Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
All right, well, we're going to go ahead and continue our Bible
study in the Book of Joshua.
So we're In Joshua chapter 11, if you can turn there with me.
And we're going to pick up our.
Our study here.
Joshua, chapter 11.
I think it's important to note the.
The meaning of the name Joshua.
The.
The name Joshua literally means Yahweh is salvation God rescues
is a way that you could see it.
And I think that that's a beautiful picture of Joshua and the
people of Israel's reliance on God for their victory and for their
salvation.
And I think it's a picture for all of us as believers.
Our testimony must be that it is God who saves and God alone who
saves us from not just our struggles in our life, but ultimately
from sin, pain, and death.
And so I think that when we study the Book of Joshua, it's sometimes
difficult to see it more than just the historical lesson, even
though it is an historical lesson.
I think it's awesome to see real people at real places at a real
time, trusting in the Lord and seeing victories.
But also I think it's important for us to note the spiritual
victories that we see even in these battles.
And so if you were with us last week, Joshua chapter 10, we
saw that there was this king, Adonai Zedek, the king of Jerusalem.
He was a pagan, Canaanite king of the time.
He and four other kings came up against Israel, against the people
of Israel, and Joshua as their leader.
And obviously it looked like they had the victory.
But ultimately God promised Joshua, as he had been for so long,
that he would give them the victory.
And God does give them the victory.
And really, we see some amazing things happen in chapter
10.
We see that the Lord extends the day that the Lord ascends those
hailstones.
And ultimately the people of Israel see the victory.
And so certainly it was Yahweh for salvation for them.
And.
And I want us to continue that study here in chapter 11, because
sometimes in our life we go through a spiritual battle and.
And we might feel as if, hey, this is the last one.
As long as I can just get through this one, I'll be okay.
And the Truth is, is that, yes, we need to take one battle at
a time.
But what we see in Scripture is that sometimes a battle will follow
the battle, and we're not done yet.
And we, God says if we're taking in breath, he's going to allow
for different things to come up in our life.
And that's exactly what we see here in Joshua, chapter 11.
They come off this wonderful victory.
And then we see in verse 43, where do they return?
They return back to Gilgal.
Gilgal is that place in which they go to for that strength, for
that security in the Lord.
And I think that all of us need that Gilgal in our life, that
we can go back to and find that rest and that recuperation and
that revitalization in the Lord.
And they do that.
But the battle's not over with yet more kings start coming in.
So there's all these victories in the south.
And now the northern kings are going to recognize God's power and
God's victory over the southern kings.
And the northern kings are like, well, we need to take action.
We need to come against the people of Israel before they come
against us.
And so that's where we pick it up here in Joshua, chapter 11.
It says, and it came to pass when Jabin, king of Hazor, had heard
those things, and those things would be that the southern kings
had been taken over by Israel.
Israel had these victories.
God gave them these miraculous victories.
So when he heard those things that he sent to Jobab king of Maidan,
and to the king of Shimron and to the king of Akshat and to the
kings that were on the north of the mountains and of the plain
south of Chinneroth and in the valley and in the borders of Door
on the west.
And so a lot of these locations might not make a lot of
sense to you unless you have one of those Bibles that give you
the map.
But essentially what you need to know is that those southern Canaanite
places were where we just saw these victories.
Now, the northern part of the Canaanite land would be coming Against
Israel, verse 3.
And to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and to the
Amorites on the Hittites and the Hittite and the Perizzite and
the Jebusites in the mountains, and to the Hivites under
Hermon in the land of Mizpah.
And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people.
So this is a large group of people that are coming against Israel,
far more than Israel had.
And it's as much people even as the sand that is upon the seashore.
In multitude with horses and chariots, very many.
So it's painting a pretty bleak picture here.
It's painting a picture of the fact that the Israelites are having
people surround them and then there's a numerous amount of people
that are surrounding them.
And not only people, but we also see here that it mentions the
horses and the chariots, very many, verse 5.
And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched
together at the waters of Meram to fight against Israel.
And so they're gathering up and after hearing about the conquest
in the south, they're like, hey, we're going to assemble this
mega army.
We're going to come against Israel where they cannot fight against
us.
We're going to stop them.
It's either now or never.
And so they all come together, they make this evil alliance against
Israel.
And what we can see here is that this is not Israel's first big
battle, but this is certainly a battle in which they've got more
people.
We see that, as it says there in verse number four, it says that
they have much people even as the sand that is upon the seashore.
So they've got numbers.
And then what we also see is at the end of verse four says, with
horses and chariots, very many.
What does that mean?
Well, that means that they have more technology.
And sometimes in our life that's how we feel.
We feel like, you know what, the enemy has a lot of numbers.
Sometimes we feel like the enemy has a lot of resources.
And, and the enemy does have resources and numbers.
But we know that the same principle that we read about here
In Joshua chapter 11 is stated in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4.
And, and I think that this would be a good cross reference passage
for us to look at here.
Second Corinthians, chapter four, it speaks of what do we do
when we have trouble all around us.
And, and there are going to be times in our life, for whatever reason,
that we're going to feel surrounded, we're going to feel that
we have trouble on every single side.
And that's what Israel is looking like right now.
So 2 Corinthians chapter 4 8.
Some of you are very familiar with this passage.
Not too long ago we went through second Corinthians on our
Sunday morning series.
But Paul is talking here, and Paul is speaking of physical problems
that are around him.
You guys know Paul's story.
He's being physically persecuted by his own people.
Really and then we also see that there's physical struggles that
Paul has.
There's spiritual struggles, there's emotional struggles.
And so Paul says this.
He says, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.
So the Bible says that even though we can have circumstantial
trouble around us, okay, so for the people of Israel, they've
got all the northern kings coming with a multitude of people
with chariots and horses.
But it says here we can be troubled on every side, yet not distressed
most of the time.
What happens is that when we have all the struggles coming around
us, we immediately in our flesh turn to that distress.
But he says, no, we don't have to turn to that distress, because
why he's going to get to it here.
He says, we're perplexed.
That idea of perplexed means we're confused.
We don't know where to turn.
But not in despair.
Oftentimes being confused leads us to hopelessness.
That's what despair is.
But he says, no, we're not despair.
Persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed.
And then he gives his reason why he can have that type of outlook
in that difficult situation.
He says, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
body.
So for Paul here in the New Testament, he says, hey, I understand
that this is part of life.
This is part of the journey to, to go through these difficulties
so that people can see Jesus.
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus's
sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh.
So the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh.
Essentially, it's this, that we have hope in the Lord, that we
can present the truth of Jesus no matter what might be the case.
And he goes on to say in verse 14, knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up also by Jesus and shall present
us with you, meaning this.
We have the hope of salvation.
We have God on our side.
And so it can look difficult around us, but we have the hope in
the Lord.
And so we go back to Israel and we see that they, you know, obviously
came way before Paul, but they.
They knew about what Paul was saying.
They would agree.
They're.
They're surrounded, they're perplexed.
There's a lot of things that might be going against them when
it comes to numbers and technology and, and the strength
of the northern kingdoms.
But we're going to see something so amazing in verse number
six, it's the same thing that we see throughout all of Scripture
is that, yes, we can be in difficult situations.
We can be in situations that on paper don't look like they're
in our favor or in the Lord's favor.
And we can be in situations in which don't add up to what the world
would say is a good situation.
But verse six, he says, and the Lord said unto Joshua, and this
is where God steps in.
This is where God reminds his people about who he is and what he
has done and what he'll continue to do.
And it says in verse six that he comes to Joshua again, another
reminder of that same theme that he's been giving to Joshua over
and over again in this book.
And I hope that you've seen it as a theme in this book.
It says, be not afraid.
He says, joshua, be not afraid because of them.
Meaning don't allow what they have on their side to cause you fear.
Don't allow their numbers to cause you fear.
Don't allow their chariots to cause you fear.
Don't allow their horses to cause you fear.
He says, don't be afraid of what they have for tomorrow.
So he gives a promise to.
So he gives us a challenge, and then he gives us a promise.
That's exactly how he works in our life.
He challenges us to be a certain way or to believe a certain
thing or to trust in a certain area.
Then he gives us the promise behind that.
He says, for tomorrow, about this time, will I deliver them up,
all slain before Israel.
So.
So the Lord tells Joshua, look, I've got it under control.
I'm going to take care of this for you.
Don't be afraid.
I'm going to handle this.
Thou shalt hoe their horses and burn their chariots with fire.
So essentially, what we see here is that God encourages Joshua
in the midst of the situation, and by extension, he encourages Israel.
That's what God does for us.
He's the great encourager.
We know the Holy Spirit is the great comforter.
And we as Christians certainly cannot find comfort always in our
circumstances.
Sometimes our circumstances are great.
I mean, if everything lines up and everything's good, you know,
if I ask you, hey, are you having a good day?
We all know what we mean by that.
Circumstantially, I might be not having a good day when it comes
to my circumstances.
Well, the Bible says it's not that circumstances bring us comfort.
It's not that circumstances bring us confidence.
What brings us confidence?
Well, the Bible says It's the comfort of God, the presence of God,
it's the encouragement of our Lord.
Now there is a challenge upon us as Christians to be a Barnabas,
to be an encourager, to be a person who does encourage others.
And so we do find comfort through other people.
We find the Lord's comfort through other people.
But ultimately, even if someone doesn't comfort us, we can
still find the comfort of the presence of God.
And what does Joshua find comfort in?
In the Word of God.
Now, the Word of God came differently to Joshua at this point.
So.
So God speaks directly to Joshua.
And, you know, I don't know if it was something that just came in
Joshua's head or he hears this out loud, but nonetheless, this is
the word of God to Joshua.
So what does that look like for us today?
Well, we know that the Word of God is the Bible, the source of our
comfort, the source of our encouragement.
And we go back to the promises of God.
I mentioned a phrase this morning.
It's not original to me.
I heard one preacher talking about this, but really it's faith
in God that allows us to activate and assimilate the promises
of God.
Not everyone can claim the promises of God.
I think of one of my favorite promises is Hebrews chapter 13, that
God will never leave us nor forsake us.
Now, I can't tell a person who has no faith in God that that promise
is for them.
That promise is for those who have faith in Jesus Christ, who are
in his family.
And so we see the same thing here.
God's promise is not that every nation is going to have this
victory.
God's promise is for his people here, Israel.
So he says, hey, you're going to take care of them.
Don't worry.
And he says, actually, you're going to take care of them through
my power.
And so he says, I'm going to handle this.
But Joshua needs that confirmation.
He needs that reminder.
God had already made this promise back in Joshua Chapter one.
But God reminds him over and over again.
So this means that the fear, obviously, if we see God coming to
Joshua all the time, saying, don't fear.
I don't know a lot about Joshua.
My name is Joshua, but.
And not this Joshua.
Okay, I'm not.
That's not me.
I was named after him.
But the idea would be this.
I think I believe that if you see God reminding him over and over
again not to fear, he probably had a struggle with fear.
And I don't know about you, but there's been times in my life
where Fear has had a grip on me.
Maybe it's the fear of man.
It's the fear of failure.
It's the fear of.
Maybe it's the fear of success.
You know, if I become successful in this now, I'm going
to have more responsibilities.
Fear can take many different forms, but the Bible says here, in
this case, that God counteracts the fear that Joshua
has by giving him the promise.
And so God always has a reason for everything that he does.
And so he says, hey, don't be afraid.
And here's why.
Because I'm here to encourage you.
I'm here to give you the victory.
And so I think that's an amazing thing to see as a believer,
is that we don't have to fear.
And by the way, second Timothy, chapter one, verse seven
says that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power
and love, of a sound mind.
And so I think that maybe for some of us here this evening, maybe
not all of us, but some of us maybe have struggled in the area
of fear.
Now, as a man, never want to admit that I'm afraid of anything.
My kids have asked me that before.
Dad, are you afraid of anything?
You know, and as a dad, as a.
As a manly man, I want to say I'm not afraid of anything.
I could take on anything.
But there are some things that I am greatly afraid of in my flesh,
to be honest.
And that fear can come from a good place when it comes to the idea
of this.
Okay, some of you might agree with me, especially those that are
raising children right now.
If I look at the system of the world today and the trajectory of
the world today in my flesh, there's a lot of fear about what
kind of world that my children will be raised in and what they'll
grow up into.
But at the end of the day, I have to trust in the Lord and say,
lord, no matter what the circumstance might be, they still
have you.
They still have that hope.
And there's some other aspects of fear.
Maybe some of you, maybe some of you are looking at your week this
week.
You know, some of you have Monday morning, you're going to come
into your job tomorrow and you're going to say, whoa, I don't
know if I can handle this.
I've got fear of maybe my boss or fear of my situation or fear of
failure or fear of being let go.
I don't know where your fear is.
But all of us to some degree have levels of fear.
It can be in the realm of physical fear.
Fear about something in our physical bodies.
It could be maybe fear of someone else in our family being
hurt or going through a struggle.
It could be fear of something spiritually or emotionally.
It could be all different types of fear.
But the Bible says for all of us, the answer to the fear is to
drive out fear.
In the New Testament, it says in First John, perfect love casteth
out fear.
You could do that study on your own in First John.
We went through that on Wednesday night too, not too long
ago.
But the Bible says perfect love cast out fear.
So what does that mean?
Well, I just need to love God more.
Well, certainly that is the case.
We always should love God more.
That's.
Someone might come up to you and say, should I love God more?
The answer is always yes, you can't love him enough.
But at the end of the day, it's really not our love that casts
out fear.
It's God's perfect love for us that should cast out fear.
And so Joshua was reminded of God's love for his people and his
promises.
And so with that being said, Joshua could have responded in many
different ways.
He could have said, yeah, Lord, but now I'm looking out there,
and they are very numerous.
They're like the sand, as it says there.
They're numbered as the sand upon the seashore.
Lord, don't you see those horses?
Don't you see those chariots?
They could have responded in a lack of faith, but no.
Verse number seven, it says, so Joshua came, and all the people
of the war with him.
And so Joshua's obedience and confidence and courage in the Lord
influences the other people.
If Joshua would have been fearful, no doubt Israel would have
followed in that fear and not obeyed the Lord.
But because of Joshua's obedience and because of his public
testimony, the people go with him.
And it says in verse seven, all the people of war with him against
them by the waters and of Meron suddenly, and they fell upon
them.
And so here in verse number seven, it tells us that Joshua fights
with boldness, with courage.
He.
He surprises them, essentially.
You know, God gives us wisdom.
He gives us.
You know, I don't think that we go into battles in our life and
just deal with it with.
With what I would say is our own wisdom.
We deal with it with God's wisdom.
And so verse 8, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel
who smote them.
And.
And I love how that it says it in verse eight.
It's not that the people fought really hard or were really
strategized.
And you had all the best talent.
No, it says that the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel.
And I think that's a lesson for all of us.
When we have a spiritual victory, to make it a habit and not
just say it, but believe it to.
To make it our goal, our target, to always, always give God
the glory for our victories.
Anything good in our life, any success in our life, any healing,
any growth, anything is, is, is always, it always should be attributed
to our Lord.
We should never take credit for the things that we accomplish
in our life.
Because again, Israel could have looked at this and said, yeah,
we're pretty good.
We're the underdog.
And I always root for the underdog.
If I turn a game on, on TV and I.
And one of my teams isn't playing or one of the teams that
I don't like is playing, and I don't really have, you know, a dog
in the fight, I always want to find who the underdog is because
I want the underdog to win.
That's just how we are.
And so in this case, it's.
It's not just about these people, shocking these people, but
it's always the power of God in the hand of God.
So it says here it was God who delivered them, verse 8, who smote
them and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrafath,
Maim, and unto valley of Mizpah eastward, and they smote them
until they left them, none remaining.
So this speaks of a complete victory.
Joshua fights with strength, with boldness.
But I think most importantly, Joshua and the people of Israel fight
with obedience, doing exactly what the Lord told them to do, instead
of doing their own thing.
They follow the Lord.
And so how does God tell us to fight the battle?
Well, we mentioned it tonight in the testimony time.
I think it's a study that all of us at some point should go through.
It's the armor of God.
And God gives us all the tools that we need in the midst of the
battle.
He gives us weapons that will protect us.
He gives us the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness,
the belt of truth.
He gives us the offensive weapon of the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God.
He gives us all these things in our life.
And the Bible speaks in Ephesians chapter 6 about obeying
and putting on the armor of God.
You know, we could have all the armor of God sitting right here
on the pew like we talked about this morning.
We could have a gift and.
But if we don't open up that gift and tap into the blessing of
the Lord.
We can miss out on the protection that God gives us when
he gives us the armor of God.
And so as a believer, really simply it's belief in the Lord and
it's obedience in his word.
Therefore we see trust in him and we see the victory happening.
So Joshua fights with, with obedience.
He fights with passion, he fights with commitment, he fights
with courage.
And he didn't let up until as we see here, it's finish, until there
was none remaining.
And I think often in our life we, we want to give up too early
when it comes to trusting in the Lord.
Sometimes we, we give up on the Lord.
He's working, but yet we're not willing to see that process come
to pass.
And we get impatient with the Lord, but we must follow his path.
And so verse 9.
And Joshua did unto them as the Lord bade him, so this speaks
to his obedience.
And he hoed the horses and burned their chariots with fire.
So he follows exactly what God had for him.
And so verse 10, Joshua at the time turned back and took Hazer and
smote the king thereof with the sword.
For Hazer before time was head of all those kingdoms.
And so what does Joshua do?
He goes to the leader, he goes to the guy who is in charge of all
of them.
And we see that he goes, hey, we're going to wipe them all out.
We're not going to leave anything back.
And we see that this is the complete focus of God's judgment
upon these Canaanites.
And so Israel obeys.
And we see Canaanite, the Canaanite king judge there, verse
11.
And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of
the sword, utterly destroying them.
There was not any left to breathe.
And he burnt Hazor with fire.
Now I know that we can read verses like that and that seems extreme.
We're like, whoa, God doesn't want Joshua to have grace.
Well, in this case, God is using Joshua and the people of Israel
to fight the battle.
And therefore God is showing the judgment against evil.
He's showing the judgment against those people who are coming
to wipe out his people.
And I think that this is a picture for us in our own life.
I think we need to understand that the, the picture in the book
of Joshua is that the Canaanites and the pagans are essentially
sin in the camp.
We've already seen that demonstrated over and over again
in this book.
And we see later on some of you that are coming on Wednesday
nights in the study in first Samuel, you guys will know a story
that Saul was called to go and take out all of the people, all the
pagans, but yet he doesn't.
He goes, well, maybe we can make some money off these people.
Maybe we can use this.
And so what happens is that's a picture of allowing sin to not
necessarily be completely wiped out from our camp.
And that utterly leaves a huge issue.
And so we see really verses 12 all the way through verse 15 explaining
that there is just this complete wiping away of all the evil
that is there.
Verse 12.
And all the cities and those kings, and all the kings of them,
did Joshua take and smoke them with the edge of the sword?
And he follows, as it says there, destroys them as Moses, the
servant of the Lord commanded.
So this is obviously a promise of God to Moses, which is extended
to Joshua and verse 13.
But as far as the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel
burned none of them, save Hazer.
Only that did Joshua burn.
And all the spoil of these cities and the cattle and the children
of Israel took for a prey unto themselves.
But every man they smoke with the edge of the sword until they
had destroyed them, neither left them any to breathe.
And so again, that is continuously talking about this complete
battle.
Verse 15.
And as the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command
Joshua.
And so did Joshua.
He left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses.
And so we see that this is actually a generational thing.
We see that Moses had passed this down to Joshua.
And as Joshua received the promises of God, he continued on
in the work that the Lord was doing with, with Moses.
And we know that Moses wasn't perfect.
Actually, Moses made a lot of mistakes and the Lord definitely
gave him some earthly punishment to that.
But at the same time, Moses's legacy was passed down through the
years and passed on to Joshua.
And Joshua obeys God.
So it's not that Joshua obeys Moses, it's almost that Joshua obeys
God through the example of Moses.
And that's what we do when we see folks like talking about Ms.
Judy tonight.
I mean, think about that Godly legacy over 50 years, 54 years working
at the church.
That's amazing.
It's an amazing testimony.
I often think about how many children came through and heard lessons
from, from her.
How many children can attribute their earliest memories
and at the church or in the ministry from, from Ms. Judy and,
and we, we give her all that honor.
But at the end of the day, I think that Ms. Judy would also say
it was all the Lord, right?
And it was her being faithful to the Lord.
So when Pastor Lasko came up to her and asked her to start teaching
in the church, probably there was maybe some hesitancy and like,
I don't know what I'm doing yet.
I'm just getting started in, in church.
But the idea would be that she was obedient to the Lord as he called
her.
And therefore think about how many people were impacted over the
years and, and how many people then follow the Lord through that
example.
And so we see that passed down, and that's exactly what we
see with Joshua, is that he saw God working through Moses.
And though Moses wasn't perfect, none of us are perfect,
but he saw God's promise to Moses and Moses believing in that
promise and God blessing in that promise.
And as it says here, Joshua then follows that path and ultimately
follows the blessing of the lord.
So verse 16.
So Joshua took all that land, the hills and all that south country,
and all the land of Goshen and the valley and the plain and the
mountain of Israel and the valley of the same, even from Mount
Halak that goeth up the sear, even unto BAAL Gad in the valley
of Lebanon under Mount Hermon, and all their kings he took and smote
them and slew them.
So this is just essentially recounting the complete victory over
Canaan, both in the north and in the south.
Going further here it says in verse 18, Joshua made war a long
time with all those kings.
There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel,
save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon and all other
they took in battle, for it was of the Lord to harden their hearts.
And so this is another interesting point, verse number 20,
we, we talked about in the book of Romans that God hardened
Pharaoh's hearts.
And so that was a, for many a proof text to say that, you know,
sometimes God just comes in and against people's will, he hardens
their heart and they had no choice to obey God.
But again we, we talked about that, that thought in Romans, and
we talk about this thought now in Joshua that, that, that phrase
harden their hearts essentially means he hardens them
in the state that they are in.
And so these people in Canaan had had opportunity.
But yet because of their rebellion, God hardens their heart.
He sets them in their way.
And essentially at that point God what that decision brings, and
that would be judgment that they should come against Israel in
battle, that he might destroy them utterly.
So God uses their rebellion for his glory.
We saw that theme in the new Testament.
We see that in the Old Testament.
I don't believe that God forced the Canaanites to be evil.
And God forced the Canaanites to practice, you know, child sacrifice
and all those things.
That's.
That would be against the character of God.
But what God does is that he says, okay, these people are disobeying
me.
They're in rebellion and going to sin.
Well, I'm still going to use that for my glory.
And that he does that through Israel.
And Israel judges them and God's mighty hand is seen.
And so it says that they might have no favor, but that he might
destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.
And so I believe that this is a description of how God deals with
sin.
Whether we know it or not, whether we actually believe it or
not.
God always is dealing with sin.
And he will be final in his judgment against all those that are
rebellion to Him.
Now, to some degree, God is patient, God is gracious, he is merciful.
And yet we know that there's some times in our life where we look
at people in the world and we go, when is God going to deal with
that evil?
Well, it's not in our timing, it's not in our way.
The Bible says that vengeance is mine.
I will repay, saith the Lord.
That's a.
That's a quote from the Old Testament placed in the New Testament.
So what we can understand is this.
We can take comfort and confidence in the fact that God will
not let any rebellion, any sin, any evil go undone.
He will judge that.
And so we see that God at that time strikes them down and there
is this destruction that is promised to those who are in Rebellion.
Verse 21.
And at the time, and at that time came Joshua and cut off the
Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from day bear from Anab,
and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains
of Israel, Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.
There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children
of Israel.
Only in Gaza, in Gath and in Ashdod there remained.
And those are places that you might find familiar with the Philistine
cities that come later.
And even Gath we know some of you know that that's where Goliath
from the Philistine area.
And so he says all.
Basically all the land of.
Of.
Of God's promise of the children of Israel was cleared.
And these other people went the opposite direction.
Verse 23.
So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said
unto Moses and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according
to their divisions by their tribes.
And the land rested from war.
And so we do see here a couple of different things, and I want us
to note this as we continue on in this study, that those.
Those people were driven to those coastal cities.
And we see there's this verse 23, a complete victory, and then
there's rest.
And God does, at certain periods of time, give us rest from
the battle.
And that's what we see here for Israel.
It doesn't mean that they're never going to fight a battle again,
but we do see at the end of verse 23, and the land rested from
war.
And so the end of this phase of the war was an opportunity for
the tribes to see the inheritance and the blessings of
God and to live in the joy of what God had given them in their
victory.
And that's actually what you're going to see through the next
few chapters, is that the land given to certain people and certain
tribes and how that's all divided, but essentially this is
the time in which they get to enjoy the fruit.
And that's sometimes how the Christian life is.
And ministry.
I'm going to tell you, there are seasons of ministry that it just
seems like it's a battle.
I don't know if any of you guys have been in service, and I
say ministry.
I'm not talking about vocational ministry, talking about
church ministry, just in general.
All of us are in the ministry there.
If I'm the only one that believes this, just, you know, bear
with me.
But I feel like there are some seasons in our life as Christians
that just feel like a battle.
Battling others, battling our flesh, battling the enemy.
It just seems like a battle.
But then there are going to be times where we do get to have those
experiences where there's rest and where there's fruit.
We even know the principle in the New Testament that there's some
watering, there's.
There's some that had planted, but it's ultimately God gives the
increase.
But the beauty is, is that sometimes we get the taste of that
fruit.
I can tell you there have been many things that I prayed over when
it comes to my life here at Middletown Baptist Church that I
have not seen the fruit of yet.
But there are some things that God has blessed over the years.
And it's like, wow, that that was four, five, six years ago that
we began to pray for those things.
And we start to see things happening.
And it's a beautiful thing to find that season of rest and peace
and joy.
It doesn't mean that we are done.
It doesn't mean that we quit.
But what it does mean is that God gives us the type of grace for
the time that we need.
And that's what we see here.
God gives the grace to the people of Israel and they're able
to rest, and they're able to have that, that Sabbath.
And we know that the Lord is the Lord of Sabbath.
And there is a beautiful thing to the idea of resting.
And I believe that the Bible teaches very clearly that there is
a time and a place for rest.
But I think the way that we think about it biblically is rest
when we're called to rest and work when we're called to work.
Oftentimes my flesh wants to work when he's calling me to rest,
and rest when he's calling me to work.
Some of you guys know what I mean by that, okay?
When we need to get busy, that's when I want to back off.
And really when I should be backing off, that's when I want to
press on.
That's just a matter of the flesh.
That's the matter of the fall.
And we know where.
Where do we find.
Well, we think of Sabbath.
Well, yes, there is a physical Sabbath that's mentioned in scripture,
but we know that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.
Meaning we find our rest in Jesus.
We don't find it in, hey, well, you know what?
I just need to get away from everything.
I need to run away from all my problems.
That's not how we find our rest.
There's a time and a place to get away.
Even Jesus got away.
And I'm not saying that getting away is a bad thing, but
what I'm saying is it's trying to get away from.
From something that God wants us to deal with is a bad thing.
But sometimes we can find Jesus in the midst of our chaos.
And that's exactly what we see, is that Jesus is that Sabbath.
He is that peace.
He is the Prince of peace, as we say.
And even in the New Testament, the Bible says that the peace that
we find in him is a peace that passeth all understanding.
And so we see this victory and we see this rest.
Now we will continue on in this study.
And Joshua chapter 12, and Joshua chapter 13, and some of this
we will.
I'm going to just confess it to you now.
We are going to kind of skim through some of this because probably
for the next few chapters, it's going to be a lot of.
And the king of Jericho was, was.
Was destroyed and the king of Bethel was destroyed.
And so we will somewhat summarize the next few chapters.
I understand I I am a big stickler making sure we go verse
by verse, but I also understand that I don't want to lose
you completely.
So we will go through some of these lands that were conquered.
It's a summary of the lands that were conquered.
Then we will look into the inheritances of different tribes,
which is very, very important.
Lands that is split up amongst different tribes and different people.
And then we will get into somewhat the end of the Joshua book
of Joshua and hopefully it'll be a good study.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
Would like to find out more information about our church or this
sermon?
You can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find
us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch
dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.
Please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.
Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.