Seduced by the religions of the Canaanites, God's people would fall into idolatry and anarchy. At last they would give up on the idea of being a nation set apart. They would want t... Seduced by the religions of the Canaanites, God's people would fall into idolatry and anarchy. At last they would give up on the idea of being a nation set apart. They would want to be governed like every other nation. This was a direct rejection of God. Moses died at 120, leaving Joshua to take over the leadership of Israel. The people of Israel would eventually take over Canaan, but they would never fully drive out the Canaanite enemies. The Canaanite enemies would tempt God's people by having them turn their faith to a false god. The first target was Jericho, the oldest city in the world. Jericho was a strategic key to Palestine, a strong and important city being the center of the promised land. Two spies stayed with a woman named Rahab, she was described as a harlot (which means she ran an inn). Rahab believed in the God of Israel and knew that they would conquer. When the king of Jericho found out about the spies, she hid them. Rahab made a deal with them that when Israel would conquer Jericho, they would spare Rahab and her family. A scarlet cord on her window was to signal to the Israelites that her house would be untouched. Joshua told the Levite priests to take the ark of the covenant and walk to the Jordan River, as soon as their feet touched the water, the river dried up (for Christians, this is a type of baptism). Joshua would have all the men of Israel circumcised to renew the covenant with God. The Israelites took down Jericho by marching silently once each day for six days while priests blew trumpets. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times, and on the seventh time they shouted and the walls came crashing down, and they destroyed the city. They destroyed everything but Rahab and her family. Rahab is a very important ancestor because she is an ancestor of David, which means that she is an ancestor of Jesus Christ. When Joshua was 110, he called all the heads of the tribes together at Shechem, the place where God promised to give the land to Abraham, and where Joshua was buried. The heads of the tribes all swore to serve God. The book of Joshua tells us that all the heads of the tribes who had made that covenant with Joshua were faithful to it. Israel served the true God once they died, but once they died, Israel began to lapse again. In Judges, God's people continuously fell away from God into idolatry and anarchy. Judges were soldier prophets that rescued their people from their enemies. Canaanites were city dwellers, people who built temples of stone and lived comfortably, and the people of Israel quickly filled Canaan admiring them. Israel was falling apart. Tribes were acting as separate units, not as a unified nation. Philistines were a strong power, which would be one of the most hated enemies of the Israelites. Palestine comes from the Philistines, who settled there. God brought them a champion to redeem them from their enemies, but they eventually lapsed back into idolatry. As punishment, God let them fall into the hands of another conqueror. Israel was in a state of anarchy, every man did what was right in their eyes, even the Levites became mercenaries making rich off of the poor. Instead of turning back to God, they thought they would need a ruler to solve their problem. Samuel was the last judge, having won great victories over the Philistines, but with his old age, he made the mistake of letting his sons succeed him. The people were not rejecting Samuel; they were rejecting the idea of being set apart. They wanted to be like every other nation. Samuel told the people what they would receive from a ruler: taxes, oppression, and military service. But the people insisted on having a ruler, and Samuel obeyed their wishes and God's word. God led Samuel to a man named Saul from the tiny tribe of Benjamin. To anoint means to put oil on something as a sign of consecration. (The oil was a sign Saul had been chosen by God.) Anointed one means messiah or Christ in Hebrew. Until this time, only priests had been anointed. God was showing the people that he would lead through the king, and Saul wasn’t the king because they chose but because God chose him. Saul’s first big mistake was making sacrifices instead of waiting for Samuel to make them. Samuel had Saul wait on Gilgal for seven days and then wait for Samuel to come and sacrifice. Saul was worshiping God his own way and not God's way. Saul was still king, but he would not have the dynasty and his son wouldn't succeed. Saul’s second big mistake was that when destroying Amalek, he was supposed to destroy everything including the valuable things, but instead, he took the valuable things. Now with both mistakes, he lost his dynasty and now the kingdom itself. God told Samuel to go to Jesse’s house to find the next king. The choice of the new king was David, the shepherd. Read more