Frank Boggs and I have been together in
many different conferences, and the same thing always
happens.
I can't explain it except the leadership of
the Holy Spirit.
I don't recall I have ever told Frank
what I'm preaching about, but somehow the song
that he selects, I would have selected.
Turn to Joshua, chapter 5.
Now, this happened day after day down at
the back of Ben Haden's church, where we
were together in the Bible conference, missionary conference.
And that's what music is all about, you
know.
Music is not separate from the Word.
Music is singing the Word and preaching the
Word.
They go together.
That's why it's always such a delight to
be with Frank Boggs.
We're talking about the crises of life.
And we've looked at some people who have
experienced personal crisis experiences.
And we have Joshua, in Joshua 5, verse
13.
And it came to pass when Joshua was
by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, there stood a man
over against him with his sword drawn in
his hand.
And Joshua went unto him and said unto
him, Art thou for us or for our
adversaries?
And he said, Nay, but as captain of
the host of the Lord am I now
come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the
earth and did worship and said unto him,
What saith my Lord unto his servant?
And the captain of the Lord's host said
unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy
foot, for the place where I now standest
is holy.
And Joshua did so.
I don't know if this event took place
in the daytime or in the evening.
I have a suspicion that it may have
been in the evening when the general was
out surveying the situation.
I don't know if this tells you much
about my personality.
I suppose a psychiatrist could build a case
out of it.
But I like the evening.
I'm a morning person.
I'm up early in the morning and at
my desk.
But I enjoy the twilight time.
I like that time when the day is
quieting down and the evening has not yet
gotten started.
The phone isn't ringing, visitors aren't arriving.
And there's that little parenthesis there.
And I don't know what you do during
that parenthesis, but I sort of like to
take a few minutes and just sit and
think and meditate and pray.
And I think that Joshua was out looking
the situation over, getting ready for the conquest
of the land.
Now, can you imagine how Joshua must have
felt?
I don't know.
We who preach the word of God try
to enter imaginatively into the situations where it's
sometimes wrong.
You see, Joshua was facing quite a crisis
here, quite a challenge here, because, number one,
he was following a very great leader, Moses.
Moses, my servant, is dead.
Now arrive and conquer the land.
It's not easy to walk in big footsteps.
I've been getting mail from people since Mr.
Eck was called home, and they say, oh,
we're so glad you were there to take
his place.
And I write back to them, dear friend,
thank you for your help and encouragement.
I am not going to take Mr. Eck's
place.
Nobody could take Mr. Eck's place.
We are going to do our best to
continue the ministry God gave him.
We're all different.
I suppose there were some in Israel who
were saying, well, this is not Moses, this
is Joshua.
He was following a great leader, and he
was facing a new generation.
You see, Joshua had grown up with the
old generation.
He and Caleb were the only two allowed
to survive.
But here was a whole new generation of
people, a new generation with a new leader
facing a new challenge, and that is not
easy.
I'm sure that Joshua had human feelings like
all of us do.
What if?
I know he was a man of faith,
but sometimes faith and feelings can conflict.
I know Joshua was a great man of
faith, but he was also a human being.
And here he is the evening before the
conquest is to start, and he has this
crisis experience of meeting our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, Joshua knew that his biggest problem
was not the past, trying to look up
to Moses' achievements.
His biggest problem was not before him conquering
the land.
God had given him promise about that.
Joshua's biggest problem wasn't behind him or before
him.
It was within him.
And by the way, when we are defeated
on the outside, we win the battle before
the win.
And God wanted to make sure that before
this battle began, victories are won in Christ.
You may not realize that, but it's true.
The most important part of your life is
the part only God sees.
The people didn't see this event take place.
There weren't spectators walking around saying, Look at
that, look, Joshua is talking to somebody special.
What's this all about?
No, no, no.
Just as it was with Jacob.
And Jacob was left.
And that wrestling is what determined the course
of his public life afterward.
Nobody saw David killed.
And you're liable to think to yourself, Well,
it's really important when I'm standing in a
pulpit or when I'm seated at an instrument.
It's really important when I'm in a classroom.
They are important places.
But the most important part of your life
is the part only God sees.
When you and God meet alone, and God
gives you victory.
Joshua made four very encouraging discoveries when he
went through this crisis experience.
And I think if you and I would
lay hold of these same discoveries, it might
help us when we face some crisis experience.
There's a Christian worker here during this conference,
and you're so glad to be here because
you're away from the battlefield.
Or you've had a rough time.
There are problems to solve, and there are
people to help.
And when you packed up and came to
this conference, it was as though God said,
Now look, you have to come home again.
You can't run away.
Can't do like Jonah.
But when you come back, you're going to
be better equipped to face your Jericho.
And if you lay hold of these four
discoveries that Joshua made, you can face your
Jericho.
Discovery number one, Joshua discovered he wasn't alone.
You say he had several million Jews working
with him, fighting with him.
No, no, I'm not talking about that.
Have you ever considered the loneliness of leadership?
When I was a young Christian, we used
to go to Winona Lake, Indiana for the
Bible conference there and the Youth for Christ
week and the other week.
So I'd turn the radio on, listen to
WNBI broadcasting.
Or we'd turn on Founders Week or come
to Founders Week.
And I'd sit there as a young Christian,
and I'd look at those spiritual leaders.
I'd say to myself, Oh, those people have
got it made.
They really have it made.
Now I'm beginning to understand some of the
loneliness of leadership.
A leader has to make decisions that have
far-reaching consequences.
If I were on my own, just doing
my own thing, going where I want to
go and preaching where I want to preach,
it would be a relatively simple thing.
But every decision I make involves other people.
And it has far-reaching results.
I think of a man like Dr. Swiggin
with the outreach of the Moody Bible Institute.
When you think of a man like Luis
Palau and the evangelistic outreach.
The loneliness of leadership.
You say that you're surrounded by people and
there are people praying for you.
That's right.
And you have counsel.
This is good.
We thank God for that.
But as the late Harry Truman, our President,
had on his desk, The buck stops here.
Mr. Truman used to say, If you can't
stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
And sometimes leaders can't stand the heat.
The loneliness of leadership.
And here's Joshua looking at his army and
saying, These people have put their lives in
my hands.
Here are families, here are children.
Joshua is the man who is going to
give them a place to live, water to
drink, food to eat.
There is Joshua with the future of a
nation in his hands.
But that's not all.
That's not all.
One day a Savior would be born in
Bethlehem.
Somebody has to capture Bethlehem.
One day a Savior would minister in the
Holy Land.
Somebody has to prepare the Holy Land.
Here is Joshua helping God fulfill his plan
of redemption.
That is a big undertaking.
The loneliness of leadership.
I mentioned Mr. Truman.
Let me give you a quotation.
He said, To be President of the United
States is to be lonely, very lonely at
times of great decisions.
Woodrow Wilson said this, It is an awful
thing to be President of the United States.
It means giving up nearly everything that one
holds dear.
One day when he was going through a
deep period of depression, Abraham Lincoln said, He
was not yet President when he said this,
I am now the most miserable man living.
If what I feel were equally distributed to
the whole human family, there would not be
one cheerful face on.
The loneliness of leadership, and yet Joshua discovered
he wasn't alone.
He knew he would not be alone, because
back in chapter 1 God had promised to
be with him.
Let's look at that.
Joshua chapter 1.
Now, after the death of Moses, everything fell
apart and came to a halt.
That's the way some of you think.
Oh, if ever we had a different pastor,
that would be the end of our church.
No, it wouldn't.
Jesus said, I will build my church.
Wasn't it John Wesley who said, God buries
his workmen and carries on his work.
If the Lord doesn't return, the day will
come when it will read, After the death
of Wiersbe.
What does God do?
He finds somebody else to keep his work
going.
The servant of the Lord.
It came to pass that the Lord spoke
unto Joshua.
God didn't stop talking when Moses died.
The son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, Moses,
my servant, is dead.
Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou
and all this people, unto the land which
I do give to them, even to the
children of Israel, every place that the sole
of your foot shall tread upon, that have
I given unto you, as I said to
Moses, to step out by faith.
Now, verse 5.
There shall not be any man able to
stand before thee all the days of thy
life, so I will be with thee.
Now, he repeats this, but he
repeated this in case he didn't get it
the first and second time.
The third time in verse 7.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, we're
supposed to magnify Jesus Christ.
But God magnified Joshua.
He took this leader and gave him promise.
It doesn't really end.
Joshua said, this day will I begin.
God did it.
This day will I begin to magnify thee
in the sight of all Israel.
Know what?
That as I was with Moses, so I
will be with thee.
God promised Joshua that he would be with
him.
Not only that, the people of Israel encouraged
Joshua this way.
In chapter 1 and verse 17, they said,
according as we hearkened unto Moses in all
things, so will we hearken unto thee.
Only the Lord thy God be with thee
as he was with Moses.
Pastors come and go.
God leads men in different places.
A new pastor comes in.
A church member says, well, you aren't my
former pastor.
You know, he baptized me.
Well, praise the Lord.
Oh, if they would just say, look, as
the Lord was with our former pastor, as
the Lord was with our former president, as
the Lord was with our former director, so
may we be with you.
In fact, the enemy even knew that God
was with Joshua.
In chapter 2, verses 8 through 11, Rahab
tells them and says, look, we know that
God's with you.
We heard what happened to the Red Sea
and we heard the terror that has come
to the nations as you've been marching along.
The enemy knew that God was with Joshua.
But now Joshua experiences this in a very
personal way.
You see, it's one thing for me to
read my Bible that God is with me,
and it's quite something else to experience it.
You say, well, I don't think God is
with me the way he was with Joshua.
I think he is.
I read in Hebrews 13, verse 5, I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
The gospel of Matthew begins, call his name
Immanuel, God with us.
That's the way it begins.
The gospel of Matthew ends, lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of
the age.
And so between Immanuel, God with us, and
lo, I am with you, we have the
assurance that in every circumstance of life the
Lord is with us.
He discovered he was not alone.
The devil wants you to feel alone.
In fact, when you're going through a crisis
experience, one of the worst things you can
do is to isolate yourself from God's people.
That's what Elijah did.
Someday I want to write a little booklet
on the Elijah complex.
Elijah won a great victory on Mount Carmel.
What a victory!
He was mounding up with wings like an
eagle.
Great victory!
But you know, so often after a great
victory there is an emotional and a physical
drop.
I noticed when I was in the pastoral
ministry that when we had a special meeting
or we had a special event of some
kind, I had to be very careful afterwards
because physically and emotionally and sometimes spiritually, you
were just drained.
That's when the devil moves in.
And Elijah got discouraged.
He went off by himself.
He should never do that.
And there he is, off by himself, forgiving
that God is with him.
I'm the only one left.
That's the Elijah complex.
I'm the only one in our church who's
spiritual.
I'm the only one in our church who
tithes.
How do you know?
I'm the only one in this city who
really is separated.
Really.
I only am left.
And I want to die.
Watch out for that.
You're not alone.
When the devil comes to you and says,
Hey, you're all alone.
Your friends don't care about you.
Pastors don't care about you.
Alumni Association hasn't written to you for some
weeks.
God doesn't care about you.
You're all alone.
That's when you are the target for every
kind of assault.
Discovery number one, he discovered he was not
alone.
Someday when you get discouraged, you think you're
the only one left and you're all alone.
Read the life of another great man who
conquered cities.
Now, Joshua conquered cities in judgment.
The Apostle Paul conquered cities in redemption.
Joshua came and declared war, but Paul would
show up at a city and declare peace.
He reconciled to God.
He got to Corinth, and it was so
discouraging.
And God showed up in Corinth one night
and said, Paul, don't be afraid.
I am with you.
Paul went to Jerusalem.
They arrested him.
He's there in the jail.
And that night, God came to him and
said, Don't be afraid, Paul.
I am with you.
You've witnessed in Jerusalem.
Now you're going to witness in Rome.
They're on board ship.
A storm comes.
They're afraid they're going to lose everything.
God shows up and says, Paul, don't be
afraid.
I'm going to give you everybody on board
ship, but we've got to wreck the ship.
So Paul gets up and says, Be of
good cheer.
I sure love a person like that.
The rain is coming down.
The wind is blowing.
People are sick and hungry.
Paul gets up and says, Be of good
cheer.
The Lord whom I serve sent his angel,
and he said, Don't be afraid.
I'm with you.
Paul gets down to Rome, and he writes
to Timothy and said, At my first hearing,
everybody forsook me.
Isn't that interesting?
People that Paul had won to Christ did
not stand with him when he was on
trial.
But he said, The Lord stood with me,
and he's going to deliver me.
As you go through the life of Paul,
you find no matter where he was, no
matter what he did, God was with him.
Discovery number two.
He discovered that he was second in command.
That must have been somewhat of a revolving
development.
Second in command.
I like Joshua's attitude.
He sees this soldier standing there with a
sword.
It's the Lord Jesus.
He always comes to us in the way
we need him.
The Lord Jesus didn't come to Joshua as
a pilgrim, as a fisherman, as a carpenter.
He came as a soldier.
That's what Joshua needed.
Joshua sees this soldier, and he's not at
all afraid.
Courageously, he steps up and says, Whose side
are you on?
The Lord's side, or whose side are you
on?
I like a person like that.
You're either in or out.
You're not on a fence.
You're either with the Lord Jesus or against
the Lord Jesus.
You're either gathering or you're scattering.
Now, I know there are some issues in
life that maybe are various shades of gray,
but when it comes to allegiance, you're either
loyal or disloyal.
There was no place in Joshua's campaign for
neutrality, and there's no place today in our
campaign for neutrality.
Who is on the Lord's side?
Who will serve the King?
And the soldier answered, You've asked me whose
side I'm on.
I want to tell you whose side I'm
on.
I'm the boss of the whole thing.
I am.
And Joshua, you're the captain of this earthly
host, and I'm the captain of the heavenly
host and the earthly host, and I'm going
to deputize you to run this army down
here.
But remember, you're second in command.
It's a great day in the life of
a person when he discovers he's second in
command, that we're not first in command.
Now, Joshua had everything going for him.
If I were going to choose a leader
to conquer the land, I would have chosen
Joshua.
Born in Egyptian slavery, he knew the meaning
of suffering.
He'd seen the miracles in Egypt.
He'd crossed the Red Sea.
He had walked by faith for 40 years.
He'd seen a whole generation of doubters die.
Here is Joshua, experienced, Moses' minister.
Got to start carrying Moses' attache case for
him.
Then he got promoted and became the captain
of the army.
Then he'd go up on the mountaintop or
into the tabernacle with Moses.
Oh, he learned so much about God.
Joshua had everything going for him.
He had faith and patience and experience.
But you know what?
All of that would have been useless had
he not done what he did that night.
He fell before the Lord Jesus and said,
All right, I'm second in command.
Every father is second in command.
Every mother is second in command.
Every pastor is second in command.
Every Christian leader is second in command.
The Lord Jesus Christ says, As captain of
the host of the Lord am I now
come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the
earth and did worship and said unto him,
What saith my Lord to his servant?
What a statement.
What saith, that's God's word, my Lord, that's
God's will, to his servant, that's God's work
and warfare.
He was second in command.
You know, it's a great tragedy that takes
place when a person thinks he's first in
command.
They did fight the battle of Jericho, as
you know, they did win.
But the next battle they fought, Joshua was
in command.
And the spies came and said, You know,
Ai is not a very big place, it's
just a little bump in the road.
The place is so small, Howard Johnson only
has one flavor.
The zip code is a fraction.
It's just a little place.
And let's just send a few people down
there to wipe them out.
Joshua got first in command, and oh my,
they lost the battle.
Then he found out he'd better be second
in command.
I've learned this in my own ministry.
Oh, I've got the scars to prove it.
That whenever I take over and I run
something, it'll run, but it won't run right.
George MacDonald used to say, Whatever man does
without God, he must either fail miserably or
succeed more miserably.
And that's frightening.
He discovered he was second in command, fell
down at the feet of the Lord Jesus.
And the first command that Jesus gave to
him was, Take off your shoes.
What a thing to say to a general.
You know, I would have said, All right,
I'm first in command.
Go over there and stab that tree.
Show me you can use your sword.
Do some great thing.
No, he just said, Take off your shoes.
Our Lord said, He that is faithful in
that which is least is faithful also in
that which is greatest.
If I can't trust you to bring back
ten cents change when I send you the
store, I can't trust you with a million
dollars.
If you aren't faithful with the few sheep
that God's given to you, God won't give
you more.
Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Thou has been faithful over a few things.
I will make thee rule over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of the Lord.
God watched David and discovered David was faithful
taking care of a few sheep and fighting
a lion and a bear, so he let
him beat a giant and gave him a
whole nation.
Faithfulness in little things, everyday things like taking
off your shoes.
He discovered that he was not alone.
He discovered that he was second in command.
There was a third discovery he made.
He discovered he was on holy ground.
Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for
the place whereon thou standest is holy.
I wouldn't have thought that.
I mean, this is Canaan land.
God described Canaan land and the people in
it, and it was a filthy place, a
godless place, immoral, idolatrous, ignorant.
For hundreds of years, God patiently had held
back his judgment on this crowd.
All these ites, the Amorites and the Hivites
and the Jebusites.
God had seen all of this filth and
vomit and sewage.
And now Israel crosses the river.
Israel comes into the land.
And God says, you're standing on holy ground.
He discovered that he was on holy ground.
Do you know what that means?
Wherever God calls you is holy ground, no
matter what you may see.
You see, Joshua had stood on many kinds
of ground.
He'd been in Egypt, which certainly wasn't holy
ground.
He'd walked across the sea on dry ground.
He'd been up in the mountain to see
the glory of God.
He'd been in the tabernacle with Moses.
But you know, wherever God puts you is
holy ground.
Watch this.
There is no such thing as secular and
sacred in Christian living.
Everything is holy ground if God is there.
You walk into a hospital room where people
are complaining and swearing and maybe reading salacious
literature, but there's somebody you want to visit
there.
When you walk in as God's ambassador, that's
holy ground.
That means wherever we go to fight God's
battles, we better go in a spirit of
worship.
Did you ever notice in your Bible that
worship and warfare...
I'll have more to say about this this
afternoon when we talk about worship.
You cannot isolate worship from warfare.
Let me give you a verse to ponder.
It's a verse that we don't often think
about.
Psalm 149, verse 6.
Psalm 149, verse 6, which says, "...let the
high praises of God be in their mouth,
and a two-edged sword in their hand."
That's a great verse.
And the rest of the psalm says to
execute vengeance upon the enemy.
Now, wait a minute.
The first half of the verse, worship.
Let the high praises of God be in
their mouth.
The last half of the verse, warfare.
"...and a two-edged sword in their hand
to bring vengeance."
Do you know why we are failing before
the enemy in our warfare?
It's because we're failing before God in our
worship.
We're using all kinds of weapons to try
to defeat the enemy.
The greatest weapon we have is worship.
Joshua learned that very early in his life.
Here is Israel delivered from Egypt.
And lo and behold, the Amalekites show up,
those pests who were bothering everybody.
The Amalekites show up, and Joshua comes and
says, Moses, the Amalekites are going to attack
us.
Moses says, take your army, take your sword,
go out there and fight them.
I'm going up on top of the mountain.
And so Moses went up there on top
of the mountain, and he lifted up his
hands in worship and prayer.
His hands got heavy, and Aaron and Hur
held his hands up.
And if you had been watching the scene
from a distance, you would have thought, you
know, strange things going on.
There's an old man over here on the
mountain.
Whenever he raises his hand, Israel wins.
Whenever he drops his hands, Israel loses.
There must be some connection between that fellow
on the mountain and this battle going on.
Here's Joshua down there fighting.
Here's Moses up here worshiping and praying.
And as Moses worships and prays, Joshua has
victory.
Moses alone could not have won the battle
simply praying.
Joshua alone could not have won the battle
simply fighting.
But when you have the high praises of
God in your mouth and a two-edged
sword in your hand, you get victory.
We don't do that today.
If somebody in government does something we don't
like, we start a battle, but we forget
about the worship.
He discovered he was on holy ground.
And I tell you, when you and I
discover how to fall at the feet of
Jesus and worship Him, the battle is going
to be a lot easier, which leads us
to our fourth discovery.
He discovered he was not alone, and he
discovered he was second in command, and he
discovered he was on holy ground, and he
discovered that he already won the battle.
If you see, chapter 6 continues, Now Jericho
was securely shut up because of the children
of Israel.
None went out, none came in.
And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I
have given into thy hand Jericho, and its
king, and the mighty men of valor, and
ye shall compass all the city, and then
he goes on and gives that intricate plan
for conquering Jericho.
Notice those statements.
I have, you shall.
I have already given you the victory.
Oh, it was a great day in my
own life when I heard some preacher say,
and I wish I could remember who it
was, We don't fight for victory, we fight
from victory.
Be of good cheer, said Jesus.
He's on his way to the cross now.
He just told Peter you're going to deny
me.
He just told him there's a traitor in
the crowd.
You're all going to forsake me and flee
away.
And he says, In the world you're going
to have tribulation.
That's good news.
For some of the saints, you'd think he
would have said, In the world you shall
have a vacation.
No.
In the world you shall have tribulation.
Be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world.
And this is the victory that overcomes the
world, even our faith.
And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by
the word of God.
And so that's why Joshua said, What do
you have to say to me?
You speak the word, I'll hear it by
faith, and faith will release power.
And the Lord Jesus said, Here's the plan.
You see, Joshua discovered he had already won
the battle.
He had the assurance of victory, and he
had the agenda for victory.
The Lord Jesus said, We've already given you
the city, now here's the way you're going
to do it.
Hudson Taylor used to say that there are
three ways to serve the Lord.
One is to do what you want to
do and hope it will work out.
The other is to do what you want
to do and ask God to bless it.
The third is to find out what God
wants to do and then expect him to
bless it.
That's what Joshua did.
If Joshua had been like Peter, he would
have said, Lord, it's good to see you
here.
I want to tell you, here's my battle
plan.
And Peter would have unrolled all of his
maps, but not Joshua.
Soldiers know how to take orders.
Did you know that Mr. Moody did not
like for Mr. Sankey to use onward Christian
soldiers in their campaign?
And the reason was, he said, I can't
think of any group of people less like
an army than the Church of Jesus Christ.
This is true.
Do you see army discipline in a local
church?
No, we go if we feel good.
Can you imagine roll call in the army?
Jones here, Johnson here, Smith.
Smith couldn't come today, he had a headache.
Oh, I hope he gets to feeling better.
Williams, Williams decided to play golf today.
Oh, I hope he has a good game.
Halford Lukak wrote that in one of his
columns years ago, like a mighty army.
He's right.
We're not like an army in discipline or
devotion or duty.
Why, if we were an army and God
treated us like the military treats their people,
we'd all be in the guardhouse.
So Joshua knew how to take orders and
he discovered he had already won the battle.
These are some great discoveries.
I need these.
As I go back to Lincoln, Nebraska and
face my Jerichos, as the Moody Bible Institute
looks forward to century two, facing their Jerichos,
as you raise your children or minister in
your church with your Jerichos, just remember, you're
not alone.
Just remember, you're second in command.
Just remember that you are on holy ground.
Don't forget to worship.
And best of all, remember, you've already won
the battle when you obey by faith.
Our prayer, Father, is that we shall indeed
war by faith and win the victory of
faith to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
This is the end of this message.
For a catalog listing more than 500 additional
messages, please write the Moody Tate Ministry, Moody
Bible Institute, 820 Nonprofile Drive, Chicago, IL 60610.