Joshua: Deeper Than Jericho
Woohoo! I bet you guys were wondering what has been going on during quarantine with my Bible Study. Well, let me just say, thanks to Facebook Messenger we still can video chat and continue our study of the bible. Since quarantine has disrupted our lives, this small group study is something we all look forward to ending our week and starting our weekend with. We had started this group with the intent to read the Bible from beginning to end, but life happened and we got stuck at nearly the end of Genesis. That was when we started skipping around. I already wrote a post about the short chapter of Jonah (hilarious, if you haven't read it click here). I then discovered this great bible study companion by Josh Hunt. This author has many books but so far our favorite to enrich our study time is the "Question-Based Bible Study Guide" series. These books are pretty much amazing at digging deeper into the different chapters of each book of the bible. We decided that we would read Ruth (more on our takeaway in another post) because it was short and we had this cool book with questions. But here we are at Joshua.
Picture this, the people of Israel are still wandering the wilderness. Moses has died. Joshua is now in charge. Moses was this powerful person who led them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, asked God to provide food, received the Ten Commandments, and countless other roles that a fearless leader faces. Losing Moses was a great hit to these people's cause. But guess what? God called Moses' understudy, Joshua, to pick up the torch and lead Israel in the battle for the Promised Land. As soon as Israel crossed the Jordan, they would be in a constant battle to conquer and take the land that God had promised them. So basically, Joshua is a bunch of warfare.
Now, you may be surprised that as you read through the book of Joshua, you will discover that this book is more than just the walls of Jericho that came a-tumbling down (cue the song):
"Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho
And the walls came a-tumbling down
You may talk about your men of Gideon
You may talk about the men of Saul
But there's none like good old Joshua
At the battle of Jericho (that mornin')"
And yes, he did. But there was more to it than that. There were many more battles Joshua and the Israelites had to fight than just Jericho. They were fighting lands God had promised them and Moses. God was with them and their faith in the Lord guided their success. As the Israelites fought their enemies, they needed to remember that God wanted the Scripture to possess them. They had The Word of the Lord in the form of a Bible. Their Bible included Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and parts of Deuteronomy. The Lord did not want Israel to create laws, idols, or statues; he wanted them to follow His word as law.
But before we get into more battles, let's talk about Jericho for a moment. Jericho was a mighty fortress. Think Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings. God tells Joshua to have to march around the city every day for six days with the ark of the covenant and music in hopes that Jericho will decide to follow God's Word. When that did not happen on the seventh day the people blew their trumpets as loud as they could and the walls came tumbling down. Israel was then able to go in and conquer the city. Imagine what the inhabitants of Jericho must have been thinking. Why are these strange people parading outside our city? Why for six days? What's going on?
Just to be clear, Joshua did not bring the walls down. Yes, he led the Israelites to victory but he did not cause the walls to crumble. God did that. The application for this for us is to think of Jericho as our fear. Any fear or anxiety you feel, know that God will crumble the walls of that for you. Any feeling you have that is not serving you and is consuming you, God will help you break through those feelings if you let Him. That's precisely what the Israelites did. They allowed their faith in God to lead them to victory over Jericho, the biggest city in Canaan.
The thing was that Israel was supposed to take nothing from the city of Jericho. No gold, silver, or devoted things. They were told not to do this. But, of course, someone did. His name was Achan and not only did he take things that were supposed to be the Lord's only, but he also lied about it. So, when Israel went to Ai to overthrow them, they failed. Only after repenting and punishing Achan, did Israel have victory over Ai. The moral? If Israel wants to be in the land they were promised, they MUST be obedient to the Lord. With this in mind, the Israelites destroyed all the cities in Canaan.
Yes, the stories are violent, but God is not commanding a genocide. If you think of the Bible as a story, you will notice the literary value in it's telling. God was not commanding Israel to commit genocide; rather, he was commanding them to bring justice to the people of Canaan. They had fallen out of favor of the Lord by being immoral and even practicing child sacrifice. God wanted them to repent from their ills and not be wicked anymore. After all this victory, Joshua divides up all the land they had conquered throughout the years. He also gives a final speech that basically tells the people of Israel to follow God and be faithful to him and they will be blessed. If not, they will face the same divine judgment as the peoples they had just conquered.
If we read the book of Joshua for application to our lives, we can see that this book is all about having faith and trust in God. If we trust that God will break down our walls and any barriers we face, we will live a life filled with blessings. As the saying goes, we need to stop trying to take the pen. God already knows the ending to our story; we just need to be patient and live in faith that we are fulfilling God's Word. And even though we may stumble on the path of our life, we will make it to His beautiful end.
Happy Sunday.
Stay Tuned All.
Picture this, the people of Israel are still wandering the wilderness. Moses has died. Joshua is now in charge. Moses was this powerful person who led them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea, asked God to provide food, received the Ten Commandments, and countless other roles that a fearless leader faces. Losing Moses was a great hit to these people's cause. But guess what? God called Moses' understudy, Joshua, to pick up the torch and lead Israel in the battle for the Promised Land. As soon as Israel crossed the Jordan, they would be in a constant battle to conquer and take the land that God had promised them. So basically, Joshua is a bunch of warfare.
Now, you may be surprised that as you read through the book of Joshua, you will discover that this book is more than just the walls of Jericho that came a-tumbling down (cue the song):
"Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho
And the walls came a-tumbling down
You may talk about your men of Gideon
You may talk about the men of Saul
But there's none like good old Joshua
At the battle of Jericho (that mornin')"
And yes, he did. But there was more to it than that. There were many more battles Joshua and the Israelites had to fight than just Jericho. They were fighting lands God had promised them and Moses. God was with them and their faith in the Lord guided their success. As the Israelites fought their enemies, they needed to remember that God wanted the Scripture to possess them. They had The Word of the Lord in the form of a Bible. Their Bible included Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and parts of Deuteronomy. The Lord did not want Israel to create laws, idols, or statues; he wanted them to follow His word as law.
But before we get into more battles, let's talk about Jericho for a moment. Jericho was a mighty fortress. Think Helm's Deep from Lord of the Rings. God tells Joshua to have to march around the city every day for six days with the ark of the covenant and music in hopes that Jericho will decide to follow God's Word. When that did not happen on the seventh day the people blew their trumpets as loud as they could and the walls came tumbling down. Israel was then able to go in and conquer the city. Imagine what the inhabitants of Jericho must have been thinking. Why are these strange people parading outside our city? Why for six days? What's going on?
Just to be clear, Joshua did not bring the walls down. Yes, he led the Israelites to victory but he did not cause the walls to crumble. God did that. The application for this for us is to think of Jericho as our fear. Any fear or anxiety you feel, know that God will crumble the walls of that for you. Any feeling you have that is not serving you and is consuming you, God will help you break through those feelings if you let Him. That's precisely what the Israelites did. They allowed their faith in God to lead them to victory over Jericho, the biggest city in Canaan.
The thing was that Israel was supposed to take nothing from the city of Jericho. No gold, silver, or devoted things. They were told not to do this. But, of course, someone did. His name was Achan and not only did he take things that were supposed to be the Lord's only, but he also lied about it. So, when Israel went to Ai to overthrow them, they failed. Only after repenting and punishing Achan, did Israel have victory over Ai. The moral? If Israel wants to be in the land they were promised, they MUST be obedient to the Lord. With this in mind, the Israelites destroyed all the cities in Canaan.
Yes, the stories are violent, but God is not commanding a genocide. If you think of the Bible as a story, you will notice the literary value in it's telling. God was not commanding Israel to commit genocide; rather, he was commanding them to bring justice to the people of Canaan. They had fallen out of favor of the Lord by being immoral and even practicing child sacrifice. God wanted them to repent from their ills and not be wicked anymore. After all this victory, Joshua divides up all the land they had conquered throughout the years. He also gives a final speech that basically tells the people of Israel to follow God and be faithful to him and they will be blessed. If not, they will face the same divine judgment as the peoples they had just conquered.
If we read the book of Joshua for application to our lives, we can see that this book is all about having faith and trust in God. If we trust that God will break down our walls and any barriers we face, we will live a life filled with blessings. As the saying goes, we need to stop trying to take the pen. God already knows the ending to our story; we just need to be patient and live in faith that we are fulfilling God's Word. And even though we may stumble on the path of our life, we will make it to His beautiful end.
Happy Sunday.
Stay Tuned All.
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