When
you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people
give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the
people will go up, every man straight in. (Joshua 6: 5)
The “loud
shout” of steadfast faith is the exact opposite of the groans of
wavering faith and the complaints of discouraged hearts. Of all “the
secret[ s] of the Lord” (Ps. 25: 14 KJV), I do not believe
there are any more valuable than the secret of this “loud shout” of
faith. “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into
your hands, along with its king and its fighting men’ ” (Josh. 6: 2).
He did not say, “I will deliver” but “I have delivered.” The victory
already belonged to the children of Israel, and now they were called to
take possession of it. But the big question still remaining was how. It
looked impossible, but the Lord had a plan.
No one would normally
believe that a shout could cause city walls to fall. Yet the secret of
their victory lay precisely in just that shout, for it was the shout of
faith. And it was a faith that dared to claim a promised victory solely
on the basis of the authority of God’s Word, even though there were no
physical signs of fulfillment. God answered His promise in response to
their faith, for when they shouted, He caused the walls to fall.
God had
declared, “I have delivered Jericho into your hands,” and faith
believed this to be true. And many centuries later the Holy Spirit
recorded this triumph of faith in the book of Hebrews as follows: “By
faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around
them for seven days” (Heb. 11: 30). Hannah Whitall Smith
Faith can never
reach its consummation,
Till the victor’s thankful song we raise:
In
the glorious city of salvation,
God has told us all the gates are
praise.
Cowman, L. B. E.; Reimann, Jim (2008-09-09). Streams in
the Desert: 366 Daily Devotional Readings (p. 333). Zondervan. Kindle
Edition
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