The God Who Wants His People to Overcome Sin

When Joshua died, Israel was left without a leader. Everyone began to do what was right in his own eyes, and in the end the people turned away from God and fell into sin, crying out to him only once foreign nations had oppressed them.

A faith that a leader lives out on the people’s behalf is not true faith. God did not raise up a new leader after Joshua because he wanted his people to remember the word they had been taught and to walk with him by a faith of their own. Sin is like a sheer wall of ice that cannot be scaled in one’s own strength; without Jesus Christ as the rope, no one can stand on the summit.

After Joshua’s death, when Israel came to God of their own accord and inquired of him, God raised up Judah and gave a great victory in the battle against Adoni-Bezek. To a people who pray to him directly and obey him even without a leader, God grants victory in the face of any power.