From Victory

On August 10th, 2010, a section of the San Jose mine in northern Chile collapsed.

Maybe you remember this story.

It wasn't too long ago.

33 men were trapped nearly a half mile underground, sealed off by 700,000 tons of rock.

Just imagine that.

And for the first 17 days, there was nothing.

There was no contact, no sound from above, no sign that anyone knew that they were even alive down there.

Now the men started to ration what little food they had left, a few days' work stretched out over for a few weeks, a couple weeks.

Above ground, though, families set up tents outside the mine, a makeshift camp that they started to call Camp Hope.

And they waited for news that nobody could give them.

Now, below ground, in the heat and in the dark, some of the men began to wonder seriously, openly, whether they'd be found at all.

Makes sense.

Whether this was simply where their lives were going to end.

Now, on day 17, imagine that, two and a half weeks, a drill finally broke through into the chamber where they were sheltering.

And the men in there taped a little note to the drill bit as they pulled it back up, and it read, We are fine in the refuge, the 33.

Now look at this.

They weren't all out until day 69.

It's a long time.

So for 17 days, those men didn't know whether rescue was coming or not.

They endured in the dark, not knowing that, and even they finally got word the actual deliverance was still weeks away.

Knowing help was coming and receiving it were two different moments, separated by real time, real suffering in between.

Now I want I want us to hold on to that for our time this morning.

Because now I'm gonna show us, we're we're we're gonna dive into another story in Joshua continuing in our uh in our series in Joshua this morning.

That the news that was that we are fine note that that Joshua was given, he was given a note that we are fine.

He actually got that before any of the problems started.

This morning, as we continue on in the book of Joshua, last week we were given a front row seat to some very unfortunate events.

After the fall of Jericho and Ai, the Gibeonites knew that they were next, so instead of fighting, they lied.

Disguised as weary travelers from a distant land, they tricked Joshua into a peace treaty, and Israel swore in the name of the Lord without asking him first.

Later the deception was exposed.

Gibeon was right next door inside the land where Israel is supposed to conquer it, but the oath had already taken place.

And a covenant obtained by trickery is still a covenant in God's name nonetheless.

So this morning, as we dive into chapter 10, which we'll be in, if you have uh a Bible with you, so you can open up to Joshua chapter 10.

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's Bibles right in front of you under the seat back.

Um, and those are yours to take home if you don't have one.

And in those Bibles, it's on page 174, just to kind of give us a running start here.

We will be, we will see that there's gonna be a testing of this agreement that was made.

And we will also see that there will, that there is nothing that can truly test our God.

This morning we're gonna take a little bit uh of a deeper look at what happens as a result of that decision, of that oath, of that covenant that was made when it should not have been made, but nevertheless was still made.

What happens?

So again, we're gonna start in Joshua chapter 10, starting in verse 1.

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

But as we dive in, just pray with me briefly.

Father in heaven, we come to your word.

We ask that you would speak to us through it.

Lord, that we would be humble enough to receive what you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Joshua 10, verse 1.

Joshua 10:1

As soon as Adonized, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured Ai and had devoted it to destruction, doing to Ai and its king what they had done to Jericho and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel that were among them, he feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, because it was greater than Ai, and all of its men were warriors.

So Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, to Piram, king of Jarmuth, to Jeffiah, king of Lakish, and to Deber, king of Eglon, saying, Come to me and help me, let us strike Gibeon.

For it is made peace with Joshua and the people of Israel.

Then the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lakish, and the king of Eglon, gathered their forces and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon and made war against it.

You're welcome, Brian, for not making you read that part.

Okay, so what's going on here?

Adonized, the king of Jerusalem, heard what happened between Israel, what Israel had done to Jericho and Ai, and beyond that, he heard that the biggest, baddest dude on the block, Gibeon, had made a pact with them, and now they're together.

He heard this and he was completely shook by it.

So what does the king of Jerusalem do?

He gathers up all some of the other prominent Canaanite kings in the south and comes up with a plot to attack Gibeon, not to attack Israel.

It's an interesting strategy, but in some ways very brilliant.

Let's keep going to expand.

Verse 6.

And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp of Gilbel, saying, Do not relax your hand from your servants.

Come up to us quickly and save us and help us.

For all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the hill country are gathered up against us.

So we have this scene where all of the other Amorite, major Amorite kings, Canaanite kings, are now going to attack Gibeon, and Gibeon sees this and then goes to their new buddy Joshua in Israel and is like, you gotta come help us.

We need your help.

Otherwise, we're gonna get smoked.

And as soon as Gibeon sees that, he and and and you know, you need to help us now.

You said that you would, so you so you you gotta help us.

Now, as this as an aside, this is this is fairly interesting.

Adonized, I call him AZ.

A Z doesn't go attack Israel.

He gets this coalition together and he tries to he goes to attack Gibeon.

Who used to be like one of them, kind of.

No, no, why does he do this?

Now again, partially this is me speculating.

So some of this, take this with a grain of salt.

But I do think there is there is a testing of how strong this partnership was, because if they knew anything about how this partnership came together, they would maybe think, I don't know that Israel is gonna come help them.

Maybe they won't come help them.

So it's a good test.

We're not gonna go attack Israel that has completely destroyed Jericho and Ai.

We're gonna go attack their new friends and see if they just kind of let it happen.

Again, it's not explicitly in the text, but I do think in some ways it's there.

I really wonder if if there was a piece of Joshua potentially that hearing this news was just kind of like, huh.

Well, let's let this play out.

I could get out of this pack I didn't actually really want.

Now again.

Whereas we're about to see, I don't think Joshua gives that any second if he does, but it is an interesting tactic that I think is worth highlighting by these five Amorite kings.

Verse 7.

So as a response to this, Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor, and the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands, not a man of them shall stand before you.

So Joshua came up, uh came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal.

And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them with a great low blow at Gibeon, and chased them all the way of the ascent of the Beth-Horon, and struck them as far as Azekah and Macada.

And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth Horon, the Lord threw down large stones from heaven as on them as far as Azica, and they died.

And there were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the store, with the sword.

So the understanding that I think we have here is that Joshua gave it not a second thought.

We've made a pact with you, we've made a covenant with you, we will come defend you.

And he goes on the offensive.

Now, in verse 8, we are giving something, uh, we are given something that we haven't been given actually in a while.

And that is the actual voice and words of God.

It's been a couple chapters.

But it is a repeat of something that he's already said to Joshua in Joshua chapter 1, verse 5.

Joshua 1:5

It goes like this No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life, just as was with Moses, so I will be with you, and I will not leave or forsake you.

Now, here in verse 8, he reiterates that with a little bit of a different twist.

He says, And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands, not a man of them shall stand before you.

He is reminding Joshua of what he has already told him previously.

Note the verb tense, I have given past tense, before the battle is even started.

This is a present perfect phrasing, which means that God is saying, the victory is already won.

This is the same rhetorical move God used with Jericho.

The outcome is announced, is settled before Joshua even takes a single step.

The truth is, God's promise here isn't encouragement to go fight for a possible win.

It is a declaration of an accomplished one.

We see in verse 9 that Joshua's plan was to attack under the cover of nightfall.

It was a midnight sneak attack that proved to be very effective.

Then verse 10 tells us that that uh that God made the armies of the Canaanites panic and chased them out.

In other words, Israel shows up, but the panic and the route that's described is the Lord's doing.

The author even makes mention to say that the hail storm killed more people than the Israelites did.

The narrator makes a plot point tallying it.

The God who fought Pharaoh with hail is the same God fighting the Amorite coalition with hail.

Okay, so the battle continues.

We get this section that I think most people have highlighted of this section, of this chapter in scripture.

A lot of ink has been spilled with a lot of different theories, a lot of different ideas.

We will try to unpack them as as succinctly but as briefly as we can, but let's just dive into the next verses 12 through 15.

And at that time, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel.

And he said in the sight of Israel, Son, stand still at Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalan.

And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.

Is it not written in the book of Jashar?

The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about for about a whole day.

There has been no day like it or since when the Lord heeded the voice of a man.

The Lord fought for Israel.

So Joshua returned, with all of Israel with him, to the camp of Gilead.

Okay.

Got the army on the run.

Got the kings specifically on the run, which we're gonna find out.

And God starts raining hail on them.

And as they chase, Joshua stops and prays.

That the sun would stand still, and so would the moon.

Then the author has some commentary about this in the book of Jashar, that is that uh Joshua actually prayed.

So actually happened that a miracle that the Lord would actually listen to Joshua also.

So what's highlighted here, the commentary of it, is not actually what happened, the mechanics and the fact that the sun stood still and the and the moon stood still, but that the fact that God would listen to a man and heed.

That God would stoop down and actually listen to a man speak to him.

But it is kind of amazing what happened.

There's basically four major explanations that I think are worth going through briefly.

There are more.

The truth is, if I read ten commentaries, I got ten different leanings.

Let's take them for the top.

First one.

That God literally extended the daylight.

The sun and the moon stopped their motion, and Israel got extra hours of light to finish the battle.

This is where most church history has landed.

A lot of the church fathers have believed that somehow, now, not exactly that the sun stood still and the moon stood so because we know now that the earth rotates, and I don't, not science corner, I've just, you know.

But that something miraculous happened, that that the sun stopped, and the moon stopped, and it extended daylight for the battle to continue.

The second major view is actually the complete opposite.

Some argue that the Hebrew word translated stood still can also mean be silent or go dark.

So, in other words, in this view, the sun was actually darkened.

So, what he was actually praying for was for the night to extend, because again, this is a night sneak attack.

So let's keep it dark.

We're doing well.

Let's just keep going.

You God keep rain and hail.

Like, let's keep everything exactly as it is so we could finish this off.

Three is uh, you know, again, not science corner, but potentially a solar eclipse.

There's actually a couple of Cambridge physicists actually calculated an eclipse over this region around this general period.

Not super satisfactory of an answer.

Fourth one that we'll go over today is some read this actually as poetry, not a weather report.

So verse 12 and 13 are actually quoted from an ancient book called the Book of Jashar, which was a book of victory songs that is lost to history now.

And this view says that Joshua's words are a triumphant battle poetry celebrating a lopsided win, not a technical astronomical claim.

So there's this idea of like something fully miraculous happened that we can't fully explain, or potentially this is just a battle poem explaining the lopsided victory that actually happened.

Now you might ask, what is my leaning?

And I would tell you, I don't know.

Truthfully, again, if I read ten commentaries, I'd get ten different leanings.

The truth is, all of them even admit, ah, none of this is airtight.

If I had a lean, I the idea that he was asking the sun to shot shining and for a miraculous darkness to happen so they could continue in their victory and continue in their momentum, that makes sense to me.

But I don't know.

But again, the mechanics of what is being described here is not actually the focus, the prayer is.

Verse 12 says that Joshua spoke to the Lord before anything else.

This was a prayer.

So verse 14 doesn't say that the sun stood still, is the is the headline.

It says, There has never been a day like it or then before it or since when the Lord heeded the voice of a man.

The narrator's own commentary and this whole event isn't about the sky.

It's about God listening to a man's prayer.

The sun stopping is the visible miracle, if that's indeed what happened.

But God bending down to hear Joshua, that's the real miracle.

This wasn't presumption on Joshua's part either.

This wasn't Joshua demanding something and hoping God would go along with it.

Older commentaries like Matthew Henry point out that Joshua is speaking as Israel's prophet at this moment.

This was a spirit-prompted request, not a blank check.

So Joshua wasn't testing God.

He was asking boldly for exactly what the moment required, because he trusted God and had already given him the victory, as it says in verse 8.

Now, for the sake of time, the back half of this, we are going to um highlight certain portions, and I'm going to ask you to go read other portions.

We'll go through them, but ask you to go through some other portions at home on your own.

But verses 16 through 23, we have this scene where these five kings fled and they hid in the kid in uh in a cave in Macada.

And he seals the cave.

Joshua chases them down, seals the cave with stones and post guards, and then keeps the whole army focused on finishing the larger route before circling back to them.

We're going to pick back up here in verse 22.

Then Joshua said, Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me from the cave.

And they did so.

And brought those five kings out from the cave, uh, to him from the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmouth, the king of Lakesh, and the king of Eglon.

And they went, and when they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings.

Then they came near and put their feet on their necks.

And Joshua said to them, Do not be afraid or dismayed, be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight.

Verse 26.

And afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death, and he hanged them on five trees, and they hung on the trees until evening.

But in the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set large stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain to this very day.

Joshua orders the kings to be brought out, grabs his generals, and says, Put your feet on their necks.

And he says, Do not be afraid or dismayed, be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies whom you fight.

In verse 25.

One commentator actually spoke of this ceremony as a sacrifice.

Sacrament.

A sacrament not unlike that of communion or of the Lord's Supper, in that it's a physical, visible act performed specifically to assure people's hearts of a promise they couldn't yet see fulfilled.

Interesting.

Richard Hess puts it this way: the leader's feet upon the necks of these prostrate kings was an acted parable, an assuring sign of how Yahweh would certainly place all their enemies beneath them.

The symbolic action is intended as a visible encouragement to the people of God.

He brings everybody out and he goes, okay, now watch this.

And he asks his generals to put their feet on his neck so that they can see that what God had promised them, it is actually happening.

When God says, I will fight for you and I will win this battle for you, I will do all these things for you, you can visibly see that it's happening.

It is a violent and can be unsettling, but it is intentional and would have been an incredible reminder of the God they ultimately serve, Yahweh.

When Joshua says these generals, says to these generals in nearly verbatim what God said to Joshua back in Joshua 1, verse 9, Joshua takes a promise that God gave him and hands it to the whole army as a general pattern.

Joshua 1:9

What you just watch happen to these kings is a preview, not a one-time event.

Again, the remainder of this chapter is dedicated to the remainder of the kingdoms of the southern Canaan being defeated.

Again, for the sake of time this morning, we're not going to go through all of that.

But let's read together verses 40 through 43, the summation of this section.

So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb, the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings.

He left nothing remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.

And Joshua struck them from Kadesh Barnia as far as Gaza, as far as the hill country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon.

Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.

Then Joshua returned with all of Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal.

After Machadah falls, Joshua runs the same playbook five times southern cities in quick succession.

Each nearly identical, attacked, struck, utterly destroyed, he left nothing remaining as he had done to the previous city.

Deliberately repetitive.

But in the wrap-up, we read this theological center that I want to nail down a little bit further.

Verse 42.

This in many ways is the thesis sentence for the whole chapter, restated almost verbatim from verses 14, the Lord fought for Israel.

Verses 29 through 39 show us a pattern one city at a time.

In verses 40 through 43, pull back the camera and tell us what this pattern means.

So, in other words, this wasn't lucky strings of wins, and it was one campaign credited to one cause.

The Lord fought the battle and the Lord won.

Our passage this morning is of conquest and violence and war and prayer and miracles.

And sometimes these kind of chapters can be difficult to fully understand what it meant then, but certainly what does that what does this mean for us now?

I think it boils down to this, and then I will I'll try to unpack it for us.

Because Christ has already won, we fight and pray from victory, not for it.

Let me say that again.

Because Christ has already won, we fight and pray from victory, not for it.

Let's go back to the scene when Joshua finally defeated the Amorite kings.

He had his generals put their foot on their necks.

This idea and this image was picked up and described by King David many years later in Psalm 110, which we used as our call to worship this morning.

David wrote about a king who was even greater than him, a coming king who would sit on the throne, sit at the right hand of God, who would make his enemies his footstool.

This is the same idea.

The enemies of God would be under the feet of God.

And what's amazing is the New Testament actually picks up on this string.

The New Testament writers pick this up, pick this idea up as well.

The book of Hebrews quotes that verse twice and tells us who it's actually about.

Jesus.

After he offered himself once for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God, and he is currently waiting, Hebrews says it plainly, until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.

So what does this mean?

The posture of those Amorite kings crushed underfoot in a cave is a preview in a miniature in one afternoon for one enemy coalition of what Jesus has already secured for all of us when we are in Christ.

Against every enemy that actually threatens you.

Now, this isn't to say that difficulty and pain won't arise.

Life will still be difficult.

We will still suffer from time to time.

We will still feel overwhelmed, but it is just temporary because of what Jesus has already won.

And it applies that victory to those who believe and surrender to him, the one who defeated death and evil through his sacrifice.

Hebrews 2 tells us exactly why this matters for your fear.

Jesus took on flesh and blood speci and blood specifically so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death, the devil, and free everyone who is living enslaved their whole life by the fear of dying.

The ultimate truth is that's the enemy Joshua's story was always pointing towards.

Not Canaanite kings, death itself, and the fear that death holds over everyone, Christ has dealt with.

Because Christ has already won.

We fight and pray from victory, not for it.

We're not fighting to win.

We have already won.

And here's where this lines up exactly with what we see here in Joshua 10.

The promise came first.

God told Joshua the victory was already his.

I have given them into your hand.

Before Joshua marched a single step.

And in the same way, the cross isn't God's response to see if you'll believe hard enough.

It's the announced, finished victory you're now invited to stand on.

Just like the hailstorm in verse 11, unrequested, unearned, a down payment nobody asked for, but the empty tomb is God confirming before you ever prayed a single prayer that the victory is real and we can participate in it.

We can have that realized for us by what Christ has done for us.

He has declared victory, and he invites us in to be his children.

Remember those miners, trapped in the dark, not knowing.

Joshua never had to wonder.

God told him before the battle, I have already given them into your hands, and neither do we.

As we fight and as we pray every day, we are fighting from victory, not for it.

That doesn't mean things will not be hard.

The same thing that was left for Joshua's army after verse 8, fight with fear off the table, because the outcome was never actually in question.

But if the victory is already won, why does it still feel like a battle?

Why does your life, why does my life still feel like a battle?

It's interesting.

The same book here at Joshua chapter 10, with the he left none remaining.

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

Years later, Joshua's told in chapter 13, very much of the land remains to be possessed.

So these tensions.

You defeated everybody, but you haven't defeated everybody.

There's still more to be done.

Hebrews 10 puts both truths in a single verse.

Christ is already seated.

The victory is already finished, and he's still waiting for every enemy to be made footstool.

So does this device decisive victory and ongoing war sit right next to each other?

It's not a contradiction, but it is the pattern of the Christian life.

We know Christ is one, and yet we still confess the same sin twice in one week.

We're secure in Christ, and our chest still tightens with anxiety anyway.

We're not there yet.

There's still a battle in front of us, real sickness, real grief, real sin that we are wrestling with.

We're fighting from a win that's already secured, the same way Joshua marched all night towards victory God had already declared finished.

So we keep fighting.

We keep praying.

Knowing that Christ has fought for us and continues to go with us, we pray and we ask for miracles and submit ourselves to his ways either way.

While life is uncertain for us in many ways, it is not actually, or maybe to put a finer point on it, it is not uncertain ultimately.

Because Christ has already won.

We fight and we pray from victory, but not for it.

My prayer this morning is that this would be a comfort for us as we keep fighting.