The God Who Saves

We are wild. Standing at the edge of a great sea. Sometimes it takes all you gain. You are whole here in the dark. We learn to find, but we follow. But we are raised up to face the start. Endless light. We are wild like a river. Wild like the fire in your veins makes you shiver. And I chase the winter out of my mind like the dark in the distance. Wild. We are wild. Can't hold me back, can't pin me down. Can't stop the truth from ringing out. Light up the darkness, say it loud. Oh, I am stronger, I am one. One. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. Like the fire in your veins makes you shiver, and I chase the winter out of my mind like the dark in the distance.

We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. We are one. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus. Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus. Okay. Good morning. Good morning, Brandon. All right. We're going to get started this morning. We're going to be reading out of Psalm 89. I just wanted to read the first few verses before we read. We're going to be reading verses 5 through 9 together. And the first few verses say, "I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever with my mouth. I will make of the Lord forever. With my mouth, I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, steadfast love will be built up forever in the heavens. You will establish your faithfulness." And so when we think about us and forever and all these things, we have our own human

concept of that, which means usually for me when I think of forever, it means until I die. So, which is, is forever according to my life, but it still has an end. But what a wonderful hope and a promise that when we, that we can stay and sing with hope and confidence that his love is unwavering and his faithfulness is forever and his mightiness is incomparable, which is what we'll read together here in a little bit. And so if we want to go ahead and stand, what we're going to do today is read verses five through nine, and then we're going to jump all the way to the end. We're not going to read all 52 verses, unless you guys want to. And just read the end of verse 52, which closes it. Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and amen. So let's go ahead and get started. The word should be on the screen. And it begins. Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the

assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord? A God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him. O Lord, God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you. You rule the the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them. Blessed be the Lord forever. Amen and amen. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much that we're able to gather here today and that we're able to find your promises everywhere in the Bible and that we're able to read together today about your steadfast love, your unwavering love, your faithfulness, and

your mightiness that we're so grateful for and thankful for and that all of that is is something that we can can have through you. We ask that you be with our service today and allow it to glorify you in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so we're going to get started today by singing whom shall I fear?

You hear me when I call. You are my morning song. Though darkness fills the night, it cannot hide the light. Whom shall I fear? You crush the enemy underneath my face. You are my sword and shield. Though troubles linger still. Whom shall I fear? I know who goes behold me. I know who stands behind. The God of angels on me. The God of angels on me is always by my side. The one who reigns forever. He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side.

My strength is in your name. For you alone can say, "You will deliver me." Yours is the victory. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever. He is always by my side. The God of angel armies is always by my side. Nothing formed against me shall stand. You hold the whole world in your hands. I'm holding on to your promises. You are faithful. You are faithful. Nothing formed against me shall stand. You hold the whole world in your hands. I'm holding on to your promises. You are faithful. You are faithful. You are faithful. I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side.

The one who reigns forever, he is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side. I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever, he is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The God of angel armies is always by my side. All right. So we're going to be moving into our prayer and share time. If you're watching online, there is a, I think, a new phone number for you to text. If you have anything you'd like to share with us or pray about, please text that number and we will share that here. And then we're going to be muted here for privacy reasons while we're doing that together. And then we're going to move into our time of communion. And so we're going to be singing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

What a Friend We Have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. What a Privilege to carry. Everything to God in prayer. Oh, what peace we often forfeit. Oh, what needless pain we bear. Oh, because we do not carry. Everything to God in prayer. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful? Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy laden? Covered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise? Forsake me. Take it to the Lord in prayer. In His arms He'll take and shield me. Thou will find a solace there. All right, you may be seated. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Thanks, Russell. As we continue on, we're going to be moving into our time of communion. And in the book of John, it says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was the Word. His life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son, from the Father, full of grace and truth." And so with that, we're going to be singing, "What a beautiful name." It's not working. Huh? It's not working. Let me stop it. John never talks about technical difficulties.

You were the world at the beginning, one with God, the Lord most high. You're in glory in creation, now revealed in you, our Christ. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus Christ, my King. What a beautiful name it is. Nothing compares to this. What a beautiful name it is. In the name of Jesus. You didn't want heaven without us. So Jesus, you brought heaven down. My sin was great, your love was greater. Separate us now. What a wonderful name it is. What a wonderful name it is. The name of Jesus Christ my King. What a wonderful name it is. Nothing compares to this. What a wonderful name it is. The name of Jesus. Death could not hold you. The veil was torn before you. It's the most of sin and grave. The heavens are rolling. The praise of the glory. For you are raised to life.

For you will never forget. You have no rival. You have no equal. Now and forever God you reign. Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the glory. Yours is the name above all names. What a powerful name it is. What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus Christ my King. What a powerful name it is. Nothing can stand against. What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is. The name of Jesus. When Jesus gathers with His disciples on the night He celebrates Passover, we're familiar with the texts of Scripture that tell us that He took the bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, gave it to His disciples, and did the same with the cup following dinner.

It's not something that just sort of happens out of the blue for God's people. In fact, I want to go back to one of the first places where we find something similar mentioned. In Genesis, the 14th chapter, there's this remarkable story. Abraham has a nephew named Lot. There is a battle. It ends up being four kings versus five kings, and so you have this very large battle. Lot and his family get taken captive. Abraham raises up his own mighty men. Abraham at that time was rich enough and powerful enough to have a pretty hefty guard. They go and they rescue all of the captives that were taken, and as they bring those captives back, they come to a city named Salem, and here's what happens. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest of God Most High, and he blessed him, that's Abraham, and said,

"Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. Now, bread and wine in most ancient meals, and as well in a lot of our modern meals, there's a pretty familiar sight. But these sort of simple things become a central feature, not just here, but as Israel separates the Passover, as they leave Egypt, and we'll see it again as Jesus institutes it in the Lord's Supper, representing the sacrifice that he will make on our behalf. Secondly, this mystery man that we meet, and the reality is Melchizedek really is a mystery man. We just have these couple verses in Genesis that give us a little bit of his story, and the rest of the

verses in Scripture are all sort of expounding from these two verses in Genesis, the 14th chapter. But Melchizedek stands in sort of a unique position as he's both a king and a priest. In fact, in Scripture, the only other king and priest we find is Jesus. Third, what we find about this meal is we see God's deliverance that blesses Abraham. He points out as they celebrate together that God was the one who delivered Abraham and his people from the captives. God did things, something very similar in the Passover, right? Delivering his people on a bigger scale, and then during that Passover meal Jesus eats with his disciples, we see a picture of what Jesus would do on the cross as he delivers us from sin and death. But in addition to sort of all of these sort of wonderful pictures, this picture of nourishment, and

this picture of a priest and a king, and the picture of God's deliverance, what happens after these verses is also remarkable. Because Abraham doesn't just have Lot and his family, he has all the people of these towns, and he has all of the wealth that has been plundered. And the king of Sodom will come to Abraham and says, "If you just give me the people, you can keep all of the wealth." And Abraham does something very surprising. He says, "I don't want the people, you can have them back, and I don't want your wealth either." And Abraham has a very specific reason. He says, "Because as God blesses me and God cares for me, I don't want people to look at me and say this all happened because of the king of Sodom and his generosity in giving me the wealth of his city." What Abraham is saying is that I

trust in the provision of God. So Abraham refuses this offer because he trusts the king of heaven and earth to provide for him. And as we come and as we partake of the bread and the cup, we remember God's deliverance. We also remember his provision for us. In the midst of the uncertainty and difficulty of life, we have one who has provided the very depth of our need, the one who has provided for our souls. Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we consider your provision, your goodness, your rescue, the fact that you are over all things, and that your Son, Jesus, came, stood in our place, and died for our sins, so that we could live in righteousness and in fellowship with you. Strengthen our hearts. Encourage us. Help us to see that you are our protector.

Help us to see the goodness of what you have done for us. I ask that you bless this bread and this cup. Help us in our hearts as we are so often discontent and so often worried and so often fearful that you would center us on your goodness and your grace during this time. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Jesus, eating with his disciples, that meal of deliverance, the Passover, will say as they take the bread that is after the dinner, he will say, "Take, eat. This is my body." Let's eat together. And then he will take the third cup of Passover, the cup that symbolizes God's redemption of his people, that promise that he has made to them, that he will redeem his people with an outstretched arm. And he takes that cup and gives it

a deeper, more wonderful meaning. And he will say, "Drink of this all of you, for it is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Let's partake together. Paul will remind us that as often as we eat this bread and we drink this cup, we are proclaiming Jesus until he comes again. So I really love Brandon mentioned Genesis 14. It's one of my favorite passages in the book of Genesis because Abraham, who's kind of a country guy, takes his buddies and handles some of the biggest powers in the world, and comes back, goes to church, and then the shiesty city guy comes up, and Abraham says, "No, I won't take that deal," and walks away. But one of the things that applies to what we're going to

read this morning, and what Brandon's going to preach on, is there's some hard words, and you saw one in Genesis 14, which was Salem, or Salaam, which is peace, and later on in the Bible, in Samuel, it becomes Jerusalem, or Yerusalem, which would be Yahweh's peace. And so, some of the words we're going to encounter this morning, Brandon and I are going to have trouble saying, because they're Hebrew words. I'm going to read them like someone who grew up reading and speaking English. So, some of the J's, which will be interesting if you were studying them, to look up and see whether it's a ya or a ja, and some of the K's, which are repeated, which I assume meant something in a different language than the one I speak, may be a little tricky for me to say.

But Brandon's going to be preaching in a bit. Joshua 10, we're going to read from 6 to 21, and we will try to surmount these words together. And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua the camp of 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 up upon them, 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 away of the ascent of Beth Horan and struck them as far as Azekah and Machadah. And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent to Beth Horan, the Lord threw down from heaven stones on them as far as Azekah, and they died. because of the hailstones, then the sons of Israel killed with the sword. 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, "Son, 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

Jasar? The sun stopped in the midst of the heaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There had 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. These five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave of Makedah. And it was told to Joshua, "The five kings have been found hidden in the cave at Makedah." And Joshua said, "Roll large stones against the mouth of the cave, and set men by it to guard them. But do not stay there yourselves. Pursue your enemies. Attack their real guard. Do not let them enter their cities. For the Lord your God has given them into your hand."

When Joshua and the sons of Israel had finished striking them with a great blow, until they were wiped out, and when the remnants that remained of them had entered into the fortified cities, then all the people returned, and returned safe to Joshua in the camp at Makedah. Not a man moved his tongue against any of the people of Israel. This is the word of the Lord. Alright, as we move into Joshua, the tenth chapter, one of the things that I'm hoping that you see as we come through the book of Joshua is how all of Scripture, we're not talking about just sort of isolated incidents here, and there, and over here where we've got Genesis here, and then over there we've got Exodus, and somewhere over here we've got the Law of Moses, and we've got the

New Testament here, and it's all just sort of these disjointed pieces. One of the things that the book of Joshua does so wonderfully, and not accidentally, by the design of God, is that it takes all of the things that come before it, and in so many ways ties it together with those things that will come after it. In fact, this morning there's references, we won't be able to look at all of these references, but to like the 110th Psalm speaks of pictures that are happening here, to the book of Hebrews, to the book of Revelation, back to the book of Genesis. I want you to see that Scripture as God's Word is beautifully and wonderfully designed to teach us, to encourage us, but most of all to point us to Jesus and what He has done for us. So, we're going to go ahead

and pray, and we're going to dive right into those first five verses of Joshua chapter 10. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and for grace. We thank you for the hope that we have. We thank you that you have given us your Word, and we're thankful that you have put it together in a way that we can understand, and we can study, and we can be changed and transformed by. So, help us this morning as we look at this chapter. Encourage us in the Gospel. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, I'm going to read these first five verses of Joshua chapter 10. Once again, we have a whole bunch of sort of different Canaanite names, and there is one name in here that's very important. We'll talk about it here in a little bit. Starting in verse 1,

"As soon as Adonai 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 Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, to Piram, king of Jarmuth, to Japheth, king of Lachish, to Debir, king of Eglon, saying, "Come with me. Come up to me and help me. 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, the king of Eglon gathered their forces and went up with all their armies in a campion and made war against it." Now these very first verses mirror back to the beginning of Joshua chapter 9. In fact, this is how Joshua chapter 9 begins. So all the kings beyond the Jordan, in the hill country and in the low land along the coast of the great sea, and then we get the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Ammonites, all of the ites, gather together to prepare to fight against Joshua and the people of God. Now the difference between Joshua chapter 9 and Joshua chapter 10 is their focus, and Joshua chapter 9 is on Joshua. Now their target is going to be the people of Gibeon. Their fear has

united what were sort of once independent city-states into sort of one giant army. Because as they look at Joshua and what has happened, the people have crossed the Jordan River at flood stage. They have come to Jericho, and they didn't have to build siege equipment. They didn't have to have a long siege. In fact, they simply walked around the city a whole bunch, and God knocked down the walls. And after a sort of short delay, as God disciplines His people, they defeat Ai. And so they look at what Joshua has done, and geographically, what Joshua has done under the guidance of God is sort of tactically brilliant. And so you have the northern part of Israel and the southern part of Israel, and what Joshua has done is kind of gone across the middle, cutting

the country in half. And so this morning, we're going to look at what sort of happens in the southern half, and in the chapters that follow, we'll see what Joshua does in the northern half. And so he has effectively divided the Canaanite kings. And so these Canaanite kings in the south, instead of deciding to directly confront Joshua, they said, "We need to do something about this alliance with Gibeon." And they are motivated by fear of what might happen to them. And maybe they're attacking Gibeon, because they're hoping to sort of drive a wedge between Joshua and Gibeon. Maybe they're trying to simply just take one bite at a time. Maybe they're hoping that Gibeon, seeing their forces arrayed against them, will switch back, right? They've got a good army. All of their men are warriors, and they are mighty

warriors. So Gibeon calls for aid, and they call Joshua. And what you find, they say this, the men of Gibeon, sent to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal, saying, "Do not relax your hand from your servants. Come to us quickly, and save us, and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the Gale country are gathered against us." And so if you remember the history of Joshua Gibeonites, it's very recent history. In Joshua chapter 9, they pretend to be from far away knowing that God has said you must destroy the people who are nearby, but the people who are far away you can make an agreement with. So pretending to be from far away, they deceive Joshua and all of the people of Israel. They make a covenant with them, and then Joshua says that they're going

to be servants, and they end up being servants in the tabernacle and around the house of God, and so at this point they have gone home. And now, these people who have deceived Israel, who have tricked Israel, are now in trouble. Joshua, at this point, likely could have simply ignored them, right? We've kept our covenant with you by not killing you. In fact, in Joshua chapter 9, I think in two different places, it talks about how the covenant with the Gibeonites was simply to not kill them, right? There's nothing that we see in Joshua chapter 9 that would prevent somebody else from killing them, right? Wouldn't this be a great solution for Joshua? You have the people who have sort of betrayed you and tricked you into making a covenant with you. This has caused

problems and divisions within the people of God. God's people, seeing this covenant made, they began to grumble in Joshua chapter 9. It's not a bad grumbling like you see in the wilderness, but it's a grumbling because Joshua and the leaders did not consult God, and now they are in a covenant with these people who are nearby to them. This would have solved a huge amount of problems if Joshua, not killing them himself, but would have let somebody else take care of the problem. It would have been so easy for Joshua to do. But Joshua doesn't do that. He responds with integrity, with covenant faithfulness. And what's remarkable is he could have responded by the letter of the agreement, saying, "Well, I said I wasn't going to kill you. I never said anything about not letting these other kings

kill you." He could have followed the letter of the law, but instead he chose to follow the spirit of the law. He says, "In this covenant I'm not just responsible to not hurt you myself, but I'm responsible to keep you from harm as well." And you and I understand this, right? There's a difference between following the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I remember one of my siblings, it wasn't me, and to give you a clue, it wasn't my brother, this particular sibling gets in trouble at school. The only time this particular sibling has ever gotten in trouble for something, and she got written a demerit for throwing a piece of paper in class. And she, this might give it away, but she goes to the school administration to appeal this

by saying, "I wasn't throwing a piece of paper, I was throwing a piece of plastic. This is incorrect. You can't issue this to me at all." So there's the letter of the law versus the spirit. The question was, were you throwing something? Well, yes, obviously, but it wasn't what you said, right? We're familiar with this sort of nitpicking legalism where we say, "Well, according to what is written down, I didn't do anything wrong," while our spirit is doing everything in opposition to the law, specifically the law of God. Right? This directs us not just to a physical struggle, like Joshua following the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, but it directs us to a spiritual struggle because you and I, when it comes to our relationship with God, we tend to really like

to do the same thing. In fact, you see, Jesus will say to the people that surround Him, He will say, "These people honor Me with their words, but their hearts are far from Me." And if you read the context of what He has said, right, they have been using the law of God as sort of a legal loophole to get away with not supporting their parents as the law God has commanded them to do, right? So outwardly, it looked like they were doing really well, following all the rules, following all the directions, but inwardly in their heart, right, they're seeking themselves and their own selfishness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will really get to the heart of the matter in several different ways. One, He speaks about anger. And He will talk about

the difference between sort of the outward expression of anger and the inward heart of anger. And He'll say, both murder and anger start in the same place, and it starts in the heart. And you do not just repent of your physical outward anger, but that anger that is overcoming your heart. He says the same thing about lust and adultery. It's not just committing adultery, the physical act, but it's where your heart is focused and what your heart is looking at. And Jesus will unpack for us that it's not just simply adherence to an external set of conditions, but it's where our heart is ultimately focused. Remember when Jesus was asked what the most important commandment in all of God's Word was? And He says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul

and all your mind." The second, this is the great first commandment, and the second is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And He says this, "On these two commandments depend all of the law and the prophets." Jesus says if you are loving God, right, you're not going to think about the Ten Commandments, you're not going to worship other gods, you're not going to have other gods above it, you're going to not curse God, right? You're going to set aside time to rest in God's goodness. And if you love others, right, you're not going to lie to them, you're not going to murder them, you're not going to commit adultery, you're not going to steal their stuff. All of these things in the Ten Commandments, those outward expressions of obedience are ultimately found in our heart, loving

God and loving our neighbor. And so what you find Jesus doing for us is explaining to us what Joshua here already knows, right? There's a difference between sort of the outward rules and the inward design of those rules, and Joshua sees that it's not just about outward obedience, but it's where his heart is focused, and he upholds not just the outward part of this covenant, but the heart of this covenant. And he stands as a faithful example of how you and I relate to God. Not just a physical outward adherence to the rules, but where is the heart of our lives fixed? He calls us to faithfulness. And I'll tell you what, this faithfulness for Joshua is not easy. As this call for help comes in. Brent read it. The men of Israel gather together

and they begin to walk and they go all night. We know where these locations are. It's about 20 miles with 3,300 feet of elevation gain over this. So if you ever hear somebody talk, "Well, I walked uphill to school both ways." Well, the Israelites say, "Well, we had to hike uphill to Gibeon in the middle of the night, facing an unknown battle." And they're going to arrive after this 20 hours in darkness, or 20 miles in darkness, 3,300 feet of elevation gain, to honor the heart of this covenant. You and I are called to faithfulness in God, not just in sort of an external way, but in a way that permeates every part of our being. This picture of what's happening here doesn't just help us with the struggle of our heart versus the inward

and the outward, but it also helps us in this text to see how we relate to the power of God working in our world with our responsibility. Because it's very easy for us, I think, to become complacent. And when we see the power of God, it's easy for us to sit back and sort of simply say, "You know what? God's going to do His thing. I'm going to watch." I remember when I was much, much younger, there was a little overpass where the train went over the road near where my dad had his store. And so one year, after a lot of accidents and a lot of talking and all of this planning, they began to replace it with a bigger road. So every day at lunch during the summer, we'd go out there and we'd

stand and watch the construction. You've got bulldozers and backhoes and excavators and big sight trucks. And as a kid, it's awesome. Are you just standing and watching the construction equipment work? And I'm doing absolutely nothing just sort of watching this happen. And for us as Christians, I think so many times, it's easy for us to become complacent about what God has called us to do, and instead of seeking to join God on mission, we simply sit back. And one of the things we find about this text in Joshua is it sort of shows us how to put together God's overwhelming power with what He has called us to do in this world. You see, first of all, Joshua 10 makes it so very clear that God is in control, right? Verse 8, God says, "Don't fear them," right?

"Not a man of them shall stand before you. I'm going to give them into your hands." And in verse 10, which I like a lot, it said, "The Lord threw them into a great panic before Israel, who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon, and struck them as far as Azka and Makeda." Now, just sort of a quick note, grammatically, when you hear the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon, sort of interpreters and commentators aren't sure who that who refers to. Right? Is it saying God threw them into a panic, and then Israel struck a great blow. They're the who. They struck a great blow at Gibeon. Or is this text saying the Lord struck them into a panic before Israel, and He struck them a great

blow at Gibeon. In fact, you'll see this reflected in some of your Bibles. There'll be a little footnote there with sort of an alternate translation. And so this passage could very well be saying God throws them into a panic, and then God goes on and fights the battle, chasing them through the country, striking them down. Later on, in verse 11, they will flee before Israel, and God will throw down hailstones upon them. In Joshua 10:25, Joshua will say to the men in battle, "Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the Lord will do this to all your enemies against who you fight." Right? It's very clear God is in control, and we haven't even got to the fact that the sun and the moon sort of put life on pause for a minute, so there's more time

for a battle. It is so clear in this text that God is the one who fights for his people. And additionally, at the very end of the chapter, there's sort of this photo album of Joshua's victories. And after the story of Gibeon is done, what you're going to find is they went and they fought this city, and they fought this city, and they fought this city. And what God is doing, we're not just seeing God's power, but we're seeing God's wisdom in how he deals with his people. Right? God is very powerful. He could took out all the Canaanites all at once. But he doesn't do that. He calls Israel to fight these battles with his strength gradually throughout the land. In part because we don't do very well when all of a sudden great riches are just sort of dumped upon

us. So right, the Powerball, you've probably seen the news articles, right? It's going to be almost two billion dollars on Monday night. And what happens historically to people who win large amounts of money is very frequently, in fact more than a majority of the time. Right? Bad things happen because they're not prepared for how their life will change. God in his wisdom could have just said, "Hey, everybody in Canaan is gone. It's all yours." But that's not what he does with his people, right? He brings them into his mission and little by little through this, we don't know whether this takes months or weeks, this conquest of the south, but God involves his people in wisdom helping them come into this land on their own not just simply dumping it into their lap and saying, "Alright, here you go." He's teaching them

how to steward what he has given them. And so you have God's power and God's wisdom and then we have Joshua who joins God in what he is doing, right? He's not running ahead of God. He's not lagging behind. He's going where God directs him. And it's so easy for us to jump out ahead of God or lag behind God, but that's not what Joshua does. He is with God, and he uses the opportunities that God provides. As Joshua marches all night, God will say this, "Do not fear them. I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you." So Joshua came upon them suddenly, having marched all night from Gilgal, and then we'll hear this fight in verses 16 through 22. Now it's true, sometimes God calls us to wait

and to trust in Him and to wait for the opportunity He gives us, but so many times what happens for us is God opens the door of opportunity before us, and because we're complacent, or we're not looking to work with God, we simply stand still. And one of the things about Joshua is that as God in His power brings this battle to the enemies of Gibeon and the enemies of Israel, Joshua seeks the opportunities to join God on mission. Secondly, Joshua acts with wisdom with the opportunities God has given him. At one point the five kings are all hiding in a cave. Now it would have been tempting to stop and deal with these kings and just sort of ignore the rest of the battle, but Joshua in his wisdom says, "Don't get distracted." So they block up the cave,

they put a guard, and they go and finish the battle, and then come back and deal with them. And it seems like a small detail, but Joshua seeks to have wisdom in how he follows what God has laid out for him to do. He doesn't just dive into the opportunity, but he does so with wisdom. And then in the midst of this, Joshua prays. And 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 Alon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry

to set for a whole day. There has been no day like it since before or since when the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and fought for Israel in the midst of this battle when everything seems to be going right. Right? So, so many times when things are going really well for us, it's easy for us to say, "I've got this handled." And we simply proceed under our own strength. Notice Joshua doesn't do that. He joins God in his mission. He seeks to do so wisely. And in the middle of this battle, he stops and he prays to God. And he doesn't pray half-hearted, "Hey, just take care of me with this situation." He prays a very specific and a very remarkable request. Stop the sun and the moon! Right? How many of us would ever even think

to pray that, right? What was our thought? Well, that would be impossible. I can't pray that. Joshua doesn't just stop and pray, but he prays specifically. And he prays in a way that is remarkable. Now, we don't know how God does what he does here. We know that God has done similar things before. Remember the ten plagues? There's darkness over the land of Egypt, but not in Goshen where Israelites were. In the time of Hezekiah, God will actually cause the sun to move backwards as a sign to Hezekiah. When Jesus dies on the cross, remember there's darkness over Jerusalem. God commands the sun and the moon and the stars. The technical aspect, people have sort of thought about this. Maybe He stopped the orbit of the earth. Maybe He changed the tilt of the earth.

I don't know how God did it. That's not the point of this. The point is that God is sovereign, not just over the people on the battlefield, but the sun that shines down upon it. That God is sovereign over all His creation. And the writer of Joshua mentions this book of Jashar. It's sort of a record, an extra-biblical record of some memorable moments in Israel. And if you want to read more about it, check out this other book. But there's this strange thing about this prayer. Notice the end of what the writer of Joshua says. "There has been no day like it before or since." And we say, "Oh, of course not. The sun stops. The moon stops." But that's not what He's talking about. Look what He says. "There has been no day like it since before

when the Lord heeded the voice of a man. For the Lord fought for Israel." What's remarkable the author of Joshua is not so much the sun stood still or the moon didn't rise. Everything stayed where it was. What's remarkable to him is that God heard Joshua's prayer. And one of the things that we have to remember is in the Old Testament and in this time period, there's a separation between God and the people. We see it reflected in the tabernacle and in the temple where there is a holy of holies where only the high priest can go but him only once a year. There is this separation. And there is this remarkable moment. And what's remarkable to the writer of Joshua is that God heard the prayer of Joshua. In fact, the writer says it's so

remarkable it hasn't been seen before and it hasn't been seen since. Now that sense is not to us but to the writer of Joshua's lifetime. And what's remarkable about this prayer is that privilege that is so remarkable. Being able to go directly to the God of the universe and speak to them without having to go through a priest or someone else. For Joshua, that's remarkable. For us this is our wonderful reality. Hebrews will tell us that we can draw near to the throne of grace. We can come through the curtain that has been opened by our Savior's blood. This remarkable prayer of Joshua for us as Christians is a reality that we can go to God and He hears us and He answers us. Philippians chapter 2 says this, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed,

so now, not only in my presence, but also in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work according to His good pleasure." You see, we struggle with this idea of how does our work fit with God's work. And I've heard verse 13 of Philippians chapter 2 so many times, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." This idea that we are afraid and we've got to work hard because we're going to get in trouble, but that's not what the text says. It says, "Because God is at work in you." He works in you both to will and to work for His pleasure. And what Philippians chapter 2 says is, "What God is at work doing in us, we work out through our actions."

This is what you see Joshua doing. Here is God at work to encourage, to strengthen, to fight this battle. And then Joshua, seeing these opportunities that God has given him, with wisdom and prayer, follows God. The call for us as a church, when we read Philippians 2 about working out what God has worked in in, is this picture in Joshua. As God works, we seek to join him on a mission, to do so wisely, while praying for his guidance, his strength, and his power. At that time, we see God speaks, Joshua speaks to the Lord. I want you to see this is not just a matter of some cosmological thing with the sun and the moon and the earth's rotation or the earth's orbit, all of these things. But this is a spiritual battle. This is what God

is doing in this moment. One of the false gods of the Canaanites was the sun and the moon, and they prayed to and worship these celestial bodies. Notice Joshua doesn't pray to the sun and the moon. He prays to God and then he commands the sun and the moon as God answers his prayer. What we're seeing here is that they worship these things, but God commands them. God's not just defeating these armies militarily, but this is a judgment on their false worship of creation. And in Habakkuk chapter 3 we find this same picture used as a picture of the judgment of God. The mountain saw you and ride. Raging waters swept on. The deep gave forth its voice and lifted his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place as the light of your

arrows as they sped at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury. You threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people. For the salvation of your anointed. And what you see is this picture of the sun and moon is not simply a picture of answered prayer or the fact that Joshua has this privilege to speak to God in prayer, but it's a picture of God's judgment upon the false worship of the nations of Canaan. And as we look at the judgment of God, we see three things. First of all, judgment is fair. One of the things that we see, especially in the first verses of this chapter, is there's no more righteousness in Canaan. There is a king in the city of Jerusalem, Adonai Zedek.

The name means literally Lord of Righteousness. And what's interesting is today we've met a king of Jerusalem that comes even before Adonai Zedek. His name is Melchizedek, and he's the king of Salem, which is also the king of Jerusalem, their same city. Melchizedek means King of Righteousness, or the king is my righteousness. But what you find is this king now, this Lord of righteousness that lives in Jerusalem, has the title, but he doesn't have the life to match it. And what we see is that there's no more righteousness, there's no more goodness left in the land, as God will say to Abraham in chapter 15. "And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Ammonites is not yet complete. God's judgment is both patient, certain, and fair, and ultimately it is complete."

To the end of the chapter. So Joshua struck the whole land. The hill country, the Negev, the lowland, 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. And Joshua struck them from Kadesh Barnea, as far as Gaza, to the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon. And Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. That Joshua returned, and all Israel with him to camp at Gilgal. God's judgment on these people is complete. And the one thing that I would have you see is that God's judgment on Canaan points us to another judgment. Remember, as Brent read, these five kings, as Israel comes, they hide. They find them hiding there. They cover the cave

in rocks. Joshua will eventually come back. These kings will be executed and placed back in the rock where they were hiding. And in Revelation, the sixth chapter, we find this about the judgment of God. The kings of the earth, and the great ones, and the generals, and the rich and the powerful, everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, from the wrath of the Lamb, for the day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" The picture in Revelation is of mankind doing the same exact thing as these five kings of the Amorites. And the question here, I don't think is one that we can ignore.

It's not, "Is God on my side?" but as the angel of the Lord speaks to Joshua, the commander of the Lord's armies, he says to "I'm not on their side, I'm not on your side." You need to be on my side. And the question for us this morning, as we see the fair, and the just, and the patient, and complete judgment of God, is where do we stand in relation to God? Will we worship the Creator, or will we worship the created things? You see, we find ourselves with a choice. And you may ask, "How can I stand before the One who is on the throne, the One who controls the stars, and the heavens, and the sun, and the moon? How can I stand before the One whose judgment is fair and righteous?" We can stand before Him,

because there was another Joshua. In the Aramaic and in the English, Jesus, who died, was put into a cave that was also guarded, and on the third day He comes out of that cave, the stone rolled away, the guards flee in terror, and has conquered sin, and death, and Satan, and hell. That unrighteousness that causes us to run, and to hide, and to make excuses. Our King Jesus stood and faced the judgment of God's wrath, that fair, just, complete wrath, so that you and I don't face that, but we face the one who loves us, leads us, guides us, who saves us, and who welcomes us into a family. Let's pray. Father, fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, who went to the cross and is now seated at your right hand.

He is our hope. He is our strength. So this morning I ask that you would help us as we see your goodness and your strength, that as you give your church opportunities, we would seek to follow you and to join you on mission with prayer and with wisdom, but you would also make us aware that this is a serious thing who we worship, and that we would worship you and not the creation that you have made. Thank you for Jesus who stands in our place, who is buried and who rises again to save us. It's in his name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand as we've talked this morning about the greatness of God. We're going to stand this morning and sing about it.

The splendor of the King The hope and majesty Let all the earth rejoice All the earth rejoice He wraps himself in light The darkness tries to hide And trembles at his voice And trembles at his voice How great is our God Sing with thee How great is our God Oh, see how great How great Is our God And page to page he stands And time is in his hands Beginning and the end Beginning and the end The God had dreamed and won The Father, Spirit, Son The Lion and the Lamb The Lion and the Lamb How great Is our God Sing with me How great Is our God Oh, see how great How great Is our God How great Is our God Sing with me How great Is our God Oh, see how great How great

Is our God Name above all names Worthy of all praise My heart will sing How great Is our God Name above all names Worthy of all praise My heart will sing How great Is our God How great Is our God Sing with me How great Is our God Oh, we'll see How great How great How great Is our God I want to thank you all for joining us this morning. We're thankful for those of you who are here in person and those of you who are here online. A couple of announcements. Before we pray, read some Scripture and sing our last song. On Wednesday nights, we are, for the next couple of weeks, diving into sort of a theology of thankfulness. We took a look at sort of the importance and the underpinnings of that this week. This coming week, this Wednesday, we're going to sort of move through a theology of thanksgiving and see how God has called his people to be thankful.

So that's here, Wednesday, at 7 p.m. Secondly, my sister, who I may or may not have mentioned earlier, their church in Augusta, West Virginia, Hope Christian Church, is getting ready to send a group to my sister and brother-in-law's former hometown of Wachula, Florida, to help with some hurricane recovery and damage. So she, one of her friends, runs a sort of a rescue kind of disaster relief agency called Send Me Missions, and they're going down there to work with them. When they called to see what they needed, they said, "You know, we've got a lot of stuff. We've got a lot of resources. What we need are a whole lot of bodies." Because those of us who have been working in this recovery have been doing so for 30 days without a break. So if you can just send some people to come and to, you know,

help us with emergency supplies, help people with houses. It seems like she said every day they're finding another family that is like sleeping on their porch because their house is flooded and they haven't had a chance or the ability to go in and clean it up. So they're taking, I think, 12 or 15 people down in two weeks. They've got the people that are going with them. What they're seeking to do is they're trying to offset the travel expenses for that. And additionally, if they're able to, they've been looking for maybe at least one kind of good condition but really inexpensive camper to be able to donate to this disaster relief organization. So some of those people in town who are going to be in the rebuilding process for a while will have the ability to have a place to stay.

So if you're interested in helping with that, I can give you a direct link to their church online donations, or if you would like to, you can sort of earmark a donation here for that, and we will just pass that on to their church. You can do that either online or here in person. If you do it online, there's a little drop-down category that says something like "Florida helping trip" kind of thing. And so they're going down here in a couple weeks, so we actually keep that in prayer as well. So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to read a verse of Scripture, but I'm going to talk a little bit about it before we do. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness. We just ask that you be with us through this week as we seek to live according to your will.

Help us to see your strength and your power. Seek to live on mission. Help us to be people of wisdom and prayer, to share the good news of the gospel to those who are hurting and struggling. And we just ask that you be with us in our country this week as we move through this election, that you would give us wisdom and grace. We thank you for Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen. And so if you haven't heard, we do have an election coming up on Tuesday. And the Bible has a lot to say about how we address these kind of things. God will tell his people in captivity that they are not to isolate themselves, but to seek the good of the city. One of the ways we can do that, there's a lot of ways we can seek the good of our city.

One of those ways is through engaging in these processes that allow us to have a say in who leads us. God also calls his people to pray for those who lead. And not those who we agree with, but Paul in 1 Timothy 2 will say, "For kings and all who are in authority." Not just the guy that I like, or the person that I agree with, or the cause that I'm passionate about, but we are, as Christians, called to pray. And I think the way our country is divided, so closely divided, almost half and half, at the end of Tuesday or Wednesday or next April when everything is finalized, depending on how things happen, half the country is probably going to be happy, half the country is probably going to be very, very upset, or maybe most likely just everybody is going to be mad.

And so I want to share with you a couple of verses from the 20th Psalm. It says this, "I know that the Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy heaven with saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright." And what the psalmist is saying is that so many times we put ourselves and our hope in these physical pictures of power, whether that's politics, whether that's wealth, and he says there is a place for our hope, and that ultimately is in God. And so as we move through this sort of very political time, we are called to be reminded that our hope ultimately is in heaven, and it's in the God that we serve. We're going to go ahead and sing the doxology, and then we will be dismissed.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.