Joshua Chapter 8:1-7

The enemy has a vested interest in you feeling like a loser. When you are defeated, when you lose one battle, he doesn't want you to stand back up and be valiant and be brave. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. After the defeat in Joshua 7, Joshua could have given up.

Instead, he repented and trusted in the promises of God. Stay tuned as Pastor David discusses this today in his teaching from the book of Joshua chapter 8. But before we join Pastor David, when you're in trouble, where do you turn most often?

Do you look to yourself or the advice of your friends, or do you go straight to God? We want to help you experience the hope that comes from looking to the Lord when your life turns upside down by sending you Pastor David McGee's seedy series titled Lessons from the Wilderness. In this encouraging resource, Pastor David looks at one of the most difficult periods of King David's life to show you how you can wait confidently on God, no matter what you're facing. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others.

So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness. Now here's David McGee with his teaching, How to Win a Battle. Turn with me to Joshua chapter 8. If you remember in Joshua 7, we had the thing with A.I., they lost the battle with Achan, you know, ripping off the spoils and hitting it, he hit it under his tent and all this stuff. And so we kind of learned last week, if you will, how not to fight battles.

This is the way not to wage a battle. Now this week, what we see is the way to fight a battle, how to win a battle. And notice that in chapter 7, they dealt with the sin, they dealt with the flesh of Achan.

It was exposed and it was dealt with. And again, it's a picture of dealing with sin and then walking in victory as you die to the flesh. So with that reminder of what happened last week, let's jump in chapter 8 verse 1. Now the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid nor be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you and arise and go up to A.I. See have given into your hand the king of A.I., his people, his city, and his land. Now notice something, God's plan is different than the plan they had in the last chapter, but they didn't ask God what his plan was.

They just kind of did their own thing and they paid a price for it. And we talked last week that it's very important to ask God, God, what do you want to do in this situation? How do you want me to handle this situation or these circumstances? Because very often we kind of do it in our own way, in our own strength, and then when it goes poorly, then we say, well God, what are you doing here? And God's going, you know, I keep waiting for you to ask me what you should do. And sometimes we get in those situations and we actually blame God. God, I took this new job, I moved to this area, I did this, I did that, and now why aren't you blessing me? And the Lord's like, you know what, you didn't ask me about any of that before you did it. So it's important to ask the Lord about these things.

And notice too that what's God saying first to Joshua? Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

This is so encouraging to me. You know why? Because we think of Joshua as being this brave, valiant man. And I'm sure he was. But you understand there were times when Joshua was bummed out. Joshua was afraid. How do we know that? Because God's telling him do not be afraid.

So what can we kind of figure out from here? God knows Joshua. God's telling Joshua not to be afraid. Therefore fear must be a problem with Joshua right now.

Why? Because he just lost a battle. He's bummed out. He's bummed out. And you've got fear not in the King James.

Notice something, guys. The Lord did not encourage him in the last chapter. Oh, he encouraged him in a certain way. He encouraged him to deal with the sin. But he didn't come to Joshua when Joshua was in prayer and pat him on the back and go, Joshua, everything's going to be okay.

Don't you be afraid. That's not what he did. He said, Joshua, there's sin in the camp. Deal with it. After Joshua dealt with it, then the Lord encouraged him.

Why is that important? Because, you know, sometimes we skip that first step. We go right to encouraging somebody. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Have they dealt with the thing that brought them failure, that brought them defeat? We need to encourage them to deal with that. And then as they deal with that, we encourage them in the Lord.

We encourage them not to be afraid. But the first thing that needs to happen is to encourage them to deal with the sin. Verse 2, and you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its cattle, you shall take his booty for yourselves. Lay in ambush for the city behind it. God says you're going to take this city like you took Jericho.

And I think that's interesting. And again, he told Joshua, fear not, because Joshua was afraid. Why? Because Joshua just lost a battle. Let me ask you a question. Let's just say hypothetically, now I know you never really, you never lose battles.

You're like pastor, but hypothetically, hypothetically, let's say you lose a battle. What's the tendency? Does that encourage you or you?

Let's be real. Does that bum you out? It bums you out. It discourages you when you lose a battle.

And I understand that. And it's interesting to me that so much of Christianity, churchianity, so much around the church revolves around how to win and what to do to succeed in the Christian life. Tonight, a good bit of what we're going to be talking about is what to do when you fail. What happens when you fall? How do you fail, if you will? Now, I understand none of us need help in failing, but where we do need help is what to do when we do fail, when we do fall.

See, that's something you need to be equipped to do. And the first thing I want you to understand this first life lesson, losing one battle does not make you a loser. Losing one battle does not make you a loser. The enemy has a vested interest in you feeling like a loser. When you are defeated, when you lose one battle, he doesn't want you to stand back up and be valiant and be brave.

Now, I want you to notice something, family, here. Joshua didn't say, well, you know, when the Lord came to him in the last chapter, they're sending to camp. You know, Joshua didn't say to the Lord, oh, you know, God, it's no big deal. It's okay.

It's not, it's not, you know, it'll be all right. He didn't say, well, you know, what can I say, God, you know, win a few, lose a few, that's just kind of the way it goes, I guess. No, he took it very serious that there had been a defeat. And there was some soul searching going on, it seems like, and I said, well, you know, what happened?

What happened? And he dealt with it. Joshua's sorrow over the defeat, his repentance caused him to be willing to deal with it. His repentance caused him to be willing to deal with it.

And remember we talked last week that God kept saying the people of Israel, the children of Israel, he didn't just lay it at Achan's feet, he laid it the whole group. It's a little scary, isn't it? So there had been a failure. Do you understand? And I'm not trying to put a negative spin on this or anything, but do you understand you're going to mess up? That may be news for some of you.

Some of you may want to jot that down just so you can remember it. You're going to mess up. You're going to fall. You're going to fail at some point in your Christian life.

The reason I'm telling you this is because perhaps nobody else has ever told you that. A lot of times when people get saved, we paint this picture and we go, okay, you're saved now. You will never again desire to sin, praise God.

And then they walk away and like, you know, a day later, well, more like an hour, well, more like five minutes later, they're going, they're going, but what just happened? Because I still have this carnal urge. I still have this fleshly urge to sin. It must have not took. It didn't take when I prayed that prayer. It didn't, the prayer didn't work.

Because why? Because we painted this picture that they're never going to mess up again. We have to be prepared to mess up and know what we should do when we mess up.

Now again, I'm not encouraging anybody to practice sin. If this is your first night, this is a teaching that's kind of balanced by other teachings, but tonight we need to look at how they recovered from chapter seven. Why?

Because we need to recover from some of our failures and some of our defeats. And maybe you're sitting there going, whoa, not ever supposed to lose. I'm not ever supposed to be defeated. I'm not ever supposed to sin.

Where do you get that? Not in this book. And maybe you got that at some Christian bookstore or something.

I don't know, but it's not in the book, How to Never Fail. Written by who? I mean, who could write that book? I mean, Jesus could write that book, but outside of Jesus, what human could ever dare write something like that?

Nobody, nobody. And you know what's an amazing thing? When you begin to deal with scripture, when you begin to read scripture, where we think somebody that's righteous is somebody that never sins. Oh boy, you get a different picture when you start to dig in this Bible, because you know what? There was one man, there was one man in the Old Testament who actually was a, let's be honest, he was a peeping Tom and he spied out a lady. And if that wasn't bad enough, then he proposed to this lady and they got together. And when she got pregnant, he didn't just go, oops, I really need to come. No, then he had her husband killed, a murderer, a peeping Tom, an adulterer. And God says he was a man after his own heart. That should rock your world.

That should cause you to go, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Maybe I need to reassess what my picture of a true follower of Jesus really is. There's other scriptures in here.

Proverbs 24, 16 says, for a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity. Wow. Here we have one of the secrets, if you will. It's an ancient secret.

It's one we should know. You have the secret of what is different between chapter seven and chapter eight. For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity. They never get back up again.

Do you see the difference? The difference, oh, and beloved, if you get this, it will change your Christian life. Being a righteous person isn't that you don't fall. It's that you always get back up.

You always get back up. If you've been thinking that being righteous has never fallen, be set free tonight. Being righteous is always getting back up when you do fall. That's what the word of God says. Not in one place, but several places.

Here's one other place of many. Psalm 37, 23 says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with his hand. Doesn't say he might fall. It's as though he falls. It's taken for granted that this good man who steps are ordered by the Lord will fall. At some point, he will step out of that which the Lord has for him and he'll stumble. He'll fall, but he doesn't stay down.

He gets back up again. You're listening to pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's word in just a moment. But first, no matter how wise you are, listening to your own advice when you should be trusting God is dangerous. That's why we want to send you Pastor David McGee's CD series called Lessons from the Wilderness. Journey through one of the darkest times in King David's life and discover how you can wait confidently on God no matter what struggles you're facing because his plans are perfect and he always comes through for you. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now back to today's message. When you see somebody that's fallen, when you see somebody that's messed up, encourage them to get back up again. Encourage them to rise again. Encourage them not to be utterly cast down.

I encourage you to do this for a lot of reasons, one of which is that may be the very person that God uses to encourage you when you stumble and when you fall. You see, if we paint a picture of Christianity being something where you never make mistakes, who can join that club? None of us.

None of us could join that club. But if we teach people and we talk to one another and we encourage one another that when we mess up to get back up, not to wallow in it, not to be talking five years from now about how you're still wallowing around in it, because that is, well, as the Proverbs said, the wicked shall fall by calamity. One thing happens and that's it.

It's over. But the righteous, though he falls, will rise again. He'll rise again. And so that's why you see this army living to fight another day.

Joshua didn't say, well, you know, that's pretty much it. We, you know, we went into the Promised Land. We won one battle and then we lost.

And so now, I don't know, I guess we'll just go back to Egypt. That's not what happened. There was a lot of battles left to be fought.

And the Lord encouraged him. He said, come on, let's do this. Let's, so this is one of the awesome ways to live a victorious life is don't let the losses defeat you because it's important to know how to win.

It's also important to know how to lose because victories, even victories can be dangerous, but defeats can be deadly because you're tempted to throw up your hands and say, well, that's it. I can't do this. I can't, I can't.

There's no way that I can do it. And we know that the enemy, he wants to rip us off. We know that one of his tricks, one of his, even his names is the accuser of the brothers. Accuses the brothers and sisters when, when they're doing really well, you think?

No, when they've messed up. Now his goal is not just in defeating you in a battle or two. His goal is to get you and to keep you from fighting, not to rise again and not to do battle ever again.

That's his goal. He's not won the war if he wins one battle. Don't throw up your hands and go, well, that's it. You know, I've lost the war. No, you lost the battle. You lost a battle. And it's good to sit and wonder why you lost that battle. But one of the most important things is, is to get back up, get back up. Why?

Because these things can steamroll. You can lose one battle and then, and then what happens? Then you're getting ready to come for Thursday night. You go, you know, I might as well not go Thursday night. Who am I fooling? I messed up today.

It's obviously not working. And then Sunday morning, well, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to go Sunday morning. They're going to ask me where I was Thursday night. And then it gets easier to stay away, doesn't it? It gets easier to waller in it. Then you don't go out and go last Thursday.

I didn't go last Sunday. And then what happens is you drift and you drift and you drift further and further. Probably everybody in here has had that experience. And hopefully you didn't drift too far, but you see that defeat took you out. And you may lose some battles, but don't surrender the war.

And, and how did, how did they deal with it? And 1 John, 1 John chapter 1, verse 8, 9, 10, tell us, but confess, repent and turn away and learn from the lost battle what the mistakes were. Confess, repent, which means to turn from our sins and turn to God and learn from the lost battle what the mistakes were.

Let me be real honest with you here for a couple of minutes. I've had some humdinger of mistakes in my life. I've had some massive failures. I'm not going into details, but I've had some massive failures in my life. Times that I really, I messed up. I'm not proud of those moments, but you know what's interesting is I've probably learned more in those times than I learned through any victory I've ever had. And those times were tied usually to an overconfidence in my spiritual abilities, just like happened to these guys. They were overconfident.

And what happened? They fell. You'll see that a lot in scripture. Look at the life of Peter. Did Peter fall because he wasn't confident enough in himself because he didn't think highly enough of himself? Do you think that's why Peter fell? That's not why Peter fell. Peter fell because he was overconfident in himself. And he learned one of the greatest lessons you can learn. Don't have confidence in yourself.

Have confidence in the Lord. But can you imagine if Peter wouldn't have got back up again? Oh, I'm sure he was tempted. I'm sure he was tempted. I'm not sure he was hanging out with the other disciples after the death of Jesus. But there was part of him that was hoping, the part that ran to the tomb. And Peter, who suffered what has to be one of the greatest defeats in the whole Bible, became one of the greatest ministers and pastors ever in the history of the Bible.

Why? Because he rose up out of the ashes of his mistakes. He didn't let it beat him. He didn't let it beat him. Oh, I'm sure he was tempted. One of the, and it's sad, but one of the symbols that the early church assigned to Peter was a rooster.

I guess they wanted to kind of remind him of his mistake. But see, Peter would not be Peter if it hadn't been for those denials. I wouldn't be who I am if it wouldn't have been for some of the failures that I've had. You wouldn't be who you are if it wouldn't have been some of the failures that you've had. But let me encourage you to rise up and allow the Lord to minister to you because you may have been knocked down, but you haven't been knocked out. I know we spent a lot of time on that, but the Lord was really impressing on my heart to lay the groundwork of how you go from failure and defeat to victory. One more thing.

Notice who God was given the spoils of AI to. Notice what he says. You keep it. You keep it. This is different from Jericho, isn't it?

Remember what he said in Jericho? Don't take it. It's mine.

Why? Because it was the first fruits. It was the first fruits of the promised land. God said, that is my portion.

Don't take it. And that's why we, they got in such trouble. Aiken did with AI because he tried to keep the first fruits. I read a blog today and read how one guy was saying, you know what, do you want to keep of your finances, do you want 90% to be blessed or do you want 100% to be cursed? That kind of just nails it right down to the real deal, huh? See, they didn't honor God before and they got in a lot of trouble and now God goes, ah, keep it.

Keep it. You've honored me before. I'm going to bless you now.

That's the rule. That's what we see in scripture. You see that, you know, all through. If only Aiken had been patient, probably what he got was nothing compared to what God wanted to give him. But because he thought, you know, he thought that the Bible said, well, God will meet all your greeds. He said, well, I'm a greedy guy and God's going to meet all my greeds. No, God's not going to meet your greeds.

God's going to meet your needs. But he got impatient. What happened? He got ripped off by the enemy. He should have waited. He would have got blessed. Somebody who shared a testimony and, you know, we've been talking about giving because the Bible's been talking about giving. I want to encourage you guys to be biblical in your approach to that. And brother came up and said, I just want to share something with you. He said, you know, God's really been laying on my heart to begin tithing.

I have never done it in my Christian life. And, you know, I said, well, next check I get, I'm going to give the Lord 10% like I'm supposed to do. And right a couple of days before he got his check, you know, they had some unexpected expenses. He was like, oh man, hell, bummer.

Those are going to have to come out of God's share. And he thought that. And then 30 minutes later, he thought, no, you know, that's not right. I'm going to do what's biblical and I'm going to honor God.

And, you know, I'll just figure out how to meet these expenses later. So he tied down that check. A week later, his boss called him into his office and said, you're getting a promotion and a 15% raise. And he said, he just sat there and smiled because yeah, praise God.

Because he knew when his boss told him that, who was really giving him that. It was God honoring his obedience. And verse three, so Joshua arose and all the people of war to go up against Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them away by night. And he commanded them saying, behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city behind the city. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready. And then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city and it will come out about, when they come out against us as at the first, that we shall flee before them. For they will come out after us till we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say they are fleeing before us as at the first. Therefore we will flee before them. Then you shall rise from the ambush and seize the city for the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand. It's an awesome strategy because God was directing what Joshua was supposed to do. See, God will tell you some awesome things and they will go far better than you think they will go.

They'll go far better than your plans. If, if you'll stop to ask. But if you don't stop to ask, it's going to be harder, much harder for the Lord to tell you. So stop and ask, Lord, what do you want me to do in this situation?

And then the second part of that when sometimes the harder part is stop and listen to what he's saying. So God comes up with this awesome thing and, and you know what? I believe that God desires to direct the local church. That's why I'm always asking God, God, what do you want to do about this? God, what do you want to do about that? And God lays stuff on my heart. Now that sometimes that might be in the way of just confirming something or giving me an idea out of the blue, or perhaps sending somebody to me to say, Hey, why don't we do this?

Why don't we fix this like that? I go, Oh, praise God. Thank you, Lord, for giving me an answer through this brother, through this sister, but stopping and listening, it's important. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him. And he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness.

Those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

So many people look to their friends or within their own thoughts when faced with a problem. Even King David struggled with listening to his heart and not trusting in God's promises. Pastor David McGee wants to encourage you to wait confidently on God through whatever trial you're facing by sending you his CD series, Lessons from the Wilderness. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com now for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.