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This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.
Season 2 Episode 126
THE BEAT | Bring Down Your Jericho Wall with Obedience. Ask Joshua.
Quick Take
Hey human, in this episode we join Joshua at the walls of Jericho. We march, we shout, we watch the walls come down. We question the marching, the timing, the risks, the commands of God. 6 days to the triumphant shout. We consider how our march around the wall is our witness? Join us for e126. Thanks for listening.
How is God going before you today?
I’m Kathryn Bise, your host.
The Bible is full of stories about people who were obedient. If not to God, to a false god.
It can go either way. I left Jericho in my Bible read-thru about a week ago, but I find myself still marching around the wall and thinking about obedience. Chapter 1 celebrates some serious God love. God starts out by pumping up Joshua. He tells him three times “to be strong and courageous.” That he will protect him, provide for him, that no one will stand against him. God does this throughout the Bible.
When Joshua Chapter 6 comes around, it seems easy enough for Joshua, right? God spoke directly to him with simple instructions. That’s the power of the Jericho conquest, how simply it plays out within the unpredictable context of human nature, a bunch of warriors and a city that has is one of the oldest archaeological sites, oldest cities in civilization. It was a gateway city to the Land of Canaan, inhabited by Canaanites who were corrupt, violent and worshipping false gods.
Joshua Fit the Battle
Let’s hear God in this story.
Joshua 6
6 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.” 7 And he ordered the army, “Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”
8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them. 9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the army, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!” 11 So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.
12 Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. 13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. 14 So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.
15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”
20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
Then, Joshua had the two spies rescue Rahab and her family as per their scarlet rope agreement.
Consider:
- God tells Joshua the outcome and the expanse of the outcome. “I have delivered Jericho into your hands.” What a good example of a timeless God. He had already done it, but Joshua hadn’t experienced it yet.
- God gives Joshua simple directions that had very little to do with a warrior-mentality. He told Joshua to march with all the armed men and the ark in front, with trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. In other words, God went first.
- Repeat it six times.
- Seventh day march seven times around the city.
- Loud blast.
- Army to give a loud shout.
- Wall of the city will collapse.
- Army will go “straight in”
- Joshua and his priests and army do exactly what God tells them to do.
Jericho is theirs for the conquest. God’s word is good. He is true.
Why has this been sticking around for me? Because obedience is this easy. God tells us exactly what to do. He has told us the outcome that he has already secured, he has given us our marching orders, and his word comes to pass.
On the eternal scale this means:
If we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we will have eternal life. All we do is love him, and love others.
Obedience Will Bring Your Wall Down
How do you know your next steps?
Your situation is this: You are facing a relationship, a circumstance, a roadblock that has you saying “What is God’s Will?” and maybe you have been staring at your Jericho wall for quite some time, and you are beginning to think “How much longer, Lord?” aka. “Just tell me what to do Lord.”
God included every person in the Bible for a reason. How does Joshua help here? If it’s helpful to number them, consider these spiritual prompts, a 1. 2. and 3. of bringin’ down your Jericho walls.
- Do what you already know to do in a situation. Don’t live in the unanswered question. You will drown in that water. Live in what you know, what God has already told you to do. Do what is in front of you. In very simple terms, if you don’t know how to love a certain person, do a load of laundry for that person. Do something for the next person on your daily path.
- God told Joshua to be strong and courageous.
- God tells us to be strong and courageous. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 13 Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. 14 Do everything in love. We know to be strong and courageous.
- God tells Joshua to march six days. Around a violent city with warriors watching from the watch tower. No weapons. No battle cries. God said to just march. Ok, if you say so.
- God tells us to march (aka love) every day. Stay in close proximity of our “wall” – trust God with this proximity to the relationship, the situation, the roadblock that needs a spiritual conquest led by our Deliverer.
- God told Joshua to march around the city. One time around. He started with that. One time. 6 days. It’s the only route to day seven.
- God gives us a clear first move toward our “wall.” The marching often sounds like this: read, pray, praise, love, humble yourself, be grateful. Be all the spiritual things that are missing at your “wall.”
- Be ready to use the gifts God has given you to make decisions that move the relationship, situation or roadblock tactically. Use your spiritual gifts to drive God’s obedience narrative forward. What do you know to do, that which you do so well? What am I talking about?
- Joshua uses his warrior smarts, adding the front and rear guard to protect the ark, to protect the presence of the God he so loved, preventing his warriors from shouting until the final command knowing his men so very well, that they were prone to excessive shouts, warrior cries… he handles all the scenarios and resistance that surely came up, with 40,000 warriors. I can only imagine the complaining he managed, when all they were doing is marching. Really? These were warriors ready for a real battle. Yet, Joshua demonstrated courage. And strength.
- You use your gifts from God to make decisions that God knows you will make out of obedience to him. Your obedience is trusting him with your choices. Choices that come out of loving him and being commanded to love others. Trust God with your warrior smarts. He is intentional in how he made you. Trust the instincts God put in you before you were born. Before the universe was created, if you need a bigger “before.”
3. Seize the victory God has promised.
- When Joshua and his warriors “shouted” in obedience to God’s command to Joshua, the walls fell, and they stormed the city of Jericho.
- When you obey God’s command, and he answers, go forward full force. You will know the next step. And I should say, it takes as much strength and courage to accept the victory, to steward the “plunder” as the Old Testament calls it, as it does to enter the battle.
God’s entire story is about the obedience of his nation, his people, to him. About committing to a life that is obedient to a relationship with a holy God. He tells us how we are to do that. Our God is an exacting God.
The next step we take out of obedience to God will take us toward him. It always does.
Joshua didn’t know Jesus, but he knew his Father. He was selected by the God of his patriarchs, and the God of his prophet, Moses, his mentor for a divine purpose. To bring the next generation of the Israeli nation to the promised land.
How We March is Our Witness
What’s my point in all this? We always know God’s Will even when we wait, we suffer, we endure, we have conflict, turmoil, upheaval, even to the point of staring at our own Jericho wall. How we obey God may not seem like it will bring down any wall, but God is timeless and sovereign. He told Joshua he had already delivered Jericho to him before it happened.
He will bring your wall down with a shout. Your obedience prepares you to embrace that strained relationship, the upside-down circumstance, or the paralyzed spiritual roadblock.
What’s my affirmation today? How we march around our wall is our witness. A very strong testimony about who we look to for deliverance. As the Jericho warriors did, we should be obedient to God’s commands, not 20, not 3, but 6 times over. On the seventh moment, day, week month, year, charge right in when God blesses our obedient shout.
We bring our obedience and God’s love to our battlefield.
Deuteronomy 28:1
Blessings for Obedience
1 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Luke 15:4-7
God’s faith to your witness. Go find the one.
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