Well, good morning again to you. We are still in our study lessons from the life of Joshua. And we will be today in Joshua, the 10th chapter, and I'll take as my text verses 1-14, but we'll be covering the material in that chapter. Joshua, the 10th chapter, verses 1-14. I hope you have enjoyed this study. I've certainly enjoyed bringing it. I just find more and more very interesting things in it every time I teach this section of the Word of God. Joshua the 10th chapter began in verse 1, and follow please as I read. Now it came to pass when Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, had heard how Joshua had taken Ai and had utterly destroyed it, as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king, and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty. Wherefore, Adonai Zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent unto Hohem, king of Hebron, and to Piram, king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia, king of Lachish, and unto Debar, king of Eglon, saying, Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon. For it hath made peace with Joshua, and with the children of Israel. Therefore, the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglin, gathered themselves together and went up, they and all their hosts, and in camp before Gibeon, and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants. Come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him and all the mighty men of valor. 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. Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly and went up from Gilgal all night. And the Lord discomfited them before Israel and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhorim and smote them to Ezekiel and to Macheda. And it came to pass as they fled from before Israel and were in the going down to Bethhorim that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Ezekiel and they died. They were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel. And he said in the sight of Israel, Son, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still and the moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. Let's just sort of think back in our study. We looked at how Joshua rose to prominence, becoming the successor of Moses. We saw him lead the Israelites across the Jordan River miraculously as the waters were stopped. We saw them take first the city of Jericho, putting the inhabitants there to the sword. And then after two tries, the city, the smaller city of Ai, and that happened of course because of the disobedience of Achan. Then last week we saw that I always think of Wile E. Coyote, you know, in the Roadrunner cartoons, the wiliness of the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites have sort of read the handwriting on the wall. They began to see that something unusual is going on here and we're dead ducks unless we do something. And so they began to put on their thinking caps and they managed to deceive Israel into making a treaty, a peace treaty with them. And then, of course, you remember how they did it. They put on these old clothes and leather bags that were falling apart, shoes that were falling apart, bread that was old and moldy and crusty. They said, well, this is hot out of the oven when we left. And they're, of course, trying to convince them that they've come from a long, long way. Because they were told, remember, Joshua and the Israelites, not to make peace with any of the inhabitants of the land. And so they snooker them, literally, and they deceive them. Three days later, they find that Gibeon is just over the next hill up on top of the ridge. It's the next place that they would have been heading towards in battle. So the Gibeonites managed to spare their life. However, they were made slaves to the Israelites. They were to be the wood choppers and the water carriers, remember, and they were to serve before the tabernacle. They were sort of the slave labor that served the Levites there as the Levites served at the tabernacle of God later on. Today we go on to see the next conflict, and it is a remarkable account. It is telling us basically, and I'm sort of summing it all up, of how the entire southern half of Israel came under the control of Joshua and the Israelite army. You have heard, no doubt, of the movie The Longest Day. I think they did an update of that. I like the old one with John Wayne, can't beat the Duke, you know. And, of course, The Longest Day refers to the day we know as D-Day, when the American troops came ashore at Omaha Beach. And, of course, the movie concerns that. Well, we're dealing with a long day. In fact, this is, by far, this is God's version of daylight savings time. For those who may be listening to this later on, it's no coincidence today is the day we went on daylight savings time. I'm not sure how much daylight it actually saved. My old farmer friend down the road, Giles Caldwell, said when I was growing up, he said, well, I sure hope this extra hour of sunlight doesn't burn up all the crops. Not sure he got the principle, but anyway. But indeed, what we have before us is this longest day in human history. It is what I have called Joshua's long day, and it is loaded and packed with truths that are relevant for us in our day. Let us take a look at what's going on here. You'll notice that what's happening is a consequence of this agreement, this treaty that Israel entered into with the Gibeonites. And we began to understand that this was more than just what we would call a peace treaty, that Israel was not going to attack them. It was more like what we would call today in our modern world a mutual defense pact. In other words, if I'm attacked, you'll come and help me. If you're attacked, I'll come and help you. Well, Gibeon's neighbors, and remember this is up now on the mountainous ridge in the central part of Israel. This is the heart of the land. And their neighboring cities did not take kindly to the fact that the Gibeonites have entered into this peace treaty, this alliance with the Israelites. I mean, number one, the Israelites have slaughtered everybody in Jericho. They've slaughtered everybody in Hai. It's pretty clear they're coming up to the top of the mountain to do business with everybody else. And then, lo and behold, here's one of their own cities, Gibeon, which is described to us as not a small place, a rather major city. It's like one of the royal cities. It's like one of these other cities that have a king ruling there, and they have mighty men of valor, and they have more or less defected. gone over to the other side. This would be like, let's say, one of our counties, because as we saw back in the previous chapter, if you look very closely, you'll see that Gibeon is not just a city, but it has control over other little towns round about. It's sort of like a county seat in our day and time. And this would be like, I'm going to pick on Tate County. I mean, you all get picked on a lot anyway. for good reason. But anyway, let's pick on... Suppose Senatobia made a peace treaty with ISIS. That would be sort of a correlation of something going on in our day. All of a sudden, how would you feel here in DeSoto County? How would you feel in Marshall County? How would you like it over in Tunica? That one city in your midst has made peace with your enemy. You know, there's the old statement that the Enemy of my enemy is my friend. That was quoted a lot more too when we were sort of co-belligerents with the Soviet Union. The fact that they were the enemy of Germany and we were the enemy of Germany, they become our friends for that purpose. But it's also true that the friend of my enemy has become my enemy. And that's what has happened here with the Gibeonites. The city has made peace with Joshua and the Israelites. They're on their side. And their neighboring towns don't like it one bit. Especially Jerusalem. Now it's interesting that Wesley sang about Jerusalem this morning. That's good timing, Wesley. Because we're dealing with some of the history of Jerusalem, not the history he was singing about, but some of the prehistory of Jerusalem. And notice that the main guy that's pulling together a coalition, that's a good word, you know, the Gulf War and all of that, they're putting together a coalition of cities and kings. Now, these are not kings like you think of. These are more like heads of cities. These are like chiefs over this particular city that's controlling the area around it. But nevertheless, the ringleader is this king of Jerusalem. His name is Adonai Zedek. Now, I want you to think about that name a minute, because if you think about it, at this point in time, Jerusalem was a stronghold held by a tribe, a Canaanite tribe, known as the Jebusites. Now, here in this account, they're just sort of all lumped together under the label Amorites. Sometimes they're lumped together under the label Canaanites, but they were separate tribes. Much like down in Mexico, we just say they're the Indians, in the mountains, but there may be Chinentecos and Cuicutecos. They're all different kinds of Indian tribes. And in the same sense, they were all different kinds of tribal peoples living in the land of Canaan. In our account, they're just sort of all put under the umbrella of the word Amorites. But among those Amorites was one bunch known as the Jebusites, who dwelt on that mountain ridge where this fort was called Zion. And what is interesting is that this is telling us a little bit about the prehistory of Jerusalem. And 600 years before this happened, we actually have another encounter with the king of Jerusalem, a fellow by the name of Melchizedek. We say Melchizedek. Remember the story how Abraham met this fellow named Melchizedek when Abraham was returning from battle with all kinds of booty that he had recovered and he paid a tenth of it to this man Melchizedek who is described as the king of righteousness. That's what his name meant. Melchizedek. Melchizedek is the king part. Melchizedek is the righteousness or justice part. He pays a tenth of the spoil of the battle. to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek is described as a priest of the Most High God. That's the Hebrew El Elyon. Y'all familiar with that? You remember Amy Grant's El Shaddai, El Shaddai, well that's mentioned in that song, if you wonder what that means. Elyon, El is one of the words of God, it's the high one. Elyon is the highest, it's the highest high one. He is priest of the most high God. In other words, the God that we saw Jim give us a little background about this morning. This great sovereign God, this creator of heaven and earth. Melchizedek, king of righteousness, king of Jerusalem, is a priest. of this God. And Abraham recognizes this and pays him tithes, and then we read that Melchizedek blesses Abraham. You remember all that history and how the book of Hebrews makes an important part of that. Notice now we have another king. This is 600 years later. We have another king of Jerusalem with a similar name, not an exact name. His name is now Adonai Zedek. Adonai, you may sort of recognize that name. It's the name Lord. what you see translated as Lord in the Old Testament. He is the Lord of Zidek, righteousness, justice. Now, inquiring minds want to know, and so one of the things that whirls around in my mind is what happened in the 600 years between Melchizedek and Adonai Zidek, that went from Abraham recognizing him as priest of the Most High God to this man who is under the curse of Almighty God, who's going to be put to the sword by God's people and hung on a tree as a curse at the end of the story. What in the world happened? I just wonder from looking at the name change that just maybe this is the explanation that we have gone, the King of Jerusalem went from being a priest of God to one who proclaims that he is God, the Lord of righteousness himself, rather than one who is merely the priest of this Lord. I don't know that, but I'm just curious. In 600 years, we have gone from the King of Jerusalem being a man whom Abraham respects, to this man who is now gathering a coalition of his fellow kings. There will be five of them in all. not only Jerusalem, but other cities in the southern part of Israel that will come together to fight against Gibeon because Gibeon has made peace with the Israelites. Well, we see in our text that Gibeon, surrounded by these five kings and their armies, sends word down to Joshua. Now, I want you to get the geography in your mind. Gilgal is where Joshua and the Israelites are. It's right down on the Jordan River. It's right down near Jericho. It's almost 1,000 feet below sea level. Gibeon is about 2,500 feet above sea level, and it's about 15 miles or so from Gilgal. So not only does Joshua and the army of Israel have to march all night long, but it's like one of the stories your grandparents told you. It's uphill both ways. Well, I mean, this is uphill. It's not only 15 miles. Can you imagine having to march all night long, number one? And then number two, you're marching up this mountainous terrain and you've got to climb about 3,500 feet in elevation. It's uphill, folks, and it's rugged, it's steep. And so the Israelite army has come up literally when the king of Gibeon says, ascend up and help us. What he's saying is literally true. We want you to come up here. They're up on top of that mountainous spine that runs north and south through Israel. They're up on sort of a mountainous plateau in the center of the nation. And so the Israelites have to march uphill all night long, and they arrive apparently just about dawn, And of course, you can sort of envision in your mind, here's the city of Gibeon, surrounded by its enemies. But nobody's watching their back apparently, because from behind, here comes the army of Israel. And they attack, and they slaughter many of the enemy, and the enemy that is not slaughtered breaks and runs. Runs for their life. And we're given quite interesting details here. about the direction they took. First of all, they went down to Beth-Horam. Now, I realize most of these names don't mean a thing to you, but if you'll study your biblical history, you'll learn that Beth-Horam is a very interesting place. When you want to come down off a mountain, and this is something I learned from ten years of chasing elk out in the mountains of Wyoming. You get out in the mountains and you think, well, yeah, I want to go over there. And you just don't strike out and head in that direction. I mean, I did that the first time or two, but I learned very quickly the way to get from here to there is find out where the trails are. And these trails, apparently, they developed from game trails that then the Indians took over and the white man came along and followed those same trails. You better find out where the trails are because that is the route that's the easiest, the most efficient. If you don't stay on the trail, you're going to wear yourself slap dab out going up and down and up and down. From long experience, out west in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of the wilderness areas, there are these trails. And you get you a map of that area. And folks, if you want to go from here to there, you better stay on the trail. And let me tell you, I can give you some stories about what happens if you don't stay on the trail. It will be a long day. Let's put it that way. And so you're up on this mountain of spine and they're going to run and they're going to try to come off of that heading back down to the coastal area where most of these people have come from. There's only about four routes in the southern part of Israel off that mountain of spine. One of them is at Beth Horon. It's a ridge that is unbroken. You get on top of that ridge, and it's like a road that follows the top of the ridge, and you can go all the way down to the Shephelah, all the way down to the bottom. Most of the ridges that come off that mountain of Spine have gullies and canyons cutting them, so they're no good. This one, however, is unbroken. And so it became one of the major ways to get off of the mountain of Judah, they called it, down to the Shephelah, the lowlands below. Okay? And you follow this mountain ridge, and it has an interesting place in Israel's history. I don't want to get too far off here, but I find most men love to hear the logistics of the battlefield, you know, and the geography of it. Most women could care less. So guys, for a few moments, let me entertain you. In Israel's history, there's been about three occasions where this pass, up on top of that mountain ridge down to Beth Horon, You drop from upper Beth Horom down to lower Beth Horom and then down into the valley of Ajalon that we read about in our text. Here is the first time that it has great significance. Because what happens is the enemy fleeing from the army of Israel is now suddenly being pounded by these hailstones, and they're up on the top of this narrow ridge. There's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to run. The only way you can go is down the trail. And so we read of the hailstones falling on them all the way from Beth Horom, all the way down to Azekah, which again probably doesn't mean much to you, but I've been to Azekah. It is in the Valley of Elah. It's about ten miles further south. It's the next valley where there is a pass up to this mountain area, and it is the Valley of Elah. Anybody here know the significance of the Valley of Elah? That's where David fought Goliath in that valley, as Saul and the army of Israel are trying to block that pass. As the Philistines, if they could have gotten up the Valley of Elah, there is an unbroken ridge that you can follow clear to Bethlehem. And so Saul and the army of Israel is trying to block the Philistines there at the Valley of Elah. But that's about 10 miles south of the Valley of Ajlon. So in other words, it's sort of like that old song, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles. I mean, these guys, they hightailed it off of the mountain of Judah, hightailed it down the Beth Horam Pass, down to the Valley of Agilon, and they didn't stop because the army of Israel is pursuing them every step of the way. And they kept running all the way down to Makeda. Makeda is 25 miles south of Gibeon. Now keep in mind, the army of Israel has already marched all night long about 15 miles up from Gilgal, uphill, 3,500 feet. They have now attacked the enemy, slaughtered many of them at Gibeon, and they have chased these boys for 25 miles. This was a long day. And in Joshua's view, the problem is, is if the sun ever sets, These guys are going to be able to slip off. They're going to slip out of our sight. They're going to make it back to their own hometowns where they've got walls to defend. And so we learn that Joshua, at some point in the battle, shouts out to God for the sun to stand still over Gibeon and the moon to stand still over the valley of Ajalon. And lo and behold, it did. And so they chase these men all the way to Makeda. There these five kings find a cave to hide in. I've always said caves are a great place to hide until they find you. And what happened, they located these five kings hiding in this cave. Joshua says, don't quit chasing the army, but roll some stones up here to seal that cave up. Leave a guard here to watch them. And when we come back, we'll take care of these boys. And so they went ahead and cleaned up. And we see that they went from city to city to destroy them. and then came back to Makeda. And Joshua said, Roll away the stones. And they brought out the five kings, laid them on the ground. And Joshua had his captains come and put their feet on the necks of these kings. And Joshua says, Thus shall the Lord God do to all of your enemies. And they slew them with the sword, and they hung their bodies up. Remember to hang a body on a tree, the law from Deuteronomy. is to be accursed. And these five kings, because they're the leaders of an accursed people, are hung up before the Lord, and then at evening, they're taken down and buried in that cave. I want to let you look at a few of the pictures. Again, I showed you a few last week. Let me bring you back to where we left off last week. I am standing here on what is called Ramah. That is the burial place of Samuel the prophet. Rama is a Hebrew word simply meaning high place. In fact, the city that you see on the far ridge over there is the Palestinian city of Ramallah. You all have heard of Ramallah? And think about Ramallah, the name. It is Rama Allah put together. It's the high place of Allah. That's what that city is named for. Just over that far ridge is the city, the place where I was. The place that, you remember, where they tried to take it the first time and failed, and then once they purged evil out of the camp, they went back and conquered it. Right below us, see that circular hill down below me? That is the city of Gibeon. And a lot of these places are a lot of debate going on about where they exactly were, because it's very difficult that they were there so long ago. Gibeon is an exception. Without question, I'll give you reasons if you're interested later on, but without question, that round hill right there below Ramah is where Gibeon stood. And so if you can imagine in your mind's eye that hill surrounded by the armies of five kings, Now Joshua and the Israelites are coming from back the other way, if you would go to the next slide here. What I did is turn over my right shoulder, instead of looking straight ahead down to Gibeon, I'm turning back. And if you can look on that far ridge, right in the center there's a little hill, and if you look very, very closely, if you've got better eyes than me, you can see a tower in that far hill. That is a tower that stands on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is one gully away from Jerusalem. And so what I'm trying to get across to you, that's how close Adonai Zedek and Jerusalem are to Gibeon. That's why Adonai Zedek was so concerned that his next door neighbor, literally this is only about six miles from here to Jerusalem, why the king of Jerusalem was so concerned that one of their own cities had gone over defected to the Israelites. So this is the direction, a little bit to the left of that, is the direction from which the Israelites are coming. They're coming from the east. All right, go to the next picture. Now I've turned back to my left, and you'll notice that far ridge just goes down the hill. the pass of Beth Horam. That is the direction that the Amorites fled when the Israelites attacked. The Israelites came from the west, from the Jordan River, and when the Amorites broke and ran, they ran to the east, a little to the northeast, so that they could get on that road that went along that ridge line and dropped them down into the Shephelah, down to the coast land from which most of these other four kings came from down there, not from up here in the hill country like Jerusalem. All right, go another step. That's just another view of the same thing, looking back in the direction they fled. This is a Google Earth screen capture to sort of help you get your bearings. If you see that little yellow thumb thing in the bottom right-hand corner, that's at Ramah. That's where I'm standing when I took those pictures a moment ago. Then the one just to the up above it and a little to the left, you see that little yellow thumb thing, that's Gibeon. That's where we were looking down on it a moment ago. And then notice the one way over in the upper left-hand corner, see that thumb little yellow thing there, that's Beth Horom. That's where the pass is going down the ridge. You can see that some of the roads that are there today still follow that ancient path. Of course, it's modernized. There are superhighways today, but you can sort of see how the old ancient road came off of this mountainous area right through Beth Horam. So that'll give you an idea of the geography that is behind this. Let's talk about the miracle for a moment, and really there are several miracles going on here. We might say the first miracle is that the men of Israel had enough stamina to march all night long uphill and then fight this long day of battle over a battlefield of 25 miles the next day. But we have the hailstones catching the Amorites as they are fleeing down that path at Bethlehem. As a moment ago I explained, The ridge is very narrow there at Bath Horem. Not only was this important in this story, but in the Maccabean Wars, there's a Syrian army that flees down this same pass, and Judas Maccabeus and the Maccabean army attack them and annihilate them. Then, interestingly enough, in the Roman War against Rome and Judea, in 66 AD, Cassius who was the governor of Syria when Jerusalem began to rebel, brought the 12th Legion to Jerusalem to lay siege. This is in 66 A.D. He lay siege to the city, finally gave up, and they retreated down that same pass when the zealots, two armies of the zealots, came from two directions and wiped out an entire Roman fleet, 6,000 Roman soldiers slain on that same pass. They captured the eagle, which is absolutely unheard of for a Roman commander to lose the eagle. Cestius went back to Syria, died. We assume he committed suicide from the shame of it all. That's what touched off the Jewish war between Israel and Rome. It would end with Vespasian being sent by the Emperor Nero, not with one legion, but with four legions to finish up the job. And that, of course, occurred in 70 A.D. when the city of Jerusalem fell to the Romans. So three times in Jewish history, this same path has had importance. And then the Ajalon Valley down below is sort of down in the low hills. That's a very fertile area. And from there, they turn to the south, fleeing down to the Valley of Ela. and even further south down all the way to Makeda. So they are caught on this exposed ridge by this hailstorm. Now I have a little bit of background with this. I've seen large hail. You probably have as well. But I've told you about growing up on a farm in Texas and one of the legends was the bumper crop of cotton we had in 1953. I was just a little bitty tiny, I was just a baby in my mother's arms, you know. But anyway, that was a story. That was the only bumper crop we ever had, okay? So everybody talked about the bumper crop of 1953. But there was more to the story than that. Most of that crop was not picked up off the stalk, it was picked up off the ground. Because just before harvest time, A storm came up and hailstones the size of grapefruit fell and literally stripped the cotton off the plant. My uncle, my uncle George, some of you know my cousin Kay, it's her father, he was out in the field on a tractor when that hailstorm came. And the story is that he took the metal seat off of the tractor, got down underneath it with that metal seat over his head to protect him from the hailstones. because literally they had people knocked, silly knocked out by the hell stones the size of grapefruits falling out of the sky. Well, you have a similar thing here and notice the account is saying that more people died from the hell stones than died from the battle. And then of course there's the big miracle that is of the sun and the moon standing still. Now scoffers mock at this, you do realize that we're on an earth, what, about 25,000 miles in diameter, which we're covering in 24 hours, right? So we're moving about 1,000 miles an hour as I speak, like on a merry-go-round. We don't feel it because the force of gravity is holding us down. As one guy said, gravity sucks. He said, it's a good thing, because if it didn't, we'd just go flying away. Gravity is pulling us down, and we don't feel this. Well, I've always wondered, I wonder about these things. I'd like to be on the North Pole. I got the theory that you're going to weigh more at the North Pole than you would at the Equator. Because at the Equator, you're spinning, and so you've got centrifugal force trying to throw you off. Whereas at the North Pole, you're just standing there and going around like this. It's like being in the center of a merry-go-round. And every way you look is south when you're at the North Pole. Isn't that strange? Go east, go west, young man. Which way? You know, every way is south. Strange. I just think about these things. So, if the earth stopped its rotation, you know what happens when a car you're in going 70 miles an hour suddenly runs into an immovable object and stops. What happens to you? You don't stop, do you? You keep on going right through the windshield if you don't have your seatbelt on. And so the scoffers say, well, if the earth suddenly stopped its rotation, which is what has to happen for this to happen, everything on the surface of the earth would just go flying. Well, Jim did a great job this morning of showing us God's power and sovereignty and creation We could easily say that the God who created all this in the first place, put natural law in place in the first place, could certainly suspend it any time He wants to. That's what we would call a pure miracle. It's the suspension of natural law. But God, as I've mentioned in crossing the Jordan, I think that was probably due to an earthquake that took place 15 miles upstream, the falling of the walls of Jericho. God often uses means. In other words, God seems to value what we would call economy of effort. the easiest way to do something, the simplest way to do it. And as I think about this, there's a far simpler way of doing what's being described here than the earth actually stopping its rotation. Because as I've explained before, what you see, I mean, we saw the sun yesterday for what, first time in six weeks, something like that, seems like. But when you look up at the sun, as I've explained before, you're not seeing the sun. You're seeing the image of the sun. In fact, the sun you're seeing isn't even where you see it. Because the speed of light is such that it takes light eight minutes to get from the sun to your eyeball. And so what you're really seeing is the image of the sun as it was eight minutes ago. It's not where you see it. Well, would you like another? I don't think that's the explanation here, but another little fascinating tidbit, you're going to be a lot of fun at parties now, is the fact that you do realize that when you see the sunset, when you see the sun, let's say you're at the Atlantic Ocean, And you're watching the sunrise. Or you're at the Pacific Ocean. You're watching the sunset. When the bottom of the sun touches the ground, do you realize that the sun actually is already below the surface, below the horizon? It's set two minutes before you see the sunset. You say, well, how can that be? It's because the atmosphere refracts The light waves, it bends them. And so the sun is actually below the horizon, but you're still seeing it above the horizon. And so I'm just thinking, I mean, I'm always the lazy guy, you know, I'm trying to think of the easy way to do things. The easiest way is not to stop the movement of celestial bodies. The easiest way is just to bend, diffract the light to where the image of the sun stands still and the image of the moon. Stand still. That's a whole lot easier to do that. If you've got some cloud of gas or something of that nature that will bend light, you could do that quite easily. So anyway, I don't know how God did it, but I'm suspicious that he may have used means like that. There are those who say, well, wait a minute, this shouldn't be understood literally because it's poetry. If you've got an NIV or one of the modern versions, you'll see it's out, sort of laid out as poetry. And it is said to be a quote from the book of Jasher. We don't have the book of Jasher. It appears to be a book of what we might call songs, war songs that commemorate battles. So we don't know what's in the book of Jasher. But here's a quote from that book. And so some say, well, this is just poetry and we shouldn't understand it literally. But the text goes on to say exactly what the poetry says, that the sun did stand still and the moon stood still. that that's the explanation of this long day. Well, what is the application here for us? I want you to remember that God has already taught Joshua how to wage war. You remember they first came out of Egypt, and they were heading to Canaan, and there's a text that says that God did not take them the short, direct way. Now, this is my interpretation, because that's the way the Philistines, and they didn't yet know how to make war. And so God took them down through the Sinai Peninsula. And the first war they ever fought, the first battle was with this tribe called the Amalekites. And do you remember how they were taught? This is Joshua who has been sent down into the valley. Moses is going to stay up on the mountain with the rod of God. Do you remember the story? And Joshua's got to fight the Amalekites, but it's Moses with the rod that's going to determine the outcome of the victory. As Moses held out the rod, Joshua would prevail. But as soon as his arm got tired and he dropped the rod, Amalek prevailed. Now, you know the story. I've preached that to you several times. You're probably sick to death of hearing that. But notice that what's going on there is God is teaching them how to war. But notice that all those people are dead at this point outside of Caleb and Joshua. They've all bitten the dust. This new generation needs to be taught how to make war. And we've already had a couple of demonstrations how to do it and how not to do it. How to do it at Jericho, how not to do it at I. But now we come to Gibeon and to this host that God has gathered together against the city of Gibeon. And once again, we see more or less the same thing, that there is something for man to do. Right? He's got to fight. He's going to win. And yet, at the same time, there's something God must do if they're going to prevail. And so we have this summary of the battle, that it is God fighting for Israel. He's not fighting for them in the sense in the place of them, but He's fighting right alongside them. That they are called to obey, and God is blessing them as they obey. First with the hailstones, then with the long day. Now, I've got to quickly, because did anybody notice that a lot of this sure sounds like what ISIS is doing over there in Iraq? All this cutting off heads with swords and stuff, putting your feet on the necks of your enemies and executing them. We've seen YouTube videos that look a whole lot like that, haven't we? And so you might be saying, well, wait a minute. Are we to be just as vicious, just as ruthless as they were in that day? Let me remind you that God is using physical warfare to teach us lessons about spiritual warfare. We do not fight the same kind of battle. Our enemy is not the same as theirs. Our enemy, we are reminded in Ephesians 6, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. That's not my problem. I'm wrestling with spiritual powers, the rulers of the darkness. It is a spiritual battle that I'm fighting. We're told over in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul reminds us that though we're walking carnally in the flesh, our weapons are not carnal and our enemies aren't carnal. We're pulling down strongholds. You say, well, what do you mean by stronghold? He said every imagination. that exalts itself against God. In other words, we're in an ideological war. I don't know how else to explain it. We're in a battle of ideas. We're in a battle of truth and lies, darkness and light. But God is using the picture of a physical battle, and He certainly has the right to do this. There are those, as I mentioned, that say today, well, I just can't worship a God like that. kill every living creature in a city. If you think this is rough, wait until you see what's coming at the final judgment. This is God Almighty. This is the One who is the Holy God who will not do wrong, who must do right. His very nature demands it. These are sinners who are under His wrath, under His curse. How dare you tell God what He can do and what He can't do? And as I say, if you think this is something, just wait until the final scene unfolds. Paul describes it in writing to the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 1. You who are troubled, rest with us. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on all them who know not God nor obey not the gospel of Christ. There's a far worse thing. You remember Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, don't fear him who can destroy the body, Isis. Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. And he's not talking about the devil, he's talking about God Almighty. There is someone who has something far, far worse than getting your head cut off in store for his enemies. And so God has every right in the world to direct His people as in this case. But notice we have moved from the Old Testament type and shadow, carnality, into the New Testament day of spirituality. And I've illustrated it like this before, it's like the butterfly inside a cocoon, that the grace and Mercy, the spiritual truth of God is there in the Old Testament, but it's cocooned within this system that is carnival. It's got physical places and physical battles, physical people, priests and kings and so forth. But the truth is there. There's grace in the midst of all this law, this legal system. Is that right? In the Old Testament, there's both. And what we see in the New Testament is that the grace and truth come out of that carnal shell. You say, well, what happened to the carnal shell, Islam? You say, what's Islam? Well, we can explain it in a lot of ways, but the best way I can explain it, it's Old Testament religion without the grace, without the mercy, without the truth, without the Spirit. It's the carnal shell left behind. Christianity. has a connection to this. But Christianity leaves behind the carnality, the physical side of it, to major on that which is spiritual. Okay, I'll get off my hobby horse, but just chew on that a little bit. We're in a battle. We overcome, not by killing the enemy, but by converting the enemy. We overcome not by doing evil, but by doing good, says Paul. Jesus himself says, how do you defeat your enemy? Love your enemies. Do good to them that curse you. This is a strange type of battle that you and I are called to fight. And so there are many differences. We're not to take guns, knives, and go out and slaughter folks like is happening in Iraq right now. We are to fight a battle, and it's a real battle, and we are to overcome. We are to stand up for Jesus, as we sang. We're to stand firm on the battlefield. We're not to flinch. We're not to flee. We're never to cave in. At the end of the day, we're still, as Paul describes in Ephesians 6, to be standing. We're not to fall before the host of evil. But it is a real battle. It is a battle between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. These two kingdoms are in collision. And we are called to fight the good fight of faith. Sometimes we win by dying. Now, most armies don't win by dying. The army of Christ sometimes wins by dying. Go to the closing verses. I don't have time to take you there. Well, I do. I've got all day. But I know some of y'all might not. On top of changing to Daylight Savings Time, my watch stopped yesterday. It's one of those watches that's exactly right twice a day. That's what I got. So I don't have a clue what time it is. I'm just going to quit when I get through. Is that fair? Most of the time, preachers have a problem of not quitting when they get through. That's the worst. So I'm just going to try to get through, and I'm going to quit when I get through. Okay? Hang in there. But notice the last verses of that wonderful chapter, Romans 8. That's where, if God be for us, who can be against us comes from. And yet he goes on to say, he quotes, but wait a minute, we're being killed all the day long. We're being slaughtered like sheep led to the slaughter. How can you say we're conquering? And he turns around and says, nay, but in these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Physical death does not stop us. We've not lost if we lay down our life for the cause of Jesus Christ. In fact, he goes on to say, I'm persuaded that neither death nor life and all these other things can ever separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We cannot lose and therefore we are called upon to be soldiers of the cross to fight the good fight. But notice, like Joshua, there's something for us to do. There is a battle to fight. We're not to stand on the sidelines and watch. We're to engage the enemy. Yes, God was fighting for Israel, but Israel must fight as well. But they need some things. Number one, as I've described to you, I'm thinking the main thing I need, I'm thinking, Joshua, please pray for a short day. Not a long day. After I've marched all night, uphill, 15 miles, engaged the enemy in battle, I'm saying, if ever there's a day I want to be over, it's this one. Instead, Joshua asked for a long day so that they can catch all the enemy as they're fleeing. They need strength, right? They need stamina. And secondly, not only do they need that, but they need time lest the enemy escape. And so out of a sense of need. Now this explains prayer to us. Do you understand? The Scripture says here that there's never been a day like this, never been anything like this, where God responds to the voice of a man. Joshua just cried out, let the sun stand still over Gibeon, let the moon stand still over Azulon, and it happened. God heard and He answered. And so in one sense, the writer is saying this is unique. There's never been another day like this, and I certainly don't know of one. But at the other end of the spectrum, what we're to learn from this is that this is anything but unique. That in the battle, we're to constantly, getting ahead of myself, constantly, being crying out to our God for help from above. And notice how God has come to their aid with exactly, with precisely what they need. In fact, the text says more were killed from the hell stones than were ever killed from the sword. Do you see the miraculous God is coming alongside us in the battle? We may be fighting, but we're not fighting alone. We are given armor, remember? Ephesians 6 describes from head to toe, from the helmet to our shoes, we are clothed with what? The gospel. Gospel truth. And we are given a weapon, a sword. Oh, now, now you are talking, preacher. But it is the sword of the Spirit, which is what? The Word of God. And so God is assisting us. We are called upon for what in this battle? Prayer. Perseverance, overcoming, not flinching, not running, standing strong in faith. It's a fight to the finish. If we were to draw one other analogy, God's not taking any prisoners. It is in every sense of the word a jihad. Now that's not what they call it. Remember, they called these cities cursed, a kharam. You'll hear that word, by the way, the Moslems will use it today, haram. Anybody heard of Boko Haram? You remember the group in Africa that kidnapped the girls, still causing trouble over there? Do you know what that means? Boko is a word that means it's difficult to translate, they say, but something like Some have said, well, it's books, book learning. Well, it's not exactly that, but it's modern learning, western learning. That's what Boko Haram means, cursed, forbidden. The group Boko Haram still use this same word, same root that the Jews use to call it the Karam, the cursed city, the curse of God. falling upon something. And once the curse fell on you, if you are haram, you're to be slaughtered. In other words, you understand this is a battle to the finish. This is either you or it's the kingdom of light and darkness can't coexist. There's no shadow lands in the middle. There's no gray areas out here in the middle. It's just one or the other. Christ and the devil cannot coexist. It's just one or the other. One or the other's got to go. And so notice that the other similarity is that we're fighting for keeps here. I remember old Roth Barnard, an old Calvinist evangelist back in the 40s and 50s. He was preaching a revival service at a Baptist church somewhere in the South. And this lady came up to him. Of course, Roth, if you've ever heard some of his sermons, could be, how shall I put it, less than politically correct. Very direct. Anyway, you have to hear him. One of a kind. And this lady come up to him and says, Brother Barnard, you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. He said, Honey, I'm not trying to catch flies. I'm trying to slay proud sinners. That's the point. We're not here to play tiddlywinks. We're to slay the old man. Mortify the flesh. that whatever you are as a lost person has got to die. You see? This is a fight to the finish. It's the new man not supplementing the old man. It's the new man taking the place of the old man. The old man has been crucified with Christ, says Paul. And so it is a fight to the finish against the world, against sin, against Satan. No quarter can be given. And I can hardly ever read this story about these five kings being dragged out of that cave. Always figured I'd be on the receiving end of the sword. Some guy's foot on my neck, right? But I can never read this account without thinking of how Paul ended the Roman epistle. In Romans 16 and verse 20, he says these words, and the God of peace shall bruise Satan. under your feet shortly. You're going to put your feet on the neck of that old serpent, that old devil, and crush him. Because the victory is certain and complete. Well, there's the story. If you are lost today, I want you to understand that you have more to worry about than the army of Joshua and the Israelites coming up over the hill. It is the coming of Jesus Christ with all His angels in glory, and He's not coming to play games. He's coming to judge. And as Paul wrote the first epistle to Thessalonica, you who wait for His appearance from heaven, this One who by His blood has saved us from the wrath to come." It's coming. Oh, that ye might be saved. Flee for refuge. Flee for mercy to the mighty Savior. I'm going to change our last hymn this morning. Come on up, Kenny. After I was working on this yesterday, I said, what a day to sing the battle hymn of the Reformation, A Mighty Fortress, Martin Luther's wonderful, wonderful hymn. Would you stand and sing it as we conclude today and think about what we're singing. He's talking about a battle, talking about God being the mighty rock, the mighty fortress for whom we fight. Listen to these words, think about them, meditate them in light of what we have seen today.