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Well, we are up to Joshua 11,
verse 12. We're just going to look at four
verses today. Joshua 11, verse 12. So all the cities of those kings
and all their kings, Joshua took and struck with the edge of the
sword. He utterly destroyed them as Moses, the servant of the
Lord, had commanded. But as for the cities that stood
on their mounds, Israel burned none of them except Hazor only,
which Joshua burned. In all the spoil of these cities
and the livestock, the children of Israel took as booty for themselves,
but they struck every man with the edge of the sword until they
had destroyed them, and they left none breathing. As the Lord
had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and
so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all
that the Lord had commanded Moses. Amen. Father, we thank you for
your word, and as we dig into it, I pray that you would keep
me from error and enable us to All of us rejoice in your enduring
grace, which endures forevermore. We bless you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Archibald Rutledge was a a writer and a poet. He wrote about 50 books, wrote
a lot of poems, poet laureate from South Carolina. But he was
also a very avid hunter and he told a story of one of his buddies
who came to him just heartbroken over having lost his hunting
dog. And he was kicking himself, blaming
himself for the death of his dog. What had happened is that
he had commanded his dog to stay in a clearing and watch over
his lunch bucket while he went kind of do some reconnaissance
in the forest. And a forest fire broke out and
swept into the area where his dog was, and he was not able
to get back. And the dog did not leave. The
dog stayed there just like the master had commanded him to do.
And when he was finally able to come back and see it, he saw
the dog was right by the lunch bucket. Anyway, with tearful
eyes, he told Rutledge, I always had to be careful what I told
him to do because I knew he would do it. And you know, it would
be an amazing thing if the Church of Jesus Christ would be as faithful
as that dog to the commands of our master. You know, not counting,
I mean, counting the cost, but no rationalizations, no excuses,
obedience, whatever the cost. And of course, God never gives
us commands that are bad for us, because He knows the future,
unlike the master of that dog. We can trust Him. But that does
not seem to be par for the course in the church of Jesus Christ,
and it's certainly not par for the course in the culture. It
almost seems that people expect politicians are going to break
their promises nowadays. And it's not just in our generation
that this was true. From 1778 to 1871, the United
States signed 368 treaties with various Indian tribes, and it's
astonishing how many of those treaties were broken. Now granted,
sometimes it was the Indian tribe that broke it. But many times,
it was just Americans needed more land. They were spreading
across the prairies or different areas, and they just decided
it's inconvenient to keep the treaty. It's been a longstanding
problem in America. Well, this morning, we're going
to be looking at a passage that illustrates that when Joshua
was commissioned to do something, he did it. He did it completely. He, no matter what the consequences
were, he left no unfinished business. And I think in this he stands
as a wonderful model for us. Verse 12 says, so all the cities
of those kings and all their kings, Joshua took and struck
with the edge of the sword. He utterly destroyed them as
Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded. So no royal city
was spared. That would have taken time and
effort, a lot of inconvenience, and it was also a very unpleasant
task to engage in harem warfare. We saw previously harem warfare
was normally not authorized for Israel. It was only God's direct
inspired revelation where God was saying, I'm going to use
you as my vehicle for judgment on these people. But every person
was slaughtered, and yet Joshua followed through in complete
obedience. Kings often negotiated their
own safety when they lost battles, and a captive king could potentially
have a feather in his cap. You know, with the number of
kings that he would have as captives, you'd kind of display them as
a war trophy, and many kings of that era did so. I'll just
give you one of the more grotesque ones. It's Judges 1, verse 7,
where the Canaanite king, Adonai Bezek, said, 70 kings, with their
thumbs and big toes cut off, used to gather scraps under my
table. as I have done, so God has repaid
me." And so for one reason or another, many kings of that era
would spare the other kings. Who knows why? But Joshua did
not do that. Totally in obedience to God,
he killed all of the kings. And verse 12 says that this was
a revelation given to Joshua through Moses from God himself
directly. And so Joshua was not the lawmaker,
he was the law receiver and the law keeper. And at least on that
point, he stands as an example to us. When God gives us standing
law in the Bible, and harem warfare is not standing law, but the
principle is the same. If God commands something, we
do it. When God gives standing law, there should be unquestioning
obedience. Now several commentators point
out that in context of verses 19 through 20, this verse also
teaches that even though mercy was always held out to any of
the Canaanites who repented, that God's judgments fall on
those who persist in their rebellion. The fact that God has been patient
with America and with other nations does not do away with this principle.
Those who resist God will eventually be placed under God's judgment.
And apart from repentance, as far as I can see, that's where
America is headed. and that God deals in this manner
with every city and with every nation is hinted at in verse
13. This verse deals with the interesting
situation of the mound cities. People wonder, what in the world
is that? But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel
burned none of them except Hazor only, which Joshua burned. Now
the Hebrew word for mounds is tel, and archeologists, speak
a lot about the tells that are spread throughout the Middle
East. What happened is that a city
would get conquered and would get completely destroyed by another
country. And because there were foundations
of the houses still present, and pillars, and stones, and
all kinds of refuse all over the place, the other country
would haul in a whole bunch of dirt, bury the refuse, and then
build their city on top of that previous city. And so you have
Jeremiah prophesying that Jerusalem would be destroyed and turned
into a mound, that's the Hebrew word tel, in Jeremiah 49.2. And in another chapter, Jeremiah
prophesies, hey, when the exiles return from Babylon to Jerusalem,
quote, the city will be built on its own mound. Again, the
Hebrew word tel. There are more than 200 tells
spread all over just the area that Israel occupies today, many
of which have multiple layers of cities representing multiple
civilizations that had previously been conquered and buried. For
example, Megiddo, if you take a look at the archaeological
studies that have been done there, there are 20 civilizations that
had occupied that place, been destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed,
and rebuilt. Civilizations like the Hyksos,
Egyptians, Hittites, Israelites. Now the question comes up, why
on earth would a later generation go to all the work of hauling
in dirt and burying this and then building on top of that?
Wouldn't it be easier to just find some level ground elsewhere
and build the city? Well, there's four reasons why
they would do this. First, the place of the former city was
usually a very good source of water, sometimes the only source
of water that they would have. And so they would want that source
of water to be within the city so that any neighboring nation
that might come against the city would not be able to cut off
the water supply. And that meant you didn't have a choice many
times. The only water supply was where the previous city was
at. Archaeology has shown some pretty amazing waterworks in
earlier cities that brought water to each house. They had great
plumbing. Some of it survived to this day.
It's amazing. Plumbing, great sewage systems that would take
the sewage out. So water was one reason. Second,
usually these tells were very defensible locations, and the
higher the tell grew, the more defensible it was. Third, they
were close to arable farmland, and they didn't want to build
a city and waste farmland. And the connection between cities
and farm were very, very tight. And then fourth, they were near
good trade routes. So even though it took more effort,
they preferred to build on top of the spot where the old cities
used to be. But this verse, back to this
verse, it indicates that when Joshua arrived, these cities
were already built on top of Telz. That's the technical Hebrew
word here. The mounds represented layer
after layer of previous cities, housing the remnants of previous
civilizations. And to me, this implies this
is not the first judgment that God brought to these cities.
No, God can use pagans to judge worse pagans. And he had done
so many times previously, even when Israel was not involved.
Our God has always been a God of judgments. When civilization
becomes too corrupt, God replaces them. America is no exception. And, of course, we saw last week
that any time that a nation repents, God will relent of that. So that's
what we pray for, and that's what we work for, that America
would repent in order to be spared. But the next section we're going
to look at indicates repentance is the only way that a nation
can be spared when it gets to the point of no return. The point
is that we should not think that judgments were only a reality
during the time of Joshua's conquest, or that nowadays somehow God
turns a blind eye to evil. No, those mounds are testimonies
to God's previous judgments. Many times God will patiently
wait for a generation or two before he brings judgment, but
every generation needs to be reminded our God is a God of
judgment. Now, the next thing we see is
that most of the mound cities remained intact and were able
to be inhabited by the Israelites. They were not being destroyed.
It says, Israel burned none of them except Hazor. And I believe
this was God fulfilling His promise in Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses
10 through 11, which says this. I will give you large and beautiful
cities which you did not build, houses full of all good things
which you did not fill, hewn out wells which you did not dig,
vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant." So most of
Israel's warfare really was not that destructive. They inherited
the cities rather than tearing them down and then building yet
another layer on top of the mound. But Deuteronomy 6 goes on to
say that, hey, if Israel acts like the other nations, God's
going to dispossess them just like He dispossessed the previous
nations, even previous to the Canaanites. No one is exempt,
not the Canaanites, not Israel. And anyone who thinks that America
is unlikely to come under judgment has simply not understood thousands
of years of providential history. Modern nations that have thrown
God off will not endure forever either. It's easy to think that
the status quo is just gonna continue on because it's continued
on most of our lifetime, right? But that's a false conclusion.
When you have political leaders today who actually believe, this
just boggles my mind, I haven't even figured out how they could
come up with this, but hundreds of genders, You know the demonic
irrationality going on at the highest levels. We are on a slippery
slope that's going faster and faster down. Let me give you
a little bit of detail though on Hazor, since liberals love
to attack the Bible's integrity on this verse. They compare this
to Judges chapter 4, and they say, whoa, look at all the contradictions
here. This verse here mentions that Hazor alone was burned to
the ground. A tourism website says, today,
when visiting the well-preserved ruins of King Jabin's palace,
the burn layer is clearly visible. And there are many books that
say the same thing. Wayne Stiles says, Stratum 13
of the Tell If it's Stratum 13, that means there were 12 civilizations
before this that have been judged, right? So he says, Stratum 13
of the Tal had a large burn layer that corresponds with Joshua's
destruction of Hazor around 1400 BC. Jones says it was 1444 BC. There is slight variations on
dates there, but it was right around there. And there are numerous
evidences that every portion of the city was burned. I noticed
a number of archaeologists were finding these pots filled with
grain. burned, okay? And they were showing
evidence after evidence that Joshua did not plunder this city.
There was nothing taken out. They just burned it all. And
the city as a whole was devoted to God, just like Jericho was. Now people sometimes wonder why
God wanted it burned. There could be some other reasons,
but some have suggested that since this city had been well
known for hundreds of years for being a very famous, remarkable
military site, that God did not want them, depending on pagan
military advantages, could be, but there's other amazing fortifications
God didn't let them get, who knows. Another suggestion is
that the king of the city was the leader of the coalition,
which he was, and as such Joshua was making an example of him
and of that city. A third suggestion, I think this
is closer to the truth, was the gross evil in that city with
its four massive temples. Apparently this was a leading
religious center with Hathor and Asherah being the leading
gods, so pathetically defiled that I'm definitely not gonna
even describe it to you. I felt the file just reading
a tiny bit of what these gods were about. One author said,
archeological evidence shows the Israelites zealously defaced
all the Canaanite statues of gods and kings found in Hazor
and lopped off their hands. So apparently they didn't want
people later on say, ooh, look at, beautiful statue, let's turn
that into a god, resurrecting them. So they completely destroyed
the heads, cut off the hands, toppled them, and then they burned
the city. If Hazor was burned, which it
was, how could a King Jabin be the king of Hazor in Judges chapter
four? Which on a conservative chronology
is more than 150 years later. And liberals say no, no, no.
It's just two accounts of exactly the same event and they're contradictory.
They love to try to find contradictions in the Bible. So how do we explain
this? Well, there is no contradiction
whatsoever. And recent archaeology has been
super embarrassing for liberals, ultra embarrassing. It's just
making a mockery of some of the older books. First of all, it's
shown that the kings of Hazor used the name Jabin for almost
400 years. And so there's no surprise at
all, they're going to continue to use the name Jabin in the
time of Deborah, totally consistent. And by the way, that was not
just a name, it was a title like Pharaoh. And so Jabin king of
this city would be sort of like when Exodus 6.11 speaks of Pharaoh
being king of Egypt, Pharaoh king of Egypt. A second, recent
archeological digs have shown two destructions of Hazor during
the time of Israel, both of which perfectly correspond to the time
of Joshua and of Deborah Barak. It's the liberals who should
be mocked, not the Bible. We don't go to archaeology ever
to prove the Bible. The Bible's true no matter what
archaeology says, right? And because we trust the Bible
and it is absolute truth, then we go to archaeology to show
what nonsense the liberals are preaching, because it lines up
with the Bible perfectly all the time. Anyway, whatever the
reason for the burning, Israel did not build on this site and
the Canaanites later rebuilt it and used it as a base of operations
against the Israelites in the book of Judges a little over
150 years later. So from hindsight, some people
might have thought burning the city and not building on it,
you know, was a missed opportunity. In a sense, it would take some
faith to do what God commanded. From a human perspective, this
would have been a wonderful city to inherit. All the archeology
books on this city that I have read said it must have been a
gorgeous city covering 200 acres with amazing buildings and parks
and advanced iron forging equipment and other technology, well laid
out sewer system, well laid out streets, a strategic location
for defense, stables for horses, plenty of chariots, what author
calls, quote, a magnificent water system that remains one of the
marbles of ancient engineering. So it was a wealthy city. It
would have been fun to plunder it and then later on to inhabit
that city. But no, if God says burn it,
they're going to burn it. This was such a famous city that
it's the only one from Canaan that's mentioned in the Mari
texts from Mesopotamia. And I've already alluded to the
fact that there was an ugly side of the city as well, with four
wicked temples, Causing this city probably to be a stumbling
block to the whole land of Canaan God wanted it obliterated with
no plunder allowed now some people actually think that this was
a cursed place just like Jericho was and That's why it wasn't
rebuilt by the Israelites even after the second destruction
under Barak never was rebuilt again but In any case, whether
they understood it or not, they obeyed. Like the dog of Rutledge's
friend, they had unquestioning obedience. Now, verse 14 mentions
rewards from the other cities. In obedience to Deuteronomy 6,
they were able to plunder the remaining royal cities. This
says, in all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the
children of Israel took as booty for themselves, but they struck
every man with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed
them and they left none breathing. Now, it's obviously wonderful
to be able to receive all of that spoil. We think, okay, that's
God's favor, right? We love to be blessed with riches,
and God loves to bless us with riches. Nothing wrong with that.
We could park on God's material blessings and everybody would
be happy. And by the way, if you think God is stingy, you
probably ought to park on Joshua, what it says about the material
blessings God's constantly giving to them. God loves to bless his
people who are faithful. But I'm not going to park on
that this morning. I want to point out that it was tougher to do
the other business. to leave no person alive. And
virtually every commentator points out that every man, in context,
refers to every person. And that's exactly what God commanded
them to do to the Canaanites in Deuteronomy 7, verses 2 through
11, Deuteronomy 20, 16 through 18. What this was, was a typology
that God was setting up of the final judgment. But it certainly
was also a test of their faithfulness. Your faithfulness is not tested
by saying you obey God's commandments to go out and take dominion,
enjoy yourself, you know, have fun. That's easy. Anybody can
meet that test, you know, of obeying God on those things.
True faithfulness is tested by our obedience to God's commands
that are hard, that we do not fully understand, and even the
commands that we wish we could disagree with. And you know exactly
what I'm talking about when I say that you wish you didn't have
to do what God commands, and so you try to explain it away.
Francis Nichols said, Personal wishes and desires may
conflict with known duty, but the surrendered soul chooses
the will of God no matter how crucifying the experience may
be to natural inclinations. And that thought is made especially
clear in the last verse that we're going to look at, verse
15. As the Lord had commanded Moses' servant, so Moses commanded
Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all
that God had commanded Moses. He left nothing undone of all
that the Lord commanded Moses. Oh, that that could be said of
each one of us. Deuteronomy 12.32 says, whatever
I command you, Be careful to observe it. You shall not add
to it nor take away from it. Now both of those commands are
important. You don't add to God's law, you don't take away from
God's law. Adding to God's law acts as if
God lacked wisdom and he lacked foresight when he wrote the Bible.
You know, he put all these gaps in the Bible that we have to
somehow now fill out. We have to we have to kind of
supplement. And you look at some of the books
on politics, which I've been reading a ton of so-called Christian
books on politics, who say, we got to supplement what the Bible
says with natural law or some other source of law because the
Bible is not sufficient to deal with the issues of today. Well,
I'm writing a book on biblical civics that shows the total sufficiency
of the scripture for politics. But people love to bind other
people's consciences with laws that are not in the Bible. They
do it all the time. We call this legalism. You know,
it's a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture. So here is one
point that he makes. Don't bind your own conscience
with anything that's not in the Scripture. God wants you to have
liberty to do anything. Just the image I love in Genesis
1, you can eat from any tree that you want to eat from in
the garden. And then Adam comes back, yeah, but can I eat from
a fig tree? Hey, I said you could eat from any tree, just don't
eat from this one I prohibited. What about the banana tree? Quit
asking, quit asking. You know, that's the principle
of freedom. We have total freedom, except
for what God prohibited, right? But God wants us to follow his
law, so we can't be legalistic. The second thing is we can't
be antinomian, which means ignoring God's law. Where God gives a
command, and I preach on it, I am not binding your conscience.
God is. If I can back it up from the
scripture, I'm not binding your conscience. God is. And woe is
me as a pastor if I do not preach everything that God has called
me to preach. I have talked to pastors here in Omaha who have
said that there are certain topics that they are never going to
preach on. And I asked them why. I said, oh man, everybody would
leave. I said, well that's not a good
reason not to preach on it. I hope at the end of my life
I'll be able to say with the Apostle Paul, I kept back nothing
that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you. Acts 20, verse 20. And may each of you be able to
say at the end of your lives, I have left nothing undone that
God has asked me to do. And you might think, yeah, but
on this particular thing, it's going to be such a cost for me
to do it. Well, that's the whole reason
it's called a test of faithfulness, right? God tests us many times. Are we willing to obey Him when
it costs? Pray that God would enable all
of us to be faithful to our promises and to be faithful to God's Word.
Amen. Father, we thank you. for the
promises of your word, but we thank you as well for the challenges
and the commands of your word that test our faithfulness. And
we want to be those who leave nothing undone and do not make
excuses, who with unquestioning obedience follow your word. I
pray that you would teach us and train us and guide us and
equip us and empower us by your Holy Spirit. to do as Joshua
did. Bless this your people in this
way we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
No Unfinished Business
Series Joshua
When Joshua was commissioned to do something, he completely obeyed the Lord. He left no unfinished business.
| Sermon ID | 91223120166358 |
| Duration | 26:18 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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