"All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
You might wonder – how is Joshua 11-12 "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness"? How do these chapters help equip me for "every good work"?
It is not as simple as "go and do likewise"! I am very confident that you should not burn South Bend with fire. You should not devote to destruction every resident of Granger!
The lesson of the Conquest – in Psalm 44 – is that God is King! He is the one who gives victory. He is the one who goes before his people!
You might think – then – that the key is Israel's faithfulness. If Israel obeys God, then God gives Israel victory – right?!
After the victory at Jericho, Achan took the devoted goods – and judgment fell upon God's people. Only when they disciplined Achan – and removed the evil from the camp – only then did God give them victory over Ai.
Psalm 44 wrestles with this – because according to the Psalmist – Israel had been faithful! Their defeat in battle could not be attributed to their sin. They had done what God said! They had been faithful to God's covenant!
And yet their enemies had defeated them – humiliated them...
How do we make sense of this? If obedience is supposed to result in victory – then how do we make sense of the awful tragedies and sufferings of life?
If we pay attention to the text of Joshua, we discover that this is not only a true historical account of what happened when Israel invaded the Land.
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