MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 10:12-15
THE VICTORY OF FAITH
John says, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith.” This triumph at Beth-horon is hardly less owing to faith than was the triumph of the Israelites at Jericho.
Consider—
I. The life of faith in the greatness of its emergencies.
1. Believing men by no means escape emergencies. Life is full of them. Every realm of duty discovers them. They confront us when we seek to aid our fellows. Joshua was here aiding the Gibeonites. They meet us as we seek to obey the commands of God. So far from being exempt from them as we do the will of God, it is here that they seem most plentiful and most severe.
2. The emergencies of believing men are God-given opportunities for faith. The proverb tells us that, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Necessity which is beyond the capacity of human wit or power to meet is not seldom the mother of faith.
3. God often times and measures the necessities of His people so as to tempt their faith. Joshua was fast gaining the victory. The hail was giving witness of Divine help. Yet the light was threatening too speedy a departure to allow of complete victory. Unless Heaven helped more fully, many would escape, and to a great extent the battle would have to be fought over again. Why might not Jehovah, already so manifestly making the battle His own, help yet more? Thus the very crisis entices trust: “Then spake Joshua to the Lord,” etc.
II. The life of faith in the boldness of its requests.
1. Faith, like love, cannot wait for precedents. No prayer like this had ever been offered before. The chronicles of prayer shewed nothing approaching this. As the woman who wept on Christ’s feet, and wiped away the tears with her hair, shews us love which never thought of staying to ask if that kind of thing had ever been done before; so Joshua shews us a faith which forgets all but God’s power and love, and Israel’s need. Faith is not empirical; it acts from given principles which have been accepted by the heart, rather than from the proofs which are written in history. He who only suffers his faith to imitate that of some one else will win little renown among spiritually minded men, and obtain little blessing from God. Faith is essentially spontaneous, and independent of men, and is always weak when imitative.
2. Faith cannot be limited by difficulties. It begins by granting a might which is omnipotent and a love which is infinite, and then simply speaks as moved by its necessities.
III. The life of faith in its prevalence with God.
1. They who trust shall never “be confounded,” no matter for what they trust. When God promises to answer prayer, He never stipulates beforehand to know the nature of the prayer. This sublime feature runs through the entire Bible. Men inquire about the thing which they are asked to promise; God simply inquires about the kind of spirit which asks.
2. What some would think the extravagancies of faith, the Scriptures occasionally guarantee God’s acceptance of, by giving us instances in kind. Christ certifies that the very mountains should be at the command of faith. If some adequate necessity required the removal of a mountain, and occasion were thus given for a faith that should deal with a reality, and not with an experiment; then, on the exercise of faith, the Saviour assures us that the mountain should be removed. So this seemingly extravagant request of Joshua’s is put before us to shew that with a need that is real, and a heart that asks unquestioningly, God answers without any respect whatever to the magnitude of our petitions.
IV. The life of faith in the thoroughness of its victories over error.
1. The idolaters themselves were utterly overthrown.
2. The objects of their idolatry were placed at the command of the enemies of idolatry. The Canaanites, like the Phœnicians, worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth. This worship was closely connected with the adoration of the heavenly bodies. Baal by some has been identified as the “Sun-god,” while Ashtoreth, it is thought, was worshipped as the “Moon-goddess.” “There can be no doubt that the general notion symbolised by Ashtoreth is that of productive power, as Baal symbolises that of generative power; and it would be natural to conclude that as the sun is the great symbol of the latter, and therefore to be identified with Baal, so the moon is the symbol of the former, and must be identified with Ashtoreth. That this goddess was so typified can scarcely be doubted. At any rate it is certain that she was by some ancient writers identified with the moon.” [Smith’s Dict.] The commanding of the sun and the moon to stand still thus becomes profoundly significant. Just as the miracles of Moses were directed “against all the gods of Egypt,” so does this miracle in answer to the prayer of Joshua demean the gods of the Canaanites before the eyes of all concerned. The sun and moon, which had so long been worshipped, were shewn to be at the command of Joshua; the deities which the idolaters had adored were bidden by a man to stay, and to give their light while the idolaters were slain. This, it may be remarked, affords, in the light of the plagues of Egypt, presumptive evidence of the reality of the miracle itself, and shews, what for the purposes of the battle is somewhat obscure, why the moon was addressed as well as the sun. As objects of worship, these symbols of idolatry should be degraded in the sight of both the Canaanites and the Israelites (cf. Deuteronomy 4:19). So thorough is the victory of truth; so complete is the triumph of the man who, in unquestioning faith, fights for the God of truth.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
ESSENTIAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FAITH.
I. He only believes well who works well. Joshua had hastened up against this confederacy of Canaanites as though the entire burden of the battle lay on the men who were to fight it. It is the man who labours thus diligently that believes thus fully.
II. He alone can rightly believe in God’s word, who is very jealous of his own word. Joshua had kept faith most conscientiously with the Gibeonites. In all that in which he had excited their hopes he met them with strict integrity. The hope of a trusting heart was a sacred thing to him. This is the man who, remembering that God had said, “I will not fail thee,” dared to believe that every hope which such words had encouraged would be sacredly honoured by God. A lack of integrity in our hearts towards men will assuredly work within us a proportionately weak trust in God. It is he who honours every hope which he has caused in the bosoms of others, who is best prepared to cry for himself, “Stablish Thy word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused him to hope.”
III. He best believes in Divine help for the penitent, who himself has compassion for the penitent. The penitence of the Gibeonites seems to have been very poor. Whatever may have been its motives, and however low its manifestation, Joshua seems really to have been glad to spare these men who pleaded for mercy, even though they came with lies upon their lips. It was easy for such a man to feel, “Can I be more merciful than God? If I find pleasure in hastening to save them from their foes, must not God be even more interested in their deliverance?”
IV. He most fully believes in the overthrow of error, who has long learned to hate error. Joshua had long shewn far more than a mere love for the cause of the Israelites. He had shewn a hatred of unbelief as seen in the ten spies, and of sin as manifested in Achan. We seldom hear him speak without feeling how deep is his love for the truth. He who thus hates evil himself has little difficulty in believing that God hates it more, and that He will spare no work to overthrow it.
V. He who would believe that no thing is too hard for the Lord must walk very much with the Lord. Joshua had not only proved the might of the Divine arm, but the love of the Divine heart. He walked in sympathy with God, and in joy in God. This is the man who dared to say, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”
THE POETICAL CELEBRATION OF THE MIGHTY WORKS OF THE LORD.
God’s mighty works should be perpetuated in song. They should be chronicled, not only in language which can inform the mind, but in words adapted to move the heart. They should be written down in the natural language of joy and praise. Poetry is the smile of the fair face of literature, while logic, in its sterner procedure and heavier forms, more nearly resembles the frown. God’s gladdening works of deliverance are not so much things to be argued about, as mercies to be sung.
“A BELIEVING WORD OF JOSHUA
1. Spoken under what circumstances?
2. How intended?
3. How answered?
THE GREAT DAY AT GIBEON
It was great:
1. Through the mighty strife of the combatants.
2. Through the courageous faith of the general.
3. Through the victory which God gave.”—[Fay; Lange’s Com.]
“It is a good care how we may not anger God; it is a vain study how we may fly from His judgments when we have angered Him.
“God’s glory was that which Joshua aimed at: he knew that all the world must needs be witnesses of that which the eye of the world stood still to see.”—[Bp. Hall.]