(Some of you already hear the music in your head as you read this.)Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho…and the walls came tumbling down.
In keeping with last week’s theme of testing our faith, I want us to consider Joshua and the Israelites conquering Jericho. And when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him. (Joshua 6:5) The shout of true faith stands in direct contrast to the whimper of wavering faith.
Joshua 6:2 says, “And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have given Jericho into your hand…’” God did not say, “you should seize Jericho,” or “I will give you Jericho,” but, “I havegiven you Jericho.” Meaning, the city belonged to Israel already and now they just had to take possession of it. What the people could not understand was how? This task seemed impossible.
The thing that may be easy to overlook is that it was not simply the shouting that brought the walls down. How poorly was the wall building in Jericho that people yelling at it would make it fall? The shout of God’s people was a claim of the promised victory. It was according to their faith; so that when they shouted, He made the walls to fall.
God declared that the victory was Israel’s and they trusted in that promise. The book of Hebrews mentions this, By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. (Hebrews 11:30) God could have simply leveled the walls himself and let the people of Israel know what he had done, and they can go move in. But that is not what happened. Joshua and the people had to respond and follow the call of the Lord.
There have been times in my life when I needed to make a decision. And in those times I would have to ask, do I sit and wait on God to direct me or move in the direction I feel is right until God intervenes? Often times, God is working His will in our favor, but we have to step up and make a move. These can be scary times, but the ones where we see God do incredible things.