The LORD Who Fights the Battle (Joshua 7:1-26)
Today, we will share the Word of God with Joshua 7. The book of Joshua is about the war to conquer Canaan, and the war that we have today is the war to conquer Satan. We need to know that our war is to conquer Satan in order for the Word of God to be aligned with us. Even right now, Satan desires for us to leave God’s Word and to live in a worldly way. This means that Satan wants me to live according to how humans have planned their lives. However, God in the Bible tells us this is a spiritual battle of conquest, and we cannot fight a spiritual battle with the things we’ve learned from the world.
We are bound to fight the spiritual battle with God’s Word. The spiritual battle is fought against Satan, and it is a battle that saves lives. If you fight the spiritual battle, then lives should be saved. If you think you’re fighting a spiritual battle but you’re hurting and killing people, that is not the spiritual battle. If you win the battle against Satan, then lives are bound to be saved. This spiritual battle is directly fought by the Lord, but if you don’t know this, you’ll try to do something yourself, and you’ll face your limitations and be brought to your knees.
God is beginning the spiritual battle to conquer Canaan through Joshua and they broke down the fortress of Jericho. The fortress of Jericho was absolutely undefeatable, but it was defeated by the power of God, and it must be by God’s method. It is the work that God does but it must be by God’s method. God’s method is that He guides us through His Word, then, we are bound to win by God’s power. Then, all we must do is go forward with faith in God’s Word.
Then, God gave a few commands, to devote everything inside the fortress of Jericho to God. Devoting something to God means, if anything is living, kill it, because all of them were idol worshipers and demon worshipers, so if it is living, kill it, and all the material possessions were to be put in the treasury and storehouses of the Lord. So, the fortress of Jericho was destroyed, and the only thing that was saved was Rahab’s family.
The second battle was at the fortress at Ai. The fortress of Jericho and the fortress of Ai must both be conquered to split the north and the south so they cannot unite. Among them, the fortress of Jericho was must stronger and the fortress of Ai was much weaker. So, the Israelites won the most difficult battle at the fortress of Jericho but they lost at the battle of Ai.
I believe that through God’s Word, we must discover the reason we lose in the spiritual battle. If God is fighting, then we should win 100% of the time, but why did they fail? If we look at Joshua 7:1, it says the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things. This was stated in the very beginning, in verse 1, and the rest of the failure was stated afterwards. Verse 1 says, “Achan took some of” the devoted material as his own, so God’s anger burned against Israel.
After He says those words, He explains the process. Joshua sends spies into the fortress of Ai to scope out the land in Joshua 7:2. In Joshua 7:3, the spies came back and reported, “not all the people will have to go up, only send two or three thousand men to take it, for only a few men are” in Ai. The fortress of Ai was not as firm or sturdy as Jericho, and there were fewer people. They were confident that, when they looked at the situation physically, “We don’t have to send all the army, just two or three thousand because there are only a few men there.”
Then in Joshua 7:4, it says, “About three thousand men went up, but they were routed,” meaning they were defeated and had to run away. Because they were defeated, it says Joshua 7:5 that the hearts of the people melted and became like water. On the other hand, at the battle of Jericho, the people’s hearts inside Jericho had melted in fear. When this happens, people cannot even fight, and they don’t have strength to fight future battles.
In Joshua 7:6, the elders and Joshua began to pray before God. Because they failed, their hearts melted in fear and they thought, “We’ll never be able to defeat the enemy,” so in Joshua 7:7, Joshua says, “Will you have these people, the Amorites, destroy us?” Then he prays to God, “‘In fact, if only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan,’ it would have been better for us.” Then in Joshua 7:8, “What can I tell to the other Israelites?” and he is lamenting.
In Joshua 7:9, he prays to God, asking, “Will You wipe out our name from the earth? What then will you do for your great name?” We are bound to pray like this as well, “We are doing this for your name; how, then, can we die for your name and fail like this?” The Lord heard this and in Joshua 7:10, He said, “Stand up! What are you doing on your face?” meaning, “Don’t you know the mistake you made? Are you praying right now still unaware of the mistake you made?”
It was the same as God called out and asked Adam, “Where are you?” in Gen. 3. Adam replied, “I was afraid, so I hid.” God was not asking where Adam was because He didn’t know where he was; He was asking, “Why did you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?” Today, God asks Joshua, “Why are you down on your face? This is not the time to be down on your face; you must discover how you have sinned.”
In Joshua 7:11, God says, “Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.” The most important reason the Israelites failed in the battle of Ai is that Achan had stolen the things that belonged to God. The second misconception they had was, they thought it was a numbers game, “If we have more men than they, we will win,” so it was a battle not fought by God but by Israel.
When they fought in Jericho, they had fewer men and people so they thought they couldn’t do it, but they moved according to God’s Word Who brought them victory, but they still don’t understand how they won the battle. The very thought they had, that, “Now that we have overcome the fortress of Jericho, we will easily overcome the fortress of Ai because we have greater numbers and we are stronger than they,” meaning they thought it was a battle of numbers instead of by God.
The spiritual battle to save lives is not with our own power. We can study and run our businesses with our own abilities, but we cannot do everything. However, the spiritual battle, the battle against Satan and the battle to save souls is a spiritual battle fought by God. That is how Joshua fought in the battle against Jericho, and that’s what Joshua should have done in Ai as well.
When someone does something, they are under the misconception that they accomplished it. Without a doubt, before they begin a task, they knew they couldn’t do it, but when they receive the answer to do something, they’re under a misconception that they did it, so the next time they go in, they go in without God. Eph. 6:4 says we will not fall down while we are up. It talks about the spiritual battle. The spiritual battle is not about us doing something or not, God is the One fighting the battle; all we have to do is believe. That’s what Apostle Paul meant when he said, “I can do all things through Him Who strengthens me,” I can do everything within that promise.
Paul never claimed he could do all things because he was powerful or educated in the world. If anything, in 2 Cor. 12, it says he was weak in something, and in 2 Cor. 12:9, “I will boast in my weakness. He says, “So that Christ’s power may rest upon my weakness.” When I say I can do something, I don’t need God to work, but because I confess that I’m weak, Christ’s power will rest on me, therefore, I boast of my weakness. However, the world tells you to live with your strength, but the spiritual battle cannot be won with our strength, power, or knowledge. That is something God must do through those who believe in Him. That is why Paul boasts of his weakness, because this is the reason why Christ’s power rests upon him.
If you’re not able to pray, it means you think you can do it on your own. This person might still pray, but they cannot pray with their sincere heart. They just do a formal form of prayer, because they still believe they can do something on their own. When are they able to pray? When they’re completely collapsed in their weakness. In that weakness, they are able to pray. Then instead of collapsing first, we need to know our own weakness by God’s grace.
You need to know that I, the person from Gen. 3, cannot do this. That is why we need to die on the cross with Christ. If there’s even one thing that I can do, there’s no reason to die, but there’s not even one part of me that can do it. Because our fundamental state is separated from God, seized by Satan and sin, so in this state, there is not a single thing we can do. I need to die on the cross with Christ in order for Christ to begin working through me in that moment.
Apostle Paul says in 2 Cor. 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong,” because that is when Christ works, but there are people who live in the opposite way, “Live your walk of faith with power,” but God doesn’t work that way. God used fishermen and powerless people in the Early Church, because through our weakness, God’s power may be revealed. The reason why even educated men were used was because they confessed they were weak.
In Phil. 3, Apostle Paul confesses, “Everything I’ve learned, I consider rubbish” because it is useless in the spiritual battle of saving lives. He confessed, “Knowing Christ is the greatest knowledge,” and that’s why God used him, and God sustained Paul’s weakness until the very end.
There are some people who fail in this, there was someone named Samson who was very strong. The Nazirites are not allowed to cut their heart, God made it this way so they could be set apart. God gave Samson strength through his hair. At first, he had so much power that he chased out a lot of Philistines. As more time passed, he fell under the misconception that he could accomplish something on his own, so the Philistines sent a female spy to cut off his hair, so God could no longer use Samson. God did not use Samson because Samson was strong; God gave Samson grace to be used; but now, even when Samson wants to be strong, he can’t be. Samson thought he was strong on his own, so there was no reason for God to be with him. In the very end, he was used by God and died.
Same with King Saul, he was about to fight the war against the Philistines, and he wanted to play the role of the priest and the king, and he saved some animals from the battle to sacrifice. King Saul was under the misconception that the battle was fought by people, but in reality, the battle was fought by God. In order for you to be with God, you must follow the stream of God’s Word, but King Saul followed his thoughts.
Why would God work if somebody is living according to their thoughts and not God’s Word? From that day on, the spirit of God left King Saul and he had no more power to be king, and that’s why he was possessed by evil spirits. When people asked him to be king, they elected King Saul to be king because he was a great person with great leadership. But the way God sees people and the way that we see people are different.
It says in the Bible that David’s heart was one with God, meaning, he had the characteristic that allowed God to be with David, what do you think that is? He knew, “I need God; it cannot be me.” There are some people who wait until their entire lives are over, they are broken down, and they finally begin to realize that. But instead, David realized when he was a young shepherd that he was able to save the lambs from lions and wolves, not by his power, but by the power that came through prayer.
It was the same as he battled against Goliath, it was not his own strength, but he went out in the name of the LORD God almighty. Whenever David went out into battle, he won almost 100% of the time; the only time he lost was when he should have gone out to battle, but he didn’t. It was around the time he took Bathsheba as his own, and that was the spiritually low point.
God doesn’t use our greatness; He can use our greatness, but He doesn’t use us because we are great. Whether we are great or lacking, if we confess that we are truly weak and that we need God, He is bound to work upon us. Does the church change the world because it is strong and big? Never. But we think, “If we only had a few more people, we could do the evangelism movement,” but that’s a misconception. If somebody thinks, “If there are a few more people then we can evangelize,” that’s a misconception. God being with me is enough. But instead of that, we keep trying to rely on the efforts, strength, or power of other people. God never used people like that.
The reason they failed in the battle against the fortress of Ai was because of that state. It would be great if your children grew up as physical elites, but that’s not the reason God uses them. But that also doesn’t mean God will use them just because they are foolish or ignorant. God works through the person who has the grace to realize they cannot do anything without God.
I think if we are able to ask the question why the Israelites failed in the battle in Ai, and we can recognize it, we can win. When I came as a pastor to America, there was one thing I experienced. When I first came to America, I was very arrogant, so I would compare the messages and people in America compared the ones in Korea and thought, “it wouldn’t work.” So, there are these cliques in the church, and there was a group always talking bad about the pastor, and they asked to give a message. Because these people were very high class, they called me specifically, “We need an assistant pastor from Korea,” but I didn’t go.
Later on, they didn’t have any minister, so I went on my own, and it was completely the minority. All they were talking about all the time was criticizing the pastor and the church all by themselves. I began to meet with them every Saturday. Then there was a financial incident that happened, where the church ran into financial difficulties, and a couple left the church. That was a shock I experienced the first time in my life. I think it hit my heart even harder because I was doing ministry with them.
So, this couple left the church because the church was going through financial difficulty, and the church was not giving them anything in return, so they left. I went home and lost sleep. The fact that I was losing sleep means I had my own pride on this, “Why wasn’t I able to change the outcome?” I was also very sad or frustrated with the spiritual state of the believers. Then I thought, “I have to go back to Korea; it’s not going to work here. This church itself has no way that it will work, because if this church itself is in a state for people to invest money to get some kind of return, it’s going to be hard.”
It was 3-4am in the morning. What was the Word the Holy Spirit gave to me? “God can make it happen no matter where you are.” The forces of darkness inside of me were broken down. Even before that point, I didn’t know I set a standard for Korea, and from God’s perspective, it was very offensive because I was relying on people, and the message from back then remains in me even now. That incident has continuously blessed me in my American ministry.
Same thing now, God can do it here, God can do it through weak people. There are some people who think we need wealthy people to do Temple construction, but that’s not the case. God does the work by the working upon the work of prayers of the weak. People say that evangelizing to multiethnic or caucasians is impossible, but nothing is impossible for God. Some people say, “Evangelizing Caucasians works in Latin America, but why not here?” The location is not a problem; it is you.
Do you think God’s power depends on the location? You’re using you; you’ve no choice but to fail. Why would David come to a Korean church? It wouldn’t fit, but he’s here listening to the message because God sends him here. Why do the doors to Caucasian people open in Yakima and Sedona? God told us to make disciples of all nations, what’s important is, because we are trying to do things with our own skill level, we think we can do things or not. But in reality, God did it, not me.
Whether somebody is at the highest class of elites or at the lowest class, God is someone who can save all. Look at the Early Church, how could they ever compete against the Roman Empire? How would it be possible for the Early Church to conquer over the Roman Empire in the spiritual battle? But because they knew they could not do it and God promised to do it, they went towards this in prayer. The people who are able to pray and the people who do pray are the ones who know God’s power.
If you find it difficult to pray, it is because there’s something inside you that thinks you can do it. What does that mean? It means you don’t know the spiritual things at all; you barely know the physical things and can barely make a living and survive. If you know the spiritual battle and the mission of God, you’ll know you can’t do it, so you’ll have no choice but to pray. That’s why when the members of the Early Church came together and prayed, God worked upon them.
Same for the remnants, if they come together and pray, God works, but if someone believes in their own ability to give a good message, the Holy Spirit does not work there. Even with Jesus’ messages, people did not change. Paul’s message did not save anyone. God must work. We put conditions on situations, experiences, and trainings, rather than focusing on God.
So, the second mistake the Israelites did was, they stole the things that were devoted to God. Someone named Achan coveted a really good thing, like a bar of gold, silver, and a really beautiful robe. God tells Joshua, “This is your problem.” He says, “Find this individual and devote him to God.” In other words, by the casting of lots, this man named Achan was selected, so, Achan and his entire family and livestock were stoned to death and burned. Then, all the materials he stole like the gold and silver were given to the Lord’s treasury. Then, the name of the place where that happened was the valley of Achor.
There are other mentions of the valley of Achor in the Bible. It’s the valley no one wants to go to, because that is where Achan’s family was killed. You had to kill all the people because they were idol-worshipers, and all the gold and silver was to be given to the treasury of the LORD. But because of this one person, Achan, all the Israelites were destroyed as one. The real battle is not from an exterior force; the real battle is inside of me. The idea that, “I can do this,” and our greed, our greed for material possessions. This belongs to God, but because you coveted, you want it.
So, the victory and failure of the battle does not depend on external forces like the strength of the fortress of Jericho, or the weakness of the fortress of Ai because God determines the battle. The real weakness is within us. During David’s time, the Temple was the platform for world evangelization, because when you went there, curses and disasters were broken as God’s blessings are proclaimed. With that, the gospel was proclaimed to all nations; it was a platform.
In 1 Chronicles 29:11, what does it say about the Temple? “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours. Yours, O LORD, is the Kingdom, and You are exalted over all.” David is the King and he has the ability to pull all the wealth to himself, and because he has the power to do that, he can take all of this on his own, however, he may be the king, but he is only the king because God anointed him with the power to be king. God anointed him with the filling of the Holy Spirit; he is a king God is using, but if David was under the misconception that he was doing it, then he would lose the battle just as the Israelites did at Ai.
“Wealth and honor belong to You.” The moment you believe your money and success is because of your hard work, it is a downward journey. “You are the Ruler of all things; in your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.” Where are these people? If these people exist, God will do His work through His people.
During this age, Temple construction requires tremendous devotion, and this cannot come from Israelites, but it must come from surrounding nations, meaning it does not belong to Israelites. Yes I’m sure they had a bit of gold but all of it was given to them by God. The people who know this can make the platform for the headquarters for world evangelization and the spiritual battle.
As you are working at your job and the students work on their skills, have the proper viewpoint of material things. You might be doing this, but it’s not really you; it is God doing it through you. Yes, I may have studied and built up my skills, but God gave me the grace to build up my skill. That is how this person will not fail at the battle of Ai, but will continue to be victorious in the conquest of Canaan as at Jericho.
God says the same thing in Mal. 3:9-10, “You have stolen what belongs to me.” He says, “You have stolen your offering and your tithe from me,” and then He says, “I will not give you the fruits of your labor.” Then He says, “Bring the whole tithe to the storehouse of the LORD,” everything belongs to God and God gives me what I need to survive, but there is a portion that belongs to the temple of the Lord. “Try it and see if your storehouses will be overflowing or not.” If you have in your thought, “I’m going to invest this much and expect this much output,” you’re just playing with God, then you’re somebody who is still your own master, looking for your own method. But you just do it because God’s Word says it and you believe in it.
If you continuously have financial difficulty, you need to check this. God is able to give finances and take it away, but you need to check that, whether you are claiming the things of God as your own and doing whatever you want with it. “How could I do all of this?” That’s just your circumstance. You can just do it. When I tried to just do it, I realized it just happened like that. “If I make $10,000 a month, do I have to give $1000 to offering?” Yeah. What if you make $100,000/month? Then give $10,000 or more. Just allow God to do His work. Be very certain about your viewpoint of materials and possessions before God. There is never a time when God did not work upon someone who had an idea about this.
In Acts 5, there was a couple who gave their offering to God and died, that was Ananias and Sapphira. They promised to sell their land and give their offering to God, but later on, when it was time to give the offering, whether it was due to their circumstance or they didn’t want to waste their money, and they kept some money for themselves, and the Bible says, “Why did you try to deceive the Holy Spirit?” Nowadays people don’t die because they don’t give offering, but they are irrelevant to God. God must work upon you for world evangelization, but God’s power is not working upon you.
Whether you do temple construction offering or whatever you set your heart to, realize that heart wasn’t yours; it was given to you, a decision made by God. If my circumstances are difficult, is that circumstance really the problem? Then that person will always be dragged around by their circumstances and problems. “I don’t have any,” but if you do, then is that yours? If you don’t have any right now, if you don’t have a restored viewpoint on materials and possessions, God won’t use that.
You can just eat three meals a day; everything else is the Lord’s. Isn’t that right? What’s the point of saving that up for your future generations? Your kids are in God’s hands. You don’t have money because you work hard for it; God allows you to work hard for it, then God gives it to you. Does that mean, just because you don’t have any right now, you don’t have any for real? You can hold onto it and challenge towards it for real, then God is bound to work.
If you don’t want to do world evangelization, economy is not important because you just need enough to eat and survive yourself, but if you do need to do world evangelization, a lot of things will change from that point on. What is the point of doing a temple construction that isn’t going to do world evangelization? You’re just going to do worship there, however, the platform and the temple to do world evangelization is different.
Many people from the 237 nations must come and receive training there. In order for healing to take place, the church must be able to pray. Right now we are beginning the Early Morning prayer movement. I’m sure there are some who join without knowing what it means, and there are some people who don’t understand why we do it, but it doesn’t matter; we have to go with the time schedule of the people who do get it.
If it is true that God has promised this to us, we hold onto it and God is bound to work. If the parents of the remnants don’t pray, the church must pray. If the parents are not praying and the church is not praying, the children absolutely will be captives. There are many young people in the church being raised up as church officers. They have a lot of physical strength and speed, and that’s necessary but that’s not what the church needs. The church runs by the Holy Spirit, so we need the power of prayer.
I went to an appointment ceremony, and they said, “You need to raise the bartizan of prayer; you have a good job but that isn’t what the church needs.” If you meet in the world and you have a lot of money, you can help them with physical motives, but the kingdom of God is moved by God, so He will work through those who pray. This temple is the platform to do the spiritual battle to save the 237 nations. God will do the temple construction but whom will He do it through? God will begin to work through the person who says, “This is not mine, but it belongs to the Lord.”
For you and me, if you haven’t been like this until now, if you start, God will work; if you have, then just continue. That’s why God is the gospel. Whatever has happened until now, God will forget it. Even right now, if you commit to this, then God will later on. Later on, they do conquer the fortress of Ai, the failures of their past turn into success so the spiritual battle is not about physical factors like how strong a fortress is, but it’s the state of being able to give everything to God or not.
Peter looked at the storm and the water; you need to look at the Word of God. Even in the battle of Ai, look to God and have spiritual victory. If you look at circumstances and say, “I think I can do this,” that is when you will fail. I hope that everyone without exception will have the blessed opportunity to change their internal conditions.