Encounters

Joshua 5:9-12 The Encounters

1. When America was discovered On October 12, 1492,

Was it really discovered? No it had been inhabited by Native Americans for 1000 years or so.

• We might say the American story is a story of encountering

• Europeans encounter Natives

2. Joshua leads Israelites into a Promised Land but they have an encounter

• A Land just waiting for Israel to occupy but it to has Natives

• When Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land, he found that the land was already occupied.

• Back in the book of Exodus, God had promised to bring the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and deliver them to “a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8).

• The Natives of the Promised land they encountered were “the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” (Exodus 3:8).

3. They encounter “Rolled Away”

• Early in the book of Joshua, the Israelites are camping at a place called Gilgal. The location is

called Gilgal because the name is related to the word “rolled.”

• It is in this place that the LORD says to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt” (9)

• What God has rolled away is the disgrace of poverty, indebtedness and slavery they

Experienced Egypt

• Gilgal is encountering the beginning of a new day for the Israelites, they are encountering

freedom instead of slavery in Egypt.

4. The Israelites encounter Passover vs 10

• One of the first things the Israelites do at Gilgal is keep the Passover.

• They eat this meal “in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho” 10

• The meal reminds them of their quick escape from Egypt when God liberated them from captivity and

brought them through the Red Sea. Once again, they remembe God desires freedom from oppression.

• In Gilgal they encounter the Passover which reminded them of How God brought them deliverance

by a mighty strong hand.

5. They encounter the blessings of the Land

• As soon as Passover ends, the book of Joshua tells us that the Israelites “ate the produce of the land,

unleavened cakes and roasted grain.

• The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had

manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year” (vv. 11-12).

• The provision of bread from heaven, called manna, ends as soon as they have their first

Passover in the promised land. From then on, they eat the crops of the land of Canaan.

6. Hopefully you have encountered Rolled Away, you have encountered Passover, you have

encountered the bounty of a new land

• God has Rolled Away disgrace, sins, regrets, frustrations, anger,

• God has given us Passover he became the Passover lamb. As a result we encounter Forgiveness

• We encounter the bounty of a new land

• We know what this feels like: Feelings of shame, the burden of guilt, a sense of regret about poor

choices and missed opportunities.

• The good news of this passage is that God has rolled and we encounter our disgrace away. It’s

gone.