Nothing superfluous about sun standing still

Joshua 9:27 says, “And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation, and for the altar of the LORD, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose.”

Jordan explains, “Joshua literally brought the Gibeonites out of paganism, out of the darkness of heathenism and the power of the Adversary, and taught them the oracles, the truth, the worship of Jehovah. The Gibeonites have a long history in Israel; you’ll find them in Ezra, Chronicles and so forth; their descendants serving in the temple.

“Joshua 10 goes on, ‘Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
[13] And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
[14] And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.’

“Joshua’s saying to God, ‘We need more time to kill everybody, so stop the time and let us go get them.’ When you read it, that’s what it sounds like, but people don’t like that and say, ‘How in the world could you do that?!’

Jeremiah 33 says, ‘And the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, saying,
[20] Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season;
[21] Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.’

“God says, ‘If you can break the covenant that I have with Creation, then my integrity is at stake,’ and when He says, ‘That there should not be day and night in their season,’ that is, 'The way they’re supposed to happen, if you can break that . . .'

“So people say, ‘If God extended the day back here, made it stand still and it didn’t work like it’s supposed to normally work, then God’s integrity is at stake.'

"If that’s the case, and I personally don’t think it is, what would it mean that the sun stood still? Well, if you tell a kid, ‘Stand still, boy!’ what do you mean by that? ‘STOP!’

“What does the sun do? The sun shines. So when He said that the sun would stop, He’s telling the sun to stop shining; stop doing what it does. Well, how would you stop the sun from shining?

“When it says Joshua spake to the Lord, the implication is if you’re going to talk to God, you have to have some revelation from God to do it. Joshua would have had to have had some reason to believe this was something God would or could do and be consistent with Himself.

“Elihu says in Job 36, ‘Suffer me a little, and I will shew thee that I have yet to speak on God's behalf.
[3] I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
[4] For truly my words shall not be false: he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee.’

“Back in Exodus 10:22, when God made darkness fall upon Egypt for three days, it says, “And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:
[23] They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”

“In Acts 27, when Paul says we didn’t see the sun for these many days, it doesn’t mean the sun wasn’t there. It means God put a thick canopy between it so the light couldn’t get through.

“In Ezekiel 32, you’ll notice that in the tribulation period, when it talks about the sun being darkened and the moon turning into blood, that’s the mechanics of how He’s going to do that.

“Deuteronomy 31:15 says ‘the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.’ How’s He going to do it? He’s going to do it with a cloud cover.

“Job 9:6, talking about what God can do, says, ‘Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.
[7] Which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not; and sealeth up the stars.’ That’s past tense. Job says this is something God has done in the past.

“Joshua would have understood that God could do these things and that the Book of Job, when he talks about doing it, he could have understood it to be that God would put a cloud cover over the sun; stop the sunshine.

“Why would that be what He would want? Joshua 10 says 'the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.’

“If you’re in the midst of something, you’re in the middle of it. It’s high noon and high noon is hot. His troops marched all night, they fought all morning; now you’re in the heat of the day and he’s saying, ‘Give us some relief from the heat of the day so we can finish killing everybody.’

"Now, that’s the idea when people say it wasn’t a miracle that he was asking for; it was that God would give them relief from the sun.

“If you want to believe that you’re welcome to, and I know a lot of good people who believe that, but the verse doesn’t say the sun quit shining. If the Bible had wanted to say, ‘Sun, don’t shine,’ it could have said it when it says, ‘Sun, stand thou still,’ and it says to the moon, ‘Be stayed.’ Well, the moon doesn’t shine. What relief would the moon staying where it was . . .

“The interesting thing here is he says ‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.’ The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia has a long article about this passage where they’ve actually identified this day, through the charts of the planets and the rotation and the planetary movements, as July 22 because that’s when the sun would be overhead and the moon would be rising over here on the horizon.

“I read that and I think, ‘You know, as soon as you start that, then what else isn’t real?’ And so for me, I prefer just to leave it as it is. I know that people misunderstand these things often.

“There’s another one of these with Hezekiah when the sun dial went back 10 degrees. Well, it was the shadow that went back, not the sun. It was the sunlight; the sun wasn’t rolling around on the dial there. The passage isn’t saying the sun went back; it’s saying the shadow on the dial went back. It was a miracle that happened in the land of Israel to tell something to Hezekiah.

“The ordinances of heaven that operate the universe, God established them. He can control them, and in Revelation 8, He shortens a day. You say, ‘Well, that isn’t real!’ but if that isn’t real, what else isn’t real?

“I don’t feel the compulsion that some people feel to try to defend the Scripture against things that I don’t understand. Folks, miracles are miracles. A miracle is supernatural, not natural. I know it couldn’t naturally happen, but supernaturally is what a miracle is, and the point of this passage (about ‘the great slaughter’ in Joshua 10) is it’s a picture of what happens at the battle of Armageddon.

“He goes out and gets these five kings; they go and hide in a cave (down in verses 16-18) like the kings of the earth do in Revelation 6. He goes and takes them, has them brought before Him and then He destroys them as they will be destroyed. Some of His people escape just like some of the nations are going to get into the kingdom, so there’s a tremendous picture going on down through here of what’s going to happen in those last days.

“You need to study this history back here thinking about how it fits as a rehearsal; as a speaking again of the things in prophecy. None of this stuff is superfluous. There’s not one story in the Bible, not one account in the Scripture, there for no reason.

“Isaiah 28:21 says, ‘For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act.’

“He’s talking about His coming to destroy the Antichrist (verses 16-18). Now that’s II Samuel 5, when David hears the goings in the tops of the mulberry trees. There’s some aerial stuff going on over his head. ‘As in the valley of Gibeon.’ That’s what we’re reading in Joshua 10 where he fights with the hailstones; with the phenomena with the sun and the moon and ‘the great slaughter’ against the kings of the earth, that He may do his strange work.”