None of us need to hide from God or stay away from the church because of our failure. The devil’s strategy is to implant false belief into our mind, make us think that we are unforgivable and then to hide away from God and stay away from the church. He makes us feel guilty, condemned and shameful. We often behave as if God is not all-knowing. The fact remains that God knows everything about us. He is not shocked by anything we do, but He does expect us to be honest, confess, change and align with Him. None of us can catch God on the wrong foot. There won’t be a moment where He will be surprised by our wrongful step. We can confront our wrong and make the needful amendments. That’s what Joshua did.
In Joshua 9:22, we see Joshua confronting the Gibeonites. The moment he realized that he and Israel had made the mistake and were duped into signing a treaty with the Gibeonites, he went straight to them. Without hesitation, he faced them head-on. In so doing he refused to be further manipulated. This is an example for us to adopt. We need to confront our moral failings and not give the devil further avenue to twist and turn us. When we ignore our sin and not repent from it, the devil will hold us to it and continue to mold and make us conform to his will. We must emulate the example of our Lord and must confront him with the truth of the Word. And when we do that, he won’t be able to complete his sinister work in us. A lesson we can learn from Joshua 9:22 is not to run away from our failure but to confront and deal with it honestly.
There is no doubt that Joshua and Israel had made a serious mistake when they entered into a treaty with the Gibeonites. But Joshua did not allow it to ruin their conquest. Like them, we also need to know that a mistake, even if it is a serious one, doesn’t necessarily spell our ruin forever. However, it does mean that we need to seriously deal with it and take steps to ensure that we are controlling the damage. Aware of it or not, all problems in life but not all difficulties. We often have to live with the difficulties we have unwittingly created in life. Joshua, in making a treaty with the Gibeonites, had created a difficulty for themselves, hence Israel had to live with it. They could not destroy them but they could control them. There will be a time in our walk with God that we find ourselves walking out of step with His will and sin. The truth is that we don’t have to be bound by it. We can come before the Lord, confess, repent and then do something to control the damage.
The good news about the spiritual battles we are engaged in is that we are fighting from victory ground. We may lose some battles in life but know for sure that the war is already won. Jesus had already secured that victory for us at Calvary. All we need is to apply the finished work of the cross to our defeat. According to 1 John 2:1, the desire of God is that we will not stumble. He knows that we will stumble in our journey even as we seek to thwart off the scheme of the enemy. So, the Lord's assurance is that if we fail, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus is our atoning sacrifice and he has already appeased the wrath of God for us at Calvary. So then when we confess our sin, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). There is forgiveness when we repent.
Verse 27 tells us what Israel did with the Gibeonites. They were made to chop wood and carry water for the Tabernacle of God. Joshua turned the mistake, exploited it and used it for the glory of God. In 2 Samuel 21:2-6, we can see that these Gibeonites made their peace with God and were absorbed into the nation of Israel. It was a case of an error make good for the glory of God. The plan of the devil was to defeat and destroy us but God can turn it for good if we let Him. This is not an attempt to glamorize sin. The point made here is this: We don’t have to be defeated by the mistake or downright sin we have committed. God had the grace to help us deal with it. And like Paul, by God’s grace, we can be made perfect in our weakness. Whatever failing we may have because we give into the flesh, the world or the devil, we need not live with the failure. We can deal with it and re-chart our course. And continue on the glorious journey with God!
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