Would God be so unjust as to send His judgment on Jericho and not on our lands today?
Jericho was soon to be in flames, a holocaust, or burnt offering to the Lord. The city was all accursed, except “the silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron” (Jos 6:19), which were devoted to the Lord’s use and placed “into the treasury of the Lord.” Of course, those who trusted in God, sought His mercy, and gathered in the house of Rahab, were saved. The fate of the people in the city depended entirely on their attitude to God—nothing else. Those who fought Him were accursed and lost; those who sought Him were devoted and saved. It is the same today. Some have the deluded idea that Jesus is quite different from God—more loving and forgiving, and not into judgment and hell fire. Not so, my friend. Listen to this: “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe” (2 Thess 1:7-10). That sounds a lot like Jericho, doesn’t it! Those who “do not know God” are not those who have never heard; the Greek explains that they have chosen to unknow Him, refusing the gospel. And the ones who share Jesus’ glory? Are they better or more religious? No, they are simply “those who believe.” The contrast is given in Hebrews 11: “By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe” (v 31). So that’s why the people of Jericho perished! They were “those who did not believe.” Jesus still pleads, “Repent, and believe the gospel” (Mk 1:15, KJV).