Section 03 - The Anguish of Ai

Joshua 7:10 to 12 says:

And the LORD [Yahweh] said to Joshua, Get up; why are you lying groveling on your face?
Israel has sinned, and they have also negated my covenant which I commanded them: for they have taken possession of a cursed thing, and have also stolen, and lied about it, and they have put [it] amongst their own stuff.
Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, [but] turned [their] backs before their enemies, because they were under a curse: neither will I be with you any more, unless you destroy the cursed objects that are among you.

One of the most pitiful sights that you can see is a leader out of control. I remember something from many years ago in my School days.

I try to forget them as much as possible, but there is one teacher that I will never forget. I can even remember her name. It is not often you remember teacher's names unless they stood out to you.

She was a woman who was always threatening that if we were not quiet in class, she was going to send us to the Headmaster and she was going to discipline us, but she never did. Nobody ever listened and nobody ever stopped talking. It just seemed that she was totally incapable of keeping the class quiet.

I figured at the time that it must have been our class that were an unruly bunch; that we were just not prepared to submit to authority. But yet you could count that in every lesson, at least several times during the lesson, you would hear this teacher shouting out,

"Be quiet!"

I realized a while later that this teacher had a problem. I had moved up to another class, and I was walking past a classroom that she was taking one day and I heard the words,

"Be quiet!"

She was shouting just like she used to do when I was in her class. In fact it seemed every class she ever had she was always shouting at everybody to be quiet.

She was totally incapable of controlling the class and incapable of keeping order. No matter which class she had, no matter what age and no matter what level of students she was taking, she had the same problem.

She was incapable of leading that class and keeping them under control. You would just walk past and shake your head in pity and say,

"Shame, shame. What a pathetic teacher."

Leaders Control

A leader is supposed to lead and be in control. And the moment you see a leader losing that control, you see somebody who has lost their leadership capability, and somebody that people don't want to follow anymore. They are no longer a leader.

What causes this? Sometimes it is false humility and they say,

"Well you know I don't want to be hard on the people. I want them to like me, so I will just treat them gently and be soft and let them have their way."

You will be trampled on like a herd of elephant running over you if you try that. Disorder is a reflection of leadership capability or lack thereof, and it is totally humiliating.

So why am I talking about leadership and failure of leadership? Because the anguish of Ai was a time in Joshua's life when he found out what it was like to fail as a leader, and he faced the anguish that comes when your leadership has failed.

I want you to picture a typical scenario and see if you can identify with it. I want to see if you have been there and if you know what I am talking about.

The people you lead are not doing what you told them to do. They don't want to do it and they refuse to do it. They don't feel like it and they are just not doing it.

You can shout until you are hoarse, you can command as much as you are like, but people are not obeying you. You feel like you are standing all alone and nobody is supporting you.

It seems like everybody has turned their backs on you and nobody cares about how you feel or what you want to do. You are doing this one all on your own.

Have you been there? You become disillusioned and you feel like you are just wasting your time. You think,

"Why do I even bother? Nobody cares; nobody is interested. I'm flogging a dead horse here."

You begin to wonder why you even started this thing in the first place. You think,

"Was I mad in the head? Was I stupid? Was I deceived and demented? Did I hear wrong? Oh Lord, I was stupid to suggest this plan in the first place. I was stupid to think that anybody would even go with me in this.

"Why didn't I just stay where I was when things were looking good? Why did I have to push through into something new? Why did I have to go and try something different? Why did I have to go and rock the boat? We were doing okay. Why did I do that?"

You feel like throwing in the towel and just giving up. If you have been in leadership you know what I am talking about. You have been there. You know that feeling and that experience.

No Revelation

This is what Joshua faced at Ai. Joshua - this great and mighty leader; this man with such natural skill and ability. This man with such great and awesome presence that people would naturally follow because he was such a natural and strong leader.

But you see Joshua had a few complicating factors here. One of them was that he didn't realize that the problem he was facing was caused by a curse in the camp.

And you know what? He made a judgment based on what he saw instead of getting revelation, and he began to wallow in self-pity.

What had happened? If you read the story of Ai, they had conquered Jericho. What a magnificent victory it was. It was an impossible situation. They walked around the walls and the walls fell down. They went in and conquered and burned the city, and they came home with the spoil.

They destroyed what God had told them to destroy and brought the rest to put into God's treasuries. They had taken the city. It was wonderful.

Now they came to little Ai and Joshua sent the spies out to go and have a look and see what the city was like. They came back and they said,

"Oh it's just a stupid puny little city. Hey Joshua, don't even wear yourself out on this one. This one is a walk in the park. Just send a couple of guys out to go and sort these people out.

"We just need a couple of thousand people. I mean, we don't need to send the whole Army. We're tired; we have had a heavy go at Jericho. That was a tough march.

"Let's take a break. Just send a few people out and we'll go and sort them out and get them out of the way. Then we can get on and do the job that God has called us to do."

Suddenly Fearful

This bunch of people went out there in their arrogant boldness to conquer Ai. And as soon as the inhabitants of Ai came out against them, they were suddenly gripped with fear and began to run their legs off. They lost about 36 men in the process, who were killed while they were running. That was wonderful, brave Israel.

When Joshua heard this news he was devastated. And he entered into the experience that every leader enters into when they have failed, made a mistake or done something that has led to problems.

What exactly caused Joshua's failure? I want to look at that first.

I want you to understand how this failure came about so that you can learn, particularly you who are called to be Joshua apostles that God is raising up to lead the Body of Christ in these End Times. I want you to be aware of the kind of mistakes that you can make, which will bring you to the same experience that Joshua had.

If you are experiencing or have experienced any of the symptoms that I give to you, then I want you to take a close look at yourself. I want you to see if perhaps you have not made some of these same mistakes that have led to this failure.

No Spiritual Discernment

Firstly, Joshua assumed that it would be an easy victory, because the city was small and because the spies said to him,

"Oh, they're just a small bunch,"

He made an assumption based on the facts that he was given. But he didn't have all the facts. He only had what his eyes could see, and he made a judgment based not on spiritual discernment or revelation, but a judgment based on natural ability.

He had handled this kind of thing before. I mean this guy was an accomplished soldier. He had conquered plenty of enemies in the past, and it was obvious. This was a small city. He probably thought,

"After all, we are the Army that has conquered Jericho. Nobody could have conquered it. I mean we are the greatest. We are the best there is. It would just take a handful of us to wipe them out."

That was an arrogant, natural assumption that was wrong. Don't ever make your decisions based on what you see and on what you have experienced in the past, because you could be very wrong.

Still Too Strong

He was still over-confident in his own strength. We saw that in the last section didn't we? We saw how Joshua just wanted to attack the Angel.

He was the big strong warrior, and God had to bring him at Jericho, to a place where he faced the situation where he could not use his natural military skills and had to rely totally on the Lord.

You would think that after a victory like that, that Joshua would have learned his lesson. He should have thought,

"Well hang on, God gave me this as a preparation to show me that there is a pattern here for the way that we should handle the enemy; for the way we should go in and take the land. God has given me a principle here that I need to apply every time we attack."

No, he didn't think about that. He got back and he thought,

"I'm tired. Hey, we need a break from war now. Just let a bunch of guys who feel enthusiastic go out and do the job. I'll stay home and take a break."

It was a big mistake. Why did Joshua make the wrong decision? There were many factors that colored his thinking, and a lot of those factors were elements of the flesh that God had to deal with in Joshua.

There are elements in your flesh and in your natural ability that God will have to deal with when He raises you up to be a Joshua apostle. He will have to deal with each one of them, and you will go through your Jericho experience and learn there.

Then you will find that there are a few things that weren't dealt with there, and God will take you through your anguish of Ai to show you a few more things. We will have a look at those here.