Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 629
“And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I ha ve given into your hands Jericho and the king thereof and the mighty men of valor. And you shall compass the city, all you men of war and go round about the city once. Thus shall you do six days.” Joshua 6:2,3.
I SEE many ministering Brothers here. I think I shall follow the example of Martin Luther who observes that he frequently saw in the church at Wittenberg sundry learned doctors and there usually sat Dr. Justus Jonas and others of whom he said were infinitely greater and more wise than himself. “But,” said Martin, “I do not, therefore, alter my style of preaching—I do not preach to them—I preach to those peasants who come in from the country and to the citizens of Wittenberg. For then I am quite certain that if they can understand me, Dr. Justus Jonas and the learned divines can understand me, too, if they like.”
I shall, moreover, adopt what is said to have been Mr. Wesley’s exhortation to his preachers, namely, aim low. “There is more likelihood,” he says, “of hitting the men than when you fire high.” I may also frankly confess I am reduced to that precept by necessity since I have no capabilities of firing high and must therefore shoot low. We shall take our text now and try, if we can, to get something out of it which may be applicable to the present position of our Society and see if we cannot draw some words and thoughts from it which may strengthen, encourage and nerve us for future action in this good work of God.
The Irish Society has to do with one of the citadels of Romanism and it strikes me that there is a very evident parallel between our efforts and the work which Israel had to do against this city of Jericho. Jericho was a strongly defended city and shut up so that none went in or came out. And Romanism seems to have accomplished this admirably. It shuts up its disciples so that they are scarcely accessible and converts from it are few and far between. None, I was about to say, go in—very few, indeed, from us—and there are very few who ever come out again.
Jericho was the frontier city. That being captured, the conquest of the rest of Canaan would be comparatively easy. And Popery is very much the frontier city, the Jericho of our warfare—it stands in the way of the evangelization of the world—it is the great impediment to the spread of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let Jericho fall and Canaan may weep and howl, for her day has come. And let Rome be subdued—let Romanism be conquered—and the world shall soon be at the feet of that Jesus whom it once despised.
We are attacking, I think, in the Irish Society, a Jericho, indeed, and we have been long at it. But it has been a very weary task and the Brethren have sometimes been apt to cry, “Let it be given up.” I will speak of this on the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth—perhaps on the sixth day of the week, to cry to these Brethren—“Courage, go on still with your rams’ horns! Bear your testimony and carry the Ark of the Lord round about this city, for the Lord has delivered it unto your hands. Only be obedient and courageous and abide His time, for your victory is absolutely sure.”
I shall divide what I may have to say this evening into these three parts. It strikes me that the narrative before us teaches us that God would have His people work and wait and win. And this is what we have to do today as they had of old.
I. First of all God would have His people WORK. A little upon that. We preach the Doctrines of Grace, and the Doctrines of Grace are always the best soil in which to grow good works. We daily insist upon it that works do not make a man live, but we equally insist upon it that spiritual life continually manifests itself by holy deeds. The soldiers of God’s army, after they had crossed the Jordan, were not to lie still in luxurious ease till Jericho’s walls should crumble down by slow degrees. And though God determined to send Jericho to sudden destruction, yet His people were not to sit still upon some neighboring knoll and expect the catastrophe—they were to labor and Jericho would fall as the result of their toil.
Their work is to consist of a daily procession. They are to go in cavalcade round about the wall. The priests are to exercise their functions. The ark must be carried upon men’s shoulders. The men of war are to be there to defend the ark, to clear the way, and to follow, also in the rear to guard it against any sudden attack or any eruption from the city. They are to march thus the whole of the six days—not one day without its parade—not one day without obedience to the great Captain of the host.
So, Brethren, must it be with us. We are to win the world for Christ! This is our high ambition and it shall be in Christ’s name our grand attainment. But it must be by work, by testimony-bearing, by the preaching of the Gospel, by continual prayer, by encompassing the city, perpetually serving God and walking in the path of obedience. Let us look at this work a little in connection with this narrative. You will observe that the work to be done by Israel was universal. There was a place for each one to occupy. The men of arms were to go round the city, and with them the priests were to march.