Day 36 in the Wilderness: Arrogance leads to defeat.

“And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not let all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not weary all the people there, for the people of Ai are few.” So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai.”

‭‭Joshua‬ ‭7:3-4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The cost of hubris was learned the hard way by Oregon steeplechase runner Tanguy Pepiot. Running up to the finish line at the Pepsi Team Invitational (April 2015), Pepiot started celebrating his victory prematurely, waving for the crowd to cheer for him.

Washington runner Meron Simon, seeing Pepiot preening to the crowd, sped up and ran through the finish line, beating Pepiot by .10 seconds. Ouch!

Arrogance, showboating, and the like, have caused many games, races, competitions, etc., to be lost by the shoo-in. However, arrogance doesn’t just cost the victory in the area of sports or other competitions. Indeed, “victory disease” has led to the loss of many battles.

From what I understand, the term “victory disease” comes from the Japanese term, “senshoubyou.” Background: in 1941, Japan won a series of nearly uninterrupted victories after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their victory “high” led to several mistakes, resulting in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Midway.

Indeed, victory disease—arrogance—is as old as the story of man. In fact, the Bible is fraught with stories of great defeats precipitated by arrogance. We’ll look at one of those today.

Still high on the victory at Jericho, we find Joshua sending out spies to see what strategy they needed to use against Ai. At this point they did not know about the sin of Achan (we discussed last time). As we see in our opening scripture, spies returned with a report encouraging a smaller group to go up against Ai. They were certain of an easy victory. But they failed to ask the Lord about it; and, without the Lord on their side, the men of Ai sent them running and killed several of them.

Alternatively, after the sin of Achan was dealt with, the Lord gave them an easy victory over Ai.

“Now the Lord said to Joshua: “Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed; take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.”

‭‭Joshua‬ ‭8:1‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Bottom line, is it is not a matter of the size of the opponent or even your own prowess; it is a matter of whether the Lord is with you or not. And make no mistake, arrogance will lead you straight into destruction.

For today write this in your “wilderness journal”:

Arrogance leads to defeat.

#40daysinthewilderness