Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 12 – 13a

• A few things to note here…Joshua doesn’t speak to the sun and to the moon, he speaks to the Lord…see that? God has power, authority, even authorship over all of nature. Sun, moon, stars, earth, fire, water, heart…by your powers combined! HA! Man has not the authority over nature, lest Joshua would have commanded it directly…God does! Religions out there that recognize elemental powers…Wicca, Paganism, Pantheism, Animism…the list goes on and on, earth worship or space worship, these are all lesser things. Yahweh, God the Almighty rules it all! That is why these little “g” gods are called idols…
• So check this out…God has the authority over all of nature…even human nature! Joshua has marched all night…fought all day…you’d think he would welcome the dusk because it would mean rest but notice he rejects it, why? There is work left to do! He is unwearied in the service of God! When we do grow weary then man that is a clear indication that we may very well not be in the service of God! You’d think he would have welcomed the night but what we see is that he wants nothing but the prolonging of the day!
• Turn over to Isaiah 40 with me. Look at verses 25 – 31. God’s power is above nature. Even human nature! So go! So come! So engage! And find yourself not watching the clock for when the event ends (well sometimes, maybe if you are serving in Nursery) but rather signing to the Father in your heart that even the day would be prolonged. Especially when we hit the street. At the Assisted Living Center, at Uturn, at Retreats, on the Mission Field…when you go to help a brother out on the side of the street or visit a family who is cold and you fix their furnace…rest will be the last thing on your mind as it is the last thing on Joshua’s. There is work yet to be done! Now, when the work is complete…lounge!!! I’m not against down time…but I don’t break until the Boss says its time…and that’s when the work is through!
• What crazy faith this is! To proclaim a prayer, because that is what this is, for the earth to halt in its rotation…or for the sun and moon to track with the earth for a time…crazy faith! But think of this, Joshua has seen so much! He saw the River Jordan dried up! He saw the Manna each day. He saw the walls of Jericho collapse. He saw AI fall in a day. He hears the voice of God clearly…how can he not have surging faith!? Man and that is the ticket…the more you go, the more you’ll see. The more you press to be engaged, the more you will see…and then when it comes time to believe…time for crazy faith…”Sun, hold up!” See what I’m saying?
• One more thing. Do you realize that the earth is rotating at about 1,000 miles per hour? And yet with one simple, small prayer…one simple small man simply following God at His every word…it stops. You might have something in your life headed for disaster…something that you think is just a lost cause maybe…1,000 miles an hour, in the wrong direction…know this. It doesn’t have to…God rules all…and He can turn anything on its head in just 20 seconds of crazy faith…

Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 13b – 15

• Now we don’t have the Book of Jasher and we don’t know exactly what it was but we do know one thing…it’s not missing. Some would call this a “missing” book of the Bible but that’s not precisely the case because the Bible is not missing anything! It’s like that opened and empty can of corn that you threw out last night. Is it now missing? (Once the disposal folks come and take it away?) No! It’s be disposed of! Removed, not needed…We have upwards of 20 references in the Bible to books that we don’t have, but they are not missing from the Bible…they may be missing from Barnes and Nobles…but not from the Bible!
• Most speculate that the Book of Jasher contains an ancient account of this event where the day was doubled. A great book to pick up that may interest you is “Worlds in Collision” by Immanuel Velikovsky. This man, not a Christian, just a simple thinker, theorized that if there was a double day during Joshua’s time, that other cultures in other places in the world, would have recorded a long night, a long dawn, a long dusk…So he carefully poured through ancient texts and inscriptions and hieroglyphs…He found, and detailed in his book with validated proof, that on each of the six populated continents, in some form of ancient text there is an account of an elongated day, night, dusk or dawn…pretty neat…
• And so some have speculated that the Book of Jasher is an ancient text we simply do not have, penned by possibly a local historian, a local recorder, named Jasher…that also contained the account of this miracle…

Joshua Chapter 10 Verse 16

• The kings of the earth will always run and hide…why? Because they aren’t real kings…there’s really only one King…and He does not flee and He does not hide!

Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 17 – 25

• A powerful scene here…five false kings…a picture of the idolatry of the world and the enmity of the world with the spirit, and Joshua, Yashuah in the Hebrew, Jesus in the Greek, calls his army together and commands them to not be afraid as they press their feet on the necks of their enemies…six times in the Bible we read, “Sit at My right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.” Introduced in Psalm 110, then again in Matthew 22, again in Mark 12, again in Luke 20, again in Acts 2, and again in Hebrews 1. Six, the number of man…a signal of what God can do with a heart given over to him…
• You see, Psalm 110 is predicated upon Psalm 99. Psalm 110 says that God will make our enemies our footstool…and yet Psalm 99:5 says, “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool, for He is holy.” The command of Joshua, the obedience of the people, the result…triumph over the idolatry and wickedness of the world…the footstool? According to Isaiah 66:1, “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool…” If you want to place your foot squarely upon the neck of all this junk…fear, fret, malice, regret…all that the world can throw against you…a busted marriage, a broken career, a hard heart…the only way is to fulfill first Psalm 99…to exalt the Lord higher than self and worship Him in spirit and in truth!

Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 26 – 27

• So we revisit the parallel with the grave that we’ve seen before in this book. Jesus hung on a tree until evening and then was taken down and laid in a tomb. And a large rock was laid against its entrance. These five kings, the collective type of the idolatry of the world…hung on a tree, were laid in a tomb and a large stones rolled across its entrance…and yet a profound difference…they remain there until this day…while Jesus lives!
• All that you’re in, all that you’re facing, all that you’re warring against…victory is yours for the taking. I see folks in wars they don’t even recognize…husbands and wives that pick at each other and withhold affection towards one another thinking it acceptable and normal. Folks centered and focused upon the shortcomings of others while staying securely right where they’re at in a state of spiritual infancy…the scenarios go on and on…the summarization…lives lived not bowed at the footstool of the King, worshiping Him and exalting Him…wars raging that they don’t even perceive…don’t let that be you. Don’t be defeated with your eyes closed…
• God fought for Israel. Joshua leads them. Victory is secured and the promised land is on the verge of being purified…and next week we will see, that it was by the edge of the sword…a type and clue for us as to how we too will systematically lay down each of the enemies of God in our lives…