Sunday Sermon speaker unpacks Joshua 11, detailing King Jabin's massive coalition at Merom to illustrate God's grace in escalating trials. He clarifies that hamstringing horses and burning chariots specifically prevents reliance on enemy technology, reinforcing that victory stems from trusting Christ alone rather than worldly power. While acknowledging past miracles at Jericho and Ai, the sermon warns against assuming persecution is inevitable, urging believers to prepare for both suffering and sudden victories where God grants influence. Ultimately, Christians must wield authority obediently while maintaining exclusive faith in the Lord, resolving the paradox between human responsibility and divine sovereignty. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Facing Five Kings00:14:31
Amen.
This morning we continue once more our series through the book of Joshua.
Our text for today is going to be Joshua chapter 11, verses 1 through 15.
We're going to focus our attention on verses 1 through 6, and then again later on verses 13 through 15.
So verses 1 through 6, and then 13 through 15.
Let's go ahead and stand now for the reading of God's Word.
We'll stand for the reading of the first portion of our text, namely verses 1 through 6, in order to show reverence and respect for God and how He has chosen to reveal Himself in Scripture.
When I finish reading the text, I'll say, This is the word of the Lord.
At which point, I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, the text that I'll be reading now is Joshua chapter 11, verses 1 through 6.
The Bible says this When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of this, he sent Jobab, king of Madan, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Ashvath, and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Erebah, south of Chinaroth.
And in the low land, and in Naphoth dor on the west, to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah.
And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots.
And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together at the waters of Merom.
To fight against Israel.
And the Lord said to Joshua, Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them slain to Israel.
You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's jump in.
The first thing that I want us to see here in these first six verses of Joshua chapter 11 today is twofold.
One, God's grace in the midst of trials.
And two, that it is vital and imperative that the people of God trust in Him alone, that God would be the exclusive aim or object of our faith and our trust.
So, one, God is abundantly gracious in the midst of trials to His people, and His people are expected, their responsibility, our end of the deal, is to trust in God in the midst of these trials and challenges.
And our trust in him to be only in him.
In your notes, I've written the following.
Just as Joshua and Israel found great success in conquering their enemies in Joshua chapter 10, God now grants them the same success against an even greater enemy in Joshua chapter 11.
In Joshua 10, Israel goes to war against five kings and their armies.
In Joshua 11, all the remaining kings in the northern tribes of Canaan now unite against Joshua so that their number was.
According to our text, like the sand that is on the seashore.
God's ordinary design for the Christian life is that we often face challenges in a progression of increasing difficulty.
The victories of our past serve to be the training grounds for the next trial.
And when fresh challenges arrive, God provides fresh grace and assurance.
That's what we see in verse 6.
Let me read verse 6 one more time.
And the Lord said to Joshua, Do not be afraid of them.
For tomorrow at this time, I will give over all of them slain to Israel.
You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.
What we've seen for those of you who have been here since the beginning of this series through the book of Joshua is a progressive increase in difficulty for the armies of Israel.
That at first, when they cross over the Jordan, their first opposition is Jericho.
And God does, God supernaturally is providing miraculous strength.
In every single one of their encounters, but especially the first in regards to Jericho, God does most of the heavy lifting for the Israelites.
God supernaturally causes the walls to crumble, the outer walls of Jericho, so that the people are disarrayed, that many of them very likely died in the collapse of these outer walls, and the people in Jericho that are remaining are in shock and terror and easy for the Israelites to run down.
That's their first encounter.
The second is.
In the case of their battle against AI, AI was actually a lesser challenge than Jericho.
So, this is the one instance that we find in the book of Joshua where you have a challenge and then the next one is actually easier.
But it proves to be more difficult in the subjective sense for Israel because there was sin in their camp.
We have Achan, who took some of the devoted things that were supposed to be stored in the temple of the Lord, some of the precious gold and silver.
He took things in Jericho in that last battle and hid them in the dirt under his tent.
It seems as though, from the text, by way of implication, that his children were likely grown and that they were complicit in this deliberate choice to rebel against God's command given through Joshua, that they aided their father in this theft.
And so, because of Achan and his household, their sin, when Jericho is defeated and now Israel is going up to face Ai, they are not granted the success that they.
Previously experienced in the case of Jericho.
In fact, they are defeated.
Even then, God is gracious.
There's only a few individuals who actually die in Israel.
They retreat, they're able to get away, and then they come back the right way after dealing with sin in the camp, after repenting before the Lord, and they come back with their full army, over 30,000 fighting men, instead of deploying just a few of their soldiers.
And they find success.
Then the next Difficulty, the next challenge that Israel faces is that we have these five armies.
We're skipping ahead a little bit here, but you have five kings that ultimately unite against Gibeon.
Gibeon has a covenant with Israel.
Israel goes to their aid.
And so now they're not just fighting one isolated tribe in Canaan, like Jericho or Ai, but five different kingdoms united.
Then after that, after this great victory against these five.
Kings, that's where Joshua has the kings, they're taken captured alive, they're held up and concealed in a tomb, a cave.
Stones are rolled in front of the mouth of the cave.
They go and run down all of their armies.
Then Joshua brings the men of Israel back to the cave.
They open up the door, remove the stones, and he has each of his captains, his heads of soldiers in Israel, actually put their feet on the necks of these five kings.
Not in a contentious or arrogant way, but as a form of judgment to those wicked kings, as a warning, a prophetic warning of what would take place for all the other kings out there that may be watching.
As God has done with these five kings, he will do to you as well, but also to bolster the courage and the strength of Israel, that they would recognize that the Lord truly is with them.
It's similar to the same kind of concept that we find in the life of David.
Before he was king, as he was a shepherd boy, God gave him victory over the lion.
He gave him victory over the bear.
And David uses that mindset.
He says, Well, God has given me strength to defeat the lion, to defeat the bear.
And so this uncircumcised Philistine, namely the giant Goliath, will be no different.
Again, the same principle at play that there is a progression of increasing challenges.
And we find this principle.
In many places throughout the scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the New.
And this is a principle that I believe is common, not guaranteed in each and every instance, but common.
It is an ordinary principle in the lives of New Testament Christians today.
Christians in a corporate sense, but also individual Christians and Christian households, families.
That God in His mercy.
And we should take note that this is a confirmation.
If it says anything about God, it speaks of His mercy.
It speaks of his kindness that God would allow us to face lions and bears before giants, that God would allow us to face individual kingdoms like Jericho and Ai before facing five kings.
And then later on, as we see in our text today, Joshua chapter 11, it's not merely five kings, but it's pretty much all the remaining tribes in the land of Canaan.
Joshua and Israel face down the five kings, and then in the latter half of Joshua chapter 10, They defeat the remaining southern tribes of Canaan, and now they're going to the northern tribes that seem to be a more formidable enemy.
In fact, the greatest enemy that they've faced thus far, certainly the greatest in number.
And that's highlighted explicitly in our text, I believe in verse 4.
It says And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore.
With very many horses and chariots.
And that's unique.
That's not language that we have found thus far, at least not to that extent in the book of Joshua.
So, what we're finding is now in Joshua chapter 11, they're facing their greatest enemy thus far in number, but not only in number, quantity, but also in a sense, quality.
And they've faced giants at this point.
And Lord knows I can talk an hour about giants.
I get real excited about that.
I won't today.
But they faced giants at this point, but now they're facing, we could say, technology.
And it is a titan, a giant like technology, at least for their time.
They're facing the largest army they've ever faced, and they're facing not just a large army, but a well equipped army that has many, not just some, but many horses and chariots.
So, this is the greatest challenge that Israel has faced.
Since crossing the Jordan River, as they seek to obey God's commandment to drive out all the Canaanites from the land that God has promised as their inheritance.
And again, we see in this God's grace.
We see God's grace in two ways.
One, I've already named, which is the fact that God, in His mercy, allows us to progress in our maturity and providentially, as we're progressing in maturity, to progress in the difficulty of the trials and tribulations that we face.
Israel doesn't cross the Jordan River and start with this battle.
They start small and the challenges increase in the very same way that our maturity, our faith, Start small, and through the process of sanctification over time, we mature and it grows.
This is a mercy of God.
Again, this is not a 100% guaranteed promise, but it is what we might refer to as an ordinary principle.
It rings true ordinarily more often than not that God allows us to face various trials, challenges, and difficulties that are within.
The realm of our maturity during that season of life.
He did this with David.
He did this with Israel under the command of Joshua.
And ordinarily, very often, he does it with New Testament Christians in a corporate sense, but also as individual followers of Christ today.
So that's the first way that God is gracious.
He's gracious in his providence, he's gracious in the caliber of trials that he assigns to us at specific times.
Based off of stages of sanctification in our growth, God is gracious in His providence.
God is also gracious in His revelation, in His word, not just what He orchestrates through providence in terms of degrees of challenges at various times, but He's also gracious in His explicit word to His people.
What God says to Joshua in verse 6 is, Do not be afraid of them.
God would be perfectly within his rights to say nothing.
God's already given them the command.
They don't need a reiteration of what obedience would look like.
The command was given multiple times through Moses before Joshua ever even came into leadership, and the command has been remade several times underneath Joshua's command.
They know what is expected of them, they know precisely what God has commanded them to do, namely, to drive out all the wicked pagan inhabitants of the land.
What I'm saying is that in this moment, as Joshua and Israel are surrounded by the greatest number of opposition they've faced yet, God is not obligated in any sense to speak to them.
Why?
Because God has already spoken.
God's Grace in Trials00:13:35
He's not spoken in riddles or rhymes, but He's spoken plainly.
They know their marching orders, they know God's command, they know precisely what they are called and commanded, expected by God to do to go to war.
To face down the enemy, to face them with courage, with everything that they have, every resource available to them, and to give no quarter, no surrender, no peace treaties to be made, but to face the opposition head on and to put all the wicked inhabitants of this land to the edge of the sword.
Israel is not ignorant, but God is gracious.
Israel is not ignorant.
But God is gracious.
He does not speak in this instance because there is a need for clarity.
He speaks in this instance solely on the basis of his mercy because there's a need for courage.
Israel doesn't need clarity, the clarity has already been provided.
But what Israel continually needs, again and again and again, is fresh courage.
And even that is an indictment of Israel, and it is an indictment of us as New Testament Christians today.
God has already provided enough merciful confirmation.
Of his presence, his help, his aid, his faithfulness to his covenant people.
They shouldn't need, what I'm saying is that they should not need in this moment another encouragement from the Lord.
He's already encouraged them quite enough, and not merely in word, but indeed.
He has proven his presence, his faithfulness, his provision to his people.
And yet, he comes to them not just in providence, what he orchestrates in the natural sense, but he comes to them in his explicit presence, in his word, saying, I'm with you.
Take courage.
Do not be afraid of them.
For tomorrow at this time, I will give over all of them slain to Israel.
So, God is gracious in the midst of trials in two ways one, in his providence, allowing us to face trials.
As we are able by God's grace to overcome them.
And second, God is gracious not only in His providence, but in His presence.
That He speaks to His people and gives us fresh encouragement from His Word by the Holy Spirit.
His presence dwelling within us, illuminating the text of Scripture, reminding us of all the promises of God, not just 10 years ago when we first began the Christian life, but today.
His mercies are new today.
Every morning, fresh grace, fresh bread, fresh encouragement.
Even though we may be facing the thousandth challenge and should know by now that the Lord is with us, He still reminds His people.
He speaks to us as a father speaks to his child.
So that's God's grace in the midst of trials, His providence, and His presence.
Beyond that, we also see in these first six verses that as it pertains to Israel, as far as it depends on them, God provides grace.
But Israel is expected to place in God as their responsibility their explicit and exclusive trust.
God gives grace, but we must trust Him.
Now, even this trust, we can argue from biblical terms, is also something provided by God, which is why no one can boast that faith, not only grace, but faith is the gift of God.
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith.
It is the gift of God.
There are many who would link that phrase, the gift of God, only to grace.
For by grace you were saved, it is the gift of God.
But the text reads, For by grace you are saved.
We know that grace is a gift.
Grace, literally defined as unmerited favor.
Grace doesn't need to be described as a gift because grace is, by mere Definition: a gift.
Grace is a gift.
It's like saying you are saved by God's gift, which is a gift.
Well, we know that.
That's what grace is.
I believe that in Ephesians 2 8 and 9, there is a sense in which we could rightly interpret and say that grace is being called a gift.
But most importantly, what's being designated as a gift in that particular text is not the grace, but the faith.
You have been saved by grace, which of course is a gift, assumed as a gift.
That's the definition of grace.
But you're not just saved by grace.
The gracious gift of God, but you receive this gift of grace through faith, which is also the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no man may boast.
So God grants grace, but God also grants trust.
So there is a deal of sorts, something that God promises to do, and something we're expected to do.
God promises to provide grace, grace in the form of strength.
Courage, provision, direction, all these things, by providence, by presence, in every way, God promises that His end of the deal is grace and not end of the deal in a sense that God is morally obligated.
God is obligated to provide for us nothing but His wrath.
But in His gracious covenant, He chooses to extend grace.
Now, man's responsibility is trust.
There are two ends of this deal.
God provides grace, man provides.
Trust.
But here's the thing man is obligated to place trust in God, but even that, God is the one who upholds.
God upholds both ends of the deal.
God provides grace, expects trust, but then God gives not only the grace, but also the faith in order to receive that grace.
So that even our trust in God's grace, even our faith, which is, as the reformers would say, the empty hand that receives the grace of God.
If the grace of God is like a baseball, then faith is like the glove.
But God gives both.
He throws the perfect pitch and He gives you the glove.
God does it all.
We are expected to put our trust in God and not to hedge our bets, but to put our trust in God alone.
But it is, in the final analysis, it is God Himself who grants us faith.
That faith is not merely something that can be conjured up, manufactured by the will and sheer grit of man, but faith is something that God provides.
I believe, help my unbelief.
God gives faith, God grows faith, but He does so through sanctification, progressively as a process, in His providence, in His presence.
He does all of this, it's all His work.
All his doing, which is why he gets all the glory.
God doesn't share glory with man because, not because God is petty or arrogant.
God doesn't share glory with man because he's just, because he's fair.
And it would be unjust and unfair to accredit man with anything because he hasn't done anything.
God gets all the glory because God does all the work.
Including not just grace, but providing the faith to receive that grace.
And yet, even though God provides that trust, He's the one who gives it.
But He is still within His rights and holy and just to command it.
God commands several things throughout Scripture that He ultimately provides.
God commands our obedience.
But if any man is faithful to obey God's commandments, then what will we say on that final day when we stand before Him and He says, Well done, good and faithful servant?
Pro tip.
I would respond by saying, Well done, good and faithful leader.
If I followed you well at all, it's only because you led me well.
It's not because I hung on to Jesus, it's because Jesus hung on to me.
It's not because I'm a good follower, it's because you're a faithful leader.
In fact, quite the opposite.
There were several times that I, like the one sheep that was led astray, I wandered off the beaten path, and it was not that I Because of my own wisdom, because of my own righteousness, found my way back to the fold, but instead the shepherd left the 99.
He went and found me and brought me back.
He will hold me fast.
Yes, we are commanded to cling to Christ, to trust in Christ, to follow Christ, to listen to Christ, to obey the commandments of Christ.
And if we do, It's because of Christ.
Both His grace and His gift of providing the faith necessary to receive that grace.
So, these two things, my point is, in theological terms, they are not mutually exclusive.
They are not a contradiction of terms.
They are not opposed to one another.
God's command and God's gift.
God can command trust.
And obedience from his people, and in the very same instance, be the source of faith and trust, and the one who girds up our obedience.
It is him who wills and works in and through you in order to do that which is good and pleasing in his sight.
That's Philippians.
It says, Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
That's your responsibility.
That is God's just, righteous commandment to you.
Do it.
You work out your faith with fear and trembling.
And if we finish the verse, it goes on to say, It is He who wills and works in and through.
Both are true, simultaneously true.
One does not contradict the other.
There are a few things in Scripture that to us may be an apparent paradox.
But in reality, in God's reality, and in the mind of God, and that which actually is, there is no contradiction at all.
God commands, man has human agency and responsibility, and yet God is still meticulously sovereign over all things, including our response to Him, our obedience, our faith, our trust, in such a way that every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
And so He merits all the glory.
So, what we find in the first six verses of our text is that God is gracious in the midst of trial, both by providence, increasing difficulty along with our sanctification, and in his presence, fresh mercy, fresh grace, a fresh encouragement.
Even when we've already received the command and the encouragement dozens of times before, God yet once more provides his grace.
Grace in the midst of trials, both by providence and presence, but also.
Our obligation, although this too is His grace, our obligation to trust God, and here's the ticket to trust God alone, not hedging our bets, but to trust God alone in the midst of trials.
And where we find this in the text explicitly is at the latter portion of verse 6 You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.
Trusting God Alone00:13:41
In your notes, I've written the following Joshua was perfectly obedient as he waged war against the Canaanites.
Not just obedient to engage in war, which he was commanded to do, but he was meticulously obedient in the manner in which he waged this war.
God did not only command Joshua to fight, but God also, in certain instances, commands the way in which Israel fights.
And in this particular fight, in chapter 11, Of the book of Joshua, one of the specifics regarding not just the command to fight in general, but the manner in which Joshua and Israel fights, one of the specifics that God commands is that they are to hamstring the horses of their enemies and burn their chariots with fire.
Remember, as I said already at the outset, this is the greatest foe, the most formidable foe that Israel has faced thus far, both in number as a great horde.
Their number, like the sea or the sand of the seashore, and not only the greatest enemy they faced thus far in quantity, in number, but also in quality in terms of their weapons of warfare and cutting edge technology for the time horses and chariots.
So, think about this in practical terms for a moment.
If God is giving you supernatural victory over your enemy, and you're facing the greatest enemy you've ever faced thus far.
And you're picking them off one by one to where the enemy is now fallen dead on the ground.
But many dozens, if not perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of the enemy's weapons, their horses, their chariots are undamaged.
Some of them maybe were damaged in the battle.
You killed this guy, but in the process, you wounded or killed his horse as well.
But in some instances, the guy's gone.
The enemy.
The Canaanite is dead, but the horse and the chariot are just fine.
What would you be tempted to do?
I would be tempted to hop on that chariot, I'd be tempted to use those weapons.
And in a general, universal sense, it's not immoral or prohibited by God to use certain weapons or to plunder certain treasures of our enemies.
I've written furthermore in your notes there are many treasures of Babylon, or in this case, Canaan, that are ripe for the Christian to plunder.
Greece is ours, it belongs to the Christian.
Rome is ours, it belongs to the Christian.
Babylon is ours, it belongs to the Christian.
And Canaan, it belongs to covenant Israel.
And all that was there, there were certain things that God specified.
These devoted things belong to my house, or these things should be burned with fire and destroyed.
But most of the plunder God permitted Israel to take for themselves.
And so, what we find as a principle is this there are many treasures in Babylon or Canaan that are ripe for the Christian to plunder.
Why?
Because all truth is God's truth.
So, whatever is true is true.
Whether the church believed it or whether Babylon believed it.
If it's true, it's true.
Two plus two being four is true no matter what time or what place because it's God's truth.
And if a particular place and a particular culture is good at engineering and Christians discover some of the things that they have learned and developed over decades or even centuries, if those things are in fact true, We should take them.
So, what we find at the end of verse 6 of our text today is unique.
And I want you to hear the disclaimer.
This is not a general, universal commandment to Christians in all places and all times.
Never use the resources of unbelievers.
That's not the message from the text.
This is a unique commandment.
This is a particular, specific commandment given to Israel in this place in this time.
Because Israel did, in fact, as we find later in our text, Israel did, in fact, plunder the treasures of all these northern tribes in Canaan.
There's only one thing that God says they can't have two things to be precise.
One is the city of the first king.
The king of Hazar, who is the one who deliberately decided to rally all the other kings to come against Israel.
All the other kingdoms in Joshua chapter 11, right?
Because they all join together.
It's not just one kingdom, it's many kings, many kingdoms, many tribes all at once, so that their number is like a great horde.
And all of the cities, all of them, spare one.
Israel is allowed, permitted by God to go inhabit those cities, which is actually a fulfillment.
It is a fulfillment of what God had already previously spoken through Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy 6, verse 10, that you will live and inhabit cities that you did not build.
This is a sign of God's grace and kindness, another one of his gifts to his covenant people, Israel.
Not only will I give you land, you won't even have to build some of your cities in the land.
You'll just kind of walk in.
Oh, there's my house.
I get the land, I get the house, I get this, I get that.
Not even just the house.
Look at the appliances.
Man, these Canaanites were doing well for themselves.
Thanks God, it's mine now.
And that's the lion's share of what God does.
It's the minority report throughout the book of Joshua when God says, No, you don't get to plunder this.
You don't get to have this.
So, in the case of Joshua 11, there's only one city, one king, one specific place that they're called to burn, to completely and utterly destroy with fire, not just the inhabitants, but the stuff, their wealth, their resources.
And it's the resources of the city of the particular king who devised this rebellion against Israel and ultimately against God.
And so it's fitting.
God is saying something in that.
He's saying, you can't have this city.
This city can't just be redeemed.
This city needs to be destroyed.
Because the rebellion of the federal head of this city, namely the king, was so great that I want to wipe it off of the map so that not even a stain of its history remains.
And that's one of God's greatest judgments, by the way.
It's not just death, destruction.
One of God's greatest judgments that we find out through the entirety of Scripture is this it is to completely erase the heritage and future lineage of a people or an individual person so that their line is cut off.
One of God's greatest judgments is to end the line of a family, a household, a man, or a nation.
That there's no posterity, no future descendants to remember their heritage, to continue what they've done.
And so, what God is doing in the case of Jabin, king of Hazar, because he's the one, all the kings were wicked, but he's the one who devised the plot.
To come against Israel, ultimately signifying his rebellion against God himself, is to end his lineage, end his heritage, and to, in a sense, add insult to injury.
Not only wiping out his descendants, his people, but even the place that they once inhabited.
That it would be a desolate place, a forgotten place.
So in Joshua 11, there are two, as I said, two instances where God says, You can't have this.
To his children, Israel.
In every other instance, God says, It's yours.
Plunder Babylon.
All truth is God's truth.
The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous.
Not only will you get the land, you get the house, you get the stuff, it's all yours because God is gracious.
C point A, all the way back to verses 1 through 6.
God is gracious.
You can't outgive God, He is generous.
Abundant in kindness.
But the two things that God says you can't have, these must be destroyed with fire.
One is the city of the original king who devised the plot against Israel.
Two, the horses and the chariots.
The horses don't get to be redeemed, they don't get to be plundered.
Not in this instance.
Again, not a universal rule for all times and all places.
God's not against horses.
But these horses, he was.
These horses had to be hamstrung.
And these chariots, God is not universally against chariots, but these chariots had to be burned.
Now, the question is why?
Going on in your notes, I've written this.
Strategy and innovation are not prohibited.
Strategy and innovation are not prohibited for Christians.
What we're noticing in verse 6 should be this.
But God demands that his people place their ultimate trust in him.
We cannot place our trust in the very things that our enemies have trusted while assuming that God will somehow bless that rebellion.
When it's exercised by us.
That's the principle of verse 6.
It's not that chariots and horses are universally evil.
It's not that, well, swords are okay, bows are okay.
There's an inherent goodness to this weapon and an inherent spiritual, cursed, evil voodoo with this weapon.
That's not what God's saying.
He's not saying, hey, you can't use the tactics and weapons of your enemy because.
Inherently, in and of themselves, they're evil and bad.
So, Christians have to use swords.
Only bad people use chariots because chariots are cursed and demonic, but swords are good.
That's not what's going on.
Christians can use the chariots, but this time they couldn't.
This time.
Why?
Because chariots are bad?
No.
Because chariots were the very thing that Israel's opponents were trusting in.
And the key for Israel is not that certain things are good and therefore can be utilized, and these things are bad and therefore cannot.
No, the principle is the difference between Israel and her foes is that the kings of the earth trust in princes and horses and chariots, but the people of God trust in the Lord.
That the advantage of Israel is not horses and chariots, the advantage of Israel is they win despite.
Being small in number, despite being inferior in victuals and provision, despite having lesser technology and weapons of war, because their God is great.
Is it inherently and universally wrong to go to war against an adversary with greater number than he has?
No, that's wise.
In almost every instance, But what would be wisdom 99.9% of the time would be blatant rebellion and sin if your name is Gideon.
Because in that instance, the Lord had something specific to prove that the battle is the Lord's and that he can win when numbers are great or when numbers are few.
That the Lord is Lord of the battle and that the advantage.
The Lord of Battle00:03:14
Of his people is that Yahweh is on their side.
He is mighty in battle.
Psalm 20, verses 6 through 8 says, Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed.
He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall, but we will rise and stand upright.
Finally, I've already Much of this.
But let's finish with the last three verses of our text verses 13, 14, and 15.
The scripture says this But none of the cities that stood on mounds did Israel burn.
All these other cities were permitted to stay, except Hazor alone that Joshua burned.
And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock the people of Israel took for their plunder.
But every person they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them.
And they did not leave any who breathed.
Just 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.
The late, great Puritan Matthew Henry, he and John Gill, I've used multiple times throughout this series.
But to quote Matthew Henry now, specifically in commentating on verses 13 through 15 of our text, Matthew Henry says this.
The destruction of Hazor is particularly recorded because in it and by the king thereof this daring design against Israel was laid.
The king of Hazor, it seems, escaped with his life out of the battle and thought himself safe when he had got back into his own city.
And Joshua had gone in pursuit of the scattered troops another way.
But it proved that that which he thought would be for his welfare was his trap.
In it, He was taken as in an evil net.
There he was slain, and his city for his sake burned.
The rest of the cities of that part of the country are spoken of only in general, that Joshua got them all into his hands, but did not burn them as he did Hazor.
For Israel was to dwell in great and goodly cities, which they builded not, according to Deuteronomy 6, verse 10.
And here we find Israel rolling in blood and treasure.
As they were enriched with the spoil of their oppressors when they came out of Egypt, wherewith to defray the charges of their apprenticeship in the wilderness, so they were now enriched with the spoil of their enemies for a stock wherewith to set up in the land of Canaan.
Thus is the wealth of the sinner laid up for the righteous.
Wielding Divine Influence00:08:03
The last thing that I'll say is this we've already addressed.
King Jabin and why his city of Hazor was destroyed and burned with fire.
We've already addressed now why the horses in this instance had to be hamstrung and the chariots burned.
But the last thing that I want to address is a practical application for the people of God today is what about the other 99%?
And we've addressed the things that are devoted to destruction.
But what about the 99% that the Lord gives to his people, the wealth of the wicked that actually is laid up, not for destruction, but to be inherited by the righteous?
What about that?
The only thing that I want to note here at the very end is this.
There are times, just like in the life of Israel under the command of Joshua, just like our text that we saw today, there are times, albeit perhaps few and far between, but both with Israel under the old covenant and With the people of God in this gospel age.
We see it both in Scripture and we see it in the providence of God throughout the last 2,000 years of church history.
There are times where God pours out an abundance of resources, wealth, influence, power to his people in a moment.
Suddenly.
These are not moments that happen every day.
But history proves that these moments do, in fact, exist.
Rare, but they exist.
They existed with Israel, in their case, before the cross, but they also exist.
In these last 2,000 years of church history as well, that God sometimes, in his providence, in history, he sometimes shakes things up suddenly.
He sometimes turns the tide completely overnight to where the people of God were the underdog, but all of a sudden they find themselves in charge.
And so the final note is this I don't have a strategy or a formula.
I don't believe that the scripture provides such a thing in specific terms.
There are principles and commandments that we should be faithful to obey, but in specific terms, I don't have a formula to say how we can turn the tide, how we can all of a sudden go from being underdogs to being in charge.
But I do want to say this there are ways not to make that happen, but there are ways for the people of God to be prepared for when and if that happens.
And one of the tragedies that we find in Israel before the cross and with the people of God in church history these last 2,000 years is that when these rare moments do, in fact, occur, often the people of God do not have the maturity to be able to wield the influence and power and wealth and resources that suddenly come to them.
That the people of God are so used to being the underdog.
They become so familiar with being persecuted that they have not even thought or planned for the remote possibility of ever winning anything.
It's like a coach who's been coaching for a decade, and every team that he's coached in every game that they've played has only ever lost.
And by this time, even if it's subconscious, He may not even realize it, but he's tweaked and developed his whole coaching strategy of how to fall on the sword with dignity, how to die gracefully, how to lose fantastically.
That coach, of course, goes by another name.
It's called Evangelical Christians.
We lose down here.
We only lose.
So lose well.
And here we'll have a 15 part series on all the different ways that you can fall on your sword and die.
You can fall on your sword backwards.
If you're a real serious Christian, you'll do a triple axle backflip and land on your sword right through your head, and God will be immensely glorified.
The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church.
And God, in his sovereignty, does determine and ordain that his people at various times will be persecuted and some of them unto death.
And when it is God's design and it happens, it is, make no mistake, glorious.
But to pretend as though that is the only strategy of God, and that in this great story that's unfolding, there are no occasions where the people of God are.
Ever have any real tangible victories on earth in God's providence in the course of human history is naive.
It is to skip over volumes of scripture as well as history as well as common sense.
And evangelicals, New Testament Christians in this hour cannot afford to be so naive.
We should be prepared.
To be sent off to the gulags.
But if we are only prepared for that possible outcome and not equally prepared to be placed in palaces or to all of a sudden have the ear of kings, then we have only read half of the Bible.
We don't know what God is doing.
And it is arrogance and presumption to assume that we win in this generation, in this particular way, in this particular place.
But likewise, we miss this one.
But it is also arrogant presumption to assume that we lose in this way, in this place, in this hour.
No man knows the day or the hour.
We don't know when Christ will return.
We have no Clue how long he will tarry, and we do not know what Christ's ordained will is in this year of our Lord 2023, in this nation, in this state, in this county, with this church, with this particular household.
We don't know.
It could be God's sovereign will that you lose your job, that you're mocked by all your contemporaries, and that you are to abase, not abound, but to abase and to glorify God in contentment in the midst of little.
To take joy as you are reviled and you have plenty of scriptures, if that is God's will.
But it may also be God's will for some of you that your income triples in a few short months.
Abasing to Glorify00:02:46
But all of a sudden, because of God's mercy, not your own doing, but God's grace, that you're exalted.
God does exalt the humble.
And that's not just a verse about exalting being a physical levitation in the rapture.
No, exalting in worldly terms, position, influence, wealth, resources, authority, power.
God does do this.
100% guarantee.
Plug in the formula, and now God is owing me exaltation.
No.
No.
But to pretend as though this never occurs.
So, that here's the problem that I'm getting at so that we should never prepare for the possibility of that occurring is foolish.
We should prepare to suffer.
And if we should be put to the edge of the sword, to die gloriously in battle.
But we should also be prepared for the other part of the story.
And this may be a spoiler alert if you've grown up in the evangelical church.
But Jesus doesn't just die at Calvary.
And I'm going to ruin this story because a lot of you probably, if you've been in an evangelical church, you probably never heard this.
He actually raises again.
Did you know that?
We know that he died, but did you know that he also was resurrected?
And that when he came back from the dead bodily, he wasn't puny?
But that he actually, all authority, not just in the 17th dimension, but on earth and in heaven, was given to him?
And that he gloriously ascended and is seated.
In majesty and power at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.
And that with that authority, not only in heaven but also on earth, before he ascended to the right hand of God, he commissioned you and I as his ambassadors to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the triune God and teaching them to obey all God's commands.
Did you know that we are called to cry out to kings and princes saying, Kiss the son, lest he be angry and his wrath quickly kindled.
And that sometimes, not always, but sometimes, those kings and princes listen.
And then all of a sudden, Constantine joins the team of the Christians.
And he's a little bit too zealous.
Serving Rome and Christ00:02:49
I'll admit that.
But imagine if for a century before Constantine comes to power, Christians had.
Serious theological heavy lifting and real good faith, not the Gospel Coalition good faith, but real good faith debates and conversations about Christian political theology and what it is to wield power and what it looks like for civil princes to kiss the sun and what that means at a practical, legislative, legal level.
If that had happened for a century or two before a Constantine of sorts, Came into power and came into Christ, I think that things would go well.
Certainly better.
So let's prepare to suffer if that be God's will for our generation at this hour in this place, trusting in Christ alone.
Let's also prepare not only to suffer with Him, but to reign with Him.
And not only the reign that is guaranteed for those who trust in Christ in the life to come, but a reign and rule as Christ's body here on earth, in whatever station of life the Lord called us to when he saved us, per 1 Corinthians 7.
That is not only addressing being unequally yoked.
If you're married to an unbeliever and then you're saved, you should remain in the marriage if that unbelieving spouse agrees to remain with you.
That's not the only instance being addressed by the apostle.
It is not only marriage and being unequally yoked, but also vocation.
Remember the Roman soldiers that came to Jesus and said, We're your disciples now.
We're following you now.
What should we do?
And Jesus answers by saying, If you're a Christian, get out of the civil magistrate.
You need to quit being soldiers.
No.
That's not his answer.
Instead, Jesus answers their question essentially.
I'm giving you the headline here, but he answers the question by saying, You're a Roman soldier and a Christian?
These two things are not diametrically opposed.
You can do both.
But here's the ticket you don't take your discipleship of Jesus and morph that to fit Rome and your vocation.
You take your Roman soldiership.
And you squeeze that to make sure it's obedient to Christ.
That's what shifts.
So you can still be a civil magistrate, you can still be a Roman soldier.
You have to do so only Christianly.
Faithful Vocation00:01:27
Prepare to suffer, but prepare for victory.
And God sometimes takes forever to do something suddenly, sometimes the tide turns in a moment.
Sometimes Israel goes from wandering vagabonds in the wilderness to inhabiting palaces and kingdoms enriched by treasure that we know no comparison.
And this is not only something that God did with Israel before the coming of Christ, but something that God has continued to do, albeit rarely, but it does exist.
With his people, Christians, throughout church history.
Be prepared for both to suffer with Christ if it be his will, to reign with Christ if it be his will.
And when we are enriched, use everything that is true.
All truth is God's truth, whether it comes from Babylon or Jerusalem.
But do not put your trust in chariots.
Trust in the Lord.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
Bless it to your people.
Bring glory to your name.
In Jesus' name, amen.
We'll continue to worship the Lord now through songs.