Dale Ralph Davis on Joshua VII (Ouch!)
Dale Ralph Davis told us about his preacher friend who titled his sermon on Joshua 5 ‘Ouch’. In Joshua 5, all the men of Israel are circumcised. Their fathers had been circumcised, of course, but, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, everyone of them had died in the wilderness of Sinai. You can have the outward sign of God's grace yet still fall under his judgement.
But why circumcise all your fighting men now at the point where they have just crossed into as yet unsettled enemy territory? They will be disabled for days and vulnerable to attack?
Surely, suggests Ralph, this is because the conquest of the land is not something for human boasting; it's God himself leading his people into battle. An army of recently circumcised men leading a charge into battle? Madness.
This is almost as insane as trying to preach to the world that God became a man and died on a cross in order to forgive us and lead us to worship him as king.