THE WAY OF RESTORATION

Joshua 7:6 “Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face down to the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads.”

Triumph at the fortress city of Jericho led the Israelites to believe that the smaller and less fortified city of Ai would be a piece of cake, and yet when an army of 3,000 men went down to occupy it the children of Israel were swiftly repulsed and sent scuttling for their lives back to the security of their camp, licking their wounds, demoralized and guilty. Three dozen of their companions never returned from Ai.

I first want you to notice what was not the response of Joshua to this ignominy, for example, that he did not berate the soldiers for their cowardice. He did not rebuke the people for their pride and prayerlessness. He did not dismiss the defeat with oily political words about the ‘fortunes of war.’ He did not tell Israel that there was nothing to worry about that they were all on a steep learning curve. He made no effort at all to raise these people’s spirits by sending for some preachers to preach to them some touch-feely sermons. What Joshua did was to tear his clothes at the grievous news; he fell to the ground face down before the ark of God and he stayed lying there prone and impotent for hours. He was joined there by the elders of Israel who also lay with him on the ground, and they even sprinkled dust on their heads.

In other words, here was the leadership of Israel facing up to reality, who went to the great First Cause of everything They refused to begin their response to failure by interrogating the people. They went to God their Judge. Joshua didn’t think, let alone talk in terms of ‘making the best of a bad job,’ or what new strategies they might use for the second assault on Ai. They must all hear what that divine rod was saying to them as they were smitten in judgment. Let us also be believing men and women anxious to hear what God’s rod is saying to us. When God afflicts us we ought to afflict ourselves, shouldn’t we? So what did Joshua do?

1. JOSHUA HUMBLED HIMSELF BEFORE GOD.

An old divine said, “A man has just as much Christianity as he has humility,” and there was much humility in Joshua. Listen!  “Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face down to the ground before the ark of the LORD, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same, and sprinkled dust on their heads” (Josh. 7:6). How hard it was for Joshua the undisputed leader of the people to humble himself like this. Can you see other leaders behaving in such a way? Pharaoh? Caesar? Atilla the Hun? Henry VIII? Louis XIV? Stalin? Chairman Mao? Mrs. Thatcher? Tony Blair? Such behaviour is like death and hell pulling your body and soul to pieces, to take to heart your responsibility in the deaths of 36 men and recognize the harm done to the name of God. Here was no mere tokenism; here was a broken-hearted, surrendered, absolutely silent and submissive penitent. Joshua was aware of something many of the elders did not yet appreciate, that there could be no deliverance from this disaster without the justice of God being appeased. It was all so terribly solemn.

Human nature, at its best, in this life is still far from God. Even after it has been forgiven and redeemed it is still far from God. After it has been renewed, and sanctified, and made a new creation, it is still, I say, far from God. Think, men and women, think. You are no longer children in understanding. Think! Think your greatest and your best, your most magnificent, your deepest and most spiritual thoughts about God. Think with all your soul, and heart, and strength, and mind about the high and holy one who inhabits eternity whose name is holy. Creator, Sustainer, Guardian, Governor, Benefactor, Shepherd, Warrior, Judge, Perfecter of all men, God and Father; King and Lord; Fountain of Life and Immortality. Blessed be the glory of God. Glory be to him for his Godhead, his awesome mysteries, his height, his depth, his eternity and his grace. He can create and he has created. He can destroy and he has destroyed. Our God is a consuming fire. Should we not humble ourselves before this God?

Why was this abasement the particular response of Joshua? Let me suggest to you this reason, that he prayed like this because of all that he’d learned from his years under Moses. There’d been times in the life of Moses when the people of God so provoked Jehovah that he intended to put them all in his crucible and destroy the lot of them. Miserable rebels! Yet on those occasions Moses humbled himself, falling before the Lord on the ground pleading for God to show mercy to them. I am thinking of the rebellion recorded in Numbers 14 when “all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?’” (Nums. 14:2&3). What did Moses do? We are told, “Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneth . . . tore their clothes” (vv.5&6). Joshua was involved in this all those years ago. Or again at the time of the rebellion of Korah when resentment was stirred up against Moses, the people arrogantly interrogating him “Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” (Nums. 16:3), we are told, “When Moses heard this, he fell facedown.” There are other occasions when the only hope of restoration to the Lord’s favour was the intercession of Moses for the people, and this is what Joshua has learned from his great teacher and exemplar, Moses.

When things go seriously wrong either in a congregation or in the life of  Christian, when the providential frown of God is upon us, it is time for us all to humble ourselves before God. Joshua took his place humbly in the dust, and he did so before the ark of God, the symbol of the Lord’s sovereignty and presence. But the ark was also a symbol of hope because the lid of the ark was the mercy-seat from whence forgiveness was declared because of the blood annually sprinkled there for sin. Every evening, as every morning, blood was offered upon the altar, and so we see in the sixth verse that Joshua remained lying in intercession until the time of the evening sacrifice. I ask you, didn’t the One greater than Joshua before his cross, where Christ would feel the fierceness of the anger of a sin-hating God, throw himself to the ground and pray? So it was that the news of the humiliating defeat by insignificant Ai drove Joshua to humble himself.

2. HOW JOSHUA PRAYED.

Then we are told what he prayed:

“Ah, Sovereign LORD, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?” (Josh. 7:7-9). There is no studied eloquence here. There is a fine phrase of Spurgeon’s as he considered some of the ecclesiastical prayers he had had to listen to. He spoke of it as the ‘steeple in the throat’ sort of voice, that clipped, unctuous affectation of speech some ministers adopt. I know you can tell what preachers different people have sat under for some time by listening to their prayers; they pray just like their preachers. You can even tell what denomination some people are - Free Presbyterian, Free Church of Scotland, Plymouth Brethren - by their praying.

Isn’t it difficult to pray? Joshua took hours to open his mouth and speak to God. The difficulty is when I am face-to-face with God, what do I actually say? There, I believe, is the heart of the problem. We are overwhelmed before the Lord. We are tongue-tied, and hesitant; we hardly know how to address him. With what words, with what sentiments, with what requests can I lift up my heart to the infinite and glorious Creator of heaven and earth, especially when I have offended him by my follies? There are some times, I think, when we would almost die rather than pray. That is one reason why the Christian must strive to keep himself from foolishness of mind, frivolity of heart and worldliness of disposition. If your mind is occupied with carnal thoughts and sinful preoccupations - beyond what is human and legitimate - then how much harder will it be for you to address God?

“My sins, my sins, my Saviour, how sad on Thee they fall;

   While through Thy gentle patience I ten-fold feel them all

I know they are forgiven; but still their pain to me

   Is all the grief and anguish they laid, my Lord on Thee.”

Joshua, in his prayer, considers the pitiful and dangerous state which the people of God are in, under the power of their enemies who are set on destroying them. Better never to have entered the land than to enter it and be wiped out by ‘Dad’s Army’ the second division of Canaanite yeomen. So Joshua lies on the ground for hours in his distress, finally stirring himself and crying to the Lord these words, “What then will you do for your own great name?” (v.9). Who is going to glorify the name of Jehovah if the people who take that name are driven out and destroyed? The Amoristes? The Perizzites? The Jebusites? The Canaanites? The Egyptians? None of them. No peoples that on earth do dwell honour the one true and living God except God’s people, and to them he sends humbling failure. What reproach is being cast on God as the pagans chortle, “Their Jehovah is pathetic. He can’t take care of his own people. We have nothing to fear from him. It was our gods who gave us the victory at Ai. Soon those people will be back in the desert from whence they came.” What posturing! What grandstanding! Joshua cries, “What then will you do, O Lord, for your own great name?” That is the final issue isn’t it, a concern for the divine glory. Joshua couldn’t bear to live in a place where the honour and power of God was demeaned day by day. Remember the cry of Jesus, “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’” No, rather, ‘Father glorify your name.’” Let that be our plea. That was Joshua’s mighty concern, the glory of God’s name.

Shouldn’t we intercede like that in our day, and far more earnestly? You’ve noticed the flood of materials promulgating atheism filling the best selling lists haven’t you? What a lucrative business it has become for the publishers and authors and Sunday newspapers and the BBC. In less than 12 months atheism's latest champions have sold close to a million books. In the USA some 500,000 hardcover copies are in print of Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" (2006); almost 300,000 copies of Christopher Hitchens's "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" (2007) – both those authors are Englishmen; 185,000 copies of Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation" (2006); over 64,000 copies of Daniel C. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon"; and 60,000 copies of Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows that God Does not Exist" (2007). Of course there are encouraging features to all this, that no one is writing best selling volumes mocking those who believe that the earth is flat. The salt of the gospel people of God must be stinging. Despite these combined sales of the atheistic faith the Bible outsells them all tenfold. “This superstitious ancient document full of its myths, and millions of people believing it? How infuriating!” And there is no possibility of an anti-Christian Book Shop being opened in our town, nevertheless the fascination with atheistic propaganda reflects the spirit of our age. What reproach is being cast on the name of God.

So I am saying that we are to respond to our failures by praying as earnestly as Joshua prayed, and we need to be praying for all the world. Where do you begin? You probably begin with your own country, then perhaps you go on in your praying to Israel and to the Jews, and then to the Middle East and the conflicts there, the Islamic countries, to Iraq where a young man whom I married to my niece is currently working. Then we go round the world, to Africa, particularly to Kenya for there our interest lies because of the heroic work of Keith Underhill, and to America, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, to New Zealand and so on. What precious countries and God has a people in them all and there is work to be done in them all. We are called upon to bear this burden of prayer more or less every day we live. We pray too for our own congregation and for our families. All those things are a fit subject for prayer. What a burden, and can you live carrying such a burden day after day? Only as you are helped by the Spirit of God, and we are being helped.

Here is Joshua, remembering the covenant promise God made to Abraham that his descendants will live in this land of Canaan, and yet the reality is different, Abraham’s descendants running away in terror from the Canaanites. What can we say when we compare much of the situation surrounding us with the great statements God makes about his purposes for the church and the conversion of the world? I think that an old Puritan illustration might be helpful when our fathers would compare prayer to a millstone grinding out the corn. You know that in one or two water mills surviving in Wales today as tourist attractions you can still see wheat being ground in this way between the nether, or lower millstone which is stationary, and the upper millstone which is turned by being connected through various shafts to a water wheel. Both the surfaces of the millstones are as flat as a billiard table, and they are finely set to the exact distance apart of the diameter of grains of wheat. Then as the ears of the grain are poured into the gap between the two stones they are ground into flour.

How did our fathers use that picture which was familiar to them? They said that the lower millstone is the unchangeable promises of God, for example, that this land of Canaan would belong to the descendants of Abraham. That promise was rock solid for Joshua and the people. The upper millstone turning steadily on and on was the millstone of the providence of God. So here is Joshua looking at the disaster of Ai and it appeared to him to contradict what God had promised to do. There appeared to be conflict between God’s promise and God’s providence, and such conflicts are what we all meet throughout our lives as Christians. Out of such conflicts prayer comes.

We cry, “O God you have promised to fill the world with your word and with the honour and glory of the name of Jesus, and yet today it is being filled with the books of atheists and there is a famine of hearing the word of God. We are ignored and despised. The name of Jesus is trampled upon, truth is despised and the Word is hated.” You see what Joshua did? He used the promise as the basis for his pleadings. There was this defeat by the foot soldiers of Ai, and this seemed in utter contradiction to the promise that the land would be theirs. The grief of the defeat drove Joshua to humble himself and cry to Jehovah while he stood on the unshakeable promise of God. The Lord took up the prayer to deal with the aftermath of the defeat. So sustaining goodness is ground out of the tension between God’s promise and God’s providence.

What an experience true prayer is. Joshua lies on the floor for hours. Isn’t that experience? Then he prays these words, one by one. Isn’t that experience? And all the elders are there silently listening and agreeing. Isn’t that experience? The whole occasion is heavenly. How do we know when our prayers are powerful? Isn’t that an important subject to be clear about? Let me give you four marks that I have learned from Maurice Roberts:

The first is this: If you go into your closet and, after prayer, you discover that you had forgotten everything in the world, then I would say to you, there is the mark of powerful praying. I suggest that in this type of prayer you forget yourself, how long you have been on the floor, your problems and the details of your life. You come to the end of the time of prayer and you realise that you’d been in a ‘different world’ for a while. I would say without doubt that when you have such a feeling you’ve been helped by the Spirit of God, because all too often our minds are full of ourselves, our problems and our world. We do not get beyond that. But when the Spirit helps us we forget these other things for a time.

The second mark I give for suggesting that you’ve prayed powerfully is this, when you know that you are not on your own in prayer. I mean when you have the heart-warming persuasion that the Lord Christ is with you and beside you, that he is truly hearing and helping. Then I say you have another evidence that you are not on your own in prayer but that the Spirit has helped you.

A third mark is this, when you have a feeling of inward constraint. From time to time we get that. You don’t know why, but there is this burden that comes upon you, this conscious desire to get away and come before the mercy seat. When that happens I say you must regard that as a sign that you are being helped in prayer. As far as you possibly can, always yield to that and find a quiet place. God is constraining us to prayer.

But, most wonderfully of all, I believe that there is this further sign that we are helped in prayer, when, after we’ve prayed, our soul is amazed and we can say to ourselves that we had more than ordinary fluency and earnestness. So it was here, the men were lying on the floor with Joshua before the ark, and the hours went by and finally Joshua prayed. It was not for very long prayer, quite a brief prayer, expressing all that the elders and Joshua were feeling, but immediately God answered. That is the mark that Joshua was praying with extraordinary help from God, and that this time of humbling and intercession was part of the solution. In other words, the humbling of themselves before God was actually part of the deliverance of the people, because giving the leadership the conviction that they were utterly dependent on God was one purpose of this whole incident. Joshua and the men could soon walk away from the place of the ark, and look back at their time before that mercy set as a profoundly sanctifying and deeply solemnizing experience of the grace of God – humbling themselves together like that. They came away with quiet confidence that they could gain the victory over Ai.

 

3. HOW GOD ANSWERED THE PRAYER

How did God actually speak to Joshua? Was there an actual voice? Why not? God’s audible voice spoke to Jesus Christ. The Lord spoke to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. There was actual dialogue between Saul and the Lord, though other companions of his were not privy to what was being said though they saw a light. It might have been like that when Joshua ceased praying, that though he heard the voice of God speaking to him the elders with him heard nothing. Some folk today say that if only they could hear the voice of God then they’d believe. You really want to hear the voice of God? Men have heard the voice of God and this is what he said, “Listen to my Son.” This is what he is saying to you. He said here to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing on your face?” The time of self-abasement was over and the time to get to grips with the cause of the defeat had come. Here was the plain explanation of the failure; nothing profound; nothing to do with the secret will of God. Israel had sinned common ugly sins. They had defied God and done what they should not have done; “they have stolen . . . they have lied, they have put [my possession] with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction” (vv.11&12). How much defeat has come to the church because of blatant sinning. We have grieved the Holy Spirit; the gentle Dove has spread his wings and flown away. God says to Joshua and the people, “I will not be with you anymore” (v.12). What an appalling prospect, to face the future without the Lord. Can we live a day without him?

What was Israel’s greatest need? It was that God would be in their midst again, and isn’t that the greatest need of the gospel church today? You say that the Lord is always present where his people meet, and in a sense that is true, but in a more searching sense it is not true. Let me explain; we gather together and bring him with us, each of us in whom dwells the mighty Lord. He is here, but his presence is not always known to us, and he can be ignored by his own people. It is as if he were on the fringes, quite incidental to the life of the church, that it could go on quite well without the Lord. Jesus in that sense is outside their assembly. Thus it was with the congregation in Laodicea. Where was Christ in relation to that church? Standing at the door and knocking for admission, waiting for some to hear his voice and open the door to him and welcome him in.

Imagine a man – let’s call him Joe - who has been estranged by his large family, ostracized and ignored by almost all of them. He knows there is a family reunion and the whole family is going to be there, grandparents, children, their husbands and wives, their children and their children too. Perhaps there are a hundred of them meeting in a room together and Joe comes along the street and up to the hall and he knocks on the door. Someone from the family goes to the door, looks through the spyhole and calls out to the family that Joe is outside. What will happen now? This is the moment of truth. Their response will reveal their hearts. Will they all shout out with joy, “Hooray! Hurrah! Open the door and bring Joe in,” and all excitedly gather around him and greet him with love, hugging him and slapping him on the back? “You’re back at last. We have missed you Joe. You must never be away from us like this again.” Or will their response be very different? Will they say, “Joe who? . . . Oh, it’s Joe is it?”

Jesus Christ might be outside our congregation today, and he is knocking for admission and won’t we all get out of our seats and run into the vestibule and fling both the doors open to him and say, “Come into our midst Lord Jesus. Come and stay here for ever with us. Our lives are bankrupt without you.” Any church faces an impossibly bleak prospect if Jesus Christ is not in its midst. A spirit of deadness will rest upon the church; the preaching might be saying few things wrong but it is burdensome; the congregation’s prayer times will be cold and faintly supported; the preacher’s most earnest appeals seem to hit the wall and return upon him; the saving power of the Spirit of the Lord will be markedly absent; souls are not even convicted. That is what will happen when the Lord says what he says here in verse  twelve, “I will not be with you any more.” We must cry to him with one heart and voice and say, “We don’t mind the loss of our reputation, the destruction of our building, the loss of our health and the death of our loved ones, or even our own departure from this world just as long as you never, never leave us. We daren’t lose you; we must have you in our midst, always.” Is that our vision? People listening intently to the word of God, discarding the crutch of loadsamusic, touchy feely worship, and sermons on how to feel good about yourself. All that sort of thing is a mere attempt to fill the vacuum of the absence of the Lord himself from the heart of the church. We have to turn from all human devices and cry for the living God to be at the centre of things, dealing with us, convicting us of where we have gone wrong, granting repentance and godly sorrow for sin so that people cry out to God for mercy.

How can the blessing of God be obtained again? One thing is indispensable and that is to face up to this reality, our own impotence and powerlessness; “without the Lord we can do nothing.” The professing church is being humiliated before the world and to understand that we have to go to the First Cause. Go to God and see that this is due to God’s chastening for our sin. Our defeat and ineffectiveness is not mysterious; it is not the arbitrary exercise of the mighty divine sovereignty. This weakness is related to us and our sin. Didn’t Paul have to rebuke the Corinthian congregation because they refused to deal with moral evil in their midst? He said to them in the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter five and verse seven, “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are.” Where is the old yeast in our midst? I ask again, where is the wedge of gold and the silver and the beautiful robe from Babylonia hidden in your life? Where is theft and deceit and other wickednesses lying hidden in the life of this one or that one? Why aren’t you dealing with them by taking them to God in repentance and doing what you have to do to make things right? I have to apply these truths to you as Joshua applied them to the people.

See what God told Joshua to do: “Go!” he said to Joshua. “Go, consecrate the people. Tell them . . . ‘this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says; That which is devoted is among you, O Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it’” (v.13). No strength, no possession of the land, no triumph, only constant failure if the sin is not dealt with. God gives the Holy Spirit to them who obey him. Close searching self-examination and repentance was one means of restoring the presence of God to the people.

It is time for you to go to Jesus Christ. Today. Don’t harden your heart any more. Go to him and acknowledge to him you have done those things you should not have done. You have defied him and despised his law and there is no health in you. Cast yourself upon him and ask that he will show you mercy, and keep praying until you know he has forgiven you. There is no other way. Don’t be the impediment that is preventing the return of Jesus Christ to the heart of the church.

 

Seek him as Joshua sought him in a humble, broken, believing heart. Go on seeking him with a still more, and a still more humble, broken, believing heart. Seek him deep enough, and long enough: seek him with your whole heart, and soon you will find him. Seek him like David, seven times a day. Like David also, be seeking him before the night watchmen are patrolling the streets to guard you and yours. Rise before dawn and always seek him till you know you have found him and he has found you. If death comes to you let it come seeking him, “O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!” There is no greater assurance that God is going to end our defeats than a spirit of repentant seeking after God in the congregation.

 

22 July 2007    GEOFF THOMAS