You again, and a few new folks are
here tonight, and I appreciate your coming.
Abraham kept going because he saw the city
of God, and we learned that heaven is
not just a destination, heaven is a motivation.
Keep your eyes on glory.
Nehemiah kept going because he saw the greatness
of God, the great and awesome God, and
God is a great God, and idolatry brings
God down to our size, and that's no
God at all.
Tonight we want to look at Joshua, so
turn to Joshua chapter 1, and we're going
to find out what kept Joshua going.
As Dr. V.
Raymond Edmond used to say, it's always too
soon to quit, always too soon to quit.
I think it would have been difficult to
be Joshua.
Twice in my ministry, it stands now about
45 years, 46 years, twice in my ministry
I've had to follow men who were legends
in their own time.
One was D.B. Eastep, you may not
have heard of him, but he'd been at
this church for 35 years, built a great
church, and he invited me to come to
be his associate, and we looked forward to
many years together where we could preach and
share, and he was getting older, he had
a heart attack, but he'd apparently gotten over
it, and he'd go out in conference ministry,
and I'd preach at home, and I'd go
out, and he'd preach at home, and it
was really too ideal.
And after about six months of that, the
Lord called him home.
But to follow a man who'd been there
for 35 years, his fingerprints were on every
doorknob, and it wasn't easy.
And then back to the Bible, I followed
a man who'd founded the work and been
there for 45 years, and it wasn't easy.
And here's Joshua following a great man like
Moses, who opened the Red Sea, who brought
down manna from heaven.
That wouldn't be an easy job.
Here's a brand new generation, the old generation
had died off.
That Kadesh Barnea, God said, OK, you don't
believe me?
You're afraid you're going to die?
That's what you'll do.
You'll die.
And I'm going to start with everybody who's
20 and younger, and build myself a new
nation.
And so they had the world's longest funeral
march, and out of that whole crowd
of the older people, only two survived, Joshua
and Caleb.
And at least once a week, Joshua and
Caleb would meet for coffee, and Joshua would
say, how many did you bury last week?
Caleb would say, hey, the best is yet
to come.
We're going to enter the promised land.
Hallelujah.
So here's Joshua taking over the nation, a
new generation.
And I'm wondering what it was that carried
him through.
And he tells us, I'm always glad when
people tell us things.
Look at Joshua.
Keep your place in Joshua 1, but just
turn back to chapter 21 of Joshua, verse
43.
So the Lord gave to Israel all the
land which he had sworn to give to
their fathers, and they took possession of it
and dwelt in it.
The Lord gave them rest all around, according
to all that he had sworn to their
fathers, and not a man of all their
enemies stood against them.
The Lord delivered all their enemies into their
hand.
Now here's the great word.
Not a word failed of any good thing
which the Lord had spoken to the house
of Israel, all came to pass.
Now just turn the page to chapter 23,
when Joshua gives his farewell address.
There are a number of farewell addresses in
the Bible that you'd do well to study.
One is Joshua.
He's going to die.
Another is Moses.
In fact, the whole book of Deuteronomy, I
suppose, could be considered his farewell address.
David gave a farewell address.
Our Lord Jesus in the upper room gave
a farewell address.
Paul gave a farewell address in Acts chapter
20.
Someday you may give a farewell address, and
it may be sooner than we think.
People are dying that never died before.
I once asked my friend Howard Sugden, who's
now in glory.
He lived in Michigan all of his ministry,
except for a few years in Canada.
I said, Howard, what's the death rate in
Michigan?
He said, one apiece.
Joshua 23, verse 14.
Behold, this day I am going the way
of all the earth, and you know in
all your hearts and in all your souls
that not one thing has failed of all
the good things which the Lord your God
spoke concerning you.
All have come to pass for you.
Not one word of them has failed.
You know what kept Joshua going?
The promises of God.
If like Abraham I keep my eyes lifted
to the city of God, and if like
Nehemiah I let my heart be caught up
in the greatness of God, and if like
Joshua I can live on the promises of
God, I'll make it by the grace of
God.
Have you come to the place in your
Christian walk where you've discovered that we do
not live on explanations?
We live on promises.
When I was a young pastor, people would
come and say, well, why did this happen?
And I knew.
I knew.
I had an explanation for everything.
Then I found out I was wrong most
of the time.
And I don't explain anymore.
People come up and say, well, why did
God do this?
I say, I don't know.
You don't.
I don't know.
He hasn't told me.
In any way, I don't live on explanations.
I live on promises.
Some years ago, our older son, who's a
pastor now, decided to be heroic when he
was an assistant director of a camp.
And they were playing baseball, and he decided
to slide into home plate and be very
dramatic.
But home plate happened to be a hunk
of concrete.
Well, that's the way, you know, you had
a low-budget camp, those things.
And in being heroic and sliding into home
plate, David broke his leg.
So he took him to the hospital and
x-rayed it, and of course, they set
it and put a cast on it and
everything.
Now, imagine the doctor comes in with a
fistful of x-rays.
He says, young man, I want to explain
to you how your leg was broken.
That makes you feel so good.
I remember when I had my gallbladder out,
doctor came in and had this container.
He said, you want to see what I
took out of you?
I said, no.
It doesn't make you feel any better.
So the doctor hangs up these x-rays,
and he shows how the neck bone is
connected to the shoulder bone, and the shoulder
bone is connected to the whatever, and they're
all connected to the wallet.
And my son is lying there in pain.
Now, explanations don't make you feel any better.
If you did know, what difference does it
make?
The doctor was too smart.
He walks in and says, well, son, I'm
sorry this happened, but I want to tell
you something.
In eight weeks, you're going to be walking
again.
That I can live on.
We don't live on explanations.
We live on promise.
Chapter one of the book of Joshua, the
Holy Spirit of God talks to us about
five dangers in Christian ministry that are
overcome if you live on promises.
Joshua chapter one.
After the death of Moses, the servant of
the Lord, it came to pass that the
Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun,
Moses' assistant.
That's interesting.
Joshua got his start carrying Moses' luggage.
He got his start setting up Moses' tent.
He was Moses' assistant.
So often in scripture, we find the pattern,
well done, good and faithful servant.
You've been faithful over a few things.
I'll make you ruler over many things.
David got his start taking care of some
sheep.
He was faithful.
God promoted him.
Joseph got his start taking care of some
sheep and taking care of some prisoners.
And then God promoted him.
That's the way God does things.
He tries us out as servants over a
few things.
And if he finds we're faithful, then he
can move us to being rulers over many
things.
And God said to him, Moses, my servant,
is dead.
Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you
and all this people, to the land which
I am giving to them, the children of
Israel.
Now, the first danger that has to be
overcome in ministry is the danger of looking
back.
For 40 years, Moses had been their leader.
Joshua is now taking over.
Moses is dead.
Moses is a great man.
The people mourn the loss of Moses.
Moses is mentioned six times in these first
nine verses.
Moses is mentioned 57 times in the book
of Joshua.
And God said to Joshua, don't look back.
Wesley said God buries his workmen and his
work goes on.
Now, we don't think that.
We sometimes have the idea that unless so
-and-so is in charge, nothing is going
to happen right.
I have lived long enough to see many
people come on the scene and leave the
scene.
And guess what?
The church goes on.
Church goes on.
The danger of looking back.
Now, this doesn't mean they ignored the past.
As I said, Moses is mentioned 57 times
in this book.
So, they didn't ignore the past.
When I became general director of Back to
the Bible, I didn't obliterate the name of
Theodore F., the great founder of that work.
No, no.
We learned from him.
But my job was not to embalm the
past.
The past is important.
Those who do not know the past are
condemned to repeat it.
Said George Santayana.
That's true.
Some of the younger folks need to catch
up on the past.
I wrote a couple of books about the
giants of the past, walking with the giants
and listening to the giants and giant steps
and how they're combined in living with the
giants.
For the simple reason I discovered that many
of my young preacher friends didn't know who
Alexander McLaren was or what he had done.
They'd never heard of Samuel Rutherford.
And these are the giants.
And we are pygmies standing on the shoulders
of these giants.
Well, Moses was a giant.
And God said, don't forget Moses.
Moses is important.
But folks, the past is not an anchor
to hold us back.
It's a rudder to guide us.
And he didn't tell Joshua to embalm the
past.
He didn't tell Joshua so to memorialize the
past that there was no future.
No, no.
He said, now Moses did his job and
Moses is dead.
Don't look back.
The great danger that the Jews had, of
course, was looking back.
Whenever they got in hot water, they looked
back.
We talked about that this morning.
Back to Egypt.
And that's always a danger.
Now, there's a second danger here.
Because God had given Joshua his promises, and
of course, you well know that passage where
he says in verse 7, be strong, very
courageous that you may observe to do all
according to all the law which Moses, my
servant, commanded you.
Verse 8, this book of the law shall
not depart from your mouth.
He says, now Joshua, you're going to live
on the word of God, the promises of
God.
That will keep you from looking back.
There's a land up here, and that's what
I'm going to give you.
Which leads us to verse 4, 3 and
4.
Every place that the sole of your foot
will tread upon I have given you, as
I said to Moses.
From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far
as the great river, the river Euphrates, all
the land of the Hittites.
And to the great sea, toward the going
down of the sun shall be your territory.
Here's the second danger.
The danger of standing still.
Standing still.
We sing the song Standing on the Promises.
Vance Havner used to say most of the
people who sing Standing on the Promises are
only sitting on the premises.
There's some truth to that.
But you don't just stand on the promises.
You know what you do?
You walk out by faith, believing those promises.
True faith in the promises of God leads
to motion.
And God admonished Joshua, there's a land out
here.
I have promised to give you this land.
I will give you this land.
Here's my promise.
Now get moving.
Now he said the same thing to Abraham.
Back when Abraham and Lot had their difference
and their separation.
And after Lot moved off towards Sodom, there
stands Abraham.
And God shows up and says, Abraham, lift
up your eyes.
I want you to look east and west
and north and south.
You see all this land?
Now Lot's gone over here.
He's moved into Sodom.
Lot has boundaries.
Lot's life is now bounded by the limits
of Sodom.
But I want you to lift up your
eyes.
I'm not going to give you boundaries.
I'm going to give you horizons.
And all of this is yours.
Now, don't just lift up your eyes and
look.
Lift up your feet and walk.
For every place where the sole of your
foot touches, it's yours.
That's what God said to Abraham.
That's what God said to Joshua and to
Israel.
Every place that the sole of your foot
will tread upon, I have given you.
We call that stepping out by faith.
Now, I suppose anybody can step out by
faith on solid ground.
Peter dared to step out by faith on
water.
You say he began to sink.
That's all right.
He knew he was sinking.
I know some people who are drowning and
don't know it.
At least he knew when he was sinking,
and he knew that when he was sinking,
he could cry out to Jesus, and Jesus
would save him.
But I want to remind you, the other
eleven men did not walk on the water.
Peter did.
And not only that, when Jesus caught him,
Jesus and Peter, arm in arm, just walked
on the water back to the boat.
I'm convinced that Peter began to sink, not
only because he looked around and saw the
wind and the waves, got his eyes off
of Jesus, but those eleven men back there
in the boat were watching.
And Peter's doing pretty good until Thomas hollers
out, Look out, here comes a big one!
The danger of standing still.
Because if we stand still, we sink.
If we stand still, we go backward.
And the work of the Lord cannot stand
still.
It's unfortunate that some of our churches, and
that's not true here, but some of our
churches are just content to be religious clubs.
Standing still.
Oh, we've got a building, we have a
staff, we love each other and enjoy each
other.
Don't let too many outsiders come in, you
know.
We sort of have an exclusive meeting going
on here.
Dr. Ironside used to tell about a religious
group, I won't name the denomination, that met
in an upstairs hall, and they had a
sign outside that said, Jesus only.
That's a good sign.
Jesus only.
And the wind blew some of the letters
away and it read, Us only.
That's the way some people are.
The danger of standing still.
We have to reach forward and move ahead.
And how do you do that?
You claim the promises of God.
You see, promises are for today, not yesterday.
You can't claim promises yesterday.
You can claim yesterday's promises today for tomorrow.
So when you live by the promises of
God, you have to live for the future.
There's a third danger we have to watch
out for.
The danger of looking back, and the danger
of standing still, and the danger of giving
up.
He had a tough job ahead of him.
There were 31 kings in Canaan waiting for
him to come.
His first challenge was Jericho, with its tall
walls and its gates.
He had a tough job ahead of him.
I have yet to see anybody who has
an easy task who's serving God.
The Bible says, Quit you like man, be
strong.
In other words, act the man.
Act the woman.
No man shall be able to stand before
you all the days of your life.
What a promise!
No man shall be able to stand before
you all the days of your life, as
I was with Moses, so I will be
with you.
I will not leave you nor forsake you.
What a promise!
By the way, that's the same promise God
gave to Isaac in Genesis 26.
He said, I will not leave you.
Same promise He gave to Jacob three times.
When Jacob left home, God met him at
Bethel, and God said, I'm not going to
leave you until I accomplish what I want
to accomplish.
That encourages me.
That's the Old Testament version of Philippians 1
-6.
Genesis 28-15.
And then He repeated it in Genesis 31.
And then He repeated it again in Genesis
46.
I am not going to leave you.
I am not going to forsake you.
He gave it to Moses, what He called
Moses.
And you remember how Moses argued with God.
You've never done that, but Moses argued with
God.
He said, I can't speak, and I can't
do this, and I can't do that, and
I can't do something else.
Here am I, Lord, send Aaron.
But God gave it to Moses.
God repeated it through Moses to Israel.
Deuteronomy 31.
He will not leave you.
He will not forsake you until He's accomplished
what He promised.
You're in Joshua 1.
Just turn back a page or two to
Deuteronomy 31.
Moses in chapter 31 verse 6 says to
the Jewish nation, Be strong and of good
courage.
Do not fear, nor be afraid of them.
For the Lord your God, He is the
one who goes with you.
He will not leave you nor forsake you.
Then He turned to Joshua, His successor.
It's rather interesting.
Moses laid hands on Joshua to be his
successor.
Joshua didn't lay hands on anybody to be
his successor.
God doesn't always repeat everything the same way.
Then Moses called Joshua and said to him
in the sight of all Israel, Be strong
and of good courage.
For you must go with this people to
the land which the Lord has sworn to
their fathers to give them, and you shall
cause them to inherit it.
And the Lord, He is the one who
goes before you.
He will be with you.
He will not leave you nor forsake you.
Do not fear, nor be dismayed.
And so God gave it to Isaac, and
God gave it to Jacob, and God gave
it to Moses, and God gave it to
Israel, and God gave it to Joshua, and
God gave it to us.
You know that.
Hebrews chapter 13.
Better look at it.
Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5, Let your conduct
be without covetousness.
Be content with such things as you have.
For He Himself has said, I will never
leave you nor forsake you.
So we may boldly say, The Lord is
my helper.
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
When you live by the promises of God,
you overcome the danger of looking back, and
the danger of standing still, and the danger
of giving up.
It's always too soon to quit.
Well, we must move on.
Back to Joshua chapter 1, verse 6.
Be strong and of good courage, for to
this people you shall divide as an inheritance
the land which I swore to the fathers
to give them.
There's a danger of falling short.
Now, let me explain what I mean by
that.
There are, in the Old Testament, only three
geographic positions.
All kinds of geography.
I'm not great on geography.
I know two directions, up and down.
My wife is the navigator in our family,
and she just has it all worked out.
You're built in radar.
It's amazing.
But in Scripture, you're going to find only
three geographical locations spiritually.
And there's a whole book written about it,
the book of Hebrews.
The first geographic location is Egypt.
Egypt is a picture of the world system
keeping people in bondage.
It always amazed me when the Jewish people
said, we want to go back to Egypt
where we had all that free stuff.
Free.
They worked.
I mean, a Jewish man would invest his
whole life moving a stone to build some
building.
Bondage.
So, Egypt represents bondage.
And they were delivered from Egypt by the
blood of the Lamb.
Now, I was once in bondage to the
world and the flesh and the devil.
And when I trusted Jesus, He delivered me
from Egypt, delivered me from bondage because He
died for me.
Now, His plan was to let me claim
my inheritance.
That's Canaan.
The songwriters, some of the songwriters and poets
have used Canaan as a picture of heaven,
but Canaan is not a picture of heaven.
Some of the old hymns say we're going
to cross the Jordan and go into Canaan
land, and I'm bound for the promised land
and so forth.
Many of the spirituals are written that way,
but that's not biblical.
That's not biblical.
Canaan represents your inheritance in Jesus for you
to claim.
And those of us who are in right
now, and I didn't have it, but right
now, those of us who are in places
of leadership, like Joshua, our responsibility is to
help our people find their inheritance, stake their
claim, and enjoy it.
The pastor watches people and prays about people.
Elders watch people and pray about people, and
someone says, you know, I think that Joe
has a gift of mercy.
I've been watching him.
He has a heart for people, and I
think we could put him in charge of
searching out and finding folks who need help.
That's his gift.
That's Canaan.
It would be an awful thing to make
him treasurer and then discovery can't count.
Or instrumentalists.
You know, many churches have, you have synthesizers
and they have pianos, you know, and somehow
people get to these instruments, not here, but
in other places, people get to these instruments
and have a rough time.
They play very biblically.
Their right hand doesn't know what their left
hand is doing.
And many of the problems in our churches
come from good people being in the wrong
place.
They just aren't made for it.
So, he says to Joshua, your job is
going to be, get into Canaan land, conquer
the land, and then stake out all the
inheritance so that each one has their place.
Every tribe is marked out.
Every family, every clan is marked out.
And so if these people can go to
work, enjoy the land and serve me, that's
what church is all about.
God saved me from Egypt.
He said, now I want you to, by
faith, enter into your inheritance.
I'll help you fight the battles.
I'll help you win the victories.
I'll help you claim the spoiled.
I will give to you, as long as
you walk by faith and claim my promises,
I will give to you your inheritance.
David wrote in Psalm 16, the lines have
fallen to me in pleasant places.
What's he talking about?
Inheritance.
He's saying, the plot of ground in this
life that God marked out for me is
so pleasant.
You may say, well, my plot's not so
good.
Well, we have our problems.
No question about that.
So, Egypt, bondage.
Canaan, inheritance.
Find out what God wants me to do,
what inheritance He wants me to claim and
do it.
But in between is a third geographical location,
the wilderness.
And now you know the story.
The Jewish people left Egypt, spent a couple
of years around Mount Sinai, and then they
said, okay, we're going to go to Kadesh
Barnea.
We're going to enter into Canaan land and
claim our inheritance.
They got there and somebody said, don't you
think we ought to appoint a committee?
And Moses said, well, I guess so.
What are you going to do?
Well, we're going to spy out the land.
Oh.
So they had 12 men, one from each
tribe.
Sent them in.
They were gone for 40 days.
Came back.
They said, you know what?
It's exactly the way God said it was.
Surprise.
Big surprise.
Isn't everything the way God says it is?
Sure.
And we saw these marvelous, marvelous farms.
And we saw...
But, oh, now you get the majority report
now.
But, I think you've noticed in insurance policies
and other things that the big print gives
and the small print takes away.
You ever notice that?
So they came with their report.
It's exactly as God said.
It's a marvelous land.
Oh, it's a land of milk and honey.
It's a land where you can dig metal
ore out of the ground.
It's a marvelous land.
As we looked, we saw the giants.
Then we looked higher.
We saw the walls.
And the walls are high and the giants
are big.
And we are not able to claim our
inheritance.
Now, if they'd looked a little higher, they
would have seen God.
They would have said, well, this giant's pretty
big, but God's bigger.
Wall's pretty high, but God can handle that.
That's what Joshua and Caleb said.
That's the minority report now.
So often in scripture, the majority's wrong.
Not always, but often.
And so for the next 38 years, but
you add the two years they were out
of Egypt, they're 40 years wandering around.
That's what the book of Hebrews says.
Book of Hebrews says, are you going to
enter into your inheritance or are you going
to turn away His word?
Are you going to believe His promises and
claim what He has for you?
Somebody here tonight is wrestling with a decision
to move.
You're praying about it.
The devil's saying you can't do it.
It's too big for you.
But God wants you to.
That's part of your inheritance.
God picked us up from northern Indiana and
moved us to Wheaton, Illinois.
He had some inheritance there for us.
And then He picked us up from Wheaton,
Illinois and moved us down to Covington, Kentucky.
Because He had some more inheritance there for
us to claim.
Then He picked us up from Covington, took
us to Chicago, to Moody Church.
Because there were some people there that I
was supposed to guide into their inheritance.
In Jesus.
Then He picked us up from there and
put us in Lincoln, Nebraska to a radio
ministry.
Because there were some people who needed to
have their ministry, their inheritance pointed out to
them.
God is a great God.
And you say, oh, but when I consider
all of this, man, the walls are high
and the giants are big.
And God says, well, whatever happened to my
promises?
Remember, we don't live on explanations.
We live on promises.
And there's the danger of falling short.
When you claim the promises of God, you
divide the inheritance.
You enter in and claim it according to
verse 6.
Now, verses 7 through 9, there's a fifth
danger we have to watch out for.
The danger of looking back and the danger
of standing still.
The danger of giving up.
Verse 5, nobody's going to be able to
stand before you.
Don't give up.
The danger of falling short.
You're going to claim your inheritance and you
trust His promises.
Now, 7, 8, and 9.
Only be strong and very courageous that you
may observe to do according to all the
law which Moses, my servant, commanded.
You do not turn from it to the
right hand or to the left that you
may prosper.
That means be successful in whatever you do.
This book of the law, meaning the Old
Testament scripture that they had up to that
point.
This book of the law shall not depart
from your mouth.
It's a strange place to carry your Bible.
The word meditate.
He goes on to talk about that.
But you shall meditate in it day and
night.
The Hebrew word for meditate means to mutter.
Mutter.
If you've been to Jerusalem and you've gone
down to the Wailing Wall, you've seen this
in action.
My wife and I were flying somewhere.
I don't remember where.
And across the plane from us, it was
an overseas trip.
Across the plane from us was a Jewish
man.
I could tell because first thing in the
morning as the sun came up.
I was up and I was reading my
Bible, sitting there in the seat, reading my
Bible and meditating.
I looked and he'd put on his prayer
shawl and he had his prayer book out
and I could hear him.
Because when a Jewish person meditates on the
word of God, they mutter.
They speak the word.
And so God says to Joshua, Now Joshua,
I want this word to be in your
mouth.
I want you to talk about it.
I want you to talk to yourself about
it.
Meditate on it day and night that you
may observe to do according to all that
is written in it.
For then you will make your way prosperous
and then you will have good success.
Have not I commanded you?
Be strong and of good courage.
Do not be afraid nor dismayed.
For the Lord your God is with you
wherever you go.
There is the danger here of taking over.
What he's quietly saying to Joshua is, Joshua,
this is my enterprise.
You're working for me.
I give you the word.
You don't invent the word.
I give you the directions.
You don't figure things out.
Twice in this book, he forgot that.
Twice in the book of Joshua, the great
general Joshua forgot.
And as a consequence, he failed.
One was at Ai.
They conquered Jericho and Ai was next on
the agenda.
And Joshua said, well, let's send a committee
up to investigate.
So he did send some people up and
came back with statistics.
There are three kinds of lies.
White lies, black lies, and statistics.
And you can prove anything with statistics.
They thought it's a small place.
It's just, that place is so small the
zip code is a fraction.
Don't worry about it.
You know, I tell when you're in a
small town, when you get a wrong number,
they talk to you for 25 minutes.
Ai is just a bump in the road.
We don't need the whole army, just a
couple of thousand people.
And so they figured out their strategy, but
they didn't talk to God about it.
They forgot what God said to Joshua.
This book of the law, I'm the one
who's going to take care of it now.
And they failed because there was an enemy
in the camp, Achan.
Second time was when the Gibeonites showed up.
They were smart.
The Gibeonites were the next in line.
They said, boy, we're going to get it.
And so they dressed like they had been
on the road a long time.
The bread was moldy and their shoes were
worn out and looked like fugitives and came
into the camp.
Joshua walked by sight, not by faith.
He should have said, let's call a prayer
meeting.
Now find out what this is all about.
Oh, we're from a far country and we've
heard about you.
And we want to be your allies.
So they signed the contract and then discovered
they were their next door neighbors.
Do you know why they failed?
They didn't talk to God about it.
The danger of taking over.
Now just turn the page to Joshua chapter
5, verse 13.
Joshua chapter 5 and verse 13.
They've crossed the Jordan.
They're in the land.
They're about to do business with Jericho.
And it came to pass when Joshua was
by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and
looked.
And behold, a man stood opposite him with
his sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went to him.
I like that kind of courage.
And said to him, are you for us
or for our adversaries?
I like that kind of convictions, one or
the other.
He didn't say, now where are you on
this spectrum?
I mean, do you like us or you
just hate us a little bit?
My Lord said, you're either for me or
against me.
There's no neutrality.
So he said, no.
But as commander of the army of the
Lord, I've now come.
It was Jesus.
Joshua fell down on his face to the
earth and worshiped and said to him, what
does my Lord say to his servant?
It's a good question to start every day.
Then the commander of the Lord's army said
to Joshua, take your sandal off your foot
for the place where you stand is holy.
And Joshua did so.
Chapter 6, verse 2, and the Lord said
to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into
your hand.
Now, the great danger in Christian ministry and
especially in leadership is that we take over.
You know, I used to say when I
was a pastor, you know, well, not in
my church.
I mean, it's not my church.
There's no place in the Bible that says
my church.
I know what we mean when we say
that.
The people whom I pastor, the folks who
called me.
But that's wrong, my church.
Well, in my ministry.
Not your ministry.
It's God's.
Better be.
The danger of taking over.
I've watched ministries be marvelously blessed of God
and leaders, God's hand is upon them, then
they take over.
So God says, OK, you can have it
your way.
That's it.
Now, in this encounter that night, Joshua learned
a number of very practical lessons.
Number one, he learned he wasn't alone.
That encourages me.
Every once in a while, my Lord has
had to come to me and say, hey,
don't be afraid.
I'm here.
Joshua knew that he was not alone.
Sometimes leadership can be very lonely.
Very lonely.
It's very lonely at the top.
We can't always tell people what we'd like
to tell them.
And though we have confidants and mentors, sometimes
it's very lonely.
We have to make decisions that involve people.
Lonely.
He discovered he wasn't alone.
Paul went to Corinth and began to preach
the gospel and got thrown out of the
synagogue.
So he went next door and all things
would rot.
And he was contemplating moving on to someplace
else until Jesus showed up.
Acts chapter 18, the Lord Jesus came to
Paul and said, Paul, don't go away.
Stay here.
I have many people in this city.
Now, if Paul had been like some extreme
theologian, he would have said, well, if you've
got some people in this city, go ahead
and get them.
I'm going someplace else.
Oh, no.
No, it doesn't work that way.
Doesn't work that way.
The same God who ordains the end, ordains
the means to the end.
And the means to the end was Paul
and his witness.
And Paul knew that people were going to
be saved because God had his people in
that city.
And that encouraged him to preach.
And people did get saved.
He said, Jesus is with me.
At the end of his life, Paul said,
everybody forsook me.
Can you imagine that?
Paul's in Rome, facing trial, and everybody forsook
him.
And he's standing alone.
The great apostle Paul.
But then he goes on to say, but
the Lord stood with me.
So he discovered, Joshua discovered he was not
alone.
Secondly, he discovered he was second in command.
Blessed is the person who discovers he's second
in command.
She's second in command.
I'm the commander of this whole outfit.
Oh.
Now, Joshua was a very well-trained man.
He'd begun his life in Egypt as a
slave.
Then he became a soldier.
And then he became the leader of the
Hebrew army.
And he was Moses' assistant.
And now he was Moses' successor.
He was a well-trained man.
But all that training meant nothing.
If he was first in command.
But Joshua discovered he was second in command.
It's a great liberation day when you discover
you're second in command.
He also discovered that night that he was
on holy ground.
Now, I wouldn't have thought Jericho was holy
ground.
I would have thought it was unholy ground.
But wherever God puts you, it's holy ground.
We've had some preachers forget that they're always
on holy ground.
The motel room you're in, that's holy ground.
God puts you there.
He discovered he was on holy ground.
But the greatest discovery he made that night
was he discovered he had already won the
battle.
Jesus said to him, now, see, I have
given Jericho to you.
It's a done thing.
Just follow my instructions.
You've got it.
That's exactly what happened.
There's a great danger in taking over.
Great danger of making my will substitute for
God's will.
And my plans for God's plan.
My name for God's name.
It's a dangerous thing.
The Bible has a word for it.
It's called pride.
Pride.
Do you ever study the three men in
the Bible who ended up in the dark?
Scary.
Pretty scary.
King Saul ended up in the dark.
Had a battle coming.
He didn't have any word from God because
God had abandoned him.
So he went out in the darkness to
a witch to find out what he should
do.
You know what the ruin of King Saul
was?
Pride.
Samson ended up in the dark.
Blinded him.
Put his eyes out.
And Samson's great failure was lost.
Judas.
John chapter 13 says, And Judas went out,
and it was night.
Well, we knew it was night.
It was Passover.
We knew it was night.
No, John didn't put that there just to
put it.
He was saying Judas went out, and it
was night for Judas.
And it's still night for Judas.
And it always will be night for Judas.
And Judas' big problem was money.
Now, these are the three great enemies of
leadership.
Pride, lust, money.
And you end up in the dark.
All three of these men committed suicide.
There's a sense in which Samson could be
considered a martyr because he killed others when
he killed himself.
But he tragically took his own life.
So did Saul.
And so did Judas.
Samson lived for the lust of the flesh.
And it caught up with him.
When I was in seminary, they said there's
three things you have to watch out for
if you're going to be in ministry.
Pride, lust, money.
They'll ruin you.
And Joshua discovered that night he was on
holy ground.
He was second in command.
He was not alone.
And he had already won the battle.
Because Joshua lived on promises.
The minute Jesus said, See, I have given.
Not I will give.
Not I might give.
Not maybe I'll give.
I have given Jericho into your hand.
And Joshua, who was one of the first
promise keepers in the Bible.
Joshua said, Hey, I want to keep that
promise.
Okay, man.
He got his men together.
We've already won the battle.
All we have to do is do what
Jesus tells us to do.
If you want to keep going, claim the
promises of God.
Now, I'm going to meddle just a minute,
and then we'll close.
Do you spend time every day in the
book?
You have to tell me.
It's a rhetorical question.
Do you start your day or at some
point in your day where it's the best
for you?
You open the word and you are systematically
reading through the word.
The psalmist said, I rise early in the
morning to meditate on your word.
Psalmist said, I anticipate the night watches to
meditate on your word.
There's a man that got up early and
stayed up late and meditated on the word.
Claiming the promises of God is what gives
us sticking power.
But many saints of God do not take
time to be holy.
They can't start the day with the Lord.
Years ago, there was a godly Methodist bishop
whose name was Ralph Spalding Cushman.
This is what he wrote.
I met God in the morning when my
day was at its best, and His presence
came like sunrise with a glory in my
breast.
All day long, His presence lingered.
All day long, He stayed with me, and
we sailed in perfect calmness o'er a
very troubled sea.
Other ships were torn and battered.
Other ships were sore distressed.
But the winds that seemed to drive them
brought to me a perfect rest.
Then I thought of other mornings with a
sorrow on my mind, how I too had
left my harbor with my pilot far behind.
So I think I've learned the secret, learned
from many a troubled way.
You must meet God in the morning if
you would have Him all the day.
When you read the book of Joshua, you
find how many times Joshua got up early
in the morning, not to watch Good Morning
Israel, not to
see how his stocks were doing, to meet
his commander and get his orders for the
day.
Are you meeting God in the morning?
Or you say, I'm so tired when I
wake up and go to bed earlier.
Oh, but I'm so busy.
Well, then get some priorities.
Because the most important part of a leader's
life is the part that only God sees.
And if somehow you're able to push through
and get your work done without meditating, without
praying, that work's not going to last.
Without me, you can do nothing.
And so I want to be like Joshua,
and I think you want to be like
Joshua, who kept on going because he claimed
the promises of God.
But you can't claim them unless you know
them.
You can't know them unless you read them.
You can't claim them unless you pray by
faith and meet God every day.
Our Father, we come, some of us, to
confess the sin of carelessness and lack of
discipline.
Help us to determine that we shall begin
the day at the feet of our Commander,
claiming the promises.
We don't want to look back.
We don't want to stand still.
We don't want to miss the inheritance you
have for us.
And I pray, Father, you will help us
by your grace and for your glory to
be the kind of leaders who are second
in command.
You have already won the victory, and this
is the victory that overcomes even our faith.
Help us by faith to claim what you
have for us.
For Jesus' sake, amen.