Well please take your copies of God’s Word in your hands and turn with me now to the book of Joshua, chapter 10. You can find Joshua 10 on page 185 of the church Bibles.
Having crossed the Jordan River, Israel has defeated the cities of Jericho and Ai. Chapter 9 began by telling us of an alliance of Canaanite tribes who unite to stop the Israelite advance. One of the tribes, the tribe of the Gibeonites, who occupy four strategic cities near Jerusalem in the middle of the country, decides to take a different approach, however, and they dupe Joshua; they deceive the Israelites into establishing a covenant with them. And now here in chapter 10, we get to see the far reaching consequences of that covenant. Word spreads quickly about the treaty between Israel and Gibeon. Adoni-zedek, the Jebusite king of the city of Jerusalem, which at this time is a relatively small, pagan city, Adoni-zedek leads a confederation of five Amorite kings who will attack Gibeon. And so now the brand new treaty between Gibeon and Israel is about to be tested. And as we track the action, the major emphasis of Joshua chapter 10 will fall on the grace of God who fights for His people. God fights for His people.
But as we trace that larger theme, I want to be sure we take notice of a number of sub-themes along the way. First of all, we’ll think about the clarity of commitment. Joshua resolves to act and does so without hesitation. The clarity of commitment in verses 1 through 7. Then 7 through 12, the balance of battle – both Israel’s activity and God’s activity. The narrator alternates back and forth between so that we see a clear picture of how Israel triumphs. The clarity of commitment. The balance of battle. Then 12 through 15, the power of prayer as Joshua calls upon the Lord to prolong the fighting period available to His troops. And then finally, the security of success in the remainder of the chapter as Joshua and his armies swing through the southern part of Canaan and win victory after victory. The clarity of commitment, the balance of battle, the power of prayer, and the security of success. Before we consider those themes, let’s pause and pray and then we’ll read the passage together. Let us all pray.
O God, help us please, by Your Spirit, to be attentive to Your holy Word. Silence the competing voices that war for our attention and enable us to hear a voice behind us in our ear saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” And give us grace to believe and obey, for we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
Joshua chapter 10 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“As soon as Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard how Joshua had captured Ai and had devoted it to destruction, doing to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, he feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were warriors. So Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, to Piram king of Jarmuth, to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, ‘Come up to me and help me, and let us strike Gibeon. For it has made peace with Joshua and with the people of Israel.’ Then the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, gathered their forces and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon and made war against it.
And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal, saying, ‘Do not relax your hand from your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the hill country are gathered against us.’ So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you.’ So Joshua came upon them suddenly, having marched up all night from Gilgal. And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah. And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died. There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword.
At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.
So Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.
These five kings fled and hid themselves in the cave at Makkedah. And it was told to Joshua, ‘The five kings have been found, hidden in the cave at Makkedah.’ And Joshua said, ‘Roll large stones against the mouth of the cave and set men by it to guard them, but do not stay there yourselves. Pursue your enemies; attack their rear guard. Do not let them enter their cities, for the Lord your God has given them into your hand.’ When Joshua and the sons of Israel had finished striking them with a great blow until they were wiped out, and when the remnant that remained of them had entered into the fortified cities, then all the people returned safe to Joshua in the camp at Makkedah. Not a man moved his tongue against any of the people of Israel.
Then Joshua said, ‘Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me from the cave.’ And they did so, and brought those five kings out to him from the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon. And when they brought those kings out to Joshua, Joshua summoned all the men of Israel and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, ‘Come near; put your feet on the necks of these kings.’ Then they came near and put their feet on their necks. And Joshua said to them, ‘Do not be afraid or dismayed; be strong and courageous. For thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight.’ And afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death, and he hanged them on five trees. And they hung on the trees until evening. But at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set large stones against the mouth of the cave, which remain to this very day.
As for Makkedah, Joshua captured it on that day and struck it, and its king, with the edge of the sword. He devoted to destruction every person in it; he left none remaining. And he did to the king of Makkedah just as he had done to the king of Jericho.”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy and authoritative Word.
The Clarity of Commitment
Let’s think first of all about verses 1 through 7 and the clarity of commitment. The clarity of commitment. Chapter 10 opens, you’ll notice, with an account of the formation of the Amorite alliance. Adoni-zedek has been glued to the evening news with increasing frustration as the story breaks of early Israelite successes in their conquest of Canaan. Jericho and Ai have fallen. And now he learns that the Gibeonites have allied with Joshua. Verse 2 makes it clear why this has Adoni-zedek so very scared. Gibeon is a great city, like one of the royal cities; greater than Ai. So if Gibeon now is on Israel’s team, that leaves Jerusalem vulnerable. In fact, you may remember from chapter 9 verse 17 there were actually four Gibeonite cities. Gibeon itself, and then the towns of Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. Scholars think that Gibeon is about 6 miles, only 6 miles north, northwest of Jerusalem. Chephirah is 5 miles west of Gibeon, Kiriath-jearim 2 miles south of Chephirah, and the precise location of Beeroth we’re uncertain of, but given the location of the others we can be sure it will be close by surrounding the area near Jerusalem. So together with Jericho and Ai to the east, Joshua’s effective control of these four cities meant that, as one commentator put it, that “Israel dominated the strategic, central plateau.” Joshua had cut a swath right across the midsection of Canaan and had driven a wedge between the north and the south. Isolating the north from the south was tactically brilliant.
And Adoni-zedek realizes if he is going to have any chance at all, he must not let Joshua and the Israelites get away with it. And so he calls in favors from four other local gangsters and they mobilize to take out Gibeon before the ink on the treaty Gibeon has signed with Israel is dry. For their part, with the Gibeonites wake up to find Adoni-zedek and his cronies marching on their city in verse 6, they send some urgent emails to Joshua at his headquarters in Gilgal. “Do not relax your hand from your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the hill country have gathered against us!” It’s an emergency call; it’s an SOS asking for Joshua to fulfill the obligations of the covenant that he has just ratified with them and now come to their rescue.
And the question is, “What will Joshua do now?” The Gibeonites, remember, had lied to them. They had tricked Israel into this entangling alliance. And what’s more, back in chapter 9 verse 18 we learned that the people of Israel were pretty unhappy about this alliance with the Gibeonites. Joshua’s approval rating in the polls took a beating the day he signed that treaty. But now, interesting, now the Amorites have turned on the Gibeonites. Maybe this will take care of the whole naughty problem. It certainly would be a convenient way to get rid of these pesky Gibeonites just to let Adoni-zedek have at it, wouldn’t it? Was there perhaps a temptation to rationalize? “See here, the hand of providence! Look, God must really want the Gibeonites gone after all. Why else would this be happening? Let’s just let the Amorites wipe them out.”
And perhaps we’d understand, certainly we couldn’t condone, but we’d understand the political expediency of that situation and if Joshua did precisely that. But look what he does in verse 7 instead. “So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor.” Verse 9 even paints the dramatic picture of Israel’s heroic march through the night from Gilgal in order to raise the siege of Gibeon. That’s a march, by the way, of 22 miles moving uphill almost the entire way. It’s a remarkable moment. And as you take that in, I wonder if you notice something missing from the story, something Joshua did not do before he set out, which has gotten Joshua – when he hasn’t done this before – it’s gotten Joshua into significant bother. He did not do this in the first battle of Ai and that went horribly wrong. And when the Gibeonites showed up at the camp at Gilgal with their, you know, tall tale about how they actually left from very far away and deceived the Israelites, the Israelites checked out their story but do you remember what they did not do? Chapter 9 verse 14 – “They did not inquire of the Lord.” And so, perhaps, we find ourselves rather looking on in dismay to see Joshua suddenly rushing off like this now without any attempt at all to determine, “Is this what the Lord really wants you to do here, Joshua?” Perhaps we even begin to wonder if this isn’t yet another example of what would become a pretty significant blindspot in Joshua’s spiritual leadership, a persistent failure to seek the Lord. Is that what’s going on?
Well actually, no. That is not what is happening here, at least not this time. Joshua did not need to seek the Lord to determine whether this was the right course of action. There was no failure of discernment this time for the simple reason that Joshua already knew his duty. Joshua had given the Gibeonites his word, you see. Israel had signed a treaty. Gibeon was now, to all intents and purposes, a part of Israel. And so Joshua’s conscience is clear and his duty is unambiguous, and without hesitation he marches to do what he knew the Lord would have him to do. He doesn’t stop to pray. He doesn’t ask, “Is this the right thing?” He knows it’s the right thing and he gets on with the task to which God has called him.
And there’s a lesson there I think we need to grasp. Consider the case of the married man who confesses to a Christian friend that he has been secretly reconnecting with an old flame on social media. And as he talks about it, he says to his friend, “You know, I’m really praying about whether or not to start that old relationship back up again. Would you pray about that with me?” Now what would you say to that man? You would say, “No! I won’t pray about that and you shouldn’t pray about that either! You don’t need to pray for God to show you what to do in a situation like that. He has already told you what to do. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ No exceptions. No excuses. Your duty is clear – be faithful to your wife. You made a covenant, you see, and now you’ve got to keep your promises.”
And Joshua understood that principle very clearly. His duty was unambiguous. His conscience is not troubled for a moment as he marshals his troops and marches without delay through the night to rescue Gibeon. There is a clarity and a resolve and a commitment and a confidence that Joshua exemplifies here that arises from his simple determination to do what God says. We don’t need the Lord to give us a second opinion. We don’t need to pray about whether or not to obey. I’ve said this to you before, but the bumper sticker comes to mind. You’ve seen it. It says, “God says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Well that’s good enough, I suppose. The problem is it would be better if it said, “God says it. That settles it, whether I believe it or like it or not. God says it. That settles it!” There’s no ambiguity. There’s no need to wonder. When He says it, when your duty is clear, when obedience is called for, get to it!
There’s a clarity of commitment here. Do you see it in Joshua? I wonder, do you find that same clarity in your own heart? Or actually, do you find yourself all too often arguing with God because even though you know what is right, you’re looking for some justification to do what you prefer and not what is right. The clarity of commitment. Several times before, Joshua has not sought the Lord and it’s been disastrous, but here now he doesn’t seek the Lord not because of some failure of duty but actually because here at last his duty is crystal clear. When your duty is clear, don’t seek God’s help in getting you off the hook. Obey! The clarity of commitment.
The Balance of Battle
Secondly, the balance of battle. The balance of battle – verses 7 through 12. Actually, this is a theme that runs right throughout the chapter but it comes especially to the four in verses seven through 12. You’ll notice how the passage alternates back and forth between God’s activity and Israel’s activity. So verse 7, Joshua sets off with his army to defend Gibeon, but then verse 8, God responds with a word of promise and assurance. “Do not fear them for I have given them into your hand. Not a man of them shall stand before you.” By the way, just as an aside, that’s almost a quotation from the promise God gave to Joshua right at the very beginning of the conquest of the Promised Land back in chapter 1. The Lord told Joshua to be strong and courageous and that no one could stand before him. “That is what God’s people usually need,” Ralph Davis reminds us. “Not new truth but old truth freshly applied to their current need.” That’s what we need – old truth freshly applied to our current need. That is what God gives to Israel – the old, old story freshly applied.
But then in verse 9 the narrative alternates back again to Joshua and his army. They march through the night from Gilgal to spring a surprise attack on the Amorites outside the walls of Gibeon just as day begins to break. And then verse 10, we’re back with the Lord. “And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah.” Actually, there’s a rather helpful ambiguity in the language of verse 10 that I think, in itself, helps us see the point of this whole passage. Would you look at verse 10 again with me carefully? Who threw the Amorites into a panic? What does the text say? It was the Lord. “The Lord threw them into a panic before Israel.” But then look at the next clause. “The Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them and chased them and struck them.” So now who did the striking and the chasing and the striking? Well in our version, the English Standard Version, it looks like it was Israel. “The Lord threw them into a panic before Israel, who struck them a great blow…” and so on. The problem is that the “who” there could just as easily be translated as “he.” “He struck them and pursued them and struck them.” “The Lord threw them into a panic and He struck them and He chased them and He struck them.”
Here’s the point. Which is it? Was it Israel or was it the Lord? And the answer, of course, is that it was both. It was Israel and it was the Lord. Obviously it was Israel who did the chasing and the fighting. The Amorites were in a panic about Israel. And yet, it was all the Lord’s doing. The Lord threw them into a panic and the Lord chased them and the Lord struck them. Verse 11 even tells us how He did it. As the Amorite coalition fled, verse 11, “The Lord threw down large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah and they died. There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword.”
In 2013, the year we moved to Jackson, my wife and I were out looking for a house with Dallis Ketchum and a terrible hailstorm struck our city. Do you remember it? Golf ball size, maybe even a little bigger than that, hail, totaled our car, damaged our church’s roof terribly, smashed windows, wreaked havoc all around the region. Do you remember that storm? We were dealing with it for maybe more than a year afterwards, dealing with the after effects. It was an incredible storm. Imagine hail even larger than that suddenly striking the Amorites at terminal velocity and just devastating their army. That’s the picture here.
And the passage tells us the “so what,” the conclusion we’re meant to draw from all of this. Look at the end of verse 14. What is it we are being taught? “The Lord fought for Israel.” Or again in verse 42 at the end of the chapter. “Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.” Our God is a warrior God. He is not a weakling. He’s not a wimp. He’s not shy and retiring. He is strong and mighty. Now make no mistake – it’s clear, isn’t it – Israel fought, but they would have fought and lost, they would have fought and died unless the Lord fought for them. Now we too, all of us here if we are Christians, we too are engaged in a war. The warfare of the Christian life. Though we do not wrestle, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians chapter 6, against flesh and blood, but we are in a war against the hosts of spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. And yet we are still to fight. There is no passivity, no quietism, no “let go and let God” possible in the daily combat zone of the Christian life. Every believer is a soldier in the army of the Lord of hosts. We are not to fight as one beating the air. We are to put on the full armor of God. We must kill sin and take every thought captive and stand firm against the schemes of the devil. But we are to do all of that. That is our calling.
And yet, the teaching of Joshua 10 among many other places reminds us we are not to fight that spiritual war, imagining for a moment that its outcome rests on the strength of our own arm or the cleverness of our own strategy. The teaching of our passage is that the Lord fights for Israel. And there’s a wonderful word of comfort and reassurance for us in that phrase. Isn’t there? “The Lord fights for us.” The Lord fights for you. We are not in an equal contest with the enemy of our souls. In fact, not only does the Lord fight for His people, in the Lord Jesus Christ, remember, He has already won the war!
Some of us, I rather suspect, feel defeated, beaten down by the many skirmishes with sin and Satan that we have lost along the way. We feel very keenly our weaknesses and we remember how often temptation has swept away our defenses like a sudden and massive enemy, assault overrunning the battlements of our hearts. And maybe slowly we’ve begun to believe the lie that actually the outcome hangs in the balance in our case and that the success of our conquest remains in doubt. But it is not so! The Lord fights for Israel. Have you forgotten it? It was the Scottish reformer, John Knox, who said, “A man with God is always in the majority.” That’s the lesson Israel learned that day outside the walls of Gibeon. A man with God is always in the majority. The Lord fights for His people. I wonder if perhaps we might need to discover that truth once more for ourselves. You are not on your own fighting as best you can, left to the limited resources of your own strength. No, if you are a child of God, the Lord fights for you, and in Christ has already secured the victory.
The Power of Prayer
The clarity of commitment. The balance of battle. And then thirdly, the power of prayer. Look at verses 12 through 15:
“At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.”
Now, there are a range of orthodox opinions about what actually happened that day. Some suggest that God made the earth stop spinning. Possibly. Some suggest that it was some refraction of light that allowed there to be enough light for Israel to continue fighting long after it would otherwise have been dark so that it seemed as though the sun remained in the sky longer than usual. Maybe. I actually think what makes the best sense is those scholars who point out the verbs translated in our version as “stand still” for the sun and “stopped” for the moon can refer not to the movement of the sun and the moon in the sky, but to the shining of the sun and the moon in the sky, so that what Joshua is actually praying for is not the extension of daylight by keeping the sun from setting, but the extension of darkness by keeping the sun from shining. And I think that makes best sense of both the timing of the story and the tactical advantage that Joshua was looking for in his campaign.
Remember, they have marched through the night. They arrive at dawn. The sun is about to come up in the east over Gibeon and the moon to set in the west over Aijalon. And so the day hasn’t begun yet, which would make a request, by the way, for more sunlight to seem a little premature. But if the shadows of dawn would stretch on and on, that would provide cover for a surprise attack and certainly would offer shade for weary soldiers who have marched all night long to keep them away from the searing heat of the day. So perhaps Joshua is praying for something like an eclipse or something of that order. But whatever the case may be and whatever conclusion you draw, the big idea of the story is not ambiguous at all. God is not taxed in the least by the apparent difficulty of the request. Whatever it was, it was a supernatural act of God who rules over the sun and the moon, over the passage of time, and over all the days that have been ordained for us before one of them has come to be and nothing is too difficult for Him.
But what has got the writer of Joshua 10 so very excited is not what happened to the sun and the moon that day. That’s not what’s got him excited. What has got him excited is written in verse 14. Do you see it? There never was a day like that before our since, not because the sun stood still or the sun stopped shining. There never was a day before or since like that day “because the Lord listened to the voice of a man and the Lord fought for Israel.” God listened when Joshua prayed. It was a day unlike any other day because Joshua prayed. Wednesday past, we spent a day fasting and praying and then on Thursday evening many of us gathered to pray for Jamie Peipon to who left on Friday for Krakow and for the MTW team and for the church and for all of those who are suffering in Ukraine. And I suppose to a casual onlooker out there in the world in many ways all of that must have seemed really, frankly, rather futile, especially – think about it – in the face of tanks and bombs and bullets and armies. “Seriously? This is all you’ve got? A prayer meeting? What a small, weak, empty gesture in the face of such horror unfolding before us.” But that is to misunderstand the nature of prayer at a most fundamental level. Isn’t it?
Prayer, Joshua 10 teaches us, stops the sun and the moon in the sky! “Prayer,” wrote E.M. Bounds, “is the greatest of all forces because it honors God and brings Him into active aid.” Prayer is not the least we can do. Prayer is not the last thing to which we should turn after we have exhausted all the other possible responses to our needs. More than money given or people sent, prayer, prayer is our very best response because prayer is mighty. Prayer is mighty not because prayer is anything in itself, you understand, but because it takes hold of the promises of God in Christ by the help of the Holy Spirit and nothing can thwart the design of the triune God in accomplishing all His holy will. The Lord heeded the voice of a man. Just think about that. Jesus said the same thing to us and extended that possibility to us. “Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it,” He said. What a privilege we have been given to have the ear of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to have the Spirit of Christ who intercedes for us with groans too deep for words when we do not know what to pray for as we ought, to have an intercessor at the right hand of the Father, even the risen Christ Himself, to takes our feeble, confused, sin-stained prayers and mixes them with His own and presents them to the Father as He pours out His petitions on our behalf. When we put it in its full, glorious, Trinitarian context like that, is there anything more blessed or more mighty than the ministry of prayer?
The Security of Success
The clarity of commitment. The balance of battle. The power of prayer. Are you a man or woman of prayer or have you begun to wonder if prayer is worth your time – a foolish thing, a weak thing, an empty gesture? Do remember Joshua 10:14, “The Lord listened to the voice of a man.” Remember Joshua 10:14 and get praying. “If you ask anything in My name,” Jesus said, “I will do it.” And then finally, the security of success. The rest of the chapter simply summarizes the successes of Joshua’s campaign in the southern cities of Canaan. There is a repeated refrain that sounds over it all. “The Lord gave them into the hands of Israel. God fought for Israel.” But verses 16 through 28 are worth pausing over so let’s back up and look at verses 16 to 28 because they tell us about the fate of those original five Amorite kings allied against Israel. They had fled to the cave at Makkedah and Joshua said, “Let’s imprison them in the cave. You guys go and finish off what remains of their armies.” And then in verse 24, judgment day arrives and the five kings are brought out of the cave for Joshua to pronounce his judgment upon them. And before he executes them, notice he calls all the leaders of the nation together and he asks them to put their feet on the necks of these five kings. And then he gives them this word of assurance. “Do not be afraid or dismayed. Be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight.” Putting your foot on the neck of your enemy – it’s a pretty graphic symbol of total victory, isn’t it, of absolute victory. And the message? The message is, “God is not just going to squeak out a win for Israel. They are going to triumph utterly. And Joshua wanted to see in this symbolic act and to hear in the promise that he gives them the unassailable assurance of the Lord’s victory.
And that is an assurance, I dare say, we all need to hear again and again and again. And wonderfully, it’s in this moment that “Joshua I” appears to us most clearly as a type and picture of “Joshua II,” the Lord Jesus Christ. In Psalm 110 verse 1, God the Father promises His Son that He would “one day sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” He crushed the serpent’s head, remember, at the cross. Colossians 2:15, “God disarmed the principalities and powers and put them to open shame,” just like these five kings, “triumphing over them in the cross.” Jesus, Joshua II, He has won the victory. And because He has, we too have an assurance of victory. The Church militant will become the Church triumphant one day because Jesus has crushed Satan under His feet, as Paul promises all of us in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”
And so as we close, we need to be asking ourselves, “Upon what is my assurance as a Christian grounded?” It must not be my wisdom, my strength, my convictions, my cleverness, my piety, my morality, my prayerfulness, not the good opinion of others, not the success of my ministry. All of these are sinking sand. They are flawed, confused, inconsistent, sin-stained, weak, inadequate grounds for Christian confidence. No, my assurance and your assurance, the only sure ground of confidence before God must be the solid Rock of Christ, His obedience and blood, His triumph over sin and death and hell at the cross and at the empty tomb. He is the ground of our confidence, our assurance, and He comes to us today again in Joshua 10 to say to you, “Do not be afraid or dismayed. Be strong and courageous, for thus the Lord will do to all your enemies against whom you fight. The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet.”
Here’s the unmovable foundation of your hope, believer in Jesus. It’s not that you are adequate to the task of living for God, of slaying sin, of fighting the good fight or finishing the race. You are not; neither am I. But Joshua II is. “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. Were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is He! Lord Sabbaoth His name, from age to age the same, and He must win the battle.” Amen? Let’s pray together.
Our Father, we bless You that Jesus has won the victory. He has won it. He reigns at Your right hand, and even now, Father, You are making His enemies a footstool for His feet. And because He has crushed Satan, He soon will crush Satan beneath our feet also. We rejoice that His victory will be ours. Help us to rest our confidence, our assurance, not in the strength of our own arm or the quality of our own resolve, our cleverness, our understanding, but in Him, in His obedience and blood, in His resurrection and reign, and in His intercession at Your right hand. Thank You for Christ. Help us, all of us, to find our refuge in Him. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.