Consequences

March 16, 2014

Joshua:  Turning Obedience Into Blessing

Joshua 9:  Consequences                                NOTES NOT EDITED (BE KIND!)

SIS—We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.

This week I was studying something called “avoidance therapy” and here’s what I found out:  “technically, there is no such thing as "avoidance therapy.”  However, avoidance learning is a general term referring to any situation where the correct response allows an organism to escape a negative outcome (Answers.com).

Well, I guess there’s really no need for professional counseling using avoidance therapy, anyway.  Seems to me, “common sense” works just as well.  If a person touches a hot burner on a stove, I’d think that would work pretty well as “therapy” for not doing it again!

A law in physics states, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  That’s a scientific was of stating, “every action has consequences.” Take the motorcycle patrolman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well. However, the patrolman kept feeling something tugging at the hairs on his chest. Worried that it might be a second surgery the doctors hadn’t told him about, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown down enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable.  Taped firmly across his hairy chest were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn’t come off easily. Written in large black letters was the sentence. “Get well quick… from the nurse you gave a ticket to last week.”

This week we are going to study “Consequences,” particularly the consequences that come from ungodly decisions.  We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.  This is simply a matter of physics and common sense—make less bad decisions and get fewer unpleasant and unproductive consequences.

LET’S READ ABOUT CONSEQUENCES:  Joshua 9:1-27

Here’s some “avoidance” tips that will help you lesson or eliminate many of the bad decisions in life.

1.  Avoid Worldly Entanglements (1-2)

When all the kings heard about Jericho and Ai, those who were west of the Jordan in the hill country,  in the Judean foothills,  and all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea  toward Lebanon—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites— ² they formed a unified alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel.

Notice that six pagan kings, who had little or nothing in common, came together to war against Israel.  A “common enemy makes for uncommon alliances.”  This is a very ancient sentiment.  A sanscrit proverb dating to the 4^th century B.C. stated, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  We saw this worked out as foreign policy with the Allies of WW2.  We fought with Russia.

This works out spiritually in the same way:  the enemies of God often become friends for the purpose of attempting to defeat God’s plan and God’s people.  Notice that there are seven kings, or “heads of state”—six pagans plus one Israel.  Notice also, there are only “two sides” those for God and those against.  God weaves this truth throughout the tapestry of His Word.  It’s either God or the Devil you will serve.  Evil and error may take a multitude of forms, but all error has the one foundation—a hatred for God. Likewise, the enemies of God have a contempt and a disdain for the truth of His Word.  There are not three categories of people:  saved, lost, and other.  It’s saved or lost, “God’s friend or God’s foe.”  The six pagan kings were very much different and lived in different locales in the Promised Land, but they all shared the same hatred for God and His people.  This has not changed, and will never change.  The Middle East remains the same, today.  Israel is a tiny spec on the map but the Muslim hoards cannot stand having Israel in their midst.  Mark this down—you cannot make friends with the world and if you try you will regret it every time.  You simply cannot make a pet out of a rattlesnake.

I read on the Internet about a 31-year-old Long Island man who was rushed to the hospital after being bitten by a pet rattlesnake. Yes, “pet rattlesnake!” It happened Thursday in a home on Oak Street in Floral Park. The man was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in fair condition. He was being treated for a bite on his left hand. Animal Control agents removed the albino diamondback rattlesnake, an Indian cobra, eyelash viper, and bamboo viper from the home. They are all described as highly venomous, deadly and illegal to keep.  The SPCA also took a 3-foot-long crocodile monitor, described as a dangerous reptile, from the home.
This goes beyond foolish to being absolutely reckless.  Likewise, trying to become friendly with the world will always lead to a loss of God’s blessing.
Now, this presents a very touchy circumstance for God’s people. How do we give a witness to the world and yet not become a part of an unholy alliance?  First, before we struggle with issues that are not so clear, we need to apply those principles clearly spelled out in the world of God.
Look at chapter 5, verse 1.  God clearly outlined who the enemy was in the Promised Land-- the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  Here they are again in chapter 9, emboldened by the defeat at Ai.  The Word of God warns against entanglements with pagans, or non-believers.  Paul declared in 2Corinthians 6:14,

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?

This verse is most often applied to marriage but being “mismatched” also extends to business partnerships, or any close association, when it would put us in a position to have to compromise our Christian principles.  The word referred to the Jewish prohibition of “unequally yoking” different species (donkey and ox, for example) for the purpose of plowing or other work.  It is one thing to work in a business that is not owned by a Christian—this is almost unavoidable—but it is something altogether different to enter into a partnership in business with an unbeliever. 
Even a partnership with someone who declares to be a believer can be problematic.  All partnerships in life must be entered into with extreme caution.  Notice that Joshua displays this kind of caution in verse 8:  Then Joshua asked them, “Who are you and where do you come from?”
For the last thirty years or so I’ve watched the lines between “friend and foe” become more and more blurred.  Christians individually and the church corporately has become more and more friendly with culture.  I don’t think this has been good for the church or for culture.  Take the example of marriage.  The church relaxed her stand on divorce and divorce has become almost as commonplace as marriage—but, it goes beyond just divorce.  Now, the institution of marriage has been completely set aside for a more “politically correct” view allowing for men to marry men and women to marry women.  When the church makes an alliance with culture, culture always ends up the stronger partner until the church is relegated to second class citizenship or persecuted altogether.
The Gibeonites were “Hivites” and Israel should have had nothing to do with them.  We will see that Joshua will regret the decision to make an alliance with them as we go along.  For now, know that to avoid unpleasant and unproductive consequences we should “Avoid Worldly Entanglements.”

2.  Avoid Making Decisions on Superficial Evidence (7, 14)

Israel did not follow this principle.  Verse 7 says, The men of Israel replied to the Hivites,  “Perhaps you live among us. How can we make a treaty with you?”

This is a direct violation of an admonition God made many times:  “Do not make a covenant with them or their gods (referring to pagan nations)” (Ex. 23:32, Deu. 7:2-5).

Now, what led Israel, and their leader Joshua to make this bad decision and break from what God had commanded in chapter 5 and elsewhere in the Bible?  In a word, Israel was “duped.”  What does it mean to be “duped?”  To be duped means “to be deceived, deluded, or tricked by unquestionably or unwittingly serving the cause of another.”  The Gibeonites duped Israel into serving their cause.  Look again at verses 3-6:

³ When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,  ⁴ they acted deceptively. They gathered provisions  and took worn-out sacks on their donkeys and old wineskins, cracked and mended. ⁵ They wore old, patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies. Their entire provision of bread was dry and crumbly. ⁶ They went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land. Please make a treaty with us.”

Israel was tricked into believing the Gibeonites (a group in the tribe of Hivites) were some neutral foreign tribe from outside of Israel that had heard of God’s fame and wanted to serve Him by aligning with Israel against the pagan kings.  Now, the Gibeonites may have been a late addition to the tribe of the Hivites (Holman Study Bible).  They do not have a king but are ruled by elders (v. 11) so they seem to be different from the other “Ites.”  So, this would allow them a cover for the ruse they used to dupe the Israelites.  How were they so easily duped?  Verse 14 gives us the answer:

¹⁴ Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions, but did not seek the Lord’s counsel.

The Devil is a great deceiver and one can easily be deceived if one trusts in empirical information—that is, information gathered by the five senses alone.  Science is roughly equivalent to the philosophy of empiricism.  Science can only deal with “stuff”—stuff that can be manipulated and measured by the five senses.  Science does use “thought experiments,” but these are largely set aside unless they can produce “hard evidence,” or empirical evidence.  Modern man has been duped by modern science into believing only in what can be “scientifically proven.” 

This is a great departure from all science prior to the mid or late 19^th century.  One simply cannot arrive at truth without starting with truth and one cannot start with truth without first consulting what God has said in His Word.  And, “the Israelites failed to consult God.”

They were easily duped because “they put more trust in the so-called evidence before them than in the God Who saved them.”  They would regret this bad decision as we will see later.

The fact is that our senses can easily be duped.  We are all familiar with “optical illusions” that trick our eye.  There are many, many examples.  Here is one used by a foreign beer making company.

(SHOW SLIDE)

Here’s another one where a billboard painter appears to be using  disappearing paint (that makes the billboard appear transparent). 

(SHOW SLIDE)

There are literally thousands of examples of “optical illusions.”  Our sense of sight is not as reliable as some might think.  The fact is that all our senses can be fooled.  The “Rubber Hand” experiment demonstrated scientifically (yes, I see the irony) that a person’s sense of touch can be tricked to make the person believe a rubber hand is in fact their own.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQbygjG0RU).

Or take your taste for example.  As impossible as it sounds, your eyes even have the power of determining how stuff tastes to you ... and we don't just mean that you get hungrier for food that "looks" appetizing. It's much stranger than that.  For instance, if you know anything about wine, you're aware of how different experts consider red and white wine to be -- they're served in different glasses, paired with totally different foods, and kept at different temperatures. Well, in one study, food scientists gathered the members of a London wine club and asked them to describe the flavor of a glass of white wine. At first, they came up with flavors normally associated with that type of wine, like banana, passion fruit, and bell pepper. However, when the scientists took the same wine and colored it red, the tasters suddenly reported flavors associated with red wine. Again, it was the exact same thing they'd just tasted, only with a different color. (http://www.cracked.com/article_20391_5-mind-blowing-ways-your-senses-lie-to-you-every-day.html)

Bad decisions lead to bad consequences.  Trusting in superficial evidence will lead to bad decisions.  All evidence must be measured by the Word of God.  If you don’t start with the Word of God you will not end with truth—unless you do so accidentally.

I want to interject something here that will likely make me seem like some Neanderthalithic (pun noted) religious zealot.  As much as I truly want to believe the evidence of science that our world is “billions” of years old, I simply cannot. I realize many professing Christians have acquiesced to what seems to be irrefutable evidence of an Old Earth.  Yet, when I “inquire of the Lord,” I just cannot accept that evidence. Such evidence is no different than the “moldy bread, cracked wineskins, patched sandals, and threadbare clothing” of the Gibeonites.

The Bible clearly states that God created the earth and heavens in six days—not six periods of near limitless years.  God created Adam a grown man, appearing to be grown seconds after he took his first breath.  I think it is impossible to reconcile the account of Genesis with the so-called evidence of science.  At best, this makes Genesis and the rest of the Bible, unreliable.  At worse, this makes Genesis and the rest of the Bible nothing more than a collection of religious myths and fables. If we cannot trust the God of Genesis, how can we trust the God of the Gospels?

Bad decisions lead to bad consequences and trusting superficial evidence without consulting the Word of God is going to lead to bad decisions.  The Bible, especially the O.T., hosts a collection of accounts in which disaster befell Israel when they failed to “inquire of the Lord” and trust superficial evidence instead.

Jeremiah, the prophet, laments over the sorry state of affairs in Israel and diagnoses the problem in this way:

^10:21 For the shepherds are stupid: they don’t seek the Lord.

Therefore they have not prospered, and their whole flock is scattered.

We must beware of making decisions based upon superficial evidence without consulting first the Word of God.

           

3.  Avoid Taking the Easy Way Out (16-19; 23-25)

¹⁶ Three days after making the treaty with them, they heard that the Gibeonites were their neighbors, living among them. ¹⁷ So the Israelites set out and reached the Gibeonite cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.  ¹⁸ But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the community had sworn an oath  to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Then the whole community grumbled against the leaders. ¹⁹ All the leaders answered them, “We have sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them.

Don’t make a bad situation worse by making another bad decision.  Honor comes to those who honor God.  Joshua and Israel honored God by honoring their oath.

The Gibeonites clearly had lied.  They did not live far away.  They obtained a treaty under false pretenses.  This would invalidate any contract.  The Israelites could justify breaking the treaty, attacking the Gibeonites, and plundering their cities. With God, it is not that easy.

Israel had made an oath, and oaths were sacred.  Breaking the oath would have given Israel short-term gains but would have left them open to long-term consequences—particularly losing God’s favor.  So often I’ve watched people take the “short-term” blessing route only to discover that further down the road what seemed to be a blessing actually became a curse.

Take people who play the lottery.  This is a violation of an oath to trust in God.  Surely, all the good one could do with a few million bucks would justify playing the lottery, or so I’ve heard some argue.  Just think of how much more blessed you would be if suddenly you had more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime?

You've heard the stories of lottery winners whose post-jackpot lives turned sour. There's Jack Whittaker, the West Virginia man who in 2002 won the nearly $315 million Powerball jackpot. Initially, he generously gave millions to charities, including $14 million to start his own Jack Whittaker Foundation. But later, the dream turned to nightmare: A briefcase with $545,000 in cash and cashier's checks was stolen from his car while it was parked outside of a Cross Lanes, W. Va., strip club. His office and home were broken into, he was arrested twice for drunken-driving -- and the list goes on.  Or there's Alex Toth, a Florida man who in 1990 won $13 million to be doled out in 20-year-payments of $666,666. (Seriously.) At his death in 2008, the Tampa Bay Times reported on the sad direction his life had taken: Years of living it up led to a split from his wife and charges of fradulent tax returns, among other serious woes (MSN, “$550 Million Will Buy You A Lot Of . . . Misery).

Several psychological studies reveal that after the initial euphoria of receiving the first big check wears off, big lottery winners are no happier than the general population.  Playing the lottery is a modern version of “taking the easy way out.”  In the end, the easy way out seldom works out.

Joshua and Israel would have to live with the fact that they would have to live with the enemy in their midst.  Joshua and Israel had already sinned against God by neglecting the clear directives God had given in chapter 2, before Israel ever fought the first battle.  Joshua and the leaders of Israel were not willing to make things worse by “taking the easy way out.”  They would have to live with the consequences of a bad decision—but that is better than compounding it with another bad decision.  Integrity is everything in life.  The Psalms tell us:

(Ps. 15:4) A godly person “keeps his word whatever the cost.”

If the Israelites would not have sought to “take the easy way out in the first place,” they would not have had to live with the ill-gotten treaty they made with the Gibeonites.  They would have enjoyed the spoil of the Gibeonites as well as that of the other “Ites” in the Promised Land.

The easy way out seldom, if ever, works out.

The bad decision of the Gibeonites to gain favor by lying and deceit also had its unpleasant consequences.  Verse 23 says,

Therefore you are cursed and will always be slaves—woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

The Gibeonites would save their lives, but not without consequences.  They would forever be cursed to a “servant class” in Israel.  Now, we know that both Israel and the Gibeonites learned to live with their respective mistakes because centuries later the Gibeonites are named as among those that would return from exile in Babylon (Neh. 7:25).  The Gibeonites accepted the consequences of their deceit.  Verse 25:

Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever you think is right.”

Every decision has consequences.  Bad decisions have bad consequences.  Israel lost plunder and land, and risked the disfavor of Almighty God.  The Gibeonites lost their freedom to pursue whatever path in life they desired.  Decisions have consequences.

 We can avoid the unpleasant and unproductive consequences of bad decisions by avoiding bad decisions.  When (1) avoid getting involved in worldly entanglements; when we (2) avoid making decisions based upon superficial evidence without first consulting the Word of God; and when (3) avoid the tendency to take the easy way out of a mess, then we at least lessen, and often eliminate the consequences of bad decisions.

Bad decisions have consequences.  Avoid making bad decisions. 

<<end>>

Joshua's Mulligan

March 9, 2014

Joshua:  Turning Obedience Into Blessing

Joshua 8:  “Joshua’s Mulligan”             NOTES NOT EDITED . . . AT LEAST NOT YET!

SIS—God’s mercy provides many “do-overs” in this life.

This week we are exploring the idea of “Holy Mulligans!”  A “mulligan” refers to a “second chance, or a do-over,” particularly in the sport of golf—if you consider golf a sport.  A mulligan in golf refers to a stroke that is replayed from the spot of the previous stroke without penalty, due to an errant shot made on the previous stroke (Wikipedia). In other words, a “second chance or a do-over.”  Competitive matches in golf strictly prohibit taking a mulligan.

A “Holy Mulligan” refers to God’s mercy providing a “second chance, or several do-overs.”  Since God is so gracious to give us second chances in life, “failure need not be fatal.”  That does not mean there are no consequences for our failure to discover and follow God’s plan for our lives.  Holy Mulligan’s only teach us that, as long as we are still on this side of the grave, we can always repent of our sins and get a second chance from God.

While studying for this sermon on recovering from failure in our lives, I came upon a heart-stirring story of a man who has received a second chance in life.  This man’s second chance did not come after a moral failure, however, but came after an act of extreme heroism.  Very few people—I’ve never heard of any—get a second chance after doing what Kyle Carpenter did.  As a 21-year-old lance corporal, he intentionally covered a grenade to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Nicholas Eufrazio on Nov. 21, 2010, as the two Marines were standing guard on a rooftop in the Marjah district of Afghanistan's Helmand province. Both men survived the blast, but were badly wounded. Carpenter lost his right eye and most of his teeth, his jaw was shattered and his arm was broken in dozens of places.  For this act of heroism Carpenter, who is medically retired, received the Medal of Honor.  "I'm still here and kicking and I have all my limbs so you will never hear me complain," he said in a video interview.

As I said, Kyle Carpenter’s second chance did not follow any kind of failure, but it does remind us that as long as we are still “here and kicking” we can take a mulligan and start new and fresh in life.

After a dismal failure in the first attack of Ai (chapter 7), in which Achan as an individual and Israel as a nation felt the crushing blow of the consequences of sin, God gives Israel a “mulligan” in chapter 8.  Let’s read JOSHUA 8 together.

1.  Leave the Past IN the past (8:1a)

The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged.

By far, the Devil’s greatest weapon against a child of God is discouragement.  Focusing on the past will inevitably lead to discouragement.  Yesterday’s gone.  It ain’t never coming back. Wasting today trying to fix yesterday is like trying to dig a whole in a river.  Learn from your mistakes and move forward.  Dwelling on past failures will turn you into a “victim.” Dwelling on the future possibilities will make you a “victor.”  I’ll say more about that later.

I do not want to minimize the “trouble” Israel had just experienced in their failed attempt to capture Ai, and Achan’s misguided actions in touching the “devoted things” and hiding them in his tent.  These sinful actions and the failed attempt to capture Ai on Israel’s own terms had massive consequence, including the death of a whole family, and Israel was crushed by the army of Ai.  These events would naturally lead to “fear.”  Now, there is a “fear of God” that is healthy and a fear of God that is unhealthy.  A healthy fear of God recognizes Who God is:  the Holy, Omnipotent, Sovereign Creator of the Universe.  We should never become too “familiar” with God the Father to the extent that we see only His love and not His wrath.  We should fear displeasing God.  That is a healthy fear.

There is an unhealthy fear of God, also.  An unhealthy fear of God actually leads to disobedience because we become paralyzed by the possibility we will fail in our service to God.  This paralysis keeps us from obeying the clear command of God. One commentary points out that the phrase, “Do not be afraid,” occurs over seventy times in the O.T.  It occurs many times in the N.T. as well.  Most of the times “Fear not, or do not be afraid,” occurs in regard to “battle contexts,” like this one here in Joshua.  In other words, God recognizes that fear of failure leads to discouragement that leads to paralysis that leads to disobeying God’s clear commands to “go forth and subdue.”

You simply must “leave the past IN the past” or discouragement will paralyze you in the present.  As I said, you will develop a “victim mentality” and discouragement will become a prison for your soul.

Learn from the past and move forward.  I’m not suggesting you ignore your past sins.  I am suggesting you confess them and let God eliminate them so they cannot breed discouragement in your life.  The Bible says,

^{Ps. 103  12} As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

The N.T. makes this clear also,

^{1Jn. 1:9}  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive  us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

There is a story that I read many years ago.  I’ve probably shared it before.  It is a true story.  Once we were in bondage Satan and sin. But Jesus set us free.

A story told by Paul Lee Tan illustrates the meaning of redemption. He said that when A.J. Gordon was pastor of a church in Boston, he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going to do with them?" "I’m going to play with them, and then I guess 'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home." When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them, they're just little old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain."
The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.  The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ's coming to seek and to save the lost paying for them with His own precious blood. "That boy told me the birds were not songsters," said Gordon, "but when I released em and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, Set free! Set Free! Set Free!"
You and I have been held captive to sin, but Christ has purchased our pardon and set us at liberty. When a person has this life-changing experience, he will want to sing, "Set free! Set free! Set Free!"

Discouragement is a huge, heavy chain that the Devil wraps around you.  Constantly reminding you of your sinful past is the lock the Devil uses to secure the chain.  Forgiveness is God’s key that unlocks your discouragement and removes the chains of guilt that keep you from “trying again.”  God never runs out of forgiveness.  As long as you are on this side of the grave, repentance will always bring you another mulligan.

2.  Make Changes—Don’t Make Excuses (8:1)

8:1 The Lord said to Joshua . . . Take the whole military force
with you and go attack Ai.

Contrast this strategy with the failed strategy of chapter 7:

³ After returning to Joshua they reported to him, “Don’t send all the people, but send about 2,000 or 3,000 men to attack Ai. Since the people of Ai are so few, don’t wear out all our people there.” ⁴ So about 3,000 men went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai.  ⁵ The men of Ai struck down about 36 of them and chased them from outside the gate to the quarries, striking them down on the descent. As a result, the people’s hearts melted and became like water.

So often, when we experience failure we start making excuses.  This tendency is a “genetic defect” we inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  Remember what happened after God confronted Adam and Eve about their rebellious action in eating the forbidden fruit?  They both started making excuses.  Adam actually blamed God for giving him Eve and Eve blamed the snake (Gen. 312-13).  Playing the “blame game” is nothing more than an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for one’s actions.  Proverbs teaches us:

He who conceals his sins does not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

One of the most often recurring themes throughout the Bible is “excuse making.”  Fools make excuses, wise men make a difference.  The basic difference between a fool (KJV calls him a sluggard) is that a fool is “full of excuses.”  For example, twice in the Book of Proverbs a sluggard gives the same excuse for not working:

The slacker says, “There’s a lion outside!

I’ll be killed in the public square!”(22:13; 26:13).

Lions did apparently inhabit Palestine in the back country until the time of the Middle Ages.  The nature of this excuse is seen by all to be nonsensical.  While lions may have inhabited the countryside, they would not likely have fared well in the public square.  Even the best excuses (and this is not one of them) are simply that:  excuses.  As I said, you can either make excuses or you can make changes.  The first will lead to failure, the second will edge you closer to success.

Joshua did not make excuses—he made changes.  The second time around Joshua made significant changes. First of all, he listened to God’s Word, not man’s reports.  We do err greatly when we give more weight to the ideas of man rather than the decrees of God.  I know that it is often politically incorrect to speak God’s truth to man’s lies.  The world scoffs at the Bible teaching the world was created by God, much less does the world accept the world was created in six days.  When you throw out the truth of the first book of the Bible it erodes the foundation of every other passage in the Bible.  So, the first change you need to make is “what will be your foundation for truth?”  Is it the Word of God, or the word of men, regardless of whether the topic is gay marriage or taxes or anything else.

Second, Joshua made changes in his plans.  The first time Israel sent only a few thousand.  The second time, they adjusted their approach to conform to the Word of God and they sent “thirty thousand” (8:3).

Now, we must always “plan with an attitude of humility,” but planning is absolutely necessary to living an obedient, blessed life.  The Bible says,

^{Prov. 22:3} A shrewd person sees danger and hides himself,

but the naive keep right on going and suffer for it. (NET Bible)

God’s purposes will always trump our plans, and we should be eternally thankful that is the case.  Proverbs also teaches us:

So, the option is not to move forward with NO plan, but to move forward with a plan bathed in prayer and educated by experience with full trust that in the final analysis, God’s will always prevails.  Even a bad plan bathed in prayer and founded upon trust in God will lead to blessing in life.

Don’t make excuses for your failure—make changes in your life.

Israel also used what they had learned from their failed attempts to modify their second attempt.  There are few experiences in life that offer more fodder for success than our past failures.  Now, I said you had to leave the “past IN the past” but that does not mean you cannot, and should not learn from your mistakes. Joshua used Israel’s failure as a tool to build a more successful plan.

Think back to the failed plan in the first attempt at conquering Ai.

^7:5 The men of Ai struck down about 36 of them and chased them from outside the gate to the quarries,  striking them down on the descent.

Joshua used this experience to draw the men of Ai into a position where Israel could ambush and crush them.  As the majority of Israel’s forces lined the deep ravine lying in wait to ambush, Joshua took about the same number that had failed the first time and here’s what he did:

¹⁵ Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten back by them and fled toward the wilderness.  ¹⁶ Then all the troops of Ai were summoned to pursue them, and they pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. ¹⁷ Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel, leaving the city exposed while they pursued Israel. ¹⁸ Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Hold out the sword in your hand toward Ai, for I will hand the city over to you.” So Joshua held out his sword toward it. ¹⁹ When he held out his hand, the men in ambush rose quickly from their position. They ran, entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire.

The first, failed encounter resulted in a horrible loss for Israel.  Joshua used what he learned to make changes in the battle plan that resulted in the entire ruin and plunder of Ai. 

Everyone in Ai was killed including both men and women (8:25).  This wholesale destruction has brought much criticism against the Bible by skeptics. God looks like a vengeful, merciless tyrant in these battles during the conquest of the Promised Land. This is no small problem for believers who know that God is not vengeful and is full of mercy.

I do not have time to give a thorough defense of God’s character in light of the bloody battles He Himself directed.  You must know that these battles during the conquest were specific to the time in which they happened.  God, Himself, directs these battles.  God alone determines who will live and who will die.  God does not share with us a justification for these acts beyond the fact that He, Himself, directs them.  Even if I took an hour or two to explain why God is justified in these acts, it would not likely make you anymore comfortable with the bloodshed.  Sin creates bloodshed, and only through the shedding of God’s own blood on the cross can this bloody mess of sin be rectified.  We must trust that God is just and merciful and these battles reflect His holy purposes.  A man is a fool who thinks he can sit in judgment over God.

What we need to do is learn from these battles.  Learn to leave our past IN the past and learn to make changes in not excuses for our lives.

3.  Invest Your Life in God for the Future (30-35)

Here’s a very important lesson to learn, especially for you young people.  Most of your life will be lived in the future.  Let me repeat that:  “Most of your life will be lived in the future.”  This life is to eternity what a grain of sand is all the sand on every beach throughout the entire world.  You need to learn to live for eternity, not live for the moment.  I need to repeat this again, also:  “We all need to live for eternity, not live for this moment.”  By the time you even recognize “this moment,” it is gone forever—quicker than the blink of an eye.  But, eternity never ends. 

What you did yesterday—is gone.  What you will do tomorrow—you may never have a tomorrow to do it in.  But, what you do in this life is an investment in blessings for the next life. 

One of the greatest baseball players of all time, and one of the most quoted, perhaps, is Yogi Berra.  His most often quoted aphorism is:  “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”  Nearly everyone in America has heard that at least once.  But, perhaps the most significant quote attributed to the great catcher is this:  “I never said most of the things I said."

Well, that sort of says it all, doesn’t it.  Another great man who is quoted as saying all kinds of wise things is Albert Einstein.  He is often quoted as saying, “compound interest to be the most powerful force in the universe." A strange saying for a world-renown physicist, but, compound interest like physics has a lot to do with the power of mathematics.

Compounding interest is a incredible thing.  Here’s how it works.  If a person starts putting one quarter in a jar every day of every month beginning at age eighteen, by the time that person is 68 years old they will have a jar (or jars) with $4,500 dollars.  That’s just one quarter every day.  That’s a good sum of money.  Let’s try the same thing with “compounding interest” on that money.  Take the same quarter every day and put it into an investment at 10% interest compounded four times a year for the same fifty years and at the end your “jar” will have $124,707.50!  That’s “twenty-seven” times more money at the end using the same quarter per day—twenty-seven times!

That’s the magic and wonder of “compound interest.”  OK.  I’m not trying to become your financial advisor but I’m trying to make a point:  “invest your life with God for the future and it will pay an incredible—an eternal—dividend.  Holiness is like compound interest.  Look at how Joshua responded to the great success he and Israel experienced with the second chance God gave them:

³⁰ At that time Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal  to the Lord, the God of Israel, ³¹ just as Moses the Lord’s servant had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses: an altar of uncut stones on which no iron tool has been used.  Then they offered burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed fellowship offerings on it.

This fulfills a commandment God made to Moses as the Israelites were ending forty years of wandering in hellish wilderness and were peering over into the Promised Land (Deu. 27:5).  Joshua remembered this commandment of the Lord and recognized that without God, our life will amount to nothing—and even less!  Joshua took time to “worship” God and to recommit all of Israel to a sacrificial service to the Creator. 

Do you want to get beyond the failures of your past?  Do you want to reap “compound blessings” throughout all eternity?  If you do, “invest your life with God!”  Nobody pays like God pays! 

Yahweh, Our God, is the Almighty God of the Mulligan.  As long as we are on this side of the grave, God offers us a “do-over, or a second chance.”  We need simply apply three simple steps to turn failure into success:  1) Keep the Past IN the Past; 2) Make Changes—Don’t Make Excuses; and most importantly, 3) Invest Your Life In God through sacrificial devotion.

We all make mistakes—usually often and sometimes really big ones.  We often swing the club of life and our ball ends up off the fare way and lost in the tall grass.  Failure, however, need not be fatal.  God will give us a mulligan, or a do-over.  But, we need to also realize that “success is never final.”  We need to live moment by moment, day by day in obedience to God, with the help of the Holy Spirit, as much as humanly possible.

You can begin again, right now.  God is waiting to hear from you.

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