Date: October 31st, 2010

Speaker:  Jill Cavanagh

Title:  Battle On

Text:  Joshua 10

Good Morning,

It is Halloween Sunday, and Pastor Kevin has given me, what I would consider a “horror” passage to speak about. As a woman, there are some things I think are important to talk about and some things I don’t see as being important.  Some messages I can get right to the meat of the issue and some I’m just not that interested. Let me give you a couple of examples. And this will make sense just a little bit later as to why it’s relevant.

 

Example one, will show you all how to get to the meat of the shopping issue.  

You will see here, the man interacts with no one, does not get anything else done, but picks up the one” tunnel vision” item that he came to look for at the Gap store. He shops in a straight line! And he leaves in a straight line! In the meantime, when the woman goes shopping, she will find something special for Aunt Mary as she browses through the first shop, finds boots on half price at the second stop, visits with Jean and Joan at the third stop, perhaps even prays with them, picks up a few groceries at the fourth stop and gets much more accomplished on her route, to pick up the item she came to buy at the Gap. Shopping is not a job, it is an adventure!!  In this case, shopping in a straight line and thinking in a straight line does not make sense to me.

 

 Example #2 of looking at things important to talk about would be , Pastor Kevin and I preparing for pre-marital classes. He will say something like, “Jill, will you prepare the sessions for Sexual Intimacy, the session on  Finances and session on How to Resolve a Conflict. Then he says, “I will handle Communication, Spirituality and Knowing your Personality.”  Everyone knows if you’ve read anything about marriage difficulties, that finances and intimacy are two of the leading causes of trouble in a marriage. Causes of trouble in a marriage lead to conflict.  So, it would appear Pastor Kevin has given me the THREE hardest topics. And I  say ewwwww….. I don’t want to talk about these topics!!  Because in my mind, I have long ago solved the issues these topics cause, by thinking in a straight line. If the man gave his woman enough $$(finances) to decorate the nest, buy some nice clothes, have the odd pedicure and travel, she would be happy. If she is happy, there is no trouble with intimacy, which means there would be no conflict.    In this case I can think in a straight line and the men are more apt to want to wander!!.

 

It is with that approach I came to read Joshua 10. Reading parts of this chapter, I knew, this is something I didn’t want to talk about. The whole chapter is about killing and bloodshed, hangings and hail. This is what I “got” from my first reading

1. The Gibeonites saved themselves by performing an elaborate deception on the Israelite soldiers, acting as if they had come from a land far away. “We have come from a distant country. Make a treaty with us” The Israelites didn’t check to see if this was true with the Lord and made a treaty with them.
2.  When, Adoni-Zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had taken Ai and totally destroyed it and that Gibeon had made a treaty of peace with the Israelites he was very afraid.
3.  King Adoni-Zedek then appealed to four other kings and said – “help me attack Gibeon”. They are traitors, joining up with Israel and we need to nip this thing in the bud right now!!
4. When the Gibeonites  heard they were going to be attacked, they sent word to Joshua “Help us, five kings and their armies want to destroy us.”
5. Joshua took his entire army up to Gibeon and took those kings by surprise. The Lord said, in Joshua 10:8   “Don’t be afraid. I have given them into your hand Not one of them will be able to withstand you.” Israel defeated them in a sound victory. The Lord even confused the enemies and hurled large hailstones down at them from the sky and more of them died from the hailstones, than were killed by the actual swords of the Israelites. The Lord was really in this battle.
6. The five kings fled and hid in the cave at Makkedah. Joshua said”roll large rocks up to the mouth of the cave, and post some men there to guard it. In the meantime, keep pursuing the rest of their men. So  the Israelites pursued all the enemies and destroyed them completely.
7. Then, Joshua.said ”go back and open the cave and bring those kings to me. He summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders, “Put your feet on the necks of these kings.” (which was the highest form of humiliation you could do to a king at the time) Actually, it would be a pretty high form of humiliation today! Joshua said to all the men of Israel, vs. 25, “Do not be afraid: do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous.  This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight:”
8.  Then Joshua struck and killed the kings and hung them on five trees, and they were left hanging in the trees until evening.
9.  That day Joshua took Makkedah, putting the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it.
10. Then J. went to Libnah, putting the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it.
11. Then he went to Lachish and left no survivors. Everyone was put to the sword.
12. Then he went to Eglon and destroyed everyone by the sword.
13. Then they went to Hebron and destroyed everyone in it.
14. Then they went to Debir and destroyed everyone in it.

 

All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.. He gave him everything he needed to battle his enemies.

 

After reading all that, my words to Pastor Kevin, were, “Ewwww, I don’t want to talk about this. I am from the 60’s man. Our motto is make love not war!! What is with all this killing and swords, and hangings and hail. I know nothing about war and would find it hard to present anything helpful from this passage!!

 

But , one of the wisest women I have had the privilege of meeting, Jean Barsness, said, when she was preparing a message, she read it and read it and read it until the Lord gave her some insight to it. It is one of the reasons I like to give a message, because I am more likely to GET THE MESSAGE when I have to battle with it.

I  had even whined to Pastor Del, last week, “How come you are not preaching in Joshua. .He replied ”Pastor Kevin said I had a choice” I thought, “gee, he didn’t give me a choice.” But, three weeks before, I had shared with Pastor Kevin, “ I’d like you to pray for me as I’m facing a spiritual battle that I thought was taken care of years ago. It seems to have come to the surface again”. Pastor Kevin felt it might stretch me to do battle with this passage.

 Do you know, that Joshua 10 stands alone as the premier campaign, the premier battle, in which God fought. And it appears that my faithful God wanted me to know and you to know, that He is in any battle we face. He wants to protect us, because He loves us so much He gave his only child for us, so we might have victory over our battles.

 

So what did I learn from this passage. I saw three things that personally spoke to my heart.

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 1. Ask for help and God will provide it. He wants you to have victory. He desires it for us.

2. God will destroy the enemies of His kingdom.

3. Know if you take a stand for the Lord, you will face battles!             

 

Point 1. If you are faced with an enemy, God will provide you with what you need to fight the battle, but you must ask for help.

He is faithful.  Your responsibility is to ask for help!!  Sometimes, we balk at this point. We know we COULD ask for help but maybe pride gets in the way. “I can handle this,” or “I don’t want anyone to know,” or “I’m embarrassed”. All that is pride and pride can delay or even stop God’s promised rescue.  God backs up His promises.  That can happen by sending human help and sometimes by direct, divine action. Vs 12 -15 reads On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.  There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man.  Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel.  The Lord stopped everything that day, so Joshua and his men could get the job done. It was an example of divine intervention.  I am spellbound by stories of divine intervention.  When someone wanting to catch a flight finds out it is overbooked and is hopping mad. And an hour later, when he hears that plane goes down; he gets on his knees and thanks God that he wasn’t on that flight.  When a cheque arrives in the mail and you can now pay for the rent , you thought you couldn’t. When the doctor you needed to see, but couldn’t for months, phones to say there has been a cancellation..  Even though we don’t understand something when it’s happening, there is meaning to it all. That’s the work of God.. That God, that made you and knows you, wants you to ask for His help.  He wants to intervene.

 

Let’s look at point #2. God will destroy the enemies of the kingdom.

1. The people being killed and slaughtered, needed to be killed and slaughtered, because they were enemies to God’s people. God personally ordered the destruction of seven Canaanite nations, with no survivors. Why?  God had promised the land to the Israelites over 400 years before Joshua. He repeated those promises often and finally called the Israelites out of Egypt to take over the Promised Land. However, Israel’s inheritance meant kicking out the Canaanites. How could innocent people simply be pushed aside or killed? The Bible makes clear that the Canaanites were not “innocent.” Historians have uncovered plenty of evidence of their wickedness. Canaanite temples featured prostitutes, orgies and human sacrifice. In many ways, Canaan had become like Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible records that God has patience with decadent societies for a time, but judgment inevitably follows.  What enemies do we face today? What  “battle” pulls you away from the Christian relationship with your Father that created you?  Drugs?  Do drugs provide the peace you are looking for? Friends? who rationalize all kinds of behavior because, if they don’t know the Lord, they don’t use the same measuring stick for behavior that we as Christians know. Books? Movies? Music? Debbie Boone once had an academy award winning song You Light Up My Life and the  words in it ”if it feels so right, it can’t be wrong” don’t really tell the truth. Lots of things feel good that aren’t right. Most of you sitting here today know your enemy and that enemy will hit you at your greatest place of  need, be it finances, loneliness, anger, lack of love, hunger,  hurt and that enemy will creep in and convince you, in this particular case, you don’t need to listen to God. Just do what feels good.            

3. The third lesson in the passage is, know if you take a stand for the Lord you will face battles and enemies. As Rahab had done in Jericho, so the Gibenoites did.  They assessed the situation, they took a look at themselves, and they took a look at their religion, at what life as they had known it, had to offer them.  They noticed what God was doing through His people, in this case the Israelites.  They weighed it out and said, “We’re on the wrong side.  We’re in the wrong place.  We have to join up with the winning team”.

Do you remember what brought you here? Why did you desire to be on a winning team. It is a great thought to revisit, why you came to stand for the Lord.  The only ones to surrender, to go over to the side of the Israelites, were the Gibeonites.  The only ones who chose to leave their culture, their religion, and all that they had known, and their fathers had known, were the Gibeonites. I remember calling my Mom in 1975 and saying, “Mom, I joined the Mennonite church today. There was a long pause and she said, “are those the ones who wear the long black dresses and polka dot scarves. I replied, “No mom, those are Hutterites. We can expect to come under attack when we take a stand that’s different from what we’ve always done.

 Martin Luther long ago identified three enemies of the believer.  The enemies Luther identified were the world, the flesh and the devil.

What is the world –the cultural expectations (dress, status, possessions, what is it to be “in”, what you need to do or be to be accepted.  What does the world think of one who steps aside to align himself in a meaningful way with the living God? They might make judgmental comments, (you don’t act like a Christian –, ( I have never quite figured out, what a Christian acts like), the world might call you  names (he’s a bible thumper),)  and the “world” doesn’t often line up as friends.                

What is the flesh…The flesh doesn’t die when we become a Christian: it’s simply dealt a mortal blow. I didn’t know that until researching this passage of Joshua 10.  There’s some life left there if indeed the flesh is fed. Paul, in Romans, says, “Don’t feed it.”  The flesh urges us with whatever stimulus will make it feel better about itself and will distract it from what God’s agenda may be.  The flesh not only urges us to feed it but the flesh is very good at rationalizing behavior that isn’t pleasing to God.  The flesh is alive and the flesh, in this case, is our enemy. One big battle I faced after becoming a Christian, was quitting smoking. I bought a book for $10.00 called The Easiest Way to Quit Smoking. On the back of the book, it said, If you can’t quit smoking, bring the book back and get your $10.00 back. The confidence in which the author spoke, “can’t quit, bring it back”, made me try it. When I read the book, one line stood out. The line said; think of having a nicotine monster living inside you. Every time you feed the monster, it gives him more nourishment to stay alive. Don’t feed him. It made so much sense to me and I quit (and although the book was good, I always give the glory to God).He wanted me to win that battle and I have never wanted a cigarette since. A book can’t do that.

 

Luther thirdly identified the devil.  More and more people all the time are coming to believe, that there is no devil, simply indicates that he’s more active than ever he was!  The Bible says, “The devil prowls about like a roaring lion.” (1 Peter 5:8). The devil has thousands of spirit forces, perhaps millions, we don’t know.  One only needs to note the movies that come out at Halloween to realize the idea of a personal evil entity is strong in our world…sometimes there is  more belief about the devil in movies, than there is in the church.

We cannot know exactly where the devil or his agents are, or what they are up to, but this we do know, that his ploy is to be pretty good at arranging circumstances, at laying out temptations and traps with the view in mind that we will fail, that we will bring discredit to our testimony, and disrepute to the Name of our God.  That’s what he does.  The devil knows how to play on the flesh and he’s an excellent historian.  He knows what works (what our greatest place of need is) and he uses it.

I determined after “battling” all this, (after wandering in many rooms, like shopping,) that I have been on an adventure and that Joshua Chapter 10 is not just a war chapter, but a love chapter

The first sign of love we see is when Joshua honors the covenant he has made with the Gibeonites. They call for help and he responds. He doesn’t pray for them, he doesn’t send them good wishes. He gets his army together and heads out to protect the Gibeonites, because they are now part of the family. That’s how God feels about us. We are part of the family!! He wants to keep us safe.  And it is a part of our role as believers too-Nehemiah 4:14 states...”Then as I looked over the situation, I called together the leaders and the people and said to them,” Don’t be afraid!  Remember the Lord who is great and glorious: fight for your friends, your families, and your homes!”

The second sign of love is when we see the Lord intervene to give Joshua victory over all his enemies, even though they have traveled all night to fight the battle. Traveling in those days was not an easy feat.  If the Lord wants victory for you over your enemies, He will provide. He will fight the battle. Ask for help. You don’t have to “white knuckle it”. He wants you to have victory. He wants you to experience the grace that He can provide when you ask for help. Admit your sin and ask for help.Phil:4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength and power”

The third sign of love we see is the sign of divine intervention because of the prayer of a man. The Lord stopped the sun over Gibeon and the moon over the Valley of Aijalon until Israel avenged itself on its enemies. Divine intervention is our hope today, that something we could never do, we could never fix, could never explain, is possible in the hands of the Lord.  What if I were to embrace my battle with a spirit of love, knowing that my battle is God’s canvas. That my cancer is God’s chance to show his healing powers.(Arlene loves to say, she is Eastsides little miracle!!) That my sin is God’s chance to show his grace.

 

I would like to conclude with a reading from Brennan Manning. Brennan Manning is author of the books Lamb and Lion and Ragamuffin Gospel.  I resonate with this reading, in my battle to be Christ like.  I have read this in a message before, because it frees me from trying so hard to be Christ like and often failing. I didn’t write this but I resonate, because sometimes it seems one of my biggest battles is who I am.

 

When I am in conscious communion with the reality of the wild, passionate, relentless, stubborn, pursuing, tender love of God for me, then it’s not that I have to or I got to or  I must or I should or I ought: suddenly, I want to change because I know how deeply I’m loved.  One of the wonderful results of my consciousness of God’s staggering love for me as I am is a freedom not to be who I should be or who others want me to be.  I can be who I really am. And who I am is a bundle of paradoxes and contradictions:  I believe and I doubt, I trust and I get discouraged, I love and I hate.  I feel bad about feeling so good, I feel guilty if I don’t feel guilty.  Aristotle once said we are rational animals.  I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.  It is the real me that God loves.  I don’t have to be anyone else.  For years I tried to be Sister Teresa.  I tried to be Francis of Assisi.  I had to be a carbon copy of a great saint rather than the original God intended me to be.  The biggest mistake I can make is to say to God, Lord, if I change, will you love and accept me. The Lord’s reply is always, “Wait a minute, you’ve got it all wrong.  You don’t have to change so I’ll love you: I love you and because of that you’ll change.”  I simply expose myself to the love that is everything and have an immense, unshakable, reckless, raging confidence that God loves me so much he’ll change me and fashion me into the child that he always wanted me to be.

 

What is your battle? Where do you fall short of glorifying God? Given the choice between swinging from a chandelier or sitting at the cross, my natural tendency is to swing from a chandelier. I very much  have a  free spirit side, that unless I was relentless about asking for help, I don’t know where I would be.  

 

I resonate with Brennan Manning’s words, “ when I am in conscious communion with the reality of the wild, passionate, relentless, stubborn, pursuing, tender love of God for me, then it’s not that I have to or I got to or I must or I should or I ought: suddenly, I want to change because I know how deeply I’m loved.”  And I also know that areas of my life that I thought I had taken care of, had dealt with, had nailed to the cross have come back to discredit my testimony. I have asked the Lord for help and the battle is on.

 

Please bow your heads with me.

What is your battle?  Name it.

What are you asking God to do for you?

What is your part?  What steps do you need to take so God can work?

Who will you share your battle with and ask them to pray for you?

 

Lets pray.

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