Debunking the Circle Maker - Part 3

Now, what I'm going to do here, I talked about this at the opening of the program, I want to make sure you know what

I'm going to do. So here's the deal. It's been a couple of weeks, number one, I was on vacation, but it's been a few weeks since we've really done a

CircleMaker update, and I've been working my way through the audio book and want to demonstrate really kind of the key problems here.

We've already demonstrated in previous installments that we've got a big problem because this completely goes off the rails because he is teaching something from the

Book of Legends, the story of Choni the CircleMaker, as if Choni the CircleMaker has something that he can really offer us when it comes to understanding prayer.

But Choni's approach to prayer is way different than, well, what

Jesus taught us to pray, which is to pray, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, you know, things like that.

And what we've noticed is that, you know, one of the things I pointed out is that Batterson makes claims about God, you know, claims regarding what

God expects of us that are just not in Scripture. You know, God's insulted by tiny dreams and small prayers and stuff like that, yet Jesus tells us to pray for such tiny things as daily bread.

You get what I'm saying? So there's a big disconnect. Now, from that disconnect, it just snowballs out of control into, like, a huger and huger big ball of heretical apostasy that has nothing to really teach the

Christian church regarding Christian prayer. And the next section in chapter 3, it kind of lays this all out, and it's the classic allegorizing and missing the point of the story of Jericho.

And so I was debating with myself, how can I best demonstrate just how off this was?

I've done different techniques, you know, to do that through the years here at Fighting for the Faith, and then it dawned on me, you know what would be a good idea here is to go back in church history, and let's look at how those in the ancient church, and what we'll do is we'll take a look at, like,

Clement of Rome. I think he's late first century, early second century. We'll go into the fifth century, sixth century, and take a look at how faithful pastors, these are men who are known for their boldness in preaching the gospel in the ancient church.

How did they handle this text? And so what that's going to require me to do is to, number one, teach

Joshua chapter 2 and Joshua chapter 6, because the two are intricately linked.

You kind of miss one of the major themes of the story of Jericho if you don't look at it with chapter 2 in mind.

So I'm going to preach 2 and 6. It's not that 3, 4, and 5 are not important, it's just that when we're looking at the overall

Jericho story, I think those two need to be bookend here for this teaching, and then I'll interweave it with teaching from, let me take a look at my list here,

Christostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Clement of Rome, I think

I've got Maximus of Turin, yeah, I've got Maximus of Turin in here. So we'll take a look, just do a simple sampling of some of the guys of ancient history and how they handle this text, and when you look at what they've done with this in their preaching, you'll go, oh,

I get it. That's the idea, is to use these different, when you see how they drive the gospel home through this text, it's just absolutely remarkably amazing.

And I'll even give you some good cross -references along the way, because when we look at the story of Jericho, something to keep in mind, the story of the

Exodus and then the taking of the Promised Land is a type and shadow of the

Christian life and the judgment to come. So Jericho stands as an archetype, if you would, of the coming judgment of the earth.

It stands as an archetype of the coming judgment of the earth on the day in which Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.

That's what it stands as, it's a type and shadow of judgment day, of the great and terrible day of the

Lord. And so I'll give you some good cross -references along the way, but in order to kind of set this up right,

I'm going to do this backwards from the way I did it last week. Last week I would teach the text, and then after teaching the text,

I would go in and let you listen to how somebody mishandled the text. Today we're going to do it backwards.

We're going to listen to Mark Batterson mishandle the text, and after he's done mishandling the text, we'll go in, read the text,

Joshua 2 and Joshua 6, and interweave it with these good ancient preachers, which are gifts to the church.

I've got to tell you, if you are just a little bit iffy about reading the church fathers, there are some really, really good ones you ought to read.

Clement of Rome, I think of Tertullian, Irenaeus, although Irenaeus' book against the

Gnostics is really ponderous at parts. You think of Augustine, I think of Christostom, I mean, these are just great guys to read, and believe me, it helps because you sit there and go, oh wow, look, the guys in the ancient church are confessing the same faith

I confess. Now if you're going, wait a second, they're not confessing the same faith, then the issue is you, not them.

Just trust me on that. You remember the old George Costanza line, it's me, not you? It works backwards.

If you're confessing a faith that's different than the ancient church, and keep in mind this is pre -Pope, this is pre -Medieval

Roman Catholicism, if you're confessing a faith that's different than theirs, the problem is you, not them. It's you, not them.

And so you need to spend some more time in Scripture and understand how do they come to these conclusions regarding the things that they're preaching, and you might go, aye,

I get it. Now does that mean that they're without error? No, they're not without error. Every era of the church has its own eras, it's just that every era of the church makes different mistakes.

That's all I'm going to say, and by becoming good and fluent and conversant in ancient church history, and you understand that each era makes different mistakes, it helps you understand the mistakes we're making right now, because this era of the church is making a completely different set of mistakes than the church did in ancient times.

So just, you know, I'm just saying that. So without any further ado, here is Mark Batterson, Chapter 3 of The Circle Maker, and he's going to explain to us the story of the fall of Jericho.

Here we go. Jericho March. The first glimpse of Jericho was both awe -inspiring and frightening.

While wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, the Israelites had never seen anything approximating the skyline of Jericho.

The closer they got, the smaller they felt. They finally understood why the generation before them felt like grasshoppers and failed to enter the promised land because of fear.

A 6 -foot -wide lower wall and 50 -foot -high upper wall encircled the ancient metropolis.

The mudbrick walls were so thick and tall that the 12 -acre city appeared to be an impregnable fortress.

It seemed like God had promised something impossible, and His battle plan seemed nonsensical.

Your entire army is to march around the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day, you are to march around the city seven times.

Joshua 6, 3 -4. Every soldier in the army had to have wondered why.

Why not use a battering ram? Why not scale the walls? Why not cut off the water supply or shoot flaming arrows over the walls?

Instead, God told the Israelite army to silently circle the city, and He promised after they circled 13 times over seven days, the wall would fall.

The first time around, the soldiers must have felt a little foolish, but with each circle, their stride grew longer and stronger.

Notice the eisegesis. He's inserting details into the story that are not in the biblical text.

With each circle, a holy confidence was building pressure inside their souls.

By the seventh day, their faith was ready to pop. They arose before dawn and started circling at six o 'clock in the morning.

At three miles per hour, each mile -and -a -half march around the city took half an hour.

By nine o 'clock, they began their final lap. In keeping with God's command, they hadn't said a word in six days.

They just silently circled the promise. Then the priests sounded their horns, and a simultaneous shout followed.

Six hundred thousand Israelites raised a holy roar that registered on the

Richter scale, and the walls came tumbling down. After seven days of circling

Jericho, God delivered on a four -hundred -year -old promise. He proved, once again, that His promises don't have expiration dates.

And Jericho stands—and falls—as a testament to this simple truth. If you keep circling the promise,

God will ultimately deliver on it. What is your— By the way, that's law.

That's not gospel. Okay? You've got to circle the promise, and then when you do that, God will eventually deliver on it.

I mean, that's His claim. Let me back this up a bit. I just want you to hear Him say this next thing in context.

Here we go. What is your Jericho? This miracle is a microcosm.

It not only reveals the way God performed this particular miracle, it also establishes a pattern to follow.

It challenges us to confidently circle the promises God has given to us. What would those promises be?

So Jericho is somehow a microcosm. It's a pattern for you to follow.

This is a how -to book. So how do you conquer the impossible? Well, you circle the promise the way the

Israelites did. See? So what's your Jericho? Complete allegory here, and totally missing the point.

And it begs the question, what is your Jericho? For the

Israelites, Jericho symbolized the fulfillment of a dream that originated with Abraham.

Really? Okay. Damn. It was the first... So it was Abraham's dream to...

No. The first step in claiming the promised land, it was the miracle they had been hoping for and waiting for their entire lives.

What is your Jericho? Jericho. What promise are you praying around? What miracle are you marching around?

What dream does your life revolve around? Drawing prayer circles starts with identifying your

Jericho. Pfft. Oy. Hard to listen to. Jericho.

You've got to define the promises God wants you to stake claim to, the miracles God wants you to believe for, and the dreams

God wants you to pursue. Ah. So you've got to identify. The dreams God wants you to pursue, the miracles

He wants you to pray for, yeah. Where do I find all that? Then you need to keep circling until God gives you what

He wants and He wills. That's the goal. Now here's the problem. Most of us don't get what we want simply because we don't know what we want.

We've never circled any of God's promises. We've never written down a list of life goals.

We've never defined success for ourselves. And our dreams are as nebulous as cumulus clouds.

Uh -huh. And the story of Jericho somehow demystifies all of that, really?

Instead of drawing circles, we draw blanks. Circling Jericho.

All right. So that's Batterson talking about, you know, what's your Jericho and circling

Jericho? Now how do we demonstrate? How do we unpack this and basically show this is not what this text is about?

The story of the fall of Jericho is not about giving you a pattern so that you can circle promises and try to figure out what

God wants to do in your life or anything of the sort. I mean, that's just a complete disconnect. So let's go way back in time.

Now I'm not going to use our pirate Christian radio time machine to do this.

We're just going to go back into the text. And what we're going to do is we're going to start with the text itself, and then I'm going to interweave into it some quotes that I found while doing some research over the weekend that I thought would help us.

Okay? So if you have your Bible, open up to Joshua chapter two, Joshua chapter two.

If you look at six without two, you missed something really key and critical.

Let me read the first 11 verses. Here's what it says. And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent out two men secretly from Shittim as spies saying, go view the land, especially

Jericho. And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and they lodged there.

And it was told to the king of Jericho, behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.

Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all of the land.

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, true, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from.

And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I don't know where the men went. Pursue them quickly for you will overtake them.

But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stocks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.

So the men pursued after them on the way to Jordan as far as the Fords, and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.

Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, I know that the

Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

For we have heard of how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to those kings of the

Amorites who were beyond Jordan to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.

And as soon as we heard of it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you.

For the Lord your God, he is God in heavens above and on the earth beneath.

I'm going to pause there for a second. Notice the confession of faith. She has just confessed

Yahweh, the one true God, to be God, the God of heaven and earth, right?

This is a confession of faith. Here's what Christostom says in his homily on repentance and almsgiving.

He says, Do you see how with faith she, that's Rahab, takes on her lips the word of the lawgiver?

And I realize that your God is up in heaven and down on earth, and apart from him there is no

God. Rahab is a prefigurement of the church. Now you'll notice he's going to draw a connection.

Type in shadow, he's drawing a connection between Rahab and the church, and the connection is actually solid.

It's not a straight allegory. It's a type in shadow where he's going to say, listen, the church is just like Rahab because here's the deal,

Rahab is a sinner saved by grace, just like the church is, okay? So Rahab is a prefigurement of the church, which was at one time mixed up in the prostitution of the demons, which now accepts the spies of Christ.

Not the ones sent by Joshua, the son of none, but the apostles who were sent by Jesus, the true savior.

I learned, she says, that your God is up in heaven and down on earth, and apart from him there is no

God. The Jews received these things and did not safeguard them. The church heard these things and preserved them.

Therefore, Rahab is a prefigurement of the church and is worthy of all praise.

That's how Christosom handled this text. Cyril of Jerusalem, here's what he writes, and this is from his catechetical lectures.

He says, pass now, pray to the others who were saved by repentance, perhaps even among the women, some will say,

I have committed fornication and I've committed adultery and I have defiled my body with every excess.

Can there be salvation for me? See Christosom here is drawing an application from Rahab, the prostitute, to each and every one of us, right?

Who among us cannot say that we have not committed sin, even of this kind, right?

Either you haven't taken care of your body sexually or haven't cared for it by overeating or, you know, things, you understand what

I'm saying? So here, Cyril of Jerusalem says, pass now, pray to the others who were saved by repentance, perhaps even among the women, some will say,

I have committed fornication or adultery, I have defiled myself with every excesses, can there be salvation for me?

Fix your eyes, woman, upon Rahab, and look for salvation for yourself too.

For if she who openly and publicly practiced fornication was saved through repentance, will not she whose fornication preceded the gift of grace be saved by repentance and fasting?

For observe how she was saved, she said only this, since the Lord your God is

God in heaven above and on earth below, your God, she said, for she did not dare to call him her

God because of her wantonness. If you want scriptural testimony of her salvation, you have it recorded in the

Psalms, I will think of Rahab and Babylon among who know me, the salvation procured by repentance is open to men and to women alike.

Do you think God can't save you? Well, He can. Look at Rahab, He saved

Rahab, there's her confession of faith, the prostitute confessing the one true

God. And who does she become? Well, Matthew chapter 1, remember

I told you it's an important chapter of Scripture. Listen to what this says, starting at verse 4,

Ram, the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

Not only was she saved, and her sins forgiven, and her fornication, her adulteries, and her prostitution washed by the blood of the

Lamb, she, even in her womb, gets to give birth to a direct descendant of the

Messiah herself. Talk about mercy. This is just such an amazing story.

Now let me continue reading. Verse 12, Now then, please swear to me by the Lord, this is Rahab, that as I have dealt kindly with you, you will also deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father, and my mother, my brothers, and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.

And the men said to her, Our life for yours, even to death. If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the

Lord gives us the land, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you. Notice, okay, folks, this is such a great picture.

This is a picture of the judgment day itself, okay? If you are here on the day of Christ's return, you are as safe as Rahab and her family were.

She had an apartment in the very walls of Jericho, the very things that fell, okay?

And she survived and her home was intact because of the kindness and faithfulness of God.

Verse 15, So then she let the spies down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall so that she lived in the wall.

And she said to them, Go into the hills, or the pursuers will encounter you. Hide there three days until the pursuers have returned, and afterwards you may go your way.

The men said to her, We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made with us.

Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and your mother and your brothers and your father's household.

Okay, now I'm going to point something out here. The scarlet cord sounds so eerily like the blood on the lintel of the door on the night when the children of Israel were ultimately set free from captivity in Egypt on the night of the

Passover, right? Scarlet cord, blood red on the lintel. You remember the movie, what was it,

The Sixth Sense? If you've watched that movie a few times, it's actually very well done. I don't think

M. Night Shyamalan has done anything even closely approaching the brilliance that he had with that movie.

One of the things you'll notice in that movie is a red theme, okay? Scriptures have a similar thing going on here.

The red blood on the lintel of the door on the Passover, the scarlet thread, the scarlet rope in the window of Rahab the prostitute, okay?

Here's what Clement of Rome wrote about this. Here's what he says. For her faith, this is Rahab, for her faith and hospitality,

Rahab the harlot, the prostitute was saved. For when the spies were sent forth into Jericho by Joshua the son of Nun, the king of the land perceived that they were coming to spy out his country, and he sent forth men to seize them.

That being seized, they might be put to death. So the hospitable Rahab received them and hid them in the upper chamber under the flak stocks.

And when the messengers of the king came near and said, the spies of our land entered into your house, bring them forth for the king so orders.

Then she answered, the men truly whom you seek came to me, but they departed immediately in our journeying on the way.

And she pointed out to them the opposite road. And she said to them, without a doubt, I perceive that the

Lord, your God will deliver the city to you for the fear and the dread of you has fallen upon its inhabitants.

When therefore it shall come to pass that you take it, save me in the house of my father.

And they say to her, it shall be so as you have spoken us. Therefore, when you perceive that we are coming, you shall gather all of your folk beneath your roof and they shall be saved.

For as many as shall be found outside of the house shall perish. Moreover, they gave her a sign that she should hang from her house, a scarlet thread, thereby showing beforehand that through the blood of the

Lord, there shall be redemption for all them that believe and hope on God.

You see dearly beloved, not only faith, but prophecy is found in this woman.

That's Clement of Rome, Joshua chapter six now. Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel.

None went out, none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given

Jericho into your hand with its king and its mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once you shall do for six days.

Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark. On the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times and the priests shall blow the trumpets.

And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall flat and the people will go up, everyone straight before him.

So Joshua, the son of none called the priests and said to them, take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the

Lord. And he said to the people, go forward, march around the city and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the

Lord. And just as Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the

Lord went forward, blowing the trumpets with the ark of the covenant of the

Lord, following them. The armed men were walking before the priests who were blowing the trumpets and the rear guard was walking after the ark while the trumpets blew continually.

But Joshua commanded the people, you shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out from your mouth until the day that I tell you to shout, then you shall shout.

So he caused the ark of the Lord to circle the city, going about it once.

And they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp. Then Joshua rose early in the morning.

The priests took up the ark of the Lord and the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the

Lord walked on and they blew the trumpets continually and the armed men were walking before them and the rear guard was walking after the ark of the

Lord while the trumpets blew continually. And the second day they marched around the city once and returned to camp.

So they did for six days. On the seventh day, they rose early at the dawn of day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times.

It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets,

Joshua said to the people, shout for the Lord has given you the city and the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the

Lord for destruction. Stop again.

This is a type and shadow of the coming day of judgment. Make no mistake about it.

Let me read this again. The city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the

Lord for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live because she hid the messengers whom we sent.

But you keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them, you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it.

But all silver and gold and every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to the

Lord. They shall go into the treasury of the Lord. So the people shouted and the trumpets were blown.

And as soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city.

Every man straight before him and they captured the city. Then they devoted all of the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, donkeys with the edge of the sword.

But to the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, go.

This just kills me. Go into the prostitute's house and bring out from there the woman and all who belong to her as you swore to her.

And so the young men who had been spies in and who went and spied in and brought out

Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all who belong to her. And they brought all of her relatives and put them outside of the camp of Israel.

And they burned the city with fire and everything in it, only the silver and the gold and the vessels of bronze and the iron they they put into the treasury of the house of the

Lord. But Rahab, the prostitute and her father's household and all who belong to her,

Joshua saved alive. And folks, when you read this in Hebrew, it's really hard to not see this as Jesus saved her alive because that's

Jesus's name. Every time you see the word Joshua in this text,

Yeshua. Yeshua. That's the Hebrew name that our Lord and Savior went by.

I mean, I can't, I cannot read this passage without saying

Jesus saved her alive because that's who really saved her.

The connecting points of the gospel here are so clear. This is this is this picture of salvation in the day of judgment, right?

And she has lived in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom God sent to spy out

Jericho. Now, I love, I love what Christos did, where he likens the spies to the apostles themselves.

The apostles, the twelve apostles, those are the spies whom Jesus sends, right? And we hide them like Rahab does when we hear the message and receive the message that they bring to us, that they tell us so that we may believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the son of God, who bled and died on the cross for your sins and mine. It is so absolutely beautiful,

I mean, to preach the gospel from this text takes little or no effort.

You just have to know what the gospel is and what to look for, okay? She has lived in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom

Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Joshua laid an oath on them at this time saying, cursed before the

Lord be the man who rises and rebuilds the city Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.

So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land. Now, before I read to you how some of the preachers of the ancient church handled this text,

I want to give you some cross -references here, okay? When we read this Joshua text, again, this is a true type and shadow of the day of judgment, okay?

With some of the details that are just too, they're too parallel to be coincidental.

Let me read to you, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 through 18, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the

Lord, we will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the

Lord in the air. So we will always be with the Lord, therefore, encourage one another with these words.

Notice the day of judgment comes with trumpets, right? Matthew 24, 31, and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds and from one end of the heaven to the other.

Okay? Matthew 24, 31, with the trumpet call, gathering his elect.

Is that not what we saw with Rahab the prostitute on the day of judgment for Jericho?

Loud trumpet call, and his elect were brought forth safely and alive from Jericho.

Matthew 24, 31 is a direct cross -reference to this passage. Let me give you one more, kind of a scary one.

Joel chapter 2, verses 10 through 11. You can go and read it more in context if you'd like. Okay?

But again, this is the prophet Joel giving us a picture of the day of judgment. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble.

The sun and the moon are darkened, the stars withdraw their shining.

The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great.

He who executes his word is powerful, for the day of the Lord is great and very awesome.

Who can endure it? I think this imagery here of the

Lord and his army on the day of judgment is paralleled perfectly in type and shadow right there in the story of Joshua and Jericho, right?

Now, promised I would read to you a couple of, a few more of the ancient church preachers, okay?

Maximus of Turin, okay? From his sermon 93, here's what he says. The walls of Jericho fell down on account of the priestly trumpets, because they contained within themselves a sinful people, that would be

Jericho. A battering ram did not strike it, nor did a machine of war storm it, but what is remarkable, the terror of the priestly sound brought it down.

The walls that stood impervious to iron collapsed at the sacred voice of the trumpets.

Who would not be amazed that when the sound had been made, stones were broken to pieces, foundations were shattered by the noise, and everything collapsed in such a way that although the conquerors did not injure their own forces, nonetheless, among the enemy, nothing remained standing.

But although no one touched those walls still, they were taken from without at the sound of the righteous while sinners dwelled within.

For this reason, then, they gave way, lest they offer resistance to the ones or somehow protect the others.

To the righteous they opened a path, and to the faithless they denied protection. Therefore, brothers, if the sound of the priestly voice was so powerful at that time, such that its blast in the air announced a certain confusion, how much more do we believe that priestly voice is living now which shows forth something magnificent when it speaks

Christ in words? Or how could feeling creatures resist when even unfeeling ones were unable to endure the sacred dread?

For we believe that hearts can more easily be softened than rocks at the words of the priests, and that sins can be forgiven in a shorter time than those stones were split asunder.

For the voice of the Spirit, when it comes, destroys the stain of sin more easily than it breaks apart a tangible fortification of rocks.

He's taking this passage and comparing it to the voice, the living voice, the vive voce of pastors who preach the word of Christ, who are then brought to repentance and their sins are forgiven.

Good stuff from Maximus of Turin. Christostom also writes, he says, pay attention to me how strange was the preaching of God's love towards humanity.

He who says in the law, you shall not commit adultery and you shall not commit prostitution, changes the commandment by clemency and he proclaims to the blessed

Joshua, let Rahab the prostitute live.

Joshua, the son of nuns says, let the prostitute live. This prefigured the

Lord Jesus who says the prostitute and the tax collectors go into the kingdom of heaven before you.

If she must live, how can she be a prostitute? If she is a prostitute, why should she live?

I speak about her previous condition, he says, so that you may marvel at her subsequent change.

He asks, what did Rahab to whom he granted salvation do? She accepted the spies peacefully.

Even an innkeeper does this, however, she reaped the fruits of salvation not by speech but beforehand by faith and by her disposition before God.

I am not out of place to point out that none of the preachers in the ancient church that we have their sermons from ever pointed to the story of Jericho and ask the question, what's your

Jericho? They never did that. They pointed out the themes and the archetypal themes in this text that point us to the day of judgment and the judgment that we all face and they point us to the forgiveness of sins.

They point us to the forgiveness of sins because Christosom says the same

God who said you shall not commit adultery and the same God who said you shall not commit prostitution commands the prostitute to live and she's saved when she puts that scarlet thread outside of her window.

Now we don't have a scarlet thread literally to stick outside of our window but we have this, the blood of Christ shed for us.

This we have, the blood of Christ that washes away our sin so that God can then command a sinner like you to be saved and it's a command.

That's exactly what it is. It is a command when you are brought to repentance and faith in Christ even though your sins be as scarlet.

God commands you to live and to be saved the same way

Joshua commanded Rahab the prostitute to be saved and to live.

This is what's going on in the story of Jericho. This is the grand story and you get swept up into it.

It isn't directly about you but you cannot help but see the implications for you.

The themes are all there. To do what Mark Batterson did with this text in his book

The Circle Maker is to show that he's spiritually blind, that he doesn't get it, that he doesn't understand.

For him to make this about you the way he did it is to miss the whole point. This story is about the

Yeshua who saves, who commands prostitutes to be saved and if he can command a prostitute to be saved, he can command you to be saved because on the day of judgment he sends forth his angels with the trumpet blast to gather his elect not for them to face destruction but for them to live and to live with him eternally.

All of this by the shed blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is what the story of Jericho is all about. This is good news. This is something to be grasped onto, to cling to with every bit of energy that you have.

This is the promise, the promise of your own salvation on the day of dread, on the day of judgment, on the great day of the

Lord God Almighty when Jesus comes again with glory on the clouds of judgment to judge the living and the dead because his armies are encamped around Jericho right now and I mean our planet.

One day there will not be silence but there will be a trumpet blast, the shout of the archangel and the sign of the one who was pierced coming on the clouds to judge the living and the dead.

You will either spend eternity with him in his favor and eternal life or you will spend eternity literally smoking out of the pit, out of the lake of fire, drinking to the dregs, just the full fury of the wrath of God for your sins.

This is what you've earned. Repent and be forgiven. God commands prostitutes to be saved.

He can command you to be saved. This is what this text is about. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

Faith, you can do so at my email address, TalkBackAtFightingfortheFaith .com or you can ask to be my friend on Facebook, it's

Facebook .com forward slash PirateChristian. You can follow me on Twitter, my name there, at PirateChristian. When we come back we have a fantastic lecture by Albert Moeller entitled,

The Lamb Who Would Be King. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back. We don't need to rethink