Joshua 5:13-15 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.
Revelation 19:11-16 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Joshua son of Nun had been commissioned by Moses to bring Israel into the Promised Land. He was a leader and a general. Having spied out the land and returned with the other 11 spies, he was fully aware of the impending battle and the ferocity of the enemy.There were giants in the land. Having miraculously crossed over the Jordan with all the people and 40,000 armed soldiers, Joshua sensed deeply his responsibility to protect and lead Israel to victory and the inheritance God had promised them.
At this significant moment, somewhere near Jericho, the first battlefield, Joshua “lifted his eyes”, to behold a Man. Focused in a mindset of warfare, he asks the obvious question:– “whose side are you on?” The Man’s answer immediately brings Joshua to another plane of existence: “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” The young general is standing before the Eternal Captain, Commander of the Lord’s Army– and the ground he is standing on is Holy!
The book of Revelation describes a Man who “judges and makes war”. He is called the “King of Kings, and the Lord of Lord’s”, and undoubtedly He is God’s 5 star General. It is very likely that this is the very Man who identified Himself to Joshua as “Commander of the Lord’s Army”. We know his name. It is Yeshua (Jesus). Once again, the Lord Himself appears in human form at a critical moment in history, to someone He loves. Do we recognize a pattern emerging? Abraham on the plains of Mamre; Jacob wrestling near the Jordan; and now, Joshua, right before the battle of Jericho!
Our natural tendency is always to ask “whose side is the Lord on?” How many wars have been fought by people who said, “God is on our side.”? But the correct question is “Who is fighting on the Lord’s side?” Who is truly standing for His interests and representing Him in the battle against the darkness? The flesh will always invoke the name of God to justify its own desires, political, military, or whatever they might be. But the Lord will only “show up” for His loved ones that are truly fighting with and for Him. So we must always ask ourselves if we are with Him. When we’re sure that we are on His side, we can rest assured that He is on ours. Victory follows!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]When I was in school, it seemed they ran a “fire drill” at least once a year. A long, loud, kind of scary bell would sound and we knew it was either a real fire, or, more likely, just another drill. We were formed into lines, ushered down the halls, and out the doors we went. Of course, the point was practice….so we would be prepared for a real fire.
The children of Israel are facing yet another test, this one, even more severe than hunger– dehydration – which, unabated, quickly leads to a miserable death. Yet, now, every day they are also seeing the miracles of God, who is feeding them regularly with manna, and surrounding them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Once again, they fail the test, even in the midst of their daily witness of miracles. So even though the test is more severe, the evidence for trust is that much greater.
Is there something about miracles that makes them forgettable? Or is the problem with us? After journeying for a season the children of Israel were faced with hunger — another test. This time, naturally faced with starvation, they murmured against the Lord, AGAIN! You’d think they might begin to put it together that God truly wanted them to trust Him. Apparently not yet. The dire circumstances attacked their mass cerebral cortex (memory) and once again they went into attack mode, bitterly complaining in unbelief. The Ten Plagues, the pillar of fire, the Red Sea walk, the Egyptian chariot soup, none of these connected to the present hunger pangs. Nature trumped super-nature, and sadly, God Himself.
The Apostle Paul’s discourse in 1 Corinthians 10 recalls the great miracles God performed for the children of Israel during the time of the Exodus. Delivered from Egypt and Pharaoh’s slavery, they were dismayed to discover his maniacal rage pursuing them anew, driving them into a deadly corner and imminent destruction. Humanly speaking, their terror and panic was understandable. With their eyes they could only see the wrath of Egypt succeeding at last to utterly destroy them. In that state of mind, how might they have remembered the consecutive miracles God had wrought against Egypt which had brought them to this very place?
When Ruth pledged her alligence to Naomi and to the God of Israel, it wasn’t based on, “What ifs?” or circumstances. It was a faith rooted in her devotion to Naomi and God even to the point of death!
This season of the Resurrection also occurs during a significant Old Testament feast day, the feast of “Firstfruits” (Hebrew, “bikoreem”). When Yeshua (Jesus) rose from the dead he was the firstfruit of the resurrection. On that day the keys of Hell and Death were obtained by our Lord. The apostle Paul connected the resurrection with the feast of Firstfruits in his letter to the congregation at Corinith. “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
There is a long standing tradition of cleaning one’s house in the springtime – hence the term “spring cleaning”. One source for this tradition is certainly the Jewish Passover (Pesach). Each spring as the holiday approaches observant householders in Israel and around the world perform a meticulous cleaning of their homes, especially to be sure there is no leaven in the house before Pesach begins. Leaven, in scripture, is often a metaphor for sin and impurity; and this season of the year is often a time for emphasizing “spiritual housecleaning”.