HEROES OF THE FAITH – JOSHUA
DR. JIM DIXON
JOSHUA 6:1-20
DECEMBER 18, 1983
It was a fortress city, with fortress walls. It was a ruled by a kind. It was a city indwelt by a great, a vast, a mighty army. It was an ancient city. Archeologists tell us that its ruins can be carbon dated to 6,000 years before Christ. It was one of the oldest cities on the face of the earth. It was the city called Jericho. It still exists today, though it has only a shadow of its former glory. It exists in a desert oasis northeast of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Jericho was a great and mighty city 3400 years ago when Joshua led the children of Israel across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land. Jericho was the city that the children of Israel had to conquer if they were going to possess that land. But how would you attack a fortress city like Jericho?
In the ancient and biblical world, there were four methods used to attack a fortress city. First, there was the method of strangulation when an attacking army would surround the city. They would deny everyone access to the city; everyone exits from the city. They would try to cut the city off from food, water and supplies. They would wait for the city to die. Secondly, there was the method of deception or trickery, where an attacking army would send spies ahead of its forces and those spies would try to sneak their way into the city where they would try to trick their way into the city pretending to be citizens of the city or travelers, and then, within the city by night, they would open the gates from the inside and let the attacking army in. This was basically the method used by the Greeks attacking the city of Troy with the Trojan horse. The third method used was a method that might be called germ warfare. The attacking army would try to pollute the water supply of the city if they could gain access to that water supply from outside of the city walls. Or they would catapult the carcasses of dead animals over the city walls, hoping to spread disease. But the fourth and most common method used to attack a fortress city was the method of direct assault, and for this you needed a great army, and you needed certain war machines. You needed battering rams to knock down the great gates of the city walls. You needed bores to dig out, to carve out the mortar from between the stones of the walls to weaken the structure of the walls. You needed bows and arrows and excellent archers. You needed catapults to launch great stones into the city walls. You needed digging tools to tunnel under the walls, and you need scaling ladders to climb over the walls. You needed soldiers who were willing to give their life in the siege of that city. Israel had a few of those things and they used none of those methods. They used a method unheard of in military history, a method unknown in military history.
The Lord came to Joshua, and He said, “Behold, I’ve given into your hands Jericho with its king and its mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus it shall be done for six days and seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams horns before the arch and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times the priests blowing the trumpets, and when they have made a long blast on the rams horn—as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet—hen all the people shall shout out with a great shout and the walls of the city shall fall down flat and the people shall go up into the city every man straight before him.”
And so it was that the fortress city of Jericho was defeated by the children of Israel using a marching band. The people walked around the city. They marched around the city. The priests blew their trumpets and the people cried out with a great voice and the walls of the city fell down. But it was not the children of Israel who conquered the fortress city of Jericho. It was not Joshua who knocked down the walls of Jericho. It was God who defeated Jericho. It was God who knocked down the walls of Jericho. God has the power to destroy walls. There are two walls that I want to speak to you about this morning. Two walls that exist in this world, two walls that God is willing and wishing to destroy if we would seek his power in our lives.
First of all, there is that great wall that separates man from God. A wall that divides man from God. A wall called sin. We are told in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis that in the beginning, mankind enjoyed intimate communion, close fellowship with the living God and from that communion and that fellowship there came joy and happiness and fulfillment and meaning and purpose and life itself from fellowship with God. But then sin entered into the world and a very strange thing happened. The Bible tells us that sin began to build a wall between man and God and this fellowship was broken. And through the years, the decades, the centuries, through the millennia, this great wall of sin has grown so that today many people in the world are no longer certain that God even exists. They can no longer sense and feel his presence because of this great wall called sin.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Great Wall of China, 1500 miles long, 25 feet high. It was built 2200 years ago by Chin Shih Huang, who ruled the Chinese empire, using 700,000 men over a period of 36 years. But scientists tell us that there is a great wall in this world today. It’s a wall called the Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It’s wall not built by human hands. It’s a wall built by tiny marine animals called coral polyps. These coral polyps build skeleton-like homes out of calcium carbonite or limestone that they extract from sea water. They build these little homes on top of the homes of their ancestors. Through a period of time, they began to build a wall. Over a period of one thousand years, these coral polyps can actually build a wall about three feet high. But scientists tell us that they Great Barrier Reef is hundreds of thousands of years old. Now, after all those years, this wall, this great barrier, is 1,250 miles long and it is 200 feet high – all built by those little, tiny marine creatures called coral polyps. It’s not unlike the wall of sin that man has built through the ages. We’ve built a wall of sins. Sin upon sin, we’ve stacked it high, and it’s reached the point now where most people in this world can no longer discern God’s presence, they are so separated from God. And all over this world, men and women long to see the face of God. They long to fellowship with God. They long to climb that wall. They want to scale that wall, but they cannot.
In mountain climbing and rock climbing, the scaling of a sheer cliff is called a wall climb. We’re told that the longest and highest wall climb in all the world is to be found on the mountain called Annapurna in the Himalayas in the country of Nepal. It’s a wall climb that begins at the rupal flank of Annapurna and an elevation of 11,680 feet, and that sheer cliff, that wall rises up the mountain called Annapurna, it rises up all the way to the south point of the Nanya Parbatt, an elevation of 26,384 feet. It’s a sheer cliff. It’s a wall that is 14,704 feet high and yet that great wall was actually scaled by man. In April of 1970, an expedition team of Austrian, German and Italian people led by Dr. Carl Maria Herligkoffer scaled that great wall. And yet it wasn’t the toughest wall to scale.
Mountaineers tell us that the toughest walls to scale in all this world are those walls that are rated with a 5.13 scale of difficulty, and some of those are found in the Yosemite Valley. You’ve all heard of Half Dome. The northwest face of Half Dome is 3200 feet across and 2200 feet high and it is such a steep wall that it nowhere departs more than seven degrees from vertical, and yet even that wall has been scaled by man. In July of 1957, Royal Robbins and two of his associates climbed that wall. Now it has been said that in the physical realm, there is now wall too tough for man to climb. No wall too tough for man to scale. And yet you see, in the spiritual realm, that is not true. There is one wall that none of us can climb. One wall that none of us can ascend. One wall that none of us can conquer and it is that called sin.
All of the religions of the world are an effort to scale that wall and see the face of God, but despite all their good works, despite all their religious piety, despite all their liturgy, despite all their manmade doctrines, they cannot scale that wall called sin. Indeed, the Bible tells us in the second chapter of the Book of Ephesians that, “Apart from the gospel, mankind is separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth, strangers to the covenants and promises, having no hope and without God in this world.” Totally separated by this wall of sin. But you see, we’re also told in that same chapter that God has a solution, and that now, through his Son, Jesus Christ, He offers to break down the dividing wall of hostility. He offers to restore us to fellowship with Him and it comes only through Jesus Christ for He is the way, the truth, and the life and “no man comes to the Father but by Him.”
When we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life, when we confess our sin to Him, suddenly that great wall of sin comes falling down and we’re restored to fellowship with Christ. You see, He came into the world, and He lived a perfect life, and He went to Calvary’s cross as the perfect sacrifice and He died for the sins of the world. He took the sins of the universe upon Himself. He died for your sins, and He died for my sins. He paid your penalty, and He paid my penalty. And if you feel separated from God today, if you feel like you don’t have the joy and the meaning and the purpose and the life that only God can give, and you’re not even sure whether God exists, then God has an invitation to give you. It’s an invitation to receive and accept His Son and the sacrifice of His Son.
When you say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Have mercy on me, a sinner,” the walls of sin come tumbling down. Some of you may be Christians and yet you may realize that you do not have the close fellowship with God that once you had, and God asks you to consider if perhaps you’re not rebuilding a wall of unconfessed sin and He wants you to confess that, repent and give it to Christ so that even that wall will be broken down.
When I was in college, I had a close friend who was my roommate for two years. We went through a lot together. After college he went to graduate school and he became a minister. He pastored at two different churches in two different states. He became a teacher at a Christian college or a Christian school. He married. He had three children, but then he had an affair with a 17-year-old student at the school. He didn’t confess that. He continued in that sin. He lost his job. He lost his wife. He lost his children. He passed through town a couple of months ago. I talked with him, and he told me that he no longer feels close to God. He can’t even sense the presence or the realness of Jesus Christ anymore. He seems bitter and angry at God. But you see, God wants us to understand this wall that separates us is never built by Him. He builds no walls. That wall is built by us, and we must confess our sin if we would have that wall fall down.
There’s a word in the scriptures and it was used throughout the Greek world to describe the reality of forgiveness. It’s the Greek word “kyazeen.” It means to “cross out.” It means to cancel. And when a person had a bill of indebtedness, when they had accumulated many debts and those debts were forgiven them, then they would cross out that bill of indebtedness by putting an “x” over that piece of paper with those lists of debts. An “x”, “kyazeen,” from the Greek letter, “ky” which looks like an “x.” But there’s a more beautiful word in the scriptures that describes what God has done for us in forgiveness and it’s the word “xyolphine,” and it means not to cross out or put an “x” over, but it means to “wash away,” “to wipe clean” and that’s what God does for us when we come to Him in repentance. He takes that wall of sin, and he washes it away. He wipes it clean. It is removed so far from us as the east is from the west. Our sins are forgiven. Our sins are forgotten and that’s what Jesus Christ offers to do for us if we repent and turn to Him to restore us to fellowship with God. And that is why the Apostle John said, “We are writing this so that you might have fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father, with His Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing this that our joy may be full. This is the message we have heard from the beginning and proclaim also to you that God is light. In Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie. We do not live according to the truth, but if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous. He is the expiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sin of the whole world.” There’s one person that can break down that wall of sin and that person is Jesus Christ.
There’s a second wall I wanted to discuss this morning – briefly because time is short – and it’s the wall that separates man from man. It’s the wall that divides mankind from one another. We’re told in the third chapter of Genesis that right after Adam and Eve sinned, “there came a wall of enmity between them.” And this wall of sin between people has grown through the ages and today we nation at war with nation. Each and every one of us in this room, each and every one of you have had relationships in life where you felt a wall forming, and Jesus Christ wants to break down those walls by his posser. He wants to break down the walls that separate us as Christians.
I read the story recently of a man who, 30 years ago, was part of a college fraternity initiation ceremony. This fraternity initiation ceremony took place out in the country on a country road and college freshmen who wanted to join the fraternity were made to stand in the middle of that country road, and they had to stand there in the middle of the road as an onrushing car came straight at them. And they had to wait until the last minute and only when a fraternity member dropped his arms were they allowed to drive out of the way. If they left sooner, they were called chicken and they were not allowed to join the fraternity. A member of the fraternity drove car. He put his foot to the accelerator and that car accelerated to 100 miles per hour. And at the last instant, as he came upon those freshmen in the road, the car lights flashed on their faces, you could see the terror in their face. And at the very last instant, the other fraternity member dropped his arms, and those freshmen dove out of the road, all except one freshman who was paralyzed with fear, and he froze, and he stood there and that car, moving 100 miles an hour, hit him and killed him. The fraternity member who was driving the car was riddled with guilt. He dropped out of school. He would have dropped out of life. He tried. In the years that followed, he tried to pull his life back together, but he couldn’t. He got married and had children, but he couldn’t get rid of the guild. He began to drink and to become an alcoholic and he couldn’t hold a job. His wife went to work to try to support the family.
Fifteen years after that incident, he was sitting in his house drinking and his wife was at work. The doorbell rang. The man went to the door. He opened it and there was a woman standing there and he knew he had seen her somewhere before, long ago in the past. This woman identified herself as the mother of the freshman that he had hit with his car. She said, “You know, for 15 years I’ve hated you. For 15 years, I’ve laid on my bed at night thinking how I could get even with you, how I could make you pay. But one week ago, I accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of Life and for the first time in my life, I experienced the joy and the happiness, the grace, the forgiveness that only God can give. I have come here today to ask you to, to beg you to forgive me for all the anger that I’ve held toward you all these years.” The man said when he looked in that woman’s eyes, he knew for the first time in 15 years – the first time – he knew his life was going to be alright. And he was able to forgive himself, and a great wall of guilt came crashing to the ground. A miracle greater than the crumbling of the walls of Jericho. That man accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and as his Savior.
You see, God has sent us forth into the world with a ministry that the Bible calls reconciliation. That means we are to bring people into fellowship with God and people into fellowship with other people and we can’t do that unless the grace and the mercy and the love of Jesus Christ shines through us. Unless we are willing to forgive other people. I’m convinced that, as a Christian, we never have the right to withhold forgiveness from anybody. You may harbor anger in your heart towards a mom or a dad, someone who maybe you feel wounded you in your childhood. You may have anger for someone at work, someone in your neighborhood. God wants us, by the spirit of his Son, to give that anger up and to experience that forgiveness, His grace, His mercy and see the walls come tumbling down.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Corrie Ten Boon. Corrie Ten Boon is a great Christian woman and during World War II, she and her sister and her father, in Holland, hid Jewish refugees to try to save them from Nazi persecution. But eventually Corrie Ten Boon and her sister and her father were apprehended by the Nazis and Corrie and her sister were thrown into a concentration camp called Ravenbrook, and her father was put in another concentration camp. Tragically, during the war, her father and her sister died at the hands of the Nazis. Somehow, Corrie survived all those years and in the time that followed, she began to speak in Christian churches all over the world. She tells in her book, “Tramp for the Lord,” how she was at one church after the war. It was in Europe, and she was giving a talk and when the talk was done, she was standing at the front of the church. People came up to say hello. Suddenly she looked up and she saw a man coming down the aisle of the church toward her and she froze. She recognized that man as a German who had been of the guards at the concentration camp. A guard who totally abused her sister and herself. And when she saw that man, she just welled up with anger, with hostility. She began to pray and said, “Lord Jesus, help me to forgive this man even as you have forgiven me.” The man waited in that crowd to talk to her and then there came that moment when the two of them only remained, and they stood facing each other, and that German man put up his hand and he said, “forgive me.” She said, “Lord Jesus, I can raise my hand, I can say the words, but you must change my heart.” And she raised up her hand and she took hold of that German man’s hand and she said, “I can forgive you, my brother.” She said in that moment, the love and the forgiveness of the Holy Spirit just flooded through her in a way she had never felt or experienced in her life.
You see, you may have someone you think you can’t forgive, but by the power of Jesus Christ, you can, and you must. Maybe you need to surround it with prayer. Maybe you need to march around those walls of anger with prayer. You may need to march around it seven days. You may need to march around it seven months, but if you’re serious, the grace and the love and the forgiveness and the mercy of Jesus Christ will come through. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived on this planet for 33 years. He lived a sinless life, but He was rejected by man. He was betrayed by a friend. He was subjected to an unjust trial. He was scourged. He was mocked. He was beaten. He was ridiculed. A crown of thorns was placed on his head. He was spat upon. He was made to carry His own cross. He was nailed to that cross and He was crucified between two thieves on Calvary, and those who tormented Him sat below Him and gambled for His garments, mocking Him all the time. And yet with His final breath, He cried out, “Father, forgive them.”
If you really believe in Him as Lord and Savior of Life, then He would have you know that He has sent you forth into this world to show His mercy, His love and His grace and His forgiveness wherever you go. And if we do that, if we show His forgiveness and His love wherever we go, we’re going to see walls come crumbling down. We’re going to see walls that separate man from God shattered, and people come into relationship with Jesus Christ. And we’re going to see walls that separate people from one another come falling down too because of the power of Jesus Christ in you and in me. Shall we pray.