Living by Faith: The Faith of Joshua

Over the last two Wednesdays I’ve summarized Moses’ life of faith as described in Hebrews 11:23-29 in the form of a “first-person narrative,” that is, I’ve essentially spoken as though I was Moses. Along the way, I’ve taken some creative and interpretive license, but this was not an attempt to add to the words of the Bible, rather, it was an attempt to help us better hear, understand, and believe the Bible. Today I will continue this form of narration by creatively summarizing a crucial moment in Joshua’s life of as described in Hebrews 11:30, “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.”

Imagine Joshua rising from among the great cloud of witnesses in heaven and saying, “Greetings in the name of Jesus, everyone! I find it hard to believe that, in his faithfulness, the Lord gave me the name he would one day give to the Messiah, my own Lord and Savior. Believe me, this was an act of pure grace because I’m just a man and, like John the Baptist, I’m not even worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals much less be a sort of living prophecy of him. But God is just that gracious and for this I praise him.

“Since the time is short, I want to tell you just one quick story about the faithfulness of God. Right after Moses died, we wondered what would become of us and the promises of God, but the Lord was so faithful and he brought us into the land that he had promised by his own power and wisdom. He then confirmed his covenant with us by gathering us together and essentially saying, ‘Listen, Moses has died but I have not. Moses did not endure forever but I live forever. My name is “I Am” and I Am with you, my precious people of promise.’ With that the Lord sent us to conquer a city named Jericho. You’ve probably read the story so you know that Jericho was the first city we conquered on the western side of the Jordan, and that God did it in a most amazing way.

“You see, one day as I was praying, God told me to gather the Ark of the Covenant and the worship team, if you will, and send them out in front of the warriors of Israel. He told me to have them march once around the city for six days and then to march seven times around the city on the seventh day. When we completed that seventh round on the seventh day, we were to shout with all of our might, after which God would give us the city. Now, again, I know that many of you have heard this story so you know where this is going, but you have to understand that though God had told me what he planned to do, we didn’t know if the plan was going to work so we had to march by faith. We had to trust in the words of God. We had to believe in things that we could not see with our eyes.

“I don’t know of any military strategist who would recommend this technique: hey, just worship your way around the city and then after a while shout! But that’s what we did, at the command of God and not the fantasy of a man, and Beloved, God did exactly what he told us he was going to do. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down, in fact, they fell outward, and God gave us that city. It was the first taste of many victories he would give us by faith and for the glory of his name, and what I want you to know is that this transpired as we put our faith in the faithfulness of God. God spoke, we clung to his words, and he showed himself to be faithful. And he’ll be faithful to you, too, if only you will listen, believe, and cling to him. This is my testimony to you and I trust that God will work in your lives as you contemplate the little I’ve shared.”