Law & Grace - Wipeout! (conquering the promised land)
Vern Peterman · Mar 13, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926228543496

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. As we venture into this passage here, we're going to be kind of turning a corner. That is, this will be the last of dealing with the Israelites as they began in Egypt and as they went through the desert and now are into the Promised Land. We'll be moving next week into Isaiah chapter 6 and then beginning a study of the Gospel of Matthew. We'll proceed through the Gospel of Matthew, not exactly, but approximately a chapter at a time. It'll likely carry us through somewhere around the rest of the year. And we'll proceed with that and then on into some selected New Testament passages on this theme.

As we pointed out last week, just to get the orientation, the Northern Sea in Israel is the Sea of Galilee. And as we mentioned, it's about roughly 700 feet below sea level. And from there, it flows even farther down to the Dead Sea. And the Jordan River then runs between.

Jericho, as we were looking at last week, and if you weren't here last week, you missed us all singing Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho. But at any rate, they were entering then the promised land. Jericho was the first city that they went through. Here's Jericho on the west side of the Jordan River, just at the north end of the Dead Sea. and in the range of about 2,000 feet below sea level. Now, AI is where the account moves here. AI is located to the west, slightly to the north, and at a higher elevation.

Now, one of the things we pointed out last week, and I think it's a matter still to keep in mind as we look at this passage, Israel was under the law of Moses as they entered the promised land, and they were under a principle of law. What do I mean by that? It's different from the law of Moses. The principle of law, as we step into the promised land here, means that while they were responsible to obey the 613 laws of the law of Moses, 365 things not to do, 248 things to do, They additionally had city-by-city instructions as to what they were to do.

And they were not the same every time. And they were to follow all the directions about how to carry out the battle and what they were to destroy and what they were to keep. As Wayne read for us, there were some similarities with Jericho. They weren't to go around it six times and then on the seventh time go around it seven times. They weren't to do that. They were to do something different. They could actually keep spoils from the battle, whereas at Jericho they could not.

So all these instructions were to be carried out. If one person in the entire military failed in any of the instructions, the entire military suffered defeat, and the person that failed was to die. It was just that simple. That's what it means by principle of law. Your penalty? You gotta die. You have to carry this out. That's the only way you're going to live, every single one of you.

If anyone fails, you will be defeated at that battle, and the person who failed must die. That's principle of law. We say, rather, that though they were under the law of Moses, they were under this principle of law, too. So they had all 613 laws of the Law of Moses to keep and city by city instructions under the principle of law. Failing to follow the specific orders from God for the battle meant both defeat in that battle and the death penalty for the one who offended, even if it's only one person. So, the questions we asked last week we'd come to again.

Did Joshua gain the upper hand through a study of military strategy? And the answer to that is no. Did Joshua learn how to predict or even cause an earthquake as he did in Jericho? The answer to that is no. Did Joshua plan to take them out with superior physical strength and firepower? And the answer to that is no. That's not how he was going to do it. God had Joshua tell the Israelites to go around the city Once in a day, and by the way, they weren't supposed to talk. Quietly.

Blowing the horn, seven priests blowing the ram's horn, that's all. And the ram's horn looks something like this. Seven priests doing that. Four priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Other than that, all the rest are soldiers, but they're to be quiet.

My guess is that they would walk around the city, kind of out of bow shot, out of distance, for anything that might hit them. and just walk around once and go home. The soldiers who were at the wall at Jericho must have thought, these people are crazy. They are simply nuts. They don't even come up and start making a bunch of noise and threats. They are quiet as could be except for those horns.

So this is what the Lord did. The seventh day they went around seven times and the walls collapsed. And the soldiers then all went up into the city. God did not direct the Israelites to conquer the land in a uniform way, which meant that they had to listen to God's instructions every single time. Not one soldier could fail to do what the instructions demanded, or they would suffer defeat and that soldier would die. Every time. So they directed the Israelites to go around Jericho once a day for six days and seven times the seventh day and then to shout.

And this is the way it happened. There was a lower retaining wall and mud brick wall at Jericho at the time of the conquest. And this retaining wall is still there. The mud brick wall fell out and so it made a ramp for the Israelites to go up into Jericho. The walls of Jericho fell outward, taking out many of the soldiers.

Because where would the soldiers be stationed? They would be stationed on top of the wall. That's where the soldiers should be in order to defend the city. And so when the mud brick wall fell out, it took out all the soldiers. So how many soldiers did the Israelites have to fight as they're going up into Jericho? Not many. Okay? All the wall fell down flat, fell out, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city.

God did not direct the Israelites, however, to conquer the land in a uniform way. So did God tell the Israelites to attack every Canaanite city that way? The answer is no, never again. God did not have the Israelites carry out some sort of a Jewish groundhog day, right? where we're doing this again and again and again and it's all the same. He did not. He had them do it different in the different places that they went.

God had the Israelites burn the city of Jericho. So, is that what God had the Israelites do to all the cities they attacked? Or, we could ask this question, or did God never again have the Israelites burn any of the cities again? So one extreme. Did he have them burn everything? Or did he never again have them burn anything? And the answer is no and no. Right? No and no. Neither one. Okay.

Of all the cities of Canaan, the Israelites were only directed to burn the cities of Jericho, as we saw last week. Okay? And Ai, as we'll see here this morning, and one we'll not take a closer look at, and that's Hazor. up to the north. Azor was a city north of the Sea of Galilee that he had them burned. Only those three. The rest of the cities were not burnt. Now, one of the reasons we gotta address this, he only burned three cities, why not burn them all?

The reason is the way the Lord had them, the Israelites, take over the Promised Land is that they were to go in for the great part and to simply take over everything that was there in the promised land. The houses, all ready to live in. The orchards, the vineyards, the crops, just right there, all ready for the Israelites to use. So for a great many of the cities, it was not a matter of having the city all in ruins, but it was a matter of stepping into a place that had been lived in and keeping all the things that were there. So that's why only had them burned these three places, those and none other.

After Jericho, God had the Israelites go to Ai, which was higher in elevation. Of course, when you're 2,000 feet below sea level, it's easy to be higher in elevation, right? And to the west, also just slightly to the north. Though the battle, if you could call it that, for Jericho went very well, the first battle for Ai did not go well.

That's what Joshua chapter 7 records. It was a blowout. It was terrible. They thought this will be so easy to take over that they only sent a small contingent of soldiers. A very small fraction of their total number of soldiers was sent to take AI at first because they thought this will be so easy. Why was it not easy?

Well, The soldiers of Ai soundly defeated the Israelites, had them on a run. Essentially, the soldiers all left the city and ran after the Israelites to try to take them out. So because of the failure, Joshua went to the Lord and said, what's wrong? And the Lord pointed out, it's one fellow by the name of Achan, and he has taken some goods from Jericho that he should not have taken. So Achan was Achan, right? Aiken was Aiken because they ended up stoning him to death because of this. And just as under principle of law, we've explained, he died. And all because of his one failure to follow directions, the entire army lost the battle.

But they got a second chance. One of the things I'd like to point out, because this idea that Israel went into the Promised Land is often challenged, if you look at things like the History Channel and Discover Channel and things like that, you will find people challenging this idea that the Israelites went into and conquered the Promised Land.

You have as a slide on your handout these resources here. There are two YouTube videos, but you can just look for Bryant Wood The name Bryant Wood, if you want to search that and are inclined to do so. The first one I give is almost an hour long, so prepare yourself for that. The other is in eight parts, and those are something a little less than 10 minutes. But nonetheless, these are fairly substantial resources if you want to check that out.

The videos above and a number of other articles can be found at this reference here in biblearcheology.org. If putting that in is a little bit too much, just put in BibleArcheology.org and look for Exodus or the Conquest. They have a good number of articles, some videos. Most of the articles are not terribly technical, so you won't get lost in technical jargon.

But at any rate, these are valuable and important because there is a tendency for people to think, oh, these are just stories or myths or something of that sort. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. These are real historical events that actually had God's intervention at a number of places.

Okay. Now, while Jericho is a place that has been excavated, and we showed pictures last week, the location of Ai is one that's not been generally confirmed by scholars, and so only in about the last decade has there been any excavation at a place called Qirbet el-Mekater. It may, in fact, be AI. Some of the evidence so far seems to say so. Bethel, which is the next city nearby, is located here on the map and that's fairly well confirmed. The place they're looking at, Qirbet el-Mekater, is possibly AI and that's here on this aerial photo. At Bethel, you can see some of the old ruins, some of the old walls, stone walls still there and visible. And at Kirbett el-Mekater, possibly AI, they've been doing excavation there, spread out over about the last decade, and they're still continuing with it.

This particular finding is a jar, and it turns out that there was the bones of an infant in it. The typical custom in those days was to put an infant that died in a jar and bury it in the floor. So that's what was found here. Here's another part of the excavation there at the site that they believe may well be AI. But that's not all they found.

Here's the city gate structure, which of course, that's what the Israelites would have gone into. The gate structure, the gates would not have been closed. Why? Because all the soldiers thought that they were chasing the Israelites away and therefore not worried about the gates. And so all the Israelite soldiers would have rushed in right here at the gate structure. One of the things they've also found is sling stones. at this city. Now the sling stones, just to give an idea, here's a tennis ball compared to some of them. So a lot of them would be about the size of a tennis ball and somewhat similar to, although larger than what David had, you would have a sling and the sling action would be like this where they would start off with the sling.

They'd have a vertical circle usually and go about three times and then let loose the one end And what's interesting is that sling actually makes a cracking sound. You might think, well, that sling can't be too serious. Well, it makes a cracking sound. And the reason it makes a cracking sound when they let it loose, it's breaking the sound barrier. So you do not want one of these rocks hitting you. Not even sort of. But anyway, those have been found there at this place. They would let loose of one end and the other end would be attached either to a finger, usually one of the middle fingers or the thumb.

Okay, on to AI. The second time after the defeat that they had the first time around, Joshua set up the Israelites to make it appear to the men of AI that this would be an easy win, a route, just like the one before. And so they made it look to the men of Ai like, OK, the Israelites are going to try this again, and we're going to defeat them and chase them away. So he just set it all up so some of the men would come up to the city and then start to pull away. And the men of Ai would then run out to try to chase them off and defeat them like they did just in the previous attempt. So it would look to the men of Ai like the same thing was happening. Oh, we know how to do this, and we know how to win.

The problem was that Joshua had other soldiers many times the original number, thousands more, all surrounding the rest of the city in ambush. At that, the other soldiers of Israel rushed the city, took it, and burning the city, this now being the second one that was to be burned. After defeating Ai, Joshua read the law of Moses to all the people of Israel. That's the 613 laws, right?

Joshua led a campaign from there that went further into the land of Canaan. So they went from Ai to Bethel. We showed a picture of the site there. They went from Ai to Bethel. And from there, they went and had a campaign that went to the south, driving off all the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Mosquitobites.

OK, you are awake. OK. I wasn't sure what the short an hour thing. So OK. So they went to the south and drove off into the cities. And matter of fact, the Bible describes which places they went to next and how they went about it. OK. The other campaign went to the north, also driving off the Canaanites. And where the Canaanites moved and where they went is an interesting account, because the Bible describes it all. It's a study in military strategy. But Hazor is one of the places they went to, and that was the third and the last city where they actually burned the city. And it was under God's direction that they did so.

Oh, by the way, of course, we showed pictures last week. Jericho has an ash layer where they burned it and we saw all the burned grain because it was right after the harvest. Ai also has a burn layer and the heat was very great. And the burn was evident even right at the city gates. And Hazor also has a burn layer. And isn't it interesting that the places that God said to burn are the places that have the archaeological evidence that they were burned?

Very interesting. OK. So after Ai, only the city of Hazor was burned. Why? Because they wanted to leave the cities, and leave the houses, and leave the buildings, and the streets, and they wanted the orchards, and the vineyards, and the crops, and the flocks, and everything to remain, and just drive off the people. So the Israelites would have ready-made places to live, and have flocks, and herds, and to have their crops, and orchards, and vineyards. Everything would be ready for them. That's why only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were destroyed and burned the way they were, so that most of the cities that they would go into would be ready-made.

But the Israelites, however, did not conquer all of the land. And that was a problem. By their failing to conquer all the land and leaving some to live that they were instructed, don't let them live. The Israelites set up their people for centuries of painful consequences.

We have a picture here. This is a picture of Esther entering the court in the book of Esther. And the difficulty that the Jews had were Haman, came and tried to wipe out the Jews and Esther, along with the guidance of her uncle Mordecai, Esther actually saved the Jews by her brave actions. All the need for her to save the Jews from the terrible Holocaust that Haman was wanting to bring about was because Haman was descended from one of the peoples that was supposed to be killed off. So centuries later, huge problems to the Jews because they did not take all the land they were supposed to, they did not drive off all the people they were supposed to, and they did not kill those they were instructed to. The Judges, that's the book of Judges which follows the book of Joshua, the Judges were brought in to save the Israelites from some of those who shouldn't have lived. I have a picture of Samson here in the last day of his life. But these judges, the various ones, Samson is one of them, and Deborah is another, and Eglon, different ones, were brought in. Why?

Because the Israelites not only weren't following the Lord, but they hadn't wiped out and driven out all the people that they should have. A great many of those who came in and troubled the Israelites during this period did so because the Israelites had not first driven them off and maintained control and power and had not been obedient to the Lord. Israel's kings through all the centuries, Saul, David, Solomon, others, all fought these various people who were supposed to be driven off. And The pagan morals and the rituals and idle deities polluted the Israelites.

They were warned repeatedly, do not follow after the gods of the land that you're going into. But guess what they did? They did exactly that. They got sucked into it. And we'll talk about what some of those gods are in a minute. Some are pretty disgusting, frankly. We have a question. Wasn't it just genocide for God to have the Israelites kill so many of the Canaanites? Isn't that just profoundly cruel for God to order that? Why is it not just genocide? Why isn't it just an awful thing that God had them do? Ever been hit with that question? Well, perhaps you have, but if you do, from here on, let's have an answer, okay? We ought to consider this. In Numbers, which is in the writings of Moses, 33, 51, and 52, it goes like this.

Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you cross over the Jordan, that is to go cross over the Jordan into first Jericho and the rest of the cities, into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all How many? All of the inhabitants of the land from before you. All of them. No exceptions. Not just a vast majority or a significant number. No, all.

The Canaanites were spiritually and morally corrupt to the extreme. They were so corrupt that the pagan nations around them were grossed out. Do you get that? The pagan nations around them were grossed out by the way the Canaanites lived and the things they did.

These kinds of spiritually corrupt practices are targeted in the rest of Numbers 33-52 and other passages as we'll see. The Israelites were told you must drive them out because we don't want any more of these horrible things that they do. Here's Deuteronomy 12, 31.

You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods, and they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. What am I talking about? The god Molech, one of the Canaanite gods, was a god that was a large, oftentimes stone or metal, god. in which they would build a fire, and the parents were to bring their infants and have them burned in the hands of Molech.

So, because of this horrible, awful thing, that was the sort of thing that God was saying, we need to put an end to this, never again. Don't you do it, don't you allow them to keep doing this. Drive them all off, every single one, Don't let that sink in as a practice and habit among the people of Israel. What they're doing is terrible in the extreme. You can understand why the rest of the cultures around them would be grossed out.

The Canaanite religious rituals included Child sacrifice, some of it in fire, and they also had other means of killing the infants and torturing them to death. Incest. Bestiality. And this, by the way, was not an exception, but very common. Homosexuality and male and female cultic prostitution. which also involved all sorts of strange and bizarre sexual acts.

So when you start to look at this, this is why God wanted to drive them off, kill them off, don't allow any of these practices to be established in Israel. This is horrible. You don't take your little infants and go burn them and torture them to death. That should not be continued.

One more thing, and you can see with some of these practices here, everyone, even down to the little children, were all filled with disease. This had been going on for centuries. A large portion of the Mosaic law forbids all of the many socially and morally destructive practices that were ingrained in the Canaanite culture. And I gave you some examples.

Here's some more out of Deuteronomy. Several times the Israelites were warned Do not take up their practices. Drive all of them off. Don't let it happen that that gets established in Israel. So the historical books of the Old Testament, after that time, record the assaults against, that is where they had to battle against these Canaanite practices and idols and things of that sort, and the seductions of the Canaanite religion.

I noticed that the BBC has a new religion editor, and the religion editor thinks that the God of the Bible had a wife. Well, duh! The problem is, not that the God of the Bible had a wife, but as they adopted the Canaanite practices, then you would end up with the Canaanite pantheon. sexual issues left and right instead of the God of the Bible. So it's not because that the God of the Bible had a wife or anything else like that.

It is because they didn't drive off the Canaanites like they were supposed to. And so the practices and beliefs and religion of the Canaanites infiltrated the Jews. That's why it would appear in some instances like God has a wife and other strange and bizarre situations. Now, thankfully, in contrast, grace holds some real differences here.

We who are in the body of Christ are not called to live under the law, none of it, nor take land by killing and driving out some of the other inhabitants. Isn't that good? It's not God's command that we go and start driving off the rest of the people out of the Denver area. You'll be happy to know that. You don't have to get your AK out of the closet.

Grace offers motive, means, and opportunity. The motive is grace. The means is the Holy Spirit's enabling, empowering, and energizing. And the opportunity before us is to offer life instead of death. forgiveness instead of the penalties, and unconditional love and blessing. That's an opportunity before us. We have motive, means, and opportunity. Okay?

The dying was not from an invasion, but from Christ voluntarily taking our sins upon himself. Instead of saying, they have to die, Christ says, I will die. What a contrast. Instead of someone else dying because they deserve it, like the Canaanites did, so that we can have the land, Christ, who didn't deserve it, died for us so that we can have a home with Him that displaces nobody on earth.

Several years back, I had a conversation over the phone and via email with a Canaanite. He was a man from southern Lebanon. He says, yep, I'm descended from the Canaanites. I'm from those who survived the Jews driving us off the land. And he says, then the Jews did the right thing. Oh, and he said, Jesus did the right thing, too, when he died for our sins. So here was a man descended among those who were not killed off, but among those who were driven off. And he realized that, yes, what I needed was exactly what Christ did. The source of our life here on earth was begun by our having been identified with Christ's death on earth, so that we are blessed in the heavenlies there with Him.

This last slide says, don't just do something, stand there! Right? The principle of law that applied to the people of Israel required them all to aggressively do many things. You go into this city and this is what you do here, and you go to this city and this is what you do there, and you do, and do, and do, and do, and make sure that you do not do the things you're instructed not to do. Every single one, and you'd better not forget any slight point. That's what's going to be necessary for you to capture the land of Canaan. Do, do, do, do.

For us in the body of Christ, the right thing to do is to take our stand in all the spiritual accomplishments of Christ. Our armor being who we are in Christ. You've very likely heard at some point in time the song, Onward Christian Soldiers, and I can remember singing it as a little kid, but as I think about it more, that's not quite right, is it? Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war with the cross of Jesus going on before?

No. It is what he has already accomplished. I do not go out to attack spiritually to gain any ground. I don't need to. I'm repeatedly encouraged, Ephesians 6, 11, 13, and 14, I'm repeatedly encouraged, stand firm, stand firm, stand firm. Why? Because Christ has already won any ground that needs to be taken. He's already done it. I don't need to go attack some spiritual stronghold. I don't need to go bind Satan. I don't need any of that.

What I need to do is to stand firm on the ground that Christ has already won. I'm not supposed to be running somewhere or doing something. Just stand there on the place that He has already captured, defending myself with the armor that is who I am in Him. That's what Ephesians 6 is about.

I don't need to take any land. As a matter of fact, standing firm and standing strong is resting. Standing firm and standing strong is resting. I don't have to go in and fight the battle. I don't have to take over any territory. It's all His. Even the weaponry that I do in fact need is all because of Him. I simply have to put it on, not create it.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, as we look at what you have accomplished, we're just so thankful for the amazing difference that grace makes. It is not a matter of Go into some sort of spiritualized promised land. It's not a matter of us fighting battles in the spiritual realm in the same sense that the Jews had to carry out to take over the land of Canaan. It is simply a matter of our standing the ground that you've already taken. It is simply a matter of us putting on the armor that is who we are in you. Thank you Lord for your marvelous grace. Most amazing. Thank you for the riches of your grace. In Jesus name. Amen.