In Everyone Life There Comes A Jericho.

IN EVERYONE LIFE THERE COMES A JERICHO.

JOSHUA 6: 1-21.

The Chief of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Southern Alberta gave the C.P.R. permission to cross the Blackfoot land from Medicine Hat to Calgary. In return the chief was given a lifetime pass on the C.P.R. Chief Crowfoot took the pass and put it in his medicine pouch which he wore around his neck.

The Chief never got on a train; so the pass which said that he could travel anywhere C.P.R. went was never used.

I found throughout my pastoral ministry that many Christians never seem to enter into the promise land simply because they can never get through their Jericho. I believe one of the problems we have comes from our perception of time. We live in a society that says if I walk into a fast food restaurant that I expect to be waited on in 4.5 seconds. Everything about our society is about things in our lives being done faster and faster. So when we come to our Jericho and we begin to deal with it by the same format; we find that by the time we are about half way through our Jericho that we quite. The result is that we never truly conquer our Jericho ad we never truly receive everything that the Lord has for us. Every game that I know of isn’t won in the first few minutes or the first period. I remember when I was playing High School hockey and we had enough point to go on to the provincials but we had one game left. When we started playing the game the other team told us that they were just going to have some fun and that they would let us win. As we played we figured that we didn’t really have to try because they were going to let us win. For the first two periods the other team was giving us a pretty good beating until we started to really play. A lot of times we live our lives like that. We figure we don’t rally have to try to hard and pretty soon we find ourselves in trouble. If we examine our lives we may find that the first time we have tried something we very likely didn’t succeed because we didn’t give it our all. I remember the first time that I made biscuits with Barb help. They turned out not too bad. Then one day Barb was away so I decided to make biscuits but I didn’t do it the way that I was shown. When the biscuits were cook you could of used then for cannon balls.

1. To get through our Jericho we have to know what our Jericho is.

The Israelites knew what their Jericho was. They could see the city that was surrounded by a very high and thick wall.

Jericho had a reputation of being a city that no one could capture. For the people to have what the Lord promised them the first step is to capture this city. God’s people can’t get to the promise land unless they go through Jericho. The Lord has many good things for his children but they are all on the other side of Jericho.

What is our Jericho? Our Jericho is those things in our life that are stopping us from going forward to inherit the promises of the Lord. The thing is that we, like the real city of Jericho, have put up a huge wall to protect us.

SIN. I am not talking about the sin that we have already confessed and been forgiven for. I am talking about the stuff in our lives that the Holy Spirit has convicted us about and we like King David in the Bible haven’t confessed it nor have we ask the Lord to forgive us. The reason we haven’t don’t what we should have done is because we just don’t see what we are doing as sin, even though we know the Spirit of the Lord is saying that it is sin. King David not only sinned against the Lord but from what I see in the Word he lived his life as if nothing happen. It is like people who say that they only tell white lies. I have always wondered how a lie which is a lie can be either white or black. Another example would be renting certain movies or reading certain books. I have listened to Christians say that they know that it is wrong but they don’t see the harm in one book or in one video.

TEMPTATION. Have you seen the start the car commercial? The whole point of the commercial is that it is ok if you don’t go and tell the store that they have made a mistake. If the store has made a mistake and you know it and you don’t tell then the truth, then you are stealing. I remember that I got gas at the Reservation in Woodstock. I paid the attendant. As I sat in my car I knew that they had made a mistake so I moved my car and I went inside to correct the mistake. They though that I was a native. Now I could say well that is their mistake but if I know that it is wrong and I don’t correct it then I am stealing. Satan doesn’t tempt you and I just do something wrong. Satan tempts us so that he can have a hold on our lives. Satan also tempts us to get us to relax our standard. Satan wants us to shift our view point just a little bit to the left. Now you may think that there is nothing wrong with a different point of view but as a Christians we are to have the same point of view at the Lord would have.