We're going to turn our attention now to the preaching of God's Word. And we're continuing a series called "Testify." You see here on the graphic, "Testify: Tracing Christ Through the Old Testament." So, we're making our way selectively through different parts of the Old Testament and asking, how does this Scripture teach us about Jesus? Where does it show us Jesus? In a way that's faithful to the original context, to the original author's intentions, but also faithful to the broad storyline of Scripture. Where do we see Jesus emerging from these texts in the Old Testament? Remember, when Paul talks about the Scriptures, he's talking about the Old Testament. When Jesus disciples His followers, when He appears to the Twelve and to His extended followers after the resurrection, He traces His life and the theme of the Messiah through the Old Testament scriptures and says, this all applies to me. Well, for this series, we want to do that. We're going to look in those scriptures and see where is Jesus? Where does it testify to His name? If you turn with me this morning to Joshua chapter 6, we're going to be looking at Joshua chapter 6. If you don't have a Bible, it'll be on the screen behind you.
Before we go there, though, I'm going to start with a word of prayer. Well, Lord, we want to see the beautiful continuity of the Old Testament to the New. We want to see not just a small thread that connects them. We want to see the massive cornerstone of Christ, the key piece between the two testaments. We want to see in Your Word and these ancient scriptures that were given to the people of Israel how You were predicting and proclaiming and foreshadowing and preparing the way for the Messiah, Your Son, Jesus Christ. So do that this morning, open our eyes, give us ears to hear, and Lord, we ask also that You would change us by what we hear. By the power of your Spirit, keep us from being mere hearers of the word. Lord, make us doers of your word as well, so that we could reflect your Son to whom all the scriptures testify. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.
Well, I didn't know about it at the time. I was just sort of an oblivious 12-year-old, but in 1994, there was an event that happened that really shocked the world, shocked those people who were in the know in the world. I don't know, for those of you who are older than me, who were older than 12 at the time, whether 1994 kind of sticks out, if you're even sure what I'm referring to. What I'm referring to is the genocide that happened in the African nation of Rwanda. In 1994, there was a mass genocide of a tribe of African people called the Tutsis by their Hutu neighbors. Now, for generations and for centuries, these two tribes had lived side by side and lived side by side in relative peace and harmony, and through a series of events and a series of really intricate things that would be really hard to explain if we're not going to lay out the whole history of this country and these peoples, there came to be massive tension, and that tension brewed and came to a boiling point in 1994. The world was actually slow to act and slow to respond. President Clinton instructed Madeleine Albright to go to the United Nations and put forward a strategy of withdrawal and disengagement. And so while the Hutu people took up arms and weapons and machetes and knives, and started going down the streets to put their neighbors to the knife, armed military personnel from the United Nations and the French government stood by and watched it happen. It's a horrible thing. Over the course of 100 days, so barely over 3 months, over the course of 100 days, they estimate that 500,000 to 1 million people were killed. 20% of Rwanda's population was massacred. Now, if you're like me, it wasn't really until the film Hotel Rwanda that I really started to grasp the depth of what happened. Maybe you've seen that movie. A lot of the church, a lot of the world, was still pretty oblivious to just how bad the situation was, and until Hollywood made that movie with, I think it's Don Cheadle as the main actor, and really portrayed the atrocities that had happened, even after it became public, there was sort of this disconnect with how bad the situation was. Well, after that movie and after the story became more clearly told, nobody could deny the atrocities and nobody could deny that there was an evil thing that was perpetrated in that land. Men and women and children were put to the sword, literally, by their neighbors. It was a tragic event.
Now the reason I bring it up is because unfortunately, tragically, there are people who read the Old Testament and want to argue that similar crimes happen in God's name, by God's people, against humanity. There's a well-known atheist, Richard Dawkins. He's one of the quote-unquote "new atheists," these guys that write books that sell like hot potatoes. Hot potatoes? Hotcakes? I don't know what it is. Hot potatoes? On Amazon? I don't think they're selling hot potatoes on Amazon. I'm pretty sure. They sell about everything else, no hot potatoes. But Richard Dawkins sells books on there. One of his books is called "The God Delusion." And one of his arguments against the existence of God is this startling allegation he makes about the Israelites and about how they conquered the Promised Land. He calls what they did, what's described in the book of Joshua and Judges, he calls it ethnic cleansing. He says, "These books are filled with bloodthirsty massacres." He says it happens because of a xenophobic relish. Now xenophobic is just a really big word that means the Israelites are essentially afraid and fearful of anyone who's not an Israelite, and so they're resources to go and put to the sword anyone who's not an Israelite. So basically he says what we read about in Joshua and Judges is just base, depraved racism. It's a pretty massive charge. He's saying what you read in the Old Testament really isn't that different in the conquest of the Promised Land, the conquest of Canaan, from what happened in Rwanda or more recently in Sudan.
It's not just the new atheists. There's one Old Testament professor, and he's one representative of a group at an evangelical college, so an evangelical college, who in a recent blog post wrote this: To put it bluntly, not everything in the quote "Good Book" unquote is either good or good for us. I realize this may sound blasphemous to some people and flies in the face of everything they have been taught to believe about the Bible. When the church grandly proclaims the Bible to be the Word of God, it gives the impression that the words of Scripture are above critique and beyond reproach. We are taught to read, revere, and embrace the Bible. We are not taught to challenge its values, ethics, or portrayals of God. That's a pretty strong statement. It sounds blasphemous, as the author admits, because it is. But he says that representative of the fact that it's in vogue today to rail against the quote-unquote ethics of the Old Testament, to pretend that that they're opposed to Jesus. They're opposed to the message and image of God we see in the New Testament. That somehow the Old Testament's version and vision of God is wrong and it's off and the New Testament finally gets the message right.
Well, it's not enough for us just to sweep those accusations under the rug. Because you're going down the street, you're living next door, You're working with people who read books by guys like Richard Dawkins. And even if they don't read the books, they're influenced by the thoughts. And there are Christians who hear the teachings of these evangelical scholars and are swayed by them. So we can't just stick our fingers in our ear and hum "Amazing Grace" and pretend it's not happening. These accusations need to be addressed. And the texts they stem from need to be exegeted and preached. So that's why we're in Joshua 6 this morning.
6 · The preacher clarifies that the "Testify" series intentionally engages difficult Old Testament texts, not just the obvious messianic passages
Remember, we said Testify isn't going to be a series where all we do is jump to the places in the Old Testament where it's kind of your classic texts about Jesus. We're going to go to some places where it's less likely for someone to say, "We see Jesus here." And this morning, we're going to a text where people are actually likely to say, some people, "You don't see Jesus here. You see the opposite of Jesus here." Well, that's not the case.
7 · The preacher provides historical and narrative context for Joshua 6, describing Israel's position on the verge of entering the Promised Land and the strategic importance of Jericho as an impregnable fortress
Now, just to give you the setting before we turn to the text, remember it's Joshua 6, so the people are on the verge of having the first battle in the Promised Land. So they've crossed the Jordan River. The whole people have been circumcised in preparation for entering the land. And God prepares them. He tells Joshua, He says, for 6 days, you're going to march around Jericho. Jericho is this ancient fortress. Fortified city. It's this impregnable fortress with these massive walls that sits at the entrance to the Promised Land. And if they're going to enter this land, they've got to take care of this city. Otherwise, their flank and their rear is going to be constantly exposed to attacks. And so all the people have drawn into the city of Jericho behind its walls, hiding there confident. And God says to Joshua, here's what you're going to do. For 6 days, You and all the people are going to march around the city of Jericho. You know the story, right? You're going to put the Ark of the Covenant at the very front of the procession, and you're going to march for 6 days, one time around the city. But here's the thing: you are not to make a sound. Now, when I was in Sunday school, I remember them kind of portraying it as they're doing this and the people are jeering at them. I don't know that that's the case. In fact, when you read the account of Rahab, when she first encounters the spies, what does she say about the land? Everyone in this land is terrified of you. They've heard of how your God defeated the Egyptians, how he parted the Red Sea. That was 40 years ago, and they're still terrified. So if you're sitting in that city and you're surrounded by a people that they estimate could be anywhere from 1 million to 2.5 million people, and they're marching around your city in utter silence, and all you hear are the footfalls of a million sandals, I don't think you jeer. I think there's this eerie, quiet sense of dread. And then God tells Joshua, on the 7th day, you will march around that city 7 times. And on the 7th time, the priests will blow their trumpets and the people will shout, and the Lord will give you the city.
8 · The preacher reads Joshua 6:15-21 verbatim, the account of the seventh day when the walls of Jericho fell and the city was devoted to destruction
Now, let's drop into our text and read this morning. Hear God's holy and authoritative Word in Joshua 6, starting at verse 15. On the 7th day, they rose early at the dawn of day. And marched around the city in the same manner 7 times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city 7 times. And at the 7th time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, 'Shout, for the Lord has given you the city, and the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent.' But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them, you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold and every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord. They shall go into the treasury of the Lord.' So the people shouted and the trumpets were blown. And as soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout. And the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword. God's Word, He writes truth upon our hearts.
9 · The preacher begins a word study on the key Hebrew term *herem*, translated "devoted to destruction
Now, you heard a phrase repeated there, and to get a sense of what's going on, we need to unpack this notion of devoted to destruction. Devoted to destruction gets repeated several times. The key verse there is verse 17: And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to Yahweh the Lord for the purpose of destruction. Now, that phrase devoted to the Lord is a word a Hebrew word, harem. And what that refers to is it refers to the practice of totally destroying, totally annihilating whatever it is that the Lord designates. And that's what the word literally means. It means a devoted thing. So all the devoted things in the city are to be destroyed. So at Jericho, Joshua tells the people that everything from cows to the people of the city has been designated as devoted things, as harem. Anything hostile to God and the purity of His people must be destroyed. Anything or person, whether it's the pet dog of the firstborn son. Anything that would impede or resist God's reign and work must be eradicated.
10 · The preacher offers an analogy comparing Jericho to a nuclear attack
To give you an illustration of what's going on there, one commentator made this point. I think it's helpful. He says you have to kind of think of Jericho like a nuclear attack. What God is saying is I'm going to nuke Jericho. That's what's going to happen when those walls fall down. And when you nuke something, everything that's in the area becomes filled and saturated with radiation. The nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's not that everything was destroyed and everyone died. There was massive destruction, but some people survived the initial blast. But they were poisoned with radiation, and radiation just hung like a cloud over the area. And that's what is happening here. Israel needs to treat the city of Jericho as though it's radioactive. They need to think as they go in, it's almost like we need to put on our hazmat suits as we come in across these crushed walls. Don't interact with anything that's radioactive because it will poison you. Anything that's under the ban, anything that's devoted to destruction, in this case, anything outside of valuable metals, which God says I claim for myself, is irredeemably radioactive and must be destroyed. What makes it radioactive is that it's tainted by sin. The only living people in the city are those that belong to Rahab's house. The entire city becomes a thing devoted to destruction.
11 · The preacher frames the central question of the sermon: How do we reconcile the image of God in Joshua 6 with the person of Jesus in the New Testament? He sharpens the question by asking why this passage should stir worship rather than revulsion, given that both the evangelical scholar and Richard Dawkins are revolted by it
So here's the question this morning: What do we do with the image of God we encounter here? What do we do with it? How do we take this passage and set it next to the New Testament? Set it next to the person of Jesus? Here's another way to put it: Why should this account stir up worship and not revulsion? That evangelical scholar is revolted by this text. Richard Dawkins, the atheist, is revolted by this text and its God. But if we're faithful, we're supposed to read this and want to worship. Put another way, why should this passage stir in us a desire to draw near to God and not to shrink back? Those are the questions we want to answer. Why does this passage stir up worship and not revulsion?
12 · The preacher states the first reason why Joshua 6 should stir worship: because God is righteous, and whatever God does is right by definition
I'm going to give you several reasons this morning. Here's the first. The first reason why this should stir up worship is because it portrays God as righteous. It doesn't just portray Him as righteous. God is righteous. Put another way, whatever God does is right. If God does a deed, it is righteous simply by the fact that God has done it. In another sense, we're asking the question the wrong direction when we say, How can God do such a thing? The implication with that question is we have the moral high ground. How can God do that thing? My ethics say that's wrong. That's the wrong way to ask it. The question is to say, if God has done such a thing, why is it right? And how should it shape my outlook?
13 · The preacher turns to Psalm 135 to demonstrate that worship of God is grounded in His righteousness and His freedom to do whatever He pleases
Listen to how Psalm 135 makes this point. Now notice, remember we asked why should this passage stir up worship and not revulsion? Psalm 135 starts out and says, "Praise to Yahweh the Lord. Praise the name of Yahweh the Lord. Give praise, O servants, to the Lord." Verse 3, "Praise Yahweh the Lord, for Yahweh the Lord is good. Sing His name." So what's he saying? You need to worship Yahweh the Lord. You need to worship the God revealed as Yahweh. Why? Because this God, Yahweh the Lord, He is good. He is right. He is righteous. Everything that flows from this point on is now reasons to praise this God. Reasons to worship Him. Verse 5, "For I know that Yahweh the Lord is great and that our Lord is above all gods." Verse 6, "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. Stop there without looking forward. What he's saying is the reason we worship God is because He is righteous. Everything He does is right. God is not like us. He is independent. He is divine. He is eternal. He is perfect. He does whatever He pleases. He takes counsel from no man. When He does a deed, the fact that He has done it makes it good. Verse 8, this God who does whatever He pleases, He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both of man and of beast, who in your midst, O Egypt, sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants. Verse 10, who struck down many nations and killed mighty kings. Which nations? Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Those are the first two victories Israel experiences while she's still in the wilderness before she enters the land. And all the kingdoms of Canaan. All the kingdoms of the Promised Land. And gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to His people Israel. Your name. O Yahweh Lord, endures forever. Your renown, O Yahweh Lord, throughout all ages. Praise the Lord. Why? Because the Lord is good, because He is righteous in all He does, because the Lord is God, because He does all that He pleases, and whatever He pleases to do is always right. And so when the Lord strikes down His enemies, It is a righteous action.
14 · The preacher extends the argument by grounding God's sovereignty in His control over life and death
Part of grasping this point is to recognize all things are in God's hands. We skipped over a portion of that psalm that says He's seated in the heavens. He controls all creation, all the universe. Remember what Job says after his family is killed? The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. What Job is testifying to is that God is righteous. Job doesn't understand. The rest of the book is an outworking of Job just struggling with this turmoil of, I don't get this, but I know God is good. What Job is recognizing is that in God's hands he holds life. We have life because God gives the gift of life. We stay alive because God maintains and sustains the gift of life. Life. People die every day, and God is sovereign over that. People die in the flood because God is righteous and does whatever He pleases. People die in the conquest of Canaan because God is righteous and does whatever He pleases. And old people die in nursing homes every day because God is righteous and does all that He pleases. That's different than the vision of God we often hear proclaimed and talked about. God sets the standard for right and wrong. It's God who has the right to judge the people of Jericho. God, not us, knows what the people of Jericho deserved. God's the one who knows if that judgment doesn't come what Jericho will do. You ever think about that?
15 · The preacher summarizes the first reason (God's righteousness) and introduces the second reason why the text should stir worship: because judgment is just
The first reason we worship God and don't shrink in revulsion is because God is righteous. The second thing is because judgment is just.
16 · The preacher states the second reason for worship: judgment is just
This is related to the first one. The reality is the judgment that comes to Jericho is just, but it's more than that. What does Paul say in Romans 3:23, that famous verse? "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." He's just gone on to make an argument in Romans 1 that all the Gentile nations are unrighteous. They are sinful. In Romans 2, and all of you, Israel, are unrighteous as well. In Romans 3, for all all are unrighteous, for all have sinned and fall short of God's glory. The implication being everybody deserves judgment when you think of God in all of His holiness. No person dies in Jericho who deserves something different from what they received. The fact that there's still living people in Jericho millennia after the fall of Adam and Eve should have us wondering, "How is that possible? How is God so merciful?" Not sitting there thinking, "How can they be destroyed?"
17 · The preacher turns to Leviticus 18 to explain God's reasoning for the conquest
Listen to why God tells Moses they will destroy the cities of the Promised Land and why they'll do it the way they will. In Leviticus 18:24, He says, "Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these nations I am driving out before you, all these nations have become unclean and the land became unclean." so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. God portrays the conquest that's going to happen as His response to a creation groaning to be cleansed of sin. Isn't that an interesting way to put it? Then He says this: But you, Israel, shall keep My statutes and My rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you. For the people of the land who were before you did all of these abominations, so the land became unclean. Then he says in verse 28, if you do those things, the land will vomit you out. Judgment is just. Anyone who lives in the land, anyone who lives and practices unrighteousness is deserving of judgment. God says creation is in such agony because of the sin of mankind that it longs to vomit out the unrighteousness. It longs to be cleansed by God.
18 · The preacher clarifies that what makes the situation morally complex is not that God delivers judgment, but that He uses unrighteous people (Israel) to execute that judgment
What God says there is that their iniquity, their unrepentant sin, is the reason for the judgment. He warns Israel they'll get the same treatment if they don't stay true. What makes the situation hard shouldn't be that God delivers judgment. What makes it hard is that He has people do it, right? He delivers judgment on unrighteous people at the hands of unrighteous people. In another place in Deuteronomy, He says, "It's not because of your righteousness, Israel, that I'm giving you the land." You're not righteous. I'm doing it to keep my word, to give you a place, to clear out a place so that I can fulfill my word to Abraham. What makes the situation strange and unique that we don't get when we read this as modern readers— Israel doesn't destroy stuff on her own initiative. Joshua— we kind of portray Joshua as like the great military commander, right? God's making the plans. God's making the plans. It's not Israel doing this for her own ends. It's not like Israel has this goal and says, "We're going to clear this land out because we think it's great." God's the one who says, "I'm giving you this land. I'm promising it to you. I'm going to clear it out."
19 · The preacher draws an analogy from the American Civil War, comparing General Sherman's total war march through the South to Joshua's conquest of Canaan
You think of it when you think of the illustration from the Civil War. When Ulysses S. Grant comes to power, he finally starts winning battles for the North, right? They finally get rid of Meade and McClellan and just the rampant incompetence and inability to put their superior numbers at work, and they start mopping up on the South. But Grant also knows that to win the war, he has to break the will of the Southern people. And so he dispenses General Sherman. William Tecumseh Sherman. And he gives him the mandate for total war. He says, "I want you to go down. I want you to conquer Atlanta. And I want you to go from Atlanta, and I want you to march to the sea. And as you march to the sea, as you march to Savannah, I want you to lay waste to everything in the land that's in your path. Burn their cities, burn their crops, burn everything they need to keep making this war, and break their will. People in the North still kind of celebrate Grant, right? Nobody in the South names their children Sherman. They remember. Here's the difference: Sherman's orders come from Grant, the supreme commander of the Union Army. Joshua's orders come from God.
20 · The preacher cites Joshua 10:42 and 11:19-20 to demonstrate that the Lord is the active agent in Israel's victories — the Lord fought for Israel, and the Lord hardened the hearts of the Canaanites to bring them out in battle for destruction
Joshua 10:42, listen to how it's described: And Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time. Why? Because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. The Lord is winning the battles. 11:19, there was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle, for it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed. Just as the Lord commanded Moses. Do you hear what he just said? The Lord, in the same way He hardens the heart of Pharaoh, hardens the hearts of these people that even though they've heard these incredible stories about how God has delivered these people from Egypt, instead of surrendering, they come out in battle. God hardens their heart to bring them out into battle so that the Lord can devote them to destruction and the Lord can cleanse the land. That's why the judgment is just.
21 · The preacher explicitly rejects the charge that the conquest is ancient manifest destiny or imperialistic expansion
This is not, and this is where people get tripped up, this is not Israel having some idea of like ancient manifest destiny. That's not what's happening. In Herem and in holy war, Israel is not seeking to imperialistically expand its wealth and power. Those are going to happen as byproducts. They're being faithful to act as an instrument of God's judgment. There's no justification for what Israel does except that God commands them to do it, and it's for his purposes.
22 · The preacher introduces the third reason for worship: because idolatry is evil
Why do we worship and not shrink back? Why should this stir up praise and not revulsion? Because idolatry is is evil.
23 · The preacher explains that the conquest can be understood as corporate capital punishment within a theocracy
In one sense, you can kind of look at this attack and say it's, it's like a corporate capital punishment. And one of the discontinuities between this and now is that you've got a theocracy here. So, so in Israel you have a people, a country, a nation that's also God's nation. There's no separation of church and state, and that's how God wants it in ancient Israel. Those two are melded together, they stand together. So The church has the sword, right? So when the nation does something, they're doing it as God's people. And when God's people, the religious people, do things, they're doing it as the nation. Well, those are separated for us today. The church and the state are separated. There's discontinuity in this way between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The church isn't called to bear the sword in the same way ancient Israel was. Romans, Paul says the sword is given to the government. So the church shouldn't be putting people to death. They entrust that to the government. But in ancient Israel, those two things are held together by God's decree. And so there's a capital punishment that's given to the land to expel the people.
24 · The preacher argues that the destruction is primarily a judgment on idolatry, not on ethnicity
But the destruction The conquest is more a judgment on their idolatry. The destruction is more against the religion of the land than the people. You see this because when people in the land repent, they're spared from destruction. Rahab and the people of Gibeon, when they repent, they get spared. So it's not just the people, it's their idolatry. Deuteronomy 7:3, you shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. This isn't an ethnicity thing. This isn't like Rwanda. This is an idolatry thing. The destruction is justified because it's a means of eradicating false worship. You think how we worship matters? You think who we worship matters? It's just. God is calling Israel, purge this land. Of this worship of fake human man-made gods. And once you enter this land, don't you dare turn your hearts to them, or you will face the same destruction. His real concern is to destroy idolatry.
25 · The preacher offers a linguistic note on the name Jericho, which echoes the Hebrew word for moon
Even the name Jericho shows us this. The name Jericho Echoes, it's super similar to the Hebrew word for moon. The thought is that the people of Jericho, their false god was the moon. They worshiped moon gods. So there's this symbolic God entering the land and destroying a city that's named after idol worship.
26 · The preacher explains why total destruction was necessary: because sin spreads
Total destruction happens. Total destruction, harim, happens because sin spreads. Sin is never content with its boundaries. It's never content with geographic boundaries. It's never content with the boundaries of the human heart. So if they failed to destroy sin and the evil in the land, it would have meant God was delivering Israel saying, "Hey, enter the Promised Land." Now, if I destroy everything here, In 4,000 years, people are going to think I'm a big curmudgeonly, cranky God. So enter the land and just kind of be careful where you step. No, if God was doing that— God doesn't have fear of man like we do, right? If God was doing that, he'd be saying, enter the promised land, it's a land flowing with milk and honey and sin. Good luck. Remember I gave you this law and you have to keep it perfectly? Well, you're going into a land that reeks of depravity, and that depravity is going to stain you. Good luck. He'd be sending them into a nest of iniquity.
27 · The preacher emphatically restates: this is not ethnic cleansing, it's sin cleansing
What we read about is not ethnic cleansing. It's sin cleansing. The destruction doesn't take place on ethnic grounds. It doesn't take place because the Israelites are superior. Not at all. In fact, we continue reading the story. What happens to the Israelites? They start to do the things the people in the land before them did. They start to worship the wrong gods. And what happens? That same land vomits them out. It's not an ethnic thing. It's a worship thing. It's an idolatry thing. Exodus 22:20, "Whoever sacrifices to any god," whoever sacrifices to any god, "other than Yahweh the Lord alone shall be devoted to destruction." Shall be herem. Whoever. I don't care. I don't care if it's Moses. I don't care if it's Israel. And the sin of the Canaanite religions is horrible. It's brutal stuff. Their worship is just soaked in sexual immorality. There's ritual prostitution. It's possible when it says Rahab's a prostitute, It's possible she's a prostitute in the employment of the temples of these false gods. There's incest and bestiality. And it's gone on for generations. And that sort of false worship, that sort of idolatry deserves judgment.
28 · The preacher steps outside the expositional flow to directly address the congregation's posture toward God
We're wrong to approach God as if we hold the ethical high ground. We don't stand in judgment of His word. We don't stand in judgment of His actions. We don't stand in judgment of His designs. Because you know what He's doing in all of this? He's working out a plan of redemption, even in the midst of destruction. And so we're wrong to stand in judgment of the ethics of the Kingdom. Because you know what happens when people say the ethics of the New Testament are different from the ethics of the Old? Now, there's certainly a way in which Christ subsumes and completes the Law. This is not a theocracy, so the civil and ceremonial laws are done away with. But the moral aspects of the Law remain. And the New Testament says they're subsumed in the Law of Christ. The law of love stands over top of all of these and calls us to fulfill them in new ways. It intensifies these moral obligations of the law.
29 · The preacher turns the tables on modern critics by arguing that we are horrified by God's judgment in Joshua 6 because it strikes close to home
What happens when we do that is we're thumbing our nose at the ethics of the kingdom. Modern people are horrified. I really think this is true. We are horrified by the concept of God being so destructive, and we call it immoral. You want to know why? Because it strikes really close to home. You know what horrifies God in Joshua 6? He's horrified by something totally foreign to what horrifies us. He's horrified by a sex-obsessed culture. Culture that worships, literally, literally makes sex a part of its worship. He sees the destructive power of sexual sin on people, on individuals, on families, and on entire societies. Sex is his idea that sex isn't the problem, it's the depraved hearts. And in Joshua 6, he screams "evil" at what the Canaanites and the Americans normalize and worship and celebrate.
30 · The preacher introduces the fourth reason for worship: because the conquest foreshadows future judgment
Why should we be drawn to this image of God? Because it foreshadows It foreshadows, it points to future judgment.
31 · The preacher offers a cultural observation about modern tolerance culture, using bumper stickers as his entry point
You can't drive on the roads today, I mean, if you're like me anyway. Maybe this is just because I'm not a great driver. I think I'm a great driver. Just, the hand is shaking in her head no. My impression is the best defense is a good offense. Like they teach you to be a defensive driver. If everyone's driving defensively, somebody has to take the bull by the horns and drive offensively, right? Exactly right. Thank you, Darryl. That's why I have him sit in the front row. I know he's gonna say amen at the right points. You can't drive today though and not see bumper stickers everywhere you go, right? They're just all over the place. People love putting them on their cars. One that you can't help but see, it's been around for several years now, is that bumper sticker called Coexist, right? Coexist, and every letter is a different symbol for some sort of religious entity. Coexist. There's another one out there now that's called the word, same idea, the letters are all representative of different religions, and it says tolerance. There's one version that says practice, in little letters, tolerance, with all these different religious symbols. There's one that says tolerance, believe in it. There's a few that read, "Less judgment... more tolerance." Another one that reads, "Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence." Get the impression? You get the point? To these drivers and many in our culture, judgmental attitudes, judgmental— just the attitude of being judgmental, is evil. It's something to be battled. These are representative of the thought processes of Richard Dawkins and even some believers today. And to them, the Lord, the God of Joshua 6, is repugnant. They either reject the entire Bible or they position Jesus against Yahweh. Never mind that Jesus' name means Yahweh saves, right? They push and position Jesus against Yahweh.
32 · The preacher asserts that the New Testament does not reject, ignore, or reimagine the conquest
But the New Testament doesn't go out of its way to reject, to ignore, or to reimagine the judgment we see carried out in Canaan. The New Testament doesn't do that. The New Testament doesn't hide it. It's not like, oh, this is our weird uncle, we really don't like it when he comes to family reunions. I got my fiancée at the family reunion, please don't invite Uncle Howard to the reunion. I don't want to scare her off. The New Testament doesn't do that with what happens in Joshua 6. Not at all. The New Testament envisions Joshua 6 as a preview of the judgment to come. God devotes the land and the people to destruction, to clear out a place, to cleanse a place. For His people to live. He devotes the land to destruction because He's working out the purposes and plan of redemption. And that script doesn't change with Jesus.
33 · The preacher reads Matthew 25:31-41, Jesus' teaching on the final judgment when He returns in glory
Matthew 25:31: When the Son of Man comes— that's Jesus— when the Son of Man comes in His glory— so not His first coming, But His second coming, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His throne and all people will gather and sing Kumbaya and eat popcorn and celebrate their coexist bumper stickers. Then He will sit on His glorious throne and before Him will be gathered all the nations and He will separate people one from another. As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. And then the King, Son of Man, will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom, the land prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Verse 41: Then He will say to those on His left, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
34 · The preacher cites Jesus' pronouncement of woe on Capernaum in Matthew 10, where Jesus says it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for cities that reject His gospel
In Matthew 10, Jesus says to Capernaum and these other cities where He's been doing a bunch of His ministry and proclaiming the gospel, they reject the message. In response to them rejecting the message, He says, "Woe to you! Better you had never been born. It will be better on the Day of Judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you." Sodom and Gomorrah, like the quintessential picture of depravity. I don't care who you are, if you have lived in the West and grown up in the West, Unless you live under a rock, somebody says Sodom and Gomorrah, and you know what you're supposed to think of. Evil, bad stuff, destruction. There's no marching around the city for 7 days. There's bam, fire and brimstone, and nothing there. Better for Sodom and Gomorrah than the cities and the peoples that reject my gospel, that reject me.
35 · The preacher synthesizes the argument: Joshua is not telling a different story from Jesus; he is foreshadowing the coming final judgment when Jesus will return not as a lamb but as a lion
Joshua is not telling a different story. He's foreshadowing the coming final judgment when Jesus will return not as a lamb to slaughter, but as a lion to conquer. God never tolerates sin. In the Old Testament, He uses the theocracy of Israel to execute judgment against it. It's different today. The church doesn't do that. The church does not have the same role as Israel. It's the new Israel, yes, but the calling has changed. We're called to proclaim the kingdom, not establish it by the sword. But our proclamation is incomplete, and it's inaccurate, and it is unloving. If it doesn't portray the Jesus of Joshua.
36 · The preacher turns to Joshua 5:13-15, the account of Joshua encountering the commander of the Lord's army with a drawn sword
Look back to chapter 5 if you've got your Bibles with you. Very end of chapter 5, right before Joshua 6. When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or for our adversaries? And he said, "No." "Are you for us or for our adversaries?" And he said, "No." Wrong question. "I'm for myself." That's a whole theological discourse in and of itself. "No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord." Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant? And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. Holy. And Joshua did so. I think this is the pre-incarnate Word. Notice it's not even referred to as the angel of the Lord. It just says there's a man standing before him who's the commander of the army of the Lord. And notice Joshua worships and he's not corrected for worshiping. What happens in Revelation when John worships at the wrong time? He sees crazy things in heaven and it blows his mind, so he kind of falls into worship. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't worship us. We are not God. We are not the Lamb. We are not the One who sits enthroned above. You do not worship us. Joshua worships. And the commander says, listen, buddy. You're not going far enough. Take off your sandals, because with my presence has arrived holiness.
37 · The preacher connects Joshua 5 to the broader theme of the divine warrior in the book of Joshua
And what's Jesus doing in the scene? He's carrying a drawn sword. He's preparing to clear the land in judgment. He's preparing to make a place for His people. We talked about rest, right? And a place to belong the previous 2 weeks. Wow, those are really nice messages. I felt really warm and fuzzy going home. Jesus does it with a drawn sword. There's a theme in the book of Joshua of God coming into the land as the divine warrior. We referenced 2 texts already before this. Where it says, "The Lord is the one who wins the battles. The plans are the Lord's. The victories are the Lord's. The Lord is the one who causes the people to come out and fight, even though they know they're going to get crushed. And it's the Lord who devotes them to destruction." There's this divine warrior who goes before Israel, and as long as Israel is obedient, the divine warrior lays waste to what's in front of him. Joshua 5 shows us who that divine warrior is. It pulls back the curtain and says, "Take a peek, Joshua." There's the commander of the army and his sword is drawn.
38 · The preacher declares that Jesus is the divine warrior who will return to judge the living and the dead
Jesus is the divine warrior. Christ is returning to judge the living and the dead. And all unrighteousness, praise God, will be expelled from the land. This time it's not going to be the Levant, it's not going to be the area around Jerusalem, it's not going to be the Holy Land that vomits. It's going to be the entire earth. On that day, 2 Thessalonians says, the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Jesus is as comfortable washing feet as he is bearing the sword, and vice versa. Both actions are worthy of worship. And we realize Joshua 6 isn't an embarrassing problem. To be hidden from the world's view.
39 · The preacher introduces the final reason for worship: because even in the midst of total destruction, mercy reigns
Final reason and conclusion why we worship: because everything is destroyed and yet mercy reigns. Mercy is available. Mercy is all over Joshua 6.
40 · The preacher highlights God's patience as an expression of mercy
First, consider God's patience. How long He's waited to bring judgment. He tells Abraham in Genesis 15, "The sins of that people is not complete. I'm going to give them 400 more years. 400 years where it's going to mean my people get taken into slavery. 400 years to have an opportunity to repent. 400 years at the end of which they're going to hear of my saving power in delivering you from Egypt, and they still won't repent." repent, and then finally I will do it. That's mercy.
41 · The preacher points to Rahab as evidence of mercy in the midst of judgment
And even in Jericho, there's still room for repentance. Immediately after instructing the people, you totally destroy everyone and everything unless it's got some blingy stuff, and then you give it to God. Right before he says that, right after he says that, he says everyone, everything Except for Rahab and her house. The city will be crushed, but the prostitute is going to be pardoned. She's as wicked as her neighbors, but where they heard of the Lord's coming and they merely feared, Rahab's fear turned to repentance and belief. The irony is that nobody gets tripped up about the prostitute getting saved, do they? Nobody reads Joshua and goes, unbelievable, Rahab is getting delivered! Nobody says that. Nobody says that. No one stumbles at that portion of the story. No one questions God's actions there. But it should offend our sensibilities that Rahab is saved. You know what should offend our sensibilities? The reason she's saved.
42 · The preacher reaches the climax of the sermon: Rahab is saved because God looks forward to an even greater judgment — the judgment of the cross
She's saved because God looks forward to an even greater judgment. The judgment of the cross. Where that divine warrior Jesus is going to lay down his sword. He's going to hear people mock him as he hangs there. If you're really God, save yourself. And this one who 2 Thessalonians says will come with the hosts of heaven is going to look up to heaven on the cross and shake his head no in obedience. You know what Peter says? There's a similarity here. In Joshua, judgment comes. A people who are unrighteous are judged. At the hands of unrighteous people. The Israelites aren't righteous. It says it in Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus. They've already worshiped a calf themselves, right? They're idol worshipers. A person gets judged by an unrighteous person. What does Peter say in his sermon in Acts 2? In Acts 2, Pentecost? Let me read it real quick. It came to me while we were in worship this morning. Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves know. You've seen it just like Jericho saw it. You've seen the saving acts of God. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, this Jesus gets judged and crushed. Because God decrees it. Sounds a lot like Jericho. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. You see that similarity? But I don't get offended by the cross like that.
43 · The preacher declares that the cross is a symbol of the full character of God — holiness, judgment, wrath, and mercy
If the cross is anything, it is a symbol of the full character of God. The centerpiece of the New Testament proclaims God is holy, God judges sin, and His wrath burns against the ungodly. And in love, He provides a way of escape in Jesus. There is mercy. For anyone who turns to Him. The offensive part of the story is that God spares Rahab and He spares Israel and He spares all the earth. There's immediate judgment that should happen. And there's mercy. Mercy because God plans to destroy His only Son, to devote Him to destruction.
44 · The preacher applies the sermon to the congregation's mission
Our mission today is not to bear the sword like Israel. Gotta leave your guns at home, folks. It's to proclaim the arrival of the kingdom, to explain the depths of God's holiness and the awesome incredible portrayal of His love that we see at Calvary. And to remember ourselves and to warn those around us. The greater final judgment is still coming.
45 · The preacher situates Joshua 6 within the Abrahamic covenant
Joshua 6 isn't offensive when we remember the bigger story. God chose Abraham. Remember why He chooses him? He says, "You and all your descendants are going to be a blessing, a blessing to the nations." Anyone who responds in judgment, in the face of judgment, like Rahab, can escape.
46 · The preacher closes the sermon by returning to the first point — why we worship God
Finish by reading from Revelation 15:3. Back to our first point: why do we worship God? I worship the God of Joshua 6 because He is righteous and He does what is right. Revelation 15:3, "And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, 'Great and amazing are Your deeds, all Your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!'" Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed.
47 · The preacher closes the sermon with a call to prayer, transitioning into the closing prayer or benediction
Would you bow your heads?