More War (Part B)

But of those cities, these people, which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them.

The Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Pezerite, the Hivite Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you. And that is what Joshua is doing. Good on their mounds Israel burned, none of them except Hazor, only which Joshua burned. In the book of Joshua chapter 7, unwanted but needed is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be in Joshua chapter 12. Verse 6 now, but Yahweh said to Joshua, do not be afraid because of them for tomorrow about this time I will deliver all of them slain before Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.

Well evidently Joshua was concerned. He knew these forces had amassed against him and they had chariots. Mechanized warfare was now confronting him for the first time. He had to deal with chariots. What could infantry alone do against them? They're like sending infantry against tanks today. And those chariots, it wasn't like, you know, Ben-Hur was, you know, one guy and a chariot. They were big chariots. They could have, you know, two, three men in them.

Archers and men with lances, they could be really a problem, cut right through infantry. He also had learned from Ai that past victories were no guarantee of another victory just because. He knew there were other factors involved which emerged out of the whole thing in Ai with ache and sinning and Joshua not being aware of it and being devastated by the whole thing. And so he wasn't taking anything for granted. And God comes along and says do not be afraid.

Again, be no reason to tell him not to be afraid unless he was afraid. And Joshua had sought great military victories already in Egypt, coming out of Egypt. Our Pharaoh's army drowned in the sea and there they were, the Bible says the next morning, there they were on the shore dead. The Amalekites, he fought with them when Aaron and the man named Hur held up the arms of Aaron. He saw Sihon and Og, giant kings of people on the east side of Jordan. Jews conquered them, Jericho, Ai, Bethel, and the south, the southern campaign. And now he is facing the northern campaign and he is not cocky.

He's not saying I got this one. It's not a mock faith. We're fighting the battles of the Lord. He is absolutely dependent on God even though he is actually fighting the battles of the Lord.

He's not letting it go to his head. And not only had he witnessed God vanquish the enemy, he saw miracles. The parting of Yam Suph, the Sea of Reeds, the Red Sea, he saw that part. He saw the Jordan part. Then the hailstones and the sun and the moon and extend the day. But he's not saying well God's going to do another miracle today.

You know, just name it and claim it, brother. He's not operating presumptuously at all. And now this is again the largest, most organized, advanced army in Canaan that he has faced. These chariots and stuff, he will beat them here, but they'll still be in the land in other places and they will cause problems for others.

And we'll get to that in the latter chapters of Joshua. But for the first time, the infantry is facing the chariots. But for those chariots, I would have been a soldier kind of a thing. The cavalry, not calvary, but cavalry, soldiers on horses, the Canaanite armies likely did not have them.

That would have been helpful. And even if they did, they had to still face them. And these are well-armed troops coming against them as there are well-armed things that come against us and we know it very well. The next verse tells us that God's words to Joshua were well received. But before we get to the next verse, he says hamstring their horses, God does. I have a difficulty, not with the humanitarian, you know, poor animal thing.

Let me, where do I start? Well, God is saying, I want you to hamstring the horses because I do not want you to defeat the army on the battlefield and anyone who's gotten away or from other places not involved, come and grab those horses and then use them against you again. Nor do I want you to take the horses and start having chariots in your army. Deuteronomy 20, when you go out to battle against your enemies and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them for Yahweh your God is with you who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And later he will give directions in Deuteronomy 17 that the kings of Israel were not to amass horses and they were to remain dependent on God.

Of course, they didn't do well there, especially Solomon. But the laming of the horses, I don't know enough about horses and I've tried to research this and I just can't get an answer that I'm satisfied with. So I'm thinking if you hamstring a horse, you might as well kill it. I mean, can he still walk? Is he strong enough to plow still? Does he have any function? Does it take longer to kill the horse than to hamstring the horse? Maybe some of you can stop horsing around and tell me these things.

I don't know. So I know that the Hebrew word means to root up, to dig down. It's believed, it's used in the sense of hamstringing the horse, cutting those rear tendons so that they cannot be used as war horses.

I don't know if they are still then suitable for labor or not. So that's where it is. And if you say, oh no, I just looked it up on the internet and found it, then I'm going to hate you for that.

So anyway, prove it. He says, and burn their chariots with fire. Destroy their ability to wage war. Jesus said if your right hand's a friend, you cut it off. Your right eye, pluck it out. And he's saying you got to take extreme measures to counteract these things because they're that fierce. He's not saying maim yourself at all.

And even if you were, you cut your right hand off your left hand, what are you going to cut that one off with? Remember they are sleepy. Remember they are sleepy. Okay, verse seven. So Joshua and all the people of war with him came against them suddenly by the waters of Meron and attacked them. And so there he is again. He comes upon them suddenly.

I love this guy. I don't want to be against him. He just, he's motivated by God's assurance. God, I'm going to, look, I told you back with Moses I was going to be with you. Now you're here. Moses is not. You're the leader.

I'm going to be with you. And Joshua says, aye aye, he goes off with it and he's striking right away. Suddenly he ambushes them.

They weren't ready for this. They're milling around, you know, putting little tassels on their chariot and rear view mirrors and stuff like that. And here he comes with his army. We read about him doing the same kind of stuff, suddenly coming on the enemy. At the Jordan, he rolls up early. He comes to the Jordan in chapter three. In chapter six, early he gets up to cross the Jordan. Jericho, on the seventh day when it was time to take those walls down, the Bible tells us Joshua got up early. I know we covered this once, but it merits covering again. When Achan had sinned and it was time to deal with that, Joshua got up early.

It tells us each time. At Ai, when he defeated Ai after dealing with Achan. Gibeon, to deal with Gibeon, he got up early. And then here at Meron, in chapter 11, he had the habit of facing a difficult and unpleasant task with this resolute steel that we want. He's just, okay, just grab the bull by the horns and ride him until his neck breaks. And if he pins me, I'm going to resist and make preparation for more resistance. That's the kind of man Joshua was.

We are better off when we know these things. Even if we're not that strong, we can be stronger than what we would have otherwise been. Verse 8, And Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Israel, who defeated them and chased them to the greater Sidon, to the brook of Mizrathath, and to the valley of Mizpah eastward. They attacked them until they left none of them remaining. Well, Mizrathath means hot springs, and it's just interesting to know there were hot springs in the land. I'd want to live in that neighborhood.

Having cold water all the time just doesn't do it. Anyway, he's advancing. Remember, there's a lot of blood going on here. They're not killing people with paper clips. They're using, that would be kind of hard, too, but this is sword warfare.

Very ugly. Verse 9, So Joshua did to them as Yahweh had told him. He hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. The reoccurring theme with Joshua is obedience.

Joshua, as it says again in verse 9, did to them as Yahweh had told him. I want to be that guy all the time. Sometimes I can get it. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's surprising. Sometimes it's become part of me, but then there are other times.

I want to be that guy all the time, and I want God to know that I want to be that guy, and I know He does, and I am reassured by that. Verse 10, Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms. Verse 11, And they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them.

There were none left breathing. Then he burned Hazor with fire. And so the violence that is necessary to dislodge the dominant forces of sin, and that is what he does.

He breaks the back of sin. Israel, the promised land, is a land bridge that connects Asia to Africa, and a lot of traffic cuts through there, and a lot of influence. And the people that lived in this promised land, they were grotesque when it came to sin. God itemized many of their sins in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and reminded the Jews, I'm putting them out as a judgment for their behavior, and I'll do the same to you if you don't watch yourself, which He did do. And God has said that still to the earth today. You know, if you don't fix this, you're going to be dealt with. And we'll come to some of that in a little bit. In verses 10 and 11, where it says there was none left breathing. Men, women, and children.

Yeah, I mean, it's just terrible. Civilians suffer in war. They always have. In many ways, they suffer worse than the troops. Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

I mean, those are civilians, but how many lives did it save? Because those committed to Shintoism were not going to surrender. And one reason why they were so incredibly barbaric to POWs is because they had such, they viewed them as less than human. And once a human being views another human being as less than human, you're going to have big problems because he's going to treat you like you're an animal. This is not something that's in isolated spots of history.

It's throughout history. This is the lesson of the Book of Esther. You think this is merciless? You think this is cruel?

Let me show you what will happen if you don't do it this way. There will be generation atop a generation coming for you in this cycle of revenge that you'll never be able to break. And with all the efforts that the Jews put into this, they still had some of that.

And so the Lord knew what he was talking about when he was saying, I need you to wage thorough war. This is beyond negotiation. They're not retrievable.

I can't get them back as human beings. And they are influencing other human beings at a demonic rate, and it's got to be arrested. And this is what the children of Israel were doing, and as a bonus, they got to keep the land. So misguided mercy, we have to watch out. God is always right.

Anytime you have a suspicion that you're right and he's not, you know you're wrong, and the suspicion should evaporate. Numbers 31 verses 14 through 17 might help you a little bit with this. But the very mercy of God had just only served to harden them in their sins. God gave them time to repent. He gave them godly people. I mean, for example, Jethro was a godly man. He was not a Jew. Job was not a Jew. These men knew Yahweh. They walked with him. What was their problem? We've been pointing out as we've been going along, Rahab got it.

Harlot got it. She said, I can figure this one out. I'm with the wrong people. I know how these people are that I live with, and they're not good. And I've heard about these Jews.

I'd rather be with them. So she did the math, as we would say. Judgment was unavoidable according to their own works. It was no longer mercy, and we'll bring some of that out in a minute. Verse 12, so all the cities of those kings and all their kings, the cities and their kings, Joshua took and struck with the edge of the sword. He utterly destroyed them as Moses, the servant of Yahweh, commanded.

We get to verse 15, it's going to say, as Yahweh commanded, because they're one and the same. Moses, that great servant of God. I don't know if we passed by too quickly how great a man Moses was. He's really a remarkable character, because we're so caught up in so much, you know, the plagues and his beard. He had, you know, had to have had one.

And we just get sidetracked sometimes. We miss the character of the man, what he had to endure. Here in verse 12, Joshua did to those kings as Jesus will do to the principalities of hell. Just here's a verse, Deuteronomy 20, verse 16 and 17. But of those cities of these people, which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them.

The Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Pezerite, Hivite, Jebusite, as Yahweh your God has commanded you. And that is what Joshua is doing. Verse 13, as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them except Hazor, only which Joshua burned. Apparently, he saved these cities because they were on the high ground. And that meant they were natural fortifications, good cities. And he opted to save them for his own people. You know, we'll keep that.

We'll make these ours now. Hazor, however, was the capital city that influenced all the others, and Joshua burned that one down, probably as an example to surrounding territories. This, again, a strategic area, trade routes, and he knew what he was doing. If you go to Israel today, you can still see ancient cities up on high hills, not mountains, not high heels, but high hills. And they are museum sites if you want to trek up there. But verse 14, in all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the children of Israel took his booty for themselves, but they struck every man with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they left none breathing.

Breathing if you're from Brooklyn or Queens, but breathing for the rest of the nation. Achan, if he just waited, he would have got the spoils, the treasures. Verse 15, and Yahweh commanded Moses his servant, so as Yahweh commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did.

He left nothing undone. Of all that, Yahweh had commanded Moses. Too bad Solomon didn't keep that up. Too bad Solomon did not say, I am now on the throne of my father David. I'm not going to compete with his name.

I'm going to support it, to develop it, to benefit from it on behalf of everyone. But Solomon, of course, he couldn't, and I'm always careful in judging Solomon, because if I had that much money and power, would I have done any better? Secretly, I'm thinking, yeah.

Well, let's try. So I'm, you know, I don't want to go at Solomon like I do Saul or Samson. And Samson really didn't have any excuse. He was a smart kid, a smart kid. He's a smart guy, and maybe he blew it and threw it all away, because he was so full of himself. Does anyone else picture Samson strutting sometimes? He was a cocky guy. Look at him.

He struts when he sits. All right, verse 16. Thus Joshua took all this land, the mountain country, and all the south, all the land of Goshen, the low land, the Jordan plain, the mountains of Israel and its low land, from Mount Halak to the ascent at Seir, even as far as Ba'al Gad in the valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon, he captured all their kings and struck them down and killed them. Well, if he didn't hunt them down, they would have hunted him down. They came out to hunt him down, to bring the battle on.

It was kill or be killed at this point. Here, of course, we have the conquest of Joshua north and south now being summarized, and it is, you know, it probably took about five years to do this. We have a time stamp in Joshua 14 where Caleb says, I'm 85 now. We remember 40 years ago. It took 40 years in the wilderness. He's 85 now. So we have about five, six years, maybe even as far as four or seven years to get all of this done. So that's why verse 18 says Joshua made war a long time with all those kings, and that's what we have to be prepared for, the long haul. It is not a sprint.

There are sprints within it, but it is a long run, and when you're young, you don't know that. You know, some of you are still young enough to remember when you were young, and you just didn't think as you think now. I like a lot more the way I think now, but I like a lot better the way I looked then.

So does my wife. So, but such is life. So you have to do with what you have. What am I going to do with time? What am I going to do when I stand before the Lord? What am I going to say?

I've got a few speeches ready to try this one. Okay, how about this one? But I think we should from time to time ponder that. Always there is something for the believer to do. If nothing else, prayer, the prayer of Jabez, just consider the man's life as the shortcomings he had, but how articulate his prayer was. Verse 18, Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. Verse 19, there was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon.

All others they took in battle. Well, he mentions that to say that they were compliant, they were obedient to what God had said, and it also would have lended opportunity for the historian to say, well, there were cities that did ask for peace, but they did not. And God will always be justified in his judgments. For centuries, the Canaanites got away with their sin and avoided annihilation. God was giving them time, but the time has now run out and the time has arrived for judgment. The list is in again, Leviticus 18, for example, and they did what they did. They behaved the way they behaved because of the gods they believed in.

You want to change how someone behaves, you have to start working on how that person believes, what they believe. Now, they can believe in God and his behavior still be not anywhere near where it should be, but without that change, a society cannot gain altitude. And that's what we're seeing in these lands. Everyone has sinned in some way, of course, but here in the land of Canaan, their sin was just grotesque. It had become so bad that as with the antediluvians who were known for their violence, the Sodomites who were known for their impurity, now the Canaanites for their impurity and violence, they were being dealt with.

It was a base society, hostile to God's ways. The great tribulation will make all of this look very small. The great tribulation will be global and it will bear many of the same marks. Jesus said in Matthew 24, for then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.

How much is in those words? There's not been anything like that. Wait a minute, what are you talking about? The war in Europe, the two of them, and then the Pacific, and you know, what do you mean? All the terrible atrocities through the ages and you're telling me that this coming of war on earth, a time period on earth, unmatched in its horror. Jesus is saying just that. And then in Matthew 25, he goes on to say the day is going to come when he will judge the wicked nations and that people. Judgments against the Canaanites is just one instance of his judgment on the wicked. As I mentioned, there were those before the flood that were lost in the flood, the antediluvians that perished. There were those of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are great instances of his mercy that everybody likes to pass over.

Rahab did not. You and I have not, and many others. Genesis chapter 15, when God is saying to Abraham, I'm going to give you all this land.

You won't own it in your lifetime on paper, but it's yours. 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.

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