Bryan Link, from Toronto, Canada, did a double-take recently when he looked at an old pothole in his neighborhood and thought he saw weeds. Upon closer examination, they turned out to be tomatoes. Someone with a good sense of humor had planted the tomatoes in the big, ugly sinkhole that had been a blight on his Toronto neighborhood for months. Soon, other residents began to tend the tomato plants regularly, with someone going so far as to put up stakes to keep the plants from falling over. (Sheena Goodyear, “Someone planted tomatoes in this Toronto sinkhole—and residents are loving it,” CBC Radio, 8-16-18; www.PreachingToday.com)
For me, that’s a beautiful picture of what God can do in the broken places of your life. In those places of failure, God can plant the seeds of fruitfulness and growth. All you need to do is “tend the garden” (so-to-speak) and put up some “stakes.”
The question is: What are those stakes? What can you do to experience fruitfulness in the place of failure? What can you do to experience victory in the place of defeat? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Joshua 8, Joshua 8, where we see what Joshua did in the place of his failure.
Joshua 8:1-2 And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city, behind it.” (ESV)
God promises to give Joshua the city of Ai, the city that had routed Joshua’s army. Only this time, God tells Joshua to take his entire army – about 600,000 soldiers – instead of the 3,000 he took last time. He also tells Joshua to lay an ambush against the city, to sneak around behind the city, rather than do a frontal assault like he did the last time. So what does Joshua do?
Joshua 8:3-9 So Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out by night. And he commanded them, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you remain ready. And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out against us just as before, we shall flee before them. And they will come out after us, until we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say, ‘They are fleeing from us, just as before.’ So we will flee before them. Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city, for the LORD your God will give it into your hand. And as soon as you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of the LORD. See, I have commanded you.” So Joshua sent them out. And they went to the place of ambush and lay between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai, but Joshua spent that night among the people. (ESV)
Joshua, believing God’s promise, does exactly what God tells him to do. He approaches the city of Ai from the east, sending 30,000 of his best soldiers under cover of night behind the city to the west. That way, in the morning, when Joshua draws Ai’s soldiers out of the city on the east side, the 30,000 Israeli soldiers can easily enter the unguarded city from the west and set it on fire.
Joshua 8:10-12 Joshua arose early in the morning and mustered the people and went up, he and the elders of Israel, before the people to Ai. And all the fighting men who were with him went up and drew near before the city and encamped on the north side of Ai, with a ravine between them and Ai. He took about 5,000 men and set them in ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city. (ESV)
Joshua adds an additional 5,000 soldiers to the 30,000 that were already there. He’s not taking any chances. Gone is the arrogance he displayed before. Now, in dependence upon God, he is taking every precaution to carry out God’s battle plan.
Joshua 8:13-15 So they stationed the forces, the main encampment that was north of the city and its rear guard west of the city. But Joshua spent that night in the valley. And as soon as the king of Ai saw this, he and all his people, the men of the city, hurried and went out early to the appointed place toward the Arabah to meet Israel in battle. But he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city. And Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten before them and fled in the direction of the wilderness. (ESV)
I.e., to the east.
Joshua 8:16-29 So all the people who were in the city were called together to pursue them, and as they pursued Joshua they were drawn away from the city. Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel. They left the city open and pursued Israel. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. And the men in the ambush rose quickly out of their place, and as soon as he had stretched out his hand, they ran and entered the city and captured it. And they hurried to set the city on fire. So when the men of Ai looked back, behold, the smoke of the city went up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that, for the people who fled to the wilderness turned back against the pursuers. And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had captured the city, and that the smoke of the city went up, then they turned back and struck down the men of Ai. And the others came out from the city against them, so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side. And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped. But the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him near to Joshua. When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the LORD that he commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day. (ESV)
God gave Joshua a tremendous victory that day in the very place of his prior defeat, and God can do the same for you if you simply do what Joshua did. First…
TRUST IN THE LORD.
Believe in God’s promise and depend on Him. Rely on the Lord, and stake your future success on His intervention.
In verse 1, God tells Joshua, “See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land.” God tells Joshua to SEE something that hasn’t happened yet. At the moment, all Joshua can see is defeat and failure, but God wants Him to see with the eyes of faith, not just with the eyes on his face.
And that’s exactly what Joshua did. He sees with the eyes of faith and tells his soldiers in verse 7, “The Lord your God will give [Ai] into your hand.” In the midst of failure, Joshua puts his faith in God’s sure word.
Then Joshua intercedes for his soldiers as they fight against Ai.
Joshua 8:18 Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai, for I will give it into your hand.” And Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city. (ESV)
Skip down to verse 26.
Joshua 8:26 But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. (ESV)
Joshua stretched out his javelin and didn’t bring it down until there was total and complete victory.
This reminds me of Moses 40 years before this. Then, Exodus 17 records that Moses went to the top of a hill and raised his shepherd’s staff while the Israelites fought off an attack from the Amalekites. Moses was praying for God’s people. He was interceding on their behalf; and as long as the staff was raised, God’s people prevailed. But when Moses’ arm got tired and the staff fell, the enemy prevailed. So Aaron and Hur held up his arms until the Amalekites were defeated.
Well, that’s exactly what Joshua is doing here at Ai. He is raising his javelin in prayer for God’s people, and he doesn’t put it down until the enemy is completely destroyed. Joshua is depending on God for the victory. He believes God’s promise, and he prays until the victory is won!
And that’s exactly what you must do if you want to experience victory in the place of your defeat. Trust in the Lord. I.e., believe His promise, and pray until He gives you total and complete victory over whatever sin has a hold of you right now.
God’s word is very clear! Philippians 1 says, “He who began a good work in you WILL bring it to completion” (Philippians 1:6). And 1 Thessalonians 5 says, “May the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
Just believe it! Despite your failure, see with the eyes of faith and count on God to keep His Word. Then don’t stop praying until God comes through for you.
The Door in the Wall is the title for two very different stories written in the 20th Century.
Marguerite de Angeli wrote one of the stories, which won the Newbery Medal for children's literature. In her story, a ten-year-old son of a medieval knight becomes ill and crippled. He is separated from his parents by a cruel enemy army and cared for by a friar named Brother Luke. He is ashamed and disappointed by his legs as others give him the nickname “Robin Crookedshanks.” He feels destined to a life of shame with no chance to show courage or do glorious deeds. But the friar takes him to his monastery, teaches him to read and swim and carve, and teaches him to pray for the faith that a fine and beautiful life still lies before him, “Always remember,” the friar tells the boy, “[you have] only to follow the wall far enough, and there will be a door in it.”
At the end of the story, Robin’s disability leads to his opportunity. His crooked legs cause the enemy to under-estimate him. The resilient spirit he has developed in response to his challenges keeps him going. He alone finds the door in the enemy’s fortress wall. Against all odds, he becomes the rescuer who can steal unsuspected through enemy lines and save the people he loves. It is his faith in the old friar's words that keeps him going.
H. G Wells wrote the other story, the same H. G. Wells who wrote The War of the Worlds. In Wells' story, the promise of the door in the wall is a cruel hoax. A man is haunted all his life by the memory of a door that leads to an enchanted garden that contains all he ever longed for. He searches in vain for that door his whole life. At the end of the story his dead body is found—fallen in a construction site behind a wall marked by a door that looks exactly like the one he has been seeking. (John Ortberg, All the Places You'll Go. Except When You Don't, pgs. 231-232, Tyndale, 2015; www.PreachingToday.com)
Let me tell you: God’s promise is NOT a cruel hoax. It’s a sure and certain reality that simply requires your faith. Just believe what God has said. Then depend on Him until you find that “door” into the beautiful life He has designed for you to live.
If you want to experience victory in the place of defeat, fruitfulness in the place of failure, then 1st, you must trust in the Lord.
However, your faith must translate itself into action. You see, it’s not enough just to believe in the Lord, you must believe Him enough to do what He says. If you want to experience victory in the place of failure, you must also…
OBEY THE LORD.
Follow His will and submit to His Word.
That’s what Joshua did. He believed God enough to do what He said. In verse 1, God told Joshua, “Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai.” So, verse 3, “Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up to Ai.”
Joshua believes God enough to obey Him, and he instructs his army to do the same. In verse 8, Joshua says, “You shall do according to the word of the Lord.” So in verse 27, they do everything “according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua.”
They even treat their enemy’s king according to God’s Word. In verse 29, they hang him on a tree, but at sunset they take his body down. Why? Because of God’s command in Deuteronomy 21:22-23. There, God tells the people of Israel not to leave the body of a person hung on a tree all night, but to bury him the same day.
Joshua believes God enough to obey Him, and hat’s what you must do if you want to experience victory in the place of defeat.
You see, true faith always expresses itself in obedience. James 1:26 says, “Faith apart from works is dead.” It’s useless. It cannot save you from yielding to sin. You must put your faith to work if you want to overcome your failure.
Todd Skinner was one of the most respected rock climbers of his generation. He free-climbed some of the most difficult cliffs in the world, but his greatest challenge was tackling Trango Tower in Pakistan. It is the world's highest freestanding spire, with a near-vertical drop. It's also located in one of the most hostile and remote regions on the planet. When Todd went to find a sponsor for his expedition to free-climb Trango Tower, the experts told the sponsors that a wall that big, in a place that remote, was simply not meant to be climbed.
But Todd moved forward anyway, finding the right climbing team, and planning logistics like travel, food, jeeps, porters, permits, equipment, clothing, and tents. The biggest challenge came when, after years of preparation and a rugged 10-day cross-country trek, the climbers came face-to-face with the largest, tallest, smoothest, steepest rock wall they had ever seen.
Here's how Todd described that moment: “We turned a corner and there it was… Trango Tower rose stunningly before us. The reality hit us like a shock wave. We stopped dead in the middle of the track… no amount of bluff or bravado could hide the fact that we were absolutely horrified.”
The team members had come for this challenge, but now it seemed too high, too vertical, too difficult, even for some of the best big-wall climbers in the world. Todd realized that there was only one way forward. In his words, they had to “get on the wall” even if they weren't completely prepared. Todd said,
“The final danger in the preparation process of an expedition is the tendency to postpone leaving until every question has been answered, forgetting that the mountain is the only place the answers can definitively be found… No matter how well prepared you are, how honed your climbing skills, how vast your expertise, you cannot climb the mountain if you don't get to it.”
So Todd and his three teammates “got on the wall;” and after 60 days on the wall, they finally reached the summit. (David Sturt, Great Work, McGraw Hill, 2014, pp. 160-163; www.PreachingToday.com)
No matter how great your faith, no matter how much you have studied and prepared, you must actually “get on the wall.” You must do what your faith tells you to do and start climbing that mountain.
If you want to experience victory in the place of defeat, fruitfulness in the place of failure, then 1st, you must trust in the Lord. 2nd, you must obey the Lord. And finally, you must…
GIVE YOURSELF TO THE LORD AGAIN.
Renew your commitment to Him. Dedicate yourself to God anew and afresh.
That’s what Joshua and the Israelites do. After experiencing victory in the place of defeat, they solidify that victory by renewing the covenant God made with them 40 years previously.
Joshua 8:30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal… (ESV)
That’s 30 miles away from Ai.
Joshua 8:31-35 …just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings. And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them. (ESV)
Just as God had commanded them to do, Joshua gathers the people together in a valley between two great mountains – Mount Ebal to the north, and Mount Gerizim to the south. Half of them are standing at the foot of Mount Ebal, and the other half are standing at the foot of Mount Gerizim. And there, in that great natural amphitheater, Joshua reads to them “all the words of the law.” He’s reminding them of the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai, and they are renewing their commitment to Him. Instead of securing the land with further victories right away, they take some time off to remember what God had said and to commit themselves to obeying His Law.
And that’s what you must do to solidify your victory in the place of defeat. Don’t move forward without giving yourself wholly and completely to the Lord.
Do it especially since you have a new and better covenant with God than what they had here on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Their covenant was written on tablets of stone with clear blessings for obedience and clear curses for disobedience. As it turns out, Israel couldn’t obey God’s Law, so they ended up cursed and scattered all over the world.
On the other hand, as a believer in Christ, God has written the New Covenant on your heart, making it a part of who you are at the core of your being. Then He gives you His Holy Spirit to help you obey Him, and He promises to forgive you of all your sin (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:22-27; Hebrews 8:6-13).
This covenant was confirmed by the blood of Christ on the cross, and it is God’s guarantee of unconditional blessing on all who put their trust in Him. You cannot lose under the New Covenant. So, if you haven’t done it already, put your trust in Christ. And if you have, renew your commitment to Him. For if restoration from failure was possible under the Old Covenant, it is absolutely guaranteed under the New Covenant.
So give yourself to the Lord again and again and again, if you need to, and recommit your life to Christ. It’s the only way to solidify your victory in the place of defeat.
On October 31, 1999, a full airplane took off from JFK International Airport, New York, on a routine flight to Cairo, Egypt. The final report of the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that, a short time after take-off, the relief first officer waited for the pilot to leave the cockpit and then disengaged the autopilot. He proceeded to move the throttle levers from their cruise power setting to idle, cutting the engines. Seconds later, the airplane began to pitch nose-downward and descended into a freefall.
In the final moments before impact, the horrified pilot dashed back to his seat and battled the co-pilot for control of the plane. The pilot pulled back on his controls, desperate to bring the nose of the plunging Boeing 767 up, while the suicidal first officer pushed his own controls forward to keep the jet in its lethal dive. The result was the tragic crash of Egyptair Flight 990 into the Atlantic Ocean south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. It killed all 217 people aboard. (National Transportation Safety Board final report on the crash of Egyptair Flight 990, October 31, 1999; www.PreachingToday.com)
Please, don’t do that to your life. Don’t hijack control of your life from the Lord. Remain committed to Him; and every time you feel like you’re nosediving into sin, give back the controls of your life to God.
If you want to experience victory in the place of defeat, fruitfulness in the place of failure, trust in the Lord; obey the Lord; and give yourself to Him again and again and again, as often as you need to solidify the victory in your own life.
Please, don’t be discouraged.
God will make a way where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see;
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide, hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day,
He will make a way; He will make a way (Don Moen)
Please, trust God to make a way for you!
