Joshua Intensive — Unit 4: The Captain of the LORD's Host / Jericho

When Wayne was a boy, his father had a saying for the morning when the Cook brothers were dragging their feet getting out the door: "Do something, even if it's the wrong thing." That line may move a slow ten-year-old into the kitchen for cereal. In the spiritual world it is exactly backwards. God's order runs the other direction:

God wants us to become something before we can do something.

Joshua 5 and 6 sit in the Bible in that exact order — and they sit there on purpose. Chapter 5 is the becoming. Chapter 6 is the doing. Before a single Israelite soldier swings a sword at Jericho, God strips the nation back down to the covenant. The men are circumcised at Gilgal. The Passover is kept. The manna stops. And Joshua himself is taken outside the camp and put on his face before a man with a drawn sword who turns out to be no man at all but the Captain of the LORD's host. By the time chapter 6 opens and the priests pick up the trumpets, the becoming is finished. The army that crosses the Jordan in chapter 4 is not the army that marches around Jericho in chapter 6. They are the same men. They are not the same people.

This unit walks the same path. Section I takes Joshua 5 in four movements: Be a Living Testimony, Be Spiritually Prepared, Be Ready to Let God Change You, and Be Ready to Meet God Face to Face. Section II opens chapter 6 with Hebrews 11:30 and the past-tense word from the LORD: "I HAVE GIVEN Jericho into your hand." Section III handles the foolish plan — silence, ram's horns, thirteen laps, no battering ram, no catapult, no shot fired. Section IV brings the lesson down into the two Jerichos every believer still faces: sin (Dallas's drowned duck) and trouble (Assad and the secret police). Section V puts the parachute on the right way. Section VI, with F. B. Meyer, reminds us that when we look at a brother in sin there are two things we do not know.

By the end of this unit, the goal is that you stop trying to do something for God before you have first let Him make you become something. The Captain is not asking for a stronger sword arm. He is asking for the sandals to come off.

1. Be a Living Testimony (Joshua 5:1)

Joshua 5:1 reports that when the kings of the Amorites and the Canaanites heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan for the sons of Israel until they had crossed over, "their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer." Notice what fought the first battle in the Promised Land. Not a sword. Not a battering ram. A testimony. Israel's reputation arrived in Canaan a full chapter before her army did. The story had outrun the soldiers. The kings of the land had heard about the Red Sea. They had heard about the wilderness manna. They had heard about Sihon and Og on the east side of the river. And now they had heard the impossible: that the LORD had stopped the Jordan at flood stage — a river that could run a mile wide and 150 feet deep — and walked an entire nation across on dry ground. How do you fight a God who stops rivers? You don't. You melt.

That is the first becoming. Before God ever asks His people to do, He works in them a life so visibly different that the watching world has no answer for it.

A holdup man was caught and sent to prison. Inside, he came face to face with the claims of the Gospel and was born again by the Spirit of God. His life completely changed. He served the rest of his sentence in an exemplary manner and was released several years later. As he was leaving, the chaplain handed him a letter from another inmate. Roy opened it and read these lines:

"I came to this place despising both preachers and the Bible. When you told me you were saved, I said to myself, 'There's another one taking the Gospel road just to get an early parole.' But Roy, I've been observing you for a couple of years, and your testimony has rung true. I kept track of you when you were in the yard exercising or working in the shop or eating your meals. You never made a slip. Now I'm a Christian, too, because I watched you. The Savior who saved you has saved me."

Others had argued the claims of Christ at that prisoner. Argument never moved him. Roy's changed life moved him. The first wall to fall in any Jericho is the wall around the heart of the watcher — and that wall does not fall to argument. It falls to a life that has become something.

God wants us to become something before we can do something.

2. Be Spiritually Prepared (Joshua 5:2–10)

The strangest military order in the Old Testament is in Joshua 5:2. Israel has just crossed the Jordan. Jericho is in plain sight, about two miles from the camp at Gilgal. The element of surprise is total. And the LORD says to Joshua, "Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time." An entire generation of fighting men, all the males born in the wilderness, had not been circumcised. There was no anesthesia in the Bronze Age. There were no antibiotics. Recovery for an adult male took roughly ten days — ten days lying disabled in plain sight of a fortified enemy city.

From the Pentagon's point of view this is insane. From God's point of view it is the only way the battle could ever be fought. Before Israel could swing a sword, Israel had to renew the covenant. The flesh had to be cut. The sign had to be restored. Then they kept the Passover at Gilgal on the fourteenth day of the month at evening — remembering the lamb, remembering the blood, remembering Egypt. Only after the covenant sign and the covenant meal does the LORD start talking about Jericho.

The application is sharp. It is very easy to start doing things for God in the flesh and not in the Spirit. We work for God instead of with God. Wayne tells of evenings he had been out witnessing and saw nothing. Then it would come back to him: he had gone through the motions, but he had not bathed the visit in prayer beforehand. The covenant sign had not been renewed in the prayer closet. The Passover lamb had not been remembered. So the door-knocking happened, but the door of the heart never opened.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) preached one of the most famous sermons in American history, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Hundreds were moved to repentance and salvation. That single message helped spark the revival known as the Great Awakening (1734–1744). From a human standpoint it makes no sense. Edwards did not have a commanding voice. He did not pace the pulpit or wave his arms. He read from a manuscript in a flat tone. And yet the Spirit of God fell on the audience with such weight that men gripped the pillars to keep from sliding into hell.

Few know the spiritual preparation behind that sermon. John Chapman tells the story this way: "For three days Edwards had not eaten a mouthful of food; for three nights he had not closed his eyes in sleep. Over and over again he was heard to pray, 'O Lord, give me New England! Give me New England!' When he arose from his knees and made his way into the pulpit that Sunday, he looked as if he had been gazing straight into the face of God. Even before he began to speak, tremendous conviction fell upon his audience."

Three days no food. Three nights no sleep. Give me New England. That is a man who became something before he tried to do something. The flint knives came out before the sword.

3. Be Ready to Let God Change You (Joshua 5:11–12)

The day after Israel ate the Passover at Gilgal, two things happened. They ate from the produce of the land — unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna stopped. Forty years of bread from heaven, every morning except the Sabbath, white like coriander seed and tasting like wafers with honey. Forty years of one delivery system. And suddenly, on a Tuesday in Gilgal, the delivery system ended. They woke up the next day and the ground was dry. They were going to have to harvest, grind, knead, and bake. Same God. Same provision. Different method.

God doesn't always do things the way they have always been done. Henry Blackaby talks about watching to see where God is at work in the world around you and joining Him there. Most of us would rather start a program and ask God to come help with our program. The Bible runs the other way. God is already at work. The question is whether you will change direction to join Him.

Aesop tells of two frogs who were neighbors. One lived in a deep pond, far removed from public view. The other lived in a gully containing little water, traversed by a country road. The pond frog warned his friend to change his residence and entreated him to come and live in the pond, saying he would enjoy greater safety from danger and more abundant food. The gully frog refused, saying that he found it so very hard to leave a place to which he had become accustomed. A few days afterwards a heavy wagon passed through the gully and crushed him to death under its wheels.

Doug Goins tells of a small group of Christians who had gotten saved in the Jesus movement of the early seventies and had hung onto the cultural trappings of that era — tie-dye, hippie aesthetic, the music, the vocabulary — for twenty-five years. They wouldn't change. The ministry that had once been vital faded out because they tried to live in the past. They required God to keep doing things the same way He had done them before. The wagon came down the road, and the gully frog never moved.

Some Christians and some churches are so afraid of change that they don't realize how they ultimately weaken the cause of the Kingdom. The manna will stop. The question is whether your faith is in the manna or in the God who gave it. Israel passed that test in chapter 5 verse 12 by simply waking up the next morning and going to harvest. Most of us, if we are honest, would have stayed in our tents waiting for the white stuff to come back.

4. Be Ready to Meet God Face to Face (Joshua 5:13–15)

Joshua walked out alone toward the city of Jericho. He was thinking like a general. He was probably scouting ground — where to camp the troops, where the wall was thinnest, how high the gate was. And he looked up. There stood a man with His sword drawn in His hand. Joshua, brave to the end, walked right up and asked the question of every general meeting another general on contested ground: "Are you for us or for our adversaries?"

The answer is one of the most theologically loaded answers in the Old Testament. "No; but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come." Not "for you" and not "for them." A third option Joshua had not considered. The Captain of the LORD's host has not come to take sides; He has come to take over. Joshua does the only sane thing. He falls on his face and worships and asks, "What does my Lord say to His servant?" And the Captain says, "Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy."

This is the Joshua moment that mirrors the Moses moment at the burning bush. Different generation, different terrain, same command, same shoes off, same holy ground. Before any great work, the leader has to be put on his face. Before Moses freed a nation, he met God in a bush that burned but was not consumed. Before Joshua took a city, he met God outside the camp with a sword drawn. The pattern does not change.

There was once a man on the streets of Chicago who, by ordinary measures, was barely above an imbecile. But he was regenerated, and the power of God came upon him. He could not do what many others were capable of doing, but he went up and down the streets begging money, and gave it for the furtherance of the gospel. He wore out two Bibles reading them. He became a marvel; so much so that one of the prominent Presbyterian editors went to interview him. He heard him read the third chapter of John, and as the poor man read, the power of God seemed to fall upon him as on the early disciples in the beginning. After he finished, the editor said, "Would you tell me the secret of this? I want to write it in my paper." And all the answer he could get to his question was, "I have seen Jesus Christ. I have seen Him."

Oh, that our eyes might be opened, that every sin that has obstructed the vision may be taken away, and we can say, "I have seen God face to face."

It is a good thing for a man to be left alone with God. Have you a quiet hour? It may be only ten minutes, but do you go alone with God every day? If you have not learned this lesson you have not reached the beginning of peace. Wayne once asked Dr. McCarthy, who was Hudson Taylor's representative in this country, "Can you tell me the secret of Hudson Taylor's power with God?" McCarthy answered quickly: "I can do it easily. When Mr. Taylor first went to inland China he found the Chinese so inquisitive that he was hardly ever alone, even for a few moments of the day, and this was robbing him of his fellowship with God. So he got into the habit of rising every morning at three o'clock and going into his room alone for an hour, sometimes to sit for the hour in meditation, sometimes to read God's Word, sometimes to plead His promises, but always to come forth with burning heart and radiant face."

Three o'clock in the morning. One hour. Alone. That is the secret of blessing. That is the becoming that has to happen before any doing matters. Joshua takes off his sandals on holy ground. Hudson Taylor sets the alarm for three. Edwards prays for New England until the pulpit feels lit from inside. They all do the same thing in a different room.

The whole sixth chapter of Joshua compresses into a single verse in Hebrews. "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days" (Hebrews 11:30). That is the New Testament's commentary on Jericho. Not "by tactics." Not "by surprise." By faith. The walls did not fall because of military pressure. They fell because Israel obeyed.

And the LORD's first word to Joshua about the city sets the whole tone of the campaign. Joshua 6:2: "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the mighty men of valor." Read the verb tense again. Not "I will give." Not "if you obey, I might give." I have given. Past tense. Done. Jericho is already in Joshua's hand before a single trumpet sounds. The battle is over before it starts. All Joshua has to do is march out and pick up what God has already handed him.

There is no situation we can get ourselves into that God cannot get us out of. A man was learning to fly. His instructor told him to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. He was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out of control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help. After a few seconds, which felt like eternity, his mind began to function again. He quickly corrected the situation. Immediately he turned to the instructor and began to vent his fearful frustrations on him. The instructor very calmly said:

"There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again."

That is the message God gives Joshua in chapter 6. "Remember this. As you serve Me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust Me, you will be all right." By faith God led them to victory. Joshua did not fit the battle of Jericho the way the old spiritual sings it. God fought the battle of Jericho. Joshua marched.

From a human perspective, God's plan made no sense. He told Israel to march around the city for six days. Some soldiers up front, then seven priests blowing rams' horns, then priests carrying the ark, and then the rest of the soldiers. Six days of walking. Silence. No taunts at the wall. No siege weapons. No archers loosing arrows over the gate. Then on the seventh day they were to walk around seven times, and at the end shout, and the walls would come down. Thirteen total trips around without saying a word before God finally acted.

You sometimes wonder why God doesn't do things the easier and quicker way. He could have "done a Moses." Just have Joshua hold up his arms and then bring them crashing down, and when his arms came together the walls would come tumbling too. Or God could have done it the more conventional way — battering rams and a catapult with burning pitch. The Hebrew people could have hollered all they wanted. But God did not do it like that either. The truth is that God often likes to use ways that don't make a lot of sense to us.

"For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." (1 Corinthians 1:26–29)

With Joshua, God used trumpets. With Gideon, He used three hundred men lapping water and carrying torches stuffed inside clay pitchers. With the giant Goliath, He used a boy with a slingshot. Some people may have grumbled. The people of Jericho almost certainly jeered as the parade went around the city the second day, the third day, the fourth day. But God conquered the city without firing a shot. God delights in using weakness and seeming foolishness to defeat His enemies and glorify His name. God has a plan for our lives, and it is laid out in intricate detail. We don't need to understand the plan. We need faith in the God whose plan it is.

The story is told of a good woman known for her great calmness in the midst of many trials and for her simple faith. Another woman heard of her and said, "I must go and see that woman, and learn the secret of her strong and happy life." She went, and asked her: "Are you the woman with the great faith?" "No," she replied, "I am not the woman with the great faith; but I am the woman with the little faith in the great God."

That is the entire theology of Jericho in one sentence. The walls did not fall because Israel had great faith. The walls fell because Israel had little faith in a great God. The size of the faith never moved the wall. The size of the God moved the wall. Mustard-seed faith in a mountain-moving God moves mountains. Mountain-sized faith in a mustard-seed god moves nothing.

Whether we like it or not, we are at war. There are battles to be fought every day in the spiritual realm. Two Jerichos in particular still circle every believer's life, and in both of them God has already given the victory — but we still have to march by faith.

The First Jericho: Sin

Sin is an ongoing battle. In this world, sin is never completely conquered. We have all heard stories of the alcoholic who comes to know the Lord and never drinks again, or the prostitute who finds Jesus and gets married and lives a respectable life. But for every immediate success there are countless struggles. Wayne tells of a man who sat across from him caught in a cycle that never seemed to end. He would sin, go to God in agony to repent, and then go out and do the same thing again. He was wondering whether he was really saved and how long God would keep forgiving him before just giving up.

In a true believer struggling to overcome an area of temptation, God has already given the victory. That victory was won at the Cross. Like Israel, we may still need to march around the wall thirteen times. We may still need to repent and repent and repent. But if we have faith, God's victory is already assured. And if you fail and repent, it is not God who keeps reminding you of what you have done. Satan is the one with the running list. God uses the past tense: "I have given Jericho into your hand."

A man named Dallas tells the following story:

One day my little sister and I were playing in the yard. Mother had some little ducks, and I would put one of them in a tub of water to see him swim. I would also put him under the water and hold him there. One time I held him too long. He was a drowned duck. When I saw that I had drowned him I was horrified, for I knew sister would tell Mother. But as I was thus perplexed, my little sister said, "I will tell you what I will do; if you will do everything I ask you to do, I will not tell Mother." This was a happy solution and I said, "Anything you want in this world, let me know and I will do it." We had a little wagon, and soon sister appeared, seated herself in the wagon, and said, "Pull me." Well, I did, till I was tired. Then she looked at me with a kind of tyrannical look, and said, "Pull me some more." Days went by and I woke up to the fact that I was a slave. I could not endure it and made up my mind to go to Mother and have it fixed up regardless. So I went into the room crying pitifully, and Mother took me in her arms and said, "Son, what is the matter?" Finally I sobbed out, "Mother, I've drowned one of your ducks." "Well," she said, "you did not mean to do it, and you are so sorry, I will forgive you this time. Go on and play." I never felt so light and good in all my life. Finally, little sister appeared and made some drastic demands on me, and I looked her in the face and said, "I will not do it." Then she said, with her finger in my face, "Do you remember that duck?" I looked her in the eyes and said, "Duck? I want to tell you that duck business is all fixed up."

God has promised forgiveness and victory. The victory is not in our efforts and struggles, but through faith in God. The next time the enemy points his finger in your face and says, "Do you remember that duck?" the right answer is the answer Dallas gave. That duck business is all fixed up. Confessed at the Cross. Forgiven by the Father. Marched around thirteen times. Walls down.

The Second Jericho: Trouble

The second Jericho is trouble. Have you ever had a God-sized problem — something so big that only God can deal with it? This is illustrated powerfully in the life of Assad, a Christian leader in an Islamic nation. Assad had been ministering quietly behind the scenes, but he was invited to take more responsibility in organizational leadership and to be ordained as a pastor in his country.

"I am a timid man," he said. He told of how it was a great struggle to accept that responsibility, because he knew it would mean higher public visibility, which meant a greater threat of government harassment or even persecution. He had seen other Christians around him persecuted for standing for their faith. He was open about the anxiety and stress that he and his wife felt, which was communicated to their children, about the move into a pastorate. They prayed together. They received counsel from godly friends. They became convinced that if the Lord was calling Assad to the work, the Lord would protect and defend them. They told the Lord they would trust and obey, and they asked Him to calm their fears, particularly for the children's sake. About eight years ago they moved into the pastorate, reckoning God's promises true, claiming the victory God would give them in these new responsibilities.

About three years ago, after several years of fruitful ministry, Assad was suddenly caught in violent spiritual conflict. An officer of the secret police walked into his study at home unannounced. The first prayer that came to Assad's mind was, "Lord, don't let him see everything lying around" — because the study was the nerve center of the ministry, and in it were equipment, records, and materials amounting to substantial incriminating evidence of all the ministry activity. The official did not look at anything. He simply said, "We have to go." He rushed Assad out of the house and down to the police station.

Assad prayed all the way down: "Lord, You told the apostles You would give them words to say when taken before magistrates. I don't want to lie, but I don't want to incriminate or endanger anyone else." The accusations came: "You convert Muslims to Christianity." Assad answered, "Sir, I do not convert anyone. We believe that the Spirit of God changes people to belief in Jesus Christ. I don't do it." "You baptize Muslims." Assad answered, "Sir, I baptize followers of Jesus Christ, people who have placed their faith in Him. I do not baptize Muslims." To every question, the Lord gave Assad clear, honest responses. After three hours of interrogation, all the officer could say was, "Well, we are going to be watching you." And they let him go.

That is overcoming the enemy by faith in the middle of spiritual conflict. Assad continues to demonstrate the same kind of obedience that Joshua and the people demonstrated at Jericho — even after the pressure was off. Since that interrogation he has had years of relative peace in his ministry. He is clear that the Lord did it. It is not his cleverness in creating strategies. He has a great personal humility before the Lord of the Church. God took a weak man and gave him spiritual strength that is not natural to him, so that, in the words of Paul, no one can boast before God. He also does not take the victory for granted. He knows warfare can come back at any time.

Sin is the first Jericho. Trouble is the second. In both, the Captain still has His sword drawn. In both, the past tense still applies: I have given. In both, the wall comes down on the same schedule — the seventh lap of the seventh day, after the sandals come off and the obedience holds.

In April 1988 the evening news ran a story that should be read at every altar call in the country. A photographer who was also a skydiver had jumped from a plane along with several other skydivers. He filmed the group as they fell and opened their parachutes. On the film shown on the broadcast, as the final skydiver's chute deployed, the picture went berserk. The announcer reported, evenly and quietly, that the cameraman had fallen to his death — he had jumped out of the plane without his parachute. It was not until he reached for the absent ripcord that he realized he was free-falling without one.

Until that moment, the jump probably seemed exciting. The wind. The footage. The other divers in formation in his viewfinder. But tragically, he had acted with thoughtless haste and deadly foolishness. Nothing could save him, for his faith was in a parachute never buckled on.

Faith in anything but an all-sufficient God is just as tragic spiritually. You can be in the air. You can be enjoying the ride. The footage of your life can look great. But if the parachute is not buckled on — if your faith is not in the finished work of Jesus Christ — the ripcord pulls nothing. Only with faith in Christ dare we step into the dangerous excitement of life.

The men of Israel marched around Jericho with the parachute on. They had been circumcised. They had eaten the Passover. They had stood while Joshua took off his sandals. They had heard the past tense from the mouth of God. I have given. They jumped, and the ripcord worked, because the parachute had been buckled on at Gilgal six days before the trumpets ever sounded.

Joshua 5 ends with sandals off in front of a Captain with a drawn sword. That is the right posture before God. F. B. Meyer brings the same posture into our dealings with each other.

It was F. B. Meyer who once said that when we see a brother or sister in sin, there are two things we do not know: first, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin; and second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances. (Stephen Brown, Christianity Today, April 5, 1993)

Read those two unknowns again. We do not know how hard the brother fought before he fell. We do not know the strength of what was pulling at him. And there is a third unknown that flows from those two: we do not know what we would have done in the same room. The man who knows how Hudson Taylor got up at three in the morning is the same man who, when he sees a brother stumble, takes his sandals off before he opens his mouth.

This is the Joshua 5 posture pressed into church life. The Captain did not come to take Joshua's side or the Canaanites' side. He came to take over. When we look at a brother in sin, the Captain is not asking us to pick sides between the sinner and the standard. He is asking us to fall on our face, take off the sandals, and let Him hold the sword. Restoration in Galatians 6:1 says, "you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." The "considering yourself" is Meyer's three unknowns. We do not know how hard he tried. We do not know what was pulling. We do not know what we would have done. So we approach softly, with the parachute on, and we walk the brother around his Jericho thirteen times until the wall comes down.

Whatever your Jericho is this week — the sin you keep confessing, the trouble that has no human solution, the brother who fell and you do not know how to walk back into the room with him — the Captain of the LORD's host is already standing there with His sword drawn. He has not come to take your side or the side of your enemy. He has come to take over.

The past tense still reads the same: I have given Jericho into your hand. The plan still looks foolish: silence, ram's horns, thirteen laps, no shot fired. The faith still does not have to be great: little faith in a great God. The parachute still has to be buckled on at Gilgal before the jump. And the sandals still have to come off before the wall comes down.

God wants you to become something before you can do something. Become it this week. Then go march.