Sunday, March 4, 2012

Joshua Part 2

Let's continue with our story of Joshua.  This has been very interesting for me so far because I started out thinking we would talk about Joshua and the wall of Jericho.  We will get to that in time but I am really learning a lot about his character as we go.  Joshua was constantly around Moses.  He was learning everything he could about how the Lord, through Moses, led the children of Israel.  Joshua seemed to be the type of guy who would do anything that Moses told him to do.

Now we know that the children of Israel left Egypt and they were headed for what the Lord called the Promise land.  That land was a good land and it is actually where the children of Israel came from before they went to Egypt.  But it had been about 400 years since they had been to their homeland and they were on their way back to it.

Now when they got to the edge of the Promised land (also called Canaan) Moses sent people to go check out the land.  He sent one man from each of the twelve different tribes of Israel.  Guess who was one of the twelve?  Yup, it was Joshua.  So these twelve guys head out to check the place out.  Moses knows they will have to invade the place so he wants to know stuff like whether the people live in tents or in forts, if there is a lot of wood and if there is any food.  These guys come into the land and they find a ton of food.  As a matter of fact, they cut down this big cluster of grapes that is so big it takes two of them to carry it.  That's a lot of grapes.  They also brought back pomegranates and figs.  The guys came back to Moses after they searched the whole country for 40 days.

Everyone of the twelve said it was a really cool place with plenty of food and that it would be a great place to live.  But here is where things get a little interesting.  Ten of the twelve guys came back and said, "Dude, there are giants living in that place.  These are the biggest dudes we have ever seen.  Some of them are really famous and there is no way on earth we could ever beat them.  We can't make them leave our land.  We aren't good enough to do it.  We even saw these giants called the sons of Anak.  After seeing them we looked at ourselves and we thought we were just little grasshoppers.  Also, they thought we were grasshoppers too and they know that beat us up."  This is the Minion translation of what the bible says.

So everyone in the whole nation of Israel freaks out.  They get all worked up and then they get mad at God.  They say, "God should have just let us die in Egypt or in the wilderness.  The Lord just brought here so these people could kill us with a sword and take our kids captive.  Maybe we should get rid of Moses and Aaron and find someone who will lead us back to Egypt."  Now God told these people that they were supposed to go and take this land back for them to live in.  He even gave them several things that he wanted them to do when they lived there.  But they were so afraid because of what ten of the men said about the land that they trusted these men's words much more than they trusted God's word.  That doesn't make a lot of sense does it?  If God tells us to do something, even if it seems impossible, He will make it happen because He says he will.

Now Moses and Aaron are pretty upset so they fell down on their faces before the nation.  It would probably be a good thing if our top politicians and our top Christian leaders got on their face to pray to God about what to do with our nation.  Notice I said that only ten of the twelve had bad stuff to say about the Promised land.  By the way, the Promised land is the country that we call Israel today.  Anyway, there were two guys who had something different to say.  One was Caleb.  Guess who the other was?  Yup, it was Joshua.  They stood up before all the people and said, "This is a great place to live.  If God told us to go take this land then He will make sure we do it regardless of the giants that live there.  It's a good land.  But we need to be careful now.  We can't rebel against what God said to us.  Dudes, don't be afraid of these wimps.  It doesn't matter how big they are.  They can't defend themselves against us because God is going to kick them out.  God is with us."

But these folks wouldn't listen and they wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb to death.  The Israelites were kind of mean weren't they.  We will hear more about the children of Israel and Joshua next week but for now I want to leave you with a few things we have learned about Joshua in this post.

First of all, Joshua did what his leader Moses told him to do.  Think about it for a minute.  If the land was like they described it, there were only twelve scouts and if they got into a fight, they could have been whipped pretty bad.  Second, Joshua knew what the Lord said about the promised land.  He knew that God told them to go into that land and live there.  When he was faced with a situation that looked different that what God told them about it, he didn't get upset.  He just expected God to do something about the situation.  He knew that God would fix it.  Let me stop here for a minute and ask, what situations are you facing in your life right now?  Are there things in your life that seem like they don't line up with what God has to say?  Maybe you need healing in your body or your spirit.  Well Jesus said in 1 Peter 2:24 that his body was broken and because it was, we were healed.  Start setting your heart and mind on what God said and don't let what your situation looks like scare you.  It cannot stand up to the word of God.

Lastly, Joshua was so passionate about what he believed God said that he was willing to stand up for what he believed the Lord wanted.  Like the country music song says, you have to stand for something or you will fall for anything.

Well it's happened again.  I have blogged myself happy and that's another of the Minion's bible stories.

1 comment:

  1. That is so true. Moreover, there are times in the same battle in our lives when we feel like the 10 and there are times when we feel like Joshua and Caleb over the same situation... We run into a problem, and finally realize we need HELP to receive the promise or vision we first heard or we get fed up with the pain of the battle or the fear of defeat and quit fighting...It is in those times of fatigue or despair that we most need others praying for us like those men held up Moses hands...thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven... One precious thing about God is that if there is a smidgen of desire to do things His way in our choices and attitudes or a smidgen of faith for healing or our husbands/wives/children/marriages/finances He will take us around that mountain one more time and remind us of His Word/Will/Promise.... I am so glad He is God and not any person I have ever known.... The only battle God cannot win is the one I refuse to fight or give up on after I start it....

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