Leading The Way

Dr. Michael Youssef: Satan knows that if he can get you to become careless with sin, if he can get you to become careless being disobedient, you are going to face calamity. And that calamity is not going to only impact you, but impact everybody around you. Your testimony will be tarnished. Your witness is going to cease. Your passion for Christ is going to cool off. And your love for others will be no more.

Guest (Female): Born and raised in Egypt, Dr. Michael Youssef offers a distinctive biblical perspective that comes to life each day on *Leading The Way Audio*. Currently, Dr. Youssef is helping to get to know Joshua a little bit better, as he guides Israel into a new life in the Promised Land.

Each of these messages offers practical insight into living your life of faith in 2026. Today, Joshua's response to a sinful situation offers a reminder that disobedience not only impacts your life, but also invites collateral damage and disaster into the lives of those around you.

I do hope you'll be able to continue listening with me as Dr. Michael Youssef brings a powerful word of truth on this episode of *Leading The Way*.

Dr. Michael Youssef: Probably there is not too many experiences that can be more devastating than being ambushed. And you know what I'm talking about. A family that seemed to be doing well, and everything is going fine. And all of a sudden out of the blue, a spouse asks for divorce. Why?

A businessman who's been enjoying God's material blessings, financial blessings. And all of a sudden, wham! One deal threatened all that he had worked for.

I'm talking about the person who had experienced victory. And within a very short period of time, there is a public defeat. Those are the kind of ambushes that I'm talking about, where you find a person on his face like Joshua crying out to God, saying, "Why? Why is this happening?"

But really, the question is more than just why. It's because often the Lord graciously points out things in our lives as to why, that we are not suffering unfairly or unjustly, but there are basically the consequences of things we've done or have not done.

But the question is, am I willing to confront the reasons for failure? Am I willing to find the hidden facts inside of me?

Why do I say this? Because often we want to cover it up instead of exposing it to God's sunshine. We often try to hide it instead of allowing God to clean it up, and we often deny it instead of admitting it.

And beloved, that's where you find the Israelites today in Joshua chapter 7. Because after a flash of victory, after the impenetratable wall supernaturally collapses in front of them, after the plan of God was fully obeyed, after such unity like they've never experienced before and perhaps since.

After all of that, wham! There is an ambush in a little town, after they conquered the big one, little tiny town by the name of Ai. And Joshua feels devastated, so he goes on his face before God, and he says, "Why?"

You notice God said, "Hey, what are you doing praying?" Have you ever heard God say, "Hey, what are you doing praying?" But isn't that also human nature that as soon as we hit trouble in life, we always blame God first? Before we do anything else, start blaming God.

While in reality, in this particular case, defeat was the consequence of breaking the covenant. Defeat was the result of disobeying of the injunction of God. Defeat was the reason that because things are hidden right there in their midst. The reason for defeat was hidden sin. The reason for defeat was the breaking of God's command.

And here is a very familiar scenario in the life of many Christians. When you need God's intervention in your life, when you need God's supernatural answers to prayer, when you're asking specifically for the Lord to do something because it is impossible any other way.

You walk with God. You become a prayer giant. You become a prayer warrior. You confess sins that are displeasing to the Lord. You take care of it, and God in His mercy answers your prayer. And you are elated. You are ecstatic. You are excited at God answering prayer. You are so thankful to the Lord. You are full of gratitude. You are overjoyed for a short period of time.

And then slowly but surely, the euphoria of gratitude gets crowded with life's problems. Then slowly but surely, the thankfulness for God's past intervention becomes hazy in the background of new and fresh temptations in life.

Prayers become sporadic. Time with God becomes telegraphic. And the blessings of God become our occupation. Until we experience a defeat. There's an ambush. And then we find ourselves like Joshua. Our face is on the floor saying, "God, why? Why?"

I want to give you three stages for defeat and restoration, as we see them here and indeed in the life of many Christians. I know that's the case in my life. And there are as follows: It is carelessness, followed by calamity, then followed by closure. Carelessness probably the greatest problem with the 21st century Christians is that they underestimate the power of sin.

The greatest problem of the Christians of the 21st century is they underestimate the power of sin. They say, "I know what the Bible said about this, or that, or the other thing, that's sin. But it is different in my situation."

"After all, I'm saved. After all, it's all of grace, isn't it? After all, Christ died on the cross for my sins. After all, I have liberty in Christ." Using the right words to justify the burning of the conscience.

But none of this can be used to justify or rationalize disobedience in a child of God's life. None of that can be an excuse for carelessness with sin. And that is why the Bible said that you must fulfill your salvation in fear and trembling.

Beloved, worse than the sin of disobedience is the sin of presumption. Presuming on the grace of God, presuming on the mercy of God, presuming on the goodness of God. Let me give you some examples of how we rationalize disobedience in our lives.

The Bible said the tithe belongs to the Lord, to the storehouse. But we explain it away by doing other things with it and say, "Oh, God doesn't need it." Sure, He doesn't, you need to give it.

Or integrity, ethics, and behavior. They are our testimony to this dying world. This is our testimony to a sinful world. But we explain it away. We explain it away. "Oh, this is just part of doing business."

I was talking to a brilliant young man. He is the top of the top in his field, and he's been there for many years. But he hit the ceiling as far as promotion is concerned. And finally, somebody was honest enough to tell him the reason why, because he would not lie.

Isn't that amazing? The kind of world we live in today. Achan, the son of Carmi, heard God's injunction with his own ears. He heard the words, "You must not take any of the spoils, for they belong to the Lord."

But when nobody was looking, when nobody was there, when he was alone, he looked and he saw the gold and the silver and the imported clothes from Babylon. They're very expensive. And he said, "Nobody's watching. Nobody can see." So he coveted, he took, and he hid.

And he thought he could get away with it. But here's the problem. Because sometimes when we are in disobedience, and God does not react or does not send the consequences of that obedience immediately, it may even go for weeks, or months, or years. We begin to convince ourselves that must be all right. God must not be all that displeased, and we think we can get away with it.

Achan probably had fear in his heart. "I've got to provide for my family. After all, I've got to store up some provision for the future. I've got to take care of myself." Remember from the last message? When fear is up, faith is down. When faith is up, fear is down.

He was at a moment of fear, gripped into his heart. And here Achan had forgotten God's supernatural provision of manna in the wilderness for 40 years. He had forgotten the incredible supernatural hand of God that crossed them over the river of impossibility. He had forgotten the supernatural intervention of God when the impenetratable wall collapsed just by shouting.

As if to say, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I know God did all that in the past, but will He do it in the future?" Now beloved, let me tell you something, this is deadly thinking. If you think that God did things in the past, but He's not going to do them in the future, you are mistrusting the faithfulness of God.

And this kind of deadly thinking leads secondly to calamity. Carelessness leads to calamity. Now Achan's disobedience did not only bring disaster on him, but on the whole community. The entire army of Israel was defeated.

You see, we often think that we can hoard and keep the tithes and offerings and and and do other things with them, and as I said, we'll say, "God doesn't need it." And we think, "Well, that's a personal matter." Listen to what Malachi said, chapter 3. God said that when you don't return to God what belongs to God, you are stealing from God. Now I didn't say that, God said that.

"Robbing Me," He said. And he said, "How can men rob God?" "You're robbing Me by keeping your tithes and offering." But the truth is, to carry the word of God to its logical conclusion, listen to me, there are some people who are driving to churches in stolen cars.

There are some people are going to be eating stolen food and dressed in stolen clothes. And God is a patient God, and he'll be patient, and patient, and patient. But then, wham, the consequences catch us up with us. And as we cry to God in the midst of our calamity, He says, "I didn't do that. You did that."

"Remember what My word said? Remember what My injunction said?" Or take the person that is not spending time with God. The person who is not witnessing to the power of God in their life, to the salvation that they've received from the hand of God. And take that person who is absolutely so silent that people at work and school don't know if they're believers or not.

They can go on like that for a while before the consequences of their disobedience, the consequences of carelessness with the sin of disobedience catches up with them. When God gave Israel the victory, and He took them across the river of impossibilities.

When God gave them victory and the walls collapsed, God's desire for them was to go from one point of glory into another. God's desire for them not to get over the walls, destroy the walls, and over the river and then get defeated in the little town, that was not God's desire for them. God's desire for them was for them to go from height to greater height, from mountain top to greater mountain top, to go from one level of experience with God to a greater level of experience with God.

And beloved, God wants the same thing for you. He does. As you develop intimacy with Him, He wants you to touch someone's life, then another one, then another one, then another one, until you claim your school, and you claim your workplace, and you claim your neighborhood for Jesus Christ.

But some allow the cares of this world. Some allow material possessions to blindside them as to their call in life until they find themselves on their faces with a full-blown calamity.

Satan knows that if he can get you to become careless with sin, if he can get you to become careless being disobedient, you are going to face calamity. And that calamity is not going to only impact you, but impact everybody around you. It's going to impact a lot of people. Your testimony will be tarnished. Your witness is going to cease. Your passion for Christ is going to cool off. And your love for others will be no more.

And if Satan succeeds in getting you to become careless in sin, he knows that. He knows not only will you be impacted, but a whole lot of other people will suffer as well. And that is why, that is why it is vitally important to know the third step. The third step: closure. How do you bring this to a closure?

How to bring that carelessness and the calamitous results to closure? You know, the man that we refer to as Saint Augustine. When Saint Augustine, and he tells that in his confession, when he was young, he used to pray this prayer, "Oh God, give me chastity, but not yet. But not yet."

Some of us may identify with young Augustine. You know that there is carelessness in your life, and that are the consequences of which you received some calamitous news. You know that carelessness with disobedience is keeping you from being effective witness for Jesus Christ.

You know that it is hindering you from experiencing glorious things that God has for each of you. You know that it is keeping you from experiencing victorious living, which is God's desire for all of us. You know that others are not being affected by your life because of that carelessness. And through it all, you say, "Lord, I want to repent of that. Lord, I want that to be extracted out of my life. Lord, I want to be fully obedient to You, but not yet."

In many ways, listen to me carefully please, in many ways there is a little bit of Achan in all of us, including your pastor. And that is why we must constantly, constantly purge the disobedience out of our life.

When Achan was fingered out by God, he realized that by his disobedience he broke the commands of God, that he betrayed the community, that he caused defeat on God's army. How? He said, "I saw, I coveted, I took, and I hid."

John later on tells us it's called the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Listen, I think Achan could have used psychobabble like we hear today. He could have said, "Well, brother Michael, you don't understand. I was deprived as a child, you know. My parents didn't give me these things. Brother Michael, you don't understand. I have taken what I deserve. I have taken that which is due to me. Furthermore, these are very small things in comparison to all these other spoils. What are they in comparison to the big stuff? Nobody's going to miss it. Nobody's going to miss it. I'm entitled to some pleasures in life, am I not? I'm entitled to take care of myself and take care of my family. I've done a lot of good in my day. Can I get some good back, even if I help myself to it?"

To his credit, he confessed. Sin must be confessed, it must be purged, it must be turned away from. And that is why, in the book of Hosea, chapter 2, verse 15 said, one of the great verses in the Bible, "The Valley of Achor," that's named after Achan. "The Valley of Achor is the door of hope."

"So what does that mean, Michael?" It means that the very valley in which sin was purged, the very valley where Achan's sin and the consequence of his sin were buried, become a door of hope. The very place where confession was purged is the very place of a new beginning. Is the very place of a new hope in life. Is the very place of a new ministry. Is the very place of a new testimony. Is the very place of new faithful you.

Beloved, listen to me, you can be no more careless with sin, than you would be careless with cancer. Disobedience is a cancer. It is a cancer in the life of the believer that is growing inside of you. Oh, you may dismiss its symptoms. You may ignore its pending consequences.

But the truth is, there is only one way to deal with it. One way. And that is to purge it, and you purge it constantly and repeatedly. And then watch how God gives you victory.

You see, Ai was eventually defeated by the Israelites, but only after disobedience and sin was purged. Don't wait until it becomes too late. Don't misinterpret the patience of God. Paul pleads with the Romans, "Do not misinterpret the patience of God in your life. Purge it today. Purge it today. You know what it is."

Is it pride that is eating you alive? Is it bitterness that is corroding your soul? Is it unfaithfulness with what belongs to God? What is it? You know what it is. God's finger is pointing to it, and today you have an opportunity. Let this be the moment of decision of purging whatever disobedience that you've been harboring in your life.

Guest (Female): Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef for *Leading The Way*, a global gospel-taking ministry reaching into six continents in 28 of the world's most spoken and understood languages. Learn ways that God is using *Leading The Way* by subscribing to and consuming Dr. Youssef's monthly *My Journal* magazine. Sign up at LT.org or ask a ministry representative for assistance when you call 866-626-4356.

Now, as we bring today's *Leading The Way* episode to a close, allow me to quickly share a testimony from a listener in Syria that brought smiles to the team members, and I know you'll enjoy hearing this story as well. The listener writes, "I fell into depression following my father's sudden death. As I worked through the grief, I remembered that he listened to *Leading The Way*, so I decided to do the same. While listening, my trust in God increased, and I sought to know Him. Soon after, I surrendered my life to Jesus."

Stand with *Leading The Way* on the front lines of global ministry today, proclaiming hope only available through Christ. The number is 866-626-4356. That's 866-626-4356. And the website, LT.org.

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