Q1. Unknown Warrior

[Pastor Ralph]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

[ducminh]

God the Father has never appeared to anyone on earth or speak with his own voice:

Joh 1:18  No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Joh 5:37  And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.

God is a Spirit:

Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Christ was the only physical appearance of God on earth:

Joh 14:9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

A theophany (Def: a manifestation or appearance of God or a god to a person), or an angel has always been used for the communication between God and the chosen servants of God on earth.

Joshua had seen an angel of God as it was said:

Exo 23:20  Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

Exo 23:21  Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.

If we truly want to submit ourselves to God then just obey to his will: keep his commandments and his law.

Joh 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

The thing we should not do is to follow the steps of the Pharisees:

Mar 7:7  Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Mar 7:8  For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.

Mar 7:9  And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

[blezed]

Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

Joshua wanted to know who side was he on.  Was he friend or foe?  The man was an angel of God.  The angel stated that he was not on either side.  I am on God's side.  We should humble ourselves when we are in the presence of the Lord.  I think it is hard for us to submit ourselves to God because we are influenced by the things of the world.  We have not reached the level of maturity in our Christian walk to recognize that being on God's side is the best thing for us.   

[Stanley Tavaziva]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

Befinately this was an angel of superior rank, the commander of the Lord’s army. Some say he was an appearance of God in human form. As a sign of respect, Joshua took off his sandals. Although Joshua was Israel’s leader, he was still subordinate to God, the absolute Leader. Awe and respect are the responses due to our holy God Just like Joshua did we need to show respect for God. By our attitudes and actions. We should recognize God’s power, authority, and deep love, and our actions must model our attitudes before others. Respect for God is just as important today as it was in Joshua’s day, even though removing shoes is no longer our cultural way of showing i

[Gladys E.]

Joshua challenged the unknown warrior by asking him if he was for them or whether he has come to fight them.

The Commander was God Himself.  God the Warrior. 

When we encounter Him, it is required of us to humble ourselves, because we know that God is for us.

It is hard for us to submit ourselves to God because we like going our own way which we think is easy and sweet. 

[Guitar Jim]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword?

Joshua wants to know whose side this obviously great warrior is on. Like in the old westerns: Are you fer us or agin us?

 

Who is He?

I'm one of those who believes this Warrior is the pre-incarnate Jesus, the same "man" who visited with Abraham and wrestled with Jacob. This time He comes as a conquering Warrior. We see in the book of Revelation that Jesus is very much the Warrior in the Heavenly battle against the world powers Revelation 19:16. It is right here just before the conquering of Jericho that the battle to establish the Kingdom of God begins.

We need to remember this:In Heaven, which exists outside our three dimensional universe, everything has already taken place. God is on His Throne and Jesus sits at His right hand. But in our timeline things have to unfold as God has already planned them to do in His divine timing.

 

Whose side is He on?

He is on His own side, God's side. Joshua quickly realised he was talking to The LORD here. He submits himself straight away upon the Warrior revealing His identity.

 

Whose side are you on?

I am on God's side. Sometimes in exasperation I plead with God to help me when times are really tough and I feel desperately alone and friendless. I do question if God is on my side, but I realise that He doesn't take sides. It's like in war time. There'd be Christians on both sides of the conflict, both praying to God for victory.

 

Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves?

God is the Potter and we are the clay. That's the way it is. In this world people love to exalt men and women and to think they're great, that they've really made something of themselves. Proverbs 16:9 says: In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps. So if we want to succeed at anything we need to acknowledge God and let him direct our paths. Then, if we are given success, we shouldn't become proud of it like we deserved it by our own efforts. 

 

Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

Human pride is a stumbling block over which we all fall. Pride is what stops us from submitting to God. We accomplish something, even a minor thing that'd be beneath the notice of most, and when we take pride in that, we aren't submitting to God. This is a really difficult concept here. There is a trap waiting to ensnare us and a bondage waiting to capture us if we focus all out attention on submitting to God. The enemy can get into our minds and we can become scared to be happy about an achievement in case we "fail to honor God". I've known people who have succumbed to that bondage and it's ruined their lives. They became unwilling to do their best in case they enjoyed the compliments they'd receive if they did.

Personally, when I realise God has answered a prayer and given me success, I just thank Him for it and go over all the things I asked for and the help God gave me to make them happen and praise Him for that . . and move on. Whether I'm doing it right . . I don't know. I DO know that I don't ever wanna end up like a really gifted piano player I knew who, by his incredible ability really lifted the whole sound of our Baptist Youth Fellowship Rock Ensemble. He somehow started to think that he was doing things in his own strength, despite all of us praying that the concerts would go well and that people would be reached for Christ. He stopped embellishing the backing music and played it really straight and boring. Then he showed up with his hair, which wasn't that long compared to most, clipped down to a crew cut . . this was in 1972 when almost every guy had longer hair than they do today . . saying that his hair was coming between him and the LORD!! That poor guy was in bondage and his zeal to humble himself before God had been perverted by the evil one to the extent that he dropped out.

[Eilen]

1. Joshua’s question was whether he was in support of Israel or their enemies.

2. I think that he is God manifested in the form of an angel.

3. He is on His (Israel’s) side.  He is here to fulfill his promise to Joshua and Israel.  Only he can make this a successful battle.

4. I try to be on God’s side.  If one is on God’s side, no one can be against you.

5. An encounter with God humbles us, because God is humble.  He is omnipotent, He is the mighty God.  Sometimes we are afraid at the encounter since we do not feel that we can live up to expectations.

6. There is so much noise around us. Most of us find ourselves distracted from giving ourselves fully to God.  We often find ourselves slipping away from our ultimate goal of living a Christian life.  This could be due to a lack of faith.

[hanks]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-15) 
What is Joshua's challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? 
Who is He? 
Whose side is He on? 
Whose side are you on? 
Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? 
Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?
“Are you for us or for our enemies?”
God Himself.
Neither. He calls us to be on His side. 
He always sides with the righteousness and is against the unrighteousness.
God intervenes in our lives to bring justice. 
It is difficult to submit to our Lord mainly because of our pride.
History is full of failed leaders who refused to humble themselves before our Lord.
 

[lighthouse2014]

On 6/10/2016 at 2:49 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

 

Joshua's challenge question to the unknown warrior was "are you for us or for our enemies?"

It would seem that the unknown warrior was at least an angel as a high representative of the Lord God.

The unknown warrior was on no one's side, he was in command and Joshua was to get in co-ordination with the warrior.

I'm on the side of the Lord, he is in charge and I'm to follow his plan.

To have an encounter with the Lord will cause us to humble ourselves when we realize who it is we are to follow and obey.

It is hard for us to follow the Lord and humble ourselves because we are full of pride and would rather do things our own way.    

[JanMary]

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 0:49 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

 

Q1. What is Joshua's challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword?

Are you for us or for our enemies?

Who is He?

He is God Himself...the Theophany, or 3 in One, represented as Christ the Victor, as in Revelation 19.

Whose side is He on?

Neither. He is the Commander of the Army of the Lord having a private audience with Joshua.

Whose side are you on?

I'm on the Lord's side...He said we are either for Him or against Him. There is no neutral ground. I love that He requires an answer, and a commitment so that we aren't in limbo about where we stand. Nor should anyone else be unsure about our stand.

Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves?

He is our King and our Lord. We are His creatures, His subjects and are not worthy to stand in His Presence. One day EVERY KNEE WILL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD TO THE GLORY OF THE FATHER....What a tragic day for those who took the wrong stand and opposed Him or just chose to ignore His invitation.

Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

We are fallen creatures who can easily forget that He IS and we're not! Humility is learned, and cultivated as we submit to Him and allow Him to work His character in us, as well as the other fruit of His Spirit (Gal. 5:22,23)  We are told to humble ourselves...a less painful option than to not do so, and to have Him humble us, which in His grace and mercy He will do for our good and His glory.

 

[PrayingMan]

 

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

whose side are you on?  But as God appearing before Joshua, not merely a man or angel, the question is backwards.  The real question is whether we are on God's side, no matter if our cause is just or not.  It matters. To whose side God is on in my life, but if I am on God's side.  Our focus needs to God-centered not me-centered.  

[Ganti Vivek]

a.  Joshua question to the unknown warrior to know who is He, Because Joshua is supposed to lead the Israelites  to the promised land safely so he himself being a warrior                questions the Him or you fighting for us or against us.  

b.  He is God Himself  manifested, to fight the war for the chosen people, to fight a winning war.

c.  He is on nobody's side, our lord on the righteous people's side, that is all those who seek Him.

d.  I am on the Lord's side as said in the Rev 3:16 If we are on Lord's side He will spue us out of His presence. 

e.  It such an honor and sudden surprise for us to have encountered Him (God) because that is for what we are waiting all our life, and if it happens we should learn to humble            ourselves by showing our gratitude to him by removing our shoes or kneeling down or bowing down raising our hands to heaven etc, because He is Holy, almighty, King of              Kings and Lord of Lords and our ultimate savior of Life and the one who will give eternal life.

f.   We are all unholy, wicked,cunning, sinful and always evil at heart, we should learn to humble our self,  remove our pride and submit ourselves to His will to work in our lives so        that it will manifest into greater graceful acts of Gods that  works to fulfill in our lives.

[charisbarak]

Are you for us or our enemies?

God Himself.

Neither side.

God's side.

Because He is holy.

We have trouble not being in control....

[Debra Grant]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua's challenge question

to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose

side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter

with him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard

to submit ourselves to God?

1. 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'

 

2. God's presence that Joshua was in.

 

3. "Neither"

 

4. I am on God’s side.

 

5.The place where we are standing is holy. God is holy and is worthy

to be praised. He would not have us to come to him in no other way than

to be clean so that we can communicate with him.

 

6. Because we are in the flesh and there is no good thing in the flesh.

[Robyn G.]

Joshua asks "Are you for us or our enemies?"

He is God.

God doesn't have sides, He has His will.  I believe often times we forget the basic truth that God loves all and we are all His children.  We always try to one up or prove/justify out worth.  However, to God, we all have worth and a purpose in His plan.

I wish I could say I'm always on God's side, but I know myself gets in the way of that at times and I fall into the human traps of justification and fall into self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness.  It's a constant effort to keep focus on God and His will.

God is exactly that God.  We can't begin to fathom Him or His will for our lives.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."  We are not worthy of His presence, but because of His love, even the lowest sinner, such as me, is loved and forgiven.  We are no better than anyone else, we all fall short and have sinned.

Wow, so many reasons we find it difficult to submit.  But they all boil down to focus on ourselves and temporal rather than God and eternity.  We fall into spectrums of pride and self-reliance believing we do anything on our own without God to the other side of self-pity and doubts and lies Satan uses against to convince us we'll never be good enough or loved by God for what we've done.  However, God loves all and we are all His children.  We give degrees and levels to sin and people, God does not.  He knows sin is sin and we are all His and He loves us all.

[DawnMc13]

When Joshua asked Him whose side He was on, He replied that He was the Commander - therefore the question needed to be, "Whose side are you on?"

We humble ourselves before God because of God's Sovereignty. We, especially in America - find it hard to submit because we have been taught to be strong, independent and self-reliant.  Which comes naturally to us as sinners anyway. 

[Haar Garba]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua's challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?
 

Are you for us or our enemies?

He is the Lord God Almighty

He (the Unknown Warrior) is on the side of the Israelites

On the side of the Lord God Almighty

Because He is Supreme and Awesome

Ignorance and pride

 

[Commissioned]

On 6/10/2016 at 0:49 PM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16) What is Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword? Who is He? Whose side is He on? Whose side are you on? Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves? Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

 

Joshua’s challenge question to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword was, 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'

The Unknown Warrior is believed to be the commander of the army of the LORD.  The Commander is none other than the God himself.  He came to see about His servant.

He is the Commander and sides with no one.  We on the other hand must chose to be on His side.  His is infallible. We can never go wrong, be misled when we're on His side.  We can trust Him for the victory.

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord I am on the Lord's side and daily place my entire being and trust in Him.  Thank you Lord.

An encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves because we're in the presence of holiness, the God of the universe; omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, no other is His equal. The Sovereign Lord!

It so hard to submit ourselves to God when we are not in right relationship with Him. When we linger and continue to trust the arm of flesh, we have not given ourselves completely to trusting God.  

[Anstey Jeremiah]

It was probably obvious to Joshua that this warrior is a superior  warrior and was worth finding out which side he was on. But the incarnate Jesus Christ was on neither but obviously the battle is just not physical but  spiritual and against dominions and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. Like Michael and Gabriel of Daniel 10:13,14 the warrior has come to withstand any interference by the 'princes' of the kings of Jericho/Canaan in Gods plan for Israel. Joshua will surely be strengthened by this knowing that God is present the fact though that he is for neither side means Joshua would need to be courageous  and obedient and walk according to the will of God. 

God has given us His word and the Word, we thus know His will for us, we must trust that he is taking care of the "spiritual" interference in our lives and thus we need to be courageous enough to be obedient to His will.

[Christy Varghese E]

Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

Submitting to God requires the humility to say that I'm incapable, helpless, and then it requires prayer without ceasing for God to work and then it requires faith and hope that God will change situations. Also it requires patience for God to work in his own time and turn around situations. That's why submitting to God becomes hard for us.

[Paula Price]

Joshua's challenge question was are you friend or enemy? Up until this time, God had only made himself known to Joshua through spoken word. Now he is in the flesh and Joshua is not aware of who it is before him.  He is caught off guard so to speak, not expecting God to appear before him to lead the people.  Now God is demanding the people to follow HIM, and not Joshua.  There is no substitute .  God is the power and the commander of his army... We are to follow him and do his will in all thing... He has trained his people through obedience to do his will and now he is leading the charge in battle.....

[Irmela]

Q1. (Joshua 5:13-16)

What is Joshua's challenge  to the Unknown Warrior with drawn sword?

Who is He? Whose side is He on?

Whose side are you on?

Why does an encounter with Him require us to humble ourselves?

Why is it so hard to submit ourselves to God?

Are you for us or for our adversaries?

He is on neither side; He has come as Prince of the Lord's host. [The battle is His and He has come to remind Joshua of just that].

By God's grace I am on His side.

He is our King and His presence just makes it be so. You can't help but humble yourself before Him.

Only when we fight against the knowledge of Who He is and allow self (ego) and pride and defiance to come in our way, do we find that we do not submit ourselves to God. O dear Lord help me to overcome these tendencies with You.