Revering the Word
Joshua 6 The miracle of Jericho and why our mission is different today.
Good morning, everyone. This morning we are in Joshua chapter 6, the conquest of Jericho, and this is going to be an incredible miracle of God working on behalf of Israel, where he is going to defeat Jericho on his own through a miracle. And we're about to see the glory of God revealed in how he protects and helps Israel conquer after they have now entered the promised land. However, this brings up some challenging, sometimes thoughts or questions trying to understand the God that we have learned of who is said that God is love and he is love. However, that's not the only characteristic of God. But sometimes when we only learn portions of the Bible or only learn maybe a New Testament perspective, which is by the way, a good perspective to have, we don't necessarily understand the history of God and his people. And sometimes if we have not studied that prior reading this can be a challenge for us. In this season of history, God had a family and that family was made through Abraham and he wanted to bless them and have them be a blessing to the nations. However, whenever they mixed with the pagan gods of the nations around them, they many times began to worship the pagan gods of the people around them. And God was trying to set up a people who would multiply his image and likeness, who would resemble a reflection of who he is and spread his goodness throughout the world. And in this season of history, God felt it was best that they did not intermix with the people around them, but rather were superior, dominant and even destroyed the people around them and gave the people of God the land that God had promised them where they could develop a community of people that would be under his rule and multiply his image and likeness. So what's interesting or sometimes hard to stomach is that God's people in this season of history destroyed those around them and God had his reasons. Now, I can try to paint a picture for you as to why and I've already attempted to do that in the sense that again, his experiment of bringing his people into the promised land, if they intermixed, it wouldn't turn out the way that he wanted it to turn out because they wouldn't be the people of God. They would worship the gods around them and God was very sensitive to the fact that he wanted to worship them and them alone. So that's what he chose to do in this season is to have them wipe out the enemies. In fact, he even said if you don't do it, they're going to be a snare to you. And we'll see that especially as we go through this book, but in particular, the book of Judges, which comes next in the Old Testament, that they did not end up destroying the people around them and they were snares and they did end up taking false gods. So God knew what he was doing and what he was trying to create. However, what's important to understand is that we are not in this dispensation. We are not in this season of history. We are now living under a new covenant and it's different when eventually after God's people took the land and unfortunately they were faithful to them and then lost the land and they got deported to Babylon as we'll see in future historical times in the Bible. Then they came back under Ezra and Nehemiah and rebuilt the walls in the temple. This is many, many years later, but when they came back and they rebuilt, they didn't have a country anymore, but they were allowed to worship at their temple. And when Jesus came into the scene, the Roman Empire was in charge and you know, that's why you have Pontius Pilate governing the area around Jerusalem. And Jesus came back in and he brought in the new covenant that was promised through Jeremiah. And we live under that new agreement now. And in that new agreement that we live under God, our sins are remembered no more. We are forgiven of our sin. We're given the Holy Spirit. We're promised eternal life. We're made the bride of Christ. The family of God is no longer just Abraham or Israel, but now it's all who believe in Jesus. And in this season of history, God is not asking us to destroy the people around us. He's asking us to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. We are to be a light in a dark world. I want to share with you a parable before we get into this chapter of Joshua 6. It's a parable of Jesus written in Matthew chapter 13. And it says, "He presented another parable to them, saying the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tears among the wheat and went away." So picture this field and I want to say to you that it represents people. It represents really the world. And God has sown in his family and amidst God's family now on the earth, there are tears. There are people who don't believe and they're growing up among the wheat of God's family. And he went away. So Jesus went to the right hand of God. And one day he's coming again in this field of the world is growing. And it's growing up with God's people. And it's also growing up with people who don't follow God. That's what's happening in this world right now. But when this wheat sprouted and bore again, the tears became evident also. So now in this world, we have people of God and we have unbelievers. The slaves of the Landar came and said to him, "Sir, did you not so good seed in your field? How then does it have tears?" So people monitoring the land and we're living in this land right now, and we're like, "God, why all this evil, why all this unbelief, why all this paganism?" And that's kind of the questions we're asking in this world today. We're living amongst a worldly world that has left God. And yet we are seeking to follow God in this world. So people are questioning why this mix in your field, that doesn't seem good. And he said to them, "An enemy has done this." And that's really what we have. Satan's still on the loose and messing with people's lives and turning people away from Jesus. And the slaves said to him, "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?" And this would almost be similar to what we have in Jericho here, where you want us to destroy our enemies in this world while we seek to live for you. Should we just tear up the unbelieving world? And this is what Jesus said, "Allow both to grow together until the harvest." And in the time of the harvest, I will say to the Reapers, first gather up the tears and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn. And what we're trying to do now is help people to embrace Jesus and become part of his family so that they can get gathered up into his barn so that they won't receive the burning that's going to come to those who have not believed in Jesus. So we are not destroying our enemies in this dispensation. So it's different now. This is the same God, but he's operating in a different way. And today we're trying to win the world of Jesus Christ. We're trying to be a light in this dark world. We're trying to be his witnesses. We're trying to go and make disciples of all nations. And we're not doing it through destroying our enemies. We're doing it by trying to win our enemies to Jesus. And while we do, trying to stay strong, so that just as Israel was tempted to follow the pagan gods of the world around them, we today live in a world with pagan people and pagan gods. And we need to remain true to Jesus and seek to win instead of be influenced negatively by the world around us. So God is not in this season destroying his enemies or asking us to do it. His enemies ultimately are going to be destroyed. Those who don't trust in Jesus rest assured they will be destroyed and they will spend eternity burning sadly. But that's the urgency as to why we're here. And in a way, it's God's patience and God's love that he has not come back yet because he's giving people more time to come to know him. And just last night, we were at a park and we gave away free burgers and hot dogs and food. And we had about 20 people from our church out on a Wednesday night sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people, Hallelujah and inviting people to church, telling them about the good news, sharing the gospel. Because we believe all this is true. We're not trying to destroy anyone. We're trying to help them from being destroyed. Hallelujah. We're trying to help people live forever with Jesus. So that's where we live now. But in this day and age of Joshua 6, they're going to take over the promised land because otherwise their mission would be thwarted quicker than what God desired. Ultimately, they're going to fail to live for God God's people. And that's why God brought about this new covenant through Jesus. But here we are. Let's take it in. Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel. No one went out and no one came in. The Lord said to Joshua, "See I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and the valiant warriors." Now a lot of times when they would try to overtake a city, they would not let anyone go out or go in and they would try to starve the city because if it was well fortified like Jericho was, that was a way to defeat your enemy was to not let any goods come in or come out. But that's not what they do here. You shall march around the city all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also, seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark. Then on the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And it shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall down flat and the people will go up every man straight ahead. So God is going to do a miracle by having these people march around the city and wait seven days. It's going to be rather dramatic for the people in Jericho and even for Israel and they're having to trust God. Imagine you're going to march around and then ultimately you're going to blow a horn and shout and you're trusting that God's going to bring the walls of the city down. But Joshua does trust and the people do follow Joshua's lead and indeed let's see what happens. So Joshua, the son of none, called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests carry seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord." Then he said to the people, "Go forward and march around the city and let the armed men go on before the ark of the Lord." And it was so that when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of the horns before the Lord went for and blew the trumpets and the ark of the covenant of the Lord followed them. Imagine the people in Jericho seeing this ark and seeing the people march and seeing the reverence they had for the ark of the Lord. They could clearly see from inside Jericho that these people believe that their God's going to help them which would only help to lift up the name of God and see that these people have a real God and this story is going to spread. The armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets and the rear guard came after the ark while they continued to blow the trumpets but Joshua commanded the people saying, "You shall not shout nor let your voice be heard nor let a word proceed out of your mouth until the day I tell you shout only creating the drama silently marching for seven days and then with the trumpet on the seventh day shout then you shall shout." So he had the ark of the Lord taken around the circle circling it at once then they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp. Now Joshua rose early in the morning the priest took up the ark of the Lord the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of the rans 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. Thus the second day they marched around the city once in return to the camp they did so for six days six days in a row they did this. Are the people of God going to see God work in a miraculous way they had to be wondering trusting hoping that this was going to turn out at Joshua said. Then on the seventh day 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. At the seventh time when the priest blew the trumpets Joshua said to the people shout for the Lord has given you the city the city shall be under the van and it and all that is in it belongs to the Lord only don't forget about her ray have the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live because she hid the messengers whom we sent. But as for you only keep for yourselves from the things under the van so that you do not covet them and take some of the things under the van and make the camp of Israel accursed and bring trouble on it don't take any of the false gods don't take anything that could be worshiped but all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord they shall go into the sanctuary of the Lord treasury of the Lord. So the people shouted in the priest blew the trumpets and when the people heard the son of the trumpet 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 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. In this like so many other things is just an incredible miracle of God that this could happen just as they parted the sea just as the river was parted just as God provided manna and quail and water from the rock here God literally just through marching and shouting the walls of his city fell down flat a complete miracle of God. Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land go into the harlot's house so you even sent them in it and you wonder if this was a salmon as we've talked about in previous podcast because the same men who spied are now the same men and what a allegiance and loyalty and man Rahab must have been very comforted when she saw these two men but Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land go into the harlot's house and bring the woman and all she has out of there so as you have sworn to her so the young men who were spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all she had and they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of Israel they burned the city with fire and all that was in it only the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron they put into the treasury of the house of the lord however Rahab the harlot and her father's household and all she had Joshua spared and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day for she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho and indeed she ends up marrying Salman and from that marriage we end up getting David quite an amazing story then Joshua made them taken oath at that time saying cursed before the lord is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho with the lost of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation and with the lost of his youngest son he shall set up its gates so the lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land and i'm sure this made all the people in the promised land have terror that god was with this people what's really interesting is someone did attempt to later build this city uh and it was in an ahab's reign later in history uh or actually an ahab's reign healed rebuilt Jericho and experienced the curse by losing his eldest and youngest sons and you can read about that in first king 1634 isn't that amazing just as Joshua said if someone attempts to rebuild they're gonna lose their first two sons and indeed that happened uh just showing that you can trust when god says he's gonna do something he's going to do it well there we have another miracle of god um you know i'm i'm grateful today and i say that and it's interesting isn't it you know i have uh three children and two are following Jesus and one is not right now what i was thinking as i was about to say is i was able to say that you know i'm grateful that in this season of history you know we don't have to destroy enemies we try to win our enemies to Jesus and i take that very seriously i want to see not only my son return to the lord but i want to see this whole world come to Jesus Christ and that's not real not everyone's going to come to the lord but he is waiting on his return for more people to come into the fold but i was going to say you know i'm grateful that we're not destroying our enemies but yet you know isn't it true that people like my son have been influenced by an evil culture and as a result of the fact that we live in this pagan world filled with people who don't believe in Jesus it can influence people to turn away from him and indeed that's happened in in our lives and it happens today so yes i don't want to have to be a part of destroying people's lives i want to win people to Jesus but they're again the fact that we don't destroy but while we're trying to win this evil generation of people is still influencing people in our lives and it's sad to see so god has his reasons trust him even what you don't understand but understand that today may we be a light to this lost world and me we keep reaching people and getting more people into the barn of our lord until he comes again in doing so we're saving people from the wrath of god and we're leading people to have a heavenly home what a worthy cause we have in living for the king of kings and the lord of lords may more and more join the fold god bless you all