40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Joshua 6:1-27 (Episode 186)

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

Chad and Daniel continue discussing Joshua's interaction with the Commander of the Lord's army and why this is certainly Jesus. Israel is told they will take Jericho but the way they are to do it is very strange. What is going with the number 7 in the people's instructions? How should we view the destruction of Jericho and difficult texts like it? Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Live-Stream Signup Life of Christ Academy Class Houston City Event Las Vegas City Event Germany Conference Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast, check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. Also, while you're over there, you can check out the events page. The events page, you'll find out where all kinds of different 1517 speakers are going to be. And one of the things you'll notice on that events page are city events for Houston and Las Vegas. We're going to be in Houston in February, Las Vegas in March. We'd love to hang out with you.

All the information is over there and you can register. here's the thing guys both those events are free if you're in the great nation of texas come on down to houston hang out chad will be there i'll be there a whole bunch of other folks if you are in that uh if you're living in that sin city well we got you covered we're going to be in las vegas that's free too come hang out chad we are also going to be in europe we're going to be in the great country of germany birthplace of the reformation in may of next year i'm like trying to keep my wife from already beginning planning packing you know she's like looking months in advance checking out checking out like what the weather's like in germany yeah

that's how excited she is i think i think the weather as i understand it the weather in germany is gray yeah that's kind of my impression too so i get you guys yeah hey our german listeners can correct me but that's how i understand it but hey we're excited it's the great freedom conference I'll put a link in the show notes. So if you're one of our European listeners, which we know we got a lot of those, then we would love to see you. Chad and I will both be there. Eric Sorensen will be there.

Scott Keith. Come on out. Registration is open. So register for that and come see us. And we'd love to hang out with you in the, you know. Germany is probably much cooler to us than it is if you live in Europe, I suppose. because you know to us as lutherans i mean this is it's a it's a big deal oh yeah yeah i just like that with any place you live you know when people come to visit us they're like we gotta go see the

alamo i'm like yeah i've seen it several times this is a funny we'll take you there you know we'll be the tour guides for the day but yeah once you've been once it's like ah okay well this is what's funny we're going to germany and of course i'm planning a little trip down to wittenberg of course i just gotta go but here's an example of how this works so if you go to germany i gotta go there i lived in arizona for over a year right there in phoenix and people be like dude what's the grand canyon like and i'm like i don't know i never went and people will travel like great great distances to go see the grand canyon but because it was local i never went yeah i live in texas i've been there three times

you get yeah well you just gotta plan a trip back you cannot not see the grand i guess so i guess so what's yeah it is it is funny because i talked to some uh some of the german guys over there there were actually a couple of them that were like yeah i'll be honest i've never been down to wittenberg and that just like blew my mind but then i realized yeah well i never went the Grand Canyon, so it's kind of like that. Yeah, that is the way we are. Well, yeah, that's definitely on our to-do list. It is. It's going to happen. Got to be there. All right, so where are we at in Joshua? We left with Joshua interacting with an interesting character. Yeah, we did. We did. We were in the last three verses of chapter five of Joshua, and it's a good transition point

into what's going to follow, which is all about Jericho. So we're going to pick up with a couple of items from Joshua 5, 13 through 15 that we didn't get around to that I think are significant to help us understand a little bit more about who this is and why he appears the way that he does to Joshua and how that compares with other Christophanies or Theophanies from the Old Testament. So just kind of recap, Joshua is met by this man. That's the way he's first described. this is an ish which is the Hebrew word for this kind of a generic word for man Joshua is close to Jericho and he lifts up his eyes he looks and behold there's a sky and he's standing opposite him but he's not just standing there but he's he's in a military posture with a military weapon

in his hand so he's got he's got a sword and not just a sword like on his belt in its sheath but it is drawn in his hand. So of course, I mean, if you're Joshua, the first thing that you're going to think is this guy's coming for me, or at least you're going to wonder if the guy's coming for you. So Joshua says, basically, are you for us or for our adversaries? We talked about his response last time when he says no or neither. And Dan, you talked about that quite well, about how the position that this commander of the Lord's armies was taking with respect to the Israelites as well as the rest of the people of the land of Canaan. So he says neither. And then he says, I have come as the, my translation has the captain of the host of the Lord, or it

could be the commander of the Lord's armies. So that word that's translated here in my version as captain, in some other versions as commander. The word is a real simple Hebrew word, sar. We see it, for instance, in Isaiah chapter 9. It's the sar shalom as one of the descriptions of the Messiah. He's the prince of peace. So in Isaiah 9, it's translated as prince. But it's kind of a general Hebrew word that's used a whole lot of times, hundreds of times in the Old Testament, typically to describe some sort of military commander, or at least a commander of some sort. So here he's described as the commander of the host of the Lord or the armies of the Lord. So of course, he's not only appearing as a soldier, as a military commander,

but he identifies as one as well. Well, immediately Joshua realizes that he's not dealing here with just a regular guy, but with somebody else. He's going to find out more about him as the conversation goes on, but you can tell Joshua realizes it's because he falls on his face to the earth. He bows down, so he takes the typical posture that Israelites take when they're either in the presence of a king, but especially when in the presence of the Lord, or at least of the Lord's messenger. That is, just by way of reminder, in the Old Testament, worship is always a very bodily activity. With some Christian churches today, worship still is a very bodily activity. I mean, you've got everything from bowing, to making the sign of

the cross, to raising your hands, to clapping. I mean, there's all sorts of bodily activities that go on, even in the church today, but it was certainly that way in the Old Testament. In fact, i expect you know when we think about someone bowing down to the ground i think today we actually the image that immediately comes to mind is muslims at prayer right when they get down their knees and they put their head but that's actually the a very modern way of picturing how the israelites themselves would have worshiped well it's a fairly abrahamic thing right yeah i mean abraham does that too a lot of patriarchs do you see this the while throughout the old testament Really, any time that especially any time in which God makes an appearance, that's just people's automatic reaction.

They fall to the ground. They place their face to the ground. And this is the way that's the very posture of worship or adoration or humility kind of all together. And then he said, Joshua says, what has my Lord to say to a servant? Now, at this point, Joshua's language doesn't necessarily betray his complete understanding of who this is. So maybe Joshua himself isn't totally sure. I mean, this could be just an angel, right? We don't know. But when it says, what has my Lord to say to a servant, that's not Yahweh.

In Hebrew, it's just the word, kind of the general word for a lord or a master. So Adon is the Hebrew there. So maybe he thinks he's just an angel, maybe he thinks he's something else, but we're going to find out in just a second who he really is. Verse 15, this captain of the Lord's host goes on to say, remove your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy. And then Joshua does so. Now let me just take two more verses to kind of complete who this is. So I'm going to jump into chapter 6 just for verses 1 and 2. Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel. No one went out and no one came in. And the Lord, that's Yahweh, and the Lord, Yahweh, said to

Joshua, see I've given Jericho into your hand. So this is one of these cases where it's very important that you ignore, completely ignore chapter divisions. Because if you were to read those last few verses of chapter five and stop, you wouldn't be exactly sure who this was. I mean, this very well could be an archangel or some other angel. There's a very strong suggestion it's somebody more. But when you read on into those first two verses of chapter six, you see that the one who is speaking to Joshua is more than an ish, more than just a man. He's more than just a captain or a general. He actually is Yahweh himself. So this fits with, especially with Exodus chapter three and the appearance of the angel slash Lord to Moses in the burning bush,

because we have the same kind of language it's used. First of all, in Exodus 3, we're not exactly sure who this is. But then as the story goes on, the one in the burning bush identifies himself as God or as Yahweh. Same thing happens here. First, you have a man, then you have him identified as the captain. And then finally, in chapter 6, you have him identified as Yahweh himself. And you have the same kind of language repeated with regard to

the removal of sandals because the place where first Moses is standing and then second Joshua is standing is holy ground. And it's holy, of course, because God is now making his appearance and because he himself is holy or he appears it's holy. So both of these should be read in tandem, Exodus 3, Joshua 5, and those opening two verses of chapter 6, because this is actually the same person appearing in both these places. This is one of these many Christophanies in the Old Testament, many appearances of the Word or the Son or the Messenger of the Father, and what I think is fascinating about this particular one in comparison with Exodus chapter 3 is it's, you almost, you get the impression, at least I do, that when God makes his appearance, he is to some extent making an

appearance that corresponds to the situation he's in and the person that he's addressing. So for instance, when he appears in Exodus 3 to Moses, he appears to Moses while Moses is shepherding his flock, and he appears to him at Mount Sinai, the very mountain that Moses, of course, will later take the Israelites to. So this kind of sets the whole tone of the conversation and of the mission that God sends Moses on. So God appears while Moses is shepherding because he's going to call him from shepherding the sheep of his father-in-law to shepherd the people of Israel. And he appears to him at Mount Sinai because, of course, it's that mountain that Moses will later shepherd the people of Israel. Now here, it's a very different situation because

he appears to Joshua, of course, not on a mountaintop, but he appears to him by Jericho, which of course is a city they're about to attack and he appears to him as as a warrior as a as the commander of the lord's armies because he is in heaven kind of what joshua is in a in a much more limited way on earth josh was the earthly commander of of the armies of israel and christ is the commander of the armies the armies of heaven so in both those cases you can see sort the Lord accommodating his appearance to the situation and to the person that he's addressing. It's one more of these many appearances of Christ in the Old Testament, which affirm that Christ was always with his people, always in some way making his presence known, being with them, leading them,

guiding them. He wasn't waiting for his incarnation to finally come down from heaven. He came down from have it all the time just not as a flesh and blood human like he did beginning with beginning with his incarnation so anyway there's lots of lots of cool stuff there in those uh those last few verses of joshua 5 and those couple verses of joshua 6 yeah i mean it's uh it's probably good if you are joshua and you're about to go do sort of the first thing you're about to have this this first big act under your leadership it would be this is gonna be a nerve-wracking thing i mean You've had Moses this whole time and, you know, and you're about to go do this thing. And I mean, I'm sure Joshua believes that this is what God wants them to do.

But it's kind of nice when God shows up and affirms this for you. I mean, this has to be good for the confidence. Yeah, I think Joshua's confidence level just shot through the roof. Yeah, so what you said kind of fits in with this whole narrative about Joshua. Well, everything really up to these first six chapters, all of this is big first-time stuff, first time in the Holy Land, and the first big battle coming up, first real, if you don't consider, if you don't think about the crossing of the Jordan, this is the first real big thing that Joshua is going to be doing, and that's one of the reasons that so much time is spent in these first few chapters on these opening events, because this is kind of setting the stage for what is going to follow. we won't hear nearly as much about some of the other battles, some of the other victories, and at least one defeat, which will be coming up relatively soon. But a lot of time is spent on Jericho because this sets the precedent for what's going to follow. So we have a focus on Joshua's

new leadership, upon Israel's new status in the Holy Land, and now once we get to chapter six about their first big confrontation, and how God is going to use this to set the pattern for what's going to happen in coming battles, and to teach Israel something about, to remind them, I guess you could say, ritually, what is really going on with these battles, and who is actually giving them the victory against all their enemies. So, let's move on. So, Joshua 6, verses 1 and 2, already read. We'll pick up here again with the words in verse two, where this commander has identified himself as Yahweh. So Yahweh says to Joshua, look, I've given Jericho into your hand with its king and its valiant warriors. And then he goes on to describe these, this well-known

kind of, when you, when you step back from it, very, very weird way of preparing to take the city. One of my earliest memories from Sunday school, it might be my earliest memory from Sunday school, is learning about Joshua chapter six. I even had this little cassette tape, this little book. I can remember as a little kid, I listened to these songs. I wish I remembered what the song was. Some kid's song about Joshua and Jericho marching around the city. I remember being fascinated by this particular this particular story and so it's like my earliest memory of uh of what happens here but of course when i was when i was a little kid i didn't stop to think of how weird this is i mean the whole thing is so strange oh my memory is of this is a

little is a little weirder than that i was a part of a christian youth group back in the day and And right before the day before the first day of school, this group decided that they would march around the school seven times and pray because that seemed like a good thing to do. And I remember even then thinking, wait, are we about to take this school over? Yeah. Did you have like trumpets? Like are we about to invade this? What are we doing? I mean, some people are very familiar with this concept of prayer walking, but there's very much an attachment to Jericho, like Joshua and Jericho, like, hey, we're going to march around the school seven times praying.

And I did think even then, like, at the end of the seven times, doesn't something that we really don't want to happen, happen? It's like you're declaring a war against the school. Yeah, dude. I'll tell you what. Yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes Christians get a little fruity. Yeah. Yeah, they do. so so you think about felt boards when uh when you hear this story i think about marching around

high schools preparing for battle but to take this place for jesus take this place down it i mean it is such a it is such an odd scene uh was reflecting more about it this morning when i was uh uh doing some preparation for this and just first of all you got to ask you know why I think that is maybe not always a question that we do ask of this, but why would God want them to do what they do? I mean, you've got a lot of other options, right? I suppose you could just attack the city, but there's really no practical reason to wait seven days. and why you know why walk around that a total if you count like the uh uh the once a day for six days and then you know seven times around it again so i mean like yeah 13 times i'm walking

around this city carrying the ark of the covenant and blurring the trumpets but nobody else is saying a word just why i mean that's that's some strange stuff going on well i think there's a lot of other ways that it could have could have been done in other words yeah i think there's there's probably like there's like the reason that it happens which is if this is the way you do this it it prohibits you from taking any credit because what they do i mean this is obviously god giving them the victory at the end of this i mean we'll we'll see when we get there but there's no way you'd be like man we did we did it like man tell you what that was a great strategy like we have done it god ensures that uh that people know that this was he won this victory for him i think that's

probably like of all the reasons that's the main one yeah i think that's the main reason a side effect of this is i think about if i think about like i'm i'm a resident of jericho and like i said last last episode they're all pent up in the city i mean some dude like the sea just like parted and all these people marched across and i mean rahab said these guys are scared to death the spies saw it they're they're totally freaked out melting hearts the whole thing right so they're in the city and then these freaks start marching around your city carrying this like gold box blowing trumpets and they're just marching around it every day like this has got to be the freakiest thing ever if you're in that you're like because you don't know what you have no idea what they're

doing like i mean if this happened to you you'd be like what are these guys doing what is about to happen to us yeah that's like uh ancient psychological warfare going on there oh yeah if someone's doing this you have to think if you're them it seems like such a bold confident thing to do like these guys are toying like they're messing with us yeah like this is very psychologically damaging i think yeah i think so too yeah yeah there's like there's two things going on here this is partly for the israelites but it's also partly for the jerichoians or whatever you call the people in jericho yeah but they're if their hearts had already melted well i don't know what like the next stage after melting is but there's not gonna be anything left

in other words once once this happens so they gotta be wondering throughout the throughout each day uh what are they up to what's their next plan so and of course they won't find out until the seventh day but i think it's part of part of what's going yeah i mean if you if you brought this down to like a real practical level say you were like in your house like you lived at like out in the middle of nowhere and you are in your house and you're in there and then like these 10 guys show up and then once a day they march around your house with a box this would be so freaky yeah it would be yeah that's that that's what happens uh let me read these next few verses we'll kind of get the whole picture here and as i read them uh listen for all the sevens i think

that that's going to be significant here so pick up we hear with verse three you shall march around the city all the men of war circling the city once all right you can do that for six days verse four also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark and then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times and the priest shall blow the trumpets verse five and it shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn and when you hear the sound of the trumpet all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall down flat and the people will go up every man straight ahead so those are the instructions that this commander of the Lord of Hosts, Yahweh,

gives to Joshua. So one of the fascinating aspects of this, when you look at it in the context of the rest of the Old Testament, is just the number of times that seven is mentioned. So it's gonna be a total of seven days. You got seven priests who are carrying seven trumpets. And on the seventh day,

they're gonna march around the city seven times. So it's like, he wants to make sure that you don't miss the significance of the number seven. And this fits in with a whole lot of other Old Testament stories and rituals that we've talked about on a number of occasions. You first of all encounter the theological significance of seven, of course, in the creation account when the Lord rests on the seventh day. But then that seventh day and that seven number

It becomes the foundation for basically the whole festival liturgical calendar of the Israelites. So the seventh day, the Sabbath, you have the seventh year or the sabbatical year, which is every seventh year. And then you have the Jubilee year, which is the year after seven Sabbaths of years or 40, 49 years. So you've got all kinds of significance related to the number seven, which is usually connected with something like completeness. And I suspect that's what's going on here. The idea is that God is going to bring about all sorts of completeness through this. He's going to give them a complete victory.

He's going to completely demolish their foes. And through the course of the seven days, he's going to teach them to trust completely in him because he's the one who's going to be giving them giving them this victory so there's a whole lot going on there with with the number seven and maybe there's other reasons as well but i think that's kind of the the basic message behind all these recurrences of of seven it kind of fits within the broader pattern that you see from genesis onward of the lord doing things with with the number seven you know one of the things i've thought about and this is probably a huge aside but is that they do this for seven days which means i don't know what day they started

but they did this on the sabbath and uh and you it shows you that uh how backwards the understanding of the sabbath becomes uh because this would be something that uh you know if you told the pharisees hey let's uh let's march around this city for seven days they'd be like well, there's at least one day where we can't do any marching, dude. You know, that we can't, I mean, whatever God says, we still, I mean, he already said we can't do that. Obviously, there's a day, and maybe it is the seventh day. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me.

I mean, it seems how God would work, right? That you would start on a Sunday and you would end on the Sabbath, right? Now, we don't know that, but it would make sense that on the day of rest that, like, all of those walls would come down. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point to make. I think I mentioned this before on the podcast, but when I was a graduate student at Hebrew Union College, I took a whole class on the Sabbath. Not the Sabbath as a general topic, but one of the parts of the Talmud that's dedicated to the Sabbath.

And I love the class just because of, you know, it was very, very interesting, very educational, learned a lot about Jewish theology and biblical interpretation and Hebrew and all that. But the thought that kept coming into my mind almost every time we got together and read a little bit of Talmud about this was, my, this sounds just like the New Testament. it. I can understand why Jesus was constantly sparring with the Pharisees about the Sabbath day, because there were so many very minute rules about governing every imaginable kind of activity on the Sabbath day. So you can see how it had become just an oppressive day. Instead of it being created for man, it was like man was made for the Sabbath in this particular way of looking at it. So, I mean, there were just an amazing amount of restrictions with regard to what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath. Yeah, I'm guessing it didn't include, like, and then

sometimes you'll march around the city seven times. Yeah, I don't remember that being one of the things that was allowed. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this, like you say, we don't know, but if the Sabbath day was actually the Sabbath day, and God was going to do on that Sabbath day something besides just having them kick back and stay inside their homes. Yeah, well, it makes sense that, because if you really understand the Sabbath, the Sabbath is the day where he's given man to rest. And so this is the day where, you know, I mean, we would say Sunday is like the day that we go and celebrate what the Lord has done.

We go and receive, you know, his gifts. Yeah, it makes sense that, you know, the seventh day he'd be like, watch me work. Yeah. And that's what he's about to do. Yeah. Yeah, this is going to be entirely the Lord's doing. all right so let's let's pick up uh with uh i know it seemed like we hadn't gone very far in the chapter we're gonna be able to actually summarize a lot of this because what happens

next is so joshua is given these instructions by the commander and then in verse six and following he then relays these same instructions to the people so christ tells joshua what to do joshua turns around and goes back and tells the priest and the leaders of the army what they are to do so basically you have this you have a a group of soldiers that go in front of the ark of the covenant then you have the priest the seven priests are blowing the trumpets they're behind them and then you have the guys who are creating the ark of the covenant and then you have a rear guard as well and it's a little bit unclear whether all of the israelites joined in every single march around the city, it's a little ambiguous. So I'll leave that up to you guys to

decide whether you believe they are or not. But there's at least some ambiguity there. But either way, you've got at least these portions of the soldiers as the foreguard and the rear guard and the priest and the Ark of the Covenant, and they're marching around the city. And they do this, of course, for six days, once a day. And we have that summarized in those next few verses. So let's pick it up with verse 15 on the seventh day. So it comes about on the seventh day, they get up early at the dawning of the day and they march. Same thing, they march around the city, except this time they go seven times. And on the seventh time, I'm in verse 16 now, the seventh time when the priest blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, shout for the Lord has given you the city

and the city shall be under the ban. It shall be that all that is in it belongs to the Lord, only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live because she had the messengers whom we sent but as for you keep yourselves from the things under the band lest you covet them and take some of the things under the band so you would make the camp of Israel accursed and bring trouble upon it and he goes on to say that all the silver gold bronze iron are holy to God and they're going into the treasury of the Lord now I suspect Joshua gave these instructions to the people well before he said shout this is kind of a summary of what he had told the people so when you when you shout the walls didn't come down but i want you to know something when you

go into the city first of all don't take any of the gold silver other metals because those are going to belong to god we're going to come back to that that's significant because of of what's going to happen in the next chapter if we find out that at least one of the people did not heed these instructions and disaster follows follows that but anyway it's put out there now as the instruction for the people because all this stuff was considered to be harem in hebrew which is the word usually translated as like banned or can be translated accursed it kind of has a general meaning for everything that is no longer for human consumption either it's destroyed or it's given totally to the lord if it's if it's harem so it goes on to say that that's what happens so

the people shout the priests blow the trumpets and when all this happens the people shout this great shout the walls go down flat the people go up into the city and everything is destroyed and I mean everything. Verse 21 says they utterly destroyed. This is that Hebrew word haram again. They put under the ban everything. So men, women, young and old, all the animals, the oxen, the sheep, the donkeys, everything was destroyed except for Rahab and her family. So Joshua sends the two guys who knew Rahab into the city, and they bring not only Rahab out, but her parents and her brothers and basically all of her relatives she had brought into her house were saved, and then were placed, at least for a while, outside the camp of Israel. And then, excuse me, they were gradually

integrated into the life of Israel. We'll come back to that in just a second. So what did they do with the city? Well, they did the city what they only did with two other cities, with Ai and with Hazor, they burned it. Most of the cities that they took, they kept, and they were able actually to use them as their own cities. But three of the cities, including Jericho, they burned to the ground. And then just kind of finish this out. Once the city was destroyed and burned, Joshua swears this oath before the Lord saying, cursed is the man who rises up and builds the city of Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn, he shall lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son, he shall set up its gates. Now, it's going to be some time

before this happens, about 500 years, but when Ahab is king, there's going to be a guy who actually does try and rebuild the city of Jericho, and this prophecy slash oath slash curse is fulfilled and actually there's a reference back to this because when it happens the guy not only loses his firstborn son but he also loses his his youngest son as well and when that happens this particular verse from joshua joshua is referenced so we have a we have jericho taken just like god promised just in the way that god promised it was it was going to happen we have a complete destruction of everyone in it and everything that was in it was supposed everything all the the metals that were in it were supposed to be given to the lord and be taken into into

the treasury of the lord now i want to i want to point out a couple things here before we before we're out of time we got about five minutes left um one of the one of the the ways i like to to view chapter six is that it's kind of part of a part of a pattern that we have established I guess you could say it's the third part of a pattern that we we've already seen a couple of other times in the scriptures so if you look at the destruction of Jericho with the crossing of the Red Sea with the flood and Noah's Ark all three of these together are giving us a a preview of the final judgment and salvation and they're all three connected and in a multitude of ways. For instance, in each of these cases, those who are part of the redeemed

are those who pass through water. So Israel passes through the Red Sea and are brought out safe. All of Noah's family pass through the waters of the sea, safe on the ark. And Joshua, along with all the Israelites pass through the waters of the Jordan River and enter into the promised land. So that's the first theme that unites all three of these. Those who pass through the waters are part of the redeemed of the Lord. The second thing that brings all three of these stories together is that there is always a man appointed by God to lead the people. So of course it's Noah with the flood, and it's Moses to the crossing of the Red Sea, and here it's Joshua with the destruction of Jericho. And then, of course, in each three of these cases, you have a destruction of those who

are outside the kingdom of God, and that destruction is total. So there's complete destruction of the world except for Noah and his family. There's a complete destruction of Pharaoh and his Egyptian army, and here there's a complete destruction of the city of Jericho. And what's going on here when you see all three of these stories together is each of these is giving us a preview of what is going to happen when all of these stories come together in the capital T story of the Messiah, because he is the one who is, of course, the one appointed by God, just like Noah and Moses and Joshua, and his people are brought safely as part of the redeemed through water. That's the purpose of baptism, and we have the scriptures themselves talking about the connection between

the crossing of the red sea and the flood and the jordan in reference to baptism and then secondly you have this these old testament stories kind of giving us a picture of eschatological destruction of the of the end time destruction that's going to that's going to befall not just a city or not just an army but like at the time of the flood the whole world so if people are bothered the reason i bring this up is if people are are troubled by this complete destruction of the city of jericho just keep in mind that it's part of a large it's part of a much larger pattern that we see throughout scriptures that is a picture of actually what's going to happen at at the end of the world uh this is a this is this is a preview of god's eschatological judgment and and salvation

that's sketched out here for us already in the book of joshua yeah i mean it's understandable why why this stuff bothers people uh i'd be lying if i said that sometimes when you read this it's it's not troubling and what you have to understand is in at least scripturally when god deals with evil he deals with it in absolute finality i mean he just he just utterly takes it out so god God wipes evil out when he decides to act and all of this stuff then brings you to the cross where God finally deals with sin he deals with it with with his son and he does it in the death of Christ and Christ doesn't sort of kind of die Christ is destroyed he is completely broken this is why he says like does my body broken for you right I mean his he is a broken figure at that

point and that all of the sin of the world is placed on christ and then christ is destroyed because when god deals with evil he deals with it in totality and so that's that's really what all this stuff points to if you want to if you're like trying to figure out what's going on in jericho you have to look at like well this is what finally happens to christ and so also when you try to figure out when is god going to deal with all this evil one he has dealt with all this evil in the person and work of Christ. And also, you don't want him dealing with evil outside of Christ because he deals with it on every level. How would you like him to deal with evil? Just the evil that you don't like? When he deals with evil, he deals with it in the heart level, in the mind

level. He deals with it in the thinking level. If God decides to wipe out evil, we're going to be part of that destruction. So God isn't dealing with evil in that way because he has dealt with evil fully and completely at the cross and that's what that's what all these stories end up end up being and that's why the destruction is so exhaustive that's a great way to end that's it man that is it that is 40 minutes guys the academy class that i did with eric sorenson is now available so uh you know it's not too late to enroll but it has launched so the first session is up if you want to get in on that go over and there's a link in the show notes and uh and you can sign up and take The Life of Christ

according to the Gospel of Luke with Eric and I. Also, here we still stand. I know you probably can't go to that now because, you know, all the tickets are gone and you didn't get one but maybe you wanted to be a part of it anyway. Well, I'll put a link in the show notes to the live stream so you can

register for the live stream. It's free. You just sign up and then you'll get a notification when the conference goes live so you can watch the conference right there at home. Also, while you're over there clicking around at 1517. If you go to the donate page, you can become a supporter. That's what makes

all this possible. Thank you so much to those of you who do that. Chad, I will see you next week. See you then. Thanks. you