Next: ? (Joshua 8:1-9, 18-23, 28-29)

Introduction

Darkness leaves us lost, but the light of Christ shows us the way. Have you experienced complete and total darkness? There are a number of caves around the country where you can go spelunking in. Inevitably there comes a time when the tour guide will give you the opportunity to experience the cave without all of the lighting. When the lights go out, you cannot even see the hand in front of your face. On the other hand, we rarely experience total darkness. At night, the stars and the moon sprinkle just enough light to prevent total darkness. In our homes, darkness is interrupted by the glare of an alarm clock, the rays of the moon, or the back light of a smartphone. These might prevent us from being completed blacked out, but the subtle, small rays of the moon or the glare of an alarm clock cannot always prevent us from avoiding the cord for the smartphone charger or the partially chewed bone that Benji once again left out for all to step on in their bare foot. (Not that I’m speaking from personal experience) This happens in our spiritual walk as well. Rather than stepping on Benji’s partially eaten bone or face planting from tripping over a phone charging cord (again, not from personal experience), we stumble in our walk with God.

Today we return to our journey through Joshua in the series we are simply calling Next. This is a book of triumph and transition. It’s a story of moving forward as God’s People move into what is next for them. As we look at what God has next for the Israelites and for Joshua, we look at what God has next for us. We started out with God telling Joshua, the new leader of his people to be strong and courageous. Then, we saw the people of God cross into the Promised Land as they finally stopped standing directly outside of the place and promises that God had for them. Then, God provides divine victory over Jericho before, suddenly experiencing defeat in chapter 7, which leads us into today’s passage. Today we, we ask ourselves, are we truly following God or are we simply sprinkling our own desires with God talk? Are we surrendering to the will of God, or simply masking our own desires in the language of Christianeze? In Joshua 8 we learn that walking in the way of the Lord leads to victory, but living in darkness leads to pain. The light of Christ overcomes the darkness of sin. How does Christ light our path? Joshua gives us three ways that God will light our paths.

God Molds his care to fit the person

Verse 1 says, “And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.” Well here it is, yet again. The book of Joshua had started off with repeatedly saying, “Be strong and courageous.” The phrase, “do not fear” is said again and again throughout the Bible. We saw it last week in the Gospel of Luke when the women went to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial only to discuss two angels in the tomb. When the chapter begins, Joshua and the Isrealites have just had a major set back in their invasion of Canaan. God sees their defeat and their discouragement. John Goldingay puts it like this, “God knows Joshua needs encouragement. The Ai story shows that if you sort things out with God, you can have a new start.” New starts can be difficult because it means that the old start didn’t go so well. Last time Joshua tried to attack Ai, it didn’t go well. But the second time around could be different, just like our second time around can be different.

There’s a long told story about a guy named Bill who was sitting in his house during a torrential downpour. As the floodwaters reached the bottom of his front door, some friends came along in a rowboat and called to him to climb in. But Bill said, “No, I’m trusting in the Lord. I’ll be OK. I’m staying here.” The rain kept coming, and the floodwaters kept rising, until Bill was on the second floor, and then he was soon sitting on the roof. Along came a helicopter. The pilot dropped down a rope ladder and called to Bill to climb aboard. But Bill said, “No, I’m trusting in the Lord. I’m staying here.” The waters kept rising, and old Bill drowned. Arriving in heaven, Bill said to the Lord, “Lord, I just don’t understand it. I trusted in you, and I still ended up drowning.” And the Lord replied, “Well, Bill, I don’t understand it either. First I sent you a boat, and then I sent you a helicopter, and you didn’t take either one!” Bill, just like Joshua, failed to see how God was telling him to accomplish what he had for him. Bill needed to survive a flood. Joshua was to conquer the city of Ai. Instead of accepting the rescue God had for Bill, he drowned. Instead of looking to God for guidance, Joshua had simply deferred to the spies. R. Kent Hughes says, “Joshua’s God is our God too, and we can be reassured that his loving care of each of us will be tailored exactly to the situation of our needs, whether the challenges we face are internal, external, or both.” Just as God encouraged Joshua when he had experienced defeat, in a similar way God will care for us and mold his care for us as we need it. Therefore, the first way that God lights our path is through uniquely molding his care for each of us. Specifically, what do you need today? Have you asked him for it?

Victory happened when the Isrealites used all God provided them.

Verses 21-23 say, “And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. And the others came out from the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped. But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him near to Joshua.” The Israelites now have complete and total victory. But why didn’t they have it the past time? There’s a couple of reasons. One reason is that the last time the battle plan originated from spies that Joshua had sent out. This time, the plan was given by God himself. The last time, Joshua only used a portion of his army in the attack. This time he used all that God had given them to accomplish the victory.

The way Joshua handled the original assault on Ai is how we may handle spiritual warfare in our lives. God has provided us with the ordinary means of grace for spiritual victory. The ordinary means of grace include scripture, prayer, the sacraments, and our union with the body of Christ, aka, the church. But, as Sinclair Ferguson has says, “I’ve become more and more convinced that the default among us evangelicals is that we do the work and the Word helps us.” What does he mean by that? In our spiritual battles, we try to do the work and ask God to help us out. Or, we can engage with one of the means of grace, such as prayer or worship or Scripture, but we fail to use all of the means of grace God has given us. Just like Joshua failed to use all that God had provided the Israelites in their battle against Ai.

The famous early American preacher, Jonathon Edwards points out that in John 2 Jesus turns the water into wine. He says that, “our role in the Christian life is to ‘fill the water pots,’ and Christ’s role is to turn our water into wine.” The ordinary means of grace, scripture, prayer, the sacraments, worship, are ways to fill us with water, water that God can turn into wine. He then says that “they can be abundant in preaching the word, which, as it comes only from them, is but water, a dead letter, a sapless, tasteless, spiritless thing; but this is what Christ will bless for the supply [of] his church with wine.” So why do some people try to be Christians using prayer and scripture, yet leave the church out of it? Or, some will go to church, but then never talk with God or read from his Word the rest of the week? The second way that God lights our path is through helping use all he has provided.

Darkness leads to death, but Christ leads to life.

Verses 28-29 say, “So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.” We talked earlier in the series about how this can be a difficult concept to understand. If God is loving and forgiving, why does he require Joshua and the Israelites to remove the entire city of Ai with its inhabitants and kings from the face of the earth? Well, it’s because he is loving and caring towards those who believe in him. We’ve talked about this earlier in the series, so we’re not going to go a lot into this again today. But, God is protecting and caring for his people as he protects them from the sin that was in land before Israel went into the land.

In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” The people of Ai lived in and loved darkness. We can’t fully understand why God told Joshua to completely rid the land of the Canaanites unless we understand the depth of their sin. Today, we don’t need to rid the world of darkness through violence, nor should we. The king of Ai hung from a tree to remove darkness from the land. He was taken down and was buried beneath a heap of stones. Many years later, another man hung on a tree. He was taken down and buried in a stone tomb. But while the death king of Ai led to the removal of darkness and sin from the Promised Land, Jesus Christ’s death led to life. Today, he is the light of the world. The darkness of sin leads to death, but the light of Christ leads to life.

Marilyn Murphry shares a story from back when electricity was first being introduced to a little Scottish village. Almost everybody in a particular church switched from the propane lanterns to electricity just as soon as it could be hooked up. However, the oldest couple in the congregation couldn’t get their electricity because they were waiting for the poles to go up and the wire to be strung. So they continued to use their propane lanterns. The day finally came when the electricity was brought into their home. Everyone came for the festive event. The old man waited for it to get extra dark; then he told his wife to go turn on the switch. When she did, the light filled the room, and everyone rejoiced. The old man grinned from ear to ear, picked up a propane lamp and said, “It sure makes lighting my lamps easier.” And with that he lit a lamp, and his wife turned off the electricity. Sometimes we’re just like that. We can’t see the light for need to hang on to the darkness of our past. As one person put it, we have “eyes that grope in a fog that never lifted.” The darkness of sin tempts us, even as believers. But, the third way that God lights our path is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world.

Conclusion

The book of Joshua gives us three ways that God will light our paths. First, God lights our path through uniquely molding his care for each of us. Second, God lights our path by helping us through all of the ordinary means of grace, not just part of them. Finally, God lights our path through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world, including us.

Imagine with me a scenario in which you are lost in a forest during a cloudy night where the moon cannot provide enough light. You don’t have your smartphone to use as a flashlight. It is so dark that you cannot see the hand in front of your face. As you are wandering through the forest, you have traveled so far that you don’t know which direction you have come from. Suddenly off in the distance a small beam of light appears. As it gets closer, you can just barely make out the form of a man with a flashlight in hand. Knowing that he may be able to help, you carefully make your way to him. Upon meeting the man with the flashlight he instructs you that he is very familiar with the forest and that he is able to help you navigate out of the forest back to your house. All that you need to do is follow him as he shines his light for you to see. The question is, will you follow this man who gives light, or will you continue your difficult walk in the dark? The light of Christ overcomes the darkness of sin.