PODCAST
Holy War
October 11, 2026 | Brandon CooperBrandon discusses the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho confronts one of the most uncomfortable questions in Scripture: how could a loving God command the destruction of an entire city? Before the battle even begins, Joshua encounters the Commander of the Lord’s army, who refuses to take sides, reminding us that God is not partisan but is committed to justice and righteousness. The strange battle plan, with its seven-day march and trumpet blasts, was never about military strategy. It was a declaration that God alone wins the victory, and His people are called to trust and depend on Him completely. Rahab, a prostitute who believed what she had heard about God, was spared while the city fell, showing that salvation was available to anyone willing to respond in faith. Ultimately, this story points forward to Jesus Christ, who placed Himself under judgment in our place so that we could be rescued from the destruction we deserve.
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TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Good morning church. You can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Joshua chapter 5, Joshua chapter 5. Starting in verse 13, Joshua 5:13. As you were turning there, there was a cartoon some years ago in a Christian publication. That’s an important part of the story.
This was a Christian magazine, a cartoon that had two Israelite military commanders strategizing before a walled city, presumably Jericho. And the one looks at the other and says, what would Jesus do?
The punchline captures the unease that most Christians. Again, this was in a Christian publication most Christians feel about the conquest of the promised land. And a holy war is in general because it feels so antithetical to the spirit of Christ, which we’ll leave undefined for now. The vibes that Jesus gives though, because Jesus said things like, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. So why exactly did God direct his people to invade this land and put the population to the sword?
It’s a question that demands an answer, and a careful one at that. And I think we’ll get an answer as we examine our passage. This morning we walk through the famous story of Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho in three scenes. We’re going to do that first, kind of get the lay of the land, what exactly is happening, and then we’ll turn and tackle that question head on, armed with new understanding in the final third of the sermon or so. So let’s begin by walking through the story.
Here is scene one. First of all, the plan. Joshua 5:13 through 6:5. I will read it for us now. When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.
Joshua went up to him and asked, are you for us or for our enemies? Neither, he replied, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him, what message does my Lord have for his servant? The commander of the Lord’s army replied, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.
Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. And 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 the whole army give a loud shout and the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up. Everyone straight in.
Well, like Jacob at Peniel and Moses before the burning bush, we have here is a man of God called by God to be a leader, facing a life or death situation. Esau, Pharaoh, and now Jericho. So facing a life or death situation, who then encounters the living God. God. There’s a difference in this story, though, because of course, Jacob wrestles the angel of the Lord and Moses argues with God.
But Joshua doesn’t do either, most likely because he’s got his sword drawn, this heavenly being that stands before him. Actually, are not too many times where we read that a heavenly being has his sword drawn. The only other two in the Old Testament are when Balaam is riding on his donkey to go curse Israel and the donkey stops because there’s an angel in front of their way with his sword drawn. Or David sees the angel with his sword drawn above the threshing floor when God sends his plague on Jerusalem after David’s sin. With the census in each case, you realize quickly, this is not somebody to be toyed with.
That’s why the donkey stops and eventually talks to Balaam like, Bruh, we don’t want to keep moving here. Trust me on this, okay? Not somebody to be toyed with, because it’s the embodiment of. Of divine justice produces in those men, as it produces here in Joshua, a humble fear of the Lord. You can understand then, as he’s standing before a being like this, why Joshua went on to know what side he’s on.
And so he asks, are you for us or are you for our enemies? And the commander of the Lord’s army says, no, not neither, by the way. He says, no, I think neither is a fine translation, but it’s a little blunter than that. It’s like he just declines to answer the question entirely, which makes sense because Joshua needs to remember what we often need to remember, which is that God is sovereign, not partisan, which will affect our answer. God’s answer here, maybe you’re getting the same texts I’m getting as it’s October and we’re coming up on election day, every couple of minutes, it seems somebody reaches out saying, hey, we just want to know, are you for us or are you part of the dark side?
Are you for our enemies who are going to destroy this country in the next 12 minutes if they’re elected?
Now, I just block the number at that point. That’s how I deal with the problem. But the answer is similar to what the angel of the Lord, the commander of the Lord’s army, says here. No, no. The answer I would like to give is, look, I am for justice.
I am for the sanctity of life. I am for integrity, personal and professional in the lives of those elected to serve this country. I am for lifting the poor. I am. And I could go on from here, of course.
Well, now, imagine how God would respond to that text. Hey, Jesus, you voting Republican or Democrat this fall?
We want to co opt God for our side. That’s the issue here. We want to co opt God for our side, like snagging a celebrity endorsement. And that’s not how that works. That’s the point God is making to Joshua here.
What he’s really saying is, joshua, you asked the wrong question. Like, imagine for a moment a kid in the back row of the lecture hall as the professor is droning on and finally raises his hand and goes, hey, will this be on the final? And then you leave off the second half of the question, but it’s there. Will this be on the final or can I forget it? And what would the professor say?
No, you’re asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is, is this important information that will form me as a person, increase my knowledge and understanding so I can go out into the world equipped for what I have to do? Joshua asked the wrong question, as if to highlight just how uncomprehendingly he approached God. God says, why don’t you take your sandals off because you are standing on holy ground again like Moses before him at the burning bush. In both cases, God meets his man and then commissions him for service.
In fact, this is a pattern often repeated in Scriptures. What happens with Isaiah as well. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The temple’s shaking. Isaiah is undone.
Woe is me. I’m a sinner. Seraph comes, burns his lips, Atonement, all of that. Now who will go? And Isaiah says, here am I.
Send me Ezekiel. Same story. Even Mary, when the angel Gabriel comes to her. The same story. It is our story as well.
If we follow Christ before God calls us to a life of service and discipleship, he meets us with his saving presence. Thank God. I mean, think what joy and relief Joshua must have felt in this moment when he figured out who this guy was. Joshua went to look at a problem and found himself looking at God like that is the sigh of relief. This is why we bring our cares to God in prayer.
Because before we face the problem, we need to face God we need to meet with God, remember who he is, and then follow as he leads. And that is the point of this strange scene. And it is a strange scene before Jericho. It’s as if, as one commentator put it, we need to remember God’s position before we know his plans. Especially given how quick we are to jump to problem solving, to solutions.
H.L. ellison put it like this. We can easily become more interested in special guidance than in a right relationship with the guide.
And that feel like a good word for us today as we prepare to venture out in faith and plant a church. How many of you have problem solving questions right now? I know I do. How are we going to plant is not the question. The question is who?
Who will build his church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail?
The scene then continues, continues across the chapter break, but with this brief parenthetical note in verse 1, Jericho is shut tight. Gate is closed. It’s locked up. It is closed literally. It is closed spiritually, figuratively as well, because it has been closed to the invitation of God.
Eyes are closed to God’s power, ears are closed to God’s word.
But what happens here in verse one, it’s just like with the call of Moses. Before God addresses the problem, he makes it big. He wants to make sure that Joshua, Moses, we understand the obstacle first. When he was speaking to Moses, he said, I have seen my people’s misery. I’ve seen the oppression, the abuse they’re suffering at the hands of their slave drivers.
I think God does this because he wants us to know our need to realize that we need him, that we are dependent on him for our salvation. In essence, what God says is, here’s the problem and then here’s the mission that will solve it. And that’s what God gives. Then in verses 2 to 5, notice by the way, I kept saying God when Joshua met the commander of the Lord’s army. Here’s why.
Because in verse two, and as we’re continuing the same scene, the Lord said to Joshua, so somehow or other the commander of the Lord’s army, whether it’s the pre incarnate Christ or it’s just the manifestation of God’s glory in such a way that Joshua could actually see him. I don’t know. But this is God speaking, and he gives his strategy. It’s a strange strategy to say the least. Don’t let the fact that you maybe grew up in church, so you’ve heard this story a thousand times, dull your appreciation of just how absurd this is.
It is a strange strategy, but it is a strategy fraught with symbolism. You’ll remember if you were here last week that Israel just celebrated the Passover feast. What follows after Passover is the feast of unleavened bread, which is a seven day festival. So for the seven days of the feast of unleavened Bread, Israel is going to be marching around Jericho. The feast of unleavened bread celebrated God’s victory over his enemies.
In other words, this is going to be a living memorial of that first Passover, the truest celebration of it. Beyond that, of course we have echoes of the creation account. I’m sure we caught that because you got this 6, 7 pattern that we see repeated in scripture so often. Six days kind of the same, and then the seventh one is totally different. And so this is part of God’s act of recreation, restoration of the world after it fell into sin.
And what happens on the seventh day in the creation account? God rests. And that’s what’s happening here. We’ve already talked about this in Joshua. By entering the promised land, Israel is in a limited sense entering rest.
By the way, the trumpets that they’re blowing, these trumpets of rams horns are jubilee trumpets. That’s the word that’s used in Hebrew. What is the jubilee? It’s the seventh seven. So after 49 years, there’s a year of arrest.
And these are the trumpets that are being blown. At this point you can’t miss what’s happening. Plus seven is the number of completion, perfection, showcasing God’s complete victory over his enemies. Like I said, a lot of symbolism. So it’s a strange strategy, militarily, but not theologically.
And which do you think matters more?
No, but really, which do you think matters more? Because if you’re at all like me, you’re going strategy like military, like help me out. No, what matters most is the theological question, the God who stands behind this pattern, this plan. So they march around just so we’ve got it in our minds, because we have a hard time picturing Jericho. I’m sure the hill of Jericho is, is about a half mile perimeter.
So this is tiny. I know a lot of us picture in big here. It’s a half mile. Even though they’re probably about five miles away from it in terms of their camps. It’s an 11 mile round trip hike, not a big deal even for a population.
They wrap it up, then on the seventh day they go seven times around that still, that’s like a normal evening walk, like not a big deal. They walk around Seven times. And they wrap it up with this shout. The shout is a big word. It shows up a lot in Hebrew Bible.
Of course, it means a lot. Like what means in English, you shout when you’re sounding a note of alarm, like you’re startled or something. It is a war cry often, but it shows up in one other context a lot. Like Psalm 100, for example. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
It is the sound of praise. And which one is happening here? And you’re going, yeah, all of them. Right, so that’s the strategy here. Let’s see it unfold though.
That’s scene one, the plan. Here’s scene two, the battle itself. Verses six to 21. I’ll keep reading. So Joshua, son of nun, called the priests and said to them, take up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.
And he ordered the army advance march around the city with an armed guard going ahead of the Ark of the Lord. When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward blowing their trumpets and the Ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the Ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding, but Joshua had commanded the army, do not give a war cry. Do not raise your voices.
Do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout, then shout. So he had the Ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling at once. The army returned to camp and spent the night there. Joshua got up early the next morning, the priests took up the Ark of the Lord. The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the Ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets.
The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the Ark of the Lord while the trumpets kept sounding. So on the second day, they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days. On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army shout, the Lord has given you the city.
The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.
When the trumpet sounded, the army shouted. And at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed. So everyone charged straight in and they took the city. 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.
Not a whole lot of new information here really. Joshua leads God’s people to carry out God’s commands. Exactly at the center of it all is the Ark of the Covenant. I mean literally at the center of it all, because you got the armed guard before it and behind it. And it’s just the priests at this point who are blowing their trumpets.
They’re the only ones who are making any noise. We saw that in verse 10. Joshua commands the army very carefully, clearly, don’t shout. Don’t make any noise just yet. Make sure that you’re silent.
This is a very weird parade at this point. God is highlighting the passive people who are dependent on the presence of Almighty God. He is trying to drive home the point that he drives home so often, just like at the Red Sea, that God’s people don’t participate in their victory. Sure, they get a little mop up action at the end there, that last paragraph, but God wants to prove his glory to his people and increase their feeling of dependence and trust. This is good.
This is good for us because we are by our sinful nature, glory thieves. We like taking credit for God’s work.
Paul is an excellent example of this. He’s talking about Paul, the most effective evangelist the world has ever known is talking about his ministry in many ways. And he’s saying, look, we have this treasure in jars of clay. 2nd Corinthians 4:7. We have this treasure in jars of clay.
So there’s the treasure of the gospel. I mean, invaluable, priceless treasure. You’re thinking this belongs in crystal or porcelain. No, it’s in a cracked earthen vessel like you and me, to show that the all surpassing power is from God and not from us. People are going to look at the treasure and they’re going to look at the pot and they’re going to go, these are not organically related.
Like, it is clear that the treasure is separate from the jar. And they’re going to look and go, well then where does the treasure come from? It comes from God, he gets the glory. That’s an evangelistic context, which is a good reminder for us, of course. I mean, Jake talks a little bit about this, even in making the invitation to something as simple as fall, a festival.
And we get all nervous about it because we think it’s up to us, like, how am I going to do this? And so we think it’s going to be our clever arguments or persuasive proclamation that turns somebody to the Lord. That’s not going to happen. God may use those, sure, but it is God who turns the heart, which means the most important work we do evangelistically. It’s the first letter in our acronym, our going places evangelism acronym.
The P is what? Pray. Pray. That’s kind of the lesson that God is teaching Joshua and Israel. Here we get the same story on six successive days.
And then on the seventh, Joshua commands the people to shout, verse 16, shout, the Lord has given you the city and you’re expecting what, a shout. I don’t know if you noticed. You get a whole bunch of text before we get to the shout down in verse 20. This is so anticlimactic. Like, what a terrible time for a commercial break.
Why the delay? Why does God interrupt the narrative here? We just want to see the walls come down already.
But scripture here is highlighting the importance of the instructions that are given. It’s more important than the walls tumbling down. The most important part here is that what belongs to the Lord needs to be given to the Lord. You got to pay attention to these instructions. If you doubt me there, come back next week and listen to Achan’s story.
God was right to do this. What are those instructions? The whole city is under the ban is what it’s called. They’re devoted to the Lord. If you’re looking in Niv, there’s a text note at the bottom.
It says this. The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them. So it’s stuff that’s either given to the Lord, like the gold and the silver, it goes into the temple treasury, or it is utterly destroyed, devoted to the Lord. In other words, put beyond normal use. It’s in the holy sphere.
Now. You think of the gold utensils in the most holy place. Like, you don’t use a dish for some service to the Lord and then go home and serve your soup in it. Like once it belongs to the Lord, it belongs to the Lord. That’s what this word means here as well.
And so in A sense, then those who are devoted to the Lord, people, animals, are sacrificed to the Lord. Now, this is a hard word. This is judgment on culture, not on an individual. We’re talking about culture wide judgment, specifically to prevent God’s people from assimilating to this sinful culture. Like, what’s being described here is like when you go into a wooded area and you rip out buckthorn, like from the roots, and then you poison what might be left of the roots, that it’s gone.
Because you’re going, this is an invasive species. This will kill what is good in this world if it’s left alone. That’s what’s happening here. We know this because that’s exactly how Moses described the ban when it was first given back. In Deuteronomy 20, verses 17 and 18, it says this.
Completely destroy them. The Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Why? Because otherwise they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.
This is the hardest part to swallow, which is why we’re going to come back to it at the end. So leave your questions for now. The people shout, the walls collapse in on themselves, and then the army rushes in. Now, if somebody were to make a movie adaptation of this, they will at some point, I’m sure. This would be the longest scene.
You get lots of bloody, gory action scenes, Braveheart, Gladiator kind of stuff. Not here. Scripture is totally uninterested in these sort of carnal delights. It’s just a brief. Yep.
And then they did what they were supposed to do. But it is a tough description still. They put everyone to the sword. Men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. I think it’s important to see.
By the way, scripture doesn’t hide this from us. This isn’t like the Chinese Communist Party in Tiananmen Square, you know. Sorry, your Google search results yielded no results. When you type this in, in China, it isn’t like that. Like Jericho.
Don’t talk to us about Jericho. God’s going, yeah, this is what happened. Here it is in my infallible word. I’m not trying to hide this. That every living being in the city is put to the sword.
Again, we got to talk about why in a moment. But every living being in the city is put to the sword, except for one family. Just one family. That’s our third scene. And let’s look at this.
The aftermath the rest of chapter 6, verses 22 to 27 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. See, the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. And they burned the whole city and everything in it. 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, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to join. She lives among the Israelites to this day. At that time, Joshua pronounced this solemn oath cursed before. The Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho, the cost of his firstborn son. He will lay its foundations at the cost of his youngest.
He will set up its gates. So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land. Now, why isn’t Rahab under the ban? It’s because she’s already devoted herself and her family to the Lord. She is an Israelite now.
You see that in verse 27 it says, even to this day, she, or at least her descendants are living there in Israel. So she is spared. The Contrast between verse 23 and verse 24 is stark and instructive because Rahab is saved and then the city is burned. And so the juxtaposition is the reminder that salvation is was available to all, because they all knew God. They had already seen him.
Rahab tells us as much. That’s why Rahab and Jericho are so tightly connected, because the contrast is so important. Rahab said, everybody’s melting with fear. Everybody’s heard what God has done.
Rahab repented. In light of that, Jericho did not hang on to that. And then, in accordance with Deuteronomy 13:16, I won’t read it for us. But Joshua pronounces a curse. Because what Deuteronomy tells us is that any population center that had been dedicated to pagan worship was to be left uninhabited.
Foolishly, during the time of Ahab, who was effectively a pagan king, even though he was an Israelite, Hio rebuilt Jericho in 1 Kings 16. Of course, you may remember Jesus being in Jericho at point. So it is rebuilt. Hiyah rebuilds it at the cost of his oldest and youngest Sons, what an indictment of the age in which he lived. That that would have happened then.
But as a result of all this, and wholly unsurprisingly, Joshua’s fame grows. We see here what we’ve seen throughout, that God’s presence is the indisputable key to what makes Joshua this military leader. But they know Joshua’s name. And that’s actually important for the rest of the campaign. Because now when Joshua leads his army, people are gonna go, I heard about Joshua.
We should skedaddle. And so this will actually prevent further bloodshell, bloodshed. The fear of Joshua will drive people out. That’s the story. The opening question still stands.
And so I’m going to try to answer it now with my thesis. For us today, the big idea is to bring his peace, God makes war on violence. To bring his peace, God makes war on violence. Now that is a bold. We’re going to need to unpack it carefully.
We need to understand the problem that we’re addressing, which is the problem of violence, the violence of the people, but God’s violence against them as well. We’re also going to need to understand the purpose, which is peace. And certainly we need to understand the presence of God in all of this. So let’s dig in. Why are God’s people killing innocent Canaanites as they invade their land?
If I were the commander of the Lord’s army, I would respond to that question. No, it’s the wrong question. That question gets everything totally wrong, like every part of it. Start with the innocent Canaanites. They are not innocent.
The Lord has gone out of his way to show us that. So way back in Genesis 15, when God makes his promises to Abraham and says, I’m going to give you this land, he then explains, by the way, brief 470 year detour in Egypt, you’re going to be slaves there. Why? Listen to what he says. Genesis 15, 13 and 16.
For 400 years, your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and will be enslaved and mistreated. There, in the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here. For the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. So Israel suffers for centuries because God is patient and unfailingly just. So while we’re asking the question, God, how could you do this?
The Israelites for about half a millennium have been asking the question, how long, Lord? How long must we endure Injustice reminds us that there is a strange inconsistency in our complaints against God. How many of us have asked the question, why Didn’t God stop Hitler? And yet at the same time, how many of us are asking the question, how could God stop Jericho?
Which is it? What we learn, especially in that passage speaking to Abraham, is that God won’t stop judge too soon. Our God is unimaginably patient with sinners. And so he says, the sins have to reach their full measure. Meaning we have reached the point of no return.
As a culture. Canaan has become irremediable. What sin though? What’s the sin of the Canaan? Why aren’t we talking about the sin of the Egyptians?
Like, why not punish mean Egypt for enslaving Israel? Well, he did. We covered that in Exodus not that long ago. But we get this sense of like, Canaan’s just there minding their own business. No, they are not.
This is a culture built on injustice, conquest and enslavement. It’s actually interesting. Scripture presents all of this as like a. It’s this pattern that unfolds across Scripture. The battle between the city of God and the city of man.
And in Scripture, often that’s the battle between the city of Babylon and the city of Jerusalem. If you were with us when we did Revelation not that long ago, those are the towns, the cities that show up. You’re going, why Babylon? Why not Rome? And that’s the one persecuting the church at this time.
It is Rome. It’s a city built on the seven hills. That’s Rome. But it keeps referring to it as Babylon. So Babel, Babylon is like the type, the name given to the city of man in rebellion against God.
And it makes sense because Babylon or Babel is the first place where culture de gods God, where a culture says, we don’t need him anymore. Knock him off the throne. We can do this on ourselves. In fact, let’s make a name for ourselves instead of glorifying him. And so they build the tower of Babel.
At least they try to watch the progression of Babel across Scripture. So once Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, there’s an angel placed on the east side. Two angels with a sword between them placed on the east side. So they went out east. It’s got in the east gate.
And then Cain, after he murders his brother, moves to Nod, which is east of Eden. And then keep reading Genesis 11. Here’s 2 and 4. As the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there and said, come, let’s build a city. That would be the city of Babel.
That’s really interesting, Brandon, but We’re talking about Canaan, we’re talking about the Amorites, we’re not talking about the Babylonians. Our problem, of course, is that we’re not familiar with the Amorites today. Abraham was. When God said this to him, Abraham was. Because the Amorites were the founders of Babylon who invaded Abraham’s hometown, Ur, and who kept moving west into the promised land into Eden.
Which means for 400 plus years, God has been patient with violent conquistadors who are building their empire as they enslave. This is a story of Babylon invading Eden, which means when we read the story of Jericho, we’re not picturing Russia invading Ukraine, we should be picturing Ukraine. What they’ve been doing in the past few months under the Volvy operation, Ukraine taking back the territory that was stolen from them. But one other piece, this. And maybe it’s our chief concern here is.
Yeah, but what about the non combatants? Like that’s a big question.
But is it true? If you look back at chapter six, verse two, God says he’s given the king and the fighting men into Joshua’s hands because that’s who is there. Jericho is not a population center, it’s a military base. It’s a fortress. It’s an army post.
I know, we hear city and we think Kiev population center. Why are they shooting drones at apartment buildings? But in an agrarian society, people didn’t live in the city, they lived outside of it. You come into the city because it’s a fortress. Scholars have shown that Jericho was this military fortress that would house about 150,000 soldiers.
That’s it. Remember, you can circle the garrison seven times in one day, no problem. That’s why there’s a brothel there. Keep the soldiers happy. Tavern for the spies.
It’s not women and children, although women and children aren’t innocent here. That is an important part to remember. They’re not present. Ah, but you, you’re looking at verse 21 and you’re going, no, no, no. There are women, men and women, young and old.
But that’s a stock phrase to express the sum total of the population. Be like if a magician popped out at a birthday party and said, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, even though it’s an 8 year old girls party. And so there are only girls there and only moms that brought them. It’s just a stock phrase. It means everybody.
Everybody that’s here. Even then, they don’t necessarily kill everyone. It says quite carefully they destroyed with a sword every thing in it, not those who fled. In fact, you can read later. In Joshua, we know that they often fled the battles and were not then killed.
Joshua 10:20. So Joshua and the Israelites defeated them completely. But a few survivors managed to reach their fortified cities. So again, what we have here is not invaders attacking an innocent nation. We have oppressed slaves rising up against bloodthirsty conquerors.
If you read this story and you are picturing Joshua as Hitler and Israel as Germany in World War II, you need to revise your image. This is much more like Jews rising up in Dachau to throw off their Nazi guards. All of this understanding changes our understanding then of God’s purpose. Because again, it means it’s not Israel invading for the purpose of conquest. In fact, it’s not even Israel really doing anything at all.
It’s God who’s doing something. The ridiculousness of the story makes this clear. This is not based on power or strategy. I mean, the plan, as we saw, is absolute insanity unless God shows up.
It’s like the Red Sea, as I keep saying. Exodus 14:14. Moses says to the people who are panicking, the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still phrase shows up again. Addie, read it for us earlier today.
Be still and know that I am God. And we think this is talking about our quiet times, right? We’ve got our little hobby lobby, Be still and know that I am God sign next to the you know this house runs on Jesus and coffee sign in our kitchen. This is not a verse for tired moms, guys. The verse comes in a holy war context.
That’s why Addie, read the whole psalm for us where God’s saying, I’m gonna break the bow, I’m gonna shatter the spear. I will make wars cease to the ends of the earth. Israel is not fighting for God to expand his empire. What is happening here is that God is fighting for Israel to dismantle ungodly empires. If you were here with us when we did our people God killed series, or if you were here even in Revelation when we talked about some of the hard hell passages, you’ll be familiar with the idea of, quote, quarantine.
Like, that’s what’s happening here. As God is saying, enough evil can go this far and no farther, or amputation is the image Jesus gives us for it. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, because there’s an infection that will kill you. And there’s an infection that will destroy the earth, and God is against it. God is kicking the hell out of earth, and he does so by Establishing the first colony of heaven Earth.
Joshua Ryan Butler, in his excellent book the Skeletons in God’s Closet, writes this true holy war is not when we strap bombs to our chests and say, we will fight for God. But it’s contradiction when God steps in for the vulnerable and defenseless and says, I will fight for you. So how do we reconcile the violence of conquest with God’s love? We have to look at the purpose of the war. God is making war on violence.
This is God’s holy love poured out against the destructive power of sin. It is like pouring water on a fire. Yes, it destroys the fire, but for good, to keep that fire from consuming the house. God’s purpose is peace. To bring peace, he has to destroy evil.
And let’s not forget the possibility of redemption that is there. Throughout this whole story, everyone in Jericho had heard stories of God like Rahab, why not turn and and be saved then? I mean, that’s all the way back before they even start marching. And then six days Israel marches around Jericho and on the seventh day, they march around seven times. Think about how much time they had to repent.
It’s like Noah building the ark. Took them 120 years to build a boat. That’s 120 years for the people on Earth to go, maybe I should get saved. Like, maybe I should figure out what this boat is doing here. Why is this army marching around?
We know what’s about to happen. Like some saw and responded. Why didn’t the rest of them? This makes sense of another difficult passage in scripture, by the way. Romans 1, where it says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.
They suppress the truth. They know about God. They know who God is because God has made it plain to them so that they are without excuse. That’s Jericho. They saw the Exodus, the Red Sea.
They saw the crossing of the Jordan River. They were without excuse. They knew who God was.
And we know they knew enough because some saw that, offered grace and seized it, Rahab and her family. And the gate of the city was shut tight, but her window was open, just like her heart was open.
Where are you today? Because we’re in that Noah building the boat. Time. We’re in that marching around the city time. If you have not yet responded to the offer of grace, today would be a great day.
God is giving you time to turn and to grab his grace to bring his peace. God makes war on violence. He is so patient. He is so Slow to anger. But he must eventually address evil.
And that is actually what we all want as well. We want him to put an end to evil. We need to know that evil has an expiration date.
Let me make one last point, though, just before we close, because I haven’t hit this yet. God punished the wickedness of Jericho, but it was not because Israel wasn’t wicked.
Moses said that to them. Deuteronomy 9:4. Do not say to yourself, the Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness. No, it is on account of the wickedness of those nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. Israel didn’t deserve the promised land.
Don’t believe me? Just read the rest of the Old Testament. They did not deserve the the promised land. You and I don’t deserve grace. Wouldn’t be grace otherwise.
We come into this world under the ban, devoted to destruction. We are by nature objects of wrath, dead in our transgressions and sins.
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. Could there be sweeter words in any language? How can this be, though? How can we who are under wrath be made alive, reconciled to God?
How are we not still under the ban? It is because Jesus Christ put himself under the ban in our place. And he was completely destroyed, devoted to God in our place. In the holiest war, God’s war against sin and death, there was only one casualty. And he died for you and me.
That we might live for him and love for. That is why at this point, we do what Jesus did and we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We don’t have to do holy war anymore. Our holy war is the proclamation of this good news. There is a way to escape judgment in Christ.
Let’s pray.
Father, we freely acknowledge our wickedness, our sin and unrighteousness, that we do not deserve the riches of grace that you have offered us. We are no different than Jericho. The only difference is that you have opened our hearts, our eyes and our minds to receive the grace that you have offered. And so God, may that reminder stir in us a deeper love for, a deeper gratitude for our salvation, a deeper commitment to holiness, a deeper trust. And the only one who could make a way for us to be saved.
May it also stir in us a fervor for evangelism to make sure that everyone everywhere knows who you are, the coming judgment and the way to escape it. I pray for those in this room who do not know you. I hope the gates are not shut tight. I hope the windows are open and that this message is getting in. But God, would you open their hearts and eyes and minds to receive grace?
By faith, even now we pray in Christ’s name.
Amen.