Week Seven: The Battle Begins!

I’ve always loved Mission: Impossible, the classic television series from the 1960’s NOT the horrendous modern remakes with Tom Cruise' picture stamped all over it.  No offense to the Maverick, but the Tom Cruise movies (five to date with another one on its way)  just don’t seem to capture the spirit of the original t.v. series, cheesy though it may be.  Call me old-fashioned.  Call me a purist.  But I just prefer the old one.  The original

series always started in the same way.  Jim Phelps, the leader of the Mission-Impossible-Force would enter into some obscure place and find hidden somewhere a tape player (dated, I know, ‘What’s a tape player?’)  Pushing play, Jim would then proceed to receive his mission for the next hour-long, action-filled episode.  Once the taped briefing concluded he would then hear, “Should you or any member of your IMF team be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.  This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.  Good luck, Jim.”  Then the theme music would play and the team was off!  What followed, of course, over the next hour (with commercial breaks intermittently breaking in with a word from their sponsor) was the IMF team then facing insurmountable odds, incredible difficulties and impossible enemies.  They would always come out on top, though, and usually achieved the so-called “impossible mission.”

As we come to chapter seven of The Story this week and the book of Joshua, we are privileged to overhear the Lord brief Joshua, Moses’ chosen successor, on his “impossible mission.”  Joshua 1:1-9.  He was to lead the people to finally take possession of the land that God had promised to their forefather, Abraham more than 650 years before!  First, they were a rag-tag bunch of homeless nomads who had spent the last forty years camping out in the desert of Sinai.  The four hundred years before that they had been slaves in Egypt!  No military training.  No high-powered artillery.  No nukes.  What’s more, their enemies were many and were quite intimidating.  Thirty eight years before they had been so intimidating that 8 out of the 10 spies sent into the land came back saying, “There’s no way!  It is impossible!”

But God had other plans.  He was bound and determined that Israel take possession of the land they had been promised.  Instead of promising to disavow him should anything go wrong, God promised to go with him every step of the way.  I am looking forward to the lesson on Sunday as we talk about the battles Joshua waged to receive what God wanted to give to him and to all of Israel… and especially at how God prepared them to do it.  In your reading of The Story, pay careful attention to how God prepared Israel for battle.

And join us Sunday for worship at 9am.  The Battle Begins!