Season 4 (Episode 2): Progressive Miracles: The Walls of Jericho

Welcome to Pain, Passion, and Purpose. I am your host, Shakeeta Torres, where I share mental health education, biblical teachings, and tips to help you to heal on purpose so you can walk boldly in your God-given purpose. This podcast is sponsored by Empowered Purpose Academy. A certified online Christian academy where we provide services such as certification for Christian life coaches, mentorship for master's level aspiring and existing Christian therapists, mentorship for Christians, and continued education courses for the body of Christ. You can visit www.empoweredpurposeacademy.com to learn more and to download your free guide. If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave us a raving review so that others can tap into the knowledge and wisdom that will be shared on this podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Hey, you guys, it's me, Shakeeta Torres. I hope you guys have been enjoying this series so far about progressive miracles. It has been just amazing. The feedback has been amazing. I'm just so excited about what God is doing. But before we get into today's teaching and word from the Lord, I wanted to share that I've also, um, put together a playlist on YouTube about the different, um, miracles I have received in my life and others have received in their life when it comes to the healing anointing oil. The Lord put it on my heart, um, about 2 weeks ago. To do that so people can have a full understanding and hear people's testimonies. And so I'll put the link in the description of this podcast episode. Um, today's word is, um, about the walls of Jericho. It is very short and to the point, y'all. I was so excited that a few times I was stumbling like, God, I'm gonna get this out. It was just so good to me, y'all. So anywho, I pray that it blesses you. And stay tuned because we get ready to go ahead and get into the replay of Thriving Thursday's message, word from the Lord, Progressive Miracles. Excuse me. As well on Facebook and YouTube and also in, um, one of my Facebook groups, Kingdom Leadership. Hello everyone. Listen, y'all, I hope y'all can stay But if y'all can't stay, I understand. Good afternoon, good afternoon, y'all. I'm so excited about today's word. Listen, the Lord has been downloading some stuff, y'all, and it blessed my soul so, so, so, so much. And so I'm gonna go ahead and just get into it. If you can't stay, um, be sure to come back and watch the replay. It'll be, um, on Instagram. It will also be on Facebook. It will also be on YouTube. Um, good afternoon to everyone who was joining in right now. Thank you guys so much for being here. I'll try my best to kind of stop periodically to look at your questions, but I will be teaching and sharing, um, words from the Lord he's given me prophetically, and he's given me to share about progressive miracles. Y'all, it blessed my whole heart. All right, so as some of you guys know, my name is Shakeeta Torres. Um, I wear many hats, but most importantly, I am a daughter of the Most High God, and that's where I thrive. Live, okay? I will always say that. So I want to just pray real quickly before I start. So Father, I just thank you right now, God, for, um, this live on today. We thank you, God, for our very life, our health, and our strength. Father, I pray for every single listener who will be coming on right now and who will come and watch the replay later. Father, I ask you, God, to help me, God, to continue to just break this word down the way that you want me to give it, Lord. Father, I've studied, I've shown myself, uh, that I'm ready to give this word. Um, Father, I ask you to speak through me. Holy Spirit, just have your on today, God. I just decrease Shakeeta, and Father, you increase in me. In Christ's name I pray, amen, amen. Alrighty, so as some of you guys know, last week I began a series that God gave me called Progressive Miracles, okay? If you can go back and watch that, watch the replay of that, it was amazing. Um, I shared about what's a progressive miracle, I shared about my testimony about how God performed a progressive miracle in my life, okay? And so then, um, God, um, had me share, uh, told me to go and do a series about how God has performed many miracles in my life, y'all, um, both instantly and mirac— and progressive miracles. And it's on— the series is called Little Warriors in a Bottle. And some of you guys may know I am, um, you know, putting my oil out there even the more as God has told me to. And you guys have just been phenomenal with sharing it, giving me feedback, sending me DMs about it, asking about it. And so God gets all the glory, all right? And so I want to give a quick little recap about, you know, miracles, what progressive miracles are. Of course, progressive means, um, slow. It means, um, gradual. It means progression. It mean it takes time. And a miracle is something that only God himself can do. Science can't explain it. We can't explain it. Books can't explain it. None of us can explain how God does what he do when he does a miracle. All right, so with that being said, I'm going to get into, um, today's title. And the title of today's, uh, teaching is called The Walls of Jericho. The Walls of Jericho. Um, this morning as I was in prayer and just talking to God, I'm like, God, I'm like, I need a story. I said, Father, show me a story in your word. Because when you hear the word progressive, right, you think about slow events that might happen and take place over a period of time. And I was, um, in the word going through scripture. I just heard the walls of Jericho. So I typed it in the Google chat and I looked up, you know, the walls of Jericho and miracles, and I was like, it just blew my mind, okay? And so I don't know about you, but for me, you know, being in church and ministry, I've always heard a story about the walls of Jericho and how they marched around, you know, the building for 7 days and how they was praising God. And, you know, it happened because of their obedience. But I want to go back a little bit because now when I study, I always try to go back and look at the events that led up to that particular event that I'm studying so I can get full understanding and revelation of what God is saying about— saying, right? So I encourage you to do the same thing. Don't just take something that you're reading at face value. Go back, let scripture interpret scripture, and God Holy Spirit in to give you revelation. And y'all, I was getting hit upside the head so much today in revelation. And so I'm just really praying that God would help me to, um, really get this out in a way that you guys can understand it. It's very layered and it has so many nuggets in here and lessons in here that I will point out, but I don't think God would have me pull out everything because it's just too much, okay? I don't want to choke you out, all right, or lose your interest either, okay? So I'm gonna try my best to kind of give you guys just to highlight so you can understand and know where God is going with his word for today. All right, so I want to go back to, um, Joshua chapter 5. Okay, and so first of all, um, the walls of Jericho, right, they were occupied by the Canaanites. All right, the Canaanites had became afraid of the Israelites because of the many miracles that God had performed for them. They had heard about them, and they were warriors too. Like, they had no fear. They worship other gods and other idols, and so they didn't want to even be near the Israelites because they didn't want anything to happen to them and their people. So with that being said, they built up this wall, okay? And in that wall, no one can get out and no one can get in. And in that wall, they were still practicing and doing all types of things, you know, uh had their own idols, and they were just, you know, worshiping pagan gods. Like, they had no honor, and they had no desire to serve God, even though they knew that God was a God of miracles. Okay, I was like, wow, that's stubborn. But all right, anywho, so in chapter 5, you know, I'm going to set up the scene leading up to the walls of Jericho. All right, and so it said, when the kings of Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted. So the Canaanites, they became afraid, and they were like, oh God, we can't, we can't fight them. And the word of God says there was no fighting spirit in them any longer because of the Israelites and what God had done for them. All right, I was like, wow, y'all just, y'all just tapped out. Okay, y'all just moved on. All right, so at that time the Lord said to Joshua, who was the king— he had took Moses's place— he said, make for yourself flint knives and circumcise the new generation of the sons of Israel as was done before. And so I'm gonna stop here for a moment and give you a little bit of, you know, history with that. So of course some of you guys know that in the Old Testament, you know, circumcision was a covenant that God had made with Abraham. So all the sons, all the men had to get circumcised as a covenant and as a way to show God that, God, we're in covenant with you, okay? Talking about the Jewish people, okay? And so then that time, you know, the, um, the children of Israel were in for 40 years wandering in wilderness, doing what they wanted to do, being disobedient. And so during that 40 years, the men and women, they had children, okay? So the children they had, the sons they had, never got circumcised. Okay, and so God had Joshua to take a knife and pretty much circumcise the new sons, okay, in preparation for what God was getting ready to do, okay. And so, you know, they took out time, they healed and all that good stuff, and this is what God told them after they healed. This is verse 9. He said, this day I have rolled away the, the reproach of Egypt from you. So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. So you got— of course I had to go and look up the word, you know, of approach. Y'all, God was telling the children of Israel that he had rolled back all the shame, all the rejection, all the past failures, everything they've been through, all the pain. Oh my God, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, y'all. That's a big deal, all right? So think about your own self, right, in your life where you've experienced embarrassment, where you have disobeyed God, where God had given you instructions to do something and you didn't do it because of fear, because of like feeling like you, you know, not worthy, you know, having that self-worth. And of course, some of these things can be generational. So of course, everything that the children of Israel had did in those 40 years got passed down to their children, even the punishments, okay? And so God renew the covenant with the children of Israel. All right, he had healed them miraculously from their past sins. Now keep in mind, this is Old Testament, okay? In New Testament, they don't do that anymore. Only people do— they still do what they do, but they're not doing it— they're not supposed to be doing it for God per se. But in the New Testament, God talks about your heart being circumcised now. All right, your heart, for all of us. That means loving God, honoring God, putting him first down to our flesh, right? But in the Old Testament, the way to show God that was by going through circumcision, okay? Oh y'all, this word was so good. So this is what— this right here is where the, the word coming at for the prophetic word God gave me. It's very short but so powerful. So it said here in verse 10, while the Israelites camp at Gilgal, they observed the Passover on the evening of the 14th day of the month on the the desert plains of Jericho. On the day after Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened bread and roasted grain. And in that moment, as I'm reading it, and God said, aren't we in Passover? I said, yeah, God, we are, we are in Passover, right? And I had to go and look, okay, when is Passover for this year, right? And I looked at the scripture again And Passover is now until April 13th, okay? And this scripture right here says that while the Israelites camp at Gilgal, they observe the Passover on the evening of the 14th day of the month on the desert. So this year, April 14th will be like the end of the Passover, y'all. And whoo, y'all, this is so significant. So significant to what's happening right now. If you guys follow other prophetic voices and other people of God, I can assure you, you probably have heard some of the same words about Passover and how God is doing a new thing in the body of Christ, y'all. A new thing. And many of us are going to go over and cross over into new land, into new territory. In the fall of last year, I released a word called Possess— Possess the Land. Possess the Land. Okay. You can go back, it's on my YouTube channel, it's on— it's everywhere, okay? So what I'm saying is that word was in preparation as to what's getting ready to happen in this season soon, all right? For some of you guys, it looks different. I don't know your story, your situation, what God has promised you, but there's some things that God has promised you that he wants to do for you. But you gotta make sure that you allowing God to circumcise you. Come on now, allow God to circumcise your heart. Allow him to pull away all— everything you've been going through in this past season. The warring, the crying, uh, the plowing, the contending, the warfare, the backlash, the rejection— all that. God is rolling away the reproach in the name of Jesus, y'all. For so many of us, and before we can even get to the promise, God wants to do a work right now. Me and you guys have already been going through this healing journey with God, right? But there's some things that God want to just wipe clean, like sooner than later, so that way you won't mess up your promise. Okay, so y'all, that's the— oh, that was— y'all, I was like, wow, God, I was just amazed. I had no idea that God was gonna give me that today. No idea. All right, so with that being said, um, fast forward on into how, you know, God was preparing them for battle and preparing them for war. Okay. So fast forward to Joshua chapter 5, verse 9— 13. It says, now when Joshua was by Jericho— he was by Jericho, the walls of Jericho, okay— he looked up and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and he said to him, are you for us or, or for our adversaries? And he said, no, rather I have come now as captain of the army of the Lord. Then Joshua fell with his face toward the earth And he bowed down and he said to him, what does my Lord have to say to his servant? And the captain of the Lord's army said to Joshua, remove your sandals from your feet because the place where you are standing is holy ground. And Joshua did so. And so it goes into chapter 6, y'all. And this is where Joshua receives from the Lord specific instructions on how to go in and tear down the walls of Jericho. He gave, uh, Joshua his battle plan. All right, many of us, God has already given us battle plans. All right, but here is the key, y'all. Y'all have to follow God's specific instructions. If it does not make sense to you, that is okay. Even this, even this week alone, God has been giving me specific little things to do that to me don't make any sense. Okay, and I'm like, God, this don't make any sense to me, but I know who you are. You are a God who gave the Joshua, okay, and the children of Israel a battle plan that made no sense, okay? And so Joshua, I look at Joshua, y'all, he was a fierce leader. He was an awesome leader because he always obeyed the words of the Lord, y'all. And so I'm gonna go here to, um, Joshua chapter 6, verse 1. It says, now Jericho, a fortified city with high walls. Now this is what I did to y'all. I went and looked up, okay, how tall was the walls of Jericho? Now of course no one really fully knows the whole truth because, you know, we weren't there when this happened. But on the estimate, it said that the walls of Jericho was 12 to 15 feet high, okay? So my husband is like 6'3", y'all, all right? So I'm like double that. I'm like, wow, he's— he hovers over me, okay? I'm like, wow, there's no way I can climb this wall on my own to go in and take the land, okay? There's no way. So it was made of stone that was 4.9 feet thick, y'all. Like, think about that. It's made of stones, is 12 to 15 feet high, it is 4.9 feet thick, okay? And God has given them a battle plan to destroy the walls of Jericho without having to climb it, without having to chisel away at it or anything. They literally obey what God told them to do and the walls came falling down. So don't think the little things that God give you don't matter, y'all. God is so detailed, he is so so detailed. I mean, even now, like, I try my best to obey God and invite him in every single area of my life, y'all. But we miss it sometimes. We miss it because we're moving too fast. We can become too hasty. I'm guilty of that in the past. And so even just over the course of the past few months, I can be sitting here at my computer doing some work and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do it this way. God said, no, no, no, no, no. Did you ask me? I'm like, oh God, I did not ask you. And he'll say, do it this way. So I'm like, wow, okay. Like, I've been, I've been having moments like that over the course of the past few months, y'all, because God wants me to possess the land. He wants me to walk into my full promise. And every single little detail that you do with God, it matters. It leads up to the big things. It takes faith and it takes obedience to perceive your progressive miracle. Okay, so it says here, the Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho the mighty warriors. Okay, so Jericho also had mighty warriors. Okay, now you shall march around the city. All the men of war were circling the city once. You should do this once each day for 6 days. Simple, that's simple. Okay, also 7 priests shall carry 7 trumpets made of ram's horns ahead of the ark. Then on the 7th day, you shall march around the city 7 times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. When they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall cry out with a great shout. Which is a battle cry, and the wall of the city will fall down in its place. And the people shall go up, each man going straight ahead, climbing over the rubble. Okay, and so I'm not going to read the whole entire thing. If you want to go back and read it, y'all, it's so good. Joshua chapter 6 is so detailed, it's so beautiful. So God had given Joshua specific strategies to go back and give to those that he lead. Okay, and for them to execute that for the wall of Jericho to come down. And so here, this is commentary in my Bible, it says here, Israel had to fight their way into possession of the promised land. Have you ever had to fight for God's promises in your life? Remember that he goes before you, he fights for you, and he always gives you the victory. Stand your ground and refuse to give up. And God had promised Abraham long before this that he was going to hand the Canaanites into his hand. He was going to have victory over them, okay? And Joshua was the one to execute the plan, y'all. That was a promise that God had given him, okay? So now I'm not saying something that, you know, that you want in your head, that you made up, that you want to have, but it's a promise that God himself has told you that he's going to do for for you. And what I've learned over the years is that when God gives you a promise, you better prepare for war. You better prepare yourself mentally and emotionally to go through the process. It's a process, y'all. The bigger the promise, the greater the process, the longer it can be, right? But if you follow God's specific strategy and instructions, it will not take you as long. The children of Israel was out here in these streets for 40 years, y'all. They didn't have to be because they were being disobedient and hard-headed, okay, full of pride and rebellion. But remember, God pulled away the reproach because he loved them so much, and they had an amazing leader who prayed for them, interceded for them, and he loved the Lord. All right, so then I'm gonna fast forward and I'm gonna go to chapter— I mean, uh, verse 26. Okay, so matter of fact, I'm gonna go back just a little bit because this is what— this is what God showed me to y'all. More revelation here. And so they went over, they, you know, went ahead, did what God told them to do. They did it. And, uh, it's also a promise that they had made to Rahab, who was a prostitute, because she was the one that knew what, you know, what was happening. And she, um, also had housed some of the men, uh, from the children of Israel, um, for, for battle. Okay, so I don't know the whole story there. I looked up a little bit, but they did honor their promise to her, and they took her out when they got there. And rescue her, her family. Come on now, look at God, so beautiful, just so beautiful. Okay, so verse 26, it says here, verse 20, so the people shouted the battle cry and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, they raised a great shout and the wall of Jericho fell down, so that the sons of Israel went up into the city 'Every man straight ahead, climbing over the rubble.' And they overthrew the city. Then they utterly destroyed everything that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword. But Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, 'Go into the prostitute's house and bring the woman and all that she has out of there, as you have sworn to her.' You promised her you'd do this. So the young men The spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and her sisters, and they, um, also bought all their relatives. I mean, she had a big family, y'all, okay? And they rescued her. And so fast forward to verse 26. Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, cursed before the Lord is the man who rises up and rebuilds the city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn, he shall lay its foundation. And with the loss of his youngest son, he shall set up its gates. So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land. So Joshua had actually became famous because of that, okay, for his great leadership. All right, and so y'all, progressive miracle. This is a progressive miracle because they follow instructions. They, they, they allow God to walk them through this journey. They had no idea what God was getting ready to do, y'all. Think about it, whenever God gives us a miracle, we have no way of really knowing when it's going to happen. We just keep walking, keep trusting, and keep obeying. And at any given moment, God can do a thing and turn a thing around. All right, and so this is what, you know, I— as I was saying earlier, I shared on my YouTube channel, I have a little series going on over there where I'm sharing about miracles that God had performed for me. I shared on Instagram and YouTube— yeah, YouTube and Facebook about, you know, how God had healed my shoulder. I had to wait. It took a year and a half, a year and a half, and God gave me a miracle, okay? It was like any given moment it happened, all right? And so I want to encourage you today, for those of you who are waiting on God for a promise, your miracle is coming. It's coming, okay? It is coming. So I'm waving at you guys, waving, waving, looking at your comments. Somebody put amen, amen, amen, amen. And so yeah, so that's all I had for you guys, um, today. Glory to God. Um, this, this video right here will also become a podcast on my, um, on my channel called Pain, Passion, and Purpose on Sunday Sunday about 10 AM. So I want to pray this out. So Father, I just thank you for your word today, Father. Father, I pray, God, that this word has caused your people to feel encouraged, to be inspired, God, to seek you, God, and to want to be healed by you, to obey every single thing that you give them, God. God, I just pray, Lord God, for a revival to continue to hit our cities, our homes, our nations, our churches, God. Holy Spirit, I ask you to rest, rule, and abide in us, Lord. Father, help us, God, to turn away from our idols, turn away from the things that we have put before you, Lord, and to continue to put you first and learn to put you first, Lord. And so, so God, for those who are dealing with shame, dealing with rejection, dealing with, with hurt, dealing with anything, God, Father, I ask you, God, to breathe on them. I ask you, God, to heal them, God, from the inside out and give them a strategy for how they can overcome. And so, God, we love you and we honor you. In Christ's name I pray, amen, amen. And so before I leave, I forgot to mention this to you. I got so excited. Um, I just got finished writing a book called Unashamed, all right? And when I was reading this, I said, oh my God, I should have put this in the book. So the book is like a three-part where I'm sharing my testimony about shame. I'm sharing, um, you know, what shame is, what that looks like when it comes to mental health and all that good stuff. Then in the middle, I'm giving like strategy how I would give my client as a therapist um, about how to really, um, dismantle, you know, feelings of shame, okay? And then the end, I'm talking about scripture. There's prayer in there and all that. It's a very short book, but it's powerful. It's a very short book, but it's powerful, y'all. As I was typing the book, I just felt my hand was so full. It was just so fiery, so fiery. And so, um, I actually had to order, um, the, the, um, sample book. So the book will be here hopefully next week.. So I'll be able to kind of look at it, make sure everything looks good, and then, um, approve it, and then be able to like start, um, putting it out there for you guys to make orders. I also have the ebook. The ebook is already ready. If you're interested in that, let me know. Um, I also put it under this video, um, on Instagram, Facebook, and on YouTube. But it was— it will set you free if you looking for a breakthrough and you having a hard time in this area with shame. This book will help y'all. It really will. And so thank you all so much for listening. Thank y'all for your support. Um, thank y'all, especially on Instagram. Y'all been listening. Some of the posts I post are like Holy Spirit inspired for sure, and those are the ones that get the most attention. So I'm like, okay God, I hear you, Lord. Let me, let me keep on going. So thank you all so much for, um, staying tuned in and, um, hearing what, you know, what thus says the Lord through me. Um, God appreciates it. I appreciate it. And I love you all so much. So have a great day, have a great Good Friday, have a great Easter weekend. I pray that your, your, your weekend is spirit, spirit-filled, um, with God, and God does a new thing in you, a new thing in you. Okay, all righty, so I'll see you guys later. All right, bye. Thank you so much for being here today. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share with your family and your friends. And please stay tuned for more content. If you would like, also you can download my free ebook at www.shakeetatorres.com and stay in contact with me me to learn about new courses, new workshops, and new content that I'll be coming out in the future. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.