The central theme of this discourse is the profound exploration of restoration following spiritual failure, as illustrated in Joshua chapter eight of the Bible. In this chapter, we witness the Israelites, having experienced defeat due to sin within their ranks, being called to repentance and subsequently receiving divine assurance of victory. Pastor Josh Massaro elucidates that, despite human shortcomings, God's unwavering presence and guidance remain steadfast, encouraging believers that they can reclaim their path through sincere repentance and adherence to His commandments. Through the lens of Joshua's leadership, we are reminded of the necessity of obedience to God's directives as the foundation for experiencing true success and fulfillment in our spiritual journey. This episode serves as an exhortation to embrace God's grace and actively engage in the restoration process, illustrating that even after setbacks, one can rise anew through faith in the Almighty.

Takeaways:

1. The podcast emphasizes the importance of following God's commandments to achieve true success and prosperity in life.
2. God's assurance to Joshua highlights the need for courage and strength in the face of adversity.
3. The narrative illustrates the consequences of sin within a community and the necessity of addressing such transgressions.
4. The discussion elucidates the process of repentance and restoration following spiritual defeat, underscoring God's unwavering support.
5. Victory is contingent upon obedience to God's word, as demonstrated by Israel's renewed success at AI after confronting their failures.
6. The episode concludes with a reminder that true success is defined by one's faithfulness to God's mission and teachings.

This podcast is produced by Ralph Estep, Jr., host of Financially Confident Christian, a daily podcast on Christian Finance you can find it at https://www.financiallyconfidentchristian.com

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

We're going to continue our study in the Book of Joshua.

If you have your Bibles turn there with me.

We're in Joshua, chapter eight.

But be ready to be flipping through the Book of Joshua, because we are going to refer back to a few other verses that I think can shed some light on what chapter eight's all about.

If you remember at the very beginning of the Book of Joshua, what was happening, Remember, Moses passes on.

He dies.

And remember who Moses was.

Moses was the leader of Israel.

Obviously, God's the leader of Israel, but human representative of God there in the nation of Israel was Moses.

And when Moses dies, certainly there was a need for new leadership to step up.

And God chose Joshua.

And Joshua has a lot to follow when it comes to the life of Moses.

Even though Moses was not perfect, he certainly was a great leader of Israel.

And Joshua steps on the scene.

And in Joshua chapter one, God assures Joshua of his presence and his power and his provision in his life.

And if you remember, back in Joshua chapter one, we see in verse number six, God began to challenge Joshua as a leader, and really by extension, challenging the whole nation of Israel.

But he says in verse number six of Joshua, chapter one, be strong and of a good courage.

For unto this people shall thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them.

So he says, joshua, for what you are going to be doing with the nation of Israel, you need to be strong and you need to have courage.

But when God calls us to have strength and courage, he explains to us how we can understand that and how we can live that out in our life.

So he says in verse number seven, only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, meaning this.

The way that you're strong, the way that you're courageous is by obeying me, by following my path.

He says, which Moses my servant, commanded thee, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

He says, if you want to prosper, if you want to have success, follow me.

Don't follow the ways of the world.

Don't follow your own feelings, don't follow your own heart, as some people say in the world today.

The best advice I can give you is follow your heart.

That is not a biblical mention in scripture to follow your heart.

The Bible actually says the opposite, to not follow your heart, because our heart can mislead us.

So who do we follow?

We follow the Lord.

And so he says, don't turn to the right hand or to the left.

Don't deviate.

Verse 8.

This book of the law talking about the word there shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate there in day and night.

So he speaks not only of a knowledge of the word of God, but also to be meditating, to be in it, to be growing in it.

And he says, not only in the mornings, but day and night, that that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.

So he says again, it's one thing to know it, it's another thing to understand it.

It's another thing to apply it.

For then and only then, thou shall make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

And so he says, joshua, if you want to be successful, if you want to see my power working through you and the people of Israel, follow my way.

Obey me.

Go where I tell you to go.

Move when I tell you to move.

Stay when I tell you to stay.

And then he says something in verse number nine, which I want you to think about here as we get to chapter eight.

In Joshua, chapter one, verse nine, he says, have not I commanded thee?

So it's a question.

He says, haven't I commanded you?

Be strong and of a good courage.

Well, if you've been taking notes there, he said that a few times already, just in those first few verses of chapter one.

Be strong and of good courage.

Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.

For the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest.

So he says, how can you be strong?

How can you have courage?

How can you overcome fear?

How can you overcome being dismayed or feeling overwhelmed or feeling depressed, for what the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest, meaning God is with you.

Follow him, Perceive his plan for your life.

Now fast forward to chapter seven.

What happened?

The nation of Israel swayed.

Achan went into Jericho.

And Achan, in his greed and in his love for money, went and disobeyed the order of God and therefore went, as it says in chapter seven, took the accursed thing and got and got to A place where he was hiding that sin.

And then ultimately what happened was, is that Achan was plagued by that sin.

His family was plagued by that sin.

And ultimately we saw in chapter seven that all of Israel was plagued by that sin.

Why?

Because they went out to AI and they decided to do their own thing in that battle.

And ultimately what happened was that they were defeated.

They lost some 6,000 at the very beginning.

But ultimately there was thousands and thousands killed at the end of that battle in AI.

So what happened was that God exposed sin in the camp, and there was a choice that Joshua and the people of Israel had to make.

Are we going to deal with the sin of Achan, or are we just going to let it go and give Achan a slap on the wrist and keep moving forward?

And really the challenge from God to Joshua was this.

Are you going to see sin the way that I see sin?

Are you going to allow this compromise of morality be overlooked and just accepted in the camp?

And a picture of that for us in our own life is if we.

If God brings to pass in our life conviction of a specific sin in our life or in someone else's life, what are we going to do about it?

Are we going to deal with it?

Well, God says to deal with it completely with Ain.

And as you remember, ain was not only judged, like temporarily speaking, when it came to Israel, but ultimately God took his life.

And that was a picture of God completely wiping out the sin in the camp.

So essentially, what we could say at the end of Joshua chapter seven is that Israel got right with God.

They turned with a repentant heart, with humility, confessed their sin, and got that right and got it taken care of.

So now what we see in chapter eight is the teaching on how we can walk in victory after we've been defeated.

There's going to be times in our life as Christians that though we know that God loves us, though we have a desire to serve God, that we will drift and we will see sin and we will have what we would consider a spiritual defeat.

But what the Bible says is that we can come back to the Lord in his grace for forgiveness, in repentance, and ultimately find that forgiveness and grace in him and know that we don't walk in condemnation.

What Does Romans chapter 8 tell us?

Romans chapter 8 tells us at the very beginning that we no longer walk in condemnation because we are in Christ Jesus.

So there's a difference between condemnation and conviction.

Lord, let's say it this way.

There's a difference between walking in guilt and walking in conviction.

Sometimes as Christians, we just don't use the right terminology, and we sin and we say, you know what?

I feel guilty about that.

And I know what we mean.

What we're trying to articulate is that as a Christian, we should be articulating that we feel convicted in that sin, and we need to correct that sin because God has not called us to walk in guilt.

Actually, he says we, we're not in condemnation anymore.

So as a Christian, if we sin, we're not gonna walk in God's judgment.

We should be walking in the conviction of the Lord and then walking in repentance and walking in that transformation.

So what I'm saying is this here, this evening, is that some Christians are still dealing with that struggle of sin in their life and feeling that guilt and feeling that condemnation and not allowing themselves to see the forgiveness of the Lord in their life and walking in a hindered way so that they can't serve the Lord anymore and that sin is in the camp, and therefore they can't have victories in their life.

And so what I would say here this evening is that if we as Christians commit a sin, which inevitably we will, we need to deal with that sin in the proper way.

Holy Spirit conviction leads us to the place of truth, leads us to a place of confession and repentance, which leads us to a place of forgiveness and restoration.

In our walk with God, it does not lead us to condemnation where we stick in that sin or we stick in that guilt.

God does not want us to have that cloud over our heads feeling that we can't do anything, because what he ultimately wants us to do is he wants to cut our hearts and bring us to a place of repentance and confession.

So the Holy Spirit is always going to be specific in his conviction.

The Bible says in the Book of John that he comes as a convictor.

He comes to the world to teach us where we are in sin.

And so the Bible even says in the New Testament, as we have talked about quite a bit, is that the word of God is there for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

And so what we see here in this case is that the word of God came to the nation of Israel, confronted the nation of Israel, and they dealt with that sin properly.

And so what it's.

What it's like as a Christian is this.

Yes, we should strive to be sinless, even though that's not a reality on this side of heaven, because we're dealing with the old man.

But what I would say is that in the pursuit of living a sinless life, we have to recognize that when we do sin, we have to deal with that properly.

We have to deal with that with a broken heart, a contrite heart, a penitent heart coming to the Lord and asking him for forgiveness.

It doesn't mean that we keep getting re saved over and over and over again.

That's not the picture.

The picture is restoring ourselves back to fellowship with him.

So chapter eight is about that restoration process.

What does God give us in that victory after we are restored, after there's revival, after there is that encouragement from God.

And so chapter 8, verse 1.

This is the first words that God gives to Joshua after their repentance and after dealing with that sin with Achan, they dealt with that sin.

They wiped that out of the camp.

Verse 1.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, fear not, neither be thou this made.

It's a reiteration of the original promise that he gave back in Joshua.

Chapter one.

Fear not be that, be not dismayed.

Why?

Because the temptation would be that, wow, we were God's people and now maybe we're not.

We had God's plan for our life.

Maybe we've missed the mark.

And there would be a temptation for Joshua and the rest of the nation of Israel to have fear.

They they at for a while there, they almost probably felt like they were invincible.

They had just crossed the river, they had defeated Jericho.

And it was a point of saying, wow, nothing can touch us.

But they had a rude awakening in the fact that when they're walking in their own flesh, when they're walking outside of the guidance of the Lord, that there can be a stumble.

And they did stumble.

But what the Lord does is he encourages them not to fear and not to be dismayed.

And that's God's encouragement for all of us.

Maybe you've been dealing with something in your life.

The first step of God's nudging is conviction is that he would want us to get that right.

Some people have said it this way.

There was one commentator, I forget who it was, but he says that the Holy Spirit works at in comfort almost to the He.

He worded it this way.

He says the Holy Spirit is a pillow for comfort, sometimes for us to lay our heads and to rest in.

But sometimes the Holy Spirit is a prod for conviction.

And sometimes the Lord will not let us get comfortable because of that sin in our life.

And so if there's that place of torment in our life with that conviction, that's a Good thing.

You say really a good thing?

Conviction's a good thing?

Yes, because that's leading us to a place of repentance, that.

That's leading us to a place of being in the right, right path with the Lord.

So what I would say is that the first step is when we sin, to receive that Holy Spirit conviction in our life, take the step of repentance, get to a place where we understand our forgiveness in Jesus Christ, that we're no longer walking in condemnation.

Then what?

Then walk in confidence, knowing that God is on our side, so that we can take the idea of fearing not and being not dismayed.

So he says, don't fear.

And so the first key of coming back in this restoration with the Lord was that they had to receive this encouragement from God.

And so though they struggled and stumbled and sinned, God allowed them to come back into the fold and come forward with his plan.

So we must deal with sin, with repentance, dying to the flesh and coming immediately to the Lord for His victory in our life.

And so he's now going to give them a charge.

He's going to give them a challenge.

And this is one of the things that I love about the Lord, because for me, if.

If I was in the shoes of the Lord, which I'm not, I'm far, far from it.

But after someone failed me, I would say, okay, I'm not going to use you anymore.

But what God does with us in.

In a very unique way is that even though we stumble, even though we fall, he allows us to have second, third and fourth chances.

And he trusts us with his work.

And that's an amazing thing to think about.

And so he doesn't give up on Israel here.

He gives them their next step.

He doesn't leave them alone.

He says, take all the people of war with thee and arise and go up to AI.

See, I have given into thy hand the king of AI, his people and his city and his land.

Now, this is what they were lacking the first time.

The first time, they were lacking God's blessing for the victory.

But now God gives His word.

And when God gives His word, he always keeps his word.

And what does he say to them?

He says, take all the people of war.

Take everybody.

Remember last time they went up to AI and they said, man, there's not that many.

Excuse me.

Wait, I'm good.

Water.

So I have a confession to make.

I was cooking some chili for tonight, and I tried it out right before I came.

And I just had.

It's kind of spicy.

By the way, sorry, that wasn't like a.

Wasn't getting choked up there.

Thank you.

Oh, man.

Now, you know, I appreciate that.

That's embarrassing to have that happen when you're in front of a bunch of people.

I hate that.

Sorry about that.

I do apologize.

So if you remember what happened back in the first time, they were going into AI, they went up to the camp, the spies went to AI and they said, there's not that many people there.

We don't need that many people.

We can handle this with just a few people.

Remember what we did in Jericho.

This is nothing in comparison to Jericho.

What it was is they underestimated their enemy and they didn't trust in the Lord.

So ultimately, now God says to them, take everybody with you.

And so verse number one, he says, take all the people who were with you and arise and go up to AI.

Sometimes what happens in the midst of restoration is that God is going to challenge us to take that first step in faith again.

Sometimes when we've failed in our past, we're afraid to take that next step of faith.

We're afraid to step out and serve again.

We're afraid to.

To trust somebody again.

We're afraid to serve at some capacity.

But what God says here is basically, get back up on the horse, get back, let's go.

Let's see what happens here.

And he says, arise, go up to AI.

See, I have given into thy hand the king of AI.

He says, look, it's already.

The victory is already mine.

I've given it to you.

I've promised it to you.

And he says, and his people and his city and his land.

This speaks of a complete victory that God has promised.

But then verse number two is so amazing here because if the, the people, specifically Achan, would have just been patient with trusting in what God had for them, we're about to see that he's going to entrust to them all the things of the camp.

He says in verse 2, and thou shalt do to AI and her king as thou didst with Jericho and her king.

Only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof shall he take for prey unto yourselves.

So Achan got ahead of himself.

Achan took his own liberty to say in Jericho that this is all for me.

Instead, in Jericho, it was all for the Lord.

It was all to give everything back to him.

But now we see in verse two that this victory was going to be an opportunity for people to have the spoils of victory.

And he says, take ye pray for unto yourselves lay the an ambush for the city behind it.

And so God allows them to keep the spoils of the city of AI.

And, and so this shows you how foolish the sin of Achan was that he just wasn't patient on waiting on the Lord.

He could have had anything if he just would have waited to this next battle.

And then he gives them the plan.

He says that there's going to be this ambush.

So God gives Joshua a plan for conquering the city.

And I think it's a simple lesson to learn that when God gives us the plan for victory, we should take it.

Now God gives us the plan for victory throughout all of the scriptures.

Ultimately, it's walking with him.

Ultimately, it's following his Word in the New Testament.

It's building his church.

It's living for the kingdom.

It's living for eternity.

It's.

It's living a life of humility.

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

God allows us to see his victory plans right here.

But often we get ahead of ourselves.

Often we believe that the victory is ours.

And we figure out we got, we got it our own way.

We can figure this out our own way.

Recently I've had the opportunity to start coaching again.

I coached in Florida for a long time.

Basically, as soon as I became an adult, I was coaching all the way to moving to Delaware.

But I took a hiatus because most of you know, I became a pastor here.

So I took a hiatus from teaching and, or from coaching.

And so recently my, my kids were getting into basketball and they were like, dad, we want you to coach this year.

It's like, you know, I just don't know about coaching again.

I, I got so much on my plate, but you know how it is when your kids are begging you.

I say, okay, I'll do it for you guys this year.

I'm gonna do it.

So get out to the very first practice.

And I'm kind of already, I don't know if I want to do this.

And first practice starts happening, and the, the whatever it is that coaches have in them, I just start getting excited.

I'm like, I'm back coaching.

I got the whistle in my mouth.

I'm blowing the whistle.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm excited.

I love coaching.

And I'm sitting there, especially the older kids, I'm getting the plays ready.

I was sitting there before practice drawing out all the plays, and I'm like, if they just run this play, they're going to score every single time.

I mean, I'm like, A brilliant, you know, strategist.

I've got this open.

I get them out there and practice.

I walk them through, and we practice it, like, 20 times, 30 times.

And at first they were totally lost, but after about 30 times, they start getting the play down and they start making the pass, and then they make the basketball.

And my guys, if you just do that in the game, we're gonna win every game.

You guys have got it.

So I. I'm confident they're gonna.

And we have practices on the night before the game, so it's fresh in their minds.

They can't forget it.

So we show up to the game, get them all lined up there.

This is fifth and sixth graders.

And I'm like, guys, remember the play?

We're gonna run the play.

They get out there, and all of a sudden when the other team starts running at them and going crazy, you know what happens?

They just start doing a free for all.

I said, where's the play?

They're running all over the place, passing the ball, throwing up like they're not in their spots.

I said, guys, you know, where to go, where?

And.

And I thought about that for a second.

You know, sometimes we sit here and we know in our minds exactly what God's plan is for us to do.

Like, oh, I know.

Like, yes, I heard it in Bible study.

I heard it preach.

But when the chaos of life starts happening, right, the defense starts running at us, and there's real people there standing in front of us.

There's people in the crowd yelling.

There's distractions all over.

When.

When we start to have all these pressures of life coming at us, we begin to start reverting back to what we're used to.

We're reverting back to our own ways of doing things.

And that's what will happen.

The kids will come over to me and say, I'll say, hey, guys, why didn't you run that play?

And they're like, no, no, I. I thought this was going to work.

I said, well, how did that work for you?

It didn't work very well, right?

They.

It.

It ended up with us losing the ball.

But.

But that's sometimes how it is.

As.

As a Christian, we.

We think like, lord, I. I've got it.

Let me.

Let me just do this.

This is my comfort zone.

And I think sometimes I don't think the Lord is.

Is like me, but sometimes I think the Lord looks at us and goes, oh, of course that's what happened, because you did it your way.

And.

And that's what we see here.

He gives them a plan.

And he says, hey, take this city.

You can do this.

I'm giving you this plan.

This is the marching order.

All you have to do is follow this.

And so the plans are made for an ambush.

Let's look at verse number three.

Three for three through verse eight.

So Joshua arose and all the people of the war to go against AI.

So they obey.

That's great that they didn't do their own thing.

They're doing God's thing.

And Joshua chose about 30,000 men of valor and sent them away by night.

That's a lot more than what they originally said at the very beginning.

And he commanded them, saying, behold, you shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city.

Go not very far from the city, but be already.

And I and all the people that are with me will approach the city.

And it shall come to pass when they come out against us, at us at the first, that we will flee before them.

For they will come out after us till we have drawn them from the city.

For they will say they flee before us, as at first, therefore we will flee before them.

So they're coming up with the plan.

Then ye shall rise up from the ambush and seize upon the city, for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hands.

So he says, there's going to be a point where you need to move, where you need to take action, where you need to make the ambush.

And he says, don't be afraid.

Why?

Because God will deliver it into your hand.

It's God's victory.

It's not your victory.

It's not how strong you are.

It's not how quick you are.

It's about how God is on our side.

Verse 8.

And it shall be when you have taken the city that you shall set the city on fire according to the commandment of the Lord.

Shall you do see, I have commanded you.

And so the reminder here is that this is what God has called us to do.

This is not our path.

This is not our way.

This is not our wisdom.

This is God's plan.

Verse 9.

Joshua therefore sent them forth, and they went to lie in ambush and abode between Bethel and AI and the west side of AI.

But Joshua lodged at night among the people.

So Joshua stays with the people.

Verse 10.

And Joshua rose up early in the morning and numbered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel before the people of AI.

And so verses 9 and 10 show that Joshua stays with the people.

And there's going to be this great Battle starting in verse number 11.

And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up and drew nigh and came before the city and pitched on the north side of AI.

Now there was a valley between them and AI.

And he took about 5,000 men, set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and AI in the west side of the city.

And when they had set the people, even all the hosts that was on the north of the city and their liars in wait on the west of the city, Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

And so the, the.

They're.

They're getting closer and closer and they're prepping.

And I think this is important to, to recognize as well, and I think it's a lesson for all of us to understand, is that when God calls us to do something and he calls us in a specific way with a plan, it's our job to prep ourselves.

It's our job to prepare ourselves for that battle that is coming.

And, and many times God gives us how to prepare ourselves.

I, for example, he tells us to arm ourselves with the armor of God.

He tells us to have the sword of the Spirit.

He tells us to be praying.

He tells us to prepare the way.

A lot of times as Christians, we will have times where we need to be react, reacting to things.

But instead of being so reactive, God tells us to be proactive in preparing ourselves for the battles that might be coming our way.

We live in a world today that we can understand that there's going to be things thrown our way, there's going to be attacks coming our way, and so we need to be prepared.

So they prepare themselves.

So verse 14, here's really where we see the ambush happening and obviously being successful.

And it came to pass when the king of AI saw it, that he hasted and rose up early and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle.

He and all of his people at the time appointed before the plane.

But he wished not that there were liars in ambush against him in the city.

So this shows that the enemy didn't know what was happening.

Verse 15.

And Joshua and all of Israel made as if it were.

They were beaten before them and fled by the way of the wilderness.

And all the people that were an AI were called together to pursue after them.

And they pursued after Joshua and were drawn away from the city.

So as you can see, they're chasing after this group that Joshua has.

And then there was not a man left in AI or Bethel that went out, not out of his after Israel.

And they left the city open and pursued after Israel.

So they all leave.

They leave themselves open.

And here comes the ambush, verse 18.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward AI, and I will give it into thine hand.

And Joshua stretched out a spear that he had in the city, and his hand toward the city, and the ambush arose quickly out of their place.

And as they ran, as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and they entered into the city, took it, and hasted, and set the city on fire.

So this speaks of the complete victory that God promised.

And when the men of AI looked behind them, they saw and behold the smoke of the city ascended up into heaven.

And they had no power to flee this way or that way.

And the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers.

And when Joshua and all of Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, they and then they turned again and slew the men of AI and the other issued out of the city against them, so that they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side.

And they smoked them so that they left none of none of them to remain or escape.

And the king of AI took they took alive and brought him to Joshua.

So this just again is describing the victory that they have there that God promised.

And then we'll see it kind of conclude here in verses 24, all the way to verse 29.

Says, and it came to pass when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of AI in the field of the wilderness wherein they chased them.

And when they were all fallen to the edge of the sword until they were consumed, that all Israelites returned to A and smote it with the edge of the sword.

And so it was that all that fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000.

Even all the men at AI.

For Joshua Drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out a spear until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of AI.

And so the idea would be this, that Joshua is staying faithful, holding out the spear, staying faithful to what God had called him to do until the final battle, or the final end of the battle.

Verse 27.

Only the cattle and the spoil that was the city of Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according to the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua.

And Joshua burnt AI and made it a heap forever, even a desolation unto this day.

And the king of AI he hanged on a tree until Even tide.

And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree and cast it into the entering of the gate of the city and raise there upon a heap of great stones that remaineth unto this day.

So again, that's pretty serious.

That's pretty strong language.

But what we can see is this is real description of what God did in the life of Israel to show them that he is on their side and there would be complete victory.

So we can summarize all this with just a few thoughts.

After a sin failure and after repentance and after forgiveness, we can be encouraged that God is still on our side.

If we are walking with him, he continues to walk with us.

And we know that even when we're unfaithful, he's faithful to us.

And so when we are struggling with thinking that God can still use us after a mistake, after a sin like chapter seven, God encourages us and then he gives us a plan.

And so the idea would be when God gives us the plan of victory, we should follow that plan and we should use the resources that God gives us.

We should look to our Savior, we should look to him in every way.

That's what the idea of Joshua up there holding out the stick, it's a picture of us looking to Jesus as the One who holds us and ultimately know that we can't have any place for sin in the camp.

We can't have a place for compromise within our midst.

And that was the recipe for Israel's victory there.

And so Israel understood that obedience to the Lord led to victory and then the victory leads to blessing.

And that blessing leads to hopefully a success and learning from the Lord.

Even though I will tell you that most of you understand that Israel doesn't keep that perfectly, there's many times which they revert back to the old way of doing things and they need to be reminded.

And even most of you know that there is that cycle of judgment with the judges, the.

And we'll get into that later on.

But what we see within our own life is that sometimes lessons that we learn are only short lived.

And what I would encourage you to do as a believer is to understand these lessons not only from Scripture, but also from your own life and take them to heart and apply them to your life and be able to recognize certain patterns that God has laid out for us to be aware of.

When it comes to temptation, when it comes to personal sin, when it comes to private sin, when it comes to struggles that we might face Sins that we might be easily turning to when it comes to our own personal inclinations in our life.

What I would say is create a, a guide work, a framework to allow ourselves to walk in obedience to the Lord.

So what I would say is this.

We all can't live in a bubble.

We all can't live outside of the world.

Obviously we know in the New Testament, the Bible says that we're in the world, but we're not of the world.

But I would say is that we need to take precautions when it comes to allowing the things of AI, of, of Jericho, of the world to seep into our culture.

And, and what we saw with Achan was that he saw those things that were in, in Jericho.

He, he saw those things of the world, the idolatry and the gold and all these precious things, the Babylonian garb that he took and he wanted, that he, he wanted the things of the world.

And I think for me, what I'm trying to challenge myself with, and many of you maybe have grown more in this than maybe even I have, is trying not to love the things of this world.

Trying not to be so caught up with the things that pull us in with the attraction of money and, and power and prestige.

And what culture seems to be saying is, is nice to have and successful.

And going back to Joshua chapter one to say what does God say success is?

Well, God doesn't say success is having a bunch of money.

Even though doesn't necessarily mean that having money is a bad thing.

I mean God does bless people with financial blessings and I'm not saying that that's wrong.

But if we look into our life and say that's what it means to be a successful Christian, we're missing the point.

If we say that hey, someone with a lot of people following them is, is success.

Well, that doesn't always necessarily equate biblical success.

Joshua chapter one tells us what biblical success is and that's ultimately following the word of God with honoring him, obeying him, serving him and being faithful to what he has called us to do.

And for me, one of the things that I think about when it comes to success in my life is not necessarily what other people say about me, but what, what does God say?

And, and where do we find what God says about us?

Well, he says these things about us in scripture and we go to the New Testament and we see that there's no more condemnation.

We, we see that, you know, what I would say is in our society today, a very self serving attitude of like what can people do for me?

The Bible says it's the complete opposite.

What can I do for the Lord?

What can I do for others?

And so what I would encourage us to think about when it comes to biblical success is let's look at Joshua chapter one.

Let's look at Joshua chapter seven, and contrast that with Joshua chapter eight, and see that when we try to go our own way, what ultimately happens is we fall apart.

We see despair, pride leads to destruction.

And.

And so what I would encourage us to think about is Joshua, chapter eight, what it means to be restored and redeemed and walk in newness of life.

And all of us here this evening probably have those parts of our past that are more shameful than what we would actually even want to admit.

And what I would say here tonight is for us as Christians to look to our past not as something that defines us anymore.

So I don't look at who I was before I was a Christian and say, well, that's who I am today.

No, that's.

That's dead.

That part of me is gone.

That.

That part of me is no longer my identity anymore.

Well, what I would say for us is that our identity in the New Testament and even in the Old Testament, even though they didn't use the words Jesus back then, we know that our identity is in Christ and in our Messiah, our Savior.

And what I would say here this evening is that even if after you were saved, there were some sins that you aren't very happy about and you shouldn't be happy about, don't allow those sins that are committed to define us.

What we do is we come to the place in our life to say, yes, there was sin in the camp, but we took care of it.

I brought it before the Lord.

I was allowing the light of God to shine on it.

And sin runs from that light.

Sin always wants darkness.

And so when we bring sin out to light, we're able to deal with it, we're able to address it.

And oftentimes, you know, there's times in our life where.

I don't know about you guys, but as.

As I'm in.

When I was a little kid, even as I become an adult, it's dark and I'll see something, and I'll think it's something.

I'm like, man, that looks like a person standing over there.

I started getting.

I was a little kid, I used to think, like, these shadows in my window were a person.

They were looking in my window.

And like, when.

When it's dark, we're not able to discern things clearly.

Well, we're not able to directly address the issues at hand.

When darkness is around us, we just look at it in a very vague way and start to speculate what's around us and attacking us.

When we shine the light of the truth of the Word of God, the light of truth from the Holy Spirit, we're able to see clearly what our enemy is and who our enemy is.

And that's what the enemy wants us to do.

The enemy wants us to not be sure what we're fighting against.

But God very clearly tells us what we're fighting against.

He says it's a battle, it's a spiritual battle between light and darkness.

It's a.

It's a battle between good and evil.

It's a battle between sin and righteousness.

So in our life today, we need to shine the light of truth on anything that seems to be something that we're not sure of.

So let's say, you know, there's a lot of hot button cultural issues out there.

There's a lot of things that people are debating about.

And instead of giving people my opinion on it, the best thing to do is shine the light of the truth of the Word of God upon it.

What does the word of God say about this?

What are the principles of the Word of God that we can deal with in this topic?

And the truth is, is that people aren't arguing with me anymore.

They're arguing with the Bible.

And if someone's going to argue against the Bible, what are they doing?

They're arguing against God.

And so it becomes a matter of good versus evil.

And the next hot button issue that pops up, because by the way, next week, next month, next year, inevitably we're going to have a new hot button issue that we're going to have to deal with and we're going to have to bring it up in church and we're going to have to write parts of our Constitution to deal with those issues at hand.

What do we do?

We shine the light of the truth of the Word of God upon it and not our opinions on it.

And what I would or not the cultural norms, because culture is going to always change.

Some of you are old enough to clearly see a shift in culture from a time frame when certain things were detestable, like you couldn't even talk about it in public, and then it became a little bit more acceptable.

And now things that were unspeakable 50 years ago are celebrated today.

And if as Christians, if we are not careful about this, and if we're not on guard.

And if we're not on the attack when it comes to showing the light to the world, then things today that are unspeakable in 50 years are going to be if the Lord tarries, celebrated.

And I know that's something that beyond our comprehension to think about, but think about the children that are in this room.

Think about what they're going to have to be dealing with in 20 to 30 years when they're adults, if the word of God is not shown out into our world and seen as a transforming power.

So what I would encourage us to do is not to be defeated.

There was a temporary defeat there in Joshua chapter seven, but Joshua chapter eight comes along, and we see that way that God comes in and changes the life of his people.

There's a verse in the Old Testament that says, though he fall, the idea is falling doesn't mean falling away from God.

It means to be stumbling, to have an issue in our life.

Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down.

Utterly cast down means cast away.

So though.

Though the Christian stumbles in his or her life, he or she is not utterly cast down.

For the Lord upholds us with his hand.

And so it's the Lord that holds us up even when we stumble.

It doesn't justify the stumbling.

Okay, so if someone comes up to me and says, you know, Pastor, I'm.

I'm certainly admitting that I'm struggling with this sin, but I don't know if I really want to get it right.

That's never a justification.

We always need to get sin taken care of in our lives.

But what the Bible says is that there is a remedy to sin.

There is hope for the sinner.

There is an issue at hand, and that is whether or not we're going to trust in the Lord to give us victory or we're going to try to trust in ourselves.

If someone came up to me tonight and they said, hey, Pastor, I'm really dealing with this sin, and I don't know if I can get victory over it.

I don't just tell them, well, hey, you got to try harder.

You got to work harder.

You got to start waking up earlier in the morning and trying to be better at that.

No, it's relying on God more to give us the strength to overcome these sins in our life.

That's where the victory comes.

And so what I would encourage you to do is stop trying to fight it in our.

In your own strength, but to deal with the sin in the camp and the way that God says to deal with it by completely removing it and allowing the power of God to shine on it.

So these are some thoughts that I want to share with you from Joshua chapter eight tonight.

We're going to come back and Finish Joshua Chapter 8 next week.

There's an altar built and there's an, I think it's really interesting, a picture.

We don't have time to deal with that tonight.

But there is a, there's a altar built at Mount Ebal and then there's some that split and go over to Mount Gerizim.

And we'll talk about how that all looks next week with blessings and cursings.

And I encourage you to come back if you can, next week and study that with us.

We're going through the book of Joshua.

It's one of my favorite books of the Bible because it shows that God can be powerful and will be powerful and even the midst of inadequate people.

Even though Joshua is a very good biblical, strong leader, the people of Israel struggle and yet we still see God's hand of protection upon them.

And we see at the very end of Joshua.

And I'm excited to get there.

There is a place where Joshua makes a stand and says, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

Some of you are going to want to worship the things of this world and the question is really going to be drawing a line in the sand and saying what are.

We can't do both.

And that's what we we really, really need to do.

This with our world today and people that claim to be Christians today, we should be drawing the line in the sand and saying, are you on this side or are you on this side?

Are you on the side of Jesus?

Are you on the side of scripture?

Are you on the side of this world?

Because you can't have both.

There's a lot of people that want to be both.

The Bible says that.

No, they're, they're, that's a double minded man.

A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

We cannot be on both sides of the fence when it comes to the issues of good and evil.

Just, it cannot be so.

And so as time progresses, I think that more and more are starting to see that it is truly everything in this world is a matter of good and evil and we have to stand up for the truth.

And so as a church, who else is going to stand up for the truth?

Actually, what does the New Testament say?

That the church is the pillar and ground of truth.

You know, Hollywood and, and, and the mainstream media and, you know, whatever, they're not going to be the pillar and ground of truth.

Can you even trust anything anymore?

You turn on your phones, you don't even know.

I mean, some of you maybe don't even know what I'm talking about.

Talking about AI.

There's a different type of AI today.

You can watch a video and don't even know what you're watching.

Is this reality or is someone faking this?

I don't even know anymore.

And we live in a world that's trying to blur the lines of truth.

And so where do we find truth?

We find truth in the word of God and we check it to that.

So be careful, be cautious, be open, but don't be so open that you're deceived with your eyes.

Allow the Lord to guide your heart and use wisdom and discernment when it comes to the Holy Spirit in your life.

And so I'd encourage you to pray about that and think about that and be aware of what you're putting before your eyes and who you're trusting.

And that's something that I would say, don't trust.

Don't trust me.

I mean, trust me, but ultimately trust me because of the word of God.

Don't.

Don't trust the person just because they say trust me.

Nine times out of 10, if someone's saying trust me, don't check what I'm saying.

That's.

That's bad.

So, so anyone that gets up and says trust me and doesn't point it to the word of God or point it to some source of truth, that's where we, we throw up red flags.

And so I would encourage you to think about that as well.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.