Study inJoshua

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From Failure To Victory

Chap 8v1-35

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IntroductionThomas Edison the inventor of the electric light bulb spent years working on the project. When at last it was perfected it was given to an apprentice who accidentally dropped the bulb. It splintered into a thousand pieces. Imagine how he felt? Countless hours of patient manufacture lay in ruins. Now when a second bulb was eventually produced, Edison insisted that the same young man carry it from its place of manufacture. A second opportunity was given to the apprentice who was sure he would never be trusted with anything of importance again! This little cameo illustrates how God treats failure's.

In Ch.7 we learned that Israel's sin had brought God's work to a standstill and open public ridicule. But Ch. 8 makes it clear that their failure had not consigned them to a spiritual scrapheap.

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IntroductionReading this you may be conscious of having let God down. You may feel that your behaviour has both compromised the effectiveness of your witness and your fruitfulness in the work of God. Perhaps you have begun to prepare yourself to live in the twilight world of what some call, “God's second best”. But past failure does not mean that defeat has been permanently sewn into the fabric of our lives. Though often in practice, past defeat colours the present and future expectations of the children of God. If you have begun to believe that because you have failed God in the past you will always do so, then this passage is here to encourage you.

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God's Preparation Of IsraelThe chapter opens with words of encouragement and comfort to Israel. "Do not be afraid or discouraged." Fear and discouragement were eating away at the heart of Israel. This produces a kind of spiritual paralysis. You can be sure that Satan was persuading them that things could never be the same again. When we fail, we can be overwhelmed by sorrow and self-recrimination turning life into a perpetual slough of despond. And while Israel had dealt radically with the cause of her defeat, she was still fearful. Why? Did she find it hard to believe that God would forgive?

There is certainly a strange perversity in the human heart which finds it difficult to believe in the scale of God's forgiveness and the extent of his mercy.

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God's Preparation Of IsraelSatan will obligingly replay past sins in the video banks of our memories, telling us our behaviour is indefensible. He slanders God, suggesting that his forgiveness isn't truly generous. We need to sing the words of Faber’s hymn.

There's a wideness in God's mercyLike the wideness of the sea;There's a kindness in his justiceWhich is more than liberty

There is no place where earth's sorrowsAre more felt than up in heavenThere is no place where earth's failings Have such kindly judgement given.

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God's Preparation Of IsraelYou may say, "I have no problem with the theology that describes God's mercy and forgiveness. My difficulty is in forgiving myself. I have let God down so badly, I think I should retire from the field of battle". This reaction reflects the experience of Peter after his denial of Jesus? When the horror of his sin produced a banner headline that ran constantly though his consciousness reading, “failed disciple… failed disciple… failed disciple…” he ‘wept bitterly’. He could not forgive himself, he could not believe he had any future in the spiritual front line and so he intimated to his fellow disciples, "I am going fishing". Now the implication of that was, “I'm going back to my secular job. I have disqualified myself from spiritual service”.

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Failed disciple…Failed disciple…Failed disciple…

God's Preparation Of IsraelPeter’s response helps us to understand why, after the resurrection, the women who visited the tomb were told by the angel to break the news of the resurrection to the disciples ‘and Peter’. It further explains why in John's gospel at the resurrection breakfast beside the lake of Galilee, Jesus drew Peter aside for that rather enigmatic conversation which began "Peter do you love me?". You see the two things which a dispirited Peter needed most was God's comfort and reassurance.

Similarly in Joshua Ch.8 we find that God provides his dispirited and fearful people with both comfort and reassurance.

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God's Preparation Of IsraelSecondly, we discover that God is prepared to trust failures. Israel are taken back to the starting blocks and God says, “Off you go again and capture Ai. You have repented, you have dealt with the obstacle to fruitful service, there is nothing to prevent you from tackling the problem a second time”. There is a tendency to hide in the hospital tent once our battle-wounds have been healed but God is intent to have us return us to the front line. Yes to return us to the work we have previously made such a mess of. This is wonderfully illustrated in the book of Jonah…

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God's Preparation Of IsraelJonah had disobeyed God's voice. He’d stopped his ears, choosing to go on a pleasant Mediterranean cruise rather than preach to the enemies of his people. But instead, God arranged for him to spend three days as a sub-mariner, living in the dark world and foul smelling environment of a great fish’s stomach. That brought him to repentance! When he was subsequently put ashore we read “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time” Jon.3.1.

God trusted him with precisely the same task as before. He wasn't given a desk job back in Israel! He was re-commissioned as a herald of God's word. He experienced the therapy of a complete restoration. Is this something that you need to hear? God is a God who restores not only to a healed relationship but to useful and fruitful service!

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God's Preparation Of IsraelNotice to that with the restoration of Israel God reaffirms the promise of the certainty of victory v1. Israel was to begin to recognise that God's promises of blessing are not unconditional. Their disobedience caused their defeat. But their obedience would ensure their victory. Such promises are something that an obedient people can cling to in the heat of battle. C. H. Spurgeon writes; "My own weakness makes me shrink but God's promises make me brave"

Not only is victory promised to an obedient people but so too is the enjoyment of the spoils of war v2... The very thing which had caused their defeat, is now made available to them. It was only the spoils of one city, the first fruits of Jericho, that had to be set apart exclusively for God.

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God's Preparation Of IsraelHad Satan suggested to Achan, "God is a miserly spoilsport, he will impoverish your life if you let him. Take all that you can for yourself, when you can”? It is certainly the strategy of the devil to undermine our confidence in God and to present him as someone who is unfair.

Nothing could be further from the truth the blessings of God are bountiful, they are "pressed down, shaken together and overflowing” Luke 6.38. The Psalmist assures us that "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly" [Ps84.11].

If only Achan had waited he would have discovered something of the liberality of God's grace.

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Israel's Preparation For Battle Consider for a moment the preparation of the restored Israel for battle. In is clear from the text that the campaign involved careful planning and hard work. It was to be a classic manoeuvre: draw out the enemy, feign a retreat and then a second hidden force moves in at the rear cutting off the possibility of escape to safety. Some have argued that were it not for Israel's sin every victory would have been as miraculous as the collapse of Jericho. But it is easy to forget that the norm for God is to work through means!

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Israel's Preparation For Battle There is an unhealthy obsession in parts of the church today with ‘signs and wonders’. Christians often look for signs of God's activity in the overtly miraculous, when they should be looking for him in the simple providence's of life. Those who cannot discern the hand of God at work in this battle are clearly blind. How could the inhabitants of Ai fail to see a company of 30,000 men hiding in the outskirts of the town? What had prevented the king of Ai from sending out scouts? Had he done so would not Israel's stratagem have been discovered? God is often on the field of battle when he is most invisible. But we need eyes to see his providence!

And surely we need to learn to pray that God would open our eyes to see him at work in the ordinary circumstances of life!

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Israel's Preparation For Battle A second principle which this battle teaches is that we often need to employ greater effort to recover lost ground. Although Ai was a smaller city yet all of the army is now used. This victory involved much greater effort on Israel's part. Why? Israel had lost the momentum of victory. Her advance had been brought to a standstill. We sometimes sing, "each victory will help you some other to win".

The hymnwriter is speaking, in part, about the momentum of victory but the other side of that coin is that each defeat makes the next battle more difficult to win.

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Israel's Preparation For Battle This can be illustrated. Think of an athlete running up a hill in a cross country race. He is carried along in part by his own momentum. If he stops for a moment or turns around and starts to run down the hill he has lost the upward momentum and so makes it harder for himself to get to the top of the hill.

Without in any way seeking to minimise the reality of God's grace, forgiveness and restoration, we need to realise that backsliding and failure in the Christian life will cause us to lose the upward momentum and greater effort is needed to get back into our stride.

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Response To The VictoryAfter her victory, Israel travelled 30 miles to take part in a solemn ritual which would be branded into her mind for generations to come. They arrived at a valley which was 0.75 mile across and which had on either side a great mountain. On one side stood Mt. Ebal which was grim and barren, while on the other side stood Mt. Gerazim, fruitful and beautiful. The valley forms a remarkable amphitheatre with superb acoustics.

Six tribes were then positioned on each mountain. While they stood there in solemn assembly the blessings and cursings of God's covenant with Israel which we find recorded in Deut. 27 and 28 were read out by the Levites. The curses were directed to the grim and terrible Mt. Ebal and the blessings to the pleasant Gerizim.

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Response To The VictoryIt is significant that this ritual should take place immediately after the events of Ai. At Ai, Israel had first-hand experience of both the cursing and blessing of the covenant. Ai was God's visual aid; the backcloth against which Israel was to view the covenant. Disobedience rebellion and sin call out his sore judgement of God while repentance and obedience open the door to God's blessing. As the tribes stood on two quite different mountains, one full of foreboding and the other laden with bounty God was saying, in the most graphic form imaginable: "I have set before you a way of life and a way of death, a way of blessing and a way of cursing. Choose!" This choice of obedience or disobedience, blessing or woe is one that God constantly sets before his people. Ai reminds us that both choices are equally available to us.

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Response To The VictoryIt was here too that Joshua built an altar of sacrifice and communion. We might be surprised to discover that the altar was built on Mt. Ebalv30, the mountain associated with God's curse. Why? It was built there to remind a disobedient and backslidden people, that there was a way back to God and his blessing. God who provides sacrifice for disobedience is ready to meet with us at the altar of sacrifice. Think too of Paul's words concerning the death of Jesus on the cross, "He was made a curse for us..." Gal.3.13. Our communion with God is restored through the sacrifice of the eternal Son of God. The cross reminds a backslidden people that there is a way back to God, a fresh supply of grace, a new experience of forgiveness waiting.

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Response To The VictoryThis forgiveness while freeing us from the penalty of the law does not free us from obligation to the law this is the particular point of v32... Joshua applied a plaster render to the stones of the altar and on the plaster he wrote the law of God.

The altar and the law go together. We are delivered from the sentence and condemnation of the law by the sacrifice which God provides but we are not freed from the obligation to the law. The grace of a new beginning always returns us to the starting blocks of obedience.

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ConclusionIn reading though this are you conscious of failure, of having let God down? And as a result have you persuaded yourself that you must fritter out your remaining days on the spiritual scrap-heap while others are called to fruitful Christian service? Then let the truths of God's word which are outlined in this passage shine their light into your mind and burrow their way into your heart. Let them undermine all the lies of the enemy. Let them dispel the gloom of dark emotions that have paralysed you.

God brings us light that we might ‘quit ourselves like men’ on the field of battle.

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