SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: So two themes, two out two concepts I want to build off today.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one is that just the incredible magnitude and person of who God is, and how important it is that we acknowledge Him for who He is as God.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a second concept I want you to think about today: history.
SPEAKER_01: What do we do with history?
SPEAKER_01: It's just a fascinating topic to talk about history, and there's so many different ways that people do history today and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: So as we continue our study in Joshua, here's what I want you to think about.
SPEAKER_01: As we've been talking about these battles that the children of Israel are facing as they become the people of God who are inhabiting Canaan and who are appropriating the incredible inheritance that God has provided for them.
SPEAKER_01: That is an Old Testament picture of the New Testament truth of the battles that we go through life as we are becoming God's people, as we are growing into the inheritance that we have as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: So battles are an important part of the book of Joshua, and battles are an important part of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: That concept and understanding those.
SPEAKER_01: Think about how often Scripture uses military soldiers as illustrations.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout Scripture, talks about in Romans 8, through Jesus we are more than conquerors.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about last week, Ephesians 6.
SPEAKER_01: Put on the whole armor of God.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout the New Testament, Paul uses these incredible military pictures.
SPEAKER_01: So what I thought today, uh, this is kind of a fascinating and a famous and often debated story in Joshua 10, sometimes referred to as the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: So I thought I'd take just a moment here, if you'll indulge me for a minute, with this concept of history.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about this.
SPEAKER_01: The longest day.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I have mentioned before, I'm an amateur World War II historian.
SPEAKER_01: I deeply love all things that relate to that.
SPEAKER_01: I also love history.
SPEAKER_01: Janet is a history major.
SPEAKER_01: We love history.
SPEAKER_01: We love movies and history movies.
SPEAKER_01: One of my favorite movies of all time is, in fact, entitled The Longest Day.
SPEAKER_01: It is uh the it is the movie version of a history book written by a historian named um Cornelius Ryan.
SPEAKER_01: He actually wrote two of my favorite books that are two of my favorite movies: The Longest Day, which is a uh history of the Battle of Normandy or Operation Overlord, or as it's known commonly as D-Day.
SPEAKER_01: And this the second favorite one that I have is a book called Operation Market Garden, and it's a movie called A Bridge Too Far.
SPEAKER_01: That's a quote from that book, and it's another major battle in the European theater in World War II.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to think about this the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: That that is a fascinating quote.
SPEAKER_01: It reportedly comes uh from a staff meeting, a German staff meeting, led by the commander who was placed in charge of defending Europe from invasion, uh, General Erwin Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.
SPEAKER_01: And he's in a staff meeting, and in a very prescient moment, in talking with his staff, historians tell us that he said something to this effect.
SPEAKER_01: The first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive.
SPEAKER_01: For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where that quote and idea comes from.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I want you to think with me a minute.
SPEAKER_01: We also are in a period of time right here in the month between June the 4th and July the 4th, which comes up, you know, coming up in just a week or so.
SPEAKER_01: In this period of time, if you're a historian, especially if you're a military historian, this is like the most prolific month of battles in history.
SPEAKER_01: It's incredible when you start to take this month from June 4th to July 4th, and you just walk it through the quarters of time.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I know some of y'all are thinking, what is he doing?
SPEAKER_01: Bear with me a minute.
SPEAKER_01: War stories, the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to just think about this period of time right here.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever period of time you enjoy, this is an incredibly significant period of time.
SPEAKER_01: In our American history, uh, next year, we are just 12 months away from celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America in terms of the 4th of July and the pronouncement of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_01: If you just want to start, June 15th, 1775, General Washington was appointed commander of the U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Armies.
SPEAKER_01: Then he took control or assumed control of that army on July 3rd, 1775.
SPEAKER_01: So we're approaching that 250 anniversary of the beginning of the United States Army.
SPEAKER_01: That's why that pair uh that had that parade a couple weeks ago in Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: June the 17th was the Battle of Bunker Hill, that we refer to as one of those first battles when the British had laid siege to the city of Boston.
SPEAKER_01: On June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, one of the uh leaders of the state of Virginia or the Colony of Virginia from one of the most prominent families in Virginia, arrives in Philadelphia with the vote of the legislature in the colony of Virginia for independence.
SPEAKER_01: And on June 7, 1776, he pronounces or presents the motion for independence that was later signed.
SPEAKER_01: We know it was passed and then signed and promulgated on July 4th, 1776.
SPEAKER_01: Just an incredible picture of this month of history battles.
SPEAKER_01: If you head to the Civil War, it's an incredible amount of time that happens in this period of time.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, in those days, armies couldn't travel in the snow and they couldn't travel in the rainy seasons and all that.
SPEAKER_01: So the summer was a time when they did a lot of battle.
SPEAKER_01: But in the United States, in this month, history, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: June 6th, which is the day of D-Day, June 6th, 1862, was the Battle of Memphis.
SPEAKER_01: I put it on this list because I'm from Memphis.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm writing the list.
SPEAKER_01: It was a naval battle that happened right off the bluffs of Memphis.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up going to the bluffs there in Tomley Park and some of those parks on the bluffs, and looking over into the Mississippi River, which is a mile wide at the city of Memphis, and there was a naval battle.
SPEAKER_01: Ironclad ships from the Union Army.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to push into western Tennessee.
SPEAKER_01: They defeat a rebel fleet there and they gain control over the northern part of the Mississippi River.
SPEAKER_01: In 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg happened July 1st through July 3rd.
SPEAKER_01: The single largest death toll in any battle of American history is estimated over 50,000 casualties there in the Battle of Gettysburg.
SPEAKER_01: It was hugely significant in the war.
SPEAKER_01: It was the high water mark of the Confederate army.
SPEAKER_01: On the second day, the famous Battle of Roundtop, where they were trying to roll up the Union army from one side, and a unit of Union soldiers on the end of the line, and what was referred to as the Battle of Roundtop, were able to push back.
SPEAKER_01: On the last day is famous Pickett's Charge, where again Lee is trying to bring, force a conclusion to the war and a famous defeat there, and they had to retreat to the south, and from that point forward, the Confederate Army only fought a defensive battle.
SPEAKER_01: July 1 through 3, 1863.
SPEAKER_01: The surrender of Vicksburg was July the 4th, 1863, which gave full access to the Union Army up and down the Mississippi River.
SPEAKER_01: As you move forward in time, July 1st, 1898 was the famous Battle of San Juan Hill, where Teddy Roosevelt was given or was honored with the Medal of Honor for bravery in leading charges and later became President of the United States.
SPEAKER_01: World War I, if you're a World War I historian, in the month of June, from June 1st to the last day of June, in 1918 was the Battle of Bellew Wood.
SPEAKER_01: It occurred right outside of Paris.
SPEAKER_01: It was the closest push that the Germans ever were able to make in World War I near Paris.
SPEAKER_01: It is significant to us because it was the first major engagement of the United States in World War I.
SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Army and major units from the U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Marine Corps fought there and pushed back the Germans and denied them access to Paris.
SPEAKER_01: This is a famous battle.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have heard the term Marines referred to as devil dogs?
SPEAKER_01: Heard that phrase.
SPEAKER_01: That is the result of this battle, the valor and the fighting style and the ferocity of the U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Marine Corps.
SPEAKER_01: The Germans called them devil dogs, and that is stuck there.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a Marine, simplify.
SPEAKER_01: World War II.
SPEAKER_01: It was an incredibly important month of battles if you study through the history of World War II.
SPEAKER_01: One of the most famous things that occurs that most people lose in the timeline is on June the 5th, 1942, the or 1944, June the 5th, 1944, the Americans, under the combined forces led by General Patton, liberated Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And so at that point, on June the 5th, the German Army declared Rome an open city, and Patton led Americans into Rome there in that same time frame, June the 5th, 1944, that we were preparing for and launching Operation Overlord, or what we refer to as D-Day.
SPEAKER_01: There are two significant battles in World War II that happened in this time.
SPEAKER_01: If you follow that idea of the longest day, there were two battles that are highly famous.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, on any list of battles, if you took the top 20 battles in human history, these two battles would be listed there.
SPEAKER_01: In 1942, on June 2nd, 3rd, 4th, was the Battle of Midway in the Pacific.
SPEAKER_01: That was the battle that literally turned the tide in the Pacific along with the Marine Corps battles on Guadalcanal.
SPEAKER_01: There the fleet basically was rendered impotent.
SPEAKER_01: The Japanese fleet was basically rendered impotent.
SPEAKER_01: It was a battle that was fought across the international dateline.
SPEAKER_01: And so pilots would take off on one day, and in a course of just a few hours, they would take off on one day, fight on another day, and return on a third day.
SPEAKER_01: For them, incredibly, it was the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: Many times there were a number of units that took off, bombed Japanese carriers, came back, reloaded, went back, and bombed Japanese carriers again.
SPEAKER_01: It is truly could be referred to as the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: And then you had the Battle of D-Day, Operation Overlord, again referred to by General Rommel as the most significant day, and because of that, the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: We all know the stories of that, which included the stretching out of the battle on Omaha Beach, which really hung in the balance for a long time, much longer than the other battles or places of invasion.
SPEAKER_01: There were a number of beaches, one assigned to Canadians, two assigned to the Brits and Canadians, two assigned to Americans, Utah and Omaha Beach.
SPEAKER_01: And Omaha Beach extended for a long period of time with waves of invaders stuck on the beach.
SPEAKER_01: And just as General Rommel had said, those first 24 hours were decisive, and eventually the Americans broke through at Omaha and they began to move back into the French countryside.
SPEAKER_01: The longest day, if you think about battles and the longest day, you think about how incredible it would be to fight a battle for hours and hours and hours on end.
SPEAKER_01: You think about pilots of dive bombers and torpedo bombers in the United States Navy as they took off and searched for the Japanese fleet as they finally found them, the tenseness of that while they were searching the Japanese for the American fleet and the Americans for the Japanese fleet and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: And when it finally happens, and even when you see ships, you're not sure if that's the bulk of the fleet or not.
SPEAKER_01: And they go through all those orders, and if you know your history, the incredible amount of time and stress involved, and eventually the Americans realized they had found the bulk of the Japanese fleet, and over and over and over, and the pilot deaths and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the Japanese on that day fighting back and forth across the international dateline.
SPEAKER_01: They lost four main line carriers, lost a major heavy cruiser, over 350 airplanes.
SPEAKER_01: The Japanese lost over 3,000 men on that day.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the Battle of Omaha Beach.
SPEAKER_01: You think about those incredible battles.
SPEAKER_01: You think about things like famous moments of that Operation Overlord, the British holding on to a bridge and an operation they referred to as Pegasus Bridge.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the 101st Airborne and the 82nd Airborne trying to hold on to places they were parachuted in and creating chaos and holding major rail or major roads that the army would need as they got inland to be able to disperse and to move in the French countryside.
SPEAKER_01: You think about the length of those battles on the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor, what does that have to do with all this?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're going to read here what truly was a battle on the longest day in American history.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to think about the magnitude of God, and I want you to think about how we handle history, and let's unpack this for a few moments this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In Joshua chapter 10, beginning in verse 1, we have this description from Scripture of what really is the longest day in human history.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10, now Adonazadek, king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had captured Ai and completely destroyed it, treating Ai and its king as he had Jericho and its king, and that the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them.
SPEAKER_01: So Adonai Zadek and his people were greatly alarmed because Gibeon was a large city, like one of the royal cities.
SPEAKER_01: It was larger than Ai, and all its men were warriors.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they were so terrified of Israel, as we talked about last week, they duped them into creating a treaty so they could continue to live.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, this king of Jerusalem sent word to the king of Hebron, Pyram the king of Jarmoth, Jaffah king of Lakesh, and Dabir king of Eglon, saying, Come and help me, we will attack Gibeon, because they have made a peace treaty with Joshua and the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: So the five Amorite kings joined forces, advanced with all their armies, besieged Gibeon, and fought against it.
SPEAKER_01: Then the men of Gibeon sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal, Don't abandon your servants.
SPEAKER_01: Come quickly and save us, help us, for all the Amorite kings living in the hill country have joined forces against us.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua and his entire military force, including all the fighting men, came from Gilgal.
SPEAKER_01: Now Joshua had learned his lesson, and he's consulting with the Lord now about how this works.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to Joshua, Do not be afraid of them.
SPEAKER_01: Even though there's five kings and mighty armies and all that, do not be afraid of them, for I, God, have handed them over to you.
SPEAKER_01: Not one of them will be able to stand against you.
SPEAKER_01: So Joshua caught them by surprise after marching all night from Gilgal.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord threw the enemy into confusion before Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He defeated them in a great slaughter at Gibeon, chased them through the ascent of that area, and struck them down as far as these faraway places.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, he is attacking them all throughout the countryside.
SPEAKER_01: They are running them down, and they are killing all of their enemies.
SPEAKER_01: As they fled before Israel, the Lord threw large hailstones on them from the sky.
SPEAKER_01: Now we live in Fort Smith.
SPEAKER_01: We know how powerful that is as an artillery force, right?
SPEAKER_01: And they died.
SPEAKER_01: More of them died from the hail than the Israelites killed with the sword.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a hailstorm.
SPEAKER_01: On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: Now listen to this, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the presence of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not getting off in your prayer closet here.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that he stops and calls out on the name of the Lord in front of the entire complement of the people in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Son, stand still over Gibeon, and moon over the valley of Azelon.
SPEAKER_01: And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on its enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't this written in the book of Jashar?
SPEAKER_01: That's a historic book we book of songs or something, we're not really sure.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of argument over that, but it's stating in Scripture that it was actually recognized and recorded for the people.
SPEAKER_01: So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting almost a full day.
SPEAKER_01: There has been no day like it before or since when the Lord listened to the voice of a man, because the Lord fought for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: That incredible.
SPEAKER_01: Literally, the Bible says that the sun stood still for almost 24 hours.
SPEAKER_01: It was truly the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: And it was the result of God's intervention miraculously in answer to the prayer of his leader, who is literally praying, God, you have given us this victory, and this victory is so mighty over so many enemies.
SPEAKER_01: 24 hours is not enough time to kill them all.
SPEAKER_01: We need you to stop the sun and give us more time to capture the victory that you've given to us.
SPEAKER_01: Is that an incredible picture?
SPEAKER_01: That's literally what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a famous book in scripture, a famous story in scripture right here.
SPEAKER_01: And it's important for us to stop and think through this a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: This is truly a miracle as a recorded in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's a miracle?
SPEAKER_01: C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis gave a very simple definition of miracle.
SPEAKER_01: It's defined as an interference with nature by supernatural power.
SPEAKER_01: An interference with nature by supernatural power.
SPEAKER_01: Now we see miracles all throughout scripture, and we know that God is the creator of the universe, often will step into the world that he has created, and he'll either use it or change it or stop it or suspend it or alter it in order to accomplish his purpose in a way that puts his thumbprint on it.
SPEAKER_01: We see this all throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture begins with the miracle of creation and it began and eternity begin with the miracle of recreation and redemption of where we will live and our resurrected bodies and all of that for history.
SPEAKER_01: Our salvation is built on the truth of a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: It is built on the truth of a miracle that is identified by a virgin birth, God suspending natural flow, the rules and the laws of nature, how that works.
SPEAKER_01: It is begun by the miracle birth of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Through the virgin birth with his earthly mother Mary, the sinless life of Jesus, it it completes the gospel with the miracle of Jesus complete and total death and experiencing the full wrath and punishment of God for sin and then miraculously stepping out of the grave as we sang about, bringing back to life and creating the miraculous means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: When we give our lives to Christ, it means we trust in that moment and the actual historicity of it that it occurred and the spiritual reality that Jesus' death became a substitute for ours and we place our faith and trust in him.
SPEAKER_01: And it is the miracle then of transformation that occurs.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible says we give our lives to Christ and we make him our Lord and our Savior, and we trust Him by faith to pay the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that we are born again.
SPEAKER_01: We are remade.
SPEAKER_01: Old things have passed away and all things become new.
SPEAKER_01: We are a new creation in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He literally changes our future, he changes our heart, he changes our minds.
SPEAKER_01: He changes how we function and what we love.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us a new name.
SPEAKER_01: We understand the truth and the miracle that when our bodies die, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and that we will live with him for an eternity forever.
SPEAKER_01: Our entire faith is a faith in miracles, in the supernatural creator God of the universe accomplishing his work through his miraculous work in hand.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we have this interesting phenomenon in Christian life where we are desperate for somebody to prove that Scripture's true.
SPEAKER_01: You think about how often we cling to things like, oh my goodness, here's another story that they found Noah's Ark.
SPEAKER_01: Where's the Red Sea?
SPEAKER_01: We debate over the Red Sea, and can we find the archaeological evidence?
SPEAKER_01: Surely somewhere, there ought to be somewhere with thousands of Egyptian chariots and armor underneath the water, we can find that, so we can prove that it occurred.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We're desperately clinging to these.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this particular story in Scripture, and the reason that I'm working through this in this fashion, this is a key story that a lot of people use to attack the veracity of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of ways they do that.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens enough that through the years, these urban legends have arisen out of the church world, not lost people, but church people trying to prove that this happened so we can have a greater confidence in the faith in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: There was an urban legend that came out of the 60s and the 70s that went something like this.
SPEAKER_01: When NASA was preparing for the moon shot, and they were doing all the work in the space program to get us to the moon, and they were inventing and elevating the effectiveness of computers and all of that, that somewhere in their computers, as they were mapping the stars and create the math that would give us the trajectory, the slingshot out of Earth's gravity to the moon, that in the process of all that, they discovered that all of the stars and the constellations were off about a 24-hour period.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that was this story where God stopped the earth and its rotation for a day, and they found the missing 24 hours.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have heard that urban legend, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's not true.
SPEAKER_01: It's an urban legend.
SPEAKER_01: It's not even possible.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way that could have occurred.
SPEAKER_01: And they have identified a person who wrote it in a book, and he was a well-meaning believer, and he's trying to push all.
SPEAKER_01: But we have this drive that somehow we think we have to prove that scripture is true.
SPEAKER_01: He's not even the first one to try to do that.
SPEAKER_01: That refers back to a time earlier in the 30s when a famous evangelist was preaching and he came up with this idea.
SPEAKER_01: And then he built that on the study of a believer in 1890 who wrote a book, and he went back in history and ostensibly spent hours and weeks where he calculated the days of time from creation unto now, and he identified the gap of this empty day.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone was clinging to that as see scripture's true.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we need to prove that God's word is true?
SPEAKER_01: At some point, we are a people of faith, and we believe in a God by faith, and we trust in Jesus Christ by faith.
SPEAKER_01: Now, listen, apologetics are important.
SPEAKER_01: Do not take the idea that I think we're supposed to check our brains at the door as Christians and not be able to have a strong apologetic defense of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Bible illustrates how often Paul gave in his sermons an apologetic defense of Scripture and our faith.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that we are to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us.
SPEAKER_01: Apologetics are vitally important.
SPEAKER_01: That is not my point today.
SPEAKER_01: My point today is we have in the church, in a lot of areas, people who are looking to the world and archaeology and science to prove Scripture is true, and somehow it gives us a greater sense that we can believe in God's word because it's true.
SPEAKER_01: And that is not how a person of faith should operate.
SPEAKER_01: Now, listen, I get as offended as anybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Janet and I went on vacation a couple weeks ago, and we went to a place called a national monument.
SPEAKER_01: It's right at the junction of South Dakota and Wyoming and Nebraska.
SPEAKER_01: And so in this fossil deal, they found this huge thing of fossils, and we stood in that museum and we read about four million years and six million years and two billion years and all this nonsense and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at all of it, it's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01: There was a flood that created all that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not real hard to understand, right?
SPEAKER_01: And there's plenty of evidence of the veracity of Scripture, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can go through all of that stuff and we can do all that stuff, but here's my point.
SPEAKER_01: We have too many times where we are looking for our faith in Scripture to be affirmed by finding proof of some miracle like this in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what.
SPEAKER_01: God's word said it, it happened.
SPEAKER_01: It happened.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't need to go find Noah's Ark.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to find the chariots at the bottom of the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to go prove somehow that there was a star in the sky that hovered over and appeared to hover over the place where Jesus was born and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to prove all that.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's trying to prove miracles like Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan River and was cleaned of leprosy.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's trying to prove things like Peter walked on the water or not.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's arguing over Balaam's donkey and it spoke or not.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's arguing over those things.
SPEAKER_01: But what people do in the culture that we live in, people who are anti-Christ, they pick certain iconic things in Scripture and they attack.
SPEAKER_01: That's why creation is always under attack.
SPEAKER_01: Because it strikes at the heart of the fact that the Bible says God created the heaven and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And if God is the creator, then he has the right to make the rules, he has the authority to make the rules, he has the authority to judge when we break the rules, and he has the authority to establish the rules of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And the plan of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need to prove that stuff to know.
SPEAKER_01: There's enough out there that we know what it is.
SPEAKER_01: There are enough proof that the words written in Scripture are actually the words of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We know that this is what it is.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot edit it, you cannot change it.
SPEAKER_01: You can deny it or you can choose to believe it, but it is Scripture that has been validated historically.
SPEAKER_01: We do not need to go validate every miracle in there to prove our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor I grew up used to tell us all the time.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's fun and exciting when they find some new tell in Israel that shows some battle or they find some chariot or they think they found Noah's Ark in Turkey or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Like, great, yay, that's fun.
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: If they find Noah's Ark, man, I'm buying a ticket, I'm gonna go visit because it's cool, right?
SPEAKER_01: But I don't need them to find Noah's Ark to know that Jesus saved me when I was a nine and a half-year-old boy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't need to find Noah's Ark to know that Jesus saves.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what we know.
SPEAKER_01: When some scientists prove something, it doesn't give us more faith in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: It just gives us more faith in the scientist.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's a lot of ways people address this.
SPEAKER_01: Some people just out and out deny it.
SPEAKER_01: And this is an important miracle because there's a lot of description about this miracle, and there's a lot of discussion about it, and there's a lot of attack on the veracity of Scripture because this couldn't happen.
SPEAKER_01: And they'll say stuff like the sun couldn't stop, even if there was a God, and if he did that, when he put the laws of physics in, the only way for this to happen is to stop the rotation of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We know that the sun doesn't stop and all that, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so if you stop the rotation of the earth, everything would rip apart because it couldn't function in that.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the New Testament, by Jesus all things exist and consist.
SPEAKER_01: He holds all things together.
SPEAKER_01: He is the creator God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And if he wanted to stop the planet for 24 hours, he can do that without ripping it apart.
SPEAKER_01: He is the creator God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: He is the mighty God of salvation and creation, and he can do whatever he wants to do, however he wants to do it.
SPEAKER_01: That's who our God is.
SPEAKER_01: And so when the Bible says the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed its setting almost a full day, it happened that way because the Bible said it.
SPEAKER_01: And it gives credit to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: There's been no day like it before or since when the Lord listened to the voice of a man because the Lord fought for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, the truth of this, if you take the concepts that I told you, history, and how we handle history and the magnitude of our God and who it is, listen, we should always land on the side of the greatness of our God.
SPEAKER_01: And we study history and we learn from history, but we do not let someone use that as a tool to attack the truth that we know that our God is the creator God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: He is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes Christians get into this and we're just striving for all this and we're clinging to everything, and we freak out when we think something's disproven.
SPEAKER_01: I was reading in history, the battle of AI, we just discovered.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't match up to this, and it didn't match up to this.
SPEAKER_01: And so people who are not believers in the Lord, they don't have any faith, they're out to disapprove God, they begin to say, listen, the Bible's not true because none of this is true, and this is AI.
SPEAKER_01: And all this hand-wringing and all this freaking out and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Well, years later, they discover another tell, and as they begin to unpack that tell, and they begin to define where it is geographically, they think, well, this could be and probably is a better spot for the city of Ai.
SPEAKER_01: And as they dig through that, they begin to match up that with the biblical description of the battle of Ai all the way through.
SPEAKER_01: So we did all this hand-wringing and all this stuff for no reason.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that happens is later on people catch up with the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Do not depend on those things for your faith in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we look for these weird scientific anomalies to try to define it.
SPEAKER_01: There have been discussions about, well, this is actually an eclipse.
SPEAKER_01: This easily could have happened and could be explained if it was an eclipse.
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, it's described as the opposite of an eclipse, so it can't really be an eclipse.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's not how an eclipse occurs.
SPEAKER_01: So you either have to rewrite scripture, which is sin, or you have to just suspend disbelief and somehow create it as an eclipse when it's not, and it's not described as an eclipse, but we're always clinging for some reason how it could have happened, because somehow we're just afraid to give a full orbed 100% buy-in in the truth of Scripture and the magnitude of our God.
SPEAKER_01: Then you have liberal theologians who step in and they begin to try to find other ways to explain it away.
SPEAKER_01: And so they'll look at a scripture like this, and they'll say, Oh, the reason we have this written in the book of Jashar thing is this is poetry.
SPEAKER_01: And the syntax, the parameters of this, how this all looks, this looks like poetic.
SPEAKER_01: So this is just an illustration.
SPEAKER_01: This would be much like Rommel's description of the battle as the longest day.
SPEAKER_01: It's not really meant to be true.
SPEAKER_01: It's meant to be allegorical to the experience of God's people.
SPEAKER_01: And so we do these backflips trying to massage scripture and rewrite scripture or reinterpret it properly in order to make it do something.
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, it is trying to walk away from a faith choice that this is a miracle that God occurred and did and stated in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's important to watch for that kind of stuff because then you get to things like the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna write that away, and we're gonna make it something else, and we're gonna do all that.
SPEAKER_01: And then they begin to look at things like the theological foundations of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is not really what that means, and this is what that means.
SPEAKER_01: And once we've taken these opportunities to interpret Scripture however we want to, then we can start to make it behave however we want to.
SPEAKER_01: And that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: That's sin.
SPEAKER_01: And all that flows out of the fact that we come to Scripture and we make a choice.
SPEAKER_01: Am I going to believe that's true or not?
SPEAKER_01: Am I going to believe that that is the God that we serve?
SPEAKER_01: And there are true two truths in here I want you to see that I want you to take away with you today.
SPEAKER_01: The first is the mighty power of Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: He gave a victory to his people.
SPEAKER_01: He already dumped the hail storm and killed more people with a targeted artillery attack from heaven, and nobody attacks that part.
SPEAKER_01: They just attack this part because they think they can create some scientific attack on Scripture that they can pull away from the faith of it.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, when you read this story, it is a story that speaks of the magnitude of the God that we serve.
SPEAKER_01: He deserves to be worshipped as the God of creation.
SPEAKER_01: With the God who is so powerful, he can change the order of time, he can tell the nature to rain a hail storm.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus can say, seize, be still.
SPEAKER_01: He can tell Lazarus to walk out of that tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Our God is this mighty creator God.
SPEAKER_01: And when we come to Scripture like this, our first approach should be praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_01: That this is our God.
SPEAKER_01: Not try to reread it or not try to make it make sense or not try to do something else.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I am not saying that we shouldn't be deeply engaged in apologetics and understand our word and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But again, here's what the Bible says about apologetics.
SPEAKER_01: Be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you.
SPEAKER_01: And our hope is built on the miraculous death, resurrection, and salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It is built on that hope because God is the creator, God of the universe, and he is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: And when we come to Scripture, our first thought should always be what a mighty God we serve.
SPEAKER_01: Because then when you get at a moment where the doctor gives you a bad report, or the economy falls apart, or you've got this question about what's happening in life, or your job has been eliminated, or your company is going through a riff and you have no ordeal, or whatever's going on, your family begins to struggle, whatever it is, we need to come to that point with a fundamental belief that our God is a mighty God.
SPEAKER_01: The people of God should have a powerful belief that this is our God.
SPEAKER_01: When we pray for revival, we should not hand fret over how the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
SPEAKER_01: We should worry about the fact that our world is going to hell and Jesus died to miraculously save us from an eternity in hell.
SPEAKER_01: That God created salvation.
SPEAKER_01: He redeems people and saves them forever.
SPEAKER_01: That is our God.
SPEAKER_01: You are not checking your brain at the door when you begin to trust in the miracles in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: You are activating your faith in the mighty God we serve.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, after all of these battles, you think about what he's been through.
SPEAKER_01: The walls of Jericho falling down, the people failing at Ai and God's judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Victory then at Ai.
SPEAKER_01: Then with the Gibeonites, they get deceived by the world around them and the evil culture and all of that, and they've lost all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua's putting all of these things together.
SPEAKER_01: Here we are, we're trapped into this treaty with the Gibeonites.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm going to do about that.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm still embarrassed that allow us to get there.
SPEAKER_01: You got five nations who are attacking them.
SPEAKER_01: We're on the hook for this.
SPEAKER_01: God, what are we going to do?
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Finally, Joshua, you believe in me and you're talking to me about it.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua, I got a plan.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, I've given you victory.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take care of all of them.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, you watch this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm about to show out.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, I'm about to tell all of these kings who I am and to back off from my people, and you just follow along.
SPEAKER_01: And here's Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: He receives this word from God.
SPEAKER_01: He leads the children out into this battle.
SPEAKER_01: Put yourself in the mind of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: He's watching this unfold.
SPEAKER_01: And he's thinking, oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01: Look at this victory.
SPEAKER_01: Look what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Look at them run.
SPEAKER_01: They're coming to him with reports.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, they're running on this flank.
SPEAKER_01: Do we chase them down?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go get them.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, need it.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, look, there's a whole bunch of them running off this way.
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
SPEAKER_01: Take these troops and go chase them down.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua, Joshua, Joshua, listen to this report.
SPEAKER_01: Two armies just got destroyed by a hailstorm.
SPEAKER_01: A what?
SPEAKER_01: A hail storm.
SPEAKER_01: And you imagine in a Baptist church, you got two guys standing over there going, well, clearly that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: God could never do that.
SPEAKER_01: And you got somebody else going, praise God from whom all blessings, you know, and all that.
SPEAKER_01: And they're worshiping.
SPEAKER_01: And like Joshua's going, what do I do with all this?
SPEAKER_01: And he's watching all this happen.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the faith Joshua makes.
SPEAKER_01: God, I so believe in you.
SPEAKER_01: And I so believe in your plan.
SPEAKER_01: God, right here in front of everybody.
SPEAKER_01: God, stop the sun.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let it move.
SPEAKER_01: Extend the amount of hours we have for this battle because you have given us a victory that is beyond what we can think or imagine.
SPEAKER_01: And God, I need you to stop the sun so we can appropriate and appreciate and praise.
SPEAKER_01: You for what you are doing in this victory.
SPEAKER_01: The people of God should have a picture of God that is so expansive that we are willing to stand up and say, God, you have made us a promise.
SPEAKER_01: God, you have given victory, and God, we're gonna stand on that and we're gonna ask for something bigger than our feeble minds can process.
SPEAKER_01: That's how a Christian should live.
SPEAKER_01: That should define our prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, in every letter, in every single letter he writes to a church in the New Testament, he tells them it is my prayer for you that you will understand the height and the depth and the breadth of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: You will see God work in ways that are beyond all you can think or imagine.
SPEAKER_01: It is my prayer for you, church, that you understand the depth of the knowledge of who God is over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is praying for his people.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to get a picture of the magnitude of God, a God who can stop the Son from moving to allow his people to experience the victory that he plans for them.
SPEAKER_01: That should define our faith as a people in all this nonsense, trying to define away what it is or deny what it is, or look to some archaeological dig or something to prove all of this.
SPEAKER_01: We should come because we have walked with God and experienced God in a way that we have a faith and the power of the creator God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sorry that's a little preachy, but you just can't do that standing still.
SPEAKER_01: That is who our God is.
SPEAKER_01: The second truth I want you to get, and we'll close with this, that should inform your prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that Joshua stood in front of the whole assembly of Israel and prayed for God to stop the sun.
SPEAKER_01: Have you prayed for people on your love list to be saved with a belief that the creator of God of the universe still saves?
SPEAKER_01: Are you praying for revival in the river valley because you believe that God still does miracles?
SPEAKER_01: Have you prayed for a move of God that can only be defined by the hand of God?
SPEAKER_01: The picture of God should define and inform our prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: That is the God to whom we pray.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, that is the God you are trusting for your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, I'm going to invite you in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to stand.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to sing a testimony that our people sing because they believe the truth of what they've read in God's Word today.
SPEAKER_01: And if you need Jesus, you come.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have men at the head of the aisles here.
SPEAKER_01: We hopefully we'll have people here at the altar praying for you.
SPEAKER_01: You come and trust the God who is the author of life and the creator of redemption to save you.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we thank you for this incredible picture in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: We ask that you forgive us in those moments where we doubt and struggle.
SPEAKER_01: It's just part of our journey, and we thank you for the grace that you deal with us.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for moments like this in Scripture where you teach us the magnitude of who you are and you call out to us to believe in you.
SPEAKER_01: We do believe in you today.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, we believe that you are the God of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray this morning that people will be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, give us the freedom to respond.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray, and everybody sit.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.