The Defeat of Ai
Ai is defeated after
all. In spite of the sin of Achan – and
perhaps in spite of poor leadership of Joshua and the short-sightedness of all
the Hebrew people – the city is still taken.
There is forgiveness and renewed walk with the Lord after the repentance
and consequences are meted out.
However, take special
notice of how it happened. Once more,
God gives the plan to Joshua. The plan
to defeat Ai is not Joshua’s plan but God’s plan. God tells Joshua where to put the troops, how
to move them, when to move them, and what to do with the city once the warriors
are defeated. God sets the agenda in
this chapter, and it succeeds brilliantly.
What’s more, look at
how God uses the defeat from the prior chapter to His own advantage. God knows that the Hebrew defeat would make
the people of Ai overconfident. So God
uses a similar ploy as the prior retreat to dupe the people of Ai into leaving
their city undefended. God can and does
redeem our past mistakes when we are genuinely repentant!
This is rather
significant. Just because we sin and
have to repent does not mean God cannot use it. Sure, God would prefer to not have to deal
with the effects of sin – that is, God would prefer if we follow Him at first
and not have to go back and alter the plan. God would prefer that our identity always come
from Him and we always follow His will and His ways. But God can work around our sinfulness if we
are willing to repent and come back to following Him.
Think about it. As a pastor, I speak to my sinfulness all the
time. When I am willing to lay my
sinfulness out for others to see, God can use it to help others around me
understand their sinfulness, too! God
can use my example to help other people avoid (or at least understand) their
own sin. The same is true not just for
pastors and spiritual authorities – but it is also true for all who follow
Christ. All who follow Christ are His
priests. God can use all of our lives to
teach other people about sin and how to understand its effects and potentially
avoid them.
Sinfulness Extrapolated
But it actually runs
deeper than that. God not only uses
sinfulness as a teaching tool, but also as a means to an end. It was humanity’s sinful desires that
crucified Christ. It was God’s plan,
absolutely. But His plan included using the
human sinful desire to kill Christ. God
used humanity’s sinful desire to kill Stephen (Acts 6-7) as a means to begin to
spread the Gospel to the Samaritans (Acts 8), God-fearers (Acts 8), and even the
Gentiles (Acts 10-20). Certainly God
would have preferred to do it without human sinfulness entering the
picture. But that does not mean that God
cannot take the effects of human sin and turn them on their head for His
glory!
But this is not just
a New Testament concept. This is
faithful to God’s character throughout human existence. What was it we read at the end of Genesis about
the time when Joseph stood before his brothers when they came to request
grain? “As
for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it
about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” {See Genesis
50:20}
Balance
Of course, we need to balance this. Just because God can use our sin to bring
about His glory does not give us permission to sin. Here’s why.
In Romans 6:1-2 Paul asks this very question and then answers it. Even though God can use our sinfulness, we
who are dead to sin cannot live in it.
In other words, if we knowingly sin without repentance and
acknowledgment that what we did is against God then we really are still
following sin and not following God. If
we see God’s ability to work through human failing as permission to sin freely,
then we are still slaves to sin because we long to sin freely!
So here we find the necessary balance. We are human beings; we will sin until the
day God brings us into eternal life where there will be no more sin. Until that day, we will sin. If God desires, He can use that sin. But we should not want to remain in that sin
– or even prolong our time in that sin – because we do not belong to sin any
more. We belong to Christ, so let us
live that way.
So what does the story of the conquest of Ai say to the
Christian and the spiritual walk? Go
forth and live boldly in Christ. Should you
make a mistake: repent, accept the consequences, make whatever reparations are
necessary, and then move forward knowing that God may well use that sinfulness
to His glory. Do not wallow in your
sin. Do not look for times to sin. But go forth in life knowing that God is
greater than your sin. Go forth knowing
that with true repentance God can and will overcome whatever sin you may
unfortunately accomplish in this life.
Go forth and proclaim God.
Sinner or not … go forth.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment