Joshua told his army to march around the city of Jericho once a day for six days. He tells them in 6:10 that they “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 shall shout.”
Ecclesiastes three tells us that there’s a time for everything. Peace-War, Live-Die, Weep-Laugh and many others. There’s also a time to keep silent and a time to shout! At Jericho!
A father of three won a shouting contest with a roar louder than a passing train. “If you want a war, you go!” Yoshihiko Kato shouted. The sound meter registered 115.8 decibels, louder than the racket of a train passing overhead on an elevated railroad. For that winning shout, Kato won the $750 grand prize of the 10th annual Halls Year-End Loud Voice Contest. Kato admitted that he probably built up his loud voice shouting at his children.
I’m trying to imagine what it might have sounded like to have an entire army shout like that. But it isn’t the decibels that brought the walls down. It was the hand of God at the obedience of his people. They kept silent when God said be silent and they shouted when God said shout. There’s a time to shout!
There’s an old story about a man who tried to save the city of Sodom from destruction by warning the citizens. But the people ignored him. One day someone asked, “Why bother everyone? You can’t change them.” “Maybe I can’t,” the man replied, “but I still shout and scream to prevent them from changing me!”
Maybe it’s time to shout!