Latest / Crosswalk / Searching for Joshua’s Long Day — Joshua 10:12–14

Transcript

Searching for Joshua’s Long Day — Joshua 10:12–14 · Crosswalk

0:00
Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow
0:03
Him. You're listening to Crosswalk with Pastor
0:05
Steve Winnery. Crosswalk is the radio ministry
0:08
of Calvary Chapel Tri -Cities and it is our aim
0:10
to lead you to the cross through the teaching
0:12
of God's Word. Okay, Joshua chapter 10, let's
0:47
pray before we start. God, again, thank you for
0:50
the time together. Lord, thank you for your word.
0:52
Thank you for the blessing that you are to us.
0:55
And God, again, we pray that you'd intervene
0:56
for our country. There's all kinds of things
0:58
that are going on that are pretty disturbing.
1:02
And Lord, it's wild how things can turn around
1:04
in just a matter of a few days. and the people
1:06
clamping down and things like that. Lord, we
1:08
just pray that you'd be with us and that you
1:11
would be our strength. And bless the study tonight.
1:13
We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, again,
1:17
starting from verse one, it says, now it came
1:20
to pass when Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem,
1:22
heard how Joshua had taken Ai and utterly destroyed
1:25
it as he had done to Jericho and its king. So
1:28
he had done to Ai and its king. and how the inhabitants
1:31
of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were
1:33
among them, that they feared greatly, because
1:35
Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal
1:38
cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and
1:41
all its men were mighty. And then you see in
1:44
the next couple of verses, down through verse
1:46
five, that Adonai Zedek, which means Lord of
1:48
Righteousness, we talked about that last week,
1:52
goes and gets a group of kings together, five
1:55
of them total, and comes up against Gibeon. And
1:59
because Joshua had made a covenant with Gibeon
2:02
in chapter 9, the covenant was fraudulent. The
2:06
Gibeonites had come and tricked the people of
2:08
Israel, but the people of Israel made a vow in
2:11
the name of God and they kept it because they
2:13
made a vow in the name of God, which is quite
2:16
a change from modern morality. In any case, because
2:19
they've made this covenant with Gibeon, they
2:22
came up to fight with Adonai -Zedek and his kings.
2:26
and they end up winning the battle. And so you
2:30
see in verse six, it says the men of Gibeon sent
2:32
to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal saying, do not
2:35
forsake your servants, come up to us quickly,
2:37
save us and help us for the kings of the Amorites
2:41
who dwell in the mountains have gathered together
2:42
against us. So Joshua sends, verse seven, the
2:45
Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them, verse
2:47
eight, I've delivered them into your hand. Joshua,
2:51
verse 9, therefore came upon them suddenly, having
2:54
marched all night from Gilgal. And so the Lord
2:57
routed them before Israel, killed them with a
2:59
great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along
3:01
the road that goes to Beth -Haron, and struck
3:04
them down as far as Azekah and Makkah. So they're
3:06
up in the mountains of Israel. They're driven
3:08
down into the valleys, and the final battles
3:10
took place. down in the Sharon Valley, if you've
3:14
been to Israel with us. It's a valley that comes
3:17
up from the coast and basically goes up to the
3:19
mountains that house the city of Jerusalem. And
3:23
it happened as they fled before Israel, verse
3:25
11, and were on the descent of Bethharon, that
3:28
the Lord cast down large hailstones from heaven
3:31
on them as far as Azekah, and they died. There
3:33
were more who died from the hailstones than the
3:38
children of Israel killed with the sword. Then
3:40
Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the
3:42
Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children
3:45
of Israel. And he said in the sight of Israel,
3:46
sun stands still over Gibeon and moon in the
3:49
valley of Eijalon. So the sun stood still and
3:52
the moon stopped till the people had revenge
3:54
upon their enemies. Is this not written in the
3:57
book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the
4:00
midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down
4:04
for about a whole day. And there's been no day
4:07
like that before it or after it that the Lord
4:10
heeded the voice of a man for the Lord fought
4:12
for Israel. And so we were, we started in last
4:16
week talking about what could cause this. You're
4:19
talking about a situation where if the sun stands
4:22
still, you've only got a few mechanisms that
4:25
can make that happen. One of them is that God
4:30
can stop the earth. That's a possibility, stops
4:33
the rotation of the earth. That's one possibility.
4:36
Another possibility is that the Earth tilts on
4:39
its axis. You know that we live in the Northwest,
4:41
right? And so when you get to summer, it's almost
4:45
10 o 'clock in the evening before it gets dark
4:48
here. That was one of the shocking things that
4:50
I ran into. I knew it happened up here. But when
4:53
I came up from Southern California, Southern
4:54
California's even keeled. And so in the winter,
4:58
it gets dark probably around, what, 536? Five?
5:01
Okay, so around five and then in the summertime,
5:06
I remember going out to watch fireworks and you
5:08
could always watch fireworks by nine o 'clock.
5:11
And it was dark by nine o 'clock in the summertime.
5:15
And so the sun would go down about 830 or something
5:18
along those lines. And our day is much longer.
5:21
And the reason it's longer is because when we're
5:23
in the summertime, the earth is tilted towards
5:26
the sun. And so we're on the far north of the
5:30
United States in the northern hemisphere. And
5:32
so we're tilted towards the sun. We're up on
5:35
the sphere further. And so we see the sun longer.
5:38
If you're down in California or if you're down
5:40
in the southern hemisphere, in the summer months,
5:43
it would be a shorter day for you. And vice versa
5:46
in the winter time. And so here we are in winter.
5:50
We pass the winter solstice and it gets dark
5:53
around here. It starts getting dark at four o
5:55
'clock. It's dead dark by 430 and that kind of
5:58
stuff. And again, that's because of the tilt
6:01
of the sun or the tilt of the earth. And so the
6:03
day gets longer if the earth's tilted towards
6:05
the sun. The day gets shorter if the earth is
6:07
tilted away. Your hemisphere is tilted away from
6:10
the sun. And so this is one of those things that
6:13
can cause this whole issue. In any case, when
6:16
you're looking at this, this either happened
6:17
or not. And obviously, God can just do what He
6:19
wants. So he can stop the earth without everything
6:22
falling off of it. He can do that. I don't know
6:26
what other mechanisms you could come up with
6:28
that would do this whole thing. But when you're
6:31
looking at this situation, this is one of those
6:33
places where people pick on Christians, pick
6:35
on the Bible, and they talk about the fact that
6:37
this is not a possible thing and that kind of
6:39
stuff. So we went through and we started looking
6:40
at some situations that... might speak to these
6:44
things. Here's one. And this is something that
6:46
I didn't get to talk to you about a whole lot.
6:48
If there's a long day of Joshua in ancient history,
6:52
and that's what we're talking about. We're talking
6:53
about something that took place about 1400 BC.
6:56
If there's a long day in Joshua, there's going
6:58
to be a long night in other cultures. And that's
7:02
exactly what you find. And so this is a map showing
7:06
the... This is something that you see when you
7:09
deal with astronomy and orbits and that kind
7:12
of stuff This is daytime on a hemisphere. This
7:15
is nighttime on a hemisphere Okay, and so when
7:18
you look at these different places all these
7:21
letters and numbers are places where either a
7:24
long day is spoken of or a long night is spoken
7:27
of and so this is pretty cool and it's point
7:30
a is obviously talking about Israel. That's that
7:34
area right here. Point B is Egypt. Greek historian
7:37
Herodotus recorded that when he visited Egypt,
7:40
the priest there showed him an ancient manuscript
7:42
that told the story of a day that lasted twice
7:44
as long as a normal day. As they had accurate
7:47
water clocks that could record time, they could
7:51
easily record that long day had taken place.
7:54
Point C is also Egypt. Fernand Crombette translated
7:58
some Egyptian hieroglyphics that said the sun
8:00
thrown into confusion had remained low on the
8:02
horizon and by not rising had spread terror amongst
8:06
the great doctors. Two days had been rolled into
8:08
one. They made the moon stop in a small angle
8:12
at the edge of the horizon. In a small angle
8:15
on the edge of the horizon, the sun itself, which
8:17
had just risen at the spot where the moon was
8:19
going, instead of crossing the sky, stayed where
8:22
it was. Whilst the moon, following a narrow path,
8:25
reduced its speed and climbed slowly, the sun
8:27
stopped moving and its intensity of light was
8:30
reduced to the brightness of daybreak. The rest
8:33
of the account records of an exceptionally high
8:35
tide that washed boats into piles of wreckage,
8:39
drowned fishermen, flooded much of the land,
8:41
etc. The high tide is important, right? And so
8:45
you have that. In India, this is not a record,
8:48
but a prophecy in the Brahmin Yast. one of the
8:51
books in the Indian Navesta. This said that the
8:53
sun would be commanded to stand still for 10
8:55
days in about AD 1200. Although the date is completely
8:58
wrong, the statement may be a reference to the
9:01
Chinese record of the same event, and the ancient
9:03
historians have them confused. China, point E.
9:07
Gill writing in 1810 quoted from a manuscript
9:09
that unfortunately appears to have been lost.
9:12
They said that in the time of their seventh emperor,
9:15
the sun did not set for 10 days. And though the
9:18
time of the sun standing still were in large
9:21
beyond the bounds of the truth, yet it seems
9:23
to refer to this fact and was manifestly about
9:26
the same time. For the miracle was wrought in
9:29
the year of the world 2554. And that's another
9:33
dating method. In any case, you have China talking
9:36
about a long day. Actually, they said 10 long
9:38
days. And so that's probably a radical exaggeration.
9:41
Then you go two long nights. And so long nights,
9:45
points one through five, are in North America.
9:48
And several North American Indian tribes have
9:49
accounts of long nights. The Ojibwes, the Mayandats,
9:53
and the Bungis tell of a long night. The Omaha's
9:55
tell of the sun being caught in a rabbit's trap
9:57
and only released just before dawn. The Dogribs
10:00
tell of the sun suddenly becoming dark at noon.
10:03
And then point six. Down here is the Mexican
10:06
Andes, or Indians, excuse me, and they tell of
10:10
a long night. Seven is the Aztecs. They have
10:12
a legend of the sun not appearing for a very
10:15
long time, so a conclave of the gods was called
10:17
and the sacrifice made. The Quiche Mayans of
10:20
Guatemala said this, they did not sleep, they
10:22
remained standing, and great was the anxiety
10:24
of their hearts and their stomachs for the coming
10:26
of the dawn and the day. Oh, if only we could
10:29
see the rising of the sun. In Peru, the sun was
10:32
hidden for nearly 20 hours. And then point 10
10:35
is West Africa. And so you can see that the terminator
10:39
right here would go along the African coast and
10:42
it would be nighttime in West Africa. West African
10:45
story of a long night. It said that the night
10:48
lasted too long because the owl overslept and
10:50
did not awaken the sun. Again, these are all
10:53
folk stories, but they're telling the same story.
10:57
They're telling either the story of a long day
10:59
and they're in the right hemisphere or they're
11:02
telling the story of a long night and they're
11:04
in the right hemisphere for that. This is one
11:07
of those things that you cannot just dismiss
11:10
as being a biblical myth or something along those
11:13
lines. We talked about resonant orbits and that
11:16
kind of stuff and I just mentioned that when
11:20
you look at the inner planets you have You have
11:23
these orbits and they're close to being resonant
11:26
with each other, and specifically the Earth and
11:28
Mars are almost specifically resonant two to
11:31
one. And so the Martian year is about two years
11:34
long, a little bit less than that, and the Earth
11:36
year is obviously one year long for us, because
11:39
we count it from that. And then what happens,
11:42
you have these resonant orbits, and in a resonant
11:44
orbit you should have another planet orbiting
11:47
right here, right in that area. And that's where
11:52
the asteroids are at. And generally speaking,
11:55
they think that the asteroids came from the fact
11:57
that a planet didn't coalesce. And that's one
11:59
group of scientists. There's another group of
12:01
scientists that think that the asteroids are
12:03
the leftovers of a planet that blew apart, that
12:07
came apart, busted up. And there are only certain
12:11
ways that this kind of thing can happen. One
12:13
of the ways that can happen is for a planet,
12:16
and this would have been a small one, because
12:18
there's not a bunch of debris in the asteroid
12:20
belt. It doesn't look like Star Wars. with asteroid
12:23
belts. And so, there's not enough debris right
12:26
now to make up a full planet, but that doesn't
12:29
mean that there wasn't one there, because there's
12:32
been an awful lot of debris that has hit Mars,
12:34
and has hit the Earth, and has hit the Moon.
12:37
And all you gotta do is go out and look at the
12:39
Moon to see that. And what scientists will do
12:41
is put that, that's called the heavy bombardment,
12:43
they call it, there's an early and a late heavy
12:46
bombardment, and you don't care about all that
12:48
stuff, but they put it back billions of years.
12:51
And that's not the indication that we have in
12:53
scripture. The indication we have in scripture
12:55
is the things that we see in the universe are
12:57
things that happen within the lifespan of mankind.
13:01
What's that? I missed you. Okay. In any case,
13:08
there's a question as to where the asteroids
13:10
came from, and there are scientists who think
13:12
that it came from a planet breaking up. The way
13:15
that you break up a planet is you get it next
13:17
to another large planet, and it comes within
13:20
what's called the Roche limit. The Roshan limit
13:21
is the distance from the core of a planet, from
13:24
the center of a planet where the gravitational
13:28
attraction of the mass of the planet itself is
13:31
overcome by the gravitation of the planet that
13:33
it's coming near and it just literally breaks
13:35
apart. So the moon, for the moon to crash into
13:41
the earth, the moon would have to be headed straight
13:45
towards the earth, okay? If the moon started
13:49
slowing down, and started falling towards the
13:52
earth, it would never crash into the earth whole.
13:57
What would happen is it would get within the
13:58
Roche limit and it would just break apart. And
14:02
then as those parts began slowing down, then
14:04
they would come down piecemeal and hit the earth.
14:07
And that's something that can break up a plan.
14:10
Okay, so anyway, I just wanted to throw that
14:12
out for you. Another thing that we have is the
14:17
whole issue with 360 -day calendars. And so you
14:21
go through, in the Bible, this is something that's
14:24
documented in scripture. And so the first time
14:27
I ever ran into this was going through a study
14:29
in the book of Daniel, and when you get to Daniel
14:31
chapter nine, there's a prophecy of the coming
14:33
of Jesus, okay? And so when you take that prophecy
14:36
of the coming of Jesus, it's done in seven year
14:40
periods, basically. 77 is given for the nation
14:44
of Israel, and 77 year periods, 490 years. And
14:49
when you do it with 365 day years, it doesn't
14:52
work. But when you change it over to 360 day
14:55
years, and so Robert Anderson is the one that
14:57
figured this out. And the way he figured it out
14:59
was he went to the book of Revelation, and in
15:01
the book of Revelation, you have three and a
15:04
half years specifically being enumerated as 1260
15:08
days. That's half years of 360 day years, right?
15:13
And so Sir Robert Anderson took 360 -day years,
15:16
took it back to the prophecy, and Daniel did
15:18
the whole 70 -weeks prophecy, and it came out
15:20
to the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem. And
15:24
so they started calling this the prophetic year.
15:28
Turns out it's not just the prophetic year, because
15:31
when you go back to the book of Genesis, in the
15:32
book of Genesis in chapter 7, you actually have
15:38
the flood enumerated. The date is given when
15:41
the flood starts, the date is given when the
15:43
flood ends, and there's a period of time there
15:46
where the waters are rising. It's 150 days, and
15:49
it's called five months. And so you do the math.
15:53
150 divided by five is 30, right? And so 150
15:58
days, five months of 30 -day months. We don't
16:02
have that. And the reason that we don't have
16:04
that is because we have a 365 -day year. The
16:08
months are calculated, with the Jews specifically,
16:11
they have a lunar calendar. And so nowadays a
16:15
lunar calendar is, you have a situation with
16:18
a lunar calendar where, gosh I'm getting ahead
16:21
of myself kind of, a lunar calendar, the moon
16:24
goes around the earth in its phases in 29 .5
16:29
days. And I know that you care much about this.
16:33
But it goes around in 29 .5 days. And so if you
16:36
use a lunar calendar, what you get is a year
16:38
of 355 days. Okay, so that's off the solar year.
16:44
Solar year is 365 and a quarter, right? But the
16:47
Jews used to have a lunar calendar, and it wasn't
16:50
until the 8th century BC that they changed their
16:53
calendar. And it's at that point that they started
16:56
extra months, started adding extra months every
17:00
so many years so they could catch the lunar calendar
17:03
up to the solar calendar. And then what you find
17:06
out is not only does the Bible have a 360 day
17:10
year with 30 day months, and I didn't explain
17:13
this, the month is based on the moon. So it's
17:18
the phases of the moon. So when you have a new
17:20
moon, when the moon is a sliver, right, actually
17:24
I went backwards with that, when the moon's a
17:26
sliver like that, that's a new moon. they watch
17:29
for the period of time until the next new moon
17:32
till the next time that they see that sliver
17:34
and That is 29 .5 days. It didn't used to be
17:37
that all the ancient calendar said it was exactly
17:40
30 days so the ancient Hebrew calendar says a
17:44
360 day year and a 30 day month and literally
17:48
360 and 30 days then again when you get to the
17:52
8th century BC the 700s BC that's the time of
17:56
Hezekiah when Hezekiah's sundial goes backwards
17:59
and it's in that period of time that they change
18:02
their calendar and not only did they change their
18:04
calendar the Romans change their calendars and
18:06
the Chinese change their calendars and the Egyptians
18:10
change their calendars and the Mayans changed
18:13
their calendars, and the Indus changed their
18:18
calendars, Sumeria, Babylonia, Armenia, Greece,
18:21
Rome, China, all of them had to change their
18:23
calendars. And when they changed them, they added
18:26
five days to the calendar. These people are not
18:28
stupid. And they added five days to the calendar,
18:30
and when they added these five days to the calendar,
18:33
they didn't like the days that they were adding.
18:36
They considered them to be foreign to the calendar.
18:40
And so I told you last week that the Romans,
18:42
for example, the Roman Empire started right in
18:45
that period of time. So about 750 BC is when
18:48
the Roman Empire started. Hezekiah's sundial
18:51
was about 701 BC. It goes backwards, BC. So 750
18:55
is earlier than 701. And so the Roman calendar
18:59
was all in upheaval. They couldn't figure out
19:01
what their months were and that kind of thing.
19:03
But they agreed that there was a 360 -day year
19:06
until after 700 BC. And then what they started
19:09
doing is adding, again, like all the rest of
19:11
the ancient world, they added five days to their
19:13
calendar year. But from that point on, they never
19:16
paid their soldiers for any more than 360 days
19:20
for a year. And they considered the five days
19:23
to be foreign from the year, as did the Egyptians
19:26
and everybody else. And so that's really interesting,
19:30
okay? Now, the deal here is you can't change
19:34
a year without changing the rotation of the earth.
19:38
that's one option, or changing the orbit of the
19:44
Earth around the Sun. And so it's one of those
19:47
two things. So the Earth can either spin faster,
19:52
and you can get 365 and a quarter days instead
19:55
of 360 days in one revolution around the Sun,
19:59
right? Or the Earth has to change its orbit,
20:03
and it goes from a closer orbit to an orbit that
20:07
is slightly further out. That implies speed.
20:10
So there has to be speed involved in this whole
20:13
thing. And again, when you're looking at this
20:15
issue, those are the ways that you change in
20:18
orbit. The problem with that is you can get a
20:20
360 -day year, but at that point, if you're talking
20:24
about changing the rotation of the Earth, speeding
20:27
the rotation of the Earth up, you can get a 360
20:30
-day year. Actually, yeah, if you slow the Earth
20:34
down, you can get a 360 -day year if you slow
20:37
the Earth's rotation down. but that doesn't change
20:40
the orbit of the moon. Okay? And so the thing
20:45
that changed the calendars has to affect both
20:48
the moon and the sun. You guys follow that? Okay.
20:52
And so the sun has to go from a 29 .5 day month
20:55
to a 30 day month. And the earth has to go from
20:58
a 365 day year to a 360 day year if you're going
21:01
backwards and vice versa if you're going forwards.
21:06
This is something that's giving indications of
21:09
what could have gone on with this whole thing.
21:12
When I've talked about a book that's really interesting,
21:16
and it's called Joshua's The Long Day of Joshua
21:19
and Other Catastrophes, and it was by three guys,
21:23
Steinhauer, who's a theorist for mathematical
21:25
sciences, taught aerodynamics, orbital mechanics,
21:29
and applied mathematics at Harvard, MIT, and
21:31
UW. And then a guy named Patton, who was a geographer,
21:35
historian, and author, and a guy named Hatch,
21:37
who was a mathematician and a physicist, orbital
21:40
analyst, and that kind of thing. And they talked
21:42
about biblical catastrophes. And so they were
21:44
looking into this whole thing, and they noticed
21:46
that the catastrophes in the Bible are cyclical.
21:49
And they're cyclical on 108 years, or some multiple
21:54
of that, or some divisible of that. 54 to 108
21:57
years. And so they went through, and this is
21:59
an example on the screen of different catastrophes,
22:02
and these dates are pretty accurate. We don't
22:04
know some of these. This one's pretty close.
22:08
These right here are pretty close, but we don't
22:11
know the exact dates of those, obviously. But
22:13
they went through and calculated actually from
22:15
the March 701 BC date, went back, and all of
22:19
these dates in here are accurate. until you get
22:23
to a long day of Joshua, those are accurate.
22:25
These ones may be a little bit off and that kind
22:27
of thing. But in any case, they're cyclical.
22:30
And so one of the things that they went through
22:32
and they went to look at is to see what would
22:34
cause this. And again, if you're talking about
22:36
something that's going to change the orbit of
22:38
the Earth, it's got to be something big. It's
22:41
got to be something big. And so they proposed
22:43
that maybe Mars was the issue. And that's what
22:46
we talked about last week. And hopefully I got
22:48
that across to you guys. And so this is Mars's
22:51
orbit right now. It's highly elliptical. It is
22:54
the most elliptical orbit that we have in the
22:56
solar system. 687 day year for Mars, 365 and
23:00
a quarter day year for the Earth. And what they're
23:03
postulating is that the Earth's orbit used to
23:05
be 360 days and Mars's orbit used to be 720 days.
23:10
And so it would be in resonance. Which means
23:13
every two years on the Earth, Mars would make
23:17
one orbit. and vice versa, every half year on
23:21
Mars, Earth would make one orbit, okay? When
23:24
they went through and they looked at all these
23:27
dates, when they went through and looked at all
23:30
these dates, see this? It's October, March, October,
23:34
October, March, October, and March. And those
23:37
are accurate according to our calendar. And that
23:41
again is cyclical. And so what they did was they
23:45
went and postulated that what if Mars' orbit
23:48
came inside the Earth's orbit? And so this would
23:50
be a March crossover of the Earth's orbit. This
23:53
would be an October crossover of the Earth's
23:56
orbit. This also takes the orbit of Mars and
24:00
makes it 720 days and puts it out into the asteroid
24:04
belt. You've been listening to Crosswalk with
24:06
Pastor Steve Wintory. Crosswalk is the radio
24:08
ministry of Calvary Chapel Tri -Cities in Kennewick,
24:11
Washington. If you're wanting to know more about
24:13
what it means to follow Christ, then please contact
24:15
our church office by phone at 509... 736 -2086.
24:21
You can also look us up online at calvary -tricities
24:24
.org Calvary Chapel Tri -Cities is offering two
24:28
in -person training courses for those seeking
24:30
to serve in missions or ministry. The School
24:33
of Missions starts with 12 weeks of classroom
24:35
-style learning and local outreach in the Tri
24:37
-Cities, Washington, followed by a 10 -week cross
24:40
-cultural mission outreach. The School of Ministry,
24:42
this course is 18 weeks of in -person learning
24:45
environment, followed by a four -week mission
24:48
trip. Find out more at calvarytrainingcenternw
24:51
.com.