Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Joshua 11
**Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri**

Command word of our Lord. Joshua 11. And it came to pass when Jabin, king of Hazor, had heard these things that he sent to Joab, king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, and to the kings that were on the north of the mountain, and of the plains south of Chinneroth, and in the valley, and in the borders of Dor on the west, and to the Canaanite on the east and on the west and to the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite in the mountains and to the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpah.

And they went out they and all their hosts with them much people even as the sand that is upon the seashore and multitude with horses and chariots very many. When all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel. And the Lord said unto Joshua, “Be not afraid because of them. For tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel.

Thou shalt hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” So Joshua came and all the people of war were with him against them by the waters of Merom suddenly and they fell upon them. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel who smote them and chased them unto great Zidon and unto Misrephoth Maim and unto the valley of Mizpah eastward. And they smote them until they had left none of them remaining.

And Joshua did unto them as the Lord bade him. He hewed their horses and burned their chariots with fire. And Joshua at that time turned back and took Hazor and smote the king thereof with the sword. For Hazor before time was the head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them. There was not any left to breathe. And he burnt Hazor with fire.

And all the cities of those kings and all the kings of them did Joshua take and smote them with the edge of the sword. And he utterly destroyed them as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded. But as for the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only. That did Joshua burn. And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves.

But every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them. Neither left they any to breathe, as the Lord commanded Moses his servant. So did Moses command Joshua and so did Joshua. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses. So Joshua took all that land, the hills and all the south country and all the land of Goshen and the valley and the plain, the mountains of Israel, and the valley of the same, even from the mount Halak that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon.

And all their kings he took and smote them and slew them. Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. All other they took in battle, for it was of the Lord, to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.

And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from the mountains of Judah and from all the mountains of Israel. Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod there remained. So Joshua took the whole land according to all the Lord said unto Moses.

And Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel, according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war.

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We thank God for his holy word and pray that he would illuminate it to our hearts and understanding for the book of Joshua. And chapter 11, as we said last week, is tied in terms of the story line of the book of Joshua. Chapters 9 and 10 all three of those chapters begin with the enemies of God’s people planning to destroy them or to come up against them in war.

Chapter 9, of course, ends in the Gibeonite covenant, and chapters 10 and 11 describe the conquest west of the southern portion of the promised land and then in this chapter today, chapter 11, the northern portion of the promised land and then at the end of chapter 11, the last few verses are a summary of all the battles that took place and all the victories that were won by Joshua.

We just sang Psalm 47, which is very appropriate that God is the king of the whole earth. Sing praises with understanding God reigneth over the heathen. And that’s what happens in the book of Joshua. God exhibits that reign over the heathen. Speaking of that particular psalm, and of course we’re familiar with the song we sung, having sung it at communion a number of times. If any of you have access to Old Lamp recordings, that was a Christian singing group. I don’t know if they’re still around or not.

They did an excellent version of Psalm 47. I’ve always kind of been tempted to try to have us sing it here at Reformation Covenant, but it’s a little—it probably be pretty difficult for us to do as a group, but it is very edifying to hear them sing and their translation really follows the psalm very closely.

So what we’re talking about today is God’s conquering the heathen. Essentially, we’re continuing that story that began, of course, in the first opening chapters of the book of Joshua. We’re almost done with this portion of it. The warfare portion of the book of Joshua only lasts about half the book. Chapter 12, next week, is a summary of the kings conquered by the King of Kings at that time, Joshua, representative of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. And then chapter 13 begins the inheritance that is alluded to in the closing verses of Joshua chapter 11.

So in just—well let’s see it actually won’t be—we’ll begin actually the inheritance before we break for family camp and have Dr. Bahnsen up with us. So we will get into the inheritance half of this book before we break for family camp. That’ll be in two weeks.

Now it is important to understand these correlations. It helps us to understand that there is a structure to this book that there is a literary structure that’s important to notice and I try to point that out as we go through it because it helps us understand the picture that God is painting here for us, the model and then the implications of that beyond just the simple portrayal of these individual battles.

For instance chapters 10 and 11, you may have already noticed they’re quite similar in their literary structure. Both begin with coalitions of ungodly nations rising up against God’s people. Both are headed up by a particular individual. Last week it was one person. It was Adoni-Zedek, king of Jerusalem. This week we’re dealing with the king of Hazor, Jabin. And so they both have an individual who kind of is the head of the coalition.

And that head has to be crushed. And in terms of God’s warfare, you always try to cut off the head of the enemy—figuratively speaking there. Both of these attack—these coalitions are thwarted by God with his people making war against them before they can really get together and go against his people either directly in chapter 11 or the covenant extension of his people, the Gibeonites in chapter 10.

In both chapters 10 and 11, we have surprise attacks by the nation of Israel essentially to put them on the offensive against a nation that was planning to be on the offensive or group of nations against them. So there’s similarities there. Both see a battlefield victory. In other words, when the forces are combined against Gibeon, they wore out the forces in the field first. They mopped all that action up and then they go city to city in the south.

And the same thing happens in chapter 11. There’s a battlefield victory portrayed and then after that battlefield victory is mopped up then they go city to city in the north. Although the cities are not enumerated as they were in chapter 10 in the south.

There is some differences however and one of the differences between the two chapters is significant. We’ll talk about it a little bit more in a minute but just by way of synopsis at the beginning of this, we have less miracles in chapter 11 than we had in chapter 10. We don’t really have any explicitly stated miracles. Remember, there was two in chapter 10. The hailstones that killed more people than the sword of Israel did—that came down from God. And then Joshua prays for an extension of the time he had either in darkness or light. We’re not sure—the extension of the time he had to wage war against his people. And so the sun and moon stood still in their respective places.

And so there are miracles involved in 10, but there aren’t really those stated miracles essentially in chapter 11. And very importantly, there’s a verse in chapter 10 that sort of was a synopsis of what happened in the field where we said that God fought for Israel. It’s really stressed in chapter 10. In the middle of chapter 10, he says God chased them. He smote them. He slew them. He ran after them. It’s portrayed as God the warrior actually going against these troops.

But here in chapter 11, it says that God delivers them into the hand of Israel. But then we’ll see in a couple of minutes a verse that says it’s Israel that’s chasing them and smiting them. It’s Israel itself that is more identified with the battle. And then also in chapter 11, there is booty taken. There’s the description of the plunder that they take from the conquered people. And there’s no description of that in chapter 10.

Now, all of that should strike a respondent chord in you. Those of you who are maybe reviewing a little bit of what we’ve done up to now, or maybe as soon as I say it, it’ll strike that responsive chord. Remember, we talked about the two pivotal battles that are at the beginning of the conquest of Canaan. We had Jericho and Ai. Okay. And Jericho, remember that was kind of they marched on the city and God had the walls fall down.

Very miraculous event kind of goes on there. And Jericho, do they take any plunder from Jericho? No, they took no plunder. Totally devoted to destruction. Ai, however, the next city, of course, they have defeat at first. That’s molding in and of itself. But then they move on to take Ai. But do they do it with this miraculous walls falling down? No. They do it through strategy. God trains their hands for warfare. There’s less miracles involved. Do they take plunder from Ai? Yes, they do. They’re explicitly said to take the plunder.

So, when we have at the beginning of this literary account of the conquest of Canaan and these two cities and the differences of them, the assertion of God’s sovereignty and then the statement of man’s responsibility, a two-fold witness, man antitype responding, you can look at it that way, the way we antitypically respond in the Psalms. Man’s warfare is an antitypical response to God’s warfare. He does things for us and then we join in and start doing things in his power, but for him essentially.

We antitypically respond to Ai. Ai is an antitypical response to God’s sovereignty of conquest portrayed in Jericho and in relationship to that as God trains us and uses us more and more to fight his wars for him. He also then gives us more—some of the spoils of that visibly in this story but that has implications in terms of principle for our lives as well.

And so really I’m saying that Jericho and Ai you can see them parallels between them the southern conquest and the northern conquest. More miracles, the assertion of God’s sovereignty. God is warring here in the south in chapter 10. Chapter 11 is more like Ai. It’s Israel that’s warring now with God’s assurance of course and God’s power. But it’s Israel is actually executing God’s judgments now upon the heathen more directly.

And again, they take plunder. And again, the northern campaign then can be seen as an antitypical response to the sovereignty of God described in the southern campaign.

Now, of course, you realize that in each battle and probably in every time that they went against an individual soldier, it’s not as if now I’m being responsible and then God’s being sovereign. These things work together. But God draws these literary structures to help us understand the big themes in scripture.

If you look at the outline, the end result, the main themes of Joshua 11 are very common themes. And these common themes repeat throughout scripture to train us in the basics. The basics are basically all there are of the Christian faith. And it’s the things we have the most trouble doing. So God trains us repeatedly in the very basic elements of the faith. And this antitypical response—God’s sovereignty, man’s responsibility—is asserted in the entire literary structure of the opening chapters of the book of Joshua.

Okay. So, let’s go ahead and get into chapter 11.

I wanted to mention one other thing actually. I thought of this verse that we read in chapter 10 where God killed more with the hailstones than with the Israel did with the edge of the sword. I watched a short special—I don’t remember one of the stations this last week on the flu epidemic of 1918. And those of you who are familiar with Horton Foote’s movies, he made a movie called 1918, which was about World War I, but really more about the flu and the lives of people. And Horton Foote’s grandparents actually in the movie are portrayed and so and his parents actually as well.

The important thing there that I bring—the reason I bring this up is that during the war of World War I, more people were killed with the flu epidemic that broke out throughout the whole world than were killed in that war. And Horton Foote did a real nice job of interspersing in a movie theater, a film of the war actually going on with one of the kids in the story in 1918 watching this movie wanting to be over there and gloriously fighting and then interspersing that with scenes of the flu taking people and people dying of the flu in the hometown where the movie is being watched where these news clips from World War I are being watched.

And it’s important for us to understand that wars and pestilence both comes from the hand of God and that there are various reasons for them. We can’t understand all the reasons. But again in 1918 and in the judgments that God brought upon the world in World War I he slew more with his pestilence—his hailstones so to speak—his little tiny microbial hailstones—than were slain at the edge of the sword.

Very important to see God’s hand in all these things.

Okay. Let’s move on then to now look at actual overview of the text itself in Joshua 11. And you can use your line again like we’ve been doing throughout these series of talks in the book of Joshua. What we try to do first is kind of give you an idea of what’s happening in the passage. We’re covering a lot of verses. I want to make sure you understand what’s happening.

You clear up any major questions you have and then look at a few of the basic lessons from the chapter. And first of all, we see that the nations gather and the antithesis is declared. And that’s the first five verses of chapter 11. Now, this is very much or chapter of first five verses of chapter 11 very much like chapter 10. Again, we have here ahead of the north groups. And here it is Jabin, king of Hazor, who hears these things what Joshua has done.

He sends to a confederation of other kings. They assemble together then and they group together to make war against Israel. And so it’s the same model that we saw in chapter 10. The enemies of God here when the people of God are being successful in conquering and pose a threat, they convocate together. Psalm 2, “Why do the heathen rage? Why do these people run to rage against God’s people.” Well, it’s because they’re ungodly.

But beyond that, we’ll see later on in the chapters because God intention is to wipe them out, to execute judgment against them. But any event, the nations gather themselves together. And here, it’s an it’s really a bigger deal than in chapter 10. There are more nations involved, more people involved, more technological advancements involved in the north than there are in the south. So, this is like the height of these battles.

We’ve had a couple of symbolic battles in these cities in the Southern campaign and now the Northern campaign is the last campaign of this whole narrative and it is the biggest campaign because of all these kings gather themselves together not just five kings anymore but a whole bunch of them come together in the first five verses that’s described in verse four for instance we read that they that is the Canaanites and the people that are gathered together against the people of God all their hosts with them were much people even as the sand that is upon the seashore or in multitude with horses and chariots, very many—big confederation here.

Josephus in his history, whether or not it’s accurate, we don’t really know. But in Josephus’s history, he says that this opposition to the people of God in this campaign numbered 300,000 infantry people, 10,000 cavalry men and 20,000 chariots were involved in this campaign. Large numbers at that time of the history of the world and of the populations involved. Tremendous amassing of forces against the people of God.

And so there’s a great demonstration here, of course, of the greatness of the enemy to be conquered by the sovereignty of God to assure God’s people that all enemies are conquered through obedience to him and faith in what he’s accomplished. The Canaanites have a numerical and a technological advantage. These chariots, Israel didn’t have chariots. Some people say they didn’t know how to use them. I think it’s different than that. God didn’t want them using them really. But these were like the tanks. It’s equivalent of tanks or other kind of fancy guided missiles perhaps today. They were a huge advantage in open plane warfare. And so they had a real technological advantage here over God’s people.

This battle then was probably the most bloody, the most gory, and the most violent and vicious of the entire Canaan campaign. And it’s important to realize that these 300,000 men of Josephus’s reckoning—the bulk of them, maybe all every last one of them. It’s hard to tell from the text, but certainly it looks like probably most of them, if not all of them, are dead at the end of this conflict. That’s 300,000 bodies, bloody, mutilated, slain bodies before the army of God’s people.

So, this is a real battle and it is a massive thing to consider. Some of us were talking last week at our west side agape together and talking about how the implications of the for the Christian faith are enormous and that people don’t like the book of Joshua. They kind of like the spiritualization of it. But these are real battles. God is in the words of Otto Scott no buttercup. He executes judgment and wrath upon those who are in disobedience to him. He hardens them for it and then executes them.

Okay. So that’s this is a great troop that is amassed against them. Tremendous battle is going to take place and they gather together at the waters of Merom in verse as verse 5 tells us.

Verse 6 gives us encouragement that victory will be assured. The antithesis has been declared. There’s no compromise with these people. God has stiffened the necks of the opposition so that the antithesis is clearly before the people of Israel. These guys are massing chariots and spears and arrows and horse riders etc to kill them. So the antithesis is declared by God. And then the victory is assured by God. He comforts his people.

In verse 6, the Lord says to Joshua, “Be not afraid because of them. Tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel the then you shall—I’m not sure how to pronounce that word in the King James but it means to hamstring their horses—you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” God actually tells them about this time tomorrow. He gives them a time sequence here to further assure him and to remove any fear the people of God might have which would probably be considerable at this point in time facing such an enemy. God encourages his people he assures them that victory is theirs and it’s interesting that with this assurance and encouragement, he also gives them another command.

After I’ve delivered them up to you, he says, then I want you to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots. Now, we’ll talk about the reason of that in a minute, but it’s important to see here that God’s grace, God’s encouragement in our lives, God’s demonstration of his love and compassion for us and the deliverance of us from our enemies, whether internal or external. And you remember throughout the scriptures, we have this picture of enemies and sin are correlated.

And we’ll talk about some of these names in a little bit toward the end of the sermon. But whether we’re battling internal enemies or external enemies, God assures us and comforts us and we’re supposed to comfort ourselves and rely upon God’s trust and love for us. But then he also brings along an exhortation, a specific command in most situations. Grace is followed by command. He delivers us. He delivers us that we might serve him and obey his commandments.

Okay. Now, in terms of why he’s doing this, of course, it’s obvious. There’s many scriptures throughout the Old Testament, the Psalms etc that you don’t want to trust in chariots and you don’t want to trust in offensive armaments which are warfare or which are horses rather in chariots in this context. Israel is to trust in God. Now God has trained them to make war so you know it’s kind of a—it’s kind of a balance, you know. On one hand you don’t want to rely upon the instruments of that can deliver you, think can deliver you from those who oppress you such as chariots and horses on the other hand you don’t want to just let go and let God.

You want to say that God is sovereign, but I have to then grab a hold of the situation and use the talents and giftings he’s given me to exercise warfare correctly. And that’s what Joshua is going to do. So there’s a balance here.

Additionally, we have here clearly, I think, also that chariots and horses are primarily offensive weaponry. They’re not good defense. If people come against you, you’re not going to get the chariot hooked up and go out there against them. And they’re offensive. And God’s people are not to fight essentially—we’re not once they’re established in their place, they don’t fight offensive wars. They’re defensive wars. And even here, although they’re going in and conquering the land, they’re moved upon by the other people first. The other people gather together against them and then they fight against them.

Okay? So, the victory is assured by God here to them. Joshua, remember his name means Yahweh saves. Yahweh delivers us. And that’s what God is assuring him here is that he will deliver them. And then he gives them a command to follow that deliverance.

Joshua then uses a familiar battle tactic. Now this is under the subheading of C: God Joshua fights God’s war in the north and victory is accomplished in verses seven and following. This is really God’s war ultimately. Remember the reason for all this happening primarily is because the iniquity of the Amorites has become full and God wants these people dispossessed and he calls his servant Israel and Joshua to come and do his work for him. That’s the way God does it. He makes us to do his service for him.

So Joshua ends up fighting God’s war. Remember last week we talked about God fighting for Israel. Now we’re talking about Joshua fighting for God. And that’s what happens in verse 7. Joshua came and all the people of war with him against them by the waters of Merom suddenly and they fell upon them. Here we have a familiar tactic. Same as last week. He gets his stuff together fast. He doesn’t have a slack hand. He moves right toward obedience with God.

He probably marches—it’s probably about a five day march. He comes upon them suddenly. You can see in that perhaps it was at night when they weren’t prepared. But in any event, it was a surprise attack, not a sneak attack, but he went right to him. Took the war right to him. And this is a familiar battle technique that has been taught by God to Joshua and is exemplified by in terms of Joshua’s obedience.

Now, it’s interesting also that this was a tactic that was very successful in terms of the technological disadvantage Israel had. God could certainly wipe out chariots with a, you know, with his angels can come down and burn them all up. But he normally works through other means, secondary means. The secondary means described here is that the location that they have assembled together at is at an elevation of about 4,000 ft. And up there at that elevation, at this particular place, it was not a good place to use chariots. It wasn’t an open plane.

They were amassing together from these various regions of the north that they could come against Israel in the open plane down below. But Israel hit them before they could get down to the open planes to wage chariot warfare against them. There’s ancient Egyptian texts that say that chariots were disassembled in rocky high terrain such as the mountains of Galilee in Israel. And that’s what we’re talking about here, the mountains of Galilee.

So, it’s very likely that these chariots were actually disassembled and completely useless to them to the opposition at this point as well. So, again, we have God’s using his people, training them for warfare, them being obedient and diligent in their task and as a result coming quickly against God’s enemies.

Second, the gathered armies then are defeated in verses 8 and 9. The Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel. And here’s the contrast with verse 10 from chapter 10 rather. Remember chapter 10, God smites them and chases them and discomforts them. Well, here in verse 8 of chapter 11, the Lord delivers them into the hand of Israel who smote them. So, it’s now Israel. Israel smites them and chases them into great Zidon and unto Misrephoth Maim and under the valley of Mizpah eastward and they smote them until they left them none remaining.

So Israel now is the emphasis on this particular text—Israel waging war, God delivering them but our human responsibility is being stressed in this verse again. 300,000 dead basically at the end of this conflict. Verse 9, “Joshua did unto them as the Lord bade him. He hamstrung their horses and burnt their chariots with fire.” So Joshua here again in the context of this battle is described as one who obeyed his God.

Now, this is a tremendous battle, as I said, 300,000 people dead. And this is a hard thing for Christians of America in 1992 to conceive of. Davis in his commentary on this text says that naturally we regard such commands, the command to wipe totally out these people as unnecessarily vicious because we do not comprehend the contagious spiritual cancer that was throughout Canaan. We arrogantly pride ourselves on being kinder than God, but we only prove that we haven’t a clue about what holiness is.

Well, that’s right. There are two reasons why these texts strike us as repulsive somehow when God orders his people to wipe out 300,000 men and then later men, women, and children in each of these cities. The two basic reasons I think are one, like he says, we don’t understand the spiritual contagion, the need for separation from those people who are committed to rebellion against God. You know, there’s no neutral ground as Bob Dylan said—you got to serve somebody—and these people were serving Satan and they had become developed in their service to Satan as our culture is becoming developed and it’s important to realize the separation we must have from these people and so in this context they’re actually wiped out so the nation of Israel won’t be influenced through their rebellion to God.

But secondly, of course, we’re good humanists at heart. We hate it when human value is not placed number one—when God’s holiness somehow becomes more important than human life and people are assigned to hell. As a result, a fairly large portion of the evangelical church in America is moving away from the doctrine of hell because hell is the ultimate statement that we are not here, God is not here to serve man. Man is here to serve God. And we don’t exist so that God might glorify us but we exist that we might glorify God. And so these battles are a reminder of that to us.

Okay. Then after the warfare is taken to them and they’re being wiped out in the gathered war, then they move as they did in chapter 11 through the cities of the north as they did the cities of the south in chapter 10.

In verse 10 Hazor is taken and burned. “Joshua at that time turned back took Hazor smokeote the king thereof with the sword. For Hazor before time was the head of all these kingdoms.” Hazor was the great city of Canaan. It was probably 25 to 50 times bigger than Jericho even. It was the big deal. It was the center. It was the seat of authority and power and understanding in the Canaanite culture. Hazor was the capital.

And in the north, Hazor is the only city that is burned and eliminated by Joshua and his men according to the command of God. And so they go through these cities in the north. The only one that’s burned is Hazor, the very capital of the culture. Hazor was on an ancient highway which led out from Egypt to Syria and onto Assyria in Babylon. It was connected with these sources of power and it was an extreme the important pivotal place of the kingdom of Satan so to speak in Canaan and it is burned to the ground.

And then the northern cities are taken in verses 11, 12 and 13. And again most of these cities are not burned. Remember God had told his people in Deuteronomy that when you go into this land you’re going to live in cities that you didn’t build. So they don’t burn down most of these cities. Most of these cities they’re going to end up living in those cities and living in those houses and living in the buildings that were constructed by these Canaanites.

God says you’re going to live in cities that your hand didn’t build. You’re going to eat fruit from orchards that you didn’t plant. However, the Canaanites planted, that was what they would eat for a while at least. So, they don’t burn most of these cities. They occupy them later on. And then in verse 14, “All the spoil of the cities and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves. Every man they smote with the edge of the sword.”

And again, here their increased responsibility portrayed in the story. As a result, there’s increased blessings from God. They get to take some of that plunder. Now, and after all, they are God’s dwelling place, temple, so to speak. The people really are what’s behind all that. And ultimately in the New Testament, we see that in full. But here there’s a portion of that indicated as well.

Remember the spoil before went for the work of God, the ministry of God in the temple. Well, now in this side of the equation, the human responsibility side, the plunder is used in the lives of the people. They put it to use under God in worshiping him in their homes and in their lives, in their vocational callings. They’re the temple of God. and they’re glorified and built up. Just as the temple of God displays external glory, they take these materials and possessions and use them and demonstrate the intrinsic glory as well through their lives.

Okay. Then in verse 15, we have the Canaan campaign—the Canaan campaign summarized—comprehensive victory. We’ve had the antithesis declared in the north. We’ve had God’s assurance of victory in the north. We’ve had then victory accomplished in the north. And now we see comprehensive victory in verses 15 and following. Most commentators have put it at 16 and following. I’m putting it at 15 and following. I think it’s a summary of the entire campaign of Canaan.

Now, we’re moving away from north and south and we’re describing everything all together.

Verses 16 and following and I’m beginning in verse 15. And first, we have an ethical summary, I believe, in verse 15. This is why I’ve included 15 in this section instead of moving 15 to the northern side. “As the Lord commanded Moses’s servant, so did Moses command Joshua. And so did Joshua. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses.”

So at the beginning of this summary statement of the comprehensive victory that God gives him in Canaan is a statement of comprehensive ethical obedience on the part of Joshua. Very important, isn’t it? Joshua is portrayed as the ideal king. And he’s a king who is not a law maker. He is a king who is a law keeper or a law taker. He takes God’s law and he keeps it. It’s the obedience of Joshua the king that is stressed.

Not his external power, not his wisdom, not his discernment. He had a lot of those things, but what’s really stressed here is his ethical obedience. The key to comprehensive victory is comprehensive obedience. And Joshua gives us a picture of that and a model for us that our chief characteristic as Christians should be that we obey God’s commandments. Jesus said, “I always do what pleases him.” At the heart of the ministry of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, described in John 8 in that quotation is his obedience to the Father.

He comes to do the Father’s will. The greater Joshua’s ethical submission to the Father, even though he’s completely unequal with him in terms of his substance or his person. His ethical submission to the will of the Father is portrayed for us as the key to his comprehensive victory of which Joshua and the Canaan campaigns are a small foreshadowing of what Christ will accomplish in all the earth at his coming of course and his ethical submission is stressed.

Secondly, in verses 16 and 17, we have a geographical summary. Verses 16 and 17 talk about all the lands and all the hills that were taken and it describes hills, mountains, plains, north, south, east and west. It describes basically markers of the whole land of Canaan. So there’s a geographical summary of this comprehensive victory. Each portion of the Canaanite geography is described as conquered. While we know when it comes to the book of Joshua, there were certain towns that had to be taken still. They couldn’t have gone to every square inch of ground yet. But the part stands for the whole in scripture.

They had covenantally been given the land by God and they’ve been given markers in all the land of Canaan to assure them that it was all theirs. Just as Jesus says, “I’ve overcome the world. Go into all the world.” He has authority in all the world. He sends us forth. Well, do we see Christianity in all the portions of the world? No, we don’t. Has he conquered the world? Yes, he has. And as a result of his once for all conquering as with Joshua, we then move out and understand that our responsibility is this continual mopping up exercise, demonstrating more and more the reality that King Jesus is king now, not just of Canaan, as Joshua was, but of the whole earth. And so we have a geographic summary, which is important to us.

Third, we have then a time summary. Verse 18, “Joshua made war a long time with all those kings.” This isn’t stressed any place else in this account, but here it is. We’re going through this in a rapid clip, you know, a chapter a week, and it looks—you can read this thing through in a couple of minutes—and you think, boy, this sure happened fast. Well, in a sense, it did. But in another sense, it didn’t. The verse goes, it explicitly tells us it took a long time to accomplish this comprehensive victory.

There’s internal evidences that it could be either 5 years or 7 years—the most likely figures for how long this campaign that we just read of in a couple of paragraphs took. But that’s what it did take. And it’s important for us too to remember that his campaign was not quick. Even though God was doing miracles, God was with them. They were extremely obedient, it still was a long, slow, grinding process of killing lots of people and taking over lots of areas.

Perseverance was a characteristic of Joshua, the people of Israel. That isn’t real stressed. But here it is. They persevered over a long period of time. Continual faithfulness and obedience. If the victories took a long period of time, it’s because the obedience also was going on that same period of time. And so in our struggles as well, we have to have perseverance. We have need for the perseverance that God gives us.

We have an understanding that we’re going to be taking over whatever we are called to conquer—personal sin, understanding of reconstructing our businesses, our families, fighting external enemies in terms of the political state, whatever it is—it’s going to happen little by little and some times God can do a Jericho and things happen fast but usually it’s little by little. Usually it’s getting up and brushing your teeth to the glory of God—sounds silly but that’s the small details of life that happen day in day out over which you will eventually learn faithfulness and consecration to God—your teeth, then the toothbrush, the toothpaste, the water, and everything else. The long slow grinding facts.

We have been involved in the homeschool battle what, since ’85—7 years. We’re basically done now for probably another four or five, six years. We’re done. The victory’s been accomplished in the South and Salem and in the North up in Portland—South and Salem legislature, North and Portland administrative rules. We’re done now with this battle. But that’s one small aspect of the civil state that threatening to Christian parents and Christian children.

We’re thinking what the next battle may well be in terms of trying to use the positive thing that God has given us in terms of the children, the child abuse thing and the CSD report to move into that arena next session in a more concerted fashion. Little by little, perseverance over the long haul. That’s tough, isn’t it? Easy to jump into homeschooling and think, boy, this is pretty romantic stuff having my kids at home. Boy, that’s fun, too. Don’t send them away. They’re kind of fun. And first couple years, it is kind of fun, you know. Then it gets real hard and year by year it gets tougher and tougher and tougher because your endurance, your perseverance is being tested by God and developed by God as well.

That’s how you become strong. It’s by doing those exercises every day. I’m learning about my back and how to take care better of my back in a better sense. The exercises I have to do. You can go to surgery doesn’t do much good. You can do chiropractic or you can use physical therapy. Short-term help. Yeah. But if you don’t make the change in your lifestyle of how you treat your back little by little over the long haul, it’s going to get worse if you’re like me and half of us are prone to back problems.

Well, it’s a good illustration of what we’re talking about here. We can do crisis sort of things. We can treat whatever problems you have a big giant appearing in your family or in your workplace or in the civil state and trying to take care of it right now. We can do that. But frequently those things are pictures for us—the need to change lifestyles to look underneath the presenting problems. See what are the big problems of your life that need correcting over the long haul.

This is what each of us has to do in our families and our own personal lives in the church and state—perseverance and all these things. And it’s not giving up. You know, it’s easy to give up. It’s easy to get halfway through this campaign in Canaan and say, “I’m tired of blood and I’m tired of throwing this sword around.” And it’s easy in the context of our families sometimes in our marriage relationships. “I’m tired of trying to see how this marriage can glorify God.” These are the real problems that people live with. And you got to take encouragement from passages such as this that Joshua endured over the long hall and you must endure in your families if that’s the problem with your children if that’s where you’re thinking about giving up—political action that portion of your life the church all these things—endurance and perseverance in a time sequence for comprehensive victory.

Then there’s a theological summary in verses 19 and 20. “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon. All others they took in battle, for it was of the Lord, to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

So, here we have God’s sovereignty declared here. Why has all this happened? Because God wanted to wipe them out. Plain and simple. He wanted to destroy the Canaanites except the Gibeonites as a picture of salvation. Okay? And so God’s sovereignty is asserted here and it’s a theological understanding of this comprehensive victory is related back to God’s sovereign election of some to damnation and the sovereign election of others to salvation.

Theological summary is given and then we have a symbolic summary in verses 21 and 22 where it describes the cutting off of the Anakim. These were the giants and this is the last entry in the list of these conquered people in this summary section here of what happens in the Canaanite campaign. the last people they list as being wiped out of the Anakim except for a few that are left for David and his people.

Why is this the last entry? Because that’s where it all began. You talk about five or seven years. Yeah. But now we’re talking 40 years back to when they were afraid of those Anakim when they saw those giants in the land but didn’t see God’s chains of control over them, not understanding the sovereignty of God, but instead looking at the sovereignty of man. The Anakim is where it all started for Israel—their lesson that they now learned.

And God finally at the end of it—I don’t know if it chronologically is at the end, but in terms of the structure of this passage, he wants us to see that as the end—that he delivers them. He has these little guys kill the big guys, the Anakim, and wipe them out. Problems appear big to us. But I think it was in Pilgrim’s Progress where he had two lions that had to walk in the middle of a very difficult thing to walk down the path between these two lions as you move toward the celestial city or whatever portion the story was—I don’t remember and some could not you couldn’t see the chains but the lions were on chains. And the giants, the Anakim, are on chains. They’re under God’s control ultimately as we’ve just seen. Why did these rebels get up and go against their army they knew had killed everybody else? Because they’re at God’s bidding. God ultimately is sovereign over these people and so God declares that to Israel here and wants us to remember this lesson that ultimately it ends with God’s assertion of his sovereignty over all things and the things particularly that we fear in life.

I remember 1984. You know, they had to get put in a room where their particular fear was. You know, so Winston’s—there was a Winston, I think his fear, I don’t remember who it was now, but anyway, his fear was rats. Didn’t want to be bit to death or something. And so they had him in a cage and the rat was going to come in his face—terrible thing. Well, their fear of the Israelites was the giants. And you have a particular fear perhaps that prevents you from obedience. What you’ve got to realize is that whatever it is under God’s control and sovereignty and he asserts to you that comprehensive victory concludes in the understanding that you have victory in Christ over whatever it is that you fear.

Okay. So we have that symbolically summarized then at the giants. And then we have a blessing summary in verse 22. “Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes and the land rested from war.”

This is blessing. This is inheritance in land. And this is now the blessing summary. The end result of all this. God doesn’t like war as a perpetual state of affairs. I think probably the land was resting from war—not just the war of the conquests, but the war that the Canaanites would wage upon each other as well. Like that land had seen war a good many years. And that this war at the end of that time is that war might cease from the land.

And so Jesus also comes and he conquers Satan definitively. And he does it so that we might have rest. And he gives us not the land of Canaan but the whole earth. The greater Joshua takes the whole land for us. Jesus takes the whole earth and he gives it as an inheritance unto Israel and to his people who are called by his name and then he causes us to rest and the land to rest as well in that great blessing.

And so the summary statement of the conquest is given here that Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel. And so we have received the inheritance from Jesus Christ.

Okay. What are the main themes then? That’s what the story is all about here in chapter 11. What are the main themes? Well, first obviously, and I’ve we talked about some of this already—we’ll go through this quickly. The sovereignty of God in damnation.

The elimination of humanism in your minds. If you’re going to treat these texts without kind of just closing your eyes and looking away from them in terms of what God’s doing here—hard thing to think of God killing all these people and actually setting them up for this destruction. But, you know, it’s asserted time and time and time again in the scripture.

Pharaoh of course is the example that comes to mind because this is the correlations between Pharaoh and Moses and now the kings of the land of Canaan and Joshua and God hardens them as we read about the theological summary. He did this that he might destroy these people and he hardened Pharaoh’s heart that he might demonstrate his power in the destruction of Pharaoh according to Exodus chapter 9.

Deuteronomy 2 King Sihon of Heshbon would not let them pass by. For the Lord had hardened his spirit. We’ll talk about the battles in the other side. We get into the inheritance on the other side of the land. But the God hardens the spirit creating problems for God’s people. But the end result is that God may judge these people and cast them into damnation and hell.

Judges 14 in terms of Samson and his life. Samson’s parents did not know that it was of the Lord that he sought an occasion against the Philistines. And so Samson here is trying to marry a Philistine bride and the end result of that will be to provide conflict between the people of God and the Philistines that God might give his people an occasion against the Philistines that he might wipe them out. God superintending things for the destruction of those that he has decided shall be cast into hell.

1st Samuel 2, let’s see—this is the sons of the rebellious sons here. “They hearken not unto the voice of their father. Because the Lord would slay them.” What’s the theological explanation of a disobedient son who ends up the incorrigible son who ends up judged by God is that God would slay them. See, it’s his choice, his sovereign selection in terms of consigning people.

Romans 9, we could go on and on, but it’s very important that we understand that’s one of the big themes here and it’s one of the big things that has to be constantly repeated in our lives. We tend to drift off toward humanism and an Arminian perspective that man’s responsibility is greater somehow than God’s sovereignty. And yet the scriptures repeatedly bring us back to the sovereignty of God in these things.

And that’s one of the big themes here as well. So important for our perception of the problems that we find in life. When we find Philistines—the state board of education coming up against us—do we rail against that? Do we get mad about that to God? If we have health problems, do we get mad about that? If we got problems in the context of our family or our business, what’s our reaction? Our reaction should be that God is demonstrating these things to bring us to the comprehensive victory that’s found at the end of Joshua 11.

His people through all these things—he’s sovereign in damnation, but he’s also sovereign in salvation. And the end result of this is his judgment against some and his blessing of others. And so our perception of the problems that we come across when the state board comes against us, for instance, or when the CSD comes against you or whatever it is, you should say, “Thank God, we’re going to be delivered here in a little bit. Things are going to get better.” The antithesis—God makes it more and more clear to us because our minds tend to want to blur the antithesis and think there’s no distinction. And God makes the antithesis clear so that those who are going to be judged by him and found wanting and [transcript ends]