Joshua 5-6 “MOVING AHEAD BY FAITH!” 10-01-17

A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh, wrote a simple poem about how we don’t like to change. The poem is titled: Now We Are Six:

When I was One, I had just begun. When I was Two, I was nearly new. When I was Three, I was hardly Me. When I was Four, I was not much more. When I was Five, I was just alive. But now I am Six, I’m as clever as ever. So I think I’ll be six now forever and ever.

Have you ever been around a kid who thought he knew it all and didn’t want to change? Have you ever been around an adult who didn’t want to change? The truth is that most of us are creatures of habit, and once we get comfortable we like things to remain the same. If you don’t believe me, look at where you are sitting now. Then look at those sitting around you. Next Sunday in worship, see if you experience a little déjà vu. See if you find yourself and most of those around you in the exact same seat each Sunday. We like for things to remain the same. There are times when resistance to change is important. Some things should not change. Certain convictions should be kept! However, when resisting change becomes a habit, especially in the area of faith, it is tragic! If your attitude is: “I’ve been to Sunday School, I’ve read my Bible, I have learned all I need to know”, then how can the Lord work in you? Several years ago, I went back to my home church where my dad spent the last 21 years of his life in ministry. We were part of a Christian Day school, my faith grew in leaps and bounds but weeds were growing up in cracks, there was no sign of life or ministry because they had kept living in the past. No person or church can live in the past! Did you know that lobsters must leave their shells in order to grow? Apparently, this is frightening for them because the shell protects them from their predators who desire to tear them apart. Yet as they grow, the old shell must be abandoned.

As we arrive at the Promised Land with the Israelites, we discover that it was also the problem land. There are enemies in that land that need to be conquered in the city of Jericho. Joshua was the military general who throughout the 40 years in the wilderness fought battles against the Amalekites and others enemy armies. But now he’s going to fight this new enemy in a different manner. Up to this point, he has never led an armed attack on a fortified city. Also, the Israelite army was not a well-equipped fighting machine. They’re traveling in tents with their families, a couple million people, animals, and a bunch of ex-slaves. They don’t have catapults or battering rams. They don’t have moving towers like they used in ancient times to assault cities. It’s a ragtag group of people against a well-fortified city. However, having said that, they had one huge advantage: the fear factor. They had God and the people of Canaan had heard what God had done for them. Two weeks ago we saw how Rahab told the spies, “hey, the people of my city are scared when we heard about what happened at the Red Sea and now our hearts are further terrified when we heard about the two kings you guys wiped out.” The morale of the Canaanites was at an all-time low! If there ever was a time to attack it was now! They had just crossed the Jordan River which means the morale was even lower on the Canaanite side because that was not expected. But that wasn’t God’s plan. 1. GOD’S PLANS ARE ALWAYS STRANGE UNTIL WE EXAMINE THEM BIBLICALLY. HE KNEW THAT BEFORE A CONQUEST THERE HAD TO BE A CONSECRATION. There were some spiritual things that needed to be taken care of first.

First of all, there had to be a circumcision. How was he going to get the army to sign off on that? Do you remember in the first chapter how God promised to Joshua: “You will be successful, I will be with you. Be courageous and obey everything I tell you to do.” In verse 2 the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again”. “So Joshua flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.” God tells them that circumcision was a sign of the covenant. I don’t even know what to do with this verse! Ouch. This started back in Genesis when the Lord made a covenant with Abram whose name would later be changed to Abraham. God told him that there would be an outward sign of the covenant. Do you remember the outward sign of the covenant that God made with Noah? A rainbow and we still are reminded of it after rain storms. That kind of covenant is colorful and beautiful. Do you remember that God made a covenant to keep the Sabbath day holy and to rest on the 7th day? That was a great covenant. Think today of the covenant God establishes with us in baptism – powerful, refreshing, cleansing and simple. So how why did God require circumcision? Because it symbolized the cutting away of fleshly desire. One of the problems we have is not that we sin, but we’re born into and will struggle with it the rest of our lives here on earth. In Deuteronomy chapter 10 the Lord said, “Circumcise, therefore, your hearts, and be stiff necked no longer.” The outward symbol was a sign of an inward reality that their hearts were trimmed and cut and placed before God. That’s why He told him to make flint knives. No one was prepared for this command because they’re just crossed over the river and are ready to attack. They’re ready for war. They know it’s coming. The people in Jericho have heard they’re coming. They can see them in the plain.

Put yourself in Joshua’s shoes: you weren’t supposed to sharped your swords but in its place, little knives. Why? God wanted them to be consecrated before the conquest. Let me tell you a little bit about those flint knives back in the Bronze Age. A knife made out of rock that is freshly cut is sterile. I’ve been told that knives today made out of a black rock, called obsidian is sharp and sterile because bacteria cannot live in a rock. That’s why God told him to make flint knives out of rocks. In verse 6 we’re told that “the Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land He had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.” That’s why Joshua circumcised them. And they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed. I don’t think I really have to explain the ramifications of that. It would take several days of healing because an adult doesn’t heal quickly like a newborn. These men would have been completely disabled. Talk about being vulnerable – but they trusted the Lord.

The second thing they has to do was, they had to celebrate the Passover – which they hadn’t done for a long time. This applies to us today: how many times have you said, “Lord speak to me.” And I can almost hear the Holy Spirit saying, “I have been but you’ve not been in the Word to hear My voice.” When you take time to seek the Lord, He leads and guides when we are consecrated to Him. The first Passover happened way back in Egypt, Exodus 12. The second Passover was one year later, Numbers chapter 9 when they’re about ready to break camp and go on their march. But after that, they never kept it again. This is why God wants them to reestablish celebrating it. A few of them would have remembered as children, their dad taking the blood of the lamb and painting the doorposts of their home. And very likely they remembered the cries around them, in the homes of the Egyptians when it was discovered that their firstborn had died during the night. They also remembered the sound of the horses of the Egyptians as they chased the Israelites out into the wilderness to the Red Sea. They remembered it all because they had just crossed over the Jordan River. And now, celebrating the Passover would bring back those vivid memories!

I don’t know if you realized the significance of verse 11: “The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. 12The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land: there was no longer any manna for the Israelites but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.” Remember, it was spring and Jericho is about 900 feet below sea level so it’s sort of like Palm Springs, Phoenix area – a great place to be in the wintertime, but summer’s coming. So by the time they enter into this area, it’s the barley harvest and when the farmers see the 2 million Israelites crossing the Jordan River, they leave their fields because of fear and went to Jericho under the protection of those walls. So that leaves the harvest for the Israelites to consume! And in v. 12 we see a whole new diet. Usually when you change your diet it’s because you’re forced to because of a health issue: you need to lose weight, or lower your intake of salt, sugar, carbohydrates, etc or because you move to a new of the country. If you move to the east coast, seafood will be plentiful or the Cajun food along the Gulf, the meat and potatoes of the Midwest, the Tex-Mex of the Southwest, or ludefisk of Minnesota. Well, Joshua and the Israelites have just begun a new diet without manna and it was going to be wonderful. They not going to be able to just walk outside the tent and gather enough manna for the day but the variety of fresh produce was now available.

After the Lord sets the stage, He appears to Joshua in human form because as he looks up, Joshua “saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’” 14Neither,” he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence and asked him, ‘what message does my Lord have for his servant?’” And when he tells him to take off his sandals because the place is holy he does it! This is what is called a “Theophany” – an appearance of the Lord in human form or a “Christophany” – an appearance of Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnate form. This is important because before Joshua is going to battle, the Lord reminds him that He, not Joshua is in charge. The success that will come in the battle of Jericho will occur not because they’re sharpened their swords and getting out there with catapults. 2. PUBLIC VICTORIES ARE THE RESULTS OF PRIVIATE VISITS WITH THE LORD! It’s worship before warfare. It’s consecration before conquests. It’s stop, bow, take your sandals off, worship God and then proceed. It’s this private visit that Joshua has with the commander of the Lord’s army that brought him to victory! I love the true story about John Knox, the reformer from Scotland. If you know your history, you know that Mary the Queen of Scots was afraid of him. In fact, a famous that she made, she said, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the armies in Europe.” She knew the power of his private visits with the Lord. You can always do more than pray after you pray, but you can never do more than pray until you’ve prayed. So Joshua pauses, worships, and now he’s ready.

As we arrive at chapter 6:1, we see the Lord’s instruction to Joshua: “Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. 2Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. Notice that it is past tense: done deal, victory secured. I’ve done it! 3March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Your Joshua, the Lord hasn’t given the strategy yet so that sounds reasonable – they’re going to get a good look at our army. They’re going to see how large our group is. We won’t do anything, we’ll just show them who we are. The city of Jericho was a 9 acre complex so we’ll march around it 6 days. And then what? 4Have seven priests carry trumpets of ram’s horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. So we’re going to do a lot of walking around that town, 13 times. And Joshua has to be thinking: “Then we’re going to attack, right?” But the Lord said: 5When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight.” How would you convince your men of this strategy?

The rest of the Lord’s strategy was to put a small infantry of armed men to protect the ark and then the army would follow behind. To the world, God’s ways always seem foolish. It really wasn’t a smart military campaign but it was brilliant spiritually! It’s going to boost the morale of the children of Israel as they trust the Lord. What could be more foolish than just marching around a city with a box that we have to protect? Let’s not say anything or do anything. I’m sure the first day, fear struck the hearts of the Jerichoites but by the third day, they’re mocking because they don’t have a real army. They don’t have implements of war. There’s a principle here we need to remember: we follow the beat of a different drum because our God is invisible! They world cannot see Him as we do through the eyes of faith. If you know Old Testament history, there are some things out of place. First of all, the priests were exempt from fighting, yet they’re leading the march! Secondly, the ark of the covenant was never to be taken out during battle! Third, the trumpets were ram’s horns. God said during a war, you bring out the silver trumpets. And fourth, because they marched for seven days, they broke the Sabbath! And if I’m correct, it was the seventh day that they marched more than they did the other days.

If you talk to any person who has served in the military, they’re going to tell you that marching toward an enemy being absolutely quiet would be very difficult because of the importance of communication. These Israelites were commanded not say to say a word for 6 days! There was more strategy: the Lord made sure that Rahab, the harlot and all who lived with her were rescued. In addition to this, no one was to keep any spoil from the city. Why? Because the first fruits belong to God. All the metal will be part of the collection taken for the Tabernacle and for doing the work of the Lord. We used to sing a song: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.” There’s nothing really bad about that song but who did the fighting? Joshua and the soldiers didn’t – they don’t really fight – all they really did was walk quietly and then shout. And it really wasn’t a battle, it was a wipeout!

This entire account shows the power of God and also His grace in keeping His word to save Rahab. It reminds me of a true story that happened in 1967. During Israel’s Six Day War in the Golan Heights, an Israeli name Eli Cohen, went across enemy lines, convinced Syrians that he was part of them, and learned military secrets from the Syrians. He was given a tour of the Golan Heights, and all of the fortifications, the bunkers – then he gave the information to the Israelis. But what he did was ingenious: he told the Syrians – because the general said how hot their bunkers were because there were no trees to shade the heat of the sun. “Our men are just boiling.” And so Eli Cohen said, “I’ve got an idea. Eucalyptus trees grow really well here and they grow fast. If you plan eucalyptus trees, it will blend in with the setting. It will look like a natural landscape and no one would be able to see the bunkers – and you’ll have shade! And so they did. This is all in a book called, “Our Man in Damascus”. And so after a couple of seasons, went by and the war began to heat up, he told his fellow comrades in the Israelis army: “Just aim for the eucalyptus trees.” The Israelis did that and, in fact, took the Golan Heights back from the Syrians. Where are you having a difficult time waiting on the Lord? How long did the Israelites wait for the Messiah? How many years of silence between the Old and New Testament? 400 years! Jesus has come, we have the victory through Him over anything in life that brings fear or death. You and I have no problem with this if our God is big enough. We only have problems if we think the Lord is small and incapable. If you have a small god, then you’re going to have a problem with every page of the Bible. But if our God was big enough to create the heavens and the earth and then to rescue us on Easter, nothing is too difficult for Him!