When NOT to pray…

"And the Lord said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?" (Joshua 7:10)

After the mighty victory at Jericho, it was abundantly obvious that God was fighting for His people as they entered the land of Canaan. God had promised Joshua: "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life" (Joshua 1:5), so nothing could stop them now.

Except one thing–sin in the camp! After a humiliating defeat at Ai, "Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face" and began to complain to the Lord about how He had let them down (Joshua 7:6-9).

Now, normally prayer is a good thing, especially in such times of great need as this. Yet God rebuked Joshua for praying! There is a time to pray, and a time not to pray.

Joshua should have remembered that God’s promise had a condition: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; . . . that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: . . . then thou shalt have good success" (Joshua 1:8). Their complete lack of success at Ai could, therefore, only have resulted from their disobedience. Joshua, as leader, should have realized this and should have proceeded to punish those responsible. Instead, here he was groveling and complaining with his face on the ground.

As soon as Joshua had done what he should have done in the first place and purged the guilty ones from the company, then God gave them a great victory over those who had once defeated them. After the triumph over Ai, Joshua gathered all the people again, and read to them "all that is written in the book of the law" (Joshua 8:34).

We have no right to pray if we are harboring known sin. Even if there is no known sin, unanswered prayer is at least a cause for careful self-examination, being as sure as we can that there is "nothing between my soul and the Savior." HMM

Random & Related Post

• February 25, 2009 — What “Separation of Church and State” meant to the author of it – President Thomas Jefferson (0)
• February 19, 2009 — Wisdom is found in being a fool… (0)
• January 21, 2009 — Biography (0)
• April 25, 2008 — What “Separation of Church and State” meant to the author of it – President Thomas Jefferson (0)
• February 26, 2008 — The Living Word is Jesus Christ (0)
• February 5, 2008 — The walk of a "Christian" is anything but easy… (0)
• February 25, 2009 — The pragmatic life in Christ demands daily living… (0)
• February 25, 2009 — Walk by faith (0)
• February 25, 2009 — Fools (0)
• February 25, 2009 — Under the sun? (0)