This morning, I invite you to turn with me for our background reading to Joshua chapter 6. Joshua chapter 6, the familiar story of the walls of Jericho coming, tumbling down. When you find that, please also turn to 1 Kings 16 as we read verses 29 through 34. Our focus this morning being verse 34. And 1 Kings 17-19 especially introduce us to someone we know well from our Bible stories, Elijah. A few years ago, Pastor Donovan took us through the Lord's work through Elisha. I like to back up and consider his predecessor, Elijah. It would be easy to say that we're going to do a series on Elijah, But that's really not true. He's not the only character there. There's Ahab, we know. There's Jezebel. But ultimately, it's not a series about any one of them, is it? It's about what God is doing. Yet the episodes that we find, they're just as we did with Elisha. The episodes that we find, they're filled with amazing and eye-catching stories. And those stories are true history. I think sometimes we tend to forget that, especially in our day of Hollywood. putting such sensationalism before our eyes and these stories in Scripture, these true episodes of history, are really quite amazing. But we see here, or we'll see the Lord willing, we see God's sovereignty over Ahab and Jezebel as well over false gods. We see His patience, His self-revelation, His power. We see His saving plan for peoples of all nations. And we also see, in a special way, that the battle belongs to the Lord. And ultimately, how Elijah preaches of the covenant of grace and how God uses Elijah to prepare the way for the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of Old Testament promises. Yet today we look to a portion of Scripture that doesn't even mention Elijah. An introduction, if you will. So we turn together to Joshua chapter 6 to begin with. Beginning at verse 1, hear now the Word of God. Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of ram's horns in front of the ark. on the seventh day, march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. 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. So Joshua, son of Nun, called the priests and said to them, take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it. And he ordered the people, advance, march around the city with the armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord. When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward blowing their trumpets and the ark of the Lord's covenant followed them. The armed guard marched ahead of the priest who blew the trumpets and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. But Joshua had commanded the people, do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, Do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout, then shout. So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the people returned to camp and spent the night there. Joshua got up early the next morning, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them, and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord while the trumpets kept sounding. So on the second day, they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days. On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times into the same manner, except that on that day, they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priest sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, Shout, for the Lord has given you the city. The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All of the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into His treasury. When the trumpet sounded, the people shouted. And at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed. So every man charged straight in and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it, men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who belong to her in accordance with your oath to her. So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers and all who belong to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it. But they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord's house. But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute with her family and all who belonged to her because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho and she lives among the Israelites to this day. At that time, Joshua pronounced this solemn oath, Cursed before the Lord is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations. At the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates. So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame spread throughout the land. Turning over to 1 Kings 16, beginning at verse 29. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel. And he reigned in Samaria over Israel 22 years. Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua, son of Nun. May God add His blessing to the reading and consideration of His Word this morning. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, some of you have met our nephew who is in the Navy stationed here in San Diego. And his job on the ship to which he has been assigned is to read the radar, to track the activity that the radar covers. Shortly before he deployed, I had the privilege to go on the ship with him for a family day. And he showed me the radar equipment. He showed me where he worked and I was simply amazed that on this one piece of radar equipment, the whole surface of the earth could be seen. Now that's simply just one small example of the progress of man in this life when we think about technology or intelligence or might or power. Yet, beloved, it begs the question, in whom do you or where do you place your trust? As we think about the Old Testament, as we think about Israel, and as we think about the prophets of God, we know that the prophets of God were prosecuting attorneys, those who prosecuted the covenant of God, especially against those who had broken that covenant that God had made with His people. The prophets of God were mouthpieces who continually combated the sin and the wickedness and the idol-worshipping ways of God's covenant people. They were those who were used by God to keep the knowledge of God alive among the covenant people and as well used by God to prove the vanity and the worthlessness of dead idols versus the power of the living God. Now with King Ahab and the ten tribes of Israel, we see the height of wickedness reach a new low. If we were to read the portions before the portion we read in 1 Kings 16, we find a common refrain. A refrain that is true for Ahab especially. That he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. In fact, we are told that he did more evil. That he provoked God to greater anger than any before him. There was a downward spiral of wickedness. And we are given a list of his wickedness. Jezebel, need we say any more? And Ahab served Baal. In fact, he introduced Baal worship into Israel. And we might say that that begins the battle of the gods. Who will be God? Where will the people turn for their strength and their support? And this is the situation in a nutshell in which Elijah was brought to minister in this battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. Oh, not a new battle, but indeed we might say coming to the foreground even more at this time in history. A battle between the grace of God versus the pride of man. But then we have this text. This text of the rebuilding of Jericho. And this text might seem out of place. It might seem somewhat insignificant, maybe even a bit unimportant. But we are to understand, beloved, that this episode is the crown of Ahab's wickedness, leading to what follows. You might say, but Ahab didn't build Jericho. Hiel did. Yet it is the crown of Ahab's wickedness. You see, his bond with Baal couldn't help but to lead to his attempt to free himself and to free Israel from the Word of the Lord. This episode is a clear demonstration of Ahab's heart in opposition to God, ironically, versus Elijah, whose very name means my God is Yahweh. And Ahab's heart in opposition to God leads to his wickedness detailed for us over the next few chapters, which we will consider together in the months ahead. But here we have an introduction, we might say, to the adventures of Ahab and Jezebel and Elijah as we notice that the rebuilding of Jericho illustrates the truth and the power of God's Word. The truth and the power of God's Word, first of all, remembered in the message of the broken walls. Now, we ought not be surprised that we find this episode recorded in Scripture, especially in light of the curse that Joshua declared. But we might want to ask, why here? Well, in order to answer that question, we need to consider the backdrop of all this. And that includes doing away with some wrong assumptions. One wrong assumption would be that this was an independent plan of Heil. It was not an independent plan of Heil. It could not be. Jericho, as well as all cities, were not private property, but the property of the government, the property of the ruler. It is significant that it says, the days of Ahab. Without Ahab's command, without his consent, no fortress city could be built. That's an important point for us to remember. Another wrong assumption for us to make would be to say that Jericho had been uninhabited for five to six hundred years since the walls came tumbling down. It was not uninhabited. We know from other portions of Scripture, especially history, between the walls coming down and this point in history. We know that Jericho was also referred to as the city of Palms. And Scripture points out in some places that it was inhabited throughout the years. There were people living in this place. Another part of this backdrop has to do with Jericho's importance. Jericho was indeed an important city. It was important because of its location. Now remember what we know. Jericho was the first city that Israel came to when she entered the Promised Land. Jericho was a border city, a gateway, we might say, for the Promised Land, and at this time, then, a gateway for the ten tribes. And as well, it was located on a major route. If you traveled north or south or east or west in this region, Jericho was there. It was important, therefore, for fortifying and protecting the kingdom. But Jericho was unfortified. It had no walls. This gateway city was a wide open door for the enemies, and it is believed at that time the threat of enemies was real for Israel from the heathen nations around them. But this gateway city was a wide open door for the enemies to come through. And therefore, rebuilding the walls fit very well into Ahab's policies, which were to carry on the policies of his wicked father, Omri. And those policies included strengthening of the kingdom. It made sense to rebuild the walls. You see, for a king who trusted in weapons and armies and walled cities, a border city without walls was simply foolishness. To rebuild was to act prudently, to act for the welfare of the country and her citizens, right? It would be a prudent thing to do. Yet the truth is, beloved, to rebuild these walls was not a matter of prudence, but it was a matter of pride and demonstrates Ahab's challenge to the very Word of God because of the message of the broken walls. Those broken, destroyed walls spoke. The very existence of the crumbled walls was a visible sermon speaking loudly, preaching of the Lord's great deeds. Jericho also, you know, was a door for the children of Israel into the promised land. And who opened the door? Boys and girls, you know. Who opened the door? Well, God Himself with His own hand. We read the story, the story that amazed us as children, That still amazes our sons and daughters. The people marching around one time a day for six days with just the trumpets blaring. And then on the seventh day, marching around six times with the trumpets and then finally shouting out. And the walls fell down flat. They could go straight in. The city was exposed, but Israel did not even lift a finger. It was the work of God alone. It was a call to believe in the might and the power of God. And those demolished walls were a visible sermon preaching as well of the Lord's work for His people. By bringing down the walls, the Lord not only signaled the end of Jericho, but He signaled the end of all of the Canaanite cities because of their wickedness. And He was giving the land to His people for their inheritance. And the broken walls were to testify. they were to testify to all who would pass by, testify to the great power and the unlimited strength of Israel's God. And they were to testify to Israel herself that He is mighty, that He is her only fortress, that He is her protector. These broken walls were also a visible sermon preaching of the Lord's possession. This was His claim of ownership. But not only over Jericho, but over all of the possessions of his people. It all belongs to him. He is the one who provides and gives. Jericho was indeed inhabited, but the walls belonged to God. As that heap of rubbish was to be a show place for his amazing deeds and of his care over his own. And to mess with those ruins was to take away from God. Those broken walls were a visible sermon of the Lord's two-fold message. The message of curse, the message of blessing, the message of judgment, the message of grace. Against the Canaanites, those broken walls were a message of judgment and punishment and of the holy laughter of God, as Psalm 2 says, against the strength of man that sets itself up against God. And though our God is patient, yet it also points to the fact that the sinner's days are numbered. But for the people of God, those broken walls were a message of blessing and grace. Jericho and Canaan were a gift of God's grace to be received through faith. Even as Hebrews 11, verse 30 says, By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down. Beloved, the broken walls of Jericho was God's inscription of grace leading as a gateway to Canaan and then to Bethlehem and ultimately to Calvary. And that inscription of grace was a banner, as it were, over the whole land of the power of God and that all of the promises of the Lord are to be received by grace through faith. And as our God has seen fit to have this recorded for us, those broken walls still testify to us today that God alone is our foundation and the stronghold and the fortress of His people. He alone is able to protect us, to give us the protection that we need. And that we enter His kingdom not by our own efforts. We stand not by our own strength because our spiritual enemies are too strong for us. But it's only through the cross and the work of Jesus that the way is opened and by which we enter. Through the cross of Jesus and His amazing work done there, the walls of sin and shame for God's people have come tumbling down. Those broken walls spoke to the collapse of any human greatness that sets itself up against God. And this testimony was never to be erased according to Joshua's curse. To rebuild those walls would be to try to silence the Word of God, to remove one's focus and confidence from Him, to try to cheapen His grace. And it is that very Word of God in the second place that was challenged by the rebuilt walls. Now, as we consider the challenge of the rebuilt walls, we cannot do so without noticing, first of all, Ahab's arrogance. Now remember that those walls were down for five to six hundred years. Let that sink in for a moment. That's a long time. About as long as the time of the Reformation, depending on what date you go with to now. Five to six hundred years, those walls were down. Listen again to what Joshua said, Cursed before the Lord is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn son will he lay its foundations. At the cost of his youngest will he set up its gates. Well, that curse was respected for centuries by evil men, by wicked kings. Yet Ahab was different. Why? Had enough time gone by that maybe God forgot? Since it hadn't happened yet, could it be true that maybe God didn't really mean what He said? Of course, the Scripture tells us why, doesn't it? Ahab was worse than all those before him. He did more evil, as we said, as the Scripture says, than all who came before him, more to provoke God to anger. Many, we're told, before him walked in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And we know what that was. Jeroboam talking about the Jeroboam who was the first king of the ten tribes after the split. And he set up the golden calves at Bethel and in Dan so that the people in the north ten tribes wouldn't have to bother themselves by going to the south kingdom all the way to Jerusalem to worship. They could simply worship these golden calves. And it was a way for them to worship Jehovah through those golden calves, yet we know it was a violation of the second commandment. Worshiping God in the form of images. However, the Bible says that this calf worship was a trivial thing to Ahab. It was no big deal as if he was saying, you think that's wicked? Let me show you wickedness. Or think of it maybe this way. Take two gangs. One gang maybe is only involved in graffiti. And the second gang says, you know what, that's nothing. We'll show you what real destruction is and resorts to robbery and murder. And the Bible points out again, it gives us a detailed list of Ahab's wickedness. He married Jezebel herself, the daughter of a wicked father, a wicked king, who himself had had his predecessor assassinated, that he might take the throne. And indeed, Jezebel made a name for herself. That name rings out throughout history. In Revelation 2, the Lord speaks about the church in Thyatira and chastises that church for putting up with that wicked woman Jezebel, pointing to seduction, to sexual immorality and idolatry. Even today, when the word Jezebel is used, we know what it stands for. Wickedness and prostitution and immorality. And through Jezebel, Ahab introduced full-blown Baal worship in the land and among the people and himself embraced it completely. He introduced paganism in its most vile form with Baal, the male fertility god, and the Ashtaroth, the female fertility god, complete with a temple and an altar to Baal. Baal is the one who speaks. And therefore, Ahab challenges and tries to silence the Word of God by rebuilding the walls. But along with Ahab's arrogance and Ahab's wickedness, notice too Ahab's ignorance. This was a battle of might, really. Would Jehovah be Israel's fortress? Or would Baal and Ahab through the physical walls of Jericho? In his unbelief, Ahab was ignorant. He did not hear the message of the ruins. He did not hear the Word of God. Those walls to him, the destroyed walls, did not preach a message of safety at the hand of the Almighty God. But they only preached to him danger and foolishness before men. He did not hear in them the overthrow of all human greatness against heaven. Beloved, when one puts their confidence into themselves, they think that they do not need Jesus Christ or His saving work. They think that work of Jesus is nothing but foolishness. And they will only ask, well, what good is that work for me today? What good is the work of Jesus when I'm sick, or when I have no money, or when I'm without work, or when I'm without friends? What good is the work of Jesus? Through rebuilding those walls, Ahab tried to demonstrate the powerlessness of the Word of God and instead proclaims his own greatness before the people and before the world. Yet, Scripture is clear as Psalm 146 says, Do not put your trust in princes and mortal men who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground. On that very day, their plans come to nothing. And instead, as David says in Psalm 20, verse 7, some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. To a God-fearing king, the ruined walls would have been a comfort and a security as they testified to the tremendous power of God on behalf of His people. And only a ruler who understood that his office and power were from God, only that kind of a ruler would regard God's power as the most secure border defense possible. Nothing else needed. And beloved, that is the power of the cross. The cross of Jesus looks foolish. It looks like defeat in the eyes of the world. But indeed, in reality, that cross is a sign of victory and it guarantees the security of those who are in Christ Jesus. Security from Satan, that prowling lion seeking whom he may devour. Security from Satan in those times of life when he is tempting us because of the situations we might face to say, Look, God doesn't care for you. He really wants nothing to do for you. Or even in those times of plenty, calling us to look to ourselves. Look what we have done. The power of the cross is a sign of security and protection from the devil himself. Ahab tried to erase God's message of salvation by grace through faith, yet through his evil deed of rebuilding the walls, the truth and the power of God's word were not silenced, but instead in the third place confirmed in the collapse of Hile's walls. Listen to verse 34 again. In Ahab's time, Hile of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son, Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son, Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua, son of Nun. Ahab and Hile dared to challenge the word of the Lord, and in doing so, the word of the Lord was fulfilled. It was confirmed. It was proven true. But someone might say, yeah, but apparently there was success for Hyle. He was successful. I mean, after all, the project was completed. Jericho became a walled fortress once again. So apparently he had success. But notice this apparent success for Hyle came at a cost for Hyle. He did not subvert the curse of God. He did not cancel it out. he did not conquer it or prove it untrue. But instead, he unleashed the Lord's curse and it cost him his family. In the original language, we are to understand, beloved, that he did not just lose two sons, as we might think from the text. But he lost however many he had. When the project began, he lost his firstborn. And by its completion, the curse had worked its way down to the youngest. And the point is not, well, how many sons did Hiel lose? But the point is that Hiel's family was cut off in Israel. He lost his place among the covenant people. Instead of the word of the Lord being erased and wiped out, Hiel's name was erased from the land of the living, from the congregation of God's people, just as another man. You remember him. Achan. After the walls had first come tumbling. down. And this points also, beloved, to what will take place with all who sinfully reject the Lord Jesus Christ. The day will come when they will be cut off completely from the presence and the mercy of God with no hope. The message of the rebuilt walls was not as Ahab thought. That message did not silence the Word of God, but it confirmed the Word of God down to the last letter, as the text says, in accordance with the Word of the Lord spoken by Joshua, son of Nun. Hile's punishment was a living confirmation of the Word of the Lord for future generations. We might say that as Hile built the walls, the Lord kept pace. How? By building a tomb, figuratively speaking, for the sons of Hile. So that no one could look at the new walls without also seeing the tomb inseparably connected to it. It was not Hiel and Ahab who got the last word, but Jehovah, as in both the ruined walls and the rebuilt walls of Jericho, the very same song is heard of blessing and curse, of the death of all human greatness that glories in the flesh, and of the power of the living God and the power and effectiveness of the Word of the Lord. Beloved, both Jericho and another city, spiritual Jerusalem, the church, were built on blood. Jericho was built on the blood of Hile's sons, the blood of arrogance. The church is built on the blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of sacrifice. Jesus Christ bore the curse. for our sin. He removed it from those who trust in Him and not in themselves. And the ruins of the cross, beloved, is a message that those who scorn the cross will be eternally scorned by God because the message of the cross is the message of Christ's victory over Satan, sin, and death, and hell, and His victory over all who embrace these things. But that message is also that those who find safety and security in that cross because at the cross, Jesus Christ removed our curse and He satisfied God's wrath that was against us and He earned our forgiveness and reconciliation with God and therefore, that cross is an eternal inscription of God's grace and the truth of His Word. As Paul says in 2 Timothy 2, verse 19, Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are His. That's also the message of the cross. The Lord knows those who are His. He knows you. He knows me. To unbelievers, the cross is a symbol of foolishness and weakness and failure. But to the believer, that cross is a symbol of the confirmed Word of God. That Word that says, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. The word that says to you and me, call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you. The word of the Lord that says no one will be able to snatch you out of my hand. Or that says nothing will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. The word of God that teaches us that God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in time of trouble. That's what the walls were saying, those crumbled walls. For five to six hundred years, an ever-present help. That confirmed word that says that He will not let His people be tempted beyond what we can bear, but He will provide a way of escape. That word that says He will destroy all His enemies and take His people home to be with Him forever. That word that says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Beloved, this is the believer's comfort and confidence, even as we live this life and face the challenges and the difficulties that may come upon us, even as we face the attacks of Satan, our comfort and confidence is that God alone is strong to save and to protect and to keep His people in His care through Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus, like the walls of Jericho, proclaims salvation by grace alone through faith alone, but cursed be anyone who refuses to live by grace alone through faith alone. the church of God the new Jerusalem we might say has no gates no walls because God is her fortress and those who are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ are able to confess with comfort and confidence I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever Amen let's pray together Father, so often we become overwhelmed with the things that we see around us. We become overwhelmed with the great achievements of mankind, with the power and the strength of armies, with the influence of those who hate You. And at times we might be tempted to think that there is no hope. Where can we turn? And in those times, Father, continue to lift our eyes to the cross of Jesus. The empty cross. And to consider our victor and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, O Lord, You are the one who defends and preserves Your people both now and forevermore. And that we may have the confidence that even though we might be called upon to face the difficulties and the challenges of this life, even though we might be called upon to endure the waves and the fire, yet You are with Your people and You will bring Your people safely through to that day when You bring us safe to Your glory forever. And until that day, Father, fill us with the confidence of Your presence, of Your power, of Your Spirit, of Your Word. Hear our prayer, O Lord, for Jesus' sake and in His name we pray. Amen.