God is For You

Today, we're studying Chapter 6 of our Bible study, Path of Promise, and I've titled this week's lesson, God is for you. Isn't that a good title? Boy, you can live all day long in a title like that, right? God is for you. I think the most compelling lesson from last week was that consecration comes before conquest. Israel's time at Gilgal was a time of consecration. That's why there was a monument there, and so as we applied it to us, we realized we can never spend too much time at Gilgal. You can never overdo that, right? Because the time that we spend allowing the Lord to prune us just produces more and better fruit, and fruit is what allows us to fulfill God's purpose for us. So welcome to the life of the Spirit. Welcome to the path of promise, and welcome to the barriers and the battles that go with the life of the Spirit. Jericho is both a barrier and it is a battle. If you're a Christian, you've already come up to things like Jericho in your life, something that seemed too hard, too big, too impossible to conquer. Really a Jericho in our life is ancient. This Jericho was ancient. It didn't just pop up there. It's been in our life for a while, and maybe what happens is it just comes into view for us when we step forward on the path of promise. I think that'll make sense in a little bit. Okay, before we start chapter six, we got to slow down and pick up the three verses that we left off with chapter five, because they give us some really, a really important element here for Israel after identification in the Jordan, after yielding to the work of the Lord at Gilgal, there remained one more blessing to equip for battle, and that was a private visit with the Lord. So Joshua 5, 13 says,

Now a man with a drawn sword is a soldier. And so who was he and what was he doing there? Probably all of the men in the area had retreated to the walls of Jericho. That's why they ate of the produce of the land, because it was all available to them. There wasn't any men around. So all of a sudden, Joshua was confronted with this man with a drawn sword. Either he's one of the adversaries wanting to confront him, or maybe he's a defector. So Joshua wanted to know. And so he asked him, Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or are you for our adversaries? And he said, no, your question is irrelevant. I'm not fighting with you. I'm not fighting against you. I'm in charge. He said, I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come. And I read that inflection, now I have come. Now that you have obeyed by crossing the Jordan, now that you have submitted yourself to identification at Gilgal, now that you have celebrated the Passover, now I have come. I'm your commander. And so Joshua looks at him and he says, well, I'll get to that in just a minute. I want to talk about the commander first and identify who he is. Because Bible scholars tell us that this is God himself in human form. So we want to go pull out a really expensive theological word to apply here called a theophany. And a theophany is a visible appearance of God, usually, but not always in human form. More specifically, this is a Christophany, because it is Jesus himself, the pre-incarnate Jesus. What we got going on is ancient Joshua talking to the real Joshua. Isn't that awesome? One reason we believe this to be true is look at verse 14. It says Joshua fell on his face to the earth and he worshipped. Now in the Bible, whenever an angel appears to someone and the person worships them, they say get up off of the ground. Don't worship me. You worship God alone. That doesn't happen here. And so Joshua gets it. He is the commander. And he says, what does my Lord, what does my Lord say to his servant? In other words, I got it. You're the commander. You are my new supervisor. What do you say to me? I'm listening. And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did that. Now, Joshua's former supervisor was Moses. They had lots of time to talk. I'm sure Moses had told him about that experience at Mount Sinai when God appeared to him. Another theophany, the burning bush. And what did God say to Moses? It's in Exodus chapter three, same words. He said, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy. Moses in that moment was standing on Mount Sinai. And God was saying, I know you don't own this land, but I have set this place apart for my purpose. That's what holy means set apart special. Okay. And so that's what God had said to Moses in that moment, the place where you're standing is holy. I'm going to use this place. It is set apart for me. Now he says that to Joshua, where is Joshua? He has just entered into the land that God promised him. And he says, take off your sandals. I have set apart this place as holy. This place is set apart for my purpose. I love that. And so it must have been a real encouragement to Joshua, Jesus coming for a private visit. Of course, we have the spirit of Jesus. If we're born again, we have the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus. We can have a private visit with him anytime and all the time. And private visits with our commander are really important because if we want to win victories in public, having a private visit is very important. That has inspired me anew this week. All right. Now we can go to chapter six. Are you ready? Joshua chapter six, verse one.

And the Lord said to Joshua,

You shall march around the city. All the men of war going around the city once, thus shall you do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark. On the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times. And the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up, everyone straight before him. All right. So I emphasize that past tense. God said, I have given. And then as we read forward, he's going to give a future tense command. Look at verse seven. Go forward, march around the city and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the Lord. Now, like we said last week, when the waters of Jericho abated, when the priest went forward and their feet touched the water, this is another illustration of that. God has determined the miracle in this case, but they had to want it. They had to take action. They had to march forward. And that is still how victories go in our lives. God determines the victory. God determines the miracle. We have to want it. We have to move forward. We have to obey. I want to show you what that looks like in a New Testament way. The apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians and at the very beginning of his letter, I'll put it up for you. He said in Ephesians 1, 3, that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. That's already happened. Do you see the past tense? God has blessed us. And as he's writing this letter on and on, he gets to chapter four and he says, therefore, walk, move forward, march in a manner worthy of the calling. So do you see that handling? God has already done it. We apprehend it. We grab a hold of it. Nothing has changed. So a good question right now, as we're applying this to our lives, what do Jerichos look like in our life? In the text, Jericho. is imposing, it's fortressed, it seems immovable. But it's not a battle coming at them. No one is coming at them. Now, we'll get to those kind of battles in our study. This just exists. It's just there. It is an ancient fortress that is just there. Nobody's shooting arrows down at them, nobody's doing anything. There's no confrontation. So, the track I want us to think on is when we begin, when we get saved, we begin to walk with Christ, we run straight into things in our life that simply exist. They are simply there. We want to think our battles come from people, circumstances, something from the outside. We wanna blame something on the outside for the battle. But in this lesson, it's just there. Maybe we see it now because we are moving forward on the path of promise, and all of a sudden we see things that we didn't see before. So, what kind of things am I talking about? I'm talking about these things in here, these barriers that must be conquered. And they are ancient in that maybe they've been with us our whole life. Maybe we were born with propensities toward things that war against God's purpose in our life. Do any of you feel like my anger was just there? Like I can remember being a two-year-old and throwing a tantrum, it's always been there. Or our propensity for fear that binds us up from not doing what God would have us to do, controlling everything around us. Do you get the drift of what I'm talking about? Our pride, it just exists, it's just been there. These are the battles. Sometimes we wanna dismiss all these things with cute little names that we have for them so that we can sort of just ignore Jericho and move forward. But this is the battle we're facing in the text. And this is, I think, what the Lord wants us to look like. But you know what? God is for us. He's already blessed us. He's already set us up to do battle. We just have to want it. We have to march and go forward. And he will bring the victory for us. Let's keep reading, verse eight.

But Joshua commanded the people, you shall not shout or make your voice heard. Neither shall any word go out of your mouth. How hard is that? Until the day I tell you to shout, and then you shall shout. And that's pretty much how it went for six days. Now, how much faith did that take? How much perseverance? Get up, quietly, march around. To me, I think it was a little humiliating. You know, we're just marching around and then we go home. So many emotions going on there. Well, for girls anyway. But the girls were all back in the camp, so I guess the guys were fine. But anyway, the point is, how much faith does it take to continue our battle with our Jericho's? Sometimes we just have to quietly persevere, take another lap around, nothing changed. It's a little embarrassing. But we have to trust that God knows what he's doing, okay? Joshua was a good listener, and when the commander came to him, he listened, he trusted, and he obeyed. And that gives us a visual picture for a favorite proverb. You probably already have it memorized, so I didn't make it a memory verse. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths, or he will tumble down your walls. Now, isn't the image of what they're doing there a really good visual for that verse? Trust in the Lord. Sometimes the perseverance that we just have to keep going is what we need to hear. But God is for us, he has a plan. So keep moving forward. Verse 15, on the seventh day, they rose early. At the dawn of day, they marched around the city in the same manner seven times. And it was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, shout, for the Lord has given you the city. What a relief to finally shout. And verse 20, so the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. And as soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. Again, the miraculous happened when the command was obeyed. They had to want it, they had to believe, they had to have faith. Faith is what unlocks victories. And that's what Hebrews said about the walls of Jericho. Okay, look at Hebrews 11, 30.

What was the key? The key was faith. Remember we said chapter six has to follow chapter five because chapter five is about consecration so that we can have conquest. Conquest requires faith. Faith is built up at the place of consecration. So if we need more faith, spending more time at Gilgal and allowing the Lord to do his work to prune us gives us the faith that we need for these. Look at verse 21. And they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys with the edge of the sword. That is a hard verse to read for modern ears. That sounds very harsh to us. Israel was not merely advancing into the land. Israel was also God's hand of judgment on evil that had gripped the entire region. The Bible tells us that the iniquity they had filled to the full measure, the iniquity against God. God was using his people as his hand of judgment against evil because that's not what he intended. That is not what he intended for his world. And he gave these people centuries. And now the measure was spilled. Now, if we back up to verse 17, we can see God's instructions on how to handle the contents of the city. And God said, the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab and her family were to be spared. But you, he told Israel, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction lest when you have devoted them, you take any of the devoted things and you make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. And with that one word, trouble, a little dark cloud comes up from the horizon and the theme music turns a little minor and we know something is going to go badly, but let's not borrow trouble from next week. Let's stay on this week. Right now, what I want us to consider is that phrase, only Rahab, okay? That rescue mission for that soul who turned her back on the iniquity of her culture, believed in her heart that Yahweh was God and confessed with her mouth. That rescue mission. Look at verse 25. But Rahab the prostitute and her father's household and all belonged to her, Joshua saved alive. I wanna work a little bit. I wanna handle that sentence a little bit. I'm gonna smash it all together and just say Rahab, Joshua saved alive. Make a new sentence out of that, but we don't say things that way. So what I wanna say is Rahab saved by Joshua. I wanna take that whole sentence and say Rahab saved by Joshua. That became, in that moment, her new identity, her new identity for life. What was her former identity? It's in the text. Rahab the prostitute. Older translations say Rahab the harlot. Now, when we hear a phrase, Rahab the harlot, it's just natural for us to just pick her up and just throw her into a category that we have. The harlot. As if, I don't know, as if that was her choice. Like she was a five-year-old and said, I'm going to be a harlot. when I grow up it confronts our thinking about that I want to handle we didn't we didn't get to talk enough about Rahab to please me in chapter two so I just want to look at her and I don't want to go beyond what scripture gives us but what I want to say here is about this woman is that something happens something happens in a woman's life to set this up to create this this isn't normal and I think Rahab is another example we have in scripture of a marginalized woman of a victim okay I think evil cultures marginalized women I think evil cultures degrade women from God's divine design for them as life givers and I think as our own culture has embraced more evil turned more to resemble this culture that we see the reality of women even children being lured stolen bought sold trafficked and forced into a life of sexual prison something happens to a woman it's either abuse or it's something it's not the life that they have chosen okay they have become victims of evil in the world they may not even know that so what I want to do is with that in mind about Rahab and so many in our world I want to look at this beautiful element that we have because of what happened to her whatever it was her identity was Rahab the prostitute because of what happened right here her new identity was Rahab saved by Joshua she completely changed identities I get the sense that she caught that that she understood that for life she abandoned her identity of what had happened to her she was no longer defined by the the flow of life and now she was defined by Rahab saved by Joshua it's all that mattered in this whole room we got all kinds of stuff that has happened to us all kinds of water under the bridge no one at age 5 says well I'll get married at 22 and then I'll get divorced at 27 and then I'll get married again at 32 we don't plan this things happen to us we become we can become defined by them but this new identity this is what's important and this is what's special about Rahab a new identity in Christ I love it that preaches and look at Hebrews even said it look at Hebrews 11 31 I'll put it up for you

faith is the key so I what I want to do is I want to finish up here this morning with our memory verse after a difficult one last week I gave you a wonderful memory verse very easy Romans 8 37

now in most of your Bibles if you go to Romans chapter 8 probably the heading at the very front before you even read the first verse says life in the spirit okay we're drawing a parallel in this Bible study between a Christian New Testament Christian walking in the life of the spirit and the path of promise so I want to borrow that's why I want to borrow this easy to memorize verse because it was in that chapter in Romans all about life in the spirit just to close up today I want us to look at a few other verses right there in Romans you don't have to turn to it I'll put them up on the screen for you I want to jump up to Romans 8 31 just a few more verses higher than our memory verse and it says

now does that sound familiar to you at all if God is for us isn't that what Joshua asked the commander he said are you for us the commander said well really neither I'm in charge and that's a good answer if God is for us he's in charge he's in charge of the battles and since he's in charge this question is if God is for us who can be against us the rhetorical answer is no person no thing can be against us if God is for us nothing can be against us and I want to show you what the next verse says Romans 8 32

which leads us right into our memory verse in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us God is for us God is the commander God is in charge God is not sending us these things in our lives like a timed quiz and if we don't have the right answers he's gonna boot us out that is not how it works God is for us he wants to set us up for success first battle of success Jericho those things that just exist that need to be torn down so that we can move on to the other battles because they're gonna get harder fathers thank you for thank you that you are for us Lord sometimes we need to wake up every morning and say God is for me and we need to just listen like Joshua did listen to you and follow through and obey and trust that in your time you will enable us Lord to conquer the things that we need to conquer thank you for your power thank you for your strength thank you that you make us more than conquerors because you love us Lord Jesus name Amen you