Inspecting Our Church Field-2(2015)

INSPECTING Our CHURCH FIELD-II—Joshua 2:1-24

Attention:

Upon close examination, our perception of a situation may be much different than the reality.

We may be surprised at what we find.

We may be surprised at what we find on the church field.

Joshua sent spies to determine what they would encounter in the promised land.

We can & should determine/examine what we will encounter on our church field.

What will we discover about those on our church field?

7 Discoveries in our own church field.

Last time we found that...

Examining our church field, we discover People given to...

1. SIN(:1)

2. FEAR(:2)

3—Examining our church field we discover...

People given to PREVENTION(:2-3)

Explanation:(:2-3)Threatened/Suspicion

:2—“And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, "Behold, men from the sons of Israel have come here tonight to search out the country.”

:3—“And the king of Jericho sent word to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who have entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.”

Upon hearing that spies had arrived in the city from the Israelite camp(:2), the king of Jericho ordered Rahab to turn over the spies. He had been told that the spies were lodging at her house. Their clandestine operation had been found out.

Fear can move us to Prevention of that fear. However the solution for that fear may be easily misplaced.

In our passage, it moves the king of Jericho to attempt a removal of the enemy’s edge.

The king & all Jericho were rightly fearful of losing control...of their own culture & societal guidance. However, had they submitted by faith to the people of God they feared, they would have discovered that His societal & cultural norms, though vastly different, would be freeing.

People fill/populate their lives with that which ‘chases God out’ of it!

Argumentation:

attempts to thwart God’s intervention—some intentionally some unintentionally in ignorance.

Acts 17:22-23—[Paul @ Athens, Greece to the philosophers]—“Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus & said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; For while I was passing through & examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.”

Felt they couldn’t afford to miss a potentially important god!

**Eph. 4:17-18—This I say, therefore, & testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;”

1Pet. 1:14—[NASB]“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,...”

Deut. 28:49-57—“The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. And they shall eat the increase of your livestock & the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high & fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; & they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons & your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege & desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. The sensitive & very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, & toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege & desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. The tender & delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness & sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, & to her son & her daughter, her placenta which comes out from between her feet & her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege & desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.