Hebrews 11:30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days.
You can read about this event in Joshua 6. During this time, as Israel was approaching the greatly fortified city of Jericho, Joshua was instructed by God to have the army of Israel walk around the city once every day for six days and then to walk around it seven times on the seventh day. Then, on the seventh day after walking around the city the seventh time, God would cause the walls to fall and Israel was to go in and conquer the city.
When we hear or read of this event, we often focus on the walls falling down flat and the Israelites going in and taking the great city. Of course all of that is great; however, I want to bring out what may be a less attractive but very important part of the story.
It is important because if this part had not been done, we likely would not have read about the walls falling down and Jericho being conquered. If it weren’t for this part being done first, the outcome of this story may be very different.
The part I’m talking about is how Israel walked around the city. Rather than thinking they knew a better way, they exercised faith and obeyed God’s specific commandments and just kept walking. They didn’t walk more or less than they were commanded. They simply obeyed God and walked around the city only once each day for six days and then seven times on the seventh day for a total of 13 times.
Ignoring Natural Tendencies
On the first day they may have thought, “Come on man, we can go another round. Let’s knock out two days’ worth of walking right now!” But that isn’t what God said to do. It may be that as the days went by, they got more and more tired and less and less excited. After six days of this, they may have gotten so familiar with the course around the city that the scenery probably started to get old.
Maybe some got bored and began to let their guard down a little. Then, after six days of walking the same path, God said to go around it seven times in one day! And as if that weren’t enough, they would also have to fight to conquer the city!
Through this account, we learn that we don’t always get to determine how many times we have to do something before getting the desired result. There may be situations into which we go where we expect to achieve great things and for the walls to immediately fall! Then, God says to us: “Just walk. No walls falling. No conquering. Just walk.”
In these situations, when we just keep on walking whether we see the results we want or not, we display true faith. We do this because we want to obey God and we find our fulfillment in our obedience to Him and not in our own accomplishments.
After Joshua and the army of Israel compassed the city seven times on the seventh day, the priests blew the trumpets, Jericho’s walls fell down flat, and they conquered the city just like God said they would! I believe all of this took place because they first obeyed God and had Faith That Keeps On Walking!
It’s been good to be with you in this video, and until next time, let’s lead someone closer to Christ!
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