Heb 11:30 Faith in Action

Hebrews 11:23–30 ESV

23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the Destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. 29 By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

Water bottle faith requires action, faith is displayed by our actions, there are three actions if I believe that there is water in the bottle, walk, open, and drink.

Before we dive into the verses today let’s remember for a second what we learned from the previous verses. From v 23 through 29 the focus was on Moses. From the faith of an obscure couple (Amram and Jochebed) that led to the salvation of Moses. Then Moses’ true identity was revealed by his refusal, choices, treasure, and separation and culminated in his salvation and that of the people. Then we saw the last time that it was Moses’ personal faith that influenced those around him and the whole nation of Israel was saved by an act of God as they crossed the Red Sea as on dry land.

Now following the event of Israel crossing the Red Sea there were several years in the wilderness. However, the next impossible task that they had to overcome was the indestructible city of Jericho.

Hebrews 11:30 ESV

30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

The account of the fall of the walls of Jericho is found in Joshua 6. If you turn your Bible to Joshua 6 you will find that in Joshua 5 all the Israelites are camping in Gilgal and there the people are circumcised.

This is less about the actual act of circumcision and more about the fact that this was a new generation. This new generation grew up and lived “all” their lives in the desert and they had not seen or experienced the big and fortified cities for themselves. They were very familiar with sand, sun, and desert. They were also familiar with God’s provision during all these years.

But, now they have come to a fortified city. It is safe to assume that fear and doubt were running high in the camp. On top of that, Moses is not with them anymore. Joshua is leading them, and I’m sure he had no idea how they were going to conquer Jericho.

So, what does Joshua do? He goes away from the people, to pray for direction from God. That is exactly what he receives as he goes away to pray.

Joshua received odd but specific instructions. And Joshua had to have faith to act in obedience to these weird instructions. They were to march around the city and there was also a specific, precise order: soldiers, seven priests carrying seven rams’ horns, shofars, then in the middle the Ark of the Covenant carried on the shoulders of more priests, then the people, and finally the rear guard of soldiers.

This unusual parade was also carefully specified. During the first six days, they were to march around the walls each day once, maintaining absolute silence while the priests blared intermittently on their shofars. Then on the seventh day, they were to maintain silence as they circled the walls seven times—until Joshua gave the command to “shout”.

First, we should consider how absurd this might have seemed to them. In all of military history, this is not how you conquer a fortified city. If there is a big wall in the way you blow it up, if you can’t you climb it using ladders and ropes, or you dig under to blow it. In essence, you smash what can be smashed.

IMAGE CASTLE BYRONS BOOK

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We operate in this concept, just like the picture here of the tool expectations, you keep increasing the force until something will budge or melt. PERSONAL STORY

That is how we operate and think without faith, especially when it comes to war and conquering a city. It is just absurd to first go to God and ask for His direction, and then obey His crazy instructions. The people in Jericho likely thought that the Israelites were just a bunch of crazy fools. Probably some of the Israelites were also thinking secretly that it was foolish to go on this crazy parade.

This is how the world operates and how we are influenced every day. You rely on yourself, your strength, your ability. In summary: you, you, you, your wants, your desires, your needs. Every fallen heart sings the same song I want what I want when I want it.

But this is the opposite of how faith operates, or how people of faith should live. We should live by faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as Moses, Joshua, and Rahab lived. What we see in v30 is that their faith moved them to action, more specifically there are three actions here that point to their faith.

Faith is displayed by our:

OBEDIENCE

The key thing is that their faith moved into action. First, their faith was displayed by their obedience.

The commandment was crazy and dangerous, and you would make a fool of yourself while an entire city was laughing and ridiculing you while you kept walking around it for a whole week. For the first six days, you were to be completely silent, the only noise to be heard was of the shofars (rams’ horn), and the laughing of those “safely” inside the walls.

Historians have approximated that it took them 2 hours to walk from their camp in Gilgal to Jericho. For them to walk around the city likely took about 30 minutes. We often picture them walking right next to the wall, like on VeggieTales, but that is very unlikely, they walked far enough to be not in the range of the archers, but close enough to hear the mocking and laughing.

A life of faith is evidenced by a life of obedience to God’s word, even when it seems absurd to the world. We are living more and more where more people and churches are willing to compromise and not follow what God says in His word. The world will laugh at us and mock us, our job is to be obedient as we hold fast to God’s word. We will be tempted to be angry at those “inside” the walls of acceptance of the world. Our job is to be silent and constantly hear God’s word.

What are the Jericho walls that you are facing?

Maybe you have been wronged by someone. Now all the doors seem to be wide open for you to pay back just a little bit. Everyone will praise you if you pay back him or her, and you know you can get away with it and no one will know. But you remember the words of Jesus, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43, 44). Will you join the fools’ parade and actually pray for blessing on the one who has wronged you? Or are you going to do what feels right and seems right in the eyes of everyone … and even your sinful heart that is focused on you?

This might not be your situation, but we all each day make thousands of small decisions in what we do, what we say, and what we think. We will have to choose the path of obedience or disobedience to what God says. The crucial thing is that we will have to recognize the fact that no one can make us sin. There are no circumstances or people that can make us sin, it is the sin that is already in our hearts that shows up in the heat of the circumstances.

When we look at little kids having trouble, usually it goes “I hit because he or she hit me first”. In that statement, we are saying just like our parents Adam and Eve, I sin because fill in the blank… instead of recognizing that it was our will, our desire to retaliate, that the problem is first in my heart and not the others.

How do we fight this problem in our hearts? By faith. And our faith will be displayed by our obedience to what God says in His word. Therefore, we must obey, but we cannot do it on our own strength we need His strength, His power to do so. As we see in Adam, as well as young children, it takes reliance on God's strength to "allow" someone else to seem to get away with wrong and not point the finger at them to deflect attention from our sinful actions … provoked or otherwise!

Faith is displayed by our: 2. FOCUS

Furthermore, faith is displayed by our Focus. The Israelites had an impossible task and by faith, they obeyed what God had commanded. But, their faith took more than just action it took incredible focus as well. It had to have been difficult to focus on the priests or the ark or their leader Joshua rather than those within the walls of Jericho. And, let's be honest, if anyone has seen Veggie Tale's version of this story, we are chuckling at the vision of them having slushies dropped on their heads. While that is not what was being tossed on them, you can imagine that there were less appealing items being tossed over the walls, or even left for them to walk around. That had to take incredible focus. If we don’t have focus we cannot accomplish anything, especially when it is something hard.

Through the crazy parade that they had in the exact middle of the procession was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented God’s presence. In the account of this historical event in Joshua the word Ark was mentioned eleven times, thus indicating its centrality and importance.

When the Israelites were walking silently for six days the only noise from their procession that they could hear was the shofars, the trumpets which were being blasted by the priests who were with the Ark right in the middle of the parade.

So why did God instruct the only noise to come from the middle of the parade? Remember what was in the middle of the parade, which God had given very specific instructions. It was the Ark of the Covenant and the blasting of the shofars symbolized God’s presence, just like when God came down at Mount Sinai.

God put the noise and the Ark right in the middle so that all of those in the parade would keep their focus not on themselves or their abilities, but their focus was on God, who was able to do the impossible. Their focus was on God, and they knew God’s special presence went with them. This is faith’s focus. This is the focus that brings down enemy walls!

We are well aware that we don’t live at the same time in history as Joshua or the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. But we have a greater physical treasure and possession than they did. Inside the Ark was a container with the mana, the rod of Aaron that budded, and the two tablets with the law that God had given to the people.

We have the whole counsel of God, the whole revelation. We have in our hands God’s word that tells us everything that we need for life and godliness, we know the beginning and the end. However, our focus is often not on God’s Word.

No matter how strong your faith is, if you don’t have a specific plan and time for when you will read your Bible each day, you will end up not reading it. It will be weeks before you will realize that you have not been reading your Bible.

We live in a time where there is way too much noise and distractions. We have a hard time focusing. The average attention span of a human in 2023 was only 8.25 seconds according to research. That's less than the goldfish's 9-second attention span! Research shows that attention span has decreased 25% between the years 2000 and 2015. I wonder why, but “unrelated” statistics say that an average person picks up their phone 1500 times a week, and spends an average of 3h and 15 minutes a day on their phone. Hmm…

If we are not intentional and strategic, we will just be following the crowd like everyone else and we will not have our focus on God. Sadly, I think if the church (most any church or all who attend church) were walking around Jericho, they may be silent, but I'm afraid their focus would not be on the Ark but rather on their phones. If your phone or anything else is stealing your attention from God, throw it away. This might sound too dramatic or legalistic, but remember Jesus said if your eye causes you to sin gauge it out (Matt 18:9)

Whatever it takes, whatever the cost we must keep our focus on God, on His word. Therefore, we must be intentional about really taking the time each day to pray and read God’s Word. When we do so, when the final Sabbath rest comes, we will shout victoriously and enter the eternal promised land.

Faith is displayed by our: 3. DECLARATION

So far we have seen that faith is displayed by our obedience and our focus. The last thing we see in this verse is that the Israelites' faith was displayed by their declaration.

It must have been very difficult for the Israelites to keep silent during those first six days. Those who didn’t believe in God didn’t have to be silent they were shouting and mocking and laughing. But the Israelites had to be silent for six entire days keeping their focus on God.

They had to be completely silent during the 30 minutes as they walked around the city, however, they were able to talk for the 2 hours back and forth from their camp to Jericho. What did they tell each other? Did they encourage one another by re-telling what God had done before?

It is possible that during their travel from camp to Jericho Joshua would remind all of them of the instructions and how they should be silent and keep their focus on God while they walked around the Jericho.

The seventh day came, this time instead of walking around the city one time, they had to walk seven times. This was their longest day walking, they walked for two hours again to reach Jericho, now instead of walking only for 30 min, they walked for 3 ½ hours, after they walked patiently for all that time they were to “shout! For the Lord has given you the city…When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted. And at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed, every man charged in, and they took the city.”

God could have caused the walls to tumble down without them shouting. God could have parted the Red Sea without Moses stretching his arms. Physically their shouting could not have caused a strong stable structure to crumble and fall. It was certain that it was God’s work and power that caused the walls to fall, but even then, God called the people to shout, in some manner to be part of God’s work.

I don’t know what the walls are that you are facing. It might be a loved one who doesn’t know the Lord, maybe a child who has gone astray, or maybe your neighbor who needs to know the Lord. Maybe it is a disease that is still hanging in there. No matter what it is, you know that this is something that only the Lord can accomplish because in our eyes it is impossible.

We can do something crazy here just like the Israelites, and we can shout with all our strength. It is not our voice or our power, in our shouting, we are proclaiming to ourselves and to the world that God is powerful, and He can do the impossible, He can take down any barrier that in our eyes seems impossible. Often we are feeling the most helpless at this point, yet God had them use their voices. We too can use our voices … we can use them to proclaim God's faithfulness and trustworthiness or we can use our voices to spread doubt and fear.

You might think that this is kind of crazy, but God calls us to be part of what He is going to do. When we shout we are declaring our trust in the one who parted the Red Sea, the one who took down the walls of Jericho.

We don’t have a ram’s horn, but we can shout together to proclaim this truth. Ready…

Let’s do it 1..2..3…..

Jesus said, “13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” We can have great confidence that if we ask according to God’s will for His glory He will answer and make His name known.”

However, we cannot forget what James said in James 42 “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions”

Thus, we shouldn’t ask wrongly, but we also should ask and have confidence that God will answer not according to our will, but according to His perfect, all-wise will, at His perfect timing.

Our faith is displayed by our declaration. But, our declaration is more than shouting, it is declaring God’s word to those around us. God has commanded us to speak up and share the gospel with those who come along our path. Our shouting cannot change someone, our words cannot change someone’s heart, but God can. And He does. And He calls us to be part of His work by speaking the truth that He has revealed in His word. He gives us the privilege of being part of His work in this broken fallen world. And when we don't, remember, "even the rocks will cry out"

In summary, faith will lead to action and it will be displayed by our obedience to God and His Word, even when it seems absurd. Faith will be displayed by our focus on God and His Word, intentionally making the time. And, Faith will be displayed by our declaration, by our lives, and especially our words that will point to the Savior and the one Who is able to do the impossible.

I don’t know what the Jericho walls are that each of us will face, but we can have great confidence that if we have faith like Moses and Joshua God will be with us and we can rely upon and trust in Him, as we walk each day by faith.

We can trust in the word of God that says in Isaiah 41:10 “fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”