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!
From the Desk of Valson Abraham 