Condemned

 "Now Jericho was shut tight, within and without, so none could go in or out, because the people of Israel had come".  Joshua 6:1.

They were still a common sight in London in the days of my childhood - bomb damaged areas from the war, where remnants of prior homes had stood, now merely unsafe remains, barred with corrugated fences in the hopes of keeping inquisitive youngsters from venturing into such places. They were never successful, and many a time I joined my cousins and sister in playing in such places, to return home with skinned knees or bruised arms.

Condemned places.

Jericho would certainly have appeared to be a strange realm to be given such a tag. Wealthy, prosperous - a major city in the land with what must have seemed a golden future, but all that changed when a particular "blight" became evident. After what was, perhaps, years of rumours, the Jordan had suddenly dried and that strange people marked by the presence of "El Elyon" arrived. No doubt these city folk had already heard of their coming up from Egypt, of how even the cruel brigands of the desert, the Amalakites, had failed to overcome them. Now, they were at their very gates, and there was no way to prevent what was about to occur.

Rahab willingly fully embraced them, and thereby became enveloped in their story, but the certain victory ahead would be marred by the manner in which the very 'meme' of Jericho would break-in, remain and infect the Israelites, spelling out the inner canker that would impede them continually in the ages ahead.

We recall, no doubt, the strange manner in which the Lord of Hosts instructed Joshua to engage in conflict with the place - no material siege towers or battering rams, as God's warriors, no doubt, cleared the 'rulers in high places' holding sway over this Canaanite stronghold, until, the moment of triumph closed, and the mighty noise broke the final barrier of the supposedly unreachable walls, and the entire city was bare before their advance.

The Lord's command was clear - devastate the abominable place and take nothing as personal spoil (Joshua 6:18). The contamination could not be allowed to continue. Sadly, Achan didn't heed the instruction and did the opposite, leading directly to a humiliating, dreadful defeat before the city of Ai (Joshua 7). This transgression had to be exposed and rectified before any further work could proceed - only after the evil was exposed and what was defiled expunged could the people move forward and truly claim their inheritance.

There are always going to be insurmountable "issues" when we seek to accommodate things that are compromised.

Jericho's foundations were said to rest on the murdered children of its first king - one child killed before birth, the other shortly after - certainly a tradition which fitted with the "worship" practices of the region. The Lord is clear that a culture established upon such henious "norms" must not be granted refuge under heaven - their evil was worthy of only becoming ash. Achan's attempt to compromise with such things by seeking to keep their gods (idols) safe speaks volumes about how we so readily can attempt to seek a middle ground between being in the 'camp' of God's children whilst still seeking to accommodate what we deem 'wise' or acceptable from other dangerous sources.

Imagine what would have happened if Jericho's "ways and means' had gained full sway over the house of Israel. Actually, we don't have to - just read through the book of Judges and the history of the Kings to see just how often this manner of concession took hold of God's people and how ruinous the consequences were, finally concluding in the tragedy of exile from the land God gave them.

The church today is meant to be the place where God's "Ark" (presence) resides, but have we given way in this same fashion to the allure and ease that the 'wisdom' of the age places before us?

We would like to evade such a problem - surely, churches are not capable of committing such an obvious collaboration with wickedness! The Epistles of the New Testament clearly show us otherwise, and when we read the admonishments of Jesus to various churches in the book of Revelation, we should clearly become aware of just how easy it is for us to fall exactly into this kind of erroneous behaviour. That is why we need to be concerned about just how close we become to the mindset of the present powers and the policies they impose upon us, especially when this leads to a prevention of faith in practice.