Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - August 23, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Joshua 6:2-3, 4b, 12-20b.

How do you plan a trip?  How much money to take.  Which route to take.  Where you’re going to stay.  The time to leave so you can get there on time.  What to wear.  When our kids were young and we didn’t have much money, planning was necessity.  We had to save up money.  No credit cards, so, it was all in my wallet.  No motel reservations for us then. We just hoped we could find someplace cheap and clean when we got there.  If we didn’t know exactly how to get there, we got a trip ticket from AAA.  No GPS. No interstate so we had to slow down through towns that were spaced about ten miles apart.  Our big meal would always be Kentucky Fried Chicken eaten in the motel room.  We pretended that we were picnicking and the kids loved it.  After the trip, my wallet was pretty flat, but, we didn’t owe anybody any money.  One time we got to the  Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and needed to pay the $1.25 toll.  I checked my pockets and Jackie emptied her pocket book.  When I added up all the change, we had $1.49.  Even though we traveled cheap, the kids still talk about eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in our motel rooms.  They still consider it an adventure.  One thing about trips.  It always seems to take longer to get there than to get back home.  Another thing was, no matter how much fun we had, it always felt good to get back home.  Where do you want to travel to?

In today’s study the Israelites end up a trip that has taken 40 years.  And it was done with no credit cards or Kentucky Fried Chicken, but there was manna from heaven.  And the best part, somebody else planned the trip.  Who was the trip planner?  God. 

Last week the Israelites were almost home.  The Jordan Bridge Tunnel wasn’t built yet, so they didn’t have to empty their pockets and count their change to pay the toll.  Last week we learned that the first obstacle after crossing the Jordan will be Jericho, which was only about five miles away.  Joshua sent two spies to check out Jericho and what happened to them?  They got to Jericho and then spent all of their time there hiding under stalks of grain or in caves and, to make matters worse, the grain was on top of a prostitute’s house.  Who was the prostitute and how did she help them?

The spies finally get back to camp and give Joshua their report.  After getting the report Joshua sets in motion moving into the promised land.  Thousands of Israelites will have to cross the Jordan.  Of all those people only two of the original Israelites who left Egypt will cross the Jordan.  Any guesses who they were?  Joshua and Caleb.  Mom and Dad didn’t make it.  Why?  They were a rebellious, complaining bunch of ingrates who wanted to go back and be slaves in Egypt whenever things got tough.  When it came to that generation of Israelites and God, it was always, not what God had done for them so far, but, what he was doing for them right then.  Because of their attitude, they wandered around the wilderness for forty years until most of them had died.  Purged of the complainers, their children will now enter the Promised Land. 

Joshua’s first problem was crossing the Jordan.  It’s harvest time - about May.  Spring rains have melted the snow on the mountains and the run off has swollen the Jordan River.  Does this mean the Jordan can’t be crossed?  There were still plenty of places where the water was shallow enough to cross even with the river swollen.  These crossings were very narrow, though, so the Israelites crossing there would be sitting ducks for the Jericho sharp shooters. 

Again, God shows that he is still with Israel. The journey to the Promised Land started with what?  Parting of the Red Sea.  Now entering the Promised Land will be started by parting the Jordan River.  What comes around goes around.  Kind of wraps up the trip in a neat package, doesn't it?. 

A key ingredient to crossing the Jordan and possessing Canaan will be the ark of the Covenant.  What three things are in the ark? (1) Not the original Ten Commandment tablets.  Moses broke them.  What's in the ark is the second edition of the Ten Commandments.  (2) The staff that Moses turned into a snake in front of Pharaoh; and (3) A doggie bag full of manna from heaven.  All these symbolized God being there for the people when they needed him.  Anytime that the ark was moved, people knew that God was on the move so they followed. 

We know about how God parted the Red Sea.  As they stand before the Jordan River, it’s a different time and Moses is gone.  God is going to do an encore, only this time it will be the Jordan and he’ll use Joshua.   This is where Joshua comes into his own, out of the shadow of Moses.  People will see that God talks with Joshua just as he did with Moses.  Moses was great because God worked through him. Now he’ll do that with Joshua.  But, what will he do to part the River Jordan? 

Twelve men are selected, probably one from each tribe.  The priests carrying the ark step into the Jordan and all of the sudden it stops flowing.  Not only that but a wide strip of dry land extended to the other side.  If that didn't cause their jaws to drop, then the next step did.  The water rolled up on each side of the path like two great walls.  The priests carry the ark to the center of the river bed and stand there while 40,000 soldiers marched across.  All the while, the hills on the other side of the Jordan are full of soldiers from Jericho watching the Israelite army march across the Jordan. Can you imagine what they must have been thinking when all of the sudden the Jordan not only stopped flowing, but, opened up and a road went straight through it and headed for them?  They must have been scared to death.  The Israelite God stopped a fast flowing river and then parted it wide enough for a whole army to cross.  The rest of the camp followed - women and children so maybe there were about 120,000. And where is the ark?  Right in the middle.  The ark represents God, so God is there holding the river parted until everybody can get across.  So, the very act of parting the Jordan is centered around God.

After everybody crossed, Joshua told the twelve selected men to pick up stones and carry them to place where the priest with the ark had stood in the middle of the Jordan River bed.  Scripture tells us that those stones are still there to mark the place where the ark had rested.  He then told the twelve to pick up twelve more rocks and take them to the beach on the other side of the Jordan and make a memorial there.  We have memorials today.  The Arizona in Pearl Harbor.  The Alamo.  What others?  Maybe these stones on the east side of the Jordan would end up with parents in the future taking their children on trips to see where the Israelites crossed the Jordan River.

Now the Israelites are on the other side of the Jordan, just a stone’s throw from Jericho.  They are camped in a small village named Gilgal.  The first battle for Canaan is about to take place.  Joshua, like any good commander in chief, goes out toward Jericho to get the feel of the land.  As he is walking along the hills, all of the sudden an armed man confronts him, his sword drawn.  Joshua is startled because he thought he was all alone.  He asked the man, “Are you one of us or one of them?"  What Joshua didn’t know was that this wasn’t an ordinary man, but, an angel.  So, Joshua asked whose side is he on and you won’t believe this, but, the angel answers, “Neither.”   It wasn’t that the angel was trying to confuse Joshua.  It is that Joshua asked the wrong question.  Joshua has been assured that God was on his side so it really didn’t make any difference what side anybody else may be on.  So, trying to determine whose side this man represented didn’t make any difference.  Joshua realizes this and changes his question to, “What do you want of me?”  After telling Joshua that he was standing on holy ground and to remove his sandals, the angel tells Joshua that the first order of business is for the people to acknowledge and respect the holiness of God.  The key to their success will hang on them obeying what God tells them to do. 

After getting the reports from their spies in the hills about the Jordan being parted, the army of Jericho had fled behind their walls shaking in their sandals.  They certainly weren't afraid of the Israelite army, but, they were afraid of who?  The Israelite God.  He was the real thing.  He did things with nature that their gods could never do.  How do you suppose they felt about their chances of beating the Israelites?  About the same as the Redskins playing the New England Patriots.  They were banking on their high walls to save them.  While the Israelite army was large, the spies could see that they didn’t have anything for breaking down the walls or breaching the high walls.  No big battering rams to smash down the gates or mobile ramps that would take Israelite soldiers to the top of the walls.  Maybe, the walls will save Jericho.  What do you think?  Will the walls save Jericho?  No need to guess.  It's all right here in today’s study.

Joshua 6:2 The Lord said to Joshua.  "See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with it's king and soldiers.  3 You shall march around the city the city, all the warriors circling the city once.  Thus you shall do for six days, 4 with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark.  On the seventh day you shall you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets.  5 When they make a long blast with the rams' horn, as soon as you hear the 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 all the people shall charge straight ahead.

What does God tell Joshua?  He has handed over Jericho to him.  What does that mean?  Joshua has won.  Has anything happened yet?  Has even one arrow left the bow?  What is God actually saying to Joshua?  “I know the walls are high and strong.  I know that the city has an abundant source of water and can stand a siege for a very long time.  I know that the Israelites don’t have the equipment to batter their way through those walls.  I know all of this and I recognize that you do, too.  But, don’t worry because you don’t have to deal with these things.  That is why I am here.  I’ll tell you exactly what you need to do.  All you have to do is to believe me,  follow my instructions and you will win.”  You see, this is a pep talk.  An assurance that even though, technically, things don’t look good for Joshua, and the Israelites, everything will turn out all right.

God gives Joshua his instructions on how to wage this war.  What is the battle plan?  The army is to march around the city one time a day led by seven priests with trumpets carrying the ark for how many days?  Six.  What happens on the seventh day?  The army and the priests carrying the ark walk around the city seven times and then the priests blow their trumpets and the people shout and what happens?  The walls come tumbling down.  Sounds simple, but, weird.  All of the war books would tell you this isn’t how you bring down a city’s walls.  Good army practice would be to build siege works and to get the biggest log you can find to break open the city’s gates.  Instead of making those vital preparations, what is the Israelite army going to do?  Take a stroll around the city.  Where is Ike when you really need him?  Are these "pie in the sky" plans?  No.  They are God in the sky plans. These were hardly plans that any general back then would endorse.  But, there is something very important about these plans.  If they work, then they worked without following man’s plan.  They will work by following God’s plan.  And there’s the real difference.

In verses 6-11, Joshua commits to following God’s instruction down to the “T”.  He tells the priests what God’s plan is.  None of the them questions what must have seemed to them as a prescription for failure.  But, the priests will do exactly as they were told.  They were carrying out their part of the invasion plan by being obedient to what God wanted them to do.  Joshua made one small change to the original plan.  For the first six days, the people will not say a word as the priest blow their trumpets and walk behind the ark. Even on the seventh day, the priests make their seven trips around the city blowing their trumpets, but, the people will remain silent.  The climax comes after the priest makes their seven trips on the seventh day.  Now it's time for the people to be heard.  The original plan was for the priests to blow a loud blast on the their trumpets and the people scream.  Joshua tells them he will cue them so they will all yell at the same time. 

Why should the people remain silent for seven days?  You know, there are times to shout and times to be quiet.  This was a quiet time.  It is just the simple matter of making sure that every head is directed to the ark.   It is just another way of acknowledging the presence of God and pointing to God. There was a practical reason, too. It is important that when the time comes for the people to yell, the people will have voices left for yelling.  If the people had been screaming and whooping it up for seven days, they wouldn't have much of a voice to yell as loud as they could on the seventh day and their voices are vital for the victory.

Joshua 6:12 Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.  13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the Lord passed on, blowing the the trumpets continually.  The armed men went before them, and the rear guard came after the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets blew continually.  On the second day they marched around the city once and then returned to camp.  They did this for six days.

What time do you get up?  Are you a morning person?  Joshua was.  He not only got up, he  started working.  That meant no five cups of coffee.  No cross word puzzles in the Virginian Pilot.  The time for mulling over the plan was done.  Now it was the time for action.  First, he had to organize the priests.  They’d be the featured players whose job was to carry the ark of the Lord.  These were priests from the tribe of Levi whose primary job was taking care of the ark.  The priests not carrying the ark would be blowing their hearts out on ram’s horn trumpets continually.  Between these trumpet blowing priests and the ark was an armed guard.  After the priests were the rest of the army. Just as they had been told to do, everyone was silent except the priests blowing the trumpets.  Why blow trumpets?  Why not clash cymbals or tinkle a bell?  Why not just have the army wave their swords and spears in a threatening way?  In those days, the blowing of trumpets announced the coming a king.  And who is the king?  The Lord - God.  Each day after marching around Jericho, the people went back to camp, ate supper and rested for the next day’s stroll.

Let’s examine the plan.  For six days they walk around Jericho.  Why six days?  Those were the number of days God took to create the universe and everything in it.  Now, six days will be used to create a new miracle by God - capture of the strongest fortified city in Canaan and open the door to the Promised Land.  So, the six days will parallel the creation story which is centered on God.  In the creation story what happened on the seventh day?  God rested.  In fact the seventh day is called the Lords’s day, right?  Now at Jericho, what happens on the seventh day?  Walking seven times around the city again recalling creation.  That's not resting.  Walking is work and this is the Sabbath.  Is this kosher?  How can a good Jew work on the Sabbath?  Because it is the creator of the Sabbath telling the Jews to work.  So, all of the days marching are pointing to who?  God.

On each of these days who are at the front of the line?  The priests.  And what are they carrying?  The ark.  And, the ark is the symbol of what?  God’s presence.  Again, this shows that God is personally involved in the march around Jericho.  In fact, God is leading the parade.

Now comes the big question.  Why have a laid back battle plan?  Why not start with real armies fighting and warring?  The reason lies in the two important armies involved.  First of all, it probably calmed down the fears of the Israelite army.  It gave them time to get the game jitters out of their system.  As they walked around that city for a total of thirteen times, they got a good look of the fortifications.  They saw how imposing those walls were.  They knew they couldn’t get through those walls and that their only hope was that God was there to lead them and sure enough, when they looked at the front of the line, there was the ark and God.  So, the Israelites are calmed and reassured by God's battle plan.

Who are the other army?  The guys hunkered down behind the walls of Jericho.  First they saw the Israelite army massing on the hills around Jericho and they just knew that any minute, that army was going to swoop down and the war will start.  Remember those old John Wayne movies where the Indians were on the ridges surrounding John Wayne and the wagon train.  Just seeing them there let us know Wayne was in for the fight of his life.  Jericho's army was being worn out waiting for the war to start.  But, instead of running down the hills with their swords drawn and shouting, the Israelites were walking around the city blowing horns.  After a few days of this, and the people might have began to think that Israel was a paper tiger.  When the rubber met the road, Israel didn’t have the guts to try and break down their walls.  They stood on the top of the walls and started shouting insults at the Israelites as they marched passed them.  “Why are your soldiers so silent?  Where is all of the big talk now?  Cat got your tongue?  So, you beat those two rag tag armies on the other side of the Jordan, but, you turn yellow when you meet a real army.”  Still, the Israelites walked.  If you look at it, God was using psychological warfare on Jericho long before the twentieth century.

Joshua 6:15 On the seventh day they rose early, at dawn, and marched around the city in the same manner seven times.  It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times.  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.  17 The city and all that is in it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction.  Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live because she hid the messengers we sent.

Six days of marching are done.  Now comes the seventh day and things will be different.  It is 6:00 AM as people gather their things and walk to the staging area.  The priests are making sure their trumpets are ready to be blown.  The Levites are pushing the poles through the side loops preparing to lift the ark.  They have to be very careful, you know.  If they slip and touch the ark, they’ll die.  The armed guard is in position waiting for the ark.  There is a buzz throughout the camp.  This is going to be THE day!  Like the song says, "this is the day that the Lord has made."  Everything so far has been building up to this moment.  The ark is lifted and like the other six days, the procession starts it’s movement circling Jericho, this time maybe a little bit faster.  The priests start blowing their trumpets. 

To the people on the walls of Jericho it is just another dopey maneuver by the Israelite army.  The people in the city had become relaxed, confident that like the other six days, nothing is really going to happen.  Children had gone back to playing their games in the streets.  Women had came out of their houses and saw that the sky was clear.  A good day to do the laundry that had been piling up.  Merchants were removing the shutters from their windows and were opening their shops for business.  Just another ho hum day.

It didn’t take long for the people on the walls to notice something different.  After one time around the city, the Israelite army didn’t return to their camp.  They were making another turn around the city.  Maybe they just lost count.  Nothing to worry about.  Wait a minute, here they come again.  And then again.  Until they had gone around the city seven times.

Joshua reminds them that there will be a special surprise for Jericho on the seventh trip around the city.  After the priests blow their trumpets, Joshua gives the signal and what will the people do?  Shout loud enough to wake the dead.  Joshua hasn’t forgotten the deal that the spies made with Rahab.  Her house will be easy to spot.  How will they know the house?  A red rope hanging out the window.

Joshua 6:18 As for you, keep away from the things devoted to destruction, so as not to covet and take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel an object for destruction, bringing trouble upon it.  19 But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord."

Joshua warns the army not to pick up any trophies of the battle.  Why not let them have a memento of the battle?  The memento could be a statue of a pagan god.  The army has to remain focused on the Lord, not a pagan god.  What should they turn over to the priests?  Silver, gold, vessels of bronze and iron.  In other words things of value.  And what will be done with those?  They’ll go into the treasury.  After all “To the victor goes the spoils,” right?  Is the Israelite army the victors?  Who is the victor?  God.  Fair is fair.  God planned it.  Everything pointed to God.  God deserved everything that goes along with winning. It’s the first fruits of the first battle.  You see, these spoils are devoted to God.  And that is why the people shouldn’t take them.  Its’ not the trophy thing.  It is that these things belong to God.

Joshua 6:20 So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown.  As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they raised a great shout, and the walls fell down flat; so the people charged straight ahead into the city and captured it.

Did the plan work?  Like a charm.  Imagine how the people in Jericho must have felt when they heard that mighty shout.  What do think the great shout was?  Alleluia?  God is Great?  The Lord has spoken?  It has to a harsh sound that can carry over the walls. All sounds are really pressure waves that can develop a lot of power.  Remember when jet air planes were first introduced to the Naval Base.  When the jets broke the sound barrier there was a sonic boom that rattled and, in some cases, broke windows.  Finally, pilots were forbidden to break the sound barrier over cities. 

The sound wave made by the shouting Israelites must have been a thousand time more powerful than a jets' sonic boom. That's when Jericho's inhabitants saw the walls start to crumble.  When openings appeared in their protective wall and the Israelite army came pouring through, I think that it happened so fast, the city didn’t know what hit them.  Israel and the army are riding high.  How long will it last?  We have to wait until next week for that answer.

We still planned trips, but, we didn’t have to scrape together enough money to pay a toll.  It was still a time of be anxious to get started and relieved to get home.  As Christians our trips are every day when we confront the Jerichos of our world.  We can share in a victory like the one Joshua and the Israelite army did in our study today, when we listen and obey God’s directions for dealing with our Jerichos.  The best part is that our trip will end when we come home and are welcomed by Christ himself.

Prayer: Father may our life trip always be led by you.  Amen.