Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
September 20, 1998
Joshua 6:12-20
YOUR WALLS CAN TUMBLE DOWN
==========================
I. Everybody's got a Jericho.
A. What is the biggest problem you face right now?
1) Maybe not as big as the President's problems, but you have
some.
2) Your marriage...job...kids...finances...some habit...
B. Can God handle it?
II. Joshua faced the biggest obstacle of the whole campaign.
A. Fairly large city, with massive walls.
1) Yards thick, thick enough for houses to be built on top.
B. God has special plans on how it will be taken.
1) Basically, God is going to do it himself.
a) Joshua never "fit the battle of Jericho."
2) All Joshua has to do is obey... and walk around the
city for six days blowing some trumpets.
C. What kind of strategy was this?
1) Some see elements of magic or superstition.
a) Others see it as "psychological warfare."
2) More likely, it demands humility and reveals power of God.
a) My own experience:
In 1973 the Christian group in my high school
decided to have a Jesus Emphasis Week.
We wore buttons and witnessed to people in the
hallways.
The climax was a "Jericho March."
We were to march around the high school seven times,
singing Christian songs.
This was not my idea. It was absolutely humiliating.
It was meant to draw attention - AND IT DID.
I got to witness in several classes, but my face
was beet red.
III. The walls came a' tumblin' down.
A. How did it happen?
1) Due to loud shout and trumpets?
a) Unlikely.
b) However, our church might collapse under such noise!
2) Possibility of earthquake.
3) Direct miracle by God.
B. Archeological evidence.
1) Garstang in the 1930's claimed he found the walls, and
they were flattened.
2) Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950's continued digging, and said
Garstang was wrong.
a) His walls were 1,000 years too early.
b) Joshua's Jericho was all washed away.
3) Wood in the 1980's argues the walls are washed away, but
the middle of the city still holds secrets.
a) House in the middle dates to 1,400 BC, is filled with
burned debris and grain.
b) Bible's data: the city fell quickly, without a long
siege (grain) and was burned as an example to others.
c) Time magazine had an article in 1990 on these discoveries
that it titled, "Score One For the Bible."
4) Everyone agrees Jericho was basically uninhabited for next
300 years.
IV. What can God really do for us?
A. Miracles can still happen.
In 1968 I lived in the shadow of another famous wall.
The Berlin Wall.
It cut all the way across the city, and had small memorials
on the western side marking where East Germans had been
shot to death while trying to get across.
We crossed through the wall once, so we could visit a
famous museum.
At Checkpoint Charlie we showed the guards our special
military permits.
As we passed through no-mans-land, our car had to snake
through huge concrete battering rams.
Barbed wire and mines lined the shoulder of the road and
high towers watched us constantly.
In 1968 no one would dream that that wall would come down.
But it did, less than 23 years later.
To me, this is a genuine miracle.
B. The greatest miracles may be in our soul.
The author of many scholarly articles, Glenn Loury first made
his mark as an economic theorist.
He has been a consultant to state and federal government
agencies and private business organizations.
He has taught at Harvard, Northwestern, and the University of
Michigan before coming to Boston University, where he is
university professor and professor of economics.
He is most famous on the topic of racial inequality.
His essays and commentaries appear regularly in leading
national publications.
He is usually labelled a conservative, and for an African
American that can bring a lot of attention - good and bad.
While his professional life was soaring, his personal life
was disintegrating.
He was on drugs -- alcohol, marijuana, and finally cocaine.
The cocaine progressed to freebasing.
In his soul he knew it was destroying him, even as he became
more famous and wealthy.
He was a professor at Harvard at 33 years old, a full tenured
professor.
He was a distinguished research economist, and had a really
strong track record.
Then he had branched off into public policy, and had instantly
hit stardom.
But he was on a really unstable, rocky track.
Soon he was arrested for the possession of a controlled
substance.
It became very widely known, and he was humiliated, but he still
had all kinds of excuses.
He went to a drug treatment program that the court mandated
after the arrest charge, but he kept using drugs.
His wife was still with him, for reasons he can't fathom.
She loved him, and she stuck it out.
Eventually she persuaded him to go in for more treatment, but
he backslid after a few weeks.
He went into another program that cost $500 a day but his
insurance ran out.
In desperation he turned to a half-way house.
It was run by an ex-Boston cop who had spent five years in
prison for corruption, and who had been an alcoholic.
But he had become an evangelical Christian and had devoted his
life to helping men recover from addiction.
The ex-cop ran a weekly voluntary Bible study in the house, and
there were about 25 men in there.
Some of these men had been sleeping in cardboard boxes in the
subway, some of them had just gotten out of prison, some were
heroin or intravenous cocaine users, some were winos; and
there was this college professor from Harvard.
Glenn Loury sat in that house for six months.
It was during that time that he became a Christian, that he
accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.
He doesn't know what happened. He thinks it's grace.
It just seems miraculous to him.
It was miraculous that the desire to do cocaine went away.
It was miraculous that his wife stayed by him and that the
marriage came back to life again.
It didn't have to happen, but it did.
#1853
V. Remember that God can work things out his own way.
Lynn Hallimore's husband was tired of their church (and
spiritually depressed).
She was devastated when he announced they would be looking
for a new church.
All her friends were in her old church and she was heavily
involved in ministry there.
Joshua gave her insight: he had made plans to conquer
Jericho militarily, but God had his own ideas.
Lynn's husband went to another church, was revived, and
she decided to go with him.
By following her husband's leadership (and God's), she
gained a spiritual victory.
It wasn't the answer to her prayers she expected, but
it was one she could live with.
#3180
VI. God keeps his promises.
A. Rahab and family saved.
1) (Curse on city's rebuilding, fulfilled later...)
B. God loves you enough to save YOU.
1) He can heal your marriage.
2) He can give you hope and fulfillment in life.
3) He can deliver you from impossible problems.
===========================================================================
SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#1853, America Online's version of Christianity Today, "Conquering The
Enemy Within," by Michael Cromartie, 1995.
#3180, Discipleship Journal, #87, "When He Leads, Will I Follow?" by
Lynn Hallimore, page 27, 5/1/95.
These and 4,300 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://users.nac.net/wdh2000/illust.html
===========================================================================
ANOTHER RELEVANT ILLUSTRATION:
CATEGORY: Bible Accurate, Trustworthy, Apologetics, Golden Calf, Archeology,
Joshua, Exodus
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TEXT: Gen 10:14, Exod 32:1-25, Josh 6:5, Josh 17:15-18, Isa 46:9-10,
Matt 5:18, John 10:35, 2 Tim 3:16, 2 Pet 1:20-21
Number: 4306 Hard copy:
SOURCE: Pulpit Helps
TITLE: Mainstream Media Stories Confirm Bible's Accuracy
AUTHOR: Stephen Caesar; Bible Proof Ministries, Merrimack, New Hampshire
PAGE: 25 DATE: 1/1/97 Typist: ENTERED: 3/28/98
DATE_USED:
ILLUSTRATION__________________________________________________________________
: It is very stylish among the main-stream media to think of the Bible as a
collection of religious fables. Ironically, however, the press itself has
provided abundant evidence that the Bible can indeed be trusted to speak the
truth. One example can be found in the Book of Exodus. In an article
subtitled, "A figurine backs the tale of Moses and the idolatrous Israelites,"
TIME magazine reported on the discovery in Israel of the prototype of the
infamous golden calf: "...While scientists have unearthed a few examples of
bovine idols, they have never found a calf that predates the Exodus, which
scholars think took place between 1500 and 1200 BC. Last week, though, a team
of Harvard archaeologists announced they had done just that."1 Archaeologist
Lawrence Stager dated the Canaanite calf-idol to about 1550 BC. This date,
derived from the Canaanite pottery found along with the idol, "supports the
belief that the, Israelites took some of their religious practices from other
Canaanites." The Old Testament writers were constantly condemning the
Israelites for their tendency to worship Canaanite gods, and this discovery
confirms it.
US NEWS & WORLD REPORT also examined the discovery of the calf, pointing out
that pottery found at a later level - the level dating from the time of the
Philistines - provided evidence of another biblical assertion: that the
Philistines were of Greek origin. Genesis 10:14 tells us they were from a
branch of tribes originating around Caphtor, the Hebrew name for the Aegean
Islands. The October 7, 1991, issue of US NEWS reported that "the
[Philistine] pottery found in the dig is identical to that produced by the
Mycenaean Greeks, leading a number of scholars to conclude that that's exactly
who they were. The date of the artifacts corresponds perfectly with Homer's
accounts' of the aftermath of the fall of Troy in 1183 BC, when Odysseus and
other Greek war heroes wandered the eastern Mediterranean on circuitous
journeys home."2
That same issue of US NEWS provided us with still more evidence of the
reliability of the Bible. The issue reported on a discovery that proves the
accuracy of the account of Joshua's destruction of Jericho. It stated:
"The city's walls do appear to have collapsed suddenly (cf. Joshua 6:20),
and the blackened timbers and stones, as well as a layer of soot dating to
1400 BC, all suggest that the city burned, as the Bible says it did (Joshua
6:24). [Archeologist Kathleen] Kenyon also found bushels of grain on the
site, consistent with the Bible's account of a springtime conquest so rapid
(seven days, Josh. 6:4,15,16) that Jericho's besieged populace had not
exhausted their food. With such a superb confirmation of the biblical
account, no wonder TIME magazine titled its March 5, 1990, article on the same
discovery "Score One for the Bible."
The proof of Joshua goes on. Joshua 17:15-18 tells us that, because all of
Canaan had not yet been conquered, there wasn't enough room for all the
Israelite settlers, so Joshua suggested they cut down the forests that covered
the hills of Canaan. The Israelites did so, and today we have confirmation of
it. NEWSWEEK magazine reported: "The Jews' arrival (under Joshua) does leave
its mark in other places. Strata in the highlands of central Palestine, dated
to the 12th century BC, were seriously deforested, suggesting a huge influx of
settlers and lending credence to Joshua's statement that 'the mountain ... is
a wood, and thou shalt cut it down.'"4
It is truly ironic that the mainstream media in this country, while trying its
utmost to ridicule and even destroy Christianity, is at the same time
reporting on so many discoveries that prove that the Bible (and therefore,
Bible-based Christianity) is a source of truth. When will they ever learn?
Stephen Caesar
Bible Proof Ministries
Merrimack, New Hampshire
Sources:
1. Michael Lemonik, "The Return of the Golden Calf," Time, Aug. 6, 1990,
p. 57.
2. Miriam Horn, "Unearthing the Promised Land," US News & World Report,
October 7, 1991, p. 68.
3. Ibid., p. 69.
4. Sharon Begley, "the Hunt for a Lost Holy Past," Newsweek, June 22, 1987,
p. 60.
#4306
First Baptist Church; Ledgewood, New Jersey
This document last modified December 4, 1998