Promised Land Living: Living and Dying on Our Prayer Life: Josh. 9-10

I. Dying on Our Prayer Life…or Lack of it: 9

A. Gibeon was deceptive, because they were lost. It’s time that a lost and dying like a lost and dying world. They could have heard about Yahweh’s laws for those outside Canaan. Deut. 20:10-12

Deuteronomy 20:10–12 NASB95

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. “If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. “However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.

B. They looked ragged, like they’ve been traveling for days when Gibeon was only a day’s walk away.

C. Joshua didn’t pray he just acted on instinct like he did with the first battle of Ai.

II. Living on Our Prayer Life: 10:1-15

A. Soon after Joshua’s ill fated alliance, the Gibeonites needed help. 5 kings were going to attack.

B. The Lord told Joshua what to do for the next step. “His word is a ‘lamp unto[our]feet’ (Ps. 119:105 KJV), not a spotlight into the future. He gives enough light to take the next step”- Max Lucado.

C. As the enemy started to retreat, God sent down hail, but Joshua knew that if the enemy escaped at night, they’d regroup. So Joshua prayed an audacious prayer, that even the secular world recorded it. Science proved this true in 2017, by Cambridge scientist.

D. If we prayed boldly, like Joshua we’d see Yahweh move more. Not at our beck and call, we don’t command God, we pled/pray to Him, but we do it believing, and boldly. Jam. 4:2-3

James 4:2–3 NASB95

You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Hebrews 4:16 NASB95

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

III. Living Abundantly on Our Prayer Life vs. 16-43

A. After this mistake Joshua starts leaning on the Lord like he should. That’s when the victories start happening. If we are living in defeat personally, then we can’t expect victories in public.

B. Joshua was bold now (vs. 25).

C. He started conquering like he should have been doing to start with. When we live by faith, we live and die on our relationship with Jesus. This is reflected by our prayer life.