F4F | Jentezen Franklin Twists the Walls of Jericho

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. So, the story of the walls of Jericho come a -tumblin' down, right?

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You've probably heard sermons on the story of the walls of Jericho, but what you probably have not heard is what it actually points to in the types and shadows.

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It doesn't point to things falling down or walls in your life falling down or nonsense like that.

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In fact, we're gonna listen a little bit to Jensen Franklin and give what I would consider kind of the standard mishandling of this text.

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In fact, it's so standard that many of you have heard texts, you know, sermons just like this, but what it's really about is the end of the world.

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I know that seems a little odd, but I'll prove it. So, grab a Bible and something to write with because this is another one of those episodes where we're gonna do some type and shadow working, connect some things to Christ, and connect the

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Old Testament with the new, with a Christological center to it. That's kind of the point of all of this.

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So, let me whirl up the desktop and we'll get right to it. So, here is a sermon preached by Jensen Franklin and posted roughly about a month ago from the time

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I recorded this, and I'm not really trying to kind of, you know, dig on Jensen Franklin hard on this one.

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I've done that enough, but this is more or less to kind of give you an example, like, the standard way in which this text is mishandled.

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Here's Jensen Franklin. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Joshua chapter 6.

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You can just open it there and you can kind of follow along. I'm not going to take time to read the whole story, but this story is found in the first few verses, and I'm I do have to dig at this point.

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Why would you not take the time to read the whole story? Are you too busy? Would the people there leave the building fleeing if they heard large, copious amounts of God's Word?

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What other things do you have to do today? I mean, you're in your sermon. Why not read the whole text, hmm?

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...reach out of the book of Joshua this morning, but I'm preaching today about the walls will fall as we fast and pray.

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Get ready. We've got seven more days of this fast and prayers.

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So at that, at his church, they're fasting and praying. They did a seven -day fast, and he's claiming that the walls are gonna come down because they fasted and prayed?

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...season. And I want you to get your faith up this morning, get your joy up this morning, to get ready for the walls to fall.

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What walls are supposed to fall? If any walls fell on my property,

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I didn't end up spending money and having to rebuild them. I don't want my walls to fall.

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The enemy builds walls. It starts with one brick, and he adds another brick, and another brick. The bricks have names.

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The brick of doubt, the brick of fear, the brick of negative thinking, generational curses, hate, unforgiveness, oppression, depression, addiction.

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Oh, this is just bad. It's not what this text is about at all. And he says there's no way out.

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There's no way to be free. Enslaving sin is one of those bricks. But boy, when you get serious with God and you focus your faith on seven days of fasting and prayer and jump in on this fast and join us,

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I believe that the walls will fall. Joshua. All right, so you get the idea.

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He's totally allegorized this. He's narcegeted the text. The question is, what does it really teach?

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And it's so much better than you can possibly imagine. Let me explain. All right, so let's do this.

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Let's do what he didn't want to do. Let's read the text, okay? Now, Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel.

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None went out. None came in. Now, we need to note that there's a little bit of the backstory here.

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And that is the story of Rahab. And that's the Hebrew way. That's how you pronounce her name in Hebrew.

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Rahab. It's not Rahab. That's this. Every time I hear somebody say Rahab, it's like,

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I do that. It's a Rahab. That's how her name is pronounced. But let me do this. Let me go.

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Joshua is it three? Yeah, Israel crosses the Jordan. Let's see. Four.

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Twelve memorial stones. Five. New generation. It might be two. Here it is.

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There we go. All right. So, we'll do a little bit of the backstory. I mean, I got nowhere else to be and nothing more important to do than actually like open up God's Word.

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So, this is an important vital part of the story. Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies to say, you go and you view the land of especially

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Jericho. And when they went, they came into the house of a prostitute whose name was

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Rahab and lodged there. Two Jewish boys in the house of ill repute. That's an interesting story, okay?

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

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

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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.

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And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out.

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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 stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof.

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

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

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Yahweh has given you the land. Rahab has faith. She's heard the reports and she knows that Yahweh has given the

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Israelites the land. And the fear of you has fallen upon us and all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

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

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Amorites who are beyond the Jordan and to Sihon and Og whom you devoted to destruction.

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

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For Yahweh your God, he is God in heavens above and on the earth beneath. She believes.

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Wow. So, now then, please swear to me by Yahweh 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 mother, my brothers and sisters and all who belong to them and deliver our lives from death.

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

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Yahweh gives us the land, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.

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

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And she said to them, go into the hills or the pursuers will encounter you and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned.

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Then afterwards you may go on your way. The men said to her, we will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear.

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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, your mother, your brothers and all your father's household.

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Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head and we shall be guiltless.

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But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house of his blood shall be on our head.

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But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear.

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And she said, according to your words, so be it. And then she sent them away and they departed and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

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There's our context. That's such a great story, by the way. So Jericho was shut out inside and because of the people of Israel.

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None went out, none came in. And Yahweh said to Joshua, see I've given Jericho into your hand with its king and its mighty men of valor.

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You shall march around the city, all of the men of war going around the city once.

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Thus you shall do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark.

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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 a 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 down flat and the people shall go up everyone straight before him.

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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 Yahweh.

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

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And just as Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before Yahweh went forward, blowing the trumpets with the ark of the covenant of Yahweh following them.

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

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But Joshua commanded the people, you shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth until the day

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I tell you to shout and then you shall shout. So he caused the ark of the Lord to circle the city going about it once.

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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

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Lord and the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of Yahweh walked on and they blew the trumpets continually.

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And the armed men were walking before them and the rear guard was walking after the ark of Yahweh while the trumpets blew continually.

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And the second day they marched around the city once and returned into the camp. So they did for six days.

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

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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 trumpet,

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

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

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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.

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But all the silver and the gold and every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to Yahweh. They shall go into the treasury of Yahweh.

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So the people shouted, the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout.

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The wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him and they captured the city and they devoted all the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen and sheep, donkeys with the edge of the sword.

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But the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, you go into the prostitute's house and bring out from there the woman and all who belonged to her as you swore to her.

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So the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her and they brought all her relatives and put them outside 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 put into the treasury of the house of Yahweh.

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But Rahab the prostitute and her father's household and all who belonged to her, Joshua, saved alive.

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Same name as Jesus by the way in Hebrew, Yeshua, saved alive and she has lived in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom

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Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. So there's the story. What does it mean? What does it really connect to?

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So you're going to note, the children of Israel have just finished spending 40 years in the wilderness and Jericho is the first city to be attacked as they are going into the promised land.

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And here's where we have to pick up a little bit of theology from the book of Hebrews. The New Testament is going to help us understand the old.

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And in the book of Hebrews we hear this about Abraham. This is what it says, in fact let me back this, by faith

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Abraham, so Hebrews 11 .8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

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And he went out not knowing where he was going and by faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

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For he was looking to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. By faith

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Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised.

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Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

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And then listen to this portion, all of these died in faith not having received the things promised but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

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For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out they would have had opportunity to return but as it is they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

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Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city. So we learn from Hebrews 11 that the whole promised land motif is a type and shadow that points us to the new earth after Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.

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That being the case then you can see then that the type and shadow with the fall of Jericho is prefiguring the end of the world and we as Christians entering into the new earth and taking possession of it after Christ destroys it and brings it to a cataclysmic end.

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Now I know that seems a little bit odd but let me kind of show you this that even the early church understood this.

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So one of the church fathers by the name of Maximus of Turin, here's how he understood the story of the fall of Jericho and specifically the blowing of the trumpets by the priests.

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He saw that as prefiguring the preaching of the gospel until the return of Christ. Watch what he says.

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So last Sunday, this is Maximus of Turin, last Sunday we said the walls of Jericho were laid waste by the priestly trumpets and that and that contrary to order in nature, an unfeeling thing gave way before the sacred sounds with a kind of dread of the threat and everything so collapsed at the loud noise that the most solid fortifications fell to the ground and the sinful people remained without protection.

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The one occurred less resistance be offered for any amount of time, the other so that they would be more easily captured.

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But we have said that all these things were done then in the symbol. Right, so the early church understood

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Old Testament symbol, type, shadow, pointing to the reality that's in Christ. For we believe that the priestly trumpets of that age were nothing other than the preaching of the priests, the pastors of this age, by which we do not cease to announce with a dreadful sound something harsh to sinners, to speak of what is dismal and to strike the ears of evildoers with, as it were, a threatening roar, since no one can resist the sacred sounds and no one can gainsay them.

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For how could feeling creatures not tremble at the word of God when at the time even unfeeling ones were shaken?

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And how could human heart -heartedness resist what a stone fortification could not withstand?

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For just as when the stone walls were destroyed, the clash of the trumpets reached the people within, so also now when evil thoughts have been destroyed, the preaching of the priest penetrates to the bare parts of the soul, for the soul is found bare before the word of God when every evil deed is destroyed, and that the soul is bare before God, the

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Holy Apostle says, but all things are bare and uncovered by his eyes. In this regard, before the soul knows

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God and accepts the truth of the faith, it veils itself, so to speak, under superstitious works and surrounds itself with something like a wall of perversity, such that it might seem to be able to remain impregnable within the fortification of its own evil doing.

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But when the sacred sound thunders, its rashness is overthrown, its thinking is destroyed, and all the deafness of its superstitions break asunder in such a way, remaining unprotected as it is written in the word of God, that it might penetrate even into the vision of spirit and its innermost parts.

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So just as the ring of the sacred sound destroyed, captured and took vengeance on hard -hearted people, so also now the priestly preaching subjugates, captures, and takes vengeance on sinful people.

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So you kind of get the idea here, he sees the trumpets then as, well, as pastors during this age, the church age, as their voice going out and kind of speaking out against the hard -heartedness, and then we see further in the writings of the

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Church Father, the world's existence from its creation to its destruction is symbolized in the elements of Jericho's fall.

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So Maximus of Turin continues in this theme then, and basically points out the fact that the world is symbolized here, but what was done to them in the city of Jericho, as we have said, was done in the symbol, since now this very thing happens in reality.

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For we read that at that time the priest circled the aforementioned city continuously for seven days, and that although a band of armed men was unable to take it, it was overthrown by the sound of trumpets coming from all sides.

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Of trumpets, I say, not played by a rough soldier, but sounded by a consecrated priest who would not fear a person's trumpet if he did not fear his sword.

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After seven days, therefore, the walls that were circled fell at the priestly trumpets, and we read that in seven days the works of this world were completed, and you see then that with this number seven is not so much one city that is destroyed by the priest as the wickedness of the whole world that is destroyed.

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For just as the naming of a single city, the condition of the world is symbolized, so also the course of seven days indicates the space of 7 ,000 years during which the trumpets of priestly preaching announces destruction to the world and threatens judgment.

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As it is written, for the world will also perish and all the things that are in the world, but the one who does the will of the

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Lord endures forever. So what he's seeing here, the fact that they circle the city seven times, seven is kind of a number dealing with this present creation.

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Christ was raised on the eighth day, the first day of the new creation. There's kind of symbolism there as well, but he sees then this the fall of Jericho as a foreshadow of the fall and the destruction of this world, and so that being the case, you can see then how this works, and I would note it works beautifully when you start to make those connections.

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So you have the people, the priests blowing trumpets, and then the people crying with a great shout, and those details show up at the end of the world.

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Consider what it says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as others who have no hope.

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

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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

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Lord, 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.

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Those details show up again at the end of the world. So a good way to think about Jericho, the fall of Jericho, is this that this, you know, the going around Jericho seven times is,

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I like the way Maximus of Turin pointed out, that the priests who were blowing the trumpet, that's the going out of the gospel around the whole world, and getting to the whole world, and warning sinners of impending doom, and then the fall of Jericho prefigures the end of the world.

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That's the idea here. So the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God, and then the dead in Christ will rise first.

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And 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, and so we will always be with the

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Lord, therefore encourage one another with these words. And then I would add one last little detail, one last little detail, to kind of rightly understand this, is that we have to come back to Rahab the prostitute.

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What ended up happening to Rahab after she was rescued out of Jericho? And what is it that was there, the sign of her being saved?

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A scarlet cord? Hmm. Does that not invoke the blood of Christ? Indeed it does.

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So if I were to just do a quick, if I were to do it just a quick search in the

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New Testament for Rahab, she is mentioned three times in the

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New Testament, and one of those times is in the genealogy of Jesus. So Judah, the father of Perez, this is

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Matthew 1 .3, Zerah by Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nashon, Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth.

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So think about it this way, we know at the end of the world, first order of business after Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, and the judging is done,

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Satan is in the lake of fire, all those who persist in sin and unbelief have joined them also with his fate and the fate of the demons.

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What's the first order of business? The wedding feast of the Lamb. Okay, there's a blowout wedding feast at the end of the age.

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You know, so Christ now has come to to rescue his bride and he, and so there's a big marriage feast.

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Well, after Rahab the prostitute was saved out of Jericho, something interesting happened, and that is, is that the guy who was next in line in Jesus' genealogy, a fellow by the name of Salmon, he cast a loving eye on Rahab the prostitute and he married her.

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And so, yeah, just these details are so, so spot -on beautiful and perfect.

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And so you'll note that Rahab, that she, she, she, she will forever be in history now, the woman who is the mother of Boaz.

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And, and so, so, you know, I just, yeah, I just think it's, it's, it's, it's just not a coincidence that Salmon marries the prostitute and the bride of Christ.

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What a sketchy bride she is, right? You know, she was, you know, she's dead in trespasses and sins and iniquity and ick, and Christ suffers, bleeds, and dies for her sins, washes away her iniquity, makes her as white as snow, clothes her with his own righteousness, and presents her to himself in splendor.

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All these themes have to do with the themes of the end of the world, and kind of one of the sub -themes.

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It's not overtly there, but it's, it's right under the surface in the story of the, of the fall of the walls of Jericho.

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So now you know what it's about. It's not about walls falling down in your life. It's prefiguring the end of the world.

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And that's how the ancient church understood these texts. And I think reading Christ into it that way and seeing how it connects with the end of the world and the details of the shout and the trumpets and stuff like this, and then those details showing up when

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Jesus returns with his angel armies at the end of the world, that's all on purpose. God knows what he's doing.

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This book that we, that God has given us, the Bible, is amazing. And only by seeing

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Christ in the center of it are you able to understand really what it is that it's communicating to you.

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So hopefully you found all of this to be helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description.

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And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.

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