FBC Daily Devotional – July 29, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:04

Well a good Thursday morning to you today We are in Joshua chapters 11 and 12 and I want to focus our attention at the beginning of chapter 11 and we read here about a coalition of forces of city -states that are coming against the

00:21

Israelites and Obviously want to wipe them out. They've heard all that the Israelites have already accomplished and it has been impressive

00:29

Everywhere they everywhere they've gone. They've defeated the Canaanites. They've taken over their territory and So this character

00:38

Jabin who's the king of the city of Hazor? He's had enough of this and he knows the threat is real

00:45

So he gets together with some of the other city -states and says let's band together and go fight against these

00:51

Israelites now a couple of things about Jabin and Hazor that I think are instructive

00:58

One of them is that Hazor is a very important city. In fact, we read in What is it first?

01:08

Verse 10 that Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms

01:14

So it was a prominent city Where you know everybody around it all the other city -states around Hazor Looked up looked to that city as the the prominent one where they got the where they got their leadership from I met

01:32

Jabin the king of Hazor was also a very influential leader in the region

01:40

Hazor is also a fortified city and and it was a city located in a very strategic place it was at a thoroughfare of travel of commerce and controlled

01:54

I mean whoever controlled Hazor could control the traffic flow if you will and the commerce as it went from Egypt to Mesopotamia very important city and So it was critical.

02:08

I think it was critical for Joshua and the Israelites to capture and to destroy that city

02:16

Because of the control that had exercised and wielded over the region now remember

02:22

This is their mission This is the mission of the Israelites Hazor Jabin and and all these other city -states are smack in the middle of Canaan They're Canaanites the iniquity has come to the full

02:35

God's intention is that the Israelites be the instruments of his judgment and Therefore they're under the ban.

02:44

I mean they're under the the order of destruction But there's another reason why it was it was critical that Hazor be destroyed because if it were allowed to remain with its power it could influence and increase control

03:07

So that whatever gains were made by the Israelites could end up being could end up being lost now

03:14

I see this when we when we step back and realize the one of the functions of the book of Joshua is to illustrate the conflict of the

03:26

Christian life and the importance of conquest and the mortifying of sin the conquering of sin

03:33

I see here a very important picture that Hazor represents and that is that this

03:41

Hazor represents a sin that can be a dominating sin, which is especially critical that we mortify it and Have you ever had this happen in your life where?

03:54

there was you know kind of a besetting sin one that you would often gravitate to and You thought you finally got victory over that thing.

04:04

You finally got control of victory over that thing and Killed it if you will

04:10

But then Sometime later that same sin reared its ugly head and came back with full force and And defeated you

04:21

Well, that's exactly what happened with Hazor Because here's apparently what happened

04:28

The Israelites defeated Jabin and you know, Jabin the king of Hazor and Hazor and all that region in Joshua's day but they never

04:38

Capitalized on that conquest they weren't vigilant in Making sure that they took control the

04:48

Israelites took control of that region rebuilt the city for their strategic purposes and Helped keep the enemy out so instead

05:00

Because they had kind of a laissez -faire attitude toward the place The Canaanites actually rebuilt

05:07

Hazor they established a descendant of Jabin called him

05:12

Jabin and He became the king and in the period of the judges a few hundred years later or a hundred years later

05:23

Hazor ends up becoming a dominant city and Hazor Jabin the king of Hazor a century later than Joshua ends up taking

05:36

Captivity a whole bunch of Israelites taking control over them and dominating them.

05:42

This is just like Just like sin That you know, we think we've mortified we think we've killed it

05:50

But if we're not vigilant if we're not vigilant and we don't practice the principle of replacement

05:58

You know get rid of this and add this like we read about in Ephesians chapter 4 then

06:05

We can find ourselves succumbing to that sin Very easily once again, so let's be on guard.

06:13

Let's be vigilant and Sober in our battle with sin our

06:20

Father and our God. I pray that we would We would mind the Hazor's of our lives and I pray that you would give us a true victory and conquest

06:31

And we pray it in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen All right.