What is YOUR Wall?

You've prayed about it for years. Years. Your son, your daughter, your marriage, the diagnosis, the money that never stretches. The person who walked out and never ever called again. You've prayed the same prayer so many times you could say it in your sleep. And some nights you do. And nothing has changed. Not one brick. It's all the same. Still all the same. So you start to wonder, am I doing it wrong here? Is God even listening to me? You think maybe to yourself, maybe this wall is just going to stand there for the rest of my life. Today, Israel stands in front of the most famous wall in the Bible. And God's battle plan is the strangest one ever given. Walk around it. Don't say a word. Do it again tomorrow and the next day. Six days of nothing. Not one stone moves. If you've been walking around the same wall in your life for years, this episode is for you. This is true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean. I'm Sean. Glad to see y'all. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all of you. Miss Nicole, up early. Miss Tammy, good morning. Sean spelled correctly. Good morning. Miss Susan, good morning, good morning, good morning. Good morning to all who are listening. Yesterday we had a little over a thousand people listening live. So God bless you all. And thank you for sharing. And thank you for all of you for going to the YouTube channel, True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, S-H-A-W and the one with about 4,000 followers, clicking on subscribe, clicking on the little bell for all notifications, and um hitting the thumbs up while you're at it because that's what helps it be seen. Sounds crazy, but it's true. I wouldn't say it all the time if it wasn't true. Eminon, Emanon Salim, hello, God bless you abundantly, my brother. Doing great work. He's doing great work, laboring for the Lord, very difficult circumstances. So welcome to day 137 of Through the Bible in a year, walking the story of God. Yesterday Israel crossed the Jordan with wet ankles. Today in Joshua 5 and Joshua 6, at the walls of Jericho. Man, can you imagine? If you want God's word to make sense in real life and you want a way to kind of something to help you, my second book, True Word, Faith for Life. I know, ironic. True Word, Faith for Life, same title. And guess where you can find it? You can find it at TrueWord, FaithforLife.com. In the store. You go to the store, buy it there. You can buy it anywhere else. You can buy it at Walmart. You can buy it actually right off of this show. Um, a lot of times we'll have the product thing up there. We don't have it today, but anyway. You don't get it any faster buying it anywhere else. The difference is we get about a dollar when you buy it other places. We do a little better when you buy it directly from our website. So, anyway, good morning, good morning. Thank you for the sound check. 2B25, 2B Continued 25. Good morning. God bless you, brother. It's available in all major bookstores, but and online. But if you're gonna buy it, buy buy a few. Why not? It's it's built to textbook quality, uh, 60 or 80 pound paper, and the ink is the kind of ink that doesn't run and doesn't make you sick. That was very important to me. And the print is nice and large so that you can read it. Um, and there's lots of space for you to. I mean, if you're a note taker. Anyway, true wordfaithforlife.com. There's a bazillion resources there, as you will see when you go. So every morning, the night before, sometimes I really, really struggle with these episodes. It takes a long time. I I don't maybe some of you don't know. Before I got hurt, uh I wrote a lot. I was a prolific writer. And um, you know, pursuing masters and two doctorates and all of that, you do a lot of writing, a lot of writing. And I loved it. I loved to write, loved research. Well, but I was a weirdo over the over the years. I've written back then reams, you know, you know, not reams, it's terabytes, I guess. And I have I have eight terabytes of stuff that I've written, research, all of that. And from that, when I asked God, what do you want me to do? You know, all the doctors were saying, hey man, just you know, do the therapy and rest and relax a little bit. And uh God said, No, no, no, you're gonna do this. Okay. And I had the tools, I had most of them. So I had kind of rough drafts for all of this. And then as I'm able to read and to write, I go over them and and say, wow, you know, I don't know that I like this or I like that. I don't know that I agree with my point here or there. So then I go back and I go in deep. And then sometimes God just taps me, and not literally, but you know, I'm reading through what I'll have for the next day, and I'll have to rewrite it because I'm not I'm not down with it. Hello, Shakazulu 333. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. My point in all this diatribe here is part of it, part of the struggle that I have with it is asking to write the one word. I know that sounds stupid, because I do a full-on invitation at the end. And that's a promise I made to God when I stopped saying no since the age of 16. I said no and I did everything I could to disqualify myself from doing this in one form or another. And anyway, but I promised him I would always give an invitation for those to place their faith in him anytime I spoke. Well, not for nothing. This is kind of of an invitation, you know, when I say, type one word in the chat. Hello, Miss Linda. God bless you. By the way, I prayed for all of y'all right before. I'm nobody special, but I did pray for all. I do every morning. And and I don't know all your stories, but I know some of your stories, and some of you got some real hard stuff going on. I'm having a hard time sitting up today, holding, holding my spine up. I don't know why. Anyway, well, I do know why, but today. I don't know why today. Um, but I but I enjoy praying for you, you guys. And some of you have reached out to me through either you know me personally and you know how to get hold of me, or through true word, faithforlife.com. Contact, and you've told me your stories, and I'm really moved by them. And we have people listening to this program from all over the world, all over the world, Pakistan, um, China, believe it or not, through VPN and Israel, uh, Germany, uh, Sweden, Philippines, lots of places. Anyway, so when I say the one word in the chat thing, sometimes I wonder if if you folks, the people on the other side of the camera lens, if you if you ever wonder, well, what is he doing here? Does he get like toaster points? Well, you know why? And the reason I do it uh is twofold. One, it connects you with the message and it helps you to tether from where we are in the message right now, where we are in the study right now, all the way to where that it all comes together, right? Because sometimes it's hard to see that. In scripture, it's it's wild how scripture is, but sometimes it's hard to see the tether. And one of the things that drives me in the ancient Near Eastern language, culture, and context is the teth. Tethers from the Old Testament to the New Testament, tethers from the beginnings of our faith, the foundation of our faith from the very beginning of humankind to where we are now. And I and I like making those tethers because I think it helps people understand that this is real. You know, it's very easy for people to come in and go, you know, I'm Sky Daddy and all that stuff. That's stupid. No pain in mind of them. They're just trying to carry you to hell along with them. They don't want to go by themselves. So when I say the one word in the chat or one word in the comments below, if you're listening on playback, it's a it's a little bit of a a daily struggle for me. And today was an especially powerful struggle for me personally and and for people that I know just in general and general life, and and they are they're in the midst of such a struggle. And and in and in many respects, my heart kind of breaks, not kind of, my heart breaks for them. Because some have lost faith. Some have said, you know, I you know, God is He's not He's not helped me out. I mean, I I really I'm in the I'm in the middle of it here. And stuff is hard, but life is hard, and I've experienced a lot of loss, and it doesn't seem like this whole God thing is working out. It doesn't seem like this faith thing is working out. I I know lots of people, even some that are listening right now, and you're in that spot. So when I ask, you know, the question, one word in the chat, it's not always one word. It's not always one word, sometimes it's more than that, but for the most part, I try to make it very, very simple. And so I ask a real question that I ask of myself. Today's when reflecting on the wall that you've prayed about the longest, that wall, that thing. Maybe it's a hurt habit or hang up. We have some people listening who um are listening and they are deep in the throes of drug addiction. Serious drug addiction. And they've kicked several times. Kicked means, you know, they got they got off of it and cleaned up and lived a normal life, and and then they went back to the streets for whatever reason, normal families, kids. Now they can't see their kids. Somebody else is tending to their children because they can't be trusted, and they know they can. Some are dealing with illness, and the prognosis isn't good. Longevity is not something they have, and some are dealing with loss. They've just faced it or they're about to face it, and they know that it's gonna be the biggest loss of their life. And they're dreading it. Some the families just all tore up in such turmoil. Just everything is jacked up. It's just like one normal day. And some are just excruciatingly lonely. They all have different walls. Some are so high, so thick. They're so thick, you could build a house in the middle of them, just like Jericho. There are people living in the walls. But Hob. The prostitute, she was living in the wall. The but I'm asking you this, and you know, look, it doesn't matter. I don't I don't guess it matters if you put it in the chat or you don't. But when you do put it in the chat, it helps people or in the comments below. It helps people see they're not they're not by themselves. Good morning, Miss Culling. It helps people who think they're all alone. When they see that word pop up in the chat or in the comments, they and they're listening and they are feeling all alone. When they see that, they say, I'm not alone. How about that? I'm not alone. And that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful feeling to you felt alone, you're feeling alone for so long. And then you realize, no, I'm not alone. It's hard for people to feel the presence of God. And they spend all of their time by themselves, struggling. So, my question to you today, and then two words, if you want to put them, if you don't, don't have to. As if I can force somebody. The wall that you have prayed about the longest. Are you still walking? Are you still walking around the wall? And you trust in God, he said, just keep walking around the wall. Don't worry about saying anything, don't worry about saying the right thing, just walk around the wall. Just walk around the wall. Are you still walking? And if you are, type the word walking. But honestly, if you're not, type the word quit. If you've quit, type the word quit. I'm not throwing rocks at you. Nobody else here will either. They won't last long if they do. The context here biblically is Israel is across the river now. They're camped at Gilgal, they're a few miles from Jericho. Joshua 5, verse 1 says every king west of the Jordan heard what God did. And their hearts melted. Ow, you know. Hey, word gets around. They didn't have these little computer boxes, these little miniature computer boxes. They didn't have them. But word got around. Eventually, word got around. And their hearts melted. Oh man. What in the world? They had some momentum there too. You'd expect Joshua to attack while the enemy's terrified, but he doesn't.

Right?

It's the anti-strategy there. Thank you, Miss Nicole. Nicole is walking. It's the anti-strategy. You know, the enemy is terrified, just shaking in their boots. It says the king's heart's melted of these other places. Joshua doesn't attack. Verse 2: God tells him to make flint knives and to circumcise the men. The whole generation born in the wilderness had never received the sign of the covenant. So right there in the enemy country, the entire army is cut, if you know what I'm saying. And they can't fight for days. Are you kidding me right now? We have this big war about to happen, and you want us all to get circumcised? To circumcise ourselves with rocks? That's not military strategy. That's the polar opposite of strategy. That's apples in our 9 Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Rolled away here is Galal, and that's where Gilgal gets its name, the rolling place. Then verse 10 They keep Passover on the 14th day of the month and on the plains of Jericho. Verse 12, the day after they eat the produce of the land, the manna stops. Imagine that day. Forty years of bread from heaven. And it ends. Can you imagine? Forty years of never having to wonder where your life-sustaining food is coming from. Then all of a sudden, poof. Not anymore. Not anymore. You don't have to wonder anymore. Before God gives them one city, He makes sure they belong to Him. Marked. Remembered. Fed from His hand in a new way. And if you remember nothing else, remember this. God always settles who you belong to before He deals with what's in front of you. Let me say it again. You might want to write it down. God always settles who you belong to before He deals with what's in front of you. This text is wild. Verse 13. When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. What? What in the world? Joshua walks right up to him and asks, Are you for us? Or for our adversaries? Are you for us? Are you for our adversaries? Verse 14. And he said, No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come. No. It's the whole answer to Joshua's question. Not yours, not theirs, the army of the Lord. Not the army of Israel, not the army of Jericho, the army of the Lord. God doesn't take sides, he takes command. So Joshua falls on his face and he worships. And the commander says in verse 15, Take off, take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. You've heard that line before. Exodus 3, verse 5 at the burning bush, word for word, Joshua is getting Moses, Moshe's call. And notice, he accepts worship. And verse in in Revelation 22, verses 8 and 9, an angel stops John from bowing. This one doesn't stop Joshua. And many teachers across the centuries have seen here the Son of God himself before Bethlehem. Now, chapter 6, verse 2. The Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand. Listen to that tense there. See if you pick that up. I have given. I have given. That's past tense. In Hebrew. Natati. Natati. God speaks of the city as already handed over before one soldier takes a single step. I haven't, they haven't moved, they haven't done a thing. I've already done it. He said, I have given it before a single stone moved. Then the plan. This plan. Wow. If I were alive then, I'd been one of the ones going, I'm I'm sorry, what? Can you can we roll that back a little bit? You want us to do what? This would have been me. I would have been I don't think we're what are we dealing with here. I mean, come on, let's be honest. This is this is this plan is nuts. Verses three and four, march around the city. If you started marching, look, I love drum and bugle core. I love DCI. I I've used to go to the competitions and watch these great, great drum and bugle cores. And I mean, they unbelievable. I'm so into it. I'm so into band. My daughter was in band, and and I like it. I I love, you know, I love it when the brass turns and they're hitting that big note, you know, that wall of sound. And I love all of it. I love, I love trumpets and all of that. I love the marching and all that, but this isn't that kind of marching. March around the city once a day for six days. Seven priests carry seven trumpets of ram's horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around seven times. Are you kidding me? Is that what you would expect to hear? Not what I'd expect to hear. Maybe I'm alone in this. But here's where the translations disagree. The ESV and NESB say trumpets of rams horns. Trumpets of rams horns. Now, we're not going to get in a big thing on what they were, but the complete Jewish Bible just says shofar, right? And that, and that is, that is what shofar is. But the Hebrew here is shofrot. Hayovalim. Shofrat. Hayovalim Yovel. That's the same word as the Jubilee in Leviticus 25. The year every slave goes free and every family gets its land back. These are Jubilee horns. It's the same word. He uses the same word. Before a single stone falls, God's already declaring freedom. He's already declaring release. Verse 10 is the hardest part. Been the hardest part for me. Oh yeah, the marching part. Okay. Yeah. I got some good shoes. Put on good boots, you know. Gotta take care of your feet. If you're in the inventory, if you're a warrior or a war fighter, you got to take care of your feet. But but then this next part, verse 10. You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither say any word go out of your mouth, neither shall any word go out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Silence? For six days? Mwa? Oh, I don't think so. I've been like, but wait, nothing? I can't say anything. Not a whip. The whole time, six days. Oh my goodness gracious. Imagine the people of Jericho on the wall. Day one, they're terrified. Oh, here they come. The people that their God has delivered them across the flooded river. Right? Nobody crossed the river. If you were with us yesterday, and I encourage you to go back and listen to it, by the way, we're on all the platforms. If however you listen to your podcasts, we're on all of them. We're on every single one of them. You name it, if it's big done, we're on it. Costs us a lot to be on all of them, but we're on it. For you, so that wherever you listen, you can listen. So if you're listening to any of those right now, um on playback, because they those don't come out live. Um, if you're listening on that, click on follow. Click on give us a rating, whatever it is on wherever you're listening. Put us in your little playlist or whatever it's called there. Well, they'll kill you. Just make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel, True Word, Faithful Life with Dr. Sean. It's the one with about 4,000 subscribers. We're not some giant group here. Day one, they're terrified, right? Because they'd heard the news. Day three, the people of Jericho, they're like, uh, they're not saying anything. What are they doing? They're marching around and around. They're not saying anything. It's curious. Day three, they're curious. Right? The the being terrified part gone. Now they're curious, but by day six, they're laughing their heads off. And Israel can't answer back, not a single word. Six days of nothing is not failure, it's the march. Oh, sometimes, come on, sometimes we are in the thick of it. And those six days of silence, oh, those six days of silence, come on, somebody. Them are some hard times. You've been in the middle of, and maybe you are right now in the middle of something, and it's difficult. You're living in the hard time of it, and you figure, Lord, when's this gonna change? Six days of nothing isn't failure, it's the march. Then we have verse 16. Verse 16, on the seventh day, on the seventh lap, that tells you how big the place is, Joshua says, Shout, for the Lord has given you this city, or given you the city. Verse 20. The people shouted, and the wall fell down flat. The Hebrew says the wall fell tahin, taya, tahte, under itself, in its place. It didn't get pushed in. It collapsed straight down. Straight down, right where it stood. Jericho was one of the oldest cities in the world. It was an oasis fed by a spring. Sitting on a mound built up by centuries of people living right on top of each other. He guarded the road up into the hill country. And look if Jericho held the land was closed. And God opened it without even a battering ram. And one part of that wall that didn't fall like the rest? Verse 22, Joshua sends the two spies to bring out the Rahab. Remember, you know her as Rahab, Rahab, and everyone with her. From remember a few days ago, we talked about Rahab and what she did and the risk and what she did for a living where she lived. She lived in the wall, and she has preserved my family. You know, she helped them. She was massive in this. Don't tell me God doesn't use women mightily, because he does and he has. You've been on a day six of silent walking for a long time. And you're tired. And people on the wall of your life, they're just laughing at you. But maybe, maybe, just maybe, the people laughing are even the ones living in your own house. I say it all the time when I say, hey, if you place your faith in Christ, go tell somebody, tell somebody you love. Generally speaking, tell a believer. You know, and sometimes that's a person in your family, sometimes your mom, your dad, whoever, brother, your sister. And you tell them, and they're like, you just keep moving, just keep moving. There are people in your life that are laughing potentially at your faith. Why do you have faith in this God of yours? This Sky Daddy, why? That's often how it happens. Here's the hardest part of the plan. Sometimes the hardest part of the plan is just to keep your mouth closed, not about God, about the complaint. The march was silenced so that when the wall fell, nobody could say they're shouting, did it? Your job isn't to bring down the wall in front of you. Your job is to keep walking with the presence of God in front of you. Let me say it again. You might want to write it down. Your job isn't to bring down the wall. Your job is to keep walking with the presence of God in front of you. So here's your step today. Take one quiet walk around your block, around your building, around your home, around your yard, even the hallway of the hospital you might be in. Walk at once. Name your wall to God. Then go silent and just walk. Here's a hard part you're probably going to have some struggle with, because in the postmodern Western world, we struggle with this next part. For the rest of today, just today, I'm not telling you about the rest of your life, just today. Don't complain about that wall to anyone. Don't let complaint come out of your mouth. Not one word. Let your silence be your faith. And if you miss today's lap, walk it tomorrow. Israel didn't walk it once, they walked every single day. And centuries later, another Yeshua stood up in a synagogue in Nazareth. Luke 4, verses 18 and 19. He read Isaiah 61 to proclaim liberty to the captives, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. The year of the Lord's favor is the Jubilee, the Yovel. The same word blown on those horns around Jericho. Yeshua didn't just declare it and announce freedom. He is the freedom. The walls that hold you back aren't made of brick. Your walls might be shame. Your walls might be grief. Sin, hurts, habits, hang ups, addiction, death itself. And Yeshua came to bring every one of them down. And notice how he did it. In silence. Isaiah 53, verse 7, like a sheep before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth. Three days in the tomb, and nothing seemed to move. Nothing seemed to move. And then the shout and the stone rolled away. Hebrews 11, verse 30 says, Without ambiguity, by faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days, not by strength, not by noise, by faith, one silent lap at a time. The commander of the Lord's army has come. He is not on your side. You are invited to be on his. And no wall he has promised to bring down will ever stand. I have for you this morning, this afternoon, this evening, a challenge and a choice. You can stop walking. Lots of people do. Join the club. It's a big, big club. Lots of people stop walking. Right around day five, they say, This isn't working. This is stupid. This is dumb. You can decide the wall is permanent. You can say, I'm never getting around this. I'm never climbing over this. I'm never going to find deliverance. God's never going to come through. And you can settle in that wall shadow, whatever your wall is. And you can just decide this wall I'm facing just isn't going to move. Or you can take your shoes off before the commander and walk one more lap. Listen, your wall in your life doesn't know what day it is in God's plan for your life. The wall doesn't know what day it is in God's plan for your life. The wall can't count. You don't know what lap it is either. The real question is this: will you keep walking today? Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. Let's pray. Commander of the Lord's army, Almighty God, Adul Naylohim. Adul Naweinu. Hashem. Father God. We have been walking around the same walls for years. And we're tired. Some days we've quit without saying we've quit. Today we confess to you. We confess we wanted you on our side. We wanted you to be on our side. But today we take our shoes off. And we put ourselves on your side. Almighty God, I ask you to teach us to walk in silence when the wall doesn't move, to close our mouths to complaint, and to open our eyes to your presence going in front of us. And for the ones, the ones who are listening right now, whose wall has stood the longest, give them one more lap of faith today. Bring it down in your time, Lord. We trust the one who says, I have given. Is between you and God. You've walked around faith for years. You've walked around faith for years. And you were never sure it was for you, if he was for you, if he's on your side. If he's going to knock your wall down for you. He's not asking you to knock it down, by the way. He already did knock that wall down. And you can walk right through that wall right now. If you've never placed your faith in Christ, I want you to pray this with me right now. Don't wait. Not one more day, not one more moment. Live or on playback. Pray this right now. Yeshua, I believe you. I believe in you. I need you. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today. Forgive me. Fill me. Lead me. My life is yours. In your heavenly and matchless name. Amen. If you prayed that prayer today, the wall is down. Type Jubilee in the chat or the comments below so that we can rejoice with you. Then tell one believer. Remember, I told you I was going to say this. This is the important part here. This is the believing part, is the most important part. The confessing your sins part, so important, so critical. But boy, this part here, telling one believer this week, telling one person, and then walk the next lap together. And listen, if they listen to you say that you placed your faith in Christ, if they listen to you and and they just don't respond. They the way that you'd hoped they would, that's okay. Your mom, your dad, whoever it is, it's okay. Just say, hey, when the preacher guy said to think as someone, a believer, to tell about me giving my life to Christ. I I saw your face. In my mind, I saw your face. Thanks for listening. And then move on. Come tell me. I guarantee you I'll be excited. Heaven is rejoicing, all of heaven is rejoicing. Listen, the wall didn't fall because Israel was strong. It fell because God said, I have given. Walk your laps, keep your silence, and wait for his shout. Tomorrow, if the Lord tarries, if he keeps me alive and able to sit in this chair, Joshua 7 and 8, Israel loses a battle, it should have won easily. Because one man hid something under his tent. I want you to send this episode link to someone who's been praying about the same thing for years. Now I want you to remember, I think what is today, my little thing where I have written, Wednesday the 14th. I'm gonna have to rest a little bit for about a week. I've just gotta rest. I've gotta rest my brain. I've got to rest my voice. I'm recovering from another concussion, so um things are scrambled up a little bit. And physically I'm really, really, really, really worn out. So we'll take a few days. So we'll be here tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, and then we will not be here on Sunday, and we'll see if next week maybe one of those days I can come on a quick live and just chat with you all and just connect. We'll see. But I gotta get a little bit of rest. If you knew my life, you'd know there's a lot of truth in that. The only way that I'm able to do this is through God's grace and his mercy and his forgiveness. Because believe you me, I haven't earned it. But I want to pray the same prayer that has been prayed over his people in Lashon Hokadesh, which means the language of the Lord, the language of God. It was the very prayer that mid-sentence, Yeshua was praying it over those people, those faithful. And he was rising, it was post-resurrection, and and all of that. And in mid-sentence, he was taken up to the Lord through the clouds. I want to pray this prayer over you. I'm gonna pray it first in Hebrew, which is Lashonakadesh, the language of God, and then I'll translate it to English. I want you to receive it in his heavenly name. And then we'll be back here tomorrow, 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time or on playback. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Whatever wall you're facing today, he is with you, and so am I. Till tomorrow. Shalom Bashem Yeshua.