We pray that God will bless you with faithfulness to his Word and to his truth. Israel had to struggle to bring the will of God into their land. We pray that God will help you in the struggle to put shame out of your life and find full submission to the will of God. This will not happen by laws alone, and not just by his judgment against you, but by his special work of mercy in your life and in your heart.
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
From the records of Joshua and the judges, we can learn many lessons about the faithfulness of God. The Bible tells us about the history of men and women of faith, but the real message is about God. God is showing us what he is like. He is always faithful, holy and good. The prophets and judges that God sent to people spoke the Word of God and helped the people to change their hearts. If we choose God’s way, we have blessing, and if we reject God’s way, we are cursed. God wanted them to have the joy and peace that come with obedience.
We also see that suffering and struggle are part of being faithful to God. Just as the Promised Land was filled with idol worshipers and evil, our world is now in rebellion against God. If we try to worship God and follow his path of holiness, we will struggle with sin. Evil and the powers of darkness want to keep the world in ignorance and fear. In the time of the Judges, this struggle grew worse, so God raised up judges and prophets to lead the people. However, none of them could keep the people faithful to God for very long. The Law of Moses could not hold the people to the covenant, for they were often disobedient to God. The prophets could not overcome the problem of rebellion and sin because the evil was deep in the hearts of men.
What we do see is that when God’s people are not faithful to him, there are serious results. The whole land is cursed and evil takes control. Therefore, everything that God had warned through the Prophets Moses and Joshua happened. Yes, Israel was given the land of Canaan, but to keep it, they were required to be faithful to God. They were not doing this. Could there be a solution to this problem? We will see what steps God took to change this situation in our next lesson.