Living in God's Parentheses

April 6, 2014
Joshua:  Turning Obedience Into Blessing
Joshua 11:16-23:  Living in God’s Parentheses        NOTES NOT EDITED

SIS –  The Bible reminds us that every event in our life fits into God’s plan for us.

Last week, our text pointed us to an important—a foundational—doctrine in the Bible, God’s sovereignty.  Without a clear understanding of God’s sovereignty the often chaotic circumstances of life, and the many challenges we face as believers, would cause us to lose hope.  God’s sovereignty is absolute.  Everything and everyone falls under His authority.  The Apostle Paul demonstrates God’s sovereignty even works through seemingly evil, or tragic events:

All things [the good, the bad, and the ugly] work together  for the good  of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

The writer of Joshua pauses here in chapter 11 to remind us of God’s sovereign control over our lives.  This passage has a “literary parentheses” around verses 16-23.  Verse 16 begins this section with the words, “So Joshua took all this land.”  Verse 23 concludes, “So Joshua took the entire land.”  These literary parentheses encase a section once again highlighting the sovereignty of Yahweh.  This is an encouraging reminder that every event in our life fits into God’s plan for us.

One of the most powerful symbols in math and grammar are the parentheses.  How one deals with what lies between each parenthesis can make a major difference in mathematical and grammatical outcomes.  It can also make an eternal difference in spiritual outcomes.  For example 4+5x4=24 according to the rules for operations.  If I put 4+5 in parentheses then according to the rules for operations the answer is 36.  That’s a big difference.  Parentheses change everything in math and English, but even moreso in regard to spiritual matters.

This section we examine this morning is a parenthetical text.  It summarizes the military campaigns of Joshua, but more importantly summarizes the most important doctrine in the Bible—the sovereignty of God.  Everything in the universe falls under God’s sovereignty--its beginning with time until the end of eternity, which is an oxymoron because eternity never ends.  Thus, God’s sovereignty never diminishes.  The Bible is incomprehensible if one does not begin with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

Let’s read this passage together,  JOSHUA 11:16-23, to see three important issues related to the Sovereignty of God.

1.  The Heaviness of God’s Call (18)

¹⁸ Joshua waged war with all these kings for a long time.

The writer of Joshua pauses here in chapter 11 to remind us of God’s sovereign control over our lives.  It takes perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes to read chapters 10-11, but they reflect a struggle that took perhaps as many as seven years.  Many people miss the fact that the Bible is a highly condensed book, or library of books.

A distinguished scholar, Dr. Dale Davis points out,  “So the unsuspecting reader may get a false impression, namely, that just because it takes less than twenty minutes to read Joshua 10-11. . . , it must not have taken long for those events to have transpired.  Hence, verse 18 serves as a mental corrector.”

If the Bible did not use this literary device of “condensed reports,” you would not be able to carry your Bible around—you would need several big rigs pulling boxcars.  Verse 18 teaches us that the conquest of the Promised Land was a“long, grueling, demanding process” (Davis).  Christianity is not a quick fix.  The Christian race is not a sprint but a marathon.

Christianity involves many paradoxes, one pops up here in Joshua.  A paradox represents two opposing truths that are seemingly contradictory and must both be accepted as true until further data is acquired.  For example, God’s sovereignty and man’s free-will create a paradox.  How can God be absolutely sovereign and man have free-will?  As I demonstrated a few weeks ago with my “cruise ship illustration,” one can accept both sovereignty and free-will even if one cannot comprehend it fully.

Another paradox that exists in the Bible arises from God’s call, or demand, upon our lives.  In one sense, this call places an almost unbearable burden on our lives as we stand against all the enemies of God, the general challenges of life, and the constant demands of our physical needs, compounded by the internal struggle against our sinful flesh.  At times the heaviness of God’s call seems like the entire weight of the world rests upon our shoulders.  Then, in another sense Jesus describes God’s call upon our lives in exactly the opposite way.  Jesus says (Matthew 11:28-30),

²⁸ “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  ²⁹ All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me,  because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.  ³⁰ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

So, as we look at the “long battle of Joshua” and the “light yoke” of Jesus we have a paradox.  Both are true because both derive from the text of the Bible.  So, we start God’s revelation and work our way toward understanding and application.

Here in Joshua, verse 18, the focus is on the “heaviness” of God’s call upon our live so we will deal with that part of the paradox, today.  Make no mistake about it, signing up to serve in God’s army will be no “walk in the park.”  Salvation is free, but sanctification will cost you everything.  As I said above, Christianity is not a “quick fix.”  Getting saved will in fact “fix” your destiny in the moment that you repent of your sins and turn to Jesus, but it won’t immediately “fix” all of your problems.  In fact, accepting Jesus will give you a whole different set of problems. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to “accept Jesus as Our Savior.”  We are told to acknowledge Him as Our Lord, and He becomes Our Savior. 

God promised all the land east of Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, south to Negev, and north to Mt. Hermon as an inheritance.  God promised it to Israel so we call it, the Promised Land.  However, as we have seen in these 11 chapters of Joshua, that “Promise” requires some perspiration.  The perspiration, as Dr. Davis mentioned, was “a long, grueling, demanding struggle.”

I don’t know any other way of saying it but American Christianity has grown soft and lazy.  We want God’s blessings as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us too awfully much.  I remember reading about a  sergeant who was addressing a squad of 20 men.  He said: "I have a nice easy job for the laziest man here. Put up your hand if you are the laziest." Of course, any soldier in his right mind would take an easy assignment over a difficult one.  19 men raised their hands.  One man just sat still in his chair.  The sergeant asked this man "why didn't you raise your hand?" The man replied: "Too much trouble, sarge."  He got the easy assignment.  Unfortunately, life doesn’t really work that way, and it is especially true that God’s blessings do not work that way. 

God’s call upon Joshua and the Israelites had a huge heaviness to it.  They would battle for five to seven long, hard years and we will see that there was still some fighting to be done eventhough the major part of the struggle was over.

Christianity is not a quick fix to your earthly troubles.  There is a heaviness to God’s call that demands a great effort on our part.

2.  The Fearfulness of God’s Hardening (19-20)

¹⁹ No city made peace with the Israelites except the Hivites who inhabited Gibeon;  all of them were taken in battle. ²⁰ For it was the Lord’s intention to harden their hearts,  so that they would engage Israel in battle, be completely destroyed without mercy, and be annihilated, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Over the last few years there has been a renewed discussion in regard to what some scholars refer to as “sovereign grace.”  Sovereign grace refers to the fact that God both initiates and completes man’s salvation without any contribution from man, himself.  Salvation is all about God and His Sovereign will to “elect some people to be saved.”  Sovereign grace refers to God’s “love in action” bringing persons to Himself.  Grace is indeed an important aspect of God’s sovereignty.

Here in this passage we have the “flip side” of God’s sovereignty.  Here, God’s sovereign will does not result in the salvation of the inhabitants but the total annihilation of the inhabitants of the land, save for the tribe of Gibeon.  What a fearful thing indeed to have your heart hardened by God and your life consigned to everlasting punishment in hell as a result.  God’s sovereignty is not limited to His act of grace in salvation but also extends to His role as the Righteous Judge.  Again, let me give you the analysis of an astute Bible scholar in regard to this idea of “God hardening hearts.” 

“Let us react to the sheer audacity of this text: ‘for it was Yahweh’s doing to harden their hearts. . . in order to utterly destroy them.’  Do we not find that disturbing, offensive, outrageous? Who gave God the right to be that sovereign?” (Dr. Dale Davis).

The answer to that question is simple:  nobody gives God the right to be sovereign—it is God’s nature.  It is the height of human insolence to even ask that question.  Who is man to bring God before the tribunal of his imagined power?  This is altogether the wrong—eternally wrong—response to this passage.  Instead, Dr. Davis suggests, “You will do better to tremble—and worship.”

This passage harkens back to the story of the Exodus 9:12 when the Bible says God “hardened Pharoah’s heart.”  In fact, Exodus mentions Pharoah’s heart being hardened 17 different times:  9 times the text states God hardened Pharoah’s heart, 5 times the text says Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and 3 times no one is given as the one doing the hardening.  So, who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?  Keep in mind that two separate Hebrew root words are used in the verses mentioned to describe the condition of Pharaoh’s heart. The first word carries a meaning of “firming up”, “strengthening”, or “growing stronger.” It is used in other parts of the Bible to describe “repairs” or “mending” of materials (e.g., it is used often in the Book of Nehemiah to describe the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem). The other root word carries the meaning of something becoming “large”, “difficult” or “heavy.”  Both words are used to describe something becoming firmer, stronger, bigger, or heavier. But never does it describe one thing becoming something it was not already (Answers from the Book, blog).  So, in one sense Pharaoh is responsible for the condition of his heart, just like the inhabitants of the Promised Land who failed to make peace with God were responsible for the condition of their hearts.

But, it is not such a simple matter to dismiss the clear teaching of the text which unequivocally says, “God hardened the inhabitants’ hearts . . . so He could utterly destroy them!”  Like it or not, the Bible clearly makes God the instigator of hard hearts.  God is absolutely sovereign so God is sovereign even over man’s free will.  You can try to sort that out if you’d like, but scholars have been trying to grasp this paradox for thousands of years without a resolution

The more important question is not who hardened the hearts, or how the process of hardening works, but the real issue is “what happens when a heart is hardened, and how can one prevent it!”

The Bible tells us that the hardening of a heart is a fearful thing.  The result is total destruction—eternal destruction of a person’s being in hell!  This is why the Bible warns us (Hebrews 10:31):

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!

So, you cannot escape the fact of God’s sovereign wrath by trying to escape into the N.T.  As one scholar reminds us, “You will meet the same God there!”  Yahweh is sovereign.  His sovereignty is absolute and all encompassing.  The same sovereign power that grants salvation by grace also pronouncing judgment in righteousness.  If we continually rebel against God and turn our hearts from him, and die in such a state of rebellion, one will feel the full force and weight of God’s holiness in righteous judgment!  Dying with a hardened heart is a fearful—a dreadful, terrifying, horrible thing!

So, don’t let your heart be hardened.  Don’t fill up the vile of your life with God’s wrath against your sin.  Let God give you a “heart transplant.”  This is the only preventative treatment for a hard heart.  Hebrews 3:7-8 tells us of this treatement:

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸ do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

The Greek term for a hard heart is, “sklerynete kardias.”  This is the spiritual version of “hardening of the arteries.”  The result of the latter is a heart attack usually leading to death.  The result of the former is spiritual death leading to eternal judgment in hell.  Our text warns us of the “Fearfulness of God’s Hardening.” 

3.  The Needlessness of Our Fears (21-22)

²¹ At that time Joshua proceeded to exterminate the Anakim  from the hill country—Hebron, Debir, Anab—all the hill country of Judah and of Israel. Joshua completely destroyed them with their cities. ²² No Anakim were left in the land of the Israelites, except for some remaining in Gaza, Gath,  and Ashdod.

Let’s go back about 45 years or so to the event that sent Israel into 40 years of wandering in the desert until all men over 20 years of age at the time died.  Numbers 13 tells us of that event and mentions the Anakim:

³¹ But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” ³² So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. ³³ We even saw the Nephilim  ^c there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim!  To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.”

Forty-five years before (give or take), the Israelites cowered in fear because of the Anakim—giant inhabitants of the Land.  Now, our text says that “Joshua completely destroyed them with their cities” (v21).

Forty plus years before the Israelites succumbed to their fear of what I would think was a very real and present danger.  For us, the Anakim do not “send chills up our spine” as one man said because we have never seen this ancient race of hulking giants.  In Israel’s dictionary beside the entry for the word, “fear,” is a picture of the Anakim.  They were absolutely terrifying!

But here’s an interesting point:  the Anakim did not get any smaller over the last forty years, and the Israelites did not get any bigger, so what accounts for the very different outcome this time around?  The difference is “faith.”  Faith does not eliminate “fear,” it conquers it.  It is needless to be paralyzed with fear if you are walking by faith.  What looks like a giant towering over your life is but an ant to God.  The problem is that we tend to measure our problems by our size instead of by God’s size.  When we stack our problems up alongside of God’s Holy Spirit they “appear as grasshoppers instead of giants.”  Whose afraid of a grasshopper?

Worry and fear waste precious resources in our lives.  I have a little book I keep near my bedside titled, “Now Panic and Freak Out.”  It is subtitled, “Bad Advice for Good People.”  On the cover is this explanation:  Keep Calm and Carry On is all very well, but life just isn’t that simple.  Let’s own up and face facts:  We’re getting older, the politicians are not getting any wiser, and the world’s going to hell in a handbasket.  It’s time to panic.

One quote in this book with a slightly twisted point of view asked a very probing question about synchronized swimmers.  I had never thought about this possibility before but one of the quotes asks the question:  If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown, too?  Makes you think.

Another quote gave this tidbit of wisdom:  “I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.”

Another quote relates to the “foolishness, or needlessness of fear.” Mark Twain said, “I have a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”  Mark Twain had a way of saying a great deal with very few words.  It is so true.  We spend so much of our time fearfully fretting about things that will never come to pass or things we can’t do anything about.  This is a needless waste of our time.

We an face life with “faith in God,” or “fear about everything else.”  The Bible tells us how powerful faith is (2Tim. 1:6-7):

⁶ Therefore, I remind you to keep ablaze  the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands.  ⁷ For God has not given us a spirit  of fearfulness,  but one of power,  love,  and sound judgment.

You have a choice:  feel God’s Holy Spirit burn within you, or suffer heartburn from worrying about every bad thing or difficulty you may or may not have to face in life.

Forty years the Israelites spent wandering in a wilderness wasteland in the middle of absolutely nowhere going round and round the same mountain because they were afraid of the “Anakim.”  Forty plus years later they realize: faith is more powerful than fear and they dispatched the Anakim in short order.

In the incredible book, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, written while he was in prison for his faith, Bunyan describes the main character, “Christian,” as he approaches the Palace Beautiful where he hopes to get lodging for the night.  Christian walks down a very narrow passage leading to the manager of the inn’s house.  He comes upon two lions in the way and naturally is given to fear.  Bunyan, the narrator of the story adds this parenthetical note:  “The lions were chained ; but Christian did not see the chains.”

This is the case so often in life.  We are afraid of the lions all about us because we do not see that God has them on chains.  They cannot go any further than God’s sovereignty allows.  We, God’s people, always safely dwell between the parentheses of God’s sovereignty.  His call upon our lives puts a heavy burden of responsibility upon us.  His hardening of rebellious hearts reminds us that the same God that elects people with sovereign grace, crushes hardened hearts with sovereign justice.  Finally, as we consider God’s sovereignty we realize the utter needlessness of fear.  What’s inside the parentheses is what’s most important in math.  So, also, those who believe in God and rest between the parentheses of His sovereignty are “most important “ to Him.

The Bible reminds us that every event in our life fits into God’s plan for us.  Be bold and courageous in your service to Him.

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