CSI EVIDENCE OF THE EXTENDED DAY
Joshua 10:1-16

SEEING IS BELIEVING
“A 5th grade student called his teacher and said that he couldn’t come to school because snow had fallen from the roof and broke the awning, which fell down to the front door, and so they couldn’t get the door open. He said that his parents left for work through a window, but he had to stay at home because the window couldn’t be locked from the outside.
The teacher gave him zeros in each subject that day for such a dumb excuse for not coming to school.
The next day his parents came to school and presented photos of the 3 meter wide ice lump and a completely broken awning.”

For all of us who may at times contemplate the truths of the Bible ... here's something that shows God's awesome creation and shows that He is still in control.
Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has been called a "myth" in the Bible is actually true?
Mr. Harold Hill, a consultant in the space program, relates the following development.

"I think one of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at GreenBelt, Maryland.
They were checking the position of the sun, moon, and planets out in space and where they would be 100 years and 1000 years from now.
We have to know this so we won't send up a satellite, and have it bump into something later on in its orbits.
We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite, and where the planets will be so the whole thing will not bog down.
They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and it came to a halt.

The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards.
They called in the service department to check it out.
They found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time.
They scratched their heads and had no answer.

Finally, a Christian man on the team said, "You know, I remember the Bible mentioning about the sun standing still."

They didn't believe him, BUT they didn't have an answer either, so they said, "Show us."
He got a Bible and went back to the book of Joshua. There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, "Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee."

Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy and if darkness fell they would overpower him.
So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand still!
That's right — "The sun stood still and the moon stayed — and hasted not to go down about a whole day!"
(Joshua 10:12-13)

The astronauts and scientists said, "There is the missing day!" They checked the computers going back into the time that it was written and found it was close but not close enough.
The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes — not a whole day.

They reread the Bible and there it was "about (approximately) a day"
These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes you'll still be in trouble 1,000 years from now.
Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits.

As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered a different time in the Bible where it said the sun went BACKWARDS.
The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but they once again got out the Book and read these words in 2 Kings that told of the following story:
Hezekiah, on his deathbed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die.
Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof.
Isaiah said "Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?"

Hezekiah said "It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees."
Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees BACKWARD!
Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes!
Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Second Kings make the missing day in the universe!" Isn't it amazing?

So, you have probably figured out that our text for this morning’s lesson is found in the 10th Chapter of Joshua:
“There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel.” Joshua 10:14
Joshua called out to God… and made a brave request.
Joshua 10:12 says “At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day
when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’”

Now why would Joshua make such a loud and public statement? Because he had a promise from God:
The LORD had told Joshua, "Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you." Joshua 10:8
So Joshua had a PROMISE… but he also had a problem.
The battle wasn’t finished yet, the enemy had not yet been conquered, and he was running out of daylight.

So Joshua called on God to do the unthinkable: Make the sun stand till until we’ve whipped the enemy.

ILLUS: In December of 1944,
Adolf Hitler had launched a surprise attack known as the Battle of the Bulge… and 1000s of Nazi troops and tanks advanced through Allied lines,
creating havoc and confusion. To make matters worse snow had been falling for days and a heavy fog blanketed the area, effectively shielding the Nazis
from Allied air attack. General George Patton had wheeled his entire army to strike the southern shoulder of the enemy - but he realized that without air support, the Allies would be in trouble.

So, on December 22, on General George S. Patton’s order, Chaplain James H. O’Neill wrote a short prayer for fair weather that was printed on cards and distributed to the soldiers of the Third Army.

The next day, December 23, soldiers awoke to bright clear day and looked up to see the air filled with Allied planes attacking the Nazi forces below...
and the war ended 19 weeks later.

A good general knows when to call on God for help. But now here’s the deal. If God DIDN’T make the sun stand still (as the Bible says) this story in Joshua 10 is just a story. If the sun didn’t stand still the Bible lied and verse 14 has no meaning for us.

As you might imagine, skeptics & atheists mercilessly mock this supposed miracle because it defies every known law of nature.
Here’s the problem:
The surface of the earth - at the equator – revolves at a speed of roughly 1,000 mph. And the Earth orbits the Sun at an average speed of 67,000 mph.

For the sun to stand still in the sky the earth would have to stop revolving,
or at least slow down dramatically.
Gravity would be suspended, and (in theory) the world would collapse.

Just to get a small idea of how that would work, imagine going down the road at 80 mph with your car loaded with all kind of boxes and loose materials. And suddenly you have to stop to avoid a deer in the road.
If you can visualize the chaos… of items flying all over the place inside your car as it stops at that speed – well, you can have a vague idea of what would happen if the earth stopped and stood still in the heavens.

There are those who say that science doesn’t allow for things like that to happen.
Things like the sun standing still in the sky!
It would have been a bizarre miracle that defied all known laws of physics.

There is one small detail that these skeptics OVERLOOK!
You see, we believe that our God Who created the world in 6 days, Who designed everything that exists, and Who holds everything in the palm of His hand, can do anything He wants anytime He wants to without asking our permission.

Hebrews 1:3 tells us Jesus
“upholds the universe by the word of his power.”
The problem for skeptics is that they can’t imagine a God who could defy the laws of physics.
But, in fact, every miracle in Scripture defies the Laws of Physics:
The Creation; Noah’s Flood; the parting of the Red Sea; the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in a fiery furnace, the feeding of the 5000, raising people from the dead; and (ultimately) the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

THEY ALL DEFY the Laws of Physics.
That’s why they’re called miracles.
You see, the laws of physics aren’t really Laws.
It’s not like some legislative body had gathered and passed laws that governed the universe that we need to obey or we get fined or pay a ticket.
The laws of physics are essentially observations of what normally happens in nature.
You can count on these things happening time after time.

Now, when it comes to BIBLICAL miracles, the laws of physics were violated over and over again because something “changed.”
And what had changed was this:
God showed up. God created the laws of physics, and so He CHANGED them as He desired.
That said, is there any PROOF of the Biblical statement that the Sun actually stood still?

• The Greek historian Herodotus (more than 400 years before Christ) wrote that when he visited Egypt, the priests there showed him an ancient manuscript which told the story of a day which lasted about twice as long as a normal day.

• French intellectual, Fernand Crombette translated many of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and found that among those hieroglyphics is the story of Joshua’s long day.

• There was also a Chinese account from an ancient manuscript that recounted a period of time during the reign of Emperor Yau which coincides with the days of Joshua, that mentions a time when the sun stood still.

• And, on the other side of the world, the Aztecs and other ancient Indian cultures in Southern, Middle and Northern America ALL TELL OF A TIME
when there was a “Long Night” where the sun refused to rise in the sky.

These accounts provide reasonable confirmation that those folks likely observed that miracle in their day.
Jesus said: “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20
Now, why would God include this story in Scripture?
What can we learn from what happened that day?
Well, it can be summed up in that one scripture:
“There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.” Joshua 10:14
God heeded the voice of a man, AND GOD FOUGHT FOR HIS PEOPLE.

We live in a harsh world.
People are gonna hurt us, insult us, persecute us, rob us.
You name it, if an evil person can think of something evil to do they’ do it. Evil exists and we won’t entirely escape it. And Jesus was very honest about this:
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
This story of Sun standing still is important to us because we need to realize that God stepped up and did a mighty thing all because Joshua asked Him to.
So, what’s God trying to tell us? He’s telling us He’s powerful enough to do anything that needs to be done.

On a hill called Calvary there stood an old rugged cross – the emblem of suffering and shame.
They crucified My Savior. They had beaten Him, and insulted Him, and mistreated Him, and then they nailed him to a Cross.
And Bible says from the 6th until the 9th hour there was darkness in the land.
From Noon until 3:00 pm…. the Sun REFUSED to Shine.

In Joshua’s day – in answer to prayer –
God made the SUN to Stand Still, and that miracle gave His people victory over their enemy.
And on that dreadful Friday when Jesus died on the cross, the Sun was in its place… but it refused to shine.
It was on that day - God gave YOU and I the victory!
What a Mighty God We Serve!”

God can do anything, from parting the crossing of the Jordan, to the destruction of Jericho, and even causing the Sun to stand still in the sky.
But the most powerful miracle God ever did was when Jesus rose from the dead to give us hope for an eternal life with Him.
“If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Romans 8:31-32

God can do anything… but He’s ALREADY done the most power thing He could possibly do for us.
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him (that’s you and me) shall have everlasting life.
JOHN 3:16
There is more to come concerning that verse next week.

INVITATION

Reference Sermon : Jeff Strite

CSI EVIDENCE OF THE EXTENDED DAY SEPT. 28th
TEXT: Joshua 10:1-16

"The sun stood still and the moon stayed — and hasted not to go down about a whole day!"
(Joshua 10:12-13)

2 Kings 20: 8 - 11 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day?”
Then Isaiah said, “This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees?”
And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; no, but let the shadow go backward ten degrees.”
So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward,

Joshua 10:14 “There has been no day like it before or since,
when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel.”

Joshua 10:12 says “At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still at Gibeon,
and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.’”

Joshua 10:8 The LORD had told Joshua, "Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands.
Not a man of them shall stand before you."

Hebrews 1:3 tells us Jesus “upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Matthew 17:20 Jesus said: “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

Joshua 10:14 REPEATED
“There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man,
for the Lord fought for Israel.”

John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Romans 8:31-32
“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son,
but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”