Good morning. You can open your Bible to Joshua
chapter 10. Joshua chapter 10. Gracious Father, bless this gathering
this morning. Open our eyes that we might see
the things of Christ which are contained in this portion of
scripture. And in Christ's name we pray
it. Amen. Now last week we began an overview
of chapters 10 through 12 in Joshua, pointing out that these
chapters over all, they're just representing the complete victory
of the Lord Jesus Christ over all of his enemies. That's what
those chapters are about. And going verse by verse and
detailing it, is not necessary, you can read
it and you get the overall sense of what it's about. But we mentioned
last week that the complete victory of Christ will be made known
or made obvious when he has restored everything. Now when we say restored
everything, We mean this creation which was ruined by man's sin. It wasn't just man that was ruined.
Paul indicates the whole creation was made subject to corruption
because of man's sin. And then it says that the creation
awaits eagerly the adoption of the sons of God. which is a reference
to the resurrection. In one sense, we're already adopted.
We've been assigned a place as God's sons, and here the scriptures
are specific. It doesn't say children, and
it doesn't say sons as though there's something about being
a daughter of God, that is, being a female Christian that would
leave you out of some of the blessedness. Paul, as all the
scriptures do, they speak not only in the language of the day,
but according to the conventions of the day. And in nearly all
of the biblical time period, the inheritance went to sons. And the reason it didn't go to
daughters, it was assumed that daughters would be married to
men, and those men would be getting their share of their father's
household. So daughters did not need an
inheritance. Therefore, when Paul talks about
us and references us as sons of God, he's doing it. He says,
you are sons, therefore you are heirs, heirs of God and joint
heirs with Christ Jesus. So that's the point of sonship
there. Everything is done when all that God purposed in salvation is
complete. Creation will be utterly and
completely restored. All of His chosen ones will be
with Him. They will be like Him. completely
restored to a pre-sin condition, but with one added aspect of
it, that when everything has been restored because of the
work of Christ, the restored creation and the restored people
cannot fall from that position. And the reason is simple. Adam
came theologians like to call it a federal head. That is, he
came as representative of the entire race and he failed. And therefore the entire race
and the whole creation over which God had put him, all of it failed
in him. Christ, who is called the last
Adam, he is the representative of All God's elect and the creation
which he made, he represents it all as the last Adam and he
succeeded. Now notice I put that in the
past tense, he succeeded, he's already succeeded. Consequently,
nothing that comes to pass because of his success can ever be undone. As the second Adam, he's already,
as it were, passed the test. As the representative of a new
race of humans, so to speak, he has resisted all temptation, and
he has suffered in their place, so their penalty is paid. Righteousness
has been established. There's nothing that can overthrow
that. Now, you and I live in a tiny
slice of time in the process of God restoring all things through
Christ. Not everything is restored yet,
and that's why it may appear to us sometimes as though Christ
is not victorious. But he is. And we are engaged
in the warfare. Now, he has already delivered
the mortal wound to the chief enemy, Satan, and his kingdom
is crumbling. And the kingdom of God is advancing.
Whether or not it looks like that's what's going on, that's
what's happening. If you look at the news, if you
watch the news and you think that what the news is showing
you is all that's going on, you're, as Paul said, you're walking
by sight, not by faith. By faith, we understand that
all those who are in rebellion against God, God will either
break them now and bring them or reconcile them to Himself
and turn enemies into friends, or if they die as an enemy of
God, then God will deal with them according to justice, and
he will punish them with everlasting
destruction, says the Scriptures. So everything's going according
to plan, and when all is said and done, Christ will be obviously victorious
in all things. Now, as we conduct, maybe that's
not the right word, as we play out our part in this warfare,
there are two points illustrated here in these battles of Joshua
and the Israelites, which we must keep in mind. The first
one is this. In every age and in every place,
the battle is the same. I remember, you know, this would
have been 20, well, almost 24 years ago now, as we were approaching
the year 2000, and religious leaders that like to
you know, have their face out there and religious businesses
that like to make money off of selling religious stuff. They
were saying things like, you know, well, what is the message
of the church in the new millennium? So suddenly, at the tick of a
clock, the church's warfare changes. I hear people talking about,
well, we need a gospel for our day and age. Yes, we need a gospel
for our day and age, and it is exactly the same gospel that
was for the previous age and the one before that all the way
back to the moment that Adam sinned. The gospel has never
changed. The battle has never been any
different. I realize that the enemy comes
up with new tactics, new ways of deception. And it can be helpful
if we learn in just what area is he working
in his agents and allies to corrupt the truth. But in reality, Even if we don't
know exactly what kind of tricks he's pulling, whatever kind of error is being
promoted is properly handled by the declaration of the truth.
2 plus 2 equals 4. If somebody
says 2 plus 2 equals 5, how do you answer that? 2 plus 2 equals
4. Okay, what if somebody says,
well, 2 plus 2 is 22? No, 2 plus 2 is 4. It's always the same answer.
Now, you know, Peter, excuse me, Paul, I believe it was, said,
you know, we're not ignorant of the enemy's devices. And Peter
did say, be sober, be vigilant for your adversary, the devil,
goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Now, it's helpful to pay attention.
One of the cleverest deceptions of Satan is to work within religious
groups who will use exactly the same words we use But they mean
different things by those words. But they don't tell people they
mean something different. Every church, any religious group
that claims to be Christian will use the word grace. They have
to. The New Testament is full of
that word. You can't ignore it. But it takes
paying attention. to realize that they don't mean
the same thing by grace that we mean when we say grace, or when the scriptures say grace.
I'll give you an example. The Roman Catholic Church will
agree that salvation's by grace. But if you listen carefully enough,
they act as though grace is some kind of commodity. which you
obtain through the various church obligations. Okay? You're born, they sprinkle you,
you know, with the holy water or whatever, however it is they
do it. Anyway, you pick up a little grace for that. And then you
go through the catechism, you reach a certain age, you know,
and you have your first communion. Get a little grace for that.
Every time you come to Mass, a little more grace for that.
Confession, a little more grace. Good works, a little more grace. If you really want to add up,
you know, you can maybe devote yourself to the church. You can
become a monk or a priest or a nun or something like that.
You know, a little more grace. And actually, I don't know how
much they promote this now. I assume the doctrine is still
there. They talk about the treasury of the saints. Now to them, a
saint is someone who has enough grace that they actually got
to heaven. You know, you become a saint
when you have achieved enough grace to enter heaven. But they
think that some people have been so good that they have obtained
an excess amount of grace, which they call the treasury of the
saints. And by various means, you can tap into that. You say, how can anybody believe
that? Well, we also understand how
can anybody believe what we believe? It's quite natural to believe
what they believe. It takes something supernatural
to be freed from that bondage into an understanding of the
grace of God. So there's just an example. It's
helpful, but it still comes down to this. And if you look at chapter
10, beginning at verse 26, It says, then Joshua struck and
killed the kings and hung them on five trees and they were left
hanging on the trees until evening. At sunset, Joshua gave the order
and they took them down from the trees and threw them into
a cave where they had been hiding. At the mouth of the cave, they
placed large rocks which are there to this day. That day Joshua
took Makeda. He put the city and its king
to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. Now look at this. He did to the
king of Makeda as he had done to the king of Jericho. Remember
Jericho? When he gets to these five kings
and then the king of Makeda as well, what did he do? Same thing
he did back at Jericho. And then we look beginning in
verses 33, verse 33. Actually back, clear back in
verse 31. Talks about him going to, from Libna. to Lachish. He took up positions against
it and attacked it. The Lord handed Lachish over
to Israel and Joshua took it on the second day. The city and
everyone in it he put to the sword just as he had done at
Libna. Meanwhile, Horeb, king of Gezer,
had come up to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and his
army until no survivors were left. Keep on reading, then Joshua
and all Israel with him moved on from Lachish to Eglon. They
took up positions against it and attacked it. They captured
it that same day, put it to the sword, and totally destroyed
everyone in it, just as they had done to Lachish. See what
it keeps saying? Every time, what they did at
one city is exactly what they did to the city before that,
which is exactly what they did to the city before that. Every
time, every place, same pattern. And there's more accounts of
that. But the point to be made here is that it is the same thing. We do not have a different tack
to take here in the 21st century than we had in the 20th. Wherever we are, We declare,
and we're going to see this in a minute, but our warfare is
carried on through preaching, through declaring the truth.
That is the sword that Paul calls the Word of God, the preaching
of the gospel. That's how we do it. And everywhere
we go, that's what we do. And we take no prisoners. We preach it and we say, this
is the truth, nothing else is. Nothing else is. So, we don't
have to change. Just because the enemy changes
its tactics does not mean that we change ours. Secondly, now I said there's
two things to learn. First is, it's the same battle in every
place and time. And then secondly, we never fight the way the world
does. And we are not to use the tactics
and powers of the world to accomplish our warfare. Look at chapter
11, verse 6. Now he's talking about some kings in the north. And
the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid of them because by
this time tomorrow I will hand all of them over to Israel slain. You are to hamstring their horses
and burn their chariots. Now, here is another example of of
probably the most difficult thing for the human mind to get wrapped
around in the gospel of Christ. He said, now you go out and you
fight against them. Now they're going to come against
you with horses and chariots. When you are done, Do not think
for a minute to take their horses and chariots into your next battle. Nothing they have can help you. In fact, why did he, he had them
hamstring the horses, make them useless, burn the chariots. Why? Was there any danger? I mean, can the horses and chariots
by themselves wage a war? No. There was no danger, there was
no essential danger in these horses and chariots so long as
the enemy wasn't in them. But there was a temptation. And he says, so that you will
not take their or assume their manner of warfare. And think
that by your horses and by your chariots, you have won the battle. You hamstring those horses so
that they can't go to war. And you burn the chariots so
you can't pull them with anything else. And it's good that God
told him to do that because is that not in our nature? You know,
not everything that I see out there that I consider, no, that's
not the way to conduct ministry. It's not as though I think all
the people doing that are lost. This is a temptation to honest
believers to pick up the methods of the world and try to use them
against the world. Now, of course, it's easiest
for me to speak from my own background. but being brought up in the religion
I was, theirs was to approach preaching the gospel as though
you were selling something. And, you know, the sermon is
the presentation. But I found out something when
I worked for Orkin as a salesman. Now, I set a record. I really
did. I think I set a record in probably
the entire company of organ pest control of selling the least
amount and still keeping your job. I'm not kidding. I can't sell
anything. Now that when I went to the sales
school, you know, and they taught us how to do the presentation
going through the book. You know, we had this nice little
pamphlet, you know, and we could tell them all the facts about
termite infestation and all that and how there's more loss to
termites than to fire and tornado and all that combined. I could
give a very good presentation. But the sale is not made in the
presentation. The sale is made in the clothes. And I'd give such a good presentation,
I had nothing else to say, once we got to the point of, you know,
we'd always get to the end of it, and we were taught, tell
them the 12-month plan, you know, they'd finance it for 12 months
or 18 months, you know, never give them the cash price. Whatever,
you know. And you never give them a yes
or no. It's always just, which yes do
you want? But you invariably get no. Because it's tough to sell stuff.
It's tough to sell things that people can't see. And that's
where the salesman shines if he's good. He can listen to know
and know how to respond to that and just keep going until finally
they say yes. I could not do that. Well, that's
sales. They tried to preach the gospel
the same way. The sermon was the presentation. The invitation,
as they called it, that's the close. And they just assume,
you know, unless somebody's come forward, they're saying no. So
just keep singing. Just keep working on the emotions.
Just keep bringing up reasons for them to, quote, accept Jesus
as your Savior. Ask Him into your heart or whatever
it was they used as their description of what it is to believe God.
And some of them were really good at the clothes. and they
got people come up, we don't do that. Why? We've been given
the task of the presentation, God does the clothes, not us. And when he does it, it is an
entirely spiritual work on the inside of the man or the woman. We don't manipulate. We don't
find some way to make them emotionally vulnerable so that they'll make
a decision for Jesus. Nope, we tell them the truth
and leave them be. And the truth in the hand of
God is powerful enough to bring everyone God intends to bring. We never fight as this world
does. Look over at Ephesians chapter
6. Beginning in verse 10, Ephesians
6, finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put
on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against
the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the
full armor of God. So that when the day of evil
comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have
done everything, to stand. I like it. Do you notice this?
Stand your ground. Didn't even say advance. We're
not in the advancing business. We're in the stand your ground.
We stand, both feet firmly planted. And we say, this is the gospel
of Jesus Christ. This is the truth. And we stand
there. And our victory, as much victory
as we are able to achieve, will be this. that once we have done
all and our warfare is over, we're still standing on the same
spot. Our Lord, he sent us to take
our stand, that is, as far as our face to the world is concerned,
to take our stand on his truth, Paul said this, I have finished my course. I finished. And then he said,
I have kept the faith. He said, I didn't expand on it.
I didn't alter it for the next generation. I did not adapt it
to the Gentiles. The faith was handed to me. The
truth of God was handed to me. And I delivered it in, let's
say, 30 or 35 years, however long it was after he was converted. But here was his victory. I stood. And once I'd done all, I was
still standing right there. And that's what we're called
to. Okay, and then he goes on, verse 14, stand firm then with
the belt of truth buckled around your waist and the breastplate
of righteousness in place. And he begins describing our
armor, armaments and defensive armaments according to what a
Roman soldier looked like. So I said, you know, belt of
truth buckled around your waist, the breastplate of righteousness,
the righteousness of Christ, which protects us and all of
our, as it were, our vital organs. And with your feet fitted with
the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Now, this
is hand-to-hand combat. You know, when you're in hand-to-hand
combat, of course, you're moving around on your feet. And what's
important is that you have something that will, in particular, hold
your ankles in place, so that you don't twist your ankle and
become weakened. So the gospel itself is the strength
of our feet. In addition to all this, take
up the shield of faith. A defensive thing. This is faith
in Christ, faith in Him for our salvation, faith in Him that
He is indeed working all things together for our good, faith
with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the
evil one. That's how they used to fight. You know, the shields back then,
we always think of them being made out of metal. Most of them
were made out of wood. And so when they'd fire arrows,
they'd set the arrow on fire. that sticks in your shield, you
know, and you're standing there trying to hold it, you don't
have time to put down your sword and pull it out, you know. And
I read that they would actually pour water on their shields before
they'd go to battle to do that very thing, you know, to quench
those firing arrows. And then it says, take the helmet
of salvation. And we need a helmet of salvation,
the truth of salvation, which protects our thoughts, our minds,
our hearts. The salvation and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now there's only one
offensive weapon mentioned here. And it's the Word of God, which
we have seen several times. It doesn't mean just the Bible.
It means the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now the church has no
other weapon. And it doesn't need any other
weapon. Our Lord said, the flesh profits
nothing. The words that I speak to you,
they are spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh. Spirit gives birth to spirit. We can be as charming as we want
to be. We can, you know, do all the
things we think will make us attractive to the world. But
we are not trying to attract them to us. Our desire is to attract them
to Christ. And then you'll just quickly,
2 Corinthians chapter 10, read a few verses here and we'll be
done. In 2 Corinthians 10, beginning
at verse 3, for though we live in the world, we do not wage
war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are
not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they, that is
our weapons, have divine power. The power of God is the way it's
put in the scriptures. The power of God to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and every
pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.
And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Now what's Paul saying here?
Is he saying we go in there yelling and screaming and forcing people
and threatening people? No. That's the world's way of
doing things. We take that message and we declare
it to people. We tell it to people and say,
this is what God says. It's the truth. And God has said,
submit to the truth or perish. Now, some will believe and some will
not. It's not in our power to make
the preaching of the gospel effective or ineffective. We just preach
it. God decides who it is that will receive that word. For that
reason, we don't have to do anything like the world does it. We don't
have to try to elect Christian politicians to make sure the
church is able to do its work. We don't. It can be entirely against, politics
can be entirely against us. And God will still send forth
his preachers, find every one of his sheep, and bring them
home. Well, we'll leave it there. Just
remember those two things. In every age and in every place,
the battle is the same. And at all times, we don't fight
like the world does. We have different weapons. And
the only offensive weapon we have is the truth. All right,
you're dismissed.