Joshua 8:1-29 – Rematch
James Abram Garfield was born November 19, 1831, in a log cabin in the back woods of Ohio. His father died at the age of 2. Young James somehow earned enough money to go to college. He graduated from college in 1856, and he became a professor and president of Hiram College in Ohio, the college of his denomination, the Disciples of Christ, in which he was also a lay preacher.
Eventually he chose to enter politics, and in 1880, he was elected president of the United States. After only six months in office, on July 2 1881, however, he was shot in the back with a revolver by an attorney who had grown bitter by being overlooked for an important position. Garfield never lost consciousness. At the hospital, the doctor probed the wound with his little finger to seek the bullet. He couldn’t find it, so he tried a silver-tipped probe. Still he couldn’t locate the bullet.
They took Garfield back to Washington, DC, and eventually to the shores of New Jersey, to keep him comfortable in the summer heat. He was growing very weak, even though teams of doctors tried to find the bullet, probing the wound over and over.
In desperation they asked Alexander Graham Bell, who was working on the telephone, to see if he could locate the metal inside the president’s body. He came with an induction-balance electrical device, hoping to find the bullet with this invention of his, but he too failed. The president hung on through July and August, but on September 19, 1881, James Garfield, the last of the log-cabin presidents, finally died. But he didn’t die from the wound. He died from infection and internal bleeding. You see, it was the repeated probing, which the physicians thought would help him, that eventually killed him.
You need to understand: how you handle failure might turn out to be worse than the failure itself. How you deal with a loss may hurt worse than the hurt. What you do with a defeat in your spiritual life determines if the defeat is temporary or permanent.
Joshua and the Israelites had just suffered a defeat and a loss. They had battled Ai and lost. God told them to deal with the issues, which they did in ch.7, and now they are poised to fight again. Let’s read all of ch.8. Now, you can see that the Israelites recovered from their initial loss against the men from Ai. Now, I believe there’s a principle in there for us. Do we always win? Do we ever get disappointed? Do we ever mess up in our spiritual walk? Do we sometimes suffer a loss? Well, what do we do then? How do we get up again? How do we move on after we have gone through a defeat in our spiritual lives?
Well, the good news is, God’s words to Joshua can help us too. The Bible, God’s word, is a light and lamp. The Bible is a sword. The Bible is a hammer. The Bible is a fire. The Bible is food. The Bible is a mirror. The Bible is a seed. The Bible is cleansing water. The Bible is a source of faith. The Bible is a life-giving force. So for you to make the effort to understand God’s words to you, you will find strength and hope and energy and focus and determination.
Now, looking at God’s words to Joshua in v1-2, we can see 3 things God wants us to know, and 3 things God wants us to do. First, the 3 things God wants you to know: 1) God is for you, and wants you to win. V1 says, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” It’s really something to know that God is on your team. Granted, looking back at Joshua 5:13-15, where the commander of the Lord’s army said that He actually wasn’t on any side but God’s, you might wonder how the 2 tie in.
Well, what’s important is that we are doing what God wants us to do. He rarely blesses disobedience. He would much rather bless obedience. So make sure you are doing what god wants you to do, and He’ll strengthen you for it. He’ll bless you as you work with all your heart what He has called you to do.
After we have suffered a loss in our lives, after we have messed up and need forgiveness, after we have bowed to peer pressure again, after we have lost courage to follow through with God’s directions, it’s good to know that those mistakes are not unfixable. They are not fatal errors. God would much rather forgive than condemn. And it’s nice to know that even if other people never forgive us, God will if we ask. God is for you, and He wants you to win.
The 2nd thing God wants you to know is this: 2) It is possible to do what God wants you to do. V1 also says, “I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.” Not, “I will deliver” or “I might deliver”, but “I have delivered.” It’s already taken care of. All the people have to do is march up in obedience.
Sometimes it seems too hard to do what God wants us to do. Sometimes the challenge seems too big. I know; I understand. You wonder if the timing will be enough. You wonder if you’ll have the power or the energy. But the famous missionary J. Hudson Taylor said, “When God’s work is done in God’s way for God’s glory, it will not lack God’s support.” Listen: if God tells you to move a mountain, He’ll make sure He’ll get the bulldozer to you in time.
And the 3rd thing God wants you to know, when it comes to reclaiming spiritual victory, is this: 3) Every fight is different, and you can’t run on previous victories or strategies. Watch what God said in v2: “You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves.”
Now, these were different directions from what God told Joshua about Jericho. At Jericho, Joshua, carrying out God’s directions, said, “The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD.” Devoted, in this case, means that the valuable metals like gold and silver are to be put into the Lord’s treasury, and everything else must be burned and destroyed.
So, God’s plans were different from one scenario to another. It’s not that God is fickle and cannot make up His mind. It’s that God is quite unpredictable. You cannot contain Him or explain Him. He’s bigger and smarter than any of us.
Which means that you have to change. You cannot rest on what you have always done to keep close to God. You have to take a break, evaluate your life, and check whether you are still in connection with Him. You cannot rest on previous victories. You have to go to God frequently, and check your relationship with Him. Get new directions. Read new sections of the Bible. Pray in new ways. Try different ways to show God’s love to others. Previous victories do not guarantee new ones. Perhaps too much assurance of your own strategies is what led to your defeat in the 1st place.
So, we can see the 3 things God wants us to know when it comes to recovering from spiritual defeat: 1) God is for you, and wants you to win (2) It is possible to do what God wants you to do (3) Every fight is different, and you can’t run on previous victories or strategies. So, what do we do with this information? How do we pick ourselves up and move on, after we have suffered a failure in our walk with God? 3 things…
1) Use all the resources that you have. V1 says, “Take the whole army with you.” The 1st time they tried to beat Ai, they took only 3000. They were arrogant and self-righteous. They didn’t think they would need to go to such great lengths. But they did have to.
Listen: you may think you can beat temptation using your own strength. You can’t. You may think you can outwit or outrace Satan, but you can’t. You may think you can withhold things from God, and still win this fight. You can’t. You have to give God everything. You have to put your everything into your spiritual walk. You can’t keep some things hidden in a closet, and hope to win. You have to give God everything you have. Use everything you have. God’s got enough strength for you to do what He wants you to do, but not if you’ve got a smoldering disobedience hidden from view.
The 2nd thing God wants you to do is: 2) Go back and win the battle you had previously lost. God didn’t send the people further into Canaan without getting Ai. God didn’t ignore the loss. He said, “Go up and attack Ai.” Listen: there might be areas where you struggle in life. But God wants you to deal with them before you move on. He’s not going to give you some new conquest until you beat the current challenge. He will keep coming back, over and over, to the place where you stumbled, and get you to win that fight.
The most miserable people in the world are Christians who have not made progress in their spiritual lives. They haven’t changed a bit in years, and they have grown bitter and grumbly. It’s because there was a challenge, they never beat it, and they’ve never beaten it. Listen: this thing that’s troubling you, you need to beat it in order to move on. If you don’t, you won’t. God will help you, but you need to beat this thing.
And the 3rd thing God wants you to do about recovering spiritual victory is this: 3) Set up perimeters to keep the enemy conquered. God had the Israelites destroy Ai. And that’s what you need to do too. Once you gain a victory in your walk with God, do all you can to keep it beaten. Don’t get arrogant about it. Don’t think about how good you are to have beaten it.
If it’s a cleaner thought life, don’t dare to test the odds of going back to it. If it’s forgiveness, don’t dare stew on the offense again. If it’s language, don’t dare play with the words a little. If it’s temper, don’t go back to trying to control everything. If it’s selfishness, don’t go back to thinking you’ve earned something. If it’s tithing, don’t go back to thinking you deserve that extra money. Whatever that obstacle is, don’t give in. Don’t let that tiger out of its cage again. Do everything you can not to let that beast rise up to be a challenge again.
I want to share one last thought with you. Flip ahead 1200 years to the time of Jesus’ death. Two people didn’t handle it well. For 2 people, Jesus’ death would prove to be a real stumbling block: Peter and Judas. Both denied their Lord. Both walked away from His plans. Both sinned that night. Both experienced a great deal of guilt about abandoning Jesus. Only one recovered. Only one got up and walked away from it.
Now, you can choose to get up or you can choose to stay down. When you suffer a loss, when you mess up, when you do something you know is wrong, when you fail, you can either wallow in your guilt, or you can go back to the Lord for forgiveness. The choice is yours. His forgiveness is available if you want it. You can rise up and beat the thing that had beaten you. That’s resurrection power. That’s the offer God has for you.
