Sunday, August 3, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Joshua 6-8
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 89
Key Verse
Joshua 7:18 — “And he brought his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.”
Devotional Thought
The walls of Jericho stood fast and shut, and Israel had no battering rams, no siege towers, no plan that made any military sense. God’s strategy was a procession: seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark, armed men walking ahead, the rereward following behind, and six long days of silence. Joshua commanded the people, “Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout.” Then on the seventh day, at the long blast of the horn, they shouted, and the wall fell down flat, and every man went up straight before him. Rahab and her household were brought out alive, because she had hidden the messengers, and she dwells in Israel even unto this day.
But the very next chapter turns bitter. Fresh from Jericho’s ruin, Joshua sent only three thousand men against little Ai, and thirty-six Israelites died running downhill before men they should have swept aside. Joshua rent his clothes and lay on his face until evening, dust on his head, crying, “Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!” God’s answer was not comfort but exposure: Israel hath sinned. Achan, son of Carmi, of the tribe of Judah, had seen a goodly Babylonish garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold, and had coveted and taken and hidden them in his tent. The accursed thing in one man’s tent had made the whole camp unable to stand before its enemies. Only when the stolen things were laid out before the LORD in the valley of Achor, and Achan and all that he had were removed, did the fierceness of God’s anger turn away.
Then grace returns. “Fear not, neither be thou dismayed,” the LORD says to Joshua in chapter eight, and Ai falls by ambush, and this time the spoil is given to Israel as prey. The same God who broke Jericho’s walls is the God who will not tolerate hidden sin in His own people. Psalm 89 sings of this God: “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” He stills the raging of the sea, and He also searches tents. His mercy toward Rahab and His severity toward Achan are not contradictions; they are the two hands of one faithful covenant.
It is August, and perhaps your own life feels like a walled city that will not fall, or like Ai, a small thing you expected to be easy and instead it turned your heart to water. Either way, the lesson of these chapters is the same. The victory is the LORD’s, and it comes by obedience, not by numbers. And if there is something buried in the earth of your tent, some Babylonish garment of secret compromise, no wall will stand and no enemy will fall until it is brought into the light. Confession is not defeat; it is how the fierceness of anger is turned away and the joy of the seventh-day shout is restored.
Reflection
- Is there anything hidden in the “tent” of your life — a habit, a possession, a compromise — that is quietly making you unable to stand before your enemies?
- Where has God asked you to walk in obedient silence for six days, trusting His timing rather than forcing the wall down yourself?
Prayer
O LORD God of hosts, who art a strong LORD like unto thee, and whose faithfulness is round about thee: we confess that we have too often trusted our own numbers and our own strength, and have hidden in the earth of our tents things Thou hast called accursed. Search us, we pray, and bring every secret thing into the light, that we may not be troubled by our enemies but may stand before them in Thy favor. Give us the patience of those six silent days and the faith to shout when Thou dost bid us. For Thine is the mighty arm, and mercy and truth go before Thy face. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 89:1 — “I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.”