Tag Archives: Jericho

The Battle Begins, October 16, 2017

Leave a reply

Today’s Podcast


Subscribe in: iTunes|Download

Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 7; You Version Bible app, days 43-49

Today we look at a book of the Old Testament that was required reading for every soldier in the Israeli army before their 1967 war with Egypt. As you read through the book, you’ll understand why. It’s filled with stories of battle. It’s story after story of God intervening for His people, bringing victory to His new nation as they moved into the land He promised Abraham as an inheritance more than 600 years earlier. It’s a book that inspires courage. In fact, three times in the first chapter, We read the words, “Do not fear, for the Lord your God will be with you.” Do you think He means it?

Of course He does. Because God will ask us to do some crazy sounding things that would ordinarily bring fear to the most fearless among us. Just take a look at the first thing God asks Joshua to do in this conquest of the promised land and you’ll understand why He tells Joshua not to be afraid. God has to remind Joshua not to be afraid because He is the master of the events in the upper story and all we can see is the lower story we live in. We can’t always see Him at work so it’s easy for us to be afraid.

Look at the facts Joshua was dealing with as God told him not to fear the people of Jericho.

  • Forty years had passed but the Canaanites were no smaller than when the Israelites seemed like grasshoppers in their own eyes.
  • The fortifications around Jericho had been impenetrable against every enemy that tried to oppose it.
  • Joshua had to take more than a million people across a river without bridges, so there was no hope for surprise.
  • God told Joshua to circumcise all the males when they crossed the Jordan river just days before they were to attack Jericho.
  • The strategy God gave them to breach this impenetrable fortress was march around the city in silence once a day for six day, then march around it seven times on the seventh day, blow their trumpets, then take the city.

I’ve been part of planning several combat operations and even more contingency plans in case we were to go to war in various parts of the world. We spend days, weeks, sometimes years refining contingency plans to put the right force in the right place. Making sure the ratios are right. Making sure the supplies are available. Making sure the routes in and out of the objectives can be cleared and kept clear. Putting together everything we could think of to ensure victory before we ever started out on a campaign.

But I never saw a plan like this one…except in the book of Joshua. I think if our planning staff had ever presented something like this to our commander he would have fired us on the spot. Talk about a ludicrous plan. Talk about a way to dishearten your warriors before battle. Talk about a plan sure to fail before it starts. This is it.

Drag a million people across a fast moving river with no bridges and then give all of them minor surgery and tell them you’re going into hand to hand combat. Right! What would you think if you were those soldiers reporting to Joshua? “Don’t be afraid Joshua, I’m with you.”

But God, do you understand how war works? Do you understand that those guys are at least a head taller than all of us and have been warriors from birth? Do you understand that those walls are so thick that people build houses inside them? Do you understand you’re asking us to do the impossible?

“Joshua, don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you.”

When Joshua looked at what God asked him to do from his lower story point of view, it’s hard not to fear. The plan God laid out looked impossible, foolhardy. So God needed to remind Joshua it’s not us, but Him. Joshua had to look back through the last forty years and remember God was bigger than all the problems they had faced during their desert journey. Joshua, his soldiers, the rest of the Israelites, the people of Jericho before they perished, all the other nations around them, there was no question who won that battle. It wasn’t Israel’s soldiers. It wasn’t Joshua and his brilliant military tactics. It was all God.

So what has God asked you to do that seems ridiculous? What has He put in your mind that if you took the first step just makes you sweat bullets because you are so afraid of the outcome? What plan do you think He has for your life that seems so outrageous that others will look at you and think you’ve lost your mind because it is surely impossible to accomplish and the risks are just too great to even think about stepping out on that journey?

God told us in His word more than one hundred times, “Don’t be afraid.” He told Joshua, “Don’t be afraid. For I, the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Can you trust God to fulfill His promises in your life the way He did for Joshua and Moses and Jacob and Abraham? Each of those heroes we’ve watched in God’s Story have made the same mistakes you and I have (or worse). Yet God used them in tremendous ways, why? Because they trusted God had an upper story that was far superior to their knowledge in their lower story. They trusted God knew a better future than they could see in their short-sighted present.

That’s all God asks of us. Look up and recognize God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways higher than ours. His upper story reaches far beyond what we can see in our lower story and He always works for good for those who love Him and work according to His purposes. When God asks us to do something others might think crazy. Something that even brings a bit of fear to our hearts. Remember God’s admonition, “Don’t be afraid. For I will be with you wherever you go.”

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Are you for or against? (Luke 11:21-23) November 5, 2016

Leave a reply

Today’s Podcast

Subscribe in: iTunes|Download

Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Acts 13-14

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 11:21-23
Jesus: When a man of power with his full array of weapons guards his own palace, everything inside is secure. But when a new man who is stronger and better armed attacks the palace, the old ruler will be overcome, his weapons and trusted defenses will be removed, and his treasures will be plundered. Can you see that I’m asking you to choose whose side you’re on—working with Me or fighting against Me?

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

A couple of weeks ago, a pastor friend asked me to hold a weekend renewal series of services for his church here in San Antonio. We had a great time as God moved in the services. His church had been doing a series of Jericho walks around their property, claiming the community for God and as it turned out, the last Sunday of the renewal weekend coincided with the last Jericho walk. So I used several chapters of Joshua for the background of the services that weekend.

Jesus’ words reminded me of that great battle and some of the events leading up to it. Jericho was a fortress. Built with an impenetrable defense. Walls that had never been breached. Many of the citizens lived with their houses built into the walls, in fact, so they had a vested interest in keeping that seven foot thick wall repaired and secured. Their guards were good. The citizens knew they were secure. Jericho was the place to live if you wanted security. Well, almost.

Rahab, one of the prostitutes in Jericho, listened to the stories coming from the men in the city. They told about the other nations that had fallen to the Israelites as they came across the wilderness. She heard about those who tried to stand up against this band of nomads and suffered incredible defeat at their hands. These armies should have been able to easily defeat these wanderers or at least hold their own against the Israelites, but God’s people defeated them every time. But those armies didn’t have the walls of Jericho protecting them. Surely, Jericho would stand, right?

Rahab, met the two spies. She believed God would had the city over to the Israelites. She did her part to save the spies and sent them back safely to Joshua. Rahab understood that despite what the leaders of Jericho thought Jericho was vulnerable. No matter what rhetoric the leaders of Jericho might tell her citizens, the walls might not keep out that rag-tag band of Israelites. No matter how strong or high or thick those walls were, Jericho just might not stand up to the power of the God these wanderers served. He had already shown His power too many times to be ignored. The plagues in Egypt 40 years ago. The stories of the path across the Red Sea and destruction of Pharaoh’s army. The rumors about the God whose voice called from the mountain and gave food and water to this nation of three million people every day.

This army might not look like much, but Rahab knew in her heart there was something different about them and that something was the God they believed in. The walls and the soldiers and the leadership and the gods of Jericho might have looked impressive and held the city safe for all those years, but a new man had arrived on the scene. Joshua was just across the Jordan River and his God did things for His people that no other god could do.

Rahab made a decision when the spies came to see her that she lived on the wrong side and wanted to be on Joshua’s side, on Jehovah’s side. So she told those two spies everything she knew about Jericho. She hid them on her roof and protected them from the soldiers that came to her house to find them. She gave the spies the information they needed to get back to their own people on the other side of the Jordan and share their information with Joshua. Rahab got on the side of the man she knew was stronger and would win the final battle.

Jesus asks the same question with His metaphor. “When a man of power with his full array of weapons guards his own palace, everything inside is secure. But when a new man who is stronger and better armed attacks the palace, the old ruler will be overcome, his weapons and trusted defenses will be removed, and his treasures will be plundered.”

He is that stronger man. Satan wants you to think he is. He wants you to think maybe you are and that you can stand up to everything the world throws at you by yourself, but you can’t. You need God to stand against the tide of evil that we face every day. So Jesus still asks the same question He asked those gathered around Him that day 2,000 years ago. Whose side are you on? Are you working for Him or against Him? Those are your only choices and depending on which side you’re on will make a huge difference as to whether you survive the fall of the wall of Jericho so to speak. Make sure you make the right choice.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.