[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word.
[0:14] I was saved at 15 years old. I heard a former Muslim get up and give his testimony. He was of Arab descent. His name was Murad Bowman. And I was at a youth retreat.
[0:26] It was my ninth grade year, spring break. And all of my friends went to Panama City. And I ended up getting tricked by my sister to go to a youth retreat. And so I was not happy at all.
[0:36] Didn't know anybody. And all of the people that were there, all the youth that were my age, were all very zealous about Jesus. And I was zealous, but not about Jesus. Hearing this young man give the gospel, though, really gave his testimony, told about how he got saved.
[0:51] You know how he got saved. Someone told him about Jesus. That's what happened. He was a Muslim. His parents were Muslim. His grandparents were Muslim. And far back of a Muslim belief there.
[1:03] But someone loved Jesus enough to give this guy the gospel. And he got saved. Boy, by the end of it, I knew one thing. I knew I was lost. And I knew he had something I didn't have. And so I got saved that night. I believed on Jesus as my Savior.
[1:15] He saved me. Started going to the Victory Baptist Church. My family is not Baptist. Baptist. And my dad was very critical of Baptist growing up. He would tell us growing up, the only two things we knew about Baptist is they don't drink and they don't dance.
[1:30] And neither one of those were compliments. And that's all I knew about Baptist. But I started going to church there because my preacher preached the book, really grew there. And I'm just thankful for the opportunity I had to go to that church.
[1:43] Really got involved getting to meet Pastor Gardner and getting to spend time with him and being under his influence. That's really changed my life. And I just want to thank you, church, for all that you do here.
[1:53] You are a model of what a church ought to be. You really are. And we've gotten to travel a little bit of the country and seen a few things and a few places.
[2:08] And I want to tell you, this is far and away, this is the example in my mind and in my heart of what a Christian church, a New Testament church really ought to be.
[2:18] And you're doing it. And I encourage you to just keep on going. Take your Bibles and turn to the book. You're going to be in Joshua. You're going to be in Joshua. And I'm going to be in Hebrews for one moment.
[2:30] You're going to be in Joshua chapter 6. And I'm going to read one verse to you, and then I'm going to turn right back to where you are. Joshua chapter 6 is where you are.
[2:41] Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 30. I'm going to read one verse to you, and we'll go from there. The Bible says, I'll read it again.
[2:53] I'm going to ask you a question. The answer is right in the verse. Not a trick question at all. The Bible says, By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they were come past about seven days. Now, here's the question.
[3:03] How did the walls of Jericho fall down? By faith. Now, wait a minute. I think if we could somehow go back in time, and we went back to Israel, and we met some Israelites, and they had just seen the walls of Jericho fall down.
[3:17] If we went to them and said, now, how in the world did this happen? I think their answer may be something like this. You're not going to believe this. But we walked around that city once a day for six days.
[3:28] We couldn't talk. We couldn't do anything. We just walked around. And then the seventh day, we walked around it seven times. You know the story of the walls of Jericho, right? And walked around seven times.
[3:39] And then those priests over there, they blew the trumpets. And when they blew those horns, we yelled as loud as we could. And you're not going to believe this. But the walls came down. I think that would have been their answer.
[3:50] Maybe some of them, certainly. That would have been what they said. But the New Testament gives us clear revelation on this, makes it really clear. It was no walking around that brought the walls down.
[4:01] It was no yell or pitch of yell that really brought the walls down. We've got a guy I know. He's a good man. He's a good man. But he told me, you know, I think God knew the integrity of those walls.
[4:14] And I think God knew the exact pitch of the yell of the Israelites. And I think when they yelled, God knew how it would resonate in each crack of the wall.
[4:28] And it'd knock it down. I think that's crazy. I think that's crazy. Because what the Bible tells us is it doesn't say that by walking around, the walls came down.
[4:39] It doesn't say that by a yell or a shout that the walls came down. You know what it was? It was that they were crazy enough to believe God. That's what it was. It was by faith.
[4:49] For just a moment, I want to talk to you about living by faith. You see, we say faith is for salvation. It really is. But it goes beyond that. It really does. God desires us.
[5:00] He really demands of us to live by faith, to step out and really believe Him. And so we're going to look at this story in Joshua 6 where you are and really look at it and see what's going on there.
[5:11] Hopefully, there will be some things we can apply to our lives. The Bible says in Joshua 6 verse 1, Now Jericho was straightly shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out and none came in.
[5:22] We're going to look at the problem they faced. This was it. They came up as a great nation and they saw this city and the city was walled. And when the city saw them coming, the Bible says that the city was straightly shut up.
[5:36] What that literally means is they saw this great nation of people coming. Rahab lets us know that they knew about them. They'd heard about them. So what did they do? They shut the gate.
[5:48] They closed it down. This city was walled. This city had a gate. They closed the gate so that no one could go out and no one could come in. And that's the whole purpose of having walls around the city.
[6:01] It's to keep the good people in, if you will, and to keep the bad people out. That's the whole point and that's what they were doing. They had just done that, saw this great people come in. But this is the deal.
[6:12] God promised Israel this is already your land. I'm going to give it to you. It's yours. I'm going to go before you. I'm going to fight for you. But this is what I want you to do.
[6:23] They're a bunch of wicked people and I want you to take them out. Now, a lot of people don't like that, but here's the deal. These people that were living in modern-day Israel, the promised land, they weren't people that were calling out to our God saying, God, I know I'm not as an Israelite, but would you love me?
[6:41] Would you please accept me? Would you please let me believe on you? That wasn't the case at all. These people were offering their own children and fire to their gods.
[6:53] These people were very wicked people. In fact, I think it's in Deuteronomy. It talks about how they were so wicked that the land was going to vomit them up. They were wicked people.
[7:04] They weren't calling out to God and God said, you know, I've had enough. I want you to go in, take the land. I'm going to go with you. But this is the problem they faced. God called them to do something that they couldn't touch.
[7:18] God said, I want you to take out this city, but they couldn't touch the people. I learned, I did some study and commentaries. And what they say is that the city was walled actually with two walls.
[7:31] And the outer wall, they estimate to be 40 feet high and six feet thick. What that means is, is that God wasn't saying, hey, there's a chain link fence over here.
[7:42] I want you to kind of cut through and try to get through and get to the people. That wasn't the case at all. This was a big wall. You remember Rahab? You know where she lived? She lived on the wall.
[7:53] It wasn't like a step. I mean, it was a big wall that a person lived on. And God said, well, you know, I want you to defeat the people. That's the problem they faced.
[8:04] I don't mean to be trite. But sometimes we face Jerichos. Problems are things that we can't do anything about.
[8:16] You know what I mean? We had a guy at our church. He was a good guy. And he was diagnosed with cancer. It was terminal. They went to do surgery on him, and they cut him open.
[8:29] And when they cut him open to do the surgery, they said he was covered in cancer and didn't even try to do the surgery at all. They just sewed him back up and said, you got weeks, maybe months.
[8:41] And I was like in April, and before the year was out, he's gone. That's a Jericho. That's a problem that you just can't do anything about. I think of the task of world evangelism.
[8:54] What a Jericho. I mean, really, when you think about it, how hard would it be for this church to get the gospel to every single soul in the state of Georgia?
[9:04] How hard would that be? That would be impossible. I mean, that's crazy to even think about. To get the gospel, to make sure that every single soul in the state of Georgia, just one state, that every one of them heard the gospel and have an opportunity to be saved.
[9:19] That would be impossible. It would be really hard. It just wouldn't happen. But God hadn't called us to take the gospel to Georgia. He wants us to take the gospel to the whole world.
[9:31] That's a little bit of a Jericho. It really is. There are people that we don't even know about. You know that, right? There are places with people that other people know about that if I said, do you know the so-and-so people, most people would probably say, I don't have a clue.
[9:49] And the truth is, I don't have a clue either. There's a lot of people around the world, and every one of them need the gospel. Everyone, that's quite a Jericho. That's the problem they faced.
[10:00] God told them to do something they couldn't. They couldn't do it. Next thing, let's look at the plan they followed. I think this is interesting. Verse 2, And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given in thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.
[10:16] And ye shall come past 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 ram's horns.
[10:27] And the seventh day ye shall come past the city seven times. And the priests shall blow with the trumpets, and it shall come to pass when they make a long blast with the ram's horn. And when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout.
[10:41] And the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him. I love this. I think this is interesting. You know what we do when we read our Bible? We have a problem.
[10:52] And we read it, and we say, These folks didn't need faith. I mean, this is thousands of years ago. It doesn't seem real is the problem. And I've got rent due at the end of the month, and I'm the one that needs the faith, because I'm the one that's living in the here and now.
[11:05] And that's a lie. That's a lie. They needed faith. And so what I try to do, I don't know if it's the best thing to do, but I try to put myself in the position of the people I'm reading about.
[11:15] So I try to think, What if I was an Israelite, and I was standing there, and we were going to try to take this city, and I have three little girls. I think they're gorgeous. And what's going to happen to them if this plan doesn't work?
[11:29] And what's going to happen to my wife if what we try to do doesn't work and we get taken captive? What are they going to do to my wife and to my kids and much less to me?
[11:41] And then all of a sudden I start to kind of get that pit in your stomach, you know, where you're nervous and you start thinking about that. So I encourage you, just think about it like that. Think of what it would be like if you were living in that day and this is the plan they followed.
[11:56] Israel's standing around and Joshua comes up before everybody and says, Guys, God's got a plan. You ready? This is it. This is it. We're going to walk.
[12:08] Huh? Good plan, right? We're going to go around that city. We're going to walk around once a day for six days. Now, boys, this isn't where God's going to give us the victory because you wait until you see what we do on the seventh day.
[12:21] And I can just imagine right now people standing there and thinking, all right, seventh day, maybe we're going to be walking around looking for like a secret door or something, looking for something.
[12:32] Maybe that's what we're supposed to be doing. And that's what we do. And maybe that's what we're supposed to be doing. And then Joshua says, but the seventh day, this is where God gives us. This is where it's all going to go down. We're going to walk around seven times.
[12:46] Huh? Seven times. But then when you hear those priests over there, they're going to blow the horns. And when they blow the horns, this is where it's going to happen. We're all just going to yell really loud.
[13:00] That's a terrible idea. I mean, that's a horrible idea. That makes no logical sense whatsoever. Are you with me? You know, we were in Washington, D.C., one of my closer trips.
[13:12] And we were in the city, and they were demolishing a building. You're not going to believe this. But do you know how they weren't doing it? They didn't have a group of people walking around the building, yelling as loud as they could, trying to get the building to come down.
[13:27] Do you know why? Because that doesn't work. It makes no sense whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense at all. Could you imagine getting home tonight, and the president of the United States, let me say this, it doesn't matter which president, okay?
[13:44] I'm not speaking about any president. You pick your favorite, all right? George Washington, all right? He gets up before everybody, and he says, my fellow Americans, we're going to go to war against country X, but we're not going to bring our tanks and weapons.
[13:59] We're just going to walk around the capital city, and we're going to yell really loud. Yell really loud. No one would be like, well, sign me up for the military.
[14:11] You know, if we would have been back there at that day, and that seventh day when he said to do those things, my wife would have turned around and said, on that seventh day, I think I'd call in sick if I were you. This doesn't look like a good idea.
[14:21] Because it's a bad idea, it doesn't make any sense at all. It goes against everything inside of us. You understand what I'm trying to say, but this is what I want you to see. They were crazy enough to believe God. We see no complaints, which means there were probably no Henrys there, because we would have been like, this is nuts.
[14:38] We need to do something else. But there were no complaints that we see. They actually believed the one true God. And they went out, and they walked around. They did exactly that. And then the walls came down exactly like God said they would.
[14:50] You know, I think God uses illogical plans in our lives. I really do. And I think this is why he does it. Because I'm standing before you tonight, and I'm not talking about how amazing Joshua was.
[15:03] He gets no glory out of this. He's a good guy. I'm not talking about how mighty and how strong and how capable and how able all of Israel was and their mighty army.
[15:14] I'm not talking about how strategic and amazing they were. Do you know who gets all the glory out of this story? Your God. He gets 100% of the glory out of this story. And I think God does those kind of things in our lives.
[15:25] I really do. And so here's the point I'm trying to make to you. Live by faith. Why don't you step out? Why don't you believe God? Real faith is not just belief. Real faith, James chapter 2, is this.
[15:37] A faith that's so strong that it makes you step out. It propels you to do something. That's what real faith is. Faith without works is dead. It doesn't even work. But a real faith says, you know what?
[15:48] I'm going to step out. I'm going to believe God. And I'm going to tell you, I haven't done anything. In my life. But I can tell you this. Anytime I've actually stepped out and believed God, I don't know why, but he's been there.
[16:04] Every time. And I don't think that's just for me. I really don't. When I was a boy, I was, my father, we were raised around here.
[16:16] And I remember as a boy sitting around and hearing my dad talk about things. And he would say one thing in particular. He'd say, you know, if I knew what Home Depot would have become, and I could have put X amount of dollars into Home Depot, boy, today I'd have.
[16:34] And he'd name some crazy million dollars. You ever heard stories like that? There's different stories about different groups that if you just would have known, you could have put this much money, just a little bit, and today you'd be rolling in it, you know?
[16:46] And you ever heard those stories before? That's one of his. I'm going to tell you, I don't think we'll ever see in heaven, when we get to heaven, someone pouting, and you go up to them and you say, what's the matter?
[16:58] I don't think anybody will ever say, you know, I was foolish. I trusted God too much. I believed him, and I stepped out, and I'll be if he wasn't good enough. I don't think you'll ever see that.
[17:09] But I do think you'll see people. I do think, I remember singing a hymn in college, and it sticks with me. I do think that when we see the face of Jesus, there may be a little bit of us that go, I could have trusted him more.
[17:21] I could have stepped out further. I could have believed him. He was good for it. And the good news is, is this, you're not in heaven yet.
[17:34] You know the story about Home Depot. You're not on the other end where you're saying, if I could have, I would have. If I could have, I would have. You're not there. You're here. You can step out now.
[17:46] You can believe God and actually believe he's going to do something and step out and believe him. And I promise you, there's going to be nobody that's going to say, God wasn't good enough. He is. Why don't you live by faith?
[17:57] Why don't you step out by faith and believe God? There's one more thing I want to show you, and we'll be done. Verse 13 of chapter 5. I want to show you the person in whom they placed their faith.
[18:12] You see the problem there. You see the crazy plan they took. And then I want to show you this. I think this is so interesting. This is one of those passages of Scripture. I mean, I was in college by the time I started really reading the Bible.
[18:23] And so I didn't know anything. And I remember reading this passage, and I was like, whoa! This is a very different story in chapter 5, starting in verse 13. It says this, And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked.
[18:36] And behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him and said, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord I am now come.
[18:48] And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him, What saith my Lord and to his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.
[19:03] And Joshua did so. This is a weird one. This is kind of weird. Before anything ever happens, before the plan was ever given, the walls of Jericho may have been shut, or the gate may have been shut, and the walls secure, everything's good.
[19:16] And as that's all going on, Joshua looks over and sees a man with his sword drawn. And he goes over to him and he says, Are you for us or for them?
[19:28] It's a good question, right? And the man answers in a really weird way. He says, No. That's not an answer, right? I teach my children. That's not an answer. That's not an answer.
[19:39] No. And then he says this, But as captain of the host of the Lord, as captain of the Lord's host am I now come. This is weird, right? That's not a real clear answer, but it gets weirder.
[19:50] Because then Joshua falls down on his knees and begins to worship him and says this, What saith my Lord unto his servant? What that literally, how we would say it today, I think, is something like this.
[20:01] What do you want me to do? Talk to me. What do I do? And the man says this, Take your shoes off.
[20:15] Because you're standing on holy ground. The place you're standing is holy. Now, that's not the first time that's been said. That's been said somewhere else. And who said that?
[20:26] God said that. He said that back at the burning bush in Exodus, right? He said that to Moses. Take your shoes off from off your feet. And so what I think is interesting, before anything ever happened, before they ever walked around the wall, before they ever had this plan, you know who they spoke with?
[20:43] I believe it's Jesus, obviously. The theological term, I believe, is a Christophany. All that means is it's Jesus before he ever came to this earth, born of a virgin.
[20:54] We say Jesus was born, but that's kind of true. He was born, but he's always been. Right? He's always been. And so he was there with Joshua before anything ever happened.
[21:05] And this is a little bit of application. I know that, but I think it's important. I think it's good. You know what I see in this? I think if we, before we ever get to the battlefield, would spend time with the captain, I think we'd be better off.
[21:18] I really do. How about it? Are you believing God tonight? Why don't you step out more? Why don't you step out more in this church? Why don't you step out more for Jesus?
[21:31] God. Thank you. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com, where you can find our service times, location, contact information and more audio and video recordings.
[21:50] Thanks.