Joshua 10:25 And Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage: for thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies against whom ye fight.
It must be extremely frightening to be in combat. A number of people I have known have been in combat. It is something for which I admire these people. Winston Churchill fought when he was a young man in the late 1800s, and he famously said, “There is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without success.” Indeed, it must be!
Joshua 10 is a story of combat, conquest, and fear, and a lot of it. To get right to it, the question is, “Would Joshua and the people he led obey God’s command?” There are a number of reasons they would not have obeyed, and we will talk about those in just a moment.
Verse 25 is perhaps the summation of what the whole chapter is about: “Then Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage: for thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies against whom ye fight.” The Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. All these kings and all their lands did Joshua take at one time. So, the whole story is about Joshua and Israel obeying God’s command and going into Canaan.
Now, considering all the fear that Joshua must have felt in obeying God’s command, it seems clear that whom you fear determines how you fight. The Canaanites themselves were actually afraid of Joshua. They heard about what God had done, and they feared Joshua. Joshua, on the other hand, could have been very fearful of what was ahead. The fear of the unknown is perhaps the greatest of all fears.
But, let’s think about this for a minute; whom you fear determines how you fight. Sometimes we fear the majority. In this story there were a number of kings who gathered together against Joshua, yet every time an enemy came up against Joshua they became a new part of the example of God’s fighting for Israel. Rahab said, “We have heard what God did to Egypt.” Later, people said, “We heard what God did to Egypt and Jericho.” Then later, people said, “We heard what God did to Egypt, Jericho, and what God has done at Ai.” Still later, people said, “We heard what God did to Egypt, Jericho, Ai, and all the kings that rose up against Joshua in Canaan.”
So, we can sometimes fear the majority. There were five kings against one Israel and there were many more to come, yet as the Evangelist Bob Jones said, “You and God make a majority.” Whom you fear determines how you fight. Now I’m not referring to physical fighting, but sometimes you fight against wrong ideas, the prevalent thinking of the age, and peer pressure. Sometimes we can fear these things. Just remember when you fear the majority that God has been good and sufficient before and He will be yet again.
Second, we can fear the status quo. The status quo is simply the world as you know it. It is a reference to the way things have always been. Sometimes we fear change, and sometimes we fear that nothing will change. Joshua could easily have been afraid of obeying God’s command because it meant that things were not going to stay the same. The status quo feels safe, and obeying God oftentimes does not.
Sometimes we fear the environment, the general tenor of things in our world. The Bible says that Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still. The Bible says that “the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.” The sun was Canaan’s deity, but it was Jehovah’s servant. The very atmosphere of the world that Joshua could see was under the control of Joshua’s God.
Whatever it is you may fear today, remember that you have a God Who is far greater than all of your fears. He has a track record. Just as he brought Israel through Egypt, He would bring them across Jordan. Just as He gave victory over Jericho, He would provide for them in Ai. Just as He gave them victory over Ai, He would help them win a victory over a host of enemies. And the very environment, the sun, was under God’s control. Whom you fear determines how you fight. May God help us to fear the God of Heaven and earth.