We’ve coined well-known phrases that show we know this to be true. “History repeats itself”, and “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” speak volumes about our tendency to forget the lessons from the past.

Scripture tells us that “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22 – NIV). If we listen to the wisdom and counsel of the past – and learn from it – our lives will much more rich and fulfilling. It does the Church and individual Christ-followers a great deal of good to look back on the struggles and successes of God’s people. When we study the highs and lows of Israel’s history we discover important lessons that have the power to transform and shape our present and our future.

The Apostle Paul told the young Pastor Timothy at the Church in Ephesus that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. . .” (2 Timothy 3:16) Paul was talking about the Old Testament. There wasn’t a New Testament at that point! In fact, Paul was just writing his second letter to Timothy, which became a part of what we call the New Testament – so Paul was teaching Timothy, and us by extension, that the Old Testament is inspired by God (God has breathed His life into it) and it’s useful to us one way or another – showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live the way God wants us to live. We can learn from the lessons of Israel.

One such lesson comes from the book of Joshua. Joshua was a young man when Israel left slavery in Egypt. He was one of the 12 spies that Moses sent in to reconnoiter the Promised Land and give a report on what the spies found there. Of those 12 spies, only Joshua and Caleb were excited about what they saw in the Promised Land, and both wanted to go in immediately and take the land God had promised them. The other 10 spies were afraid, and the nation of Israel became fearful and faithless, and for that faithlessness, were forced to wander lost in the desert wilderness for 40 years. Joshua served Moses and the nation of Israel as a warrior and a leader for those 40 years. Because of his faithfulness and his “let’s go in and subdue the land” attitude at the beginning of the Israelite's deliverance from Egypt, God allowed Joshua to become the leader of Israel when Moses died. It was Joshua who led the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. There are some significant events that took place with Joshua as the leader of the Israelite people – events that speak volumes to us today.

Turn in your Bible to Joshua 3:5 and 11-17. When the people of Israel escaped from Egypt, God caused the waters of the Red Sea to part, and the people crossed over on dry land. He brought them to the edge of the Promised Land where they rebelled against God, so He sent them to wandering. That’s the back story for what is now about to happen. After 40 years of wandering, they have come to the east bank of the Jordan River. They are not in the Promised Land – they’re in the land of the Ammonites, on the Arabian side or what would now be the country of Jordan. They’re about to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land – another body of water stands in their way, much like the Read Sea stood in their way 40 years ago during their exodus from Egypt. God has a different plan in mind for this generation of Israelites – a very different plan than their forefathers experienced coming out of Egypt.

God explained it to Joshua and Joshua told the people: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Joshua 3:5 – NIV). God instructed them to take the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth into the Jordan river ahead of the people. And as soon as the priests who carried the ark of the Lord set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream would be cut off and stand up in a heap, even though the Jordan was at full flood stage. Sure enough, as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing and piled up in a heap as if dammed off by some great invisible dam. The people of Israel were able to cross over opposite Jericho, and the priests who carried the ark of the covenant stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan the whole time the while the entire nation of Israel passed by on dry ground. (see Joshua 3:11-17)

God parted the Red Sea before they crossed – but God parted the Jordan only when they stepped into the flood waters! God required them to walk in faith. He required them to take the first step – then and only then did He act on their behalf!

There’s another story in Joshua about taking steps and walking in faith. Turn to Joshua 6:1-20 to the story of Jericho. Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. You can imagine the scene: here are the Israelites – probably 3 million strong – camped on the plain. We know from Numbers 26 that there were over 600,000 men of fighting age – and the 12 tribes camped out on the plain of Gilgal looked like a sea of humanity to the people of Jericho.

Jericho was the size of 12 football fields, about 720,000 square feet, or maybe the size of a shopping mall. The fighting force of Jericho is estimated at about 500, with around 2,500 total inhabitants. Its chief defense was that it was built on a large “tell” or man-made earthen berm with a high, thick wall built on top surrounding the city and her inhabitants.

The Lord said to Joshua, “I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in.”

The people followed these instructions carefully. For six days seven priests carried seven trumpets, blowing their trumpets with the ark of the Lord’s covenant following them. An armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and a rear guard followed the ark. On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord.” When the trumpets sounded and the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed, and the Israelites took the city. (see Joshua 6:1-20)

Did you notice? The people had to take the first step! They had to walk in faith. In fact, they had to walk around Jericho each day for six days – then seven times on the seventh day – and then they had to shout! God could have simply broken down the wall, but He asked the people to participate in the process; they had to walk in faith.

What is the Jordan River in your life?

Where is it that God is saying to you “Just step into it. I’m here for you, and I'm waiting for you to take the first step. Just walk, and I’ll meet you right there and lead you and preserve you.” Maybe it’s a job. Maybe it’s in your marriage. Maybe in how your devotional life is going.

God wanted the people to walk into the flood before He parted the waters and allowed them to walk across on dry land – where is God telling you that He’ll meet you at the point of your need, but He’s waiting for you to take the first step?

What is the Jericho in your life?

Where do you need to step out in faith and keep on marching even though the result is unseen or a long time in coming? Maybe your Jericho is your marriage or parenting your children or waiting on a job or trying to finish school.

The Apostle Paul taught us that we live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7) Sometimes we’re willing to take the first step – but we only walk around our Jericho for six days instead of seven. We give up. “This is too much. The going is too hard. I can’t go any further – I can’t keep this up.”

But God said “Go all the way with me. I’ve told you where, I’ve told you how, and I’ve told you how long – you just have to stick with it. I’m leading you – but I’m way out in front and you have to come to where I am!”

The Apostle John tells us that this kind of walking is how we show Jesus we love Him! “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.” (2 John 1:6) Love is walking in obedience – and being obedient is to walk in love. It’s two-way, it’s circular – it’s cause and effect over and over and over. Love – walk in obedience; walk in obedience by loving.

There’s an old saying: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (There’s another saying that my family has come up with that says: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with too much luggage.”) God told the Israelites to walk into the flood; to take the first step – then He’d continue with them but they had to move first. God also told the Israelites to walk around and around in a lengthy process in order to make the victory over Jericho – which He had already promised them – come to pass. He gave them victory – but He made them go through the steps, He put them through the paces. . . once a day for six days, then seven times on the seventh day.

What is God asking you to do that requires a first step? What is God doing with you or for you that requires continuous progress – even when you can’t see the end result? What is your Jordan or Jericho? Where is God asking you to put feet on your faith and walk?

Let me share with you a caveat – a cautionary detail – built in to this historical experience of the Israelites; a warning of which you need to be aware, or taking the first step and continuing the journey just won’t matter much at all. We find this cautionary lesson by going back to before the Israelites took Jericho. God is giving instructions on how to take the city – but He makes something perfectly clear: “But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into His treasury.” (Joshua 6:18-19)

These things are devoted to destruction! They are not plunder or the spoils of war, they are to be given over to the Lord. As hard as this kind of bloodshed is to understand in our modern context, this war is the Lord’s war. He’s ridding the land of idolaters – people who will not now or ever bow their knee to Him. God knows that these moon-worshipping people of Jericho will become trouble for the Israelites. They’ll introduce the Israelites to idol worship and the worship of other gods, so God has devoted them to destruction. . . they must be destroyed. Their belongings are devoted to destruction as well; no one could take these items, they were devoted items and not plunder! They were to be placed in the Lord’s treasury.

The Israelites marched, they shouted, but did they do everything God commanded? Or – to put it more correctly – while they did what He commanded regarding walking and shouting, did they refrain from doing what He forbade them to do? Look what happened in Joshua 7:1-13. The Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things; Achan of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things (the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron that the Lord considered sacred and consecrated to Him), and kept them for himself. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.

This became clear when Joshua sent a small raiding party of 3,000 soldiers to take a neighboring city of Ai. He only needed to send a small party because Ai was a small city with a very small army far smaller than the raiding party. But the Israelites were routed, and lost 36 fighting men in a skirmish that should have been easy for them. The Bible says: “At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.” The Israelites were paralyzed with fear at this turn of events, and their courage melted away.

Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. But, the Lord said to Joshua: “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.”

Notice – the Bible says the Israelites acted unfaithfully – and the Lord’s anger burned against the Israelites – but it was Achan who took the devoted things. One person’s sin adversely affected the entire nation. In the acts of one person – the entire nation was involved. God tells Joshua: “Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: That which is devoted is among you, O Israel.’” In other words – you’ve sinned against God and now you’re trying to hide it! God tells Joshua to explain to the people: “You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove it.” (Joshua 7:1-13)

Friends – hear me in this. When sin is secret, when it goes underground – which it usually does because people are embarrassed about their sin – when it is closely guarded but habitually or continually engaged in, it’s an entanglement or a snare. When sin is secret and enjoyed or when we pretend it’s not there or we rationalize our actions or excuse them, then sin weighs us down, plagues us, beleaguers us, and overwhelms our ability to fight it. We call that “besetting sin” from the old English of King James. We get tempted – we look to see if anyone is looking – then we rationalize it “I’ll only do it this once.” Then we’re entangled and it sets in and sticks to us and we’re caught and in trouble.

This passage is a warning to all of us. Hear God’s concern and His rebuke and His scolding: “I will not be with you anymore unless. . . You cannot stand against your enemies until. . .” (Joshua 7:12 & 13). God cannot and will not be with you if you allow sin to rule in your heart, and you will not be able to stand up against the enemy.

Look at it again – Achan sinned – and God’s anger burned against the entire nation! One person sinned yet everyone felt God’s anger. Why? Because the entire people were held accountable for one person’s actions. Had the nation of Israel been healthy and devout in their faith and careful to be their brother’s keeper, then Achan would not have sinned; it would have been the last thing on his mind and everything in his upbringing would have made such sin difficult. What’s more, everyone in his family would have done whatever they could to hold him immediately accountable when the sin occurred. Even if they did all they could and Achan had sinned, it was the duty of every Israelite to obey God’s commands – and even one of them sinning caused God to turn away from them and remove His blessings and protection.

I believe that’s a problem in the Church today. The world looks at the Church of Christ and sees a weak, under-committed, under-funded group of people who say one thing and do another and the cause of Christ is marginalized and placed in question. The world is quietly going to hell without a Savior because the people who are supposed to live out the Savior’s life and testify to His amazing love and offer of forgiveness and salvation are busy sinning and attempting to keep it secret.

You see, it is up to each and every one of us to hold each other accountable, to ask the important questions, hear each others’ confessions, and show each other how to live. Yet many of us have secret, unrepented sin poisoning our lives and making us ineffective. Substance abuse, sick and dying marriages, love of money, lackluster spiritual lives, adulterous relationships, addiction to porn, gambling that’s barely under control, child abuse, cheating – you name it, the Church is statistically no different than the non-believing world!

I know some of you are saying “Marty! That’s not right! You can’t say the Church today has these kinds of troubles or that God is withholding blessings because of sin in the Church. That was Joshua and it was Achon and that was the Old Testament! We live in the age of God’s grace and God’s mercy!”

You’re right that we live in the age of Grace! We’re not under the Law, we live by the Grace of God – which means that through Jesus Christ we have God’s favor all over us even though we can never earn it or deserve it. That’s Grace. God’s grace may mean that when we dally in sin, our salvation and our future in Heaven is secure – but our daily life can be aimless and empty because God simply won’t bless an unrepentant heart.

Listen to Jesus’ words: “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34), and “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. . . (Matthew 24:12) John warns us: “If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:6) The Apostle Peter urges us: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. . .” (Acts 3:19) Paul tells us to “... throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

We need to strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. We’ve got to strip away all the junk in our life that slows us down – all the parasitic sins and secret idols and God-dishonoring behaviors – and take our first steps and increase our speed and never slow down or quit! Christ is the remedy for sin. He died in your place to bring you forgiveness, and to restore you to God. Your salvation is in Him; He is your Savior. He wants you to live for Him every day, free from the entanglement of sin.

The action steps you must take for coming to grips with these secret, hidden, besetting sins in your life can be found in Joshua as well. God told Joshua: “consecrate the people.” Joshua told the people: “Consecrate yourselves” (Joshua 7:13). “Consecrate” means to set yourself apart for God's personal and exclusive use, and to make yourself holy by becoming more like Jesus. Your own spiritual restoration starts with the very things we’ve learned from the Jordan and Jericho events: taking the first step in faith; continuing to walk in faith through the long haul even if you don’t see the plan or know for sure how God is leading you. It means getting rid of the secret, entangling sin that has control in your life, and walking bolding with the Savior.

Matthew Henry, in his commentary, says: “Let us plead guilty before God, be humble, and willing to know the worst of our case. Let us honestly confess all our sins in their full extent, relying wholly on His mercy and truth through the righteousness of Christ, for a free and full forgiveness, and our deliverance from the power and practice of sin.”

We have to be mindful of the sin in our life. If we’re oblivious or willful or lackadaisical, we’re a ship without a rudder; we’re wandering around in this world without God’s leading, without His blessing, and without His protection!

Let me make you aware of one more very important truth – a truth that should cause you to think strongly about continuing in hidden sin: you cannot remain in your secret sin forever! Jesus assures you: “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.” (Matthew 10:26; see also Luke 8:17, 12:2, and Mark 4:22) Paul assures you – or warns you: “He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.” (1 Corinthians 4:5) We keep our sins hidden, and pretend we can handle them and that they don’t control us – all the while our sin keeps us away from God’s provision and presence, and robs us of joy and takes away community and hobbles our spiritual growth. But this we know: eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are – no matter how hard we try to keep it under wraps! You see, God may let others alone in their sins, but He will not let you stay in your sin for long. He is always about correcting the entangling, besetting sin in His own children!

Followers of Christ must follow! To follow – or keep up with God - we have to walk by faith. Walking by faith requires that we take every first step that is required of us, and that we remain on the journey for as long as He requires, even when His leading is beyond our limited and meager understanding. We all must learn is that God waits to act until we take the first step in faith. Only then will He reveal His power and presence. If we stand still, or if we are paralyzed by fear, we’ll miss the faith-building experience of seeing God at work.

What is your Jordan? Where is your Jericho? Where is God waiting on you to step out? Where is God waiting for you to get back into the march and continue your journey of faith? You need to identify these areas of your life, pray for courage and direction, and then take careful stock of your life to see what sin stands in your way waiting to trip you up. When the sin is confessed, and you’re facing the proper direction for your journey, it’s time to strike out on the path with feet on your faith!

When your steps are resolute on the long path, and your life is free of the besetting sins that hobble your steps, even if you are up to your neck in the rush and floods of the world, you will see God working in and through and around you! When you walk in faith, you won’t be blindly tripping or sedately strolling or standing still or sliding backwards. . . you’ll be on a journey of joy, boldness, confidence, and hope!