Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 10, 2022 | RETOLD - Joshua and the Battle of Jericho

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July 10, 2022 | RETOLD - Joshua and the Battle of Jericho · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hope everybody's doing great.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series titled Retold.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't been with us this summer, welcome.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: What we've been looking at are these popular stories in the Bible, whether they were ones that we sort of learned when we were growing up or just sort of been around the church for a while and we've heard.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of them are told mostly in the children's services because they have these great, um, sort of inspiring messages behind them.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The danger, though, is that when we're told these stories as children, or we think we know them so well, we can overlook the greater story that God has in store for us.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you are familiar with the song Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ends with the phrase, the walls came crumbling down.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So uh most of you probably have heard that song, whether, uh, well, you probably heard it in the children's ministry.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you heard a rendition by Mahalia Jackson or Elvis Presley, but it actually began in or was written in the first half of the 19th century by American slaves.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that song was first published in 1882 in a book titled A Collection of Revival Hymns and Plantation Melodies.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So for the last 3,000 years, the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho has inspired people, and they have taken this message that we're going to look at this morning and applied it to their own lives, being inspired, that the Lord is going to fight their battles.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a bit of nuance, though, that I kind of want to bring to this story this morning, because there can be a danger that we apply this story in a way that does not actually fit with the context of the narrative.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what's also going to be a little unusual today is though our story rests firmly in Joshua chapter six, uh, we're actually going to spend more time in the five books preceding it because that is what sets up all of the context for this story.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua chapter six is literally just fighting the battle of Jericho.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if I haven't become a broken record by this point over the last few weeks, there's more to the story than that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when we let's first kind of orient ourselves here in the Bible.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Bible.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: It comes right after the fifth book of Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy finishes with Moses' death.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a transition in power and leadership from Moses to his basically like holy intern Joshua.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua's been with him as they were walking through the desert, and now Joshua is going to take over.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a shift in what the nation of Israel is doing between Deuteronomy and Joshua.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um Deuteronomy sort of culminates with the nation of Israel being uh propped up and at the sort of the threshold of the promised land, prepared to enter into it.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua is going to take over and he's going to lead the people.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: The following book in the Bible, Judges, is about how they led the people into the nation, but they didn't sort of drive out all of the individuals who were there, all the pagan nations that we're going to look at this morning, and they kind of cohabited with them, intermarried with them, and killed each other.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like um, it's basically college.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they uh but Joshua, the book of Joshua, is about Israel going into the promised land, and it's really a military campaign.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um the nations, like I said, we'll look at this in a moment, but the nations that are in the promised land are sort of on a who's who list of enemies for the nation of Israel.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we see the Lord's plan and will extending from Israel through the promised land, we're gonna see that Joshua played a really important part in that, and that Jericho was really the first domino to fall.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where we're at.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Middle East, obviously, this is Israel, and so we've got the Dead Sea, and so what's happening is the nation of Israel, they well, if you're in the TV, Egypt's like over here, right?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they've been walking and wandering, and they've come up, and they're now on the east side of the Jordan River, which flows um into the Dead Sea.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're over here on the east side and they are looking west, and uh they recognize that basically because of the uh topography, Jericho represents kind of the gateway into the Promised Land.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way they're going to attack, and Jericho is really going to be the first battle that they face.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is in Joshua chapters 1 through 6.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you continue on beyond our story this morning, you'd see that in chapters 7 through 8, they move beyond Jericho into AI, and then later on north and south.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when we come to this story, though, like I said, there's quite a bit of context that makes not only makes the story, frankly, more interesting, but helps us be able to apply it to our lives later on.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, let's talk about um maybe the reputation, you could say, of the nation of Israel as they're coming around here to this side.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Israel has already fought some battles, and it's apparent as we get into Joshua chapter 2, uh, that basically their reputation has preceded them.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua 2, verses 2 through 3.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: The king of Jericho was told, look, some of the Israelite men have come here tonight to investigate the land.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab and said, Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, for they came to investigate the entire land.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Joshua sent spies into the land over the Jordan River and to the area around Jericho to be able to scope it out.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And these spies found a sympathetic and uh well, a sympathetic figure in Rahab who aligned with their interests, and that she apparently feared and worshipped Yahweh as well, which is really unique, frankly, uh, for her standing and being in the city of Jericho.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um what's kind of flawless in this, I think, is funny, is they were obviously really bad spies, because everybody's like, Rahab, we know they went straight into your house.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you could just bring them back out.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, not the best spies, but nevertheless, Rahab hides them.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on, she, her house is built into the walls of Jericho, and she lets them down through a window.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see here a couple things.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that this king of Jericho, um, which is he's probably over sort of the province, the area around Jericho, um, that he is aware of Israel's position over on the east side of the Jordan, and also that they are interested in coming into the promised land.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now they wouldn't call it the promised land, the promises to the nation of Israel, but nevertheless, they recognize that they are inhabiting the land that Israel's ancestors came from.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so they uh are nervous about that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: They know that Israel's had victories and battles up to this point, and so they want to make sure that these spies uh don't go back.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Rahab protects them.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're gonna mention Rahab just a little bit later, but she doesn't factor all that much into the story for this morning outside of this point that she protected the spies.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um but Rahab, uh after Jericho is conquered, the Israelites they make an agreement with her, they protect her, and so they Rahab comes back to the Israelite camp, uh, she ends up living with them, and she ultimately, Matthew tells us, gets included in the messianic line, so that Rahab's descendants include King David and Jesus Christ.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, she's mentioned in Hebrews 11 for her faith, and the book of James for her works, her obedience to the Lord.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Rahab has a pretty great biography, even though up to throughout this story, she is only going to be really referred to as Rahab the prostitute.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Rahab the prostitute ends up birthing the Savior of the world.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as we continue on, though, uh we see that the spies come back and report back to Joshua, and they tell him about Jericho, they tell him about the land, and they say, hey, people know that we're over here, people are afraid of us, people are anticipating our arrival.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua, long story short, makes the decision.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: He prays to the Lord, and the Lord tells him to move across the Jordan River.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a bit of a problem because the Jordan at this point in the year is flooding, and so it's going to be really difficult for all the nation to get across the Jordan River.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Joshua 3, verses 3 through 4, um, the Lord says, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God carried by the Levitical priests, you are to break camp and follow it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between yourselves and the ark.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go near it, so that you can see the way to go, for you haven't traveled this way before.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens in the story is uh the Levites, they and the priests, they carry the Ark of the Covenant where the Lord's presence rests, and they walk straight into the middle of the Jordan River, and as they do, the waters dam up behind them, so much so that it says that a wall of water is present, and they stand in the middle of the river as the entire nation of Israel crosses to the west over the Jordan River.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Once the entire nation has crossed, then the priests and the Ark of the Covenant, then they walk out of the river as well.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But notice two things here.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua is saying, make sure that you keep this distance, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: These people understand something that many of us have forgotten, which is that the Lord's presence is to be revered and respected because of its holiness.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua is saying, watch the Lord go ahead of you into this place that you don't know.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have never been here.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to lead you through it, but also make sure that you do not basically abuse the fact that he is near us.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: For we are sinful and he is not.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is holy and we are not.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so this theme, though, of the Lord leading them through the promised land is something that we keep picking up on, and is sort of a cyclical reminder that it is not just a plan that Joshua and the Israelites came up with, and God says, Yeah, that sounds good to me.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is that the Lord is guiding them into the promised land, fulfilling his promise to the people, and through their faith they are following him into it.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we go on, now we find the the who's who here, right?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua 3, verses 9 through 11.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to see the individuals who have filled the promised land.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua told the Israelites, come closer and listen to the words of the Lord your God.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You will know that the living God is among you, and that he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hephites, Hivites, Perizzites, Gergeshites, Amorites, and Jebusites, when the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth goes ahead of you into the Jordan, right?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this is right before they cross over.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And God is saying, Okay, this is kind of like a debrief.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Okay, when we go over there, you're going to encounter a lot of people that, as we're going to look at in a moment, you know, are opposing the Lord and are doing heinous things.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember our message in Leviticus, uh, chapter 18 and 19, we talked about this, or even when we went to the Tower of Babel and we talked about the table of nations, we said that there is a descendant from the line of Noah through Ham, and basically they make up all of the people who are characterized by their hatred for the Lord and their worship of false idols and their proclivity for basically depravity.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is those individuals.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: These are those individuals.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, You will know that the living God is among you, and that he will certainly dispossess when all of these people are conquered.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, Israel, as you go through the promised land and you see all of these people that you have heard to be my enemies, as you see them being conquered, you'll know that I'm with you and I am present with you.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am with you, as he says.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fact that the Ark of the Covenant is guiding them into the promised land plays a huge factor in this.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now I mentioned the table of nations here, just to kind of recap, if you weren't with us.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right, Genesis 9, we have the curse of Noah upon Canaan, his grandson, uh basically for the sin of Canaan's father Ham.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have in the table of nations, we have the list of individuals that are going to uh populate the Old Testament as Israel's enemies, and the ones that are bolded are the ones that we find in our story in Joshua.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Canaan and then Hef and Jebusites, Amorites, Gergeshites, and Hivites.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some others, but so what should we take away from this?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that we got like a table of contents and we know who's in the promised land.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a line being drawn here that Israelites would understand that they're being told by the Lord that those who are in this land are those who oppose me.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so this isn't some kind of like land grab for the sake of acquisition.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening is a spiritual battle between the Lord and his enemies, between God and Satan, and that as the Lord goes into the promised land, he is going to lead them and guide them through every step of the way, because this is much more than just a physical battle, it is happening in the spiritual realm as well.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord says, These are my enemies, and because you are my people, they are also your enemies.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, keeping in mind that this is a spiritual battle, it makes this next passage make a lot more sense.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: In Joshua chapter 5, verses 13 through 15, I've got this kind of wild account, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua approached him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Neither, he replied, I have now come as commander of the Lord's army.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then Joshua bowed with his face to the ground in homage and asked him, What does my Lord want to say to his servant?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: The commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Joshua did that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um we don't know who the man is, uh, but there's two really, really good guesses.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first is that it is a Christophany, meaning an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we know that he is the commander of the Lord's army because later on in the New Testament, when he's being arrested in the garden, and the disciples are like, Should we fight them?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, No, no, no.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can command legions of angels, and I'm not doing it because I'm willingly going to the cross.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So as a small example, I mean, the whole book of Revelation also supports the idea that the Lord is the commander of his own army.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then the other exam or the other possibility would be that uh this is an archangel, uh, probably Michael, who we know is fighting on behalf of Israel.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember when we were going through the book of Daniel, Michael makes an appearance along with Gabriel, as they are ones who are fighting with basically the demons over the different nations.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if all of that is just kind of like woo over the head, we know that this person came from the Lord.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's the takeaway.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the Lord is present here.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the Lord has sent a messenger.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what's interesting too is that it's obvious Joshua did not recognize them.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because he asked them, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, so are you for us or for our enemies, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably not something you'd be asking if it was God.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's more like is that this individual, as we find in other accounts in the Old Testament, uh, whether being God himself or whether it is an angel, they looked like a human.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua makes the natural jump in in his common sense, which is that Jericho knows that Israel's coming.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so everybody in the land around the fortress of Jericho has sort of been sucked up.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: They have retreated into the fortress to protect themselves.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're preparing for a siege, and so if he doesn't recognize you, uh, you are either fighting against him or you are for him.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is a reasonable conclusion that he comes to, but also the answer that the Lord gives, are you for us or for our enemies?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Neither.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's that about?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna pick up on that later because that is critical to us understanding the application for this passage and frankly, Joshua and the Battle of Jericho as a whole.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, we see that the response of this individual, and namely that they identify themselves as a commander of the Lord's army, changes Joshua's tune.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: He recognizes that it is the Lord speaking to him.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, What does my Lord want to say to his servant?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then, as a final thing on this passage, what's also interesting, is that the individual recognizes or tells Joshua that where he's standing is holy ground, so he needs to take off his sandals.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is like Moses, Joshua's uh predecessor at the burning bush.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Moses had to take off his sandals when he realized that it was he was in the presence of God.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's where it ends.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, you you would think that this is sort of like a uh the beginning stages, the introduction to like some sort of debriefing that the Lord has with Joshua, um, but that isn't included in the text.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: After Joshua chapter 5, verse 15 begins Joshua chapter 6, verse 1, which then just starts talking about the Battle of Jericho.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so we understand that this encounter made a huge impact on Joshua because of the um implication of the battle plans that come later on.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, we see that there's a shift in Joshua's point of view here.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, Are you for us or for them?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: He understands that the Lord is the one who needs people on his side or desires people to be on his side.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: God isn't saying, Joshua, I'm on your side.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua needs to understand that he should be on the Lord's side.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so as this battle is clearly shown to be something of far more than just clashing of swords, but there's heavenly kind of and spiritual implications taking place.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We see that the commander of the Lord's army is present on sight for what's about to happen.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we get into Joshua chapter 6, verse 2.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Joshua, Look, I have handed Jericho, its king, and its best soldiers over to you.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lest we think that this battle had really anything to do with Joshua and his amazing skills and wisdom as a leader, but things that he surely possessed, being the commander of God's people.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: This was entirely an act of God.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord, who is present in the future, knows the future, is already saying, Joshua, Jericho has fallen before Joshua has even marshaled his troops to go and fight against it.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: God is the one who is leading them, God is the one who is fighting, God is the one who is delivering Jericho into their hands.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we see in Joshua chapter six that God gives them this, Frank, from a human perspective, a pretty wild and crazy battle plan.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua, again, he's not uh as military-hardened as he would be later on in the book of Joshua, having fought all of these battles, but he knows how to fight.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when we see that Joshua in chapter five is like scouting out Jericho, you can assume it's because he recognizes that they're about to go and fight this massive fortress of a city.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the Lord's plan is he says, okay, I want you to take your fighting men, and I want you to take the Ark of the Covenant, and I want to take you, I want you to take seven priests and seven horns, and you're gonna walk around the city.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua's like, okay, what next?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, and then I want you to walk around the city.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, and then and walk around the city.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they do this for six days, and then on the seventh day, Joshua's like, now, and God's like, walk around it seven times.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the seventh time, on the seventh day, with the seven priests and the seven horns, they blow their horns and they shout, and the walls of Jericho will come tumbling down.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Without Joshua or his men ever throwing a stone at the walls.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: This city that is known for being a fortress in the land is taken down by God.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Which really says a lot, frankly, for the kind of battle once more that God is fighting.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is rather, instead of some kind of thing where the Lord is observing from up on high, as it's often kind of characterized, that God is present and active.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: He is leading his people, he is protecting his people, he is carrying out his will.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as we find out in Hebrews 11, chapter 30, the reason the walls of Jericho fell were because of faith.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: By faith that Joshua and his army had, that this plan that God had them on, which did not involve any fighting, would actually tear down Jericho, that it was by their Faith in this crazy plan that God ultimately tore them down.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was by their faith in God's plan that their sort of human desires were accomplished.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here we come to actually the end of the Battle of Jericho.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said we weren't going to spend a whole lot of time in chapter six.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I basically just told you what happened.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: They have a battle plan, they follow it through, and then we see that they go and conquer the city of Jericho.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's really sort of the end of the story for what has been building up over the first five chapters.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, they conquered it.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the one thing I, or a couple things rather, that I do want you to see, which I think is super interesting, is that there are a lot of ways, but there are three ways that I'm going to share that we can sort of look at archaeology and see that the events in Joshua chapter 6 transpired as they say they do in the Bible.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling this section Law and Order Late Bronze Age Archaeology, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Dun dun, there we go.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So stay with me if you're interested in this kind of thing.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, uh this is ancient Jericho today.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We know exactly where it is.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the modern day city of Jericho is built nearby.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these trenches and holes that you see dug are um evidence of excavations, because Jericho outside of Jerusalem is one of the most popular sites in Israel for digging.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that is because um it is so clearly what we know it to be, which is this ancient fortress city.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um top, basically, if you take all the land of Jericho, it's about eight square um acres, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it might not be as big as you think it would be.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, for this time, remember, we are ancient history here.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is a huge place with a couple thousand people, especially once everybody from the surrounding lands joins in and comes behind the walls for protection, and uh that this is representative of sort of this gateway into the promised land.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, this is ancient Jericho.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Joshua 6, chapter 17 says, But the city and everything in it are set apart to the Lord for destruction.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Only Rahab the prostitute and everyone with her in the house will live, because she hid the messengers we sent.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we see that Jericho receives a treatment that only a couple cities in all the Bible receive, which is this total and complete destruction.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are a few cities, this they don't always do this, where everything in it is basically representative of not only this pagan idolatry, um, but it is defiled.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of have to go back to Leviticus to get into sort of the meaning behind the things that are unholy and how that spreads.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: But God basically says everything in Jericho has to go, um, except for Rahab, who by faith uh protected the spies, and uh because of her and the agreement that we made, she will live.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that her house uh set into the wall, and we've seen in the oh yeah, yeah, sorry.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is my really bad drawing.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry if this is um, but this is kind of what a cross section of what Jericho would look like.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got the main city up here, and then you've got this interior wall that was made of mud brick, and then you have this exterior wall, they call it a revetment wall, that was made of stone.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are actually two walls with Jericho, and there is this sort of ramp that led up to it that was in between the interior and the exterior wall.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we think that a lot of the poor houses were, uh, because the houses there, as you'll see here, um, this is a photograph, it's kind of grainy, but this is from like 1907, so have mercy.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is a a human, so for some scale, this is a person.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, these would be some of the houses that are in the in between the exterior.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: This would be like the revetment wall in the interior wall.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we think that this is probably where Rahab was at because the houses are only one brick thick, whereas elsewhere in the city they are um they're sturdier than that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was, as they've done digs here, there has been no fine pottery found in this area.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also uh just the sort of real estate.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you were inside a walled fortress city, it would be better to be inside two walls instead of just one.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see here though, that there are sort of surrounding this wall that these houses butt up against the wall itself, and that there are these windows.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes a lot of sense that Rahab probably would have lived in a house like this, uh, that she survived, because these houses have survived, they did not get torn down, and we can see these windows in the walls.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh number two, Joshua 6, chapter 20.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the troops shouted, and the ram's horns sounded.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: When they heard the blast of the ram's horn, the troops gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: The troops advanced into the city, each man straight ahead, and they captured the city.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this is this is the like really miraculous part, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, all of it is miraculous in its own way, but this is the walls of Jericho, sort of their identifying mark, come crumbling down.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um my last slide with my own drawings is that well, I need to stay here, but basically this top wall, which was made of mud brick, uh, was far less sturdy than the exterior wall, which was made of stone.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what they have found is that that mud brick wall is now located at the base of and outside of this stone revetment wall and creates a ramp up into the city.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see this guy uh pointing to, like this would be remains of the mud brick wall, and you can see on the top right of the photo that sort of st more proper stone structure would be the exterior wall.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically what happened is this top mudbrick wall, or at least what we think happened, fell down and created a ramp so that as 620 says, people the Israelites could follow one another one by one straight ahead into the city of Jericho.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: That this is, uh it seems to be that this is how God accomplished that.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, third and finally, Joshua 624 says, They burned the city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord's house.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So they saved the precious metals as sort of a first fruits offering to the Lord, that this is the first city in the promised land that was conquered.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the spoils basically of that war are going to the Lord, but they burned the city and everything in it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's two reasons why we know this to be true.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that they have found uh pottery in the city with grain still inside of it that is burned.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this is exceedingly rare that you would find in any sort of dig site pottery that still has grain inside of it, not only because grain is used for food, but because grain is used as part of the economy as well.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fact that there are this basically hordes of grain that has been singed and burned inside this pottery seems to indicate that there was not actually a siege, as they were anticipating, that it was harvest time, which uh we know from Rahab hiding the spies on top of her house, covering them in flax that was drying out.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fits.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also see, I mean, naturally, that uh the fire um consumed these articles.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't include a picture of the other reason, but there's also three layers of ash and burned timber that sits along a lot of the site.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: So because of all of these things, that's that's law and order, because of all of these things, uh we see that archaeology confirms the biblical account.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't uh prove it to be true in the sense that we believed that Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, as it says, before archaeology discovered these things.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, it's really interesting to look at them and continue to see how something that was doubted for many years seems to have come about exactly the way the Lord said in Joshua.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But here we come to the end of our narrative, though, and there's one thing we have not addressed, which is actually how do we apply this to our life?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, when we get to the song Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, the walls came tumbling down.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: The whole idea behind a lot of that is basically we look at Joshua and we look at Jericho and we see God conquering this amazing structure for his people, and we go, okay, well, that's my life.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jericho is my obstacle, God is with me, and he wants to help me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Hannah and I, we have a little one coming here in the middle of August, and so we've been collecting some, you know, baby books.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've mentioned before that how wonderful I think it is for people to share Bible stories with their kids.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not throwing stones here, but as I was looking up in this in this book, uh Joshua in the Battle of Jericho, um, I felt like I had to mention it because I think the application that comes from this book is the application that we would normally draw from the story.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll kind of skip ahead.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just this little page with this cute drawing.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the last couple sentences say, the big strong walls fell down flat.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua and the people of Israel had won the battle of Jericho, God had helped them.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the application is God wants to help us win our battles.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So at a face value, I understand where that's coming from, right?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: That Joshua, by faith, along with the nation of Israel, was able to conquer uh the city of Jericho.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's pretty clear, based upon um the ark leading them into the promised land, based upon the recognition of them as Israel's enemies, and moreover, God's enemies, uh, the angel of the Lord's army being present, the fact that the Lord already told Joshua that Jericho was gonna fall before he ever went over there, and then the fact that uh the army did nothing to take down Jericho, it was all God.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of these things point to something bigger than just God helped Joshua defeat Jericho.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's where I'm gonna kind of split hairs, and I hope that you can stay with me on it because I think they're really important hairs to split.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's important that we see the difference between serving God and God serving us.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And God serving us looks like God helped Joshua defeat Jericho.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Us serving God looks like Joshua understanding that he is playing a role and sort of this divine will of his Yahweh God, who desired to take over this land for his people to fulfill his promises.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And because it was an honor and a privilege, Joshua by faith trusted in the Lord, and then, if you want to get into it, was able to prosper, as it says at the very end of Joshua chapter 6.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a distinction we have to make between serving the Lord and the Lord serving us.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is when we go all the way back to that encounter in Joshua 5 with the angel of the Lord's army, where Joshua says, Hey, are you for us or for them?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, them or us.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the angel says, Neither one of those options, neither A nor B.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is option C.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are with us.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the hair that needs to be split.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jericho is not defeated because Joshua wanted it defeated.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jericho was defeated for the sake of God's kingdom, and Joshua by faith was able to be a part of it.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: A better way to look at this story, this narrative, is by asking ourselves the same question that Joshua asked the angel, but instead saying, Are you for God or for his enemies?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: See, what's wonderful, but also very simple about this story is there are two options.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: You have God on one side, and you have got the forces of Satan on the other.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to be dramatic when I say that.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the Bible tells us.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who are sacrificing their children to foreign gods, and they are ultimately performing all of these sacrifices for idols made out of wood and metal, who they don't realize have demons and demonic power behind them.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's true throughout the whole Bible.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Find it in the New Testament too when they're worshiping idols.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have here the Lord's side and Satan's side.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua has a choice to make.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is he going to be on the Lord's side or on the side of God's enemies?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's difficult to take these things and then move immediately to a space where we say, well, really, the application of Jericho is how to make my life easier.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what our daily devotionals do so often, and unfortunately, is that they take these wonderful stories of the Bible and immediately transpose them into here's how your life can be easier, and here's how things can be more simple.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, when we look at the context of a story and the narrative that God is trying to explain, we see that there is often a much deeper truth here, and one that will actually help us more than this kind of pithy recognizing of Jericho as some obstacle in your life.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, there is still a personal application.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to sort of walk through this lens first to get there.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because if, like Joshua, we are for God and not for his enemies, then we are on the right side of things.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord who has already defeated the Satan, as we read in the book of Revelation, let alone the future battle of Jericho, we are on the right side.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: We are on the Lord who is holy and good and mighty and filled with justice and mercy.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when we align ourselves with him and make our desires his desires, then we find ourselves being quite satisfied as we walk in the wake of his movement, as the Israel was moving into the promised land following the ark, and we see that because our desires are aligned with his, we find our desires being fulfilled.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think now of what it looks like to be on God's side and to fight his battles, not for him, but with him, as Joshua did.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think of this as God helping you with the struggles that you have in your mind right now.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: But let us get very specific and concrete and say that the actual application of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho is what are the righteous battles that you are fighting in your life, where you are doing it for the sake of God's kingdom, and you are finding the odds to be insurmountable.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps in that situation, you are a parent who is trying to protect your child from the wiles of social media.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you have a friend who has relapsed in their addiction and you are trying to help them walk through that.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are somebody who is struggling with a sin of your own that you cannot seem to break, and you desire to honor the Lord with your life.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you are fighting for your marriage for the sake of his kingdom and your own, and it just seems like things are falling apart.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are righteous battles.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that because of your own sin you've come into a difficult circumstance and you want God to just sort of get out of jail free card.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, what are the righteous battles that are being fought for the sake of God's kingdom that do seem insurmountable?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is Jericho.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when that is the case and we are aligned with the Lord, that is where the beauty comes through because we see that the key to walking through those situations often does not result from human wisdom or some kind of battle plan, but it revolves around faith in God's plan.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it can seem so foolish as it probably did for Joshua, the general, to be like, wait, we're walking around the city for seven days and blowing horns?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, and then we attack, right?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: God's plan defied human wisdom, and yet it was the right plan because they were fighting with God and not against him.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: So with all of these things, uh here's just a phrase that I think we can take away.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Before God and not against him.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when we surely encounter his enemies as we will, trust in his plan instead of our own.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he has already won.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is why I think.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember those infomercials for the Jack Lane power juicer?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we know it's important to eat our vegetables, right?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole crux of those commercials was like you put all of your vegetables in this thing, and then you can drink them in one sitting.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is what it looks like when we take the richness and the beauty of God's stories and we just churn out these sort of ideas that, well, it's just to help me in whatever problem I'm in right now.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: God does want to help you.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: God does desire for you to have the desires of your heart, as Psalm says.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we can't just sort of take every single story in the Bible and say, okay, well, this is about helping me.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is an application here that helps us, but we first have to align ourselves with God and understand his perspective and sort of where we fall in the hierarchy of things, that it was not God helping Joshua, but it was Joshua fighting with God.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes all the difference in how we take this into our own lives.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you, fight for the Lord, fight his battles, and when you do come upon these righteous battles that are for his kingdom that do seem insurmountable and doomed to failure, that by trusting in his plan instead of your own, you will find victory.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is the application, and that is what we should take away from Joshua in the Battle of Jericho.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: God, you are good, you are powerful, you are mighty.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you protect us, you shepherd us, you care for us, Lord.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we know that there are so many times in our lives where we often find ourselves in situations because of our own sin.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, Lord, there are often just as many times where we find ourselves coming up against the physical and spiritual forces that are against you.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, we pray that you would help us to prevail against your enemies.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you would help us to see your plan and walking through these situations, and help us to trust and have faith as the Israelites did, Lord, that you have already conquered evil.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Father, that you can be trusted because you are already there on the victor's side.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, help us to remember these things.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, by the power of your Spirit, help us to understand your word better so that we don't walk away with these overly simplistic applications.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, as often wonderful as they are, but God, we can dive deep into your word and see that when we see the riches of your truth, we can find true answers for our life as well.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you, and we thank you most of all for Jesus Christ that he died on the cross for our sins.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in his name we pray.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week, everybody.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.