Well, thank you. It is a privilege for my wife and me to be able to share with you.
It is truly my prayer that we behold the Lord Jesus in a living way, in a fresh way, as we come to look at the Word of God.
There is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable. I never address anyone without reminding my own heart, and reminding those who are before me, of that truth.
That principle, which is absolutely indispensable, is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit. Only God can reveal God, and He delights to do it. When we come with a heart that desires to behold the Lord Jesus, He opens up His heart and unveils His Son. Nothing delights Him more than that.
Recently, I was reading Isaiah 29. There is a—I am not even sure it is Isaiah. It might be Jeremiah. I cannot remember whether it is Isaiah or Jeremiah, because I have been in both books, but I have the sense of it, and you can look it up later. Anyway, it is chapter 29, verses 11 to 14.
The prophet—either Isaiah or Jeremiah—gave this illustration. He had a sealed book. First, he gave it to the literate and said, “Read it.” Basically, they said, “We cannot, because it is sealed.” Then he gave it to the illiterate, with the same command: “Read it.” They said, “We cannot, because it is sealed.”
The point is that it is no advantage to be literate or illiterate if the book is sealed. There is only one way it can be read, and that is by the One who is worthy to take away the seals. If He does that, then we can understand His heart and His work. So He is willing. Let us pray and ask the Lord to guide us.
Our Father, thank You so much that we can expect You to take away the veil from our eyes and from our hearts; open up Your heart and Your Word to us; and enable us to behold our Lord Jesus again. We know that, seeing Him, we are changed, and so we desire to see Him.
We thank You for every part of the Bible. In a special way this afternoon, we thank You for Joshua 6. We ask You, Lord, from this passage to show us again our Lord Jesus. Show us Your heart.
We commit this session unto You now, not because we deserve to receive anything from You, but because our Lord Jesus has merited it and He deserves it. We claim it in His matchlessness. Amen.
Let me introduce this. I think all of you have had the announcement that we are going to be looking at Joshua 6 through 11.
The Old Testament is really the New Testament. In other words, it is God’s revelation of Himself. The only difference is that the Old Testament gives us the truth in picture form, and the New Testament gives us the truth in fully developed form. But it is exactly the same truth.
Sometimes, having it in picture form is an advantage, because as we trace out the history of redemption, we see these great principles illustrated for us. For my own heart, “Once upon a time, and they lived happily ever after”—it helps to have a story. You have the same truth.
Sometimes my head swims when I am in Ephesians and up in the heavenlies. Then I come back to the Old Testament: God is a high tower; the righteous run to Him and are safe. That ministers to my heart. It is something that I can picture, and so on.
In the Old Testament, among the many pictures of our Lord Jesus, there is one grand picture that goes all the way through. It is not just in one little portion of one little book. I am referring to the whole land of Canaan.
The promised land—the whole land of Palestine, the land of milk and honey—is God’s illustration of Christ: the life of milk and honey. As they were to enter the land, we are to enter the Lord. As they were to abide in the land, we are to abide in the Lord. As they were to live off the land, we are to live off the Lord. The whole idea of the land of Canaan is a wonderful picture of our Lord Jesus.
Using that physical geography and that land, you would expect Joshua to be a very strategic book, because it is really the beginning of that picture: entering into the land.
What I would like to look at, beginning this afternoon, then Lord willing tonight, and Lord willing tomorrow morning, are three strategic battles for possessing the land. I want to look at possessing the land as possessing the Lord. Possessing the land in its fullness is possessing the Lord in His fullness. How do we enter the fullness of the Lord? That is what I want us to look at.
There are three strategic battles. I am not suggesting that there are only three battles, because in one place in the book, thirty-one different kings are mentioned. There were many battles, but there were three strategic battles.
We call it the seven-year war for Canaan. Look at Joshua 14:7 and 10, and then do the math. That is how you know it was a seven-year war; it has to do with the age of Caleb.
Those three battles contain the strategic principles of entering the fullness of the Lord. No Christian knows God in His fullness unless God has burned those three principles into his life.
Each battle gives us one principle—well, it gives us many—but one strategic principle concerning how to know God in His fullness. No Christian can know the Lord until God teaches him these principles.
God is a faithful Teacher, and He is a patient Teacher. He will teach us and reteach us over and over again until these three truths are burned indelibly into our lives.
I do not expect this afternoon, tonight, or tomorrow morning to hold before you anything you have not already seen and heard. You have probably heard this very many times. But truth is not thrilling because it is new. It is thrilling because it is true.
We are asking God to make old truth live again. We want to see the simple truth. Nothing is deep. I do not know anything deep. I know a Person: I know the Lord Jesus. I am a lover of the Lord Jesus, and I want to share the little light I have found with you.
Before we look at these three wonderful principles, I want you to notice—and this is not too profound—that the battle of Jericho begins in Joshua 6, but the book of Joshua does not begin in Joshua 6. The book of Joshua begins in Joshua 1.
We can talk about entering the fullness of the Lord, but God does not just jump into Joshua 6 and say, “All right, now let us go.” He gives us Joshua 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to prepare us for Joshua 6, 7, and so on. I call these the preparation chapters.
Obviously, we are not going to be here long enough to look at all the preparations. They are marvelous. May God guide you to study them prayerfully, under the guidance of His precious Spirit, in order to see how to be prepared to enter in.
We cannot look at everything, but it is important that we look at something. Rather than beginning right away in Joshua 6—we are going to look at that this afternoon—I want to give what I call the final preparation.
Right at the end of Joshua 5, just before Joshua 6, is the final preparation. God prepares me and prepares me. This is not a goal; it is a starting point. I have got to come this far, or give up the dream of knowing the Lord in His fullness.
I am going to ask you to look at Joshua 5. Follow along as we read these wonderful verses, beginning at verse 13.
It came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood over against him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?”
And he said, “Nay; but as prince of the host of the Lord am I now come.”
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, “What saith my lord unto his servant?”
And the prince of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, “Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”
And Joshua did so.
These few verses, I believe, are the single most important verses in the entire book of Joshua. The reason is that they give us the key to everything. It is the final preparation. It is a master key that opens every truth in this precious book.
Joshua meets the Man with a sword drawn in His hand, the One called the Captain of the Lord’s host—another translation says, “the Angel of the Lord.”
Let us settle it right away and answer the question that I am sure you know the answer to: Who is this Man with the sword drawn in His hand?
The Lord Jesus—exactly. We ought to get a hint of that from Joshua 5:15:
“Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”
You recall, of course, the burning bush and the great “I AM,” and who it was that said that another time. The Man with the sword in His hand is no other than the Lord Jesus, the second Person of the Godhead—our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no break between Joshua 5 and 6. The One who speaks concerning Jericho is this very One, the Angel of the Lord.
Why is this the single most important passage? Because here is the key to the whole book of Joshua—actually, the key to the whole Christian life.
The Man with the sword in His hand is Jesus. The land is a picture of Jesus. Only Jesus can take us into Jesus. That is why it is so important.
The Man with the sword is going to lead them into the land of fullness, which is the Lord Jesus. Only Jesus can take me to Jesus, and only Jesus can take you to Jesus.
Let me show you a couple of ways that final preparation prepares us. First of all, it gives us this truth—and we will develop it when we get to Jericho: the battle is not yours, but God’s.
That is not the first time you have ever heard that. It is not the first time I have ever said it or heard it. The battle is not yours; the battle is God’s.
As you go through the book of Joshua, many swords are drawn. It is a seven-year war. But the first sword drawn in the book of Joshua is in the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We often quote 2 Chronicles 20:15: “The battle is not yours, but God’s.” As the book comes to a climax in Judges 1, you see this interesting thing: the Man with the sword drawn in His hand is sometimes forced to put the sword back in His sheath.
Then they call it the valley of weeping. God says, “Here is your choice: I will fight for you, or you fight for yourself.” It does not take too many bloody noses to realize we have got to have it the other way.
It is a terrible night for the Christian when the Lord Jesus puts His sword back in His sheath. Right at the beginning, before we get into any principle, we have this picture of the Man with the sword in His hand. Basically, the message is: the battle is not yours; the battle is Mine.
To really enter into that, you have got to understand who Joshua was on the human level. Joshua was the commander-in-chief of the army of Israel. In other words, he was the one in charge—the military leader.
He was God’s appointed replacement for Moses, who had led the people out of the wilderness. What was Joshua doing at the end of Joshua 5? He was on a reconnaissance mission.
God had told him that he was going to take the land. God had already listed all the enemies in the land. At this point, God had not filled him in on how it was going to happen. He had simply said, “You are in charge. There is your army, and that is the land you have to take.”
Joshua was on a reconnaissance mission. As a military leader, he was trying to figure out his strategy, because he was the one who had to muster the troops, get everything in order, and probably come up with a plan. There was a big task ahead of him.
He had already sent out the spies, and they had returned. Now he had their report in his hand. He was looking at the high walls, evaluating the situation, and considering the enemy’s defenses.
As he was surveying the situation, he heard a noise. He turned around, and there was a Man with a sword drawn in His hand. You have got to see how amazing that is.
That reminds me of the New Testament. I have to laugh every time I read it. John, on the Isle of Patmos, said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” How do you picture that? I picture him meditating: “I am in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Then suddenly, behind him, came the sound of a trumpet. That would have scared me to death—in the Spirit!
That is what this is. This is a military leader on a reconnaissance mission, and all of a sudden there is a Man standing with a sword—sharp and shiny—drawn from its sheath.
We do not have Joshua’s tone of voice. I do not know whether he said, “Uh, who are you?” or whether he boldly said, “Who goes there? Who are You?” I do not know how brave he was, but we have the question in Joshua 5:13:
“Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?”
In other words, “Are You on our side, or are You on our adversaries’ side?” I love His answer: “No.”
“Are You on our side?” “No.” “Are You on their side?” “No.” “Are You on anybody’s side?” He said, “I am the Captain of the Lord’s host. I am on God’s side.”
If you are on God’s side, then I will be on your side. But if you are not on God’s side, I am not going to be on your side.
Our brother was telling me that one of the books that influenced his life was Major Ian Thomas’s The Saving Life of Christ. Have you read that? It is a wonderful little book.
There is a chapter in there on the Angel of the Lord, the Man with the sword in His hand. I love the way Ian Thomas worded it: “I have not come to take sides. I have come to take over.”
That is exactly right. That is why I call this the final preparation before you enter into the land. It is God’s battle, and He has come to take over.
For those of us—maybe it is not you, but if there is anyone like me—who have failed miserably in our Christian experience trying to fight the enemies of our souls without understanding that the battle is His; trying to overcome lust, temptation, pride, anger, impatience, selfishness, covetousness, and all that kind of thing; and who have had to learn the hard way what a weak reed the flesh is to lean upon, burdened and burned out by this program and that program to take the land—the best news that can ever reach the ears of a Christian is this: the battle is not yours; it is His.
We hear that over and over again, yet somehow God is the One who has to write that truth in our hearts.
I love the way Joshua 5:14 says, “I am the Captain of the host of the Lord.” I am sure that when Joshua was on his reconnaissance mission, he was already well aware of his own host. He had already counted them.
He knew that from the two and a half tribes, he would have forty thousand troops to count on. Then he would have several hundred thousand from the remaining nine and a half tribes, and so on. But this is the Captain of the Lord’s host—not Joshua’s host.
The Lord’s host includes the armies of men, but it also includes the armies of heaven. Hebrews 12 speaks of the angels as an innumerable host. There are so many, you cannot number them.
Ten thousand appeared with Moses on Mount Sinai when the law was given. A hundred million appeared before John, falling down before the throne. Jesus said that He could have called twelve legions of angels. This is the host of the Lord.
When we say, “The battle is not yours, but God’s,” enter into it. The battle is not yours, but it belongs to the Captain of the Lord’s host, who wants to fight for you.
The Lord Jesus, with all the armies of earth and all the armies of heaven, wants to fight for you. Or you can fight for yourself. That was the choice. This is such a wonderful preparation.
There is a second key, and then we will look at Jericho. It is not enough to see the Man with the sword in His hand. Did you notice what Joshua did? He fell down at His feet: “What would You have me to do?”
I have got to see the Lord Jesus as the Man with the sword in His hand, and then I have got to surrender to the Lord Jesus.
When Joshua, the commander-in-chief, saw the Man with the sword in His hand, at first I think he might have been frightened. But when he learned who He was and what He had come to do, I can only imagine that he was thrilled and not disappointed at all.
When He said, “Take off your sandals,” I think He was saying, “Do not forget, those were military sandals. Relinquish your command. Turn your armies over to Me. I am the One who is going to have to win this battle.”
“General Joshua, I relieve you of your post.” “Yes, sir—happily so.” I think that is what you have here. Joshua was thrilled that he was no longer in charge.
When he received this intelligence, he fell before the Lord and said, “All right, what would You have me to do?” We begin with Joshua barefoot and on his face before the Captain of the Lord’s host.
Now, I tell you before we begin, brothers and sisters in Christ, that is not the goal.
Every place I go, I hear Christians looking forward to someday when they will be surrendered. “I will know the battle is His. I am going to bow down before God. I will be filled with the Holy Spirit. I will be alive to God. I will be dead to sin. I will be crucified with Christ. I will be seated with Him in the heavenlies. I will be an overcomer. That is in front of me. I cannot wait. One of these days, I will be totally surrendered.”
Satan loves to make a goal out of a starting point. That is not the goal. That is the beginning.
Beholding Him that way, committing everything to Him, and turning the whole battle over to Him—now you are ready to start. That is not where you are heading; that is how you begin. Now you are ready to start to see what fullness is.
With that as background, turn to Joshua 6. What God is going to do is enlarge on that principle. This first battle illustrates the same truth, only in the way He always works in our hearts.
That is what I pray God will help me communicate this afternoon. The principle is simple: the battle is not yours; it is God’s. That is the battle of Jericho. It is one of the most fundamental principles we can ever learn.
Once again, we have just a short time. This is a big battle. The battle of Jericho includes everything about Rahab. It includes the defeat at Ai and the subsequent victory at Ai. We cannot look at all of that.
What I want to show you is simply how God develops this wonderful picture. Let me give you the text, and we will read it together.
Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, “See, I have given into thy hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.
“And ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
“And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.
“And it shall be, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him.”
No one can know the fullness of the Lord unless he knows, by God’s light and with growing conviction, that the battle is not man’s. It is not yours, and it is not mine. The battle is God’s.
But notice the way God illustrates that. In order for me to know that the battle is His, He shows me that the battle is not mine. That is how He does it.
The way He did it then, by way of illustration, is the way He always does it. He has got to show me my own inadequacy, my own frailty, and my own weakness. He has got to show me that my programs are not going to work, my own help is not going to work, my own wisdom is not going to work, and my own strength is not going to work.
As you read the record and see what God is doing, do not just read the facts and say, “Here are the facts of Jericho.” Ask, “What is God doing? How is He doing that?” Because that is how He does it in your life and in mine.
The battle is not yours, but God’s. You are not going to learn that because I said it, or because somebody else said it, or because you read it in a how-to book, or got it at a conference, or have it in your notebook or on your computer.
Do you know how you are going to learn that? There is no exception. You are going to learn that in life.
God is going to take you in life, and He is going to show you that it is not in you and that it is not in me. God is not playing games with us when He keeps slamming doors, reversing our plans, confusing us to pieces, and pulling the rug out from under us.
Every forward step in helplessness is a forward step in the knowledge of God and in the knowledge of His Word.
Do not despise it when God brings weakness into your life. Do not despise it when God shows you that you are not adequate. He is not trying to be mean or cruel by showing you that you cannot do it. He is trying to show you that He can do it, and that He wants to do it. But you have to learn it this way.
Let me illustrate it in the Jericho story. First of all, if you have studied Canaan—the physical geography of the land—the layout of the land itself was a dramatic lesson that they could not do it.
It was a land of hills and valleys, easy to defend and hard to conquer. It is hard to dislodge somebody entrenched on the high ground, and the whole land was like that.
This is illustrated wonderfully in 2 Samuel 5. When David was going to take Jerusalem, the Jebusites were there. They were so proud and arrogant that they put the helpless, the crippled, and the blind on the wall and said, “Try to get us. We are so well protected that we do not need ordinary soldiers to protect us. Blind people can protect us. You cannot touch us. We are not vulnerable.”
What was true of Jerusalem was true of the whole land of Canaan. Israel was not equipped to go in and get them.
Add to that the violent nature of the Canaanites. God was going to show them, “You do not have it in you.” The Canaanites were skilled in the art of war and killing. They were terrorists. The whole land was like that.
They ate war for breakfast, lunch, supper, and tea. That was their whole life. Israel knew almost nothing about war. They had tasted a little victory at the end over Sihon and Og, but they were an agricultural people. They knew about sheep, cows, and turtle doves. That is what they knew about.
They had been wandering around the wilderness for thirty-eight years, and now God says, “All right, time to go in and take these violent people.” They were not able to do it. They could not conquer a land like that.
Then there were the walls of Jericho. Archaeologists have made some interesting discoveries. They have done a lot of excavations around Jericho. Here is what they have discovered: there were two walls around Jericho—an inner wall and an outer wall.
The inner wall was twelve feet thick. The outer wall was six feet thick. Between the inner wall and the outer wall there were fifteen feet of space, and the walls were thirty feet high.
Picture walls like that. Israel, Joshua, these pilgrims—they had to conquer a land that was not easy to conquer; take care of violent people used to killing; and take these walls.
At first, we know they were terrified, according to Joshua 6:1, because they had heard the reports of the Lord. Nothing was coming in, and nothing was going out. But God was showing His people their impregnable forces and how impossible it was.
As a child, we used to sing, “So high, you cannot get over it; so low, you cannot get under it; so wide, you cannot get around it,” or however it went. Then, “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho.”
Joshua did not fight that battle. The Lord Jesus fought that battle. “Fit” did not mean “fought.” Jesus is the One who fought that battle, not Joshua. God was showing His people that they could not do it.
You would think they had learned by now: “All right, Lord, I know the battle is Yours. I cannot take that land. I know the battle is Yours. I cannot fight a people that violent. I know the battle is Yours. I cannot get over those walls.”
God says, “You think you know. You do not know anything yet. You have got to be weakened even more.”
Look at Joshua 5:2:
“At that time the Lord said unto Joshua, ‘Make thee knives of flint, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.’”
We just sort of read that, “La, la, la.” You would expect that when they were on the safe side of the Jordan, God would have commanded them to be circumcised. But now they were five miles from the enemy, and they were vulnerable.
How old was a baby when he was to be circumcised? Eight days old. God says, “You want the land? I am going to put every soldier in the place of a baby eight days old.”
He took every soldier and circumcised every soldier. We have Bible records about how painful that was, how long it took to recover, and so on.
It looks, when you read Joshua 5:8, as if they stayed there until they were healed. But that word healed is an interesting word; it means revived. They stayed there until they caught their breath. It takes a long time to be healed.
I know of a situation in which an adult was circumcised, and it was six months later before he was finally normal again. God said, “I am going to show you that you cannot do it.”
Look at Joshua 6:3:
“Ye shall compass the city, all the men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.”
Then Joshua 6:15 says:
“And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early at the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.”
Once a day for six days; on the seventh day, seven times around. God accomplished two things by that march.
First, thirteen times around the city gave them thirteen good looks at the wall. Take a good look at the problem. Take a good look at the enemy.
By marching around like that, they put the enemy on guard. This was not a surprise attack. They were not going in when the enemy had their heads turned. They were going straight in.
After thirteen trips around the city, I think they knew as never before, “We are outnumbered, and there is no way this is going to work.”
But the thirteen times around the city accomplished something else: it wore them to a frazzle. They were exhausted.
They had been recently circumcised, and now they had to march around the city. Commentators differ as to exactly how large the city was and how long it took to go around.
Many of my commentators say it took about an hour. Some say two hours, which is more likely. One of my commentators—only one—says three hours around. But you have got to do more than measure the size of the city; you have got to measure the pace of the soldiers.
You come to visit us: I live on a little island that is fourteen miles around. Probably our brother here, who is in good shape, could go around it a lot faster than I could. I have tried to go around.
These recently circumcised soldiers—let us say it took an average of two hours to go around. On the last day, they went around seven times. Seven times two is fourteen hours. Perhaps it was more—perhaps eighteen or twenty hours.
The point is this: I do not know whether you have ever done any hiking, but at the end of a hike, what do you want to do? You want to sit down, rest, put up your legs, soak your feet—something like that.
Here they went around and around and around until they were exhausted. They were tired. Then God says, “Attack. Now it is time to get into all your energy,” after they are totally worn out.
Do not just read this, “La, la, la.” This is the way of God. This is how He does it. He wants you to know that the battle is His, not yours.
He brings you into a place that is impossible. You are going to learn that it is not going to work. The battle is His, not yours.
He brings you up against an enemy that is too strong for you, and you are going to have to learn that the battle is His; it is not yours.
He will bring you into a situation where you cannot get around it, cannot go over it, cannot go through it, and cannot get under it. He is going to bring you to a place where you do not know what to do, because He wants you to know.
Then He is going to weaken you. You may say, “Lord, what are You doing? How come this makes more sense? A soldier should be alert, ready, and full of energy.”
God says, “No. Circumcise the soldiers. Let them get weak. Then tire them out.” You say, “Lord, please!”
You may have the theology in your head: “The battle is God’s. I know the battle is God’s.” But theology is not going to work by itself, because you have got to know it in life.
God will engineer your life, your path, and your circumstances. He is going to bring you to the end, where everything dissolves and you say, “Okay, look, the battle is Yours.”
You would think that after seeing a land like that, an enemy like that, walls like that, being weak like that, marching around like that, and being exhausted like that, they would have learned it.
Do not forget: when the walls fell down, there was rubble. Remember 9/11? You have thirty-foot walls, twelve feet thick, and now they have to climb over all the rubble, lifting their heavy legs over it all. This is amazing.
Add to that the fact that Jericho was not an ordinary city. It was one of the lowest cities on the planet. The Dead Sea is 1,292 feet below sea level—the lowest spot on earth—but Jericho is just above that.
Jericho is one of the lowest places on earth, which means it was hot—desert hot. It is one thing to march around in the cool of the day. These men were not marching around in the cool of the day. They were marching around Jericho in desert heat.
At the end, they had to step over all that rubble, go in, and meet the enemy.
I pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that you will not kick too hard against the Lord when He does this in your life, and when He does it in mine. He wants you to know so much that the battle is His and not yours.
You cannot get that in a seminary. You have got to learn it in life. So do not despise it when God does that to you.
It is humbling to come to the place where you have to stand there, look the problem right in the eye, and say, “How big is this problem?” Then look yourself in the eye and say, “How insignificant is this individual? I do not have it in me.”
That is not the end of the story. Half of the story tells us how inadequate they were. What do you suppose the other half tells us? How sufficient—how adequate, how enough—is the Lord Jesus?
Let me give a couple of illustrations, and then we will wrap up this afternoon.
One illustration is the spoil. In this first battle, God said, “Do not touch any spoil. Do not go into the treasury. Let it all be burned up. You get nothing. Do not take one penny.”
Why did God say that? Because of this principle: the spoils belong to the victor.
They were not allowed to touch the spoils because they were not the victor. Achan’s great sin was not merely covetousness. It was touching the spoils—taking glory that did not belong to him.
It is not that God does not want you to have the spoils. In the next battle, He said, “Take some spoils.” He wants to share the spoils, but not until you learn that the victory is His. The battle is His, and the victory is His.
By the time you come to Joshua 11, in the battle of the waters of Merom, God says, “Take all the spoils. You can have it all. I do not want it. I do not need it. It is for you.” But you need to learn that it belongs to the Lord.
Not only do the spoils show that He is adequate, but as you go through the record, notice the repeated reference to the ark of God.
Joshua 6:4: the ark. Verse 6: the ark, twice. Verse 7: the ark. Verse 8: the ark. Verse 9: the ark. Verse 11: the ark. Verse 12: the ark. Verse 13: the ark, twice.
Why all this emphasis on the ark of God? Remember, the ark was in the shape of a king’s throne—an oriental throne. It had a seat, the angels coming up as the arms, and a canopy over the top.
It was in the shape of a throne because it represented the invisible King. The glory of the Lord rested on it because He was enthroned upon the ark.
Jericho was not conquered because Joshua and Israel marched around it. Jericho was conquered because the ark of God went around it. He was the One fighting the battle, and He was the King.
In ordinary circumstances, the ark of God would have been carried in the middle of the camp. Six tribes would be in the front, six tribes would be in the back, and the ark would be in the middle.
But in this battle, the armed men went first—probably half a million men. Then there were seven priests with seven ram’s horns. These were not the silver trumpets; these were ram’s horns.
They did not give a beautiful sound. This was a lugubrious howl. It was just a loud horn, and everything else was silent. All there was was the sound of the ram’s horns.
Then came the ark of God, and the rear guard followed behind. Picture it in your mind.
We used to take our children, when they were small, to a parade. The high-school band would come, the drums would be beating, and the musicians would be all over the place. You have been to a parade.
What if you went to a parade and everybody was silent? There were no drums, no bugle corps—nothing. Just silence, silence, silence, except for seven ram’s horns going the whole time.
Where would you turn your eyes? If you saw a parade like that, where would your eyes be? The message is: all eyes on the ark. All eyes on the ark.
It is God’s illustration that the Lord wins the battle. The spoils belong to God. The ark is at the center, and the ark is the One who is going to win the battle.
Now I am going to ask you to do something, and I am serious. I really want you to do this. I am not playing a game.
I do not know what is going on in your life or in your heart right now, but I want you to think of one thing—not many things; do not get confused—one thing.
Think of the biggest issue in your life right now. Think of the biggest Jericho you have to face—the hardest thing. Maybe it is an exam, finances, old age, a doctor’s report, or who knows what it is. It does not matter.
Think of the most unsolvable problem in your life right now. Maybe it is, “Am I going to grow up and find a life partner? Am I going to be married?” I do not know what it is.
Whatever you thought of, I am convinced in my heart that it is not as great as what they went through that day when God gave them a complete victory.
What He did for them, He wants to do for you. He wants to do for me. The battle is not mine; the battle is God’s.
Let me close with a New Testament verse: Hebrews 11:30.
“By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven days.”
Let me tell you two things about faith, because that is how the walls are going to come down. “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about seven days.”
Faith keeps on marching.
One trip around the city was not enough. Two trips around the city were not enough. Five trips around the city were not enough.
What state were the walls of Jericho in on the twelfth time around the city? Exactly the same as they were the first time around the city. There was not even a crack in them. They were exactly the same.
When they had encircled the city the full thirteen times, God did His miracle. Faith keeps persevering.
God may have allowed a problem in your life, some insurmountable obstacle. Do you know why it is still there? Because you have not gone around thirteen times yet. That is why it is still there.
Keep marching. Keep walking. Only God knows how long seven days is and how many times thirteen is.
I read that George Müller prayed for fifty-two years for a friend of his to come to Christ. Three years after he died, that friend came to the Lord. So I do not know how long. I am simply saying, keep on keeping on.
Here is the final principle: it is not a mistake that God said, “Shut up. Silence. There will be no talking.”
This was a generation of grumblers. It is an amazing miracle. The only sounds heard were the sounds of the ram’s horns and the sounds of their feet as they marched around. God said, “Quiet.”
What that basically means is this: God is doing something in your life, and I know what He is doing, and you do too. He is bringing you to the place where you know that the battle is not yours, but God’s. That is what He is doing.
He has to show you that you are not sufficient, because we are going to keep trying to the end. We are going to keep getting up, and He is going to knock us down. We are going to get up and pretend that we can do it, but we cannot. He is going to keep on until we know that.
In our family, especially our girls, they do not call it complaining. They call it venting. They have to vent. One calls the other, and they are venting and venting.
God says, “No complaining, no questioning, no grumbling, no venting. Just keep trusting God. Keep walking. Keep trusting the Lord.”
The battle is His, no matter what He brings into your life, and no matter how weak He makes you. Keep trusting Him. One day, before the wall falls down, you will get a word from God. Then you can shout, and the wall will come tumbling down.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I have been talking a long time, but I have not said much. I am serious. What have I said?
Trust the Lord.
You cannot do it. He is going to show you that, because He is faithful. If you are unusually stubborn, it will take an unusually longer time. He is going to show you that you cannot do it. You cannot do it.
Then He is going to show you that He can. All eyes on the ark.
If you are in that situation now, keep marching. You say, “I am just going in circles.” Yes, but they are God-circles.
When you go in God-circles, you are getting somewhere. May God help us.
Father, thank You for Your Word. Teach us, because only You can teach us, that the battle is not ours, but God’s.
Father, thank You for Your precious illustration in Joshua. We dread the thought that You would ever put Your sword back in Your sheath and leave us on our own.
We praise You that You are the Man with the sword. We take off our shoes. We bow before You. We acknowledge this first principle. Teach us how to enter into fullness by knowing that the battle is Yours. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.