https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOXmaSCt4ZE&list=RDVOXmaSCt4ZE#t=39
Sin burns forever.
Go deeper into the talk of Jesus and Joshua.
Joshua's mission was to conquer the land and destroy the people who were practicing sin there. To throw out the false gods with the people who worshiped them. They carried a physical disease which turned some to human giants and made the task harder in getting rid of them, but also made it obvious who was carrying the disease. It was those folks over there, the ones in that tribe. Kill those "ites" and things would be good.
They could see who the sinners were and it was easy to drive them out and the Isrealites should have done it...but they didn't. But that pause...Did you see something?
http://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/from-joshua-to-the-exile-the-people-of-israel-in-the-promised-land
The story of how the people of Israel conquered the people of Canaan is told in Joshua. Like the biblical books that tell about how Moses led the people (Exod, Num, Deut), Joshua is full of miracles. Before the people of Israel could enter Canaan, they had to cross the Jordan River. Once again, God was with them and helped them in a miraculous way. Just as God had helped Moses by opening up the waters of the Red Sea (Exod 14), so God made the waters of the Jordan River stop flowing when the priests of Israel stepped into the river Josh 3.15-17. After they crossed the river and came to Gilgal, the people made a monument using twelve rocks, one rock for each tribe of Israel. Then they set up camp there.
When they crossed the river Jordan to take the land, they crossed on dry ground, even as they had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. Practical since mud would have made the crossing difficult for all the people. Feet sinking into mire; they didn't have rubber boots back then to protect them. They didn't get covered in muck and mire and filth when they were walking in obedience. God smoothed the way and they stayed clean.
Later, a guy named John the Baptist would arrive on the scene and proclaim the day of the Lord was at hand and begin plunging everyone into the river Jordan. They walked in the muck and more of the filthy riverbed and were plunged into nature's rushing water and that man said:"There is one coming who will baptize with the Spirit. I'm just a cheap knock off to let you know the real thing is almost here."
Later in prison, even he would ask for some assurances before Salome demanded his head on a platter.
On God's orders, Joshua armed the people to take Jericho. He armed them with horns and marching order to march around that wall the sinners built. Kings in that day sent men armed with weapons to storm the walls. God sent a marching band and a chorus. The walls were impregnable, couldn't be breached. When the band got done seven days later, "the walls come a tumblin' down."
Jos 6:1 (Now Jericho was all shut up because of the children of Israel: there was no going out or coming in.)
2 And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war.
3 Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.
4 And let seven priests go before the ark with seven loud-sounding horns in their hands: on the seventh day you are to go round the town seven times, the priests blowing their horns.
5 And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward.
(BBE)
Once inside, Josh killed them all save Rahab.
Jos 2:1 Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men from Shittim secretly, with the purpose of searching out the land, and Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a loose woman of the town, named Rahab, where they took their rest for the night.
2 And it was said to the king of Jericho, See, some men have come here tonight from the children of Israel with the purpose of searching out the land.
3 Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Send out the men who have come to you and are in your house; for they have come with the purpose of searching out all the land.
4 And the woman took the two men and put them in a secret place; then she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I had no idea where they came from;
5 And when it was the time for shutting the doors at dark, they went out; I have no idea where the men went: but if you go after them quickly, you will overtake them.
6 But she had taken them up to the roof, covering them with the stems of flax which she had put out in order there.
7 So the men went after them on the road to Jordan as far as the river-crossing: and when they had gone out after them, the door into the town was shut.
8 And before the men went to rest, she came up to them on the roof,
9 And said to them, It is clear to me that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has come on us;
10 For we have had news of how the Lord made the Red Sea dry before you when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, on the other side of Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you gave up to the curse.
11 And because of this news, our hearts became like water, and there was no more spirit in any of us because of you; for the Lord your God is God in heaven on high and here on earth.
12 So now, will you give me your oath by the Lord, that, because I have been kind to you, you will be kind to my father's house,
13 And that you will keep safe my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and all they have, so that death may not come on us?
14 And the men said to her, Our life for yours if you keep our business secret; and when the Lord has given us the land, we will keep faith and be kind to you.
(BBE)
They were supposed to kill them all and they violated the orders because Rahab saved their lives, but God approved it because she first accepted the truth that He is God and, by the way, she gets mentioned in the lineage of the Second Joshua.
God proceeded before Joshua and told him how to knock down the walls.
Jesus began his conquest saying, "Come. follow me." The Romans stormed into Israel and knocked down every wall and barrier, let the Jews keep their Law and their prophets so long as they didn't get crazy about it and the people wanted someone to crash in, throw the sinners out by their bootstraps and give them back the land.
Jesus instead founded a marching band of apostles. He told them to go and preach the Good News. The Zealots were dumbfounded. The Priests and council and the king of the land were scared to death he would stomp his feet one last time, the walls would fall down and THEY could be the ones to pay because the sinners would still be there to kill THEM.
Josh had a road map of what to do because the various "ites" were in place, had established their territory and he knew who they were and where to go to fight. Moses knew the same thing as the wandered in the wilderness killing off the tribes there BEFORE the faced the giants, even though they faced giants in the territories outside of The Promised Land as well.
My eldest lives in Indiana now and occasionally has someone ask where in Michigan she comes from and she does the thing no one else in the world but a Lower Peninsula Michigander can do, she holds up her right hand, palm facing the person and points to a spot on her palm, saying, "Right there." We live in the mitten and Detroit is there at the base of the thumb and Traverse City is at the top of the little finger and Mackinac is at the tip of the middle finger where the bridge reaches to the UP and Yupper land. We have more freshwater around us and in the state than most of the world and we worry that the mines in the UP have dumped so much bad stuff in the waters that the fish in the Great Lakes may not be fit to eat soon, that the pollution will not be flushed out into the Atlantic with the Coho Salmon. We worry about all manner of foreign fish brought in by mistake who are starting to out populate and kill off the local game fish.
https://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/invasive-species
An invasive species is a plant or animal that is foreign to an ecosystem. During the past two centuries, invasive species have significantly changed the Great Lakes ecosystem. These changes have greatly affected the economy, health, and well being of the people that rely on the system for food, water, and recreation. Once established, it is extremely difficult to control their spread.
It seems that, wherever people go, we tend to mess things up as carelessly as we sin. Oh, wait, it's the sin that messes everything up, isn't it? The sin that won't go away.
Sin of worshiping the wrong God, usually self worship in some disguise.
God told Joshua to wipe the other tribes out completely. The task was so great in one case that Joshua prayed to God to stop the sun so he could get it done:
Jos 10:1 Now when it came to the ears of Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, that Joshua had taken Ai, and had given it up to the curse (for as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king); and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them;
(Even Josh failed in the total mission to rid the place of the idolators. Alliance was easier.)
2 He was in great fear, because Gibeon was a great town, like one of the king's towns, greater than Ai, and all the men in it were men of war.
3 So Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, and to Piram, king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia, king of Lachish, and to Debir, king of Eglon, saying,
4 Come up to me and give me help, and let us make an attack on Gibeon: for they have made peace with Joshua and the children of Israel.
5 So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, were banded together, and went up with all their armies and took up their position before Gibeon and made war against it.
(Meanwhile God will use the alliance to deliver five kings of one of the "ites" to destruction.)
6 And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, saying, Be not slow to send help to your servants; come up quickly to our support and keep us safe: for all the kings of the Amorites from the hill-country have come together against us.
7 So Joshua went up from Gilgal with all his army and all his men of war.
8 And the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear of them, for I have given them into your hands; they will all give way before you.
9 So Joshua, having come up from Gilgal all night, made a sudden attack on them.
(And God goes before them into the battle creating fear and sending hailstone or meteors, whichever you can reason from the text, to help in the destruction. They win because He is with them. It is the only way they win.)
10 And the Lord made them full of fear before Israel, and they put great numbers of them to death at Gibeon, and went after them by the way going up to Beth-horon, driving them back to Azekah and Makkedah
11 And in their flight before Israel, on the way down from Beth-horon, the Lord sent down great stones from heaven on them all the way to Azekah, causing their death: those whose death was caused by the stones were more than those whom the children of Israel put to death with the sword.
12 It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.
13 And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.
14 And there was no day like that, before it or after it, when the Lord gave ear to the voice of a man; for the Lord was fighting for Israel.
15 And Joshua, with all Israel, went back to the tent-circle at Gilgal.
(BBE)
People talk of the impossibility of the sun stopping in the sky. They miss the point. They have consistently missed the point. Me, too, for a long time.
Josh asked God to do the impossible because He is God and CAN do what we perceive as impossible.
But that misses the point that God gave Josh an impossible task to begin with!
Think on it. I don't just mean the task of this particular day. That was bad enough. Men on foot with swords having to track down in a day all of five armies that wanted to take an area and then another tribe that Joshua was supposed to wipe out but didn't (he made an alliance with them, recall). Sorting out the allied bad guys from the unallied bad guys and going about the business of wiping out the unallied...You get the idea. His failure to wipe out the one tribe led to the five kings of the
Amorites attacking them and then led to such a battle Josh got special dispensation to carry out the orders to annihilate while God was still favoring the victory. God had earlier not given Josh victory over another tribe because the people got all full of themselves and had to be taken down a notch.
But I also mean the task of rooting out all the sinful tribes and putting them all to death. From Jericho with Rahab onward there was always something coming up and and easier ways to do something. Things seeming right in the eyes of man.
I have mentioned the giantism problem, spent a lot of time on it. It is a small example of the physical results of human sin. The way to deal with a plague before we had drugs or the social ideas that let AIDS become so powerful in this country and others, was first to find the sick people, then to quarantine them or expel them from the tribe and then to left the disease take its course. The sick would die, but the plague would stop there. This worked well in nomadic tribes or, if they failed to stop the disease, it would wipe out only that tribe and not live long enough to reach others miles away. Nimrod drove the giants onto the Promised Land, but never killed them all off. The Israelis wiped out enough with the genome to make things safe for the birth of Christ and enough to keep the vast population safe. But that disease, a symbol of the failure of man, of ultimate sin, lingered. Josh never got it all gone or David never would have had to kill Goliath and his brothers.
They were sent to wipe out all the "ites": Hittites, Amorites, all the Canaanites in their tribal forms. Did you notice the ending on the tribal name Israelite? There's a moment in the book The Martian Chronicles when a human colonist wonders if the Martians who are able to manipulate men's minds and disguise themselves to humans, are all dead. Then he looks at his own reflection in a pool of public water and realizes something: he has lived on Mars all his life: HE is a Martian. A concept played out in the book and movie The Martian. They were no different from the other tribes except God chose them. They were no different except they were to worship the one true God and become different.
Josh must have realized it somehow and so he found mercy to some of them. He must have seen Rahab time and again and recalled she was supposed to die but was right there alive by a promise made by his spies. Still he saw the rest as the enemy, as beings to be wiped out.
He was to create a pocket, a space where sin wasn't allowed to exist or at least where the people who committed sin knew there was a price to pay. A space where Christ would have a society bound by the Law, where Jesus would have the parents to bring him up who were spiritually ready. He was to send a message that sin would ACTUALLY be dealt with and dealt with with extreme prejudice. Because humanity is addicted to sin and Josh couldn't end all of humanity, he could only try to create that pocket to ease his people into life in the Law.
Did he ever see himself and the others as the healthy who must isolate themselves because the plague had taken mankind, was all around, and the best one could do was to get set apart and develop breathing apparatus and special places to hide from contamination and to wear masks so they didn't get the germs and to keep the infected away?
Like society kept those infected with leprosy away during Jesus' time.
Jesus was given an impossible task, too. Rid the world of the cause of all disease: sin. It was sin that sent the microbe world off kilter as well as the rest of the universe. Sin was the cause of all failure, a world cut off from God, under Satan's influence.
Jesus had a road map of conquest, too. Start at "GO" meaning Israel and move out in every direction spreading the cure. the inoculation. The vaccination of Salvation. Well, it wasn't him alone to do it. Even the First Flesh was not able to travel freely across the world seeing everyone at once. Only His Spirit could do that.
Have you realized yet that the "zombie apocalypse" happened in Eden, that everyone is, in fact, Walking Dead, born with the disease in them as that show suggests? That nihilism makes sense to those who realize their limits as humans and never grasp their possibilities as God's servants?
This was the depth of Jesus mission: to reconquer all humankind for God, the normal and the giant, the Jew and the Gentile, the legalist and the nihilist. To kill off the sin and spare the sinner. That all the "ites" might be saved. That they may be made ready after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj2QpgRSMhk
Sin burns forever.
Go deeper into the talk of Jesus and Joshua.
Joshua's mission was to conquer the land and destroy the people who were practicing sin there. To throw out the false gods with the people who worshiped them. They carried a physical disease which turned some to human giants and made the task harder in getting rid of them, but also made it obvious who was carrying the disease. It was those folks over there, the ones in that tribe. Kill those "ites" and things would be good.
They could see who the sinners were and it was easy to drive them out and the Isrealites should have done it...but they didn't. But that pause...Did you see something?
http://bibleresources.americanbible.org/resource/from-joshua-to-the-exile-the-people-of-israel-in-the-promised-land
The story of how the people of Israel conquered the people of Canaan is told in Joshua. Like the biblical books that tell about how Moses led the people (Exod, Num, Deut), Joshua is full of miracles. Before the people of Israel could enter Canaan, they had to cross the Jordan River. Once again, God was with them and helped them in a miraculous way. Just as God had helped Moses by opening up the waters of the Red Sea (Exod 14), so God made the waters of the Jordan River stop flowing when the priests of Israel stepped into the river Josh 3.15-17. After they crossed the river and came to Gilgal, the people made a monument using twelve rocks, one rock for each tribe of Israel. Then they set up camp there.
When they crossed the river Jordan to take the land, they crossed on dry ground, even as they had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. Practical since mud would have made the crossing difficult for all the people. Feet sinking into mire; they didn't have rubber boots back then to protect them. They didn't get covered in muck and mire and filth when they were walking in obedience. God smoothed the way and they stayed clean.
Later, a guy named John the Baptist would arrive on the scene and proclaim the day of the Lord was at hand and begin plunging everyone into the river Jordan. They walked in the muck and more of the filthy riverbed and were plunged into nature's rushing water and that man said:"There is one coming who will baptize with the Spirit. I'm just a cheap knock off to let you know the real thing is almost here."
Later in prison, even he would ask for some assurances before Salome demanded his head on a platter.
On God's orders, Joshua armed the people to take Jericho. He armed them with horns and marching order to march around that wall the sinners built. Kings in that day sent men armed with weapons to storm the walls. God sent a marching band and a chorus. The walls were impregnable, couldn't be breached. When the band got done seven days later, "the walls come a tumblin' down."
Jos 6:1 (Now Jericho was all shut up because of the children of Israel: there was no going out or coming in.)
2 And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war.
3 Now let all your fighting-men make a circle round the town, going all round it once. Do this for six days.
4 And let seven priests go before the ark with seven loud-sounding horns in their hands: on the seventh day you are to go round the town seven times, the priests blowing their horns.
5 And at the sound of a long note on the horns, let all the people give a loud cry; and the wall of the town will come down flat, and all the people are to go straight forward.
(BBE)
Once inside, Josh killed them all save Rahab.
Jos 2:1 Then Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men from Shittim secretly, with the purpose of searching out the land, and Jericho. So they went and came to the house of a loose woman of the town, named Rahab, where they took their rest for the night.
2 And it was said to the king of Jericho, See, some men have come here tonight from the children of Israel with the purpose of searching out the land.
3 Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, Send out the men who have come to you and are in your house; for they have come with the purpose of searching out all the land.
4 And the woman took the two men and put them in a secret place; then she said, Yes, the men came to me, but I had no idea where they came from;
5 And when it was the time for shutting the doors at dark, they went out; I have no idea where the men went: but if you go after them quickly, you will overtake them.
6 But she had taken them up to the roof, covering them with the stems of flax which she had put out in order there.
7 So the men went after them on the road to Jordan as far as the river-crossing: and when they had gone out after them, the door into the town was shut.
8 And before the men went to rest, she came up to them on the roof,
9 And said to them, It is clear to me that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has come on us;
10 For we have had news of how the Lord made the Red Sea dry before you when you came out of Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, on the other side of Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you gave up to the curse.
11 And because of this news, our hearts became like water, and there was no more spirit in any of us because of you; for the Lord your God is God in heaven on high and here on earth.
12 So now, will you give me your oath by the Lord, that, because I have been kind to you, you will be kind to my father's house,
13 And that you will keep safe my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and all they have, so that death may not come on us?
14 And the men said to her, Our life for yours if you keep our business secret; and when the Lord has given us the land, we will keep faith and be kind to you.
(BBE)
They were supposed to kill them all and they violated the orders because Rahab saved their lives, but God approved it because she first accepted the truth that He is God and, by the way, she gets mentioned in the lineage of the Second Joshua.
God proceeded before Joshua and told him how to knock down the walls.
Jesus began his conquest saying, "Come. follow me." The Romans stormed into Israel and knocked down every wall and barrier, let the Jews keep their Law and their prophets so long as they didn't get crazy about it and the people wanted someone to crash in, throw the sinners out by their bootstraps and give them back the land.
Jesus instead founded a marching band of apostles. He told them to go and preach the Good News. The Zealots were dumbfounded. The Priests and council and the king of the land were scared to death he would stomp his feet one last time, the walls would fall down and THEY could be the ones to pay because the sinners would still be there to kill THEM.
Josh had a road map of what to do because the various "ites" were in place, had established their territory and he knew who they were and where to go to fight. Moses knew the same thing as the wandered in the wilderness killing off the tribes there BEFORE the faced the giants, even though they faced giants in the territories outside of The Promised Land as well.
My eldest lives in Indiana now and occasionally has someone ask where in Michigan she comes from and she does the thing no one else in the world but a Lower Peninsula Michigander can do, she holds up her right hand, palm facing the person and points to a spot on her palm, saying, "Right there." We live in the mitten and Detroit is there at the base of the thumb and Traverse City is at the top of the little finger and Mackinac is at the tip of the middle finger where the bridge reaches to the UP and Yupper land. We have more freshwater around us and in the state than most of the world and we worry that the mines in the UP have dumped so much bad stuff in the waters that the fish in the Great Lakes may not be fit to eat soon, that the pollution will not be flushed out into the Atlantic with the Coho Salmon. We worry about all manner of foreign fish brought in by mistake who are starting to out populate and kill off the local game fish.
https://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/invasive-species
An invasive species is a plant or animal that is foreign to an ecosystem. During the past two centuries, invasive species have significantly changed the Great Lakes ecosystem. These changes have greatly affected the economy, health, and well being of the people that rely on the system for food, water, and recreation. Once established, it is extremely difficult to control their spread.
At least 25 invasive species of fish have entered the Great Lakes since the 1800s, including:
- round goby
- sea lamprey
- Eurasian ruffe
- alewife
alewifeA small silver-colored fish that is not native to Lake Erie. - zebra mussels
- spiny water flea
- Asian Carp
The Great Lakes have also been troubled by fast-growing invasive plants, that displace the native plants that support wildlife habitat and prevent erosion. These include:
- common reed
- reed canary grass
- purple loosestrife
- curly pondweed
- Eurasian milfoil
- frogbit
- non-native cattail
Ballast Water Regulation
Ballast water is taken onto or discharged from a ship as it loads or unloads its cargo, to accommodate the ship's weight changes.
Thirty percent of invasive species in the Great Lakes have been introduced through ship ballast water. In the early 1990s, the U.S. Coast Guard began requiring ships to exchange their ballast water, or seal their ballast tanks for the duration of their stay. The Coast Guard later used their success in the Great Lakes to develop a ballast management program for the entire nation. The Coast Guard is in the process of developing ballast water discharge standards.
Preventing Potential Invaders
Based on the problems caused by invasive species, scientists are also closely watching other species that have invaded nearby ecosystems. Asian carp are of particular concern because they have been found in nearby waterways that eventually connect to the Great Lakes. In 2004, EPA and other state and local agencies began construction of a permanent electric barrier to prevent the fish from entering Lake Michigan.
EPA is also studying how existing invasive species have become established in the Great Lakes. These studies will help develop new techniques to predict future invasions.
It seems that, wherever people go, we tend to mess things up as carelessly as we sin. Oh, wait, it's the sin that messes everything up, isn't it? The sin that won't go away.
Sin of worshiping the wrong God, usually self worship in some disguise.
God told Joshua to wipe the other tribes out completely. The task was so great in one case that Joshua prayed to God to stop the sun so he could get it done:
Jos 10:1 Now when it came to the ears of Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, that Joshua had taken Ai, and had given it up to the curse (for as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king); and that the people of Gibeon had made peace with Israel and were living among them;
(Even Josh failed in the total mission to rid the place of the idolators. Alliance was easier.)
2 He was in great fear, because Gibeon was a great town, like one of the king's towns, greater than Ai, and all the men in it were men of war.
3 So Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, sent to Hoham, king of Hebron, and to Piram, king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia, king of Lachish, and to Debir, king of Eglon, saying,
4 Come up to me and give me help, and let us make an attack on Gibeon: for they have made peace with Joshua and the children of Israel.
5 So the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon, were banded together, and went up with all their armies and took up their position before Gibeon and made war against it.
(Meanwhile God will use the alliance to deliver five kings of one of the "ites" to destruction.)
6 And the men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the tent-circle at Gilgal, saying, Be not slow to send help to your servants; come up quickly to our support and keep us safe: for all the kings of the Amorites from the hill-country have come together against us.
7 So Joshua went up from Gilgal with all his army and all his men of war.
8 And the Lord said to Joshua, Have no fear of them, for I have given them into your hands; they will all give way before you.
9 So Joshua, having come up from Gilgal all night, made a sudden attack on them.
(And God goes before them into the battle creating fear and sending hailstone or meteors, whichever you can reason from the text, to help in the destruction. They win because He is with them. It is the only way they win.)
10 And the Lord made them full of fear before Israel, and they put great numbers of them to death at Gibeon, and went after them by the way going up to Beth-horon, driving them back to Azekah and Makkedah
11 And in their flight before Israel, on the way down from Beth-horon, the Lord sent down great stones from heaven on them all the way to Azekah, causing their death: those whose death was caused by the stones were more than those whom the children of Israel put to death with the sword.
12 It was on the day when the Lord gave up the Amorites into the hands of the children of Israel that Joshua said to the Lord, before the eyes of Israel, Sun, be at rest over Gibeon; and you, O moon, in the valley of Aijalon.
13 And the sun was at rest and the moon kept its place till the nation had given punishment to their attackers. (Is it not recorded in the book of Jashar?) So the sun kept its place in the middle of the heavens, and was waiting, and did not go down, for the space of a day.
14 And there was no day like that, before it or after it, when the Lord gave ear to the voice of a man; for the Lord was fighting for Israel.
15 And Joshua, with all Israel, went back to the tent-circle at Gilgal.
(BBE)
People talk of the impossibility of the sun stopping in the sky. They miss the point. They have consistently missed the point. Me, too, for a long time.
Josh asked God to do the impossible because He is God and CAN do what we perceive as impossible.
But that misses the point that God gave Josh an impossible task to begin with!
Think on it. I don't just mean the task of this particular day. That was bad enough. Men on foot with swords having to track down in a day all of five armies that wanted to take an area and then another tribe that Joshua was supposed to wipe out but didn't (he made an alliance with them, recall). Sorting out the allied bad guys from the unallied bad guys and going about the business of wiping out the unallied...You get the idea. His failure to wipe out the one tribe led to the five kings of the
Amorites attacking them and then led to such a battle Josh got special dispensation to carry out the orders to annihilate while God was still favoring the victory. God had earlier not given Josh victory over another tribe because the people got all full of themselves and had to be taken down a notch.
But I also mean the task of rooting out all the sinful tribes and putting them all to death. From Jericho with Rahab onward there was always something coming up and and easier ways to do something. Things seeming right in the eyes of man.
I have mentioned the giantism problem, spent a lot of time on it. It is a small example of the physical results of human sin. The way to deal with a plague before we had drugs or the social ideas that let AIDS become so powerful in this country and others, was first to find the sick people, then to quarantine them or expel them from the tribe and then to left the disease take its course. The sick would die, but the plague would stop there. This worked well in nomadic tribes or, if they failed to stop the disease, it would wipe out only that tribe and not live long enough to reach others miles away. Nimrod drove the giants onto the Promised Land, but never killed them all off. The Israelis wiped out enough with the genome to make things safe for the birth of Christ and enough to keep the vast population safe. But that disease, a symbol of the failure of man, of ultimate sin, lingered. Josh never got it all gone or David never would have had to kill Goliath and his brothers.
They were sent to wipe out all the "ites": Hittites, Amorites, all the Canaanites in their tribal forms. Did you notice the ending on the tribal name Israelite? There's a moment in the book The Martian Chronicles when a human colonist wonders if the Martians who are able to manipulate men's minds and disguise themselves to humans, are all dead. Then he looks at his own reflection in a pool of public water and realizes something: he has lived on Mars all his life: HE is a Martian. A concept played out in the book and movie The Martian. They were no different from the other tribes except God chose them. They were no different except they were to worship the one true God and become different.
Josh must have realized it somehow and so he found mercy to some of them. He must have seen Rahab time and again and recalled she was supposed to die but was right there alive by a promise made by his spies. Still he saw the rest as the enemy, as beings to be wiped out.
He was to create a pocket, a space where sin wasn't allowed to exist or at least where the people who committed sin knew there was a price to pay. A space where Christ would have a society bound by the Law, where Jesus would have the parents to bring him up who were spiritually ready. He was to send a message that sin would ACTUALLY be dealt with and dealt with with extreme prejudice. Because humanity is addicted to sin and Josh couldn't end all of humanity, he could only try to create that pocket to ease his people into life in the Law.
Did he ever see himself and the others as the healthy who must isolate themselves because the plague had taken mankind, was all around, and the best one could do was to get set apart and develop breathing apparatus and special places to hide from contamination and to wear masks so they didn't get the germs and to keep the infected away?
Like society kept those infected with leprosy away during Jesus' time.
Jesus was given an impossible task, too. Rid the world of the cause of all disease: sin. It was sin that sent the microbe world off kilter as well as the rest of the universe. Sin was the cause of all failure, a world cut off from God, under Satan's influence.
Jesus had a road map of conquest, too. Start at "GO" meaning Israel and move out in every direction spreading the cure. the inoculation. The vaccination of Salvation. Well, it wasn't him alone to do it. Even the First Flesh was not able to travel freely across the world seeing everyone at once. Only His Spirit could do that.
Have you realized yet that the "zombie apocalypse" happened in Eden, that everyone is, in fact, Walking Dead, born with the disease in them as that show suggests? That nihilism makes sense to those who realize their limits as humans and never grasp their possibilities as God's servants?
This was the depth of Jesus mission: to reconquer all humankind for God, the normal and the giant, the Jew and the Gentile, the legalist and the nihilist. To kill off the sin and spare the sinner. That all the "ites" might be saved. That they may be made ready after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj2QpgRSMhk
No comments:
Post a Comment