Not many military commanders would come up with the campaign strategy that we read of in Joshua 6. The approach to taking the city of Jericho was: 1) circumcise the whole army, 2) march around the city blowing trumpets and 3) after doing this for a week everyone was to shout. We are told that parts of the city wall were 20 feet thick and 25 feet high. Trumpets and shouting don't sound the best approach.
We thought we'd try it at church this morning on a smaller scale.
As you can see - nothing happened. Maybe we didn't march long enough or shout loud enough. Or maybe that was the whole point. God told Joshua in verse 2 that He was going to give them the city - they just had to be obedient to all of God's instructions. For this battle belonged to God.
What battles are you in at the moment? Are these battles that you should be in? 5:13-15 reminds us that God is not the sort of god who can be summoned on demand to give us success. Instead we should be getting involved in the struggles He is already involved in. And then we need to check that we're fighting our battles with God's weapons rather than the world's weapons. Ephesians 6:12 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 remind us that we are in a spiritual battle. And as disciples of Jesus we use the weapons of love rather than hatred and revenge, we look to be last rather than first, we seek first His kingdom rather than our own agenda... It might seem crazy at the time, but no more crazy than shouting at a wall and expecting it to fall down.
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