Up all day. March uphill through the wilds all night. Fight all the next day. And that isn’t long enough? What a difference the Lord makes when He fights for His people! The strategy is always right. The victory is always assured. First, “the Lord routed them before Israel” (Jos 10:10). The word “rout” means […]
“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord” (Ps 2:2). When Abraham returned from rescuing Lot and those with him from four marauding kings, he was met by Melchizedek (“king of righteousness”). Now the king of the same city, Adonizedek (“lord of righteousness”), perhaps a relative, hears […]
Read More… from April 20, 2023 — The Nations Plot A Vain Thing
A “servant of servants” Canaan was to be. It can’t be missed that Jesus took that very role for us! It was not only with Gibeon that Joshua had made a covenant, but also with their confederate cities of Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjath Jearim. These four formed a wall of defense just north and west […]
The Gibeonites decided to dress up in costumes because it was “Trick or Defeat” time. News of the supernatural destruction of Jericho and the taking of the twin cities of Bethel and Ai swept through Canaan. Receiving the devastating report, “the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite…gathered together to […]
When the other Joshua came here, He said God is still seeking those who worship in spirit and truth. Having taken Jericho, Ai, and Bethel, the children of Israel have effectively cut the land of Canaan in half. They control the high ground in the center of the country and the main road north and […]
Actually, they hanged Jesus, then slew Him, but Peter reverses the order, showing the awful historic link. For the first time, but not for the last, the Jewish nation deliberately put a Gentile king under the curse of God by hanging his body posthumously on a tree. “And the king of Ai he hanged on […]
Sometimes we can’t “fight the good fight” unless we’re willing to first “flee the good flight.” Israel now faces one of their biggest challenges—to head back up to Ai with the memory of their defeat in the Loss column. Gripping their hearts would be the questions: Is the Lord with us this time? Has He […]
Read More… from April 13, 2023 — Victory Through Seeming Defeat
Achan’s formula for spiritual failure: “I saw [them]…I coveted them and took them” (Jos 7:21). Abram had pitched between Bethel (meaning “God’s House”) and Ai (meaning “rubble”) many years before. In a sense, we all pitch our pilgrim tents there, and everything that comes through our hands is either built into God’s house or ends […]