THANK GOD FOR STUBBORN ENEMIES

20 For the Lord hardened their hearts and caused them to fight the Israelites. So they were completely destroyed without mercy.  23 So Joshua took control of the entire land … as their special possession …. So the land finally had rest from war

Joshua 11:20, 23; New Living Translation.

The sun warms, but it can also burn.  God is love, but He is also consuming fire.  Normally, nobody wants wars; but sometimes that it what it takes to gain peace and enlarge territory.  Peace lovers would often avoid a fight at every possible cost, therefore, sometimes, God Himself sets them up for the very fight, as a means to permanently eliminating their foes and enlarging their territory.  

According to Joshua 11:20, it was God’s strategy to let those neighbourly nations to be so stubborn as to refuse the peace initiatives from Israel, and to start a war.  When they started the war, and were destroyed in the war that they started, and their territory was lost to Israel, there couldn’t be a case for them in the courts of divine justice.   If they had made no trouble yet were attacked, the hands of the God of justice might have been restrained from taking sides with His people against the ‘innocent.’

The stubbornness of an enemy, sometimes, merely serves God’s purpose, as it is His justification for entering into the fight on the side of His people against the stubborn aggressor, even though it had all been remote-controlled by His very finger.  Wars may be costly, but a forced peace could ultimately be more costly than the war it sought to avoid.

Some battles might be unnecessary, but others are inevitable, as they could be a divine key to enlargement of territory.  In the present case, not only did the aggressors forfeit their “entire land” to Joshua through that war, but “the land FINALLY had rest from war.”  In other words, some land will not have rest from wars unless by wars.

According to Exodus 23:23, the only excuse God has for entering the fight in your favour is when the enemy attacks you. The Angel of Divine Agenda, who should know better than weak mortals, would therefore sometimes deliberately lead you into the very territory of those fearsome enemies, provoking their war in which they would forfeit their strongly-held territories.

Access to the table of bounties prepared in the presence of enemies is often by a path though the valley of shadow of death.  The Good Shepherd is no less good to His tender sheep when He leads through such routes (Psalm 23:4-5).  Holy Mordecais at the king’s gate will sometimes never be promoted to replace pompous and menacing Hamans until those pompous enemies are setup to grossly attack those innocent holy men (Esther 3:5-6; 8:2).  “For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts …  that He might utterly destroy them … Then the land had rest from war” (Joshua 11:20, NKJV).

May we discern our enemies properly, before we complain about all of them.  Some are merely messengers for our enlargement, and we should be thankful to God for the wars they bring to us.

O God, set a snare against the mighty by setting them up against Your anointed, that You may cut them off speedily in this season and give us their entire land forever, in Jesus name.  Amen.

From The Preacher’s diary,
April 26, 2022.