Standard Bearer Academy

The Conquest: God Keeps His Promise

After Moses' death, God appointed Joshua to lead Israel across the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Canaan. The conquest that followed demonstrated God's faithfulness to the covenant promise He had made to Abraham over 600 years earlier: 'To your offspring I will give this land' (Genesis 12:7).

The fall of Jericho — the first major battle — was won not by military strategy but by obedience to God's unusual instructions: march around the city for seven days, then shout. The walls collapsed by God's power, demonstrating that the conquest was ultimately God's work, not Israel's. The Israelites were instruments of God's judgment against the deeply corrupt Canaanite nations whose wickedness had reached its full measure (Genesis 15:16).

Under Joshua's faithful leadership, Israel conquered the major Canaanite strongholds and divided the land among the twelve tribes. Joshua 21:45 declares the remarkable truth: 'Not one of all the LORD's good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.' God had proven Himself completely trustworthy.

Joshua's Final Challenge

Near the end of his life, Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem for a covenant renewal ceremony. He rehearsed God's mighty acts throughout their history and then issued one of the most famous challenges in Scripture: 'Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD' (Joshua 24:15).

The people responded enthusiastically, pledging their allegiance to Yahweh. But Joshua warned them that serving God required total commitment — they could not worship Yahweh and the Canaanite gods at the same time. Tragically, the generation that followed would fail to heed this warning.

The Period of the Judges: The Cycle of Sin

After Joshua's death, Israel entered one of the darkest periods in its history. The Book of Judges records a repeated and devastating cycle: the people would forsake God and worship idols; God would allow an enemy nation to oppress them as judgment; the people would cry out to God in their distress; God would raise up a 'judge' (a military deliverer) to rescue them; and then the cycle would repeat.

This cycle occurred at least seven times during the period of the Judges, and each cycle generally brought Israel to a lower spiritual condition than before. The judges themselves — figures like Gideon, Deborah, Samson, and others — were flawed instruments whom God used despite their weaknesses. Their stories demonstrate both God's mercy in raising up deliverers and the people's persistent unfaithfulness.

The repeated failures of the period reveal a crucial truth: Israel needed more than occasional deliverers. They needed a righteous, permanent king — ultimately, they needed the King whom God had promised through the line of Abraham and Judah.

Lessons from the Judges: Why Moral Relativism Fails

The book of Judges ends with the haunting refrain: 'In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit' (Judges 21:25). This is the Bible's diagnosis of moral relativism — the belief that each person can determine right and wrong for themselves.

Without submission to God's absolute moral standards and without godly leadership to uphold those standards, Israel descended into shocking depravity — including idolatry, civil war, and atrocities that rival the sins of the nations God had judged through the conquest. The period of the Judges is a sobering warning that a society which abandons God's law will inevitably collapse into chaos.

The entire period points forward to the need for a faithful king who would lead God's people in righteousness — a need that would be partially met by David and ultimately fulfilled by Christ, the King of Kings.