Joshua 6:1-5(NKJV)
1Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and none came in. 2And the Lord said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. 3You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. 4And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”
This week we are examining how the Israel of Joshua’s day dealt with a major obstacle that blocked them from fulfilling God’s destiny for their generation. We must recognize that we will also face obstacles in our efforts to walk in God’s purpose for our lives. How did Israel deal with this? The first thing we noticed was Joshua’s encounter with the captain of the Lord’s army.
In this encounter, Joshua asks the warrior whose side he is on. His response, I am the captain of the Lord’s host, leads us to a question we must ask ourselves. God is always on his own side. The question is, what side are you and I on. If we are on God’s side, seeking his will and his agenda, we will have access to his power. If we are not on his side in our lifestyle and daily walk, we are not on his side at all. In that case we cannot expect his help to accomplish our destiny. So step 1 of dealing with obstacles is decide to be on God’s side!
As we look at today’s scripture, I want to note the next requirement. When Joshua understood that the warrior was the commander of the Lord’s army, he fell on his face, worshiped and asked what the angel wanted him to do. He asked for God’s plan. In verses 1-5 of chapter 6, the plan is given to him. Being a military man, I am sure Joshua must have had some questions about the viability of this particular battle plan. However he understood that if you want God’s power you must follow God’s plan.
Let’s look at this plan for a moment. God tells Joshua to take his army, led by 7 priests with seven trumpets and march around the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day he is to march around the city 7 times, give a long blast of the trumpet, all the people will shout and the walls of Jericho will fall flat. Each soldier will then charge straight up into the city and kill everything he sees. What a plan!
Now we know the end of the story. We know the old song, “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and walls came tumbling down!” They did not know that song. They had never seen walls fall down like that. Joshua had seen the Red Sea parted and they all had seen the Jordan dry up, but very thick, very strong walls falling down was a new one. There are elements to this plan that make no natural military sense.
First of all, you are spreading your forces in a way that is advantageous to the enemy and not helpful to you. A walled city has defenders all around it. By circling the city you are exposed to all the firepower of the enemy. You are not strong enough to break through the wall at any point. In order to conquer a walled city you had to breach the wall. The attack should be concentrated on one point. The enemy cannot bring all his power to bear against you and you can bring as much power as necessary to break down the wall. Then you flood into the city and capture or destroy it. This plan is completely contrary to natural wisdom. The only way this plan can work is if the walls really do fall down.
Another problem is that you are eliminating any surprise factor as you are marching around the city 6 days in a row before you attack at all. You are showing the enemy everything you have. Although they are probably out of range, you are exposed to anything the enemy may have that could hurt you while you march. This is not a good plan. However it is the Lord’s plan.
If we want to accomplish our own purpose we form our own plan. It should be logical and doable in the natural. However our destiny is not to fulfill our purpose, it is to fulfill God’s. To do that we are going to need God’s power. To have that we are going to have to be willing to follow God’s plan. Many times God’s plan will be something we don’t want to do or something that looks completely foolish in the natural. Usually it is both.
Step two of overcoming obstacles to our destiny is that we must be willing to hear and follow the plan of God. We must be willing to obey when we cannot make any natural sense out of what God is asking us to do. If we will do that, we will see victory and often spectacular victory. If we insist on a natural plan we can only expect natural results.
There have been many examples of this kind of thing in my 30 years of ministry. I often go back to the addition we are finishing on our building as it is the most recent. When the Lord told me to start construction on this addition it made no sense at all. We were not in a particularly bad period in the church, but we were not in a period of rapid growth either. We did not really need an addition. However God said build it.
When it came time to start we were in the beginnings of the current economic season. Things were not looking good. We might have had a hard time borrowing money, but that did not matter as the Lord made it clear we should not borrow. We are not a church full of rich people. I broke ground on an addition I had no money to build and no way to get it. Here was the plan I put before our people. We will build an addition we don’t really need, without any known resources and we will not borrow to do it.
Making a long story short, it has taken us 3 years. We are still not full of rich people, we still do not have an excess of resources but we are nearing completion of the project with absolutely no debt. This made no “business sense.” Looking at it from before we started it made no natural sense, not even to me. However I knew God said to do it, I had a wonderful group of people who joined their faith with mine and together we have seen God do miracle after miracle to bring this to pass.
It took some sacrifice. It took some work on our part and it took giving when it was not always comfortable. On the other hand it has not been a real hardship either. It has taken more time than I thought, but the end result is a project paid in full that we can hold before our community as a tangible manifestation of the power of God.
Find out God’s plan for the fulfilling of your destiny. Obey the steps he leads you to take. Often they will seem foolish and many times they will involve things you do not want to do. However when we have Gods plan there is no obstacle that can keep us from completing what he has assigned us to do.
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