Joshua was one of the greatest warriors of the Bible, faithful, courageous and constant. And here he is addressing the Israelites as he is near death.
Since he wandered in the wilderness with them for 40 years, he has a solid idea of how easily they can turn their backs on God; how quickly they defer to what they can see rather than the God in which they should place their faith. So here he is trying to encourage them... to stir up their faith to continue possessing the promised land. For though he conquered much as their leader, there were still enemies in the land God promised to give them.
And Joshua reminds them of the miraculous victories BECAUSE the Lord fought for them. So it's tragic to see, after his death, that they failed to remember long term.
The Lord was with Judah and enabled them to take possession of the hill country, but they could not drive out the people who were living in the valley because those people had iron chariots.
And God was still with the Israelites. Judah, the leading tribe for all the warriors was to take possession of the hill country. We read that God ENABLED them. That means He empowered them to do this. And just as before, they could have seen the victory of the Lord. But instead they backed down BECAUSE of what they saw... iron chariots. These are war chariots. And to be sure they must have been very intimidating. Since the Israelites had no such means of war, this must have reminded them of Egypt. For their ancestors were slaves under the Egyptians who also had chariots.
But God does't want us to focus on the seen. God doesn't want us to look back at our former captive life to trouble. He is still with us... enabling us to take possession of the life of abundance He planned.
Let us not, like the men of Judah, back down at the sight of iron chariots... at the sight of something overwhelming that is a temporary threat. God, our eternal Champion, will fight for us, and He will do so in a very visible way... if we will only let Him.
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