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.
We're going to continue our study in the book of Joshua.
So if you have your Bibles turn there with me.
Joshua Chapter 10 is where we're going to be for our main text.
But I've been meaning to do this frequently through this study,
and I think we even did it last week in verses 8 and 9 in chapter
1.
But I do want us to go back to chapter one, so keep your finger
in chapter 10.
I want us to go back to chapter one because I want us to
be able to see the different instances of God's provision and
protection through the lens of Joshua chapter one.
Because as we see Joshua and the people of Israel fighting these
battles, going into difficult situations, we often think about
that.
You know, if we were in those positions, maybe we would be afraid,
maybe we would be hesitant.
But what we have to do, like we talked about this morning, is
we have to go back to the original truth that God gave us in
his promises.
And so when Joshua is facing the different people, the.
The pagans that are around that area of Canaan that God had
already promised him, we see that he goes through times of ups
and downs.
But if we go back to Joshua chapter one, and we start in verse
one, we see the context of God's promise to Joshua.
And he says, now after the death of Moses, the servant of the
Lord came.
And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of
nun, Moses, Moses's minister, saying, moses, my servant is dead.
Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan.
And so that was the original challenge.
The original challenge from God to Joshua was not go and conquer
all the lands of Canaan, even though that was the ultimate goal.
The first step of that was to cross the Jordan River.
So he says, go across the Jordan thou and all this people unto
the land which I do give to them, meaning this isn't land that
they're going to win on their own.
This is God given land to them.
It says, even to the children of Israel, Every place that the sole
of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I
said unto Moses.
So what God was doing to Joshua was this.
He was reminding Joshua that the promise that he gave to Moses
was the promise for him.
The promise that he gave to Israel was still the promise for
Israel.
He said, verse 4.
From the wilderness of this Lebanon, even unto the great river
and the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto
the great sea, toward the going down of the sun shall be your
coast.
And then I want you to see what he says in verse five, because
I want us to think about that promise as we look at Joshua, chapter
10.
He says in verse 5, There shall not any man be able to stand
before thee all the days of thy life.
That idea would be this.
It's not that Joshua is such a great man, but what does he say?
He says, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.
And so the key to Joshua's victory, the key to Israel's victory,
really the key to all of us when it comes to the victory in our
lives, spiritually speaking, would be that we're reminded of the
presence of God.
And so he says, I will be with thee.
I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
And so the reminder that we see here in Joshua chapter one is
the same reminder that we see in the New Testament in the Book
of Hebrews, that when we become children of God, when we trust
in him, that he says that he will be with us, that he's not going
to leave us nor forsake us, that it's his victory in our lives
and he will never fail us.
And so, remember, Joshua and the people of Israel had the times
in which they trusted in the Lord and He gave them great victory.
There was times where they trusted in themselves and there was
great defeat.
But ultimately, the promise of God for Joshua was this.
I'm going to be with you, so trust me.
And so every time Joshua and the people of Israel are tested,
they're tested on whether or not they're going to trust in the
promise of God or they're going to trust in their own strength.
They're.
They're tempted to trust in themselves, or they're tempted to
trust in the ways of the world, or they're tempted to trust
in what they see.
And God reminds them.
No, it's not about what you see.
It's not about what you've experienced.
It's not even who you're against, really.
The victory is based in the promise that I will be with you.
And so we go all the way to Joshua, chapter 10.
For all of you that were with us last week, what happens Is maybe
you'll remember there was this conspiracy of five kings, five nations
that came against the people of Israel after they heard about
the victories of Jericho, after they heard about the victories
at AI, after they heard that the people of Gibeon had made a treaty
with the people of Israel.
They said, you know what?
We're going to come against the people of Israel by coming together.
So, so we have these pagan nations that essentially lead together
so that they can fight against Israel.
And then we actually saw that Joshua and the people of Israel go
to the Lord, ask for his guidance, and God reminds them that
he is with them.
You go to Joshua, chapter 10.
8.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, fear them not, for I have delivered
them into thine hand.
There shall not a man of them stand before thee.
See, that's basically a restatement of what we saw in chapter
one.
God is reminding Joshua of his promise to him.
So he says, go forward.
Just step out in faith.
I'm already working ahead of you.
And we know that he did.
We know that God was working ahead.
God sent these hailstones to come later on in the chapter.
You.
You saw this great victory that Israel was having.
And Joshua says, lord, let this continue on.
Let the day last longer so we can see this victory.
And that's essentially what we do when we ask God to continue his
work in our life.
It was a pleading to the Lord to extend his gift of grace.
And he did.
And he does this miraculous thing by allowing the day to last
longer.
And there's this awesome victory.
And so what we did is we left off last week in verse number 15,
it says, and Joshua returned, and all Israel with him unto the
camp to Gilgal.
And now Gilgal is special.
Anytime we see here in the book of Joshua, them coming back
to Gilgal, Gilgal is a picture of their faithfulness to the Lord,
and it's a picture of them obeying the Lord and his promise.
And so we're going to see that repetitively mentioned at the end
of these victories that they would go back to Gilgal.
But we see in verse number 16 that these five kings fled.
And so if the kings are still around, it means that that opposition
is still around.
Even though they took out most of the army at that point, those
kings are still around.
And so God says that there needs to be a complete victory.
And in the Old Testament, when God was talking about taking out
the pagans, he didn't just say, take out partly those people.
He says, wipe them out completely, even their kings.
And we even know that there were certain instances in the Old
Testament where individuals did not wipe out the pagans and they
were punished for that.
And so we know that the.
The victory was not over.
The battle had not ended yet.
So they run, these five kings, they fled.
They flee.
And it says they hid themselves in a cave at Makadah.
So they're hiding in this cave.
Verse 17.
And it was told Joshua saying the five kings are found hid in a
cave at Makada.
And Joshua said, roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave
and set men by it for to keep them, meaning this.
We're not going to deal with them right now.
We got to go finish the rest of these people off.
But we're going to come back and we're going to complete the job.
We're going to wipe them out completely.
Verse 19 and stay not, but pursue after your enemies and smite
the hindmost of them and suffer them not to enter into their
cities.
Just don't let them get back.
For the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hands.
So I find this very interesting.
Verse number 19 is essentially Joshua stating to the people what
God has already stated to him.
Joshua is being a biblical leader by saying this, God has made
us a promise.
And I'm reminding you of this promise.
And I think that's important for all of us within biblical leadership.
And I use that word, leadership a lot.
And I want you to know that when I'm saying leadership, I don't
just mean pastor, even though a pastor is a leader of the church.
But I do believe that God is calling all of us at some capacity
to take leadership roles within our Christian life.
Whether it be within the church, whether it be within our
families, whether it be within our workplaces.
We're all called to be leaders.
And so what we see here is a principle that as God comforts us,
as God strengthens us, as.
As God reminds us of his promises to us that he's given us
in his word, we are to remind others around us to keep fighting.
And that's what he says here.
He says, don't give up yet.
We need to keep fighting.
And then verse number 19, essentially Joshua says, look, God
has already given us the victory.
He's already delivered it to us.
And so he's reminding them of the presence of God.
And I think that's what we do.
As a pastor, it's not my job to tell you something maybe that
you never heard of.
I mean, maybe I will.
But the truth is, is that many times I'm Preaching on passages that
all of you have heard before.
Maybe sometimes you've read yourself, maybe you've taught yourself.
And so a lot of times within the Christian life, we need to be
reminded of the promises of God.
Not because we intellectually have forgotten, but maybe we've drifted
in our life when it comes to our faith and trusting in those promises.
And so Joshua says, keep going, keep pushing forward.
Verse 20.
And it came to pass when Joshua and the children of Israel
had made an end of slaying them, and with a great, very great
slaughter, till they were consumed, that the rest which remained
of them entered into the fence cities.
And all people returned to the camp to Joshua and Madot in peace.
None moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.
So it's interesting here.
Basically, this is the completion of the battle.
This is the finishing of the battle.
And so Joshua says this, hey, let's deal with these kings later.
Let's finish what's in front of us.
And so we see that this physical victory is indicative of
the spiritual victory that's happening behind the scenes.
Now.
God isn't calling us to go and to fight with the sword right now.
That's not the.
The.
What we would say is the role of the church today.
We are to fight with a sword, but not a physical sword.
We're to fight with the sword of the spirit, the Bible says, and
we're to contend for the faith.
And so we are to fight for the faith.
But what we see here in the picture of the Old Testament is this.
There's going to be times in our life where we need to fight against
the enemy.
We have to stand up for the truth.
We have to make sure that the battle is complete.
And so the people of Canaan, those pagans that were around, obviously
saw the power of God working and the people of Israel are coming
against them.
And really this victory for Israel is not just a victory for
the people.
Ultimately, it's a victory for God and it's a testimony of God's
power.
And so at the very end, at very end of verse number 21, it says,
none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.
And so what this means is this.
God was shown clearly to the pagan people that they cannot come
against the Lord.
And so essentially what we see is that the testimony of God was
sure with those around that, hey, we can't come against Israel.
And so what I would say is this.
God is victorious.
He always is victorious.
And we live in a world today with some Christians who almost act
Like God is not victorious.
Like.
Like God is losing, like the enemy will win.
But we know the end of the story.
And so what I would say is this.
We need to live as if we are victors.
Why?
Because our.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the victor.
We sing this song, victory in Jesus, but yet we sometimes doubt
that we can have victory in the struggles that we face in our
life, the battles that we face in our life.
What I would tell you is that the victory is found in Jesus Christ.
The victory is found in a relationship with him, walking with
him, obedience to him.
And there's many people struggling with many different things.
You might be struggling with physical struggles, you might be
dealing with a sin.
You might be dealing with possibly some people, maybe not here,
but maybe the people that you know are dealing with addiction,
are dealing with hopelessness, are dealing with broken relationships.
The answer to all of these struggles and battles is Jesus Christ.
And when we come to him and when we understand that he completely
is victorious, we understand that ultimately as a believer, we
have the victory no matter what battle.
We might be facing the struggle, we might be facing the
pain that we might be feeling.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so we see in verse number 22, then Joshua said, open the mouth
of the cave.
So Joshua was like, okay, it's time to finish it.
It's time to wipe out these kings.
And.
And so for these next few verses, it gets pretty graphic.
This is the Bible, but what we can see here is that God is calling
Joshua to wipe out these kings.
And so verse number 22, then Joshua said, open the mouth of the
cave and bring out those five kings unto me of the cave.
And so this is really where we see Joshua.
He had delayed their punishment.
This is ultimately the punishment of God.
But now Joshua was following through with what God had called
him to do.
And so it says, verse 23.
And they did so and brought forth those five kings unto him out
of the cave.
The king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth,
the king of Lachish, and the king of eglon.
And verse 24.
And it came to pass when they brought out those kings unto Joshua,
that Joshua called for all the men of Israel and said unto the captains
of the men of war which went with him, come near, put your feet
upon the necks of these kings.
And this is a symbol of God's victory, of their.
Their hopelessness, their weakness in the sight of the Lord.
And they came near and put their feet upon the necks of them.
And Joshua said unto them, Fear not nor be dismayed.
Be strong and of a good courage, for thus shall the Lord
do to all your enemies against whom ye fight.
This is, I believe that verse number 25 is so amazing because we
see Joshua finding strength in the promises of God and proclaiming
those promises to the others so that they can find strength.
If you read verse 25, it sounds very similar to Joshua 1:9,
when God was talking to Joshua in private about the fights that
he would be having in the future, the battles that he would
be fighting.
And then he says, fear not.
So, so Joshua is telling the people, don't fear, don't be dismayed.
Be strong and of a good courage.
Why?
For thus the Lord shall do to your enemies against whom you fight.
He will do this to all of your enemies.
And so Joshua is reiterating that promise.
And I find that so important that, that this idea of God partnering
with Joshua, essentially God partnering with his people, that
God had promised his victory and they're finding this victory
here in this very moment.
Verse 26.
And afterward Joshua smote them and slew them and hang them
on five trees.
And they were hanging upon the trees until evening.
Verse 27.
And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun
that Joshua commanded.
And they took them down off the trees and cast them into the
grave wherein they had been hid and, and laid great stones in
the cave's mouth which remain until this very day.
And so this speaks of God's complete victory over these five
nations that came against them, that, that wanted to wipe them
out.
And so Joshua is saying, look, this is God's victory and we're going
to trust in Him.
And so really what we see is that when fear arises in our heart,
the way to combat that fear is to go back to the promise and to
be reminded that we what, be strong and of a good courage.
Why?
Because God is doing the fighting for us.
That, that God is the one working ahead of us.
He cares about us.
He loves us.
And you know, we, we love ourselves.
I, I, I, I know that we don't want to often say that, but in our
lives that's what the Bible says.
To love others as we love ourselves, because we love ourselves
whether we want to or not.
And so what we think about sometimes is like, well, I know what's
best for me because I want what's best for me.
And you might want what's best for you, but sometimes even though
we want what's best for us, we might not know what's best for us.
And so what we do is we think about, well, if God loves me more
than I can love myself, he knows what's best for me, so I need
to trust in him.
And that's essentially what Joshua is telling them.
He says, just trust.
Now, it's interesting to see this one of the kings that's defeated.
You go back to verse number one.
There was the king of Jerusalem.
His name was Adonai Zedek.
And.
And there's some commentators that actually believe that Adonis,
that he was a real king.
But they believe also that he is a picture or a type for the eventual
Antichrist that is to come.
His name means Lord of righteousness, which is right then
and there, a proclamation of irony, right, because he's not righteous.
He's coming against those who are righteous.
So he's claiming to be the Lord of righteousness, but yet he's
a pagan king there in Jerusalem.
So I find that interesting.
He led a confederation of kings against Israel.
He fought against Joshua, which Joshua essentially is the name
as.
As.
As Yahweh saves Josue.
In Spanish you might hear that word Yeshua.
In Hebrew, it's a very popular term.
It's a popular word.
It means God saves.
And so he fights against essentially the picture of Jesus,
who is Joshua, here in this passage.
Obviously, this king resisted God's occupation in his land and
he allowed other kings to come into that.
And so we do know of an antichrist that is to come.
Revelation chapter 13 talks about a false messiah that is to
come who will rule over Jerusalem.
That's 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2.
And we won't go into all of that, but some commentators would
say that this is a great picture of the defeat that the Antichrist
will face one day through the king of kings and the Lord of lords,
Jesus Christ, pictured here with Joshua.
But what we can see here is that the rest of this chapter is
an explanation of God's continued conquest of the land that
he promised.
And so we're just going to go through this.
A lot of this will seem somewhat repetitive because it'll
go from place to place explaining God's victories.
But I think that we need to see the repetition of God's faithfulness
in the life of Israel.
And we also see.
Need to see the repetition of God's faithfulness in our own life.
You know, I think that sometimes I'll be honest and I'll
confess that when, when as a Christian as I grew up in a church,
I would hear people get up and give a Testimony.
And for me, as a young Christian who maybe was immature
in my faith, they all kind of sound the same.
I was like, yeah, okay, God got you through that.
That sounds good.
That's great.
But the more I became mature in my faith and the more that my
love for the Lord grew, the more I see God's faithfulness in
that person's life, then in my own life, I can trust in the Lord
and see those testimonies.
And so we should never get tired of seeing repetition of God's
faithfulness in our own life and others around us.
And so Joshua says here, hey, this is our victory.
Come watch this.
Come, come witness the power of God.
That's why we do testimony time.
I mean, there's a lot of other things that we could do within church.
And.
And so I. I certainly love the testimony time.
Now, we can't do it on a Sunday morning for.
For various reasons.
If you want to know more of those reasons, come talk to me.
But, you know, for the sake of just maybe having visitors, we don't
know who's coming in on Sunday morning.
Sometimes we have to be very careful because we have to have a
certain amount of time.
But we do want to emphasize the importance of testimonies within
the church.
Why?
Because sometimes God is working here, but sometimes God is
working out there.
And we might not know what's going on in someone's home.
We might not know what's going on in someone's workplace.
And so to be reminded of that is not someone bragging about God
working in their life.
What that really is, is bringing it to light.
And that's what that word testimony means.
It means just telling my story, proclaiming what God is doing.
And so what I would like you all to do, and I mentioned this a
while ago, and.
And I know this isn't necessarily something that the live
stream folks or the people listening on the podcast can do,
but maybe you can one day is.
I would like for you to think about and pray about an opportunity
to share an extended testimony via a video.
Because I think that it would be really appropriate and I think
beneficial for people to hear maybe an extended testimony of God's
faithfulness in your life.
Maybe it's your conversion story.
Maybe you came from a different background.
Maybe you came from a very difficult place.
Maybe it was a cult.
Maybe it was a.
A false belief system, and then you came to Christ.
That would.
That would really, I think, transform some people's lives and
thinking.
Because I know that sometimes I talk to people and they go yeah,
you're a Christian because you were born into it.
Well, not all of us were born into a Christian home.
And so there's stories of that.
But I think all the more important we need to tell stories
of people being raised in Christian homes, because that's also
an amazing truth that we can see generational promises of God
coming to each family and seeing like, I'm thankful for a grandparent.
I'm thankful for my grandfather, who was an unsaved man,
who was led to the Lord by a pastor who brought his family to
church, who eventually brought me to church, who eventually I get
to see my children coming to church.
And.
And my prayer is that my children bring their children to
church and see Jesus Christ.
And so that's what we see here in this passage, a repetition of
God's faithfulness.
And so verse 28 and that day Joshua took Mecca and smote it with
the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, he utterly destroyed
them and all the souls that were therein, and he let none remain.
And he did to the king of Mecca, as he did unto the king of
Jericho.
He's essentially saying this.
There's a complete victory.
He wiped them out.
Verse 29.
Then Joshua passed from Mecca and all Israel with him to Libnom,
and fought against Libna, and the Lord delivered it also, and the
king thereof, unto the hand of Israel, and he smote it at the edge
of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he let none
remain in it, but did unto the king thereof, as he did unto the
king of Jericho.
Now you know what I mean by repetition, basically resetting it
over and over again.
Verse 31 and Joshua passed from Libna, and all Israel with him,
until atish and encamped against it, and fought against it.
And the Lord delivered lashes into the hand of Israel, which took
it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword,
and all the souls that were there.
And according to all that he had done to live.
Now then Horem king of geezer, came up unto help Latius, and Joshua
smote him and his people until he had left none remaining.
And from Latius Joshua class unto Eglon, and all Israel with him.
And they encamped against it and fought against it, and they took
it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all
the souls that were there he utterly destroyed that day unto all
of that he had done to lashes.
And Joshua went up from Eglon, and all of Israel with him unto Hebron.
And they fought against it, and they took it and smote it with
the edge of the sword of the king thereof, and all the cities
thereof, and all the souls that were therein.
And he left none remaining according to all that he had done
to Eglon, but destroyed it utterly in all the souls that were
therein.
Now you're seeing, hopefully, a theme.
It's a complete victory.
He's not allowing for any.
Any evil, any pagan ways, any pagan leaders to be left there.
Now, what's that a picture of in our life?
It's, I believe it's a picture of removing sinful things in our
life, removing those sinful influences, not allowing it to hang
around, not allowing it to be compromised in our life.
And so there's that repetition here, verse 39, same thing says,
and he took it, the king thereof and all the cities thereof,
and they smote them with the edge of the sword and.
And utterly destroyed all the souls that were there.
And he left none remaining.
And he had to do to Abron, so he did to deer and the king thereof.
And he had done also to live now and to her king.
So Joshua smote all the country of the hills and of the south
and of the veil and of the springs and all their kings, and
he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathe.
And the Lord God of Israel, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.
So I think it's important to note that there in verse number 40,
this is doing what God is wanting him to do.
He's following in obedience.
God says, remove them completely.
And so some commentators would say this was a period of weeks, others
would say a period of months.
But essentially, in the short amount of time, there is victory
after victory.
There's no losses.
Each battle was a test, each battle was a trial.
But we see that through Joshua's obedience to the Lord, they're
completely victorious in every way.
And so the victory was, was, was won here in this place, one by
one, little by little.
And we see that happening over and over again all the way to the
end of the chapter, verse number 41.
And Joshua smote them from Kadesh Barnea, even unto Gaza, and
all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.
And so it goes Even further, verse 42.
And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time
because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel, you see at the
end of verse 42 the reason why they won.
Not because Joshua was a great military leader, not because the
people of Israel had more People, not because they had better
weaponry, not because they had better animals on their side, not
because they had better food.
We see the reason for their victory because the Lord God of Israel
fought for Israel.
And that's really what it should be for us in our own spiritual
life.
We don't have spiritual victories because we're good people.
We don't have spiritual victories because we're the ones
that are really smart and these other people that are not victorious
aren't smart.
It's not about that.
It's not about our merits, it's not about our skills, it's not
about our money, it's not about our looks, it's not about any
of that.
Really.
What we see in our spiritual walk is that we find victory in the
Lord.
We find victory in, in his presence.
We find victory in his strength in our life.
And so verse 42 essentially summarizes it all, but basically
says this.
This is what God does.
This is his victory.
When we follow him, when we put our faith in him, this is what
we find.
And even the Bible says back in Exodus, chapter 23, verse 30,
and in Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verse 22, that God would drive the
Canaan out, Canaanites out of the land little by little.
That's actually the phrase that's used in Exodus and in Deuteronomy.
So it wasn't like God's going to come in in one day and give him
that easy victory.
No, it would be a long, drawn out process.
Little by little, step of faith after step of faith after step
of faith.
And I believe that's how God works in our life.
I wish that when we got saved that the moment we trusted in Jesus,
all of the temptation went away, all of all the trials went
away.
And we just live that life of ease and perfection for every single
day of our life.
But the truth of the matter is, is that's not how God works.
It's step after step, day after day, little by little, we grow.
And there's a lot of people in our world today that are, are getting
saved.
A.m. that's, that's great.
Amen.
We want people to get saved, but they want that 20 to 30 year
spiritual growth happen overnight.
And folks, being a growing Christian is not something that happens
overnight.
It's daily little things.
God.
God talks about being faithful in the little things.
And a lot of people want to have those big grandiose, powerful
moments in the Lord.
And those do come, but those come through little baby steps in
our life.
By following God and seeing Victory today and then seeing victory
tomorrow.
But just because you had victory last week doesn't mean you're
going to have victory next week.
So what that means is, lord, give me the strength today.
Let me experience those new mercies today.
And that's what we're seeing here in this passage, is that Israel,
they weren't ready to take the whole land when they first come over
the Jordan River.
They.
They didn't have the capacity to do that.
But as God allows them and as they take steps of obedience, he
reveals to them portions in which they're.
They're able to take.
And so we see that God is working along with them.
And the end of the chapter is this verse 43.
And Joshua returned and all of Israel with him unto the camp to
Gilgal.
And remember, Gilgal is that picture of Israel's victory.
It was a place of total faith.
It was a place of commitment.
It was a place of fellowship.
It was a place where they could experience and know and be
reminded of the power of God and their life.
So for us, where's our victory come?
Our victory comes in Jesus Christ.
But what does our victory look like?
Well, again, you might hear people preaching, well, the victory
is the day you wake up and you feel no more pain.
Well, praise God.
If you have no more pain tomorrow, that's amazing.
I'm going to be cheering with you.
But that might not happen tomorrow.
Okay?
God doesn't work that way.
God doesn't always take away our struggles.
Now, eventually he will.
But what we know some of the people in Scripture, because there
is a movement today, and I have to preach against it.
I have to preach against it.
And I'll just, I'm just going to name it.
It's called the Word of Faith movement.
The Word of Faith movement essentially says if you believe in
God enough, if you have enough faith, you can declare any victory
that you want in him.
If you want your pain to go away, you better have enough faith.
And if your pain isn't going away, you don't have enough faith.
And folks, I. I need to be clear.
Look at instances in scripture where we would say, people with great
faith, God did not take away their pain.
Look at Paul.
Pain in my side.
Now, we don't know if that was a physical pain, maybe it was a spiritual
pain.
We don't know specifically what that specific pain was.
But we do know that Paul pleaded with the Lord to take that
away three times.
As God says, no, because why?
Because when you are weak, I am made strong.
Think about other people.
Think about all the apostles, right?
They didn't go and live on a retirement.
Well, you know, John, you could kind of say John went to an
island to retire, but that wasn't a place you'd want to retire
to.
Okay?
They.
They all struggled.
And if anybody had faith, it was those that saw Jesus, it was
those that would die for him.
And so, folks, what I want you to see here is that the spiritual
victory is not just having a life of ease, a life of.
Of peace and tranquility when it comes to our circumstances, but
it is a life of having peace in the midst of the storms.
And so the victory is found in the New Testament when it says that
essentially Jesus went to the cross for us.
I love it the way that Colossians, chapter 2, verse 15 puts
it.
It says, and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made
a show of them openly triumphing, triumphing over them.
Meaning as Jesus won, he was victorious over evil.
So it's not just that he died on the cross for our sins.
Yes, that is the case.
But even in his death came the victory in conquering evil as well.
Romans 8.
We talked about it this morning.
We're more than conquerors.
And so the victory is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The.
The victory is found in having a relationship with Jesus Christ.
And so I cannot emphasize it enough.
I. I will emphasize it to the day I die.
Is that the best thing that we can find when it comes to peace and
satisfaction and hope and sufficiency is a relationship and
a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
I encourage you to read the Book of Hebrews.
When you read the Book of Hebrews, you could summarize it this
way.
Jesus is better.
Well, Jesus is better than what?
Fill in the blank.
Jesus is better than the law.
Jesus is better than the sacrifices.
Jesus is better than anything.
He's more sufficient in every way than anything that the world
is seeking.
And so what we can see here is that Joshua finds victory in obedience
to the Lord.
Joshua finds victory in faith.
Joshua and the people of Israel, when they look to the Lord,
they saw that the Lord God of Israel fought for them.
And are we able to say in our own lives that God is fighting for
us?
Well, I hope that you say that.
I hope that you believe that.
But what I would say is this.
It's one thing to say it, it's another thing to believe it and live
in it.
I know for me, I'm willing to say that God is in control until
I feel like I'm out of Control.
And that's the moment I start spiraling.
That's the moment I start doubting.
And so what I would say is this.
When we're tested, I believe this, and maybe you don't, but I
would love to have a debate with you if you disagreed.
But, but I believe that our faith is really revealed when we're
tested, when we're put to the fire.
I, I know for me daily that I feel, if I feel good, I'm often more
easily into that place of worship.
If I'm not feeling so good, I'm not so easy in the place of worship.
I'm more in the place of complaining.
I, I, sometimes when I'm struggling, I want to just go to,
like, complain.
Lord, why me?
Lord, how come?
Why this?
Why that?
Why can't you just take this away?
Or maybe it's just a sense of bitterness.
Well, look at that other Christian over there.
They've got this and they're able to do this.
They've got this gift, and I don't have that gift.
What I would say is this.
The, the cure to bitterness, the cure to dissatisfaction.
The, the cure to all of these things that we find complaining is
coming back to the truth, coming back to the cross, coming
back to his sacrifice, and having that heart of gratitude to
say, I'm thankful that I can be part of the family of God.
I'm thankful that I have any gift.
Maybe it's not the gift that that person has, but God has given
me this specific gift for a purpose, and I'm thankful for that.
And, and so I want us to think about that, that heart of gratitude
as, as Joshua goes along here, there's more victories, and we're
going to see that God continuously blesses the people of
Israel.
And you would think that they would never turn away after seeing
all of this.
I mean, some of these people here had seen the Jordan river open
up and they walked across on dry land.
Some of these people are going to see the, the whole, the, the day
lasting longer than it should.
That's a miracle.
I mean, that's amazing.
We, we would think that after I saw all of that, I will never doubt
him.
But as we're going to study the book of Joshua more and more,
there is a drift back to the way of the pagans.
There is a drift back to the way of idolatry.
And so what we have to do as a believer today is we have to be very
careful that we're not like the people there in the book of Joshua
and the book of judges that we know and are reminded of the promises
of God.
We've seen the blessings of God, but yet we're tempted to drift
back into that bad habit of doubting and trusting in ourselves.
And so what I would encourage you to do, what I'm encouraging myself
to do, is be reminded and reiterate to ourselves and to others
the blessings, the great blessings of God.
We should never get tired of thanking the Lord.
We should never get tired of praising the Lord.
We should never get to a place in our life where we become callous
to the work of God within our church.
Folks, I'm going to tell you there's miracle after miracle still
happening today day.
And, and I know that we're thinking about miracles like, you
know, a lame person getting up and walking.
Well, that can, that still happens.
I'm.
I'm not discrediting that, that God still heals today.
And, and I'm for that.
And I, and we pray for those, those things.
But what I will say is sometimes we miss miracles that are
right in front of us.
What, what do I mean by that?
I mean this.
There are people that are here tonight.
There were people that were here this morning that we're living
a life anti God.
The Bible says before we come to Christ, we were anti God.
And we were living lives in rebellion to him.
In the fact that someone would come to Christ and believe in him
and have a life, change their desires, change their heart, change.
The Bible makes it this way.
That a heart of stone turns to a heart of flesh.
That's a miracle.
Salvation is a miracle.
It's a, It's a miracle that there are people that can hear the
gospel of Jesus Christ here in this dark world because we're fighting
against so much.
We have more than ever.
There's so many distractions in this world.
And if we're not laser focused on what God has called us to do,
we might miss opportunities right around us.
Folks, I, I'm praying that God allows me to see those opportunities
that I don't overlook opportunities for the gospel or,
or for discipleship.
Folks, I'm.
I'm burdened for the next generation.
I mean, I know I've got some people that, you know, you've.
You've been through many generations and, and that's okay.
I love that.
I love how our church has so many different folks from so many
different backgrounds and different age groups.
But what I would say is this.
We cannot neglect the next generation.
Because what I'm going to say to you is, is true.
And I think, you know, this is that the world and the enemy is actively
pursuing young people today, actively actively pursuing us as
adults.
But there are children that are born into a life of the smartphone
being ingrained in their minds and.
And think about this.
This could be used as a great.
It's like fire.
I've tried to tell this to my kids.
Fire is a very helpful thing, right?
Fire heats our food.
Fire keeps us warm.
Fire gives us light.
But at the same time, fire outside of the fire pit can be dangerous.
It can lead to burns, it could lead to death.
It can lead to destruction.
And so we have things like technology that can be used for great
good, but we also know at the same time can be used for great evil.
And so what do we do?
We don't just look at it and say, we.
Well, we never need to have it, you know, because there's some
people that just say, let's just move away from society.
The problem is, is that we can't run away from society.
What we have to do is we have to infiltrate society, we have to
affect society, and we have to show people that Jesus Christ is
Lord.
And that's really what I. I want to preach as we go through the
book of Joshua is it's not just a passive.
Well, we have a bunch of pagans around us and we have to deal
with that.
No, what we do is we go out and take it to the world.
We go out and bring it to the world by the way that we live, by
the way that we talk, by the way that we share.
But we have a mission field right here.
If you think that everybody that comes on Middletown Baptist
Church's campus is a Christian, you're missing it.
Because there's people that are coming to our church for maybe
different reasons.
Maybe a children's ministry, maybe a sports ministry.
Maybe they're just out because someone dragged them here.
The church folks, we always want to look at every opportunity
here at.
As an opportunity to bring someone to the truth of the gospel.
Please come to church.
Not just saying, what am I going to get today?
But also, how can I be a minister of the grace of Jesus Christ?
How can I bring the gospel to the world?
How can I take it to my workplace?
How can I take it to my neighborhood?
How can I take it to my sports teams?
How can I do any of this without Jesus?
Well, you can't do it without Jesus.
But the Bible says in his power and his strength, he can give
us the victory.
And so as we close here this evening, I Want you to think about
that through the lens of today, the lens of the gospel, because
we can look at the book of Joshua just as a historical narrative.
And it is a historical narrative, by the way.
This is a real person at a real time doing real things, but
also at the same time, this isn't just history.
It's history that should be driving us to live in faith, to live
in confidence in our Lord and Savior.
So I pray that as we study the book of Joshua, that we see that
complete victory in our lives.
Well, we'll come back, Lord willing, next time, and we'll look
at chapter 11.
Just when you think that he's got all the kings taken care of,
more kings keep popping up.
And so there's more kings coming, and there's more.
And that's how it is with us in our spiritual walk.
I've had some really great Sunday mornings.
So some mornings after church service and after the evening, I'm
walking on cloud nine.
You know, you will, like, I just feel like I'm walking on air.
People came forward, people got saved, people got baptized, People
joined the church.
And I'm like, yes, Lord, everything is great.
And then Monday morning happens, and then the first thing
comes in.
You're like, oh, the next trial.
That's how it goes.
That next king comes up, that next enemy comes up.
And that's how it's going to be in your spiritual walk.
You're going to have those victories.
And guess what?
The next day, maybe not even the next day, maybe the next hour,
something's going to test you on that.
So we have to keep standing firm in what God has promised us
in our life.
And so I appreciate your attention.
I appreciate your faithfulness to the church, but most importantly
to the Lord.
That's.
That's what matters.
And.
And I would encourage you to continue on with the study.
And I think it'll be a blessing for all of us as we continue
to look at some of this.
Some of this will get repetitive, as we saw tonight.
I mean, even In Joshua chapter 15, we see basically like 63 verses
of just places listed.
And so I'm a firm believer that we shouldn't skip things.
But I will also try to go through as.
As graciously as I can through some of these passages.
Okay, so hopefully you'll be back for these.
Well, I'm going to go ahead and close in a word of prayer.
After that, I'll have a few announcements, and then we'll be
dismissed.
Lord, thank you for this time that you've given us.
Thank you for the opportunity to come here tonight to learn more
about your victory Lord, and the victory that we see in the Book
of Joshua and also the victories that we see in our life
through faith in you.
So Lord, I just pray that you give us strength, help us to wipe
out all of those things in our life that might be hindering us from
following you.
And Lord, I thank you for your truth, I thank you for your love
and I pray that you'd be with us here this week.
We ask all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
Podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If 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 directly at Josh Massaro@middletownbaptistchurch.com
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.