Conquering the Land

Joshua 6-12

The Implementation of God’s Strategy for Victory

Understanding God’s Strategy

Victory arises only when we fully understand the design of temptation and depend upon the Lord's means for deliverance.

God is always more ready to accomplish His plan than we are to participate in it (Joshua 11:20). God has a whole set of plans to quickly and effectively complete His plans.

God fights differently than man. Training to win requires that we simply do things God’s ways. We need to trust Him. If we rely on our methods, we will surely fail. They failed at the battle of Ai not only because of Achan’s greed but because Joshua did not pray and seek God’s will.

The first verse of these chapters significantly point to the enemy who attempted to thwart the Israelites from their main mission.  God already has His plans on how to eliminate these enemies. These main campaigns lasted seven long years. 

The Lord records three major campaigns.  The enemy would use any trick to get their way. The Gibeonites deceived Israel. Other kingdoms ganged up on them. Although the battles almost always seemed a sure defeat for Israel, God led the Israelites to victory each time through their faithful leader of Joshua.

These battles surprisingly only comprise 8 of the 22 chapters in Joshua.  The victory was always certain. God's people only needed to learn how to do things God's ways, no matter how threatening the enemy seemed to be. Don’t be afraid; just be prepared!  

Don’t be afraid; just be prepared!

Joshua Outline

Joshua 6-12

1.
Joshua 6:1-27
God’s First Victory at Jericho

2.
Joshua 7:1-26
A Battle We Better Not Lose: vs. Sin

3.
Joshua 8:1-29
Recovering From Defeat

4.
Joshua 8:30-35   
Delight in God’s Torah

5.    
Joshua 9:1-27
Falling For A Lie

6.    
Joshua 10:1-43  
The Battles Against the Kings

7.    
Joshua 11:1-23  
Responding Strategically  

8.    
Joshua 12:1-24   
Gaining Momentum

Dividing

Joshua 13-24

The Accountability to Complete God’s Mission

Grasping God's Good Purposes

Only by grasping the full scope of what God is doing and making ourselves accountable to the tasks that concern us will His mission be completed.

We often get confused between winning the battle and winning the fight (war).  Our shortsightedness causes us not to look beyond our self-interests.

The real war is how one lives afterwards.  The most dangerous times are after certain victories. And it is precisely here that the Israelites failed. 

The Lord was sure to have them divide up the land. The point of this was to prepare each tribe to live under the Lord’s leadership. Up to this point, they relied on Joshua’s faith to win. Now they had to rely on their own faith. If they trusted Him and obeyed His Word, they would do well. If not, they would bring trouble into their future. 

Once they received their inheritance, they were responsible to clear off the many enemies still hanging around (see Judges 1).

God set things up so that they all could carry on and clear out all the enemies. But foolishly they were not equally responsible. Again, the chief battle is not on the battlefield but in our hearts.  It is how we live after the victories.

Miracles are not enough to change us. We need God’s grace unto repentance.