Joshua Chapter 10:1-27

I'm not suggesting that you go back and you identify every mistake that you've made in your life and you sit down and you kind of figure out why it is and what it is and who's to blame and all those things, but there are things to be learned from our mistakes. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

In life, it's true that we either learn from our mistakes or we repeat them, but we don't want to get mired in those past mistakes. In today's teaching, Pastor David discusses this balance as he continues his study in the book of Joshua chapter 10. But first, when you're in trouble, where do you turn most often?

Do you look to yourself or the advice of your friends, or do you go straight to God? We want to help you experience the hope that comes from looking to the Lord when your life turns upside down by sending you Pastor David McGee's CD series titled Lessons from the Wilderness. In this encouraging resource, Pastor David looks at one of the most difficult periods of King David's life to show you how you can wait confidently on God, no matter what you're facing. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now here's David McGee with his teaching, We Are in a Battle. Turn with me to Joshua chapter 10. Chapter 10 verse 1 says, Now it came to pass when Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it, as he had done to Jericho and its king. So he had done to Ai and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them.

Now again, if you remember, you know, last week we were talking about the treaty with the Gibeonites, and we're going to get more into that. Before, of course, we had the Israelites getting defeated at Ai and realizing that there was sin in the camp, and then once they dealt with the sin in the camp, then they were victorious once again. Interestingly enough, this is the first place that the word Jerusalem is used in the Hebrew Scriptures.

And it's interesting because this name, Adonai Zedek, means the righteous Lord, or the Lord is righteous, is actually what that name Adonai Zedek means. Now, it's kind of interesting, and what we're going to find out is Jerusalem, although the army falls at this time, Jerusalem itself does not come under the control of the Jewish people. That happens later, if you remember, under David.

Let's read along. Verse 2, That they feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. Therefore Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hohem, king of Hebron, Param, king of Jormuz, Japhia, king of Lachish, and Diber, king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me and help me that we may attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. Now, this is what would have been referred, it's much earlier than the city-states that occurred in Greece about 700 years, 800 years later.

This, but these are city-states in the sense that each city had its own government, had its own king, had its own laws, its rules, and its regulations, but what happened is when an intruder came in, these cities would join together to fight against the intruder. Now, in this case, the intruders were the children of Israel, that God had given them the land, had told them go into this land and possess the land, and so they're kind of upset with Gibeon because it was a big powerful city, and yet they had gone and they had made a treaty, if you will, with Israel, so they were kind of upset with them, and we can see that at verse 5. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jormuz, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered together and went up, they and all their armies, and camped before Gibeon and made war against it. I mentioned something last week, and we saw that the reason the treaty was established between the Israelites and the Gibeonites is because the Gibeonites tricked them. They came up and they had bread that had gotten molded, and they put on old clothes, and they came up and they go, oh, you know, we've traveled from such a far, far away, and we want to make a treaty with you guys, and they, because the Israelites did not seek the Lord, they were fooled.

They were fooled into thinking that these guys were literally from a long ways away, and they made a treaty with them when in fact they were like from right down the road. But what we talked about was that God uses our mistakes, and that's an amazing thing. Now I'm not encouraging anybody out here or in here tonight to go out and make a bunch of mistakes so God can use you in that manner. You don't have to do that because, let's be honest, you know, mistakes, they kind of happen, don't they?

I mean, that's the way they do it. I don't have to necessarily plan mistakes. They just kind of happen more frequently than I care to think about, really. But what's an amazing thing is God will use even your mistakes. See, if that wasn't true, then Paul would have been unable to say in the book of Romans in chapter 8 that all things work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

Now there's a couple of qualifiers there, those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose, but that being said, everything in your life, even your mistakes, can be used for the glory of the Lord. Now why am I going back over this? Because this is a beautiful thing. Here the Gimeanites made the treaty with the Israelites, right? So all the other five cities, what do they do? They attack the Gimeanites. So guys, get the picture. Do you understand? All these five armies came outside of their city walls where they were safe and would have had a stronger resistance, and they came out into the middle of the desert, all gathered together so that the children of Israel could attack them in one fell swoop through their mistake.

It's a beautiful thing. Let's see what happens. Verse 6, and the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp of Gagal saying, do not forsake your servants.

Come up to us quickly. Save us and help us for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the mountains have gathered together against us. So again, the Gibeonites had joined with the Israelites and at least the Gibeonites kind of knew who to make allies with.

They were on the right side. But also, you know what? Joshua at this point, because he was a man of integrity, was pulled into this battle on behalf of who would have been his enemy. So I think there's kind of a little lesson in there. Be careful who you make treaties with because you may end up defending them. Be careful about philosophies or different things that you agree with because again, you may be called upon to defend those philosophies. Certainly, we want to stand and align ourselves with the Word of God and defend the Word of God when need be. But be careful when you get outside of the Word of God and align yourself with things. Now here again, the Gibeonites called out to Joshua to protect them.

Now again, I think this is kind of interesting. Especially when you consider that the Gibeonites were basically a pagan bunch of people and they sought out a treaty with Joshua. Now if you remember, Joshua is kind of our English word for the leader of this book. His name is actually Yahshua and that name is one that we don't hear a lot of. We are more familiar with the Greek form or the Greek version of that word Yahshua. The Greek form is Jesus. So Jesus, His name in the Hebrew would have been Yahshua.

So Gibeonites, who were a bunch of pagan people, made a treaty with Yahshua and then called upon Yahshua to protect them because of that treaty. It's kind of interesting and I think there's some, probably some stuff in there for us in the sense that, you know, we were a bunch of pagan people before we came to the Lord. We were Gentiles. Well, I refer to myself as a Gentile heathen dog.

So, you know, that was basically what I was. I wasn't a deeply religious person, maybe deeply spiritual in a bad way before I came to the Lord. But I came to the Lord and now God is honoring the treaty that He has with me and granting me His protection from those people that I used to run with and those things that used to pull me down.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Verse seven. So Joshua ascended from Gagal, he and all the people of war with him and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them for I have delivered them into your hand and not a man of them shall stand before you.

Look at this. The Lord said to Joshua, you know what that tells me? That Joshua was taking the time to seek the Lord. If you remember, you know, his mistake with the Gibeonites before was what we talked about last week, the fact that he didn't seek the Lord, that he just kind of went and did his own thing. Well, this time he actually seeks the Lord.

How do I know that? Because the Lord speaks to him. Usually when the Lord speaks to you, it's when you are making time to listen to the Lord. I mean, occasionally you might be like driving down the road or doing something and have that inner voice, that still small voice and the Lord speaks to you.

But a lot of times it's when you're just being still before the Lord and spending time with the Lord. And so I think that Joshua learned from his mistake of the last chapter and that's our first life lesson. We either learn from our mistakes or we repeat them. I think if you've been here for any length of time, you know that I'm not suggesting that you go back and you identify every mistake that you've made in your life and you sit down and you kind of dissect it and figure out why it is and what it is and how it is and who was responsible and who's to blame and all those things.

But there are things to be learned from our mistakes without taking a great time of energy and effort to sort through the miry clay of our past. But to look back and say, perhaps you're in a situation or you've been in a situation where you really got your feelings hurt and you begin to build this wall of offense towards somebody. Well, when you go back and you look at that, you know what you can discern almost every time you pick up an offense and keep in mind an offense is something you have to pick up. It's worded that way for a reason. See, an offense is not something that necessarily sticks to you and you carry it around.

It's something that you pick up and you carry around. It happens far too often in the body of Christ that we do this. Because then we get our offense and you know what we do?

It's like all of a sudden we have this gift. We pick up this offense and then we walk around and somebody goes, hey man, how you doing? I'm doing okay. Well, yeah, I kind of bummed out.

Well, I'm kind of bummed out because, look, I have this offense. Somebody offended me. Let me tell you all about it.

And then what we do and then what we do is we sit there and we relive the instance, don't we? Oh, you should have seen what they said to me and what they did to me. And then we see the next person, how are you doing? Oh, I'm not doing very well. You see, I'm offended.

I've picked up an offense that I've carried with me. And see, let me tell you all about it here. And somebody might go, well, you know, you just need to let go of that. And then you go, I'm going to go talk to somebody else. And then you go to the next person and, well, look at me, I'm offended. I'm offended. Well, you just need to pray about that. I'm going to go talk to somebody else. Look at me, I'm offended.

Oh, you poor thing. I want to spend some time with you. Let's talk about this a little bit more. And, and you know, and I was, you know, I was actually sitting in a conversation one time where, where it was kind of going back and forth crazy like that. And I was kind of shaking my head and this other brother tried to bring it up out of the Mairi pit, you know, and this lady actually looked at him and said, can we talk about me a little bit more? And she was being serious.

That was the, that was the bizarre thing. So at that point, I kind of had to jump in and get involved and no, we can't talk about you anymore. We've talked about you enough, but see, here's what we do. We carry this around and this affects us.

We need to sit it down and let it go. And so you can learn by your past, looking at the way you got offended, looking at the way perhaps that your feelings were hurt. See, because while my feelings are hurting, I'm carrying this around and I'm focused on this.

Who am I not focused on? I'm not focused on the Lord. So the real cure, the real solution is to realize I've gotten my eyes off of Jesus and I've put them on, I've placed them on something else. So we can learn from our mistakes in that sense, because understand there's something that the Lord wants to do in our lives. And the more we're set free, the more we're liberated from these things, the more we're free to live the life that God intended. in King David's life and discover how you can wait confidently on God no matter what struggles you're facing, because his plans are perfect and he always comes through for you. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others.

So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness. Now, back to today's message. The Lord again said that Joshua says, do not fear them.

Now this is interesting to me. You know why? Because I think of Joshua as a very brave and courageous man. And I think in part he was, but do you realize how often his conversations with the Lord went just like this? Don't be afraid of them. Fear not.

You know what that tells me? That tells me Joshua was, he was afraid. He was fearful. He was concerned over what was going on.

He's getting ready to attack these five armies, if you will. And then Joshua goes to him and I think it's not worded here, but perhaps Joshua said, you know, God, I'm a little freaked out here, Lord. And well, I mean, maybe he didn't use those exact words, but you know, Lord, I'm concerned or I'm scared or I'm anxious or whatever. And the Lord reassured him. The Lord reassured him. Isn't that a cool thing?

That's an awesome thing. Do you understand the Lord wants to reassure you? When you get in a time when you're uncertain and you're unsure of something, maybe even you're afraid or you're anxious, the Lord desires for you to come to him so that he can reassure you.

So he can remind you and go, you know what? It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. Jesus spent a lot of his time in the gospels telling the disciples, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Remember in Matthew 7, he's talking about, you know what? If the Lord cares this way for sparrows, don't you know he's going to look after you. Don't be anxious for things, knowing that I'm going to take care of you.

Don't act like your uncertainties and your fears don't exist. Somewhere we've gotten twisted in thinking that's really noble Christianity. That's not noble Christianity.

That's really, that's bogus. Go to the Lord with your uncertainties. Go to him with your fears and say, Lord, I'm struggling with this. Lord, I got a problem with this.

Lord, help me with this. 1 Peter 5 verse 6 says, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he cares for you. He cares for you. So cast all your cares upon him because he cares for you. The New Living translation puts it this way. So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God and in his good time he will honor you.

Give all your worries and cares to God for he cares about what happens to you. Now we've talked about it before, but you know that all, that word all is very interesting. You know what all means in the Greek? It means all. That's right.

It doesn't mean part, doesn't mean half, doesn't mean some. It means all. So all the worries, all the cares give to the Lord. Now the tempting thing is you'll be tempted to pick them back up. You might have to put them down many times, but you understand what this says?

Give your worries and cares to God. Now let's be honest. How many of us have done that? How many of us do that on a regular basis? Or how many of us carry the stuff around that we're not meant to carry instead of giving it to the Lord and saying, you know what Lord, this is yours to carry.

And sometimes I'm going to the Lord with a struggle or with a burden and go, oh Lord, I'm just struggling with this and I'm having a hard time with that. And the Lord will go, you know what, you were never meant to carry that. I'm supposed to carry that. Give that to me. That's a lifestyle that we have to practice.

That's not something we can just even do one time tonight. That's something that we need to get into a life of giving our cares and giving our anxieties to God. And you know, in order to do that, you really need to be in fellowship with other brothers and sisters that will remind you. They'll remind you and go, oh, you know what, you look a little freaked out. Why don't you give that to the Lord?

You look a little anxious. Or what are you carrying that you're not supposed to be carrying? And give that to the Lord and be reminded.

Because you know what, we've got well-intentioned and so-called friends that will just sit and mush through this stuff and mush through this stuff and mush through this stuff and never look at us in the eye and say, you know what, you shouldn't be carrying that. Give that to the Lord. But that's what we really need to say. But that's what we really should say to one another, isn't it? These scriptures in First Peter tell us the next life lesson, the Lord cares for you. The Lord cares for you. We talked about it Sunday morning.

We talked about it Sunday night. But this, guys, get this into your heart. Get this into your head.

You know why? Because this is an area that the enemy will attack over and over and over and over again. He'll try to undermine the fact that the Lord loves you and the Lord cares for you. And we should so get that in our heart and in our mind that we view everything through that lens, if you will. And that is the beginning of our spiritual conversation sometimes. Because you know what, you will get in the middle of trials and tribulations that are really hard. You'll get in the middle of trials and tribulations that you really want to understand what's going on.

That's okay. But view it through the lens of the Lord cares for me, the Lord loves me. I don't know what really is going on in my life right now.

I don't understand why this circumstance or this situation has been allowed to be placed in my life. But I do know the Lord cares for me. I do know the Lord loves me. And his plan for me is better than the plan I have for myself. So I'm going to be okay with where the Lord has placed me because he loves me and he cares for me. And when you get in those places where you're not sure and you don't know, fall back on what you do know.

And what you do know is that God loves you and God cares for you. Verse nine, Joshua therefore came upon them suddenly having marched all night from Gagal. Now notice this, Joshua went and sought the Lord, heard from the Lord and what did he do?

He launched out. See guys, there's a time for prayer and there's a time for doing. And once Joshua had prayed, Joshua was ready to go and marched all night into the battle because he heard from the Lord. And that's one thing that I really respect about Joshua is that once Joshua heard, he was off and running.

I mean, this was it. He says, God, what do you want me to do? God says, I'm giving them to you. Joshua's all right, I'm out of here.

I'm on my way. And so he goes into the battle. Verse 10, so the Lord routed them before Israel, killed them with a great slaughter at Gimean, chased them along the road that goes to Beth-Haran and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkadah. And it happened as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth-Haran that the Lord cast down large hellstones from heaven on them as far as Azekah and they died. And there were more who died from the hailstones than the children of Israel killed with a sword. So, you know, they're having like a really bad day, huh? I mean, they're losing the battle and then there's these hailstones that are killing them, but apparently didn't kill any of the Israelites. There's an interesting thing in here. I find it very fascinating that they're in the middle of this battle and they, I don't, we don't know if they're outnumbered or not.

We're not told that. But these other armies are fairly organized and obviously they were of a sufficient number that Joshua was a little freaked out and needs some reassurance from the Lord. And so what happens is they start the battle, but who finishes it? See, here's what happens and guys, if we can get a hold of this, we make efforts and sometimes these efforts are, well, there may be even feeble. They're not real strong efforts, but the Lord tells us to do something and we go, okay, well, Lord, we're going to do that.

And you step out into that and you start to do that. And you know what God does? God finishes it. God takes your efforts, which may be small, but hopefully are diligent. And he takes them and he blesses them beyond what you're capable of accomplishing.

Now we see this over and over. We see this in ministry because, you know, when we started, we, well, it was just what it was. It was just a small home Bible study. I had traveled. I knew a lot about the word of God.

I knew a lot about ministry, but as far as being a pastor, there was a lot of stuff I didn't know, but I was willing to be taught. And so I stepped out with what some may perceived as feeble efforts and made mistakes along the way. But God blessed the efforts far beyond what I was able to do, what staff was able to do, what team leaders were able to do. And so as we look around on Sunday morning, we're like, Oh, praise the Lord.

But notice something guys. I didn't like, you know, stay sleeping in my bed like 14 hours a day going, God, just do some blessed, you know, and then not do anything. See that can be a mistake. That can be a mistake when we're unwilling to be diligent, when we're unwilling to do what God has already told us to do. And we still expect his blessing. God expects us to take those baby steps. Now he's not going to fuss at us when we fall down because they're baby steps. What mother or father have you ever known that, you know, as a baby's learning to walk and falls down that they fuss at it.

Oh, wait, you're not trying to get up. Come on now. You're just so tickled that those baby steps are being taken. Yeah.

Maybe you take pictures and videos and all look at the first steps. It's awesome. You're not going, Oh, look, they fell.

Cut. You know, you're not, you're not, you're not freaked out. You're just so tickled. That's the way the Lord does.

And he blesses our efforts. Just like maybe you take the hand of your little loved one or your grandson or your granddaughter or your whatever, and you grab their hand and you help them walk. And you're just so tickled. And sometimes maybe you're more carrying them than they're walking, but it just warms your heart that they're trying.

Their little feet are just trying to move. And it just so blesses you. Do you realize we bless the Lord when we do that? When we take those baby steps. When the Lord asks us to do something, we begin to do it.

Might be feeble, might be weak. Sometimes it doesn't end up be a disaster, but God has just so blessed that we're trying. And so that's one thing that we want to continue as a body, as a fellowship to be diligent. We want to continue to pursue excellence in areas of ministry and stuff.

But you know what? There's also the confidence that God is going to bless it beyond what we're able to manufacture. God is going to be the one to take it way beyond our feeble efforts. And I believe that the Lord will continue to bless us as we do those things. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud, right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you, all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

So many people look to their friends or within their own thoughts when faced with a problem. Even King David struggled with listening to his heart and not trusting in God's promises. Pastor David McGee wants to encourage you to wait confidently on God through whatever trial you're facing by sending you his CD series, Lessons from the Wilderness. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com now for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.