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Thom Keller: Joshua's submission shows that he was surrendered to God. Only in the upside-down economy of God is surrender the right attitude to take before you go into a battle. That doesn't work in the world's economy.

But in God's economy, the only way to face a battle is by first surrendering to God because it's in that surrender that comes the sweet victory.

Narrator: Hello and welcome once again to Study the Word with Thom Keller of Calvary Chapel Lebanon. We've come in our study of the book of Joshua to chapter 5, and we'll be confronted with the way God does things.

We'll discover, as Joshua did, that the preparations and plans to conquer Jericho would not be what you might expect. No building of ladders to scale the wall or the making of spears and other such implements of war, but God's plan would be first circumcision, the Passover celebration, no more manna, and total surrender to God.

And remarkably, they obeyed, realizing to conquer Jericho, they would need God, His power and His plan. These are important lessons for us today. So, let's get started from Joshua chapter 5, beginning in verse 1. Here's Pastor Thom.

Thom Keller: When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived along the Mediterranean coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralyzed with fear. Now, the Amorites and the Canaanites are terms that are really describing the same people. These are the people that lived between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, that whole area that we would know as Israel today.

Prior to Joshua going in, they would have been occupied by the Amorites and Canaanites. A key to chapter 6 is what we're reading here in the beginning of chapter 5, that the people were paralyzed with fear. Remember, the word there for "paralyzed" really in Hebrew means to liquefy, that the heart melts away, washes away before them. To liquefy—they're that terrified.

Remember Rahab in chapter 2 told the two spies, "For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea." So, the people of Jericho were living in terror because they knew that these Israelites were coming, several million strong. They also knew that God had parted the Red Sea for them earlier, 40 years earlier than this.

So they're terrified. Now, they hear the Jordan parts and they're coming toward them. They're even more paralyzed with fear. But before we go into Jericho, God wants some things taken care of. But they're right now, they're about a mile and a half from the river and they're waiting to go into Jericho, which is about seven miles from the river.

Verse 2: At that time the Lord told Joshua, "Use knives of flint to make the Israelites a circumcised people again." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. Joshua had to circumcise them because all of the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness.

Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus during the years in the wilderness had been circumcised. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until all the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the Lord, and the Lord vowed that He would not let them enter the land He had sworn to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

So Joshua circumcised their sons who had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land, those who had grown up to take their fathers' places. After all the males had been circumcised, they rested in the camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt."

So the place has been called Gilgal to this point. This is an incredibly telling story that we just read because what it says is that none of these children, none of these men had been circumcised—none of them. Now, you can read past that and not take a lot out of that, but think about what it means.

In Leviticus 12, God told Moses that on the eighth day every male child must be circumcised. He told them that when they came out of Egypt. Yet not one child was circumcised, not one. Because it says the entire male population, not one son had been circumcised.

So there wasn't even a little window of time in that 40 years where they obeyed even this law. It says over and over that the children of Israel were rebellious to the core that whole time. This is one little proof of how rebellious they really are. In Exodus 12, God told Moses, "An uncircumcised male may never eat of the Passover lamb."

Put it together. None of these men were circumcised. The law prohibited them from taking part of the Passover meal, which means they either never celebrated the Passover, or if they did, all of these men participated and were absolutely forbidden to for the whole 40 years. How do we know that? They were never circumcised during the whole 40 years. It is just one more evidence of their disobedience to the core.

In verse 10, it says while the Israelites were camped at Gilgal in the plains of Jericho, they celebrated the Passover. This may be the first one they celebrated. But even if it wasn't, it was the first one they were legally allowed to celebrate. They celebrated the Passover in the evening of the 14th day of the first month that marked their Exodus from Egypt.

They're enjoying the Passover. It sounds like it's a very festive time. They celebrated the Passover. They're about to go into the Promised Land. It made me think about what it's like to be living and immersed in sin. Have you ever been to that place where your life is just filled with sin and you know it, you hate it, but not enough to walk away from it?

At some point, you make the decision to flee. You make a decision to leave that life. And you've done that. If you've done that, do you remember the freedom that comes on the other side of that? The lightness that comes, the celebration that there is just in life to walk away from that kind of a lifestyle?

In Psalm 40, the psalmist says this: "He listened and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the bog and the mire, and set my feet on a hard, firm path and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing of praises to my God."

His offer is to lift you out of the bog, out of the mire, and to put your feet on a hard path and to steady you. Not only does He lift you up and put you on a hard path, He then steadies you as you walk along. It's a beautiful promise of God.

Verse 11: The manna goes away. Verse 11: The very next day they began to eat unleavened bread and roasted grain harvested from the land. No manna appeared that day, and it was never seen again. So from that time, the Israelites ate from the crops of Canaan. No more manna. 40 years of manna.

There were some people that never knew anything but manna. Manna and carrots and baby formula. Manna milk, manna waffles, manna burgers, manna-cotti, manna banana bread, manna souffle. What kind of desserts can you make out of manna? The cookbooks are done. The guy that was making money selling those manna cookbooks, he's finished because there's no more manna.

Why did God give them manna in the first place? It was kind of bland. It was just kind of a set meal every day. There wasn't much excitement in it. And it symbolizes what life is like in the wilderness. God promises to sustain us even when we're living in the wilderness, but it's not very tasty. It's not the abundant life.

They learned sufficiency, that God will always be sufficient even when we walk away. He is sufficient. But now as they walk in obedience, God's going to teach them about the lovingkindness of God. Jesus said this: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you."

Jesus said that it gives your Father great delight to give you the kingdom. Who of you as a parent doesn't want to see your child enjoy life? It's the same thing with God. Now they're walking out of the wilderness into the Promised Land, into this land of rest.

Verse 13 says: As Joshua approached the city of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man facing him with a sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you friend or foe?" "Neither one," he replied. "I'm commander of the Lord's army." At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. "I am at your command," Joshua said. "What do you want your servant to do?"

The commander of the Lord's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for this is holy ground." And Joshua did as he was told. The word that's used for the drawn sword here, it says the angel drew his sword, it's only used two other places in the whole Old Testament. The one was when the angel appears with Balaam and his donkey and draws a sword to keep him from pressing on.

And the second one was when the angel appeared when David took the census and it was a grave sin for him to want to count and revel in the glory of his nation and the numbers of people. And both of those God, the same word is used. God drew His sword, and it was always about judgment. So Joshua does not take this threat lightly.

Joshua's words are the customary greeting for what a soldier would say if you encountered another soldier on the way to a battle or at a battle scene and you did not know who he was. And as he does it, as Joshua asks him the question, this man pulls rank. And who this was really, almost undoubtedly, was the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ.

The reason we know that is this one allowed Joshua to bow down and worship him. Angels do not allow themselves to be worshipped. Whenever you find an angel being worshipped in the Bible, when the person starts to go down onto their knees, they say, "Don't do that. Get up. Worship only God. I am not to be worshipped. I am just one of His messengers."

So when you see an evidence of the Son of Man or a man as it's with a capital M, a lot of your Bibles will say, and they bow down and worship, it's Christ. He was pre-existent. He wasn't just created to be born to the Virgin Mary. He has always been, as God is. He's always been.

And Joshua says, "What do you want your servant to do?" What do you think Joshua expected to hear? They're on their way to battle. They cross the Jordan. They know they're going to Jericho. And the commander of the Lord's army appears, and he bows down and says, "What do you want me to do?"

What do you think Joshua was expecting to hear? Battle plans maybe? Strategy? Logistics? How to go around the city? Instead, all he does is acknowledge God's holiness as an act of worship. All he does is worship God. We're going to talk about that as we go on. How when our eyes are really fixed on Jesus, He can take care of the details.

Joshua's submission shows that he was surrendered to God. And only in the upside-down economy of God is surrender the right attitude to take before you go into a battle. That doesn't work in the world's economy. But in God's economy, the only way to face a battle is by first surrendering to God because it's in that surrender that comes the sweet victory.

Let's go into chapter 6, the fall of Jericho. Now as a little bit of background, this is 10 miles north of the Dead Sea. Seven miles from the Jordan foothills. And the excavations have shown that this city was about seven acres. So the Jericho that we're talking about is about seven acres. That's about nine football fields put together.

So if you can picture nine football fields, that's the size of the city they're coming up to. Dr. John Garstang, the British School of Archaeology, said this: that the wall was a double wall. This is what excavations have shown. The first wall was six feet thick and 30 feet high. And the inner wall was 12 feet thick, this wall was 12 feet thick and 30 feet high.

So both walls were the same height, just the outside wall is thinner, only six feet thick. Part of the wall had houses on the top, and some had houses actually built into the wall, which is obviously the kind that Rahab's house was. It was built into the wall because that's what the Bible says.

Now, Dr. Garstang says that this wall was not built really very well. He said it was not very substantially built, and it was built on a faulty and uneven foundation. So it wasn't done by a really technical crew. This is again to give you the proportion. What I did is I calculated if you give everybody three feet of space, that means if everybody could go this way, this way, this way, and touch somebody, everybody would have nine square feet of space they'd need.

If you took five million people, this is nine football fields. This would be the size of 600,000 fighting men, which is how many fighting men went in. And this would be the area that would be required to take up about five million people, which would be a fairly good guess as to how many people went in. 600,000 fighting men, 600,000 fighting men's wives, men that were too old to fight, women that were too old to be married to men that fight, children.

You can get to five pretty easily. And so what this is, is a mile and a half long. So as people are in the city and they're looking out, they're seeing this is about maybe a quarter of a mile of men marching around the city. That's where we're going, so just picture this thing. That's how much area the fighting men would take up, and this would be the rest. So as people on the wall, they're looking out for three-quarters of a mile and seeing nothing but people.

All directions, they see people everywhere. That's the background. Now, let's get into the story. Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go in and out. But the Lord said to Joshua, "I have given you Jericho, its king, and all its mighty warriors."

Notice He doesn't say "I will give you," He says "I have." It's past tense to God. It's done. "Your entire army is to march around the city once a day for six days. Seven priests will walk ahead of the Ark, each carrying a ram's horn. On the seventh day, you're to march around the city seven times with the priest blowing the horns."

Six days they walk around it, march around the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day, you're to march around the city seven times with the priest blowing their trumpets. "When you hear the priest give one long blast from the horns, have all the people give a mighty shout. Then the walls of the city will collapse and the people can charge straight into the city."

So Joshua called together the priests and said, "Take up the Ark of the Covenant." And again, the Ark of the Covenant was that four-and-a-half-foot by two-and-a-half-foot box made out of gold for the most part, acacia wood overlaid with gold, a solid gold lid, angels on the top, manna inside, Aaron's rod inside, Ten Commandments inside. And they're carrying this Ark in front of this proceeding.

"Take up the Ark of the Covenant and assign seven priests to walk in front of it." So the Ark's being carried in front of all the fighting men with seven priests in front of that. And then he gave the orders to the people: "March around the city and the armed men will lead the way in front of the Ark of the Lord."

After Joshua spoke to the people, the seven priests with the rams' horns started marching in the presence of the Lord, blowing the horns as they marched. And the priest carrying the Ark of the Lord's Covenant followed behind them. Armed guards marched both in front of the priests and behind the Ark, with the priests continually blowing the horns.

"Do not shout, do not even talk," Joshua commanded. "Not a single word out of any of you until I tell you to shout." So this is being done in absolute silence. Not a word is being spoken. Can you imagine five million people walking in absolute silence? You can just almost hear the shuffling, but nothing else.

When Sue and I were in Haiti one time, we lost the Jeep in a river, a swollen river, and we got out of it. They put us in a pickup truck until morning. So we slept in the front of a pickup truck. It was very warm and so the inside of the pickup truck became completely condensation on the inside. You couldn't see out, which was okay because we didn't really want to see out. We wanted to sleep.

And in the morning, we heard this sound. It felt like feet, kind of in a distant marching, but all everywhere, all over the place. I mean, it was loud all around the truck. And I thought, "I wonder what that is." And I wiped away the condensation on the windshield of the truck and there were Haitians all around our truck chewing on sugar cane.

And that noise was all these people chewing on sugar cane. So when I picture this, I picture that same scene, that same sound. These feet shuffling along. And then he says, "Not a single word from any of you until I tell you shout, then shout." So the Ark of the Lord was carried around the city once that day, then everyone returned to camp to spend the night in the camp.

Joshua got up early the next morning. So this is happening early in the morning. Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests began carrying the Ark of the Lord. The seven priests with the rams' horns marched in front of the Ark of the Lord, blowing their horns. Armed guards marched both in front of the priests with the horns and behind the Ark of the Lord.

All this time the priests were sounding their horns. On the second day, they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. Third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day. It says they followed this pattern for six days. Verse 15: On the seventh day, the Israelites got up at dawn and marched around the city as they had done before.

But this time, they walked around the city seven times. The seventh time around, the priests sounded the long blast on their horns. Before this, it had been shorter blasts. Long blast on their horns. Joshua commanded the people, "Shout, for the Lord has given you the city! The city and everything in it must be completely destroyed."

Remember this, must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. "Only Rahab the prostitute and the others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies. Do not take any of the things that are set apart for destruction or you yourselves will be completely destroyed, and you will bring trouble on all of Israel." That in fact happens.

"Everything made from silver, gold, bronze, or iron is sacred to the Lord and it must be brought into His treasury." So the idea is everything's to be destroyed except the valuable metals here: silver, gold, bronze because they can be melted down. When the people heard the sound of the horns, they shouted as loud as they could.

Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed and the Israelites charged straight into the city from every side and captured it. They completely destroyed everything in it: men and women, young and old, sheep, cattle, donkeys, everything. Now, let's just paint this out a little bit more. There's seven priests walking in front of the Ark. Each has a ram's horn, a shofar.

And you know why they call it a shofar? Because you can hear it from so far away. You can count on the technical stuff coming from here, from this church. Tell them you heard it at Calvary Chapel. Tell them that. Yeah, so they're walking around. They're playing these rams' horns. Absolute silence, the horn. Seven times, six times, six days. It takes place early in the morning.

Where are the Israelites? They're around the city watching in absolute silence. Everyone is in silence except the priest blowing the horn. The Israelites are around the city. Where do you think the people of Jericho were? Picture day one. Where do you think they were? Some are in their houses trembling. Some have their doors blocked.

They hear the horns, they hear the horns go away mid-morning. They come out and say, "What happened?" "These guys came out, they walked around the city one time and they blew the horns, they left." "What'd they do? They shoot arrows? They bring a ram?" "No, nothing." "What'd they say?" "No one said anything."

"Where are all the people?" "They're all around the city." "What'd they say?" "They didn't say anything." "What'd they do?" "They all went home." "Really?" Second day, a couple more people go up on the wall. They want to see this. Can you see the first day they're back on the second wall maybe, trying to see over the first wall?

Second day, some people venture up on the first wall and they're hiding over the edge. Third day, fourth day, by the fifth day, sixth day, they're all out on the wall. Wouldn't you imagine it being like that? Six days of the same thing. Curiosity killed the cat. It's going to cause some problems here. And so they're all up on the wall.

I think they're all up on that outer wall by this time. They're kind of, they got their coffee mugs up there, you know? They're eating Little Debbies. They're having a good old time. "What's going on?" This is getting funny. Maybe they even laugh. Maybe they even start jeering at the Israelites. "Is this all you guys can do? Walk around the city, blow your horn?"

You can hear the jokes already. They walk around the city, and so that's what takes place.

Narrator: Not your typical battle plan, but it's God's plan, and His ways are not our ways. You're listening to Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller, and today we've been in the book of Joshua. You can hear this study again by going to ccleb.com.

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