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Today is Tuesday March 16, 2010 and we are reading through the Bible in a year. Today's message comes from the reading of the Book of Joshua, chapters 9 & 10. If you would like to read the chapters along with us here online you can Click Here to read them or copy & paste this URL onto your browser: http://www.readytofollow.com/bible-march-16

Title: Bible Study: Watch Out For The Wolves
The moment we as Christians say Amen, after we pray to God and ask Him to forgive us of all our sins, and say that we believe in Jesus, and accept Him as our Savior, we have a choice to make. You either continue on with your life without even mentioning Jesus again or you invite Him into your life, regardless of which you choose, your life will never be the same again. Now, what many Christians do not realize is that we are feared by the world. Think about it, we have the all powerful God on our side and if any one has picked up a Bible they know that God does not take kindly to people messing with His people. Of course, those who live in the world think God to be cruel because He allows war and pain, but through it all He is guiding, preparing, and protecting His people.

After their victory at Jericho and Ai, the surrounding cities were getting a little scared, in fact, very scared, to the point that the kings were hiding and people were fearing for their lives. In order to spare their lives, the Gibeonites came up with a scheme to get Joshua and the Israelites to believe that they were not a part of Canaan. “And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof; That they gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord. And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai, They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up; And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy. And they went to Joshua unto the camp at Gilgal, and said unto him, and to the men of Israel, We be come from a far country: now therefore make ye a league with us.......And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them. And it came to pass at the end of three days after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbours, and that they dwelt among them. And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim. And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the LORD God of Israel. And all the congregation murmured against the princes.” - Joshua 9:1-615-18. Joshua was deceived by these men, yet he he allowed them to remain in the land because he swore to make an alliance with them. Now, the mistake Joshua made was that he did not seek God's advice in this matter. We can not trust our own judgment to make decisions, our flesh goes by sight and is often deceived and this is why Joshua made an alliance with them. There will be many people deceiving us because they fear their lives, but God knows who His true people are and the only way we can know is by staying in His Word.

God teaches us how to distinguish between those who are true and those who are wolves in sheep's clothing. Jesus even warns us of this, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” - Mathew 7:15-18. What He is saying here is that evil and good can not co-exist, there are some people who are good, they may have been corrupted, but deep down are good, and some are just evil who will not change, but are good at deceiving people. However, we can know that they are deceiving us by the way they act. I am a person who does not run up to people right a way that I do not know, I am cordial, but stay at a distance, observing them along the way. I can pretty much tell how a person is by how they react to certain things and what they do, but from time to time I got caught off guard and was not as cautious as I normally am and that was always when I got myself into trouble as I was deceived by their charm. We can not let our guard down, God's Word is the armor we need to keep us on guard and help us distinguish the wolves from the sheep.

Something caught my attention when reading these chapters, “Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.” - Joshua 10:12-14. God allowed the sun to stand still until the work was done. God eagerly honored Joshua's request, not only so he could fight for Israel, but also to prove this great miracle to those idolaters whom worshiped the sun and moon by demonstrating, that these also are subject to the command of the God of Israel. Also, here we learn of the book of Jasher, which is not in the Bible. There are several books mentioned in the Old Testament that are not in the Bible. Often, people will question this and think that the Bible is not complete. They are wrong, there are thousands upon thousands of testimonies of the power of God that if every person were to be in the Bible it would be so huge that it would be endless. He did not leave some out because they proved Him wrong or left it incomplete for others to add to it. God chose exactly which events and people to feature in the Bible for a reason and we may never know the reason, but some questions in life can only be answered by saying, because I said so. Faith truly is the substance of things hoped for and we may not always see the things that are good for us or the miracles that are given to us every day, but if we saw everything in front of us, what would we believe. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen......Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” - Hebrews 11:1,3.

The Gospel of John even addressed the issue of people who question God and why every book is not included in the Bible. “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” - John 21:24,25. The entire Bible is centered around one man and that id Jesus Christ, incidentally, the name Joshua means Jehovah(God) is Salvation. Jesus was with the Israelites even in the Old Testament, only through the Spirit of God. Every Word of the Bible is true and proven time and time again, if we keep all of His Word with us we will be able to identify those wolves and also know how to handle them when they come sneaking around. Trust in His Word and He will show you great and mighty things. Praise God!

Enjoy the rest of your day/night and week.
God Bless You, I am praying for you,
Christina

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