The Conquest of Canaan Completed, Part 2

The strategy of success is to quickly and thoroughly obey God, to quickly follow what he says. And thoroughly fulfill what he says. Don't do it half-heartedly, do it with all of your heart. Do it because that's exactly what God has said to do. And that was Joshua. He wanted to honor his God. That leads to point number two: of main point number two, the success of the conquest.

We looked at the strategy for success. Now, the supernatural in the success. The supernatural in the success. It says in verse number eight, and the Lord delivered them. The L delivered them. Remember, it's God who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. What is the mystery of the kingdom of God? Christ in you, the hope of glory. What did Paul say in Galatians chapter 2, verse number 20? It's Christ who lives in me. That's what it's about. I am dead to myself. I am crucified with Christ, and Christ lives in me.

Listen, the supernatural aspect That takes place every day is that God is in you, and God is in me because it was the Lord who delivered them. Remember, there are no miracles in chapter 11. There are no miracles in chapter 10. Those miracles were when he fought earlier in his battles. There are no miracles here. It's all about God doing a supernatural work in and through his people. So when we go to battle, it's all about God working in and through us. Listen, God doesn't work in and through you unless you are willing to obey what he has said.

If you're willing to obey God, he has a clear path to work through you. But if you're unwilling to obey him and you fight against him and rebel against his authority, there is no clear path for him to work in you and through you. You because your sins have separated you from your God. Psalm 66. So we need to understand that, right? In order for Joshua to be successful, the Lord would have to deliver them. And sure enough, the Lord did. You know, remember back in John chapter 10, verse number 40, it says these words about John the Baptist, and he went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where.

John was first baptizing and he was staying there. And many came to him that is Christ and were saying, While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true, and many believed in him there. One thing about John the Baptist, who, by the way, was the greatest man who ever lived according to Christ, he never performed a miracle. He never did anything supernatural. He never called fire down from heaven. He never did anything by raising people from the dead. He never healed anybody.

He just preached the message. And God said, There's not a man born of a woman greater than John. And all he did was preach the message. All he did was point to the Messiah. That's all he ever did. And Christ says, He's the greatest.

He's the best. He's the most phenomenal. And you see, John needed no miracle. To point people to the Messiah. You know, we tend, you know, let me say it this way: miracles tend to be overrated.

Can I say that? They're overrated. How do we know that? Because Christ said it very clearly in Luke chapter 16. When the rich man who was in hell said, Oh, if you just send somebody back from the grave, they would believe of somebody. If there was their resurrection from the dead. my family would believe and Jesus said very clearly they have Moses and the prophets if they don't believe them they won't believe though one be raised from the dead They won't. They won't believe. Remember the story in John chapter 18?

When the cohort and the temple police came to get Christ, you got about 800 different men there coming to get Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. And you know where Peter, you know, they come and they come and they, Christ meets them at the Garden Garden entry, and he says, Whom do you seek? They say, Jesus the Nazarene. Christ says, I am, and they all fall over backwards, all eight.

Hundred soldiers. Now, listen, if you understand the context of John chapter 18, there's only one person left standing. Guess who that is? Judas. So Judas is coming with 800 men because he's going to betray the Messiah. He comes with them. He says, Whom do you seek? Christ says.

They say Jesus of Nazarene, he says, I am, which is taking you back to Exodus chapter 3 and Exodus chapter 4, the tetragrammat, the great name, the memorial name of God, and they all fall over backwards, and there's. Judas. He's looking at all these 800 men, they all fell over. Then they all got back up again. And Jesus probably cleared his throat and said, Excuse me, whom did you say you were seeking? And they said the exact same thing again: Jesus the Nazarene. You would think that they would say, you know what?

Hey, let me tell you something. We're not seeking anybody. We're looking for the Messiah. We're looking for God because nobody can speak a word, and 800 soldiers fall over back. Because someone speaks a word. You'd think that Judas, having been with Christ, having been one who performed miracles with Christ. Would have been born again. Miracles, my friends, are overrated. It's the message. It's the message that's underrated. We underrate the message. We think that if there are signs and wonders, people will believe.

If the supernatural takes place in front of their faces, they will believe. Let me tell you something.

God is at work through the power of His Word. That is the Message: No one was ever saved by a miracle, and no one was ever saved by music, they were only saved by the message of Almighty God. That's it. That's why when Christ came, he came to preach. Did he do miracles? Yes, because they were part of the credentials of the Messiah, and they would prove that everything in the Old Testament about the Messiah was true. But nobody ever got saved in the New Testament because there was a miracle. People got saved because they believed in the person of Jesus Christ, who he was, and what he said.

The supernatural aspect of the success is that the Lord delivered them. God was at work in Joshua. Just like God is at work in you. But in order for that to take place, the strategy must be: I will quickly and thoroughly obey what God has already said. Which leads us to the third aspect of our second point, and that is the statutes verifying the success.

The statutes verifying the success. Verse number nine says, And Joshua did to them as the Lord. Had told him. Verse number 15: Just as the Lord had commanded Moses' servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord. Had commanded Moses, Joshua obeyed everything. There was nothing he didn't obey. It says that he obeyed everything that God had told Moses. God says to Moses, This is what you do.

Moses says to Joshua, This is what you do. So what does Joshua do? He does what the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob said to his leader Moses. And as Moses commanded him, so he too followed, and thus he was a successful soldier, because it says he did all. That was commanded. Now think about that. He did all that was commanded. There's a very interesting chapter in the Bible, 2 Chronicles 25, about Amaziah. It says this in verse number one: Amaziah was 25 years old when he became king.

Think about that: 25 years old when he became king. And he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. Verse 2. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. Stop right there. You read that, you think, man, King Amaziah, man, he was right on. He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. And then it says this at the conclusion of the verse: yet not with a whole heart. Wow. That is, he didn't do it with all of his heart. He kind of went through the motions. You ever known people like that? This kind of goes through the motions.

They kind of do the show thing. It's not with their whole heart. And that's an indictment among many people today in Christianity because there are a lot of things we do not with a whole heart. We kind of do it because our parents said we need to do it. We kind of do it because the pastor said we need to do it. We kind of do it because, you know, that's just the way it's supposed to be, but we don't want to do it with our whole heart. We kind of want to do it with half a heart. We're going to serve the Lord half-heartedly instead of wholeheartedly.

And Joshua was the guy who did it all because from his whole heart he was committed to doing everything that his God had said. Folks, that's success in the kingdom's economy. That's why Joshua never lost a battle. The one he lost. He refused to seek the face of God. All the other ones, he won. Can you imagine going through life and only having one loss? Just one loss? Going through a season with one loss? Going through your whole career with one loss? Can you imagine the press clippings some pitcher would receive because he went through his 15-year career in Major League Baseball with J?

One lo, or being a coach of whatever school you are, and going through and having one loss in your entire career, you would be the Epitome of coaches. You'd be the number one icon of any other person or coach to follow you because you only had one loss.

Joshua had one loss, and the only reason he lost is because he didn't seek the face of God. And because he didn't, there was sin in the camp, and that sin caused there to be defeat. But he quickly rectified that, didn't he? And we studied that at great length. Because Joshua was a man who wanted to do what God said. The fourth aspect of our second point is the size of his success.

It says in verse number 12, he utterly Destroyed them just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had command. Utterly destroyed them. The size of his success was enormous. You will note that there were some studies that were not destroyed. And that was for a purpose. Because if you go back to Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse number 10. It says these words, When Moses said to Israel, that it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

To give you great and splendid cities which you did not build. Joshua was not to destroy every single city. He was to destroy the enemy who lived in the city. There were some cities, some of the major cities, some of the fortified cities that were plundered and destroyed. But there were a lot of cities on hills that were kept. The way they were, so Israel could just walk right into them and live in them without having to rebuild them. That was the grace of God. And then I want to show you the spoils from the success.

Verse number 14: And all the spoil of these cities and the cattle the sons of Israel took as their plunder. But they struck every man with the edge of the sword, unt they had destroyed them. They left no one who breathed. Certain spoils of the city were for Israel to keep. There was only one city they couldn do then, right? And that was Jericho. And why is that? Because that was the first city they conquered.

What's the significance of that? God gets the first fruit always. Always. The moral of the story is this: that when God gets the first fruits of the first city, all the rest is yours.

If God doesn't get the first fruits of the first city, you're going to have problems. Look at Achan. Look at Israel.

Ach stole from Jericho. He didn't want them to have. I mean, he wanted to keep some of those things for himself, even though he knew what God said. He didn't want to give God the first fruits of his increase.

He wanted to take from God. So, what a God do? God killed him. God caused there to be great defeat in Israel. What's the moral of that story? If you don't give of the first fruits of what God gives you, you are in a heap of trouble.

And some of you here tonight are in. Financial heap of trouble because you don't give the first fruits of your increase.

Think about it. That is that. That is a biblical principle that runs across the board. God wants the first fruits.

You go through the Bible, God is in the first things, He wants the firstborn Son, right? Firstborn Son is mine. If I give you a son, he's mine. You give him to me. I want the firstfruits of your increase. I want the first fruits of everything because that shows me you are committed to making sure I am the priority of your life.

And if you're not comm to making me the priority of your life, you are going to be in for a troubled life. How many people do you know that have a troubled life because they are unwilling to give of the first fruit of what God gives to them?

And here Israel, the spoils of the success. It was all theirs. And Moses said in Deuteronomy 6, you're going to live in cities you didn't build. You're going to draw water from cisterns you didn't dig. It is going to be absolutely phenomenal because God is going to bless you in such an incredible way. And God did. God did. Which leads us to our third point, and that is a summary of the conquest.

The summary of the conquest. There are six things I want you to see really quick. Number one, the territory.

Verse 16, verse 17, you'll note. All the valleys, all the plains, all the lowlands, all the hills. All. All the territory was now theirs. You know In our conquests, we have to learn to gain the victory in the valleys, on the hills, and in the lowlands, the plains. Israel did. And they gained the whole territory. The second thing I want you to see is the time.

Of their victory. Note what it says in verse number 18. It says they waged war a long time with all these kings. How long was that? Folks, let me tell you something.

This was somewhere between five and seven years. How do we know that? We read about Caleb in chapter 14. Caleb tells us that it's been 45 years since he spied out the land when he was 40. That means in Joshua 14, Caleb is 8 years of age. We know that the nation of Israel, after Israel spied out the land when he was 40 years of age, they wandered for 38 more years. Now Joshua was 85, so this long time is somewhere between five and seven years. That speaks to the steadfastness and to the perseverance of Joshua and the nation of Israel.

When you read this account, you think he did it, they won the battle the next day, and it was all done. No, they won the immediate battle the next day, but there was succeeding battles that would take place that would last somewhere between five and seven years, and at no point did Israel quit. They persevered. They kept on keeping on. And that's a testimony to the faithfulness of God to cause them not to quit. From the territory in the time we go to the temperament of the enemy. Listen to what it says in verse number 20.

For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might Receive no m. These people had hardened their hearts. They had heard about the king of Israel, the Lord God of the universe. They had seen the miracles of the Lord God of Israel, and they refused to respond. Folks, let me tell you something about God.

When you hear his word and you do not respond to what it is he says, You slowly but surely harden your heart against his truth. And the longer you hear it, and the longer you see it. And the longer you wait to respond, the harder your heart becomes. Listen to what Paul said in Romans chapter 2. Verse 4: Do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, You are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Because you are unrepentant, because you are unwilling. To turn from your evil ways because you are stubborn in your heart, you refuse to turn, you are storing up wrath for yourselves. You do it yourselves. That's what God says.

Verse 6: Who will render to every man according to his deeds? To those who, by perseverance and doing good, seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But to those Who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there is nothing but wrath and indignation. That's it. You see, we forget that the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 4, I'm sorry, Psalm 44, verse number 21, that God knows your heart.

1 Chronicles 29, 17, God tries your heart. 1 Chronicles 28, 9, God searches the heart. 1 Chronicles 28, 9 again, God understand The thoughts of your heart Proverbs 21, 2, God ponders your heart. Ezra 6. 2, God influences your heart. Psalm 51. God creates a new heart within you. 1 Chronicles 29, 18, God prepares your heart. Acts 16, 14, God opens your heart. 2 Corinthians 4, 6, God enlightens the heart. 2 Chronicles 16, 9, God strengthens the heart. Psalm 112, verse number 8, God establishes the heart.

But God also hardens the heart. That's why the Bible says in Proverbs 23, Son, give me your heart. God will try it, God will strengthen it, God will establish it, God will ponder it, God will search it, and God just keeps doing it and doing it and doing it. And the more you refuse His promptings, the more you turn away from Him and harden your heart. God will end up hardening your heart. And Hebrews 6 says, It is impossible for you to ever repent of your sins again. See, the greatest wrath that God could ever bestow upon man is to abandon him.

And that's what Romans 1 is about. God just gives them over. God gives them over to their lustful passions. God gives them over to their degrading passions. God just gives them over to do what they want to do. That's the worst thing that could ever happen to anybody, is to do what you want to do. We want to do what we want to do, but if we do what we want to do, it's the worst thing that ever happened to us. God abandons us and lets us go down that path, and your heart Is so hardened that God ultimately, like He did with Pharaoh, hardens your heart, and it's impossible for you to ever repent of your sins.

And this is where the king of Hazar and the northern kings were. They hardened their hearts to God, and God then showed them no more mercy and hardened their hearts. What a sad, sad situation. May it be that God would be graceful enough to us. Those of us who do not know the Lord, to respond to what He says so that we do not harden our hearts against Him, so that we end up having Him harden. Our hearts. The third thing are the titans.

The titans. It says in verse 21, then Joshua came at the time and cut off the Anak from the hill country from Hebron. No, the Anak aren't you? Those are the giants they saw when they went in back in Numbers 13. Where everybody saw the giants, they, Oh, they're just too big. We can't defeat them. They saw the giants. Joshua and Caleb saw God. Must have been a great joy for Joshua to kill the giants. Knowing that there are so many who do not believe. And then I want you to notice the title they received.

It says, These words in verse 23. So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel. They received their title. They received their inheritance. It was finally theirs.

After all those years of slavery, over 400 years of slavery. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, they were finally able to win the victory and be in the place of promise.

And look what it says, and this is the last point, the termination. It says, thus the land had rest from more. Isn't that good? This coming a day with the land, our land, will have rest for more. And that's when the king of Israel comes again to defeat the armies of the world. When he defeats them, he sets up his kingdom. He rules from the throne of David. It's called the millennial reign of Christ. When he reigns, there will be rest.