Tooting your own horn?

Joshua 6:5
“It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”

I’m sure that at some point in our lives we’ve all heard the expression “tooting your own horn.” I’m even more certain that most of us are guilty of living into this expression from time to time. It’s a term used to describe a person who is boasting about the great and wonderful things they’ve accomplished.

Here in Joshua 6 we discover the story of the Israelites and the Great Walls of Jericho. This city that they had to conquer before entering the promised land was surrounded by 2 great, seemingly impenetrable brick walls. To make matters worse for the Israelites, Jericho had a fresh water spring inside the city and the people had just collected the harvest. Food and water wouldn’t be an issue for the people camped inside the city. This meant that non-traditional tactics needed to be employed in order to get in. Starving them out simply wasn’t an option.

So Israel turned to God, who answered by giving very specific instructions: walk around the city walls once each day for six days; don’t make a sound. On the seventh day walk around the city seven times, again without a sound. After the seventh trip around, have the priests sound their trumpets made of ram’s horns and have the people give a loud shout. The walls will come tumbling down and the city will be yours!

We all know that everything happened exactly as God said it would. Often people use this story as a message of how faith can topple walls; that taking that last step, putting in the extra effort, is what gets God to knock down the walls in our lives. However, I don’t believe that’s the point to this story. God was specific to tell the people to walk by faith, but without sound and without working. That means that this army had to walk around the city that they were planning to conquer and not speak, grumble, gloat, or taunt. They had to walk around and look at the wall they were trying to get over or through and not stop to investigate what they thought was a weak spot or flaw. They merely had to walk by faith.

Finally, on the seventh day, they got to make some noise, but still could do no hands-on work! When the priests sounded the ram’s horn trumpets, then the walls came tumbling down. It wasn’t their walking in silence that brought down those walls, and it wasn’t their clever detection of weak points; it was the sound of the ram’s horn and the shouts of victory from the people.

Friends, Jesus is the Ram. In this passage, He is the power that brought down the walls in Jericho, and He is the power that will bring down the walls in our lives. Today those of us in Christ are priests according to His righteousness. (1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;) While we walk by faith, we are to remain silent, not looking for flaws or weak points in our enemies’ defenses. This will ensure that Christ can work His glory, not we in ours. When the time comes we need only sound the Ram’s horn, that is, call out the name of Jesus, and our enemies’ walls will come crashing to the ground. As we proclaim His holy name and shout victoriously walls will topple and victory will be the Lord’s.

Whether it’s debt, depression, anger, sexual sin, drug abuse, or other struggle, a silent walk of faith and the proclaiming of Jesus with a shout of victory will conquer your enemy! Don’t go about tooting your own horn; toot the Ram’s horn. Proclaim Jesus victoriously in your battle today!