Year 1, Day 196: Joshua 11

The Fight Against God

Initially as I read through this passage I was left asking myself this question: Why do sinners choose death and the fight against God instead of converting to His ways?  Now, mind you … when I say “sinners” I am not talking about “them.”  I am talking about me and you and all the rest of creation. 

After all, while I may call myself a follower of Jesus Christ and I may live in confidence that in the end I will be raised into new life with the Lord, the reality is that I am still under the effects of sin.  Sin has not been purged completely and irrevocably from my body and its members.  There are times and places where I am still choosing sin instead of God’s righteousness.  When I ask the question in the opening sentence of this post, I am asking it about myself as well as all the other sinners in this world.

As to why this question popped into my head, look to the beginning part of this chapter.  Joshua has already taken Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, and the five nations of southern Canaan.  If you were one of the kings of the north, does the evidence seem to suggest that you could defeat Joshua even if you do band together with your neighbors?  Absolutely it does not!

Yet they do still band together.  And they are destroyed.  They choose the fight and ultimately they choose death instead of converting to following the God of the Hebrew people and have life.  I think there are a number of reasons for this. 

• First, human beings resist change.  Most of us hate change.  To convert to becoming a true follower of God would require a heaping amount of change.  Let’s face it.  When the idea of full-scale change is required, people balk.  For example, how hard is it to convince people to spend 10 minutes in God’s Word every day?  How hard is it to spend 5 minutes in prayer with God every day?  How hard is it to spend 30 minutes in service to a neighbor or friend or family member?  These things are not hard – yet we often have trouble convincing even those who proclaim to follow Christ to do these things.  How hard it would be for someone who doesn’t even value God’s ways to want to change into a perspective on life where self-centeredness is not the norm!
• Second, I think avarice comes into play.  Avarice is an old-fashioned word for greed.  It is an unreasonably strong desire to keep our money and possessions.  Here’s how it works.  In order for these northern kings to not fight, they would have to become Hebrews.  In order to become Hebrews they would need to give up their possessions, their control, their dominion, and their way of life.  We as human beings don’t like to give up stuff we are accustomed to having.  Avarice haunts us.  What is better, to hold onto that which will bring us destruction or to give it up so we may enjoy life?  That question is easy to answer using logic, but we know that in practice we actually choose to hold onto that which brings us death because it is comfortable.  Oh, avarice, how strong and deadly you are within us.
• Third, I think pride must be mentioned.  These kings don’t surrender because they assume it will be different for them.  Sure, all the others fell.  But I can hear these northern kings saying to their people: “They weren’t us!  We’re better soldiers.  We’re stronger fighters.  We know our land!”  Pride comes before the fall.  So it is with us, too.  We know that other people get tripped up in their sin.  But we are sure that we can do better.  We are sure that we have better control over ours.  We are sure that although sin leads into destruction for others – we can manage it.  Pride is our mortal enemy.

I’m sure there are other reasons.  But today as I watched these northern kings fall when it seemed like absolute surrender would have made more sense … well, I figured it was time I applied that lesson to myself.  Why do I choose sin instead of absolute surrender to God?  Because I don’t like change, I don’t like to give up what I have, and I assume I can handle it because I’m different than everyone else.  And when I go down that path … hello: sin.  Hello: confession.  Hello: repentance.  Hello: time to make reparations. 

And thanks be to God, hello: forgiveness.

Incomplete Conquest

I could end there, but there was one other string of verses that stuck out to me.  I have always been taught that the Hebrew conquest was incomplete.  I was always taught that the Hebrew people were unable to claim the whole of the Promised Land.  The scriptural witness today does not seem to make that claim.  The witness today in Joshua 11:23 is that Joshua took the whole land according to what the Lord had promised to Moses.

Now, it is true that the Hebrew people never get rid of the Philistines in the area of Gaza (Philistia) and a few other outer-rimmed people.  It is true that the scriptures later on will lament that the propensity for sin within the Hebrew people kept them from driving out all the inhabitants of the land.  But this comes from what we will see over the next few chapters.  Up to now, Joshua and the Hebrew people have done all that the Lord has asked.

Joshua has completed “Plan A” as it was received by Moses.  God will tell the people that there is more land to be conquered if they remain faithful.  It is this “Plan B” land which the scriptures will mourn because the Hebrew people are not able to manage.  I felt it necessary to lift up Joshua 11:23 today and point to the fact that with the exception of Gibeon, God’s promise to Moses was fulfilled.  And even Gibeon was subdued, just not destroyed.

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