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Female Speaker: Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

Jack Graham: You need to be aware that you will face obstacles. There will be Jerichos in your own life. And a Jericho could be anything in your life that says, "Keep out from the blessings of God."

Female Speaker: On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about what to do when life seems to take a wrong turn. Now here's Dr. Graham with his message, "Shout to the Lord."

Jack Graham: Open God's Word to Joshua, Chapter 6, verses 20 and 21. That's when we'll begin. We're going to begin with the end in mind. And here's the end of the story. So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown, and as soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout and the wall fell down flat. So that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.

And then verse 27 says, "So the Lord was with Joshua, and His fame was in all the land." What happened? How did it happen? How did these walls fall down? The New Testament commentary on this is in Hebrews 11 and verse 30. For it says, "By faith, by faith the walls of Jericho fell down."

Faith is the victory, because faith moves the muscles of omnipotence. Faith moves the omnipotence of God. But how does faith act? Well, first of all, I want you to look with me in this, in this great story at the surrender of faith. If you want to be on the pathway to victory in your life, it begins with a surrender of faith.

Let's back up just a little bit and catch up just a little bit in this story. Joshua knew that he needed God's counsel and God's guidance to lead His children to, the children of Israel to victory. And so, as a good general would do, he's looking for a strategy. And he gets by himself late one evening, a kind of reconnaissance around the walls of, a surveillance, around the walls of Jericho.

And as he is there in the darkness, he suddenly senses another presence around him. Has that ever happened to you? I mean, you think you're alone and all of a sudden you realize you're not alone. Someone is there. And in this case, that someone was a very mysterious figure.

Chapter 5 of Joshua, verses 13 and following. "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. And Joshua went to him and said to him, 'Are you for us or for our adversaries?'" And he said, "No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my Lord say to his servant?" And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, "Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you're standing is holy." And Joshua did so.

Now, there is no doubt who this mysterious figure is. This is the same mighty presence that wrestled with Jacob. This is a pre-incarnate appearance of God Himself. So this is the commander of the Lord's host. In other words, this is the God of angel armies. This is God Himself. And before the commander could be the commander, the commander needed to be commanded, commanded by God Himself.

Joshua recognized who this is, and so he bowed down and worshiped him. He realized he was on holy ground, and as God directed him, he took off his shoes, just like Moses did when the great I Am appeared in the burning bush. So God takes command of the commander. How so? Joshua says when he sees this person with drawn sword, "Are you for us or against us?" That's a good question. Are you friend or foe? Are you ally or adversary?

And the commander said, "No. Neither." Because I haven't come here to take sides. I've come here to take over. A lot of times we want God to be on our side, but the question is not, is God on my side? The question is, am I on the Lord's side?

And God is bringing every one of us to a place of surrender, because this is how we win. Before we can defeat our Jerichos, we must give ourselves unconditionally to Him, unreservedly to Him. To allow Him to take over. To allow Him to undertake in our lives to surrender all to the Lord. The battle is the Lord's. Our allegiance is to Him. Our God will lead us to victory if we follow Him, because even angel armies are at His disposal.

Jesus said in Matthew 26, verse 53, "Do you not think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will once at once send more than 12 legions of angels?" God is in command. God is in control. This is the unseen and powerful presence of God in our lives. Now look, there can be no neutrality in spiritual warfare. No neutrality.

Jesus said in Matthew 12, "Whoever is not with Me is against Me." But listen, "If God be for us, who can be against us? Who can be against us?" And God then gave Joshua a promise. It is seen in verse 2 of Chapter 6. "The Lord said to Joshua, 'See, look, I have given Jericho.'" Notice the tense here, it's very important. The tense of the verb. "I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor."

"Joshua, I have given you this city. Joshua, the victory is already yours. And all you need to do is act on what I tell you to do." This same promise is clear to the believer. You have already been given victory in Jesus Christ. What we need to do is to claim our victory, to possess our possessions, and do what God has told us to do.

Winning in the Christian life is simply obeying God and trusting Him for what He has said. Faith is believing God will do what He says He will do. Now, in the earlier chapters of Joshua, Chapter 1, when God was first commissioning Joshua to be the commander of Israel's armies, He said in verse 1, Chapter 1, rather, verses 7 and following, "Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, My servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go."

Verse 8, "The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth." That's the Word of God, that's the Bible. "Meditate upon it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

So when we talk about a promise from God and that God gives us a word, we're not talking about, you know, some feeling we get, but we're talking about the clear Word of God, the promises of God. God's promises are true, but we must possess His promises. We must claim our Canaan. We must receive what God desires to give. The Bible says, for example, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved."

Now, God is willing that anyone and everyone would be saved. God is willing that not any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But you must call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. You must claim your salvation and receive what God desires to give. Jesus said in John 16:33, "I have said these things to you. I have said these things to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world."

In Jesus, we are overcomers. We have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hallelujah, there is victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has given us in Christ all things richly to enjoy. Psalm 84:11, "The Lord our God is a sun and a shield. He gives grace and He gives glory, and no good thing will He withhold from them who walk uprightly." This is your right in your relationship with Christ that you live in victory, not defeated, not a desert dweller, being an unbelieving believer.

You see what I'm getting at at this message is, is this entire message of faith. Many Christians don't believe anything. I mean, you believe God for your salvation, that you're going to heaven, but you don't believe God's going to do anything in your life right now today. You didn't come expectant asking God to break through in your life today. One of these days, somebody's going to pick up this book, believe it, and the rest of us are going to be ashamed of ourselves.

I'm asking you to start believing God and trusting Him for what He desires to do in you. That's the surrender of faith.

Female Speaker: You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham, and the message, "Shout to the Lord." We are excited to share that we have a new way to connect with us. It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content. To join, start a new text conversation by texting the word "connect" to 59789. Again, text "connect" to 59789.

Every day people are hearing the truth of Jesus Christ through PowerPoint's broadcast, podcasts, and digital outreach. And friends like you help make it all possible through your support. So this month we want to say thanks for your gift of $10 or more to help share the biblical truth with more people around the world by sending you Dr. Jack Graham's book, "Ask." In this encouraging resource, Dr. Graham helps you discover that prayer is not about performance, it's about knowing God personally and learning to come to Him with confidence, persistence, and faith.

Text "July" to 59789 to give today and request your copy. Again, text "July" to 59789. So that everyone has a chance to receive this helpful resource, please limit one per household. Now, let's get back to today's message, "Shout to the Lord."

Jack Graham: So God tells Joshua exactly what he wants him to do. And it's a strange plan. Look in Joshua 6, verses 2 to 5. "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with his king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war, going around the city once. This you shall do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark. And on the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, and the priest shall blow the trumpets. And when they made a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every one straight before him.'"

Now, would you like to have been a fly on the wall when Joshua goes back and tries to explain this to his generals and leaders? "You're saying God told you to tell us to circle the city one time a day, seven times on the seventh day, blow trumpets, shout a great shout, the walls are coming down." "Right." That's exactly what God said. It seems so foolish.

But did you know the preaching of God, the preaching of the gospel is foolishness to those who don't believe? Our weapons are not physical weapons. For the weapons of our warfare, 2 Corinthians 10:4, are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. How will we win the day? With spiritual weapons of the gospel, the cross, prayer, witness, love, mercy, what God has told us to do.

God was about to perform a miracle, but first His people must trust Him and obey His plan. God wants to do something great in your life, but you must surrender to Him and trust Him. Sometimes you don't understand, but it's not yours to understand. It's yours to undertake what God tells you to do. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. But just because it doesn't make sense to me doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to God.

So what we need to do is to get God's word, believe it, and act on it. Even though the world doesn't get it, even though some of your friends may not get it, you trust God and watch God work. But that brings me to the silence of faith, what I'm calling the silence of faith. Verse 10 says Joshua commanded the people, "You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout. Then you will shout."

God said, "Get everybody together," and there was upwards to a million, million and a half people at this point. "Walk around these walls and don't say a word till I tell you to shout." Why did God tell them to walk around the walls in silence? For one reason, it shut down the negativity.

Because as they're walking around, if they were speaking, sure enough, somebody's going to say, "This is never going to work." It must have been eerie for the people in Jericho to see so many people just walking around, never saying a word. Can't get a rise out of them. But here's why I really believe God told them to walk and to be quiet.

Because by the time they walked around that a few times and thought about it, they realized if God didn't knock those walls down, it was never going to happen. They realized how small they were, how inadequate they were, how they could not. But they began to believe that God could. You know, people say, concerning your Jericho, your marriage is never going to work, your circumstances are never going to change, your problems are too big for you. That wayward child is never going to come back home. You're never going to get well, and so on, blah, blah, blah.

But what you need to do is not listen to the world, but to listen to the Word. And you need to be still and know that God is God. And that no matter how big your Jericho may seem, that if you will just stay in faith and believe God, still your heart and calm your nerves by trusting in God, then in His own time and in His own way, God will come through. God puts a premium on patience. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint."

Isaiah 30, verse 18, says, "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice, blessed are those who wait for Him. Blessed are those who wait for Him." Hebrews 10:36, "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised."

If you will wait on God, if you will trust in Him and look to Him and listen to Him, in His own time, in His own way, God will give you the victory that He's already promised and given to you. He will secure the victory. So that brings me to the steadfastness of faith. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down. Why does God honor faith? Because faith honors God.

"This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." And the people of God, they walked, they worshiped, they persevered, they continued to pray, because they knew somehow God was operating in the unseen world. God was operating in the invisible, just as He is today. That God would do something great if they would only wait on Him.

And I'm here to tell you today that God has given you a promise, believe it, receive it. If God has promised you a marriage and a family, in God's time, in God's way, He will give you. If God has promised you a career that will bless your life, God will bless your life. Stay steadfast in faith. Persevere, because you're closer than you think to the victory.

The children of Israel didn't know how many laps it would take. And neither do you. But you may be just one more lap to the victory. Hang in there. Keep walking, keep believing, keep praying, keep living right. Trusting God. You may wonder why it's taking so long for the promise of God, for the dream that God has placed in your heart to be fulfilled, for the blessings that you've prayed for to take place. You may wonder how long, and it may be brutal and it may be tough waiting. But you keep waiting and you keep trusting God. Because God is faithful.

One last thing. It's the shout of faith. What's this all this shouting about? Blowing trumpets and and shouting. The Scripture says they shouted unto the Lord and the walls came down. The shout was the declaration of their faith. This wasn't a battle cry. This was a victory cry.

And when they shouted and the walls came down, victory was theirs. Why? Because they confessed their faith. You must confess your faith in order to possess God's blessings. You must express it in order to experience it. Declare your faith. Shout your victory. Verse 16 of Chapter 6, it says this, "And the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, 'Shout, for the Lord,'" there it is again, "'has given you the victory.'"

Claim it. God says it, so you can say it. God said so, therefore you can say so. Remember what I said? Faith is believing what God has said. Confession equals possession. Romans 10:9 and 10, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

Revelation 12:11, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto death." When you say it because you believe it, God acts. And at the right time, at the right place, they shouted their faith and God gave them great success. This victory is your victory as you face your Jericho today. If you will surrender to Him and trust Him and obey Him, and be still and know that He is God, and trust Him and wait on Him, and confess your faith, you will overcome.

You will overcome the opposition. The enemy will be vanquished. You're more than a conqueror. We're on the winning team because Jesus is our Lord in our life. You should be living in victory every day. Sure there are problems. Sure there are battles to be fought. When the children of Israel went into the land of promise, there were battles yet to be fought. They won most of them, lost a few when they sinned. But we are to live in this victory every day. No longer defeated by life's circumstances. No longer living in the desert and dying without victory.

This victory is yours.

Female Speaker: You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham, and the message, "Shout to the Lord." We want to remind you about a powerful resource Dr. Jack Graham has created to help strengthen your prayer life. It's his book, "Ask." This practical and encouraging book explores Jesus's invitation to ask, seek, and knock, helping you discover that prayer is not about saying the right words, but about growing closer to your heavenly Father through faith-filled relationship.

When you give today to support the outreach of PowerPoint Ministries, you'll help share biblical truth and the life-changing hope of Jesus with people around the world through broadcast, podcasts, and digital ministry. Text "July" to 59789 to give your gift of $10 or more. Again, text "July" to 59789. So that everyone has a chance to receive this helpful resource, please limit one per household.

We're excited to share that we have a new way to connect with us. It's our texting service designed to keep you connected with everything happening here at PowerPoint. You'll be the first to know about upcoming events, special announcements, and truly enriching content. To join, start a new text conversation by texting "connect" to 59789. Again, text "connect" to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: It is our birthright as believers in Christ that we experience victory. Just like the people of Israel, God has a life of promise for you, an abundant and beautiful life blessed by Him. Jesus Himself said, "I've come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly." I'm praying that you are moved in faith to seize the promises of God, just like Joshua and the Israelites did at Jericho. And the way you do that is by faith. It is when you shout and declare your faith that you experience an expression of faith personally that walls will come down, breakthroughs will happen, and victories will be won.

In the natural, it makes no sense for the Israelites to march around the city of Jericho and shout and blow trumpets. And for you and me, it doesn't always make sense to obey God, to do what God commands, to trust God for our daily needs, to turn the other cheek and forgive our enemies, or to sacrificially give to those in need when maybe we don't have enough ourselves. But when we obey God, when we trust in God, and take steps of faith, that releases God to bless us with supernatural blessing and great victory in our lives.

Thank you for joining us at PowerPoint always. I want to encourage you to join us on our Facebook conversation or on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter at Jack N Graham. I would love to connect with you there along with as a friend on Facebook. But if you want resources regarding the ministry, if you need prayer, contact us at jackgraham.org. That's jackgraham.org. You can also support this ministry at jackgraham.org and we do need your support. We need your prayer support and your financial support so that we can accomplish the goals that God has given us as we fulfill the mission of Christ here and around the world. Thank you for your faithfulness and thank you for being a part of PowerPoint's ongoing witness to the world.

Female Speaker: And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, "Ask." Just text "July" to 59789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about how you can do great things through the power of God. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.