Victory in an Uphill Battle - Part 1 | Beth Moore

living proof with Beth Moore is sponsored by the friends and partners of living proof ministries in every conceivable way what you've got before you in Joshua chapter 10 is an uphill battle anybody got one feel like that you're fighting so hard that you can't even draw your sword for the battle that you're just trying to survive standing long enough to face it you're even in opposition to a dangerous foe an uphill battle [Music] you may be seated and you are we're in the scriptures Joshua chapter 10 now I want to tell you a little bit of background this chapter has one of the most fascinating scenes in all the Old Testament right in the middle of it perhaps you're familiar with it perhaps you're knew enough not to know anything about it one way or the other I pray that God is going to give us an i wide open to what the power of God can do in behalf of believing children so I want you to just hear there's one little portion with me and then we're gonna pull out the lens but I want you to know that there in the thirteenth verse it tells us in chapter 10 that God caused the son to stand still and the moon to stop until the Israelites took vengeance on its enemies and it stopped right there in the middle of the day in the middle of the sky until they could fight the battle that God had sent them to fight when the Sun Stood Still that's what you and I are studying tonight this wild moment in the scriptures tucked right in the middle of Joshua chapter 10 when God caused natural laws to be broken so that his children the Israelites could be victorious it tells us in that very next verse in verse 14 there has been no day like it before or since when the Lord listened to a man like this because the Lord fought for Israel so here's what we're gonna do you and I are gonna look at the circumstances around this event see what it conveys to us about our God and see what it conveys about us as his people when he would intervene the way that he did now Joshua is the book of the Bible that records the conquest this is after the Exodus when the children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt and Moses was by God to tell them that they would be set free to worship Him out in the wilderness and through many many signs and wonders finally Pharaoh released them and they went into the desert they went through a dry pass in the Red Sea to cross over into the wilderness where they could have in a very short couple of months entered into the Promised Land however they did according to the instructions of God sending spies into the land to come back and tell them about the land and tell them what good promises of God lay on the other side but instead all but two of them came back and gave a bad report and they said listen we're grasshoppers compared to them they're giants in the land there is no possible way that we will be able to defeat them and so because of their unbelief they wandered around in that desert for 40 solid years until that generation would completely die off that had been faithless and the next generation would come up with the faith to move in except that these two men Joshua and Caleb were spared because they came back with a good report now I'm gonna ask you a question what kind of character does it take to keep a decent attitude for 40 solid years when it's not your fault that you're wandering around in the desert anybody know what I'm talking about I mean I just want you to enter in with me what it would have been like to be these two men now finally they are in the land of promise but something very significant has happened here and I want you to understand with me that these surrounding regions and cities because several big cities have now been taken Jericho has had the walls crumbled down that city has been entirely taken by the Israelites ai has been taken by the Israelites one city after another is being taken and the kings of the other cities are beginning to hear the news of these desert people that are coming in and taking these walled city and they're freaking out and so they come together there is it's the very first time in all of Scripture Jerusalem is ever mentioned by name and it is the king of Jerusalem at a donor's a deck a Tony's a deck is the king of Jerusalem at that time they are a heathen people they are the Canaanites they know nothing of the one true God these are idolaters and so he calls together four other kings and says okay this is what has happened one of our major people groups the Gibeonites have made a treaty with the Israelites and so what we're going to do because they've made a treaty with them is that we are going to go against the Gibeonites and we are going to take them down and it says sure enough that they in verse 5 I'm going to start reading in verse 5 with you Joshua 10 so the five amirite Kings the kings of Jerusalem Hebron Jarmo 'the leche and Eglon joined forces advanced with all of their armies besieged Gibeon and fought against it then the men of Gibeon sent word to joshua in the camp of Gilgal don't give up on your servants come quickly and save us help us for all the amorite kings living in the hill country have joined forces against us so Joshua and all his troops including all his best soldiers came from Gilgal and the Lord said to Joshua do not be afraid of them for I have handed them over to you not one of them will be able to stand against you so Joshua says in verse 9 caught them by surprise after marching all night from Gilgal now see if we take this chapter out of context and don't look at the chapter prior to it we miss all the complications of the battle and don't tell me that battles can't be complicated somebody knows right now and in the battle that you're facing how complicated it can get and this is one complex situation because I want you to glance back in chapter 9 go to the chapter just previous to what we're reading chapter nine and I want you to understand what has happened here if you see a little caption over chapter nine of Joshua you're gonna see that it says something to the effect of deception by gibeonites and what it tells is that this group of people this little consort of people come from Gibeon to the Israelites where they're camped at Gilgal and they trick them into a covenant with them they come wearing all clothes with their shoes worn out with their bread moldy and crumbly and they say see we've come from a faraway land and we want you to make a treaty of peace with us so I want to pick up with you let's take it from 8 to 16 they said to Joshua we are your servants then Joshua asked them who are you and where do you come from and they replied to him your servants have come from a faraway land because of the reputation of the Lord your God for we have heard of his fame and all that he did in Egypt and all that he did to the tute amirite kings beyond the Jordan King scion of Heshbon and Keith Agha Bashan who was and was in Ashtaroth so our elders and all the inhabitants of our land told us take provisions with you for the journey go and meet them and say we are your servants please make a treaty with us this bread of ours was warm when we took it from our house on s food on the day we left to come to you but see it is now dry and crumbly these wine skins were new when we fill them but see now they are cracked and these clothes and sandals of ours are worn out from the extremely long journey then the men of Israel took some of their provisions they did not seek the Lord's decision so Joshua established peace with them and made a treaty to let them live and the leaders of the community swore an oath to them verse 16 three days after making the treaty with them they heard that the Gibeonites were their neighbors living among them okay pause for just a minute and let me see if I can explain this briefly what has happened here is that God has told the Israelites do not make treaties with any of these people that you are going to be living around do not make treaties with the Canaanites no one in that region because you are going in to take that land well that's why the Gibeonites have to come and say listen we're from a very faraway place it's just that we've heard of the fame of your God and we want to be part of whatever you're doing we will be your servants make a Treaty of Peace with us we have heard how you've defeated the kings in these regions and we want to be at peace with you we will serve you so they enter in because they look at the bread sure enough it's crumbly they look at the wine skins sure enough they're cracked all the evidence looks exactly right but they do not go to the Lord to make the decision and instead looks right feels right we'll make the Covenant only to find out three days later they have been tricked into the Covenant brought in by false pretences and now what do they do chapter 10 I mean right on top of learning that the Gibeonites have deceived them these five kings come up against Gibeon Gibeon does a shout out by way they would have sent word somehow to the israelites in Gilgal and said come help your servants we've been besieged if you don't come help us we won't make it so now we have the context that the Israelites are going to have to go through this March all night long to go fight for a group that has tricked them into a covenant how do you like that I want you to see this with me because depending upon the exact location of Gilgal the March would have covered about twenty to twenty-five miles it would have taken about ten hours all night long and this is the best part it would have been uphill in every conceivable way what you've got before you in Joshua chapter 10 is an uphill battle anybody got one anybody got one feel like that you're fighting so hard that you can't even draw your sword for the battle that you're just trying to survive standing long enough to face it you're even in opposition to a dangerous foe an uphill battle when you risk already being exhausted before you've even drawn your sword I want you to see something with me in verse 8 of Joshua 10 it says that the Lord said to Joshua do not be afraid of them for I have handed them over to you not one of them will be able to stand against you here is the thing about God sometimes he will say to us listen you just stand still I'm gonna do this thing myself you're not going to have to do anything hi I'm Celina and this is Natalie friends I know that so many of us are facing uphill battles that feel exhausting but God has given us his word to bring freedom and he wants us to give that battle everything we've got for me there were so many strongholds in my life I had to dig deep into areas I did not want to expose but I had to push through and not allow those things to keep me from fighting Celina and I recently completed bets breaking free Bible study sometimes we are held captive and we don't even know why Celina would you share the definition of captivity that really resonated with us yes and Beth writes that a Christian is held captive by anything that hinders the abundant and effective spirit failed life God planned for her she goes on to offer so many practical ways for us to break free from those strongholds it's a study that had me crying at my kitchen table but in the very best way I genuinely felt like my heart was starting to come out of a fog and like my journey to freedom was actually moving forward I know exactly how that feels Celina right now living proof ministries is offering two copies of the breaking free Bible study with your donation listen this study transform our lives it was hard but it helped us to heal and we want you to know that you can have that too grab one for you and a friend commit to do it together and we will see you next [Music] [Applause] it doesn't matter where you are from if you will give the time and space to this event this weekend if you will lend your heart to it and you'll really pay attention then it's gonna come right back around because some of the things we're talking about this weekend simply could not be more practical we're gonna be talking about divine power the God exerts on the behalf of people just like you in need and we're gonna see God do something that we could not have fought to ask him the Lord we want all that you have for us this weekend every little deal come join us in a city near you anybody really anticipated a disaster that really never came to pass the Lord just handle it that's happened to me in the course of when you're older like I am and you've walked a long time with him that happens where you'll just anticipate that something really dreadful is gonna happen this thing is gonna explode only it doesn't because the Lord you know what I'll just handle this when you sit back you stand still and you just watch the salvation of the Lord other times and this is what we're talking about tonight this is what is on the table tonight other times he's going to give us that victory but he is going to call upon us for every ounce of energy we have got every bit of the wherewithal that we have every drop of sweat every Fleck of courage every bit of strength we can muster he calls for all of it what happens when you're in a battle that could have been avoided that's what's on the table tonight there you are marching all night long when you could be in your memory foam mattress your Sleep Number bed you got your you got your satin sheets your fan going just right maybe you took your Tylenol PM and then you get worried you're about to march all night and you've taken your two Tylenol PM you've taken your nyquil and now you're up mm-hmm and it's dad you're all loaded up weapons in hand heavy heavy armed up marching uphill for 20 solid miles ten hours all night long wishing you were in the bed and here's the thing this is worst part is it you knew that it had been because of your foolishness that you had gotten involved with them anybody it's bad enough for it to be their fault but for it to be my fault too now this is a recipe for disaster and so this is a perfect setup for defeat in battle when you are faced with a fight that is a blend of somebody else's fault and your own somebody else's fault and my own what are we gonna do then and I want to throw you out to questions just for our deliberation in this present subject matter that when we are faced with a fierce battle I mean a fierce one that's gonna take everything we've got and it could have been avoided how do you keep your attitude then whether it was entirely somebody else's blame or entirely my blame or just nobody's blame at all what do we do when we have on our hands one of the fiercest battles of our lives and we think there could have been a way to avoid it I want to throw out two questions to you and the first one is this can we keep from sabotaging ourselves with self condemnation one of the biggest questions we have to ask ourselves when we are facing a really fierce battle that was avoidable if we had been wiser and if we had gotten involved with so-and-so hadn't believed so-and-so hadn't gotten somehow messed up in all of that can we keep from sabotaging ourselves with self condemnation I've been thinking about it today and I think maybe self condemnation is a form of playing God want you to think about it with me looks condemnation means I even looked it up it is dooming someone it's declaring someone reprehensible them evil self condemnation is figuratively speaking putting yourself through hell anybody goes to condemn we condemn someone to hell well self condemnation we just put ourselves through it please put ourselves through it just in case God does not punish us enough anybody know what I'm talking about we'll just punish ourselves and so here we go here we go there's some among us today that self-sabotage even when something good is happening to you because you don't think you deserve anything good to happen listen life's hard enough we got fierce battles to face and one of the easiest ways into defeat is to continually self-sabotage want to say something though let's not mix up self condemnation with accepting responsibility accepting responsibility is what grown-ups do it's what wise people do it's what healthy people do I will do two things when we have helped get ourselves in a really big mess and have ourselves in a fierce battle that we feel like God is going to call upon us to use every bit of strength we've got to fight with him we've got to know that there's just two things to do repent and take responsibility I mean just like repent take responsibility all the self punishment after that is playing God it ends with repentance lord I have blown this up I don't know what happened here or maybe I do know what happened here maybe I walked into it knowing exactly what I was doing I can still repent because I tell you it God has a way with the power of the Holy Spirit I'm making sure you're sorry when you really really really wig out in rebellion can I get anybody to say Amen it has been my experience that God is very very faithful to make sure when I go opposite what he put in front of me that he's gonna make it painful enough for me to go man I really messed up I really messed up repentance and then take responsibility Tara okay okay I've got my part in this what am I gonna do with this I want to throw something out at you because I think it's so so very important I think sometimes we can confuse self-loathing with humility and they are not the same thing I think it would be such a powerful thing if God worked among us in this house tonight to free us from some of the bondage to self-loathing self-loathing is just another way to be self-obsessed it's just another form of being completely ego driven is that I'm completely obsessed with my own self because I hate myself so much it is of no honor to God to hate self I pray he's gonna sit somebody free tonight - no that's not humility humility is realizing the prize that God has made you by His grace and that there is nothing you could have done to earn it the treasure that you are what he is done on your behalf and what he has done on my behalf and the realization that there is nothing I could have done to receive it that is humility the first of two questions on the table can we keep from sabotaging ourselves with self condemnation that's the first one the second one is this can we keep from expending our much-needed energy on blame can we keep from expending our much-needed energy on blame one reason we can't get to the end of a fierce battle is because we are so eaten by unforgiveness toward the person that helped us get in that battle that we can't see straight enough to fight the real enemy can anybody step in that with me one of the things I felt like God was showing me today is is that blame is blinding don't you think it is it's blinding it blurs our vision we can't even see where to lay a good punch because we're too involved with what flesh and blood has done us wrong and so here we are and I just want you to just think of this figuratively with me there's a long uphill battle that we're on marching through a really long dark night that could go on months and months and months maybe it's gone on a couple of years an uphill battle and with every step it's like your fault your fault your fault your fault or it's my fault my fault I imagine the strength of being able to March when your feet are weighted down with whose fault it is or we can just do this one this one's me my fault your fault my fault your fault my fault your fault can't decide whose fault it is is somebody's fault I know what somebody's fault whose fault is it weighted down in a long uphill battle and we're too exhausted by the time we get to the battlefield to even fight because here's a thing they were having to go to the rescue of someone that they needed to be for not against imagine you're gonna go fight with blood sweat and tears for someone who put you on the battlefield you can't fight for somebody that you're against I've been thinking a lot about that because I've been thinking about how important it is to lay down our weapons toward people that need us to fight for them have cost us a lot have cost us some suffering a lot of frustration maybe a good bit of money and I'm not saying we just pour money into it without any kind of regard for how we're being taken advantage of but I am saying that it's really hard to fight for people that we are against in our hearts somewhere along the way we have to set the weapons down and go I'm going to fight this battle in prayer I'm gonna take on the real enemy here that is not flesh and blood and that's how we're gonna be effective living proof would like to send you a thank-you gift for your donation visit Beth morg today thank you so much for watching today it is our joy to serve you as living proof ministries we do not take a single one of you for granted click subscribe so that you don't miss a moment of our time together in Scripture

Channel: Living Proof Ministries with Beth Moore

Views: 39,674

Rating: 4.8191304 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: rjF2MmNmkFQ

Length: 27min 29sec (1649 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020