Tag Archives: joshua

May 09 2026
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Just One Minute

At the Edge of Promise

As we become more effective for Christ, we will confront increasingly hardened hearts and overwhelming odds. This can happen even at the cusp of stunning victory. This is a vital lesson we must learn from Joshua 11 to live in today’s troubled world.

Beginning at the Red Sea, the Israelites experienced victory after victory which later included Jericho, Ai, and the forces of the five kings led by Adoni-bezek. At one point, God even allowed Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still.

You would think that their enemies would have “gotten the message”—that a God more powerful than their gods stood with the Israelites, not with them. But they didn’t “get it,” except for the Gibeonites. At this point, we are told, God “hardened their hearts”—a sure sign of imminent judgment. 

To defeat the Israelites and Israel’s God, the enemies sent an army of “as many people as the sand on the seashore” (the Jewish historian Josephus records an army of 300,000), plus horses and chariots which Israel’s foot army did not have. In the natural, the Israelites appeared overwhelmed by this superior force.

But God told them, “Do not fear, Trust me.” The Israelites had stumbled many times before, but by this time, they had learned their lesson—no more wilderness wandering, no Achans to spoil it for everybody. The Israelites won a stunning victory, 100% destroying the enemy. Now, they could take the Promised Land given by God to Abraham and his descendants.

Don’t we also have a great promise of the Lord, both corporately and personally, of a world “filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14)? This does not mean just head knowledge but experiencing God in every area of life. Ponder what this staggering promise means for you, your family, community and nation!

Over the past 200 years or so—around the dawn of the modern missionary age—we have seen the rise of mighty opposition overpowering that of any previous age. Think of the multitude of “isms” that have reaped folly, havoc and heartache for millions if not billions of people worldwide. We all know the “isms”—secularism, materialism, Darwinism, Marxism, communism, fascism, militant Islamism, Hindu nationalism, plus many more.

These heart-hardened forces hate God and possess formidable natural resources we can’t match. As if it were their birthright, they ruthlessly seize control of governments, schools, families, economies, arts and entertainment and every other part of our cultures. Even many churches have meekly surrendered to the “isms”.

How easy for us to think, “We are grasshoppers in their sight!” How many of us declare, like Caleb and Joshua, “They will become bread for us?” 

The God of Joshua has not changed. He still says to us as He said to the Israelites, “Do not fear, I am with you.” We have resources today (i.e., the cross, the indwelling Holy Spirit and His gifts, the keys of the kingdom) that Joshua lacked. If Joshua and the Israelites won such a stunning victory with less, what manner of victory awaits us when Christ gives us more?

The victory for our Promised Land may be closer than we imagine—if we will take it! Let us not needlessly wander in wildernesses of our own making!

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Apr 10 2026
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When Heaven Joins the Fight

Whenever we seek to realize God’s promises to us, we will surely face opposition because that’s what Satan always does—oppose God and all who trust Him. Often, he reacts by activating others against us. 

This takes place in Joshua 10 when five kings join forces to defeat the Israelites whom they view as invaders.

In Joshua 9, the Gibeonites saw Israel’s startling victories over Jericho and Ai and realized they were next. To save their lives, they sent representatives to Israel with a white flag of surrender and vowed to become Israel’s servants. Joshua accepted their submission. Adoni-bezek, Amorite king of Jerusalem, got wind of this deal and rallied four other city-states to join him against the Israelites and punish Gibeon for their betrayal. 

In reality, those kings wanted to prevent Israel from claiming what God promised them as far back as Abraham—a futile attempt by Satan-controlled enemies of all that is good. They were not just fighting Israel, they were defying the glory and justice of a holy God. 

God responds to this defiance by assuring Israel He will stand with them to crush these reprobates. What follows is one of the great examples in the Bible of divine/human partnership against evil. While Israel’s army slays the enemy right and left, God hurls giant “stones” at them from the heavens, slaying even more than Israel’s army. Whether this means actual stones or hailstones makes no difference because God can do either or both at the same time.

As the afternoon wears on, Joshua makes a startling decree: he commands the sun and the moon to stand still, allowing the Israelites to complete destruction of the enemy before nightfall.

God promised this territory to the Israelites, and God dramatically delivered on His promises that day. But He also expected the Israelites to do their part, to call on Him in faith expecting Him to deliver. He even allowed Joshua to command the sun and the moon, and they obeyed the word of a man. This miracle did not happen until Joshua spoke the word.

All of this happened centuries before God permanently bestowed His Holy Spirit upon us, the spiritual descendants of Israel (Romans 9-11). Later, in Jesus’ earthly ministry, He commanded winds and storms, healed the sick, multiplied food and raised the dead.

All of this is not just history. There is a profound lesson here for us today. 

Fast forward to the Upper Room just before Jesus’ crucifixion. There, He promised His disciples the Holy Spirit’s presence, even better for them than His physical presence. He told them, “Greater works than I have done you will do” (John 14:12). That evening, He prayed not only for the disciples but also for future generations who would follow Him, thereby bestowing the Holy Spirit and those “greater works” upon them. That’s us!

These astonishing words of Jesus have long intrigued me. Few if any of us, have seen or known those “greater works” of which Jesus spoke. Do they even include commanding sun, moon—and more?

What avenues of divine/human partnership have we not yet experienced that will seal victories over godless foes, take us into our own Promised Lands and ultimately crush the head of Satan forever? May God teach each of us to work those “greater works!”

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Jan 10 2026
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When Faith Brings the Walls Down

Hebrews 11 portrays the miracle of Jericho in Joshua 6 as one of history’s greatest examples of faith.

Perhaps even more miraculous is that this is not just a record of what happened to Israel 3000+ years ago. The miraculous fall of Jericho becomes a template for our own day when we are linked in covenant with Israel’s God through the cross of Jesus Christ. It becomes a timeless model from a timeless God of how we can face our own “Jerichos,” those seemingly impossible foes and insurmountable odds, whatever they may be. Our weapon is our faith in Him.

We all know the story. The Israelites, led by Joshua, approach the walled, fortress-like and hyper-evil city of Jericho. They have no battering rams, catapults, ladders or anything else to break through city gates or scale those high walls. 

In obedience to God’s command, the people march in silence around the city once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day. At the sound of the priests’ trumpets, they shout a great shout, and the walls fall flat. The city is taken and all its unspeakably demonic inhabitants are slain.

This great act of faith did not just “happen.” It resulted from the Lord’s preparation of His people beforehand. It resulted from God’s discipline of His people. It involved remembering prior acts of God’s provision and taking account of the evidence. It involved parting with past sins, setting themselves apart for God alone, separating themselves from a victim mentality. We, too, must prepare ourselves ahead of time.

We often say that “God is in control,” but He does not choose to act alone. He did not make those walls crumble until His people got involved in the process. They were not just passive observers of God’s power. Also involved were the angelic armies. But they did not get involved either until God’s people first got themselves right with Him and became willing to obey God. Only then did He and the angelic hosts act.

To have faith meant they had to obey God even when His orders didn’t seem to make sense. Until the miracle at Jericho, no city walls ever fell, or were city gates broken through except with battering rams and other instruments of war. The Israelites could have resisted this seemingly irrational command, but they obeyed. Will we obey God’s sure orders to us when they appear foolish to our families, and even to other church people
and pastors?

In a sermon on Joshua 6, Charles Spurgeon boiled down the essence of faith to three words: work, wait, win. The “Jerichos” that challenge us in life are not the result of men but of our ultimate enemy, Satan. God gives to us weak and flawed people the privilege of joining with Him to defeat that evil one who enslaved us. He wants us to get involved in winning back our own lost “Promised Land.”

In 3000+ years, God has not changed. We are still made in His image. He still requires of us the same kind of faith He required of the Israelites at Jericho. When we prepare ourselves ahead of time as did the Israelites under Joshua, God will, in the words of Paul, “crush Satan under our feet” (Romans 16:20).

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Dec 15 2025
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When God’s People Stand in His Way

Sometimes God’s worst enemies are His own people. Joshua 5 underlines this troubling truth. To understand this, we must remind ourselves of a vital principle:

God’s words of blessing and covenant to us are sure. That is, as long as we fully agree to them, trusting God to do what He has promised. 

The Israelites utterly failed to trust God. Forty years earlier, at the last moment, they got cold feet and threw away everything God intended for them.

Recall from Numbers 13-14 how twelve spies entered Canaan, their Promised Land, and ten spies reported of the Canaanites, “We are grasshoppers in their sight!” Only two, Joshua and Caleb, declared, “Trust God! He is on our side, and our victory is sure!” 

The Israelites believed the ten naysayers. They came close to stoning Joshua and Caleb, groaning, “What are we doing here? LET US RETURN TO EGYPT!!” In short, they believed the Canaanites were stronger than God. They believed this even after they witnessed the ten plagues that got them out of Egypt, the Red Sea miracle and experienced God’s help in defeating the Amorites. 

They displayed sheer unbelief after witnessing overwhelming evidence that God was with them.

This unbelief denied the Israelites’ entry into the Promised Land until that unfaithful generation died off (except for the faithful Joshua and Caleb). They needlessly remained homeless slaves in a trackless wilderness for 40 years, never realizing God’s promises. What a total tragedy!

By God’s grace, a new generation of Israelites arose to receive another chance. But first, they had to renounce the unbelief of their parents and grandparents before they could move forward. They had to take tangible steps (circumcision) to demonstrate they were still true covenant people of God, not infidels like their forebears. They partook the same Passover meal eaten by their parents before they left Egypt.

Only then did they cast off the spirit of Egyptian slavery that still haunted them because of their parents’ unbelief. Only then could they expect God to lead them to victory over the Canaanites. Now, the Israelites learned their lesson. Now, the captain of the Lord’s host (Jesus?) appeared, ready to assist their victory with angelic power.

Joshua 5 is both a promise and a warning to us. If God’s chosen people could fall into gross unbelief, what about us? Whatever our level of spiritual maturity, each of us is conceived in sin, easily subject to doubts and unbelief. 

Unbelief takes many forms, even deceptively spiritual ones. We live in troubling, violent, times. We face personal difficulties. Do we become easily shaken by these things? Even dearly held theological convictions may result because current events appear stronger than the eternal Word of God and His personal promises to us.

We all do well to come often before God to renew our covenant with Him, even forsaking subtle forms of unbelief passed on to us by beloved parents and grandparents. We all do well to pray along with David, the man after God’s own heart, “Try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:24).

May we all renew our minds before God so that we will cling to the promises God has given us, bringing blessing to us and to multitudes in our generation. A blessed Christmas to you!

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Jan 04 2025
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The Jericho Principle

Hebrews 11 portrays the miracle of Jericho in Joshua 6 as one of history’s greatest examples of faith.

Perhaps even more miraculous is that this is not just a record of what happened to Israel 3000+ years ago. The miraculous fall of Jericho becomes a template for our own day when we are linked in covenant with Israel’s God through the cross of Jesus Christ. It becomes a timeless model from a timeless God of how we can face our own “Jerichos,” those seemingly impossible foes and insurmountable odds, whatever they may be. Our weapon is our faith in Him.

We all know the story. The Israelites, led by Joshua, approach the walled, fortress-like and hyper-evil city of Jericho. They have no battering rams, catapults, ladders or anything else to break through city gates or scale those high walls. 

In obedience to God’s command, the people march in silence around the city once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day. At the sound of the priests’ trumpets, they shout a great shout, and the walls fall flat. The city is taken and all its unspeakably demonic inhabitants are slain.

This great act of faith did not just “happen.” It resulted from the Lord’s preparation of His people beforehand. It resulted from God’s discipline of His people. It involved remembering prior acts of God’s provision and taking account of the evidence. It involved parting with past sins, setting themselves apart for God alone, separating themselves from a victim mentality. We, too, must prepare ourselves ahead of time.

We often say that “God is in control,” but He does not choose to act alone. He did not make those walls crumble until His people got involved in the process. They were not just passive observers of God’s power. Also involved were the angelic armies. But they did not get involved either until God’s people first got themselves right with Him and became willing to obey God. Only then did He and the angelic hosts act.

To have faith meant they had to obey God even when His orders didn’t seem to make sense. Until the miracle at Jericho, no city walls ever fell, or were city gates broken through except with battering rams and other instruments of war. The Israelites could have resisted this seemingly irrational command, but they obeyed. Will we obey God’s sure orders to us when they appear foolish to our families, and even to other church people
and pastors?

In a sermon on Joshua 6, Charles Spurgeon boiled down the essence of faith to three words: work, wait, win. The “Jerichos” that challenge us in life are not the result of men but of our ultimate enemy, Satan. God gives to us weak and flawed people the privilege of joining with Him to defeat that evil one who enslaved us. He wants us to get involved in winning back our own lost “Promised Land.”

In 3000+ years, God has not changed. We are still made in His image. He still requires of us the same kind of faith He required of the Israelites at Jericho. When we prepare ourselves ahead of time as did the Israelites under Joshua, God will, in the words of Paul, “crush Satan under our feet” (Romans 16:20).

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