Let us first pray.

“Our God and our Father in heaven, You have said that without faith it is impossible to please You. We do not have faith. This is something we cannot get for ourselves; it is a gift of God. And so now we plead that You would grant us faith to believe the God that is revealed in Scripture, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Now in the Old Testament, there were many wars fought by Israel. There is one particular war that always fascinated me. There was once where Israel fought against the Philistines, and the Philistines defeated them. Now, what happened after that is the Philistines took the ark of God from Israel. They captured the ark of God and brought it back to their home, and they sat it beside their god, Dagon. And so they went away. The next morning they came back and they saw Dagon fallen down on its face. So they quickly pick it up, put Dagon sit nicely beside the ark of God. The next morning, they came again, Dagon was fallen on its face. And this time, he broke into pieces. His face, the palm of his hands, broken.

Now this story always fascinated me because as I read this, I consider a god like Dagon. What a weak god. What a foolish thing it is to worship such a god. What can Dagon do? I know what can Dagon not do. I know Dagon cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel. When Dagon fell down, he cannot even pick himself up. What a weak god. Now today we don’t worship Dagon exactly, but we have set so many other gods, so many other things, created things that are not God but we treat them as god. Ask yourself this question: What can your gods do? Are they weak? Are they small? Today I just want to tell you one thing. I want to tell you what the God of the Bible can do.

The God we worship is the God who saves His people, He is the God who fights for His people, and He is the God who hears His people. The God who saves, the God who fights, the God who hears. Let us start. Now you’ll notice in chapter 10 of Joshua begins in similar fashion as chapter 9 and chapter 11. They all begin with some kind of a recap of the events that have gone on before. And so imagine in chapter 9 they said: Breaking news. Israel has conquered Jericho. They have also captured Ai. Now in chapter 10, an extra development. Breaking news, Israel has conquered Jericho, they have captured Ai, and Gibeon also switched sides already and joined them. So Gibeon now is under Israel. Oh no, not Gibeon! Why? Why Gibeon?

This latest development did not sit well with one guy in particular, and his name is Adoni-Zedek. Verse 1: “Now it came to pass when Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai and utterly destroyed it—as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king—and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were among them, and they feared greatly”. This is bad news. Why? Because Gibeon was a great city like one of the royal cities. And it was and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty. Now here he describes Gibeon as great like one of the royal cities, some kind of a capital city where perhaps some rulers or kings dwell there. An important city, even greater than Ai. The soldiers mightier.

This was a huge loss for them. Now if you want to understand a little bit about the setting as well; if you take a look at the geographical setting, imagine the Promised Land, this land of Canaan is longish. And so by entering this land, Israel is coming through the centre and they’re going westward where they find Jericho there. They’ve taken it; they move west. Somehow they see Ai, they take it. And then next was Gibeon and the surrounding cities, the four cities around Gibeon. And if they took it, they have conquered the central part of the Land. They cut off the north from the south. This was as far as they are concerned having the advantage already.

And so Adoni-Zedek says: No, this cannot be. I’m gonna get some help, and we are gonna take Gibeon back. And therefore this is what he did. In verse 3 we can see he called for his friends, the kings of the south, the Amorite kings. And in verse 4, we see him say: “Come up to me and help me, that we may attack Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel.”. And so that is what they did. These five kings all went to Gibeon, they camped around Gibeon, and they declared war with Gibeon. Now Gibeon of course saw this. What might they be thinking now?

“Hey, look at that, my old friends. Have they heard the news? We are the traitors. We are the ones that switched sides. Did we do something wrong? Did we make a wrong decision? Are we regretting our decision? Why did we leave our old friends? These are the majority. Have which made the wrong decision and joined the minority? Are we sure that we left the losing side to join the winning side?” Now for Gibeon there was no turning back. Look at verse 6: “And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua at the camp at Gilgal, saying, “Do not forsake your servants; come up to us quickly, save us and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who dwell in the mountains have gathered together against us.””.

Now, do you see the intention of the author here? The narrator here already described what Gibeon is like. In verse 2 he just described who Gibeon once was— mighty city, a great city, royal, full of mighty soldiers. And yet listen to them. Does it sound mighty to you? Do you see the narrator here showing us a big difference? Look at the change in Gibeon from pride to a position of humility and lowliness, from royalty to servants. We are your servants. From having mighty soldiers to “we don’t want to fight”. I prefer Israel. I prefer Israel’s soldiers. Do you think Israel’s soldiers are known for fighting skills? No, Gibeon wants Israel to help them not because Israel’s army is strong but because Israel’s God is strong. And so they cry out, urgently cry: “Come up to us quickly! Save us! Help us, Joshua! Joshua!”.

If you could understand what they were saying in their language, they are crying out: “Jehovah is salvation!”. Gibeon’s cry is a correct cry. They cried out correctly because, in their situation, Jehovah is the only One. God is the only One who can save them. Do we ever cry out such a cry like Gibeon? Now we will never cry out such a cry because there is something that we cannot see. Gibeon sees something that many of us do not see. Gibeon saw that judgement was coming. After Jericho, after Ai, it was their turn. They knew that if they stayed on their current course, they were heading for destruction. They could see the danger they were in. They did not want to remain there. They wanted to switch sides. They called out for help.

We would never call out for help like Gibeon did until we see what Gibeon sees. Do you see? Do you see exactly what Gibeon sees that we are on a course headed for destruction? If you all do nothing, we are all heading down this path of destruction. After death comes judgement, and the verdict for all of us is guilty. Now we realise our problem here. We’re headed for destruction because we are going to face a holy God, and we are sinful. Have we come to realise? Can we come to see like Gibeon that there is nothing we can do to save our sins? Can you do anything about your sin? Try to sin less? Can you remove this nature of your, this sinful heart of yours?

Have you come to realise like the hymn says: “Not the labour of my hands can fulfil Thy Law’s demands”? And so we see finally, have you come to see “all for sin could not atone, Thou must save and Thou alone”? Until you see that, you will never cry out like Gibeon did. Jehovah is salvation, and God is about to deliver the Gibeonites. This is the God who saves, and this time He is going to save them using Joshua, using Israel. This is the God who saves, and this God saves using His means. Israel, it’s time for you to go on a rescue mission. Let us switch our focus to Israel. What are their soldiers thinking right now? Rescue mission? And who are we going to rescue? The Gibeonites, our enemies. They are in trouble, serve them right.

Just remember the previous chapter what these Gibeonites did, these deceitful lying bags of dirt. Why should we save them? Let them die. Why trouble yourself? Why should we go on this rescue mission and inconvenience ourselves? Or perhaps they were starting to think: “There are five over there. We’ve never done this before. Do you think we can win? So far we’ve been taking on city by city, yeah one on one. One on one with Jericho, one on one with Ai. Five on one, what makes you think we can win?”. Were they full of excuses? Were they full of fear? No, God assured them here. You see verse 8: “The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear them, for I have delivered them into your hand; not a man of them shall stand before you.””.

You see for Israel, God has given them a work to do. God has given them His word that He will be with them. Is that enough? For Israel, that was enough. Is that enough for you? Have we been given a work to do? Have we been asked to make disciples of every nation? And Jesus says He will be with us. Is that enough for you, or are you going to say why inconvenience yourself? Why trouble yourself? Why drive such a long distance just to reach out to one man or preach the gospel to one person? Why inconvenience yourself? Or perhaps do we give excuses? Maybe we fear the work is too hard. Are you sure we can win? You see, Israel did not give excuses. They did not fear. They responded in faith here. God was with them, and that was enough.

They did not fear the task that was ahead of them, and they went. They went to war, and so the war begins. From the God who saves, we now consider the God who fights. Verse 10: “So the LORD routed them before Israel, killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them along the road that goes to Beth Horon, and struck them down as far as Azekah and Makkedah”. Now over here we have a few verbs describing what God is doing here. Now at the very beginning, we know that this time their strategy is “surprise”. How do we know? You see verse 9 says: “They came upon them suddenly, marching all night”. So they marched all night.

So most probably by the time they reached there, maybe Sun hasn’t risen. Maybe they haven’t woken up. Or perhaps they were just not ready yet. And they came upon them suddenly, and they were in a state of confusion. The LORD routed them (in some translation says “confounded them”), both bearing the same meaning of causing their enemies to be in chaos. Now this word ‘routed’ is often used sometimes in sports where one team totally outplays the other team and demolishes them. And so we have that idea of being a one-sided thing. There is no fight in war. You expect what bing-bong, bing-bong, bing-bong, fight here and there. But here it’s just bing, bing, bing, bing. There’s no retaliation, no fight back. God is the One routing them, killing them, chasing them, striking them down.

They are just in a state of confusion. They’re just running all around. The war hasn’t even started, and they’re already losing. Azekah and Makkedah is continuing towards the west, the neighbouring cities nearby. They quickly ran to the neighbouring cities, but the pursuit was relentless. Verse 11: “And it happened, as they fled before Israel and were on the descent of Beth Horon, that the LORD cast down large hailstones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died.”. Let’s pause for a moment. Look at the word “as they fled”. Who is the ‘they’? The enemies. As they fled, large hailstones came down, and they died. Think about that. The weather changed. Suddenly it started raining down hailstones, and these were large hailstones. The normal hailstones that we find today rarely, rarely kill people.

But these were large hailstones, and they rained down specifically the enemies. It hit the enemies alone. What kind of weather is this? What kind of natural disaster is this? It’s supposed to be random. Shouldn’t rain come down on both the evil and the good? We see here the LORD being utterly in control of everything. Do you know God? Do you know God is utterly in control of everything, even the raindrop dropping down on who, God controls? And if He wants, He can control it in such a way that the large hailstones can come down only, only hitting the enemies. This is not chance. Nobody can read this and say: Oh, they are so lucky today or just nice hit all the enemies and never hit the Israelites. No chance; not random. God is the One. God is the One who did it.

The narrator does not allow us to miss this point as he writes the LORD is the One who did this and this and this. The LORD is the One who is only. He’s the only one capable of making large hailstones come down and hitting the enemy. You can be sure that night when Israel went back to camp, they would not be talking about: “Oh, today I killed so many enemies. Oh, today we won because I was so good.”. You can be sure that that night when they went back to camp, all they would say is: “We have seen marvellous things today. We just obeyed. We just went to war because God asked us to go. God did everything.”.

Imagine they tell stories: “Oh, I wanted to kill this guy; eh, the large hailstones already kill. I want to kill the next guy; eh, dead already. Somebody almost killed me from behind; the large hailstones hit him already.”. God did it. The LORD fought for us; that’s why we won. All glory to God. No boasting and not an ounce of boasting possible when you win in such a way. How about us? Is there boasting? Is there any room? Is there any room for us to say: “Oh, look at that guy. Oh, he’s a Christian now because I’m such a good mentor to him. I preached the gospel to him and now he’s saved.”? So, is there any boasting? Is there any credit for us who do the work of God?

If we can even boast even the slightest bit, it means we do not understand the spiritual nature of the work. Do you understand that when a person becomes a Christian, it is we call it regeneration or new birth? The Spirit is the One who does it. We cannot even help a single bit. All we can say is, of course, I’m not saying that oh okay because God is doing everything we just sit at home and do nothing. We go. We obey like Israel did. God told them to go, they went. God told them to fight, they fought. But at the end- at the end, we will look at it and we will say: God did it, not me. As far as the changing a person’s heart of stone and making it a heart of flesh, God did everything.

Isn’t it encouraging when sometimes there are certain people where we maybe have met once or twice or perhaps we have never even met before? Maybe they found us online and they came across maybe a sermon or maybe we gave out a gospel tract. And then few months later or few years later, we see the person a completely changed person. How? He didn’t know the gospel. He was asking so many questions. How did he suddenly go from here to living a radical changed Christian life? How is it possible? Are we going to pat ourselves on the back and say: Oh, thanks to me. I was the one who uploaded that sermon, and then you heard that sermon.

No, nobody would be thanking ourselves. We understand that this is only God who can do, changing a person like that. All we can say is: “I know not how the Spirit moves convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in Him”. No boasting. The LORD fought for Israel; all glory to God. This is the God who saves. This is the God who fights. Lastly, this is the God who hears. He hears us. Verse 12: “Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.””.

Joshua analysed the situation. He realised that daylight was fading. We are running out of time. Momentum is on our side. We are winning. Why should we stop the war for a while, have a ceasefire, and allow our enemies to regroup? They’re going to escape. They’re going to run away. I want to finish the work. I want to finish it now. Joshua, while doing the work of God, saw a need. And he saw the only one who can meet that need. And therefore he prayed. He asked. He asked God because he knew God is the only One who can answer him here. He needs more time, and so he asked for more time. Amazing prayer.

“So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher (this Jasher is a record of all the wars that happened)? The sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and it did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There has been no day like that before, before it or after it, that the LORD heeded the voice of a man”. How is this possible? Why would God who is in charge of the entire universe, why would God listen to you, listen to us, listen to insignificant creatures like men? The answer is just there, “for the LORD fought for Israel”.

Now, this prayer reminded me of a story I once read quite some time ago. Now in 1540, there is this man, not so famous. His name is Friedrich Myconius. Now he was dying, and he wrote a farewell letter to his friend. Now this friend we know. His friend is Martin Luther. Now when he wrote this farewell letter to his friend Martin Luther, Martin Luther wrote back to him. And it was an amazing reply. Listen to these words. Martin Luther said: “I command thee to live. I still have need for you in the work of reforming the church. God will never let me hear you die, but permit you to survive.”. This is Martin Luther.

But how he ends is even more amazing: “I am praying this. This is my will, and may my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of God.” You see when we listen to prayers like the prayer of Joshua, the son of Nun, or the prayer of Martin Luther, most people would say these people have no reverence for God. Do they know who they are? How dare they ask for something so big, so audacious, so bold. But I don’t think so. I think Martin Luther and Joshua, these are not men who are overstepping some boundaries. No, these are men of faith. These are men who know their God. Their God is a big God, and therefore they do not ask little, little things, small little things. When they have a need, they know who can answer this need.

And they are not ashamed to ask for big things because they can see that their God is a big God. Is your God a big God, or is your God small, and so you only ask the little, little things from Him? You don’t dare to ask big things from Him. But one thing in common that Martin Luther and Joshua here have in their prayer is their desire. Joshua wants to finish the work, and time was running out. He prayed for more time. God’s glory is at the foremost of his mind, just like Martin Luther: “I pray that my will be done”. Why? “Because I seek the glory of Your name”. These two men showed us an example of how to truly pray, just like the Lord’s prayer: “Hallowed be Thy name”.

Above all things, this should be our purpose. This is what is the foremost in our minds and in our hearts. Above all things I want to see God’s name be glorified, God’s name be honoured. And because of this number one purpose, everything I ask for is for that purpose. I can ask for anything if it is for that purpose. Sometimes people ask: is it okay to pray for oh a big car? Is it okay to pray for more money? Is it okay? And I always say oh yeah, of course, okay. Now tell me what you’re going to use it for. Can you give God reason to answer you? When we have people like just like in Martin Luther’s case- dying, sick, how do we pray for these people? Oh please God, make them well so that they can live on happily in this world.

See, Martin Luther, he prayed: Give him more time. I need him for the work of God, for the work of reforming the church. Can you back up your prayers with reason? Think about the purpose you pray. Joshua, he knows God. He has faith that God will hear him. For Joshua, the sky wasn’t the limit. He prayed for the Sun to stop. There was no limit to what Joshua can ask for because Joshua fought for the LORD, and he knows the LORD is fighting for Israel. This is our God- the God who saves, the God who fights, the God who hears. Now I cannot end here because there’s one final warning that I must give. You see, there’s one more guy that we didn’t really talk about much. Adoni-Zedek, his name means “god of righteousness”.

Oh, what a high-sounding name- righteousness. But his life, the total opposite. His name meant nothing to him. Adoni-Zedek, oh god of righteousness, praising God maybe? Talking about righteousness when he is not. His life utter opposite. He lived in this land with his kingdom all in opposition to God, remaining hardened until the end. A few weeks ago we looked at one of the Psalms (Psalm 124), where we said imagine. Can you imagine what it would be like if the LORD had not been on our side? Now Adoni-Zedek will tell you don’t need to imagine. Let me tell you. Let me tell you what is it like when God is not on your side.

When God is not on your side, even before the war begins you are losing already. Even before the Sun rose my soldiers are all running for help, all dying here, dying there. If God is not on your side, even the weather is not fair. Even a hailstone drop down no need to hit them, only hit my people. If God is not on your side, there is no hope of you winning. Even if some of my men managed to escape and then maybe they run here, run there. Maybe they escaped. They dodged the hailstones. They dodged for one hour, two hours, and then they looked at their watch as if they got watch. They looked: Eh, why time not moving one? The Sun is standing still. Why is the Sun not moving? The Sun is not going to move until the hailstone hit you.

How do you win a war like that? Their God can even stop time until all the enemies are destroyed. Can you run away? Some tried. If you were to read on for the entire chapter, this is what you will find. The narrator continues after verse 15 to describe what happened on this very, very long day. This is one day because in verse 15 and verse 43 you will see an echo there: “Then Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.”. So there is an echo there showing us that this is actually one very long day, and he continues to describe what happened on this long day. And some ran away. Some tried. You see in verse 20: “some escaped and entered fortified cities”.

The narrator loves this. He loves to describe Jericho as so securely shut, very secure. Then the walls came tumbling down. They escaped into fortified cities. Oh, very safe. But what goes on after that is this, the narrator tells us it’s almost some kind of a chorus form. It’s almost like singing a song. They went from Makkedah to Libnah, from Libnah to Lachish, from Lachish to Eglon. And everywhere they went, the same thing happened. You will see the repeated words: “they were utterly destroyed”; “there were none left remaining”.

Adoni-Zedek will tell you, you don’t want to be an enemy. You don’t want to be opposed. You don’t want to continue to reject this God because there’s no way- no way you can win, no way you can escape. And this judgement that is falling down from the sky, these large hailstones remind us of judgement, the anger of God like how He sent the flood to destroy the entire earth, like how He rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. It is an act of judgement coming down. And for them, this is the longest day ever. This day cannot end. Judgement will come down and fall down. There’s no relieve. This is what happens if the LORD is not on your side.

Adoni-Zedek is teaching us something here. You can have a very high-sounding name. Maybe your name or your tag, you carry the name, Christian. Perhaps you are even calling yourself member of a church. It is possible to have such a nice name; your life total opposite to it. There’s no point. Your name is not gonna save you. This is the southern conquest of Israel. In trying to rescue and defend Gibeon, they ended up taking the entire south, and this is how they did it. And with this, I will close. Verse 42: “All these kings and their land Joshua took at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel.”. Let us pray.

“O God, our Father in heaven, we plead for mercy, for we are people who are opposed to You. And as enemies of God, we can only expect the worst. We pray this day while there is still time, while You still give us time that none of us would remain in opposition to You, none of us would remain hardened, continue to reject You, but cry out like Gibeon. Cry out Joshua, cry out Jesus, for He is the only One who can save us, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.