Walking With Christ

Joshua 6:10 But Joshua commanded the people, “You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.”(ESV)

The fall of Jericho might be one of the best known bible stories. It truly ended in a shout. The children of Israel did a lot of walking then they shouted and the walls fell down. The shout of celebration about victory over the city of Jericho must have been an amazing thing to witness.

Without the victory, the shout would have meant nothing. It would have looked silly. They didn’t just walk up to the wall and start shouting expecting the walls to fall. It wasn’t the shout that brought the walls down. Before the shout there was a lot of walking. Thirteen times over a week exactly as instructed. The shout was the last step of obedience. Without the obedience, the shout would have just been noise. So obedience is more important than any noise we make. Said another way, the walk is more important than the talk.

Yet, before the talk, before the walk, there was a word from God. Without the word from God, the walk would have had no purpose and the shout would have had no power. It would have just been noise. Joshua told them not to say a word until that last lap was completed because he knew that the walk was more important than the shout, the obedience was more important than the walk, and the word was more important than the obedience because we can’t walk until God tells us where. We will all face our own Jericho, but if we wait for the word then we can walk the walk and shout the shout knowing the walls will come down.