Devoted to What?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 41.

—Our Sunday-school lesson this week is an instructive one. Jericho and its people might have lived. At least there is nothing in the record to the contrary. One version declares that the city was accursed. The original, and also the Revised Version, and elsewhere, declares that the city was “devoted” and all in it. To what it should be devoted was determined by character. The gold and silver, and treasures of that character went into the treasure house of God. The people were destroyed. But might they not all have been saved?—Yes, if they had been willing to have been Jehovah’s. Rahab and her household were saved because they had faith in Jehovah. God is no respecter of persons. He would have saved all the others who had the same faith. More than this: For what purpose did that silent army, led by priests and the holy ark of God, for seven days march around that city? God could have destroyed it as easily on the first day as the seventh. Why then the marching?—It was to give opportunity to all the people in that city to open its barred gates, throw them wide to the hosts of Israel, and say, “Come in, ye blessed of Jehovah.” Every day of that seven days it was their privilege. During all that time God’s army (Joshua 2:13-15) waited for the people to yield to God’s mercy. But when the city was compassed for the last time, and the people were bidden to shout, it was too late. The invisible host of God threw down the walls, and the city was devoted to destruction. It is a present lesson, and has a personal application.