Time to Shout - Part 2

That’s a most unusual set of instructions for taking a city. One might even say that it was utterly unreasonable to think that the walls of Jericho would fall in such a manner. But Joshua obeyed the Lord, and the people obeyed Joshua. The city was encircled according to God’s precise instructions. And on the seventh day at the end of the seventh encirclement, the horns were blown, the people shouted, the walls fell down, and the city was taken as God told Joshua it would be. It was a great victory. It was the time to shout. It's interesting, however, as you read this story that even here in the sixth chapter of Joshua, we still find the people in a time of preparation. The people had been prepared in one way or another during 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Certainly Joshua and Caleb had been prepared, going back that far. They were great men of faith. And they exercised their faith during that long delayed conquest. The armies were prepared. They had been prepared in the wilderness. And when the people had crossed the river, there was still further preparation that we looked at earlier, involving the rite of circumcision and the observance of the Passover. God was very concerned that the hearts of the people be right before Him before the assault began. 

 
Time to Shout - Part 1

A number of years ago, there was a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania who taught in the ROTC program in the area of military strategy. His name was Lieutenant Colonel Ferris Kirkland, and he would often speak to his students about the most stirring lecture he had ever heard. Kirkland had invited a guest lecturer to his class to talk about the strategy of an ancient military general. The guest described to the students how this man, even so many years ago, exercised techniques that soldiers have used many times since. Kirkland gave some examples, such as driving into the very center of the enemies' territory and thus dividing his forces. Then, having divided the enemy army, one would then conduct a clean-up operation, first on the one side and then on the left. He also talked about surprise tactics and psychological warfare.
The Commander's Commander - Part Five
I don't mean to suggest by this quote that doctrine and forms are unimportant. But what I mean to say is that when Phillips titles his book, he is really making a point that speaks to us all, and comes from this response of the heavenly commander to Joshua. Even when we are trying to be most biblical, we are nevertheless in our thoughts limiting God in some way because our minds are finite; and we cannot comprehend the infinite. So, we have to hear that challenge and response personally. We say to God, “Are you for us or for our enemies?" What we mean is that God better be for us because we count ourselves as the faithful ones. And when we say this, we need to hear the kind of response that God gave to Joshua: "Neither—not if you approach it that way. But I’m your commander. And what I have come to do is command you and enlist you in my cause.” 
 
The Commander's Commander - Part Four
But now we need to say something else. All of that in a certain sense is preliminary, at least in my thinking, because the part of the story that really interests me is not so much the identity of this heavenly commander or the identity of the heavenly commander’s troops. What really interests me is what the commander said when Joshua issued his challenge. Joshua asked, "Are you for us or for our enemies?" That's like saying, if you’re thinking of the history of England in the Middle Ages, are you for Lancaster or York? Or if you’re in Northern Ireland today, are you Protestant or Catholic? Joshua’s question was a challenging, provocative, and necessary one in times of war. 
 
The Commander's Commander - Part Three
This commander was no doubt the commander of the armies of Israel. And yet that phrase, “the army of the Lord” or “the hosts of the Lord,” in the Old Testament often means something much more than human armies. It has to do with those heavenly armies, the armies of angels which are there to direct, bless, and protect God’s people. So when this commander comes and says, "I am a commander of the army of the Lord," we need to understand that identification in the fullest measure of the meaning of that phrase. This man is not merely saying, "I am commander of Israel’s troops," though that, of course, was true. Additionally he is saying, "I am the commander of those heavenly hosts in whom alone you are going to find victory."