Sermon

Good afternoon to the congregation. I said, GOOD AFTERNOON TO THE CONGREGATION! How are you all today? Doing fine? Doing Well? Good. Now, who wants to take a trip with me today? Let me see your hands. Alright. Close your eyes. I want you to imagine a sunny blue sky. The weather is warm, almost humid, like the summer. Feel the sun warming your skin. Wiggle your toes, as if you can feel the soft dirt under them. Look around in your mind’s eye. Imagine palm trees all around you, with springs of cool, fresh water dotting the landscape here and there. A herd of sheep, grazing out on a hillside, their shepherd relaxing nearby. This is Jericho, the city of palm trees, brothers and sisters.

Now, a man named Joshua, may have stood in a place exactly like you did in your mind, a couple thousand years ago, looking at the city, the great city of Jericho. However, Joshua was not there to sightsee. He was there on a mission. The city of Jericho was famous in the Bible for its near-impregnable walls. These monsters stood six feet thick, and about twenty four feet tall, atop a forty to fifty foot embankment. Imagine standing in the shadow of those walls. It sounds imposing, and scary at the same time. Joshua’s mission was to take down these monstrous walls. Now, it was him, and the Israelite men of war. They weren’t carrying battering rams, and hammers, and tools to break down walls, especially walls this thick. So how were they to do this? How could they possibly do that? Imagine somebody comes up to you, and says. “Go up to this building, and yell it to the ground.” Now be honest with me, what would you think right at that moment. Would you just say okay and go do it? This was the order that these men received all those years ago, from the big man up there. Now sometimes, the order may not make any sense at all. And I’m sure you kids were all told to do something by mom or dad before that seemed absolutely irrelevant at the time. Now, I know for a fact that my mom has told me...