Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 28 – 39

• Now throughout each of these accounts there are constants. Things that are repeated time and time again. We read that each time Joshua struck the city, struck the king and struck its people, utterly destroying all of it. Now recall, because we’ve talked about this before going through this book, that the Promised Land is a picture of a victorious life in Christ. A life not just filled with the Holy Spirit but with a person being constantly filled…an appropriate mind-picture is a water pot seated firmly under a waterfall…where no matter the cracks and the holes in the pot, (because we all have them), the filling is constant, to the point of overflowing and the water is all over every part inside and out!
• That is the very picture of the baptism of the Holy Spirit! As we read in Acts Chapter 1 verse 8 when Jesus says to His disciples, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Recall how the Israelites got to the Promised Land…
• They were enslaved in Egypt, a picture of the world, and the slaves…just spiritually dead folks…not even knowing that they’re slaves, just living their lives…and yet they are slaves to a godless people, a godless culture…a godless ruler. Then God sent Moses, a picture of the Law, a schoolmaster of sin the Law is…to show us that we all fall short and need a Savior and so Moses takes the children of Israel out of captivity, out of slavery, out of the world and leads them through what? Water! A picture of baptism! A symbol of being born-again!
• Passing through the midst of the Red Sea…all of the Israelites buried if you will as they pass through and then are reborn on the other side into the wilderness…no longer slaves…and yet now something odd…they wander. They murmur, they sin openly, they rebel against authority…Moses, they revile their leader, they complain against God…they consider even going back to slavery! What’s the deal? Well that’s what born-again believers may find themselves doing as well…wandering in circles…making no progress…bad attitude and more complaints than compliments…more spending than serving…spending others patience and spending others grace as they just do their own thing…pressing for their own consumption!
• And then when they grow up they come to a place where they’re tired of it all…tired of being such an outlier, an exhauster, a complainer…a consumer! Tired of going in circles and wasting and wasting and wasting…tired even of this whole thing called Christianity and yet there they are…others…that seem so different. So joyful and powerful and patient and dynamic and capable and vigorous and resilient and you wonder why you’re not like that…never like that…and that rebellious immature sensual carnal infant generation in you begins to die off…and yet you wander still for a time…
• But then Joshua becomes front and center…the law dies…Moses dies…and you stop loving criticism of others, you stop being bent towards making it so known how they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, you stop trying to make everyone see it your way…because the root of that is pride…so that they would be what YOU want them to be…and you just begin to follow Joshua yourself…a picture of Jesus…and He leads you to what? Water. A picture, a type, a symbol, a signal in the Bible of the Holy Spirit…but wait you already went through the Red Sea right? You already went through being born again right? You’re already saved right? Yes, but a second body of water lies ahead…that only following Jesus alone can lead you to…leaving self behind…dead in the weak and waste circle of the wildnerness…
• Now Joshua leads…period. Joshua leads you through the River Jordan…a second baptism but this time not for salvation but because of salvation! You see Jesus told us the pattern, the three-fold ministry of the Holy Spirit…beginning in John 14…Jesus said, “The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him for He dwells with you and will be in you..” First the Holy Spirit is with you. Right next to you, always urging you to come to the saving knowledge of the truth…
• Unable to influence your heart but well able to encourage you and remind you of the love that the Father has for you…and that you are eternally of utmost importance to your Creator! And then, John 20, Jesus is risen from the tomb and where are the disciples? Shut up in a room. Scared and beaten, protecting themselves, serving themselves…slaves to the culture…and Jesus shows up. John 20:21, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He has said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit…” Now, the Holy Spirit is within. Saved, peace with the Father has arrived because of the cross and resurrection of the Christ…and Jesus sends them…but…do they go?
• Next chapter, (John 21), are they living the victorious Christian life? Are they walking in the midst of the Promised Land? No! They are frustrated, complaining…consuming time still…and so they go fishing where we end the Book of John at the breakfast on the beach scene…then, Acts Chapter 1. The Holy Spirit comes upon them…the second baptism if you will…not a second salvation…they’re already saved…and then what…BOOM…the Day of Pentecost…thousands come to believe…Peter preaches his first sermon…they defy the evil in power…they become something else…entirely…they serve, they fill needs, they no longer consume but are fully consumed by power and love! They have entered the Promised Land…
• The city, the king, the people…they’re now utterly destroying these things in their hearts! They’re out of the city…(having coming out of Egypt, the world)…they’ve discovered that it’s all about the King…King Jesus! They’ve become the people they were created to be…in the midst of their hearts, minds, lives, all of them…the Garden has been reversed…so that’s the positive statement…now…the more grim perspective. The cities, the kings and the peoples that are currently in the Promised Land speak of the sin that remains in our hearts and lives…we are to attack relentlessly…taking out the opportunity…the city…taking out the king…the root of it all…and taking out the people in totality…utterly attacking and utterly destroying it all man…if we will not do that, then we will remove ourselves from the waterfall…and find ourselves once again…empty as all of the water leaks out…
• The final pattern, the final point of repetition…the method that Joshua and the children of Israel employ…the edge of the sword. That is the only effective weapon Christian. The Word of God, sharper than any two edged sword! That is how we will overcome! By the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony! If we will not submit to the authority of the Word of God then we will never find it supernaturally perfect…and we will never stop wandering…never stop being drained and we will miss all that God has for us…
• And so these are the things that Joshua and the people of God did…and the result…

Joshua Chapter 10 Verses 40 – 43

• One by one. The victory was not won by a single battle with all seven opponents…it was one victory at a time and that is important to note because we want to do everything, win everything, every battle, every struggle all at once but that can be a powerful strategy from the enemy to keep us from even the first. Some things it’s a quick 180…some sort of outright sin…180…but others, like dealing with our flesh, our horrible critical habits…take it a day at a time…we want to move 1,000 miles in a day…I’m happy with just one…as long as I’m moving forward. I’m not afraid of crawling or walking…even when I want to run…what I’m afraid of is standing still…
• And notice, one by one, each victory, God fought for Israel just as He fights for you…as long as you are moving forward. Standing still…remaining right where you’re at…welcome to pride. And the Bible says that God resists the proud…but Romans 8:37 says that because of what He has done for you…you are more the conquerors through Him! Why? Because of what is in Colossians 2:15…He has already disarmed principalities and powers…making a public spectacle of them triumphing over them at the cross!!
• And so they return to Gilgal…back to simplicity, unity and purity! The victories always came from Gilgal…the place of total faith, total commitment and total fellowship with God…the place where Israel had been first conquered by God! It will be the same with us…without a doubt.