Dennis Tuuri

children. While some of you younger ones may be dismissed in a couple of minutes, make sure that your dads give you a synopsis of this story using the outline I provided. If nothing else, it’s an exciting battle story and should be an encouragement to us to march on with strength. Please stand for the reading of God’s command word. Joshua chapter 8.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, “Fear not, neither be thou dismayed. Take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai and his people, and his city, and his land, and thou shalt do to Ai and her king, as thou didst unto Jericho and her king. Only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. Lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.” So Joshua arose, and all the people of war to go up against Ai, and Joshua chose out 30,000 mighty men or 30,000 men of valor and sent them away by night.

And he commanded them, saying, “Behold, ye shall lie and wait against the city, even behind the city. Go not very far from the city, but be ye all ready. And I and all the people that are with me will approach unto the city. And it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, then we will flee before them. For they will all come out again after us till we have drawn them from the city. For they will say, ‘They flee before us as at the first.’ Therefore, we will flee before them. Then ye shall arise up from the ambush and seize upon the city, for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand. And it shall be when you have taken the city that you shall set the city on fire according to the commandment of the Lord shall ye do. See, I have commanded you.”

Joshua therefore sent them forth, and they went to lie in ambush, and abode between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai. But Joshua lodged that night among the people. And Joshua rose up early in the morning and numbered the people and went up. He and the elders of Israel before the people to Ai. And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up and drew nigh and came before the city and pitched on the north side of Ai. Now there was a valley between them and Ai. And he took about 5,000 men and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side of the city.

And when they had set the people, even all the host that was on the north of the city, and their liars in wait on the west of the city. Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley. And it came to pass when the king of Ai saw it that they hasted and rose up early. And the men of the city went out against Israel to battle. He and all his people at a time appointed before the plain. But he wist not that there were liars in ambush against him behind the city.

And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them and fled by the way of the wilderness. And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them. And they pursued after Joshua and were drawn away from the city. And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel that went not out after Israel. And they left the city open and pursued after Israel. And the Lord said unto Joshua, “Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai, for I will give it into thine hand.” And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.

And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand. And they entered into the city and took it and hasted and set the city on fire. And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven. And they had no power to flee this way or that way. And the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again and slew the men of Ai. And the other issued out of the city against them, so that they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side. And they smote them. So they let none of them remain or escape. And the king of Ai they took alive and brought him to Joshua.

And it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field in the wilderness wherein they chased them. And when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. And so it was that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were 12,000, even all the men of Ai.

For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua. And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever, even a desolation unto this day. And the king of Ai, he hanged on a tree until even.

And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city and raised there a great heap of stones that remaineth unto this day.

And we’ll read the remainder of the chapter prior to the communion service. We thank God for his holy word and pray that he would illuminate to our understanding. Oh, heat, heat. Oh, heat, heat. Heat. Heat.

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We want to synopsize it for them and get it across, especially the young boys who love to hear about war, and that for a good reason.

Okay, we continue now going through the book of Joshua and we’ve come to the story of the second battle of Ai today. Probably some of you watched the Blazer games, a couple of them this week. And I was reminded as I was watching it of something that Jim Kuyper said when he was here—that people, one of the things that God wants us to want is glory attributed to us by him, not sought by ourselves. But God wants us all and has made us so that we do desire glory. And oftentimes it is the reflected glory of the teams or groups that we associate ourselves with.

And that, I think, is the explanation for why you have some sort of strange phenomena where people think that since this basketball team is from Portland, it’s a good thing that they win. It’s this reflected glory idea and it’s a good thing. We bathe in the reflected glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re on his side and we root for him ultimately in life and you got to think about these things.

I think when you see these sort of activities, it helps to remind ourselves of the spiritual lessons that God is teaching us. My wife, as I was commenting on this as we were watching the game the other night, at the same time commented upon the need to remember that it is not trying to get God on our side that is important in any kind of conflict or basketball game but rather who is on God’s side. It’s an interesting thing speaking about the Blazers and the Bulls series.

With after that first blowout, a lot of people think well, that’s the end of the series. In the history of the NBA playoffs, I think this is correct. There’s been, I think, around now seven instances where the first game was won in a rout like that and in six out of those seven series, the losing team that was routed came back to win the next time around. In the NBA, discouragement usually is not a problem. It’s pride that is the problem, the sin that those players are more likely to fall into. And when they’re humbled, they usually come back and play a lot better.

And it’s the same with us. We want to make sure as we enter into the conflicts of our life, whether it’s evangelism—the great conflict to win the world through preaching of the gospel that is analogous in the book of Acts to the conquering armies in the book of Joshua—whether it’s evangelism, whether it’s in the reordering of our family, whether it’s the battle to do that correctly, whether it’s the battle in our own minds to keep our walk with God pure, to keep our energies focused upon him, and to avoid discouragement.

In all these battles, we want to remember that the key to it is being on God’s side, not trying to enlist him onto our side.

During the Civil War, apparently some northern preachers went to visit Abraham Lincoln, and they tried to assure him that God was indeed on the side of the North. And Lincoln said, “Well, you know, that’s not right. What we have to make sure is that we’re on the sight of God.” And that’s what we have to remember in all these stories.

And of course, these two battles of Ai point that out to us very succinctly. The people of Israel through the covenantal imputed sin of Achan became enemies to God and changed sides from God’s side to the enemy’s side. And God then judged them most severely for that. And here in the second battle of Ai, we have the reversal of all that. Of course, we have the people of God again siding with God and as a result being given blessing from him.

So, as we look at this text, let’s go through a brief overview as we have usually in these sermons going through the book of Joshua on the text itself and then we’ll draw some specific lessons from the text for our lives and to apply in this in what we do in our everyday walk and what we do here at church as well.

So first of all, and I’ve ordered this structure here—the outline you’ll see that it runs through in an indented fashion. Not to dwell upon the point but one of the major themes in scripture is the five-point covenantal arrangement and, you know, that I said before that can be overdone but when you do see it in a particular outline it is a good thing to notice it and it’s a good way to synopsize to our children what the covenant is all about.

We have a God who declares himself to be our sovereign. He declares us to be his vassal people. We are his people and salvation history is concerned with this transcendent God becoming immanent in our lives and as a result of that bringing us into salvation—the second part of the covenant. He then gives us a law, the third part of the covenant. And that law has blessings and cursings associated to it, the fourth part of the covenant, sanctions. And then on the basis of that, there are blessings or cursings into the future in history and covenantal succession. How long does this covenant last for this group of people is the fifth element of the covenantal structure.

And you’ll see that this story falls out pretty nicely in that way. We have a summary statement in the first two verses of this chapter from God where really we’re getting the word of God here to us. So he declares who he is. He tells us his battle plan, his encouragement, etc.

On the basis then of that, the people of Israel—the people of Israel in this book—act obediently and they are the people of God and they demonstrate their submission to the sovereign, to the king, by doing just what he told them to do. And then third, as Ai takes the bait of this particular strategy, you see Ai going out in disobedience to God’s law and trying to execute God or bring judgment against God’s people.

But instead of that, the fourth part of the covenant, the sanctions involved is the fact that the strap springs closed on the people from Ai and they suffer the curses for disobedience to the law. And then at the end of the chapter, that cursing is summarized in the cutting off of the Aites totally from off the earth. Every person is killed. And on the other hand, the story concludes with five verses which I didn’t read—or six verses that talk about covenant renewal and establishes the people of God into the future.

And so this is a good little synopsis of the faith and a good synopsis of the five parts of the covenant viewed that way. You could see it as a seven-part outline as I’ve directed it here as well, but you could look at it this other way and it is a good teaching device for us.

Okay, first of all then—the first two verses. And when we get around to applying this text to us today, we’re just really going to look primarily at the first two verses because they synopsize everything that’s going to happen. And because of that, I’m going to read the first two verses: The Lord Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, said unto Joshua, salvation—Jehovah saves—the lesser Jesus, same name. The Lord said unto Joshua, “Fear not, neither be thou dismayed.”

So he tells them to be encouraged here. “Take all the people of war. Now that’s in contradistinction to what just happened at Ai. Remember the spies came back and they said, well, just send up two or three thousand guys. So he sends up 3,000 guys. God says, “No, no, this is the God now commanding you, take all the people of war with thee and arise. Go up to Ai.”

You know, I didn’t point this out last week, but as Joshua is prone before God, God tells him several times, “What are you doing laying down? Get up. Get up. Get up.” And here he’s telling him, “Get up. Take the people, rise up, and go to Ai.” And I think it’s very important to recognize that while there is a time for contrition and a seeking of God’s face, that there’s a time for action as well. And God calls Joshua to action.

Now, he says, “Get off your face. Get up. I’m telling you what happened. Here’s how to purge the sin.” And after the sin is purged at the end of this—the last chapter—he then says, “Now arise. Get yourself ready to go and move out now to Ai. I have given unto thy hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land.”

So, he promises him victory here again. Verse two, “And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king. Only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves. Lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.”

You see, there’s some things that have changed here. First is the emphasis on all the people. But there’s also a change here in that he tells them that this time around not all things are going to be devoted to destruction. You can take the booty, the plunder as it were, for yourself. And that also—he gives them a different instruction. He says to lay an ambush against the city. He’s not going to miraculously knock down the walls this time. He’s going to make them go through a military strategy to conquer Ai.

And that’s what we read throughout this chapter is the strategy that was used successfully by Israel to conquer this city. I think that is—we’ll get to this a little bit later—but what we’ve got going on here is a change in the actions of the people and a change in the outcome of the battle. They share verse two. Tell us in the strategies of God. They’re going to make the walls go down. Now, it’s not going to be miraculous this time. God working without his people. He’s going to work through his people and he’s going to work through strategy.

And because they become images of the mighty warrior king who crushed the walls of Jericho, they also receive a portion of the booty then and the loot, so to speak. And that’s a reminder to us that there’s a change here in responsibility. They’ve got greater responsibility now—they’ve got to work in military strategy—but there are also greater blessings on that path. He wants us in our Christian walk to move forward into maturity and into greater blessings as well but greater responsibilities.

And so these first two verses sum up the rest of what happens in this chapter and what we see here being played out is the wisdom of Proverbs 13 where we read the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. The wealth of the sinning people from Ai is laid up. It’s been accumulated there in the providence of God so that his people, the just, the righteous, can take it and use it for his purposes.

Now, of course, that comes with it, too. If you get wealth and you don’t use it for God’s purposes, now you’re one of the inhabitants of Ai again. So, he gives us the wealth of the wicked. It’s laid up in the providence of God for the righteous. But, of course, that implies that we’re going to use it justly in accordance to his law.

This is a direct contrast then to chapter 7. Obviously here the battle strategy is totally the Lord’s. The spies don’t recommend the strategy. Joshua doesn’t recommend it. God gives it to his people. But it involves a greater responsibility and greater rewards to them.

Then in verses 3-9, this ambush that God has told him to lay is actually laid by the people of God. In verses 3-9, Joshua gets up and we’re back now to Joshua correctly listening to the voice of God and correctly, then moving in total obedience immediately to it. He arises and all the people of war. They go up against Ai, and Joshua chose out 30,000 mighty men of valor.

Now, later in this story, there’s going to be another ambush team of 5,000 men that he sends out north. Now, they’re coming in from the east, right? That’s where they came across the River Jordan. They take Jericho. And to the east of Jericho lies Ai. So, they’re moving eastward. These 30,000 mighty men of valor swing south and are positioned behind Ai and they do it at night so that these guys don’t know that they’re there.

Joshua and the main troop then would swing north to a valley—to a mountain or a peak rather—that is separated from Ai by a small valley and the men of Ai will be able to see them there in the morning. And then he sends another 5,000 out a little bit in later in the text that swing north and go behind Ai back this way in the same general region where these 30,000 men are.

Now, this is a big controversy in the text. People are saying, “What’s going on here? Is there a scribal error somewhere? Is this really the same ambush troop, but it should be either 30,000 or 5,000? There’s an error in the text. Or maybe there’s two different divisions—30,000 sent out one time and 5,000 later. The text seems to read more that way.” But there’s another explanation that a few commentators point out, not very many, that I think is the correct one.

The plan here is that the feint—the main troop advancing and then fleeing before the Aites—will pull out all the men of the city. God tells them that’s going to happen. So, we’re going to have essentially a deserted city except for women and children. Okay? And so, the question becomes, why do you need 30,000 mighty men of valor, which is what the text says here of this particular group, to conquer a city filled with women and children.

And in fact, they’re not really conquering it. All their task is to do is to torch the city, to light it up, to dismay the troops of Ai. Why 30,000 mighty men of valor? I don’t think he does. Now, maybe God had him do that anyway for some reason known to him. But another explanation of this is that these are actually 30 men.

Because in the Hebrew, remember the governmental structure in the church and in the state is heads over what? Tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. And you had thousand men. In English history, remember you had the Shire courts, the judges over thousands. That was in the Christianization of a culture, you’ll see that same pattern of tens, fifties, hundreds, thousands. You had it in the colonies of America originally with sheriffs as being a thousand jurisdictions as well in some of the colonies of early America.

But in any event, in the scriptures, they’re replete with references to captains over thousands. Now, these guys are mighty men of valor. Now, I don’t know if they had 30,000 mighty men of valor, but they probably had at least 30. And in the Hebrew text, there’s really no differentiation between the word for a thousand and a thousand man. A man who is head over a thousand is referred to as a thousand. That’s his designation because that’s what he represents is a thousand people.

So, this text could be read and I think probably should be read that there are 30 thousands men—30 heads of thousands who were mighty men of valor. And of course, that’s how you get to be a head of a thousand is you got to be real good at that job in terms of waging warfare. So, I think what’s going on here is that Joshua is sending a commando unit out of 30 green berets or Navy Seals or whatever you got to do this assault—this undercover mission as it were—to torch the city while the people have departed.

We took a little trip the other day—a couple of days ago—took the boys to the USS Cleveland station out at Terminal 4, a Navy ship. You go down in the bowels of that ship and you got these big marine vehicles, amphibious landing stuff that was in Desert Storm, etc. The ship gets them there and then they go on these little commando units, 25 men in one of these armored carriers that, you know, swims over and through the water and then lands and takes off and goes off and shoots somebody. They showed us the mines and the bubbleless breathing apparatus to go underneath water.

So, you can go over to a ship and plant these magnetic mines on it and blow the thing up. I think that’s the kind of thing that’s going on here. Joshua takes 30 commandos here and sends them as a unit in their specific assignment—as soon as the Aites are all pulled out of the city, you set the city on fire. So, I think that’s what’s going on here.

In any event, the ambush is laid. Whether it’s 30,000 total men or whether it’s 30 mighty men of valor, you know, we’re not for sure, but I think it’s the other. But, in any event, this thing is put out. This ambush is laid and Joshua says that they’re going to flee before the men of Ai. And as a result, the men of Ai will think it was just like chapter 7 here. We’re going to whip these guys again and they’ll go running after him away from the city and they’ll call all the guys from the city to go running after him.

And then the commandos are supposed to come in and strike and set fire to the city. Now, this word for fire here—they’re supposed to set the city to—it’s not the same word for the giant blaze at the end of the chapter when the whole city was destroyed by fire. It’s differentiated in the text with a different set of words that are used for this first fire. It is a signal fire. It signals defeat to the Aites and it signals victory and time to turn and now attack on the part of the men of Israel who are fleeing in a deceptive move against the Aites.

So it’s a signal fire essentially. Okay. So Joshua sends these commandos out and then it says in verse 9 that he Joshua himself lodged with the people—lodged that night among the people. I thought of that again—Henry V, Shakespeare play, A Touch of Harry in the Night where Harry goes out on his troops, Henry V the night before the great battle and talks to them and gets to know them then gives a rousing speech on the breaking of the next day.

And we can imagine Joshua the language lodged there among the people. You have a picture—again of course by way of inference—of Jesus lodging amongst us and it’s important to notice his presence with us and encouraging us in terms of the battles that he calls us to do.

Okay. So the thing is set up and then the third portion of this text, verses 10 through 13—the main troop then advances. The commanders have been sent out and then verses 10 through 13 Joshua gets up and he takes the main troop and he positions them. He takes them up on a valley opposite of Ai. That’s verses 10 through 13. So he takes out all the men and then in verse 12 he takes about 5,000 men.

And see they’re not identified here as 5,000 mighty men of valor—these are just 5,000 normal men. This is an actual group of men here. So he takes 5,000 guys and he sets them in ambush between Bethel and Ai on the west side of the city. So you got Jericho here coming this way—is from the east. Oh, I guess if you’re looking at me this way. They crossed the river Jordan. They’re encamped at Gilgal. They took Jericho. Now they’re going to go on to Ai.

And over here in back of Ai is Bethel. And he takes these 5,000 troops. He’s swinging north. These commander units have swung south behind the city. He sends 5,000 out this way between Ai and Bethel. Why? Well, we read later in the text that they also conquer Bethel in this particular maneuver. Bethel doesn’t figure large in this, but we do read in verse 17 that there wasn’t a man left in Ai or Bethel that did not go out after Israel. They left the city open.

So Bethel is part of this arrangement as well. And the 5,000 probably are to prevent reinforcements from Bethel from coming back into the city of Ai. So they’re positioned off that way for another purpose. So it’s a very complicated strategy going on here. So, in any event, we’ve got this maneuvering going on and the main troop then advances and the second group of 5,000 guys—these liars in wait are put out there in case the guys from Bethel want to swing back that way.

As it works out, all the guys from Bethel go out after Israel, too. And so, they’re not particularly needed and they can advance into the city. Okay.

Then the next part of the text, in verses 14-17, we have the strategy now working out. He set the commandos in place. The main troop is advanced. He set the 5,000 guys up this way. And now the thing actually works. The tactic works. Ai takes the bait here at the center of the text. The men from Ai see Joshua and the people who have now moved down into the valley after everything is in place. And the king of Ai sees them in the valley there, goes out after them. They turn around and flee then.

And Ai takes the bait. They run after them. “Hey, it’s going to be just like last time. We’re going to kill these guys.” And they leave their city totally undefended. So, this is a feint move, a deception on the part of God’s people, ordered by him, ordered by God himself to deceive the people of Ai in that way.

Now, this should hearken us back to the deception that God planned against the Egyptians in Exodus 14 and sung about in Exodus 15. Remember when they first came out of Egypt and they’re crawling and they let them out and God has him sort of tarry there for a while and they say, “Oh no, if we stay here, Pharaoh’s going to get us.” And Pharaoh has the same idea. He goes out after them. Thinks he’s going to eat them up now. He comes back to his senses. He gets over the loss of the firstborn in his country and he thinks he’s going to pursue Israel. Tries to pursue them through the Red Sea and of course is drowned in the Red Sea.

So God has done this feint thing before, this deception of the wicked. And throughout the scriptures, the wicked never know what’s going on. God is always surprising the wicked. In his tracks. He always gives them a modicum of success the way he did in Joshua 7 to fool them into thinking that they can then just continue to roll on in victory. But he always cuts them up short.

So throughout the scriptures, you see the wicked are always being surprised. “Thou fool, this night thy life is required from thee. And what will happen to the goods you’ve stored up? Well, they’ll be given to the just.” And the foolish Aites here in their pride are cut off by God. And so they take the trap. They take the bait. They enter into the trap.

And then in verses 18-27, the trap springs closed. It works to perfection. God says to Joshua—and it’s interesting that as the trap is closing, we hear the prophetic voice of the Lord again here. He tells him what to do in verses 1 and 2. They play the strategy out. And then in verse 18, the Lord again speaks to Joshua and he tells him to stretch out the spear that’s in your hand toward Ai. “I’ve given it into your hand.”

So at a particular signal, Joshua stretches out his spear. Now this is probably a scimitar, a big bladed rounded sword which has an edge to it. The edge actually in the Hebrew, the word means mouth. It looks like a mouth, doesn’t it? Smiling in victory. And that sword, that mouth devours God’s enemies. Here it’s used as a signal. However, Joshua holds this thing out and then the men lying in wait see it.

And if it’s a broad-blade sword, they could actually see the glinting of that sword from Joshua. And then these 30 guys, these commandos, then rush into this empty city and torch it. Okay? And God tells Joshua, “Don’t put that thing down, that javelin down until everybody’s dead.” And what’s that a picture of? Moses, of course, right? The battle with the Amalekites—Moses had to keep the rod up there.

As long as his hands were up, the people, the people of God prevailed. When his hands started to go down, they’d lose. So, they propped his hands up. God’s hand of power is what’s being pictured here. Remember, at the beginning of this book of Joshua or the conquering of Jericho, what happens? God appears to Joshua, the commander of the Lord’s hosts, a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

And what’s he got? He’s got a sword in his hand. So Joshua here has a sword in his hand. Emblematic, of course, that God has given his enemies into the hand of his people—his hand really, but now exercised through human agency. Okay. And so Joshua does this thing. Then the people, the commanders rush in. The city goes up in flames. The smoke goes up.

Then in verse 20, the men of Ai looked behind them. They saw, and behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven. And they had no power to flee this way or that. Now, you know, you got to see what’s going on here. That’s their families. That’s their city. That’s home base, right? That’s where their heart is and their heart is being burned up here, being consumed.

So they have no power left in them to flee this way or that. Discouragement is what God is doing through this move. He certainly set an ambush. We can get them from both sides. But I think the big thing that’s going on here is that smoke going up discourages and demotivates the men from Ai. They lose heart. Their heart melts before them. On the other hand, God’s people of course are encouraged.

It’s interesting. They give up the ghost here. And that’s a biblical phrase in the American King James version of Job 11. “The eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.” And the men of Ai give up the ghost. Here they see that smoke and they just got no fight left in them.

There is an almost identical correlary to this story in the book of Judges. And we’ll look at that a little bit later. But in the book of Judges, the tribe of Benjamin is set upon for good reason by the people of God. And the same basic tactic is used where the city is torched, their home base. And it says there specifically that terrified the men of Benjamin. And that’s what’s going on here.

The men of Ai lose all hope. And so the trap springs close, the commandos do their work, the men of Ai lose their power to fight and then as a result the battle is waged and the king is taken out. The plunder is taken and distributed to the men and then the whole city is torched.

So the trap springs closed and then at the end of this chapter, verses 28 and 29, we have a summary of the judgment. Joshua burnt Ai, made it a heap forever, even a desolation unto this day. The king of Ai then they hang on a tree and then when the sun goes down to take him off the tree. They put a great heap of stones over him at the gate of the city.

Now, this is not compassion for the king of Ai that causes him to take the body down from the tree. Rather, it’s obedience here to Deuteronomy 21:22 and 23. God says, “If a man committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and now hang him on a tree, which they did to the king of Ai, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is hanged is accused of God, that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

So somehow here God says there’s a connection between this body hanging there in the tree all night. You’re going to bring defilement upon your own land. So they bury him. Now it isn’t as if you can make somebody a curse by putting him on a tree. That’s not the idea. He’s put upon the tree because he is cursed. Okay? And the king of Ai is accursed. He’s put on the tree. His body is removed so the land won’t be defiled.

Men of Israel have learned their lesson. They’re going to obey all the details of the law. Now, they’re not going to try to second guess God on anything. They’re going to say, “Let’s get this body down lest the land be defiled and all of a sudden God comes against us the way he did the last chapter—the last battle that we had here before this victorious one.” Okay.

And then we have the proper response to Ai 1 and 2, which is the renewal of the covenant, which we’ll talk about just before we take communion. So, that’s the story here. It involves some military maneuvers. There’s some lessons for us that are very important in this chapter of the book of Joshua.

And overall, if you go away from this sermon with nothing else, I want you to remember this point, this application point, and that is: God trains man to conquer.

God trains man to conquer. He first of all, of course, first you got to recognize that there is a war going on and that it is necessary that war happens in order for the kingdom to be established. Remember, we’ve talked about this before, but if we pray that the kingdom of God might be established on earth, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we’re also praying for the destruction of every kingdom that rages itself up against God.

And so, for the kingdom of God to be visibly manifest in the land of Canaan, it meant of a necessity warfare against and destruction of the kingdom of the Aites and the Jericho folks and the Canaanites as a group. And so we look around us today as we pray for the kingdom of God to be established, we’re also praying that the kingdom of Salem would be demolished, that those who put their trust in political office for salvation be crushed.

I think among other things that’s going on this election season, by the way, as kind of a little side note here, one of the reasons why people are so discouraged about civil government is because of the expectations put on civil government. You know, we got it pretty good. We got peace in the land here. The Russians, the USSR, the communists are in defeat and disarray. I bet you nobody here is living much worse than your parents were. Probably a lot better.

I know when I was a kid, it was bread and beans every meal. Every two weeks, we had a bologna sandwich and that was a big deal. Things are going pretty good. Why are we so upset? We’re upset because the civil government claims to be able to give us salvation, perfect health, great education, perfect welfare. The state claims it can do all these things and the state can’t deliver. And that’s God’s way of judging those who put their trust in the civil state.

So remember what your expectations are of these things. And if the civil state has become an idol to you, well, you’re going to get pretty upset when the idol fails to deliver. And that’s what’s going on now. Well, in any event, Joshua the whole book reminds that there’s a war in place and that war means there’s going to be winners and there’s going to be losers.

Now hopefully those who put their trust in the idol of the civil state or the family or even the institutional church or one’s vocation, whatever the idol is, hopefully they’re slayed and brought as living sacrifices to Jesus Christ. They become converted. They’re part of the elect. But some aren’t. And they—God through his temporal judgments in history—wipes them out.

War is part of Christian life both in the external sense and also in the internal sense. And you each have wars you’ve gone through this week. Many of you I know what they are. Battles with discouragement, battles with health problems. And why does God bring health problems? Battles with dislocations, battles with failed friendships, battles with own personal sin in your life that you’ve tried to root out for many a year. You’re waging war against it.

Hopefully, the Christian life is about warfare externally and internally against our own sin as well. And it’s important to recognize in the context of this that God trains us for conquest. He trains our hands to war. That’s what David said in 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 144, Psalm 18: “He teaches my hands to war so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.”

Joshua the book shows us that there is a maturation, a development in history of the people of God in terms of their ability to exercise his judgments in the world. Okay, we moved from Jericho where God supernaturally destroys the walls to Ai where man needs the necessity of holiness and motive in his own life and in community and then to Ai the second—Ai 2—the defeat of Ai where man is actually trained in how to conduct actual military warfare.

God teaches him what an ambush is. He tells him what to do and he tells him employ this strategem. No longer is God going to supernaturally knock down the walls. Now, actually, he will still do some of that. There will be some supernatural stuff left in the book of Joshua, but predominantly now the people of God are to rely upon his supernatural blessing of their natural activities. That’s maturity.

Now, one of the big problems in the Christian church today is somehow thinking that you have this spiritual-secular dichotomy, spiritual-material. And so it’s wrong to involve yourself in any kind of strategy politically or it’s wrong to make too many business plans for your business or it’s wrong to make a lot of plans for your household cuz that gets in the way of the spirit. You’re doing the flesh then, malarkey.

The spirit of God works through plans and objectives. Now it’s certainly true that if you make those plans apart from the Lord God, apart from consulting him, the wisdom of many counselors, the balance of the church that you’re supposed to be in the context of without knowing the wisdom of God’s word, yeah, you are doing in your flesh then and you’re not going to prosper. That’s Ai 1. But Ai 2 says that there is a right way to go about strategies of military conquest and plans that God wants us to do in our lives to accomplish victory.

And you know, God’s given us a nice illustration in church since ’85 in terms of political action along this line, right? ’85 Jericho—we go in there not knowing what we’re doing to Salem. Bill gets passed. God, you know, we talk the word, the walls fall down supernaturally. But then later, he teaches us you got to have strategies in place and he trains us now in political warfare. One application of this is that a bad thing? Some people think so. Some people think you just kind of blindly pray about things and everything falls into place.

But God says, “No.” God says, “Lay the ambush, do the feint, do these maneuvers, and I’m going to train you how to be mature.” It’s just like the movement from manna to the produce of the land. The miraculous food of God stops and now you got to till that soil again. And there’s still weeds and thistles. Even in Canaan, it’s still hard work, but there’s great fruitfulness as well.

And God’s blessing of that produce is demonstrated when they walk into the land—it’s already grown for them. It won’t be the next year. They’ll have to keep planting the next year. You see? And so this movement and maturation of the Christian life is absolutely essential.

And if you’ve got problems in your life that you’re still trying to handle the way you did when you became a Christian by waiting for God’s supernatural intervention—which I’ve experienced, many of you have probably experienced—if you think that’s going to be the way your whole life’s going to work as a Christian, forget it. It’s not the way the word of God says. The word of God says there’s a maturing process that goes on in the Christian life.

Is it supernatural blessing? Yeah, it still is. But he does it as we are faithful to do what he calls us to do. He trains our hands for war in our lives personally and in the life of the people of God throughout the centuries. The same thing is true increasingly. We could go through covenant history to show a movement toward more and more of God teaching and maturing his people to walk in natural affairs with the power of his blessing upon it and his direction and counsel so with supernatural blessings.

And so we see a movement in history that way. We see a movement in our own lives as well. This is so important though because what it means is if you’ve got a personal problem or if you got a problem in your family with trying to get your family under control and moving more as a unit to the blessing of God and as a spiritual household—what it means is you don’t just pray about it and think things are going to happen.

You make plans. You take the word of God and you evaluate things and you move ahead.

I had, I remember a number of years ago when Marshall Foster made one of his first trips to Portland. I think it was Howard L. and I were out having a Danish or something at a restaurant and he happened to be in that same area and stop and came into the restaurant and saw us and said hello and I had some butter. One of us had butter. We were melting on top of this Danish, you know, and he says, “What you got there?” “A PERT chart for the conquest of Portland, you know, planning, evaluation, review techniques.”

And we said, “No, no, it’s just a Danish, you know,” but see it, when he said that I thought, yeah, yeah, we should be thinking that way. We should be thinking in terms of tactics, strategies, implementing what God’s word teaches us in terms of the conquest of the city of Portland for Jesus Christ. There are strategies to be employed. That’s what I’m telling you here.

Same thing in your families. I’m going to be sharing some stuff at family camp this year about real simple stuff about how to build in review, evaluation, and planning as well in terms of the development of your household. So most important thing that Ai 2 should be a reminder to you of, as you read it in the future in your family in your devotions whatever it is, and as you meditate upon it this next week is that while personal holiness and corporate holiness and motivational holiness is all important, it’s not enough. Ai 1 isn’t enough.

Then God says he layers in then the use of military strategem for the people in Ai 2. So we got to move from personal holiness into taking the word of God and seeing how it applies to business plans, family plans, the elimination of sin in our lives, the political reordering of the world around us. It’s the most important thing to walk away from this with.

Okay. Well, what are some of these things real quickly now?

Ah, he trains us for war. First with demonstrating the importance of attitude. I’ve already touched upon this, but that pillar of smoke that the commando sent up was a discouragement to the enemies. And he wants us to remember that if we have people that we’re dealing with and who are enemies of God, discouragement to them is a good thing. Okay? It is a good thing to discourage the enemies of God.

In terms of evangelism, for instance, Francis Schaeffer called it caving in the roof. And if you use presuppositional presuppositions, in terms of evangelism, you know, that everybody’s base has some god in his life. He’s got some presupposition that drives all of his decisions, but he’s not consistent. And evangelism part of it should consist in getting him to see the end result of his presuppositions because the end result of him is that he’s God and the God of the scriptures isn’t and he’s made lots of mistakes in his life and you want to point those mistakes out to him.

You want to remind him of those things and you want to show him the complete inability of his worldview, his basic presupposition which is antithetical to his creation. You want to show him the complete inability of that presupposition to get him safely through life or to have any kind of chance of living a normal life or a peaceful life at all. You want to show him the insanity of his position. You want him broken before the word of God.

You want to cave in as rough as Schaeffer said till he humbles himself to the need to see that the word of God is the word of God, that he’s a sinner and needs to repent. Repentance and the discouragement of the enemy is an essential part of the way God trains our hands to war.

On the other hand, encouragement and encouraging attitude is an important part of victory. Again here as he has done before, the Lord said to Joshua in verse one,