How to be tricked into losing

The book of Joshua chronicles the exciting story of the children of Israel who, after 400 years of bondage in Egypt are now are conquering the land that God has given them. Joshua has become their new leader. They cross the Jordan and using a new military procedure (march around the city seven times, blow the trumpets and the walls collapse) take the city of Jericho. However, trouble due to Achan’s sin arises and Ai is not as easy. It takes a second surge before it falls, so perhaps Israel has learned its lesson to listen to God who is directing the campaign. Well, that would be best, but then they are deceived by the Gibeonites who manage to survive by pretending to have come from a distant land and under false pretense make a peace treaty. The problem is that God had told the Israelites to wipe out everybody as they moved forward. The army had been victorious at Jericho because they did exactly what God told them to do (and winning by waiting for the walls of a city to fall down is a bit exotic). They fudged a bit at Ai because, thinking it was a push over, they sent in only a small force.
       So what was going wrong in the campaign? Joshua gives us the answer in 9:14 – the Israelites “did not inquire of the Lord.” Counting on their own resources they didn’t bother to check in with God. And that has been the believer’s path to defeat in our spiritual battles from the beginning. Proud and obstinate in our own ability we charge ahead . . . and . . . go down in defeat. We are the proud warriors who have just taken Jericho and believe that Ai is a push over only to find out when we try to do it on our own we get shellacked every time. The simple secret for victory in spiritual warfare – and Eph. 6:12 tells us it’s going on all the time in a believer’s life – is to “inquire of the Lord.” How good of God to always be at hand with the answer for every difficulty we encounter in life. But – and here is where we make our big mistake – our old nature is so clever in encouraging us to believe that we can handle this next little project that we head out unprepared for conflict. But it doesn’t work. After all Satan has been about his nefarious business for a long time. And he is a defeated enemy (it happened on the cross) and has no power other than the freedom we give him. It’s always the right time to “inquire of the Lord.” He’s right there with the solution that works, but we have to ask him for us. As a wise old sage once told us, “God is a gentleman and won’t break into your party; you have to invite him.”