Joshua 7

Wasilla Bible Church

Joshua 7

August 28, 2024 • Joshua 7

Joshua chapter 7 is a very hard passage for those born and raised in a western postmodern individualistic society to stomach. The reason for this is that in this passage everything is done collectively, and people are collectively held responsible for sin. As much as it may be something that we do not like it is a reality of life, that our sins do damage far beyond ourselves. We have all been impacted by someone else’s sins and had to pay a price for them even when we have not committed any sins as egregious as the ones we may be impacted by. This is what is taking place with the Hebrew people, they are being impacted by the sins of one man and now have faced loss of life because of it.

Although this is somewhat difficult for us it is the latter half of the chapter that is the harder portion. Here we see Achan commit a sin against God and take gold and silver that was devoted to God and took a cloak that was to be destroyed. For the sins he committed not just him but his whole family and even his livestock were put to death, which seem quite rash. When we see perplexing and difficult passages such as this one, we ought to lean into them because they are there for a reason and the reason ought to cause us and our students to do some spiritual self-reflection.

The reason that Achan faced the fate that he did was because with the sin that he committed he revealed where his heart belonged. Last week we talked about Rahab being saved from the attack on Jerrico because despite her being from and living with people who are opposed to God, she was not like them and put her trust in the Lord. Here we see the opposite of what happened to Rahab. Achan is someone who lived among Gods people, but his heart was not like theirs but was like that of those of Jerrico. Therefore, because his heart was the same as theirs, he was to suffer the same fate as they did. Even in the imagery of his death visibly looked similar to the death of those who were in Jerrico.

Therefore, the story of Achan is the antipode of the story of Rahab. If you are born into a great Christian family and go to a good church such as ours and never miss a Sunday or Wednesday, then you still have no guarantee of Salvation. It is the location of our hearts that determine our salvation and if our hearts are found with Christ. So, we should do some self-reflection and ask where our hearts are because if our hearts are not found in him then our fate will not be very different from the fate to Achan.

There is a link in the chapter 7 study page to a short but solid Gospel given by Voddie Baucham. The reason that I am placing that here is because this week in your groups it may be necessary for you to go over what the gospel is and clarify that salvation is not something that we can earn but is given though the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus 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.