So Joshua passed the word to his troops to get ready for a march. They were going to proceed back up the ravine that led to the hill country at night. And then they were going to fall upon this confederacy of the southern cities in the morning. The arrival of the Jewish troops was so unexpected and sudden that it threw the Canaanites into a panic. They fled before Israel, fleeing south from Gibeon, where the battle began, to this town called Beth-horon, which was up on a ridge. Then from Beth-horon, they went down the other side in a precipitous descent to a valley which lay beyond. The road falls about 700 feet in two miles at that point. The hillside is cut into rocky steps that descend towards the valley.

There’s a verse in the tenth chapter of Joshua that has been used to a great effect by Leland Wong, an evangelist out in California. It’s Joshua 10:13, which says, "The sun stood still." At the top of his letterhead, Leland Wong has printed three verses. The first is this one from Joshua 10. The second is II Kings 6:6, which says, "The iron did float." And the last is Psalm 48:14: "This God is our God." I’ve often used those verses to stress that we believe in a powerful God, the great God of the Bible who is able to do miracles. But did the iron really float? Did the sun really stand still?

 

Francis Schaeffer in his study of the Gibeonites points out that the thing that happened to them is not identical with, but is quite similar to, what happened to Rahab. Rahab was the harlot of Jericho, an immoral woman; but she had heard about the Jewish God. And when the spies came, she said, "I know that your God, Jehovah, is the true God, the Lord of heaven and earth." It was a great testimony. Because of her confession of faith she left her people and sided with the Jews. And when her people were destroyed, she was spared. Moreover, she was brought into the covenant community and was blessed in that relationship.

Perhaps you can apply how the Israelites regarded their treaty by supplying specifics from your own experiences. You get into something that perhaps was wrong for you, but you said you would do it and now you have to stand by it. You said, "Well, I’m in a business venture, but it’s costing me." Well, that’s alright. If you said there was something you were going to do, you have to do it. You have to stand by it even though it’s costly. 

 

Yesterday, we looked at the first two points from Ephesians 6 about our spiritual warfare. The third is that we’re to carry the offensive weapon, our sword, which is the Word of God. It means we have to know it. We have to be able to use it. We have to have it at our disposal. Some people say, "Well, you know, I believe the Bible." You then ask them, "Well, what in the Bible do you believe?"