Joshua 6 Small group questions Before starting the questions, perhaps you could consider: The obedience of the people of Israel, charging a known stronghold and the obedience of Joshua 1. Would you have questioned Joshua if you were in his army? 2. If this was a modern-day experience, would you expect your leaders to question God about His tactics? 3. Having read over the chapter again, what about it do you question if anything? 4. Are there some other pieces of scripture which help you reconcile your uncertainty or questions? Read Joshua 5:13-15 5. Who is Joshua meeting there? a. Can you think of any other occasions when Biblical leaders have met with God in an unexpected way? Judgement 6. How do you understand God s judgement to play out in the world? As a group, see if you can come to a simple understanding of God s judgement together that you all agree on. 7. If a non-christian asked you to explain God s judgement, how would you explain it? If everyone is comfortable to, take a few minutes to practice your answer and learn one or two relevant bible verses! Justice 8. What do you think might have been going through Rahab s mind during the week prior to the invasion? 9. How do you understand God s justice? Can you find some Scripture to back up your perspective? 10. Do you think God s justice is merciful? Why do you say that? 11. God did not leave Joshua to fight the battle alone. Can you think about a specific time when God was fighting alongside of you? 12. Have you ever (just for 1 minute) looked at the circumstances around you and doubted God's presence (remembering 5:13-15)? Be specific. 13. Has God ever told you to do something that initially did not make sense to you? a. How did you end up dealing with this? 14. What walled-in area of your life are you still protecting or hiding behind? b. How secure do you feel behind that wall? c. Do you fear God s judgement on these things?
Date: 2 ND August 2015 Services: 730am, 930am Peregian, 630pm Series: Joshua Title: God s judgement, justice and mercy Passage: Joshua 6 Aim: God s judgement and justice may seem questionable until we understand fully the reason and the purity of God. Outline: Judgement Justice Wow another movie in the making, don t you think? The book of Joshua just keeps on bringing the hits! If spies and lies and prostitutes weren t enough for you If the miracle of crossing the Jordan and the importance of those memorial stones for faithful children and children s children wasn t enough for you Well, how does this blood-thirsty story work for you? A walled city left standing bare Pagans Canaanites with their own army having been subjected to what they certainly would have thought was scare tactics for 7 days are slaughtered. Verse 21: They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. They devoted the city to the Lord How? By destroying with the sword EVERY living thing in it 2
Do you find difficulty in reconciling what we know about God with this brutal story I mean it s a good story but struth It doesn t sound like God was out front does it? And yet he was. We need to deal with this. Because if we don t we ll end up doing one of two things: - We ll either ignore this story because it s too hard or too simple - Or we ll like many have perhaps even use this story to write off large chunks of the OT or even the whole Bible as being meaningless or mean or just wrong. So to help us out today we re going to look at two points: 1. The Judgement of God 2. The Justice of God 1. The Judgement of God. So Palestine is a very hilly, even mountainous country in places. During Joshua s time the major passage through Palestine was a connecting road that ran from south to north through the highest parts of the land. Joshua s battle strategy was to drive westward from the Jordan Valley toward that high road, dividing the country in half. Then, with the kingdom forces divided, he would lead his army to destroy the opposition to the south and then to the north. As we continue working through this book in coming weeks you ll see that is what he does. And it worked and in fact it was such a good strategy that 3
British field marshal Edmund Allenby decided to use Joshua s strategy himself when he successfully liberated Palestine during World War I. But what lies in their path? Jericho. So Jericho was a big city think 12 footy fields. Not just big but built with protection in mind. It was a stronghold. Jericho s purpose was to defend the eastern approach to the high country of Palestine. Its walls were strong and high. And it had not one but two walls: The outer wall was 1.5m thick and the inner one was 3.6m thick. These double walls, combined with the position of the city, made it a really, really tough city to invade. Every city has its weak points but the walls weren t one of them. Now had Joshua gathered his generals of his 40 000-strong army they would have suggested these two things: - First build siege ramps or other siege equipment. It s an obvious and commonly used siege tactic - Another general might have advised Joshua to do nothing but dig in and surround the city, and starve its defenders into submission. That was another common strategy to employ when dealing with a fortified city. You may remember that Jerusalem was besieged more than once and the last time it was destroyed by using this form of offensive. But he didn t even seek their advice. He didn t need to. He had God in command in a very literal sense. 4
One of the passages we didn t deal with from the last chapter was the encounter between Joshua and God. (ch 5 v ) God has appeared to His people in a number of ways over the years but to Joshua, he appeared as a military leader. And yet in so many ways this wasn t a military victory. This was victory in the trustworthiness of the people of God They didn t look at these walls and tremble they looked to them and then looked to God. BLANK Take your Bibles and turn to Joshua 6 and let s read God s strategy. It s recorded in verses 2-5: Then the LORD said to Joshua, See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in. Now, if you were a soldier in the Israelite army and Joshua had got up front and told you that this was what God had said to do Wouldn t you question your leader s sanity? This was Joshua though and they trusted him and they trusted God. So, bizarre as it was, they did it. And then, if you glance at those middle verses, from 6 to 14, I think they are really there to help us understand the state that the people of Jericho would have been in. Verses 6-14 paint a picture of uncertainty for the people of 5
Jericho. They would have been asking: What is going on? What are they doing? They probably looked at their army and looked to their king and even looked to their closed gates and the certainty that it used to offer and then recalled the fact that these people outside had been freed by their God out of Egypt. Their God the one who had parted the red sea (or sea of reeds as it is more accurately interpreted) their God who sent them here to the banks of the Jordan their God who had dried the river Jordan that they might cross over What state are the militant citizens of Jericho in? These people will have been in shock. 6 days of melting in fear. And of course we know what happens only Rahab and her family were spared by means of the agreement they made previously. So let s talk about this. Let s remind ourselves of what happened by again looking at verse 21: They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. Does anyone else naturally squirm at this? Do you think this unjust? Justice is a very subjective thing though. If, to borrow another minister s example, if someone told you a story of a man, who was walking down the street. And a car pulled up next to him. And the 6
man was forced into the car, taken away, and then held against his will for 2 years you would be outraged! And rightly so. But if you then heard that the car that pulled up next to him was a police car, and the person that grabbed him was a police officer; and a judge sentenced him to 2 years jail for a serious offence he had committed, my guess is you would feel differently about the situation. The point is, the context of judgment makes a difference. And so as we read of these conquests in Canaan, we must understand that this is not random violence. God is using the Israelites as agents of his justice. They express his wrath against people who he deems to be deserving of judgment. So what was this judgment for? What had they done that was so wrong? Well, you can read about that in Leviticus 18, but without going into too much detail: every sexual perversion under the sun. And Leviticus 18 won t spare you the details so read with caution. Child sacrifice, incest, idolatry and so on. The people of these lands had become absolutely defiled. These people were as debased as you could be. There was no activity, no matter how distasteful, that they were not doing. And it is for this reason that they were to be judged. So the first thing that we need to consider is that the conquests of Joshua are always described as an act of God s judgment on Canaanite society. God doesn t destroy the Canaanites because they re Canaanites! God is judging them. Israel is treated the same in Joshua chapter 7 the next chapter on it becomes clear that a member of Israel has defiled himself stolen some things that were a part of the Canaanite Pagan religion, and the punishment that is brought on him is swift and severe. But we ll come to that next week. Friends, this is judgement and its complex and it s harsh but it s necessary. We re adults here we know I hope you know it takes so little for rot to set in. Morality slips quickly and once it does it can quickly slip a long way. 7
Now, many people have questioned the accuracy of this battle as recorded in Joshua. They think this because they have had a hard time believing that marching and shouting and trumpet blowing could bring down massive double walls. But I remember an article in TIME magazine my grand-dad got it and cut it out for me God bless him I thought it was so boring at the time but I think I used in an assignment back in 1990. It told of archeologists who confirmed the Biblical record the article was titled score one for the bible. A direct quote from the article says this: The city s wall do appear to have collapsed suddenly and the blackened timbers and stones, as well as a layer of soot dating to 1400 B.C.,.all suggest that the city burned, as the Bible says it did. Archeologist Kathleen Kenyon also found bushels of grain on the site consistent with the Bible s account of a springtime conquest so rapid that Jericho s besieged populace had not exhausted their food. But, as sure as we can be of God s judgement we can also be of his justice and this is my brief and second point. 2. God s Justice S0 verse 20 says: When the trumpets sounded the people shouted, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in and took the city. I want to remind you that one portion of the wall did not collapse: that portion containing Rahab s home with that scarlet cord dangling from its window. Remember two weeks ago? Rahab and her family were spared. Look at verses 22-25: Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, Go into the prostitute s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her. So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her 8
father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD S house. But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her Whilst judgment is a terrible reality for those who turn away from God, God also offers mercy. God is merciful to Israel, of course but God was also merciful to Canaanites who worshipped him. And this is the significance of the story of Rahab from chapter 2. God destroyed the Canaanites, and yet Rahab is saved. Mercy is extended to her because she turned from worshiping idols to worshiping the true and living God. So yes judgement is visited but friends, we must remember, that there is hope for everyone. A prostitute in a foreign city somehow turned to God and was saved. You wouldn t read about it! Do we have a just God yes and his justice is generous even to those who recognize Him and Worship Him. Well friends the chapter ends, in verse 27, with these words: So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land. It s a big chapter and I ve skipped over a few aspects of it out of necessity but friends, this text serves as a reminder to us today. The terrible reality is that God judges and God judges at God s standard. James chapter 4 verse 12 reminds us that: There is only one Lawgiver and 9
Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But the wonderful reality is that God is Just and Generous so generous in fact that he gave his only son to serve as a mediator for us. To die for our sin Rahab well she had turned to God and God had generously spared her and all her family. They became a part of Israel, and a part of Israel s story. And friends we; we are the recipients of Grace unknown anywhere else. Unfathomable unthinkable. God judges but God is just. God is just but God is also merciful. He will punish and that seems harsh but that s how Judgement and Justice works. Even generous justice means that there will be some who either by their choice or by God s refuse to participate in the graciousness of God. The truth is this story actually tells of the wonderful news of the whole Bible. Wonderful news for both Christians and non-christians. The news for Christians is that you will not face judgment Jesus has taken that for you. And the wonderful news for those who are not Christians is this you do not have to face judgment if you just trust in the one in whom justice and mercy meets. Trust Jesus Christ. For this is our God. Let s take some time to pray: 10
11