March 29, 2026
Here is a link to the podcast audio:
Or, if you prefer to listen on Spotify:
There is an interesting story in the Book of Joshua about a certain city where the army of Israel suffered a surprising defeat. The city was Ai, which is pronounced “ah’ee.” The Battle of Ai came immediately after the Lord guided Joshua to brilliantly strategize and conquer the much larger city of Jericho.
To put this story into context, Moses had just died, and Joshua was charged with leading the people of Israel into the promised land of Canaan. To do so, they had to cross the Jordan River, which the Lord miraculously parted for them, just as He did with the Red Sea when Pharaoh’s army of Egyptians pursued them. The job ahead for Joshua and the people of Israel was to possess the Promised Land of Canaan and to drive out the inhabitants thereof who served other gods.
By the word of the Lord, Joshua’s first military move in the Promised Land was to conquer Jericho, the most fortified city in all of Canaan. It was a surprise strategy to take the strongest city first, but Joshua did not want to give the enemy a heads up by taking smaller cities first.
Joshua 6:
12 Now Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.
13 And the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD went on continually, and blew the trumpets; and the armed men went before them, and the rear guard came after the ark of the LORD, while they continued to blow the trumpets.
14 Thus the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp; they did so for six days.
15 Then it came about on the seventh day that they rose early at the dawning of the day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times; only on that day they marched around the city seven times.
16 And it came about at the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city.
17 ¶ “And the city shall be under the ban, it and all that is in it belongs to the LORD; only Rahab the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent.
18 “But as for you, only keep yourselves from the things under the ban, lest you covet [them] and take some of the things under the ban, so you would make the camp of Israel accursed and bring trouble on it.
19 “But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.”
20 So the people shouted, and [priests] blew the trumpets; and it came about, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city.
21 And they utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
Prophetic Symbolism
There are some significant things to take note of about the great victory at Jericho. First is the prophetic symbolism to the Rapture. In 1st Thessalonians 4, Paul describes the Rapture as a shout, the voice of an archangel, and the sound of the trumpet blast.
1st Thessalonians 4:
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Joshua’s voice represents the voice of the archangel, telling the people to “shout!” The trumpet is a war cry, signaling that the Rapture is a call for the Lord to unleash a battle against evil, which would be the beginning of His wrath during the Tribulation, and His ultimate conquest of evil and all unbelief. So, at Jericho, we have the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the sound of the trumpet which are similar to what Paul said will occur at the Rapture.
Secondly, note the instructions that Joshua gave the people in verses 18-19 regarding the spoil. They were to treat the gold, silver, bronze, and iron as holy to the Lord, and take it for the treasury of the Lord, but they were to abstain from the accursed things in the land. Here is verse 18 in the New King James Version:
Joshua 6:
18 “And you, by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. (NKJV)
Understand that the inhabitants of the land were non-believers who worshipped idols and other gods. Therefore, the people of Israel were not to take anything accursed, or anything dedicated to a false god.
The significance of God’s warning spoken through Joshua will become evident shortly in the story of the Battle of Ai.
A Stunning Defeat
Following the victory at Jericho, Joshua sent men to spy the much smaller city of Ai. The spies came back and told Joshua he did not need to send all the people to defeat Ai, because the city was less populated. So, Joshua sent only three thousand men to take the city, but a surprising defeat occurred there.
Joshua 7 (from NKJV):
4 So about three thousand men went up there from the people, but they fled before the men of Ai.
5 And the men of Ai struck down about thirty-six men, for they chased them from before the gate as far as Shebarim, and struck them down on the descent; therefore the hearts of the people melted and became like water.
6 ¶ Then Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.
7 And Joshua said, “Alas, Lord GOD, why have You brought this people over the Jordan at all-to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? Oh, that we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan!
8 “O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turns its back before its enemies?
9 “For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear it, and surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will You do for Your great name?”
10 ¶ So the LORD said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face?
11 “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff.
12 “Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.
13 “Get up, sanctify the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the LORD God of Israel: “There is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you.”
Again, there are interesting takeaways from this defeat. Joshua did the same thing we do when we encounter a problem – he cried out and asked why God let this happen. Like us, Joshua first blamed God (verse 7), then he assumed disaster is next (verse 9). Joshua said the Canaanites would hear that Israel had lost its nerve, then they would be surrounded and cut off from the land God promised them.
I love verse 10 – God tells Joshua to get up and asked why he fell on the ground. The answer was simple – the defeat occurred because the people of Israel sinned by taking some of the accursed things and hiding them among their other possessions. To move forward, the people needed to be sanctified. They needed to be separated from the accursed things they took from Jericho. Until they corrected this sin condition, they would be unable to stand against their enemies, and they would be unable to continue taking over the Promised Land.
The next day, Joshua investigated and found that one man had taken a Babylonian garment and some silver and gold, and hid it all among his other possessions. This man and his family, and all his possessions had to be removed from the camp of Israel for the purpose of sanctification.
Following sanctification, God’s anointing returned, and the Lord led Joshua back to Ai with a strategy that conquered the city.
Joshua 8:
1 ¶ Now the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not fear or 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.
2 “And you shall do to Ai and its king just as you did to Jericho and its king; you shall take only its spoil and its cattle as plunder for yourselves. Set an ambush for the city behind it.”
When the Anointing Lifts
An important lesson for us here is that when we go against what God says in His word, when we accommodate unbelief or another religion, when we believe in the doctrine of man instead of the sound doctrine found in scriptures, then we open ourselves up to defeat. The reason for that is the anointing of the Lord will lift from us because God cannot coexist with the sin of unbelief.
Joshua and the children of Israel had all the anointing of the Lord on their side as they entered Canaan. They saw the Jordan River part, and they experienced a tremendous military victory at Jericho. But all that anointing lifted because one man in their midst defiled all by coveting a Babylonian garment and some gold and silver and then using deception to keep it hidden.
1st John 2:
20 ¶ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.
21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.
So, when we encounter difficulty or experience defeat, instead of asking why God allowed that to happen, we need to examine ourselves to see if there is anything accursed in our midst that caused the anointing to lift. Are we accommodating an area of unbelief, or a doctrine manipulated to suit the mainstream thinking of today.
What Is Accursed?
An item is accursed if it is birthed in unbelief and opposition to the word of God. When Jesus first taught in the synagogue, He said some things that the people rejected.
Luke 4:
28 And all in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things;
29 and they rose up and cast Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.
30 But passing through their midst, He went His way.
John wrote that abiding fully in the teaching of Jesus is mandatory.
2nd John 1:
8 Watch yourselves, that you might not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.
9 Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.
10 ¶ If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into [your] house, and do not give him a greeting;
11 for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.
To avoid a lifting of our anointing, we cannot have a love for this world or the things of this world. If we do, we essentially have an idol, an accursed thing.
1st John 2:
15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
17 And the world is passing away, and [also] its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.
18 ¶ Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour. (NASB)
Among the accursed items we must avoid is unsound doctrine.
2nd Timothy 4:
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires;
4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Wanting to fit in with mainstream thinking can introduce you to accursed doctrine and lift your anointing.
Is AI the Next Ai?
People that know me know that I am a sucker for a good pun. When I read the story of Ai recently, I couldn’t help but think it may be a message for us today concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is the new frontier of computer science that simulates human intelligence and even emotions by spontaneously analyzing vast amounts of data, thus enabling computers to perceive, reason, learn, and act autonomously. AI can search everything on the internet about a certain topic within a matter of seconds and organize a rapid, coherent response to any question one might ask. Think of it as a Google search on steroids with the power to respond and react in an interactive way.
In many ways AI can be a promised land, making work easier and faster, but the lessons of Israel’s defeat at Ai must be kept front of mind. The internet is home to many great words of God, as Christian ministries use websites to spread the Gospel to all the world. At the same time, the internet is home to unsound doctrine promoted by those who operate under the spirit of the antichrist.
As we navigate our future and conquer AI, we must be aware of, and vigilant against, the accursed things that doomed Israel at the first battle of Ai.
Let us pray.
Father God, thank You for the lessons from the story of Joshua and the Battle at Ai. Help us, Lord, to be aware of the accursed things in our world and quicken us to avoid such things. Your anointing sustains us in battle; it enables us to conquer the enemy, and it enables us to preach Your Gospel of love and peace to a confused and perishing world. Help us to be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves as we navigate these End Times. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
House of Hope Online 
Leave a comment