Marching Orders: The Fall of Jericho

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, we are so excited. Look who's

back me the tsar ball. Yeah, I'm back from my

trip to New York with excuse me, with my dad.

Okay, how was it?

It was great. You know, he's eighty five. And we

got into the ferry and he's like, oh, this is

my first ferry ride. I'm like what. And we got

into a cab and he goes, this is my first

cab ride. I go, come on, wow. You got to

the subway. He's like, this is my first subway ride.

I'm like, are you kidding me? And then here's ready

for this one. We checked into the hotel and this

is before the Empire State Building. In the hotel, we

were on the thirty fifth floor and he goes, this

is the highest I've ever been. Oh wow, And I said,

I go come on. Apparently he's never left Youngstown.

He's talking about elevation, right, you guys, weren't he said.

Other than a plane, this is the highest I've ever been. Yeah,

well yeah, so isn't that crazy? So anyway, so he

had a lot of first.

Whole bunch of, first whole bunch of Then you went

up on the empire stability.

Well, actually I said it wrong. It's I went up.

We went we opted for the one World Trade Center.

Oh yeah, which was half the price and just to side.

So yeah, it was great.

That's cool, super View. Well, we're glad to have you back.

We missed you. Yeah, Kyle did a great job.

I didn't watch any of it.

If you miss a little bit because I was on vacation.

If you miss a little bit, we've got a great replacement.

So you get a great replacement. You didn't say a substitution.

You said words the matter. Words matter, Chris. It's a huge,

just trained substitution and a replacement.

Right right. Ye. Well, Hey, today's Desiree wants us to

start off with a special dad joke segment because we're

talking about Jericho, Jericho.

That's right. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

So she has everything centered around jerk who wrote who

writes dad joke Jericho jokes?

I don't know. I haven't looked at my name, I

have not looked at my fingerspe Okay, but I'll go first, Okay.

What's the Walls of Jericho's least favorite kind of music?

I don't know.

Heavy metal. They can't handle the sound of it.

Heavy metal, they can't handle the sound of it.

Oh, that's awful. Sound is in quote?

Sound? Okay? Okay, I don't think anybody writes Jericho Jet jokes.

The reason why there's not a market for this.

Well, this says special episode edition, by the way, is

what this is? Okay. Why was the archaeologist excited about

the Walls of Jericho Why because they heard it was

a groundbreaking discovery.

Oh, these are bad.

That's a rough one.

These are rough, all right? Number two? Uh, what would

be the wall of Jericho's favorite modern day reality TV show?

Modern favorite modern day reality TV show? I don't know.

Probably Extreme make Over Home Edition. They'd be exciting, they'd

be excited to see a rebuild. I'm telling you that's

a rough one. These cannot get any work.

Okay, Well, I'm enjoying the fact that they're so terrible.

Here we go help without this one. What do you

call it when the Walls of Jericho throw a party?

What's that?

A crashing success? Gosh, the look on your face is fabulous.

I love this.

These are so bad. I don't just don't. I just

don't understand how bad these can be. Okay. If the

Walls of Jericho had a podcast of their own, what

would be the first episode's topic?

I don't know.

The art of the fall? How to go down in

history with style?

Okay? Style? How about this one? What's the Walls of

Jericho's favorite game? What's the Walls of Jericho's favorite game?

I don't know, Jeff, what is the Wall of Jericho's

favorite Jenga's the best one?

That's good? So far?

One?

Okay, I wouldn't say good. Good news is there's only four?

Do you only have four?

Yes?

Only we have five? So yes? So let the yes

here you go.

Why do the Walls of Jericho join a band because

they knew how to bring the house down? Oh? Just terrible?

Oh man, all right?

What's yours? Uh?

Very similar to your previous one? If the Walls of

Jericho could give a ted talk, what would be the

most outrageous title they could choose?

Something? Let me get something about the Walls coming down?

How to fall? How to fall gracefully and still be

the talk of the town.

Wow, The young one wins.

Jenga is the winner. Yeah, yes, those were rough. Yeah,

I don't know that I want any more special editions

put on that. Yeah, that was a rough one. Well,

welcome back, Chris.

Yeah, thanks that it wasn't a very good welcome.

Oh my goodness. We need to spare these poor people.

Well, hey, you know what, listeners, if you're still with us,

let's move on.

If you haven't died of boredom. Yeah.

By the way, I am wearing a Stony Creek shirt

and for those who are watching, they can see it.

For those obviously not watching, but I just wanted to

put a simple plug out there. If you are listening,

perhaps in our area in Michigan, and you're not a

tender of Heritage Church, just now that if you live

anywhere close to the Stony Creek area, Heritage Church is

launching a brand new campus at Stony Creek High School

September twenty second.

There you go. Yes, I just figured out so you

were wearing that shirt to send a message.

No, I just noticed myself on TV and I thought

two things. Number one, look at that good looking guy.

And the second thing was I should probably mention something

Stony Creek.

So I thought you were sending messages with your T shirts,

and I was thinking, last time you hear you had

like a Godfather T shirt on.

Oh yeah, the gun take the canola.

Yeah yeah. So I was just thinking back all the

different T shirts that you were wearing, where they all

messages to us too.

Hey, hey, the Italian shirt is don't mess with Italians.

That's true.

Times are everywhere, they are everywhere.

Okay, so we are talking about the fall of Jericho,

and just to remind our listeners, you know, you had

the whole weekend to maybe let your brain clear out.

So Moses has died. God selected Moses to lay hands

on Joshua and say Joshua's going to be the leader.

Then God reminded Joshua, be strong and courageous, obey everything

I commanded you. Then they crossed the river Jordan after

sending in some spies Rahab the whole rehab story. Then

they crossed the river Jordan. God does this amazing miracle

with the priests stepping into the water and the water stops.

They walk across on dry.

Ground and now sorry I missed that.

Yeah, And now here they are at the gates of Jericho.

This is where they met Rehab a few days or

weeks before, right, And so we're going to read Joshua six,

and we're gonna start off in verse one. It says,

now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the

people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed

to go in, out or in. But the Lord said

to Joshua, I have given you Jericho, it's king and

all its strong warriors. You and your fighting men should

march around the town once a day. For six days,

seven priests will walk ahead of the ark, each carrying

a ram's horn. On the seventh day, you were to

march around the town seven times, with the priests blowing

the horns. When they hear the priests give one long

blast on the rams horns, have all the people shout

as loud as they can. Then the walls of the

town will collapse, and the people will charge straight into

the town. So Joshua called together the priests and said,

take up the ark of the Lord's Covenant, and assigned

seven priests to walk in front of it, each carrying

a ramshorn. And then he gave orders to the people

march around the town, and the armed men will lead

the way in front of the Ark of the Lord.

After Joshua spoke to the people, the seven priests with

the rams horns started marching in the presence of the Lord,

blowing the horns as they marched, and the Ark of

the Lord's covenant follow behind them. Some of the armed

men marched in front of the priests with the horns

and some behind the ark, with the priests continually blowing

the horns. Do not shout, do not even talk. Joshua commanded,

not a single word from any of you until I

tell you to shout, then shout. So the Ark of

the Lord was carried around town once that day, and

then everyone returned to spend the night in the camp.

Joshua got up early next morning, priests again carried the

Ark of the Lord. The seven priests with the rams

horns marched in front of the Ark of the Lord,

blowing their horns again. The armed men marched both in

front of the priests with the horns and behind the

Ark of the Lord. All this time the priests were

blowing their horns. On a second day, they marched around

the town once and returned to camp. They followed this

pattern for six days On the seventh day, the Israelites

got up at dawn and marched around the town as

they had done before, but this time they went around

the town seven times. The seventh time around as the

priests sounded the long blast on their horns, Joshua commanded

the people shout, for the Lord has given you the

town Jericho, and everything in it must be completely destroyed

as an offering to the Lord. Only rehab the prostitute

and the others in her house will be spared, for

she protected our spies. Do not take any of the

things set apart for destruction, or you yourselves will be

completely destroyed, and you'll bring trouble on the camp of Israel.

Everything made from is a silver, gold, bronze, or iron

is sacred to the Lord. It must be brought into

his treasury. When the people heard the sound of the

rams horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly,

the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight

into the town and captured it. They completely destroyed everything

in it with their swords, men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, goats,

and donkeys.

Yuck, there you go, yuck on the swords, killing everything.

But I get it, I get it.

But this.

Chapter, yeah it was a war, Yeah for sure. Yeah,

this chapter though, as I'm reading through it, as you're

reading through it, I was actually thinking to myself, God

is so specific and then it records so specifically, which

brought to mind that you know, details matter, and that

when God gives specific instructions, you know it includes the

fact that they did those things. It could have just

said and then they did everything God said, right, but

they didn't. They took several verses to say, Okay, here's

what happened. They got up, they went around, they blew

the horns, they did this, and it goes through and

it's almost, in some ways a little bit painful, you know,

just to read all those details. But again, it is

just a reminder to me whenever I read things like that,

as I always think, why it seems like filler words,

But it's not. It's just it's a reminder of God's character,

who says, I'm giving you very specific instructions. Follow exactly

what I say, and that translates into the promises of today.

Yeah. Well, partial obedience is disobedience, right, right, So if

you only obey part of it. Then it's you're not obeying,

you're disobeying. And so God is very precise because he's

going to do a miracle. He already he just told them, hey,

get up and I'm going to send you and the

the town has already been defeated, right, that's what he's

letting them know. I'm going to give you the king.

I'm going to give you the whole town. Now do

everything I told you to do. And God is very

precise in the process. And partly I think you know,

it's tedious. It's seven days. They're accustomed to working six

days and on the seventh day resting, and said this time,

on the seventh day they have a victory, which is

which is really something. But he gives him this tedious job.

It's how many people. So it mentions the armed men

as being distinct from all the rest of the people.

So it sounds like all the people are marching around

the city and that the armed men are in front

and behind the arc. Is that how you're hearing it?

Yeah, I am. I'm picturing that the priests and the

ark were in the middle of the warriors.

Yeah. So then if you're thinking even just a million people.

You've seen Jericho before? Have you seen Jerico?

I seen?

Haven't you seen Jericho? So Jericho, the ancient city is

not very huge. It's it's I mean, we're not talking

like New York City, right, they call it a town, right, yeah, here,

I would say, I bet you it's not a mile

all the way around. Oh wow, right, it certainly does.

Say my wife and I were just in Germany and

we were in a medieval town. It's one of the

best preserved medieval walled cities in the world, Rotenberg, and

it's like two and a half miles I think around

the outside. And when we were in there, we walked

on the walls all the way around, you know, big,

big part of it. And I was thinking about Jericho then. Now,

of course Jericho's walls were thicker and they had, you know,

all this, but still the idea was having seen Jericho,

the ruins of Jericho, and then being in this city.

I don't think that they were much different a mile

or two around. So you're talking about a million people,

maybe two, maybe three million people, depending on how you

think the thing were and whether or not the women

brought the children, you know, I don't know how it

doesn't say all that, but it certainly seems like there's

a bunch of armed people and a bunch of unarmed people, right,

and they're walking around that. To me, if I was

part of the unarmed group, it'd be a little intimidating

to me. But then God says, be silent, don't say anything,

don't don't say a word. Joshua tells the people, when

was the last time we could even get five hundred

people in our auditorium and not say a word?

Right?

Right? But he gave them all these very specific rules.

And then the depth of the people. So if this

is like, let's say, let's say it's big, Let's say

it's way big. Let's say it's three miles all the

way around the outside. I don't know how big. How

deep would the people be? A million people walking around

a three mile Well.

Yeah, because they can't overlap each other, right, I would think,

so they'd have to be a pretty wide yeah.

Yeah. And then it's just blasting on rams horns. So

when you hear horns, it's not like Trumpe's Duke to

de dou stuff. It's just it's like you ever listened

to like a soccer game or something, a European soccer

game and all blowing, right, that kind of thing, that's

that's the kind of noise. And you look out your

window and it's it's, you know, several hundred yards deep

of people just marching around in total silence, with a

bunch of armed guys and a bunch of people blowing horns.

It would be unbelievably intimidating. And it happens day after day.

There's a lot of psychological warfare going on here, is

what I'm saying. It had been incredibly because they'd never

seen that tactic before.

Right, well, who would That's a crazy tactic, right right? Yeah?

And then of course you know, they probably had no

idea that the walls were just going to miraculously crumble.

And by the way, I don't know if your brain

works like this, but when you hear rams horn, what

were they blowing?

Like?

What? What? What was God meaning when he said blowing

the rams horn?

A horn made from a ram horn, from.

A rams horn? Right?

Yes?

Okay, So then my mind immediately went to the rest front. No, No,

I didn't, although I thought of that, yes, but actually,

because there's a restaurant in an area called ramshorn. No, I

went to this. I went to this. Did God make

the ram knowing that one day its horns would be

a horn? Or did God make the ram? And then

and all of a sudden, mankind decided, Hey, if I

put a little hole at the end of this and

pucker up, it makes noise. And then God just decides

to embrace the rams horn because this is this is

an embraced kind of thing by God. God is like, yeah,

take the rams horn. You use the rams horn. This

is a chosen instrument by God. He didn't say bang

on drums. So so I'm just thinking, like, is God

embracing mankind's distortion of this rams horn?

Is it a distortion or is it a clever use?

Okay, I'll give you that clever use.

Because we still call all the instruments that you blow

into the end of it, you call it a horn,

right right, But they're not actually horns now there right,

So it's like somebody blows in it into this rams

horn and then they go, hey, I like that horn.

That's cool. Now everything trumpets, trombones, everything's a horn now

French horns.

Oh yeah, I guess I guess you would think of that, right, trumpet.

Yeah, so it's kind of that that has nothing to

do with this passage of the fact that they're playing

rams horns.

But yeah, yeah, hey, many many of you don't know this,

but Jeff played trumpet on a level where he played

in the was it Detroit Symphony or.

No, I played with the Motor City Brass but we did.

We did concerts with the Detroit Symphony and stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah, many people don't know that.

Yeah, back in the day, that's why I paid for college.

So I was playing the horn. So did you know

I also took the trumpet. I do you played until

was it middle school?

Yeah? No, up until fifth grade?

Okay, middle school?

Start third, fourth, fifth grade, seventh from oh okay, yeah,

so but I was terrible at it.

Yeah, I had to put up with people like you

still am you did? Yeah? But yeah. Anyways, so God

has said I'm going to give this to you, and

I think that that's the key element to this entire Oh.

I just looked up. The circumference of Jericho is about

two point eight miles.

Okay, so you were right. Let's pretend it's big, he said,

three miles.

Ye, yeah, yeah, so uh. Anyways, my favorite verse on

the whole the whole thing is that God said He's

going to give them to you, right that I think

a lot of times if you and I were looking

and this is the very first battle, there's ten big

cities they're going to have to take. Yeah, right, And

if you and I were getting ready to march across

the river, we're thinking how we're going to get all

these people across the river. That goes, well, I'm just

gonna send the priests that would ry it out. Oh

that's fantastic. But then you'd think, well, I used up

all my miracles, right, I mean, what are the chances?

So now you're looking at this big city. It's three

miles around on the outside, it's the biggest walled city. Right,

this is gonna be thet The hardest fight we have

is this one. This is gonna be the hardest. And

that's the place God took us first. God took us

after the most difficult battle first. And you know, I

saw a thing here. It says that the walls were

what was the walls were like twenty five feet high

and twenty feet thick.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

That is twenty feet thick. Yeah, that's right. That's the

width of a road almost, yeah, right, and twenty five

feet high. This is a big walled city. And how

you're gonna It's gonna be a terrible siege. We're gonna

lose a lot of people. They have the advantage they

are twenty five feet high, so they just shoot down

with arrows, they throw spears, they dump hot oil on us,

or whatever, you know what I mean. So you're thinking, oh,

it's gonna be a really long siege. We're gonna have

to just come around and not allow anybody in any

starve them out right right, it's gonna be this miserable

experience that God goes, Well, so I had this idea, Joshua,

Right right, I've already given you the king, I've already

given you the city. It's it's a done deal. Just

do what I tell you to do. Josh was like, okay,

now you know, Joshua was a warrior, and everybody else

none of them had been in any battles yet, not

any big wars. And so God goes, Okay, just march

around the city today, be completely quiet, have the priests

play the horns, and then just go back to camp.

It had been so weird. People will be like, I

think Joshua's lost it, right, because these are bunch of complainers. Anyways,

these well, we hate our we hate our food God

gives us for free every night. We hate the We

wish we could go back to Egypt for the cucumbers

and the leaks and the garlics. Remember, there's such complainers.

And now they come back after a day of marching

all the way around the city and go, I think

Joshua's got a screw loose.

Well I doesn't say that, but based on.

Yes, people, there's such complainers. You know that they're going,

what's he thinking? Yeah, probably so right, and they could

not have fathomed what was about to happen. And I

think there's a lot of times where when God invites

us to do what he tells us to do, we

just can't fathom the miracle he's about to give us, right,

we can't understand it, We can't work it out. And

so a lot of times we get impatient. We jump

in and decide we're going to go ahead. And you

know what, if they had gotten impatient, decided to rush

the gates right or set up a bunch of ladders

and try to go over the wall or whatever. I

think sometimes we get impatient waiting for God to do something,

and we can mess things up, and we just need

to If God said to do a thing, do the thing,

and he's gonna bless what he promised he would do, right.

You know what Another thought I had was, did you

notice that there's no a voice of pushback in this one?

Remember when the twelve Spies went in and all of

a sudden, Joshua and Caleb would come out and they're like, hey,

we can do it, you know, the Lord has given

them to us. And then everybody else shouted, you know,

they're crazy. We were like grasshoppers in their sight. And

there was a voice of pushback that rallied the crowds

that to the point where there wanted the stone Joshua

and Caleb. Remember yeah, but but but again, this is

the same Joshua. Right. So Joshua and is now the leader,

the man who you know, forty years earlier, had you

know been been you know, hey, I told you so,

you should have trusted me, like he had the right

to say all those things. Now he's the one that says, okay,

this is exactly what God has said, this is what

we're going to do. And notice now through this generational

you know, lesson that they've been through that not a

single person recorded anyway has said, no, this is a

dumb plan. We have the numbers, let's go ahead, and

just you know, nobody did that because at this point

they've learned their lesson. That's right, I think so. Perhaps,

and when they crossed the Jordan River, you were you

made sort of a joke and you said, oh, we've

run out of miracles. I would think the opposite of that.

I would for me, I would think, oh, no, like,

we can't even get across the Jordan River. And then

when God stops the Jordan River, you think about how

many gallons of water? Yeah, that is right? Just I mean,

think about just the unbelievable.

Yeah, I think I think the other side of it.

How many times have you seen people who've lived a

blessed life? Yes, and then they get oh at the

doctor and they fall apart. Right, God, bless your business,

God bless your marriage, God bless your children. God's given

you this great life. And now you get to oh

and they go, oh my goodness, right, and they freak out.

Look at all the blessings God's done, and then they

lose their faith or struggle with their faith when they

get one bit of bad news. That's what I'm saying,

is that the normal human nature is the good that

God did for me yesterday. I forget about it in

the crisis of the moment today. You're definitely right, That's

just that's common. I've seen it a thousand times, and

that's why God keeps having to remind us over and

over and over again. God keeps his promises. He was

good yesterday, He's going to be good again today. Just

do what he tells you to do, right. And that's

that's what I was thinking, is it's just common nature

to do those those things. So, and then one thing

that we should mention is that God had said, don't

take anything any of the spoil of the city, right,

leave it. This is mine. So out of the ten

big cities are going to take, God says, I want

the first tenth as mine. So the only things that

were kept were for the temple and for that stuff,

but nothing for the people. Right, the people didn't keep

any spoils of this battle, this war, and from here

on the plunder of all the other cities was theirs,

but not this one. And of course we know the

story if you read the next chapter. Achin one of

the guys. He stole some stuff and he hit it away,

and we're going to read it. No, we're not reading

the story of Achin. We're moving on.

Really. Yeah, sometimes we'll talk about it then.

Yeah, well we only have it's twenty three minutes now, yeah.

Okay, all right.

Yeah. So anyways, God sends judgment on Israel and because

there was sin in the camp, right, one person ruined

it for everybody. And the next battle, they go to

this little village called Ai and people die right right.

Nobody dies in Jericho as far as Israels go. They

go to this next village and God took his blessing

off of the people because somebody was hiding sin.

I'm said that, we're not. Yeah, yeah, that's a good story.

And so they have to root that out and they

have to get rid of the sin in their village.

So you should read that passage. It's really incredible. It

makes you think. But I don't want to be the

one that you know, holds back God's blessing from our

group or from you know, the the church or whatever.

So we we talk a lot with our staff lately

about be humble, be holy, right, and be helpful. And

this is one of the reasons is you know, God

pours out his blessing. But when you know, when you

do exactly what God says, God blesses. When you break

what God says, God curses. That's exactly what Moses had

said at the end of Deuteronomy, and here they're living

it out literally as at the first the day they

crossed the river. That's the you know, the eighth day,

after they've crossed the river, here we are. So anyways,

I think that the big lesson for us to take

away from this is this is why we need to

know God's word, so that we can obey God's word

as closely as possible. And God does the miracles when

we choose to obey.

That's great, it's a great word. All right. Well, hopefully

we'll see tomorrow on the I have a guess, HM.