By Mark Proctor
Pastor, Highland Park Baptist Church, Columbia
Focal Passage: Joshua 6:12-25
Teachers, look at your students. Pastors, look at your congregants, and parents, look at your children. Those are warriors, battle-weary with hearts hurting from skirmishes in a mean, merciless world. What will we tell them?
Joshua faced the same dilemma. As God’s leader he had to tell God’s wearied children how they were to move ahead to a land God had given them. We usually go over the walls; this time we go around. We usually shout to scare the enemy. This time, we’ll remain silent at first. And instead of the ark being only a part of our worship now it is part of our battle also. In this sixth chapter Joshua told his warriors that God has predetermined the people, the process, and the product. Their job only was to trust and obey.
These are God’s chosen people, with God’s commissioned leader. By the time he came to the walls of Jericho though, Joshua realized his place as a servant, not the commander. Joshua had already met the real “commander of the Lord’s army” (Joshua 5:14) and fell at his feet and worshiped and called himself “a servant.” And as servants do, He obeyed and removed his sandals on holy ground. True people of God obey. That’s the process by which God determined the walls of Jericho would fall.
Chapter 6 conveys another part of the process pre-determined by God to destroy Jericho. For six days, march around the city once a day. On the seventh, march around it 7 times. Then blow the trumpets and shout. That’s it? That’s it. Unorthodox? Yes. Effective? Of course. Because the product — the victory over Jericho — had already been determined by God. He could have chosen any process. As my grandmother used to say, “It wasn’t the marching that brought those walls down, it was the minding.” Obedience to God’s plan always produces God’s desired outcome.
Few people will remember Davis Ellis. An officer with fledgling Allstate Insurance, in the summer of 1951 he and a team of advertising agents were looking for a theme to symbolize Allstate’s unique position in serving its policyholders. After a long meeting, just before giving up for the night, Davis remembered something his wife had told him after their daughter was hospitalized with hepatitis. To ease his anxiety, she reminded him, “The hospital says not to worry. We’re in good hands with the doctor.” Today, Allstate is still known as the “good hands” company.
And that’s what we tell the people of God today. We’re in good hands with God. He has chosen you to be His child; He has determined the trials and tribulations which we will endure in order to learn to trust Him; He is the commander of the battle; and He has given the victory of a land flowing with milk and honey. Teach them, teachers, to trust the commander who stands with sword drawn. Teach them to serve Him, to obey Him, and to worship Him. We’re in good hands — great hands! — with Him.
