Conquest of Jericho (Part C)

We do, you know, we mature in Christ, hopefully more and more you think, what am I supposed to be doing instead of just trying to let God do what you should be doing. If you don't study the Word of God enough to know the message, then why would God send you in front of an unbeliever to preach the Gospel and not be able to handle basic questions.

It's not magic. We have our responsibility. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Joshua.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in Joshua chapter 6 with his study called Conquest of Jericho. Verse 12, and Joshua rose early in the morning and the priest took up the ark of the Lord. Well you know, when Joshua's go get him kind of a guy and he's bringing people with him when he gets up early.

And we've talked about that in earlier chapters. Verse 13, then seven priests bearing seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of Yahweh went on continually and blew with the trumpets and the armed men went before them. But the rear guard came after the ark of Yahweh while the priest continued blowing the trumpets.

So up in Adam and leaving no, sensibly, leaving no chance for chance. Again, the rear guard cannot be understated. Joshua is not saying, we will be magically protected.

It was within his power to put together a rear guard sufficient. So he does it. Instead of saying, God brought us into this promised land, he'll protect us.

Well he will, but you still have a responsibility. As I started out, there's activity of both faith and work in action in this chapter. And we do, you know, we mature in Christ, hopefully more and more you think, what am I supposed to be doing instead of just trying to let God do what you should be doing. If you don't study the word of God enough to know the message, then why would God send you in front of an unbeliever to preach the gospel and not be able to handle basic questions?

It's not magic. We have our responsibility. So if you read up, you know a good book that I recommend, I just downloaded it today. I mean, I have, have it in my physical library, but more and more I'm getting into the electronic library. But Haley's Bible Handbook, it is an excellent basic resource.

Unfortunately, I think Zondervan, evil Zondervan, has the rights to it now. They're not always, Zondervan used to be a good publisher, but they sold out and they have a very heavy liberal influence in their materials now. But if you can get an earlier edition like we have in the chapel store where they have not tampered with Haley's overview of Christian history, which is an excellent overview, you can go fill in the details in other places, but you get an overview of Christian history. His report on the Roman Catholic Church and Reformation is excellent. And so anyways, he has a section on each book of the Bible. He doesn't go into too much detail if you don't have a lot of time, but you have some time.

Haley's is the place to go to build up your, your witness through your knowledge of the Word. Okay. Verse 14, in the second day, they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. So they did six days. Still nothing happened.

The walls are still there, seeming like they're going in circles. And we must let God arrange the unknown. Ugh, that hurts.

I just want him to just tell me everything. Verse 15, but it came to pass on the seventh day that they rose early about the dawning of the day and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. On that day, only they marched around the city seven times. So again, the inhabitants of Jericho got to think, boy, they really lost it now. They can't stop marching. They're just going, there they come again. How many times are they going to do this?

It must have been just a, I had a crazy time. But Joshua's army represents the judgment of God, and it is now complete. It is, it is now here. And Rahab, of course, no longer in the world, saved from its doom because of her decision. God will make good on that. Verse 16, and the seventh time it happened when the priest blew the trumpets that Joshua said to the people, shout for Yahweh has given you the city.

And I don't think there's anything really to add that I've not covered already concerning the walls. Verse 17, now the city shall be doomed by Yahweh to destruction, it and all who are in it. Only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. So here's a woman, lived her life making wrong decisions, makes one right decision. One right decision blows away a lifetime of wrong moves. That is the gospel.

That is the good news. You can mess things up all your life in an instant, because to God, God says it's really not so much about what you do. I'm not factoring that out entirely, but what it is about is you and me. What do you say about me? Where are you with me?

How's our relationship going? If you do not see that I am sovereign almighty and there's nobody else, then we can't be friends. And it doesn't matter what happens. The great wall of China is going to burn up, wood, hay, and stubble. The tunnel, all the things that men have made of the monuments, the chiseled out faces on Mount Rushmore and Mount Not-So-Fast-More, those all things. It's just goofy, sorry. I'm tired too.

I'm ready for a nap. Hebrews chapter 11, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe. There it is right there. It's about belief when she had received the spies with peace.

When you receive the Holy Spirit with peace because you're receiving Christ, then you do not perish. And that is our message. That is enough. That is enough of our message to preach.

You could preach that to anybody. You can say to an unbeliever, this is the story of Rahab the harlot. She was in the world, Jericho.

She knew enough of the truth to make a decision, and she did make a decision, and it was the right decision. The others did not. Well, anyway, verse 18, and you by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take the accursed things that make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it. Well, the word here for accursed in the Hebrew is the devoted thing, and it's not just to do with gold little statues of fake gods and that's part of it, but this the spoils of Jericho. God is saying, there are things in this city that I am claiming. You're going to get to it in verse 19, which is the next verse.

Well, so let's just take 19. But all the silver, gold vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated to Yahweh. They shall come into the treasury of Yahweh. And of course, the fake god figurines, if they were gold or silver, they'd be melted down and just extract the gold from it. So what was accursed?

Anything you weren't supposed to touch. That was accursed. Achan will steal both garments and gold. The gold belonged to God. The garments belong to the fire of Jericho. Jericho was the first conquered city, and the first fruits go to God. That is the great point coming out of this.

When they get to Ai, they have freedom to loot the place. But this first city, it belongs to God, and they have to demonstrate their discipline. And Achan will, of course, succumb to the temptation. When we get there, we'll discuss, if Achan is in hell, it is not because he disobeyed God. It would be because he rejected God.

And we've got to be careful about those kind of things. Same with Uzzah, who touched the ark to stabilize. That was a righteous man who said, oh, he's gone to hell, he disobeyed God. How many times have you disobeyed God? Are you going to hell for that?

No. God's grace is so powerful. Those were judgments. They did wrong.

And what they will be judged by is faith in God or not. Verse 20, the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout that the wall fell down flat.

Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. Verse 21, and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey with the edge of the sword. This was a bloodbath.

It was brutal. It's war. That's what war is. I mean, people act like, are they killing people over there in the war? That's what war does.

It's like complaining that swimmers are wet. It just, no one is saying that war is good, all war is evil, but it's not always avoidable. And this is, they were instruments of God's judgment. So the great slaughter, this will be nothing compared to the great tribulation. That will also be a great slaughter of judgment. And of course, the humanistic activists, I should say secular humanistic, because I think believers are humanistic in this sense.

We think that humans should behave a certain way and not be treated cruelly. There should be some humanitarian aid, not necessarily organizations, but certainly helping each other. If my neighbors suffered some catastrophic event, maybe a, you know, a tree lands across his driveway or something, he doesn't have to be a believer for me to go help him.

He doesn't even have to be open to the gospel. That's a humanitarian thing, to help one another out. It's called common grace theologically, and it is found in scripture. But the secular humanist is the one that is essentially deified humans. Humans are evolving into this divine state. It's all about human beings, ergo paganism, you know, save the environment.

Of course, we all need, when you take oxygen out of the environment, as far as humans go, you've lost it. So of course, I'm going down a rabbit trail I want to get out of. Global warming is coming, but it won't be man-made, it will be God-made. The people that are using that are using that as a power grab, most of them. The ones at the lower part of the pyramid are just dupes that are carrying out their instructions. But the secular humanist is the one that goes that route and would look at these events and only point out the bloodshed, as though nobody else was killing anybody else in any other city around the world, as though God did not give them space to repent, as though God doesn't have the right to execute a violent judgment on anybody he chooses, as though the people in the city who were killing the babies, oh that's fine, but they're worshiping their religion their way, live and let live, and that's all secular humanism. And God says no, there are absolutes, there are absolutes no, absolute nos, and absolute yeses, and I make them. And we are not sorry for that.

We accept that. Incidentally, if one of those folks were allowed to live, what would have happened, the impenitent ones? Well, we see that in the story of Haman, that cycle of vengeance has died into the culture of that part of the world, especially the endless feuds, revenge, revenge, revenge, and so this would really, we would cut that out. So we never read about a Jerichoite attacking the people of God ever again. We do read about the Agites attacking the people of God because orders to wipe them out were not followed by King Saul, who would have had this document in his lifetime. Verse 22, moving from the survival of those who would execute revenge without end, but Joshua had said to the two men who had spied out the country, go into the harlot's house and from there bring out the women and all that she has as you swore to her.

I'm going to pause there a minute. Rahab lived long enough for these, some of these records, of course, to be written down and there she is stuck with that title, but I would, I would suggest that as she assimilated into the people of God, she married into the, of course, the Jewish people as is in the line of Messiah, all of that stuff was forgotten. She just became Rahab the neighbor.

Oh, that's Rahab. You know, all of this other, you know, the stigma, the stuff on top of that stuff just kind of fell off even though the history retains it and it, it is exceptional. It is to the exaltation of God's kindness.

Yes, that's who she once was. That's how the scripture calls it, but that's not who she remained. Verse 23, we have a pause there. We have a saying about ourselves, do we not? We are sinners saved by grace.

See, it's there. We're sinners, but we're saved by grace. There are other sinners who are not saved by grace and yet there are others who will be saved by grace. So, verse 23, and the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab her father, her mother, her brothers and all that she had, so they brought out all her relatives and left them outside the camp of Israel. Yeah, because they had, they had still business to do. They had to assimilate them into the race and that would be a spiritual undertaking. And so they are sort of quarantined for a while, a while, but their yes was yes. We will spare you if that red cord is on the door and, and that's exactly what happened. A lesson for us, let your yes be yes. In order to do that successfully, it's best to not make snap decisions. Sometimes, if you can avoid it, sometimes we are too quick to say yes and no or our motives are wrong.

If you slow it down a little bit, you have a better chance at fulfilling that principle. Verse 24, but they burned the city and all that was in it with fire, only the silver, gold and vessels of bronze and iron they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. Why did they burn up the city?

They conquered it. Archaeologists, incidentally, have found tremendous amount of burning, heavy heat, things just sort of melted together, food burned up and then caramelized and just all sorts of evidence of the great fire, conflagration in, in, in Jericho. Well, that's because they burned the city down. Well, looters would have come behind them and have taken things out that would have made them stronger in their resistance of God's people. So, they scorched the earth. They ruined everything to break the, to not help the enemy.

This was, I don't know, it was a big thing in the Vietnam War, it was in every war, but the troops are trained to destroy their own equipment in case they have to leave it behind. That's a very important thing because if you don't, the enemy will use it against you and so that's part of what's going on there and they also found that the food supplies were in the city were not destroyed or were destroyed by fire, as I mentioned, which means they were not conquered through a siege, which if the naysayers of the scripture could say that, no, Joshua didn't conquer the city, there was no food when the archaeologists found the ruins, there was no food anywhere, there was a siege. Well, they can't, that was taken from them.

They can't use that argument. So, how come the cities, all the walls are down, we can see that, there's archaeological evidence for that, the food stores are there, sounds like it's matching the story of Joshua to me and that is just what it is. Verse 25, and Joshua spared Rahab the harlot, her father's household and all that she had, so she dwells in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Well, there's more to that story, is there not?

Yeah. It says, she dwells in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers and converted to the faith because the law would not have permitted the Jews to marry outside of the people of God if they had not become under Yahweh and so that's, of course, a beautiful part of the story. So, Rahab the harlot was saved but Balaam the holy man was lost. What kind of lesson is there for all of us? God saved Rahab but Balaam threw his salvation to the wind.

Beautiful possibilities of God. Matthew 21, Jesus said to them, assuredly I say to you, the tax collectors and harlots entered the kingdom of God before you, for John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him. But tax collectors and harlots believed him and when you saw it, you did not afterward relent and believe him. It comes down to faith. Who are you going to believe?

Always do. And when we preach the gospel, that's what we hold up. It comes down to a decision. Verse 26, though we got to make sure we don't force that decision. Verse 26, then Joshua charged them at that time saying, curse be the man before Yahweh who rises up and builds the city Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn and with his youngest, he shall set up its gates. So, a re-fortification of the city, rebuilding of the city is prohibited by this prophecy. Joshua says, at your own risk.

He predicts that if someone goes to build this city, they're going to lose children. Five hundred years later, it is fulfilled. It is recorded in First Kings, chapter 16, verse 34. In his days, Hiel of Bethel, not far from Jericho, built Jericho. He laid his foundation with Abiram, his firstborn. And with his youngest son, Sagab, he set up its gates according to the word of Yahweh, which he had spoken through Yahshua, the son of Nun. And so the scripture was preserved.

They read it. They knew it was in there, just like Saul knew the story of Jericho. He saw the people were obedient to everything God had said, and yet he, of course, one of the most unlikable people of the Bible. I have a file that I keep on Bible characters, and one of them is unlikable people of the Bible. Elihu of Job, I don't like him. He's probably in heaven, too, because he really doesn't say anything that damns him, but he's just a nuisance. Just shut up, shut up.

I don't want to hear it. And I'm reading my provotions in New Testament, Old Testament, so I have to read some other Old Testament stuff just to help me get through Elihu. I get to chapter 32, where he starts flapping his gums, and he doesn't stop to, I think, chapter 36. But I can't take it, I take a chapter a week, because I can't stand him. He's wrong, he's wrong, like, that's true, but it's not true of Job.

Leave Job alone. And I can't, and I was like, God, why, why do we, and then God spoke to me just the other day about that. I think he did. He said, Rick, you're kind of a nice guy. Anyway, no, it's not what he said. It's not what he said.

I wish. He said, well, put it, it's how it is in the world. People just write, they just write books on top of books that are just shut up.

I don't want to hear it, you're wrong. And there's just no end, they're all on the internet. You go buy one, get one free. It's just, there's no end to them. You go to a furniture place, and they've got books that nobody wants to read on the shelves. Because I look, I look, maybe I'll find an old, you know, Clovis Chappelle book or something.

And it's always, you know, a law book, law set. Anyway, that's my finding on Elihu, who thinks he's this old smart aleck, Johnny come lately, thinks he knows everything, and the other old guys are dumb, and three of them were, but he was no light in the dark, and I don't like him. I even write, I even write, I probably push a hole in the back, I don't like Elihu. So, I get to heaven, and we're going to be rolling our eyes to be eye to eye contact. We shouldn't even say anything to each other. I heard what you said about me.

What, you got speakers up here? Does anybody here like Elihu and Job? Excommunicated, Jack.

I mean, we're just not going to stand for that kind of friendship. All right, back to reality. This, my rant on Elihu. So, you will notice no one is quoted from this pulpit in a positive light from the book of Job except God and Job. With the exception there's, you know, man is born to, man born to women is few of days and full of troubles, and after that the sparks fly upward. That's a quote that, you know, that one's pretty good, but most of them are just junk.

Anyhow, they make sense, but they don't apply to Job, as I mentioned. Verse 27, I'm trying to get to the end of this, but I had to get that out. I've been holding it in. Tomorrow morning, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm going to Jeremiah 5 tomorrow.

I can't deal with him two days in a row. So, Yahweh, Yahweh was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country. So, again, Jericho, a type of the world, doomed to destruction, given space to repent, and refusing it to the last man.

Rahab is the, the type of the soul delivered from the coming destruction that was in the world, but came out of it. Next, we'll overview Jericho, Ai, and the Gibeonites again as we press through the book of Joshua. Thanks for tuning in to Cross-Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross-Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.

You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Just search for Cross-Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Joshua, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.