How to live in the Promised Land

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Strong and Courageous: How to live in the Promised Land
1. Lessons from Joshua on faithfulness when God blesses us -
Dennis Mullen 7.22.7

Picture a young couple meeting and falling in love against the odds. They’re from different classes so their families don’t really like each other and don’t know what to make of this love affair. Their close friends are against it. But these two kids don’t care. Love conquers all. And even though they don’t have any money, they go ahead and get married because they KNOW that together, they can face anything.

And they do. They endure a series of roach-infested apartments while they scrape together enough money to buy a small house. When the little ones start coming along they know they can’t afford them, but that doesn’t matter because they love fighting against the odds, and they believe that if hardship is to be their lot, they’ll face it together and they’ll beat it together.

And they do. They get their kids raised and they buy a nice house on a nice street, and because both he and she have worked hard at good jobs, they can easily afford the mortgage and their retirement nest egg is growing nicely.

And suddenly, the fighting begins. Where’s the adventure? What happened to the excitement of living? Where’s the challenge in just getting up and going to work another day only to pile a few bucks into savings or for a nicer TV? She starts drinking, he starts staying out late at night, and they start fighting.

What happened? I’ll tell you… They knew how to withstand adversity. But no one ever taught them how to withstand prosperity.

Here’s a church on the edge of town. Several years ago it began with a few couples meeting in a home. They had a vision to reach their town for Christ with an up-to-date relevant church. Ten families borrowed money and they signed a two-year lease at an old Wal-Mart, and they printed flyers and put up a web site and started having church. And it boomed. Several hundred people in the first year. It was a lot of work setting up that old store for church but they did a good job and made it a 24/7 ministry center. The incredible thing was how people sacrificed their own desires and ambitions and served Jesus will all their heart. His love was overflowing through them.

Eventually, the flaws in the property showed large, and as the end of the lease approached, this now growing church hired an architect and borrowed money and built a nice building. And the first few Sundays in that new place were glorious.

But then something unexpected happened. People who had been ready to give their lives for Christ last year were suddenly not so committed. Suddenly everything seemed to get in the way of the church coming together to worship and carry out her ministry – vacations, sports, jobs, the pursuit of money, the desire for personal possessions. Suddenly this extraordinary church seemed so ordinary, diluted with the concerns of the world…just like everyone else.\

What happened? I’ll tell you… They knew how to withstand adversity. They were ready to surrender their bodies to the flames for Christ. But no one ever taught them how to withstand prosperity.

You can trace out this same pattern in lots of places. Here in the US, some of our strongest and best days came when we were tested and the challenge was huge: Establishing our independence, implementing our Constitution, crossing the Mississippi, settling the west, building the railroads. If you ask my grandparents’ generation about their happiest or most fulfilling times, many of them will talk about the Great Depression or WW2, times of struggle and hardship, but times when people pulled together and understood what mattered and what did not.

Yet as our nation has prospered, and as people have accumulated more wealth than any generation in the history of humanity, we’ve gotten unsettled, unhappy, discontent. We lack purpose, and so we pursue pleasure and follow the lives of people (real or fictional) who still seem to be living the adventure. We were ready for adversity. But no one taught us how to live with prosperity.

This is a very common story, even a Biblical one. So today as I start leading up to our COMBINED morning service on August 5, I want us to look at a time in the book of Joshua when the people of God, after generations of struggle, finally entered the land of Canaan, the Promised Land…and then made some crucial mistakes. They were ready for adversity (at least the ones who survived the 40 years in the wilderness). But even a great man of God like Joshua seems to have been ill-prepared for prosperity, for life in the Promised Land. Maybe we can learn from their mistakes.

Here’s how it began. When Moses died, Joshua became Israel’s leader by God’s own choice. God said to him: 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates--all the Hittite country--to the Great Sea on the west. 5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:3-5

THAT is what you could call a formula for success. If God says that no one can stand against you, what have you to fear? I was talking to Bob S. about this Scripture a few days ago and he pointed out that in light of God’s promise, the next words in the passage, which we know so well, seem unnecessary. But here they are…

6 "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. If God was with them so directly, why this reminder to be strong and courageous? Because of this tendency to sink into prosperity and to start believing that once you have your land, once you’ve built your house and plowed your field, the battle is over. That’s why the NEXT words are a reminder about obeying God and sticking with his word.

Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Now this fact that the Lord would be with them was more true than even Joshua knew. One of my favorite incidents in the Bible is in 5:13f, and it took place right before the Israelites were to fight to take the city of Jericho. This always raises the hair on my arms.

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"

14 "Neither," he replied, "but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, "What message does my Lord have for his servant?"

15 The commander of the LORD's army replied, "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

Joshua asked this angel: “Are you with us or them?” You’d expect him to answer: “I’m with you.” He doesn’t. He says: “Neither. I’m the commander of the army of the Lord.” What’s up with that? I thought God was on Joshua’s side!

During our Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said that the important question wasn’t “Is God on OUR side?” but “Are we on GOD’S side?” There is a sense in which, if we claim God is on OUR side, we have things ordered wrong. I think that’s what this angel wants to get across when he says “Neither!” He’s saying: “I’m the commander of GOD’S side. Now whose side are YOU on?” That’s a question we’d all do well to answer.

Prosperity came to the Israelites quickly, in their defeat of Jericho. I’m not going to say much about it, because I want to get on to their response. But I’ll say that the song “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” gets it all wrong. There was no battle, really. God delivered the place into their hands, and the Israelites simply mopped up. That gave them a lot of confidence. Confidence in God? It should have. But instead it gave them empty confidence in themselves.

Overconfidence – It was the first mistake Israel made in the Promised Land.

7:2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven to the east of Bethel, and told them, "Go up and spy out the region." So the men went up and spied out Ai.

7:3 When they returned to Joshua, they said, "Not all the people will have to go up against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary all the people, for only a few men are there."

I love this scouting report, especially when you remember that 40 years ago, 12 spies went to spy out Canaan and judge whether Israel could take it, and ten of them said, “No way. The people there are giants and they’ll squash us like bugs.” Only two spies stood up in faith on that day and said, “If God is with us (or we’re with him), we can do anything” and Joshua was one of those two. Joshua and Caleb had it right that day and the other ten had it wrong and so did the majority of the people who went along with them. So this positive scouting report seems like a refreshing change.

Well it IS a change, but the problem is that it ISN’T a statement of faith in God. God isn’t mentioned. God isn’t consulted. There isn’t any word from the Lord that this is what they should do. Here’s what happened:

4 So about three thousand men went up; but they were routed by the men of Ai, 5 who killed about thirty-six of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Overconfidence, or more precisely SELF-confidence. Self-confidence that grows out of being on God’s side is good. Self-confidence based only on our own abilities is very dangerous for a church, just as it was for Israel.

Here at Morrison Hill, we could (if we were so inclined) brag about some impressive things. In the ten years since we began planning for this new building, God has guided us, intervened, started and stopped us enough times that we can lay out an impressive testimony of his involvement with us. We’ve been through many years of slow but steady growth and one of the most visible results of our labor has been this nice building which seems to impress people who visit us. It would therefore be understandable if we got a little proud about it all, and started saying: “What church is like this church? God is happy with us! Let’s coast for a little while, rest on our laurels…”

After ONE victory, Israel did that. “Let’s not bother the whole army about invading Ai. Just send a few.” Overconfidence.

There was more to it though, and so I’ll move quickly along to my second point…

Disobedience – It was the second mistake Israel made in the Promised Land (actually it was first, but I’m talking about it second…)

You see, something bad happened during the taking of Jericho. Before the Israelites entered the city, God gave them this instruction: 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury." 6:18-19

It isn’t a lot to ask. God is giving them the city. He wants the precious metal. But even if it WAS a lot to ask, whose side are they on? This is a God thing, this taking of Canaan, and theirs is simply to be faithful

But here is the first verse of chapter 7, which I skipped over a moment ago:

1 But the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things; Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the LORD's anger burned against Israel.

And as a result, when Israel went up to fight the people of Ai, God didn’t go with them. They weren’t on his side.

The people, led by Joshua, fell on their face and pleaded with God, but when his response came, it was harsh: 7:10 The LORD said to Joshua, "Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? 11 Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Some sins are serious because of WHAT someone does. Murder, for example. And some sins are serious because of WHEN someone does them. If an astronaut becomes a liar and a sluggard late in life, that's serious enough. If it happens two days into a 10-day space trip, people could die.

And at this moment when Israel is just getting ready to claim their new home in partnership with God, this act of disobedience is a cancer cell that can spread quickly though the camp and destroy everything. So, in one of the most dramatic scenes from the Bible...

7:14 " `In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the LORD takes shall come forward clan by clan; the clan that the LORD takes shall come forward family by family; and the family that the LORD takes shall come forward man by man. 15 He who is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the LORD and has done a disgraceful thing in Israel!' "

And then Achan, his wife, his kids, even his animals were put to DEATH for disobeying God and bringing down his wrath on Israel. It’s an awful thing. And it was an awful thing that 36 soldiers died because this one man despised the Lord’s command and put his greed first. And because it happened at this crucial moment when the entire nation was in such a formative, vulnerable moment, God acted swiftly (through the people and the law) and dealt out the justice that all sin deserves. What Achan and his family received so swiftly, all who choose sin receive eventually, and it is only the precious mercy of God that holds it back today.

But even the sin in the camp wasn't the PRIMARY mistake the Israelites were making...

Failure to seek God. What caused the defeat at Ai? It wasn't just Achan's theft, but the failure of Israel to inquire of God to find his heart in the matter before taking action. Think about it – when they took down Jericho, that was a God-thing from start to finish. This was all them. And they didn't learn their lesson...

9:3 However, when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, 4 they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended. 5 The men put worn and patched sandals on their feet and wore old clothes. All the bread of their food supply was dry and moldy. 6 Then they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, "We have come from a distant country; make a treaty with us."

Now one of the absolute keys about God's plan for Israel was that there were to be NO treaties. God was giving Israel a new start in a fresh land, AND at the same time he was judging the inhabitants of that land for their rebellion. So NO treaties.

9:7 The men of Israel said to the Hivites, "But perhaps you live near us. How then can we make a treaty with you?"

Today it would have been easy enough to wikipedia these dudes and see that they were from a few miles away. But Joshua had to either go with his gut, or else find out from God.

9:9 They answered: "Your servants have come from a very distant country because of the fame of the LORD your God. For we have heard reports of him: all that he did in Egypt, 10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan-...and our elders and all those living in our country said to us, `Take provisions for your journey; go and meet them and say to them, "We are your servants; make a treaty with us." ' 12 This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to come to you. But now see how dry and moldy it is. 13 And these wineskins that we filled were new, but see how cracked they are. And our clothes and sandals are worn out by the very long journey."

9:14 The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the LORD. 15 Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.

In the NT, God's Word is SO clear to his people: Do not be yoked together (or unequally yoked) with unbelievers. That's exactly where the Israelites were now – in a treaty with unbelievers. Well why not just break it? After all they were hoodwinked about who these folks were, and in our country, that would void a contract. Not so in God's will for his people. You keep your word, you fulfill your oaths, even when entered into foolishly, rashly.

I was talking to one of our businessmen years ago who, after performing a service for a customer, was in the middle of trying to fulfill all that customers' demands.. I asked him if that bothered him. He said “no” because he had made a decision to do WHATEVER he needed to do to satisfy the customer and show good faith in the contract. No matter what your friends advise you, that is the attitude of a godly person.

It was the attitude of Joshua and Israel. They fulfilled this treaty here, and it immediately dragged them into a war to protect these people they never should have yoked together with. But God blessed their faithfulness, and if you remember a story from the OT when God actually made the sun stand still so his army could win a battle, it happened in the next chapter as God's people fought this war they never should have been entangled with. But God honors our faithfulness, even when our deals go sour and our commitments get hard. PS 15:1 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? :2 He...

            4 who despises a vile man
    but honors those who fear the LORD,
who keeps his oath
    even when it hurts...

Chapter 13 begins by God telling Joshua that he is old and well advanced in years, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken…

Dealing with battles not their own, entanglements brought on by misguided treaties and activities that were simply not their work to do.

But maybe more than anything, it was the growing sense of complacency that prosperity tends to bring. They entered this land as strangers and warriors with the battle laid out clearly before them and the sense that they couldn't do this without God.

But once enough people got some land, plowed their fields and settled down in homes, the passion for finishing God's work began to wane. The more invested we become in this world, the less urgent seems the business of the next.

That's where we bring it home this morning. What has taken away your joy of salvation, the passion you once had for living for Jesus, for holiness and courageous righteousness? What has pulled you off task of being the strongest Christian husband you can be, or a father who will raise God-strengthened men and women? What has dragged you off from worshiping in God's house, serving in his Kingdom with the gifts he has given you?

What has distracted our church from the passion that led us to build as a tool to bring people to God and take God to people, to continue to walk in the vision we said he gave us?

Outright disobedience, based in the false comfort that God doesn't see, doesn't care, will never act?

Failure to seek God, resulting in over-commitments and treaties that were never our business to begin with?

What's pulling you away from God, keeping you worldly, wearing at your marriage? What's holding our church back?

Morrison Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E. Race St.
Kingston, TN 37763 (865) 376-5205