A Spanner In The Works Series

I wholeheartedly concur with Pink. And I do so not only because it is something that is clearly taught in the word of God, but also something which I know from personal and pastoral experience. How true I have found those words of Solomon in Prov 16v18 to be “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Paul writes ‘Let him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

You remember Peter – ‘Lord though all men should forsake you yet will not I, Lord I am ready to go with you to prison and to death’ It was as if peter had said Lord you might think I will deny you but I am made of stronger stuff than you think. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

But this narrative not only sets before us

1) A Despondent Leader: The Despondancy of Israel’s Leader

Verses 6-9 record for us Joshua’s reaction to this major set-back. READ

It is evident from these verses that Joshua in the wake of this defeat was utterly despondent. So despondent in fact that, for a time at least, his faith in the promises of God seems to desert him and he begins to reason and speak in a way which one could never have imagined of him prior to this set back. Where now was the faith he demonstrated so clearly when he stood before the flood plains of the Jordan. Where was the faith that moved him to walk around Jericho those thirteen times? ‘Lord why did you ever bring us across the Jordan, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan…the Canaanites and the other people of the country will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth” Listen to what Joshua’s saying here. ‘Lord I am so discouraged, so confused by what has happened that I wish I wasn’t here. It would have been better if we had stayed where we were. This is a terrible situation we are in.”

Here is a godly man, a man of tremendous faith, who in the midst of a major set-back, a major discouragement in the course of his God appointed work, is thoroughly dejected, thoroughly despondent. He is reasoning and speaking in a way that are totally out of character for him. He even goes so far as to almost as it were blame God for what has happened and to question God’s goodness and love. “Lord is this why you brought us here to give us into the hands of our enemies.” Its foolish talk of course, but it shows us does it not brethren just how powerful and how potentially destructive unexpected major disappointments and set-backs in the work of the Lord can be, especially to those who are in the role of leadership. Everything had been going so well, then suddenly out of the blue this happened.

Joshua’s despondency, as we shall see was short lived. It was an initial reaction. A reaction which didn’t become a settled prevailing condition. He felt discouraged. His faith wavered, but at least he did the one thing that was essential in the situation that now faced him, he went to God with the problem. In the midst of his emotional turmoil he said things he shouldn’t have said but at least he was talking to the right person about the matter. And as we are going to see, God after letting him say his piece, was going to reveal to him the reason for the defeat and the way in which to deal with it.