Lessons From Jericho

In Joshua chapter 6 we find the story of the battle of Jericho. Most of you know that story well and so I’m not going to go into the details much. If you are unfamiliar with those details, I recommend that you read it over so that you know how the battle unfolded.

As the Israelites walked around the walls of that great city, they must have been impressed with its size and impregnable strength. One wonders why God would make them just walk around the city once each day for six days. We don’t know that answer for sure, but I think it was to show them how humanly impossible it was to defeat the city and its inhabitants.

Many of the situations we face in life are that way. They seem to loom as obstacles that we cannot overcome. Some of the difficult situations in life involve other people. One of the things we should learn early in life is that you can’t change other people. You can’t get inside of them and turn a screw that will make them love you or make them more cooperative. They make decisions for their own reasons and there seems to be little we can do to change that.

The city of Jericho was to be conquered using God’s methods. God has given us everything we need in His Word for life and godliness. So many times we rely on our own logic or the teachings of psychology or sociology or other man-made system to accomplish what only God can do. Having said that though, we need to observe that they did not do nothing. There was a plan and it involved following obediently in the carrying out of that plan. Our problem, especially as men, is that we don’t take the time to learn God’s Word well enough to learn its principles and the spiritual guidelines for living victoriously. I suggest that if you don’t have a systematic plan to read and study the Bible, you should begin one right away.

Second Corinthians 10:4 tells us that the weapons God has given us are not fleshly and worldly, but are spiritual and are mighty through God for the tearing down of strongholds. Jericho was certainly a physical stronghold and in our lives we have spiritual strongholds. It would be a good exercise to list several strongholds the enemy has in your life and then take steps to apply God’s Word as a weapon to tear those strongholds down.

Keep in mind the purpose of the victory. It is always for the glory of God. Many times we are hoping for victory so that we will feel better or so that our relationships will be healed. But God wants to be glorified in our lives in whatever we do and we should see that goal as the supreme purpose for undertaking and winning a spiritual battle.