Joshua 10:13c So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Sometimes God does a miraculous thing and only mentions it once. So many things are exampled over and over again in the bible so that we do not miss those important details. But what about those things He does once and doesn’t make a fuss over it? Do you glaze over it as if God doesn’t have a message in it for you?

Joshua is doing battle here and it important to Joshua to have the light to finish the battle. So he prayed that the sun should not set until the battle was won. God granted that prayerful request. What I see in it that is simple. There are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that needs to be done. We divide the day into portions. We give ourselves just so much time to accomplish a task and then move on to the next. We often put off things until tomorrow, but what if tomorrow doesn’t come?

Lately I have had that nagging feeling that the real enemy is time. Satan is a defeated foe. Christ won on the Cross. Yet time keeps creeping along unhindered by battles or needs or circumstances. Time stops for no man. Well not since Joshua anyway.

We who believe in Christ order our lives according to God’s plan. God has shown us what is important. God has ordered our lives and seen to it that we are satisfied in it. That bodes well for us because we found the time to do the important things. I don’t even have to tell you what they are, do I?

But what of the lost? How much more time do they have to say yes to that free will offering that is Jesus Christ? Will they get another day or another hour to make Jesus the Lord of their lives?

1 Kings 3:14 And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.

2 Timothy 2:21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

Prepared, fit for use, with the assertion that purity identifies the vessel fit for honor. The word purge indicates a need to rid ourselves of impurities. Let me add with all respect, if God had to wait for me to be pure before I can be used, He would not get any use out of me in this world.

Pure gold is not fit for use in jewelry, it is too soft. It must however be refined to rid it of substances which would not allow it to shine or make it brittle. Then alloys are added which make it perfectly fit for use, even though it is not pure gold.

Iron is the same. Pure iron rusts easily and is not as strong as it can be if the right alloys are added to give it the correct properties required for the correct application of use. Machining, wear, and tensile strength are all changed in iron according to the alloys forged into the making during refinement.

Since this is true of the nature of things, is it true of our nature also? The very next words penned in 2 Timothy 2:22 lead me to believe yes. “Flee also”. Examine the preceding text to narrow the long list of contaminates to one root causal effect. Ii is in verse 18 “who concerning the truth have erred”.

Christ has made provisions for failed execution of truth, i.e. confession and forgiveness. What good does confession do a man if it is not based in truth? Confessing to a lie is a false witness. Thou shalt not bare false witness. Our failures are rooted not in execution of the truth but in our understanding of the truth.

Now as we stand for Christ these two millennia later, the truth is much more important to understand since we exercise truth so long after its conception. Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, needs us to know truth more intimately now than ever considering all the impurities that have been added over those years. Error must be refined from our hearts and minds so that we might be used of God according to His purpose.