We don’t sing Onward Christian Soldiers marching as to war very much
any more, for we seldom see the relevance of being soldiers of the cross
fighting the forces of darkness. Marching seems irrelevant also, for even in
the military world the real force is now in the air and on the sea. The
firepower of missiles and bombs makes marching to war less vital. But the
fact is, marching has been the key to effective warfare all through history.
George Washington won the war for Independence by much marching.
On one occasion when the British were strung out over 12 miles
Washington asked his war council what they should do. General Charles Lee
urged them to wait, but younger men urged him to attack. Washington took
the counsel of the younger men, and his Continental Army marched out of
Valley Forge onto the trail of the British. The pipers lit into Yankee Doodle,
and the sergeants called out marching orders. With precision the American
forces marched against a superior foe, and they dwell them such a blow that
the British never again underestimated their American opponents.
There was much marching yet to do, but Washington motivated his men
to never stop marching until they forced the British to surrender and leave
this land free and independent. If you study the history of warfare, you will
discover that many, if not most, of the great victories that have changed the
course of history were decided by the marching men. In our age the march
has been the key to victories in the civil rights battles. Martin Luther King
Jr. changed the history of our nation by means of marches.
In 1965 black people in Alabama could not register to vote. King led a
large group marching to the courthouse to register. He and 2 thousand other
blacks were put in jail. When a black man was shot and killed by a state
trooper, King called for a march to the state capital in Montgomery.
Governor Wallace forbid such a march, but King defied the order. The state
police attacked the marchers and sent 70 to the hospital. King did not back
down, but he ordered another march. This time 400 white ministers, priests
and rabbis from all over the United States joined the march. One of them
died in the march, and the nation was shocked. President Johnson and the
courts got involved, and congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Marching won for blacks the right to vote without being hampered, and that
victory has changed the whole complexion of government in the U. S. Ever
since that victory, marching has been a means by which the masses get their
message out to the world. If enough people care enough about an issue to
march it is a powerful witness for their perspective.
As we look at the march around Jericho that led to the opening victory in
Israel’s conquering of the Promise Land, we see that the march was basically
just that-a witness. The march did not have any military value, for it did not
take the marchers anywhere but around the city. It did not give Israel the
advantage of a surprise attack, for it was done in broad daylight with the
enemy watching. From a military viewpoint this was the most futile march in
the history of warfare. It may have been a great idea for a parade, but it was
worthless strategy for taking a walled city. The enemy, no doubt, had a good
many hearty laughs at Israel’s war games. It was more like entertainment as
they watched the march and listened to the trumpets. The daily parade had to
be the talk of the town, and everybody in Jericho had to have seen it at least
once. You can just imagine the mockery the citizens of Jericho hurled out at
the marchers.
It was probably very embarrassing for fighting men to march around the
city instead of building battering rams, catapults and ladders, which was the
normal preparation for taking a walled city. It was not that it was a hard
task to do, for Jericho was only about 9 acres of coverage, and so it took only
about 25 to 35 minutes to march around it. These people had been marching
for 40 years in the wilderness, and so a half hour a day for one more week
was a snap. But the question is, why could God want His people to march like
this when it was obvious to all that it had no effect on the situation? The
answer to that question is what makes the march for Jesus a relevant activity
for Christians in our day. Why does God want His people to march? First of
all because-
MARCHING IS A MEANS.
I think we often view God as a superman who goes around doing
marvelous things and solving problems as an individualist. If you look closely
at how God actually operates in history, you see He is really more like the
Lone Ranger with his trusted companion Tonto. God does not enjoy working
alone. He likes companionship and cooperation. He desires that men work
with Him to accomplish His goals. Only Jesus could die for the sins of the
world, but He gave the task of taking this good news to the world to His
disciples. He could have fed the 5 thousand with no help, but He used the
lad’s lunch, and He used His disciples to distribute it. Every chance He got
He used some means to achieve His miracles so that the natural and
supernatural were linked as partners.
God used the womb of Mary to bring His Son into the world, and it is
almost always His method of working to use some natural means as a basis
for miracles. Jesus did not make wine out of thin air, but He used the water
that was present. He did heal at a distance using no means but His divine
power, but usually He used a natural means of conveying His power. He used
the laying on of hands, the mud and spittle, the washing in the water, or some
other physical means. Why? It is because Jesus is in His very being a
combination of the natural and supernatural. He represents the way God is
as a being who delights in the combination and cooperation of the two. So
God uses means to do His will. He could bypass all means, and sometimes He
does, but usually He uses means to achieve His goals. This gives man an
opportunity to be partners with God in doing the miraculous. This was the
case with the march around Jericho. It is was God giving man a role in His
miraculous plan. God wants to make it a joint venture.
We have no idea what marching for Jesus will achieve. We may not see
any walls fall at all, but it will bear witness to the world that lovers of Jesus
are alive and well, and they are not ashamed to let it be known. It could be a
means by which God changes lives, and that is why we do it. We want to be
available to God as a means He can use to make a difference in the world.
If you see a beautiful and fruitful garden, you know somebody has put a
lot of time and labor into it. Only God can make the seeds grow and bring
forth the pleasure-giving flowers and food, but it will not happen if man does
not do his part. Almost all the beauty in civilization is a combination of the
labor of God and man. Cooperation is the name of the game in beautifying
the city. If you take man out of the picture, and have no watering, fertilizing
and weeding, you will soon see how true Augustine was when he said over
1500 years ago, “Without God man cannot. Without man God will not.” God is
a user of means, and men are His major means, and the marching of men is
one of those means. It is one of the ways we cooperate with God to make a
difference.
Vincoe Paxton was a missionary nurse in China many years ago. She saw
so many people die for lack of modern medicine and surgery. Later she
served as an army nurse in Europe near the front, and she saw many
American boys brought back from the brink of death by means of advanced
medical knowledge and equipment. She realized how the grace of God works
through human means. An American boy of 20, who suffered a serious head
wound, said to her, “But for the grace of God I wouldn’t be here.” She
reflected on that and wrote this paragraph:
“He did not know the long combined efforts of the United States
Army Medical Service: The batallion aid man who found him
in the mud and snow; the litter men bearing his dead weight on
their shoulders; the doctors and medical soldiers at the batallion
aid stations who had given him supportive treatment; the ambulance
drivers traveling with headlights reduced to the slits of cat eyes in
the total blackness over treacherous roads; the hospital where he
was operated. He could not go back to the test tube the lecture
room, the wheels of American industry and transportation, which
had placed these scientifically trained minds, skilled hands and
carefully prepared medical supplies at the front. He didn’t know
of these things. “By the grace of God,” he called it. And of course
he was right.”
God’s grace is not just a matter of luck, but it is directly related to man’s
recognition of the importance of means. If man does not devise means by
which he can cooperate with God, but just sits and lets God do it on His own,
he will rob himself of the power of God. God is a user of means. He used
pagan powers to punish Israel, and also to liberate them and get them back
into the Promised Land after their exile. God is using means to achieve His
will all the time, and most answers to prayer come through human agents as
the means.
God often uses strange and unlikely means to achieve His goals. This
march around Jericho is a good example. What good is such a march? It is
meaningless in itself, and useless to achieve the goal. It is of no value for the
miracle, but it provides the context of obedience in which God is delighted to
do the miracle. You might say the march was of no value, but if Israel would
have said this is nonsense, and if they refused to march, it is not likely the wall
would have come down. What is likely is that they would have been marching
in the wilderness for another 40 years until the next generation would have
learned to cooperate with God and be willing to become a means by which He
could accomplish His purpose.
Marching does not do any miracles, but it provides God with a means by
which He can work miracles for His glory and man’s good. That is why
Christians are marching for Jesus around the world. They are marching as a
means. They are making themselves available to God to be a means by which
He can give the kingdom of God a victory over the kingdom of darkness. The
second thing we want to see is-
MARCHING IS A MEASURE.
It is a measure of faith. There is only one reference to this event in the
New Testament, and it is in the great faith chapter. Heb. 11:30 says, “By faith
the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for 7
days.” What if they would have said after 5 days, “This is stupid. It does no
good. Let’s take the weekend off and stop this ridiculous parade of folly.”
There were, no doubt, people saying something just like that, for they were
experts at complaining and griping about what they did not understand.
God tests the faith of His people and all people by asking that they do
things that are not of any obvious value. If they are obvious, it does not take
faith. If you can see any logical connection between obedience and the end
result it is not a test of faith. You have to believe God will honor your
obedience even if it does not make sense. Naaman, the pagan army
commander, had leprosy, and by the grace of God a little Jewish girl, who
had been taken captive, told him about the prophet Elisha who could cure
him. After much negation Naaman finally a got message from the prophet
that said he should go and wash 7 times in the Jordan River and He would be
healed. Listen to his response to this prescription, which to him was as
meaningless as trying to conquer a city by marching around it.
“But Naaman went away angry and said, I thought that he
would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name
of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure
me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers
of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t
I wash in them and be cleansed? So he turned and went off in
a rage.” (II Kings 5:11-12).
Fortunately for him he had some servants with more light and less
heat, and they persuaded him to do what the prophet said. He did it, and
he was healed. He was right, of course, for 7 dips in the Jordan had
nothing to do with healing leprosy. If it did, the whole world of lepers
would be lined up at the Jordan. The prescription was not what healed
him. It was his obedience to the will of God. His servants had the faith to
believe that God could use this means to heal their leader, and their faith
was honored with a miracle. God used this simple means to achieve a
marvelous healing. Had he not used the means, he would not have been
healed.
The marching of God’s people around Jericho was the same as that
dipping in the Jordan. It was a measure of faith. And so it is with every
march for Jesus. All we can do is go by faith that God can use such a
powerful witness to break down some walls that keep people out of the
kingdom of God. We march by faith because we know God can use every
means to do a marvelous work in the lives of others. The essence of faith is
action, which pleases God. Heb. 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible
to please God.” With faith it is possible, and that is what this march
around Jericho did. It pleased God that His people would obey His
command and get involved in cooperation with Him. When God is pleased
with His people, they are rewarded by His blessings. All their victory,
wealth and joy in the Promised Land came to them because they marched
in faith.
An Eastern story tells of the king who proclaimed that when his new
highway opened the one who traveled it best on opening day would receive
a purse of gold. Everyone asked, “What does it mean to travel it best?” Each
according to his own interpretation made preparation for the
contest. Some came on horseback and others in chariots. Some came as
runners to travel it on foot. Each was doing their best to travel best. At
one point in the road there was a pile of stones, and each contestant
complained that this hazard was left on the kings new highway. It was a
sorry sight, a disfigurement, and an obstacle they complained as they
passed by the heap of rough stones.
Only one runner stopped to clear the road of that pile of stones. Under
them he found a purse of gold coins. The king’s servants brought this man
to the king and he announced that that bag of gold belonged to the finder.
The man exclaimed, “There must be some mistake!” “No,” said the king.”
“The prize was for the one who would travel my new highway best. The
gold is yours, for he travels best who makes the way easier and safer for
those who come after.” He pleased the king by doing what the king
wanted done, and he was rewarded accordingly. So it was with the march
around Jericho. It pleased God, and they were rewarded with the victory.
We always win the victory when we are willing to be a means by which
God can work His will in the world.
