Joshua 2:22-24 | Episode #1220

June 19, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 2:22-24

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply

God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus

that God would open his word to

you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today.

Word of God, please speak to the

hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Foreign. Joshua, chapter two. And we're finishing the chapter out. And the spies have. Well, they've duped the pursuers from Jericho. And in all actuality, they are following Rahab's instructions exactly. They're doing exactly what Rahab told them to do. And they. They are. They are able to escape. And their. Their message that they bring back to the people is wholly different than the message that was brought back by the

12 spies to Moses 40 years earlier.

And so it says, they departed and went up to the mountain and they stayed there three days until the pursuers returned. Notice, she said, go up to the mountain and stay there three days. The pursuer sought them all along the way, but did not find them. Why didn't they find them? Because Rahab told them what to do. So the two men returned, descended from the mountain and crossed over, and they came to Joshua, son of nun, and

told him all that had befallen them.

Notice they do exactly what the ones before them had done. The ones before them, the 12. The 12 spies that had gone out 40 years earlier came back and they gave them.

They gave them an accurate report.

The 12 spies before gave an accurate report. They came back and said, it surely is a land flowing with milk and honey. In fact, they even brought back some of the produce, some of the things that they found there that were amazing to them. The fruit.

They brought back a big.

A big group of grapes. I can't remember what you call them, but anyway, a bunch of grapes on a vine and they had evidence of God being right about it. These spies come back and they say, look, we went out there and everything that God had said earlier is true. And we want you to know what's happened because we were scouting out Jericho and we're going to give you. We're going to tell you everything that went on. They give an accurate report, but remember, an accurate report or you actually saying

what God told you is not enough. It's not enough. It's the start, but it's not enough.

Okay?

Anyone can give a report of what God's word says, and that is his specific revelation of his Son in Jesus Christ. That's the word, the Bible, the Old Testament, Genesis through revelation.

Anybody can give you an accurate report of that.

Okay?

This is so critical as far as your mindset.

It's so critical as far as the way you live your life. There are many, many, many, many believers who can accurately tell you what the word of God says.

They can accurately describe what they see

about God in his creation. They can tell you those things and accurately describe those things. They can give you wonder and awe about the word of God and about the wonders of God's creation.

There's no doubt about that. The difference between the 12 that went

out before and the two that are coming back now is not the accuracy of their revelation and the, the, the quality of their understanding. This is critical. It's not, It's. It's not about the accuracy of their revelation or the quality of their understanding. It's not that.

It's not, you know, in a modern sense.

It's not that your church has the best theology or the most accurate theology. That's not the critical, critical point. It is a good point. It's an important point. Look, if you don't have accurate.

If you don't have accurate, you're never

going to get to where you're supposed to be.

It is an important point. It's an important aspect of a church's growth. It's an important aspect of a believer's

growth that you have a actual true, on the money understanding of God's word,

that you hear God's word and that

you have an understanding of the principles

by which God gives us truth, gives us understanding. All those things are important.

All of it's important, okay? But it doesn't get you there. It does not get you there. What gets you there is for you to take that truth, believe it, trust it. The words. Pistio is the word we get faith, hope, trust, believe from. It's the word where we get these ideas from. In fact, These words are translated from pistio. If you, if you don't.

If you don't engage God on what

he has revealed to you, the truth

that we've got, the accuracy of his word that we've got.

If you don't engage him on it in a, in a. In a faithful way, faithfully obedient way. Obedience born of faith.

If you don't engage it, you don't

get into the promised land. You don't get there.

They went, they scouted it out. They found out exactly what the, the, the ones before them found out. They saw the land. Nothing's changed. God's. God's message to them about what his plan for them is and, and where they're supposed, what they're supposed to do, it's not changed. They have an experience in Jericho. They actually even go into Jericho and they have to be hidden out on a roof and have to be let down from a window and they have to go hide in the mountains. Their actual interaction with the land and the people of the land was far more intimate than the 12 before them. And when they get back, they say this in verse 40, 24. And they said to Joshua, truly the Lord has delivered this land into our hands, for indeed all the inhabitants of the country are faith.

Are fainthearted because of us.

They say, truly God has delivered this into our land. By the way, same two, same words that Joshua son of Nun and Caleb told them. The two spies that are going to actually get to go into the land from 40 years before. They told them the same thing. Truly, God's given us this land. And the reason God's given us this land is because he's made those people fainthearted. And they didn't deny that they were giants. They didn't say they're not giants. They're going to be. They're. They're. It's going to be easy to take them because they're not as big as

we thought they were.

They. The report, the last report was wrong. The last report was not wrong. In the last report, they gave a reason why they couldn't go into the land. And the reason why they couldn't go in the land was there was giants in the land and they could not defeat them. Where's the. The, The. The phrase used was we were. We. We are as grasshoppers before them. We're nothing they can. They're going to be able to take us. This group of spies goes in. They didn't. They don't deny it. They don't say no Listen, they weren't as big as we thought they were. That's not what they say. They say they're faint hearted because our

God, our God has, has made them faint hard. They, they fearful of us. They're fearful of us.

We're going to be able to take them. They're giants. You know, they may be giants, they may be large, they may have a, a walled city that we can't, we don't have the siege equipment to take down, but God's going to give us the land. Now the key difference between that is how they view what God has said. They don't search for a reason why

they can't do what God says.

They have an expectation that they will do and will be able to complete

what God has promised them. That's how they see it. That's how they, that's how they, they present it.

They don't come in with a presentation. God says this, but I know you can't really do that.

God says this, but it's going to be this.

God says this. I'm not sure we're going to be able to. No, no,

none of that.

Truly the Lord has delivered all the land into our hands for indeed the inhabitants of the land are faint hearted because of us. We're going to be able to take it. We're going to be able to have what God promised. We're going to be able to take the promises of God and we're going to be able to have it. That's what's going to happen. That's how it's going to go down. That's how we're going to do it.

Now

the real question is not usually

and listen, most churches you go to,

you're going to have good biblical teaching, good Bible studies, good sermons, good, good understanding of God's word. Most places you're going to go to, you're going to, you're going to, they're going to be doing things the right way. They may be doing it differently in different places, that's okay. I mean, but they're going to be doing things the right way. Okay, I, but the question, the question

is do the people hear God's word and believe it and if you're, if

you are a people that do that and you're among the people that do

it, you're going to be promised land people.

You're going to, you're going to be spirit filled Christian, you're going to, you're

going to have the fullness of the Christian life. If you don't do that. If you don't do it, you're not

going to have it.

You're absolutely not going to have it. You're going to, you're going to wander around in darkness, you're not going to see the big things from God.

You're going to know the truth. You're going to, you're going to be grounded in truth, but you're not going

to be walking in kingdom power, kingdom

best,

however that's supposed to be for you.

You're not going to be doing it because it's more than just knowing the truth.

It's more than just a exercise in understanding. It's more than an exercise in understanding. It is an exercise exercising of our faith according to our revelation or our understanding. And that's truly the difference.

That that is.

That is truly the difference.

And I've learned, I've learned to know that, that I can be, I can be a faith walking person and I

can be among a people that don't walk in faith. And I still wander in the wilderness. I just be real with you. I still wander in the wilderness. Remember Joshua's son, a nun and Caleb

came back and gave the right report

and offered the right outcome. We should go in and do what God told us to do. And what happened because they were among a people that were unwilling to do the revelation. They spent 40 more years in the wilderness. Now as, as a believer and as a pastor and as a, you know, a husband and a father and all those things, a friend. There was just a time where I just, I came to a place where I just, I'm not going to be around people who are not going to walk it out. I'm not going to be ugly about it. I don't dislike them. I'm just not going to be, I'm not going to put myself in the position to be around people who refuse to walk it out. Good people, biblical people, people going to heaven, people going, people who love God but not willing to walk their faith out. Because what happens there? Well, I am longing for the promised land and they're wandering in the wilderness and I'm stuck there with them. Just not going to do that. Not going to do that. And you don't have to either. The Jordan's before you. All you got to do is put your feet in, let him dry it up and allow you to walk in and take the promises that he has for you.

I pray that that'll be the case.

I expect it will. You haven't got this long into the Bible study and not wanted it, desired it, expected it.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will

give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.