Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey everybody, we are so excited.

Jeff:
Look who’s back.

Chris:
Me.

Jeff:
The Zarbaugh.

Chris:
The Zarbaugh. Yeah. I’m back from my trip to New York with, excuse me, with my dad.

Jeff:
Okay. How was it?

Chris:
It was great. You know, he’s 85 and we got into the ferry and he’s like, oh, this is my first ferry ride. I’m like, what? And we got into a cab and he goes, this is my first cab ride. I go, come on. Wow. We got into the subway. He’s like, this is my first subway ride. I’m like, are you kidding me? And then here’s ready for this one. We checked into the hotel and this is before the Empire State Building in the hotel. We were on the 35th floor. And he goes, this is the highest I’ve ever been.

Jeff:
Oh, wow.

Chris:
And I said, I go, come on. Apparently he’s never left Youngstown.

Jeff:
He’s talking about elevation, right?

Chris:
You guys weren’t. He said, other than a plane, this is the highest I’ve ever been. Yeah. So isn’t that crazy? Yeah. So anyway, so he had a lot of firsts.

Jeff:
A whole bunch of firsts. And then you went up on the Empire State Building.

Chris:
Well, actually, I said it wrong. We opted for the One World Trade Center, which was half the price and just as high. So yeah, it was great. It’s cool. Super cool.

Jeff:
Well, we’re glad to have you back. We missed you. Yeah. Kyle did a great job. So I didn’t watch any of it. If you miss a little bit because I was on vacation. Yeah. If you miss a little bit, we’ve got a great replacement.

Chris:
We’ve got a great replacement. You didn’t say a substitution. You said replacement.

Jeff:
Words matter. Words matter, Chris. There’s a huge difference between a substitution and a replacement. Right, right.

Chris:
Well, hey, today Desiree wants us to start off with a special Dad Joke segment. Because? We’re talking about Jericho.

Jeff:
Jericho, that’s right. The walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

Chris:
So she has everything centered around Jericho. Who writes Dad Joke Jericho jokes?

Jeff:
I don’t know. I haven’t looked at mine yet.

Chris:
I have not looked at mine either. Nope. Okay. But I’ll go first. Okay. What’s the walls of Jericho’s least favorite kind of music? I don’t know. Heavy metal. They can’t handle the sound of it.

Jeff:
Heavy metal. They can’t handle the sound of it.

Chris:
Oh, that’s awful. Sound is in quotes. Sound. Okay.

Jeff:
Okay. I don’t think anybody writes Jericho jokes. There’s a reason why there’s not a market for this. Well, this says special episode edition, by the way. Why was the archaeologist excited about the walls of Jericho? Why? Because they heard it was a groundbreaking discovery. Oh, these are bad. That’s a rough one.

Chris:
These are rough. All right, number two. What would be the wall of Jericho’s favorite modern day reality TV show?

Jeff:
Favorite modern day reality TV show? I don’t know.

Chris:
Probably extreme makeover home edition. They’d be exciting. They’d be excited to see a rebuild. I’m telling you. Wow. That’s a rough one. These cannot get any worse.

Jeff:
Okay. Well, I’m enjoying the fact that they’re so terrible. Here we go. How about this one? What do you call it? When the walls of Jericho throw a party? What’s that? A crashing success. Oh, excuse me. Gosh. The look on your face is fabulous. I love this.

Chris:
These are so bad. I just don’t understand how bad these can be. Okay. If the walls of Jericho had a podcast of their own, what would be the first episode’s topic? I don’t know. The art of the fall. How to go down in history with style.

Jeff:
Okay. Style. How about this one? What’s the walls of Jericho’s favorite game? What’s the Wall of Jericho’s favorite game?

Chris:
I don’t know, Jeff. What is the Wall of Jericho’s favorite game? Jenga. Oh. Actually, that’s the best one. That’s a good one so far. That’s the best one. Okay. I wouldn’t say good.

Jeff:
The good news is there’s only four. Do you only have four?

Chris:
Yes, this is the last one. Normally we have five. So let the pain end. Here we go. Why do the Walls of Jericho join a band? Because they knew how to bring the house down. Oh, just terrible.

Jeff:
Oh man. All right. What’s yours? Uh, very similar to your previous one. If the walls of Jericho could give a Ted talk, what would be the most outrageous title they could choose?

Chris:
Uh, something, let me guess something about the walls coming down.

Jeff:
How to fall, how to fall gracefully and still be the talk of the town.

Chris:
Wow.

Jeff:
So the Jenga one wins. Jenga. Jenga is the winner. Yeah. Yes. Those were rough. Yeah. I don’t know that I want any more special editions. That was the yeah, yeah, that was a rough one.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, welcome back Chris.

Chris:
Oh My goodness, we need to spare these poor people Well, hey, you know what? Listeners, if you’re still with us, let’s move on.

Jeff:
If you haven’t died of boredom.

Chris:
Yeah. By the way, I am wearing a Stony Creek shirt. And for those who are watching, they can see it for those obviously not watching. But I just wanted to put a simple plug out there. If you are listening, perhaps in our area, in Michigan, and you’re not a tender of Heritage Church, just know that if you live anywhere close to the Stony Creek area, Heritage Church is launching a brand new campus at Stony Creek High School, September 22nd.

Jeff:
There you go.

Chris:
Yes.

Jeff:
I just figured I’d… So you’re wearing that shirt to send a message.

Chris:
No, I just noticed myself on TV and I thought two things. Number one, look at that good looking guy. And the second thing was, I should probably mention something about Stony Creek.

Jeff:
I thought you were sending messages with your t-shirts. And I was thinking last time you were here, you had like a Godfather t-shirt on.

Chris:
Oh, yeah. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

Jeff:
So so I was I was just thinking back all the different t-shirts that you’re wearing where they all messages to us, too Hey, the Italian shirt is don’t mess with Italians. Yeah, right. That’s true times are everywhere. They are everywhere Okay So we are talking about the fall of Jericho. And just to remind our listeners, you had the whole weekend to maybe let your brain clear out. So Moses has died. God selected Moses to lay hands on Joshua and say, Joshua is going to be the leader. Then God reminded Joshua, be strong and courageous, obey everything I commanded you. Then they cross the river, Jordan, after sending in some spies, Rahab, the whole Rahab story. Then they cross the river, Jordan. God does this amazing miracle with the priests stepping into the water and the water stops. They walk across on dry ground.

Chris:
I’m sorry, I missed that one by the way.

Jeff:
And now here they are. Um, at the gates of Jericho, this is where they met Rahab a few days or weeks before. Right. Right. And so, uh, we’re going to read Joshua six and we’re going to start off in verse one. It says, now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go in, out, or in. But the Lord said to Joshua, I have given you Jericho, its king and all its strong warriors. You and your fighting men should march around the town once a day for six days. Seven priests will walk ahead of the ark, each carrying a ram’s horn. On the seventh day, you are to march around the town seven times with the priests blowing the horns. When they hear the priests give one long blast on the ram’s horns, have all the people shout as loud as they can. Then the walls of the town will collapse and the people will charge straight into the town.” So Joshua called together the priests and said, take up the Ark of the Lord’s covenant and assign seven priests to walk in front of it, each carrying a ram’s horn. And then he gave orders to the people, march around the town and the armed men will lead the way in front of the Ark of the Lord. After Joshua spoke to the people, the seven priests with the ram’s horns started marching in the presence of the Lord, blowing the horns as they marched. And the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed behind them. Some of the armed men marched in front of the priests with the horns and some behind the ark with the priests continually blowing the horns. Do not shout. Do not even talk, Joshua commanded. Not a single word from any of you until I tell you to shout. Then shout. So the Ark of the Lord was carried around town once that day, and then everyone returned to spend the night in the camp. Joshua got up early the next morning. Priests again carried the Ark of the Lord. The seven priests with the ram’s horns marched in front of the Ark of the Lord, blowing their horns. Again, the armed men marched both in front of the priests with the horns and behind the Ark of the Lord. All this time, the priests were blowing their horns. On the second day, they marched around the town once and returned to camp. They followed this pattern for six days. On the seventh day, the Israelites got up at dawn and marched around the town as they had done before, but this time they went around the town seven times. The seventh time around, as the priests sounded the long blast on their horns, Joshua commanded the people, shout, for the Lord has given you the town. Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and the others in her house will be spared for she protected our spies. Do not take any of the things set apart for destruction or you yourselves will be completely destroyed and you’ll bring trouble on the camp of Israel. Everything made from silver, gold, bronze, or iron is sacred to the Lord and must be brought into his treasury. when the people heard the sound of the ram’s horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly the walls of Jericho collapsed and the Israelites charged straight into the town and captured it. They completely destroyed everything in it with their swords, men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys.

Chris:
Yuck.

Jeff:
There you go.

Chris:
Yuck on the swords, killing everything. But I get it. I get it. But this chapter. Yeah, it was a war. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. This chapter though, as I’m reading through it, as you’re reading through it, I was actually thinking to myself, God is so specific. And then it records so specifically, which brought to mind that, you know, details matter. And when God gives specific instructions, you know, it includes the fact that they did those things. It could have just said, and then they did everything God said, but they didn’t. it took several verses to say, okay, here’s what happened. They got up, they went around, they blew the horns, they did this, and it goes through. And it’s almost, in some ways, a little bit painful, you know, just to read all those details. But again, it is just a reminder to me whenever I read things like that, as I always think, why? Why? It seems like filler words, but it’s not. It’s just, it’s a reminder of God’s character who says, I’m giving you very specific instructions. Follow exactly what I say. And that translates into the promises of today.

Jeff:
Yeah. Well, partial obedience is disobedience. Right? Right. So if you only obey part of it, then it’s, you’re not obeying, you’re disobeying. And so God is very precise because he’s going to do a miracle. He already, he just told them, Hey, get up and I’m going to send you in. And the, the town has already been defeated, right? That’s what he’s letting them know. I’m going to give you the King. I’m going to give you the whole town. Now do everything I told you to do. And God is very precise in the process. And partly, um, I think, you know, it’s tedious. It’s seven days. They’re accustomed to working six days and on the seventh day resting. Instead, this time on the seventh day, they have a victory, which is really something. He gives him this tedious job. It’s how many people? So it mentions the armed men as being distinct from all the rest of the people. So it sounds like all the people are marching around the city and that the armed men are in front and behind the Ark. Is that how you’re hearing it?

Chris:
Yeah, I am. I’m picturing that the priests and the Ark were in the middle of the warriors.

Jeff:
Yeah. So then if you’re thinking even just a million people, you’ve seen Jericho before. Have you seen Jericho? I have not seen Jericho. Oh, you haven’t seen Jericho? So Jericho, the ancient city is not very huge. It’s, it’s, I mean, we’re not talking like New York city.

Chris:
Right. They call it a town.

Jeff:
Right. Here, I would say, I bet you, it’s not a mile all the way around. Oh, wow. Right. It certainly does. My wife and I were just in Germany and we were in a medieval town. It’s one of the best preserved medieval walled cities in the world, Rothenburg. And it’s like two and a half miles, I think, around the outside. And when we were in there, we walked on the walls all the way around, you know, big, big part of it. And I was thinking about Jericho then. Now, of course, Jericho’s walls were thicker and they had, you know, all this, but still the idea was having seen Jericho, the ruins of Jericho, and then being in this city, I don’t think that they were much different, a mile or two around. So you’re talking about a million people, maybe two, maybe 3 million people, depending on how you think the, things were and whether or not the women brought the children. You know, I don’t know how, it doesn’t say all that, but it certainly seems like there’s a bunch of armed people and a bunch of unarmed people and they’re walking around. That to me, if I was part of the unarmed group, it’d be a little intimidating to me. But then God says, be silent. Don’t say anything. Don’t say a word Joshua tells the people. When was the last time we could even get 500 people in our auditorium and not say a word. Right. Right. But he gave them all these very specific rules and then the depth of the people. So if this is like, let’s say, let’s say it’s big, let’s say it’s way bigger. Let’s say it’s three miles all the way around the outside. I don’t know how big, how deep would the people be? A million people walking around a three mile?

Chris:
Well, yeah, because they can’t overlap each other. Right. I would think. So they’d have to be a pretty wide.

Jeff:
Yeah. And then it’s just blasting on Ram’s horns. So when you hear horns, it’s not like trumpets do stuff. It’s just, it’s like you ever listened to like a soccer game or something, a European soccer game and they’re all blowing, right. That kind of thing. That’s, that’s the kind of noise. And you look out your window and it’s, it’s, you know, several hundred yards deep of people just marching around in total silence.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
with a bunch of armed guys and a bunch of people blowing horns, it would be unbelievably intimidating. And it happens day after day. There’s a lot of psychological warfare going on here is what I’m saying. It had been incredibly, because they’d never seen that tactic before.

Chris:
Right. Well, who would? It’s a crazy tactic. Right. Right. Yeah. And then of course, you know, they probably had no idea that their walls were just going to miraculously crumble. And by the way, I don’t know if your brain works like this, but when you hear a ram’s horn, what were they blowing? Like what was God meaning when he said blow on the ram’s horn?

Jeff:
A horn made from a ram’s horn.

Chris:
From a ram’s horn, right? Yes. Okay. So then my mind immediately went to the restaurant. Ram’s horn? No, no, no, it didn’t. Although I thought of that. Yes. But actually, because there’s a restaurant in our area called Ram’s Horn. Yes. No, I went to this. I went to this. Did God make the ram knowing that one day its horns would be a horn? Or did God make the ram and then, and all of a sudden mankind decided, hey, if I put a little hole at the end of this and pucker up, it makes noise. And then God just decides to embrace the ram’s horn. Cause this is a, this is an embraced kind of thing by God. God is like, yeah, take the ram’s horn, use the ram’s horn. This is a chosen instrument by God. He didn’t say bang on drums. So, so I’m just thinking like, is God embracing mankind’s distortion of this ram’s horn?

Jeff:
Is it a distortion? Or is it a clever use?

Chris:
Okay. I’ll give you that. Clever use.

Jeff:
Because we still call all the instruments that you blow into the end of it, you call it a horn. Right. Right. But they’re not actually horns now. They’re right. So it’s like somebody blows into the end of this Ram’s horn and then they go, Hey, I like that horn. That’s cool. Now everything, trumpets, trombones, everything’s a horn now. French horns.

Chris:
Oh yeah. I guess you would think of that, right?

Jeff:
Cause it’s a trumpet. Yeah. So it’s kind of, that has nothing to do with this passage other than the fact that they’re playing Ram’s horns, but yeah.

Chris:
Yeah. Hey, many, many of you don’t know this, but Jeff played trumpet on a level where he played in the, it was at Detroit symphony or it isn’t.

Jeff:
I played with the Motor City Brass, but we did, we did concerts with the Detroit symphony and stuff like that.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. Many people don’t know that.

Jeff:
Yeah. Uh, back in the day, that’s how I paid for college. So it was with playing the horn.

Chris:
So did you know, I also took the trumpet.

Jeff:
I do. You played until, Was it middle school?

Chris:
Yeah, no, up until fifth grade. Okay. When did middle school start? Third, fourth, fifth grade. Seventh for me. Yeah. So, but I was terrible at it.

Jeff:
Yeah, I had to put up with people like you. Still am. You did. Yeah. But yeah. Anyways, so God has said, I’m going to give this to you. And I think that that’s the key element to this entire, um, Oh, I just looked up the circumference of Jericho is about 2.8 miles.

Chris:
Okay. So you were right. You said, let’s pretend it’s big. You said three miles.

Jeff:
Yeah. So, uh, anyways, my favorite verse on the whole, the whole thing is that God said, he’s going to give them to you. Right. That I think a lot of times if you and I were looking, this is the very first battle. There’s 10 big cities they’re going to have to take. Yeah. Right. And if you and I were getting ready to march across the river, we’re thinking, how are we going to get all these people across the river? God goes, well, I’m just going to send the priest out. We’ll dry it out. Oh, that’s fantastic. But then you’d think, well, I used up all my miracles. Right. I mean, what are the chances? So now you’re looking at this big city. It’s three miles around on the outside. It’s the biggest walled city, right? This is going to be the hardest fight we have is this one. This is going to be the hardest. And that’s the place God took us first. God took us after the most difficult battle first. And you know, the, I saw a thing here. It says that the walls were, what was the, the walls were like 25 feet high and 20 feet thick. Yeah, that’s pretty crazy. That is 20 feet thick. Yeah, that’s right. That’s the width of a road almost. Yeah. Right. And 25 feet high. This is a big walled city. And how are you going to do it? It’s going to be a terrible siege. We’re going to lose a lot of people. They have the advantage. They’re 25 feet high. So they just shoot down with arrows, they throw spears, they dump hot oil on us or whatever, you know what I mean? So you’re thinking, or it’s going to be a really long siege. We’re going to have to just come around, not allow anybody in any way, starve them out, right? It’s going to be this miserable experience. The guy goes, well, so I had this idea, Joshua. Right. Right. I’ve already given you the King. I’ve already given you the cities. It’s a done deal. Just do what I tell you to do. Joshua’s like, okay. Now, you know, Joshua was a warrior and everybody else, none of them had been in any battles yet. Not any big wars. And so God’s goes, okay, just march around the city today. Be completely quiet. Have the priests play the horns and then just go back to camp. It had to have been so weird. People would be like, I think Joshua’s lost it. Because these are a bunch of complainers anyways. These people, oh, we hate our food God gives us for free every night. We wish we could go back to Egypt for the cucumbers and the leeks and the garlics. Remember? They’re such complainers. And now they come back after a day of marching all the way around this city and go, I think Joshua’s got a screw loose. Well, it doesn’t say that, but you’re saying based on these people. They’re such complainers. You know that they’re going, what’s he thinking?

Chris:
Yeah, probably so.

Jeff:
And they could not have fathomed what was about to happen. And I think there’s a lot of times where when God invites us to do what he tells us to do, we just can’t fathom the miracle he’s about to give us. We can’t understand it. We can’t work it out. And so a lot of times we get impatient. We jump in and decide we’re going to go ahead and, you know, what if they had gotten impatient, decided to rush the gates? Right? Or set up a bunch of ladders and try to go over the wall or whatever. I think sometimes we get impatient waiting for God to do something and we can mess things up. And we just need to, if God said to do a thing, do the thing. And he’s going to bless what he promised he would do. Right.

Chris:
You know, and another thought I had was, did you notice that there’s no voice of pushback in this one? Remember when this 12 spies went in and and all of a sudden Joshua and Caleb come out and they’re like, hey, we can do it. You know, the Lord has given them to us. And then everybody else shouted, you know, they’re crazy. We’re like grasshoppers in their sight. And there was a voice of pushback that rallied the crowds that to the point where they wanted to stone Joshua and Caleb. Yeah. But again, this is the same Joshua, right? So Joshua is now the leader. The man who, you know, 40 years earlier had, you know, been, you know, hey, I told you so. Right. You should have trusted me. He had the right to say all those things. Yeah. Now he’s the one that says, okay, this is exactly what God has said. This is what we’re going to do. And notice now through this generational you know, lesson that they’ve been through, that not a single person recorded anyway, has said, no, this is a dumb plan. We have the numbers. Let’s go ahead and just, you know, nobody did that. Right. Because at this point they’ve learned their lesson. That’s right. I think so. Perhaps. And, and when they, when they crossed the Jordan river, you were, you made sort of a joke and you said, oh, we’ve run out of miracles. I would think the opposite of that. I would, for me, I would think, oh no, like we can’t even get across the Jordan River. And then when God stops the Jordan River, I mean, think about how many gallons of water that is, right? Just, I mean, think about just the unbelievable epicness of this.

Jeff:
How many times have you seen people who’ve lived a blessed life, and then they get an uh-oh at the doctor and they fall apart, right? God blessed your business. God blessed your marriage. God blessed your children. God’s given you this great life. And now you get the uh-oh and they go, oh my goodness, right? And they freak out. Look at all the blessings God’s done. And then they lose their faith or struggle with their faith when they get one bit of bad news. That’s what I’m saying is that the normal human nature is. The good that God did for me yesterday, I forget about it in the crisis of the moment today.

Chris:
A lot of times, right?

Jeff:
You’re definitely right. That’s just, that’s common. I’ve seen it a thousand times. And that’s why God keeps having to remind us over and over and over again. God keeps his promises. He was good yesterday. He’s going to be good again today. Just do what he tells you to do. Right. And that’s, that’s what I was thinking is it’s just common nature to do those. those things. So, and then one thing that we should mention is that God had said, don’t take any, any of the spoil of the city, right? Leave it. This is mine. So out of the 10 big cities are going to take, God says, I want the first 10th is mine. So the only things that were kept were for the temple and for that stuff, but nothing for the people, right? The people didn’t keep any spoils of this, this battle, this war. And from the, from here on the plunder of all the other cities was theirs. But not this one. And of course, we know the story. If you read the next chapter, Akin, one of the guys, he stole some stuff and he hid it away. Are we going to read it? No, we’re not reading the story of Akin. We’re moving on.

Chris:
Really? Yeah. So we might as well talk about it then.

Jeff:
Yeah. Well, we only have, it’s 23 minutes now.

Chris:
Okay. All right. Yeah.

Jeff:
So anyways, God sends judgment on Israel and, uh, because there was sin in the camp. Right. Right. One person ruined it for everybody. And the next battle, they go to this little village called Ai and people die. Right. Right. Nobody dies in Jericho. As far as the Israelites go, they go to this next village and God took his blessing off of the people because somebody was hiding sin.

Chris:
I’m sad that we’re not reading it.

Jeff:
It’s a good story. And so they have to root that out and they have to get rid of the sin in their village. So you should read that passage. It’s really incredible. It makes you think, boy, I don’t want to be the one that, you know, holds back God’s blessing from our group or from, you know, the, the church or whatever. So we, we talk a lot with our staff lately about be humble, be holy, Right? And be helpful. And this is one of the reasons is, you know, God pours out his blessing, but when, you know, when, when you do exactly what God says, God blesses. When you break what God says, God curses. That’s exactly what Moses had said at the end of Deuteronomy. And here they’re living it out literally as the first, the day they crossed the river, that’s the, you know, the eighth day after they’ve crossed the river here we are. So. Anyways, I think that the big lesson for us to take away from this is, this is why we need to know God’s word so that we can obey God’s word as closely as possible. And God does the miracles when we choose to obey.

Chris:
That’s great. That’s a great word. All right. Well, hopefully we’ll see you tomorrow on The Bible Guys.