The Battle is the LORD's

Joshua 6—

Over the next two weeks, we will notice that when the people of God walk in the power of God’s Word and in obedience to His commands, they are invincible. However, when they walk in disobedience, they are easily defeated.

It’s not the battle that matters; it is our obedience to God that matters.

It is not the size of the enemy; it is the quality of our faith.

Victory has less to do with WHEN, WHERE, HOW, WHY, WHAT…and more than WHO…it really is all about God. Not about walls…but willingness to fight the Lord’s battles the Lord’s way.

ILL. Jeannie Holloway- meant to struggle…she said, No! Don’t pray the wrong prayer. We were made for victory....we were made for Jericho, not Ai.

The Scheme of God

You don’t have to know the way; just know God. He is the way.

Francis Schaeffer noted: “Joshua did not take the city merely by a clever, human military tactic. The strategy was the Lord’s.”

It was Phillip Keller that noted: “Joshua had no battering rams to assault the city. He possessed no engines of war to scale the walls. His warriors knew nothing of long sieges in battle.” Well then, Pastor, what did they know? What did they have?” Well, they knew the Lord and they had His power available to them.

the battle is the Lord’s; I Samuel 17:47: “And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.”

the LORD shall fight for you; Exodus 14:14: “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”

the strategy is the LORD’s; Joshua 6:3: “And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.”

Let’s face it: this has nothing to do with the army and their war prowess. This is about the LORD God and His power to save!

Do you remember who Joshua met at the end of chapter 5? The captain of the LORD of hosts.

ILL. In his book Angels, Billy Graham relates the story told by Reverend John G. Paton, a trail-blazing missionary in the South Pacific in the New Hebrides Islands.  The story illustrates how God provides angels to protect and care for His believers.

One night Paton and his wife found themselves threatened by hostile natives who surrounded their mission headquarters.  The Patons thought for sure that the natives would burn down the headquarters and kill them both.  They prayed throughout the night asking God to protect them from harm.  The next morning they were astonished when they realized that the natives had gone away.  They had no idea where or why they had left.  The missionaries again prayed and thanked the Lord for saving them.

About a year later, the chief of the native tribe who had threatened them became a Christian.  He came to visit the Patons.  When he was asked about the incident of that night of terror, the chief told the Patons a harrowing tale of God’s protection of them that dangerous night. "The chief argued that they had seen many men standing guard – hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords in their hands. They seemed to circle the mission station so that the natives were afraid to attack."  Paton and the chief agreed that there was no explanation other than that God had sent angels to keep the missionaries from harm.

This story is similar to the one told in 2 Kings 6:17: “And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”

Paton’s informants— he fled from his home...

Sometimes it is living all alone; at other times, it is but the company of our Savior. In his autobiography, Paton noted,“Being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends, I, though perplexed, felt it best to obey. I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?”

A few thoughts about Joshua’s battle plan here:

-it hinged on obedience

-in hinged on patience

The Declaration of God

Destroy the city. Wrath. Under judgment.

John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

John 3:17-18: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” But in wrath, God will remember mercy!

Habakkuk 3:2: “O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make known; In wrath remember mercy.”

Look at this violence. Why the destruction? Why the edict to eradicate the enemy?

Remember a few things:

God’s people were placed in this world to be a blessing. Genesis 12:3: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Salt and light

the nations of this world decidedly turned their backs on the revelation of God through His people and nation

Noah- a preacher of righteousness to a world gone astray

Abraham- a preacher of righteousness to a polytheistic world

Jonah- a preacher of righteousness to the capitol city of a pagan empire

Paul- a preacher of righteousness to Rome

Paul- a preacher of righteousness to Romee "God is perpetually at war with sin.” Jericho was a wicked city, and, as Wiersbe notes, “Sin is only fuel for the holy wrath of God”

the same fate of Jericho would later be the fate of Jerusalem! The same judgment of the wicked would be the judgment of the saints!!! So, when you say, “God is not fair!” we violate His essence. He is unequivocally righteousness and JUSTICE! I John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

we must not seek to build back better what God has cursed and destroyed!

Nations rise and fall— unrighteousness being a cause. Billy Graham noted: "Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, ‘If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah’.”

The Salvation of God

Yet, if God is not righteous, just and merciful, explain Rahab! She was a ringmaster in the circus of sin! She had been the downfall of many a man! She had stolen purity like a felonious mob. Yet, God was merciful to her! All around her was perishing. All around her crumbling. The walls were crashing and trapping people beneath them, but a section of wall stood firm…only one…and if you were to look the window, you’ll notice a scarlet cord of protection.

You might say, well, pastor, that place was under a curse— and it was. And she was a harlot. And she was! But the God of Israel is merciful!

1,500 years later, you would be shocked how merciful He is!

TWO EXAMPLES:

a blind man

Mark 10:46-47: “And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Zacchaeus

Luke 19:1-5: “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.”