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Leaving the City Dump Behind

Joshua 6:26

Joshua laid an oath on them at that time, saying, “Cursed before the LORD be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho.”

A basic principle we can immediately ascertain from this Joshua 6:26 curse is simply this: don’t build back what God has torn down.

For religious leaders in Christ’s day, it was the merchandizing of holy sacrament. For converts in the early church, it was rabbinical traditions and pagan rituals. For churches during the Reformation, it was indulgences and a works-based salvation. For many churches today, it’s the nomination of practicing homosexuals and transvestites into clerical positions, undermining the sacred family unit established by God at the beginning of time. You could also add to the list the unitarian universalist doctrine that all paths lead to God which contradicts Christ’s plain teaching that “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life—no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

But let’s turn the microscope inward now. Let’s get more personal, friend. What capstones from those Jericho walls in your own testimony have you sort of stockpiled out back for potential future use? In what ways have you fallen for the lie that because time has elapsed God has changed His mind? Maybe you came clean long ago from addictive action—like pornography or alcoholism or drug use or even chronic bitterness toward a brother—and you can vividly recall weeping before the LORD and being revived in a flood of repentance. But, since then, you’ve allowed a little taste of that vice here and there. In moderation, of course. Because you’ve told yourself that the problem back then wasn’t sin, but carelessness or excessiveness or overt selfishness. Remember: virtue is a path, not a singular step. It’s a willful, daily determination not only to allow the Spirit to tear down those idolatrous desires and inclinations, but also to earnestly steer clear of that pile of stones that remains in the periphery of our path forward. 

Be on guard today, friend. The devil will nudge you to take a few of those rocks and just build a little grotto for your garden or a hearth for your fireplace—nothing big; nothing major. But don’t give in! Leave those stones where they are—in the dust—and let God build of your life something far better.

 

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