Failure to success

Joshua 8:3 - So Joshua arose, and all the fighting men, to go up to Ai

Our Aim

Deliverance

Deliverance is the beginning

It is accepting Jesus as the Lord

Marked by His Blood

Lead by Him

Fed by Him

Separated by Him through water

Desert Journey

Desert life is the training period for a faith life.

Teaching total dependence on Christ

Building faith on Him – deliverer – feeder – protector

Faith - separation – law – blessing

Prove yourself

 

Possessing Promises

1.       Crossing Jordan

Stepping forward to the next level

2.       Destroying the strong hold

The Jericho Wall

2 Corinthians 10 : 4, 5

 4   (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) {through God: or, to God}

 5   Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; {imaginations: or, reasonings}

3.       Fight – conquer – possess

Fight for success

Jericho – Devoted to destruction by the Lord

Do not take anything from Jericho

Joshua 6 : 17 - 19

17 And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

18 But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction, and bring trouble upon it.

19 But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD."

All Labored – No Reward for any one

All did labored to conquer Jericho, though the fall of the city was miraculous doing of God

But they were not allowed to plunder

Many believers are asked by God to labour for the church

They are not paid by the church

Do not be dismayed

The plunder is harem for God

 

The All the Rest are for You and Your Children

The next town is for you

Everything in the town is for you

All towns that follow are for you and for your children

Joshua 8: 1: 2

1    And the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed; take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land;

2    and you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; only its spoil and its cattle you shall take as booty for yourselves; lay an ambush against the city, behind it."

First is for the Lord

Then He gives all the rest for you and for your children

Achan Broke the Covenant

Achan took for himself what God declared to be His

Achan could not enjoy it

Achan’s children too perished.

We have here an account of the deep concern Joshua was in upon this sad occasion.

He, as a public person, interested himself more than any other in this public loss, and is therein an example to princes and great men, and teaches them to lay much to heart the calamities that befall their people.

he is also a type of Christ, to whom the blood of his subjects is precious

Joshua 7: 8 - O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies!

Ps 72:14

 

God will never do us any wrong

Pr 8:34

 

never complain of him, but complain to him, and they shall receive an answer of peace

 

"Think not that God's mind is changed, his arm shortened, or his promise about to fail; no, it is sin, it is sin, that great mischief-maker, that has stopped the current of divine favours and has made this breach upon you."

The encouragement God gives to Joshua to proceed: Fear not, neither be thou dismayed, Jos 8:1.

This intimates that the sin of Achan, and the consequences of it, had been a very great discouragement to Joshua, and made his heart almost ready to fail.  Corruptions within the church weaken the hands, and damp the spirits, of her guides and helpers, more than oppositions from without; treacherous Israelites are to be dreaded more than malicious Canaanites. But God bids Joshua not be dismayed; the same power that keeps Israel from being ruined by their enemies shall keep them from ruining themselves.

He allows the people to take the spoil to themselves. Here the spoil was not consecrated to God as that of Jericho, and therefore there was no danger of the people's committing such a trespass as they had committed there. Observe, How Achan who caught at forbidden spoil lost that, and life, and all, but the rest of the people who had conscientiously refrained from the accursed thing were quickly recompensed for their obedience with the spoil of Ai. The way to have the comfort of what God allows us is to forbear what he forbids us. No man shall lose by his self-denial; let God have his dues first, and then all will be clean to us and sure, 1Ki 17:13. God did not bring them to these goodly cities, and houses filled with all good things, to tantalize them with the sight of that which they might not touch; but, having received the first-fruits from Jericho, the spoil of Ai, and of all the cities which thenceforward came into their hands, they might take for a prey to themselves.

 

Joshua 8: 27 - Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took as their booty, according to the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua.

 

His courage and resolution; though an army of Israelites had been repulsed before Ai, yet he resolves to lead them on in person the second time, Jos 8:5.  Being himself also an elder, he took the elders of Israel with him to make this attack upon the city (Jos 8:10), as if he were going rather to sit in judgment upon them as criminals than to fight them as enemies.

They plundered the city and took all the spoil to themselves, Jos 8:27. Thus the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just; the spoil they brought out of Egypt, by borrowing of their neighbours, was much of it expended upon the tabernacle they had reared in the wilderness, for which they are now reimbursed with interest. The spoil here taken, it is probable, was all brought together, and distributed by Joshua in due proportions, as that of the Midianites was, Nu 31:26, &c. It was not seized with irregularity or violence, for God is the God or order and equity, and not of confusion.

Professor Jacob Abraham

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