Joshua 12
RileyJoshua 12:1-24
THE FULL OF CANAANJoshua, Chapters 11 and 12.WAR may be repellent, but it is never uninteresting ! If there is a time when the public reads the daily news with avidity, it is when war is on. This is due to a combination of circumstances. There is an interest in the personalities of war. The experiences of the great leaders, the fortunes of the war itself, and particularly the fate of individual friends—these combine to compel sympathetic attention.To be sure, the history of events long since passed cannot equal in gripping interest the doings of one’s own day. And yet, when we remember the thousands that pore over the pages of history, and the prominent places that war occupies in those pages, we know that human interest in the destiny of individuals and states never wanes.
These two chapters are additional pages from the archives of history.THE NEW Chapter eleven opens with the record of a new alliance.“And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor had heard those things, that he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph,“And to the kings that were on the north of the mountains, and of the plains south of Chinneroth, and in the valley, and in the borders of Dor on the west,“And to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the mountains, and to the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh.“And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many.“And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel” (Joshua 11:1-5).This alliance represented a larger opposition. We might have imagined, when Joshua completed the campaign of the tenth chapter, that his days of battle were done.
We might have thought that there remained for him nothing but the quietude of a serene old age, and the usual occupation of cultivating a garden, or mowing the lawn—agreeable jobs for old men. But, when does one reach the point where Satanic forces are vanquished and opposition is at an end? Is it not rather a fact that every day increases their company, and that, though you may have had a victory yesterday, that will not at all suffice against the greater opposition of tomorrow? Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tell us that the forces assembled under Jabin, king of Hazor, according to Josephus, amounted to 300,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and 20,000 war-chariots. This is suggested by the language of the text, “And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many” (Joshua 11:4), and, in turn, it suggests the strength of satanic opposition.The followers of Jesus, like the followers of Joshua, meet an ever-increasing host. It is not wise to do what so-called Christian Scientists do, minimize our enemy and our opposition.
Paul, writing to the Ephesians, advised,“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.“For we wrestle not against fleshy and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.“Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:11-13).This opposition was also well organized. The word “together” is made to do double service in describing that fact, “And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel” (Joshua 11:5).It is a strange fact, and yet, daily experience is constantly demonstrating it, that there is organization in the adversary’s forces.
Without either a written or any verbal agreement, they stand together. The saloon, the bagnio, the gambling hell, the dance-hall, the low theatre—these are confederates; they know how to cooperate. What one of them could not accomplish by itself, is rendered easy by the assistance of the others; and that assistance may be confidently depended upon. When did they ever fail one another? They are animated by one spirit, and that is the spirit of opposition to Christ.People marvel sometimes that atheism has had the affrontery to effect organizations at the very center of professedly Christian colleges, and that infidelity in the form of modernism has been willing to pave the way for this more flagrant opposition to faith. But there is no occasion to marvel.
The natural man is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can he be. He would burn the Bible; he would destroy the Church; he would blot out of existence all Christian morality.
He nailed our Joshua to the cross; he sealed Him in a tomb. He does not change, and it is “the natural man” that backs all forms of evil, and it is in his spirit of opposition that organization inheres.There are those who would bring us to believe that good is universal, and that it is only our mis-judgment of our fellows that imagines any opposition from them to God. But such are only agents of the world-wide organization of which Satan himself is the supreme head. Followers of Jesus, like the followers of Joshua, will find that every day brings its conflict, and that in the arena of battle there are but two possible courses to pursue. We either win or lose. We conquer or we are killed.
We quit the field conquerors, or are left upon it, kicked and tumbled carcasses.THE AND COMMAND“And the Lord said unto Joshua Then the Lord’s interest had not lagged. When did He ever lose interest in his own?
Is not His promise to the disciples His pledge to every warrior, every servant of His will, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”?The Lord’s knowledge was not limited. “Tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel” (Joshua 11:6).A. J. Gordon said, “Prophecy is the mold of history”. But when prophecy drops from the lips of the Lord, it is not then “the mold of history”, it is history itself—pre-written, perhaps, but none the less adequate on that account. James, in his Epistle, speaks truthfully, so far as his language involves the wisdom of man, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow”. But that does not apply to the wisdom of God.
Tomorrow is not only as open a page as is yesterday, but to Him its pages are as plainly written. Man’s fear often rests in the fact that the future is unknown to him.
God’s encouragement is born of the circumstance that to Him the future is fully known. When man looks on the moral state of society, his heart sinks, and he is disposed to feel that Satan has triumphed. But God comes with His encouraging promise concerning His Son, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple” (Malachi 3:1).Four weeks before the World War ended, horror held the hearts of the allies, and the prophecy of “a hundred year war”, and the fear of “the extinction of the race”, were daily newspaper items. And yet, one October morning the world wakened to hear the voice of the Son of God. “Tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up”. Twenty-four hours are quite sufficient for any conceivable accomplishment, if only God employ the time.The Lord’s method contained its own lesson.“Tomorrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel; thou shalt hough their horses and burn their chariots with fire (Joshua 11:6).Once more modernism starts back with horror on its face. “Hough their horses”! Would God ever give a command like that? “Burn their chariots with fire”!
Would God be a party to such a procedure? Alas, for the inconsistencies of men!
These phrases are soft beside the course and conduct employed by Germany in the World War. Houghing horses, and thereby disabling them from further service on a battlefield, or burning cities—this is soft work, and morally pink beside the blood-red butchery and bestial mutilation, and infamous arson and rapine that marked the passage of the Emperor’s armies. And yet, strange to say, in our own America, a mighty majority of the leading modernists were, during the days of the war, and are to this moment, sympathetic friends of the very nation and people that practiced such brutality. They have taken their post-graduate work in that country; they have adopted its philosophy of life in Darwinism; they have delighted to teach that in the struggle for existence only the fittest should survive; and yet, they would come back to us and have us believe both in their defense of the brutal methods of our day, and in their offense at Scriptural records of four thousand years since. Where is the consistency?The Lord, in this language, meant to teach an essential truth. Don’t capture an enemy’s horses and put your trust in them; your trust should be in a higher power.
You should not rest in brute flesh, but in the infinite Father.“An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength” (Psalms 33:17).“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God” (Psalms 20:7).THE KINGSThe full report of this conquest against kings is recorded in Joshua 11:10 to Joshua 12:24.The victory of Joshua and Israel was complete. The language of the text is: “They left them none remaining”.
Our hope of complete victory is in our leadership. Our Joshua—Jesus—met and defeated every enemy of life, and we share with Him.“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him: for we shall see Him as He is.“And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the Law; for sin is the transgression of the Law.“And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.* * * “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.“In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil” (1 John 3:2-5; 1 John 3:9-10).The cities were sacked and Hazor burned. Jab in, king of Hazor, was the most powerful of the kings. His city, therefore, was the essential capitol of the northland. Its utter destruction was a notice of complete extinction served against all who resisted.There are some centers of opposition that must be utterly destroyed if our victory against them is to stand. There are some sins that must be put out of life, once and forever, or we will find them recovering any kind of a blow and making ready to attack and conquer us again.Drinking is still a living iniquity, but when the government of the United States destroyed the saloon, root and branch, it struck “intemperance” a fatal blow.
Like the serpent whose head is crushed, it may continue to live and move for quite a time, but its striking power will never be the same, and its more destructive fangs are pulled.The roster of kings was a revelation of triumph. The eleventh chapter records the conquest; the twelfth chapter names the kings—thirty-one of them in all.
For the most part, their kingdoms were petty, and the resistance of one of them would have been puny, but their combined numbers provided formidable foes, and only the help from heaven given Joshua made possible his victory against them all. When Paul spoke of our warfare against “principalities and powers”, he employed language with precision. The enemies of the human soul are a multitude. John Bunyan, in his allegory, “Pilgrim’s Progress”, brings this fact fully before us. They take many forms; they wear many faces; they dominate in many realms, but they unite, both against Joshua and his followers. A victory against them all is a victory indeed. If Jesus is our leader, the victory can be had.