Lessons from Joshua: Leadership, Prayer, and Trust

In this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, the hosts discuss Joshua chapters 9 to 11. They delve into Joshua's first failure of leadership, emphasizing the importance of consulting the Lord, and how neglecting to do so led to significant consequences. They also explore the continuation of Israel's conquests, God's role in guiding and delivering victories, and the importance of trusting in the Lord over material resources like horses. An insightful discussion follows on biblical commands and their broader implications, concluding with a reflection on how these lessons apply to modern-day faith.

00:00 Introduction and Technical Difficulties

00:13 Busy Weekend Ahead

01:24 Joshua's First Leadership Failure

01:47 The Gibeonite Deception

02:56 The Importance of Seeking God's Wisdom

04:43 Conquest Continues: Five Kings Defeated

07:57 Joshua's Northern Campaign

09:32 Ethical Dilemmas in Warfare

12:40 Conclusion and Prayer

12:57 Outro and Podcast Information

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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Hey, hey, hey.

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I don't think you're on, man.

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I think you're muted.

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Hey, hey, hey, hey.

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Is what he said though?

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Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

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There.

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There it is.

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There it's, and another one.

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So, yeah, welcome back.

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We're back.

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We're in office.

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We are a little bit briefer on

the last few episodes, and and

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we will just show our hand here.

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We've got a busy Saturday in front

of us, and, we've got a window

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to, to record our podcast and some

different things going on this weekend.

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In fact, good things

going on this weekend.

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One of our other churches is moving

towards growing and replicating

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and considering planting and

they're praying through that.

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And so we're hosting some

people in town that are I.

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Here to see what God has done with us and

how we've gone through the ups and downs

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and lessons that we've learned and good

things and bad things, all of the above.

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And so we are hosting them soon

this afternoon on Saturday.

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And so that's why we're moving

through these with a little bit more

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rapidity perhaps than we typically do.

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Yeah.

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We'll be long-winded and

excessive in our googly tomorrow.

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Yes.

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We'll try our best to make sure that

you get all the googly back that

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you missed these last three days.

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Yeah.

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Somebody did ask me though,

if we plan our googly.

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And I said no, not typically.

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I think a lot of what we do is like jazz.

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There is a plan where we're going 'cause

the chapters are right in front of us.

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True.

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So much of it is just solo jazz.

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It's avant garde and sometimes we're

just right throwing stuff out there.

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So no, we don't, I.

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It's fully and purely comedic

gold on our part sometimes.

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And sometimes it's oh, dead air.

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What do we do?

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Do we recover from this?

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Yeah.

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Anyways, we're gonna jump in.

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We're gonna get into Joshua

nine, 10, and 11 here.

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Three chapters today, not four,

not five, not six just three.

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But Joshua nine, Joshua's first

failure of leadership shows up here.

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We just mentioned in at the end of

yesterday's podcast that he's a good

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guy with not a lot of faults, but

here, this is one that he makes that

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is, is somewhat glaring and it's a.

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It's a big one too.

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And the failure comes not in an open sin

that he commits, but in a sin of omission.

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Really.

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So Israel's taking names and they're going

around and they're beating everybody up

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and they're defeating and they're winning

all these battles and word gets out.

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And this one particular group called

the Gibeonites, they hear about this

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and they realize that they're gonna

be on the hit list at some point.

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And so they.

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Out of their own cunning, they decide

we need to act like we're from a far

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way away and make a treaty and alliance.

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And so you can read it for

yourself, what they do.

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But this is a wise group of people

there in the Canaanite territory.

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And they come and the fault is that

Joshua and the leaders failed to.

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Consult the Lord the gibbon night

show up and they say, Hey, we

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wanna make a treaty with you.

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And in verse 14 it says There, so the

men took some of their provisions,

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but did not ask counsel from the Lord.

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And that's the death and all right there.

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That's the grave mistake that Joshua

makes here instead of going to the

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Lord as Moses had done before and as he

had even had done time and time again.

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He doesn't do that here.

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He relies on his own wisdom instead

of the wisdom of God and his own

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wisdom gets him where our o our.

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Own wisdom so often does get

us, and that is into trouble

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when it comes to the Lord here.

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So unfortunate situation

here in Joshua chapter nine.

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Yeah, I could say that again.

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The difficulty is that I think all of us

can see ourselves in Joshua, where we've

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made a decision, we've said something

off the cuff, we're not thinking about

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it, and we haven't prayed about something

that's important, easy when we have

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these really big decisions ahead of us.

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And I suppose this is one of those,

this is a big decision that just.

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They forgot to do this.

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They forgot to pray to the Lord.

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There's a lot of things though,

that our lives would do better if

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we sought the Lord's wisdom on it.

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It doesn't take a 10 hour block of prayer.

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We could be much briefer in our

dependence on the Lord, and I

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think that would do us well.

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We could serve ourselves much

better and others if we became

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better people of prayer.

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Seeking the Lord's wisdom on things.

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Yeah.

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What is it that that

Paul Miller calls those?

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Is it the shotgun prayers?

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I forget what he calls those.

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Yeah.

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But yeah, the in intermediate

now there's a name for that.

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I'll look it up.

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Yeah.

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It's where you're, yeah.

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You sometimes you do have the five, 10

minutes to pray more prolonged about

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a particular situation, but sometimes

you've got a meeting happening and

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you're, you learn something new right

before that meeting and you need to pray.

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30 seconds before somebody walks into

the, to the door and sits down with you.

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That those types of prayers it hopefully

should become second nature to us.

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And that's what I want more of in my

life is just that dependency on prayer

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to go, okay I'm gonna think to pray

more than I'm gonna think, not to

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pray and and have those opportunities.

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I think that's a good

encouragement for us on that.

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I agree with that and I can't find it.

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I was just trying to Google it,

but we all know the difference, the

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prayers where you're sitting down,

spending time with the Lord, and

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then the prayers where they're just

in the middle of the day quick.

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Maybe not even verbal,

they're just in your mind.

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That's what we're talking about.

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Yeah.

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Proverbs three, five and six, trust

in the Lord with all your heart.

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Do not lean on your own understanding.

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I think that's a takeaway here from this

is I think Joshua and his fellow leaders

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in Israel, they're leaned on their own

understanding much to their detriment

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here, instead of trusting the Lord

and seeking him going, wait a minute,

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this looks one way, but let's validate

this before we, we make a decision.

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Chapter 10, then the conquest goes on

in, in spite of all this, the Lord is

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not saying, okay, I'm done with you guys.

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I'm throwing you in the trash can note

the con conquest is gonna continue, and in

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this chapter, the conquest reaches beyond

the, obviously the gibeonites here, but

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there's now five kings that are gonna show

up and they're gonna attack the Gibbon

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Uniteds because they're upset that the

Gibbon Knights have this alliance now

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with Israel and these five kings show up.

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And the Gibbon Knights then appeal

to Israel and the treaty that was.

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The ink was still fresh on this treaty.

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They say, Hey, we need help.

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And so the Lord's guidance

leads Joshua this time.

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He is learning from his mistake to

go against these five kinks, and he

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wins this decisive victory, which

culminates in their execution and

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the public display of their corpses.

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From there we, we find an itinerary

of all the various towns and

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peoples that Joshua defeats as

the Lord gave them into his hand.

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A couple things of note here, some,

somebody asked me the other day about the.

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The line in Leviticus where cursed

is the man who's hanged on a tree.

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And he said, we made a comment about

how that's pointed to the cross.

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And he said, help me, understand that.

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Is that because they were cursing

them by putting them on the tree?

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And the answer is no.

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In fact, a lot of times, and

we see it here, these were dead

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bodies that were put on the tree.

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This isn't necessarily the execution rack.

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This isn't the right.

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Crucifixion the way we think about

it, but it's applied by Paul to the

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crucifixion there in Galatians three.

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But the other thing I want you to

note here is one of the kings who

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is executed here is the king of the

Jebe sites, king of the Jebb sites.

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The reason why that matters is the Jebe

sites were the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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Now Jerusalem is not gonna

be taken by Joshua here.

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This is five Kings coming

to battle with their armies.

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But these are not all five

territories that he is

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conquering with these five kings.

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He's fighting a battle

out in neutral ground.

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It seems to be here.

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And yes, he's gonna, he's gonna kill

these kings and he's gonna take them

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out, but he's not necessarily gonna

take out all of these peoples just yet.

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And the JBU sites are one example of why

we know that, because they're still gonna

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be in Jerusalem until David's era even.

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They pose a problem for

both Judah and for Benjamin.

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In fact, their jebusite, the

Jebusite territory, gbu Jerusalem

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is how we understand it was given

to both of them as an inheritance.

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And eventually the Benjamin

Knights, it seems give up

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entirely trying to get the land.

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And then Judah takes it over and they're

far more successful in the future.

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And they do that actually

through David's leadership.

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But yeah, this is a really interesting

insight here from this particular chapter.

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There's so many different.

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Elements that are hard to wrap your

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reading this and trying to say,

okay, how do I put this together?

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But I think the important thing is what's

happening is that God is leading them

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to execute his justice, his judgment.

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Don't forget that's what's happening here.

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This is not just them

committing genocidal acts.

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I know that word is often thrown

around and apply to God's people.

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That's not what this is here.

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God is the judge.

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He's making righteous decrees.

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And of course, remember the Canaanites

are guilty of some of the worst atrocities

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that are even really hard to say on the

podcast because of how bad they are.

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So God is executing his judgment.

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He's using Israel as the means and the

tool for by which he's doing that, and he

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is also delivering them at the same time.

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And the promised land that he's

given to them, this is their land.

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He's using them to judge.

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Eventually they're gonna secure

this, at least in part, which is also

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gonna be a conversation later on.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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This is the fun part.

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Not that the Torah is the knot, but

the historical books are, there's a

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lot of fun to be had in this stage of

Israel's history as it unfolds before us.

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Chapter 11, then Joshua concludes

the conquest here by taking

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the kings from the north and

defeating each of them in battle.

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So this chapter reveals to us that the

Lord had had taken an active role in this.

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We talked about middle knowledge.

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We won't.

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Drag that back up.

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But here we see actively God sovereignly,

intervening, hardening the hearts of these

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kings to incite them, even to go to battle

against Joshua, to perpetuate his plan.

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God's plan that is for cleansing the

land of the the sinfulness, the sinful

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nations and sinful people in there.

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Yeah, chapter 11 is the conclusion

of the high view, 30,000 foot view

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of the conquest of the promised land.

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Now again, this is not everybody,

they have not taken out everybody yet.

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There's still gonna be Philistine

armies, there's some others that they're

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gonna have to get to, but this is the

initial wave of the conquest that's

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coming to an end here in chapter 11.

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Yeah, this book moves quickly.

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We read a lot of these battles

and in our minds, they're

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stacks one next to the other.

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But what's happening here is

years of time there's time that's

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elapsing that doesn't feel that way

from the narrative that you read.

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We're gonna come soon to Joshua's

summation of the whole ordeal and

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say, basically, I'm older now.

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Here's, let me aot the land

and give you the territories.

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We've begun the work.

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You're gonna have to go and finish it.

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And it shows up on you quickly.

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You think, oh man I didn't realize

that we'd gone so far, so quickly and

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you have, part of the reason is that

you're reading four chapters at a

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time here, three chapters, and you're

just covering so much territory.

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So just keep the timeframe in mind

as best you're able and recognize

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God is working through them,

through years of work at this point.

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Yep.

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Yeah, that's it's hard to do because

we read it so quickly and we're used to

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more rapid fire concession, but yeah.

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So here's a question that comes

from what chapter am I looking at?

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This is chapter 11.

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Okay.

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We're covering 11 right now, right?

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Yep.

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We are so chapter 11.

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If you care about animals,

this might have bothered you.

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'cause it bothered me.

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Chapter 11, verse nine, I

know where you're going.

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Joshua did to them, just as a Lord

had said to him this, remember, this

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is what the, this is what God said.

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God said to Joshua

hamstring, their horses.

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Okay.

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Hamstring their horses.

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Alright.

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Keep that in mind.

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And then burn their chariots.

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Okay?

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That part I get.

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Let's burn their carrots.

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Let's destroy the vehicle by which they

wage war against us so that they're

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not able to do it again in the future.

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Which is also suggestive, unless

this is a total destruction for

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devoting devoting for destruction.

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This idea that it's given to the Lord.

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That makes sense.

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So the question then is, why does God

command that the horses be destroyed

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when the horses, they have no idea.

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They're not, they didn't sign up for it.

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They didn't, there wasn't a draft.

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They're like, Hey, I'm gonna go do that.

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What do you think about this Bob?

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And Bob says, that's a fantastic idea.

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You should definitely

join the Canon Knights.

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Why are the horses involved here?

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Do you have any thoughts about

this PPJ before I jump in and

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give what I think about it?

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Yeah I think.

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They're part of the military equipment.

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It's like today you'd go in

and you'd conquer a nation.

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You're gonna take out their weaponry.

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You're gonna take out Yeah.

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You pointed to the chariots, but you're

gonna take out the other things too.

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And today we don't rely on horses.

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But then they did.

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This was the primary

vehicle to transport troops.

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This was the part of the war.

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Force and mobilization efforts.

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And what they don't

kill the horses though.

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I don't know what they did with the

horses after the horses were hamstrung.

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Yeah.

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Hamstring them basically make,

makes them useless for pulling,

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dragging, carrying the chariots

forth and everything else like that.

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So I, we don't know what

they did with them from here.

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They were just taking them outta

commission when it comes to being

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something that could be used for war.

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And that's kinda why I think he, he does

it here, is he's preventing this from

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being something that they're gonna amass

them again and come back at Israel again.

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That's great.

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And I, and that's probably a large

part of what's happening here.

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He's disabling the engine, so to speak.

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Yeah.

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And that makes sense.

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And later on, I think it's David

who writes some trust in chariots

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and some in horses, but we trust

in the name of the Lord our God.

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So perhaps God also wanted to keep

it from being an idol to them.

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Yeah.

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Or a potential stumbling block for

them to say, oh, let me use his horse.

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And this is how God's gonna

give us victory in our battles,

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and we'll trust these things as

opposed to trusting in the Lord.

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There's also suggestions too,

that the Canaanites actually use

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their horses in their worship.

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That the horses themselves were

were part and parcel to their

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worship of their foreign deities.

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So I wonder, I wondered if

this is also a part of it.

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You're rendering impotent, not only the

war horse, but also the worship of that

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war horse or however they participated.

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So there's more than one layer to this.

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And if you care about animals,

you might read stuff like this

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and say, how barbaric, why

would God command this again?

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Remember, you're reading in 2025,

you're reading ancient material.

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And they didn't think

about it the same way.

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The same way we did.

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This is appropriate and right.

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And again, if God's commanding it,

it is God's command that makes it

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righteous and not our determination

that, oh, I see why God did that.

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That's righteous.

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No, it's God's decree that

makes things righteous.

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We submit to it and learn from it and

this is a wise and just use of God's.

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It's his creation.

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He could do with it what he pleases.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's helpful.

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And even Solomon is more than

Solomon, but Solomon failed at this.

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But the command was don't amass

horses for yourself to the kings.

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And probably to your point, so

that they're not trusting in the

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horses for their military prowess.

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They're trusting still in the Lord.

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And Solomon is gonna err in

that, in, in the wives as well.

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But, yeah.

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Alright, let's pray and then

we'll be done with this episode.

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God, we are grateful for your word

and for taking us through it again.

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Another three chapters.

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We should pray that it would bear

fruit in our lives, that we would

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ponder these things, that we would read

carefully, that we would read well,

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and that we would be encouraged by

our time in your word as your spirit

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takes it and applies it to our life.

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We pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Keep reading your Bibles tune

again tomorrow for another edition

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of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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See you.

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Bye.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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This is a ministry of Compass

Bible Church in north Texas.

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You can find out more information

about ourChurch@compassntx.org.

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We would love for you to leave a

review to rate to share this podcast

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on whatever platform you happen to

be listening on, and we will catch

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you against tomorrow for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.