How Failing to Resist and Repent from Sin Reignites Fear...

This week, we have been looking at the response of the Jewish people as they struggled to restart their lives after an unexpected defeat. And as we enter back into this story of struggle, we see that not only does a failure to resist and repent from selfishness and sin have devastating consequences when it comes to restarting our lives. We see a second impact that a failure to resist and repent from sin can have when it comes to restarting our lives as the story continues in Joshua 8:1:

Now the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. "You shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king; you shall take only its spoil and its cattle as plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it."

Now,why do you think God needed to command Joshua not to fear or be dismayed? As we saw in Joshua chapter one, the phrase “do not fear or be dismayed” literally means “do not fear or be filled with terror so as to fall to pieces”. Imagine yourself as Joshua. You spent forty years wandering in a desert filled with hurt, pain, disappointment, and failure because of the selfish rebellion and disobedience of others.

Now, here you are again, facing the possibility of failing to be able to restart your life again because of the selfish disobedience of others. What would you be thinking? Uh oh, here we go again. How would you be feeling? If you are like most of us, you would be feeling fear. The fear of failure. The fear of repeating past mistakes. The same fears that we can face when we fail at restarting our life. Whether it is our failure to resist and repent from sin, or the failure of others to resist and repent from sin, we can experience fear when we try to move forward and restart our lives.

And just as we saw in Joshua chapter one, God responds to Joshua’s fear with the promise of His presence and activity. Once again, the question before Joshua and the Jewish people was not whether or not God had would keep the promise that He had made; the only question was whether or not the Jewish people were going to live their lives in a way that would enable them to receive those promises. And to receive the promises, the Jewish people were going to have to follow God’s plan and commands. We see Joshua’s response to God’s commands and plan, beginning in Joshua 8:3:

So Joshua rose with all the people of war to go up to Ai; and Joshua chose 30,000 men, valiant warriors, and sent them out at night. He commanded them, saying, "See, you are going to ambush the city from behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. "Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out to meet us as at the first, we will flee before them. "They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, 'They are fleeing before us as at the first.' So we will flee before them. "And you shall rise from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. "Then it will be when you have seized the city, that you shall set the city on fire. You shall do it according to the word of the LORD. See, I have commanded you."

In these verses we see God give Joshua and the Jewish people another opportunity to restart their lives and take possession of the Promised Land. Here we see God extend grace to the Jewish people and the opportunity to repent from their selfishness and sin. God provides the Jewish people another opportunity to faithfully follow His word.

And in the rest of chapter 8, we see the Jewish people attempt to implement God’s battle plan when it came to capturing the city of Ai. Joshua sent 30,000 men to the west side of the city to hide in the nearby hills. Joshua also dispatched an additional 5,000 troops to protect from a possible counterattack from other neighboring towns. The rest of the Jewish army marched before Ai as they had in their previous attack. And just like their previous attack, Joshua and the Jewish army began to flee toward the east as the army of Ai attacked.

This time, however, this retreat was a decoy to draw the army of Ai away from the city. And at just the right time, at God’s command to Joshua, Joshua signaled the 30,000 soldiers to attack the city that was now left defenseless. The army of Ai found itself surrounded and outnumbered, with no escape or shelter. We see the results of this surprise attack in Joshua 2:26-28:

For Joshua did not withdraw his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. Israel took only the cattle and the spoil of that city as plunder for themselves, according to the word of the LORD which He had commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation until this day.

The Jewish people faithfully followed God’s word and leveled Ai to the place that it was a wasteland and remained a wasteland that the readers of this letter could go visit to see the evidence of the obedience of the Jewish people to God’s word. The Jewish people’s evidence of obedience affirmed that had repented from their selfishness and sin and were back on the journey to restart their lives.

After the defeat of the city of Ai, we see Joshua lead the Jewish people in another act that demonstrated their desire to resist and repent from sin as chapter 8 concludes:

Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel. All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had given command at first to bless the people of Israel. Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them.

After the victory at Ai, Joshua responded by faithfully leading the Jewish people to follow a command that was given by Moses and recorded for us in another letter in our Bibles, called the Book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 27, Moses commanded the Jewish people to worship the Lord for bringing them into the Promised Land. As part of their worship of the Lord, the Jewish people were to recite all of God’s word that had been given to Moses, their previous leader, which Joshua wrote on a large pillar next to the altar that was used in worship.

In addition, the Jewish nation was to divide by tribes into two groups that were to recite the blessings of obedience, along with the curses for disobedience that would come upon the Jewish nation as they continued the journey to restart their lives as individuals and as a nation.

God, even prior to the Jewish nation entering into the Promised Land, was fully aware of the danger and temptation that sin presented to the people. And because of that reality, God had the Jewish people pause to recite and remember His word. God had the Jewish people pause to recite and remember the blessings that come from faithfully following God’s word and living in the relationship with Him that they were created for. And God had the Jewish people pause to recite and remember the curses that come when we fail to resist and repent from sin. Because the reality is that to restart requires resisting and repenting from sin.

So where are you experiencing the temptation to pass by God’s words to selfishly do what you want to do instead of what God wants you to do? Where do you need to change the trajectory of your life that is moving away from God back toward God? Is there selfish rebellion and sin that you need to repent from?