Good Morning Friends,
“Then the LORD said to Joshua, ‘See, I have
delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March
around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven
priests carry trumpets of rams' 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.’” (Joshua 6:2-5)
This scripture presents the strangest battle
plan I’ve ever heard of! It doesn’t talk about laying siege to the city and
waiting until the people inside ran out of food or water and then attacking when
they had to come out of the city. It doesn’t include building a siege wall to
enable the army to go over the wall and into the city. It doesn’t speak of
storming the gates with battering rams until they give way. Those were the
accepted methods of doing battle against a walled city in that time. But none
of those was included in this plan.
Instead, the plan calls for marching around
the city for seven days. It calls for the priests to carry the ark of the covenant
in front of the people. It calls for the priests to blow trumpets. It calls for the people to shout at just the
right time. None of those things could destroy a city wall. They make no sense.
But they do represent the plan God gave to Joshua for taking the city of
Jericho.
And the plan God outlined for Joshua worked!
“When the trumpets sounded, the people
shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout,
the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city.”
(Joshua 6:20)
God’s plans do not always make sense
according to the world. But God’s plans always work when we follow them! Doing
God’s will is not about following human wisdom. It is not about doing things
that make good common sense. It is about listening to God’s instructions,
following them, and watching God work.
And it works!
His, by Grace,
Steve
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