“Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.” Joshua 5:1
Orig: 11/10/02
“Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.” Joshua 5:1
Have you ever been a part of a team that lost before they ever went on the field? In the 1996 I was named the head varsity football coach after our head coach resigned on the bus prior to our third game of the season. I will never forget his words just as we were stepping off the bus, “Jimmy, I quit. You are the coach.”
Stunned, I grabbed a good friend, and head JV coach-Jack Greer, to call the offense and we went out and actually won that game against St. Bernard’s in a stunning victory while our (ex) head coach stayed in the bus.
To this day no one knows what happened.
Needless to say we struggled that season with the two top rated teams in CIF (similar State in Oregon) in our league! Atascadero High School went a perfect 13-0 that year and we played them after losing our star running back to a devastating knee injury. Our kids knew they could not beat the perennial powerhouse Greyhounds. You could see it in their eyes. It was so bad. As a young head coach I made the decision to address their total loss of spirit.
It did not help. We lost that game. Bad.
The adversaries of the Israelites who were living in the Promised Land saw "how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites (and) their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage." In fact, the two groups from recent history that the Israelites feared the most were the Ammonites and the Canaanites (Numbers 13:24-33). It’s amazing how perspectives can differ when people have conquered their history with courage. Remember when the spies in Numbers 13 returned with their gutless report (except Joshua and Caleb) after they saw the size of the Ammonite and the Canaanite armies. The Israelites’ courage literally left them as they abandoned the promise of God for that generation. But under his leadership, Joshua’s generation was categorically different. They had learned and repented of the cowardice of their fathers. They beat the generational curse (Exodus 20:5).
In the New American Standard Bible Translation the word for “courage” is “spirit”. Their loss of courage was literally a loss of spirit. A loss of spirit is a fear-induced loss of hope. A lost spirit sees only darkness at the end of the tunnel. It is blinded to the summit at the top the mountain. It does not see the tape across the finish line or the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (don’t look--it isn’t there).
A loss of spirit is the end result of the life that trusts in self over God. The enemy’s of God are big but God is bigger and with God on your side there is nothing you two cannot do together. However, remembering the words of Jesus, “apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).”
The problem with the self-made man is that he worships his creator. He stands alone in his fear. If we live by the self, we will die by ourselves. If we trust in the human spirit we will forsake the Holy Spirit.
