WHY? (& Why the Walls of Jericho Had to Fall)

One of the beauties of being a child is the ability to ask "Why?"  Do you remember those days? It happens somewhere around age four to six, and it is lost around seven to thirteen-or whatever age the child thinks that he, "Knows It All." When we become adults it is quite obvious that most of us lose the child-like quality of asking, "Why?"

A few years ago I was reading the Bible and I realized that there were so many passages that I never had the courage to delve into the mysteries that we so often cover up for a simplified understanding. I was so content with the big picture that I failed to see some of the most important nuggets of truth that are proliferated throughout the text of the Scriptures. But then I became a child to the point that I began to ask, "Why?" Shortly after I discovered this overly simple process and came to my senses I asked a lot of questions. I asked questions about why humans act the way they do. I asked questions about the church and why it does some of the weird things that it does; I asked questions about the Bible and the doctrine of verbal-plenary inspiration.  I even asked God some questions.

In the beginning of my process I encountered a lot of people from the church who insinuated that I might be asking too many questions, but that did not stop me; in fact, it might have added fuel to a flickering fire. I later found that asking, "Why?" is the basis for every scholarly, hermeneutical, study of the Bible-and the foundation for fresh illuminations on older revelations in the biblical text. I discovered that asking, "Why?" is a method of challenge, and that it breeds research and motivates the stagnant, comfortable, and unmotivated couch potato Christian to reexamine widely held views that may be detrimental to drawing closer in relationship to our Heavenly Father. Yes, I admit, when it came to drawing closer to God through reading the Bible, prayer, and doing anything that was deemed, "spiritual" that I was that couch potato Christian. I would have rather done anything else than to put all my energy into these activities that I thought were reserved for uptight clergyman in stained glass cathedrals at the local funeral chapel. But that was before I received this insight, which allowed the Scriptures to come to life for me.

Asking questions to motivate our faith is a concept that is not new.  C.S. Lewis, one of the famed intellectual Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, always had questions on his mind. Sometimes, like in the heralded work, Mere Christianity, he would put his questions down on paper as a rhetorical response to himself. He knew that certain concepts that begged, "Why?" would not have answers. But instead of never sharing the thoughts that were on his mind he posed them in his book without answer with hopes that someday someone would find them. And, let me say that there will be questions that we have concerning God and the Bible that will never be answered on this side of heaven, but that does not mean that we should not ask the question or seek an answer that helps calm our heart. 

            Every time I open my Bible I come across things that I have skipped over in previous readings because I failed to answer the, "Why?" question. Even when we approach the Bible with this model it will be inevitable that we skip over certain parts because either we don't believe there is an answer, or because we don't think we will like the answer we will get.

 Just recently, I was reading about Joshua and the city of Jericho. This is one of those great, inspiring, and renowned Old Testament stories, and in it Joshua leads the Israelites to march around the pagan-inhabited city of Jericho seven times, which culminates in a complete demolition of the walls of the city. Now, without getting into the obvious spiritual symbolism there is actually a natural reason as to why the walls of this city had to fall. Have you ever wondered why? I admit that I never had an interest until a few years ago when I took the time to ask "Why?" I simply skipped over this passage like so many others without seeking the truth.

            In order to fully grasp the reason why the walls of Jericho had to fall, God's purpose for Israel must be clearly understood. First, God's main purpose even in the Old Testament, just as it is for those who follow Christ to this day (New Testament Believers), is to lead others to a loving, redeeming, saving, Father in heaven. That is our mission. That is why the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "If you don't have a desire to see people saved, then you are not saved yourself." In order to be the most effective in this call, Israel had to follow certain steps to keep themselves separate (holy) from the rest of the world.  How can we lead others out of the world to a life centered on Christ if we look like the rest of the world? If you were deathly ill how could you find help unless the hospital didn't look like the rest of the buildings downtown? Part of the process of saving people is to become drastically different from the norm in order to punctuate their thought process to bring them in the doors. This is true of both hospitals and churches, and it should mark every Christian as well-or at least it should. This is what happened to Israel when they encountered Jericho.

I guess in order to truly satisfy the question of why the walls had to fall there should be a little more background information given to its mystery: Geographically, Jericho was embedded right smack dab in the area flowing with milk and honey just past the Jordan River that God had promised the Israelites. But Jericho had a huge problem-one that literally circumvented the city in the form of an impenetrable wall.

The inhabitants of Jericho were common Canaanites and worshipped a sun god named, Moloch (or sometimes spelled Molech-pronounced "Mo-lek"). According to the Ancient Near East customs the Canaanites would worship Moloch by offering up, through fire, the fetuses of unborn children straight from the mother's womb. The charred fetus remains would then be stowed away in jars and would be placed in small cut out chambers along the inside of the walls of the cities-especially in the city Jericho. In fact, recent archeological surveys of the region of Jericho have unearthed remnant artifacts of this brutally and sadistic practice. Essentially, the Canaanites would abort their babies, have them passed through a fire, and would then store the remains of these children in the city walls in jars as an altar and memorial unto their god, Moloch (Shockingly, placing aborted babies in jars and placing them in walls of freezers in abortion clinics is still practiced today. www.theamericancause.org/patadecisionbasedondeceit.htm). Yes, the walls of Jericho had become an altar-or a high place-to a pagan god, and this was contrary to the commands of the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. God was and still is a jealous God-He wants our love adoration and worhip to be reserved for Him, not a stone relic or something we have conjured up in our minds. In several places, including the very first of the renowned Ten Commandments, God tells us that we must not worship any other gods (Exodus 20:1-6). He expresses His concern about the idolatrous and vicious practices of worshipping Moloch, and also removing the high places set up to these pagan gods, in other passages in the Bible.

'You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech," Leviticus 18:21 NASB

And The Lord said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, "Say to the people of Israel, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places; and you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. (Numbers 33:50-53 RSV)

The walls of Jericho had become a high place, an altar, to this man-made god whom the Canaanites were blindly serving. In order for the Israelites to inhabit this land these pagan altars had to be demolished, and that is precisely what took place at Jericho.

 As I was writing this article I began to think about other walls in history, namely the Berlin Wall that was constructed in 1961 and later removed in 1989 after the end of the Cold War between Russia and the West. The Berlin Wall bears much significance to the walls of Jericho.  Both the Berlin Wall and the walls at Jericho represented much more than a simple construction of brick and mortar. They represented an ideal, a philosophy, a way of life, and a type of worship and respect to a particular belief structure. These walls not only kept people out, but they also kept the people in. Walls are strange this way; they have the ability to protect or the ability to enslave. The Berlin Wall represented Communism, a set of ideals that imprisoned the common people and left very little room for freedom of choice. Conversely, the wall of Jericho was a symbol to anyone who knew them or read about them that the Canaanite god Moloch was in reign over that city and the people were servants to this insane religion-something they devised no less.  But when the walls fell...oh, when the walls of slavery and sin fall, freedom comes in like an invigorating rush of crystal clear waters for a parched soul that is crying out for liberation. That is what happens when we let Christ detonate the walls of religion in every area of our life, and asking, "Why?" is just a very small first step toward total freedom.

You know, the Bible is contrary to the world's views and agenda. Those who we call the "world", secular humanists, liberal college professors, evolutionists, atheists, etc., don't want us to ask, "Why?" They don't want us to ask why because they themselves have grown comfortable with not knowing the answers that plague their hearts. They don't want us to ask tough questions because these people don't have any of the answers. They can't tell you why humans exist; they can't even tell you their own purpose in life. 

 The world constantly tells us to grow up, to leave behind all those child-like ways, but the Bible is rather strange in this area-well, actually a lot of areas. Now, while the Bible does encourage us to grow up spiritually, it also tells us that we must receive the things of God like a little child:

"Except ye become as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God!" (Matt.18:3)

Think about a little child for a moment. When he knows he is getting a gift he fantasizes about it, he waits for it, he yearns for it, and he tears it open on Christmas day. When an adult gets a gift, or knows they are getting a gift...it is pretty boring. Not a whole lot happens. How I wish we would all embrace the "gift" of salvation like a little child! But that is not the only characteristic of approaching God's kingdom like a little child.

A little child is also dependant. They are dependent upon the people in their life that take care of them. They trust their caretakers without question. Have we truly admitted our deficiency as humans in need of a loving Savior like a child admits they need a parent? Or are we that teenager who blindly gropes his way through the night, a run away no less, with the self-professed arrogance of a "know it all!" Are we still running around comfortable with no answers...not even daring to uncover the truth?

Are we really learning if we can merely regurgitate information that was blindly received from a self-professed professor with a paper degree given from other self-professed professors?

Are we really living if we have not discovered the real meaning to life?

Begin to live, ask why?