Someone Had To Be The First

In Joshua 24, Joshua gave his final address to Israel’s leaders. He began his address in God’s voice with a striking declaration. Israel’s earliest ancestors served idols. There was a time when Israel’s ancestors did not know the God Israel followed. He specifically mentioned Terah, Abraham’s father.

Someone has to be the beginning. It is never popular to be the beginning. Only in the distant future when people see the good fruit of your courage do they admire and praise your courage. By then the courageous one has long been dead. By then all his/her warts and flaws have been noted and examined numerous times. By then his/her loneliness, questions, and grief long have been history. By then no one ever considers the struggles surrounding his/her being the first. By then, he/she is a hero and not a human.

Too often we think of great heroes in scripture as being so outstanding and strong that they are not human. We place them high on a pedestal to collect dust while we occasionally admire them. We make such “super saints” out of them that we likely miss their most valuable lessons to us. The lessons: God works through (a) the small and (b) the weak. What is achieved is not the result of the “bigness” of the person but the result of the “bigness” of God. Divine grace exists as a part of God’s character because inevitable flaws created by the weakness of fear exists as a part of human character.

Abraham was an incredible man. His faith in God exceeds the faith of many (if not all of us). Yet, Abraham was a man who knew fear and made mistakes just as we do. God was able to make great use of him because of his great faith, not his great achievements. In the same manner, God’s use of us is dependent on our faith in Him, not our achievements.

There is so much to be wondered concerning Abraham. Wonder how he felt the first time God spoke to him? Wonder if he immediately understood what was happening? Wonder when and where that moment occurred? To deepen your sense of wonder, realize Abraham was no more accustomed to having God speak verbally to him than you are. Yet, he had the faith to listen seriously rather than find a reason to dismiss the event and occasion.

Can you begin to imagine how much faith he had? When God told him to leave his extended family and depend on the God who spoke to him, he did it. When God told him that a nation would descend from him, he believed it—though he did not even have a son at that moment. When God told him Canaan would belong to his descendants, he believed it. Because there was an Abraham, there was a Moses, and a Samuel, and a David, and an Elijah, and a Daniel, and a Nehemiah.

Yes, it was God’s intent to send a Jesus so all families of the earth could be blessed. Yet, it had to begin with God finding a man who trusted Him. God could do marvelous things through a man who trusted him.

God can still do marvelous things through a person who trusts Him. Are you such a person?

Joy Turned to Sorrow

The gateway to Canaan fell! The vulnerability of the territory to become Israel’s land increased! Before Jericho fell, the area trembled at the thought of war with Israel [not because of the strength of Israel’s army, but because of the way God acted on Israel’s behalf] (Joshua 2:9-11). After Jericho fell to Israel, the terror of the people who lived in Canaan intensified (Joshua 6:27).

Among God’s instruction concerning Jericho was this: everything captured in that city is under ban (Joshua 6:17-21, 24; 7:1). In ancient Israel the ban usually meant more than one thing: (1) no Israelite was to take anything from the destroyed city for personal benefit; (2) all living things in the city were to be killed; (3) anything taken from the fallen city [usually metal objects] was to be devoted to God by placing them in the tabernacle. The ban was a flexible instrument used in some form to honor God. It was a way to dedicate a victory to God as the power behind the victory, to honor God in the defeat of an enemy, and to declare dependence on God. It also was a means of funding the work of the Holy Site of national worship [ancient Israel’s form of national worship was expensive to maintain]. Thus, in ancient Israel, the fall of an important idolatrous city accomplished two things through a ban: (1) it did not have an adverse spiritual influence on Israel by encouraging idolatry, and (2) it honored God as the power enabling the blessing of victory.

The concept of the ban was not restricted to the conquest of Jericho. In ancient sources outside Old Testament records, it is known to exist in other ancient cultures also. It was seen in ancient Israel on several occasions even generations later. For example, one of the reasons God rejected King Saul was his failure to observe God’s ban when conquering the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15).

Jericho was an important city that guarded Canaan against invaders coming from the “other side” of the Jordan River near a convenient crossing. Ai, compared to Jericho, was a small city. While both had strategic significance, Ai likely did not have the symbolic significance of Jericho. While both were significant cities, it was true that if Israel could defeat Jericho, defeating Ai should be simple.

However, a warrior named Achan broke God’s ban in Jericho and angered God. When Achan saw a beautiful mantle, two hundred pieces of silver, and a gold bar, greed caused him to forget God’s instructions. He took those objects and buried them in his tent.

Joshua was told Ai would be easily defeated. The whole Israelite army was not needed. So Joshua sent only 3000 men to capture Ai. However, those men fled from the defenders of Ai, and a few were killed.

The defeat caused Joshua to be extremely distraught. After a time of grief before the ark of the Lord, he asked God, “Why did You let us cross the Jordan River to be destroyed? We should never have crossed the river!” (Joshua 7:7) His concern was that the people living in Canaan would lose their fear of Israel and become bold. In Joshua’s mind, it was this fear, not God, that was the key to Israel’s victory. God told Joshua and those that mourned with him, “Get up! The problem is not the defeat, but the fact there is sin among you.”

God said the man who defied His ban and all that belonged to him should be destroyed (Joshua 7:15). He was, and as a result his family and his livestock were killed, and his possessions were destroyed. A stoning, burning, and burial under a mound of stones were all a part of Achan’s destruction. Before his execution, Joshua referred to him as the one who brought trouble to Israel.

Give attention to four lessons. (1) The key to success—in success or tragedy—is God [and certainly not greed in any form!]. (2) What we hide is never hidden from God. (3) Too often we fail to see the actual problem. (4) Our moral failures can affect or destroy a lot of lives who did not participate in our initial immoral act.

If life is not what you want or like, do not waste “now” because of what you fear in the future. If you do, you will not change the future, and you will waste “now.” As you choose a direction for your life, take care to focus on real problems, not fear problems.

The Lord of Rules and Regulations

War was eminent!  The attack was so near one could feel the anxiety in the air!  Several ‘some ones’ would die!  Soon there would be widows lonely for their husbands and orphans wanting their father!

This was in an age before gun powder, shells, and bombs.  Thick, high walls around a city and strong, bolted gates composed a formidable defense system.  Joshua 6:1 said the city of Jericho was tightly shut up.  No one was allowed to go in or out of that city.  As long as the people of Jericho could keep Israel’s army “out there,” the people of Jericho could preserve their lives and defend their city.  As long as they could keep Israel’s army “out there,” they were in control of their destiny.

God told Joshua to do a very strange thing in Joshua 6.  It was the kind of instruction that could make Joshua respond by saying, “Lord, you could not possibly want us to do that because it violates Your rules and regulations.”  Presumably from the time of Exodus 20:8-11, Israel did nothing on the Sabbath.  From that occasion forward, God’s Ten Commandments, given with Moses as God’s spokesman, were the core of God’s Law in Israel.  Certainly the statement in Exodus 31:12-17 and the incident in Numbers 15:32-36 strongly suggest Israel kept the Sabbath even in the wilderness.

Yet, God’s instructions to Joshua concerning the first city in Canaan they were to conquer did not observe the Sabbath.  “For six (6) days, Joshua, you are to have Israel’s army march around the city once led by seven (7) priests carrying trumpets made of rams’ horns and priests carrying the ark of the Lord.  The priests with the trumpets are to blow them continuously, but the entire army is to march in silence.  On the seventh (7th) day, the army with the priests carrying trumpets and the ark are to march around the city six (6) times in silence.  On the seventh (7th) time, the priests are to blow their trumpets, the army shout, and Jericho’s wall will fall.”

If they marched for seven (7) consecutive days, they violated the Sabbath.  If the first day of the march was Sunday, their beginning of the week, the army of Israel fought and won a major battle on the Sabbath, or seventh (7th) day of the week.  Either way, the Sabbath was not observed as instructed in Exodus 20.  If gathering wood was a violation of the Sabbath, marching around Jericho’s walls in battle gear was surely a violation of the Sabbath!

The issue needs an accurate understanding.  Is God bigger than the Law He gave?  Or is God subject to the Law He gave?  Is God Himself the ultimate authority, or are the “rules and regulations” the ultimate authority?  If you are tempted to say that is an irrelevant point without any application to us of today, consider that God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace are in violation of “rules and regulations.”

We are all sinners!  None of us are worthy to be in God’s presence.  Though we all justly are condemned by our own mistakes and failures, God forgives.  In spite of our indefensible violation of the “rules and regulations,” God forgives because He is full of mercy and grace.  Our hope is not in the “rules and regulations” because that would place our hope in human perfection, an impossibility.  Our hope is in the God Who is bigger than justice, bigger than “rules and regulations.”

Generations later, God’s son declared, “…Something greater than the temple is here.  … For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:6, 8).  Thank You, God!