“So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.”
Joshua 6:20
Focus on this part of the scripture: And the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city!
The Message Bible says, “The priests blew the trumpets and when the people heard the blast of the trumpets they gave a thunder clap shout! Now I don’t know exactly what a thunder clap shout is but I can imagine what it sounded like. The people gave a thunder clap shout and the wall fell down immediately! And the people rushed straight into the city and took it.
Going back to our text we see that the people rushed straight into the city and took it! But before this happened, at the beginning of this chapter we find Joshua and the children of Israel approaching the city of Jericho. At this point God immediately tells Joshua two things:
Number One: I have given you the city.
Number Two: God gave him the strategy to take the city
“And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye 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 6:3-5
Notice that the first thing God told Joshua was that He had already given him the city of Jericho! God did not say that He was going to give him the city. He did not say He was getting ready to give him the city, but God was calling those things that be not as though they were! He plainly proclaimed that He had already given him the city of Jericho.
Now the truth was in the natural (or the circumstances that were before their eyes)-they had not yet possessed the city. In the natural-the walls which were thirty feet tall were still standing, in the natural-their enemies, the inhabitants of the land still possessed the city.
But God said, “I know your enemies are still in the city!” God said, “I know the walls are still standing!” God said, “I know you are still outside of your promises!” But “I have already given you the city!”
God declared, that in spite of what you see, I have already given you the city! It is already done! “I know you can’t see it-but it is already yours!” God said, “I already spoke it! I already ordained it! So God said in my thinking it is already done!”
Many of you, God has promised to do great things through you and for you, in your life, for your children, for your finances, for your ministry, or even for your business. And you are believing that some day, the things that God said will come to pass. Some of you believe that some day what God said will come to pass. I’ll make it a little plainer, some of you are believing that some day you will get out of Egypt and make it to the promise land!
You believe that you are going to get out of the pit and make it to the palace! Some of you are saying, “I may be a Shepard boy today, but I am going to be a king!”
I’ll make it a little plainer for you. Some of you have something inside of you that is causing you to stand against all situations and making you believe a day is coming when you are going to get out of the projects and move into the palace! Something is causing you to believe that a day is coming when you won’t have to ride a taxi or a city bus to get around town, but some day you will own your own vehicle.
Somebody hearing this message is believing that your son is going to be delivered off of drugs or your daughter is coming out of adultery! Somebody is believing that their ministry is about to expand, somebody is believing that your business is about to prosper, somebody is believing that every bill that you have is about to be paid and you are going to be debt free!
ARE THERE ANY FAITH PEOPLE LISTENING TO ME?
If you are a faith person hearing this message, if you are a faith person believing God for a change in your life, then lift your voice right now and give God some PRAISE!!! Get on your feet and give God some PRAISE!!! Proclaim to the atmosphere I BELIEVE. Proclaim to someone sitting near you: I BELIEVE! PRAISE THE LORD AND GIVE GOD SOME PRAISE! HALLELUJAH!
Some of you are believing God, but you are like the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts, “you’re on a ship that is about to sink!” It’s about to go under! You’re on the verge of divorce, or you are on the verge of bankruptcy, or your son is about to be sent to prison, or your daughter is all messed up! But you are like Paul and you are standing on the bow of the ship and you’re proclaiming, even in the middle of a storm, in a middle of a mess, in the middle of loneliness, in the middle of financial problems, you are shouting two words: I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE!
Now go ahead and shout three words:
I BELIEVE GOD! I BELIEVE GOD! I BELIEVE GOD!
You don’t have any evidence but you have confidence that He is an on time God!
Many of you are believing, but let’s face the fact. While many of you are believing that God will do what He said, believing that the promises will come to pass, believing that you will be debt free. You are believing for that new car, that new house, or the prosperity of your business,—the fact is you have no evidence of a miracle.
I have discovered something, when you are debt free, when you are a millionaire, when you have that new house, when you have that new car, when your son comes home and says, “Momma I got saved and got off of meth!” Or when your daughter comes home and says, “Jesus appeared in my car last night and I got the Holy Ghost and I am moving out of adultery.” When that happens, nobody has to tell you to praise the Lord. When this happens nobody has to tell you to give God a shout of praise.
When good things start happening, it is just automatic, inside of you comes out this thing called praise and a shout of joy! When God does what He says, when you receive the things that you have been believing for nobody has to tell you to give God a little praise, but a river of praise flows out of your innermost being.
I will say it again, when your son gets off of drugs, or your prodigal daughter comes home, or that new car is parked in your driveway, when you move out of the projects and move into the palace—no body has to tell you to praise God!
Now people may tell you to quiet your praise because it makes religious people nervous. But again, nobody has to tell you to praise the Lord!
God told Joshua I have already given you the city. If you start thinking like God, you will not go around saying all the time some day I will receive it, but instead you will say “even if I don’t see it I believe it, and even though there is no manifestation, God said it, therefore I believe it is already done!”
You can say, “I don’t see it with my natural eyes but with my spiritual eye glasses on I can see that car in my driveway!” Your neighbor may say, “Why are you shouting like that?” And you say “there is a car parked in my driveway!” Now your neighbor may say to you, “What have you been smoking, for all I see is a bicycle!” But you can declare, “In your world there is nothing there but a bicycle, but in God’s world there is a new car parked in my driveway!” In God’s world it is already there!
I pray that the Lord will open your eyes today to see what is in His world. When you start thinking like God then you will start talking like God! And when you start talking like God, according to Romans 4:13, you will start calling those things that be not as though they were:
“(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”
Romans 4:17
You can act like you are a millionaire; you can act like you are the richest man in your neighborhood, even though you hardly have a nickel to your name!
Circumstances won’t affect you because you know what God has already declared! God has already established these things in the heavens. And what God has established in the heavens is getting ready to be established in the earth, and since it is already established in the heaven and God already said it, then we need to go ahead and believe it and put some actions with our beliefs!
This is how you can praise God in the midnight hour; this is how you can go to bed at night when you don’t know where your son or daughter is. That’s how you can keep a smile on your face when they come to take your car away because you have not made the payments! And the devil says ha-ha your faith didn’t work!
But you can say, devil they may be taking that one out but you have not seen what is coming in! Since I believe that God is going to do what he said, I am not going to wait until I get my miracle or until I see God perform the promises to give Him a shout of praise, But I am going to go ahead as the song says and “shout now!” God is getting ready to establish some things on earth so I am going to shout now. God already spoke it so I am going to shout now!
God already decreed it so I am going to shout now! Do I have it? Not in the natural. But God said it and I believe it, so I’m going to go shout and give God some praise. I’m going to shout now, not next week, or next month. I’m going to shout now! I’ve got it and the devil is not going to steal my praise!
Tell yourself you can shout now!
The children of Israel did not wait until the walls fell down to shout. They begin to shout when the walls were still standing and continued to shout while they remained intact. All throughout the Word of God you find God telling His people to give Him a shout. All throughout the Bible, it declares to shout for God!
“But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.”
Psalms 5:11
“O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God withthe voice of triumph.”
Psalms 47:1
All throughout the Bible you find people shouting to God:
“So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.”
Ezra 3:13
“And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.”
1 Samuel 4:5
God doesn’t tell us to shout just for us to shout. There is a reason God tells us to shout. God does not tell us to shout so we can lose our voices. God does not tell us to shout so religious people can call us fanatical emotional fools!
There is a power in the shout of a child of God that causes hell to tremble! Get this revelation! There is something about when a child of God opens their mouth in the middle of hell and shouts Hallelujah!!!
When you get a whole group of people together and in unity they shout Hallelujah!!! (One puts a thousand to flight, two puts ten thousand to flight).
When God’s people in unity give a shout to God, it penetrates the heavens and drives back the darkness that is hindering your prayers from going to the throne! Heaven knows your shout! Hell knows your shout! Our shouts are kind of like our fingerprints here on the earth. If you could check my finger prints you would find “Hogan fingerprints,” and likewise when the angels hear my shout, they say, “That’s a Hogan shout.”
Some of you, God does not hear too much shouting from you, others of you He hears it every day! When you begin to shout it weakens the enemy. I heard the Holy Ghost say, “When you begin to shout, it silences the enemy!” It silences the enemy! It silences his roar! It causes the walls of hell to tremble; Hallelujah, it damages the structure of hell when you shout. There is power in a shout! When you shout you cause the devil to tremble.
One of the major coliseums in the state of Oklahoma had a major event some time ago, and the people shouted so much and so loud it fractured the
structure of the coliseum.
They had to have several million dollars in restructuring repairs and rebuilding because sixty to seventy thousand people had shouted so loud it damaged the foundation.
All truth is parallel! If they can shout so loud at a ball game that it fractures a man-made structure, what does it do to hell when we give God a shout? I will tell you what it does, it damages and fractures hell’s structures! Your shout weakens the enemy!
Your shout will bring down strongholds! Your shout causes walls to crumble! Your shout will cause that thing between you and your destiny to vanish or disappear! That is why I am telling you in spite of the hell that you are going through, to give God a shout! Walls are coming down! Hindrances are coming down! Barriers are being broken! Shout unto God with a voice of triumph!
Some churches do not want to hear this message. Some churches like it quiet and boring! The devil likes it quiet and boring -it doesn’t disturb his kingdom. But God has given me a revelation on the power of a shout and I’m telling you it is time to shout!
THE EXAMPLE OF A SHOUT FROM 2 CHRONICLES
In the thirteenth chapter of 2nd Chronicles we read about a war between the tribe of Judah and the other tribes of Israel: there was a war between the two kings because some wanted to follow God and His plan while the other wanted to follow the plan of man. In verse 13 we pick up on the battle:
“But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them. And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijam and Judah. And the children of Israel fled before Judah: and God delivered them into their hand.”
2 Chronicles 13:13-16
The people of God gave God a shout and God came down from heaven to earth and smote every one of their enemies!
I looked up the definition of the word “shout.”
I have always heard about praise but God said a “shout.” We all know what shout means, some of the definitions are to rejoice or to make a joyful noise.
But I got to looking at the original meaning of the word “shout” in the Hebrew and the Greek. If you have a Greek or Hebrew concordance you can see the original meaning of the word from which our English words are translated from.
And when I searched these words out I knew I was flowing with what God was leading me.
In the original translations from the Hebrew the word from which we get our word “shout” which includes rejoicing and making a joyful noise, but there is a deeper meaning to this word, and it is a word that means to “break” and to “destroy!”
When we shout we destroy the thing that is holding us back! When we shout the walls begin to break! When we shout it releases a destroying anointing!
When we shout it releases a breaking anointing that starts breaking meth, breaking prostitution, breaking alcoholism, breaking poverty, breaking sickness, breaking depression!!!
Shout!!! Shout for the Lord has given us the city!!! Shout to the Lord for He has smitten your enemy the devil!!! Shout to the Lord!!! Go ahead, shout to the Lord, Praise the Lord, Raise your voice to Heaven!
Hell is on alert, there has been a telegram to all demons, there went an email, there went a fax, big boy just got an email, big boy just got a fax, it says you better move away, for there is going to be some breaking! The enemy’s neck is about to be broken! Your shout is loosening a breakthrough anointing! An anointing that is going to destroy yokes and bondage's!
God said to Joshua, “I have given you the city,” Joshua 6:2. The truth was that they had not possessed the city, but they were at the edge of the city. They were at the edge of their promise or at the edge of their next level of their destiny.
Can I ask you, “How many of you know that it is not good enough to be at the edge?” How many know that being close is not good enough? You’re almost there, you’re just a few feet away-some of you are almost there.
You’re almost a millionaire. Your family is almost delivered. Your ministry is almost there. Something down deep inside is telling you “I’m almost there.” You feel it inside. Something inside says, “I am about to cross over!” Do you feel like you are about to cross over? Do you feel like you are about to step into
your destiny?
But how many know being close is not good enough? How many know it is not good enough to be on the edge? It is not good enough to be close. A lot of people are almost there.
Some people are going to die within just a stones throw from their destiny. Moses looked at the Promised Land from a mountain, but he did not get to enter in. The children of Israel were at the edge of their promise, almost at the next level of their destiny. God said to them, “I have given you the city.”
There is only one problem, how many know that usually when you have a promise, you have a problem? Okay, I will reword it so you can understand it. How many of you know that when you have a promise you usually have a whole lot of problems! Some of you have so many problems your middle name should be “problem,” but I know a problem solver!
So God says the city is yours already! He didn’t say it’s going to be, but said it is yours; I have given you the city! They have the promise but there is one problem, there is a wall in between them and their promise, their destiny, their next level. In fact, it wasn’t just a wall, historians tell us that there were two walls around Jericho. Both of these were thirty feet high.
Can you imagine how high a thirty foot wall is? One of these walls, the inner one, was not only thirty feet high, but it was also between eleven and twelve feet wide! Horses could ride on it as well as small chariots! The outer wall, which was also thirty feet tall, was six feet wide! So for Israel to get to their promise, to lay hold on what God had promised them, they had to somehow get to the other side of the walls.
“Now how are they going to do it?” Someone said, “Let’s climb over it.” Another said, “Let’s knock a hole through it.” Another said, “Let’s destroy the wall.” But some said, “We can’t, it’s too high. We can’t, it’s too tall! We can’t it is too thick! And guards are guarding it!”
“But we’ve got to get through the wall!”
Some of you, the only thing keeping you from your promise, or keeping your children from their destiny, or keeping you from being a millionaire, or being debt free, or prosperous, is some kind of a wall in between you and the promise.
Some of you don’t know what the wall is, but you know something is stopping you. Some of you have a wall in front of you that you can’t see any way to get through. And what is so disturbing is that you are so close, you know it is just a few feet away, and it took a long time to get where you are. But it seems like it is taking an eternity to get through the last twenty feet.
You are aggravated, frustrated, mad at the preacher, mad at God, mad at your husband or wife, mad at yourself, mad at your dog, mad at your cat, mad at everything! And your husband, your wife, the preacher, the dog, the cat, the fleas, and everything else had nothing to do with all of your troubles!
Some of you can’t see anyway to get through! This is exactly where the children of Israel were in Joshua chapter six. But God had a plan. This plan was in a shout! Now some of you would get really spiritual right now if I said God’s plan was in prayer!
Some of you would fall on your knees automatically and pray, “Ohhhhhhhh God!!” If I said His plan was taking your Bible everywhere you go, you would get five or six of them!
But No, God said, “I’ve got a plan, and my plan is in something that will confound the world, my plan is in a weapon that is not natural, my plan is in a shout!”
The victory was in a shout! So God told Joshua to go around the city one time for six days. The seventh day, go around seven times.
(Did you know when Joshua led them around the walls of Jericho, Joshua was eighty years old!) Some of you walk from the car to the church and you are out of breath! Joshua was eighty years old at least and he was saying, “Come on boys and follow me!) You ought to shout, “My strength is renewed!” Follow me, were going to take the city!
On the seventh day and on the seventh time around, have the children of Israel make a long blast! (I like that!) What did God say? “And the walls will come down flat!” The people shall shout a great shout when they let out a long blast with the ram’s horn and the trumpet. And when the people start shouting the walls will come down flat! And Joshua did just that! And the wall fell down suddenly!
Get on your feet
and give God a SHOUT!!!
I heard God say,
“Your shout will release
a season of suddenlies in your life!
The walls fell down flat. In other words, the thing hindering them from their promise and their destiny simply disappeared! I see it, I don’t see it! You’re my problem; you’re not my problem! You have stopped me; you will not stop me anymore! The thing that hindered them disappeared!
If you study history, you will find out that the earth literally opened up and swallowed the walls. If you go to Jericho, you will see that the walls of Jericho are under the earth, they have opened this up so you can see them. The children of Israel did not have to climb over the remains, or the debris.
The children of Israel simply had to walk over the walls that were under their feet, thirty feet high walls were under them because their shout made the earth open up and all they had to do was walk into their promise!
Your shout will bring the wall down. Your shout will bring the mountain down:
“Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.”
Zechariah 4:7
The mountain spoken of here, was one of the princes in the world, a wicked leader that was trying to stop the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (The prophet of God had spoken that the walls were to be rebuilt). This wicked man over Persia said, “You will not rebuild the walls.” And so the Holy Ghost sarcastically said, “Who are you O Great Mountain?” “Who are you wicked empire, to stand before my son Zerubabel? For you are a mountain, but when I get through with you, you will be nothing but a plain! And Zerubabel will walk over you and do what God said!”
And the walls fell down flat and they took the city. I want to share two visions with you. The first vision I want to share with you was at the end of one of my services, as my wife walked over to me and said, “Let’s pray for our children, that whatever is hindering them from reaching their destiny will be removed.”
As soon as she said that to me I heard the Holy Spirit say to me the word “Crush!” Not to just bring it down but the Holy Ghost said, “Crush!” We don’t just want to see something come down that is hindering us, we want to see it crushed! We want to see the earth open up and swallow it so we won’t have to fight it any more! And I heard the Holy Ghost say “Crush!”
And I went into a vision—I saw this large wall, a huge wall. It reminded me of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem but only bigger, and in this vision I saw all these people beating the wall as they were praying, (they were travailing and they were interceding). And immediately in my spirit I knew right on the other side of that wall was the people’s destiny. On the other side of that wall was somebody’s marriage, somebody’s destiny, somebody’s children delivered from marijuana, from meth, somebody’s freedom from debt, somebody’s new anointing.
I knew everything that God has promised His people was right on the other side of that wall.
But just like with Joshua and the children of Israel, there was a wall in between them and their promise.
In this vision I was seeing the Body of Christ; I don’t know how many people I saw but I knew it was a large army of people and they were praying, travailing before God, but they were getting tired. God’s people were starting to get weary, they were still praying but they were losing their fervency, they were losing their passion. They still loved God and was holding on with a little hope that somehow that wall would come down and they would see the things they were so desperately believing for. Some were saying, “If I could just get this court case settled.” They were saying, “If I could just move out of poverty into prosperity.” “If I could just pay my bills.” “If I could just preach on radio.” “If I could just get my ministry going forward.” They were tired but something kept them praying at the wall.
In this vision, immediately, as I was watching these people pray, then suddenly, like the batting of an eye, I looked and the wall was gone! The wall was gone and God’s people were surprised! But then they just picked their feet up and walked into their promised land! They didn’t have to climb over anything, they didn’t have to move anything, (I remembered how the earth opened up and swallowed the walls of Jericho). I said God “where is the wall?” And God said, “I did for them exactly what I did for Israel, I just made the wall disappear and vanish, and all the people have to do is walk into their destiny!”
The second vision that I want to share with you was almost exactly like the first vision that I just have described to you. The difference was in this vision I kept hearing in my spirit the word “Hallelujah!” I said God what are you trying to show me? And again I heard the word “Hallelujah!” The people that were at the wall were not praying but shouting “Hallelujah!” I heard more than one; it was many people shouting “Hallelujah!” In the first vision the people were praying but in the second vision they were shouting!
I said the people were shouting!
And I knew on the other side of that wall was our children saved and delivered! On the other side of that wall were our new cars, our new homes! Greatest of all there were new anointings, and new revelations! On the other side of that wall were millionaires! On the other side of that wall I saw women dressed in wedding gowns! On the other side of that wall I saw new businesses; I saw new ministries exploding and expanding! I saw people setting down and shouting, “Were debt free!”
But in this vision they were not praying at the wall, they were shouting at the wall!
And God said, “Your prayers can bring down walls, but your shout will accelerate the bringing down of the wall!
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
GIVE GOD A SHOUT!
SHOUT AND DAMAGE THE WALLS OF HELL!
SHOUT FOR GOD HAS GIVEN YOU THE CITY!
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENT
TAKE IT BY FORCE!
THAT FORCE IS A SHOUT!!!
SHOUT!
SHOUT!
SHOUT!
