“And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land,” (Joshua 8:1)
Joshua learned a hard lesson from the first episode with Ai and the ensuing tragedy of Achan (Joshua 7). From now on, and more than ever before, he would seek the clear and unmistakeable guidance of God in every move he made. And he would obey implicitly what God instructed him to do because to do otherwise has dire consequences.
Even though Joshua and Israel had entered the promised land in triumph, tasted the fruit of the land, and experienced an extraordinary supernatural victory over Jericho, they discovered that they could still fall flat on their faces before their adversaries. The fact is that deliberate disobedience to God (Achan’s sin) has horrendous consequences; not only for the individual who sins but also for the people around them. Man cannot break God’s clear commands with impunity. Wrongdoing has terrible consequences and divine justice demands payment. Sadly we view sin so lightly and wink it away by calling it human weakness or character defect. But divine justice demands the full retribution for wrong done and the cost for such justice is always death. (“The soul that sins shall die,” Ezekiel 18:4.) The death will either be ours or another’s. As Philip Keller writes, “For the person who voluntarily confesses and makes restitution there comes pardon. This is because of the appalling price paid for us by God in Christ at the cross. But without confession of wrong, without genuine repentance of conduct, without deep remorse of spirit, culminating in conversion of conduct, none of God’s mercy avails. Simply because it has not been accepted or claimed in an act of faith by the offender.”
Joshua and the people of Israel discovered through Ai and Achan the terrible consequences of disobedience to God’s commands. Joshua also found out how imperative it is to keep in step with God and to not grow over-confident. He did not seek the Lord with regard to Ai and thus made a faulty strategy that caused his forces to suffer casualties. To succeed in the conflicts and spiritual battles of life, we must keep pace with God. It is God who makes clear what our course of action should be. This God did in due course for Joshua at Ai, but the initial setback was severe and shattering. However, Joshua also learned that though they had failed, though there had been tragedy rather than triumph in the initial assault on Ai, they were not utterly forsaken of God. Though wayward, they were restored. The same can be true for us.
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