Title: Explore Your Life!
Contents
Joshua 2:1-12, 22-24
Today, I'm going to talk about the topic of exploring the 'remaining life'. In fact, no one knows how long we will live from now on. In Psalm 90, he asked us to teach us how to count our days. It's not about asking how many years you'll live, it's about realizing that your days depend on God and not living without God or wasting it in vain.
Let's all look at verse 1. Joshua sends two men to spy out. I am giving you a special order to inspect the land, Canaan, and return, especially Jericho, focusing on your exploration and return. It is to carefully examine the land to be conquered. It's a matter of going ahead and looking at everything.
If you look at the contrast between Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 1 deals with the question of faith. The most necessary thing when entering the land of Canaan is faith. Boldness. Encouragement. It's a scam scam. And passion. All of this is a matter of the mind. However, Chapter 2 becomes calm and insidious. Let them explore the land quietly. Thoroughly research, analyze, and weigh winning and losing problems. Here we learn that faith is about thinking and planning with a warm heart and at the same time calming down. Joshua sends the two men to spy in a very secret way.
Verse 1, to peek at the land, is to take a look around and analyze where you are weak, where you will have a chance to win if you attack what, and where you will have the strongest resistance. The fact that Joshua sent spies instead of attacking right after the end of Chapter 1 to attack Jericho shows that we need a clear analysis of the rest of our lives, where we must attack and win.
We tend to be in too much of a hurry to target our attacks and not do enough analysis. There is a land we need to spy out now, which is the rest of the life the Lord has given us. Where are you going to focus? Where are the vulnerable areas? Why should we specifically spy out Jericho? This is because without conquering Jericho, any land of Canaan cannot be conquered. I think each of us has our own Jericho to conquer. If you lose that war, you lose all other battles.
Gordon Macdonald calls it a sinkhole. Each person has a unique puddle where they fall and fall because there is a hole in the hole when they go down the path of my life. It can be called a battleground in my inner battle, but the problem is that I know that it is the best battleground, so I have to scout, analyze, and prepare countermeasures.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you look at the entire 2nd chapter, Joshua told you to spy out the land and Jericho, but it was only Jericho that the two spies came to inspect. There is no mention of any other land. what do you mean? If you capture one of the most important Warfronts, you win the rest of the battle. We must scout and analyze the battlefields we must fight and win.
However, during a very meticulous spying, Joshua's spies hear surprising things. These are the things God did for the people of Canaan. Surprisingly, the two spies hear of what God is doing from the people of Jericho. The words that came out of Rahab the prostitute are truly amazing. What is really surprising to us is how since when did Rahab the prostitute of Jericho develop her faith in the Lord, the God of Israel.
Verses 9-13 are Rahab's confession of faith in a crisis situation. Judging from that confession, it seems that Rahab's conversion to the faith of the Lord was probably the time when Israel came out of Egypt when Almighty God dried up the Red Sea. That was 40 years ago, and if Rahab is now working as a prostitute, even if she is 40, the time of the Exodus must be when Rahab was born. But if Rahab is in her 30s now, the Exodus incident would have happened 10 years before Rahab was born.
Anyway, how old Rahab is now is not important, nor is it of interest to the Bible, but the important thing is that at least two very dreadful news were flowing through the people of Jericho. One is the terrifying news that the Israeli army is coming out of Egypt and attacking the land of Canaan through the wilderness, and the other is that the name of their god who performs miracles and performs power at the forefront of the fearful army is Jehovah.
What is very interesting is how the two spies entered the house of the prostitute Rahab when they infiltrated Jericho, and how the name of Rahab, a woman who lived the lowest and most immoral life at a time when the entire city of Jericho was destroyed without a name Whether it is in the Bible or not. Although it is not today?셲 topic, when I think of Rahab, even if the entire city I live in falls down, even if the whole country I belong to is destroyed and devastated, I can be saved in an amazing way when my amazing confession of faith in Jehovah God is clear Rahab shows.
From the standpoint of Jericho, which is about to be destroyed, Rahab's attitude and actions are very reprehensible. He hid a spy, deliberately outrun the Jericho soldiers, and asked the spies for his life. It was a patriotic act and a miraculous act, but the biblical ethics is always what kind of action is on God's side! Rahab's lie should not be used as a basis for telling lies in our daily life, but it should be viewed as an active act of raising our hand on God's side in such an extreme crisis situation.
Verse 9, in Rahab's confession, that Jericho had already been placed in the hands of Israel, and that Jericho people were so afraid that it was melting. There is. It is in a state of melting. The dissolution of fear with fear refers to a state of defeatism in which you have completely lost your will and realized that you can't fight at all. Who gave this fear and melting heart to the people of Jericho? Is it Joshua? Is it Israel? The warrior of Israel is Jehovah God.
Why does God tell Joshua in chapter 1 to be not afraid, be not dismayed, be strong and courageous? Because God has already made fear flow throughout Canaan, especially in Jericho, the first battlefield. The most important thing in spiritual warfare is who you are afraid of. When you rely only on my own strength, you have no choice but to lose. A powerful general comes out and fights for me! This long-lived man is the Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of all, who shall be victorious under the heavens!
In verse 10, the people of Jericho heard very surprising news about the God of Israel, Jehovah God. The God of Jehovah not only had the power to dry up the sea, but he was also a god capable of fighting in the wilderness. If it's enough to punish Egypt, it's really great. However, it is very shocking that the two kings of the Amorite army, Sihon and Og, were simply crushed beyond the Jordan.
The Canaan are the people who flourished the iron culture, so their weapons of war are made of iron. Israel is a herding culture, so at best the weapons are staffs and sticks. But I was amazed at how they annihilated an army of Amorites armed with sledgehammers with wooden sticks. In verse 11, when Jericho heard the news of the annihilation of Sihon and the two kings of Og, he was so afraid that he lost consciousness. Not because of Israel, but for Jehovah, who fights for Israel. Their god is too great and terrifying. The LORD your God is the Almighty, who wields one hand in the heavens and the earth, not only above the heavens, but also under the earth!
In verses 23 and 24, we see the report of the spies. Let's read verse 24 together. I don't think this statement is specific to Joshua's armies. Because the land of Canaan was not only promised to the people of Israel, but also the most abundant life flowing with milk and honey to you and me as the armies of Jesus Christ. We want to explore the rest of our lives with these words. It is to check two things.
First, what is Jericho that I need to explore most thoroughly in my spiritual warfare? What issues should we focus our energy on the most? And second, what has our God already done in our path? One is our work, the other is God's work.
The order of conquest of the land of Canaan is from Jericho. Crossing the Jordan River is Jericho. That is the Central War of Canaan. And attack the South. Finally, beat the North to win. I need to have a clear strategy on where to focus my main force in my life. Joshua's army has not yet tasted the ultimate victory. The climax of life still remains. Forty years ago, ten spies under the leadership of Moses had limited God fighting within them. As a result, they wander in the wilderness until they die without reaching the climax of their lives, and they do not enjoy the promised land.
I'm trying to take a leap forward by breaking my life into 20-year increments. I look forward to how abundant life you will experience from now on. I started Heavenly Gate Church at the age of 45. My vision is to reveal to the world what the healthiest and most prosperous Christianity is and what such a church looks like. I don't know how long I will live. It was said that the outward person is depraved. Those over the age of 50 will realize that our body's machinery becomes outdated and aging, and our intelligence gradually declines. My eyes are getting blurry little by little. There are little signs here and there. But it doesn't really matter. The inner person is being renewed day by day.
The important question is this. Where should I focus in this spiritual battle? And what did God do in this battle? One is an analysis of my inner battle, and one is that the warrior of this battle does someone else. For me, expanding the capacity of my mind is the subject of the biggest fight. Being patient with everyone, with compassion, without judging my own way, broadening me in the way of others is the oldest subject.
It is very difficult for me to expand the capacity towards people who approach without common sense and blindly, and those who break through without a road. For some people, people are good, but their sense of responsibility is weak, so they always fail, collapse, and fall. Some people, fear, always withdrawn, do not win the battle. must be analyzed. I need to explore my Jericho.
But what do we realize as we thoroughly explore? It is a fact that our God has already sent fear to the land and has prepared everything to overcome us in that battle. We are not alone. Our God is a God who promises victory.