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Joshua
6:6-27 “And
Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark
of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns
before the ark of the LORD.
7 And
he said unto the people, Pass on, and compass the city, and let him that is
armed pass on before the ark of the LORD.
8 And
it came to pass, when Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the seven priests
bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns passed on before the LORD.
and blew with the trumpets: and the ark
of the covenant of the LORD
followed them. 9 And
the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rereward
[margin: “gathering host”] came after the ark, the priests going
on, and blowing with the trumpets. 10
And Joshua had commanded the people,
saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any
word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall
ye shout. 11 So
the ark of the LORD
compassed the city, going about it once:
and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp. 12
And Joshua rose early in the morning,
and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.
13 And
seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD
went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; but the
rereward came after the ark of the LORD,
the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets. 14
And the second day they compassed the
city once, and returned into the camp:
so they did six days. 15 And
it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of
the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city
seven times. 16 And
it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets,
Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD
hath given you the city. 17 And
the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to
the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all
that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we
sent. 18 And
ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves
accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a
curse, and trouble it. 19 But
all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated
unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.
20 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. 21
And they utterly destroyed all that was
in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass,
with the edge of the sword. 22 But
Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the
harlot’s house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye
sware unto her. 23 And
the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father,
and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out
all her kindred, and left them without the camp of Israel. 24
And they burnt the city with fire, and
all that was therein: only the
silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the
treasury of the house of the LORD.
25 And
Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s household, and all that
she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day; because she hid
the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. 26
And Joshua adjured them at that
time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD,
that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho:
he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his
youngest son shall he set up the gates of it. 27
So the LORD
was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country.” [audio version https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?Teaching=WED618] Introduction: God’s Saying “This Is My Victory, Not Yours” “Chapter
6, we’ve come as far as verse 6, so we might was well start reading from the
beginning of the chapter, just to read down to where we are. “Now Jericho was straitly shut up because
of the children of Israel: none went
out, and none came in. 2 And
the LORD
said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho,” it’s
a done deal “and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. 3
And ye shall compass the city, all ye
men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. 4
And seven priests shall bear before the
ark seven trumpets of rams’ horns: and
the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall
blow with the trumpets. 5 And
it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s
horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall
shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat,” fall
down under itself, collapse “and the people shall ascend up every man
straight before him.” We’ve come to
verse 6, that’s where we left off. “And
Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark
of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns
before the ark of the LORD. And he said unto the people, Pass on, and
compass the city, and let him that is armed pass on before the ark of the LORD.”
(verses 6-7) And he gives these instructions. Now, I don’t think that these instructions
would have survived a committee meeting, or a board meeting, or a
conglomeration of generals, commanders, majors, trying to figure out a war
strategy. So important Joshua comes and
says ‘I’ve heard from the LORD,’
well they had watched him now, as the
feet of the priests had touched the Jordan River, and that had stacked up and
they crossed on dry land, so most of them are thinking ‘Good then, he’s
heard from the LORD
again, because this is the strangest
battle-plan that we have ever heard.’
‘You do this, six days, seventh day you go around seven times,
blow the trumpets and everybody screams, the walls fall down.’ Look, there’s something very
important about this chapter that carries us into the next chapter, relative to
Jericho, relative to the Jericho’s in our own lives. You know, as you study through this, and you
read scholars, you hear them say ‘Well, what happened here was an
earthquake, I guess the same earthquake that dammed up the Jordan River is
rehappening now and it’s hitting a different place, and the walls of Jericho fell
was because of an earthquake.’ Or ‘it’s
the ram’s horn every day, it resonated with a certain frequency and started to
loosen the mortar between the stones, and the last day when it mixed with the
shout of the people and the ram’s horns, and then it just dissolved the mortar
and the walls fell down,’ or ‘it was the thunderous, you know, the
marching of the half a million Israelites around the city that created a
shockwave that little by little undergirded the city,’ you know, they want
to go to all of these natural explanations.
It tells us in Hebrews 11, “By faith, the walls of Jericho fell
down after they had compassed the city for seven days.” There’s no natural explanation,
because only one part of the wall with Rahab’s house on it stands up, when all
the rest of it falls down [explain that one with natural causes, you idiotic
“scholars”]. I’m thankful for Rahab,
because she’s gonna have a long talk with the “scholars” someday, in
glory. But there’s something about
Jericho, this is the first battle in the land.
The people have seen the walls of Jericho from the other side of Jordan,
they’ve seen the walls of Jericho since they’ve crossed miraculously, they’ve
seen the walls of Jericho as they were laid up after the circumcision and the
Passover. And now this would be the
first time that they’re gonna get a close look at the walls of Jericho, every
day they’re going to walk around. Most
scholars I’ve read estimated inside the walls of Jericho is about eight to nine
acres inside the walls of Jericho, you’re talking about 8 or 9 acres inside the
walls, double walls, that it would take somewhere between a half hour, 45
minutes for this procession to go around.
The people are quiet, the priests are blowing the trumpets, the people
are walking around the city, looking at the walls, no doubt the soldiers of
Jericho are looking over the walls, the people that are walking around the
walls might be thinking ‘Hey, they could break out of this gate any moment
and cut us right in half and flank us here.’
So every day they’re walking around looking at it, the seventh day
they’re going to go around it seven times, in total they’re going to be going
13 times around this city, and they’re going to know every stone, they’re going
to start to recognize Jericho-ites by the thirteenth time. They’re going to realize the
impossibility of the situation.
There’s something God has in this, this is the tithe of the land, this
is the firstfruits of the land, this belongs exclusively to him, and there are
Jericho’s in our lives, that mock at natural solutions. There are things that will come into our
lives at different times, and no amount of explanation, earthquakes and
frequency and all of that can explain the situation. There are things that come into our lives,
and the Lord directs them and will allow them, that he wants us when the
situation is over, to get to our knees and be filled with wonder, and to say ‘Lord,
there is no explanation for this situation, and this victory,
except for the fact that you love me and you’ve entered into my life.’ There are Jericho’s in our lives. We’re going to watch many other battles that
are very practical, with a sword in hand and so forth, and they’re engaged in
the battle. But there are those times
when there is something, God uses that as a landmark in our life, he uses that
as a memorial in our life, where something takes place and there is no amount
of natural ability, no amount of natural talent, or scholarship, or whatever
that could come to bear in the situation to bring about a change. And God sets them up in front of us
deliberately from time to time. And
that’s what we see as we look at this circumstance, we’re going to see he’s
going to say ‘Everything about this is going to be holy, you’re not going
to touch any of this, this all belongs to me.
I want this whole experience completely set aside in your minds, in your
hearts, in your history, as you talk to your children.’ So we have this description now about
what’s happening. As
They March Around The City And Those Double-Walls For Seven Days, They See The
Utter Impossibility Of Their Being Able To Conquer The City Verses
8-11 says, “And it came to pass, when
Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the priests bearing the seven trumpets
of rams’ horns passed on before the LORD,
and blew with the trumpets: and the ark
of the covenant of the LORD
followed them. And the armed men went
before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rereward came after the
ark, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets.”
they’re armed men, but they’re not gonna use their arms, “And Joshua had
commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your
voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I
bid you shout; then shall ye shout.” that’s a miracle in and of itself, for
people to be quiet for that many days [ask your children to do that, not
possible]. “So the ark of the LORD
compassed the city, going about it once:
and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp.”
looking at this long procession, we don’t know if it snakes around the city,
with people still leaving Gilgal as the end comes back. They went around once, “and they came into
the camp, and they lodged in the camp.” (verses 8-11) Once a day they do this, at the end of every
day they come back, and that pile of 12 stones is there, that memorial is
there, they’re reminded day in and day out of the supernatural passage that
they had to have to come into the land.
We don’t know if Joshua’s told them the whole story, or if he’s morning
by morning giving the mass of people their instructions, we’re not told
that. But in obedience, they go through
this process, strange process. Verses
12-16 says “And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took
up the ark of the LORD. And seven priests bearing seven trumpets of
rams’ horns before the ark of the LORD
went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; but the
rereward came after the ark of the LORD,
the priests going on, and blowing the trumpets. And the second day they compassed the city
once, and returned into the camp; so they did six days.” How familiar they’re becoming with the city
and walls of Jericho, and how strange it must have been for those in the city
of Jericho, watching this process. “And
it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of
the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city
seven times. And it came to pass at the
seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the
people, Shout; for the LORD
hath given you the city.” (verses 15-16) So again, imagine those inside the city, looks
like one more day, but wait, they’re doing something different, they go around
a second time, now they’re going around a third time, going around a fourth
time, fifth time, sixth time, seventh time, and all of a sudden when the
trumpets blow, all of these tens and tens of thousands of soldiers begin to
shout and cry out, and Joshua said to them, ‘You shout, for the LORD
has given you the city,’ “And the city
shall be accursed” now we’re going to see
this word a number of times. It’s translated,
some of your translations “under the ban,” “it is devoted,” is the idea, this
city, this experience, all of its contents, all of its residents are holy,
there’s something holy about this. This
is the work of God, it's the hand of God, ‘no spoil is to be taken out of
this city, because you had nothing to do with this.’ This is the first victory, it’s the greatest
victory, it’s the firstfruits of the land that belongs to the LORD,
and he’s setting the standard for every other battle that you’re going to
fight. So, very clearly, this is
important relative to the next chapter.
He says “And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that
are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all
that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we
sent. And ye,” King
James says “in any wise” the idea is ‘by all means’ “keep yourselves
from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take
of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.”
(verses 17-18) Warning. We’re going to see that in the next chapter,
with Achan. ‘Don’t touch the thing
that the LORD
has prohibited, do not touch the thing that is holy, do not touch the thing
that is devoted to him, lest, in touching it you’re infected, and you become
devoted then, you become under the ban.’ “lest
you make yourselves accursed, when ye take the accursed thing, and make
the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.” Jericho, so here is an important lesson. And the language indicates, “And all the
silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto
the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.”
(verse 19) they are literally holy, it’s the word
that is going to be used all through the Old Testament. “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.” (verse
20) King James says “flat,” under
itself, so that the people went up into the city. I always like a verse that talks about a
shout, a trumpet blast, people going up (cf. 1st Corinthians
15:49-54; 1st Thessalonians 4:16-17), just those things stand out to
me. And “the people went up into the
city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was
in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass,
with the edge of the sword.” (verse 21) Now
look, listen to the brevity of the description of the battle, two verses. The entire chapter is instructions, the
entire chapter is relative to obedience, ‘This is what I want you to do,
I don’t care how strange it sounds.’ So
many times in the church we hear somebody say ‘That’s not logical, if I do
it that way, this person’s gonna get over on me,’ and we know the Word of
God says ‘No, you do it this way.’
The entire chapter is, ‘Joshua, this is how I want you to
do it, this is what I want the children of Israel to do, Joshua, this is how I
want them to walk around, Joshua, this is what I want the priests to do, this
is how I want the trumpets to sound, this is how I want them to shout, ok, this
is what we’re going to do, we’re going to go around, the priests are going to
blow the trumpet, then we’re going to carry the ark, and we’re going to do that
for six days, and then after six days, on the seventh day we’re going to go
around seven times, blow the trumpets, everybody’s going to scream, the walls
are going to fall down, and then it says, so they went out…’ notice it
said over and over and over and over are the instructions, the things that
would never stand in a logical mind. The
brevity of the battle is shocking, God said in the beginning ‘I’ve given
you the city.’ The battle’s no
problem, the victory is no problem, ‘It’s mine, it’s in my hand, it’s
devoted, it’s holy, it’s something that’s already mine, you need to understand
that.’ And with all of this
instruction, it’s almost as if God’s saying ‘I have no problem with the
victory, that’s a done deal, what I have a problem with is just getting people
to listen to the simple instructions that I give them, even though I have to
repeat it over and over and over.’ And
he says ‘I want you to understand, when this whole thing goes down,
nothing in it belongs to you, you didn’t do anything, you walked around it, you
looked at it, then on the 7th day you finally shouted, and it all
falls down, and everything in it is mine, the only thing that’s spared is
Rahab, the harlot and her family.’ And
the brevity of the description, it contrasts God’s concern, because all of us
have Jericho’s in our lives, and they’re all defeated the same way, faith. Every one of us at one point or another has a
Jericho, and of course every one of us has that final Jericho, as it were, when
we’re alone if the Lord tarries, whether it be in a hospital or a deathbed, and
God says ‘I’m going to have the victory, it’s all mine, it’s paid for,
you can’t add to it, you can’t do anything but walk around it and look at it,
but when it goes down it’s all mine, all the glory is mine.’ And there are those times in our lives, those
junctures when those things happen here, it’s just interesting for me as I
look, this is all about instruction and obedience, the battle is two verses,
they went in, they did it, the walls fell down, they went in and utterly
destroyed everything God asked them to destroy, that’s it. I want this in a movie, I want to see these
walls, how high were the walls all piled up, were there archers inside, just,
there’s no description. That’s not the
issue here, at all. “But Joshua had
said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot’s
house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto
her. And the young men that were spies
went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her
brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred, and left
them without the camp of Israel.” (verses 22-23) No doubt, they had to go through a series
of cleansing before they ended up mingling amongst God’s people. “And they burnt the city with fire, and
all that was therein: only the
silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the
treasury of the house of the LORD. And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and
her father’s household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even
unto this day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out
Jericho.” (verses 24-25) “And Joshua
adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD,
that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation
thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the
gates of it.” very interesting to listen to
this. Just an interesting prophecy, we
have it given to us in 1st Kings in the days of Ahab,
Ahab made a grove, it tells us how vile Ahab was, and it says “And in his
days did Hiel the Bethlihite build Jericho, he laid the foundation thereof in
Abiram his firstborn, and he set up the gates thereof in his youngest son’
Segub, according to the word of the LORD
which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun.” So, this interesting prophecy here, that 500
years later comes to fruition, just the Spirit on Joshua, it’s a very strange
thing, he happens to mention ‘By the way, cursed is the man that does
this,’ and it happened. Now
look, in the days of Jesus Christ there was a more modern Jericho that was
rebuilt, Pilate had a palace there, the Herod’s had a palace there, most of the
Levites lived in that area, they loved that area. Ah, the ancient Jericho was never really
rebuilt as a fortress, the attempt was by this man, but just a prophecy that’s
placed there. And it ends by saying “So
the LORD
was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country.”
(verse 27) Now
that’s the secret to victory there. He
had said in chapter 1, “As I was with Moses, so I will be
with thee.” And it tells us “So
the LORD
was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country”
so the Canaanites are hearing. Joshua
7:1-26 “But
the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of
Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD
was kindled against the children of Israel. 2
And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai,
which is beside Bethaven, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto
them, saying, Go up and view the country.
And the men went up and viewed Ai. 3
And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up;
but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not
all the people to labour thither; for they are but few. 4
So there went up thither of the people
about three thousand men: and they fled
before the men of Ai. 5 And
the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the
gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted,
and became as water. 6 And
Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of
the LORD
until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.
7 And
Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD,
wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into
the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us?
would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of Jordan!
8
O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!
9 For
the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and
shall environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth: and what wilt thou do unto thy great name? 10
And the LORD
said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou upon thy face? 11
Israel hath sinned, and they have also
transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed
thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it
among their own stuff. 12 Therefore
the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their
backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except
ye destroy the accursed from among you. 13
Up, sanctify yourselves against to
morrow: for thus saith the LORD
God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O
Israel: thou canst not stand before
thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you. 14
In the morning therefore ye shall be brought
according to your tribes: and it shall
be, that tribe which the LORD
taketh shall come according to the families thereof: and the family which the LORD
shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD
shall take shall come man by man. 15
And it shall be, that he that is
taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that he
hath: because he hath transgressed the
covenant of the LORD,
and because he hath wrought folly in Israel. 16
So Joshua rose up early in the morning,
and brought Israel by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken: 17
and he brought the family of Judah; and
he took the family of the Zarhites: and
he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken: 18
and he brought his household man by man;
and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe
of Judah, was taken. 19 And
Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD
God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast
done; hide it not from me. 20
And Achan answered Joshua, and said,
Indeed I have sinned against the LORD
God of Israel, and thus have I done: 21
When I saw among the spoils a goodly
Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of
fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are
hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it. 22
So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran
unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under
it. 23 And
they took them out of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and
unto the children of Israel, and laid them out before the LORD.
24 And
Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver,
and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and
his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of
Achor. 25 And
Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD
shall trouble thee this day. And all
Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned
them with stones. 26 And
they raised over him a great heap of stones unto this day. So the LORD
turned from the fierceness of his anger.
Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto
this day.” Introduction: Nobody Sins To Themself But”
that’s a terrible way to start the next
sentence, the LORD
was with Joshua, the whole land is hearing about his victories, “But”
doesn’t sound right. The chapter before,
as we began to look at verse 6, verse 2 said “And the LORD
said unto Joshua,” giving him
instruction. The next chapter, chapter 8
begins by saying “And the LORD
said unto Joshua,” the chapter inbetween
begins by saying “But” so we have something here. And we’re going to have this failure of Achan
brought before us, this issue of sin in the camp. It is a contrast to the chapters that are
around it. It is the only military
defeat in the campaign of Canaan under Joshua.
There are 36 casualties, they are the only casualties of war in the
entire book of Joshua. And God puts them
before us here. “But” it says “the
children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan,” that’s why we looked at that
and read that, “for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of
Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD
was kindled against the children of Israel.” (verse 1) So there’s a trespass here. As we go through the Old Testament, we hear
different words, we hear “iniquity.”
Iniquity has its root in the idea of bending or twisting, and quite
often it refers to the problem with our nature.
There’s something in us that’s bent.
There’s something in us that’s twisted, that we’ve inherited from Adam, from
the Garden of Eden, the fall of man.
Trespass and transgression have a different sense to it, it’s almost
like somebody draws a line and says “don’t step over the line,” that’s
more trespass, you see “no trespassing” signs, “please don’t go beyond this
point,” and there’s a rebellion attached quite often to the idea of trespass or
transgression in the Scripture. There is
a rebellion, because someone’s stepping over a line that’s been very
prescribed, and there’s a trespass. The
issue of sin has different angles to it, when you hear the word, sometimes it
has the word of just being weary and worn out, certainly wicked, certainly
unclean, but all of those things are wearing sin, always makes a mess. And this is in regards to the trespass of
Achan. Achan means [in Hebrew]
troubler. Now who would name their kid
“troubler”? You might name your kid, you
know, Stan, and then at three change his name to Achan, I don’t know, but who
does that right from the get-go, naming their kid “Troubler”? This is in regards to this man, Achan, a
trespass, something that took place. It
gives his family, his grandfather, names his tribe, and it’s in regards to the
accursed thing, the thing that God said ‘This is mine, this does not
belong to anyone else.’ And the
anger of the LORD,
notice, is kindled against the children of Israel. And the picture we’re going to see is ‘Nobody
sins to themself.” No one sins
to themself, no one trespasses, nobody demonstrates or lives in rebellion and
its just relative to their own life, it effects your friends, it effects other
people, it effects your family, it infects all of that. It is impossible for anyone to sin just unto
themselves. We are told this in Corinthians,
that there should be no schism in the Body, that all members should have the
same care for one another, ‘Whether one member suffers, then all members
suffer with it. One member is honoured,
then all members rejoice with it, that we’re members of the Body of Christ in
particular.’ Paul tells us this in Ephesians, ‘Be
speaking the truth in love, that we might grow up in him in all things, which
is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole Body is fitly joined together and
impacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, that maketh increase of the Body unto the
edifying of itself in love.’ It
says every single part of the Body of Christ is necessary and important. In 1991 I went through this process where I
lost 26 pounds in three weeks, so one of the doctors from church got me in his
office and did all kinds of vile things to me, and in veils, and he tested me
for this and that, and a number of different kinds of cancer. So that’s always an interesting time to wait,
and think, ‘Lord I got four kids, and the church is growing, do I really, I
don’t need this right now Lord,’ just, you know you go through those, but
it’s a very interesting time for introspection and to change your perspective,
and reprioritize and all of that stuff.
But then they came back and decided I had graves’ disease, I had my
thyroid, it was reacting weird because my auto-immune system was attacking my
thyroid. And I said, ‘What’s a
thyroid?’ And they said ‘It’s
this thing in your neck, it’s shaped like a butterfly,’ and I said ‘There’s
this little thing in my neck that I’d rather not know about, makes my whole
body whacky,’ I was in atrial fib, my heart was doing drumrolls, I was
laying in bed at night, I was shaking the bed, bum, bum, bum, bumbump, and
it would stop, and my rate was around 145 beats a minute, just regular and
doing all this weird stuff, you know, how can this happen? And the guy got doctors, scientists
explaining how it’s over engineered, if it’s this disease we can take a little
part, little quarter inch, slip it under the skin in your arm, take your
thyroid out, and that little piece will run everything that needs to be run in
your body, this is remarkable stuff. I
hoped to avoid it all, but, so I’m thinking ‘This one little part of my body
is freaking out the entire rest of my body.’ And they decide ‘Well we’ll just fry this
with radiation.’ They said ‘It’s
no big deal, it’s the same amount of radiation you get if you fly 38,000 foot in
an airliner,’ I said, ‘ok’ So
they made me do this uptake scan, and then they bring me down and they fly this
radioactive drink in from Saint Louis overnight, and they take me in this room
in the University of Pennsylvania, and it’s like all of these people are in
there, and there’s a lead cannister on the table, in the middle of the
table. And this guy puts on gloves, all
the way up his arm, and he puts this space suit on, he goes in, and unscrews
it, everybody else runs out of the room.
[laughter] He unscrews this lead
thing, takes it off, and there’s a little glass test tube in the middle of it
with a clear liquid in it, and he puts a straw in it and tells me to drink
it. [loud laughter] I feel really stupid, everybody else just ran
out, I said ‘When I get served by a stewardess in an airplane they don’t
have those big gloves, what do you mean it’s like flying in an airplane?’ ‘Just
do this,’ you know, for the next three days you can’t hug your kids, you
have to eat with separate utensils, go to a separate bathroom. I said ‘You guys don’t tell me that when I
land, you guys are pulling something over on me here.’ And this part of your body loves iodine, so
it sucks it all up, but they had to kill this so my immune system would forget
about it and go do something else. There
wasn’t anything wrong with my thyroid, my immune systems was out of its mind
and just decided to attack that. I said ‘Well,
can’t you tell my immune system to leave it alone? What makes it do that?’ he said, ‘That’s the 64 million dollar
question, if we knew that…’ So
anyhow, one part of your body drastically effects the entire rest of the health
of your body, to the heart, to the mind, everything, one part of the body is so
essential. And we have this picture
here, look, that means we should all take ownership, we should all speak the
truth in love. There is no way in the
world for the pastor to know everything that goes on in the church, but you
know, every joint, every ligament supplies, you guys are attached, so take some
ownership, to challenge people if you see something going on. The
People Are Flushed With Victory, A Dangerous Place To Be Here
we have this interesting picture of this one man whose doing something, and it
says “and the anger of the LORD
was kindled against the children of Israel” plural. Now look at this, and verse 2 says “And
Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Bethaven, on the
east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the
country. And the men went up and viewed
Ai.” Now he doesn’t know about Achan at this point in time. We got a problem there. It doesn’t say Joshua prayed and sent men,
and it doesn’t say Joshua sent men from Gilgal to Ai. Joshua’s going right on from Jericho. ‘Well we whupped this city, we’re just
going to go whup the next city.’
He’s got a completely wrong idea.
Look, “Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside
Bethaven, on the east side of Bethel, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and
view the country.” I don’t think
it’s coincidental that Jericho means “a fragrant place,” Ai means “a heap of
ruins.” It tells us Ai is between
Bethaven and Jericho, “Bethaven” is “the house of vanity” and “Bethel” is “the
house of God,” and somewhere between “the house of vanity” and “the house of
God” there’s “a heap of ruins” instead of a fragrant plain, I don’t think any
of that is coincidental as we look at it.
These men go up then, not from Gilgal, they’re not praying, they go up
to the next city, “And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not
all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite
Ai; and make not all the people labour thither; for they are but
few.” (verse 3) ‘Eh, it’s a
little city, see what we did to Jericho.’
Now that’s a completely wrong concept, they didn’t do anything
to Jericho. They didn’t do anything to
Jericho. We’re never more in danger than
right after we experience some great victory, because we can get this
misconception, if we have some great victory in our Christian experience, that
then we are then empowered with some level of strength. Let me tell you something, if you experience
just some great joy in victory in the Lord, you need to understand, as soon as
that’s over, you’re just as dependent on him as you were the second before you
experienced that. He didn’t impart some
supernatural power to you, he did something, all of the glory belongs to him,
it’s not because you’re stronger, it’s because, it says ‘the L ORD
was with Joshua,’ they followed the
instruction, ‘walk around the city, walk around the city, walk around the
city, do this, do that,’ that’s what, the battle is only two verses,
it’s because they listened to him, that battle was his, signed, sealed and
delivered. So they’re a little bit
flushed with victory now. From
Victory To Defeat In One Easy Lesson, or You & I Are Always In The Battle
Of Secondary Causes They
say ‘Ya, don’t go back to Gilgal, we looked at Ai, just send two or three
thousand, we’ll wipe those Ai-ites out, whatever they are, we’ll take care of
those, you just let us go up.’ “So
there went up thither of the people about three thousand men: and they fled
before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai
smote of them about thirty and six men:
for they chased them from before the gate even unto
Shebarim, and smote them in the going down:
wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.” (verses
4-5) thirty six men, the only casualties in this book. Now the Israelites are saying ‘Oh no,
everybody in the land’s going hear, this little city came out and whupped us,
we’re goners now, what’s going to happen?’
“And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face
before the ark of the LORD
until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their
heads.” (verse 6) Now he prays, until this point God has been
speaking to him. One thing Joshua’s
going to learn is this, look, all of the victories in this book are secondary. His initial victory is hearing from the LORD,
once he hears from the LORD,
the secondary victory is assured. All of
his defeats, we see the problems, are secondary, it’s because he failed in some
way before that. You and I always
are in the battle of secondary causes.
If something terrible or difficult happens in our life, we want to blame
somebody else if we can, we want it to be somebody else’s fault. It’s very hard for us to sit back and say ‘Lord,
you’re allowing this in my life,’ to remove all secondary causes and say ‘Lord,
you’re sovereign, nothing can come into my life unless you allow it to
happen.’ It can be very, very
difficult. ‘Joshua then, he tore
his clothes, he fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD
until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, they put dust upon their
heads,’ “And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD,
wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into
the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and
dwelt on the other side Jordan!” (verse 7)
He sounds a little bit like the children
of Israel, doesn’t he. “O Lord, what
shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of
the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us round, and cut off our
name from the earth: and what wilt thou
do unto thy great name?” (verses 8-9) ‘You’re
reputation’s at stake here, God.’ and you can almost hear, no doubt
there’s great desperation here, ‘Oh God, what are you doing? You should have left us on the other side of
Jordan! We can’t believe this is
happening to us,’ they’re throwing dirt on their heads, ‘O Lord,’
all day long, ‘why did you let this happen?’ And in verse 10, “And the LORD
said unto Joshua, Get thee up; wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face?” ‘Joshua,
get up! What are you doing laying on
your face?’ I don’t think God spoke King James either, and
say ‘Get thee up,’ [laughter] He
said ‘Get up! What are you doing laying around on your face? Joshua, there’s a time to pray, and there’s a
time to act, Get up!’ “Israel hath
sinned,” ‘there’s something you need to deal with,’ “and they have also
transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed
thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and have put it even
among their own stuff.” (verse 11) ‘There’s
sin in the camp, Joshua.’ “Therefore
the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their
backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except
ye destroy the accursed from among you.” (verses 12) God can’t bless rebellion, he can’t bless
sin, his presence wasn’t with them, he said there was sin in the camp, he could
not endorse it. No
One Sins To Himself, It Infects The Whole Camp “Up,
sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD
God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O
Israel: thou canst not stand before
thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.” (verse
13) God
can’t bless sin, no one sins to himself, it’s infecting the camp. “In the morning therefore ye shall be
brought according to your tribes: and it
shall be, that the tribe which the LORD
taketh shall come according to the families thereof: and the family which the LORD
shall take shall come by households; and the household which the LORD
shall take shall come man by man.” (verse 14) the
LORD’s going to stop at one
point, say ‘this is the tribe,’ and then all of the families of
that tribe are going to come. Now we had
seen that he’s probably using the Urim and the Thummim here with the priests,
however he’s divinely guiding here, “and the household which the LORD
shall take shall come man by man.” God is going to bring it to light, tribe by
tribe, family by family, household by household, man by man, God bringing it to
light. “And it shall be, that he
that is taken with the accursed thing shall be burnt with fire, he and all that
he hath: because he hath transgressed
the covenant of the LORD,
and because he hath wrought folly in Israel.
So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their
tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken: and he brought the family of Judah; and he
took the family of the Zarhites: and he
brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken: and he brought his household man by man; and
Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of
Juda was taken.” (verses 15-18) no hiding of
sin, God knows our tribe, our family, our Pa, our Grandpa, our name, our tent,
where it's buried, there’s no hiding it.
And because, we have these warnings, God gives us this warning, in the
middle of the victories of Canaan, here’s a failure, and here’s how it can
happen. And God, I think betraying human
nature to us, that when it happens, we try to hide it. Because we’re more concerned about what
people think than what God thinks. We
get ourselves into a sinful situation, and we want to hide it and bury it,
because we’re more concerned about what people think, I’m like that, we’re all
like that. We’re more concerned about
what people are going to think than what God thinks. And all of this is brought into the
open. I mean, God, he puts Cain and Abel
in front of us, there’s a lesson. He
puts in front of us Nadab and Abihu, there was something wrong with the way
they came before the LORD. He puts Ananias and Sapphira in front of us,
there’s something to learn in the way they came before the Lord. [This was the beginning of God’s holy nation
starting out in Canaan, and Achan coveted and stole from God, and Ananias and
Sapphira were at the beginning of God’s holy Church, and they had coveted money
and lied about how much they were giving, a tremendous similarity between these
two incidents and how God handled it.
Also the example of Nadab and Abihu was at the beginning of the startup
of God’s holy Aaronic, Levitical priesthood.
Often a nation or priesthood or ministry will go on and corruption and
corrupt individuals will come into it, and there is no apparent punishment from
God coming on those individuals. Don’t
be fooled, God will catch up with them in due time. A person will always reap what they sow,
either now or later.] And he puts Achan
here in front of us, Achan had never hidden anything, he thought he had, he was
only running out of room. God had told
the nation of Israel back in Numbers, chapter 32, “Be sure
your sin will find you out” and God hasn’t changed, that’s still his
policy. We read it, we gloss over it, we
pass over it, we get involved in sin, and somehow, when it starts to come into
the light, we’re shocked, when God had told us, ‘Be sure your sin will
find you out, be sure.’ Achan’s
Confession--Confession, What Is That For You & Me? Achan
was taken, sounds like a bumper sticker, it’s a great reminder, Achan was
taken. “And Joshua said unto Achan,
My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD
God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast
done; hide it not from me.” (verse 19)
and our Joshua is more tender with us
than even that, even in our rebellion, “My son, give I pray thee, glory to
the LORD
God of Israel,” ‘Achan, the LORD’s
bringing this out, glorify him, make confession unto him,’ and
how wonderful for us that John says, if we, under the new covenant, confess our
sins, we don’t have to be burned and stoned to death, if we confess our
sins. Look, that’s the very important
thing there. If you sin, it doesn’t say
I’m sorry, if you sin against another Christian, please don’t say to them “I’m
sorry,” you say “Forgive me,” that’s a vastly different thing,
because you’re owning your sin. If you
have to say it to another, a brother or sister, I’ve said it to my children,
and to my wife “forgive me” not ‘I’m sorry.’ If we confess, homo-lagao, means
to say the same thing, if we confess our sins to God, the only way he accepts a
confession, if we say about ourselves what he does in his Word, ‘Lord, I’m
not just sorry, this is, I’ve sinned Lord.
Your Word tells me this is wrong, I got caught up in it, I’ve been
trying to hide it, I know that it’s wrong, Lord it’s wrong.’ That’s confession, homo-lagao, to
say the same thing, ‘This is sin, Lord it’s wrong.’ If we confess our sins, listen, he’s
faithful, we don’t have to worry about whether he’s going to do it or not [i.e.
forgive us]. He’s faithful, and the
reason he can be faithful is because he’s also just, he’s faithful and just to
forgive us. He’s just to forgive us
because Jesus carried all of our sin on the cross. No one’s ever loved us that way. We stumble at that. You know, it’s very interesting, I think
sometimes when there’s sin, the sinner struggles with the grace of God, wanting
to receive it, but finding it so hard to believe, particularly if they’ve
sinned against light and they knew better, that it’s really as real as God says
it is, we’re growing in grace. When our
hearts are genuinely broken and our confession is real, his forgiveness is
completely real, his Word never changes.
The other side is, you know it’s funny I think sometimes when we’re the
person that’s sinned against, we’re almost offended at his grace, if we’re
willing to embrace a Biblical perspective of how powerful and thorough it
really is. And here, you know, Joshua,
Achan in front of the whole nation of Israel, and he says “My son,” there
is a brokenness and a tenderness, “give I pray thee, glory to the LORD
God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast
done; hide it not from me.” (verse 19) For you and I, if we confess our sins, he’s
faithful, he’s just to forgive us, and then to cleanse us, to catheterize us,
to take the poison of sin out of us, from all unrighteousness, to cleanse us,
there’s a process. “and tell me now
what thou hast done” bring it into the light, “hide it not from
me.” Listen, David had said this, he
says “When I kept silence,” speaking of his sin, “my bones
waxed old, through my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was
heavy upon me, my moisture was turned into drought of summer, sela.” David said, you know, ‘When I had secret
sin, and that was a whole year before the LORD
sent Nathan to him, and he had adultery and murder on his conscience, and he
describes that year as being torture, he said there was something that was
going on that was so powerful, and so heavy upon me, that I could barely stand up under it, when I kept silence, my bones
waxed old, through my roaring, there was a roaring all the day long, for day
and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture was turned into the drought
of summer, I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid, I
said I will confess my transgression unto the LORD,
and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ He says don’t
hide it here, he says, don’t hide it from me, bring it out into the open. “And Achan answered Joshua, and said,
Indeed I have sinned against the LORD
God of Israel, and thus have I done:” (verse 20) listen
to what he says here, please, the warning for all of us, he says this, “When
I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of
silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and
took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my
tent, and the silver under it.” (verse 21)
Look, that’s always the process.
I saw, I coveted, I took. He
didn’t just take the Babylonian garment and silver and gold, he took the lives
of 36 soldiers also. His sin effected
and inflected others, it was a trespass, it wasn’t just he made a mistake or
sinned or he did something inadvertently, lost his temper in a confrontation,
he thought this out. They were strictly
told ‘This victory of Jericho is holy, it is strictly the LORD’s,
no human hand is to touch it or take the glory.’ Look,
the soldiers were doing the same thing spiritually that Achan did physically,
they were taking the glory, saying ‘Hey, we’ll go up to Ai, we’ll whup that
city by ourselves,’ they were touching something they shouldn’t have
touched either, in their hearts. But
this man had deliberately transgressed the commandment of the LORD,
he said ‘I saw,’ and then he said ‘I coveted,’ Paul
tells us in Romans 7:7, when he read “thou shalt not covet” that’s when the Law
slew him, and then Achan says ‘and then I took them.’ Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, private
life. “So Joshua sent messengers, and
they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the
silver under it. And they took them out
of the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the
children of Israel, and laid them out before the LORD.”
(verses 22-23) notice this, well that’s where they
had always been, they had always been laid out before the LORD. They’re laying them out in the sense that
they’re his, they’re presenting them, but God knew where they were, he had told
them, ‘There’s a man, I know his tribe, I know his family, I know his
household, I know the man’s name, I know what he has hidden, and things are not
going to move forward because there’s sin in the camp, until this is
straightened out.’ And they come
and lay it before the LORD,
he had always known that. David, in a
sense, said “Before thee, and thee only have I sinned and done this great
evil in thy sight.” When David
said ‘LORD,
you were watching the whole time, nothing was hidden from you.’ “And
Joshua and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver,
and the garment, and the wedge of gold,” notice
this “and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his
sheep, and his tent, and all that he had:
and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us?
the LORD
shall trouble thee this day. And all
Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned
them with stones. And they raised over
him a great heap of stones unto this day.
So the LORD
turned from the fierceness of his anger.
Wherefore the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto
this day.” (verses 24-26) Listen, a lesson here for us. It isn’t that another Christian does something
or sins, we take them out, we stone them with stones, pour gas on ‘em and burn
‘em up. I know you know somebody you’d
like to do that to, you do not have permission to do that. We are in the New Testament now. [But prophetically speaking, after we
lovingly give the Gospel to those on the outside, and they reject it and us,
and persecute us, even killing some of us, God will bring on a powerful
judgment of sorts on them, as they will go into the Tribulation, World War III,
just prior to Jesus Christ’s 2nd coming. Lesson, nobody gets away with anything
with God. Sodom and Gomorrah
were judged, they died in white hot flames.
As to what happens to the “unsaved dead,” various parts of the Body of
Christ have differing beliefs, for some of those, see: https://unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm] We have a better Joshua [yes, Yeshua
haMeschiach, his Hebrew name], and our Joshua says ‘Take me, and stone me
in his place, and let the fire of God’s wrath fall upon me instead of upon
him.’ “Herein is the love of God,
not that we loved him, but he first loved us, and he sent his Son to be the
propitiation, the place where wrath is satisfied, the propitiation for
our sins.” Interesting, we are told
in Isaiah “Thus saith the LORD,
as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith destroy it not, for a
blessing is in it, so will I do for my servants sake, that I may not destroy
them all. I will bring forth a seed out
of Jacob and out of Judah, an inheritor of my mountains, and mine elect shall
inherit it and my servants shall dwell there.
And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place
for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.” The Valley of Achor, the valley of trouble
shall be a place of blessing and of rest.
Isaiah says this “Therefore behold, I will allure
her” God speaking of his ancient people and his adulterous wife Israel,
he says “Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the
wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give her her vineyards
from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope.” God says ‘I will give the
valley of Achor for a door of hope,’ no doubt that was through the
Messiah, and you and I have experienced that in a remarkable, remarkable
way. [And of course, Isaiah is
prophecying of the future, after the return of Jesus Christ to this earth,
about all those surviving who make up the entire 12 tribes of Israel, not just
the Jews, which are composed of the tribe of Judah, and some of the tribe of
Levi—it is those, all 12 tribes, who will be regathered into the Promised Land
of Israel, the former land of Canaan, in the Middle East.] The lesson, you know, that’s just some of
this that belongs to him, we have no entitlement to it, we have no right to
it. I get frustrated when I see
Christians who become territorial, they think something is theirs, they forget
it’s all blood bought. We have no
entitlements, there’s no entitlements here.
The Father’s the one who paid the price, it all belongs to him. And once in a while he puts a Jericho in
front of us, and we want to do it with the natural mind, ‘Well, it’s from
vibrations, it’s from everybody marching, it’s an earthquake, it’s the
resonance of the when they used the rams horns instead of the silver trumpets,
because the resonance of the rams’ horns dissolves the particles between the
stones,’ ‘no, no, no, understand, this is holy. This is going to go down, this is a done
deal, I’ve promised you, there’s no problem here. But you’re gonna do this my way, you’re gonna
do this my way. So let me go over the
instructions again, and I want to go over the instructions again, and I want to
go over the instructions again, the victory is going to be in two verses, don’t
worry about that. This is what we have
to worry about with you, walk around it, blow the trumpets, come home, come
back, be quiet, don’t say nothing, keep quiet, go out, walk around it, blow the
trumpets, do this, carry this, come back, now don’t you say anything, keep your
mouth closed. Go out, walk around it,
come back, six days. Now the seventh
day, go out, walk around it, see the impossibility of it, recognize you have
not a tool, you don’t even have a box, let alone a tool in your box relative to
this situation. But I promised you, I
promised you, I’ve declared it, I’ve given it to you, so you do this my way,
when I say you lift your hands, you lift your voices, you shout, you step into
the victory, and it will fall in front of you.
But don’t you touch any of it, that you need to take some of it, that you deserve any of it, none of the
spoils of this belong to you, it’s holy, it’s set aside, it’s devoted to
me. It’s gotta be a place in your life,
that whenever you look at it, whenever the people around you look at it, when
your enemies look at it, everybody is completely aware it is my hand in your
life. And I’ve given you certain things,
they’re mine, nobody should be touching them, nobody should mess with them,
they’re forbidden, you don’t step across this line, you don’t involve yourself
with this, it’s sin. If you do that, it
effects everybody else, it prohibits victory, it causes problems, it sends the
wrong message, it keeps the body from having the immune systems where every
joint, every ligament supplies, it’s like a whacked out thyroid gland, and if
you are a thyroid gland and you don’t behave I’m going to incinerate you with a
nuclear cocktail.’ I’m just
making an example here. And this sin in
the camp, I would just encourage you, I need you to finish well. I need you to do that. I need you to walk with the Lord. I need you wherever you are to stand up, I
need this to be a healthy body, because I come here and I’m nourished by the
health of this body. I need you to do
that. I look at the six hundred kids in
our elementary school, they need you to do it just the way God says to do it,
just the way he says to do it. I have
grandkids here now. And I’m not sure of
the world they’re going to grow up in, militarily, politically,
economically. But I want to be sure of
the world they’re going to grow up in spiritually. And you are a part of that, and I want you to
do it just the way he says to do it.
It’s just the simplest, best most profound way to do it, ‘not by
might, not by power, but by my Spirit saith the LORD
of hosts.’ Not by human ingenuity. When we come to our Jericho’s, on our knees,
pouring out our hearts, watching something happen in front of us that no one
but the Lord can ever do. And look, when
we get to heaven [rising up for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, cf. 1st
Corinthians 15:49-54; Revelation 19:7-10, before our return back to earth, cf.
Revelation 19:11-21; Zechariah 14:1-15], we already know this, all the glory is
his, everything is his. It says we’ll be
casting our crowns to him, nobody is going to have another agenda there,
everything thrown down in front of him. Good
practice to do it now, amen? Amen, let’s
have the musicians come, we’ll pray, let’s stand but bow in our hearts…[transcript
of connective expository sermons on Joshua 6:6-27 and Joshua 7:1-26, given by
Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19116] related
link: audio
version https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?Teaching=WED618 |