Ai Falls
Joshua 8:1-29
Good morning. If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to Joshua 8.
Last time we were together we saw how the Israelites sought to take the city of Ai. Needless to say, it didn’t go well for them. They were routed because the Lord was angry with them for having taken some of the devoted things.
We are going to return to Ai today. We’re going to see that things turn out much better this time. But I want to share with you some of the battle plan. Ai (and we’ll see today that this also includes the city of Bethel) was an important city to take. What Joshua is making a cut west across the mid section of the land of Canaan. It is a military strategy whereby he divides the land in two.
By taking these cities, he makes it impossible for the northern part of Canaan to come to the aid of the cities in the South. It’s really a “divide and conquer” kind of strategy. Once he makes this line across the mid section of the land, he can go on to conquer the south and then return north and take that territory.
But strategic to this plan is the taking of Ai. If you don’t topple this city, the whole plan goes kaput. So even though Ai is not quite as jazzy as Jericho in terms of its size and stature, it is still nonetheless strategic to the plan.
Which brings us to the text today. If you would, follow along as I read God’s holy word as it is found in Joshua 8.
[Read Joshua 8] Let's pray...
Introduction
One of the things I love about the Bible is just how great a piece of literature it is. The passage today is one example of just the artistry of the Biblical writers. Dale Ralph Davis points out that the story of Ai could have been a really boring read. But this passage makes the story exciting because you get information little by little as you go through the passage. It’s designed in such a way that you feel like you’re part of the action and you feel the victory.
And what’s even greater is that it’s not just lively reading material. It is lively in that it gives us spiritual truth. As we read and study the “Ambush at Ai” there’s a sense in which our hearts are to be ambushed. This isn’t just a tricky victory over God’s enemies. There’s a sense in which God is to get greater victory over us by what we learn from this.
Hopefully, that will happen as we go through the passage today.
But I want to look at 5 points today. The first thing that we notice from the passage is the promise that was given.
I. The promise that was given
Our passage begins with some assurances to the people of Israel. God gives them a promise saying, “Do not fear, do not be dismayed. Go up against Ai, “See, I have given Ai into your hand.” It’s king, its people, the whole city, every part of that territory I have given it over to you and you’ll be victorious.”
God’s basically saying, “There’s no possibility that you’ll fail this time. You can bank on this.”
Now, you have to understand that this gives the people hope. You can imagine Joshua coming out and saying, “Hey, we’re going up against Ai again. Everyone get into formation and start marching!” If you were an Israelite, how would you feel about that?
I personally would say, “Yeah, sure. I’ll go. Right after Landon.” They’ve already suffered a humiliating defeat and what’s to say that it isn’t going to happen again? When the swords start slashing and the arrows start flying, who’s to say that you have any chance of surviving?
This is why God speaks to them directly and gives them this promise. They needed some hope. They needed some definite motivation and assurance that God wasn’t going to let it all happen again.
The promise of God was what got them moving and kept them moving. And that’s what the promises of God are for. They are to give us hope and they are to be the things that keep us pressing forward.
Let’s say that someone has gotten behind on their bills. They are piling up and it seems like there’s no way out. How is that person going to react? If there’s no hope, they’re probably just going to be watching those bills pile higher and higher. Their going to hide under the bedcovers and think that all is lost.
But this is where God’s promises are to be brought to bear on our lives. God promises that he will provide for his people, does he not? If you ask him for bread, will he give you a scorpion? So you wake up in the morning and you get out to work and you let your need be known to the church family and you trust that God will be faithful to his promise, right?
The same is true when it comes to doing battle against sin and temptation. If you do not confess and forsake your sin, will you prosper? Of course not. But the Bible tells us that he who confesses his sin will find mercy. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The promise is key for the fight.
Charles Spurgeon says that the promises of God are not to be like curiosities in a museum, but they are to be believed and used.
The battle of Ai would never have had a single soldier if it had not been for people hearing and believing the promises of God.
And that’s what we are to do too. We are to bring the promises of God to bear on our lives. These are what give us the real confidence to live in this world as God wants us to.
The second thing that I want you to consider is the plan that was followed.
II. The plan that was followed
The attack on Ai was carried out just as God wanted it. One of the major take aways from this section is that there were no mess ups. Everything went exactly as God ordered it. Unlike the attack on Jericho, where the word of God was not obeyed completely, God’s word prevailed this time around
For instance, the strategy for taking the city was God’s idea. At the beginning God said to set an ambush. And that’s what they did. The majority of the passage is all about how they set up and carried out the ambush.
The second thing that God said was that they could take the plunder from this city. And we read in verse 27 that’s exactly what they did. They took the plunder. (If only Achan would have not been so greedy and if he just could have waited a bit. God would pay his soldiers. The would get their wages for working for him.)
Then in verse 8, the Lord said that the city was to be burned with fire. And we see in verses 19 and following that is exactly what they did.
We can even say that they followed God’s word in how they handled the dead body of the king of Ai. We’ll talk about this more in a second, but down in verse 29 it tells us that they didn’t leave the body hanging all night. They took it down. Why did they do that? Because that’s exactly what the Lord had commanded the book of Deuteronomy 21.
So there were no slip ups this time. There was not a single infraction against the commands of God. They took God’s word seriously this time and they obeyed every point of it.
What we see is that people were living by faith. And that’s the lesson that we’re to take away from it. We are to live by faith. We are to listen to God’s word. We are to obey his commands. We are to follow his plan. Sin has consequences. It messes things up. And obedience usually provides a much better way.
Over the course of my ministry I’ve had opportunities to meet with couples who are having difficulty in their marriage. And there have been times when the guy or the girl (and sometimes both) have already been previously married and divorced. So this is their second marriage. And to help them, one of the things I’ll do is ask questions about the first marriage. What happened there may be indicative of what’s going on in this marriage.
So I’ll ask them, “Why did the first marriage break down?” And one of the responses I will almost always get is that they were just too young. They married too early in life. And I want to say, “Well, have you not grown up yet?”
You see, it’s not the age; it’s the attitude. They haven’t changed. They are still making the same mistakes and they are not seeking to follow God’s plan for marriage. If they would put away their selfishness and begin to live to please their spouse (as they are called to by God), then their marriage wouldn’t have the problems that they do.
It all comes down to obedience to the word of God.
The point of this passage is that God’s word must rule our lives. IT’s all about living by faith and being obedient to what he has commanded.
The third thing I want you to notice from our passage is the participation that was required.
III. The participation that was required
The battle of Ai is a lot different from the battle of Jericho. We pointed out a number of times how Jericho was a supernatural battle, with which Israel had little to do.
Remember everything we said about Jericho: The God did everything he could to make Israel as obsolete as possible. He circumcised them and then marched them around the city for hours upon hours. It’s likely that they would have been sore and tired. Besides that, the hearts of the people of Jericho had melted. So they were probably too paralyzed to really put up a fight. They were shaking in their boots and were probably taken out pretty easily.
The siege against Ai was a lot different. God’s people had to be actively engaged the whole time. They were lively participants. There wasn’t any miraculous falling of walls or anything like that this time. Joshua’s army had to get into their positions. They had to advance and retreat. Then they had to advance again. The people in ambush had to jump up from their positions and run in and put the city to the sword and set it on fire.
Everything about Ai is about how the people of God had to work in order to bring about the victory that God wanted.
I point this out because there are some people in this world who think that God’s just going to give them everything they want on a silver platter. But that’s not the way God normally works. God’s normal way of working is in and through our daily activity. We must work out our salvation, for it is God who works in us to will and to do his good pleasure.
Young people, you got to listen to me right here. I’ve got news for you: You got to do your math. You want to be successful in life? Then you have to get your studies done now and learn the skills that you need to get ahead in this world. If you think that you can just rely on God to plop a million dollars down on you when you grow up, you’re not demonstrating real faith in God. If you want a good job and want to be successful when you graduate, then you need to make sure you graduate and make sure you are setting yourself up to be successful.
Don’t get me wrong. God said that he would give Ai into the hands of his people. But that victory only came as they people of God marched and fought and put forth the diligence to bring it about. God’s sovereignty was not an excuse for them to abdicate their human responsibility. No, it was the motivation that throttled them to do what needed to be done. God’s sovereign power and plan was carried out in and through his people’s active participation.
So many people in today’s world pit those two things against each other. Well if God is sovereign, well I don’t have to do anything (we don’t need human responsibility). But that’s a complete misunderstanding of how live ordinarily works. God’s normal way of working is by his blessing each of the little steps we take.
This is why the battle of Ai is so important. It reminds us that y diligence.
There’s one last thing that comes up in our text. At the end of the passage we see the penalty that was inflicted.
IV. The penalty that was inflicted
We read in this passage that the king of Ai was not only executed, but he was hung on a tree outside of Ai for a number of hours.
Now, I want you to understand two things: First, you may look at this and say, “That’s barbaric.” But you understand this didn’t happen to any other people from Ai. This was just specifically applied to the king of that city.
As the mayor of Ai, he was the one who was greatly responsible for the corruption of the city. He would have been the one pointing them to the pagan gods and he would be the one who was either restraining godliness or promoting ungodliness.
All this is to say, that leaders are held to a high standard and often have a greater punishment. And this king had the greater shame and greater consequences because he squandered his authority.
But there’s another thing I need to clarify. When it says that he was hung on a tree, we think of the old western movies and hanging from a rope. We think of a noose that is stuck around a guy’s head. That’s not what is meant here. In ancient times it was a completely different thing. He was probably executed, and then, after he was dead, he was probably impaled on a long branch or piece of wood.
So in all reality, he became a human billboard. Everyone who was there (who, of course, would be Israelites) would see this ignominy and understand the message: This is what happens to anyone who turns to other gods. This is what happens to God’s enemies. They are shamed and executed and covered with disgrace.
Yes, we can rejoice at the fact that God deals this way with his enemies. Yes, we can take this as a good reminder of how we should be careful not to fall into our own idolatries. But we can also take this as a reminder of how God has dealt with our failure.
God’s already dealt with our former pagan life. He’s dealt with our idolatry. The only reason we can find ourselves in the Lord’s army, rather than in the ashes of Ai, is because Christ was accursed for us on the tree of Calvary. He bore the shame and penalty of our sin on our behalf. The disgrace of our sin was inflicted upon him. That’s why we can call him Savior.
We might look at this man dangling from this tree and think, “Oh, how barbaric.” And it is a rather gruesome picture. We may even agree that it is somewhat barbaric. It is a picture of hell after all.
But this is the good news that comes out of Ai. It’s a reminder of, yes, how Christ is the victor. He is bringing to an end the rule and dominance of Sin and Satan. He shall conquer all his and our enemies. But Ai also reminds us of the cross of Christ and how Jesus took the curse of sin on our behalf.
Last time we were together we saw how the Israelites sought to take the city of Ai. Needless to say, it didn’t go well for them. They were routed because the Lord was angry with them for having taken some of the devoted things.
We are going to return to Ai today. We’re going to see that things turn out much better this time. But I want to share with you some of the battle plan. Ai (and we’ll see today that this also includes the city of Bethel) was an important city to take. What Joshua is making a cut west across the mid section of the land of Canaan. It is a military strategy whereby he divides the land in two.
By taking these cities, he makes it impossible for the northern part of Canaan to come to the aid of the cities in the South. It’s really a “divide and conquer” kind of strategy. Once he makes this line across the mid section of the land, he can go on to conquer the south and then return north and take that territory.
But strategic to this plan is the taking of Ai. If you don’t topple this city, the whole plan goes kaput. So even though Ai is not quite as jazzy as Jericho in terms of its size and stature, it is still nonetheless strategic to the plan.
Which brings us to the text today. If you would, follow along as I read God’s holy word as it is found in Joshua 8.
[Read Joshua 8] Let's pray...
Introduction
One of the things I love about the Bible is just how great a piece of literature it is. The passage today is one example of just the artistry of the Biblical writers. Dale Ralph Davis points out that the story of Ai could have been a really boring read. But this passage makes the story exciting because you get information little by little as you go through the passage. It’s designed in such a way that you feel like you’re part of the action and you feel the victory.
And what’s even greater is that it’s not just lively reading material. It is lively in that it gives us spiritual truth. As we read and study the “Ambush at Ai” there’s a sense in which our hearts are to be ambushed. This isn’t just a tricky victory over God’s enemies. There’s a sense in which God is to get greater victory over us by what we learn from this.
Hopefully, that will happen as we go through the passage today.
But I want to look at 5 points today. The first thing that we notice from the passage is the promise that was given.
I. The promise that was given
Our passage begins with some assurances to the people of Israel. God gives them a promise saying, “Do not fear, do not be dismayed. Go up against Ai, “See, I have given Ai into your hand.” It’s king, its people, the whole city, every part of that territory I have given it over to you and you’ll be victorious.”
God’s basically saying, “There’s no possibility that you’ll fail this time. You can bank on this.”
Now, you have to understand that this gives the people hope. You can imagine Joshua coming out and saying, “Hey, we’re going up against Ai again. Everyone get into formation and start marching!” If you were an Israelite, how would you feel about that?
I personally would say, “Yeah, sure. I’ll go. Right after Landon.” They’ve already suffered a humiliating defeat and what’s to say that it isn’t going to happen again? When the swords start slashing and the arrows start flying, who’s to say that you have any chance of surviving?
This is why God speaks to them directly and gives them this promise. They needed some hope. They needed some definite motivation and assurance that God wasn’t going to let it all happen again.
The promise of God was what got them moving and kept them moving. And that’s what the promises of God are for. They are to give us hope and they are to be the things that keep us pressing forward.
Let’s say that someone has gotten behind on their bills. They are piling up and it seems like there’s no way out. How is that person going to react? If there’s no hope, they’re probably just going to be watching those bills pile higher and higher. Their going to hide under the bedcovers and think that all is lost.
But this is where God’s promises are to be brought to bear on our lives. God promises that he will provide for his people, does he not? If you ask him for bread, will he give you a scorpion? So you wake up in the morning and you get out to work and you let your need be known to the church family and you trust that God will be faithful to his promise, right?
The same is true when it comes to doing battle against sin and temptation. If you do not confess and forsake your sin, will you prosper? Of course not. But the Bible tells us that he who confesses his sin will find mercy. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The promise is key for the fight.
Charles Spurgeon says that the promises of God are not to be like curiosities in a museum, but they are to be believed and used.
The battle of Ai would never have had a single soldier if it had not been for people hearing and believing the promises of God.
And that’s what we are to do too. We are to bring the promises of God to bear on our lives. These are what give us the real confidence to live in this world as God wants us to.
The second thing that I want you to consider is the plan that was followed.
II. The plan that was followed
The attack on Ai was carried out just as God wanted it. One of the major take aways from this section is that there were no mess ups. Everything went exactly as God ordered it. Unlike the attack on Jericho, where the word of God was not obeyed completely, God’s word prevailed this time around
For instance, the strategy for taking the city was God’s idea. At the beginning God said to set an ambush. And that’s what they did. The majority of the passage is all about how they set up and carried out the ambush.
The second thing that God said was that they could take the plunder from this city. And we read in verse 27 that’s exactly what they did. They took the plunder. (If only Achan would have not been so greedy and if he just could have waited a bit. God would pay his soldiers. The would get their wages for working for him.)
Then in verse 8, the Lord said that the city was to be burned with fire. And we see in verses 19 and following that is exactly what they did.
We can even say that they followed God’s word in how they handled the dead body of the king of Ai. We’ll talk about this more in a second, but down in verse 29 it tells us that they didn’t leave the body hanging all night. They took it down. Why did they do that? Because that’s exactly what the Lord had commanded the book of Deuteronomy 21.
So there were no slip ups this time. There was not a single infraction against the commands of God. They took God’s word seriously this time and they obeyed every point of it.
What we see is that people were living by faith. And that’s the lesson that we’re to take away from it. We are to live by faith. We are to listen to God’s word. We are to obey his commands. We are to follow his plan. Sin has consequences. It messes things up. And obedience usually provides a much better way.
Over the course of my ministry I’ve had opportunities to meet with couples who are having difficulty in their marriage. And there have been times when the guy or the girl (and sometimes both) have already been previously married and divorced. So this is their second marriage. And to help them, one of the things I’ll do is ask questions about the first marriage. What happened there may be indicative of what’s going on in this marriage.
So I’ll ask them, “Why did the first marriage break down?” And one of the responses I will almost always get is that they were just too young. They married too early in life. And I want to say, “Well, have you not grown up yet?”
You see, it’s not the age; it’s the attitude. They haven’t changed. They are still making the same mistakes and they are not seeking to follow God’s plan for marriage. If they would put away their selfishness and begin to live to please their spouse (as they are called to by God), then their marriage wouldn’t have the problems that they do.
It all comes down to obedience to the word of God.
The point of this passage is that God’s word must rule our lives. IT’s all about living by faith and being obedient to what he has commanded.
The third thing I want you to notice from our passage is the participation that was required.
III. The participation that was required
The battle of Ai is a lot different from the battle of Jericho. We pointed out a number of times how Jericho was a supernatural battle, with which Israel had little to do.
Remember everything we said about Jericho: The God did everything he could to make Israel as obsolete as possible. He circumcised them and then marched them around the city for hours upon hours. It’s likely that they would have been sore and tired. Besides that, the hearts of the people of Jericho had melted. So they were probably too paralyzed to really put up a fight. They were shaking in their boots and were probably taken out pretty easily.
The siege against Ai was a lot different. God’s people had to be actively engaged the whole time. They were lively participants. There wasn’t any miraculous falling of walls or anything like that this time. Joshua’s army had to get into their positions. They had to advance and retreat. Then they had to advance again. The people in ambush had to jump up from their positions and run in and put the city to the sword and set it on fire.
Everything about Ai is about how the people of God had to work in order to bring about the victory that God wanted.
I point this out because there are some people in this world who think that God’s just going to give them everything they want on a silver platter. But that’s not the way God normally works. God’s normal way of working is in and through our daily activity. We must work out our salvation, for it is God who works in us to will and to do his good pleasure.
Young people, you got to listen to me right here. I’ve got news for you: You got to do your math. You want to be successful in life? Then you have to get your studies done now and learn the skills that you need to get ahead in this world. If you think that you can just rely on God to plop a million dollars down on you when you grow up, you’re not demonstrating real faith in God. If you want a good job and want to be successful when you graduate, then you need to make sure you graduate and make sure you are setting yourself up to be successful.
Don’t get me wrong. God said that he would give Ai into the hands of his people. But that victory only came as they people of God marched and fought and put forth the diligence to bring it about. God’s sovereignty was not an excuse for them to abdicate their human responsibility. No, it was the motivation that throttled them to do what needed to be done. God’s sovereign power and plan was carried out in and through his people’s active participation.
So many people in today’s world pit those two things against each other. Well if God is sovereign, well I don’t have to do anything (we don’t need human responsibility). But that’s a complete misunderstanding of how live ordinarily works. God’s normal way of working is by his blessing each of the little steps we take.
This is why the battle of Ai is so important. It reminds us that y diligence.
There’s one last thing that comes up in our text. At the end of the passage we see the penalty that was inflicted.
IV. The penalty that was inflicted
We read in this passage that the king of Ai was not only executed, but he was hung on a tree outside of Ai for a number of hours.
Now, I want you to understand two things: First, you may look at this and say, “That’s barbaric.” But you understand this didn’t happen to any other people from Ai. This was just specifically applied to the king of that city.
As the mayor of Ai, he was the one who was greatly responsible for the corruption of the city. He would have been the one pointing them to the pagan gods and he would be the one who was either restraining godliness or promoting ungodliness.
All this is to say, that leaders are held to a high standard and often have a greater punishment. And this king had the greater shame and greater consequences because he squandered his authority.
But there’s another thing I need to clarify. When it says that he was hung on a tree, we think of the old western movies and hanging from a rope. We think of a noose that is stuck around a guy’s head. That’s not what is meant here. In ancient times it was a completely different thing. He was probably executed, and then, after he was dead, he was probably impaled on a long branch or piece of wood.
So in all reality, he became a human billboard. Everyone who was there (who, of course, would be Israelites) would see this ignominy and understand the message: This is what happens to anyone who turns to other gods. This is what happens to God’s enemies. They are shamed and executed and covered with disgrace.
Yes, we can rejoice at the fact that God deals this way with his enemies. Yes, we can take this as a good reminder of how we should be careful not to fall into our own idolatries. But we can also take this as a reminder of how God has dealt with our failure.
God’s already dealt with our former pagan life. He’s dealt with our idolatry. The only reason we can find ourselves in the Lord’s army, rather than in the ashes of Ai, is because Christ was accursed for us on the tree of Calvary. He bore the shame and penalty of our sin on our behalf. The disgrace of our sin was inflicted upon him. That’s why we can call him Savior.
We might look at this man dangling from this tree and think, “Oh, how barbaric.” And it is a rather gruesome picture. We may even agree that it is somewhat barbaric. It is a picture of hell after all.
But this is the good news that comes out of Ai. It’s a reminder of, yes, how Christ is the victor. He is bringing to an end the rule and dominance of Sin and Satan. He shall conquer all his and our enemies. But Ai also reminds us of the cross of Christ and how Jesus took the curse of sin on our behalf.