FBC Daily Devotional – July 23, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Friday morning to you. Do you know the old gospel song, Trust and Obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey?

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Don't worry, I promise you I'm not going to sing that for you. That would not be a good beginning to your morning,

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I guarantee you that. But anyway, there's some truth in that song that is illustrated and emphasized in today's reading in the

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Joshua chapter 5 and then in chapter 6. But if you read chapter 5, it seems like the

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Lord has issued a really strange set of directives at this particular time.

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I want you to step back and get the scene. The children of Israel have crossed the

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Jordan River. They're in the promised land. What a miraculous crossing that was.

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And then Joshua had sent the spies to check out Jericho. And when they came back, they gave a report.

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And the report was, everybody's afraid of us. Everybody's afraid of us. They're scared to death of us.

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Now, that seems like an opportune time to strike when you know everybody is afraid of you.

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But instead of launching an attack right away, what the

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Lord does is he tells them, okay, I want you to do two things. I don't want you to go attack anybody.

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What I want you to do is, first of all, you need to celebrate the Passover. That's going to come.

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And secondly, and here's the thing that's even more strategic from a military standpoint, strategically questionable.

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The Lord says, I need you to circumcise all of the men. So for the last 40 years, you know, that right of circumcision was a covenant sign for Israel and Israelite men.

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They were in the covenant of Israel. But for the last 40 years, that right was not practiced.

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So all of the boys born in Egypt prior to age 20, they come out of the land of Egypt.

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They're in the wilderness. All of the older people, older than 20, they all passed away.

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But those 20 years old on up survived through that wilderness wandering. And that whole 40 -year time, none of the men who were under age 20 when they left

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Egypt, none of the boys who were born during the wilderness wanderings have been circumcised.

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So the Lord says, I want you to circumcise all the men. Okay. All right.

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But I want you to get the significance of that. That would incapacitate the entire military force for several days.

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I mean, they're not going to be going and doing any fighting for a few days after that event. And doesn't that give the enemy an opportune time to come and wipe us out?

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So it seems like this is really a odd request. The timing just doesn't seem quite right here.

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But what the Lord is doing is teaching a lesson of trust and obey. Trust and obey.

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What the Lord is also doing is establishing some priorities. And the priorities are you need to be committed to me and to my word,

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God says. You see, both of those things the Lord is going to command them to do here, to practice the right of circumcision and to celebrate the

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Passover. Both of those things were requirements in the law, in the word. And so the

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Lord is teaching them to trust him and obey him. He's teaching them to be committed to him and to his word, that that is more important than anything else.

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And it is absolutely, it's absolutely vital to receiving the promise blessing, trusting and obeying, depending upon the

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Lord, being committed to the Lord, obeying his word. Those commitments are absolutely critical to receiving the promise blessing of the land.

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And so the Lord is teaching them this right away at the beginning of their entrance into the land of promise.

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And then you move into chapter six and you see the lesson continuing even still, right?

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Because what does the Lord tell them to do about taking the city of Jericho? Don't lift a sword.

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Instead, walk around the walls of the city once, blow some horns and do that every day for seven days.

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On the seventh day, do it seven times. And then the walls will fall down for you. Okay. Trust and obey.

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For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

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I hope we've learned that lesson too. I should say it this way. I hope we're learning that lesson.

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And I hope we're increasingly practicing what we're learning. Our father and our

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God, I pray, teach us to trust and obey. And may we do so.

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We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your

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Friday and a wonderful weekend. If you can make it this Sunday on the Lord's day, come join us as we worship together at God's house.