Ai and I / Part 1

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Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture references are from the New Scofield Reference Bible.

The worst enemy you have is not your neighbor nor your bill collector, he is not your severest critic nor your most aggressive competitor. We can identify him without calling in the FBI to determine who he is. In fact, I trust we can apprehend and condemn him very shortly, thus giving you a victory over him.

Your worst enemy is sitting in the seat with you at this moment.
The enemy is yourself, as you have probably suspected. He occupies the same skin that you occupy. He uses the same brain you use in thinking his destructive thoughts. He uses the same hands that you use to perform his own deeds, and may I say to you that this enemy – your flesh – can do you more harm than anyone else; he is the greatest handicap you have in your daily Christian life.

Now there are two factors that make dealing with this enemy extremely difficult:
In the first place, we are reluctant to recognize and identify him. We are loathe to label him as an enemy. The fact of the matter is most of us rather like him. The second problem, or objection, is that he is on the inside of us. If he would only come out and fight like a man it would be different, but he will not. It is not because he is a coward but because he can fight better from his position within. Actually, the better choice of subject for this study might have been "The Enemy Within."

Nations, cities, churches, and individuals have been destroyed by the enemy within. Russia fell to the Communists in 1917, not because of the German pressure on the outside but because of the doctrine fomented on the inside. There comes out of ancient history an authentic narrative, long held in the category of mythology, that the city of Troy held off the Greeks for ten long, weary years. Finally the Greeks sailed away leaving a wooden horse. The Trojans took that wooden horse within their gates, and that was the undoing and destruction of Troy. As we change our view from scenes of ancient battlegrounds to the fields of spiritual warfare, we immediately find much evidence that churches are wrecked from within, not from forces without.

The Lord Jesus Christ, in writing to the seven churches in Asia Minor, gave them certain warnings, and not one of these churches received warning as to the enemy on the outside. He said:
…Thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam…So hast thou also some that hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans in like manner.…But I have this against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess; and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. (Revelation 2:14, 15, 20 AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION)

Christ said to these churches in substance, "You have something within that is bringing about your own destruction." Disloyalty and unfaithfulness in the church today is hurting God‟s cause more than any enemy that is on the outside. The devil can hurt our churches only from the inside, not from the outside.

Then, my friend, an individual can be destroyed from the inside. Alexander the Great was probably the greatest military genius that has moved armies across the pages of history. There has been no one like him. Before the age of thirty-two he had conquered the world, but he died a drunkard. He had conquered the world, but he could not conquer Alexander the Great. There was an enemy within that destroyed him.

The only battle that the children of Israel lost in taking the Promised Land was a battle in which the defeat came, not from without but from within. The fact of the matter is that when the children of Israel entered the Promised Land, only three conspicuous and outstanding enemies stood in their way. Those three enemies foreshadowed the three enemies that Christianity has today.

Consider Israel and Her Enemies
Jericho, Ai, and the Gibeonites, these three enemies prevented Israel‟s enjoyment and possession of the Promised Land. The land was theirs. God had told them that it was theirs. God had given them the title deed when He said to Abraham:
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:8)

And to Joshua God said:
Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses. (Joshua 1:3 AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION)

God was trying to say to them here, "It is yours, go in, possess, and enjoy that which you take."
What a lesson this is for us today. These people were given a land that was made up of three hundred thousand square miles, and even in their best days they occupied only thirty thousand square miles.

Consider the Christian and His Enemies
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

You and I today have been given all spiritual blessings. They are ours. But how many of them are you enjoying today? How many of them are really yours? You have the title to them, but have you claimed them and are you enjoying them as He intended? When in Chicago several years ago, I found the following news item which I clipped from a metropolitan paper. The headlines read:
SKID ROW HUNT
Comb flop houses for a 4 millionaire
It continued, "The flophouses and saloons of Chicago‟s skid row were searched today for one, Stanley William McKenna Walker, 50, an Oxford graduate, an heir to half of an eight million dollar English Estate. The Missing Persons Detail hopes that somewhere among the down-and-outers who line the curbs and sleep off wine binges in the hotels, they would find Walker, son of a wealthy British shipbuilder."

Think of a man wearing clothes steeped in filth from sleeping in the gutters of Chicago, a wino, lining up at some mission to get a bowl of something to drink or eat, and he has four million dollars! How tragic! Then think of the many Christians who are just like that. They are blessed with all spiritual blessings and yet are living as if they were spiritual winos. None of these spiritual blessings are immediately in our possession to enjoy. God has made them over to us, but if we are to get them, there are battles to be fought and victories to be won. In fact, the Epistle to the Ephesians closes with the clanking of armor and the sound of battle with the call to put on the whole armor of God.

It will be worth our while to stop and look at the methods of Joshua in battle. His taking of the Promised Land places him among the great generals of history. He will stand along with Alexander the Great, with Hannibal, with Caesar, with Napoleon, and with General Stonewall Jackson in their greatness.

Joshua‟s abilities in strategy and tactics in moving into the Promised Land were tremendous. For example, he had a threefold blockage to break. He had three formidable enemies. Immediately ahead of him stood the city of Jericho. It was right in the center of the land and was all but impregnable as a fortress. Then to the northeast stood the little city of Ai. To the south was a combine, an alliance of Gibeonites. It was necessary to take these three in breaking the blockade. His strategy was first to take Jericho, thus breaking the backbone of the land. He could then move to the north, then to the south, and dispose of each section separately.

The three enemies of Joshua represent the enemies of the Christian today.
1– Jericho represents the world.
2 – Ai represents the flesh.
3 – The Gibeonites represent the devil.

Thus you and I have a threefold enemy robbing us of our possessions: the world, the flesh and the devil.

In this study we shall concentrate on one of these enemies, Ai. Ai represents the flesh. The city of Ai was located up among the hills, thirteen miles north and west of Jericho, which was down on a plain. From the plains of Jericho up to the promontory of Ai one had to ascend 3200 feet and it was over rugged and difficult terrain. Dr. John Garstang, the great biblical historian, wrote:
Its position was a strong one befitting its importance as an advanced post of the dwellers upon the plateau. Perched on the summit of a low hill, overlooking the wilderness of tangled valleys that descend towards the Jordan, it commanded a view on all sides but the west where rises a ridge that obscured the view of Bethel. Steep watercourses enclose the site on all sides but the south…On its northern side the valley is deep, and from the opposite slopes the city must have presented a bold and well-nigh impregnable appearance, crowning a detached hill which rises in a series of rocky terraces…