Joshua 6 "The gospel according to the battle of Jericho"

Joshua 6:1-21

Joshua 6:22-27

The Gospel according to Joshua 6

Well, those of us who grew up going to Sunday School are probably familiar with the story about the battle of Jericho.

For those who are not familiar with this story, let me give you a brief overview.

The Israelites had finally entered the land that God had promised them.

They had crossed over the Jordan River and now they had come to the city of Jericho.

God had commanded Joshua to take the city of Jericho.

Taking Jericho was not going to be an easy task, since it was a strong fortified city which had walls all around it.

However, if you remember from our story of Rahab a few weeks ago, the Israelites already had a phycological advantage over Jericho.

The people of Jericho had already heard about the Israelites reputation.

They had already heard that God had opened the red sea for them, and they had already heard of their previous victories over the kings Sihon and Og.

The people of Jericho had become so scared of the Israelites who were camped outside their walls that no-one went in or out of the city walls.

The people of Jericho were already like prisoners in their own city.

However, with all that said, the walls of the city of Jericho were strong, and it would take something miraculous to penetrate through the walls……..and yet miraculous, is exactly what occurred.

God commanded Joshua and the people to march around the city walls once a day, for six days. The men of war were to march, as well as seven priests holding seven trumpets and most importantly, the ark of the covenant followed the priests.

As they marched around each day, the trumpets would blow continuously.

Can you imagine what was going through the minds of some of Joshua’s mighty men?

What are we doing marching around this city, blowing some trumpets, carrying the ark of the covenant?

Shouldn’t we send in the special forces team?

Shouldn’t we use our contact, Rahab which we have in the walls?

There may have been a sense among the Israelites of “what exactly are we doing?”

Can you imagine the talk after day 5 of marching the same route again and again?

“We have been doing the same thing for 5 days in a row now and nothing is happening, perhaps we should change our plan?”

Anyway, they kept marching, kept blowing the trumpets, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6, and finally they got to the seventh day.

On the seventh day, they didn’t just march around once, but they marched around the walls, seven times, at the end of the seventh march, the trumpets made one final, long blast and all the people shouted in unison……….the walls of Jericho came tumbling down and the Israelites went into the city and destroyed it.

They destroyed everything, apart the silver, gold, bronze and iron, which was put in the treasury, but everything else- gone….

That is, everyone……..apart from Rahab and her household.

Rahab was the one whom had helped Joshua’s spies.

But more importantly, Rahab was the one who sought mercy from God.

Friends, in this story of the battle of Jericho, we have a clear picture of the story of the gospel, the good news of Jesus.

There are 6 parts of the gospel I want to bring to your attention today, through this story of the “battle” of Jericho.

Part 1 of the gospel is this:

Just as the people of Jericho were prisoners in their own walls, all of humanity is a prisoner of sin.

It was quite ironic that the very walls in which the people of Jericho trusted in, became a prison for them. They were stuck inside their walls, they couldn’t go in or out and yet these were the walls in which they hoped would bring protection and life.

But in the end these walls couldn’t give them live.

Friends, if we are truly to understand the gospel story, we must first understand this truth, this fact that all humanity is trapped inside the walls of sin.

The bible describes this in many ways:

Romans 6:20 describes it as being slaves to sin

Romans 5:12, says that sin came into the world through one man- Adam- and spread to all people, because all people sinned

Ephesians 2:1 says that we were dead in our sins

We were by nature children of disobedience

We were by nature children of God’s wrath

And so all of humanity because of Humanities disobedience has been trapped by the walls of sin.

None of us are born neutral, we are all born as slaves to sin.

And the news gets worse:

Part 2 of the gospel is:

Just as Jericho was deserving of total destruction, we are deserving of death because of our sin.

Perhaps out of all the themes in the book of Joshua, this theme of destruction is one which is hard for us to reconcile with the gospel of Jesus.

Just look at verse 17 with me again, followed by verse 21:

Verse 17

And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction.

And verse 21

Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.

God commanded Joshua to destroy everything that was in Jericho…..And he did…….men, women, young and old, oxen, sheep, donkeys- all gone. The gold and silver were put in the coffers and Rahab and her family spared (which we will get to later), but everything else was destroyed.

Everything….where is the grace of God here?

What do we do with this?

We could just ignore this passage- rip out that page of the bible….

Nope……we don’t do that.

We could separate the God of the Old Testament and the God of the new Testament

God of Old was harsh

God of New was compassionate.

Nope, we can’t do that- The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same.

We could make this story to be allegorical- it never really happened- It is just some spiritual lesson we can learn.

Nope, can’t do that either, there is too much archaeological evidence for it.

This actually happened!

No, we have to acknowledge that God commanded Joshua to destroy the city of Jericho, and once we have accepted that, we can then ask the question of but why?

Why would God command that?

There are a few answers.

First, and foremost, God used Joshua and the Israelites to destroy Jericho because of their wickedness.

It was God’s judgement on wicked people.

This is what Deuteronomy 9:5 tells us:

Look at that verse with me:

Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you,

And by the way, God made it very clear here, that it wasn’t because Isreal was somehow superior to Jericho, it wasn’t because Isreal was “holier than thou” that he used them to bring destruction to Jericho, NO it was because of their sin.

Just like when God used the Babylonians, years later, to bring judgement on Israel, it wasn’t because the Babylonians were “holier and thou”, no, it was because of the wickedness of Israel.

It is God who judges sin, no matter he uses whatever means he pleases.

And so first and foremost, God commanded Joshua to destroy the city of Jericho because God was bringing justice to their wickedness but there was another reason.

God commanded Joshua to destroy everything, because it was to protect the Israelites from taking on the evil practices of the nations they conquered.

In Deuteronomy 20: 15-17, God told his people to destroy all the people they conquered, so that they would not be able to teach them about their detestable practices they do for their pagan gods- like child sacrifices for example.

God didn’t want the Israelites to take on their evil practices.

Now, despite those reasons, we may still have the good question to ask………but, did God have to destroy everything in that city, women, children, animals, it seems excessive, it seems unfair, in our limited human understanding at least.

And yet, we must remember that God is Just, God is Holy, and who are we to question His judgements?

Friends, the bible makes it clear in Romans 6:23, that the wages of sin is death, in other words, we earn death through our sinful acts.

So here are the first two parts of the gospel:

1.        We are all sinners

2.        We all deserve death because of our sin

Which brings me to part 3 of the gospel

Part 3 of the gospel is this:

Just as Joshua couldn’t knock down those walls of Jericho, there is nothing we can do, to escape our walls of sin

You may have noticed that in this “battle of Jericho”, it wasn’t Joshua who won the battle, but it was God.

The very start of the story makes this abundantly clear.

Look at verse 2 with me:

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 

It wasn’t Joshua, who had to come up with a clever plan

It wasn’t Joshua who had to scale the walls

It wasn’t Joshua who had to use his fighting skills

No it was all God.

In fact it was God who came up with a plan which seemed so doomed to fail humanly, that it was clearly God that won the victory.

Friends, we cannot and never will be able to pay for all of our sins.

We will never be able to do enough good works to break through the walls of our sin.

We will never be able to say enough prayers, read enough of our bibles, attend enough services on Sunday- NO, there is nothing we can do to break through our walls of sin.

Only God can do that and only God has already done that through the work and person of Jesus.

And this brings me to the fourth part of the gospel.

This is where things start to look much better.

Just as God won the victory for Joshua,

and then Joshua and his men were involved in the mop-up operation:

Jesus, at the cross, has won the victory over sin, the devil and death,

and now, we are all just part of the mop up operation.

Just listen to this from Colossians 2:13-15

Just listen to the total victory that Jesus won at the cross.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴ having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

As I read those words, did you hear the total victory that Christ gave you at the cross

a.        He made you alive with Christ

b.        He forgave all your sins

c.        He cancelled your debt of sin

d.        He nailed our sins to the cross

e.        He disarmed satan,

He can longer accuse us of sin

Christ has paid for them all

And this brings me to the 5^th part of the gospel

Just as Rahab and her family were spared because the scarlet chord covered her house, only those who have accepted Christ will also be spared from God’s judgement.

We know from chapter 2, that Rahab was a prostitute who helped Joshua’s spies escape the King of Jericho. More importantly we know that Rahab was a believer: she believed that Joshua’s God was the God of all the earth, she had faith in him.

And so when Joshua’s army came and destroyed the city, they spared the house of Rahab- and how did they know it was the house of Rahab?

It had a scarlet chord attached to it.

Rahab’s life and the life of her family was literally hanging by the thread of a Scarlette chord.

At that moment, when the Israelite army came and destroyed, it was the Scarlette chord that saved her.

Friends, the most important question we can ask ourselves when we come to judgment day, is not, have I done enough?

But, have I rested in the assurance that Christ has covered my sins, because it is only through faith in Christ, that we too will be spared judgement.

And this leads me to the 6^th and final part of the gospel

Just as God’s patience with the wicked people of Jericho came to an end and judgement came, one day, this period of grace we live in will be over and judgement will come.

In Genesis 15:16, God told Abraham that only when the sins of the Canaanites was complete, after four generations, would God bring judgement upon them. And so when Joshua and his men at the battle of Jericho destroyed them all, it was after four generations of God waiting for repentance.

Waiting for those unrepentant sins to pile up, one after the other until God finally said “enough”.

Friends, we live in this period of grace after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We live in this period of grace where we can take our sins to the cross and be forgiven.

We live in this time where Jesus has set us free from the prison of sin and given us forgiveness. We live in a time where we can walk in step with his spirit.

We live in a time, where today is the day of salvation.

A time when anyone, at any time can accept Jesus as Lord and saviour.

And yet friends, there will come a day when it is too late to turn to God for mercy, a time when all wickedness that hasn’t been brought under the blood of Jesus will be punished.

Friends, don’t let it be too late.

Today is the day of salvation.

Let us pray