Daily Devotional – April 27, 2020

Well, good afternoon here we are and what what is this day. 38 of stay at home and and just think we're just a few days away from. No mask, no food. I'm not particularly looking forward to that. But I have I have got my mask ready.

It's one. I've been wanting to wear ever since I was a little kid and used to watch the Roy Rogers show on TV every week remember that and. And if I can't find a good Roy Rogers mask, then then I'll have to settle for the mask of Zorro.

I mean, you know, it's a mask and they just say you have to wear a mask. So We'll see how that goes. I'll be sure to let you know. Well today is a special day in our family's household. It's my wife's birthday today.

I Won't tell you which birthday it is. All I'll tell you is it's a one one of those wonderful milestone birthdays it has a zero at the end and I know some of you are guessing that that's probably 40. But you you can't you can't go by looks.

Okay, so you have to you have to think a little more deeply than that. But I'm just gonna leave it at that. But anyway, happy birthday to my wonderful wife. She's a great a great delight in our home. Her family a great wonderful compliment to me couldn't ask for a better wife.

So happy birthday to my wife. Well, you know in the last few weeks. I've occasionally Suggested, you know, maybe doing some extra reading picking up a book that's been on the shelf for a while or whatever and some people have taken me up on that one lady reported that she She was interested in doing some reading but in a subject she'd never really thought of before so she got on Amazon did a little browsing and she came across a title that she decided to to purchase and to read and Me it's kind of a weird book, but it's entitled stuck in the past a history of glue a Little odd, but she's finding it very delightful.

She says she can't put the book down. You may have to think on that one. All right. Well, I've been thinking a little bit recently about the book of Joshua and not long ago read through the book and You're familiar with the book of Joshua.

It's a history of Israel as they entered the land of promise and Conquered the land and then divided their land took possession of the land and so forth and in that In that conquest things started off great you remember maybe remember that the leadership transition from Moses to Joshua went very well went without a hitch and Joshua was being very successful.

The people are appreciating him and so forth and then there was that miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, which was certainly reminiscent of you know 40 years earlier when Israel left the land of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea the sea parted and they went through the Red Sea and same thing here at the Jordan River and then that incredible defeat at Jericho.

Never been anything like that before. So so things are going off. We're going along very well until all of a sudden as they say the wheels came off the cart. And this happens in Joshua chapter 7 now things begin in a pretty typical ordinary way in verse 2 we read that Joshua suggested that they take the typical approach the usual approach before going to a new area and We read in verse 2 that Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai Which is near Beth Avon east of Bethel and said to them go up and spy out the land.

And the men went up and spied out the land. Well, this is this is typical stuff. This is what Moses had the twelve spies do at Kadesh Barnea 40 years ago when they went and spied out the land to check it out see what kind of a land it was and This is what Joshua did when they were still on the east side of the Jordan River.

He sent spies to go in and check out the city of Jericho. See what they were up against when they went to Jericho and so forth. So he does the same thing here sends the spies to Ai and has them check it out.

So it's a usual typical approach and then in verse 3 these spies, you know. They're they're charged with coming back and giving a report and they give their report and they reach a what seems to be a pretty Reasonable conclusion says they returned to Joshua and said to him Do not have all the people go up but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack AI.

Do not make all the people toil up there for they are few. Yeah, this seemed like a reasonable conclusion. It was a small city village large village town I guess and A few thousand people and not nearly as big as Jericho and not well as defended.

So it seemed like a reasonable conclusion, but The wheels came off. They suffered a humiliating Demoralizing loss we read in verses 4 5. So about three thousand men went up from there from the people and they fled before the men of AI and the men of AI killed about 36 of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebareem and Struck them at the descent and then read this.

The hearts of the people melted and became as water. Okay, so now what? Now what I want you to consider some parallels to our current crisis now one of the parallels I am absolutely not drawing is the peril as a parallel between the United States of America and The nation of Israel the Old Testament Israel.

I'm not I'm not making that parallel at all. But what I what I do see as some parallels is this week in our nation. We are we have been known for having a strong military. We've been militarily successful over the last decades and Even when challenged greatly challenged we've risen to the challenge and and seem to be militarily successful.

In the last few years, we've seen some strong economic growth stock market reaching great highs and record highs and unemployment reaching record lows and a Very very strong economy and then all of this is ground to a halt by a microscopic germ.

Okay. So now what do we do? What do we do? How do we handle the distress? What questions come to our mind and more importantly, where do we go for answers to those questions? Well, we have some options about what to do where to go.

And I think all of these options are probably being utilized these days one of them is the The scientific approach that's where we look Strictly and only at the Circumstantial explanations or reasons or causes we look only at the quote-unquote data to try to figure out Where did this thing come from?

What caused it? And how do we solve it? So for example, you've heard the stories kovat 19 was caused by animal contamination in one of those wet markets in Wuhan or it came about as a result of inadvertent contamination from a research lab in their near Wuhan or more conspiratorially, it came about as a result of a deliberate a deliberate contamination from.

A.

Virus from this research lab in in Wuhan the scientific approach just strictly looking at data if you will and then there is the Stoic approach to this crisis. A stoic approach is sort of a Passive acceptance that uses that Statement that you hear a lot these days.

Well, you know, it is what it is. It is what it is. So let's just deal with it and get on with life. You know stiff upper lip kind of a thing the stoic approach. And then there's what I'll call the naturist approach.

This has a couple of different nuances to it. One of them Expresses it like this. This is just this is bad karma. This is bad karma. This is just us getting what we deserve because of what we've done kind of like This would be the interpretation of Israel's defeated AI is bad karma for what they did to Jericho now.

They're getting it in in return and more precise or specific The naturist the true naturist would say, you know Mother Nature is retaliating against man for man's abuse of Mother Nature and say you see some hints of this in some of the statements that go like well, have you noticed how clean the air is now that we're all in a stay-at-home mode or if you noticed how clean the water is or I've heard a report that The bear population in Yosemite National Park is just proliferating.

It was just you know, because there are no humans there I'm not exactly sure how the bear population could be proliferating in a matter of a couple of months. I I'm sure that the the naturists have some kind of an explanation for that.

But but the whole idea of the naturist approach is isn't this wonderful Mother Nature is finally retaliating in and Getting back at us for what we've done to her. Well, and then there are some spiritual approaches and.

The.

American religion spiritual approach or response. Is that of what we call moralistic therapeutic deism? I'm not gonna go into that at this point but just to summarize it to say this the American religion looks at God as Someone who's supposed to make our life comfortable make our life easier.

To relieve us when we're in a crisis and so forth. We saw this about 20 years almost 20 years ago with 9 -11 and You know when that when the Twin Towers went down and those attacks came from the Islamic terrorists.

The cry was was issued pray to God pray to God pray pray pray pray pray pray and then when it seemed the crisis was averted and things calmed down. You know God is forgotten about. So in this day with this crisis You've heard a lot of people, you know saying pray and and the prayer is something along this line.

Pray to God to make this thing go away to make this disease This virus disappear to make everything better again. So the American religion is you know a religion that says pray that we get relief but a biblical Christian response is a little deeper than that it it asks some questions and it goes to God with those questions.

It seeks answers to God from God for those questions it the the biblically Christian response doesn't just seek relief. It wants to probe deeper.

And.

This is what we're finding gonna find in Joshua chapter 7. I'll come back to this subject tomorrow and I I think that we can find some help and encouragement from Joshua 7 in responding well to this virus crisis.

So until then let's have a word of prayer and ask the Lord to bless the remainder of our day and our work and service for him. So our Father and our God we do thank you for this day and thank you for your grace and your provision in it and I pray that as we continue to deal with this Crisis in our day that we would respond to it with a biblically Christian response.

This I pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right. We'll have a good rest of your Monday and God bless you.