Fifty Years Out of Jericho

To almost all Christians and Jews, Jericho was the first Canaanite city which the descendents of Israel destroyed. It's also the city which was rebuilt at the cost of the builder's first-born son. Jesus himself passed through that city of palms and healed Blind Bartimaeus.

For me, Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind was like a minimum security prison camp. I was only allowed to visit home at Christmas, summer, and three Easter holidays.

How I wished that Joshua would march around its walls and we could go home. As Joshua 6:20 (BBE) relates, "So the people gave a loud cry, and the horns were sounded; and on hearing the horns the people gave a loud cry, and the wall came down flat, so that the people went up into the town, every man going straight before him, and they took the town."

A clown visited Jericho once. After his magic tricks, he quoted John 3:16 (BBE). "For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life."

Sadly, it and the Bible stories a nurse read to me meant nothing. Like the stories we heard at the Anglican church Sunday school, those ancient tales didn't relate to us.

It was only at a vacation Bible school in a woman's basement that the Lord made the gospel personal to me. I believed in God but I never knew that I needed to repent and invite Christ into my life.

My education in secular subjects was Likewise stunted. Just as I never heard the gospel at the Anglican church, the curriculum at Jericho was a year behind that of public schools. As a result, I had to work doubly hard to get even average grades. And I had the haunting fear that I'd be shipped back to Jericho if I didn't do well.

Jericho is no more, and I praise God for that. You can read the history of that Institution here.

If Christ doesn't return on Saturday, I plan to post about being five-hundred miles from home. That's about how far from home I was at Jericho.

The Error of Mindless Belief

Many church leaders and parents have made the huge mistake of saying we have to believe God without any sort of proof. Either they were too lazy to explain what we believe and why we believe it or they felt their authority being threatened. Either way, it has caused many seekers to reject Christianity as being irrational. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Empirical science shows that this world couldn't have happened by chance. Order NEVER comes from chaos, as evolutionists claim. Neither has the universe always existed but it had a beginning and maker.

But sinful humanity continues to reject these facts. As we see in Israel's case, they wanted gods which they could hold and use. Isaiah 45:9 (KJV) says, "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?"

Paul also showed this habit of humanity to suppress awkward truths in Romans 1:20 (KJV). "For the invisible things of him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;"

History also proves the Bible to be correct. Liberal scholars have doubted the existence of ancient peoples until their ruins were dug up. For example, ancient Jericho was unearthed destroyed just as the Bible described it. Joshua 6:20 (KJV) reports, "So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city."

Christ's resurrection also proves the Bible's accuracy. It would have been easy for the Pharisees to show Christ's body to those who believed he arose had they found it still in the tomb. But Acts 1:3 (KJV) shows that he really did rise from the dead. "To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:"

Not only that but Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:6 KJV), "After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep."

I'll be writing more about this abundant proof of Scripture's veracity in You Think You're Going to Heaven? My hope is that people will read my book and realize that we have accurate reports in the Bible. We don't believe just because we're supposed to and that's that.