Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scripture to be written for our learning, grant that we may in such a way hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Your Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which You have given us in Your Savior Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.
Sometime in or before 1529 as the Roman Catholic Church sought to stamp out this burgeoning Protestant movement as so many other movements in history, Protestant was not a name that these new descendents of Luther gave to themselves but they were called at the Diet of Speyer in that year 1529 Protestants because they were protesting the abuses in the Church and protesting certain theological deviations in the Church, much like later Puritans would start as an insult, or Methodists would start as an insult, so they were called Protestants.
Sometime, likely in this year 1529, Martin Luther would write what is probably the most well-known thing he ever would write. It’s not a sermon, it’s not one of his theological works or treatises. It’s not even the 95 theses. It’s not his famous “here I stand, I can do no other” speech, but likely the most famous thing all around the world that people would know from Martin Luther, is his hymn. He wrote many, but most famously “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”
He wrote it as a loose paraphrase of Psalm 46. We don’t always realize it, but it’s a psalm paraphrase. It was published in three different publications in 1529. As best as we can tell, the tune also came from Luther. He was quite a remarkable musician himself. He played the lute, the flute. He said at one point, “I would allow no man to preach or teach God’s people without a proper knowledge of the use and power of sacred song.” Now it doesn’t say they have to be sacred soloists in the song, but they need something of an awareness of the power of music.
Luther encouraged congregational singing. We take this for granted, but it was quite new. That’s why so often during the Reformation and the years that followed when the Reformers would be in a city and their great voice of rebellion often took shape by singing the Psalms. You wouldn’t think of that today as being a sign that you were a rebel for the truth of God’s Word, but it was for the Reformers. They sang.
And in a tradition that had developed over the Middle Ages, where most of the singing, almost all of it sometimes, was sung by just choirs, or by young boys and contraltos and soloists and trained musicians, it was quite a revolutionary thing that Luther and the other Reformers wanted the people themselves to be singing.
In typical Luther statement, he said, “The devil flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God.” Now not the musical The Sound of Music, not the movie itself, that would come many years later. But maybe the devil flees at that as well.
We sing in English, at least in this country, the translation, of course Luther didn’t write the hymn in English, he wrote it in German and then would be published in Latin, but we sing the English translation from the congregational minister Frederic Hedge and we will sing at the end of this service, “A Bulwark Never Failing.” We sing in verse two, “God is the Lord of armies”; in verse three, “He is the One who triumphs over the prince of darkness,” and in verse four, “He is the One whose word is above all earthly powers.”
That will be our closing response, but it’s also a suitable introduction for the theme of this chapter. I didn’t plan that Joshua chapter 10, and on first glance you might not think Joshua chapter 10 would have anything to do with the Reformation, but this chapter is all about that theme, that the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies, He is our captain, He is our warrior, and He fights for us.
Look there in your Bibles, and hope you’ve turned to Joshua by this point, and I want to remind you again where we are, that the conquest of the Promised Land takes place in four overlapping but distinct sections. I showed this a few weeks ago. You can see it because at the beginning of each section you have this refrain that says “and the kings of such and such a land heard the report of what God had done.”
So turn back. You see in Joshua 5:1, “As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan and the Canaanites heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan.” So that’s the first section. Chapter 5 through 8 is the initial steps of the conquest, the battle of Jericho and Ai, and then if you look in chapter 9, verse 1: As soon as all the kings who were beyond the Jordan in the hill country, the lowland, the coast, the great sea, they heard of this, end of verse 1. Well, that’s the second part, which is the fight that didn’t happen, at least not initially. That’s the treaty with the Gibeonites.
And then this morning’s text, 10:1, “As soon as Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard,” and then next week, Lord willing, we’ll come to chapter 11. Flip there, verse 1: ” When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of this.”
So four times; chapter 5, chapter 9, 10, and 11. Each of those mark out these successive steps in the conquest. We get to the end of the conquest at the end of chapter 11, the very last sentence of chapter 11, verse 23: “And the land had rest from war.” Then we’re entering a new section in the second half of the book.
So here we are in the third stage of this conquest. Stage 1 – Jericho/Ai; 2 – the treaty with Gibeon; 3 – here in chapter 10 we might call the southern campaign; and then in chapter 11 the northern campaign.
Now I know some of you may have a map at the back of your Bible, the pew Bibles I doing think have one, but you can just picture maybe the geography you’ve seen even in recent days on the news of Israel.
So the people came from the east, moving to the west, and they crossed the Jordan River. If you think of Israel in this time from Dan to Beersheba, from Maine to Florida, that’s what they mean by Dan to Beersheba, that was one of the northernmost cities, Dan, one of the southernmost cities. You see that language throughout the Old Testament. So if you go from Dan to Beersheba, Jericho is pretty well in the middle, so they came in the middle part of the land and Jericho, and then Ai, and then further in is the city of Gibeon so that Gibeon is kind of right in the middle of the land.
Then from there, once they’ve gotten to the heart of the land, then went down south on the southern campaign in chapter 10 and then all the way up past the Sea of Galilee in the north and back down for that northern campaign. So here we are in the middle, moving down southern.
You can see in chapter 10 three sections. You can see the ESV has the heading, “The Sun Stands Still.” Now this is defeating Gibeon. Then you see the next section, before verse 16, “Five Amorite Kings Executed,” after they flee. Then the third section before verse 29, “The Conquest of Southern Canaan.”
So these are the three sections, or you might say the three scenes or panels in this story; defeating Gibeon, tracking down the five kings, and then sweeping through southern Canaan.
So I want to take some time here to walk our way through, explain what’s happening, I won’t read every verse in here, and then once we explain and understand what’s happening in chapter 10 we’ll step back and say, “Well, why is this here? What is this chapter about?”
So follow along. Let me first start by reading verses 1 through 5, Joshua 10.
“As soon as Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured Ai and had devoted it to destruction, doing to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, he 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 warriors. So Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, to Piram king of Jarmuth, to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, “Come up to me and help me, and let us strike Gibeon. For it has made peace with Joshua and with the people of Israel.” Then the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered their forces and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon and made war against it.”
So what do we learn here in this opening paragraph? We learn that Gibeon is a great city, it says that in verse 2. Go back to chapter 9 for a moment. Look at verse 17. Remember what we saw last week when the Israelites are fooled by the Gibeonites, they have their crumbly bread and their cracked wineskins and their worn out clothes and sandals and they say they’re from a long distance, so they mistakenly make a treaty with them. What we read in 9:17, “the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.”
So that was a kind of tetrapolis, four cities, the leading city of which is Gibeon. So Gibeon is a great city. Verse 2 says “much greater than Ai and its men were all warriors.” So you can understand that these other kings, the five kings of the Amorites, sometimes they’re called Canaanites, here they’re called Amorites, that they say, “Oh, no, we’ve heard what’s happened with Joshua and these people coming in and now they’ve made a treaty with this great city and with the Gibeonites.”
So they’re going to marshal their forces, these five kings, and they’re going to fight against Gibeon.
Now you might think that Joshua and the Israelites would take this as a bunch of good news. Remember, they were supposed to wipe out the Gibeonites; it’s only because they were fooled that they didn’t. Then remember the people murmured and grumbled against their leaders, “What have you guys done?” And yet, three times we read in chapter 9 they had sworn, they had sworn, they had sworn. So this is not just, “Hey, I hope to meet you at the park” and then something changes and doesn’t work out. This is a swearing an oath, an official alliance between the people of Gibeon and the people of Israel.
Now I say they might have taken it as a bit of good news because surely some of them must have been tempted to say, “Hey, we were supposed to wipe these guys out to begin with. Now we can’t lay a hand on them because we got deceived and we made an alliance, but now these five Amorite kings are going to come and wipe them out for us. What a great turn of events. Why do we care? A bunch of Canaanite people fighting with Canaanite people. Go at it. We’ll come in and sweep up when the bloody mess is done.”
But of course, that’s not what Joshua and the Israelites are going to do because they swore to their hurt. So we read in verse 6.
“And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal, saying, “Do not relax your hand from your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the hill country are gathered against us.” So Joshua went up from Gilgal, 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 given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you.” So Joshua came upon them suddenly, having marched up all night from Gilgal. And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah. And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died. There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword.”
So the men of Gibeon come and say, “You made a promise to us.” Now we see here the nature of the promise. It was not merely a promise not to wipe them out; it was an alliance and you, when you’re attacked, we will come to your defense. So very typical of the ancient world, a sort of suzerain/vassal kind of treaty. Gibeon here was the vassal state, their men were woodcutters and drawers of water, and they gave service to Israel. Israel here is in the position of strength. But part of that is now they have to come to their rescue, and they do. They march all night with a surprise attack early in the morning and Israel routs this coalition force of five kings.
It’s such a rout that Joshua now is going to pray amazingly that the day would be extended. Verse 12.
“At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.”
“Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. So Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.”
If you read the commentaries, they spend most of their time on this section, trying to explain how this happened. I’m just going to say God made it happen, I don’t know how it happened. The sun stood still and the moon stood still.
Now this may mean that this happened early in the morning, that you could still see the moon and the sun was coming up above the horizon, or it may be something of a poetic description that the elements stood still in the sky. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Bible is teaching a geocentric view of the solar system, that the sun actually revolves around the earth. No, we don’t have to take it to mean this. Did Joshua and the men of Israel think that? Well, they likely did, but this isn’t the Bible teaching us something that is scientifically in error any more than you are in scientific error when all of you at some point have said, “Let’s go to the beach and watch the sunrise.”
If you have someone in your family who says, “tsk tsk tsk, sun isn’t really rising,” tell them to go back to bed. All right? That’s just how we talk; the sun goes up, sun goes down. Of course, we know that it’s the earth that’s moving around the sun. So the Bible is not teaching something scientifically in error, it’s just using normal observational language.
The point is the Lord amazingly, miraculously given them the longest day. This is truly, now if you have nursing children or other things that may have felt like the longest day, or your labor story, but this is scientifically the longest day. However long the Lord extended, the rout was so strong and so complete that the Lord amazingly listened to Joshua’s prayer to lengthen the day that this Amorite coalition might be wiped out.
And as they overtake them, the five Amorites kings go and hide and they hide in a cave. The people of Israel find them in the cave so they roll a stone over the cave so now they’re hiding place has become their tomb. They can’t escape. The Israelites go on to pursue the rest of the fleeing army and then once they take care of the army, they come back to the five kings.
So let’s pick up things at verse 22.
“Joshua said, “Open the mouth of the cave and bring these five kings out to me from the cave.” And they did so, and brought those five kings out to him from the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon. When they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, “Come near; put your feet on the necks of these kings.” Then they came near and put their feet on their necks. And Joshua said to them, “Do not be afraid or dismayed; be strong and courageous. For thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight.” And afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death, and he hanged them on five trees. And they hung on the trees until evening. But at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set large stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain to this very day.”
Quite a dramatic scene. They go back, roll back the stone, bring out the five kings, put their boot on their neck, then they kill them, then they hang them, then they take them down, put them back into the cave, and for yet again how many times have we seen this already? Four or five times? A memorial heap of stones. Almost everywhere they go, the Jordan River most importantly but then with Achan then with Ai, here again with these kings, they heap up large stones against the mouth of the cave which remain to this very day. You can go out, in other words, Joshua is saying, you can go out and you can see it, the writer here is telling them. You can go and see these stones and remember the great victory that God gave to us.
Then as if that wasn’t enough, they go on to conquer the city of Makkedah in verse 28.
Which brings us to the final section here. So remember I said three parts. First the battle at Gibeon, then the chasing down and the execution of the five kings, and now we have in very quick pace this southern campaign, sweeping down sort of through the middle, through the spine of Israel, down toward the south.
We won’t read it but you can see at the beginning of each paragraph it’s telling you where they’re going.
Verse 29, passed on from Makkedah to Libnah and fought against Libnah.
Verse 31, then from Libnah to Lachish.
33. Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish and Joshua struck him.
34. Then from Lachish to Eglon.
Verse 36. They went with him from Eglon to Hebron.
Verse 38. Then Joshua and all Israel went and turned back to Debir and fought against it and captured it with its king and its towns.
It’s giving us a list of all the various towns heading south that they conquer.
Until we come, finally, to this recap. Verse 40.
“So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”
Now it’s striking here there is no mention of taking Jerusalem. When we meet Adoni-zedek in verse 1, it’s the first time Jerusalem, which will figure so prominently in the Bible, the first time Jerusalem is mentioned. But there’s no mention of taking Jerusalem because you may recall it won’t be until David with his men come and take Jerusalem from the Jebusites that Jerusalem, the great city of David, the city of Zion, is not yet under their control.
But all of these various cities, and there’s different language associated with each, some of them they struck down, some of them they let none of the survivors go, it’s telling us that it’s not the exact same thing with each city. It actually helps us know that this is a historically accurate text, it’s not just mounting up stories or fiction. If you’re just wanting to make up stories, you throw in Jerusalem. You explain everyone in the same way.
But they’ve gone down and now they have the conquest so far as the hill country down to the Negeb, which is the land in the south, and then the lowland in the slopes, sometimes just transliterated with the Hebrew word the __, and then over to the coast of Gaza, Goshen, which is not the Goshen in Egypt, and then Gibeon. We read in verse 41, “Joshua struck them from Kadesh-barnea as far as Gaza and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon.”
So you pause right there and say, “Okay, I get it. Four sections of the conquest and this particular one has three panels, the Gibeonites, the kings, the southern campaign. I sort of got a sense for it. I got a little geography in my head. Why is this here?”
There’s lots of different lessons one could draw. Some people use this to talk about the genius of Israel’s military strategy. Or you could look at Joshua and draw some lessons in leadership. Or again you could talk from this passage about the power of prayer, because once again we see Joshua having learned the lesson, remember with the Gibeonites that nobody stopped to inquire of the Lord and that’s why they fell for their ruse? Here Joshua prays this mighty prayer in front of all the people, “may the sun stand still in the sky.”
So this could be another sermon about prayer or it could be a message about how God does the miraculous and maybe an apologetics message and try to defend what’s happening. Some people have even gone down a rabbit trail and have tried to find in some ancient calendar, some particularly long day.
All of that could be worthwhile. But I think thankfully the text itself tells us what this chapter is about. It’s right here in verse 42, which is why I haven’t read it yet, but now I will.
“And Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time,” meaning one campaign, “because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.”
Now we already saw that at the end of verse 14 – There has been no day like it before or since when the Lord heeded the voice of a man for the Lord fought for Israel.
That is the inspired theme of this chapter, and what I think we are meant to draw with all of the geography, all of the military lessons, all of the ins and outs and the miracles, the central point of this passage is that the Lord fought for Israel.
I want you to just go back and see how many times we have this kind of language . Look back at verse 8 – the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hand.”
Verse 10 – And the Lord threw them into a panic.
Verse 11 – The Lord threw down large stones from heaven.
Verse 12 – At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel.
Verse 14 – There has been no day like this when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.
Look at verse 19 – Attack their rear guard. Do not let them enter their cities, for the Lord your God has given them into your hand.
Then down again in verse 25 – Do not be afraid for thus the Lord your God will do to all of your enemies.
Then in verse 30 – And the Lord gave it also and its king into the hand of Israel.
Or again in verse 32 – And the Lord gave Lachish into the hand of Israel.
Over and over. Yes, Joshua has to fight. He had to march his men through the middle of the night. They have to wield the sword. But the overwhelming sense from the whole story is point after point, you know who did that? The Lord did that. The Lord threw them into a panic and then He threw down hailstones, and then the Lord made the sun stand still in the sky and then the Lord handed over those kings.
The lesson we are meant to learn is that the Lord fights for Israel. That’s the lesson of God’s people here in Joshua.
So what is the lesson for us? What does this mean for us? Because we could misinterpret this. The lesson for us is not that everything we undertake will be a success. I could imagine some preachers just going out and just whatever you do, the Lord’s going to be with you and it’s going to go great. Now remember this is the Promised Land. It doesn’t promise that if you go and you start fighting some people you’re going to win. This was a promise.
Nor should we think that God is going to do miracles whenever we ask. In fact, didn’t we read there in verse 14, “there has been no day like it before or since.” So you should not go out into the world thinking, “You know what? If I just ring up God, He can make this day longer. It’s great. Paper’s due at midnight. No problem. I gotta get these bills done. I gotta do this. No problem, God. Long day.” Some days we’d like God, please, please short day. This has not happened, it never happened before, it never happened since. So this isn’t a lesson to just go out and you ring up your miracles and you get them whenever you want.
Nor is this telling us to live a passive Christian life. No, Joshua and his men had to march through the night. Joshua prayed. So the people were active. Yet, I want us to feel the weight of this. This is an essential biblical truth and it is a continuing theme in the New Testament that we are not in a physical battle conquering a physical land. No, we’re not Israel in the land; we’re strangers and aliens, the New Testament tells us.
But there is a fight. Paul compares himself to a soldier in 2 Timothy. Jesus said discipleship is like a king counting the cost before he marches his army out to fight another army. Ephesians 6 tells us we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against rulers, powers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness.
So absolutely the Christian life is likened to a battle. Some modern people don’t like that, they don’t like those hymns, “Onward, Christian Soldier,” but it is an undeniable fact of life and it’s part of the New Testament imagery. You can just say “onward Christian peace lovers.” We do love peace but it’s “Onward, Christian Soldier.” We do have a battle to fight.
And the point that Joshua reminds us so powerfully is there is a God to fight for you.
How many political ads have you seen? Don’t answer. Maybe some of you are blessed to live over the border in South Carolina, not one of the seven swing states, and you get nothing. Well, up here in North Carolina, I can’t tell you, I’m probably getting 10 texts a day, e-mails, well, not emails so much but real mailers, phone calls, on and on, not to mention commercials, YouTube. I’m sure I’ve seen hundreds, maybe now in the thousands, it can feel like millions of political ads, and so many of the ads will tell you, and this is true on both political parties, they will tell you their candidate fights for you. Fights for you. And you get that from both parties. You hear that for presidential candidates, congressional candidates, all the way down to the drain commissioner, he’s fighting for you, or she is fighting for you. And actually drain commissioners have a lot of power, I’m told, so choose wisely.
Now there are notable and noble exceptions and to serve as a magistrate, as an authority, as a politician, is a noble task. So there are many fine men and women, perhaps some in our church, and we want to honor them.
At the same time I think it is safe to say that politicians often let us down. Their connection to the truth is sometimes creative. Their ironclad promises are often more like impossible wish lists. We would be unwise to put all of our hopes and dreams into the basket of any politician, political campaign, or party. But they fight for you.
Now I understand why that’s often an effective political slogan because many people feel discouraged. You may feel discouraged. You may feel put upon. You may feel ignored by many people and by elites. You may feel anxious and fearful, angry, and frustrated, and so it is natural we want someone out there in high position, someone with strength and authority, to fight for us.
Well, let me tell you the one truth you can absolutely count on from here to eternity – if you are a Christian, a born-again, full of the Holy Spirit, marked by faith and repentance Christian, you can count on this – Jesus Christ always fights for you.
That is not a slogan or a bumper sticker; it is the undeniable, all-conquering truth of the Bible, and it ought to be your balm, your comfort, your hope in life and in death. Jesus fights for you when you are afraid, for I the Lord your God hold your right hand. It is also I who say to you, “Fear not.” I am the One who helps you. Isaiah 41:13.
Jesus Christ fights for you when you’re tempted. 1 Corinthians 10: He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with the temptation He will provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
The Lord Jesus fights for you against sin. Romans 8:2: For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
The Lord Jesus fights for you when you wonder and doubt the love of God. Ephesians 3. Christ dwells in your hearts through faith so that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
At the very heart of the Reformation was the doctrine of assurance. Can you live your life and breathe your last breath knowing that God loves you? You can. Not because you’re good enough and smart enough, not because you’ve tried to be a better person, none of that is enough. Only because Jesus is the Lord our righteousness and that by faith alone, not faith as a work, not faith that God looks at you and says, “Well, this poor sinner’s got a lot of bad things about them, but she has faith. So faith is the best thing and that counts more than all of the bad works.” That’s now how it works. Faith is the instrumental cause of our justification. Faith, in other words, is the straw that slurps up the wonderful sweet tea that we have down here. It’s an instrumental cause, not a meritorious cause.
Faith is, the illustration I’ve used many times, faith is daring to skate out on a frozen pond and though you may be fearful, you may be anxious, and you may wonder if this ice is going to hold you up or you might plummet into some chilly demise. What is that keeps you from sinking? It’s not so much the strength of your faith, it is the thickness of the ice. It is, rather, the object of your faith.
So you can have assurance that faith is the faith of an empty hand to rest and receive. “Nothing in my hand I bring, only to the Thy cross I cling.” That’s the very heart of the Reformation so that you can have assurance knowing that it is by faith alone that we are declared right with God.
Jesus fights for you against the accusations of the devil. Revelation 12 – and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers have been thrown down.”
I hope you see one of the things these passages are teaching us is what really matters. Elections matter. Voting’s good. I’m certainly going to vote and make my teenage boys, well, one’s 21 now, vote for the first time. So it’s a good thing to do. It matters and we ought to care about what happens in our country.
But don’t miss the priorities that Scripture gives to us. What does it profit a man if he were to gain his whole nation and forfeit his soul? Or his family?
Do you see what Scripture’s concerned about? Even more than it’s concerned about what might happen in any one nation, it’s concerned about what happens in the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s concerned about your heart, about the temptations you face, about the fears that you face, about the sins that we struggle with. That’s why all of these promises, there’s not a promise that Jesus will save this nation or any nation. There is a promise that He will save sinners when they come in faith and repentance.
There is a promise that He is the only name given among men whereby we must be saved. And most importantly of all, remember, friends, Jesus fights for you against the last enemy, the most important enemy to vanquish – death itself.
So I want you to go back to think the middle of Joshua 10, that dramatic scene. It probably even struck you as somewhat too graphic, maybe even gruesome, maybe even uncomfortable to you. I’ll read it again: “And when they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, “Come near; put your feet on the necks of these kings.””
The chiefs of war. It’s like Joshua’s the general and he said to his captains or his lieutenants, “Okay, I want five of you here, to come.” The five kings, they’re about to be killed. It was an act of war, a just act. There they are. Put your foot on their neck.” And Joshua says, “Do not be afraid. So will be to all your enemies.”
This was a widespread custom. It may sound over-the-top to us, but surely to the kings on the ground it was very familiar. In fact, they probably had done the same thing at some point in their life. It was a familiar custom in the ancient world for a victorious king or chief to put his foot on the neck of a conquered for because the imagery is crystal clear. Someone’s on the ground in a position of defeat, conquest, having been about to be slain, and then someone else has their foot on that neck. No one can doubt who has won the battle and who has been defeated.
So you have the graphic, vivid image in your mind. Now let me ask you a Bible trivia question. Do you know the most quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament? What verse from the Old Testament does the New Testament quote more than any other? Psalm 110, verse 1. Here it is – “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”” It’s not talking about a silly prop of okay, get down on your knees and let’s put this on Instagram. Here we go, propped up… No. It’s talking about this very ritual. This messianic promise. The conquered for. All of the enemies of Christ and the Church will be like those five Amorite kings with the boots of Jesus Christ on their necks.
And at the end, when Christ returns, it will mean salvation for the righteous and as we saw many times in Revelation, it will mean judgment for the wicked. It will also mean the final defeat of death.
So with Joshua 10 in your mind, Psalm 110 in your mind, now listen to Hebrews: It has been testified somewhere what is man that you are mindful of him, the Son of Man that you care for him. That’s Psalm 8. You have made him for a little while lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. But now note this verse from Hebrews – At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.
So Hebrews is saying wait, there’s some already and not yet in this kingdom. He’s king, He’s on the throne, but we do not yet see this final reality. We haven’t seen the kings of the Amorites on the ground with the Lord Jesus Christ and His foot on their necks. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
You understand why the first announcement of the Gospel in Genesis 3 is that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. You can understand why on Good Friday it seemed like everything had gone wrong. This is, wait a minute, wait a minute, the Messiah, the Messiah’s the One who has everything put in subjection under His feet. The Messiah is the One who just like Joshua did puts His foot on all of our enemies and here He is being killed by the Romans and the Jewish leaders.
First humiliation, then exaltation. First the cross, then the crown. First death, then resurrection. But He is coming again and though we do not see it now, we see Him lifted high, crowned with glory and honor, having already defeated death so that Jesus Christ has won the victory on the cross and now, like a strong man coming from His corner, He fights for you. That’s Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 – “O death, where is your sting?” He’s like, “Come on, put ’em up, put ’em up. Come out. What do you got, death? You got hook, a jab? There’s no power in you.”
There’s sadness, for sure, some of you have known that, even in these past months. But for the Christian we do not mourn as those who have no hope because the Lord Jesus Christ’s death could not vanquish Him, could not hold Him because the wages of sin is death and He paid for all of those wages. So now the One who conquered death itself fights for you.
Yes, our politicians matter. Pray for those in authority over us. But, brothers and sisters, there’s only one real hero, there’s only one strong man worth following ultimately, there’s only one champion that you can ultimately count on and it is the Lord Jesus Christ, and know as you go into this day and into the weeks and months ahead, that He fights for you. The prince of darkness grim, we tremble now for him, his rage we can endure for lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fell him.
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we give thanks for Your holy and inspired and inerrant Word. Give us comfort, give us confidence, in the midst of much that may trouble us. We look to Jesus, the Lord of armies, and we follow Him. In His name we pray. Amen.