ALL THE WORDS OF THE LAW

Joshua 8:1-35

Key Verses: 8:34-35

“Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law--the blessings and the curses--just as it is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the aliens who lived among them.”

It has been observed and said that three enemies stand in our way to God's kingdom (our spiritual Promised Land): 1) the world; 2) self; and 3) Satan. The world exists largely in the physical dimension. The self exists in the human dimension. Satan exists in the spiritual dimension. When Jesus came he was tested on all three of these levels (cf. Matt. 4:1-10). It has also been observed and said that Jericho is symbolic of the world (which puts money over God), Ai is symbolic of the flesh (which puts man above God), and Gibeon is symbolic of Satan (spiritual deception, mainly coming in the form of legalism). 

We can study Joshua 7 and 8 together in one lesson since they both talk about the campaign against humanism (the idea that says that man is above God, the Creator). But we separated these two for the sake of convenience, for doing otherwise might be slightly overwhelming. Chapter 7 talked about how the Israelites "failed" in this battle, but now in chapter 8, we see how they "won." In Chapter 7, the Lord helped his children to remove the spiritual tumor of unrepented sin. And here, we have several details on how to wage the battle against our flesh and win. 

Let us note that the battle is the Lord's battle, not our own.  Specifically, this means that the Lord wants to achieve the goal he has for us, that is, to restore us to his image so that we can live by his Spirit rather than by our own feelings, ideas, or will. 

Let us also not underestimate the battle. The flesh will fight back. Humanism is strong. It is not a pushover. See how Nicodemus kept talking back to Jesus. See how our flesh ever so treacherously tries to deceive us and cause us to be defeated. Just as Ai looks "deceptively" weak, so too our body, the force of humanism, looks deceptively weak. And in fighting against this tricky enemy of both the Lord as well as ourselves (we who are born of God’s Spirit), we can NEVER afford underestimating the strength of this enemy. With this in mind, let us think about the passage in four parts:

I. Go up and attack Ai (1-2)

Look at vs. 1-2. "Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city."

When we compare this passage with Joshua 6:17-19 we can see that in the case of Jericho the Lord did not allow the Israelites to take material things, but in the case of Ai, the Lord allowed them to take such things. This indicates that the purpose of the battle against Jericho is to teach the Israelites how to conquer materialism. It is like the Lord God giving Abraham material training, so he would know how to tithe, how to put God above money, how to solve the “money problem” through faith in God, etc. In other words, so that Abraham and his descendants would not end up becoming like the descendants of the first man Adam, who sought money, money, and money all the time, but would rather learn to seek first God's kingdom and God's righteousness (cf. Deu 8:33; 3:19). 

Having taught them how to seek God first rather than money first, the Lord God is ready to teach the Israelites how to seek God first rather than seeking after one's own fleshly desires. The purpose of the battle against Ai is to help them fight against what is of the human flesh. So at this time the Lord God allowed them to take material things. 

When we study Genesis 1 and 2, we can see that the Lord God created the world with three basic dimensions: God, mankind, and the world. In this creation order we see God coming first, mankind second, and the world third. When we keep this spiritual order, we can enjoy our life to the full. If this order is confused, however, then we become confused. Our lives will be less than satisfactory. In fact, as we persist in living against this creation order, we will only see the kingdom of hell growing within us. 

For this reason the Lord God wants us to overcome what is human and struggle to attain to what is divine. And we see this theme repeating itself again and again in the account of the Lord's efforts in dealing with the conflicts within men - the conflicts between Cain and Abel, Lot and Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, and even Jacob and Israel. Cain and Abel represent evil and good, respectively. The Lord God advised Cain to overcome his evil urge. He wanted him to master his sinful desires (Gen 4:7). Likewise, Lot was Abraham's nephew. Like Abraham he was a fellow believer (a “Christian” in the modern parlance). Yet, caught by fleshly desires, he was constantly lured to what was fleshly. Genesis 13:10 says, “Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar.” (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) Eventually Lot went into the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. But Abraham stayed in the Promised Land. He kept praying for Lot. In this way, through Abraham the Lord God helped Lot to overcome himself and be saved. In yet another example, Ishmael refers to slavery to sin whereas Isaac symbolizes freedom from the power of sin (Gal 4:24-25). Ishmael also refers to the fruit that comes out of human ideas, whereas Isaac refers to the fruit that comes out of following God's promise(s). So the Lord God commanded Abraham to send Ishmael away, and to only keep Isaac. Through this discipline the Lord God helped Abraham to live by what God says rather than by what Abraham thinks is right or true or whatever. God's training to help his children to rise above the earthly level and to God's level continues in his efforts to deal with the conflicts between Esau and Jacob - the twin sons of Isaac. Esau has another name, Edom. Edom means red. It is also a close synonym to Adam, which means dirt or simply clay. So while Esau is symbolic of the flesh, Jacob is symbolic of the spirit. As a man of the flesh Esau focused on what was fleshly, but Jacob was different. Jacob was thoughtful about the future. He learned to control his desire for immediate gratification and to rather go for what is of long-term value. But Esau did the opposite. His value system was fixed on what is temporary, limited, and short living. We see Esau's stupidity and shortsighted-ness in the passage recorded in Genesis 25:34. "Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright." Ate, drank, got up, left, and despised. Is this different than the philosophy of people who say, "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die"? Let us not despise the birthright. If you believe in Jesus and accept him as Lord and Savior, you are born of God. Then you are a child of God. “What rights do I have as a child of God's?” you may ask. But actually, it means a lot. Being a child of God holds a lot of great promises which are mostly in the future. 

The Lord's effort to help his children to rise from the fleshly level to the godly level continued even in helping one person, Jacob, the progenitor of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. An example of the Lord struggling to help Jacob rise from the physical level to God's level is found in his wrestling match at the Jabbok River, especially in giving him a new name, Israel. Jacob means deceiver. But Israel means one who struggled with God and won. 

Many Christians think that once he or she has believed in Jesus, everything is “Gonna be all right.” They think that they are all "set." But this is not true. If they are set, they are set to embark on a new journey - not the kind of journey that circles ‘round and ‘round, around the same circle like a hamstring on a wheel - but the spiritual journey that gains a higher level of spiritual growth each and every day. Speaking of the same truth, in many places of the Bible, the apostles keep exhorting us to "grow up." In 1 Peter 2:2 the Apostle Peter says, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation..." In Ephesians 4:15 the Apostle Paul says, "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." Hymn 278, "Higher Ground" (in our hymnal, Worship In Song), exhorts us to do the same thing. Let us sing v. 1 of 278, "I'm pressing on the upward way. New heights I'm gaining every day. Sill praying as I onward bound, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. Lord lift me up and let me stand. By faith on heaven's tableland. A higher plane than I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground!" 

II.  Take the whole army with you (1-2)

Look at vs. 1-2 again. "Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city." 

This passage lays down specific ways in which to capture Ai. In v. 1, the Lord said, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." In the previous try Joshua failed ever so shamefully. How? He failed because he did not rid his army of the hidden sin. Plus, he did not rely on the Lord's counsel. Rather he relied on his own wits and ideas. Thus he failed. Failure breeds fear. Failure causes us to lose heart. But no matter how many times we fail we must still listen to the Lord's exhortation to try again. We must not repeat our past mistake, that is, to rely on our own ideas and ourselves, but rather to listen to what the Lord has to say. 

And what does the Lord say? Look at v. 1 again. He says that Joshua must take the whole army. The people of Ai numbered about 12,000. But the Lord's army numbered about 40,000. In his previous attempts, Joshua assigned only a few thousand, but this time the Lord God asked Joshua to take the whole army and then attack Ai. This order reminds us of the need for us to “muster” (or devote, if you will) our "best" as well as "all" of the available resources we have in fighting against the evil desires working in our body which is dead because of sin. The command to go up and attack teaches us that we should never remain passive but rather be proactive in fighting against the fleshly desires. Like Jacob who devoted himself to studying God's word and who struggled all night in a wrestling match with an angel of the Lord, we must be very aggressive in defeating the sinful nature working ever surreptitiously in our life. Notice that in the case of the battle against Jericho, it was the Lord who did the fighting from beginning to end. All that Israel had to do was believe and obey. This is like Jesus giving his disciples Matthew 6:33. But this is not so in us fighting against the fleshly desires. This enemy sits within us. Because God gave us a free will, it is each of us who (through God's help) must do the fighting. The Lord's promise, "I have delivered [Ai]" reminds us of the fact that Jesus has already won the battle on the cross. Speaking of the same transaction the Scripture says that Christ died while we were yet sinners! The Lord's command to annihilate Ai is reminiscent of the Lord's command to have our sinful nature crucified, as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." More directly than this, the Lord Jesus said in Mark 8:34-35 that we must not only deny ourselves but also lose our life for the sake of the gospel and Jesus. The strategy to lure the soldiers of Ai into the open field, set an ambush, destroy the whole army, and set the city on fire, is reminiscent of the Lord's command to take an inventory of the enemies inside of us like evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly, and to put to death all the misdeeds of the body through the power of the Holy Spirit (Mk 7:20-22;Rm 8:13). 

III. Hold out toward Ai the javelin that is in your hand (3-29)

How did the Israelites implement the Lord's command? Vs. 3-29 tell us that they carried out the Lord's battle exactly as the Lord had instructed them. In carrying out the Lord's battle plan Joshua took the leadership, and the people followed exactly as Joshua had said. This shows that the battle was won not by one person's effort but the joint efforts of the entire army of the Lord. In this joint effort, Joshua's example stands out. The examples he set are found in: a) Joshua’s wisdom in assigning the right duty or task to the right person (for he chose his "best fighting men" and assigned them an important task, i.e., the ambush, which required extreme care, for even one compromise of the “intelligence information” might ruin the whole campaign); b) his ability to communicate to his soldiers with great clarity (4-8); c) his due diligence in waking up early in the morning and mustering his soldiers for the day of battle (10); d), his sensitivity in listening to the Lord even in the midst of the heated military campaign (18); and e) his tenacity in carrying out the Lord’s mission until it was complete (26). 

In serving the Lord's world campus mission, we also need to follow the example of the Israelites. The Lord God established Mother Barry as the general director of this ministry. Unlike Joshua she is female. Yet like Joshua, she is very wise. She knows how to assign the right people to the right positions. She also knows how to communicate clearly. For those who are yet to know her leadership, please come to the Spring Conference because she is going to attend the conference and give us a main lecture on April 20. She is also very diligent in getting up early in the morning (while going to bed late at night). And she is very sensitive in listening to the Lord's direction, for although on many occasions it seems as if she is dozing off, she is in fact praying to the Lord. And she is very persistent in serving the Lord's world mission command. She is both soft and kind as well as firm and resolute in sticking to the direction to pioneer all American and Canadian college campuses, and then the whole world too! Like Joshua who was about 85, Mother Barry is 73. And yet I do not think she is going to draw back her spiritual javelin until the Lord's world mission task is completed or until the time of Jesus' second coming is at hand, whichever comes first.

IV. Joshua copied on the stones the law of Moses (30-39)

In fighting against materialism and humanistic ideas and lifestyles, nothing is more effective than relying on the word of God. In fact no one can fight against one's flesh and what it desires on his own. It is only by relying on God's word that we can rise above the material and animal level, and to God's level. For this reason, after the campaign was over, Joshua opened a Bible conference among all the Israelites. In this conference, we see that Moses had allowed the following to attend: priests, elders, officials, judges, parents, children, women, aliens, and citizens alike (33-35). 

Joshua did two things at this conference: 

First, he built an altar and offered sacrifices to the Lord. This altar building and sacrifice offering refers to the cross of Jesus. It is the primitive form of the gospel message. Our Lord Jesus came to die for our sins on the cross. He hung on the cross to pay for the penalty of the sins we had committed. He then rose again to justify us from our sins, and secure a permanent position for us in God's presence after we physically die. It is with this gospel that we are saved. For this reason, the Bible calls Jesus the atoning sacrifice for all who believe. Just as Joshua did after victoriously winning each battle, so too must we give thanks to the Lord for granting us Jesus, our Lord and Savior. For had it not been for Jesus’ sacrifice, we would still have remained in bondage to the power of sin and death. 

Second, he gave the people a deep Bible study. After offering a sacrifice to the Lord, Joshua put the Israelites through a deep Bible study session. How did the Bible study go? Two features stand out: copying and reading. He copied Moses' Ten Commandments on stone tablets (8:32). Then he read all the Law of Moses. At this time he probably read the entire book of Deuteronomy, emphasizing particularly the promises about the blessings for those who obey God's word, and the curses for those who disobey (Deu 28). 

This practice reminds us of the way for us to overcome the materialistic and flesh-oriented environment of our own generation. That is, we can escape from the corruption of this generation by fully securing in our hearts the word of God, especially Moses' Law (i.e., the first five books of the Bible), understanding that obedience to the word of the Lord is the only way to experience lasting blessings from the Lord. 

Ultimately, the Apostle Paul says that the Lord God sent Jesus to fully fulfill the righteous requirements of the law in the one who fully trusts in Jesus, so that one would not live according to one's sinful nature but according to the Spirit of God (Romans 8:4). 

Praise God who sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Praise God who raised Jesus up as our spiritual Joshua who led his children to win complete victory over our enemies. 

One word: Grow up in your salvation!

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