The Sword of the LORD

After the death of Moses, Joshua became the spiritual leader and commander who God chose to bring the Israelites into the land of promise after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.  The first great obstacle that the Hebrews encountered after their miraculous crossing of the Jordan River was the city of Jericho.  Jericho was a formidable city with a stone wall that presented a difficult challenge to Joshua and his army.   This city was a key to the conquest of Canaan in that it defended the central hill country and the other cities of the region.   Joshua had sent spies into the city to survey its defenses and had learned among other things that the people were terrified of the Israelites and their God because of all they had heard that the Lord had done for them. God spoke to Joshua and told him, "See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour." (Joshua 6:2).   Moreover, the Lord appeared to Joshua in the plain of Jericho

“O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” (Psalms 34:8).    When I was very small and resistant to trying new foods (especially vegetables), my mother would say, “Just taste one bite, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”  Usually she would have a fight getting me to try even one bite because I had already made up my mind that I didn’t like it.  Something about the color, or the texture, or just the way it laid on the plate would turn me against it.  As unsuccessful as my mom's method was, I still tried it with my own kids with similar results.  Once in a great while, though, they would actually take a taste and, lo and behold, they would like what they tried and want more.    David tells us in Psalm 34, “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”  One can never know just how good a thing is until they experience it for themselves.  We can try to express to others how sweet this re

Good is always the enemy of best.  Doing good things for God is not the same as doing the thing that God asks us to do.  We can fill our lives with many religious activities and good works, and still be disobedient to God because we do not do the thing that He asks.  Saul, the first King of Israel, fell out of favor with God by offering a great sacrifice to the Lord instead of simply obeying what he had been told to do.  Jesus told a rich ruler who had kept all of the commandments since he was a child that he yet lacked one thing from having eternal life.  That man walked away grieved because, despite all his devotion, he could not do the one thing Jesus asked.   After being delivered from the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, the Israelites were then lead by Moses into the Desert of Sinai.  God had told them that He would lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey - the Promised Land - but they didn’t know where that was!  They didn’t know what direction to go, or how far away it

Baptism is often overlooked as simply a ritual or act that Christians perform as a show of obedience to the Lord.  Once baptized, many Christians never think of it again - the obligation has been fulfilled.  I pray that after reading this today, your view of baptism is changed, and that your whole walk with God is transformed forever.   In the sixth chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul plainly teaches the basic principles of baptism, beginning with the question: “Shall we continue in sin?”   The answer is clearly, “no;” but the reason is very intriguing.  The writer asks how we, who are dead to sin, can live any longer in sin.  Many Christians I know struggle from day to day to do the right things, make the right choices, and live a life that is pleasing to God.  They live their life in full awareness that they are open to temptation and subject to attack and, therefore, are ever busy fighting and resisting those temptations – sometimes successfully, and sometimes not so much.  Aft

"Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." (James 1:21).    A neighbor who lives behind me has an amazing apple tree.  It is enormous, and has been there for a very long time.  It provides a lot of shade to them in the summer time, and an ample amount of fruit in the fall.  The amazing thing about this tree, though, is not its size, or age, or even the amount of apples that it bears; no, the amazing thing is that it bears five different varieties of apple!  Someone years ago took the time to graft the branches of other apple trees into the branches of this existing tree.  Now, that which was not possible for this tree to bear on its own has not only become possible, but a reality.   The Bible teaches us that the Word of God can be grafted into the lives of believers.  It is an operation that is, unfortunately, very foreign to man in general.  Paul tells us in Rom

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death " (Philippians 3:7-10).   The cry of the Apostle Paul's heart was to know Christ in all His fullness.  Like the other apostles and disciples of the Lord who came before him, Paul was willing to forsake everything and spend the rest of his life following Jesus and learning Who He really is.  All the things that he once counted as treasures and great accomplishments in his life - his position in the reli

Recorded in the 2 nd Book of the Kings of Israel, chapter six, is a story that touches my heart because it has great relevance to the struggles that we face as Christians in an ever changing and increasingly complex world.   The King of Syria at the time, Ben-hadad, decided to invade Israel.  When he would send his army to a certain place hoping to surprise the Israelites, God would speak to Elisha, the prophet, and reveal the position of the enemy troops to the King of Israel.  In this way, they were forewarned, and saved from disaster, many times.  The Syrian King, however, was very agitated, and demanded to know who the spy was among them who was revealing their troop movements to their enemy.  One of his servants spoke up, and told him that it was the prophet in Israel who was aware of every secret plan that Ben-hadad made.  Ben-hadad, therefore, commanded his army to go and besiege the city of Dothan, where Elisha was staying at the time, and bring the man of God to him.  So

The 16th chapter of Acts in the Bible tells the story of Paul and Silas’ trip into Macedonia to spread the Word of God.  Paul had seen a vision of God that directed him to go to Macedonia and help the lost souls that were there.  Once there, they had some initial success in converting souls to Christianity; but soon, through a series of events, the pair were seized by the town magistrates, beaten, and cast into prison.    The prisons of those days were usually dark, dank, and rat and insect infested.  Because of the instructions that the jailor had received concerning Paul and Silas, however, they were also cast into the deepest dungeon, and secured in stocks.   This was a strange turn of events for the Lord’s chosen who had been divinely directed to this place.  They would have had every reason to question whether they were really in the Lord’s will or not.  They could have become discouraged, despondent, or even angry.  Instead, they began to pray and seek God’s guidance and

"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof" (Romans 13:14).   Scripture compares the putting off our old, carnal nature, and putting on our new nature in Christ with changing clothes.  The picture I have in my mind is like when I would come home from work and take off the dirty, smelly clothes that I had worked in all day, bathe, and put on clean, fresh clothes that were free of spot or wrinkle.  The simplicity of this picture is arresting.  God does not suggest that we try to clean, patch up, or press the old garments - He tells us to put them off altogether and discard them because He has a brand new garment for us.  God says that "...we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).  There is nothing salvageable about our old nature: it is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts that rule it.  The Apostle Paul was convinced that there was not one good

"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:15-19).   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.  And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3:2, 3).   Each of us who have been born again by the Spirit of God have been adopted into the family of God.  From the outset we are fully sons and daughters just as surely as our own children are our sons and daughters the moment they are born. In terms of maturity, however, we have a lot of growing up to do in order to become fully functioning children of God.  It isn't apparent, looking at ourselves now, just what we will look like or be like once we grow to full maturity.  What is evident, though, is that the more we see of the Lord Jesus and His true nature, and the more we y