Tues.’s Devo - Just Believe

Read: Joshua 9:3-10:43; Luke 16:19-17:10; Psalm 83:1-18; Proverbs 13:4
Reading the stories of the battles in the promised land we can learn about spiritual warfare and how the devil works. The people of Gibeon knew they were doomed so they used deceit. Satan is the author of deceit. They tricked the Israelites into making a treaty with them. The most important line in today’s reading is, “but they did not consult the Lord.” Israel didn’t ask God before they made the treaty. They just used their own carnal reasoning. It made sense to them but if they had just asked God, who knows everything, He would have let them in on the truth. How often could we spare ourselves from bad decisions if we would just ask God first.
When they found out the truth, the only thing they could do was to make them their slaves. So the Gibeonites carried their water and cut their wood. Then when the Gibeonites were attacked by the Amorites, Israel had to come and help them since they had made a covenant with them. This actually worked to their advantage and God gave them a huge victory. God’s army fought from heaven. He threw down hail stones and killed more than the Israelites did. I would have loved to have seen that!
When the sun was setting, they were still fighting so Joshua asked for God to let the sun stop setting until they could finish, and it did.
Five of their enemies kings had hidden in a cave so Joshua commanded that they place a stone over the opening until he could come and kill them. In the meantime, they took all of their cities leaving no survivors just like God had instructed them to do.
In Luke, Jesus had just finished telling the parables about the rich manager and told one last one: A certain rich man enjoyed all his money and had no compassion on the poor. When he died he saw the error of his ways and asked if his brothers could be warned. Jesus explained that the law and the prophets have always been available and if someone died and rose from the grave and went to them, they still wouldn’t believe. He was pointing out the fact that their hearts were beyond believing. They had rejected the prophets in the past and now the Messiah was standing before them and they couldn’t believe him now nor when he would rise from the dead, so their was nothing more that could be done for them.
Lord, we repent of unbelief. We know that you have an answer and are the answer to everything on the earth and in heaven. We trust in you to come to our defense and save us.