As Christians we spend a lot of our time reacting to the culture, reacting to the defeat and the loss and the discouragement and the hurt.
But Jonathan Evans says our acceptance of defeat is a mistake. God is helping us reposition for the win. I'm experiencing in my own life that it's better to be patient in prayer than it is to be hasty to your own defeat. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Sometimes life's defeats are the wake-up calls we need to break through our pride and remind us of our deep dependence on God. Today, special guest Pastor Jonathan Evans shares the story of a biblical figure who had to learn that lesson the hard way and how we can avoid making the same mistake.
Let's join him as he begins. Today, we're going to be talking about the pain of pride. In Joshua chapter 7 verse 5, it says, The men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of their men, and pursued them from the gate as far as Shirebim, and struck them down on their descent. And so the hearts of the people melted and became like water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening.
Both he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, Alas, O Lord, why did you ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us, if only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan? Here, Joshua is experiencing a whole lot of pain, like many of us are experiencing right now. He's experiencing that pain, and he's before the Lord.
And I just want to say it backwards so that we can really feel the way that Joshua feels right now. He's on his knees in prayer before the Lord, and he's saying, Lord, it would have been better if we were not even in the promise. It would have been better if we had been willing just to dwell in the wilderness, to dwell beyond the Jordan. Alas, O Lord, did you bring us here just to destroy us, to allow us to go downhill like this, to allow us to be defeated by the Amorites? I fell on my face before the ark of the Lord.
The elders put dust on their heads because the hearts of the people melted because we were struck down on our way down, and 36 of our men perished in battle. Joshua is experiencing pain right now, and he's before the Lord in prayer, and he's saying, Alas, O Lord, it would have been better if you would have just left us on the other side of our promise because of the difficulty that he was experiencing. And a lot of us are saying those same prayers right now because of the difficulty that we're experiencing. We're saying, Alas, O Lord, it would have been better if I never planted or started this ministry only for it to get decimated by COVID and things not work out. Alas, O Lord, it would have been better if I didn't do what you say and reconciled and forgave this person because of the havoc that it's causing with my friends and family. Things are not working out.
There's this tug of war that's going on. Many of us are saying what Joshua is saying, Alas, O Lord, it would have been better if I had never jumped that broom. Alas, O Lord, it would have been better even if I had not committed my life to you and I would have just stayed in Egypt instead of trying to make my way to the promise of victory through Jesus Christ because things have gotten difficult for me.
Alas, O Lord, it would have just been better if I didn't accept my calling and I went my way and not your way because your way seems to go further downhill, seems to hurt even more. We're saying what Joshua is saying, Alas, O Lord. And I know that's my prayer a lot of times, but notice that Joshua is reactive in prayer, not proactive in prayer. God is not found in his battle or at the beginning of his battle, but only when the battle is lost. So he's spending his time reacting to God in prayer and not being proactive to God in prayer.
It would have been nice if he fell before the face of God, before the battle, before he entered in this situation instead of reactively. But a lot of times I noticed, this is how I pray, and this is how a lot of Christians pray out there and we spend our time with God this way, that I spend more time with God when I'm losing than when I'm winning. God hears for me when things are going down, not when things are up. And God is saying to me in my devotion, when I'm feeling and like Joshua is feeling and when I'm going through defeat, I can hear the Lord speak back to me as I'm saying, O last, O Lord, he's saying, alas, my child. I told you to be patient in Philippians 4, 6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication, make your request known to me because I'm the one that can give you peace in what you're going through that can surpass all understanding. That's proactive, John John, not reactive. He's saying, alas, my child. I told you in First Thessalonians 5, 17 to pray without ceasing. That means do not cease praying. That's proactive, Jonathan.
That's not reactive, Jonathan. He's saying, alas, my child. I told you in Second Chronicles 2015 that the battle is not even yours that you're going through, but it belongs to me.
So how can you not invite me into that battle? You're saying, alas, O Lord, Jonathan, but I'm saying, alas, my child. I told you in First Corinthians 15, 58, be steadfast, unmovable, always abound in the work of the Lord and know that it will not go in vain. That is proactive.
That is not reactive. Jonathan, I'm trying to get you to be on offense and not just defense. For all of the Christians out there who were listening to this and people coming into the faith, God wants us to be on offense, not just defense. We're saying, alas, O Lord. And God is looking at us and saying, alas, my child.
I told you in John 15 that if you abide in me and my word abides in you, then you can ask whatever it is and it will be done for you. That's proactive, not just reactive. As Christians, we spend a lot of our time reacting to the culture, reacting to the difficulty, reacting to the battle, reacting to the defeat and the loss and the discouragement and the hurt and the pain. And God is saying the same God that you're using for reaction to be reactive is the same God that I am proactively. And so God wants us to come to him all the time and pray without ceasing.
And Joshua is reacting to the loss that he's experienced. I'm experiencing in my own life that it's better to be patient in prayer than it is to be hasty to your own defeat. It's better to start with God than to end with God after going through what we're going through.
We need him all the time. And Joshua is on his knees pleading with God, saying, alas, O Lord. And God is saying, alas, my child. And so he's teaching us this because right now, Joshua is experiencing the pain of his pride and he's now in position to win. Don't you know that God will allow you to experience a loss so that you're repositioned to win? Joshua is experiencing the pain of his pride because God wants to eradicate the pride that caused the pain. And that's what God will allow us to do. That's why he says in his word that those who humble themselves will be exalted. But those who exalt themselves, they will, in fact, be humbled. It's always better for us to be in his will and in his presence. Joshua is experiencing the pain of his pride.
And a lot of us right now, even as a country, we're experiencing the pain of our pride. It says that he fell on his face and said, alas, O Lord, it would have been better if I didn't even come. Notice he's in reactive prayer. And on top of that, he's blaming it on God.
How many times do we blame it on God when we didn't even bring God into the picture? God, come on. You've got to do better than this. Jesus, come on now. I need you to come through. Come on, God. Get me out of this situation.
Why did you even bring me in here? And we are in reactive prayer to God. It's important that we understand how important God is for victory because he's the only way that we can actually find it.
It's in the price that he paid. Now, notice that Joshua is reactive. But I'm so glad that Joshua is reactive to the Lord.
It's better to be proactive. But in the situations which will happen in our life where we're reactive and not proactive, I'm glad that he's falling on his face before the ark of the Lord. I'm glad that he's returning to the word. The Ark of the Covenant was a chest that had the Ten Commandments in it. The two stone tablets.
It had the Ten Commandments in it. And that is the word of God. And he knows where to go, even though he's blaming it on God. And even though he had pride, his pain is bringing him back to the right position.
Let me just be real with you for a moment. There's a lot of people out there who are experiencing pain. And there are a lot of people who are experiencing excruciating pain in their personal lives and in their families. But I want to make sure you understand, even in a reactionary state, you want to return to the Lord in prayer and into his word.
Why? Because there's a lot of people who not only are they reacting, but they're reacting to things that aren't the Lord. There's a lot of people who are listening to this right now who are reacting to alcohol. There's a lot of people who are listening to this right now who are reacting to drugs. There's a lot of people who are listening to this right now who are reacting to carnal friends and reacting to taking a step back from their Christian lifestyle and from their faith. They're reacting based on their feelings and not their word.
They're reacting to other things that are not the Lord. Some people are even struggling right now with the thoughts of suicide to take care of this myself instead of coming back to the Lord, who already paid the price for your victory. All he needs is you for you to experience the victory that he already has in him. I hope you understand what I'm saying, because a lot of times we're running to things that have no power over our victory and to turn our situation around.
A temporary fix does not give long term victory. Jonathan will have more valuable insights for us when he continues with the second part of today's message in just a moment. First though, I wanted to let you know that today's lesson comes from Pastor Jonathan Evans' ten-part audio collection entitled Survivor.
We're excited to make these messages available to you in their entirety on CD, USB stick, or instantly downloadable digital files. Through Jonathan's Survivor Series messages, you'll discover that the God we serve fights our battles alongside us. And although we face moments when we feel we can't carry on, God will continue to equip and grow our faith in him as we learn to release our pain, our discouragement, and our blessings to him. We'd like to send you the complete Survivor audio series as our thank you gift when you make a donation toward the ministry of the alternative. And if you do it right away, as an added bonus, we'll include a copy of Dr. Tony Evans' daily devotional book called Life Under God. This popular resource will challenge, encourage, and inspire you each day to live your life in harmony with God's will. Visit us today at tonyevans.org or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, make your contribution, and let us send you the Life Under God devotional book as well as the complete Survivor audio series. All the details are waiting for you online at tonyevans.org or give us a phone call at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you.
I'll have those contact details for you again after part two of today's message and this. What if you could unlock the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything in between? Genesis 1 to 11 is the foundation for everything. The Tony Evans Training Center presents a transformative course from special guest lecturer Ken Ham, founder CEO of Answers in Genesis. If you want to understand anything about the universe and anything about life and this earth, we have to jump into God's Word. This course dives deep into the origins of life, the harmony of science and scripture, and how to build a solid biblical worldview. Does science conflict with the Bible?
No, not at all. Observational science confirms the Bible over and over and over again. Equip yourself to face today's toughest cultural challenges with clarity and confidence. If we're going to deal with issues in our culture, we need to start from our foundation first of all to understand what we should believe. Discover faith strengthening truths from Genesis and explore more courses to deepen your understanding of God's Word at TonyEvansTraining.org.
Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. I want to encourage you, if you're running to something other than God, be like Joshua. Joshua is experiencing defeat. Joshua is experiencing hurt, but he falls on his face before the Lord.
He is the one who has the power to turn your situation around. And as soon as Joshua goes before the Lord in verse seven and verse six, notice I'm going backwards today. In verse seven and verse six, he goes before the Lord. The verses following 10, 11, and 12, the Lord encourages Joshua. In verse 10, he says rise up. In verse 13, he says rise up. He lets him know in verse 11, there is sin inside the camp. There is sin inside Israel. The Lord lets Joshua know that Achan had taken some things from Jericho that I told him not to take. And there is sin.
Those articles are still inside the camp. And Joshua, you cannot stand before your enemy with those sins inside the camp. Joshua gained awareness of things that he did not know that caused his defeat. The Lord was able to bring him awareness. Substances can bring you awareness.
Carnal friends don't bring you awareness, just running off to a divorce attorney because of how you feel and what's going on. That's not going to the Lord. That doesn't bring you awareness. It gives you the rule of American law, but it doesn't bring you awareness for you to know what is it on the inside of me that may be causing me to be a part of the loss or difficulty or devastation that I'm going through? The same God that was there for him reactive, who encouraged him and told him to rise up, who gave him knowledge so that he can have victory is the same God who could have gave him that information proactive. He gives him encouragement, gives him awareness and gives him a new plan to have victory over the same thing that he felt defeated in.
I'm trying to tell you all we have to allow our new positioning because of the pain that we're experiencing. Take us from losing to winning through the power of God. The reason why he got all this because he went before the word. The word is like a mirror. When you go before the mirror, Second Corinthians chapter three, verse 18 says, go before the Lord with an unveiled face and behold, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, where you see yourself clearly because the Bible is a mirror that reflects back to you things that you may be unaware of because no one can see their face without a mirror so that you can move forward with the plan to actually have victory over what you're going through. Why was Joshua on his face? Why was Joshua pleading before the Lord?
Why was Joshua so low and so humble? Well, because as we're working our way back, it says in verse five, because of the hearts of the people melted. Now, when I looked for melted hearts in the Bible, I found Ezekiel twenty one seven. It says that the hearts of the people melted the same way it says it here in Joshua chapter seven. And it was because they felt the Lord, their God was against them. It was that the loss made them feel that that God was no longer in their presence and they weren't in God's presence.
So their hearts melted. And I know many of you are asking the question, God, where are you? In Exodus 17, the people ask the question, is the Lord with us or not? Is the Lord with our country or not? Is the Lord with our family, our marriage or not? Is the Lord with me in my single life or not? Is the Lord with our ministry or not? Is the Lord with me or not? And when you don't feel like the Lord is with you, it makes the heart melt.
But we know and are reminded in Hebrews chapter thirteen, five and six, it says the Lord will never leave you or forsake you. I know a lot of times when I'm on Zoom, it just happened not that long ago. I was on Zoom. And you know, they have the option to turn your video off. They have the option for you to turn your video off. And when you turn your video off, it's got your placeholder. And your placeholder is not really you. It's just a placeholder of you. You could be doing something else.
You could be running off doing something else while giving the facade that you're really there. And I had a couple of friends on a call put up a placeholder and I wanted to test them after I gave the plan. I said, hey, you and you not going to put them on blast.
You and you. What did you think about my plan? They had the placeholders up. I wanted to test them to see if they were listening. What did you think about the plan?
You and you. I heard crickets in the backyard. Nobody said anything.
So I knew they were there, but not there. They were off doing something else. I said, hey, you and you, are you there? What did you think about my plan?
All of a sudden, the video came back on and they said, breathing all hard because they ran back in the room and they gave me their face. I said, hey, what did you think about the plan? They said, well, what part of the plan? No, I only had one part to my plan.
It only had one point. I didn't, it wasn't that elaborate. What did you think about my plan? And now, even though they're there in video, they look like a placeholder. They're just sitting there staring at me because they don't know the plan. But it's not because I wasn't giving the plan.
It's just that they gave me a placeholder instead of giving me the real thing. A lot of Christians are doing that to God. We give God a placeholder on Sunday while we live an alternate life, Monday through Saturday. We give God a placeholder that says we're a Christian, but we're really focused on our political party. We give God a placeholder that says we're committed while we're really uncommitted and being cultural. We give God a placeholder that says all of these things, when we're really not there, we're going about doing our own thing. And God is saying, I have been speaking, but your placeholder is not your presence.
And a lot of times we're not hearing God, not because he's not speaking, but because we're not literally where Joshua is, falling on his face before the Ark of the Covenant. And finally, it says that they were torn down on their way down and 36 men perished in battle against Ai. Notice the verbiage there in verse five. They were struck down on their descent.
I don't know if you see that. They were struck down on their way down. Don't you know that being on your way down and being humbled has some pain to it? When God humbles you and allows you to be humbled, not only are you going down, but you're getting kicked while you're down.
This was a tragic loss for the people of Israel like many of us are experiencing. When I was playing in the NFL, I was struck down on my way down. I told my wife, I'm going to play in the NFL.
I had already been cut and traded and hurt and carted off. I experienced everything. And I kind of heard a nibble from God because I was giving him a placeholder called NFL. So I wasn't really listening, but I kind of heard him nibbling at me and saying, I'm calling you to ministry. I'm calling you to preach my word. And I heard the nibble. And even my wife, Kenneka, was like, Babe, I think the Lord is calling us away from this.
He's really given us a lot of signs. But I had my placeholder called the NFL up. I really wasn't listening. And I got a call from the Kansas City Chiefs and they said, hey, come on and play. And I said, see, babe, let's go.
God's will. I went out to go work out after hearing the nibbles and hearing it from my wife. I took an open door, which lets me know that every open door doesn't mean it's God's door. But I went out there and I started working out with a friend of mine named Cletus. And we're working out outside. And as I was running my 40, I tore my Achilles tendon.
Boom. Hit the ground in pain, throbbing, grabbing the back of my leg. And I can hear God say to me, I'm allowing you to be struck down on your way down. Because I'm not calling you to walk in a way and I'm not going to allow you to continue to walk in a way that I'm not calling you. So I experienced that pain.
And let me tell you, it changed the way I walked. I put on a boot after having surgery and I put my crutches on and I limped into Dallas Theological Seminary. Because God has a way to allowing you to lose so that he can reposition you to win. I pray that everyone out there, as you experience the pain, you would reposition yourself to God.
He has a plan for you to win. If you're ready to put yourself in the right position with God, but haven't even met him yet, if you've never taken the step of asking Jesus Christ to be your personal sin bearer and guarantee you a place in heaven for eternity, take a few minutes to visit TonyEvans.org today and click on the link that simply says Jesus. There, Dr. Tony Evans will tell you all about what it means to be a Christian and walk you through everything you need to know to start your brand new life, repositioning yourself to God, as Jonathan Evans has been talking about today. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. And for everyone listening today, don't miss the chance to request Dr. Tony Evans' Life Under God 365-Day Devotional Book, along with all 10 full-length messages from Jonathan Evans' powerful audio series, Survivor. These resources are our gift to you when you support this ministry with a financial contribution, helping us continue bringing God's Word your way. Visit TonyEvans.org to make your request, or call us anytime at 1-800-800-3222, where our resource team is ready to assist you. That's 1-800-800-3222. God's direction for our lives isn't always comfortable, or predictable, or even logical, but it is always right. Tomorrow Jonathan Evans will explain why the best way to guarantee victory in life is to get out of the Lord's way and start operating by faith instead of feelings. Be sure to join us!
