Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: God Graciously Reassures Our Faith

In the previous post, we talked about how, when God brought His people into the Promised Land, He gave them a down payment of the abundant provision He would give them when they had conquered the Land. What they ate after that first Passover wasn't remarkable ("unleavened cakes and parched grain"), but it was a sign that God has so much more to come in the Promised Land.

In the same passage, we also see God reassuring the faith of His people through the sacraments of the Old Testament. They were at a very critical point in the taking the Promised Land: the beginning when all their fears would probably be right before their eyes. Yet, God does not just command them to march forward, but He graciously reassures their faith. And, as we will talk about in this sermon, God does the same for us today as we fight the battles of this Christian life.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: A Down Payment of What is to Come

This Sunday, we will take a look at most of Jos. 5, where right after they enter the Promised Land, God commands Israel to celebrate the two sacraments that they had in the Old Testament: circumcision and the Passover. A sacrament is a visible sign that God gives His people to represent and seal to them an invisible grace. In the Old Testament (OT), they had circumcision and the Passover. In the New Testament (NT), Jesus has given us baptism and the Lord's Supper, both of which are visible signs and seals of invisible grace that God gives us in Christ when we look to Him in faith.

We will talk some about that on Sunday as we talk about how God reassures the Israelites' and our faith. But, one thing I probably will not get to is talking about how the eating the produce of the Promised Land for the first time was a kind of down payment to the Israelites of what was to come.

At the end of the passage that we will read--in vv. 11-12--the text tells us three times that God's people ate, for the first time, the produce of the land, i.e. instead of eating manna from heaven, they ate the crops of the Promised Land. Constantly in the Pentateuch, the Promised Land is described as a "land flowing with milk and honey" (cf. e.g. Dt. 26:9), i.e. it is a land so rich with food that they will hardly have to work for it. This was a wonderful promise to a people who had been slaves in Egypt and had wandered in the desert for forty years. One day, God would give them a land that will flow with provision so abundant that they will see it as "flowing with milk and honey." And, at the end of the passage that we will study on Sunday, the people finally "ate of the produce of the land." It must have been a joyous occasion, but it was much more than that. It was a down payment, of sorts--God saying to them, "This is just the beginning. You will possess this land and have abundant provision from me." What they ate after that first Passover wasn't remarkable ("unleavened cakes and parched grain"), but it was a sign that God has so much more to come in the Promised Land.

Friends, one way that we can see Christ in this text is here. Remember, in the last sermon, we talked about a question we can ask of any OT text to help us see Christ in it is: How does this passage show us the redeeming nature of God? Here we can see God's redeeming nature in how He gives us a foretaste of what He promises us.

The Promised Land of Canaan was never the true Promised Land that God has ultimately for His people. It was simply an earthly, temporary fulfillment that pointed to something greater: the new heavens and new earth (cf. He. 4; 11). Jesus has secured the new heavens and new earth for all His people (OT and NT believers) and will one day bring us all into that true Promised Land, which will be a land so great, so wonderful, so glorious that describing it as "flowing with milk and honey" cannot do it justice (cf. Re. 21-22). Yet, God gives us a foretaste of that glorious blessing even now.

When we rest on the Lord's Day (the Christian Sabbath), we are given a taste of the eternal rest and provision that God will give us in the new heavens and new earth. In fact, one of the Reformed catechisms, the Heidelberg Catechism, reminds us in question 103 that keeping the fourth commandment (i.e. remembering the sabbath to keep it holy) shows us this:

Q. What is God’s will for you in the fourth commandment?
A. First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God’s people to learn what God’s Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through his Spirit, and so begin already in this life the eternal Sabbath.

God gives us a foretaste of that wonderful rest that is to come as a kind of "down payment" in the Lord's Day, and we get to start our weeks being reminded of that. We get to start our weeks being reminded that even the best Sunday is nothing compared to what eternity will be like in the new heavens and new earth--it is just a down payment.

Another way we can get a foretaste of what is to come is the way God graciously provides for our needs even now. We will talk a little more about this on Sunday, but God provided for the Israelites needs in the wilderness through the miraculous manna. Yet, once they entered the land, God ceased the manna and instead provided for their needs through the regular produce of the land. As we will discuss Sunday, that might have seemed quite ordinary (crops, cattle, etc.) but is actually extraordinary--they never had to worry because God's provision was regular and predictable. Today, God also generally supplies our needs not by miracles but by the regular, "mundane" things such as jobs, food on the table, health, etc. It is easy for us to take that for granted, but I think this passage is showing us that's God's regular provision for us is a down payment of how we will be eternally, perfectly, abundantly blessed by Him in the new heavens and new earth. If God cares for our needs now (while we are still sinners, still wanders), how much more will He provide when we are in perfect fellowship with Him for all eternity in the true Promised Land? What we have right now is a kind of down payment, in which God says to us, "This is just the beginning. You will possess the true Promised Land and have abundant, super-abundant provision from me."

The last lines of C. S. Lewis' Narnia book, The Last Battle, reminds me of this. At the end of that book, Aslan returns to Narnia to defeat his enemies and take his people into the New Narnia, and he does so with a mighty roar that brings an end to the old Narnia and takes them into the new. Meanwhile, in the human world Lucy and her siblings are on a train in England, and then all of a sudden, they find themselves in a field, clothed in Narnian garb, but it is unlike any Narnian garb they had ever seen--it is without flaw or blemish and almost glows. Then, they see some of their friends from Narnia and Aslan himself. They explain to Lucy and her brothers that the old Narnia has passed away and they are in the New Narnia, and then Aslan looks at them with laughter in his eyes and darts off like an arrow, yelling behind him “Come further in! Come further up!” As they follow as best they can, they find this New Narnia resembles the old that they knew and loved, but this one is bigger, brighter, and more magnificent than anything they had known or ever imagined. At one point Lucy says, “Isn’t it wonderful? Have you noticed one can’t be afraid, even if one wants to? Try it.” Yet, as they go further in and further up after Aslan, Aslan looks at Lucy and says, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” She replies, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.” She doesn’t want to leave the glories that she’s experienced because they’re everything she ever wanted and so much more. Aslan looks at her with eyes that comfort all sorrow and explains to her that she died in a railway accident, and that is why she’s now in the New Narnia. “The term is over,” he says, “the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” And, Lewis ends the book by narrating, “And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story… which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

That last statement is a wonderful description of the glory that awaits us in the true Promised Land--each chapter will be better than the one before. And, right now, all that God graciously provides for His people is a "down payment" of sorts through His provision and through His Sabbath, reminding us that the best is yet to come.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Faith's Greatest Nemesis

In the previous post in this Joshua series, we looked at how Joshua is a type of Jesus--i.e. he is a kind of "working model" of Jesus for us in the Old Testament (OT). In today's sermon, we are going to look at Joshua 3-4, and through Joshua see Jesus--the object of our faith--and we will also learn a little more about faith.

If I were to ask you “What is the nemesis of faith?” What would you say? Last week, we looked at ch. 2 where this book shows us true faith from a gentile harlot—Rahab. Given what you know from that—that true faith is knowledge, conviction, and trust—what do you think faith’s greatest nemesis is? What’s its greatest enemy that plagues it all its life? Many of us would probably be tempted to answer, “Doubt,” but I think that’s a mistake and so does the author of this book.

If you want to hear more (and if you do, you will understand the picture on this post), you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Joshua and Jesus

This Sunday the sermon I post will look at Joshua 3-4, and since we do not have time to look at everything this passage could tell us, there are some things I will have to skip in the sermon. One of those is v. 3:7: "Today I [God] will begin to exalt you [Joshua] in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you."

We might look at that and wonder, "Why would God want to exalt Joshua in the eyes of the people? Shouldn't Joshua exalt God?" And, certainly, Joshua should and does exalt God and glorify Him before the people, but God still wants to exalt Joshua. Why? Well, there are actually two reasons: one from Joshua's life and one that points us to Jesus.

First, way back in the book of Numbers, shortly after the people had been redeemed from Egypt by God, Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan. When those twelve men came back, ten of them said the land was great but the people too powerful, so there's no way they could conquer it. But, Joshua and Caleb (the other two spies) told the people that they could do it because God was on their side. The people, however, chose not to trust God and to listen to the ten (which is why they ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years), and in Numbers 14, it tells us that they sought to humiliate and kill Joshua and Caleb. Well, there were some present on that fateful day (those under the age of twenty) who were standing at the Jordan in Joshua 3 and who would have remembered that how the nation did not believe Joshua and Caleb and tried to humiliate and kill them. They would see that God waited forty years, but He is reversing that here. God is vindicating Joshua and showing the people that he was right all along, so they would know that they can trust him as their leader.

Second, and this goes deeper, here we are pointed to Jesus. In fact, in Joshua, we can see Jesus. Joshua is a kind of "working model" of Jesus called an Old Testament (OT) "type." A "type" is another way to see Jesus in OT stories, but it is more than just a singular event or one-time object that points us to Jesus. A type is a real person, place, or object that God ordained to act as a visible pattern of Jesus' person (who He is) and/or work (what He does), and the type gives us that visible pattern not just for an episode of a story (e.g. the scarlet cord or Rahab) but for most, if not all the time the person, place, or object is talked about in the Bible. A type spans over many stories and perhaps even many books. And, Joshua is that for us. We do not see Jesus in just one or two episodes about Joshua but in Joshua himself throughout the whole time he is in the Bible.

We will talk more about this when we get to later episodes, like Joshua 6 where Joshua encounters the commander of the LORD's armies (i.e. the Son of God Himself), but Joshua is a type of Christ throughout this whole book and, indeed, really during all the time he is a character in the biblical story:

• Joshua is first mentioned in Numbers 13, but at first, his name is Hoshea, which means "salvation" in Hebrew. But, in Numbers 13:16, Moses changes his name to Yeshua in Hebrew (Joshua in English), which means "YHWH saves!" Did you know that is Jesus' name in Hebrew? "Jesus" is the English, but in Hebrew, His name is "Yeshua"--YHWH saves! Moses gave Hoshea the same name that the angel Gabriel would tell Joseph to name his and Mary's son, 1500 years later: Yeshua, Jesus. Moses probably did not know it, but changing Hoshea's name to Yeshua (Joshua) had far-greater significance than simply a change of calling on his life: In Joshua, God is going to demonstrate to His people a pattern of salvation that He would bring to its culmination in His one and only Son, Jesus.
• One of the patterns that Joshua shows us in this book is his place in the story itself. Remember, this book shows us God's redeemed people heading towards God's Promised Land, having to learn to live and fight their battles by faith. And, who leads them the whole way? Joshua. Well, we too are God's redeemed people heading towards the true Promised Land, and who leads us the whole way? Jesus, but Jesus goes beyond Joshua, for He not only leads us but has already secured the victory and the blessings of the Promised Land for us! Jesus is the greater Joshua, and as we see the Israelites following Joshua in these stories, we can read that as a mirror (spiritually, not physically) of us following Jesus through this life.
• Another pattern that we can see in Joshua 3 is Joshua's humiliation and then exaltation by God. Like Joshua was humiliated by his people and they sought to kill him back in Numbers 14, Jesus became one of us and was humiliated by His people as they killed Him. But, like Joshua's humiliation eventually led to God's exaltation of him as the leader the people should follow, Jesus' humiliation eventually led to God "highly exalting Him and bestowing on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Joshua's move from humiliated status to exalted status is the pattern that Jesus' life would follow, 1500 years later.

There are many more instances of this pattern to be seen in this book, and we will hopefully see most as we go through it. For now, remember, as you read this book, Joshua's life and call as the leader of God's people is a type, pattern of Jesus Himself. It is not just in one or two stories but in his whole life. Look for those patterns, and then look to Christ as your Yeshua--the true, ultimate Yeshua.

By His Grace,

Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: True Faith from a Shady Lady

In my last post in the Joshua series, I talked about how we should look at Rahab's deception in Jos. 2. As I mentioned in that post, I think we often get distracted by the way Rahab helps the spies and miss the whole point of this story. So, that is why I talked about the deception in a post and not the sermon on her story. It is not an unimportant detail, but it is not nearly as important as what Rahab shows us about faith.

So, what does Rahab show us about faith? Well, in short, she shows us what true faith is, which is incredibly important for the overall purpose of this book. As I talked about in the first sermon, this book shows us how to live by faith in our God who truly fights our battles for us. If that is the case, then early on the author needs to show us what true faith is, and for the Jews (and probably us too), there is no more convicting way to do that than to do it through a Gentile prostitute.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Rahab's Deception and God's Providence

The passage of the sermon that I will post this coming Sunday is one of the many difficult passages in the books of Joshua and Judges. If you have read the book of Joshua (and Judges), you know there are several difficult stories that present ethical behavior that is challenging (at best) or completely appalling (at worst). I am going to try to address these difficulties in Joshua as we move through this book, but even as I do, we need to remember that almost all of them are secondary issues at best, so I do not plan to bring them up in the sermons. But, I also cannot just leave them unaddressed, so I will try to address them in these posts.

This first thorny issue surrounds Rahab's method of protecting the spies in her house in Jos. 2. She deceives the king of Jericho, telling him that the spies had left, when she was really hiding them on her roof. So, the question that has been debated a lot throughout the history of the Church is: What do we do with that? The NT praises Rahab for her protection of the spies, so how do we reconcile that with her deception here?

First, let me say again, this is not the point of the story at all. This is actually quite a minor detail in the story as a whole, and even the structure of the passage shows us that. The author uses a common Hebrew literary technique called a "chiasm," which looks like this:

     A: Opening information to set up the story

          B: Secondary detail

               C: The point of the passage

          B': Matching secondary detail to parallel the first

     A': Closing information to parallel and close out the opening

There can be more layers in the middle of parallel information, but the point is that the center of a chiasm is the important part of the story--the point of the story, and this literary technique was a way Hebrew authors highlight the most important part of their story. This chapter follows that pattern like this:

     A: V. 1a -- Opening detail telling us Joshua's assignment to the spies
          B: Vv. 2-7 -- Secondary details of how they entered Jericho and were protected
               C: Vv. 8-14 -- Rahab's confession of faith: the point of the story
          B': Vv. 15-21 -- Secondary details of how they left Jericho and escaped
     A: Vv. 22-24 -- Closing detail telling us how the spies report back to Joshua

The beginning and ending hold the passage together, so they are pretty important, but the passage is primarily about Rahab's confession of faith; not her deception. The section that contains her deception is actually the most minor of the passage. So many people get hung up on Rahab's deception and miss her glorious truth that she confesses, and we do not need to get hung up on it.

In fact, I had thought about showing the ways Christians have tried to reconcile the ethics of this passage, but that still gets us distracted from the point even of her actions themselves. If we narrow in on her deception, there is still a bigger and more important theological point: God's providence.

Church family, for Rahab's confession of faith to be genuine and for her actions to be something God uses for good, it is not crucial that we justify her deception. She was a sinner like us. In fact, she was a new believer from a pagan, Canaanite city, so, of course, we should not expect that she have all her ethics straight in her first act of faith. When we do things for God out of faith, we have mixed motives or mixed actions that often, if not always, mix some sin in with the good works we try to do for God. Does that mean God cannot use them? Not at all. Sinful or not, God can use our actions anyway, and Rahab's protection of the spies shows us this. He uses the actions of sinful men and women to bring about His glorious plans (cf. e.g. Ge. 50:20 Ac. 2:23). In fact, since all He has to work with in humanity is sinful men and women, He must be able to use all our actions for His sovereign plan--sinful or not.

Certainly, we cannot use that as an excuse for sinning (cf. Ro. 6:1-2), and certainly we need to think through difficult ethical issues and try to do what is faithful to God's Word. But, the amazing grace and providence of God reminds us that even if we do that and fail, we cannot mess up God's plan; even if we do that and fail, the blood of Christ covers those sins too. So, while we should think through ethical issues and attempt to be faithful to God's Word in the decisions we make, we also can rest in the fact Christ catches us when we fall. This is basically what John says in 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

In the sermon from the church service that I will post on Sunday, my congregation confessed together what true faith is from the Heidelberg Catechism, which is a 450-year-old reformed set of questions and answers. Well, that catechism also has a very good question and answer about God's providence--Question 27:

Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which He upholds, as with His hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty—all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from His fatherly hand.

Friends, we can talk about Rahab's deception and debate whether it was sinful or not (and if you want to talk about it, feel free to ask), but ultimately, what we should see in it is God's providence. He is "God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath" as Rahab confessed, which means He so rules all things that He can use our and Rahab's actions whether sinful or not. He is also the God who grants mercy, as Rahab saw, and He covers all our sins by the blood of Christ when we put our faith in Him. We can rest in that. We can try to live a faithful life and fight the battles of this Christian life as best we can resting in that truth.

But, one might respond and ask as the Heidelberg asks in question 64:

Q. But doesn’t this teaching make people indifferent and wicked?
A. No. It is impossible for those grafted into Christ by true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude.

As we will see in Rahab on Sunday, when God works true faith in our hearts, we will want to serve Him, we will want to live for Him out of gratitude. But, we will also fail in that. When we do, We have His promises in places like 1 Jn. 2:1, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Be Strong and Courageous

This past Friday, I began posting my sermon and devotional series on Joshua from the summer. I began with the first devotional, which argued for the historical veracity of the book of Joshua. Now, here is my sermon on the book of Joshua from Jos. 1:1-9, 16-18: "Be Strong and Courageous."

Since this sermon is the first in a series, I began with an extended introduction to the book of Joshua. It was longer than most normal introductions (about 10 minutes), but that is because before we dive into this important book, we need to understand why it is important and how it is applicable to our lives. In short, the book of Joshua teaches about the Christian life--how to fight the good fight of the faith--and if we view this book rightly, it will fortify us for the Christian life. There more detail below and in the sermon.

The book of Joshua tells us the story of God’s people after they had been redeemed from Egypt under Moses and wandered in the wilderness for forty years because of their sinful rejection of God’s promises. It tells us the story of how God’s people entered into the land of Canaan that God had promised to them and began to conquer it. But, more than that, the book of Joshua is a story about a great period of transition for God’s people.

Hundreds of years earlier, God had promised Abraham two things: God would make him a great nation, and He would give him the land of Canaan as an inheritance in which that nation would dwell. The following centuries had seen God’s people vastly grow in number, but they had yet to possess the land of Canaan. In fact, while the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, it may have seemed like God’s promises would never come true. But, under Moses, God redeemed them from slavery, and under Moses, God formed them into a nation through the giving of the Law. But, there was still that very important piece left: the land. God promised Abraham in Ge. 17:8, “I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” And, Deuteronomy promises God’s people that this land will be a place where they can find rest. But, they still needed to possess it. And, this book tells us the story of that great transition: God taking the wandering nation and giving them the physical land that He had promised to Abraham.

So, there’s a lot of history in this book, and it’s a very important time in the history of Israel. That’s why modern Bibles categorize Joshua under the “history” books. But, would it surprise you to know that the Jews didn’t categorize Joshua that way? They didn’t. From the time of King David onward, Joshua was placed in the section of books in the OT called the “former prophets”—they viewed Joshua as prophecy. Now, that sounds a little odd to us because we tend to think of prophecy as foretelling the future, and certainly some prophecy has that component to it. But, by and large, the prophecies of the OT were not so much about foretelling the future but forthtelling about the present, i.e. they took God’s Word written and His mighty works performed and applied them to the lives of the people in the present. Prophecy in Scripture is taking the Word and works of God and saying, “This is how this word from God or these events apply to your life. There is a message God has for you in them, and here it is.” In particular, Joshua is a record of how the Word of God written in the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch—began to work in the lives of God’s people as they moved through this great transition, and, in fact, God has a message for all His people in this book.

Now, it’s important for us to grasp that difference because mere history is just a record of facts, from which we might learn something but aren’t necessarily compelled to. But, history that’s also prophecy means this book is meant to convict, not simply inform; it’s meant to compel a response, not merely enlighten with information; it’s meant to encourage, not merely report. It’s a message from God to us as much as it is about God’s work in history.

Now, you might read this book and think, “Well, this book is a whole lot of battles, and that does not really have anything for me. I’m a professor, student, teacher, homemaker, business professional, or something else like that.” We may be tempted to think about the book of Joshua, but nothing could be further from the truth. You see, the taking of the land in this book isn’t primarily about property, but it symbolizes for all the Bible and us the spreading of the Kingdom of God itself, which is far bigger than a small piece of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The battles and events of this book are seen by the whole Bible as opportunities to learn what faith really is and how we live a life of faith in God. Even for the OT believers who fought these literal battles, it was all about learning to live and fight by faith in their Savior. And, in fact, ultimately it points us to the work of Christ as our King who fought for us and secured the true Promised Land of the new heavens and new earth that all believers—His Kingdom people—will one day possess.

In fact, we are in a great transition just like the Israelites. We stand on the shores of Jordan, you could say, having been redeemed but also having to fight spiritual battles until we’re given our heavenly Promised Land by our King. And, even as Israel stood on the shores of the Jordan as a nation, their battles were still dependent on faith. In every battle in Joshua (and later on in Judges), it didn’t matter if they had inferior numbers, weapons, or strategies, and in fact, on several occasions God commands them to fight that way. We can’t replicate the strategies for Jericho, Hazor, or most of the other battles because they were battles that had to be fought God’s way in faith that God would provide the victory. They still had to fight, yes, but they had to use His strategies in faith that He would make them successful, even when they looked as ridiculous as simply marching around a city and screaming.

In fact, the NT shows us that even the nation and the land for which they fought was merely a temporary fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham anyway. Canaan could never be the eternal land of rest God promised Abraham. The book of Hebrews shows us that Abraham and the true believers of the OT were never really looking forward to an earthly land but in faith to a heavenly one that Jesus Himself would secure for them through His life, death, and resurrection—the new heavens and new earth that Re. 21-22 describe for us, and that will be eternal rest for us. And, our Savior and His true, eternal Promised Land can also only be possessed by faith.

This is why Joshua has so much to teach us about the Christian life. It‘s a story of God’s redeemed people having to fight by faith in the King who truly fights the battles for them, using God’s ways to possess rest in the Promised Land, which is exactly a mirror of our lives today, although spiritually; not physically. The life of a Christian isn’t something that’s comfortable and easy, and I know you all know that. This life is a relentless, spiritual war that we must fight by faith in our King who truly fights for us, which precedes our eternal rest in the true Promised Land that Jesus secured for us. Church family, from a spiritual perspective, we’re in all-out war—spiritual battles are constant—and Christians have the terrible privilege of being the target of satan—that roaring lion who seeks to devour us, as Peter says in 1 Pt. 5. We do not “wrestle against flesh and blood but against… the spiritual forces of evil,” as Paul says in Eph. 6. Our enemies are no longer literal people that we’re called to drive out like the Israelites, but the Canaanites still exist in here [our hearts] and still need to be driven out. For us, the Canaanites are in our sinful hearts, the temptations of the world, and the attacks of the devil. This is why we need “to fight the good fight of the faith,” as we heard earlier in 1 Ti. 6, looking to our Savior and King who truly fights for us. And, if we see this book rightly as prophecy and history, God can use it to fortify us for the battle of the Christian life. That’s why this book is so relevant for God’s people even today.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

 I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Joshua in History

Wow, it has been quite a long time since I have had a chance to write. I apologize for being MIA for so long. It has been quite a busy past few months while my senior pastor has been on sabbatical, and I have barely had enough time to get done what I have needed to get done for my family and church over the past few months, so I have just let writing fall to the wayside. I still do not have a lot of time to write presently, but I have also recently finished a sermon series at my church (GCPC), and it should give me enough for a couple of posts per week for a while.

The sermon series was called "Joshua: Fight the Good Fight of the Faith," and it is the story of the battles of the Christian life from the book of Joshua. Each week I wrote a short devotional that went out as an email to my church, which related to the passage on which the sermon was focused and, of course, preached a sermon from that passage. So, I will put all that up here as the weeks progress

The first weekly devotional for this series was a short summary of the historical debates and issues surrounding the book of Joshua. I argued that it is a reliable source of history that matches up well with what we know of Canaan and the ancient Near East in the second millennium BC. This historical basis is important because if it is just tales, then it does not actually teach us about the true God or tell us what He has done, so there is no reason for us to care about it. Legend does not help us in the Christian life. So, here it is. On Sunday I will post the first sermon entitled, "Be Strong and Courageous."
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This Sunday we start our summer sermon series, which will go through the book of Joshua. And, any time we take a look at Scripture, particular the books of the Old Testament, it is helpful and even necessary to address the question of the historicity of the book.

Joshua is the book that tells the story of God's people entering the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua, after the exodus from Egypt and forty years of wandering in the wilderness under Moses. Yet, the book of Joshua is much more than the story of God's people beginning the conquest of the land of Canaan: it is history and presents itself as history. In fact, as I will talk more about in the sermon posted Sunday, it is prophetic history--historical events recorded not merely to inform us of what happened but to proclaim a message from God Himself to us, a message that has much to teach us about our spiritual battles and the Christian life.

However, like many or even most Old Testament books, the historical truthfulness of the book of Joshua has come under fire in recent times, and since that is the case, it is necessary for us to talk briefly about its history and why we can trust it.

Much of the claim that the book of Joshua is "closer to fiction than it is history" comes from the fact that there is little archaeological evidence and historical documentation to corroborate what Scripture tells us. Now, hidden in this objection is the idea that Scripture itself is not history and therefore cannot be taken as historical evidence in its own right. That is a dubious assumption, to say the least, and it commits the logical fallacy of "begging the question" (i.e. failing to prove what it assumes). Many great books have been written on the historical veracity of Scripture, particularly the Old Testament (e.g. Kingdom of Priests is a good one), so I will not take that up here. It is too broad of a subject to address in this post, but keep in mind that since Scripture presents itself as history, when someone claims it is not, the burden of proof is on them to show that Scripture contradicts established, historical facts. It is not enough to say, "Well, there is no corroborating evidence," for that is an argument from silence or it assumes that historians are in possession of every bit of ancient historical evidence, which, of course, we know they are not. There is still much discovery to be done when it comes to archaeology and ancient history, and saying that there is no or little corroborating evidence to date is not a sufficient objection. The objector must prove that there is well-established, irrefutable evidence that contradicts the Bible before they can say, "Yes, the Bible presents itself as history, but we should not take it that way."

When I preached on Exodus last summer, I wrote about the historical evidence for the exodus from Egypt here, which might be a good place to start for extra reading. In that article, I argued for a date of 1446 BC for the exodus from Egypt, which has been questioned in recent times, and I address those objections to that date in the article, showing why it is biblical and fits the historical evidence from the time.

Given the date of 1446 BC for the exodus and the fact that the Scriptures tell us God's people wandered in the desert for forty years after that, that puts the date of the beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan at 1406 BC. So, the main question then is: Is there verifiable archaeological and/or historical evidence that contradicts that date? If not, then there is no good reason to believe that what the Bible presents is not true history. A secondary question is: Is there corroborating evidence for this date? So, let's look at those two questions briefly:

In answer to the first (Is there verifiable archaeological and/or historical evidence that contradicts that date?): no, but that is not always the answer some scholars try to give. However, let me give a couple of reasons why the answer to that question is "No, there is no evidence that contradicts that Bible":

• Some scholars have argued that there is no archaeological evidence for a large-scale destruction of Canaanite cities until ca. 1250 BC. Given that, it is argued, the story of Joshua and Israel's conquest of Canaan in Scripture cannot be squared with archaeology, so the book his not historical. However, such an argument flat-out ignores the biblical account of Israel's conquest of Canaan. That argument assumes that the Israelites would have followed traditional conquest patterns of the time (i.e. complete destruction of cities) instead of taking seriously how Scripture describes the conquest:
• Joshua was specifically told by God only to destroy completely Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. The other cities were specifically not to be destroyed so that the Israelites would have places to live when "all was said and done" (cf. e.g. Dt. 6:10-11; 19:1). So, we should not expect there to be any evidence for a large-scale destruction of the cities in Canaan ca. 1406 BC. In fact, the archaeological evidence for a large-scale destruction ca. 1250 BC could easily be attributed to the severe oppression of Israel during the time of Deborah in the book of Judges.
• In addition, renown archaeologist John Garstangs's excavation of Jericho shows that the walls of the city fell outward and that it was probably destroyed ca. 1400 BC (though this date is still debated among archaeologists), both of which fit the biblical data quite well.
• Furthermore, Yigael Yadin's work in the excavation of Hazor (cf. Jos. 11) has shown that it was leveled in also around 1400 BC, which again comports well with the Bible's story and chronology.
• Dating the conquest to 1406 BC does fit what little archaeological and historical evidence in Canaan that we have.
• Furthermore, the biblical story of the conquest of Canaan also fits well with the surround events in the other nations of the ancient Near East (ANE). In fact, when the surrounding history is viewed with an eye that looks for God's providential hand, ca. 1400 BC was the perfect time for the conquest. All of the major powers surrounding Canaan that could have hindered Israel were all preoccupied somehow, which left Canaan ripe for conquest:
• The Hittites (a major power) and Mitannites were at war, and even if the Hittites could have fought on two fronts, they would not press into Canaan for fear of angering Egypt (who had claim to Canaan at the time through treaties with the peoples there).
• Syria was brought under Hittite control during this time, so it posed no threat to Israel in Canaan.
• Assyria and Egypt had entered into a treaty, so Assyria would not risk that treaty by interfering with Canaanites affairs.
• And, even though Egypt had claim to Canaan ca. 1400 BC, it was disinterested in Canaan because Amenhotep III (1417-1379 BC) had turned inward to focus on hunting and arts, and Amenhotep IV (1379-1362 BC) was engaged in religious pursuits and disinterested in Canaan as well. In fact, Burnaburias II of the Kassites wrote a letter to Amenhotep IV (1370 BC) complaining about the shoddy treatment of his messengers that traveled through Canaan (a letter which does not appear to have received a response), and the description in the letter fits the biblical account of the time of the Judges after the conquest.
• As the historian and biblical scholar Eugene H. Merrill says, "The other side of the coin of Egyptian indifference to Canaanite affairs surely has to be the hand of Yahweh, who provided exactly the right circumstances in which His people could possess the land He had promised them."

In answer to the second question: (Is there corroborating evidence for the conquest?): perhaps, though it is not so solid that we can say without a doubt that the documentation of the time refers directly to the Bible's account of the conquest:

• At this time, there was a group of people known as the 'Apiru or Habiru (in the Canaanite language). They do not appear to be an ethnic group (i.e. a race like Hebrews or Hittites) but probably a social class, specifically: mercenaries. There exists a series of letters coming from Canaan to Egypt pleading for help defending against the 'Apiru called the Amarna Letters, and these letters have been dated to ca. 1400-1350 BC. (Egypt did not respond to any of them, by the way, because the Pharaohs described above were disinterested in Canaan and ignored them.) Now, it is clear that these people are not to be fully identified with the Israelites, however, given that their name is remarkably linguistically similar to the word "Hebrew" in Canaanite, it is possible that the Canaanites may have confused the Hebrews with the 'Apiru and perhaps some of the Amarna Letters are really referring to the Hebrews. This would make sense for the Canaanites probably would not have been able to distinguish between peoples attacking them from the outside, especially when their names were so similar.
• There are several Amarna Letters that sound almost exactly like parts of the biblical account of the conquest. Merrill collects several of these together in his book Kingdom of Priests and shows how they fit quite well with the biblical account of the Israelite ownership of Shechem, the defeat of Megiddo, the account of the enslavement of the inhabitants of Gezer by Ephraim of Israel, and the taking of part of Jerusalem by Judah. So, some of the Amarna Letters could very well refer to the Hebrews and not the actual 'Apiru.
• In fact, this possible confusion of the 'Apiru with the Hebrews might explain why the OT very rarely shows the Israelites using "Hebrew" for self-reference--they almost never called themselves "Hebrews." They would not call themselves something that would confuse them with a social class of mercenaries. This confusion also could explain 1 Sa. 13:3, 6-7; 14:21, which distinguish the Hebrews from the Israelites (where these distinguished Hebrews really 'Apiru?).

So, while the 'Apiru cannot be completely identified with the Hebrews, some of the Amarna letters may, in fact, describe the Hebrews (being confused with the 'Apiru). And, even if they do not, they do not contradict the biblical account at all.

As stated above, when one wants to question this historical truthfulness of the book of Joshua, one has to show that it contradicts established, verified archaeological and historical evidence. Hopefully, the above overview shows that it does not, but, in fact, what little extra-biblical data there is for Canaan ca. 1400 BC fits quite well with Scripture and may even offer support for its account of the conquest in the book of Joshua.

On Sunday, we will begin looking at the narrative itself and see how it can fortify us for the Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor