiles
start to fight the idols they start to fight the demons.
There is no such thing as a neutral idol and I know I’ve been in classes
where they say well don’t you think if these [can’t understand word] worshipers
were sincere and they wanted to find the true and living God, even if they
could worship in the statues certainly they could find the living God. Answer: negative! 1 Cor. 10 says they were worshiping
demons. Any time you have worship
centered on an idol it is demonic, whether the worshiper is sincere or not
sincere, demons are involved. And that
goes for 20th century philosophy when you deal with an idolatrous
reference point; it’s the same thing, demonic ideas. It’s very interesting how great leaders of
western thought all had strange encounters.
Read the biographies of men like Renee Descartes, and men like
Kierkegaard and every time in their biography you’ll find these strange dreams
they had, very strange dreams.
But demons are behind the apostate thrust in history. So this is why in Joshua 5 Jesus Christ
Himself personally comes to take command.
I want you to notice that when He comes to take command where Joshua is
in verse 13. “But 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, Are you
for us, or for our adversaries?” Now I
want you to notice a few things about Joshua first of all. Notice what Joshua is doing; notice that
Joshua is being obedient to what he knows of the will of God. And this goes back to our divine
guidance. We said in that divine
guidance when we went through Joshua 2 that it consisted basically of certain
prerequisites. They are all
prerequisites for divine guidance. One
of these prerequisites is illumination.
You have to have a knowledge of the truth, that’s doctrine of
illumination, God the Holy Spirit illuminates.
How? Through an infallible canon
of Scripture, authoritative Scripture through a fallible pastor-teacher and
your priesthood as a believer. So God
illuminates through these areas.
Secondly, there has to be an attitude of submission to what you know is
God’s will for you. You have to know the
bottom circle and you have to be in the bottom circle. So this is fellowship, necessary for divine
guidance. Now in the actual mechanics of
divine guidance, we saw it in Joshua 2, that you can work out a certain set of
steps. You start with the known and you
proceed to the unknown. You start, now
with what you don’t know about the will of God, you start with what you do know
about the will of God and then you move as far to the unknown as you possibly
can, observing all the time to the known.
First in moving from the known to the unknown you always want to keep
inside the divine viewpoint framework.
If you’re trying to move to the unknown and it’s over there and the only
way you can get over there is adopt some human viewpoint shortcut, it’s not
God’s will; you have to stop short. So when you move from the known to the
unknown you have to observe divine viewpoint and you have to take into account the
Bible, man and the world. In other
words, general and special revelation are both involved in divine
guidance.
Now we said that there will come a time, sooner or later in your life if
it hasn’t come, where you meet a blind spot or what we call a critical
point. And this is when operating on
what you know to be the will of God for your life, you think it through, you
carry it out as far as you can, and there you sit. You don’t get the answer, you don’t know what
He wants you to do, you don’t know where He wants you to turn, and you are up
against a wall. And the only escape or
way around the thing seems to be by some human viewpoint gimmick. In other words, take for example some person
who is involved in a fund raising thing for some Christian organization. They need a thousand dollars by midnight
tomorrow. They know that it’s God’s
will to supply finances by grace and not by gimmicks, pledges, cards and all of
the rest of it, but nevertheless, under the pressure of trying to raise that
money they yield to human viewpoint gimmicks.
And so when they yield to human viewpoint gimmicks they become out of
the will of God. But if they don’t yield
to human viewpoint gimmicks they are on the hot seat because what do they
do? They are just sitting there watching
the clock tick away. And it takes guts
in the time when you’re at a critical point to just sit there and wait because
you sit there and sweat and wait is what happens. But this is a critical point.
Now Joshua has not reached a critical point here. He did in Joshua 2; he has not here. Joshua has been given the orders to move in
and conquer the land; he’s exercised his own strategy as a military man, he
understands the significance of Jericho, and so immediately he plans to spy on
it. He already has an intelligence, he
knows what’s going on inside the city, the spies have come back, but notice in
verse 13, he himself has gone out to watch the city. Evidently one night, whether it’s the night
or daytime, probably in the night, Joshua himself decided he’d take a
walk. He got up out of his tent, he had
maps of this city in his tent knowing how many soldiers and men on each wall,
and he decided like many military commanders that he himself wanted to see the
sights. So he got out of his tent and he
walked up the road a ways, talked to the guards, etc. moved on, probably taking
some guard with him, and then moved up as close as he could to the city of
Jericho. We know from 6:1 he could get
very close to it because the Canaanites had retreated within the walls. So it’s quite obvious that Joshua could get
quite close without being kidnapped or something, so he went up to study the
thing himself. But notice he is in the
Lord’s will when Jesus Christ appears to him.
He’s not sitting in his tent, crybaby, worrying about what he’s going to
do for God. He’s moving out, going ahead
with what he knows to be the will of God.
And it’s in this situation that he looks, and he sees something, “there
stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.” Now the first thing to remember is this is
not a spirit appearance. Why is it? This is important to see here because the
people in Canaan, the apostates believed in spirits. He could have said well, maybe this is one of
these spirits from Jericho. What is it
in verse 13 that tells you it’s not a spirit?
Something in verse 13 tells you this is not a mere appearance of a
spirit; this is the appearance of a man with flesh and blood. The reason is that Joshua went to him. In other words, this wasn’t just some sort of
a vision, kind of a spooky little vision and as he moves the vision moves. It wasn’t something in his head; it wasn’t
some just little shadowy cloud. Something
was actually occupying the space, the location, and he went up to it and carried
on a conversation with it. Remember he
is a military man and he’s fought all his life; he knows a soldier when he sees
one. This is an actual flesh and blood
person that he’s talking to. Keep this
in mind because of the theological problem that’s going to come up.
This is an actual flesh and blood man that’s standing in the path. And he goes up to him and he asks him, “Are
you for us, or for our adversaries?”
Kind of a gutsy approach, Joshua is not too young at this time. And verse 14 he gets an answer back, “And he
said, No, I am the commander,” literally, “of the host of Jehovah.” The “host” is the army of Jehovah. You can imagine this guy must have dropped
his teeth. He met this soldier in the
middle of the path and he wants to know who he is and he gets this reply, “I am
the commander of the armies of Jehovah.”
Well, isn’t he the commander of the armies of Jehovah? You know, he thought wait a minute, who am I,
that’s my job; I am the commander of the armies of the Jehovah. But this expression is a technical
expression. Wherever in the King James
you find this expression, “the host” it usually refers, usually, not always, to angels.
Some references on this would be Psalm 103:20, another reference Psalm
148:2.
But I want to take you to Zechariah 1 for a minute. The same thing happens again, this time to
Zechariah instead of Joshua. And it’s an
important principle that comes out in Zechariah 1 so it’s kind of important
that we see this. Zech. 1:7, “Upon the
four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the
second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah,” one thing in
the prophets that we see over and over again is that these prophesies are dated
in space and time. They are crucial;
they are never separated from history, always linked to history. Verse 8, “I saw by night, and behold a man
riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the
bottom; and behind him there were red horses, speckled and white. [10] Then said
I, O my lord, what are these? And the
angel who talked with me said unto me, I will show you what these are. [10] And the man that stood among the myrtle
trees answered and said, These are they whom the LORD has sent to walk to and
fro through the earth. [11] And they answered the angel of the LORD that stood
among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth,
and, behold, all the earth sits still and is at rest.”
What he is seeing is the angelic hordes, the patrols that God has
operating in history that keep tabs on men’s movements, not that God needs to
keep tabs on men’s movements, but as I explained in Deuteronomy there appears
to be an angelic council that is responsible for history. And this angelic council is responsible for
various events that by us seem to be just sheer accident. People die at convenient times, earthquakes
happen in particular places, these kind of things. The Bible attributes these basically to
angels that are operating and superintending history. Don’t ever, ever get in the trap in a panic
situation of thinking that God isn’t intimately in control of history. Think of this, we have millions of angels
patrolling back and forth. How man has
He assigned to Lubbock? We don’t know,
but He has them assigned. They are to
take care of physical things such as meteorology, etc. that’s their job, the
physical environment etc. And so we have
these angels patrolling back and forth.
And then the angel of the Lord answered and said, now I want you to notice
something. The “angel of the LORD” in
verse 11 in other passages of Scripture is declared to be Jehovah. But in verse 12
what happens, the angel of the Lord turns around and talks to Jehovah, which
introduces a dichotomy in the person of God.
In the Old Testament you have at least two persons of the Godhead
revealed, and it’s through this angel of Jehovah. There’s Jehovah and then
there’s the angel of Jehovah, but both are regarded as Jehovah. The angel of Jehovah is worshiped and He is
called Jehovah. For example, in Genesis
when certain people saw the angel of Jehovah they said I have seen
Jehovah. But then here the angel of
Jehovah turns around and talks to Jehovah so you have a bifurcation within the
Godhead.
“Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long
will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which
thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years? [13] And the LORD answered the angel that
talked with me with good words and comforting words. [14] So the angel that
communed with me said unto me, Cry you, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: I
am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. [15] And I am very
much displeased with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little
displeased, and they helped forward in the affliction.” That is, God assigned the Gentiles a
disciplinary role and they got out of hand and they over-disciplined. Verse 16, “Therefore, thus saith the LORD: I
am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it, saith the
LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem,” that means
construction.
So this is one incident in Scripture where the commander, the Lord’s
host, is there, and the Lord’s host is the angelic hordes, and he’s pictured
here as riding on a horse with the angels riding on horses behind him, pictured
in the culture of the time. This is a
picture of mobility.
Now turn back to Joshua 5, we’ll get back to the commander of the Lord’s
hosts. In verse 14 it’s not dogmatically
clear whether Joshua recognizes the deity of the angel of the Lord. [“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.”] You
say well doesn’t it say Joshua fell down on his face to the earth and
worshiped. Yes, but that expression in
the Hebrew is also used in 2 Samuel for one man bowing down before David. So that’s not as powerful as it would be if
it were in the New Testament. So we’re
not sure in verse 14 whether Joshua recognized His deity. We are sure of one
thing, however, Joshua recognized that he out-ranked him. So that’s why he says “What saith my lord”
with a little “l”, in other words, my superior, what do you say to me.
Verse 15, “And the commander of the LORD’s host said unto Joshua, Loose
your shoe from off your foot; for the place whereon you stand is holy. And Joshua did so.” Now why do you suppose He said that to
him? Do you think of another event in
the Bible where this was said? Sure,
Exodus. Now this is a principle that is
a tremendous illustration of God’s grace and a combination to our intellectual
slowness. What God is doing here is
giving Joshua the confidence that it’s the same God who talked to Moses that’s
talking to him right now. He’s giving
him a continuity so Joshua can relate.
Joshua undoubtedly, living with Moses, heard Moses describe that scene
in Exodus 3 a dozen times. So the minute
he heard this he knew, wow, this is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses
speaking to me, I’d better take my shoe off.
And so he did and that was it. So
you have the confrontation between Joshua and God.
Now I want to show you a strange thing about this. Basically this is God the Son. There are three personalities in the Godhead;
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. God the Father is never seen, nor is God the
Holy Spirit ever seen. The only
personality of the Godhead who is ever seen at any time in history is God the
Son. Therefore, whenever God is made
visible in history it is always God the Son that is seen. So this actually is a preincarnate appearance
of Jesus Christ.
Now here’s the strange thing.
When Jesus Christ appears in preincarnate form in the Old Testament He
always appears in a form directly related to that situation. What do I mean by
this? Turn to Genesis 18; here Jesus
Christ appears to Abraham. You didn’t know
Jesus Christ was in the Old Testament?
Well, Genesis 18, you’re going to see Him. Incidentally this is the incident where Sarah
laughed. In verse 1, “And the LORD
appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the
heat of the day.” Abraham was out there
and it was kind of hot and he was taking a siesta and he was sitting there
peaceful in the front of his tent, and all of a sudden, verse 2, “he lifted up
his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him,” and the impression you
get from the Hebrew is they didn’t walk to him.
The impression is that he was just sitting there minding his own
business and he happened up and these three guys were just staring at him. You wonder, he’s probably shaken a little
bit, where’d these guys drop in from.
But there they are, he looks up and there are three guys looking at
him. And this is not an accident that
three are here. You’ll see this over and
over, the element of three. Remember
Isaiah, he looks at God enthroned and the cherubim sing “holy, holy, holy is
the man of hosts.” You have this
threeness; this again is an adumbration of the trinity that comes forth more
clearly in the New Testament.
He lifted up his eyes, he saw these three people. In verse 3, “And said, My Lord, if now I have
found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant. [4]
Fetch a little water, I pray you,” etc.
And this is the time that Jehovah announces to him that he’s going to
have a child. And Sarah doesn’t believe
it and she’s tee-heeing in the back of the tent and so the Lord says well, you
like to laugh so you are going to name your son Itsak or laughter. So this is how Sarah had to name her own child Itsak or laughter. So every time she’d call Itsak, she would remember I laughed in the tent; when the Lord told
me I was going to have a child I laughed.
This is God’s sense of humor. God
does have a sense of humor; we see it, it’s very interesting in Scripture.
But I want you to notice the form in which Christ appears to Abraham. He appears as a traveler. Now what’s significant about that? Christ appears as a pilgrim and a traveler to
whom? Abraham. What is Abraham? A pilgrim and a traveler. There is an identification between how Christ
appears and the situation of the person that He loves, the believer. In other words, God identifies Himself with
our situation.
But let me show you a more astounding illustration of this. Turn to Exodus 3; this is the second
appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. And here, by the way, we have New Testament
proof that this is Christ; I’ll show you that in a moment. But in Exodus 3:1, “Now Moses kept the flock
of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian,” a very interesting study
in Moses’ life, the relation with his in-laws.
He married a Gentile woman, never could get along with her, and she
basically went off and left him and it appears that Moses divorced. Moses was a divorced man and he
remarried. But Moses kept the flock of
Jethro, he loved his father-in-law, he got along fine with his father-in-law
but he couldn’t stand his wife. “…and he led the flock to the backside of the
desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. [2] And the angel of
the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and
he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed. [3] And Moses said, I will now
turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. [4] And when
the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst
of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And
he said, her am I. [5] And He said, Draw not near her: put off thy shoes from
off thy feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground. [6] Moreover he
said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face;
for he was afraid to look upon God.”
Now that’s a fantastic scene, a fantastic scene! But the thing I’m trying to draw your
attention to is the form God appears.
How does God appear here? As a
fire. What is the significance of
this? The significance of it, turn to
Deut. 4:20. Why is it that Jesus Christ
appears to Abraham as a traveler, He appears to Moses as a fire? This is one of the numerous illustrations in
the Old Testament of an analysis of the believer’s problems at this time in
history. “But the LORD has taken you,
and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be unto Him a
people of inheritance, as ye are this day.”
Over and over again the situation as a believer persecuted in Egypt was
pictured as living in a fiery furnace.
And so when Christ appears to Moses He appears as fire. Christ is identified with His believer;
traveler to a traveler, fire to people who are in the fire.
And now He appears as what to a soldier?
He appears as a soldier to a soldier.
Again you see Jesus Christ identifying Himself with out situation. It’s a tremendous thing, when He created the
universe, when He appears He identifies Himself with our situation, with our
weaknesses. When Jesus Christ came He identified Himself totally with man. This is why one of His titles is the Son of
Man. Jesus is the Son of Man, total
identity with us.
1 Cor. 10:4 is a reference; we don’t have time for that tonight, jot it
down and look at it later. [“And did all
drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that
followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”]
Turn to Heb. 11:26, here’s a New Testament passage referring to Moses
and look what it says. Moses, “Esteeming
the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt,” see, Moses
had encountered Jesus Christ, it doesn’t tell us how much he knew about Christ,
but it does tell us that he met with Jesus Christ.
So we have three appearances of Jesus Christ, a traveler to a traveler,
fire to a believer stuck in the furnace of fire, and a soldier to believers who
are ready to start their holy war.
Now let’s return to finish with Joshua 6:1-5. The historian who compiled Joshua puts a
little note in verse 1. This is why your
King James translators put the chapter division here. The chapter division should not be here. The chapter division should be between verses
12 and 13 of chapter 5. Chapter
divisions are not inspired; they were put in many hundreds of years later after
the canon was closed.
Verse 1 of chapter 6 is a parenthesis and is just a little note there,
and that note is important. It’s
important because of verses 2-5. What’s
going to happen in verses 2-5? What has
happened? Well, the Lord told Joshua the
strategy. “And the LORD said unto
Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and its king, and the mighty
men of valor. [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.” Just walk around the
city once every day for six days. And
then on the seventh day you walk around and you blow the horns, blow the ram’s
horns. [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.” You say this sure is a weird
way of handling a city. We’ll get into
why it’s weird; it’s deliberately engineered that way. But we have this cycling around the city of
Jericho.
But why do you suppose the note is put there in verse 1 that interrupts
the narrative. This narrative is most
beautiful if you just leave verse 1 out. Why is verse 1 there? It must be there
for a reason because these historians when they write the text are trying to
interpret history for you. They’re
trying to let you know what’s going on.
Now unfortunately half of verse 1 is mistranslated so you probably can’t
get it anyway. “Now Jericho was
straitly [securely] shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out
and none came in.” Now it sounds like
it’s all [can’t understand word] but the Hebrew has two participles and these
are the same participle. The participle
is enclose, well, it means to close up. One
is in the qal stem which is the active Hebrew stem; it’s a participle which
means continuous action. In other words,
while this confrontation was going on the gates are being closed, preparation
taken for a siege. These people are
right now actively closing up the city.
And then there’s a second verb in the pual stem, which is a passive
voice. So what is the Hebrew saying?
Instead of “straightly shut up” it says “Now Jericho was closing itself
up and being closed up,” and the emphasis is on tightening itself up. And it
was so tight that nobody went out and nobody came in. It was completely shut.
Now why is this? What’s the
connection between verse 1 and verses 2-5.
There is a connection here; if you get the connection you’ll see why it
is that this weird passage is there. But
there is a connection; here is the connection.
The connection is the walls. God
is going to tell Joshua to use a funny tactic here. Now this funny tactic has to do with his
demolishing the walls. Why are the walls
an issue, every city had walls. Ai had
walls, every city in the Canaan kingdom had walls, it was a typical defense,
nothing unusual about the walls of Jericho.
But then why are the walls an issue?
The walls are an issue because of two reasons, both human
viewpoint. They are an issue because
number one, the spies made an issue of the walls when they went into the land.
Remember the spies came back oh, we can’t get in there, did you see those walls
over there, we’re not going to be able to cut through those walls. The spies had made an issue out of the
walls. When they rebelled against God
forty years ago they came back, oh Lord, I know you’re great but You’re never
going to get through those walls. The
walls, then, were bigger than God. And
the big patch on carnal believers—problems too big for the Lord. And the
problem that was too big for the Lord was the walls. The walls were the bone of contention.
There’s a second reason why the walls are a bone of contention, not just
because of believers, but because of the unbelievers. What are the unbelievers doing in verse
1? They are afraid to match Joshua on
the field of battle; they are afraid to come out and fight in the open. Why, then, are they going behind the walls;
they could have fled. If they were
really scared of Joshua and the army, what would they have done? Get out of there; go to other cities that
they could have gone to. But they are
going to place their trust in the walls.
So you have two major groups of people with hang-up from these
walls. So God’s going to take care it,
He’s just going to blow the hang-up.
You’ve got believers tense and panicked about it because they claim that
God is too little to handle the wall problem; you have the crybabies, this
problem is too big for God so I’m not going to trust the Lord with this
problem; the walls are too big. So the believers are making an issue out of
it. And the unbelievers are making an
issue out of it because they’re going to trust in the walls for their own
safety.
So the walls in the city of Jericho, not in any other city, but in this
city the walls are an issue. First of
all, for the believers, it’s the first city they’re going to hit, and God’s
says you let Me take care of the walls; I’ll take care of the walls. And it’s become an issue with Jericho in
particular because of the unbelievers of Jericho. So we’ve got too good reasons why the walls
are a big issue here. That is why in verses 2-5 this strange tactic is
used. God is going to give them
activity, they have a responsibility.
This is all grace, all the believers have to do is just walk; God wants
them to have some responsibility and they may feel like idiots walking around
the wall once every day for six days and then walking around seven times on the
seventh day. But they are given some
responsibility; it doesn’t have anything to do with the wall. But it’s just the concept that when God tells
us to do something He expects us to be involved in some way. We have to
actively choose and partake of something; it may be trivial but it’s still
something. And the moment we do that,
then He takes care of the “walls.”
Now walking around has no direct effect; what God is saying is
this: You guys, forty years ago were
griping about the wall problem; you accused Me of bringing you up to this
problem that you said I couldn’t solve; now I’m going to make idiots of you,
you’re just going to walk right around that problem and walk around it and walk
around it and after you’ve walked around it six times I’m going to deal with
it. So what God is doing, He is again
teaching believers by His methodology.
Here again you have God teaching.
One of the great commentators on Joshua said this: When the Lord effects
His purposes by such means and instruments as we deem adequate, our view, are
apt to terminate on them and to overlook Him who works all things after the
counsel of His own will. To obviate this
propensity the Lord sometimes deviates from the common task and works by
methods or instruments which in themselves appear not at all [can’t understand
word] to produce the intended effect, though sometimes have no real connection
with it at all.
This is not always, when we get to Ai God is going to ask them to go up
and hit that city like they would on any normal campaign. This is not going to be a tactic that’s used
again and again, only here and it’s used here to teach a lesson. God is going to give believer something to do
that has nothing whatever to do with the problem, just to show them that He is
sufficient to deal with the problem. So
we have these weird tactics given to us in verses 2-5. Now verse 5 it says, “and the wall of the
city shall fall down flat,” now the literal Hebrew means the wall will tumble
under itself. In other words it will
just come down, just totally crumble from the foundation up. And then it says, “and the people shall
ascend up, every man straight before him.”
Now what this means is that God is not going to do it all. What it’s saying is look, here’s the wall. Jericho had a double wall with inner
connected points; the city was inside, a small city, about 7 or 8 acres, a very
small city. So the army is outside, God
is going to tumble the wall, but the next responsibility is you get in there
fast. In other words, these people are
going to be in shock in that city, and He wants the soldiers to come in and
take advantage of the shock. So the
believers still have a responsibility to do something. God tumbles the problem but they are to take
advantage of it. When God moves, then be
right there and “every man straight,” in other words, don’t worry about what
your neighbor is going to do, charge is the point. Don’t get your eyes on what John Q. is doing
next to you, you just set your eyes right, you pick a spot in that wall and
head for it when it crumbles. You can
calculate why this order was given. If
they had been circling the city, they are totally surrounding the city; it
wasn’t just a little group of a Boy Scout patrol running around the city,
there’s a whole crowd of people. And they actually encompassed the city so that
when the walls fell there was actually a ring of soldiers around and they just
went in. This is the tactic.
So, next time we’ll start with verse 6 and actually deal with the
fulfillment to these orders but the thing I want you to see is several things
about this encounter between Joshua and Jesus Christ. The main thing I wanted you to see is that
the battle is the Lord’s. I want you to
keep the balance; the battle is the Lord’s but we have to be fully equipped to
hold our ground. There’s the balance in
the Christian life. God will take care
of the walls but you have to be ready to move when the walls come down. And this principle we’re going to see operate
in
This is truly what David said in 1 Sam. 17, “the battle is the
Lord’s.”