{"id":504,"date":"2012-03-01T11:43:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2012-03-01T11:43:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T19:43:02","slug":"joshua-617-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=504","title":{"rendered":"Joshua 6:17-7:9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua 6:17-7:9. Yesterday after all that marching and waiting the time finally came.\u00a0 The long blast of the trumpet was blown, the people shouted (well technically Joshua told them to shout but they hadn\u2019t shouted yet) and\u2026\u2026.. the action stopped.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s reading starts with the rest of what Joshua said.\u00a0 The city is under a ban.\u00a0 In those times when a place was invaded all of the stuff was up for grabs.\u00a0 The invaders took whatever they wanted, including slaves, wives, what ever, sort of like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride on steroids.\u00a0 But the Israelites were told to kill everyone and every thing, put all of the gold, silver, etc. in a pile for God, and then burn the city to the ground.\u00a0 Can you imagine the complaints, \u201cHey I haven\u2019t had a new pair of sandels in 40 year.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the people shout and the walls fall down.\u00a0 The Hebrew words here mean the walls fell down on themselves.\u00a0 Archeologists know where the city of Jericho\u2019s remains are.\u00a0 They have been excavated and explored.\u00a0 Several times.\u00a0 In ancient times when a city was destroyed it was common to rebuild a new city right on top of the rubble of the old.\u00a0 It was too much work to move it all away so they would fill it in and build on top of it.\u00a0 Because the place the city had been built was a good place for a city they usually would not move it.\u00a0 Cities were located so they would be easy to defend, had good access to things like water, harbors, roads, and good farm land.\u00a0 Jericho was located on a small hill (Easier to defend).\u00a0 There were two walls around the city about 12 feet apart.\u00a0 There were rooms (like apartments) between the walls.\u00a0 The outer wall was on the very edge of the hill.\u00a0 The archaeologists have discovered remains of a city that existed at the time that Joshua invaded.\u00a0 The outer wall fell over down the hill and the inner wall fell into the space between the walls.\u00a0 There is also evidence that the city was burned.\u00a0 Cool, just like the story.<\/p>\n

Joshua also told the men who had been spies to go get Rahab and bring here and her family out to safety.\u00a0 Which they did.\u00a0 Joshua also cursed the city (See \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0 This invasion made quite an impression on the people of the land.\u00a0 According to what Rahab had said the people were already afraid of the Israelites, now they could see just how powerful their God was.<\/p>\n

Next in line was a city called Ai.\u00a0 Again spies.\u00a0 \u201cEasy city, no problem.\u201d\u00a0 Not for God of course but there was a problem. Someone had not obeyed the command to put all the gold into a pile for God.\u00a0 God was mad.\u00a0 Not that He needed the gold, but that they had disobeyed.\u00a0 The Israelites attacked Ai and got chased out.\u00a0 Joshua and the elders cried and mourned until evening by the Ark of the Promise.\u00a0 Ok, good move.\u00a0 When things go wrong talk to God.\u00a0 But then Joshua complained to God and accused Him of abandoning the Israelites.\u00a0 \u201cHey God what will the Canaanites think of You now\u201d, he wanted to know.\u00a0 We already know what went wrong, disobedience.\u00a0 What good would God\u2019s name be if God could be what ever you wanted Him to be?\u00a0 Any God would do.\u00a0 God\u2019s name is only as good as His character and His character is holy (pure and separate).\u00a0 If the Israelites were going to show God to the world they needed to get the picture right.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow Joshua will find out what went wrong and we will see what God does about it.\u00a0 It\u2019s too bad that Joshua accused God of abandoning the Israelites, He was really looking out for them.\u00a0 But it is cool that God didn\u2019t strike him with a lightning bolt right then and there.\u00a0 God allowed Joshua to vent.\u00a0 One of my favorite books in the Bible is Job.\u00a0 In that book Job suffers some pretty bad things.\u00a0 And Job did plenty of complaining\u00a0 but he also always trusted God.\u00a0 And God told Job\u2019s friends that Job was right with Him.\u00a0 I suppose Joshua was still trusting God but didn\u2019t get it and was frustrated.\u00a0 When we get frustrated and don\u2019t get it we need to talk to God too.\u00a0 And be honest.\u00a0 God already knows what we are thinking so it\u2019s not like you are hiding anything from Him.\u00a0 But like Adam and Even in the Garden, God wants us to admit what we have done (Genesis 3:6-13).\u00a0 John told some early followers of Jesus that if we confess to God that God will be faithful and will apply Jesus\u2019 sacrifice to us.\u00a0 He will forgive and clean us up (1 John 1:9).\u00a0 So be honest with God, come clean, and let Him help you live for Him each day.\u00a0 Lord thank you that I can be honest with you.\u00a0 I don\u2019t always see what you see and I don\u2019t always get what is going on.\u00a0 I also know that the world is full of death and destruction.\u00a0 Decay brought on by sin.\u00a0 And sometimes I think you aren\u2019t looking out for me, pretty stupid and pretty selfish.\u00a0 You died for me, of course you will take care of me (Romans 8:32).\u00a0 Please help me trust you in the mean time.\u00a0 And if you don\u2019t mind help me understand sometimes what is going on.\u00a0 But let me trust no matter what.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua 6:17-7:9. Yesterday after all that marching and waiting the time finally came.\u00a0 The long blast of the trumpet was blown, the people shouted (well technically Joshua told them to shout but they hadn\u2019t shouted yet) and\u2026\u2026.. the action stopped.\u00a0 Why? Today\u2019s reading starts with the rest of what Joshua said.\u00a0 The city is under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}