What role does obedience play in the fulfillment of God's promises in Joshua 6? Context: Jericho Under Judgment, Rahab Under Promise • Jericho stood under the divine ban—everything was to be destroyed (Joshua 6:17). • Rahab alone had received a guarantee of deliverance because she had sheltered the spies (Joshua 2:12-14). • The promise was sure, yet its realization required Israel’s careful obedience to every detail God and Joshua had laid out. God’s Promise, Israel’s Part 1. Promise of victory: “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hand” (Joshua 6:2). 2. Conditions of obedience: • March around the city exactly as instructed (6:3-4). • Devote all to destruction, taking nothing for themselves (6:18-19). • Spare Rahab and her family (6:17). 3. Obedience became the God-ordained pathway by which a settled promise moved from decree to visible reality. Obedience in Action: The Rescue of Rahab (Joshua 6:23) “ So the young men who had spied out the land went in and brought out Rahab—her father and mother and brothers and everyone who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.” • The very spies who pledged the oath now obey Joshua’s command (6:22). • Their obedience satisfies both the oath to Rahab (Joshua 2:14) and God’s broader directive concerning devoted things. • Rahab’s house on the city wall—marked by the scarlet cord—became the one safe place in a city under judgment (Joshua 2:18-19). Promises Kept, Faith Proven • God’s faithfulness: Rahab’s deliverance shows God never forgets a promise, no matter how devastating the surrounding judgment (Hebrews 11:31). • Israel’s obedience: Their exact compliance was the human instrument God used to honor His word. • Rahab’s faith: Her trust was vindicated; she moved from condemned Canaanite to welcomed member of Israel (Joshua 6:25, Matthew 1:5). • The pattern: God’s word, believed and obeyed, brings blessing; His word ignored brings loss (contrast Achan, Joshua 7). Lessons for Today • God’s promises are certain, yet He weaves our obedience into their fulfillment. • Obedience is not meritorious earning but willing alignment with what God has already decreed (James 2:17-26). • Even small acts of obedience—marching, blowing trumpets, keeping an oath—can unlock large displays of grace. • God guards every individual who trusts in Him, even amid wholesale judgment (Psalm 34:7). • Obedience preserves testimony: Israel’s faithfulness to Rahab protected the honor of God’s name among the nations. Related Scriptures on Obedience and Promise Fulfillment • Deuteronomy 7:9—God “keeps His covenant of loving devotion with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” • Hebrews 10:36—“You need to persevere, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.” • John 14:23—“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him.” • 1 Samuel 15:22—“To obey is better than sacrifice.” |
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