God Has the Last Laugh

About a year ago, our church went on a fantastic trip to Israel. Even though it’s hard to select the most meaningful moment of the trip, one stands out as clearly the funniest.

One of our last stops was the ancient city of Jericho, made famous by that song about Joshua. According to The Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, in Joshua’s time, Jericho was probably a small settlement surrounded by mud walls and may have been more of a military outpost than a civilization population center. Today, it is a relatively small city of about 15,000 people, and the area surrounding the major archaeological site bustles with shops, houses, and lots of traffic.

After lunch in a local restaurant, our tour guide ushered us to the historical dig where he provided many fascinating details about Jericho’s history. When he declared that some historians and archaeologists have determined that the city’s walls had already collapsed before Joshua arrived there, several of us “internally” raised our eyebrows. Of course, that statement directly contradicts the Bible’s account in Joshua 6. Since we are a polite group, no one publicly challenged his assertion.

Immediately following the tour guide’s history lesson, our church’s worship leader read the account of how Joshua took Jericho. Here are God’s instructions: 

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 the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse . . . (Joshua 6:3-5).

The very moment he finished reading verse 5 about blasting the trumpets, a motorist just outside the archaeological site angrily laid on his car’s horn for about 10 seconds to express his displeasure with some perceived infraction. The timing was perfect! The whole crowd burst into spontaneous laughter over the convergence of Joshua’s horn and the modern-day one. It was as if God was saying, “Pay no attention to the comments about Jericho’s walls already having collapsed.” Those who know me know that I’m not one to read spiritual significance into every little life event, but this one was so clear that we couldn’t miss it. God had the last laugh that day.

Although I have utmost respect for and appreciation of scholarship, many historians and theologians clearly approach their work with skepticism about the Bible’s reliability, and their negative presuppositions shape their interpretation of facts. In fact, I wrote a book on this very subject. That’s a Great Question:  What to Say When Your Faith Is Challenged describes five mental filters that people who discount the Bible’s authority use to read the Bible to make it say what they want it to say.

But God will have the last word. Psalm 2 reads:

Why do the nations conspire

            and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth rise up

              and the rulers band together

              against the LORD and against his anointed, saying

“Let us break their chains

              And throw off their shackles.”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

              the LORD scoffs at them.  (Psalm 2:1-4)

As we look around at the chaos of our world, especially these days, we can be discouraged by the gains seemingly being made by those who deny God’s authority. But God is still God, and, as Psalm 2 declares, he has final say. And every once in a while, he does something to remind us that he is still in control. So, take heart! Just as he “laughed” through the Jericho car horn incident, some day he will also laugh at all rulers who are trying to throw off his shackles.