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In this particular session, gentlemen, we have until twelve twenty five at the latest. So we have just about twenty five minutes for this section, for this session. This session is billed as one of those in which I'm supposed to talk, and questions are not allowed. Uh-huh. Unless I say something so, uh, uh, uh, uns- nonsensical or something that you can't understand what I mean, and then you are allowed to stamp your feet and raise your hands. Uh, hello. Common theme in your lecture. Well, I leave others to judge, uh, you see. But where you see I am wrong, then please reserve your, uh, comments thereon and your corrections to the next time of questions. And for that purpose, I do still remind you that you are in my debt. You owe me, even by sitting on those seats, you owe me. Your comments on the story of Jericho and Ai, you do remember that, don't you? It was as recent as ne- yesterday that we talked about it. So you still owe me, and I shall be hunting you down, you'll see, and the next opportunity I get to hear your own comments on those stories. But now let us devote what time we have left this morning to continuing and perhaps finishing the study of the, uh, uh, story of the Gibeonites. And I put here on the screen, so that you can recognize the pa- the page that you should have in front of you now, what I have called a dominant theme in Joshua. In my reckoning, other people disagree, of course, and probably rightly so, but if we may arbitrarily divide Joshua into six major sections, then you will notice a theme that, uh, persists in each section. Section one, the appeal of Rahab, that you will save alive my father, my brother, mother, brothers, sisters, and all that they have, and will deliver our lives from death. In section two, in the middle of the story of the destruction of Jericho, Joshua decrees that Rahab shall live, she and all that are with her in the house. And then, but Rahab and her father's household and all that she had, did Joshua save alive. Let's notice the exact expression, let them live, save them alive. Section three with our dear friends, the Gibeonites. And Joshua and company made a covenant with them to let them live. And when the people processed pro- protested against the princes, then the princes decided, this we will do to them, and let them live. Then the phrase is repeated once more, let them live. When we come to section five, it's a very different context, of course, but we early on hear Caleb coming to Joshua to claim the promise that was given him by God through Moses. And says Caleb, the Lord has kept me alive these forty five years. And that is a, a, a statement not of a commonplace, but to be remarked because he was of the generation that came out of Egypt. And though he and Joshua had brought back a good report as spies originally sent into the land, the people were condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years because they refused to go into the land, much to Caleb's disappointment, of course. And he was therefore obliged to live on. You see, he was already in middle life, but because of the sin and the refusal of his contemporaries, he was obliged to spend another forty years plus in the wilderness and in the warfare in Canaan, and he comes celebrating the fact, in spite of the men in his generation that had died out under God's specific plan that they should die out in the wilderness, the Lord has kept me alive these forty five years. That is therefore to be remarked on. We shall consider its implications later. Then in section five, we have the appointment, or the command that they appoint cities of refuge, so that the accidental homicide might flee thither and not die. And finally, in section six, we have the admission by the tribes west of Jordan. Today we know that the Lord is among us because you, the two and a half tribes that live now east of Jordan, have not committed this trespass against the Lord. Now you have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord. And what they mean by that is that when the two and a half tribes had built an altar on the banks of Jordan, as they went back to their possessions east of Jordan, the rest of the tribes thought that they were now engaged in utter apostasy of such sort as Achan and other people had committed, which would not only bring death and destruction on the two and a half tribes, but would bring death and destruction on the nation as a whole. And found to their great relief that that was not so. That the two and a half tribes were not about, uh, to commit apostasy. And therefore, the expression, you have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord, meaning that what you have done will not bring down the Lord's chastisement and death upon the nation. The emphasis, what you might call the gospel emphasis, the evangelical emphasis of the book of Joshua. It is important to see, because Joshua is so often associated in people's minds with the serious and solemn judgments that fell on the Canaanites, that this emphasis on the gospel salvation is sometimes missed, or rather downplayed. It was for that reason that I showed the earlier slide, the contrast between section two and section three, whereas in section two God had Jericho and Ai utterly destroyed in Canaanite cities. And in section three, God himself directly and miraculously intervening to save Canaanite cities, namely Gibeon and her satellite town. There's emphasis, therefore, on God's mercy triumphing over judgment. But now let's move on to consider the eventual Essential story. story. I have here a list of the contents, but you have a paper now with them on. Summarizing the contents of section three: Steps taken by the Gibeonites to escape God's judgment. They persuade Israel to make a covenant with them, to let them live, on the supposed grounds that they came from afar off. Their motives, they had heard what Moses said. The evidence that they were genuinely prepared to accept the terms laid down by Moses, and we considered that evidence, and the fact that they continued as servants to the altar and to Israel for centuries. But now let's notice chapter ten onwards. It was for converting to Israel and Israel's God that the Gibeonites were attacked by the southern kings. Do notice that the kings had originally intended to come and fight against Joshua, but chapter ten tells us that in the circumstance when Gibeon came over to Israel, the southern kings came to attack not Joshua, but to attack these Gibeonites for coming and making a peace treaty with Joshua and coming to believe in Israel's God. They came to attack the converts, as we might say. And God's response to that was unequivocal. He told, uh, uh, uh, Joshua to come up against the siege, the besieging forces that was besieging Gibeon. And Joshua had a forced march, like Napoleon would in his day, and took the besieging forces by surprise the next early morning, and scattered them by the early morning attack on them. As they fled in panic, however, the Lord not only promised Joshua, I will deliver them into your hand, but verse ten, the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and he slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Horon and smote them to Azekah and Makeda. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, why they were going down, and the going down of Beth Horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died. And there were more which died with the hailstones than they with whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. And you immediately see the picture, don't you? That the attacking forces, the besieging forces, routed and in panic, tried to escape up the remainder of the pass to the top of the pass and down the other side in the direction of their sundry cities from which they came. It was therefore important militarily to destroy as many as possible of them before they could get back into their fortified cities, as the text will eventually tell you. And because organizing the, uh, Israeli army to follow them would take time, God himself intervened to mop them up. And, uh, more were slain by the hailstones and by the sword of Joshua and his troops. God intervening to save Gibeon and to mop up the enemy and to destroy the kings that thus attacked these converts. Miracle number one. Miracle number two. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel. And he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stayed in the midst of heaven and hasted not, uh, not to go down about the whole day. Now, gentlemen, I'm persuaded that some of you are wonderful science scientists and au fait with all modern science, and I shall rely upon you to explain to me the physical implications of this particular. I've heard many explanations. None of them carried that sort of convincing power that are necessary, but that's possibly because I don't understand science too well. Why did John Joshua ask for the sun and the moon to stand still? There are various theories about it. And some say, uh, it was to keep the daylight out of his eyes so that he could s- see more clearly, and so forth, and so on and so forth. Why he asked for the extra time, it seems to me, is for the nation to be avenged of its enemies. Notice the purpose, therefore, of the miracle. The nation to be able to overcome the enemy that had attacked these converts. And to put them down as far as possible, and to make sure that they couldn't, uh, attack the Israelite, uh, or the Gibeonites again. He wanted the extra time, therefore, presumably. And there follows the story, first of all, of the capture of the five kings themselves, and then the systematic reduction of all the cities in the south that fills the rest of chapter ten. uh And when I read these things about the moon, the sun standing still, and the moon not going down, and I read in verse fourteen that there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel. Then I'm almost incorrigible. I can't help thinking ahead to another level of meaning altogether. I think you'll pardon me. The miracle was, the biggest miracle to be noticed was not that the sun and moon stood still, but according to the text, there'd never been a day before it, like it, or a day afterwards like it. That is, since that event to the time when the book of Joshua was written, whenever that was. That the Lord hearkened to the voice of a man. That was a miracle. And apparently changed the course of these two heavenly bodies. And I say privately to myself, ah, but the record was broken some centuries later. Granted that until that time, there'd been nothing like it, that the Lord, God Almighty, had listened to the voice of a man and changed the heavens. Well, there came another man, did there not? Ah. Ah. There did indeed. The darkness of Calvary, of course. But there was another point to that too. Standing on the threshold of Gethsemane, says John chapter 17, and knowing what it would mean. And the darkness of Calvary. In the great battle for the human soul, our Lord lifted up his eyes to heaven, and he said, Father, glorify thou me with the glory I had with thee before the world was. A man on earth, genuine man, asking the Lord Almighty to glorify him alongside of himself with the glory he had with God before the world was. And God heard his prayer, you know. And that prayer changed the very face of heaven. For as a result, our blessed Lord, still human, though divine, with a human body, real, though a spiritual body, has entered heaven himself, the first man bodily to be there. It's a stupendous wonder and a miracle. May we never get used to the thought of it. A man glorified in heaven in answer to that man's prayer. Ah, but he had more to ask. When he came to the end of that prayer, he said, Father, I will. Ooh. We don't normally talk to God like that, do we? He did. I will that those whom thou has given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. Gentlemen, I am to tell you that that prayer will be answered too. That blessed man who stood and prayed that the likes of you and me shall be with him eternally to see his glory, glory given him by the infinite love of the Father for his Son. Oh, how it will change heaven when the myriads of human beings being redeemed, their very bodies shall be redeemed, and they shall be in glory through Christ. Oh, that's thrilling stuff, isn't it, whatever? Yes. You say we can tell you something in addition, you preacher, that you don't seem to mention. We're already there. Really? Yes, you say. You see, it says that, uh, he raised Christ from the dead, and he's raised us too, and seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above principalities, powers, mights, and dominion. I think that's what you believe too, isn't it? Already, in some sense, seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That isn't bad going for men who started, I don't know where they started, near at hand or afar off. For I'm allowed to take the physical terms of Joshua and all the meaning that attached to those physical terms, and I'm allowed to indulge myself a little moment by thinking of them at this higher level, for that also is true. Whether you were afar off, I think some of you were pretty far off, from what I hear, or whether you were near at hand. In Christ, you have been made nigh, isn't it so? And of the two, he's made one new man, thus making peace, reconciling both to the Father through the blood of his cross. And already seated us at, in spiritual terms, with Christ in the heavenlies, far above all, pray notice the term, principalities, powers, mights, dominions. Yes, it's not without its connection with Joshua, is it? Because this third section is about the conquest of the principalities, powers, mights, and dominions, and kings of Canaan. So at the historical level, it's about that. Uh, the principalities and mights, the physical, literal, human principalities and mights and powers in Canaan were overcome to make Israel's inheritance of the land begin to be possible. But of course, it speaks to us at the higher level of the conquest of the principalities and powers and mights and dominions. It is then a third aspect of the gospel that is covered in these sections, these three sections of the first half of Joshua. So in that connection, there's a very interesting story. When the troops fled and the kings of the southern confederacy fled down the pass, five of the kings hid in a cave. And the scouts came back to Joshua and said, Sir, we found the five kings hiding in a cave. Said Joshua, roll a stone to the mouth of the cave and set guard on it so they don't get out, but don't stop just yet. Go and mop up all the rest before they get into their fortified cities. And when they'd done that, they came back, and there was Joshua. And they opened the cave, and they brought out the five kings. And Joshua came to the captains of the hosts, and he said, put your feet on their necks, gentlemen, and slay them. So Joshua slew them. Said Joshua, and so shall the Lord do to all your enemies. And then... he took the five... and he hanged them... on trees. And as our good brother here mentioned, he made a show of them openly. Yes, yes, exactly so. Exactly so. That's what he literally did. And having hanged them on a tree, he then took the bodies down, uh, at sunset and put them in the cave and put great stones there to be a memorial forever after. This first stage in the overcoming of the principalities and powers. There were a lot more left, particularly up the north. There would have to be a very big second campaign to deal with them. This was the first stage of the conquest of the principalities and powers. He made a show of them openly hanging those five kings on trees. It's a very interesting emphasis in, uh, Joshua, isn't it? When the king of Ai was taken, he was put to death, and they hanged him on a tree. Now here, they hung the five kings on a tree. But our brother has cited to us the words of a New Testament epistle. He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. My good brother, tell us, please, where you got that information from. From. I think maybe. Well, it's the, it's two mo- ones on, yes, it's Colossians. Colossians. Yes, I think it's Colossians. That's right. It's worth reading, isn't it? Yes, yes. Christ's glorious achievement. Yes, glo- Christ's glorious achievement in dealing with the principalities and powers, yes? Well, it's worth reading what, what happened, yes. This is Colossians, of course, and it's chapter two, isn't it? Somebody with a good stentorian voice, you see. Let's, uh, read it. Uh, you see. This is Colossians two and well, let's read from verse twelve uh, to verse fifteen. Somebody. Verse 12? Yes. Uh, to verse fifteen, twelve to fifteen. Buried with him in baptism. That reads clearly, we can't hear you back here. Buried with him in baptism, in which also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, have been made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Amen. And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made ashore them openly, triumphing over them in it. Ah, magnificent. Let's shout hallelujah for it. You'll see. The conquest of the principalities and powers. Do you notice the exact term, uh, talked about us, what he's done for us? He has quickened us, given us life. Listen to your Joshua, let them live. He has quickened us, given us new life, having forgiven us all our trespasses, and he's done it through, now here comes a remarkable thing, not through hanging the principalities and powers on the cross, but by hanging on a cross himself. And how did that conquer? Well, because the devil and his angels are concerned with morality. The devil is the accuser of the brethren. God is proposing to take you gentlemen to heaven, sit you at the right hand of God. Satan will have to say some, will have something to say about that. Can God remain righteous? And glorify such miserable sinners as you and And me? me. But just when the principalities and powers thought they had hounded him to death and had seen the last of him, Christ wrought his marvelous triumph, and he took the handwriting that was against us in the sight of an holy God, and the debt that must be paid. And in face of all the hosts of hell, he took it, nailed it to his cross. So that God, mercy, in not only giving us life, but placing at the last, at la- placing us at last alongside of his son, should be above all accusation on even the expert accuser of the brethren, Satan himself. And the cross stands as the great show. He's made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. The cross of Christ, the wisdom and strategy and tactics of God against the principalities and powers. Against Satan, who first induced humanity to sin against God. Thought he had triumphed by it, and Christ by his cross has the answer to it. You and I are forgiven, quickened, given new life, and already seated with Christ in the heavenly places, far above principalities, powers, mights, and dominions. Where we sit now in spirit, one day we shall sit bodily. There had to be another phase in the campaign, but there's not time to talk about it now. We shall have to leave it until our next session this afternoon. Now I use my powers of persuasion, persuasion to ask you now to proceed with all speed to the dining room, lest I be late and blamed for your being late. We're gonna actually.