Follow the Plan

There are very few Biblical accounts more familiar to people than Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. It’s one of those stories that you know something about even if you didn’t grow up in church. I personally love the story because of the absolute miracle that takes place. It’s just such an overwhelming display of God’s absolute power, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. There were a lot of things that led up to the moment when the horns blew and the people shouted, and that is where the Israelites played a role in what happened at Jericho.

When you look at Joshua chapters 5 and 6 you see the meeting between Joshua and the Commander of the Lord’s Army. This commander is Jesus Himself. That is an entire theological discussion in its own right, but I am absolutely certain as to the identity of the man in Joshua 5 and 6. The main thing we want to focus on in this article is what Jesus told Joshua. He gave Joshua some very specific instructions in chapter 6, and to be honest they didn’t make any military sense. The Israelites were facing a city with troops behind a double set of walls approximately 15 feet thick both built on the slope of a hill. This means you would have to run uphill and attack two different walls with an army on top of and behind the walls. It was impossible for the Israelites to be able to overcome Jericho’s defensives.

Jesus told Joshua several things. The first thing was that the Israelites should march around the city one time six days in a row. The ark was to be carried in front of the troops with seven priests in front of the ark carrying rams horns. They were then to march around the city seven times on the seventh day while the priests blew their horns. Then when they had finished marching the priests would give a loud blast and everyone would shout, and then the walls of Jericho would fall. That doesn’t sound like a plan any of us would come up with.

Here is where the Israelites became involved in the walls of Jericho coming down. If they wanted to see the walls fall they would have to follow the plan God had laid out before them. We look back at what happened and see how it all worked out. We automatically think of course they should follow what they were told and the walls will fall down. They had no idea what the outcome would be. They had to walk in faith and trust that God would make the walls fall, and when they did as they were told the walls did fall down.

My thinking on this is that if the Israelites hadn’t done everything they were told to do then the walls would have never fallen. They had to follow the plan. This has great application for us today. We want God’s blessing in our lives. We want God to use us to further His kingdom, but are we willing to follow the plan? He laid out the plan for us in His Word. People want to reinvent the wheel. They want to figure out how to have God’s blessing and still live however they want to live. That is not going to work. If people want to be in the center of God’s will and see Him work around them and to be used by Him then they have to live according to the plan that laid out for us in the Bible. There is no way around seeking holiness if we want to see God do big things in our lives and in the lives of our churches.

Joshua and the Israelites had to follow the plan if they wanted the walls to fall. We have to actually make a real effort to follow the teachings found in the Bible if we want to see walls fall in our lives. We can’t live in unrepentant sin and rebellion and expect to see all the things God wants to do in and through us come to pass. It’s simply impossible. If we follow the plan like Joshua then the sky is the limit to what God can do with us just like it was with Joshua.