All of the wicked practices that Israel was warned against were present in a most perverted and dangerous way in the Canaanite culture. It is, incidentally, something similar to what existed in the time of Noah, and in my view, is one of the reasons for God’s judgment upon that culture as well as up
Yesterday we concluded our study by mentioning some practices Israel was commanded to avoid. It’s worth commenting on a few of these practices. The first one given was that of sacrificing children to the fire. The Canaanites had a god whose name was Moloch. He was a particularly cruel god. There wer
I suppose it's not really possible to preach through the book of Joshua without dealing at some point with what some people have felt to be a great moral problem. The moral problem lies in the fact that at the direction of God, the Jewish people were commanded by Joshua to exterminate large blocks o
Now I want to apply what I said in this way, first of all to Christians. First, while this was a literal, historical battle, now I’m going to talk about spiritual battles. But don’t think that our spiritual battles are any less literal or historical. We face spiritual challenges that are just as rea
There’s a third step in the preparation of the people for their victory, though it overlaps the one I’ve just given. First of all, be silent. Second of all, obey. But thirdly, obey in all things to the very end. I call this “total obedience to the very end.” This third point is important because obe
There are several things the Lord told them. The first is that they were commanded to be silent. This is what Joshua told them in verse 10: “Do not give a war cry. Do not raise your voices. Do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout.” Now, I don’t know how they did that. Can you imagine the
That’s a most unusual set of instructions for taking a city. One might even say that it was utterly unreasonable to think that the walls of Jericho would fall in such a manner. But Joshua obeyed the Lord, and the people obeyed Joshua. The city was encircled according to God’s precise instructions. A
A number of years ago, there was a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania who taught in the ROTC program in the area of military strategy. His name was Lieutenant Colonel Ferris Kirkland, and he would often speak to his students about the most stirring lecture he had ever heard. Kirkland had invi
I don’t mean to suggest by this quote that doctrine and forms are unimportant. But what I mean to say is that when Phillips titles his book, he is really making a point that speaks to us all, and comes from this response of the heavenly commander to Joshua. Even when we are trying to be most biblica
But now we need to say something else. All of that in a certain sense is preliminary, at least in my thinking, because the part of the story that really interests me is not so much the identity of this heavenly commander or the identity of the heavenly commander’s troops. What really interests me is
This commander was no doubt the commander of the armies of Israel. And yet that phrase, “the army of the Lord” or “the hosts of the Lord,” in the Old Testament often means something much more than human armies. It has to do with those heavenly armies, the armies of angels which are there to direct,
At this point, Joshua moves forward quickly and demands to know whether this man is for the host of Israel or for the nation’s enemies. The man replies, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I am now come.” We’re told that upon hearing this, Joshua fell down on his face to the ground i
In studying the book of Joshua in preparation for these studies, I have been greatly helped by Francis Schaeffer’s study. And I have been most impressed with Schaeffer’s unique approach to Joshua in using the theme of continuity, that is, the continuity between God’s dealings with Israel under the l
So in the sacrament of circumcision we find its parallel in the matter of our baptism. And when we look at the Passover, we find its parallel in our Communion service which looks back to the death of Christ. The Lord’s Supper has the elements of the broken bread and the wine, which signify Christ’s
Yesterday we looked at the idea of circumcision as an initiatory sacrament for Israel. There is an initiatory sacrament for the Christian church as well; however our initial sacrament is not circumcision, but baptism. And in baptism, especially in the baptism of children, we have a remnant of what t
Now it's worth thinking about these two acts of consecration. Circumcision was the sacrament that had been given to Abraham so many years before. It was the mark of being a member of the covenant people, and it was accompanied by the promises of God. In this particular covenant, it was a case of God
I suppose we ought to spend just a little bit of time thinking how terrifying this crossing of the Jordan must have been for the Amorite and Canaanite kings. They had been afraid beforehand, of course, because here was this vast host out there across the Jordan. But as these kings looked at the nati
This week we are continuing our study in the third episode of Joshua, which is the crossing of the Jordan River. We learned last week that this third episode has three parts. The first part was the crossing of the Jordan itself, with the Ark of the Covenant going before the people. The second piece
Now where does that leave us? The point I want to make is the one I have already been alluding to, namely, that we all need memorials like this in our lives. The people of Israel needed their memorials, and they needed other memorials besides this one. In 1 Samuel 7:12 we’re told of the prophet Samu
Now I need to acknowledge that there’s a bit of a technical problem at this point. It's perfectly evident from any reading of this chapter that the twelve men chosen by the people were to each lift up a stone from the Jordan, carry it up, and then place it upon the bank. These were then arranged int
Last week, when we looked at chapter 3 and the crossing itself, we saw that the most important element in that crossing is the emphasis found there upon the Ark of the Covenant. The ark symbolized the presence of God. It has not been mentioned in Joshua until now, but suddenly in these chapters conn
Rudyard Kipling was the poet laureate of England in his lifetime. And on one occasion, he had the duty that poet-laureates have of writing a poem for a state occasion. This particular poem he wrote has in it the couplet:Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,Lest we forget—lest we forget!I’m told that t
You can ask, "Where is the God of Moses—the God who operated so powerfully in Moses' day, the God of miracles, the God of redemption, the God who brought His people out of slavery?" "Where is the God of Joshua, the God of conquest who led His people into the Promised Land?" "Where is the God of Eli
The third thing that was kept before the eyes of the people was His justice. This God was a God of judgment. You see, the picture of that ark with God symbolically dwelling between the wings of the cherubim over the ark, which contained the law of God, is a picture of judgment because here is portra
