Bible Verse of the Day Saturday April 15th, 2023

Joshua 23:13 then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.

During the forty-year wilderness journey of the Children of Israel, which was supposed to be an eleven-day trek, they entered a covenant with God. He gave them His Law that included the main 613 protocols and guidelines to guide their lives. God also issued the Ten Commandments that outlined the moral guidance for them to follow. As a group of several million people, they all agreed to follow God's precepts (Exodus 19:8). However, from the very instant God's chosen people agreed to the statutes of the Law they accepted; they began their life of disobedience. 

 

God had delivered them from a horrible life of indenture in the Land of Egypt and brought them out with a miracle that could have only come from God, the parting of the Red Sea. God had excluded them from all the firstborns in Egypt's deaths at the first Passover, but they still grumbled and complained constantly. This mummer and moaning continued even after they reached the Promised Land, and God performed another miracle, the parting of the Jorden River.

 

Once they were inside the boundaries of the land God had promised them through their father Abraham, God told them not to enter into any agreements with the indigenous population but to drive out the land's inhabitants. After their great victory at Jericho, they became proud of their accomplishments, even though the success was clearly through God's miracle. Instead of adhering to God's commandment to drive the inhabitants from the land, they began to coexist with many of the occupants of their promised land. They entered peace treaties with some groups and took some of them into servitude so they would not have to do manual labor. Because of this blatant disobedience of God's Word, He told them He would not drive the local people out but that they would become traps, and the false gods of the people would be snares that would cause them to move away from the one true God (Joshua 2:3).

 

The disobedience of the Children of Israel and their failure to place their faith and trust in God is a unique and fantastic lesson that we, as followers and believers in Christ Jesus, can learn and take into our hearts and souls. This tremendous Old Testament bible lesson should initiate a time of reflection on our own lives, scrutinize and evaluate our faith and trust in God and find out if we are truly walking in spirit and truth or following the lust of the flesh. By following unbelievers' lead, we should evaluate ourselves and find out if we are giving in to the false gods of greed, pride, and covetousness.  

 

The challenging history of the Children of Israel should lead us to reflect on our own behavior and actions and comprehend the significance of learning and following the Word of God in our lives. God can see what we cannot see, and that is the future, and if we attempt to lean on our understanding, we will miss out on many beautiful blessings from God (Proverb 3:5).