Alright, believe it or not, we are coming to halfway in the Old Testament series. The Basic Bible Study, an introductory guide to understanding the Scriptures. Part 7 tonight, The Conquest Era. And as we have just said, that brings us into the book of Joshua. Now just really to remind ourselves where we are at this stage and where in particular the children of Israel were while they had wandered through the wilderness for 40 years because of their rebellion and unbelief at the village or town of Kadesh Barnea. Moses, the leader of the people, has died and so with the death of Moses they stand at another critical fork in the road. They're back on the border of the promised land of Canaan. So we have the entire host of the Israelites, around about two, maybe two and a half, or even three million people, and they're on the east side of the River Jordan. Now, when you see the River Jordan on the map, and you have the Dead Sea below it, then you think, Towards the right-hand side, well, that's where the people of Israel were at this moment in time. Across the Jordan, the Transjordan, they call it, and they have to cross over the River Jordan and occupy the land that was on the western side of the Jordan that they call the Cisjordan. This was the place that was previously promised to Abraham and to his descendants around about 700 years before the times written off in the book of Joshua. By this stage, the cup of the iniquity of the people who lived in the land was now filled. God's time of judgment had come to them. Their period of grace had come to an end. And the children of Israel are poised to possess their land. You'll see the title in the middle of page 2, the scope of the book. And when we talk about the scope of this book of Joshua, well we've got the story of Israel's history from the death of Moses, through all of the battles and the wars in the land of Canaan, right through to the death of Joshua. So at the beginning of the book of Joshua, you have one person dying, that is Moses. At the end of the book of Joshua, another person dies, and that is Joshua. Chapters 1-12 of Joshua cover the 5 or 6 years that come after Moses' death. Then the events that are told in the last two chapters, chapters 23 and 24 of Joshua, probably take place about 20 years later. So we're on to period number four in Old Testament history, in that arc of Bible history that we have, we drew that out maybe in lesson number one, and we've come to the Conquest Era. That's why we have the symbol here in the notes of two crossed swords, because we're talking about battle, we're talking about warfare and conflict and combat. It's the Conquest Era. Now there were two purposes in the conquest, so we're talking about a dual purpose here. One was the claiming of the land for an inheritance, and the other purpose would have been the prosecution of God's holy war. So we have not, in the land of Canaan, not just a land for Israel to dwell in, but they are to take on God's war, his holy war, against the inhabitants of Canaan. And we find some indication of this holy war and the dual purpose indeed for them coming into the land back as far as Deuteronomy 9 and the verse 4. God tells us the land has been earmarked for His chosen people and He is using His chosen people as the instrument of a tool in His hand to prosecute a holy war against the idolatrous inhabitants in the land of Canaan. Over in Numbers 33, verses 52-54, God instructs the people about their duty when they would come into the land of Canaan. He says you are to drive out all the inhabitants of the land and destroy every token of their idolatry. You come across their pictures, they are to be destroyed. Their molten images, destroy them. The high places that they would buy down in worshiply form, they ought to be devastated and destroyed as well. The biblical accounts of Israel's entry into Canaan record the actual destruction of only a few cities. So while they were destroying the images and the shrines and all of that, they were leaving the cities intact. Drive out the inhabitants, take over their property. That was the basic philosophy. And Israel came in and destroyed all the towns and destroyed all the cities and dismantled the place brick by brick and stone by stone. Well, a desolate land in total ruin would be no use to them as they came out of 40 years of wandering about in the wilderness. They needed something that was ready made in which they could live. So destroy the shrines, keep the towns and the cities and the villages intact. We're talking here about the idolatry in the land of Canaan, and you'll see just one picture there in the middle of page 3, a typical shrine or statue that the Canaanite peoples would have been worshipping at this time. Until we discovered the Eucharist tablets in 1928, that would have been by the spirit of the archaeologists, people didn't really know how corrupt the religious system in the land of Canaan had been at the time of the Israelite conquest. But these Eucharist tablets, they provide a lot of information about how demonic and licentious the worship, so called, that was being practiced in the land of Canaan actually had become. So with this evil worship system that God is targeting and that He is determined He will wipe out. Throughout the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, for example, Deuteronomy 11, verses 16 and 17, the Lord has warned His people, you need to guard yourself against the idolatry in the land to which I am sending you. And so He says, as a means of safeguarding themselves, He says every single person in the land is going to have to be slain. If anybody survives, that one will corrupt the nation of Israel and the program that Israel was to follow, it would be polluted and it would be derailed. So that's why we have a holy war instituted here. The Israelites are to go in, perform the function of God's military spearhead among the people, purge it of all the vile practices in the land before they populate it. Now if you talk about the possibility of no Israelite casualties, that would be a very strange thing in a war, that you go in there, you have a military campaign, and yet you have very few casualties. Something even better than what the Americans were able to do in the first Gulf War in Iraq in 1919, and certainly in the recent stage 2 of the operation in more recent days. But if the Israelites had obeyed God's instructions down to the last letter, they could have conquered the entire land of Canaan, cleansed it from corner to corner, and yet not sustained a casualty. Numbers 31 verse 49 says about a battle in which the Israelites were really and wholly obedient to the Lord, and they said unto Moses, Thy servants have taken the son of the men of war which are under our charge, and there lacketh Not one man of us. And the book of Joshua underlines this fact as well. In Joshua chapter 6, if you do as God has told you, then there will be no Israelite casualties. The second aspect of the occupation of Canaan demonstrates the fulfillment of prophecy. When the two million plus Israelites left the borders of the land of Egypt, they were little more than a mob of people. A whole swarming mass of people admittedly, but they were not yet a nation in their own right. They needed three things to lift themselves onto the status of being a nation. Number one, there must be a people. They had that, over two million of them. Number two, they had to have a constitution. And on Mount Sinai, through the Ten Commandments and the ordinances that God gave to Moses there, that constitution was given, and then they had to have a land. But as they're wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, they did not have a land. But now that they have to cross over the Jordan and they have to occupy the land of Canaan, they will have a land and they will now become a nation. We come to the characteristic part of the notes here on review. Era number one, of course, is creation era. Then the figure would be Adam. And the location, the Garden of Eden, and the storyline summary that no doubt you'll be able to fill in yourselves. Adam is created by God, but he sins and destroys God's original plan for man. Then we have here the number two, which is the patriarch here, head and shoulders above everybody else, is Abraham in there. We have the location, the land of Canaan, that was the land promised to Abraham that Israel is now coming to. Abraham is chosen by God to father a people, to represent God to the world. Then we have the third year, which is the Exodus year, coming out of Egypt. We have Moses leading it, he's the figure. And we have Egypt, the location. Moses delivers the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and then gives them the law. And we come now tonight to the conquest year. That's what was in the blank there. The main figure, of course, is Joshua. The land, well, the place is Canaan again, because that's where we are coming to. The story line summary, Joshua leads the conquest of the promised land. So it is a one line and a short line at that in terms of the story line summary tonight. Joshua leads the conquest of the promised land. Now if we expand that a little, we have the story line expansion there and we note there are four main events. in the conquest era. Number one is Jordan, number two is Jericho, number three is the conquest, the general conquest of the rest of the country, and number four is dominion. So we'll take these four stages and main events in order. Number one, Jordan, a miraculous parting of water, and we read of that in Joshua chapter 1 through to Joshua chapter 5. There in italics in the notes under Jordan, a miraculous parting of the water, we have the summary of these five chapters. Moses dies and God handpicks Joshua to succeed him. Joshua's first challenge is to cross the Jordan River at blood stage. God commands him to prepare the nation for a ceremonial procession and to begin walking, priests first, toward the Jordan River. When the priests touched water, God would part the water for them. This is the second miraculous parting of water that God performed for Israel. The first, of course, was the parting of the Red Sea. The people respond, and God parts the Jordan River for a distance of about 20 miles. They cross without incident, and the water begins flowing again. Under this Jordan episode we have a subtitle, The Preparation and we read of the preparation that they made to cross the river Jordan in Joshua chapter 1 and Joshua chapter 2. There were two kinds of preparation, inward preparation in their own hearts and minds and there was an outward preparation for this entrance into the land of promise. The inward preparation was made up of several charges that we read of in chapter 1. First of all in chapter 1 verses 1-9 we have the charge of Jehovah the Lord unto Joshua. Moses having died, Joshua stood as the obvious choice to succeed him in leading the nation. And so they had Moses here and he is gone, gone by the way of death. But Joshua, he is that ready made replacement under the eye of God, by the choice of God. And we read of that in Deuteronomy 34 and the verse 9. So we have this charge of Jehovah to Joshua. Then, chapter 1, verses 10-15, we have the charge of Joshua to the people. And in chapter 1 again, verses 16-18, the charge of the people to Joshua. Joshua was saying, this is what I expect of you and what the Lord expects of you. And they were saying, and this is how we will behave in front of you and under your leadership. Now we can sum up all of these three charges in Joshua chapter 1 in two words, and we sum it up in one word, obedience, and in the second word, courage. The word of God has been revealed. The people needed obedience, and also they needed courage in the face of the enemies that they were going to be coming up against in the land of Canaan. This section of the book, Joshua 1, underlines the truth that courage will be the natural outflow of obedience. Now that's the inward preparation. We have got the outward preparation mentioned in the next chapter, and that is Joshua 2. You remember how a while back, whenever they were meant to be going into the land of Canaan, they sent out twelve spies. Ten came back with a foul report and a bad report, but two came back with a good report. Well, there are spies sent out again into the land in Joshua chapter 2. I guess spying is a pretty current thing as well, maybe especially in Donegal here, after the recent slaughter of Dennis Donaldson. Well, we've got spying here in Joshua the second chapter and spies are sent into Jericho to determine the strength of the enemy and all of the fortification that the enemies would have had at this particular time. Joshua, the military general has got a plan. And his plan is to get right into the centre of the land of Canaan and drive there, for if they attack the centre, they'll drive a wedge in there between the north and the southern part of the country. Jericho, the city of palm trees, was right in his path. It was an obvious first target in the centre of the country. On that previous spying mission that we have just referred to, we read of it in Numbers chapter 13, the twelve spies have been sent into the land of Canaan, but this time the twelve spies are whittled away down to two. We have only two of them now, and that suggests that only two of the former spying party had encouraged the people to go forward, and therefore only two of them are sent in this time around. These two spies made their way to the house of a woman by the name of Rahab. She was a harlot. Why go to Rahab? Of all people that were in the country, why choose Rahab? Why go to such a questionable place as the house of a harlot? Well, from a purely practical point of view, this would actually be the best place. that you could go to in the quest for information. They're going to spies. They want to learn about the defences of the city that they're about to attack. A harlot would be the place where the merchants, the military men, the politicians, they would have spent some time there. And so a wide range of information about a city could be picked up in the House of the Harlot. When the presence of the two spies there became known to the people in Jericho, the two spies brokered a deal with Rahab. If she would hide them, and if she would put the pursuers off their track, then her life and the lives of her family would be saved when the Israelites would return again and would conquer the city of Jericho. You remember the crimson cord that was hung from her window that would identify her house when that invasion would begin, Joshua 2 and 21. I note here that Rahab was motivated by faith, not by fear. She's rather an intriguing, interesting individual. In Joshua 2, verse 9, she uses the sacred name for Lord, she uses the term Jehovah, and so she identifies herself as someone here who knew something about the Lord of the Hebrews. Maybe someone who has come to believe in Him now, once the spies have appeared at her house and told her of God's mission and God's plan and God's person indeed. So her harbouring of the spies stemmed not from fear, brought from faith that Israel's God was the true God and it's very interesting when you get over into the New Testament and you read again about Rahab in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 verse 31 the book of Hebrews talks not about her immorality but it commands her faith. What is interesting is as well that Rahab in her testimony talks about the Red Sea having been dried up Now that event had taken place 40 years earlier and yet Rahab knew all about it. So that tells us there is a lot of fear in the land of Canaan about these Israelites who have come up out of the land of Egypt who have wandered about in the desert for 40 years but who are now making their way over and coming into their country. That's the intention and so the people in Canaan They had been charting the progress of the Israelites since the time that they left Egypt, and now when they looked across the River Jordan into the Transjordanarium, the Canaanites would have seen the huge collection of people. They'd have known that these Hebrews are led by a God who was already to ride up the Red Sea before them. He was giving them victory over the kings in the Transjordan area that we read of in Deuteronomy 2 and Deuteronomy 3. And so as the Canaanites looked over the Jordan, and so the Israelites, they were terrified. And a reference to their fear is jotted down in Joshua 2 and the verse 11. So in the first section of the book tonight we have thought of the preparation, Joshua chapter 1 and Joshua chapter 2. Then we have the passage in Joshua 3 and Joshua 4. The river Jorah is in part dried up. A way is made through it. Parts back to the drying up of the Red Sea. And God has good reason to perform this miracle. And we give some of the reasons here in the notes why God dried up the Jorah. One of the obvious reasons why God dried up the Jordan River was to facilitate the conquest of the land of Canaan for his people. At this time of year, when Israel had come to the borders of Jordan and was going to come over into Canaan, the snows up on the Mount Hermon would have been melting. The Jordan River was now overflowing its banks. It became as wide as one mile in places. And it was about a mile wide opposite Jericho. And at this time of the year, those inhabitants over in the land of Canaan, they would have felt really secure. No invading force can cross the Jordan and can attack us now. The water is too formidable, too big, a barrier. The current of the Jordan was swift. Enough rafts or ships could not be made to ferry all the fighting men across that would have been needed to lay a siege to any of those Canaanite cities. But Godium dries up the waters of the Jordan River. And in drying up that passage, a way of advance had been opened up for Israel. But then the second reason why God dried up the Jordan, by now a new generation has come in place of the old. You remember how the old generation died out, all those men in the wilderness, they died. And there was funeral after funeral after funeral until all of them died out, until only those who were 20 years of age, way back at the beginning of the wilderness wanderings, they were the only ones now left alive. Now this new generation needed witness of the power of God in the physical universe. Their fathers and grandfathers had seen the drying up of the Red Sea back in Exodus 14, 15 to 31. But now they needed to see something that was similar to that to show to them, in their generation, that this God is just the same. That God is just the same today. And that's why God dried up the Jordan River for them. Many explanations have been given over the years as to how the River Jordan dried up on this occasion. A lot of people talk about a landslide theory. That a landslide took place upstream and Joshua simply took advantage of the landslide to cross over. But if you note the words in Joshua 3 in verse 13, they are prophetic words, and it shall come to pass, as soon as the souls of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand upon a heap. Joshua is not looking for a landslide. He is not expecting a landslide. He does not need one. And so those Israelites with all of their religious items with them, the tabernacle representing the capital of God that is there, the ark and all of the sacred vessels, all of these are there. And Joshua 3 and 15 says that as soon as they that bear the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, for Jordan overflowed all its banks at the time of harvest. It was then When the feet of the priests went into the Jordan River, the river dried up and the people crossed on dry land. Another reason why God did it, Joshua's position as leader was confirmed by the drying up of the Jordan. It was Joshua who had said, this event is going to take place in Joshua 3 and 13. And it happened. And because his word was proven true, it meant that his position was valedictorious He was the undisputed leader of the people now. The drawing up of the Jordan River issued in the psychological devastation of the Canaanites. Can you imagine being a Canaanite, seeing the army of Israel encamped on the other side of Jordan? feeling rather secure there is at least a body of water between you, these guys won't get across, and then all of a sudden to see the river dried up and to see Israel crossing over a dried up river, all of a sudden your security has just evaporated out of your sight. And if, according to Rahab, the hearts of the people of Canaan had already melted when they had heard about the miracle at the Red Sea, Their hearts must have melted even more when they saw their own River Jordan dry up. Joshua 5 and 1 confirms that this was the case. Usually, generations that follow after great events don't believe all the stories that are given to them from those days. And they begin to think, ah, yeah, that's a tall story. That's a bit of a teal. That's something that the grandfather has just concocted and added to it. It wasn't really on as great a scale as what he is saying. Well, for this reason, the Lord, through Joshua, commanded the people, build a memorial. to this miraculous crossing of the Jordan. Joshua 4, verses 1-9. And they built this memorial, a mound of stones. They put it in the middle of that dried up section of the river. And then the water rushed in and covered up the stones so that in later years, when succeeding generations of the people of the Lord would look out over the Jordan and would see this mound of stones that was coming up from deep beneath the Jordan, they would question, where did that mound of stones come from? In Joshua 4, verse 7, details the answer that the old men would give, the stones they stand as proof that this great miracle performed by the hand of God actually occurred. So we have the preparation. We have the passage. And in Joshua 5, we read off the purification. This was the first act of Joshua once he crossed over the Jordan. The people then, they encamped in the Cis Jordan area, that's around Gilgo. Gilgo was between the Jordan and Jericho, about 6 miles from Jordan, about 2 miles from Jericho. It was here when they got to Gilgo that the manna that had been falling from heaven for their daily supply, it ended. And God's people now began to eat of the rich produce of the land of Gion. Joshua 5 and verse 12. Now that manna had not filled all the time through the forty years in the wilderness. But now that they had arrived in Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, the land of such wonderful abundance, the manna was no longer needed. There had been no circumcision in the wilderness. All of those who had been born on the march The males were not circumcised because during this 40 year period, the covenant was in suspension because of the people's disbelief and disobedience. Numbers chapter 14. But now that Gilgal, having crossed the Jordan, the old practice of circumcision is resumed with this new generation and it marks the renewal of the old relationship between God and His people. Gilgal, for us believers, highlights a spiritual truth. Those who are living to the flesh, walking according to the course of the world, We never experience a circumcision of the heart and in the spirit that Romans 2 and 29 talks about. When we are walking for the world and for the devil, we never experience a cleansing from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 1. There is nothing necessary laying aside of the sin that does so easily beset us. In Hebrews 12, verse 1. But we are commanded to do these things. And Gilgal reminds us this must be done. Purification. is the demand upon the people of God. So we have thought of the first section, that's the Jordan, the miraculous parting of the water, Joshua chapter 1 through to Joshua chapter 5. We come now to the second section, that's Jericho, and we've got here a crucial conquest of the city. You see the little graphic of the palm tree or two there, and Jericho would have been the city of palm trees. It was a small oasis on the west side of the River Jordan near the Dead Sea. Not just the eastern gateway into the Promised Land, it was also a fortified city, and it poses a real threat to the welfare of Israel. Joshua, we are told, is a brilliant military strategist. So much so that Joseph's commands in the Bible, his campaigns in the Bible, are still studied in the Army War College today. And as Joseph stands overlooking the city, wondering how he's going to conquer it, the angel of the Lord appears to him and tells him to march around the city once a day for seven days, and on the seventh day march around it seven times, and the people are to shout and the city wall will fall down. They did, and that wall did. It was a miraculous conquest of a city. Now, it can't be this particular conquest of Jericho that the military strategists are studying today because God is not working in this kind of manner. But the rest of His campaign, they have studied and they have copied. We've got here a captain for the conquest, the vision of the Lord. As Joshua is looking over Jericho, top of page 10, he meets a stranger who has a sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua, Israel's leader, is very keen to determine, is this stranger for us or is he against Israel? The stranger identifies him as the captain of the Lord's host. Joshua 5 and verse 14. And whenever Joshua hears this is who he is, the captain of the Lord's host, he falls down on his feet. And it's obvious here that what we have of this person appearing to Joshua just before the battle of Jericho, this is an example of what we call a theophany or a Christophany in theological language. It simply means that God is revealing himself in the figure of a person. in Old Testament times. Sort of echoes of the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3. And this was an unforgettable experience because here the Lord confronted Joysha with the thought, I am on my own side. Whose side are you on? And that, of course, is a question that confronts us every day that we live. As we go out today, whose side are we on? Was Jesus the captain, we ask here? And then we give some reasons listed by George Bush. Not the current American president, not even his father, but an old writer who wrote a book, a commentary on the book of Joshua many years ago. And this George Bush gives reasons why he believes and why many of us believe that this captain who appeared to Joshua before he came to Jericho was actually the Lord Jesus Christ. in a pre-incarnate form. He gives the reasons here. The title that he gives himself, Captain of the Hosts of the Lord, is another form of the name, Lord of Hosts. Then another reason is acceptance of worship and adoration. Joshua Peahs worshipped to him there. Now, if he had been an angel, he would have said, don't worship me, I don't deserve to be worshipped. If he had been any creative being, again, he should not have been worshipped, and he should have refused to worship. As you'll see in Revelation 19 and 10, Revelation 22 and 9, Judges 13 and 16, that because He is accepting the worship that Joshua is giving. And he does more, he says, loose your shoes from off your feet. The place where you're standing is holy. Then that shows the person here, this captain, is actually divine. The very fact the place was made holy by his presence, Joshua 5.15, identifies the captain as God. Then again, He is expressly called Jehovah in chapter 6 verse 2. And that shows us again, this Captain must be the Lord Jesus Himself. By having met with the Lord Jesus Christ, Joshua, is now a man fully prepared and totally equipped for the task. He has seen the Lord at work in the drying of the Red Sea and now in the Jordan River. God has not changed over the space of those 40 years. That really encourages him. He now, in meeting the captain of the Lord's host, has a personal assurance and promise that the Lord would lead him to success if he kept the Lord's way. And he is spiritually prepared to take the land and conquer it. So we have a captain for the conquest. We have as well a charter for the conquest because we're talking a little here about the military manual for the invasion of Canaan. Nothing was left to chance here. It wasn't made up on the hoof what they were going to do. Back in Deuteronomy chapter 20 we have the military manual for the occupation of Canaan outlined. Deuteronomy 20 verse 15 records Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations." Now, these nations, at the end of verse 15 in Deuteronomy 20, these nations, that is a clear reference to the people God had told those Israelites to go in and to exterminate. As the 16th and 17th verses say, But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee, for an inheritance thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hibbites and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Now this is extreme action. Exterminate these people in the country. But the reason for it is given back in Deuteronomy 20, verse 18, that they teach you not to do after their abominations which they have done unto their gods. So should ye sin against the Lord your God, so that you go in there and be decisive, be ruthless, so as to prevent idolatry and prevent immorality spreading among the people of Israel. But in addition to these people in the cities of Canaan, We read about those who were in cities afar off, cities that were dotted around the borders of the promised land, outside of the land of Canaan, and those in those cities were not specifically designated for destruction. In fact, verses 10 to 14 of Deuteronomy 20 give instructions about these cities that are afar off. What was Israel to do? Come along to these cities and offer peace. If the offer was accepted, the inhabitants of the place would become servants to Israel. But if the offer of peace was turned down, Israel then was obliged to slay the army and take the spoils of those cities dotted outside the borders of Canaan for themselves. So we come to the fall of Jericho. This is essentially God's holy war. That's the point we have been emphasizing. The Lord chooses here to demonstrate to his people that he did not need them to conquer the land. So rather than send them out in military formation, and with all of the military gear with them, he determines that this great bastion of Canaanite strength, the city of Jericho, would fall without Israel's military muscle being flexed. It was going to be a symbolic victory. So before this defeat of Jericho, Information is given by the Lord about what they would do with the spoil of the city when it would fall. God claimed it all because he was the victor in the battle against Jericho, Joshua 6, verses 17 to 19. He sanctifies it or consecrates it unto himself. And of course, there was one person who disobeyed God here, that was Achan. And he did it with the most horrendous consequences as we read in Joshua chapter 7. But we all know the story of the fall of Jericho. March around Jericho once a day for six days, then march around it on the seventh day seven times. Be totally silent as you do it. The details are provided in Joshua 6 verse 3 through to 5 and then verse 10. Now that would have demanded quite a bit of restraint from the people. Because those in Jericho must have been looking over their city walls and seeing the strange behaviour of the Israelites all around them day after day. And every morning they did it again. It must have been one of the rarest sights that was known to man. But after the seventh time, on the seventh day, the Israelites blew the trumpet, shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell flat, allowing Joshua's forces to take the city. So instead of a two to a three year siege that would have been necessary to take the city under normal circumstances, instead of that, the victory was immediately handed to them on a plate by the Lord. And it was saying to the people of Israel, your God, He is able to overcome the enemy in a moment of time. What is impossible to you is gloriously possible with Him. And so the people of Israel careered on into the sitting, followed the instructions of the Lord with, as we have said, the exception of Achan, and amid the general turmoil, the remainder was given. The reminder was given here that Rahab's family would be spared. Things couldn't have been better. Israel was on a high, buoyed up with confidence. They must have felt when they saw this happen so quickly, we can really take this whole land, conquer it all. So we come to the main conquest, part number three, the systematic defeat of Canaan. We've been to the Jordan, visited Jericho, the first city to fall, now we come to the general conquest, the systematic defeat of Canaan that we read off in Joshua 7 through to Joshua 12, the summary is this, the Canaanites, oh yes, they were united in their hatred for the Israelites, but not in their military opposition to them. Egypt at this time was nominally in control of the region, but in reality there was no central government. The land of Canaan that the Israelites came across here was really a place of city-states. Each city and the surrounding countryside for that city had its own king. To conquer the land, every city would have to be defeated. And Joshua here, as we have noted already, cuts through the mid-section, breaking his way through to the Mediterranean sea, and having divided the land in the center here, he begins to conquer from south right up through into the north. And in about seven years, the initial defeat of Canaan is complete. So this conquest of the land of Canaan was carried out according to a well-defined plan. Joshua led the Israelites on three main military campaigns. We have number one on page 13 there, the central campaign, Joshua chapter 6, through to Joshua 9, verse 27. In the central campion, the cities and the towns in the heart of the land were attacked. And by this wedge-like movement, the powers of the north were cut off and isolated from those that were down in the south. Some people come with the Bible and they wonder at times, well, why is all of this detail, why are these city, town names and all the data about the battles, why do we read about it here in the Bible? When every turn and engagement of the army is full of spiritual significance and the progress of the story, it sets forward in front of us many valuable lessons about the great conflict that we as Christians are engaged in. For example, the capture of Jericho underlines the secret of victory for us. We depend always upon the intervention of the Lord. Joshua 6, but compare that with 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4. The little defeat they had at Aeion speaks of the danger of self-confidence. The ultimate overthrow of Aeion points us to the unfeeling power of obedience. If you do what God is telling you to, then you will have success. Only when sin was comprehensively dealt with through the death of Achan was Israel able to go forward with the remainder of the conquest of the land. Then we come across Gibeonites and the little conflict they had with them and how they were deceived by them warns us against prayerlessness because prayerlessness leads to compromise and compromise leads to defeat. We'll talk a little about the deceit of the Gibeonites. Gibeon was a city located quite close to where the camp of the Israelites was. Now because it was quite close, there was no way that the Gibeonites were a city very far off. They were one of the cities, in other words, designated for total annihilation because they were in the place of immediate occupation. But they were crafty individuals. And somehow we must draw the conclusion that the men in Gibeon had obtained details. of the military manual that had been given to Joshua. Joshua 9 verses 3 and 4 reveals, And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, they did work wily. The word wily used in Joshua 9 and 4 is the same word used to be back in Genesis 3 in verse 1 to describe the character and the working of the old serpent, the devil. He was subtle. or wily. And the Gibeonites came on and marched up to Joshua, all bedraggled, old clothes, shattered earth jars in their hands, full of dust. They looked as if they were coming from a far distance. And they had doctored their appearance to suggest they had been on the go for weeks, if not months. Now, Joshua is kind of suspicious here. But then the appearance of the people and what they say, their announcements woo him and he buys their lies. That we have come in from a long distance and they are only living down the road. Joshua chapter 9 verse 8 to 13. And Joshua made a covenant of peace with the Gibeonites to let them live. But the truth came out three days later. And the children of Israel set out on the third day to pursue the central part of their campaign in the land of Canaan. And when they go out into the land of Canaan, the central part of the land, they discover that one of the cities in the central part of the land was the city of Gibeon, where these guys three days ago came from and gave the impression they had come many, many, many miles. However, Joshua 9 verses 16 to 21 reveals that while Israel discovered who the strangers were now, because of the covenant they had already entered into with them, they were powerless to reverse it or to smite them. And the best thing they could do was to keep them down, suppress them, put them in perpetual service. And they did that. They made them become hewers of wood and drovers of water. That was their punishment. Now, why did this happen? Why did Joshua, advised of God though he was, why did he fall foul of the trick of the Gibeonites? Well, we give the reason here as prayerlessness. In Joshua 9 and 14 we are told, they took of their vittles and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord. And that is an act of direct disobedience, the first indication of disobedience on the part of Joshua from the commandment that was given him way back in Numbers 27 and verse 21. He didn't ask the Lord for advice and counsel. And maybe some days in our lives, that's the problem with us. We don't call and ask God for help and counsel and direction. We mention here the law of the harvest and that swung into play at this stage because the fact of the matter is that the people of God who give commitments to the Lord and promises and vows at one time period and then they break that commitment and they shatter that vow and they are disobedient to Him. that always results in a later penalty that has to be paid, and it will be paid either by that individual or by individuals in a later generation. It is a scriptural principle, the principle of the harvest, of sowing and reaping. We read a bit of it in Hosea 8, verse 7, in Galatians 6, and the verse 7 as well. And if you study on through the Bible after this incident here with the Gibeonites, you'll discover that over 400 years later, innocent people paid a heavy price for the covenant that was made back in Joshua chapter 9. And the details you'll find in 2 Samuel 21, the verses 1 to 9. We don't sin alone. We may bear the consequences of our sins. Other people may bear the consequences of our sins. And so as fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, here there is a red light that is flashing up in front of us. What we do today may have fatal consequences for our children and grandchildren after us years on from now. Had Joshua sought the counsel of God this day, instead of entering into a league with these Gibeonites, treating them and acting on faith's value, had he sought the counsel of God, he would have behaved very differently. And further embarrassment was to follow for Joshua. Joshua chapter 10 tells us that God's servant here was forced to rise up in the defense of these deceivers, the Gibeonites, the people that he should have destroyed. because news of the treaty that Gibeon had made reached the ears of the king in Jerusalem and he formed a coalition of major and southern cities to rise up against Gibeon and destroy it and so you had Jerusalem and Hebron and Jarmath and Lachish and Egloam all of those kings and their peoples and those five cities have been located and what an ironic position we now have. The enemy led by the king of Jerusalem The enemy is determined to do what the children of Israel should have done. Wipe out the Gibeonites. And Joshua ends up having to fight on the side of and for the lives of those who had deceived him. He is fighting for the enemy here. The lesson should not be lost on us. So we have the central campaign. Then there is the southern campaign. Joshua brought his troops by force-march the 24 mile distance to Gibeon in one night. He took the attackers, led by the King of Jerusalem, by surprise. He righted them. He pursued them towards Bethhoron. And then we find that the Lord, on the way to Bethhoron, sent a heel storm that killed more of the enemy than the swords of Israel ever did. The battle of Bethhoron is the outstanding feature in the southern campaign. According to Dean Stanley, it's one of the most important events in the history of the world. Following the defeat then of this central confederacy led by Jerusalem, Joshua sweeps right across the whole southern part of the country. Now as page 16 tells us, and it's over into page 17 as well, this event of defeating this confederacy introduces us to Joshua's long day that we read off in Joshua 10 verses 12-14. It's the miracle of the sun and the moon standing still. In this section of the Word of God, Joshua 10, 12-14, it has been ridiculed for centuries. People have said, who's ever heard of such a thing as the sun standing still? Don't you know that if the earth stood still, its inhabitants would be crushed because of the gravitational pull? Can you not imagine the causal chaos that would be caused in this whole universe if things grind to a sudden halt? They say there must be a better explanation for the events of Joshua 10, 12-14 than this. And so they have come up with other theories to try and explain away Joshua 10, verses 12-14. One theory is, you know, the day only seemed longer. There was an extended period of light refraction so that the people thought it was a long day. It wasn't really. Another theorist propounds that it could be possible that God gave the Israelites some kind of accelerated activity. And, you know, the picture of the old black and white movie, and the speed isn't quite right, and the guys, Laurel and Hardy and all the rest of it, are flying around, and they're going twice as fast as they should, and this is one of the explanations that people have come up with to explain God's miracle here of the Long Dame. Oh, God just accelerated their movement! Others say it's just poetry, not reality. But Joshua 10 verse 14 makes it plain that the incident here was not merely poetic, it was an actual event. And towards the bottom of page 16 we give reasons to believe that this day was actually prolonged, that it was a miracle, that the total daylight hours of the day were one and a half times normal. And the question we ask is, how big is God? Because essentially, Accepting this as the way God describes it in His Word or rejecting this passage as it stands in the book of God, it depends on how big our God is. Since God spoke the heavens into existence, Hebrews 1, verses 2 and 3, Hebrews 11, verse 3, He can just as easily grind matters to a halt at a moment's notice and then reactivate them again. Matthew Henry here, and that's in the box on page 17, gives a list of some very good reasons why this miraculous event took place. It was to magnify Joshua. Joshua 3 and verse 7. God was notifying to all of the world as well that He was doing this for the people of Israel here in the land of Canaan. Also, He would convince and He would confine those idolaters that were worshipping the sun and the moon and the stars. And He was demonstrating the sun, the moon, the stars were in Subjection to the command and to the authority of God. He was above them all. He deserved to be worshipped, not they. Then again, number four, in terms of reasons why God did it, the miracle signified that in the latter days, when the light of the world would be tending towards a night of darkness, that the Son of Righteousness, our Joshua, Jesus, would arise. Malachi 4 and 2. He would be the true light. The fifth reason. The arresting of the sun and moon in this day of battle prefigured the turning of the sun into darkness and the moon into blood in that last great and terrible day of the Lord. It pointed forward to the end of the world. Give a little snapshot of that. There is no scientific explanation for this dynamic event. People have said that NASA, the American scientists, have come up with an explanation. Don't believe it because that has not happened. There aren't records that go back as long as this. But what God was doing was putting his stamp upon the fact that this is my holy war and I can intervene whenever I choose. I am in complete command. On at least 12 occasions in the 10th chapter, Israel is reminded emphatically, your enemies are to be utterly destroyed. The reason for Joshua's triumph was clear, Joshua 10, 42, and all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. Having been involved in this dramatic day, the forces of Joshua returned to their base in Gilgal, Joshua 10, the verse 43. So we thought of the central campaign, the southern campaign. We have the northern campaign that Joshua 11 describes. It gives the beginning of that campaign. It concludes with the words in the verse 23, So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes, and the land rested from war. The battle of Merrim in chapter 11, verses 5-9 was the key to this northern campaign. And in Joshua chapter 12, you've got a round-up of all of the victories that were achieved up until this point of time. And we find in Joshua 12, verse 24, that a total of 31 kings had fallen victim to Joshua's sword. You remember we said there was a king in every city. 31 cities conquered. And all of this is a witness to the faithfulness and the power of Jehovah, and it gives encouragement to the people. With all of these victories under your belt, press on according to the Word of God. We come to the final section tonight, and we will be brief here. We have dominion. Part number four, the partitioning. of the land that we read of in Joshua 13 through to Joshua chapter 20. Each of the twelve tribes of Israel is given a land, area by lot, and is responsible for finalizing dominion over that area. In other words, wiping out all of the other survivors. All twelve tribes inhabit their area and take up a relationship of loose federation with the other tribes. We have three key areas that we are dealt with here in these remaining chapters of the book of Joshua. Number one, the distribution of the land among the tribes. You've got the tribes listed and their position in the land detailed by the map on page 19. You'll find that some were over in the Cisjordan area, that's to the left hand side of the Dead Sea. And the River Jordan, the others on the right hand side, half-tribe of Manasseh, Gad and Reuben, they're on the trans-Jordan area. And you'll not find the name of one tribe here. You'll not find the name of Levi. It's a priestly tribe. It doesn't receive a physical inheritance in the land. And that's reaffirmed in Joshua 13, verses 14 and 33. We'll move on into the notes that we have at the top of page 20. Second Paragraph. Approximately six to seven years have passed on entry into Joshua 14. They have been involving the conquest of the central and southern and northern confederacies. Caleb says that he was 40 years of age when Moses sent him to spy out the land initially, but by Joshua chapter 14 he is 85 years of age, verses 7 and 10, and that brings the time approximately now to about 1399 BC. Cities of refuge are marked. Joshua 20 identifies the six cities. These are in Ramoth and Golan on the east of the Jordan, Kedish and Shechem and Hebron on the west of the river. And those pictures, well, those cities of refuge are all pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have a dispute about a border altar because they get into the land. Then there was a bit of a skirmish between each other in Joshua 22. Then we've got the discourse and the death of Joshua in Joshua 23 and Joshua 24. It is always said that it does not count so much how you begin. It is how you end that really counts. And that is true of life. That is true of serving God in this life. And though Joshua was extremely aged, His principles, his sense of loyalty to the commandments of the Lord remains unswerving. Joshua 23, verse 1. He reminds the people here at the end of his life, standing up, no doubt grey-headed, long-bearded, he reminds them they are not to associate with the people of the land. They are to love the Lord their God. Joshua 23, verse 7. And he further assures them in verse 13, that if the Israelites allowed the people of the land to remain among them, that would prove to be their undoing. And he gives a testimony here. And what a testimony it is to the faithfulness of the Lord. Joshua 23, verse 14. And he gives also a confident prediction and a terrifying warning about what will happen in future years if they turn against the Lord. Joshua 23, verses 15 and 16. The final chapter of the book, Joshua 24, Tell us how Joshua gathered the people around him at Shechem, the place where Abraham built his first altar, where God first appeared to him. Genesis 12, verse 6. And in Joshua 24 and 32, we have an insight into the kind of reverence that the people had for this place where they buried the bones of Joseph here. Joshua, as he stands up, reminds them of God's mighty eyes through their history. speaks of Tira, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and Aaron, traces their path from Ur of the Chaldees, through Egypt, through the land of the Amorites, over the river Jordan, into the land through Jericho that had been reserved for their inheritance. And he says of this land in verse 13 of Joshua 24, I have given you a land for that for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them, of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not, do ye eat. And they are reminded again, drive out the false gods from the middle of you. So, Joshua puts a choice to them. Three options are given. You will either serve the gods of the Chaldees, or the gods of the Amorites, or the God, the One True Lord, Jehovah. And you will remember how He appeals to them and says, as for Me and My house, We will serve the Lord. And on three occasions, the people determine, We will worship the Lord. And a stone is raised in commemoration of the covenant of that hour, Joshua 24, verses 26-28. Joshua died at 110 years of age. And it must be said that Israel did serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and for the duration of the lives of the elders who had served alongside Joshua, Joshua 24, verse 31. But as soon as we get into the book of Judges, the next book, we have a different story unfolding. While Joshua conquered the land of Canaan in a series of dramatic victories, he did make three political mistakes, which led to disaster in the period of the judges. He failed to take the coastline from the Philistines and from the Phoenicians. And wonder of wonders, that coastline is still proving problematic to Israel, for it's the Gaza Strip. Joshua did not conquer it. It is still Israel's Achilles' heel. He made a fable league in chapter 10 with the Gibeonites. He did not complete mopping up operations against his defeated enemies. As a result, the Cumanite tribes were able to recover. to a considerable extent. And those Canaanite tribes, not without doubt, became a constant moral, political, religious thorn in the flesh to Israel. And that's what God had warned they would become. If they were not dealt with effectively back in Numbers 33, 55 and 56, but if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you when the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover, it shall come to pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them. Israel did not drive out all the inhabitants of the land, and in certain areas they adopted the religious practices, the idolatry of those original inhabitants, and the situation travelled to such a pitch that the inhabitants of the land were not as bad as the Israelites. God's people became worse than they were, and as a result God eventually will drive out His own people from their land, either through dispersion or ultimately, in the days of the kings, into Babylonian captivity. What a lesson that is for us.