Inspiration

The Walls of Jericho

Back in the mid-1970s we met a nice man named Fred Dicus. Fred worked as a sales representative for an electrical supply company, and he visited our office occasionally to tell us about anything new in the electrical products industry. In those days, personal visits by sales reps were common within the building design and construction communities. Fred was a valuable source of usable information in his field of expertise, but, in time, he also became a close friend.

One day during his regular visit to our office, Fred asked us if we had ever seen the Walls of Jericho. I told him we had never traveled to that part of the world, but we had occasionally talked about possibly someday making a trip to Israel. He said he wasn’t talking about the biblical city, but about a place in northeast Alabama, known to locals as the Walls of Jericho. At that time, we had lived in the area for about ten years but had never heard of this place, so he described it to us. He said it was a natural formation of very high, vertical limestone walls, bordering one side of a deep canyon which extends up from the north end of the Paint Rock valley into southeast Tennessee. He said we should take a trip up there so we could say we had seen the Walls of Jericho, but we would either have to hike for about five miles, one way, or take a 4-wheel drive Jeep.

A few days later we joined Fred in his Jeep for the unforgettable trip. Today, nearly fifty years later, Alabama Trails lists this hike as ‘rough’ and ‘difficult’. We made the trip many years before the state purchased this land and made it a public park. Folklore tells about early inhabitants of the area who made one trip out per year for supplies, then having to repair their wagons as the rough terrain nearly destroyed them. We ‘survived’ the trip in Fred’s Jeep, hiked the final half-mile to the ice-cold pool at the base of the falls, saw the imposing cliffs of the Walls of Jericho, then endured the almost-impassable trail back to a paved road. The trip took most of the day, never seeing another soul. Today, visitors are limited in numbers, and must obtain a ‘pass’ online which must be placed in the car window in the parking lot.

It is virtually impossible to visit this place, look at the vertical, limestone walls, without thinking of the wall surrounding the city of Jericho in Canaan. I imagine the Israelites crossing the Jordan River, approaching the first city they encounter, and Joshua telling them they must capture this walled city as they will capture the entire land of Canaan. A continuous wall of limestone blocks, stacked upwards of thirty feet high, at least six feet thick, standing in front of them, an imposing, impenetrable fortress. Joshua knew only God could get his army inside these walls. The Bible story tells us the instructions God gave Joshua for marching around the walls, blowing the trumpets, and on the seventh day, the walls fell down.

Imagine the debris field of these stone blocks that would result around these walls. Some skeptics have opined that the walls probably fell during an earthquake. However, scientists digging up this area have found that the walls didn’t just fall down, they were actually forced ‘down’ and ‘outward’, falling away so that the stones were scattered with nothing left standing, all the way down to the foundation in the ground. The Bible says the walls fell down flat. Much like the Israelites crossing the Jordan on dry ground, they cross into Jericho on flat ground, not stumbling through a rocky debris field.

Looking back over the past eight decades, I see many times where God has made a way, His Way, through troublesome, sometimes rocky situations. He has knocked down walls and opened doors. He has never failed to provide just the right direction, the right help, the right way, at the right time. “Nothing is impossible with God.” Luke 1:37.

Here is a good passage to remember from Joshua 21:43-45:

“So, the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. . .. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”