Pastor's Page: Spies Like Us

Pastor’s Take-away*

Spies Like Us:

How God Transforms Bunglers into Competent Kingdom Agents

The mission to spy out Jericho was dubious, at best. Why invest in intel and put lives at risk when God had already and in no uncertain terms assured them that the mission was his to win? Accordingly, the decision to send spies to Jericho was an indicator of their lack of trust in God and their presumption of their own competency: “Let’s help God give us this gift!” We might recall that the last spy mission achieved nothing but an extra forty years of wandering in the wilderness. We’re not surprised then, despite the emphasis on secrecy, to read that the king learned exactly where to find the spies the very day they entered the city gates. The mission was in jeopardy from the get-go.

The spies found themselves in a precarious situation with the king’s men busting in on them at the prostitute’s house. No doubt the spies recognized Rahab’s house as a strategic location for garnering intel, not only because it was built into the city wall, but also because secrets tend to be spilt there. With the doors bursting open, the spies had little recourse but to trust the prostitute Rahab’s urging to hide themselves on the roof under the flax.

Not willing to trust God to begin with, the spies’ faith would now be especially tested, for they had to put their lives in the hands of one of their enemies—a Canaanite. Well, worse than that, a Canaanite woman. While Israelite women, such as Miriam, Deborah, Esther, Susanna, and Judith were depicted as wise and competent, trusting a Canaanite woman must have been particularly humiliating for them. And this was no ordinary Canaanite woman, but a prostitute—someone who was at the bottom of Canaanite social order. They must truly have feared the worst for their lives.

This was just the beginning of the spies’ bungling. They had been told to be very careful to keep everything written in the book of the law, but to save themselves, the prostitute had to lie for them, breaking the ninth commandment. Not only so, but the spies brokered an exception to God’s mandate that all the inhabitants of Jericho were to be killed, compromising God’s command in exchange for their own lives.

They walked into Jericho full of self-confidence but had to scamper out with tails tucked. They learned nothing of strategic import—nothing about weaknesses in the wall or troop strength, etc. They returned home reporting that they were found out immediately, they were rescued by a Canaanite prostitute, and that they pledged in God’s name not to kill Rahab’s family.

The one thing they learned was that Jericho was all in great fear of the Israelites and their God. The spies also learned in the coming days that God is faithful and God is competent. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down when God’s people trusted in him.

*This weekly blog is designed for the Sunday Bulletin. If you need filler for your newsletter or bulletin, feel free to take it, with due attribution.

Pastor's Page: Faithful to the End

Pastor’s Take-Away

Faithful to the End

Josh 23:14

One thing is certain, from first to last, God is ever faithful--faithful to the end.   God assures us, “My word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11). This assurance is trustworthy because it arises from the steadfast character of God.

God is a “person”—that is, he is a personal being that relates to humans in personal relationships. An important aspect of this God-human relationship is learning to trust in God’s character and his eternal promises. When Israel was suffering under Egyptian bondage, Moses anticipated the Israelites’ query, “What is your name so I may tell them who you are?” or, more to the point, “Who is this God that we should trust him?” So it was that through the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea and deliverance from Egypt, and the divine guidance through 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites learned who God is as he revealed his trustworthy character.

Learning to trust God is an enterprise for every generation. With Moses’s death, Joshua’s generation faced new challenges, but never without the divine assurance, “I am with you, even to the end of the age!” God was present at the crossing of the Jordan, at the fall of Jericho, and in the extraordinary conquest of Canaan. Wherever Joshua’s footsteps, fell God was with him. To be sure, there were plenty of those, “Why God?” moments when God’s presence seemed far removed, or when God chose to hide his presence. On such occasions, one wise old man’s pithy saying on a rainy day rings true: the sun is shining, but you just can’t see it.

Joshua learned to trust God through adversity and through boon. His trust was such that he urged his fellow Israelites to do the same, to stake their allegiance in him. In his old age, after a lifetime of trusting in God, Joshua reminded all Israel of God’s faithfulness. He said, ““Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.”

But personal relationships is a two-way street. It will not do for one person to be faithful and the other feckless. Thus, Joshua’s testimony of God’s faithfulness was meant to spur the Israelites to reciprocal faithfulness. Following his tremendous and comforting assertions that God keeps all his promises, Joshua issued dire warnings to those who would betray their allegiance to God. Because God is faithful to the end, we too must be faithful to the end.

Joshua’s testimony anticipates the Pauline declaration that whatsoever promises God has ever made, they are all “yes” in Christ (2 Cor 1:20). Accordingly, we confess, “Jesus, Jesus! How I trust him, How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er. Jesus, Jesus, Precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more.”

Pastor Jim