Ryan Hale

It only took one generation after Joshua for Israel to turn to the gods of the other nations around them. Just one generation after Joshua said “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”, and all of the rest of Israel agreeing with him and swearing to serve God, and him alone, they walked away from the Lord.

God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt, eventually brought them across the Jordan river and into the promised land, and had driven out the Canaanite people before them. Yet as a result of not teaching their children about the Lord, as a result of focusing on themselves instead of what God had done for them, they forgot God completely.

The Israelites were already headed into their own direction. They were leaving the Lord behind and they were going their own way. They began to intermix with the other nations around them, serving the pagan gods and practicing every sort of evil possible, as commanded by the traditions of worshiping those gods.

There were moments in which it seemed that they would turn back. There were points at which they would return back to the Lord, but frequently those hopes were dashed as they continued to be lured away.

The path to return back to God was clear: Humility for men before God. There is one way in which God always required men to come before him: In repentance and in humility. God detests the pride of men. He hates man’s desire to lift himself up over God himself. God wants men to be in the right relationship with him, placing God before themselves, glorifying him, lifting the Lord up in first place over all.

This is the attitude with which God expected the Israelites to have before him. Even as the Midianites came to war against the Israelites with at least 135,000 men in their army, with the Israelites marshaling an army of less than a quarter of that number, God made sure that it was not only specifically NOT a fair fight, which was the case already, but that it was completely impossible. Gideon would be asked to go to war against those 135,000 with just 300 men.

Would they be particularly strong men? Would they be particularly well-trained men? No, none of these things. They were not like the Spartans. They were not the Marines, just a few good men. No, they were simply given trumpets and torches. God would do all of the rest. God would do all of the work.

God gave dreams to the Midianites that they would be routed by the Israelites. He put fear into their hearts that Gideon and his army would destroy them. When Gideon and his army shouted, blew their trumpets, and lit their torches, all of the Midianites were thrown into confusion, even going so far as to fight against and kill one another, ultimately fleeing from the Israelites despite there only being 300 men who stood before their camp in the dark with nothing more than trumpets and torches.

God would defeat the Midianites and their army because he did not want the Israelites to begin to think that their own strength would save them. He wanted the Israelites to remember, once again, that God was the one who saved them. God was the one that led them. It was God’s strength, not their own:

The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’

Judges 7:2

The word of God can often be like a mirror that is held up to us so that we can see ourselves clearly within it. How often do we think that we are leading, we are guiding, we are in control? How often do we think that it is our own strength and power that is leading us and giving us any of the victories that we might experience?

The world tells us to pull ourselves up. God tells us that it is by his strength and might that we are strong.

The world tells us that we are the masters of our fate. God tells us that he is the king in the kingdom of God and we should do all things to glorify him.

This may not seem that significant because maybe it doesn’t look like “sin”. Maybe it doesn’t look like stealing or killing or hurting others. But it is the start of these things, and so much more. Through our pride, we decide what is right for ourselves. Through our pride, we make the decisions of what is right and wrong.

That is the same decision that Adam and Eve made. They believed that they could “be like God”, as the serpent told them, and so their desire for this knowledge, their own knowledge, of what is right and wrong led them down a path that led them to destruction. Their pride made them believe that they would be powerful enough to lead themselves. And at that point they wouldn’t need God.

This is the same sin that came later with the Israelites and it is the same sin that we find ourselves in today. Either we live to glorify God or we live in the pride of glorifying ourselves.

But if we decide that we will live to glorify God, the first step is humility. This is why both John the Baptist and Jesus called the people to repentance. To come before God, the first step is to renounce that which we have done, the life that we have lived for ourselves, and instead come to him. If we do this, we will be God’s people in Christ. If we do this, he will save us. If we do this, he will fight for us. But we must do the first things first, setting our pride aside and instead looking to the Lord, lifting him up and glorifying him, recognizing him as first over all.

As famous people pass away, whether they would be political leaders, celebrities, sports figures, or whomever, it seems that the TV and online media frequently have memorials ready to be run. It seems that they are just waiting for the moment at which the person dies and then they will be able to play their memorial to commemorate the person’s life for their audience.

Typically, those memorials are focused on that which that person did, their accomplishments, possibly their character, famous sayings, etc. In other words, it is completely focused on that person’s legacy. The memorial speaks about that person.

I thought of this today as I read the talk that Joshua gave to the people of Israel right at the end of his life. I noticed that he spoke about his life and what had happened in his life, but the entire discussion of who he was and who the people of Israel were was found within the greater story of who God is, his character, and what he had done for the people of Israel.

There was a significant difference in the focus. Joshua was ultimately giving instructions to the people of Israel, that they would continue to serve the Lord, that they wouldn’t turn away from him to the gods of their ancestors, nor the gods of the Canaanites living around them.

But this was Joshua’s moment. This was the time for him to speak of his legacy, to help the people remember him for who he was. As the leader of the Israelite people, he had been chosen to bring the people out of the wilderness, across the Jordan river and into the land that God had promised to his people. He had led the efforts against the Canaanite people and now the Israelites had received their reward. They received the inheritance allotment of the promised land. Joshua had led all of these efforts.

And he said all of these things, but he said it in a very different way. The focus was not on Joshua. The focus, instead, was on God. He explained that it was God that brought them out of Egypt. It was God that had allowed them to come into the promised land. It was God that had given them the victory before their Canaanite enemies. Not the Israelites. Not Joshua, but it was God that did all of these things.

Joshua called the people to serve the Lord and him only. He said this was the way that he and his family would go:

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

Joshua 24:15

Joshua told every part of his story based on what God had done. Not what he had done and his legacy, but instead what God had done. God and God’s story were the center of Joshua’s life and so both he and his family, while they had time here left on the earth, they would serve the Lord.

As is often the case, the word of God holds a mirror up to me and asks me a question: Is God the center of your life? Do you live with God at the center of the story? Will you tell your story with yourself as the protangonist? Or will you tell your story with God as the main character and your story is found within his?

I think this was also the fundamental question that Joshua was asking the Israelites. Whom will you choose? To serve the Lord, or to go your own way? To obey him and do what he has told us to do, or to choose something else, another god, another vice that you prefer to serve?

This is the same decision that men and women have made ever since the beginning, since the Garden of Eden. Will we listen to God and obey him? Or will we listen to the serpent and prefer to become like God, “knowing” good and evil for ourselves?

These are important questions that determine the course and direction for our lives. Joshua had clearly chosen to serve the Lord and like the challenge that he gave to the Israelites, the decision is now up to us, both in this moment and in every moment through the rest of our lives.

The Israelites had come a long way… Through Moses, God had led the Israelites out of Egypt where they had served the Egyptians, building the future of Egypt under the oppression of slavery.

Then, as a result of their fear and disobedience, they wandered in the desert for more than 40 years. An entire generation died in the desert as a result, unable to enter into the promised land, the land of Canaan, because God would not allow them.

Yet Joshua would remain faithful to the Lord and God chose him to lead the Israelites into the promised land where they would then conquer many of the lands of Canaan, driving out the Canaanites who had lived in the land.

Now had come the time for the Israelites to finally rest. God had led them into the land that he had promised them, as far back as the days of Abraham, and now they would rest from all of the struggle and fighting that they had endured for centuries. They would live as God’s people. They would be the nation that represented God on the earth. They would be the people through whom the Lord would do his work to make himself known and represent himself throughout the whole world.

So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. The LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD gave all their enemies into their hands. Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

Joshua 21:43-45

The writer of the book of Hebrews makes a note of this point in time. He says that there was more rest yet to come. He says that God spoke of another day, another day that would give true rest to his people, a Sabbath rest where God’s people would rest in him, they would rest in God.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

Hebrews 4:8-11

He is speaking here of the righteousness that we have received from God. We’ve received this righteousness not because we have become a good person. Not because we have done a lot of good religious activities. Not because we have obeyed all of the rules.

No, instead, the only reason that we have been considered righteous is because of Christ. Through Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection thus defeating death, and we each placing our faith in him, he allows us to enter into his rest. We no longer have to try to cleanse ourselves to be considered to be righteous. We no longer have to be good enough to know God.

No, instead, through our faith in Christ, we can be known by God and he can know us. And as we know him, we enter into his rest. We can rest because there is nothing else that matters more than my relationship with him. If I am found in God, I can be bold and courageous and do all that he has called me to do. I can be the person that he has called me to be. I can find myself within his will, remaining obedient, loving and glorifying Christ.

This is true rest because I have truly known the relationship that I have with God. This is the true representation of the promised land, the ability to enter into the right relationship with God through Christ. He gives me my place and he gives me my identity. It is all found in him because he is truly the one who provides. We, instead, must be found in him, within the promised land of our relationship with him, and in this way, and only in this way, we will find rest.

The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there.

Joshua 18:1

As the Israelites conquered Canaan, the promised land, and subsequently divided up the land that they won from the people of the land, one area was set aside for placing the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, where the Israelites would go to worship God by offering sacrifices, as God has commanded his people to do.

The tabernacle remained there more than 300 years – rabbinic Jewish tradition stated in the Talmud holds that it was there for 369 years – and then was subsequently destroyed, likely by the Philistines. Shiloh became a warning against disobedience and the worship of other gods. Here is what the prophet Jeremiah said about Shiloh:

Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors. I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.

Jeremiah 7:12-15

And also in the Psalms:

He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent he had set up among humans.
He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
He gave his people over to the sword;
he was furious with his inheritance.
Fire consumed their young men,
and their young women had no wedding songs;
their priests were put to the sword,
and their widows could not weep.

Psalm 78:60-64

The people of Israel had been unfaithful to God. They had strayed far from him, both in disobedience and sin as well as in the worship of the other gods from the people around them. God, therefore, allowed the people to be destroyed, allowed the place of his worship to be destroyed, and even allowed the ark that carried the memories of his covenant with his people to be destroyed. All of it was gone as a result of the Israelite people’s disobedience.

Yet there is another mention of the word shiloh in the Bible. It isn’t clear, and in fact, it is sometimes not even translated “shiloh” by some translations in the Bible. Here is the reference, from the book of Genesis:

The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he to whom it belongs shall come
and the obedience of the nations shall be his.

Genesis 49:10

This is found in the midst of Jacob’s blessing for his sons just before he died. In this verse, the part translated as “he to whom it belongs” is, in the original Hebrew, the word “shiloh”. This could then be translated “until shiloh shall come”, making it, in that context, a Messianic term.

The word shiloh, in this case, is referring to the one who will have the scepter, a royal instrument with which he will rule.

The Messiah will come to rule and reign over both his people as well as the rest of the earth. It says that the obedience of the nations shall be his. This “shiloh” then will rule over the entire earth.

And this “shiloh” will come from the tribe of Judah, exactly as Jesus did through his mother and his father, Joseph and Mary. This “shiloh”, in fact, is a prophecy of the coming Christ, who will come and save his people, ruling over all people of the earth.

The Israelites had been told about the promised land that they would be given. In Exodus 23, God had told them this:

I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.

Exodus 23:31-33

The original boundaries of the land that God would give to the Israelites would even be much larger than the land that they would go on to inhabit, or even what we see in the nation of Israel today. The land described here would have actually extended well into modern-day Iraq so as to reach the Euphrates River.

In any case, the more important point was that the Israelites were not to make any agreements, no covenants with the people who lived within the land that God had promised them. And the reason for that was that they would be led astray by the gods of the people in the land in Canaan.

And as it turned out, that warning was pretty prescient because that is exactly what happened, causing the downfall of Israel.

As the Israelites entered the promised land, they first destroyed Jericho, then subsequently Ai, and then several of the other kingdoms came to war against them.

But one of their neighbors who were living within the land that they would conquer decided to trick the Israelites into making a treaty with them. The people from Gibeon came to the Israelites saying that they had heard what God had done to bring them out of Egypt and how the Israelites had subsequently destroyed the Amorites before crossing the Jordan so they wanted to come and make a treaty with the Israelites so that they wouldn’t come and destroy them.

So they only spoke about the battles that they would have heard about a long time before they arrived, despite the fact that they would have known also about Jericho and Ai.

They brought stale and moldy bread, cracked wineskins, and worn-out clothes.

They put on a good show. They really made it look like they had come from a long way away so that the Israelites wouldn’t attack them.

And the Israelites bought it. They believed the trick of the Gibeonites, and they primarily believed it because of one important point: They didn’t inquire of the Lord.

They didn’t ask God.

The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the LORD. Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.

Joshua 9:14-15

They made decisions and went forward based on their own understanding. They did what they did because they didn’t really understand what was happening. They were being tricked, and this would be the first time that they would disobey the commandment to not make any agreements with the people in the land. Early on in their commission to take over the land that they had been given, they end up making an agreement with one of the peoples that God had specifically told them to not

This was a huge mistake because the Gibeonites would remain in the land. The Gibeonites were Hivites who worshiped many other gods. And the Hivites were descendents of the Amorites, those that even worshiped Moloch, the god of the Amorites who demanded human sacrifice. It was the worship of other gods, and thus leading the Israelites away from the one, true God, that God had warned the Israelites to avoid.

Yes, the Gideonites were made to be servants of the Israelite people and thus shown mercy, but I believe this became a turning point for the nation of Israel. They would make this covenant, and allowing this people with its worship of other gods, would be a first step in the direction of the downfall of the nation of Israel. The Israelites were led and sustained by God’s power, but as they went, they continued to fade further and further away from God toward the other gods of the nations around them.

And where would they have learned about the gods of the other nations around them? From those with whom they continued to live and learn from.

The Israelites were to be different from these other nations, but instead, they continued to drift away from the one, true God toward the other nations. They worshiped these other gods, the false gods. They sacrificed to the other gods. And thus, they broke the covenant that God had made with them. God was no longer their God. Not because he no longer wanted to be God to them, but because he was no longer their God. As a people, the people of God wandered further and further from God, and thus they broke the covenant, ultimately rejecting God altogether, even officially telling Samuel that they no longer wanted God to be their king, but instead having a king like all of the other nations.

We can learn, therefore, a few important lessons:

First, it is easy for us to be deceived. There are people and forces around us all of the time that want us to leave the path that God has laid out for us. They have their own agenda, and it is not aligned with what God has called us to do, nor who he has called us to be. We must not be mistrustful, but we must be wise.

Second, the first step in seeking wisdom is to go to God, especially about significant decisions. Especially where we aren’t sure. Especially where we could make a decision to go straight, to turn, to move in a new direction, we must seek God, consult him, listen to him, and then move forward in faith.

Third, we shouldn’t think that God is going to change his mind about what he has told us. In the case of the Israelites, God was clear in his instructions related to the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hivites. The Israelites were not to allow them to stay in the land so that they wouldn’t be pulled away from their relationship with Yahweh, the one true God.

And finally, and most importantly, we must stay in relationship with him. We must maintain our relationship with him. He is our creator. He is our savior. He is our king who wants only ultimate good for us. We must remain faithful to God, placing him in his proper position, and we in our proper position in our relationship and connection with him. This is our God and we must live for him, placing him at the highest place, with the highest value, over all things.

After Joshua and the Israelites had destroyed Jericho, it was clear to them that God had been with them and that they were now invincible. As the land of Canaan stood before them, they couldn’t imagine a scenario where they could be beaten. Jericho was one of the strongest cities that they had ever seen, and would ever see, and that city fell before them to nothing more than a pile of rubble. What else did they need to know other than with God on their side, they could do anything and everything?!?

There was nothing that could stop them.

And they were correct, except that there was one among them who had been disobedient from what God had commanded them to do. Achan had seen the silver, the gold, and beautiful items from Babylon as they had gone in to destroy Jericho, and so he took those items and hid them in his tent for himself.

As Israel went out to fight against the next small city, the city of Ai, they were defeated. In fact, they were routed and lost several men. And what was the culprit? What was the reason that they were so soundly beaten? Was it bad military strategy? Too small of a force that was sent?

No, it was none of these. It was that Israel had not remained faithful to the Lord and his covenant with his people:

The LORD said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? 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. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

Joshua 7:10-12

God’s covenant with his people requires that they also be faithful to the covenant. God will remain faithful. He will continue to be the God of his people and his people will continue to be his. However, as God made his covenant with Israel he said that they must obey him. They must do as he says. They must follow his law, his ways. Not their own, but his.

This is the reason that the Israelites were defeated. They didn’t remain faithful to God’s word, to his covenant.

We cannot dictate to God the way in which he will be our God and we will be his people. We cannot come to him on our terms. No, he is the king. He is the creator. He is the one who rules and reigns over all of the universe. The Israelites learned this lesson that day, and even the sin of one man caused him to lose his own life and cost the nation of Israel the lives of several others as well as they went to war with Ai in the midst of even one of them being disobedient to the Lord who was leading them.

It is important to remember that we also live under a covenant. Jesus made a new covenant with his people, that through his blood we can be forgiven of our sins. Those that place their faith in Christ can be brought into a right relationship with God. They can stand before God, having been reconciled back to him through the blood of Jesus.

In this way, and only in this way, can we enter into this new covenant. We come to God through the blood of Christ. Jesus is the one way, and the only way, that we can come to God.

But let’s be clear… Jesus didn’t just call us to put our faith in his blood. Yes, he has saved us from the wrath of God, but he also has called us, and continues to call us each day, to place him at the very highest priority of our lives. Just like the treasure in the field that was worth selling everything else to be able to buy the field. Just like the pearl of great price that was worth selling it all to buy the pearl. Just like the rich, young ruler who Jesus told to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor. Christ’s calls us to run to him, to leave everything else behind. Nothing else is more important than our relationship with Christ. Nothing.

Jesus said that if we love him, we will obey his commandments.

And then he told his disciples to go and teach others to obey everything that he commanded them.

He wants his disciples to love him, to glorify him, and to teach others to do the same.

This is the life of a disciple of Christ. Not simply saying that you are a Christian. Not just going to church. No, it is a life that is given fully to Christ, that places him at the highest place, that gives him the love, honor, and glory that he deserves. This is the Lord that we serve and this is the life that he calls us to live for him. All of us…given completely to him…at all times.

In reality, nothing has changed. God expected his people, the Israelites, to give themselves fully to him, and in the same way, he expects us, his people today in and through Christ, to give ourselves fully to him. He expects us to live out his covenant and in this way he will be our God and we will be his people.

As we go out, or as we send people out to share their testimonies or share the Gospel with others, it can sometimes feel as if we are going into battle. The world is out there and it is spiritually, philosophically, and in nearly every other way, against the reign and rule of king Jesus. As a result, while we may find some that will receive us, we find many others who are against us.

While it may feel like a battle to us, in reality, the battle is not truly ours to fight. Yes, we have a role to play, but we are not the main actors. We are not the main warriors.

There is, instead, one primary warrior: Christ himself. He is the king and the king desires to take more and more “territory” for himself. Every king does, but specifically this king is not interested in sharing his glory with anyone else. As workers within his kingdom, he sends us to find those whom the Father is calling to come to Christ. We don’t yet know who they are, but we are sent to sow the seed of the Gospel so that we can find them.

I was reminded of this feeling and the ownership of the battle today as I read the story of Joshua. Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River and then consecrated the people to God’s covenant through circumcision once again, and once that was done, he went to look at his first challenge, his first battle. And it was a big one.

As Joshua stood looking at the city of Jericho, it was easy to understand that this would be an impossible task. The walls were so high and the gates were so strong. How could the Israelites possibly take on this city? The Israelites were simply a wandering nation in the desert, living in tents. How could they stand up against such a defensive force as these great walls of Jericho?

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, an angel of the Lord appears to Joshua. He had his sword drawn and he was ready to go to battle.

“Good news!”, Joshua might have thought. An angel of the Lord is here to fight our battles with us. God has sent an even greater, even more superior force that can help us take on these great walls of Jericho. So Joshua asks the angel:

What message do you have for me?

I would think that Joshua would have imagined that the angel would have answered that he was there to kick the doors down at the front gate of Jericho. Or that he would destroy these walls or that the angels would sweep through the streets of Jericho to destroy these people.

But the angel doesn’t say any of these things. No, instead, with his sword in his hand, the angel takes a completely different tact:

The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Joshua 5:15

The place that Joshua was standing, that which is both the promised land to the Israelites, but also currently enemy territory, is holy ground. Instead of giving Joshua a victory speech, instead of immediately giving him the plan, instead of calling him to arms, he has him first recognize that this battle is the Lord’s. Yes, the Israelites will have a part to play in taking the city of Jericho, but like the Israelites’ exit from Egypt, the battle is God’s battle to fight.

This is critically important for us to remember as we meet people with whom we are sharing the Gospel. We must be obedient to go into the empty fields and sow the seed. If we do not go, we will not put ourselves in a place in which God can do the work that he intends to do through us. Yet on the other hand, we must also remember that this “battle” is the Lord’s battle. All of the true work is his. All of the real power comes from him. Everything that we do is in concert with him. It has little to do with us. We are the instruments in his hand. These interactions have everything to do with the Lord.

We must recognize that each place that we go is holy ground and we worship him as we go.

In order to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not be willing to allow the Israelites to go out into the wilderness to offer sacrifices and worship to their God. Moses had originally only requested a couple of days that they would go out to have a festival, but that refusal to allow them to do it subsequently brought the Israelites out of Egypt as Pharaoh would eventually tell the Israelites to leave.

This was all part of God’s plan, of course. God’s intent was that the Israelites would not only leave Egypt, but this would be used for an even greater purpose: that God would be known and glorified throughout the earth.

For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Romans 9:17

This is exactly what happened. The story of God destroying the Egyptians, the story of God parting the Red Sea, the story of God saving his people out of Egypt came to be known far and wide. God had saved his people, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt, to be set free, having destroyed one of the most dominant countries in the process. That story, of course, is one that would get out. This story had to be told, and it was destined to speak not only of the Israelites, but primarily of their God, the God that they followed and served. It was God’s power that led them and it would be God’s power of which the people all over the face of the earth would speak, both immediately and for centuries to come.

When the Israelites arrived in the promised land, the land of Canaan, the people knew that these were the same people who had been brought out of Egypt 40 years before. They knew that these were the same people who had destroyed some other cities on their way to cross the Jordan River. They knew that they these people were coming for them.

It is ironic, of course, because 40 years prior, the Israelites had cowered in fear, saying that they considered themselves to be like “grasshoppers” in their own eyes as they compared themselves to the people in Canaan.

The Canaanites understood what the Israelites seemingly did not understand, though. They understood that it wasn’t the power of the Israelites that made them powerful. No, it was God’s power as the God of the Israelites that allowed the Israelites to do what they had been doing. God himself was their source of strength. Not themselves. God.

So as the Canaanites saw the Israelites coming, their hearts melted. They were afraid. They were terrified, in fact. Of course the Israelites didn’t understand that, but once they arrived to Jericho and spoke with Rahab, they understood:

I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

Joshua 2:8-11

Rahab isn’t talking about the Israelites, necessarily. Yes, the Israelites were the ones who escaped Egypt. They also had the armies that destroyed Sihon and Og. But Rahab is talking about God. He is the God of heaven above and earth below. He is the God who dried up the water of the Red Sea. He is the God who did all of these things for the Israelites. Without him, the Israelites would be able to do nothing. But with him, they were unstoppable.

God does all that he does so that he will be glorified. God does everything to glorify himself. There is nothing greater than God and for him to lift up and glorify anyone or anything else would simply be idolatry, but God’s intent is that he would be glorified, both by his own people and throughout the whole earth.

That is his same intent and same plan even today. We have been made to glorify God. Our plans, our movements, our work, our play…everything that we do should be aimed at glorifying God. That is the reason that he made us and that should be the reason that we live.

That is what happened as God led the Israelites out of Egypt. God was made known everywhere and was glorified as the God of the universe, the king and ruler over all things. That fact may have, at times, been forgotten, or possibly was denied along the way, but it has been known and is still known today. This is the God that we serve. The same God that led the Israelites. The same God that Rahab and all of the Canaanites instinctively knew about having seen what God had done through the Israelites, and this is the same God that we serve today.

Did we receive a new law, a new set of rules from God when we followed Jesus? Or do we continue to look back to the Ten Commandments, to the laws that God has given us and follow those? Should we follow all of the Jewish laws? Or maybe, instead, none of them? This is a little confusing…

Paul explains to Timothy that there will be people who will come and teach others to abandon the freedom that we have been given in Christ. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus opened the door for us to live for him, to live freely without being burdened by the written law, yet there will be those who will come to tell us and teach that we have received rules and laws that we must follow:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 4:1-5

But wait, do we not have to follow the rules that God has made for his people? Or, maybe instead, did Jesus give us a new law that we have to follow?

What are the rules???!!!???

To answer this, let’s spend a moment to think about what Jesus has done for us. Through his death and resurrection, he opened the way for us to be reconciled back to God. He is the perfect sacrifice for our sins and he is the life in which we can place our faith so that we also may live, live forever with him, an eternal life.

But as we stand before God, the way that we are identified by God as having been reconciled back to him is that we have been given the Holy Spirit. As we believe and place our faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, saving us from God’s wrath and punishment, he gives us his Holy Spirit and we become the “temple”, the dwelling place for the Spirit of God. As God looks at each of us, he either sees his Spirit within us, or he does not. He either sees that we have been sealed in him by the Spirit for eternal life, or he does not.

It is this life by the Holy Spirit that makes all of the difference. As the Spirit comes within me, he changes me. Both in that singular moment of salvation where my fundamental priorities are changed as well as over the rest of my life where I learn to live out that change that God has made in me. The Spirit changes me so that I can learn to live this new life that God has given to me.

Jeremiah described this work that God has done within us as he talked about a new covenant that God would make with his people. He specifically refers to the people of Israel in this passage, but this can also be understood to describe God’s relationship with the rest of us Gentiles – non-Jews – as well:

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the LORD.

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

Jeremiah 31:31-33

The people of Israel had broken the Lord’s covenant. The covenant that God had made with his people was that if they, his people, would obey his commandments, God would be their God and they would be his people.

But that didn’t happen. The Israelites did not keep God’s covenant. They didn’t obey God’s commandments.

So God makes a new declaration. He declares that the Israelites had broken his covenant and that covenant is no longer in force. Instead, God will make a new covenant with his people. It will be a type of “new” Israel. Not in the ethnic sense, nor in the national sense of the Israel. But in a spiritual sense.

This new covenant won’t be a covenant based on the laws that God will have written down and given to his people. No, instead, it will be a covenant based on the laws that God will write onto their minds and their hearts.

No, not on pen on paper. Not words etched into stone tablets. This law willl be placed in their minds and on their hearts.

How is that possible?

This is the nature of the work that God does within us by his Spirit. The Spirit of God makes us come spiritually alive before God and God identifies us as his own. By his Spirit, we are identified as God’s people. Not by his laws and keeping the laws that have been written down, but instead by keeping the “laws” of the Spirit that have been written on our hearts and minds.

This seems nearly impossible to understand. If God hasn’t written down his laws for me to follow, how can I know what to do? This is where we need to understand the difference that it makes that we produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

What do we mean when we talk about the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Since we have the Spirit of God within us, we should be guided and act throughout our lives, living by the Spirit. So therefore, these characteristics should be consistently evident in our lives:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

If I claim to be a believer in Christ, and I believe I should, therefore, have the Holy Spirit living within me, I should be regularly asking myself: Am I showing love in this situation, with this person, right now? Do have an attitude of joy? Or peace? Am I demonstrating self-control? These are questions that I can easily ask myself to understand whether or not I am listening to, and living by, the Holy Spirit living within me.

But let’s also notice that last sentence: Against such things there is no law.

If we are living by the work of the Holy Spirit within our lives, we are, for example, loving other people. If I am loving other people, what does that look like?

I’m not jealous of them or trying to take advantage of them.

I’m not stealing from them.

I’m not lying to them.

I’m not trying to hurt or kill them.

Those are all basic commandments from the law. Just by truly loving another person, I am therefore, naturally, fulfilling the law. I don’t need the law because I am already doing what the law says to do. And that is just in talking about the fruit of love. We haven’t even yet started to talk yet about how our lives would change if we were to demonstrate joy, peace, patience, kindness, or any of the other fruits of the Spirit.

Let’s return, then, back to Paul’s original statement to Timothy, urging him to understand, and subsequently tells him to keep teaching, that people should remain within the freedom that they were given in Christ. By remaining in Christ, they remain free. The law no longer rules over them because they have, in Christ, died to it. They are no longer subject to the law. They have a new life, under the new covenant, with the law written on their minds and their hearts, the “law” of the Spirit that produces the fruit of the Spirit, thus needing no law.

Paul says, though, that those that will come and teach about the things that they shouldn’t eat, or shouldn’t touch, or shouldn’t do, are demonic. Wow! Why such a strong statement?

Paul is so direct and so strong about this because these teachings attempt to neuter or nullify the work of God through Christ on the cross. Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice, the most precious gift imaginable. He is himself God and yet he gave his life, taking the sins of all men upon himself. He is life and yet, without deserving death, died in our place.

And so now, therefore, Paul is now declaring that it is demonic to deny the power of Christ’s death and resurrection by teaching and claiming that the way to be redeemed back to God is by following some rules. That is what it means that we must obey the law: We must follow the rules so that God will be pleased with us and let us into heaven.

Paul is urging Timothy to continue to encourage each person to remain in their faith in Christ and not fall back into these old patterns of being subject, in fact of being slaves, to the rules. He is urging Timothy to encourage the church to continue to follow Christ, having been set free from the law, having been set free from sin and death, and most importantly, having been given the Holy Spirit through which they would produce the fruit of the Spirit, thus not only fulfilling the requirements of the law as they go forward, but so much more.

Over the last several days as we have worked through our daily reading, there have been a few statements from Paul’s letters to the churches or to his leaders that have been a little bit confusing. They have caused me to go back to do some digging, some research, some work to understand what is being said.

This one is one of those.

Paul is writing to Timothy, talking about some of the practical outworking of living for Christ. He speaks first of the men, that they should be men of prayer and worship. Paul says that they should lift up holy hands, meaning that they should be praying to and worshiping God, looking to the Lord and depending on him for their provision, their protection, and for all that they need.

Paul then speaks of women saying that they should dress with modesty and decency, focusing instead on their inner character instead of upon superficial beauty. He also goes on to speak of the need for the woman to submit to her husband and remain in quiet humility.

But then, at the end of the discussion about women, Paul says something strange about salvation for women:

But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

1 Timothy 2:15

In context, Paul says that Eve was the one that was deceived in the Garden of Eden, but he says that Eve will be saved through childbearing. In trying to understand this better, I learned that this could probably best be translated more literally from Greek as…

“saved in the childbirth”

…instead of “saved through childbearing”. That may seem like a small difference, but I think it helps bring some more clarity and context to what is being discussed here.

First, the scene that Paul is referring to is that of the Garden of Eden. He says that Eve was deceived and became a sinner, but that women, the descendents of Eve, will be saved in the childbirth.

Which childbirth? Does Paul mean that women will be saved by having children?

No, this isn’t speaking of having children, and therefore by having children women can be saved from the wrath of God. All men and women, as the rest of the word of God proclaims, must come to God through Jesus in faith and receive forgiveness in through him. Only through him.

So what is this discussion, then, of childbirth? It is referring to the very first proclamation of the Gospel.

Where do we find that? We have to go back to the Garden of Eden:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me —she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Genesis 3:8-15

As God comes into the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he first calls for Adam, then Eve, and finally the serpent. God pronounces his punishment for their rebellion and disobedience upon each one of them, but within this first pronouncement for the serpent, we see a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah:

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.

Genesis 3:15

So the woman and the serpent will be enemies, but even more importantly, we see that the woman’s offspring and that of the serpent will also be enemies.

But then the pronoun related to the “offspring” of the woman changes. It says he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

This is a prophecy of that which will come to pass approximately 4000 years later as Jesus, the Son of God and the prophecied Messiah, takes the punishment for sin upon himself on the cross, then subsequently defeats death by resurrecting from the grave three days after his death. Jesus crushes the head of the serpent in the sense that he has stripped Satan of his ultimate power to destroy by luring people into sin and death. And even further, Jesus seals Satan’s ultimate fate to be banished to hell forever.

Even though the serpent will strike and bruise the heel of the offspring of the woman, Jesus himself, Jesus will crush the head of the serpent.

If you have ever seen the opening scene of the Passion of the Christ, the destruction of Satan, the crushing of the head of the serpent, is what the scene is dramatically attempting to show:

Jesus is the offspring of the woman. She is a human being, so her offspring, referred to as a “he”, is a man, so Jesus must be a man. Yes, in essence he is God, but he is also a human being, a man. He must be a man to fulfill this prophecy.

So as we look back to what Paul tells Timothy, that the woman will be saved in the childbirth, we see that he is referring to the man that would come from the woman. The Holy Spirit would come upon, or “overshadow” Mary, and she would give birth, despite being a virgin, to the one who would come to save all people. He would be called the Son of God and would be both God and a man.

So women will be saved by the childbirth. By the child that was born, Jesus himself, women and men and all who call upon him will be saved.