Israel, Who Conquered Canaan
1Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel struck, and possessed their land beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah eastward: 2Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, even to the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon; 3and the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and to the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Beth Jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah: 4and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei, 5and ruled in Mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. 6Moses the servant of Yahweh and the children of Israel struck them. Moses the servant of Yahweh gave it for a possession to the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
After killing the king of Hazor, Joshua took the whole land, from Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir, even to Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon. Yet although he was conquering so much territory, no Canaanite people except the Gibeonites sought peace with Israel. God walked with Israel and showed great miracles, but the Canaanites refused to make peace. The world cannot defeat God, yet trusting in its own strength, it will not admit this. But Scripture guarantees that the world can never defeat God and his people, and the lives of believers bear witness to it.
When we see God at work in Elisha, we see how much God loves his people. The king of Syria made many plans to attack Israel, but every one of them failed, because God always told the prophet Elisha the king’s plans beforehand. When the king of Syria learned that Elisha knew all his plans and was defending against them, he sent a great army to kill Elisha.
When the Syrian army surrounded the city where Elisha was, Elisha’s servant asked whether he was not afraid, with the Syrians encircling the city. Elisha then prayed to God and opened his servant’s eyes. Once his eyes were opened, the servant saw for himself that horses and chariots of fire, more than the Syrian army, were guarding the city. With the eyes of the flesh he could see only the army surrounding him, but when the eyes of his spirit were opened, he saw the horses and chariots of fire and the angels God had sent to guard them. When we too look at the world with the eyes of the flesh, it seems a giant we could never overcome. But when we look with faith, we realize that God is guarding us with the hosts of heaven, and that Christ has already overcome that world and judged it, and so we are not afraid.
The pity of it is that once the king of Syria knew Elisha was aware of all his plans and defending against them, he ought to have received the God who was revealing everything to Elisha, rather than sending soldiers to kill the prophet. But in his folly he tried to overcome the almighty God and Elisha. Had the king feared Elisha, who knew everything he did even in his bedroom, he would have met God and found great help from Elisha.
But because the king of Syria thought Israel, smaller than his own nation, was no match for him, he did not fear even the God who ruled that nation. He thought it was simple: with the strength he had, he had only to kill Elisha. The world values what is big, many, and high above what is small, few, and low. So he thought that if he used his power to kill just this one man, Elisha, everything would go his way. Had the king been a little more awake, he would surely have seen the God on whom Elisha relied.
Shut up in his own thinking, the king of Syria judged everything by the world’s measure. He could not tell at all which was the greater power. His belief that the strength he could see could stand against the God he could not see brought about his ruin in the end, and he fell before Elisha, a single man under God’s protection.
Look at the church today, scorned by the world. Pastors without wisdom have tried hard to become like the world, and those very efforts have given the world reason to scorn the church. If the church set God’s holy word at its center and did not waver to the right hand or to the left, the world would not treat it lightly. But the church itself is hiding its light in order to resemble the world.
Churches have adopted the world’s methods, handing out church offices for money to members who have not been born again, and exploiting their members’ property to put up buildings as big and lavish as the world’s. I have even seen a church designed around a café and a restaurant on its first floor. The church is drifting entirely into worldliness, raising towering buildings like the tower of Babel even if it means breaking the law of the land. Churches are causing social problems, and pastors are doing evil things that even people of the world seldom do, making people miserable. They are defiling the name of God so badly that when the world points its finger, there is nothing to say in reply.
The church’s calling is to light up a dark world with the light of Christ. But the pastors who lead the church are not making sound spiritual judgments, which leaves the members with even less of a standard to judge by. When pastors pour their attention into what they can boast of before the world, the souls of the congregation wither, thirsting for the word. This set off a vicious circle, until even the members lost interest in the word. They became bound to the idea that the Bible is an ornament to carry to church, and the church a place one attends to get into heaven. The church can gain strength only when it knows the word, understands it, and lives it out, yet the church itself has thrown away the holy word. Because they do not know that heaven is for those who live out the word, they live as they please, both in the world and in the church.
Just as Israel, once in Canaan, abandoned God when they saw the wealth of its people, so now people hope to use God to achieve success in the world. They boast of what they ought, as God’s people, simply to give him. And when they do not get what they want, they readily abandon God like Judas Iscariot, or forsake the apostle Paul and go off into the world like Demas. Yet when we look at God’s working through Scripture, we see that he raises up and helps those who rely on him and obey his word.
I too am praying that God will send workers who have ears to hear the word, and that he will cause more people to work together, filled with the word. What I want to say to you is not that large churches are wrong. Even if there are tens of thousands of people in a church, you yourself, like Elisha, must first know the word, understand it, and obey it.
Someone who does not know the word of Scripture is not a believer. Like Elisha’s servant, if you have no spiritual eyes, you will not see the horses and chariots of fire God has sent, even when a magnificent sight unfolds before you. What I am saying is that you must not make the size of the congregation the measure of your faith. Even with Elisha at his side, if the servant could not see, then for him there were no horses and chariots of fire from God. Do not concern yourself with other people’s faith. Become, first of all, a child of God who is born again. Then, just as tens of thousands of Syrians could not overcome Elisha, one man whose spiritual eyes were open, you will be able to save God’s people if he uses you as his instrument.
The king of Syria saw God at work and still attacked Israel and Elisha. With a foolish and hardened heart he opposed God. Scripture records that God left these Syrians as they were in order to destroy them. This does not mean that God made up his mind to judge the Syrians and therefore kept them from receiving grace. It means that he judged the hardened human heart that sees and hears of Israel’s miracles and still does not change.
It is the same as what we read in Exodus 11:10: Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, but Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of Egypt. Through ten plagues, Pharaoh would not give up his hardened heart. Scripture records that it was Yahweh who hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
Read at face value, these words might make it seem as if God were working to bring a curse on Pharaoh. But they do not mean that God deliberately hardened Pharaoh so that he would oppose him. They mean that God did not help a man turn back who had seen God’s work and still would not repent. Unlike Moses, Pharaoh followed his human nature and would not accept God’s grace and love, and that is why he oppressed the people of Israel with a heart set against God.
If you keep growing hard even as you hear the word, or have no interest in it, you are refusing God’s grace yourself, and you must be afraid. If God loves you, he will send you hardship to make you his child, even if it means taking up the rod of men and the whip of life. To have no rebuke from God is to be abandoned, like an illegitimate child. You must therefore have a faith that hears the word and is the first to act on it.
Because the Canaanites heard the reports of God and still opposed him, true to their human nature, they suffered a crushing defeat at Israel’s hands. The Israelites destroyed all the Anakim, whom they had once feared, and the cities of Canaan became Israel’s possession. Joshua divided the land of Canaan among the people of Israel, who had labored so long in war. Right up to the day he gave each tribe its share, Joshua never let down his guard and gave his utmost to the fighting, and because of that he was able to bring God’s promise of Canaan to fulfillment.
What we need to understand here is that although God had promised to give them the land of Canaan, Joshua and Israel fought with everything they had until they possessed it. God certainly has his part, and only when he acts can there be victory. But if Israel did not risk their lives in step with his working, they could not take the land. God’s gifts, after all, are received only when people show their faith in action.
God works together with people. When he tells one of his people that he will do a certain work with them, and that person hears and does not obey, God’s plan will be delayed. He will raise up another person of faith to accomplish his plan, but he would still want to give rewards and blessing to the one he first chose. When something stirs your heart as you hear or read the word, if you take it as God giving you a calling and give yourself to it, he will give you the power, grace, and reward he has prepared for you.
To a people in slavery God said that in Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, good land for herds and blessed with abundant crops, they could live in overflowing prosperity and full blessing. So they believed the word and left Egypt, but every time they met even a small hardship they failed to overcome it and kept on complaining. In the end the first generation did not enter the promised land but all died in the wilderness. They had rejoiced to hear that they could live well in Canaan, but they did not hold fast to faith to the end. The reason is that they did not look at the promise of the almighty God from God’s side, to see how great and holy it was. Out of greed to make God’s promise serve their own lives, they complained even after receiving it, and perished.
Joshua 12:24
24the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty-one.
Israel conquered thirty-one cities after entering Canaan and killed the thirty-one kings who ruled them. Israel had only obeyed as God worked, yet they won a great victory. No one in the world can withstand the power of God. Even when they were circumcised after entering Canaan, God put fear into the Canaanites so that they would not dare to attack his people. When they attacked Jericho and Ai, too, he gave them strategies so that they could win easily, and he made those who died by his hand far more than those Israel killed.
In this war God handed Israel victory as a free gift. Of course, it is true that Israel won a great victory because the people threw everything they had into the battle. But within the joy of victory they tasted lay God’s unceasing love and the earnest prayers of Moses. We must not forget that all the while he led Israel toward Canaan, there was God’s protection, and there was Moses, who did his utmost to teach them to rely on God alone.
When God told Moses to appoint Joshua as leader now and come to heaven, Moses obeyed the word without question. Moses had prepared Joshua for this day, giving him courage and love and teaching him God’s will and word. Joshua followed Moses’ example of faith in leading the people, and God answered Moses’ earnest prayers and helped them win their battles. Though Moses was no longer in the world, God made sure he would not be put to shame.
In the same way, the faith of those who lead before us, and of our parents, plays a vital role. From Moses, and from parents who walk ahead in faith, we learn how they solve the problems they meet in life and how they stay faithful as they live. Whenever Joshua faced a hard problem, he must have wondered how Moses would deal with it. And he led the people by putting into practice what he had learned and heard from Moses.
Children, too, take into their own lives what they saw and learned from what their parents said and did in such moments. So, while people’s character seldom shows in ordinary times, when an emergency comes, or when they meet circumstances and people they would never have chosen, they respond, without realizing it, by the habits they learned. Some even confess that they watched their parents do wrong and promised themselves never to live that way, yet now they live exactly the same way. This happens because those surroundings have soaked into them. Since people act as they have heard and seen, parents must show their children what it looks like to obey God, and the church must preach nothing but the word for the faith of its members.
Those who live where the truth flows find it easy to make decisions when they meet the problems of life, since acting on the word they have heard and understood leads to a good outcome. But without the word, even if they want to turn back, they cannot know which choice to make, and so they make mistake after mistake. This is why the church must teach the word of truth honestly, and those who hear it must live by what they have heard.
The good deeds and earnest prayers Moses left behind were a great strength to Joshua and the people whenever they reached a hard pass in Canaan. The prayers he offered to God became a power by which his descendants could turn back whenever they sinned. Moses prayed to God without ceasing because he believed the people would live a blessed life under God’s protection.
Whether a prayer is for one’s children, for one’s nation and people, or for the Kingdom of God, the very act of storing up the fruit of prayer demands self-sacrifice, and for that reason God, who knows that earnest heart, answers. Your intercession has the power to save the life of someone you never thought of, and to free someone you never imagined from the place of sin. So it was that Moses’ prayers gave Joshua the strength and courage to go into battle bold and unafraid. Just as Joshua, raised up after Moses, could stand firm because Moses had stood firm, so your church and your home can stand firm in faith only when you stand firm. If the churches established in this land stand firm, they will be able to save many souls.
To have parents and brothers and sisters in the faith who pray for you is a sign that spiritual blessing is always prepared for you. So you must love those who pray for you and serve them well, so that they never stop praying for you. Just as Elisha’s servant saw God’s work with his own eyes, if you believe as though you had seen God’s work, you will not make foolish choices.
If those who go ahead do not live rightly by the word, they will be like a bent tree that blocks the path of the precious souls following behind, keeping them from growing straight. If someone has spent years in the faith without growing, and instead hinders other people’s salvation, God will cut them down at a stroke. God protects those who live according to his will, but he wipes out every trace of those who stand in its way. He is a God to be greatly feared.
The church, its people, and our faith are not our own; they are a masterpiece made by the grace and love of God. We must not ruin this masterpiece with our own righteousness, greed, and lust. Sinners can stand before God because Christ atoned for their sins. For sinners who threw away the life God gave them, he provided the condition of faith so that they could be restored, and even that he gave by grace.
In the world there are evil people and evil spirits who, like the kings of Canaan, prepare for war and watch for every chance to attack God’s people. Yet in our foolishness we do not pray to God, just as Israel did not when they attacked Ai. Instead we trust our own strength and think we can fight them and win. Because we decide everything alone and handle every matter by ourselves, we cannot escape the traps Satan has dug.
I hope you will pray in everything, and that you will not rely on yourselves. Only then will God help you with the power of heaven, giving you wisdom and understanding and working in you so that you can stand against evil spirits. Human beings can never overcome Satan. However small Ai may look, Satan is crouching behind it, and with him there, on your own you cannot help but be defeated.
Because Satan has a hand in everything that happens in the church, great or small, nothing should be decided without prayer. We must bring every matter to God in prayer and, in humility and obedience, make room for him to step into every problem. Only when you stay watchful and judge within faith can you exalt God’s name as Israel did.
Friends, I hope you will rely on God alone, obey him, and walk humbly. Then may you receive God’s absolute help and, working together with your brothers and sisters in the faith, conquer thirty-one cities as Joshua did. If you have already left the world behind and are living as God’s people, then go the whole way: like Elisha, like Joshua, you must watch the promises being fulfilled, enjoy the blessings you are given, and sing the song of victory.
You too can be victorious like Joshua, and like Elisha you can see the horses and chariots of fire that God sends. If, to receive everything God has already promised, you will only empty your vessel and make it clean, and lift high the lamp of faith, God will pour out on you until it overflows, and through you he will cause many souls to be saved.
May you always be people of faith who become precious instruments in God’s hands for conquering thirty-one cities. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.