14 Jul Jericho has fallen

Joshua 5:13-6:5

¹³ When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” ¹⁴ And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” ¹⁵ And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

6 Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. ² And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. ³ You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. ⁴ Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. ⁵ And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

Jericho has fallen. In order to enter the Promised Land, we must face our Jericho. What is Promised Land? It is where we live out God’s purpose for our lives. What is Jericho? Jericho is whatever stop us from living God’s purpose for us. Let me give you some examples. Jericho could be habitual hidden sin in our lives. A sin that you do not want anyone to know and you continue to feed in secrecy. It could also be challenges, obstacles and oppositions that stop you from trusting God with your lives. Or maybe it is anger and bitterness toward someone who hurt you in the past. Or maybe it is guilt and voice of condemnation for what you did in the past. For some of us it could be fear and anxiety about life and family. Or maybe it could be something as simple as daily temptation that we faced in life. Whatever it is, tonight God wants to tell us that Jericho has fallen. The battle has been won. Christ is victorious. And because Christ is victorious, we are also victorious. The battle of Jericho is a great description of Christian life. Because the battle of Jericho is not a battle about military warfare but it is a battle of faith. Hebrews 11:30 – By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. Jericho fell not by military warfare but by faith. As we are about to see, the battle of Jericho is not about Joshua at all. It is not Joshua who fight the battle of Jericho but it is the Lord who fights the battle of Jericho. Joshua’s and Israel’s role is to put their faith in the Lord that the Lord has given them Jericho, despite of the overwhelming odds against them.

Before we jump into our passage, let me give you “Previously on Joshua.” Few weeks ago, we looked at Joshua 1 where God told Joshua to be strong and courageous for the Lord is with him wherever he goes. We also learned that Joshua is to obey all of God’s commands and when he does, God will make his way prosperous and give him good success. So we know that obedience to the commands of God is the key for Joshua to conquer the Promised Land. Then in Joshua chapter two, Joshua sent two spies into Jericho and they met a prostitute by the name of Rahab. Rahab’s story is a fascinating story but I don’t have the time to explain the detail. If you are interested, maybe I will ask Edrick to preach on Rahab the prostitute someday. From the spies encounter with Rahab, we know that the people of Jericho have heard of all the wonderful things that God did for Israel and they were extremely afraid of Israel. And in Joshua chapter 3 and 4, something incredible happened. God exalted Joshua in the eyes of the people of Israel by splitting the Jordan River into two. Just like how Moses split the Red Sea, Joshua split the Jordan River and the people of Israel crossed the river on dry ground. If anyone doubted Joshua’s leadership before, they are in awe now. Then in Joshua chapter 5, something weird happened. Right before the biggest battle of their life, the LORD commanded all the men to be circumcised. Let me spare you the detail but it is sufficient to know that circumcision can make the strongest of man weaker than weakest of woman. If you have been circumcised, you know what I mean. If you are not, you are blessed. But circumcision is important because it is reaffirming God’s covenant with Abraham. God promised Abraham 750 years earlier that he would give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants and as the sign of the covenant, every male must be circumcised. Guys, you would be glad to know that I am not preaching from this passage. But if you are interested, maybe I will ask Tim to preach on circumcision someday. Edrick on prostitute and Tim on circumcision.

So now, the people of Israel is already on the other side of Jordan River and there is no turning back. The river behind them has closed and they can only march forward. And right in front of them is the wall of Jericho. And one night, as Joshua probably scratch his head thinking what he should do about the wall of Jericho, he meets a man with a drawn sword.

The great commander

Joshua 5:13-15 – ¹³ When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” ¹⁴ And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” ¹⁵ And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

A lot of time when we talk about the battle of Jericho, we jump straight to chapter 6 and ignore this portion of the text. But if we do that, we miss out on what is really happening on chapter 6. This portion of the Scripture most likely happened the night before the big battle. Joshua encounters an unknown man in the middle of the night and this encounter is extremely critical for us to understand the battle of Jericho.

The story goes that Joshua is by Jericho on his own. In Hebrew, it actually says that Joshua is at Jericho. So apparently Joshua sneaks in to Jericho. What is he doing? There are many reasons that we can guess but one of them is he is trying to figure out a way to penetrate Jericho’s wall. Jericho is the most fortified city in the land of Canaan. And we know that at the time, Israel is not a nation of war. They left their life of slavery in Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They do not have the equipment and weapons needed to destroy the wall. And this is not the first time Joshua has his eyes on Jericho. 40 years earlier, Joshua sneaked in to Jericho as a spy and he saw how this city and its people inflicted fear to the other 10 spies and all the people of Israel. To Joshua, Jericho is an impregnable fortress. He is faced with an impossible situation. Then Joshua lifts up his eyes and sees man a standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand.

Now realize something. The man is standing with his drawn sword in his hand. You do not draw your sword unless you are about to fight. So whoever this man is, Joshua knows that this man does not come in peace. He comes to fight. So Joshua asks the question, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” What Joshua is asking is whether the man is on his side or his enemy. If the man in his side, then its only logical for the man to bow to Joshua. Joshua is the commander of the Israelites’ army after all. But if the man is not on his side, then it’s time to fight. Two choices: submit to me or fight me.

I love the man’s answer. He says “No.” The man is not on either side. This is confusing but Joshua needs to hear this. By this time, Joshua, like every good leader would, has taken the responsibility to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land for himself. All of the people of Israel look to him. It is up to Joshua to figure out a way to penetrate the wall of Jericho. He believes that it is his duty to lead Israel into the Promised Land. But then a man comes ready to fight. And this man would not take side. He refuses to play the second role to Joshua and help Joshua accomplish his goal. He is no servant to Joshua’s goal. Yet at the same time he is also not an enemy to Joshua. Who is this man?

“I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” Do you get what the man is saying? The man is telling Joshua, “Joshua you are not the commander. And this battle is not your battle. This is the Lord’s battle. And I, the commander of the Lord’s army has come. The battle to lead the Israel into the Promised Land is mine.” So now the question is flipped the other way around. The question is not whether the man is on Joshua’s side or not but whether Joshua is on the Lord’s side or not. With another word, the man is saying, “I am here to fight the Lord’s battle. Whose side are you on Joshua? If you are on my side, then I’ll fight for you. This battle is not yours. You can’t do it. Only I can.”

Joshua realizes who the man in front of him is and he falls on his face to the earth and worships him. And Joshua asks what is it that the commander of the Lord has to say to him. Listen to what happen next. “And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.” Does it remind you of another similar counter? It should. It is just like Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. Joshua is having his burning bush experience the night before the battle of Jericho. I love it. It is God’s way of telling Joshua, “I am not only with you in words but I am also with you in power. I have promised that I will be with you wherever you go and now here I am. I am ready to fight with you and for you.”

Now, let me ask you a very important question. Who is this commander of the army of the Lord? A lot of people read this story and assume that this commander is just another angel. But I don’t think this is an ordinary angel. Three reasons. One, angel does not receive worship. There are lots of thing that we do not know about angels. They are mysterious beings and the Bible does not talk much about angels. But here is what we know for sure. Angel does not receive human worship. We know this because in the book of revelation, there are couple of times where apostle John is overwhelmed with awe with what the angel showed him and he fell on his knee to worship the angel and the angel replies, “Yo, I know I am awesome and I can kill thousands of people with one swing, but I am not that awesome. I am a created being just like you. You should not worship me. Worship the Lamb of God. He is the only one who deserves your worship.” But this commander of the Lord’s army does not say that but instead he receives Joshua’s worship. Second, the presence of this commander makes his surrounding becomes holy. The commander commands Joshua to take off his sandals because he is standing on a holy place. There is nothing sacred about the place. They are at Jericho. The place is holy not because the place is sacred in itself. The place is holy because someone who is holy is there. Third, as the narrative progress, we can see in chapter 6 verse 2 that the narrative refers to the commander as the Lord. So, who is this man? “There is only one other in the Bible who is both identical with and yet distinct from God. The Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament can be appreciated only if we understand him as pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ himself.” – Alec Motyer. This commander of the Lord’s army is none other than Jesus. Theologians called this Christophany.

I love it. I mentioned two weeks ago that the story of Joshua is not about Joshua. It is the story of God who saves and delivers his people. The story of Joshua is the shadow of Jesus. Just like Joshua cannot fight the battle of Jericho on his own strength, we cannot fight against our Jericho on our own. The commander of the army of the Lord who leads Joshua to victory also come to fight our battle and lead us to victory. Jesus came to deal the ultimate blow to our Jericho, sin. The battle is not ours; it is the Lord’s.

The great strategy

Joshua 6:1-5 – Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. ² And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. ³ You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. ⁴ Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. ⁵ And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

I do not know much about military strategies. I am not a military man. But I love to read and watch military story. Yet I have never read something as strange as what we just read. So here we find the Lord tells Joshua how to fight the battle of Jericho. God is telling Joshua his great strategy. We know that the wall of Jericho is massive. And the people of Jericho shut the gates in such a way that no one can come in and no one can come out. According to manga, the right strategy for this battle is siege war. So you would barricade the city, starves the city, wait until they are out of resources, and attack when they open the gates. But the Lord’s strategy is extremely weird. And before he tells Joshua his strategy, he first tells Joshua that he has given Jericho to Joshua. With another word, before the battle commence, the Lord has already won. That means, whatever the strategy is, it doesn’t really matter. God already won. Joshua can trust God’s strategy. But even so, this is a very strange military strategy. This strategy is one that no human can come up with.

Imagine the conversation Joshua has with his war council.
“Guys, I met the commander of the Lord’s army and he told me the great strategy to destroy the wall of Jericho.”
“Wow! Tell us about it Joshua. What should we do? While you were away, we also came up with few different plans. We can do siege war. Or we can create catapult and destroy the wall slowly. Or we can build a ramp for our army to climb over Jericho’s wall. Which one does the commander of the Lord’s army wants us to do?”
“Errr.. None of those.”
“Wow! Just as expected of the Lord. He must have come up with this super genius strategy that we cannot think of. Tell us about it. This is exciting. We are ready to fight.”
“Actually, we are going to leave this one to the music team.”
“Music team. Awesome. Wait. What? Say again?”
“The great strategy of God is to have the music team lead our army to march around the city once a day. We are going to take the Arc of tabernacle and the priests with us, and our army around them. And oh, we are not allowed to talk. We have to keep our mouth shut at all time while we march around the city.”
Can we agree that this is the weirdest battle plan ever?

Here is something that we must understand. This is a silly plan for sure but it’s not impossible for the Israel to do. The question is not whether they can or cannot, but whether they trust the Lord or not. This is a battle of faith. Do they trust the Lord enough to obey his strategy? And they trust the Lord’s strategy. They march around the city once a day for six days. And on the seventh day, they march around the city seven times. At the end of seventh march, the priests blow their trumpets and the people shout with a great shout, and at that very moment, the mighty wall of Jericho collapse. There are some scholars who tried to give explanation to what caused the wall of Jericho to collapse. Some say it was an earthquake. Others say that the pitch of the trumpet and the shout of the people combined to create great vibration that crumbled the wall. Others say that Israel marching in step created shock waves beneath the walls. Here is what I say. That’s cute but it totally miss the point. The reason the wall of Jericho falls flat is because the people of God obeyed the plans of God and God destroyed the wall in response to their obedience. You see this truth played out all throughout the book of Joshua. In Joshua, Israel’s military success has nothing to do with how strong their army or how brilliant their strategy is. Instead, their military success is fully dependent on whether or not the Israelites are obeying God. When they are walking in obedience, they can win a battle with their music team. But when they are not walking in obedience, even their strongest warriors cannot defeat the smallest of town. Their success is tied up to their obedience to the commands of God. And this is exactly what God promised Joshua in Joshua 1. When Israel obey the commands of God, God will make their way prosperous and give them good success.

Applications

There are four lessons that we can learn from this story. First, we need to surrender to the Lord’s lordship. In the battle of Jericho, what happened during the battle gets all the headlight. We all love to see the wall of Jericho crumbles. We all want to see our Jericho defeated. However, the key moment for the battle of Jericho is actually the night before the battle, where Joshua meets the Lord. And in this encounter, Joshua has to learn to surrender to God. Rather than asking whether the Lord is on his side or not, Joshua needs to ask whether he is on the Lord’s side or not. The battle of Jericho is not a battle that Joshua will fight with the Lord’s help. But rather this is the battle that the Lord will fight for Joshua. The same is true for us. Our battle with sin is not a battle that we fight with Jesus’s help but it is a battle that Jesus fights for us. However, it requires our total surrender. The Lord refuses to be our assistant; he is our commander.

Let me put it this way. The problem with us is that we often want God to be on our side and follow our lead rather than having him take the lead and we follow him. We like to pick and choose on which area of our life we want to trust God, and which area we want to keep for ourselves. But you don’t get to do that. You cannot have partial surrender to his Lordship. You can’t separate Jesus and his Lordship. It’s like you inviting me to your house for dinner and I ring the doorbell and you say, “Come in Yosia. I like you. Stay out, Yusuf, I don’t want you.” I would be confused. I’m all Yosia and I’m all Yusuf. You can’t separate the two. But this is what we do with Jesus. People want Jesus who can save them from their sin and help them in their trouble, but they do not want Jesus as the commander of their life. It’s not going to work. Jesus is either Lord of all or none at all. God does not accept partial surrender.

This is what see in Joshua chapter 7. A man by the named of Achan decided that he is going to obey God partially. God commanded the people of Israel to not take any spoil from Jericho for it all belongs to the Lord. But Achan decided to keep some for himself. He probably thought, “It won’t hurt anyone right? It’s just a small thing. I’m sure God would understand.” Do you know what happen? The people of Israel fails to conquer a very small town because of Achan’s sin. God does not accept partial surrender. Let’s say you are married and your spouse say to you, “Honey, I am going to be the best spouse I can be for 364 days a year. I am going to love you with all of my heart, soul and mind. I am going to cook for you, buy you flowers, help you with everything you need to do. Whenever you need me, I will always be there. But I just need one day a year, just 1 out of 365 days, where I will be missing from your life. And in this one day, I want to have the freedom to do whatever I want to do and you don’t need to know about it.” Guys and girls, would any of you be fine with this? Of course not. But this is what we do with Jesus. We do not totally surrender to his Lordship. For some of us, it might be in the area of dating. You know very well that you have no business dating him or her but you are. You don’t surrender to God in this area. For some of us, it might be in our finance. You love Jesus with your words but your wallet says otherwise. For others it might be with future plans, children or many others. Whatever it is, unless you surrender to Jesus’ Lordship, you are not on his side.

Second, we have to obey the Lord’s commands. After Joshua surrenders to the Lord, the Lord tells Joshua his strategy. And the strategy is super weird. Imagine if this happen in a soccer game. “Coach, what is our strategy?” “Listen up guys. I have come up with a brilliant strategy to win the game. This is what we are going to do. You guys are going to out there, and when the game start, I want you guys to hold hands in front of the goal and sing “How great is our God” and God will score the goal for us.” What? That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. But the point that God is trying to make is not how brilliant the strategy is but how awesome God is. What God requires from us is not to figure out the brilliance of his strategy but for us to obey him. He wants our obedience because it is through our obedience that God does his mighty works in and through us. Surrender and obedience goes together. You cannot surrender to God and not obey his commands. You either belong wholly to him or you are not.

Let me illustrate it for you. Let’s say that Christ comes into your home. You have surrender everything to Christ and your home is his home. Christ comes to his new home and check out the library, where you store all the information or what we know as the brain. He takes a look at our library and finds many trash, garbage, useless information. And Christ says, “We need to burn this library. Get rid of all this porn magazines, gossips, books and worthless information. I will put new book and information in this library. My word. From now on, read this and meditate on this day and night.” Then Christ goes to the kitchen of our hearts, our appetites. He wants to see what serves our appetites. And he sees, love of money, fame, people approval, pride, lust, brunch, bobba tea etc. So he says, “We’ll trash all this junk out and replace it with new appetite. From now on you will hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Then Jesus goes to the living room. This where you hang out with your friends and have fun. He sees the living room is crowded with so many people until it has no space for you to have fellowship and have fun with him. So he clears out the living room. The Bluerays, the PS, Netflix, and friends. He says, “I want the living room to be a place where you can have fun and hang out with me more. Of course we can invite your friends and hangs out together and play PS together. But I’ll be your number one friend. I desire to have fellowship with you more than all other things.” Once the living room is done, Jesus walks to your workshop in the garage. He finds many toys that you build for yourself. You use your talent and abilities to build your own kingdom. So Jesus says, “That’s cute. But why don’t we use your talents and abilities for something that matter so much more? Rather than building your vain temporary cute kingdom, why don’t you use your talents and abilities to build my eternal Kingdom?” So Jesus cleanses your home and makes it his home. Then he sees a small closet. A very small one. And he walks to it. And you panicked. You quickly run ahead of Jesus and stop him from opening the closet. So Jesus asks, “What’s in the closet?” and you reply, “Jesus, I give you everything. You can have the rest of the house. But just this one small closet. I want to keep it for me. Please give it to me. Do not open it.” In that small closet, you store the deepest desire of your heart. You store your secret sins that you don’t want anyone to know. You store your anger, your shame, your fear. So Jesus smiles at you and says, “Do you trust me that I love you? If you do, give me the closet. Obey me. I want it. It is mine.” Surrender and obedience goes together. God has a better plan for your life but it starts with surrender and obedience.

Third lesson we can learn from this story is to trust the Lord’s timing. Let me make a confession. I hate waiting. I consider myself as a kind and patient person. I don’t get upset easily. However, if you want to see me get upset, make me wait for you for a long time and you will see my wrath. My old MC members knew this well. I don’t like to wait. I am the type of person that like to see immediate result. So if I go on diet and eat salad today, I expect to lose 2 kilograms when I weight myself tomorrow. Anyone else like me? But here is the thing. God loves to make his people wait for his timing. Look at what happen in the battle. The only person that know that God is going to do something miraculous on the 7^th day is Joshua. The people of Israel don’t. All they know is that they have to march around the city today. Imagine a conversation between an Israel’s soldier and his wife. His wife asks, “How’s your day?” By the way guys, if your wife or girlfriend ask you that question, what they really asking is, “Tell me everything about your day. Tell me what you see. Tell me what’s in your mind. Tell me what you feel. Tell me what you had for lunch. Tell me what your boss said. I want to know everything.” A simple answer, “Good” does not suffice. The husband replies, “There is nothing going on. We just march around the city once and we are not allowed to talk at all.” And the second day, same thing happened again. Third, fourth, fifth… And I am sure, at first the people of Jericho shuts their mouth as well. On the first day, they just watch the army of Israel march around the city and nothing happened. And after the second and the third day, they begin to think that the people of Israel are stupid. Then they start to yell, curse and make fun of the people of Israel. But Joshua tells them explicitly that they must keep silent no matter what until Joshua tells them to shout. But they have no clue as to when Joshua would tell them to shout. With another word, Joshua is saying, “You know God’s will so do it. Keep your mouth shut. Endure the ridicule of your enemies. Keep trusting God and leave it to God to vindicate you in his time and in his way.”

This is how God operates most of the time. What he requires of us is to surrender, obey and trust his timing. Till when? Till he says otherwise. It is hard because we do not like to wait. But God is teaching us to trust him. God never show us the blueprint of his timeline. That’s not the way God works. Because what God wants is for us to trust and obey him. Trust and obedience is our responsibility but outcome is God’s responsibility. To trust God’s timing is to keep going even though you cannot see the result because you know that God is faithful. The people of Israel do not see any result for 6 days. What if they stopped at 6^th day? They would not witness the wall of Jericho crumble. In order for them to see Jericho falls flat, they have to trust God to the end. And for many of us, sometime we stop on the 6^th day. What if you are one day away from your breakthrough? Don’t give up. Continue to trust God to the end even if you do not see any result today.

Last, we need to shout the Lord’s victory. On the seventh day, after they march the city seven times, Joshua commands the people to shout. Joshua 6:16 – And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.” Joshua 6:20 – So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. Joshua never lift a single finger against the wall of Jericho. It is God and God’s power alone that destroy Jericho. And God uses the shout of his people to demonstrate his power. But pay careful attention. The people of Israel do not shout in order to have the victory; they shout because the Lord has given them the victory.

My friend, today if you put your faith in Jesus, this is your story. We do not shout for victory but we shout from victory. Because the battle belongs to the Lord and our Lord has already won. Revelation 12:10-11 – ¹⁰ And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. ¹¹ And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. The reason we can conquer Jericho is first because of the blood of the Lamb. Jesus is our great commander who not only led us into battle but he fought for us. At the cross, Jesus took on our Jericho, sin, and he defeated sin once and for all. Jesus absorbed the wrath of God against sin and he shouted “It is finished” and died for it. But on the third day he rose again and he is victorious. So if you put your faith in Jesus, you are covered by his blood. The blood of the Lamb forgives you of all your sins and therefore sin has no dominion over you. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jesus already won. He conquered our Jericho once and for all at the cross.

Which mean that right now, you and I have a testimony and that testimony is our weapon. Our testimony is that Jesus has already won. And that’s why we can shout from victory. For the rest of our life we will continue to shout that Jesus has already won. And if Jesus has already won, there is absolutely no reason for us to think that our Jericho is too strong for us. The cross of Christ tells us that we have the victory that Christ has won for us and now we can overcome our Jericho. We can face temptation, we can face struggle, we can face sin and we can live our life for God’s purposes. Christian life is not a life where God helps us in our battle but a life where Christ fights our battle and win on our behalf. Now my role is to surrender to Christ’s lordship, obey Christ’s commands, trust Christ’s timing and shout Christ’s victory. Jericho has fallen.

Discussions:

1. The commander of the Lord’s army is not on Joshua’s side nor is he on the enemy’s side. What does it tell us about the battle of Jericho?
2. The strategy of God to destroy the wall of Jericho is a strange strategy. Explain the reasoning behind this strange strategy.
3. Explain why it is impossible to separate Jesus as our Saviour and Jesus as our Lord. What does it tell us about what God requires of his people?
4. Is there any “secret closet” in your life that you need to surrender to God? If you are willing, share it with your MC.
5. What does it mean to trust God’s timing?
6. “We do not shout for victory but we shout from victory.” How does this truth empower us to face our Jericho?
7. Everyone battles their own Jericho. Split your MC into small groups (2 or 3 people max per group) and pray for one another.