The Conquest of Ai

Joshua 7:1-8:29

But the sons of Israel acted unfaithfully regarding the things under the ban...therefore the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. - Joshua 7:1

Imagine God as a fireplace with two giant logs inside. These logs are God's passions. One log is called glory. The other is called holiness. When His people are disobedient and sinful, these logs erupt into flame. This is God's burning anger. It's different from our anger, which is set aflame by our our passion for our own glory. God's anger is right, because His glory and His holiness are proper passions. And in Joshua 7, His anger rages against Israel for sinning against Him.

The result of God's burning anger: Israel's sin rises to the top where it is visible and can be scraped away. God's anger is a purifying anger that burns the sin out of His people, like gold refined through intense heat.

Here God uses defeat to purify His people. Other times He might use failure, misfortune, calamity, setbacks. As painful as these things are, they are sometimes flames God uses for the good of His people. But we want holiness without fire, don't we? Just like we want muscle without exercise, wealth without work, sex without marriage, character without trial, success without discipline, life without death, salvation without crucifixion - we want holiness without fire. But it is the flame that purifies.

May we be open to the purifying flame of God's loving anger.

The Absolute Destruction

Joshua 6:12-21

Amputation is always the last resort; but when a disease endangers the whole, it becomes necessary. The Canaanites were deeply infected by a malignant disease. The symptoms included (from Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 18):

1. Incest.
2. Fornication and adultery.
3. Homosexuality.
4. Bestiality.
5. Idolatry.
6. Child sacrifice.
7. Divination.
8. Witchcraft.
9. Sorcery.

The Canaanites had become an oozing, throbbing, cancerous tumor in the land. Their destruction was necessary to preserve God's people, Israel. And so, Joshua utterly destroyed them. Men and women. Sons and daughters. Brothers and sisters. Uncles and aunts. Nephews and nieces. Newborns and senior citizens... Absolute destruction.

Is this blood-stained God unrecognizable to you? Have we focused so exclusively on His grace that we've forgotten His wrath and hatred for sin? Have we focused so exclusively on our new life that we've forgotten Christ's bloody death? Indeed, the blood that flows from God's wrath against sin is a cornerstone of the gospel. Go check out Romans 5:8-10.

We must see sin for what it is. Not merely a choice, a lifestyle, an orientation, a weakness, a mistake, an addiction, a bad habit, a character flaw. We can live with these things. Yet, here we see that sin should send us running to the surgeon, begging for the scalpel. It must be carved out of our families, our churches, our homes, and our hearts or we'll be destroyed like the Canaanites.

We're infected and it's spreading, but there's hope: we must submit every naked corner of our hearts to God's scalpel wielding hands. The only path to freedom from the disease is to leave our dead, sin-ravaged bodies behind and walk in newness of life. This is what Jesus offers in the gospel