{"id":4415,"date":"2022-12-06T12:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T18:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4415"},"modified":"2022-12-06T12:29:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T18:29:00","slug":"devotional-on-joshua-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-joshua-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Joshua"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-rInBro9zPlY\/XY_NW90n1BI\/AAAAAAABBqY\/ewLnXlchMwA9pVgE9iTuJdx-bTFAn6VTQCKgBGAsYHg\/s1600\/PHOTO_20140806_201121.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"902\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Lake Minden Thousand Trails &#8211; Nicolaus, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nOops<br \/>\nJoshua 9: The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence.  But they didn\u2019t ask God about it.<br \/>\nWord of the impressive victories of the Israelite army has spread far and wide.  Waves of fear sweep across Canaan when the powerful armies of the kings west of the Jordan fall.  Now, with Jericho and Ai both destroyed the region is in the grip of dismay.  Some are gearing up for war but one group desperately tries a different approach.  The people of Gibeon send emissaries to the Israelites.  They\u2019re made up to look as though they\u2019ve been on a long journey but actually they\u2019re local.  They tell Joshua\u2019s people that they\u2019ve heard of the might of God and their exploits and that, from a distance, they want to make a peace treaty with them.  Apparently, the Israelites are somewhat flattered that their fame has spread far and wide, so, without giving it much thought, they seal the deal with Gibeon.  To the surprise of the Israelites, they find that they\u2019ve made a deal with one of the groups they\u2019re supposed to purge from Canaan!  What a blunder on the side of the Israelites and what resourcefulness on the side of Gibeon!  The problem, of course, for Israel is that, while they were examining the dried, moldy bread from the saddlebags of the emissaries they forgot to \u201cask God about it.\u201d  They relied on their own wisdom rather than on the guidance of the Lord.  I\u2019d like to be very critical of the Israelites at this point, but I\u2019d better tread carefully here.  How many times have I, in my so called wisdom, checked out all the facts, made up a \u201cpros and cons\u201d list, researched the issue and moved on it.  Only after the fact I may have tossed an \u201cand, by the way Lord, please bless what I\u2019m about to do\u201d prayer.  As I see Israel making an un-prayed over deal with Gibeon I\u2019m sorry to say I see myself all too often doing the same sort of thing.<br \/>\nTake Away: You\u2019ll never be sorry you prayed first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oops Joshua 9: The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn\u2019t ask God about it. Word of the impressive victories of the Israelite army has spread far and wide. Waves of fear sweep across Canaan when the powerful armies of the kings west of the Jordan fall. Now, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1509,7],"tags":[136,245,845],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14101,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions\/14101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}