Make Sure You Are On The Lord's Side

Preparations:

I read that in April, 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was also a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with several other skydivers and filmed the group as they individually dove out of the plane and opened their parachutes. As the video was being shown of each member of the crew jumping out and then pulling their rip cord so that their parachute opened to the wind, the final skydiver opened his chute and then the picture went berserk.

The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death, having jumped out of the plane without a parachute. It wasn’t until he reached for the ripcord that he realized he was free falling without a chute. Tragically, he was unprepared for the jump.

It did not matter how many times he had done it before or what skill he had. By forgetting the parachute he made a foolish and deadly mistake. Nothing could save him, because his faith was in a parachute, which he had never taken the trouble to buckle on. No one can wear a parachute for you and you expect to be all right. There is another thing that no one can do for us, no one can make the preparations that we need for our relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Hebrews were approaching the coming fight in Jericho. Preparations had to be made as we see in Joshua 5-6. The most important preparation was their partnership with God. That has been true for God’s people on both sides of the book. Paul emphasizes this in affirming Timothy, who was a brother in Christ and GOD’s partner or coworker. Read 1 Thessalonians 3.2 (ESV):

. . . we sent Timothy, our brother and God's coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith,

Our text for today tells us how the Hebrews and by application, we can be victorious in the battles before us. Joshua 5.13-15 (ESV) reads:

13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” 15 And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

At first Joshua does not know who this is. He asks, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” He assumes it is a warrior and wants to know his allegiance.

I wonder if Joshua is trying to be a military recruiting officer here. This group of Hebrews was unskilled and presumably inept, especially in regards to warfare. Maybe Joshua was hoping to find soldiers sympathetic to their cause to help out.

Joshua knew warfare. The generation who would spend forty years in the desert knew warfare. You may remember that in Exodus 17 that Joshua led the Hebrews to defeat the Amalekites. Moses stood on the mountain with raised hands while Joshua and the Hebrews fought in the valley.

That generation died off. The new generation appeared to have no natural skills. Moses repeated the instructions of God for them in the book of Deuteronomy before he died. They had not seen some of the things he described and they needed to know them. Now Joshua is leading the people into Canaan. They are not soldiers, or farmers, or fishermen, they are wanderers.

Yet, as we will see, with the Lord’s direction they will enter the land and defeat the enemies of God despite their ineptitude. God led them and they followed and participated as they went. They did not sit back, eat popcorn and watch the movie. They were deeply engaged.

In our current spiritual war, we may want experienced patriotic spiritual warriors. We may feel inexperienced and inept with no real skills for spiritual battle. We need to be listening to God and following Him into battle. He will lead and He will be the victor but we HAVE to go with Him and engage the enemy.

We know, because we have read the last chapter of the Book, God wins. It is especially proven by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That tomb, empty of the body of Jesus, as well as His post-resurrection appearances prove God is and will be victorious.

I like the story about a man who was in the Washington, D. C. area on business at the Pentagon. He had gotten caught in an endless traffic loop that kept taking him over the Potomac River and back. Spotting a jogger along the road, he called out, "Which side is the Pentagon on?" Keeping his pace, the jogger answered, "I think they’re on our side."