When the Invincible Stumble Text: Joshua 7:6-9
Introduction: The Smell of Defeat
We come now to a jarring scene. Israel is reeling. The taste of victory at Jericho, that supernatural, glorious victory, is still fresh in their mouths. They are God's chosen instrument, the tip of His spear, and they have just seen the walls of the most fortified city in Canaan fall down flat without a single battering ram. They are, by all accounts, invincible. And then comes Ai. A small, insignificant town, a mop-up operation. And they are routed. Thirty-six men are dead, and the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
This is the kind of defeat that is more than a military setback. It is a theological crisis. It is a crisis of identity. When you are God's people, and you are moving in obedience to His explicit command, what do you do when you fall flat on your face? What happens when the formula, "obey God and win," seems to break down? This is a question that every Christian, every church, and every Christian movement must face sooner or later. We have the promises of God, we have the indwelling Spirit, we have the triumphant Christ, and yet, sometimes, we taste the dust of ignominious defeat.
The modern church has two standard, and equally wrong, responses to this reality. The first is the triumphalist response, which simply denies the defeat. They slap a new coat of paint on it, call it a "learning experience," and pretend that victory is happening all the time, even when the offering plates are empty and the pews are emptier. The second is the response of despair, which concludes that God's promises must have an expiration date, or that they were never for us in the first place. They accommodate themselves to defeat and call it realism.
Joshua, in this moment, models for us a third way. It is not a perfect response, as we shall see, but it is a raw, honest, and God-fearing response. He goes straight to the heart of the matter, which is the character and reputation of God Himself. He understands that Israel's defeat is not primarily about Israel. It is about the name of Yahweh. When God's people stumble, the world is watching, and they are drawing conclusions, not about the people, but about their God. Joshua's prayer, his lament, is a desperate plea for God to vindicate His own glory in the face of a humiliating and public failure.
The Text
Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of Yahweh until the evening, both he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord Yahweh, why did You ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to make us perish? If only we had been willing to live beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies? And the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will You do for Your great name?”
(Joshua 7:6-9 LSB)
The Posture of a Broken Leader (v. 6)
We begin with the immediate, visceral reaction of Joshua and the leadership.
"Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of Yahweh until the evening, both he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads." (Joshua 7:6)
This is not a committee meeting to analyze strategic failures. This is not a press conference to manage the narrative. This is profound, gut-wrenching grief and humiliation before God. Tearing clothes, falling prostrate, putting dust on the head, these are all ancient signs of utter devastation and mourning. But notice where they do this. They do it "before the ark of Yahweh." The ark was the symbol of God's throne, His presence in their midst. They did not run from God in their failure; they ran to Him. They fell down exactly where God had promised to meet with them.
This is the first lesson for us in our failures. Our sin and defeat should not drive us away from God's presence in shame, but rather cast us upon His mercy right where He is to be found. They stay there "until the evening," the time of the evening sacrifice. This is not a fleeting emotional outburst; it is a sustained posture of desperation before God. They are waiting for an answer. They know the problem is not with the Amorites' swords; the problem is in their relationship with God. And so they go to the heart of the covenant relationship, the ark, and they wait.
Joshua and the elders are modeling corporate responsibility. They, as leaders, identify with the sin and failure of the people. They don't stand apart and point fingers. They fall on their faces as one. This is covenantal leadership. The sin of one man, Achan, has brought this disaster, but the leaders bear the weight of it before God. They understand that in a covenant community, there is no such thing as a purely private sin. Achan's sin was a corporate sin because it defiled the entire camp and broke their covenant fidelity with God.
A Desperate Complaint (v. 7-8)
From this posture of humility, Joshua cries out to God, and his words are shocking in their honesty.
"Alas, O Lord Yahweh, why did You ever bring this people over the Jordan, only to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to make us perish? If only we had been willing to live beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say since Israel has turned their back before their enemies?" (Joshua 7:7-8 LSB)
This sounds dangerously close to the faithless grumbling of the previous generation in the wilderness. "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die here?" It is a prayer on the ragged edge of faith and despair. Joshua's theology is, for a moment, shaken. He questions the very wisdom of God's plan. "Why did you bring us here just to kill us?" He even expresses a longing for the compromise position: "If only we had been willing to live beyond the Jordan!" This is the temptation in every defeat, to wish we had never started, to long for the familiar comforts of the land of compromise instead of fighting for the promised inheritance.
But there is a crucial difference between Joshua's lament and the Israelites' grumbling. The grumblers in the wilderness were accusing God to one another. Joshua is accusing God to His face. He is bringing his confusion, his pain, and his theological crisis directly to the only one who can answer. This is the privilege of a son. Like Job, like David in the Psalms, Joshua is wrestling with God. He is not gossiping about God behind His back. He is honest about his confusion. "O Lord, what can I say?" He is speechless. The facts on the ground, an Israelite retreat, seem to contradict everything he knows about the God of Israel. He has no categories for this. God's people do not run. But they did. And Joshua is undone.
This is a profound pastoral lesson. God is not afraid of our honest questions when they are brought to Him in a spirit of dependent desperation. He can handle our confusion. What He will not tolerate is the sideways, faithless murmuring that seeks to stir up rebellion among the people. Bring your complaints to the throne of grace, not to the court of public opinion.
The Central Issue: The Glory of God's Name (v. 9)
Finally, Joshua gets to the heart of the matter. His personal confusion and Israel's humiliation are secondary. The primary issue is the reputation of God among the nations.
"And the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will You do for Your great name?" (Joshua 7:9 LSB)
This is where Joshua's prayer pivots from the edge of despair to the bedrock of sound theology. He understands the doctrine of election. God did not choose Israel because they were great, but to make His name great through them. Their deliverance from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the crossing of the Jordan, it was all for one purpose: that the nations would know that Yahweh is God.
Joshua sees the strategic implication of this defeat. The fear that had fallen on the Canaanites after Jericho will now evaporate. It will be replaced with contempt. The story will spread like wildfire: "The god of the Israelites is not so powerful after all. Their winning streak is over." This will embolden them to unite and "cut off our name from the earth." But Joshua knows that Israel's name is tied inextricably to Yahweh's name. If Israel is wiped out, what does that say about the God who promised to give them the land? What does it say about His power, His faithfulness, His glory?
The final question is the greatest argument in all of prayer: "And what will You do for Your great name?" This is not a manipulative tactic. This is the highest form of worshipful prayer. It is aligning our deepest desires with God's deepest desire, which is the glorification of His own name. Joshua is, in effect, holding God to His own covenant promises. He is saying, "Lord, our survival is a secondary issue. Your reputation is on the line. You have staked Your name on this enterprise. You must act, not for our sakes, but for Yours." This is the same argument Moses used at Sinai after the golden calf incident (Exodus 32:12), and it is the argument that always prevails with God, because God is eternally and zealously committed to His own glory.
Conclusion: The Hidden Sin and the Great Name
God's answer to Joshua is swift and terrifying. "Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned" (Joshua 7:10-11). God reveals that the problem is not a failure in His power or a change in His promises. The problem is sin in the camp. There is a hidden loyalty to the gods of Canaan, represented by the devoted things Achan stole, festering in the heart of the covenant community. God will not give victory to a compromised people.
The lesson for us is stark. When the church experiences defeat, when our evangelism is fruitless, when our families are in disarray, when our efforts to take cultural ground for Christ are routed, our first response must be that of Joshua and the elders. We must fall on our faces before God. We must not blame our circumstances or the strength of the enemy. We must ask, "Is there sin in the camp?" Is there a hidden worldliness, a secret accommodation with the spirit of the age, a love for the devoted things of our secular Canaan that we have smuggled into the church?
But our ultimate plea must also be that of Joshua. We must be concerned, above all, with the name of our God. In a world that blasphemes the name of Christ, the church's witness is paramount. Our defeats give the enemies of God occasion to mock. Our hypocrisy gives them ammunition. Our prayer, therefore, should not primarily be, "Lord, make us successful," but rather, "Lord, make us holy, so that Your great name might be glorified."
And we pray this with a confidence Joshua could not have. We pray in the name of a greater Joshua, Jesus, who never failed and was never defeated. He endured the ultimate defeat of the cross, where God's name seemed to be utterly discredited, only to bring about the greatest victory in the history of the world. Because of His victory, our failures are never final. Because He dealt with the root of sin, we can have confidence that when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And He will, in His time, rise up and act, not because of our worthiness, but for the everlasting glory of His own great name.