Some crafty scheming, some wiles

Working on a new article to post tomorrow. In the meantime . . . 

The Book of Joshua has often been called the Ephesians of the Old Testament. The Book of Ephesians has often been called the Joshua of the New Testament and the reason for that is the Book of Joshua is about Israel going into the land and possessing the land God’s already given them: ‘Go possess your possessions.’

“The Book of Ephesians is a book very similar where God is telling us, ‘Here are your possessions, now go possess them, go stand in the possessions God’s given you, fight the war of not letting them be taken away, moved away,’ " explains Richard Jordan.

“Five times in Ephesians he talks about the heavenly places; the high places. Those five times find an echo back in the Book of Joshua about the land of Canaan with Israel. It’s a fascinating kind of thing to study.

“It’s logical when Paul talks about the wiles of the devil in Ephesians that you’d find an illustration in the book of Joshua.

“Joshua 9 starts out, ‘And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof.’

“Notice the chapter starts with ‘and.’ In other words, what’s going to happen here, these Gentile kings from the hills, valleys, the coasts, they all get together to fight against Joshua in Israel because they heard something.

"What they heard is about the victory that he won in Jericho (chapter 6). They heard about the victory they won at Ai (chapter 8) and at the end of that, Joshua 8:30: [30] Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal,
[31] As Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.
[32] And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

“Israel has won this great battle and he goes over here on Mt. Ebal and he’s got a Mt. Rushmore kind of thing and chisels the 10 Commandments into the mountain. He literally takes the Word of God that is prevailed against the enemies of Israel and enshrines it in the mountain there.

Verse 34 says, And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
[35] There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.

“I mean, the Word of God’s prevailed, and the victory that God gave Israel in His Word is a reality there, stark memorialized in front of everybody. And when these Gentile kings saw God’s Word prevailing, their answer, their response, to the victory of the exaltation of His Word was, ‘Let’s get together and fight!’ They had a complete, total hostility toward what God was doing in His Word through the nation Israel.

“So they gather themselves together to fight. They don’t gather together to say, ‘Oh, they’re going to take away from us all of our land. God gave it to them. Let’s surrender.’

“They just saw Jericho wiped out, they just saw Ai wiped out. They say, ‘We need to get together, guys,’ and it’s fascinating (verse 9) they’re in the hills and the valleys and the coasts. You know people in the hills and the valleys don’t get along? That’s why they live in the hills and the valleys.

“People who live on the coast are estranged from ALL of them. They get all these different disparate people…the Hittites and the Canaanites and the other ‘ites,’ they didn’t like each other, folks, but ‘the friend of my enemy is my friend,’ so they get together to fight Joshua and Israel with one accord. They get a league of nations together—the thing that binds them is hostility toward God’s Word and God’s working through Israel.

“Joshua 9 says, [3] And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai,
[4] They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;
[5] And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.’

“Joshua 10:2 says, ‘That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.’

“Gibeon had a lot to lose. It’s a great city, bigger than Ai. Jericho and Ai were the gateway cities into Canaan but Gibeon was sort of like the plum.

“Satan is a roaring lion but he’s also a subtle serpent. ‘So were going to hedge our bet and before we go out here and attack them, we’re going to do a little shuck and jive. We’re going to use some crafty scheming, some wiles . . .’

“So what do they do? They went and made as if they had been ambassadors—important men, people of peace. Official representatives who can come and say, ‘Can’t we all just get together.’ The verse says they ‘took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up . . .’

“Now that’s a mock, false humility. They’re trying to make it like they’ve come a LONG journey. Verse 13 says, ‘And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.’

“Bunch of liars! They hadn’t gone on any long journey! They lived right next door! They’re practicing deceit. They’re trying to appear to be something they aren’t!

“Now do you remember over in Colossians he says ‘beware lest they beguile you with false humility?’ They transform themselves into the apostles of Christ and unto angels of light but what are they really? They’re deceivers.

“Joshua asked the right question in verse 8: ‘Who are you and from whence come you?’

“God had told Israel in Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 7, ‘The inhabitants of the land of Canaan; wipe them out! Do not make any league, any covenant with them!’ and then He named them. You know who He named? These birds right here!

“Joshua says, ‘Who are you?’ and they don’t tell him. They say, ‘Oh, we came from a long way!’ They dodged the issue and lied to him. They try to deceive him. In verse 12 they say, ‘Look at this stuff!’ They get him going by sight. They say, ‘Come, experience our reality and they focus on experience. And they divert Joshua’s thinking away from the Word and the crux of it is in verse 8:14: ‘And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city.’

“You know how they deceived Joshua in Israel? You go back to Numbers 27 and God told Moses, ‘Take Joshua, sit him over here and put your mantle on him. I’m going to put my spirit on him, and just like I talked to you, I’m going to talk to him.’

“And Joshua had the capacity to communicate with God and get counsel straight from God just like Moses did and Joshua doesn’t do that. He forsook God’s Word! He went and trusted human experience, human wisdom, human thinking.

“Instead of standing in the identity and the blessings God gave Israel, and God had for Israel in His Word, He is deceived into following human viewpoint. That’s the wiles of the Adversary!

“That’s all Satan can do; he can’t change who you are in Christ. He can’t stop you from being complete in Christ. But his tact, his wile, his trick, his cunning craftiness is to do what these birds did! Get you focused on experience, on circumstance, on feelings, on something other than the truth of God’s Word, walking by sight and not by faith.”

*****

God sent prophets to Israel in each one of the five cycles of judgment. He sent His word to them. Every cycle has a major prophet associated with it. The only prophets who actually write their messages down do so in the fourth course.

The name Elijah means ‘Jehovah is my God.’ Jordan says, “Here’s God in Elijah and he leaves Israel. Comes to the Jordan river, jumps in, swims across to the other side and goes away. He’s caught up by the chariot.

“The picture is, and if you trace the places he went, you’ll see the significance of he’s in reverse order, leaving the land in the reverse order that god led Israel into the land. And it’s though God is saying, ‘I’m leaving!’ and He left.

“Now Elisha went with him and then in chapter two, Elisha jumps back in and comes back into the land. So what you have here is a point where God leaves and then comes back in with Elisha.

“II Kings 2:15 says, ‘And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.’

“Now you’re back in Joshua 3 where the Lord comes into the land. It’s sort of like, ‘There He went, here He comes.’ You’re going to move with Elisha to the third course.

“By the way Elisha has the double portion. Elijah did eight miracles. Elisha does 16.”