Let's Let The Walls Fall – Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Today's armies don't conduct warfare the way ancient Israel took Jericho. You don't march around and shout, you attack. But they did march around Jericho's walls because God's purpose was to prove to them that he and only he caused the victory.

From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, I can only imagine that the people of Jericho were laughing as they watched an army march in silence around their city. Indeed, the people of Jericho were probably thinking that these people that are marching around the city are out of their minds. How can they possibly expect that the walls will fall down or that there be any kind of victory simply by walking? Could I put in a parenthesis here? This is not necessarily a pattern that has to be followed or that should be followed today. I know some instances of where people have gone around, marched around a block of land claiming it, and it hasn't happened. This was a unique experience.

God gave a specific command to a specific people. Now, having said that, there's so much that we can learn from that experience. I want to thank the many of you who support the ministry of Running to Win. And at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be reading a letter and then I'm going to be asking you a question.

But first of all, I want to ask you this. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? An endurance partner is somebody who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. You need more info, of course.

Go to rtwoffer.com, click on the endurance partner button, or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And now let's talk about how God gave victory. They did it silently. Now, this is picked up in verse 10. But Joshua had commanded the people, do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout, then shout, he says. Notice he goes progressively, no war cry, do not raise your voice, do not say a word, not a mumbling word until I tell you to.

Why, I think a couple of reasons. First of all, he wanted to keep them focused. Someone has suggested that maybe it was because the people, if they had been talking and whispering, would have murmured among themselves. Some of them would have said, well, you know, this is just ridiculous. And pretty soon, you know, that nest of criticism could have taken hold of people and fear could have been engendered from one person to another. And the whole company demoralized. So Joshua says, when you're going around saying nothing, be quiet. Of course, you know that that can happen today, too, can't you? When you have people who murmur, sometimes it's possible to take what happened on Sunday and to destroy it on Monday.

If people murmur and that spreads throughout the camp. So God says, I want you to do it silently. He says, I want you to go around the wall, important now, unitedly. This was not to be Joshua's victory. This was not to be the victory of one person. Now, God could have spoken the word. The man with a sword drawn in his hand, as we noticed last time, could have spoken the word.

The walls could have collapsed without them going around at all. And of course, God could have given the victory to Joshua. Listen to me very carefully. There are few battles that you fight in life that can be fought alone.

Some, but few. There are some of you who are facing personal walls that you will never get around over or through until somebody comes alongside and you begin to pray together and you begin to yield together. Even though we've got the promises, God says to apply the promises, there must be a sense of unity and togetherness. In fact, there's a verse in Colossians that says, if you want to enter into all of the inheritance that you have in Christ, I'm paraphrasing now, your hearts must be knit together in love. You can't do it alone.

Now that's true personally for those walls that we want to scale. You can't do it alone. Some of you are in a pit and you can't dig yourself out of the pit alone. We can't do what we as a church want to do unless we do it unitedly.

But here's the point. God will make sure that we will not do this unless we do it together. But number two, even if it were possible, I wouldn't want it to happen that way. I wouldn't have wanted if I would have been Joshua to say, well, you know, why should everybody go around the walls? Why don't we just have a few people go around the walls and they could sort of represent everybody else? Let Joshua and the mighty men do it. No, let the women and children be involved and let everybody be involved. Because remember, there are few things that can be done personally or corporately that can be done alone.

Maybe there are some, but there aren't many. So they did it unitedly. Helplessly, patiently, silently, unitedly, dare I say, thank God, triumphantly.

Now we pick it up in verse 20. And of course they went around the walls. When the trumpet sounded, the people shouted. And at the sound of the trumpet when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed. So that every man charged straight in and they took the city and they devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it, men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. And of course, if you read, you'll notice that they spared Rahab as they had promised her. And they destroyed a lot of good things in Jericho that the people would have loved to have. God says, no looting, no taking, take the silver and gold to the Lord's treasury, but everything else, destroy it and destroy all the people.

Now many people read this and they say, I can't, I can't take it in. I mean, what kind of a vicious God is this? So much so that the older liberals used to think that there were two gods, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Well, you know that several months ago I preached on the topic of whether God is more tolerant than he used to be. And he showed conclusively that the same God in the Old Testament is the God of the New. And furthermore, the judgments of the New Testament are far more severe than the judgments of the Old Testament. All that you have to do is to read the book of Revelation to realize that. What was God is saying in this context?

This now is from my heart to yours as everything is. Sin is contagious. It's contagious. It spreads like disease.

It spreads like the flu. You begin to have contact with these false gods over here. You begin to compromise with these people who were exceedingly evil into every imaginable form of sexual perversion into occultism and the whole bit. God says, I want you to destroy the enemy because there can be some things in which there can be no compromise. It's hard. But you read the book of Revelation and you discover judgments.

Now, of course, the children, we believe, in this context would have gone to heaven. But the simple fact is that God is saying, God is saying you cannot compromise with sin. You know, I don't know about you, but whenever I try, I always think to myself, well, I can compromise with this.

And what God keeps telling me is and showing me conclusively that it's impossible. I read some time ago of a man who bought a house and the owner said, I'll sell the whole thing to you, but I want to keep one nail, the outside nail. And I said, well, you know, let him keep the nail. Well, what that man began to do, the previous owner began to hang some decaying meat on that nail. So the owner now couldn't touch it because after all, the nail belonged to the other man.

Eventually, as the story goes, the owner had to give up his ownership. It's amazing how how sin grows. And God is saying this is serious stuff. Occultism, immorality deal with these people severely as a judgment. What are the great lessons that we have to learn today? First of all, our basic battle is always spiritual.

It is really spiritual. You know, it would be easy to say, well, you know, this was a real battle between two armies. Well, give me a break. I mean, where were the armies among the Israelites? Sure, they had men of war and everything like that, but they were woefully, woefully unequipped. That wasn't really the issue. The issue wasn't really the strength of Jericho, which was a very strong city. And archaeologists tell us that in those days, the Canaanites, I believe, already had iron, which meant that as they made various equipment and various weapons, they were far ahead of the Israelites who had almost nothing.

But that wasn't really the issue. The issue was two invisible armies at war here. And remember last time where the captain of the host of the Lord comes to Joshua and Joshua says, art thou for us or for our adversaries? And he said, I have not come to take sides.

I have come to take over. And he says, I am the captain of the host of the Lord. I can speak the word and God's armies go out. Is it not the apostle Paul who said that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and things present, things to come, all of those things. I mean, there is, as we've often pointed out, a spiritual counterpart to the battles that take place here on earth so that our own struggle with sin oftentimes is reinforced by the enemy. We remain responsible, but he is there to bind us and to condemn us and to hold us. Our battle with faith is a spiritual battle. When all that we can see is our own walls without seeing what God has provided for us, our basic battles are always spiritual. Let me give you a second observation. Our victory depends on our focus.

Our victory depends on our focus. Now, one thing you will find when you don't have to live too long in this life, looking in your eyes, most of you have lived long enough to discover this, that there are some people and some of you live with people like this and you work with them. They are wall watchers. Wall watchers love to talk about the height of the walls. They have measured the width and the height. They know, catch this now, the weight of the walls.

Bless them. They know the age of the walls. They know how deep the foundations go. They know who put that wall into the ground. They've done a chemical analysis of the bricks that hold that wall. They are wall watchers bound with walls that hem them in. Now, there's nothing wrong with looking at the walls, but here's what you have to do. You have to just glance at the walls, but you have to gaze at God. What a difference that is.

What a difference when you can see beyond the wall to God changes everything. There is a story about two men, very gravely ill, sharing a room in a hospital. One man flat on his back, the other also flat on his back next to a window, but able to perch himself up about an hour a day in the afternoon when they were able to do some medical tests and attention that was given to him. And the man next to the window would prop himself up and talk to the other man who was lying flat and would tell him what he saw. Oh, he would tell stories about little girls walking along in their pretty dresses, and here's a little boy with his puppy, and he would talk about the beauty of the lake. In fact, he'd said so beautifully these descriptions that the man who was lying down lived for that moment when he'd be able to hear what was going on outside. Sometimes it was even a softball game or how a little child was saved from drowning in the lake. Well, time went on and the man next to the window died.

They took his body quietly away. The man lying there flat on his back in his loneliness wanted desperately to be next to the window, so when it was decent, he asked if he could be moved, and they said yes, and they tucked him in and they left him. And then desperate for some news and some sights from the outside, he raised himself on one elbow and then the other to try to look out that window, and finally he was able to look out and discovered that that window was up against a blank wall. You know, there are some people who can see beyond the walls. There are some people who are hemmed in and they can see beyond the walls. They can see God and they say this wall, this wall is formidable, but it is not big enough or strong enough for God, and you begin to see through the walls to God.

British Columbia, lovely, lovely province in a very lovely, lovely country. There was a prison built where no one tried to get out of, but when it was torn down so that they could build a new one, the workmen discovered something very interesting. It was not built of concrete. It was built of wallboard, but the wallboard mimicked concrete. It looked like concrete. The prisoners could have broken out.

There's no question about that, but nobody ever tried. Your walls today seem so strong, so deep, so filled with concrete that you can neither see God nor see the possibility that if you were to push in faith, the walls might collapse so that you can be free. World War II, a young soldier took his bride to California. She was terribly lonely in all that heat, sitting there in all that loneliness, and she wrote to her mother and she said, Mother, I'm just too lonely.

Her mother wrote back two lines. Two men sit in prison bars. One sees mud, the other stars. It all depends. You can see whatever you want to see. If you're a wall lover and that's all you see, then keep loving and hugging that wall. But if you can see beyond that and you can see God, suddenly his glory and his honor and the possibilities of what God can do wells up within our hearts and we say, Oh God, this wall, this wall is no match for you and your promises.

March straight ahead and take the city. Let us pray. Our Father, we want to thank you today for your grace. We thank you for the power of God. We thank you for the promise from your word that you are the one who will slay our enemies. We thank you, Father, that your call us to holiness as the basis upon which we will be able to win our battles. We thank you, Father, that you call us to radical commitment, to a new obedience. And, oh Father, we know why some of our walls don't come down. We have not yet come to the end of self will and self manipulation. We have not yet come, Father, to the end of ourselves to be helpless. We have not yet come, Father, to the point where we have learned patience and contentment and the need for others. Oh, Father, today, individually and as a church, may the walls fall down, prisons of our own making, prisons made for us. We pray that as a church, grant us a vision that is as big as you are, Lord.

We ask, do it. And now before I close in prayer, what is it that you need to say to God today? What wall came to your mind that God wants to see demolished? Would you just talk to God if he's talked to you and you tell him whatever you think you should tell him? And if you're here and you've never trusted Christ as savior, though I did not explicitly proclaim the gospel today, I do want you to know that Jesus died for sinners. And if you come here today with a weight of sin and restlessness, it is through Christ that you find peace and forgiveness. You can even believe on him now and say, Lord Jesus, I come to receive you as my own. That is the doorway to God. That's the connection is because of Christ. Grant, oh Father, today great faith in the lives of all who have listened so that we may see great victories. And at the end of the day, we promise with your help, you and you alone will receive the credit in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well this is Pastor Lutzer and I have to confess to you that I often look at walls rather than looking to God beyond the walls. I need to constantly remind myself about God through the word, through worship. I began this morning by quoting once again, I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. You and I need to remember that it's all about God.

I have in my hands a letter from someone who listens to us in Spanish. My family and I have been overwhelmed by guilt and contempt for our lives, but you have taught us how to experience the peace of God. I have a question for you. Are you a part of this testimony? You certainly can be. Whenever we receive testimonies like this and of course we receive a response around the world because of how running to win gets the message out in so many different languages and in different countries, I always think to myself, these testimonies are for those who support this ministry. We thank you very, very much. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.

Of course, the amount that you give is entirely your decision. Here's what you do. Go to rtwoffer.com. That's rtwoffer.com and when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer, call us at 1-888-218-9337. We are looking for endurance partners. We're thankful for every gift that comes to this ministry. Endurance partners give regularly.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. It's time again for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life. Today's question, Dr. Lutzer, comes from Nancy in Stowe, Ohio. She writes, I'm overwhelmed with fearful thoughts. I know God is my only hope, but I cannot get free from the chains of doubt and fear I have. I feel like a useless blob of nothing.

What do I do? Well, Nancy, first of all, you're doing the right thing by continuing to hope in God. And there are a few practical suggestions, some of which you may already be doing, but first of all, keep memorizing those verses of scripture. Often I've had to do that, passages that remind us that we can cast our care upon the Lord and that we need be anxious for nothing. Read Psalm 27, where David deals there with the issue of fear.

Now that's part of it. The second thing, though, is to commit your way to God and to genuinely take those burdens and transfer them onto God's shoulders. You were not meant to bear those heavy burdens, but now here comes something very important.

You need the members of the body of Jesus Christ. Nancy, I would encourage you to ask some friends to come and to pray with you. It's not enough to simply hear them say, we'll pray for you. No, you must pray with them. Get down on your knees with them.

Let them bear your burdens. I've learned that God gives us the body of Jesus Christ to help us through those dark times that we cannot get through on our own. So from my heart to yours today, Nancy, keep trusting, believing, committing, and use the body of Jesus Christ that it might function the way in which God intended it to.

He'll bring you through this and the sun will shine again. For Nancy, thank you very much, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win comes to you from the Moody Church in Chicago to help you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. Next time, a sober lesson for us all, as hidden sin turns the joy of Jericho's fall into a disastrous defeat at AI. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.