When God Tells You To Stop Praying!

[2bLikeJesus]

Joshua 7:5-6 (KJV)
⁵  And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
⁶  And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.  

 

Joshua is blaming God for what THEY caused.  It has even caused Joshua to attribute evil motives to God, and to doubt their ability to possess the land!

 

Joshua 7:7 (KJV)
⁷  And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan! 

 

God tells Joshua to "Get off your face" and quit blaming God for what YOU have caused and go FIX the prOBlem!

 

Joshua 7:10-13 (KJV) 

¹⁰  And the LORD said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?
¹¹  Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.
¹²  Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you.
¹³  Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.  

 

God tells Joshua to identify and remove the sin in the camp or you can fight all your battles by yourself. 

 

Joshua 7:14-15 (KJV) 

¹⁴  In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes: and it shall be, that the tribe which the LORD taketh shall come according to the families thereof; and the family which the LORD shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD shall take shall come man by man.
¹⁵  And it shall be, that he that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he hath: because he hath transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel. 

 

To often, we through laziness or apathy, respond to a prOBlem with "I will pray about it" or "I will keep it in prayer"; absolving us from actually DOING something about the prOBlem.  Sometimes we need to quit acting like little children and running to Father with every little thing that is well within our power to fix ourselves.  God is more than willing to help, and seeks prayer for things bigger than ourselves, because in that, HE gets all the glory, and not ourselves.  

 

So, "Get off your face" and get out there and find the prOBlem and fix it!

 

Bro. Garry

In His will.  By His power.  For His glory.

[John81]

The main prOBlem seems to be that Joshua assumed this prOBlem was God's doing when he should have bowed before the Lord and asked Him what the reason was for the prOBlem.

 

I know early in my Christian walk I sometimes acted like that. Something bad would happen and I'd wonder what good it does to follow God when He lets these things happen. Not, at that time, considering the fact that what happened was either a matter of life in this world after the Fall, or had something to do with my weak or even sinful walk.

 

These days I try to take all things to the Lord. Even those things which I know require action on my part, I ask the Lord for wisdom and ability. If I try to plunge ahead and do what I know needs to be done, but without first consulting the Lord and seeking His assistance in the matter, I find those things often don't go very smoothly.

 

It takes continuous effort to examine ourselves, our thoughts, our hearts, our true motives, our speech, our conduct with others, etc. It's so much easier to blame God, flop on the couch and wonder when He's going to fix everything.