JOSHUA was a remarkable man. He grew up to experience firsthand his nation Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. He saw the miracles of God and trusted Him.
• He spied on the land, and with Caleb, came back with a message of faith - that God would surely help them seize the Promised Land.
• But unfortunately the majority won that day, gripped by fear. So Joshua was thrown into 40 years of unnecessary wandering in the desert.
• Yet he kept his faith in God. No complaining, no blaming God. Eventually God chose him to succeed Moses and take the nation into Canaan.
Joshua had to lead his men to fight their way into the Promised Land. He never doubted God’s promise to Israel.
• We read here in Joshua 10 that five Amorite armies were planning to attack. Joshua went for a pre-emptive strike.
• He led his entire army on an all-night march towards the enemy’s camp, under the cover of darkness so that they could launch a pre-dawn surprise attack.
The distance from Gilgal to Gibeon is about 40km (church to Tuas) and it takes 2 or 3 days on a leisurely pace, but Joshua’s army covered the same distance in one night!
• The long night march took the enemy completely by surprise.
• When the enemy lines broke, the Amorites started to flee into the valley.
• God got into the battle in verse 11: “As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.” (Josh 10:11)
As the sun set toward the horizon, Joshua knew that his time was up. Once it got dark, the enemies would slip away.
• Perhaps he realized that if he didn’t destroy them now, he would have lingering problems. And anything less than a victory would not glorify God.
• So he uttered into this outrageous prayer: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." (Josh 10:12) It wasn’t a private prayer but a public one, before all the people.
• And if you think this is too ridiculous, God answered him! Without delay!
(1) DARE TO SAY GOD-SIZED PRAYERS
Joshua has the audacity to ask God to do something, not just miraculous, but unbelievable and unprecedented.
• The fact that he could even thought of that was remarkable. Faith knows no limits, because with God, nothing is impossible. Joshua believed in a BIG God.
• Have you ever asked God for the impossible? Does your unbelief limit what God can do for you? That is, you believe God only for the achievable, the believable, and so you pray only DECENT prayers; prayers that are more reasonable.
When PETER saw Jesus walking on water, he did not stretch out his hand to help Jesus get onboard. Instead he asked to be allowed to do the same – walk on water, and get to where Jesus was!
• In Acts 3 he saw a man crippled from birth and said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3:6)
• James says, “ELIJAH was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.” (James 5:17-18)
Prayer is the arena where our faith meets God’s abilities. We can pray prayers worthy of the God we’re praying to.
• “Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 27 "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jer 32:26-27)
• We worship the same God. The only difference is Joshua, Peter, and Elijah had the audacity to pray prayers that lived up to God’s mighty power and glory.
Could it be that we are not see as much of God’s greatness because we have been making timid prayers? We have not been asking more than the natural.
Let us go beyond just timid prayers – giving thanks for the food I eat, asking God for a good weather, heal me from the flu, or help me pass my exams or finish my project on time. These are worthy prayers but we can go farther than that.
• We don’t have to worry about ever putting God in an awkward or embarrassing position. You’re not going to back Him into a corner. You won’t ever challenge Him to do something beyond His aptitude.
• Let’s stretch our faith and ask God for the supernatural. Ask for what He is capable of doing. We do the natural, and trust God to for the “super” and we will see His supernatural works in our lives.
• When that happens, everybody will know it was God who did it. No doubt about it, and He will surely be glorified.
(2) CLING ON TO GOD’S PROMISES
Why was Joshua so bold? He knows God. He knows God’s will.
• During the march, God spoke to Joshua and gave him a promise: "Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you." (Josh 10:8)
• Joshua believed what God had promised him. It was God’s will to defeat the enemy. He wants to see God’s purpose fulfilled.
• Someone says, “God listens to the voice of a man who himself has listened to the voice of God.”
Joshua knows God enough to ask for the sky, so to speak.
• He saw all the miracles God did back in Egypt, when He freed them from slavery. He saw God drop food from the sky for 40 years to feed his people, Israel. He saw how the Lord produced water from a rock. He has no doubt what God can do.
• Here he did what he can as a commander, to plan and strategize, to lead the army in an all-night march and a pre-dawn strike - and let God do His part.
His faith in God comes through knowing God, and to know Him, we need to HEAR Him.
• Rom 10:17 “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
• That’s where we need to focus at - if you want your faith to grow, get to know Him more. To know Him, you need to HEAR Him more.
• Matt 7:24-25 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
(3) DON’T STAND IN HOPE, WALK IN FAITH
We can pray and stand in hope – in order words, we do nothing but just wait and hope that God will show up and do something.
• This is passive faith. James called it DEAD faith – faith without deeds is dead (James 2:26), it is useless. I need to show you my faith by what I do.
• We need to WALK IN FAITH – to move out, to do something to get to our destination (God’s destiny for us).
It is amazing to see the extent of human effort involved in this battle.
• Joshua’s army made an overnight long march and launch straight into battle that lasted all the way to the next sunset. And he asked the Lord to stay the sun, for another full day! Can you sense how tiring that was?
• Even though God was with them, had given them the promise of victory, and was personally involved in the battle (raining hailstones), it did free them from personal commitment.
• They had to fight the war; they had to sweat it out, for night and days; they had to pay a price.
Success doesn’t come easy, even with God’s presence and promise.
• God wants us to be fully committed. Victory wasn’t a gift dropped down from the sky, right onto their laps.
• They had to fight for the ‘promised’ victory. So must we.
• God has given us His promises. God says He will be with us. God will fight the battle for us. But we need to do our part. We need to put our hard work.
Walk in faith, don’t stand in hope.
CONCLUSION
The lesson we learn from Joshua 10 is that we serve a God who can transform the most adverse situations we face into opportunities to display His glory.
• Like the people of Israel, you may be facing a very difficult situation. I cannot promise that God will stop the sun for you, but we can be sure that He can work a miracle in your life.
• He can transform whatever you are facing into something that will show His glory.
Steven Furtick (Founder of Elevation Church) in SUN STAND STILL, p. 195-96
It's human nature to want to skip straight from the promise to the payoff. Who doesn't want to get right to the good stuff? But the process is invaluable. The process is a time of strengthening. The process is the place where you lay down your pride and learn to rely totally on God. Most impor¬tantly, the process is the way we grow - to know God. And that's really the whole point.
One of my major irritations is when someone spoils the plot of a movie I was planning to see. Because when they tell me that the dude dies at the end, or that the boy gets the girl, or that the team wins the championship, or whatever, it ruins the experi¬ence. See, if I wanted to know just the outcome, I would have read the plot summary on Wikipedia. But that's not the goal when you see a movie. You want to feel tension and suspense. You want to wonder whether the good guy wins or the relationship works out. The plot is the point.
What if the same dynamic that makes the plot the point of movie applies to our relationship with God? Is it possible that the process isn't just a time waster or a commercial break? Have you ever considered that, in the overall scheme of God's design, the process is the point?
If all God wanted to do was get right to the happy ending, you’d be in heaven by now. If His only intention were to make your dreams come true, he'd snap His fingers and your vision would appear out of thin air. But that's not all God wants. And deep down, it's not really all you want either. You want to learn to walk by faith, not by sight. And you can't learn that without walking through periods of complete darkness. The apprehension and gut-level fear you'll feel in these stages may make you turn back and pursue something safer.
Or you can opt for something better. You can embrace the process with audacious faith. Because every big dream has small beginnings. Between the promise and the payoff, there's a process.
And that process is the breeding ground of faith. That process has the potential to draw you closer to Jesus than you've been before.
The process is the point.
Pray God-sized prayers because God is more than capable of that. Cling on to His will and what He has promised, and move on in faith. God will always come through for you.
