Good Evening. Tonight, we’re going to look at tone of my favorite OT Bible stories. It’s one you’re probably all familiar with, which is dangerous. When we become too familiar with a story, we can fool ourselves into thinking we know everything about it that there is to know. But the thing about the Bible is, we will never be able to know everything that there is to know about it. Because it’s not just a collection of ancient manuscripts. I believe that the Bible is a message from God to his creation, and I believe that the Spirit of God was active in the writing, creating, gathering, assembling, and preserving of it. And I also believe that the Spirit of God is active in the hearts and minds of those who read it and hear it today. The Bible is bigger than the sum of its parts. The Bible is bigger on the inside.
That being said, I want to invite you to turn with me, in your Bible, to the book of Joshua, and once you’ve reached the book of Joshua, I want you to go to chapter 6. Again, most of you are familiar with this story. As soon as you see the heading over the chapter, Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, you know what story we’re dealing with, you probably remember the lessons/sermons you’ve heard about it before. It’s a popular story for many children. I love telling this story when I do children’s sermons. I will often have them build a wall of blocks, march around it, and make it fall. Maybe you sang the “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” song when you were a kid. But again, the problem with this being a popular children’s Bible story is that we often dismiss it as just that, a children’s story. When we encounter it, we, as enlightened adults, gloss over it, we’re beyond such milky stories, and want to move onto more meatier things.
But I want to challenge you a bit this evening. Forget that this is a story for kids often told by talking fruits and vegetables. Open yourself up for the Spirit of God to move in you heart and mind and teach you something tonight. Allow God to speak into your life.
So, before we get too deep into this passage, I would like us to get to know a little about this character Joshua. If you remember your Hebrew history, you will recall that Joshua enters into the Biblical narrative in the book of Numbers as an aide of Moses. He eventually rises up to become the second in command over all of Israel and becomes God’s chosen successor of Moses to lead the people into the Promised land.
Now, names are important in the Bible. They aren’t just identifiers to distinguish one person from another. Names carry meaning, weight, and purpose. Abram’s name was changed to Abraham to signify him as the Father of many nations. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, representing Israel’s struggle with God. I could go on.
So, if we’re paying attention, Joshua’s name should stand out to us. Joshua’s name means something.
In Hebrew, his name is pronounced “Yeshua.” The Greek form of this name is Iesous, translated into English as Jesus, or into Spanish as Jesus.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence. In fact, I’m sure it’s not. I don’t think God does anything by accident. I think that Joshua is meant to point us to Jesus. The literal meaning of both of their names is “to deliver, to save, or to rescue”. Joshua delivers, saves, the nation of Israel as he leads it in the conquest of the Promised Land. Jesus delivered, or saved, us when he conquered sin and death.
I believe that this passage from the OT book of Joshua reveals and points us to Jesus too. So, let’s dive in.
(Read Joshua 6)
The first thing I want us to notice tonight is that no one in their right mind would have come up with this plan to conquer Jericho. There are several ways to conquer a fortified city but marching around the walls in silence isn’t one of them. You build siege weapons, you bombard them, you knock down walls, you break the gate, you create barriers and blockades, but you don’t just take a stroll.
Except, that’s exactly what God tells Joshua to do.
God seems to take delight in doing things no one in their right mind would do. He has a man build a giant boat when it hasn’t even rained. He starts a nation with a man and a woman who have not children, and who are beyond childbearing age. He chooses the youngest, the runt, to become king. He chooses to save humans from sin by dying on a cross. It just doesn’t make sense. No one in their right mind would do these things. But God does.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Let me assure you right now, God knows what he’s doing. It might look foolish to put your hope in a God that you can’t see that you can’t touch. It might seem foolish to work at a place like PAATC when I could be doing something else and making a lot more money doing it.
Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” Jesus is the only way to life; all other ways lead to death. If you want to find life, the only way to do it is by following the One who delights in doing things no one in their right minds would do. You want to hold onto your life? You’re going to lose it. You want to save your life? Surrender it to Christ, lay it down, let it go.
The next thing I want us to note, is that even before God spelled out his ridiculous battle plan, that no one in their right mind would follow, He already declared victory. Vs. 2 God says, “see I have delivered.” This phrase is written in the Hebrew “prophetic perfect”, which describes future events or actions as already being accomplished.
God declared victory over Jericho before one Israelite took one step into their long journey around the city.
In the same way, God has declared victory over your sin. Before your heart made its first beat, before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye, God declared victory over sin and death.
In Genesis 3 God placed a curse on the serpent, who represents sin and death. He said that the offspring of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. This is a fatal wound. God declared victory over sin and death long before a baby was born in Bethlehem, long before that man would carry a cross and die, long before you ever sinned.
There is one more thing I want us to think about this evening. That doesn’t mean that there’s only one more thing we can learn, there’s still a ton more we could get from this passage, many different ways I could go, we’ve barely scratched the surface. I mean, we’ve only really gotten to the first paragraph, the first 7 verses of the chapter. But that’s for another time.
What I want us to consider, is the nature of this battle and its purpose.
Numbers are important in Hebrew, I’m not talking about numerology, but symbolism. The number 7 figures prominently in this chapter. It is mentioned 11 times. There are 7 priests, with 7 trumpets (or shofars, rams’ horns) leading the march around Jericho. They march around Jericho for 7 days, once each day for 6 days, and 7 times on the 7th day.
Again, I don’t think that God does things by accident. I don’t think that it’s just a coincident that God commanded Joshua to follow this pattern of Sevens.
In the Bible 7 is a number associated with perfection, going all the way back to Genesis 1 where God created in 7 days: 6 days of work and 1 day of rest.
I believe that the use of Sevens tells us two things:
1. God’s plans are perfect. Again, from a human standpoint, God’s plans look foolish. Who conquers a city by walking around it a bunch of times? But what is foolish to man is often wisdom to God, and what seems wise to man is often foolishness to God. Not once in the Bible do God’s plans fail. Not once in my life, when I’m following God’s will have I failed. But time after time I fail when I decide to go my own way. Like Proverbs says, it always leads to death.
2. I also believe that 7 signifies that this battle is not just a battle, a way for God to show off, but it is a spiritual exercise for the people of Israel. Are they going to trust in the God who is telling them to do something no one in their right mind would do? So, this battle is not just about conquering Jericho, but it’s about waging a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons.
2 Corinthians 10:3-4 says, ”For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
The nature and weapons of the warfare which God wages are not of flesh, they are of the spirit. The Battle of Jericho wasn’t just about knocking down walls around a city, but about demolishing strongholds within the hearts of the people of Israel. The weapons weren’t swords and spears, but the very presence of God in their obedience.
All of us have a Jericho in our lives. We all have strongholds what we have to overcome. And the only way to truly conquer those strongholds is to trust in Jesus. The issue is that Jesus will often have us do things that no one in their right mind would do. Like take a year away from their family to work on overcoming addiction. Or leaving a job that is secure to a job that might not pay the bills, but it’s the Job God is calling you to. Or moving to a new place where you know no one. Or any number of things. But you see victory only comes through God’s plan of deliverance, never ours.
And God has already declared victory, God has already declared that you are a victor. Romans 8:37 tells us that we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, and that nothing can overcome us. Isaiah 54:7 tells us that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. That’s because our weapons of battle are not of the flesh, but of the spirit, and Jesus has already won the battle and the war for us.
The story of the Battle of Jericho isn’t just about the conquering of a city millennia ago, its about the story of the battle you are fighting right now.
Let’s pray.
