25th.: Joshua Did Not Consider
The Lord did not tell Joshua to attack Ai.
Nor did Joshua ask the Lord.
Because of sin on Israel’s part, Ai beat Israel.
Then Joshua sought the Lord - complaining
“… the hearts of the people melted, and it became as water.
Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face, before the ark of the Lord, until the eventide,
he and the elders of Israel and put dust upon their heads. And Joshua said,
‘Alas, O Lord God, wherefore have you at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorite, to destroy us.
Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of Jordan?’” (Josh. 7:5c-7).
In his complaints,
1. Joshua forgot the miraculous defeat of Jericho,
2. Joshua forgot how the city of Jericho was to be totally
devoted to the Lord, and anyone, who took any item from Jericho,
would be accursed (Josh. 6:18).
3.Joshua considered not that perhaps someone had taken
something from Jericho, and so the Lord was not with them.
And these complaints were from a man, who was "full of the spirit of wisdom" (Deut. 34:9).
Even the best of us can make mistakes.
The Lord patiently waited for Joshua to finish his bellyaching.
Then the Lord answered,
“Get thee up, wherefore liest thou thus, upon they face. Israel has sinned. …” Josh. 7:10-11a.
Likewise, God might wait for us to finish our bellyaching, before He gets down to business.