Hello and welcome to another broadcast. We're looking at the battles in the Bible. They're written there for our admonition to help us with our daily battles. Stay tuned. We're looking at Joshua chapter six, and it begins with these two little words, now Jericho. The city of Jericho had two massive stone walls. The outer wall was six feet thick and 20 feet high, and the inner wall was 12 feet thick and 30 feet high. Well, between these two walls, there was a 15 foot guarded walkway that, from a military standpoint, made this city pretty difficult to conquer. The picture that we have here is a major obstacle that was keeping God's people from claiming the land that God had promised them. And so Jericho had to fall. And Jericho represents anything that would be an obstacle to us in enjoying a victorious Christian life here on earth. Well, when we get to Joshua chapter 6 in verse number 20, we read, And they took the city, and so they had success. And so we want to look at the pathway to this success today. Joshua, first of all, accepted God's purpose for his life. That's important. If we're going to have success, we need to accept God's purpose for our lives. Romans 8, 28 is a very familiar portion of scripture, and it says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Well, usually it gets left off there, but that's only half of the verse. It says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. His purpose. Now, 2 Peter 1 and 10, we read, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things, ye shall never fall. And so, first of all, Joshua accepted God's purpose for his life. Have you done that? And then Joshua prepared in order to fulfill God's purpose. We read in Joshua 1 and 8 that this book of the law, God told Joshua, shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. So it's very obvious that if we are going to fulfill God's purpose, we need to prepare in order to know how to do that, which means we're going to meditate in the Word of God, observe to do all that is written therein. Then, he said, you'll make your way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Well, Joshua did all this, and then in Joshua 6, in verse number one, we read, Now Jericho. So Joshua had accepted God's purpose for his life. He prepared so as to understand his responsibilities in fulfilling God's purpose. And then in chapter six, verses one and two, we see he gets a glimpse of God's power as a result of the first two things that he did. It says here, now Jericho was straightly shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out and none came in. And in verse 2 we read, And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. See, he gets a little glimpse of God's power as a result of being obedient in accepting God's purpose and preparing so as to understand his responsibilities in fulfilling that purpose. And so he accepted God's purpose, he understood his responsibilities because he prepared to understand them, he got a glimpse of the power of God, and number four, he was willing to submit to God's plan. Now as you go through here, you look in verse number three of chapter six, and it says, Now it talks about him here in this verse he says God says to to Joshua ye shall compass the city ye shall compass the city and then it mentions all the men of war they are going to go about the city once and they're going to do this every day once for six days and then on the seventh day they're going to do it seven times Now, Joshua was the general of Israel's army. He was a battler. He was a fighter. This is Joshua. Remember the first time we hear about him, Moses said, go pick out some men and go fight the enemy. And Joshua, as a general of the army of Israel, knew how to fight. He knew all about the tactics that they needed to do. And this just didn't make any sense. It says, ye, Joshua, you're gonna do this. Then it mentioned all the men of war. Now, they also understood warfare, and this was not a sensible tactic. You wanna march around that city? All they gotta do is pop us off from the wall. This doesn't make any sense at all. But we need to understand that the Bible says, and God says, my ways are not your ways. I want you to do it my way. And he was willing, he was willing, and so were these men that followed him. They were willing to submit to God's plan. Now, these men of war, I want to look back at that for a minute. It says back here in Joshua chapter 5 and verse number 4, back in the wilderness, all the men of war died in the wilderness, by the way, after they came out of Egypt. And in verse number six, it says, for the children of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord, unto whom the Lord swear that he would not show them the land which the Lord swear unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that flows with milk and with honey. Now, as we get into this portion of scripture, We have a new group of battlers. It says in Joshua 4 and verse 13, when they crossed over the river, it says about 40,000 prepared for war passed over before the Lord unto the battle. And so we see here the need to prepare for war. We had another generation These fighters back here, these men of war back in the wilderness, they all died in the wilderness because they wouldn't do things the way God wanted them to do it. So now we're going across, we have about 40,000 prepared for war, and the story is here that we need to prepare. We're going into a battle. We're not going into a picnic. Joshua, as we mentioned before, is a book of battles. And there's more to our Christian life than three 45-minute services a week at the church. We are into a battle, a battle, a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week battle. And if we're going to win this battle, we need to prepare. Well, as we look at the pathway to success here, we see in Joshua 3, in verse number 1, the first thing that they did was they removed from Shittim, and in Numbers 25, 1-3, we read an Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredoms with the daughter of Moab. Now they needed to get out of that area in verse two It says they called the people unto their sacrifices of their gods and the people that eat and bow down to their gods And israel joined himself unto bel pior and the anger of the lord was kindled against israel Well, we read in numbers chapter 25 that god sent a plague and 24 000 people died now balaam You remember was israel's phony fundamentalist and we mentioned him on a previous broadcast And we see here that what happened here was Balaam had given the counsel to Balak, the king of Moab, as to how to destroy the children of Israel. And we have on our website several articles about this, and also some messages that are audio messages if you want to look at them. So we see that they got into trouble there, and all of this happened back there when Israel abode at Shittim. Now, what happened is they removed from there, and the next thing we read is that they encamped at Gilgal. Now, in Joshua 5 and 10, it says they encamped at Gilgal, and they kept the Passover. What a contrast this is from what was going on back at Shittim. However, however, that's gotta happen. We gotta get out of that old way and get on to the new way of life if we want God to bless us. Then also we see here that God's will must be done God's way. You read down through verse four through seven, it says there were seven priests, there were seven trumpets, they did it on the seventh day, they compassed the city seven times, and then they would give a long blast on the ram's horn, and then they were to shout with a great shout the seven priests the seven trumpets and the ram's horns were to go before the ark of the lord it says and and then in verse seven it says and he said unto the people pass on encompass the city and let him that is armed pass before the Ark of the Lord. Now again, they're armed, they're just going to walk around, not going to shoot anybody. No, just do it God's way. God's will must be done God's way. Well, they submitted to do it God's way, and they got the results from that, and of course the results was they took the city. And so we sing the song, you know, Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, but actually Joshua did not fight the battle of Jericho. God fought the battle of Jericho when Joshua just went ahead and was used in God's hands to get the job done. And so let us get some conclusions. These things are written for our admonition, the Bible says. First it says, now Jericho. Are we ready to take that obstacle that would keep us from having the victorious Christian life? that obstacle, like Jericho, must fall. Are we ready to accept God's purpose for our life? Are we ready to prepare to be able to fulfill the responsibilities, whether that is in the area of leadership or whether that is in the area of those who follow? Both of these were able to do that and decided to do that. It was simply a choice. Are we willing to submit to God's plan? Are we willing to do God's will, God's way? Well, if we are, we can find out what they found out in Joshua 6 and verse number 20, they took the city.