Watchmen on the Walls

by Rocky Fleming

Day 3:  Humility

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”  Proverbs 16:18 (ESV)

I want to share a historical lesson from the history of Israel.  It came early to God’s people after they crossed over the Jordan River and stormed Jericho.  The day the massive, powerful walls of Jericho fell was one of Israel’s finest days.  As Winston Churchill would have said, “Your finest hour.”  Maybe so.  But a few days later Israel would face one of their worst hours.  Let me share what happened from God’s word and see if we can learn something from it:

“But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the LORD burned against the people of Israel.  

Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.” So about three thousand men went up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.”  Joshua 7:1-5 (ESV)

Got the picture?  A small village literally beat back an outnumbered and seasoned army of men because of the disobedience of one Israeli man, and likely the pride of an over-confident army representing God.  There is a lesson here for the Watchman. It is this: “Disobedience to God and pride in ourself leads to destruction.”  There would be a few thousand Israelites after the Battle of Ai who would agree with those words.

If we are to ever stand against the most powerful enemy we will ever face, we must nail it down that we cannot stand against evil intentions in our own power.  Pride in ourself creates a very vulnerable condition that not only blinds us from the truth of a threat and what to do about it, it also takes away the power we need to conquer this threat.

I must confess that I have been learning a lesson on grieving and quenching the Spirit, and it deals directly with this issue.  Let me explain:  I have noticed that my role has had a subtle shift with the ministry I serve, Influencers.  I believe it is a work of God that has done this. Added to my call to write, mentor and teach has been a new sense or awareness that I haven’t had before.   It might be a Gift of Discernment that God is making me aware of.  I’m not sure, except I have seen a more sensitive “radar view” of things that alerted me to some things that could be destructive to the ministry.  I am having to learn how to use this new perception, for early on I was reactive and operated in my own sense of duty to danger, or even in pride with what I could do about it.  

After a few “Ai’s” in my life, I began to see that I was “quenching the Spirit” in my life which was making me ineffective with how to respond to the threats.  What do I mean?  I was reacting in my own power, my own sense of right and wrong, and without the help of the Spirit of God. I literally quenched His fire in my life, just like the three thousand Israelite soldiers did when they faced Ai.  To counter this problem for them required humility and obedience, and not reaction on their part.  It was the same for me.  It required a change with my response.  

God had possibly given me new alert insight for the ministry, and it needed to be used correctly.  As I shared, this alert had to be cleared through what I was seeing through His word or else I would be in danger of judging someone.  That part had been clear to me for a while.  But now my next step would require discernment with what to do with the information I believed to be true. Would I quench the Spirit or would I allow His power to make the difference that was needed?   What was the next step I needed to take?  I will share that with you tomorrow.