Tag Archives: Joshua 6

Daily Devotional

Monday through Friday with People of Faith: Day 52/260: Joshua

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Read Joshua 6

Keeping God’s Word (And Our Own!)

God was precise in His instructions for taking Jericho: take the ark of the Lord and march around the city once for six days with the priests blowing their trumpets, and after you march around it once, return to camp. Then march seven times on the seventh day, and when the priests finish blowing their trumpets on that seventh day, shout! With that shout, God said that “the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him” (Joshua 6:5).

Can you imagine what the people of Jericho must have thought? The Israelites march around once, then walk away. The second day the same thing happens. Every day for six days straight, they walk away after marching around the city once. What are they doing?

Then, on the seventh day, they don’t stop after one lap. They don’t stop the second time around. They keep marching. Three times. Four. Jericho must have wondered why they were not attacking. Five, six, seven. And now they’re shouting after that seventh trip. Jericho’s watchmen, standing on top of the wall, feel the stones shift under their feet. The wall is coming down. All around the city, the wall is crumbling, falling apart. Nothing is left standing, except for one section.

Inside that one section is the house of the harlot, Rahab. The spies had promised to spare her and her family if they remained in their house. The Israelites had obeyed God, the harlot had followed the spies’ instructions, and all of Jericho was destroyed except for her family.

Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Joshua had not told Israel to obey God’s orders? What would have happened if they refused to march? If they questioned His wisdom? If they said, “We don’t see the point”? Those stones would not have shifted. The wall would have stood still. Israel would not have defeated Jericho.

Faithful obedience is required of all who desire to follow God. Keeping His Word, and keeping our own word, is required! The children of Israel followed His instructions, and they kept the promise they had made to Rahab.

Are you keeping God’s Word? Are you keeping your own?

Daily Devotional

Monday through Friday with People of Faith: Day 49/260: Rahab

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Read Joshua 2:1-24; 6:15-25; Hebrews 11:31

The Faith of a Harlot

There are certain occupations that carry with them a social stigma. Perhaps no career is seen in a poorer light than that of a prostitute. And yet the Scriptures show how powerful the one, true God of heaven is, saving even those that many times we would shun and from whom we would divert our eyes.

It is not Rahab’s occupation that makes her faithful, nor her lies to the men sent by the king of Jericho, but her belief that God really is God, and that He really is blessing Israel. She had no reason to believe such things except by word-of-mouth. Yet, forty years after the Red Sea crossing, the truth of God’s power persisted, so potent that even a harlot believed the fantastic stories.

When she spoke to the spies, she said, “I know that the Lord has given you the land” (Joshua 2:9). There was no doubt in this woman’s mind that Jericho was doomed. Why? Because of what God had already done for them. “For 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 the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed” (Joshua 2:10). Her entire family was convinced that Israel would overtake Jericho, as Rahab said, “And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted” (Joshua 2:11). The power of the Lord was real and the destruction of Jericho was inevitable.

However, Rahab did not resign herself to her own destruction. She begged for mercy from the spies, helping them and hiding them. Could they be trusted? If they lied to her, she would be destroyed. Yet, if she had not helped them, she knew that she would be destroyed when Israel came to take the land. She had nothing to lose.

In her faith, Rahab overcame sin. There is no record of her continuing her former occupation after her salvation. In fact, she became the great-great-grandmother of the future king of Israel, David, and a part of the lineage of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. God doesn’t hold our past against us when we repent; instead, despite our past, He uses us to accomplish His will.