After the exodus from Egypt, when Israel was to enter the land which God had promised to Abraham and his offspring, the people refused. As a result, God made them wander in the desert for forty years. At the end of that time, the Israelites had another opportunity to cross into Canaan, this time near the city of Jericho. At first glance, God’s three instructions don’t seem like the wisest strategies for entering enemy territory,
One – Crossing a flooded river – this was the first illogical instruction by the Lord. God had divided the Red Sea and dried a path BEFORE Israel walked through the walls of water. But here, God told them, “As soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.” (Joshua 3:13)
This time God would dry the path AFTER the priests entered the water. Nor did the priests know that the river would be cut off twenty miles upstream and that it would require them to stand there for quite a while without any apparent reduction in the flow.
Two – Circumcision in enemy territory – you would expect the first thing the armies of Israel would do would be to engage their enemies. But God’s instruction was to take time to circumcise all the men who had been born during the previous forty years. This meant that if the enemy attacked, the Israelites would be too sore to defend themselves. Why didn’t God have them do this on the eastern side of the river, before they entered enemy land?
Three – Walking around the city – you would have expected Israel to advance with their armies against the enclosed city of Jericho, build siege works, and attempt to enter the city. But God said, “March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ 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.” (Joshua 6:3–5) What kind of military strategy calls for people to just walk around the city and blow trumpets, finally shouting on the seventh day?
Why did God give illogical instructions like these? He wanted the Israelites to see that their victories were not because they had better soldiers and better strategies. God “did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” (Joshua 4:24)
Sometimes the Lord’s will for our lives doesn’t make the best sense to us. We may question whether He knows all the facts or cares about our desires. In hindsight, we realize His wisdom and love. As the Israelites saw the provision of God at Jericho, we are encouraged to trust God even when His will doesn’t make sense to us.
To human thinking, the most illogical thing God has done is to have made salvation a gift. To our limited reasoning, Heaven should be given only to those who have earned it. But then Heaven would be filled with proud people boasting about themselves. But God did not want that, so He devised salvation to be “by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8–9)
Salvation as a gift is actually the most logical and loving thing for God to do, asking Jesus to become a human and die to pay the penalty each of us deserved. If God had done anything else, it would have caused Heaven to be empty of people because none of us are good enough to earn our place in God’s presence.
If it were not for Jesus, we’d have no hope of removing the stain of our sin. Only Jesus can wash us white as snow. “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’” (Isaiah 1:18)
Call on Jesus and begin following Him today. Then you will understand how logical His instructions are.
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