Marching Around Jericho: Faith That Brings Victory

The victory formation gives the picture: when the game is already won, the team still has to snap the ball, kneel down, and let the clock run out. The book of Joshua is the book of victory, but that victory is not Israel’s trophy. God owns the battle, God gives the land, and God calls his people to stand beside him in faith and obedience.

Joshua’s name points forward to Jesus, the heavenly Joshua, who leads his people into fulfillment and victory. God renews covenant with Israel as they enter the promised land, and the commander of the Lord’s army meets Joshua to make one thing clear: “The victory belongs to the Lord.” Christ is not coming to take sides. Christ is coming to take over.

Jericho shows what faith looks like when the wall is big, wicked, proud, and impossible. Its walls are broad enough for chariots, and by every military standard the city cannot be taken. But in the eyes of God, Jericho is already defeated. Jericho becomes the picture of every barrier that stands between the believer and what God has promised: fear, doubt, an unhealthy body, an unhappy marriage, an unholy life, old age, lack of education, past defeat, discouragement, or depression.

Rahab stands inside that same city as a picture of active, transforming faith. Her past does not disqualify her, and her outsider status does not keep God from using her. Her courage protects the spies, saves her household, and places her in the line that leads to David and ultimately to Jesus Christ. God can use anyone, regardless of the past, to fulfill his purposes.

Faith moves through four realities: priority, progression, perseverance, and profession. The priority of faith begins when Joshua lays down his sword and becomes conquered before becoming a conqueror. The progression of faith obeys strange instructions even when the battle plan sounds foolish. The perseverance of faith keeps marching because waiting time is not wasted time to God. The profession of faith shouts before the walls fall, because Joshua says what God has already said.

God’s promises are not empty words. Faith is the hand that reaches out and takes hold of God’s power. Where faith walks, God works, and impossibility becomes victory.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Victory belongs to the Lord God gives Joshua an encounter before the battle so that Joshua understands who really commands the field. The question is not whether God is on Israel’s side, but whether Joshua will surrender to God’s side. Faith begins when the sword is laid down and the believer stops trying to make God a helper instead of Lord. [20:49]
• 2. Jericho names the real barrier Jericho is more than an ancient city with thick walls. Jericho becomes the thing that shouts, “You could have made it, but here I am,” and tries to keep the believer from God’s best. The wall may be fear, shame, sickness, depression, or past defeat, but the size of the wall never gets the final word over the promise of God. [36:20]
• 3. Faith must keep moving forward Faith cannot sit still and call itself faith. God’s strange instructions test whether trust will move forward when obedience does not make sense yet. The Bible starts making sense at the point where the believer stops negotiating with it and begins obeying it. [46:16]
• 4. Waiting time is not wasted God does not always drop the wall after the first lap. The repeated march teaches persistence, obedience, and dependence while the promise still looks delayed. Waiting on God means continuing to march in faith while the wall still appears to be standing. [51:26]
• 5. Profession must possess the promise Joshua tells the people to shout before any wall has moved. True profession is not empty religious talk, because it speaks what God has already said and receives it as real. Faith does not merely claim a promise with noise; faith possesses the promise through obedience, surrender, and trust.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [18:15] - Continuing the Joshua Series
• [19:44] - Victory Formation and God’s Prosperity
• [20:15] - Four Movements in Joshua
• [22:38] - Jericho, Ai, and Israel’s Faith
• [24:47] - Rahab’s Courage and Redemption
• [28:02] - Joshua Points to Jesus
• [31:09] - Jericho as the Impossible Wall
• [39:00] - The Priority of Faith
• [44:17] - The Progression of Faith
• [49:59] - The Perseverance of Faith
• [54:04] - The Profession of Faith
• [60:13] - Where Faith Walks, God Works
• [61:51] - Prayer for Power and Obedience
• [63:41] - Communion and the Power of Christ

Bible Reading

Joshua 6:1-20
“Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. Then the LORD said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’” [39:04] [44:17] [50:11] [54:13]

Joshua 5:13-15
“Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ ‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?’ The commander of the LORD’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.” [40:11]

Hebrews 11:30
“By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the army had marched around them for seven days.” [39:04]

Joshua 2:1-21
“Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. ‘Go, look over the land,’ he said, ‘especially Jericho.’ So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, ‘Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.’ So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: ‘Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.’ But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, ‘Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.’ (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut. Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, ‘I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. “Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.” “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the LORD gives us the land.” So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. She said to them, ‘Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way.’ Now the men had said to her, ‘This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.’ ‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘Let it be as you say.’ So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.” [25:01]

Observation questions

1. In Joshua 5:13-15, how does Joshua respond when he meets the commander of the Lord’s army, and what does that response show about his posture before the battle? [40:11]
2. In Joshua 6:1-20, what specific instructions did God give Israel for the six days and for the seventh day, and which parts of the plan would have seemed unusual from a military standpoint? [44:17]
3. What details in the account of Jericho highlight how strong and intimidating the city was meant to appear? [31:09]
4. In Joshua 2:1-21, what actions did Rahab take that showed both courage and faith, especially toward her household? [25:01]

Interpretation questions

1. When the commander of the Lord’s army answers Joshua, “Neither,” what does that reveal about who truly owns the battle and what kind of surrender God requires from his people? [41:33]
2. Hebrews 11:30 says the walls fell “by faith” after seven days of marching. Why does faith in this story include both trust and repeated obedience, instead of only belief in the heart? [46:16]
3. Jericho is presented as more than an ancient city; it also pictures the barriers that stand between people and God’s promises. How does that help explain why God led Israel to face the wall instead of avoid it? [36:20]
4. Rahab lived inside the same city marked for judgment, yet she was rescued and brought into God’s story. What does her place in the story show about grace, faith, and the kind of people God is willing to use? [27:23]

Application questions

1. Victory belongs to the Lord. Where is there a place in life right now where the real need is not more control, but deeper surrender to Christ as Lord? What would it look like to lay down the sword there? [41:51]
2. Most people can name a personal “Jericho” such as fear, discouragement, shame, depression, a strained marriage, or an old defeat. What wall feels the most real right now, and how has it been speaking back with defiance? [37:06]
3. Faith keeps moving forward even when obedience feels strange. Is there an area where God’s direction seems clear, but it still feels hard to follow because it does not make sense yet? [47:26]
4. Waiting time is not wasted time to God. Where has there been a temptation to stop marching because the wall still looks unchanged? What would perseverance look like this week in a very practical way? [51:26]
5. Rahab shows that the past does not disqualify a person from God’s mercy or usefulness. Is there any part of a personal story that still feels like a reason God could not use someone? How does Rahab’s example challenge that? [26:23]
6. Joshua told the people to shout before the wall fell because God had already spoken. What words have been filling the heart lately: words of fear, defeat, and anxiety, or words shaped by God’s promises? [56:13]
7. Where faith walks, God works. What is one step of obedience that can be taken in the next few days that would show trust in God instead of retreat into the wilderness of doubt? [01:00:13]