Joshua 2

Wasilla Bible Church

Joshua 2

September 4, 2024 • Joshua 2

One of the take aways we want the students is to notice how little information Rahab had and needed to have faith in God, but yet believes and later is mentioned in the book of Hebrews as a faithful believer and takes part in the lineage of Jesus. Therefore, we do not need to be intimidated by our concerns of not having enough biblical knowledge to share with others and bring them to Christ.

The flip side of this is we ought to be thankful for the blessing of the biblical knowledge we have and have access to. Having the access we have to the word of God is not the stand throughout world history and there are even still groups of people in the world that do not have access to the entirety of scripture as we do. For example in the Philippines, where we have a new Acts 29 partnership, there are many peoples who have yet to get full access to scripture in their primary language.

The Moro Joloano Tausug People (1.4 million) – New Testament completed in 2018 but entire bible has yet to be fully translated

The Yakan People (207,000) – New testament was completed in 2019 but the entire bible is yet to be completed

Iranun People (287,000) – Have portions of scripture but yet to have a complete the old or new testament.

We truly are extremely blessed to have full access to the word of God.

One of the discussions that might come up is if it was the right thing for Rahab to do to tell a lie. There are many people who have looked deeply into this and there is still differing opinion so it is very unlikely that we will come to the bottom of it in the hour or so of discussion that we will have this week. Therefore we want to challenge the students to further look it up on their time while giving them the following context and advice. It is fundamentally wrong to believe that the word and honor of God is protected by the works of man. Belief that God cannot accomplish his tasks without you or me is a very flawed and unbiblical position which leads one down dangerous roads of compromise. No matter what Rahab said to the servants of the king, God was going to accomplish what he set out to do lie or truth.

Also the story of Rahab ought to be an encouragement to all of us because she is the ultimate example of making the choice to follow God overcoming all the failures and sins she had committed in the past. We might have made bad choices in the past or be stuck in current sins and moral failings but there is the ever-lingering question of whom will trust my life and faith and that question demands an answer. If we choose to put our lives in the hands of God, then he can overcome all the things that we have holding us back from following Gods will for our lives. Rahab did not have to jump through a ton of hoops before she was able to be a part of Gods plan, she just had to believe. We don’t need to practice self-deprecation, focusing on all the things that may be wrong with ourselves or lives, but we need to be living in the hope and promises that comes with being a follower of Christ.

Joshua 12

November 6, 2024 • Joshua 12, Joshua 13:1–7

In C.S. Lewis book “Out of the Silent Planet” he writes about a man traveling to another world and meeting many different peoples and creatures. All the groups that he meets have very unique cultures that the main character finds very different from those of earth. One of these groups sets an age cut off for some of the enjoyable activities they do and the reason for that is very interesting. They say they stop because that is the only way that they could bring about a completion of the joy of doing the activity itself. They believe that it is necessary to look back on and remember good things for the joy of them to be competed. This in a way is what we see here in this chapter. Joshua is looking back at what God has done and the land that he has given the people over the past few years. Likewise, we ought to look back on the good things that God has done in our lives and the lives of others around us and remember them. It is very easy to get caught up in all of life’s troubles so we must have times of reflection where we take account of the victories God has wrought in our lives. Therefore, please set aside time to go through the word doc attached to this lesson.

Joshua 11

October 30, 2024 • Joshua 11

There are places in scripture that don’t seem as significant to us as it would to have been those it was initially written for. For example, if you were to read through the book of Exodus you will see that there are a few chapters where God is instructing them how to build the tabernacle and make their priestly gowns, then later in the book we see a few chapters where they followed through, and it is almost copy and paste of what we previously read. For a modern and casual reader this might seem redundant and arduous, but there is great significance to those passages being there. They show that the people did follow the exact commands of God and therefore the tabernacle is a legitimate place of worship for all who came their even hundreds of years later. It is very much the same here, except the distance between proclamation and fulfillment is much longer. What we should see is that God always been faithful to his word. Here in the book of Joshua we have seen that God is faithful to the people of Israel and fulfilling promises made in the past. When we went through Genisis last year we saw that there was a promise given to Abraham that his descendants would come into the land of Canaan and make it their home. Now almost 500 years later he is doing exactly what he had promised he would do. The people living out the manifested promise of God is what makes these war stories important to read about. These stories are about God being faithful to his promise and making sure that the people of Israel did come into the land that they were promised. Something to have the students do is to reflect on ways that God might have brought to fruition promises or prayers in their lives.

Joshua 10

October 16, 2024 • Joshua 10

In this chapter we see a gruesome battle and slaughter of the people who went against the people allied with the people of God. The fact that they did not directly attack Israel is a great witness to what we have talked about through this book, that God is willing to provide salvation to all who put their faith in Him. The people of Gibeon were a people group were a people dedicated to destruction but they believed in the one true God and out of their desperation they tricked the people of Israel into sparing them. But now it looks like God has a chance to wipe them out with a people and for them to be destroyed just as they were supposed to be in the beginning but that is not what happens. God honors the little faith that they showed and spares them once again, and the same goes for us. No matter how our lives turn out to be if we devote ourselves to God then we can be assured salvation. One of the biggest and most memorable events that takes place is the sun staying in place for about a whole day. Although the fact that it even happened was very impressive what makes it an even bigger deal is at the time there was somewhat trinity of Gods that the Canaanites had, Baal (god of weather and war), Agibol (the God of the moon), and Yarhibol (the God of the sun). God showed himself to be the lord over all the things that the Canaanite gods claimed to be, and he used the sun, moon, and weather to bring judgment to the Canaanites. We should see God stopping sun and moon and using hail to kill them as a very large declarative statement that the God of Israel is the one true god. Things we want the students to see - God has a long track record of saving those who are putting their faith in him. - That God was, is and will be the not just the lord of our lives but also of the physical world around us.