All right, if you'd open your
Bibles to Joshua chapter six. Also an announcement, I won't
be here next weekend, so there'll be no Bible classes next weekend. And Eric will be preaching in
the regular service. Joshua chapter six. Now this chapter covers the story
of the first battle that the Jews faced as they began to take
possession of the promised land. And the Lord gave specific instructions
on how this was to be done. In verse three he says, march
around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six
days. Have seven priests carry trumpets
of ram's horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march
around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long
blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout.
then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will
go up, every man, straight in. Now, these battles that the Jews
fought as they went in and took possession of the land of promise,
they picture for us the church as it goes into the
world and preaches the gospel. Now, we who believe are in the
land of promise, but at the present time, spiritually speaking, the
land of promise is occupied by those who have no right to it,
who have no claim on it. And so there is this conflict. And our business as believers
is literally to take possession of the land of promise. Now,
I'm not talking about taking possession of this world as the
world. This world as it is, is not the
land of promise. We're speaking here in terms
of spiritual things. But it's a very odd thing that
God tells them to do in order to invade and take possession
of Jericho. They are to march, just go up
and march around the city one time each day for six days. Now, if we were to read the entire
chapter, we'd find that, you know, there were priests with
trumpets and the Ark of the Covenant was taken with them. So priests
bearing the Ark of the Covenant, and there were priests blowing
trumpets, and then Joshua instructs them on the seventh day, they
are to go around the city seven times, and then when the command
is given, they are all to shout. And I believe, I remember one
translation, it could even be ours. I'm not sure. But someone said instead of the
word shout, they used the phrase war cry. But I think it very
well could be like the war cry. You know, not a shout of any
particular words, but you can imagine with an entire army and
all of them at once give a loud shout, that's an impressive and
fearful thing to those that are being attacked. Jericho was not
to be taken, that is certainly not its walls breached by any
kind of rams like they used to use. They weren't told to scale
the walls. Nothing normal. Instead, they were to march around it.
one time each day for six days, and the Ark would be with them,
and the priests would be blowing these trumpets. It was the same
kind of trumpet, by the way, that was supposed to be blown
to announce the beginning of the year of Jubilee. And then
on the seventh day, they were supposed to march around it seven
times, Ark of the Covenant with them, the priests, seven priests
with seven horns, blowing as they went around. And then when
Joshua told them, they gave a shout. And when they gave a shout, the
walls fell. Now, there's much to be taught
to us in our manner of going into the world to preach the
gospel. First thing we need to understand
is our warfare is not like the warfare of the world. I mean,
they approached Jericho, and Jericho had those walls up, which
were the proper kind of defense for a typical invasion. Walls put up, but that's not the kind of invasion
that was coming. the kind of invasion that was
coming, those walls were no defense against it. And the reason is,
we read here in verse two, the Lord said to Joshua, see I have
delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting
men. Now if this had just been two
armies meeting, They would have closed up the city, but on the
outside would have been the king in command of his armies. No,
they are all, it says in verse 1, they're tightly shut up because
of the Israelites. No one went in, no one went out. And with us, Paul says that we
don't fight like the world fights. And our weapons are not fleshly
weapons. rather they are spiritual weapons.
And interestingly enough, he says they are spiritual weapons
mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. Now we go out and we preach the
gospel. And there are situations here
in the way that the Jews confronted Jericho that are very much like
what we do. Number one, we go when we are
sent. They didn't leave, they didn't
go out there until the Lord said, okay, now it's time to go. And
we go out bearing the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. Now,
that's a picture of Christ and his gospel. We've mentioned this
before, because the Ark of the Covenant had the cherubim there,
which are symbols of a throne, and it says God is enthroned
between the cherubim, and you have the mercy seat, what's traditionally
referred to as the mercy seat, and that's where the high priest
would pour out the blood on the day of the atonement. And so
you have the sovereign kingship of God, and then the blood of
atonement, and both of them together, we could call it sovereign grace.
It's the gospel. And so we go out bearing that
before the world. And then you have these seven
priests blowing seven horns, each one of these horns, the
kind of horns used to announce jubilee. You remember what jubilee
is? Every seven years they were to observe a Sabbath year in
which they did not work the land. They let the land go fallow for
that Sabbath year. But after seven, sevens, after
49 years came the 50th year, and on the 50th year, It was
called the year of Jubilee. And they were a sound of trumpet.
Every Hebrew slave was set free. The land was not work. It was
an entire year of rest and freedom. So as we go out, we're like those
seven priests, and we blow that horn of Jubilee. We are preaching
liberty. We are preaching freedom. We
are preaching the release of captives. And then, here's another thing to note.
That's all they did. That is, in breaching the walls of Jericho,
they did nothing other than marching around it once a day for six
days, and then on the seventh day, marched around seven times,
and then added the shout to the presence of the ark and the trumpet
of Jubilee, and the walls came tumbling down. Here's something
interesting to note. Look at verse 11. So he, that is Joshua, had the
ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Now this is the first day. Circling
it once. Then the people returned to the
camp and spent the night there. It's interesting that they said
that. To me, that almost seems like a detail of no significance. Because whether they circled
it and then camped the night, just outside the city, or went
back to their camp, seems as though that would make no difference,
and yet it's mentioned. I think one of the things this
points out is, we preach the gospel. and go home. We don't do anymore. That is
our message to the world. Period. Full stop. They went,
they marched around the city, and they went home. You see,
this city will be taken by the Lord He did not say, take the
city. He said, march around the city.
So that's what they did, and they went home. We have not been
instructed to save people. That's God's work. We can't save
anybody. But what we do is go where they
are and declare, proclaim freedom. Freedom from the law, sin and
death. Freedom from our sin. Freedom
from the judgment of God. We declare freedom. We set before
them that this freedom comes to us from the sovereign God
by virtue of the shed blood of His Son. We do that and go home. We don't chase them down. We
don't try to manipulate them. As I've told you, I'm using Brother
Tim James' commentary on Joshua as kind of a guide, and I wrote
to him as I was studying this. And I said, one of the things
that they didn't do was stand outside the gate of Jericho and
sing a mournful song over and over and over again, inviting
the people of Jericho to come out and join with them. They
didn't. they inasmuch as declared truth
and went home. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
unto them that believe. Now if the gospel in its working
is a demonstration of the power of God unto salvation, certainly
in the preaching of it It is the power of God. It's not us.
There's nothing that we can do to make the gospel more effective,
and there's nothing that we can do to make the gospel less effective,
unless you think that there's things you can do to enhance
God's power or somehow detract from it. Now, That doesn't relieve us
of the responsibility to study, to prepare, to understand. You know, Peter said, always
be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you.
And it doesn't excuse us from the responsibility of conducting
ourselves in this world in decency so that we don't bring or cast
shade on the gospel by the way that we act. But this we know, no matter what
we do, God's elect will hear the gospel, they will believe
it, and they will be saved, and no one else will. And all that
God calls on us to do is to declare the gospel, just preach it. No manipulations, no, well, like
the, like magicians do, you know, their misdirection is actually,
you know, your standard magician on stage, primarily what he's
doing is misdirecting your attention while he does the supposedly
magical part and you don't notice. And I know from what I was raised
in, there's a lot of misdirection going on. They put entertainment
up on the stage. And I saw some awful good entertainment
growing up. I liked it. But that's what they
get people coming for. That's what they'll advertise.
And we got programs for the kids, and we got this, that, and the
other. Meanwhile, they're trying to sneak the gospel in. It won't
work. First of all, if you were truly
preaching the gospel, well, all the adornments that you put on
it, did nothing but make it harder to see. It just got in the way. It misdirected the people. You know, I suppose that people
who come to our church, one of the first things they'll notice
is how incredibly simple we keep it. And every week we do the
same thing. Our form, our pattern, you know,
I joke with Eric about this, everything starts with a letter
S. Scripture reading, song, song, scripture reading, song, sermon,
song. And so, you know, just all these
letter S. And we do it that way every week.
Now, there's nothing holy about that particular order of events,
but those things are what we find they did in the scriptures.
As they met, there was scripture reading, there was hymn singing. At one point, when the Lord was
with the disciples, it mentioned, and they sang a hymn, sang a
hymn, and departed. Scripture reading, hymn singing,
preaching. And that's what made up their
gatherings. And we need nothing more. We
do that as we Preach the gospel as we gather together in order
to build one another. We do that and we go home. Not because we wouldn't be willing
to do more, but because we know that nothing
more will be of any value. It's done. We go and we preach. Now, I think,
too, there is a picture in this story of the gospel as it confronted
the Old Covenant. Now, they went there to preach,
and they had some aspects of the Old Covenant with them. But
if you, instead of taking their Old Covenant sense, look at their
New Covenant sense, that is the Ark of the Covenant, picturing
the gospel fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So we're going out with
a fulfilled gospel, the trumpets being blown, trumpets of freedom,
trumpets of jubilee, and then that shout at the appropriate
time. Those are new covenant things.
But Jericho, to me, pictures the old covenant.
Notice this, again, verse one. Now Jericho was tightly shut
up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one went
in. Now if there's anything about
the old covenant, it's its restrictive nature. As it was practiced,
the lives of the Jews were very restricted. They were told who
they could marry and who they weren't allowed to marry. They
were told exactly how to worship. And it was said to Moses, you
know, when he was making the tabernacle, be sure you make
everything exactly as it has been told to you. But here's something I think
is enlightening. If those walls, picture the old
covenant, and the citizens of Jericho represent the people
living under that old covenant. There's a real curious distinction
among the citizens of Jericho. There are many of those cities,
excuse me, citizens, restricted within that wall, living inside
that wall or inside the boundaries of that wall. There was one household living
in the wall, Rahab. Rahab and her family. Her house was on the wall. It
was part of the wall. And I think here you have a distinction
made between Old Covenant believers and Old Covenant unbelievers.
Remember, the vast majority of the Jews, they were unbelieving.
Yes, they worshipped according to the Old Covenant. They went
through the forms, but they didn't believe. And then you had those
who worshipped according to the forms of the Old Covenant, but
they understood what those forms meant, and they never put their
trust in them. They knew that they pointed to
one who was to come, and they believed God. And here's an interesting
thing. Paul says, sin shall have no
more dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under
grace. Those old covenant believers,
Though they kept the outward forms of the law, they were not under the law.
If you're under the law, you are under a curse. And they weren't
under a curse. But Rahab is like those believers
because Remember, the old covenant was a picture of Christ and his
gospel. And the scriptures say that we
have been in Christ from the foundation of the world. We were chosen in him before
the world began. And while the citizens of Judah,
excuse me, of Jericho thought just being within the boundaries
of that wall is their best way to be kept safe. For Rahab, it
was being in the wall itself, being in Christ. And you know,
we say that the Old Covenant is primarily, it's a picture
of Christ and his gospel. But there are some rules and
regulations and whatnot in there that have no, at least nothing
that I've found, no direct corresponding point in the gospel. If you take the old covenant
as a whole, yes, it's a picture of Christ and his gospel. But
there are some aspects of it that do not by themselves. Picture anything identifiable
in the gospel. And the interesting thing is,
those are the points that the legalists stress the most. Remember what the Pharisees said?
I thank you God, I'm not like other men. I tithe. and he lists some things, herbs
and spices. Do you know why he was listing
those? Because they are tiny things. It's not like he had a whole
lot of mint and I think anise was one of them and something
else. But what he was pointing out was he was so devoted to
the tithe that he didn't just tithe his money, He went into the shelves and
he took one-tenth of the little bit of spice he had and made
sure he tithed that too. He was living within the boundary
of the wall, but he was never in the wall. He was never in
the Christ that the wall was supposed to signify. Rahab was. And what happened? Army of Israel came with their
trumpets, with the Ark of the Covenant, and when they made
their shout, all of the wall fell except the
part where Rahab was. For Rahab was in the wall of
Christ, and it stood. while all the wall that was built
of the more, I don't want to say insignificant, because there's
nothing in the scriptures that's insignificant. But I think you
understand what I mean. The aspects of the law that in
and of themselves don't point to a particular aspect of Christ.
You could maybe even include the human traditions. that the very legalistic Jews
had added on. They had to determine just how
far can you walk on the Sabbath day. That's why you see in the
scriptures a unit of measure called a Sabbath day's walk. All of that came to tumbling
down. But Christ himself, the one in
whom Rachel's house was protected, It did not fall. Why? Because
the message they were bringing, or the message symbolized by
the Ark of the Covenant, the trumpets, and their loud shout,
that gospel, that message presents nothing contrary to Christ. It is the declaration of Christ.
And so when we go out, you see we've got these spiritual weapons
of warfare. And yes, it will cast down imaginations
and everything that seeks to set itself up against Christ
and His gospel. And it tears it down. Everywhere
it goes, it tears it down. They went around that city for
six days, and here's something interesting now. They marched
around it for six days, and all they had, all of the three things
that are mentioned about their march, that they take the ark
with them, that they have the trumpets blowing, and the shout. For the first six days, the only
thing was the ark was with them, and the Trumpets, we'll just
go ahead, we'll call them the trumpets of jubilee, the trumpets
of freedom were blowing, that's all. And you know, in the old
covenant, you had that. You had the ark, you had the
actual ark, and if someone was given spiritual insight to understand
it, they could have gotten the message from it. You had the
trumpet of jubilee, they had the real thing. So it's interesting
to note, you find no record of them ever observing the year
of Jubilee. It was commanded to them, but
in all of the histories, there never is a reference to them
actually observing that. And that's a good lesson right
there, that a lot of people know what the gospel is, they know
every doctrine of it, they know all the details of it, and they
never enter His rest. But anyway, for six days, that's
all they heard. That's all there was. And I'm sure that it was somewhat
frightening to the people inside. But it had to be pretty puzzling,
too. I thought these people were going
to invade. Look at what they're doing. I'm sure they had guys
up looking over the wall, trying to see what's going on. And trumpets,
they're loud, but only seven of them out in the open. But there was that one family
in the wall who heard, who heard the trumpets and knew what they
meant. Freedom is coming. Liberty is coming. You know,
for six days, that's all there was. It's coming, it's coming. And that's essentially what the
law is saying. It's coming, it's coming, it's
coming. In the book of Hebrews, it speaks
of good things to come. And it was speaking of that from
the perspective of the days under the old covenant. the good things
to come with Christ and the fulfillment of his gospel, the seventh day,
the day of perfection. They march around seven times, carrying the Ark of the Covenant,
seven priests blowing seven trumpets, just like all the other days,
except they go around seven times instead of six, until Joshua
says, And they gave up their shout,
and the walls fell. When our Lord was finished with
his work, and he rose from the dead, he told his disciples that
they were to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And then he said, but for now,
you just wait here until the Spirit comes. And when he comes, shout. And on the day of Pentecost,
the spirit came. Our heavenly Joshua came to us
by his spirit. And he said to his church, represented
in those disciples that were gathered there in that upper
room, shout. And they went to the temple and
shout they did. And the walls came tumbling down. Our Lord has said, shout. A shout
of victory. He cried out with a loud voice,
it is finished. And that's what we're telling
people. And the ones we approach, whether you want to take that
wall as just representative of all the aspects of the world
and want to narrow it down to the old covenant, you know, there's
lots of parallels in the scripture. There are some who will hear
it and be afraid, and their fear will express itself as anger
because they don't want that sound. They don't want the trumpet
sound, and they don't want the shout. But there are some in
the wall. And they have heard it, and maybe
hope has been born within them. But the day for shouting is here,
and that's what we're doing. And when they hear that shout,
it's no more freedom is coming. It's your freedom is here. And when those walls fell down,
then they went in and they destroyed everything, which is what they
were told to do. those spies that had stayed the
night in Rahab's place, and she had hid them. They went there,
and they got her and her family, and it says she dwelt outside
the camp of Israel, but she was no longer in Jericho, no longer
in the wall. She was out there where the Jews were, but she
was outside the camp. Later on, though, it says, that
she lived in Israel even until the day that the record here,
the book of Joshua, was written. Now one other parallel that I
think is important. Once they had destroyed Jericho, every living thing had been put
to the sword. It had been burned. It was a
desolate wasteland. Joshua said, if anyone rebuilds Jericho, he
will lay the foundation at the cost of his firstborn, and he
will set up the gate, which would have been the last thing, at
the cost of his lastborn. Somebody did that. Hundreds of
years later, decided to rebuild Jericho. And it cost him his
firstborn when they were laying the foundation. And as they set
the gate, he lost his lastborn. Some say that actually the two
were offered in sacrifice because pagans did that kind of thing.
They sacrificed their children to the gods. I don't know, but
I do know this. I see in this a picture, Joshua,
Jesus, by his work brought the walls of the old covenant down.
And he said, there's a curse on anybody that tries to rebuild
it. The people of God are a free people. Don't put them behind
the walls again. You'll do so at the expense of
the things most precious to you. Paul expressed it this way, if
any man bring to you any other gospel than the gospel I have
preached to you, let him be accursed. And by that, he meant may they
perish in hell forever. And those who rebuild the walls,
that's what'll happen to them. Unless the Lord rescues them
from that. But if they die in that, if they die, rebuilding the walls of Jericho.
They perish under the wrath of God. All right, you are dismissed.