Faith - Hebrews 11:30

Faithfulness is displayed in dependence on God

11, the so-called Faith Hall of Fame, and tonight we have come upon verse 30.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled

What am I going to do with this? 0.1 walls, 0.2 circles, 0.37. But ultimately, I unfortunately realized you could do an entire 45-minute summary out of this one verse, sermon out of this one verse, and so I've had to throw a lot out. But it looks like I have about 12 minutes. So if you ever made a really big mistake, a really big mistake. And after feeling really bad about it, your first thought is, the next time I get an opportunity in that same area, I'm gonna do it differently. I'm not gonna make that same mistake a second time. And as we've been going through this Hebrews Hall of Faith, we see that we have covered thousands of years of Old Testament history. But a couple of these events we've looked at are really close together. And particularly the last two that we've looked at were glorious. We looked at the Passover and how God's people were saved out of Egypt through the last plague because of the Passover. And we heard about the Red Sea and how they physically escaped out of Egypt through the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. God had done exactly what he promised. Back to Abraham, your people are gonna go away, but they're gonna come back and the land is gonna be theirs. So, all's good, right? God did what he promised. And now his people immediately start to grumble. And immediately fail to go to the promised land the way that God told them to go to the promised land. He tells them to go survey it, and they do, and they come back instead of being encouraged. They're fearful, and they refuse to go up as he told them to. And then when he tells them that he's going to punish them for not having followed his way, they say, all right, we'll go up now, even though you don't want us to, and they immediately fail in their effort to go up into the Promised Land. And what we have here today in the destruction of Jericho, is their second attempt to go into the Promised Land. This time, doing it God's way. And we're gonna see that they have this new opportunity, and they have the opportunity to do it right. So at the end of their 40 years of wandering, they are now prepared to enter the Promised Land at God's direction. This started with Moses saying, now's the time. And they started going up the east side of the Jordan River. And through mighty military victories, they defeated the Amorites and the Moabites. And they've actually taken control of land on the east side of Jordan. And now they're ready to go into the Promised Land itself on the west side of Jordan. And they're given the opportunity to go into the brings us to our first point tonight, which is faithfulness is displayed in dependence on God. As I've said, they've just won these battles. They've defeated powerful military forces, and you'd think that they'd go running across the Jordan River and continue this effort. But it turns out that the text goes out of its way to say nothing of their success in the Promised Land is based on what they're doing, and it's totally on what God is doing. In fact, I looked at the famous spiritual, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, looking for some inspiration, and it turns out that that is a horrible song. It has it completely backwards. It's like, where did they get this? This isn't in the text. It's talking about Joshua being mighty, and Joshua raging the battle, and then the walls falling down, and spears and swords, and that's not how it happens. Instead, what we have is a reenactment of passing through the waters of the Red Sea. This time it's the Jordan River that is split, and they walk through on dry land through the Jordan River. And it may not be quite as terrifying as Hume described the parting of the Red Sea a few weeks ago, but it would still be an act of faith to cross across this river that's heaped up on both sides. We're told that the men of Israel had not been circumcised, that they stopped circumcising people for the 40 years they were in the wilderness, and so they've just entered the promised land, and the first thing they're told to do is to circumcise all the men. That's a matter of both faith and bravery, and a lot more, I can testify. But I mean, literally, Moses has recorded for them the story about how their forefathers tricked a city into falling by having its men agree to be circumcised. And then in their very weakness, the 12 sons of Jacob come and overwhelm the village and kill the men in it. So the first thing they do when they go to the promised land is render themselves weak and incapable of fighting. And they've exposed themselves. And then it tells us that they celebrated the Passover. So again, we have That act of faith, again, that as Justin told us last week, or a couple of weeks ago, didn't really make all that much sense. How can going through this ceremony have any relationship to salvation? And we're told that the manna ceased. So their food supply for the last 40 years is gone. How are they gonna feed themselves? And then we're told that the commander of the Lord shows up. This angelic being comes and Joshua says, are you for us or for our adversaries? And the angelic being says, no, I'm the commander of the Lord's army. I'm here to do God's bidding, not your bidding or your adversary's bidding. I'm here to do God's bidding. And Joshua responds by dropping to his knees in worship. So now the time is ready for their very first battle. Jericho's right there, it's the first city they're gonna come across. And this angel says, get all your best men and put them in front and attack Jericho and tear down the walls, right? Now, he says, take the priests and give them some musical instruments And have them lead the way, and have them walk around the city, and everybody be really, really quiet. And I want you to do that once, and then go back to your camp. And I want you to do it a second time, and go back to your camp. And a third day, and a fourth day, and a fifth day, and a sixth day. And then, I want you to go on the seventh day, and I want you to do it not once, but I want you to do it seven times. And then and only then, at the last trumpet, after the ark has been carried around the city these many times, do I want you to shout as the walls come down, and then walk into the city. Joshua 6 spends many verses explaining how they're gonna walk around the city, not making any noise, listening to the priests play music, and then one verse that says, yeah, walk on in and capture them and kill everybody and take all their stuff. And we know that it's God and not the human Israelite armies that make this possible because their very next battle against the much smaller and weaker city of Ai, they lose. because they show lack of faith, because they didn't obey all the things that God had told them to do in Jericho, and one person, instead of destroying everything they came across, devoting it to God, took it for himself, because he didn't have faith. So, first point was, faithfulness is displayed in dependence on God. Everything they did, every step of the way, was not by human power, but was by God's power. Second, faithfulness is displayed in obedience. Faithfulness is displayed in obedience. Clearly, we've seen the Israelites obey these commands of God that, in hindsight, can look foolish. In actual time, when they're worried about their armies going against other armies, it looks like foolishness to be weak, to not have a food supply, to, instead of doing normal military things, to send the priest forward with the ark. But they obeyed, and God blessed that obedience. And as we heard on Sunday, it is that faith, that inward change that occurs in our life when we are regenerated and have faith in Christ that leads to our external obedience. It is that faith that is necessary for that obedience to occur. And fortunately, we don't need angelic beings to bring us God's word and God's commands. And that's wonderful because that sounds really terrifying. Instead, we have God's word, which is given to us and preserved for us and made available to us so that we know exactly what he wants us to do and so that we can display our faith, not simply by saying words, but actually understanding his word and obeying it. And the good news is, obedience is to our good, right? God blesses us when we are obedient. And I don't necessarily mean he gives you a great job or a lot of money, but he gives you the life that he has prepared for you, the good works that he has prepared for you to do, to be his kingdom representative in this world. And sometimes that includes suffering, which can be a blessing in itself. But just knowing God and being close to him is the benefit we get out of this obedience. As we've also heard on Sunday as Keith preached, there's a joyfulness which comes from obedience. Even when we don't understand God's specific commands in a specific context, why is he telling us to do this? It's not obvious to us as fallible humans. We get joy in obeying, knowing that God is good and God is great and we can trust in his commands. Third point, faithfulness is displayed in worship. Everything we are called to do has an element of worship in it as we lift up our praises to God. You may have noticed that they walk around the city for seven days in a row. That means one of those days was the Sabbath. It doesn't say that. A lot of commentators say, you know, we'd really make a nice picture if that last day was the Sabbath, because then you have the seven days of creation, and then, boom, you know, God's done, there's victory on the seventh. It doesn't say that, but one of those days was the Sabbath. And as I've already said, mostly what they're doing is not preparing for war, but worshiping. The description of the ark going out, and the priests playing the trumpets, Those are things that go on during the festivals, the week-long festivals that the Jewish people were called out to do when they moved into the land. It's more of a description of almost a parade of worship than it is preparing for battle. And then ultimately what they do in that one sentence when they go into Jericho, it says they devote to God Jericho by destruction. I know it can be confusing to us, this idea that destroying things is a way of giving them to God, but that's what was going on in the situation where by destroying the evil people and destroying their goods, those are being offered up to God for His purposes and uses. And we're called to do the same thing. We're called to worship in everything that we do, and one of the ways we do that is by destroying the idols in our life, by giving him everything that we have, our time, our money, our energy. We worship him by giving everything. We don't take it for ourselves. And again, this doesn't make any sense in the context of the ancient Near East. The reason you attack a city is to take all of its stuff. But they're told to destroy all the things, And those few things they do set aside, they're set aside for the service of the Lord, not to enrich those who are in battle, not to enrich them personally as they come into this new land and they're looking to make a name for themselves, but to worship God and to worship Him for everything that He gives them. And finally, fourth point, past unfaithfulness doesn't preclude current faithfulness. We've already talked about how they were given the opportunity to come into the promised land and they failed miserably. They had a great lack of faith. But God is a gracious and loving God who gives us chance after chance after chance. He gave them this chance after 40 years in the wilderness. This is gonna be followed by failures in the conquest of the promised land. It's gonna be followed by judges where they slide back farther than you can possibly imagine in their evilness, and instead of conquering the evil in the land, they become subject to the evil in the land, and yet God sends ultimately he sent us our very own Joshua, our very own Yeshua, Jesus, who comes to save those who rebel against him. So if you're an unbeliever here tonight, even if you have been utterly unfaithful now, even if you've made the biggest mistake in your life and fought your God and rebelled against him and sinned against him, He's offering you salvation and deliverance through faith. Faith in what He has done for you, defeating all your enemies. We don't have to fight our way into the promised land. Jesus has already done that for us. He's defeated our enemies. He's defeated sin and death and Satan, and we get to walk right in on His merit and on His righteousness. And if you're a believer here tonight, I know, like me, that you continue to sin and make mistakes, even though Jesus has done all of these things for you. And know that he is a God who is gracious to forgive, and that we need to daily remind ourselves that he is a loving and forgiving God, and take our sins to him, and ask for his forgiveness, and then start another day in obedience and worship. Father, we thank you that we are not responsible for our own safety and salvation, that you have chosen to bring glory to yourself by saving out a people, a people that is weak and incapable. And Father, you send a Savior who is strong and utterly capable to save. And Father, we pray that you would bring more to faith in you, faith that would save and faith that would transform us into your obedient sons and daughters who live day by day to follow your commands and to praise your name and worship and give you glory that the world might know that you are God, the only God, the wonderful creator who loves his people, wants to know them more and more. We pray all this