“Strange Way to Start” – FBC Morning Light (3/13/2024)

Well, a good Wednesday morning to you. I trust you're having a good week thus far. Today in our Bible reading, we're in Joshua chapters 5 through 7, and I want us to stop and think a little bit about the way this conquest of the land begins.

When you think about it from a simply militarily strategic standpoint, it seems like this conquest is a little bit, shall we say, inefficient.

Here's what I mean. Chapter 5 begins. So this first verse in our reading today, it says,

So it was when all the kings of the Amorites, who were on the west side of the Jordan, and this is, you know,

Israel has now passed over the Jordan River, they're on the west side. When they heard, all the kings of the

Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we had crossed over, that their heart melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel.

The inhabitants of Canaan are terrified. They've heard about how the

Lord dried up the Jordan River, and the two million people of Israel crossed over the

Jordan River without getting their feet wet, and they knew that it was their

God who did this, who stopped up the waters so that they could get across, and they're terrified.

They're terrified. It's like the wind went out completely out of their sails. Now is the time to attack.

Now is the time to attack. Go after them when they are so scared, so fearful, right?

Well, that's not the Lord's ways. Our ways are not always His ways, and His ways aren't always our ways, right?

The enemy's frightened, so it seems like now is the time to attack. But instead, we have this systematic delay.

Now remember, yesterday I mentioned when Rahab left the scarlet cord out her window.

She had no idea how long it would be hanging out that window. Now we get a little bit of a sense of how long that actually was, because at the end of chapter 2, the spies return to where Joshua was and tells them what happened, and then in chapter 3, verse 1, the next day, it says

Joshua rose in the morning, and they set out from where they had been camped, and they moved closer to the

Jordan, and then it says three days later that the officers went throughout the camp, so already four days since the spies have gotten back.

It says after three days, the officers went through the camp, and they commanded the people and said, tomorrow the

Lord is going to begin to do this for you. You're going to cross the Jordan. So there's five days, and so they cross the

Jordan River on the next day, and first thing they do is they set up these memorial stones, and we read in chapter 4 that it was the 10th day, chapter 4, verse 19, people came up from the

Jordan on the 10th day of the first month. So several days have passed since the spies have returned.

Given their report, Israel has crossed into the land. When they cross into the land, all the

Canaanites are scared. Now's the time to attack, right? Well, you would think, but no. Instead, what the

Lord does in chapter 5 is he tells Joshua to have all of the men circumcised.

Yeah, this is what the Lord says to do. In verse 2, it says, at that time the

Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives for yourself and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time, and the

Lord goes on to explain. He says, all the men who were in Egypt, when I first delivered

Israel from Egypt, they were all circumcised, but everybody, all the males who were born in the wilderness, they haven't been circumcised.

All the original people from Egypt, they're dead. They've died in the wilderness, and all of those who are now risen up in their place, they're not circumcised, so you need to circumcise them.

Well, of course, that's a little bit of a surgical procedure and requires some healing after the fact, so there's going to be a time delay.

These guys aren't going to go through that process and then the next day go fight a battle, so there's that time delay.

Then we read in verse 10 of chapter 5, the children of Israel camped in Gilgal.

This is where that circumcision took place and so forth, and they kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight, so there's another delay.

They're having this Passover feast, and then finally in chapter 6, we read about the instructions to go attack

Jericho, but this isn't going to happen immediately either. There's going to be another time delay.

The Lord says you're not going to attack them right away. What you're going to do is you're going to march around the city. You're going to blow some trumpets.

Other than that, you're going to be quiet. You're going to march around the city and go back to camp. You're going to do that again the second day.

March around the city, blow some trumpets, go back to camp. You're going to do that for six days. On the seventh day, you're going to march around the city seven times and you're going to blow the trumpets and let out a shout, and the walls are going to fall down, and you can go in and attack the city.

Another week is going to go by before the first attack is ever launched, the first real attack is ever launched.

That seems awfully inefficient. It's not the way we would go about attacking an enemy that is afraid, is it?

No, militarily speaking, not a great strategy. So what do you think is the point of all this?

What do you think is the point of all this? If that's not, from our standpoint, strategically the best way to win a battle, what do you think the

Lord's point is he's trying to drive home? I think we get an indication at the end of chapter 5 and verses 13 to 15, where Joshua sees a man standing opposite him with a sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua goes up to him and says, are you for us or for our adversaries?

And he says, no, I'm a commander of the army of the Lord I've come. And how does Joshua respond?

Falls down on his face to the earth and worships and says to him, what do you want him, what do you want me to do?

What do you, what does the Lord say to me, his servant? I'll do whatever he says for me to do.

And the commander says, take your sandal off your foot, the place where you stand is holy. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Takes you back to Moses's commission at the burning bush. I think the point of all of this delay, if you want to call it that, is to remind

Joshua and therefore the people of Israel that they need to trust the

Lord, trust the Lord to give victory, and then simply obey what he has to say.

Okay, Lord, here we are, what do you want us to do? We will do it. I think that's the prayer that needs to be on our lips every morning when we get up, isn't it?

Okay, Lord, new day, here I am, what would you have me to do? And then trust him as he gives direction for your life.

Our Father and our God, I pray that we would. I pray that we would. When things don't seem to work out the way we think they ought to and don't seem to be the most effective way of doing things,

Lord, just help us to trust you and to listen to your word and to obey it, follow it, and we ask that you would therefore bless.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your