Well, this evening I would like you to
turn with me, if you would, to the
book of Joshua.
And I would like to read, actually, let's
back up, if you would, to Deuteronomy.
Yes, to turn back one more page there.
And verse 7 of chapter 34.
I'll begin reading there.
Moses was 120 years old when he died.
His eyes were not dim, nor his natural
vigor diminished.
The children of Israel wept for Moses in
the plains of Moab thirty days.
And so the days of weeping and mourning
for Moses ended.
Now Joshua, the son of Nun, was full
of the spirit of wisdom.
And Moses had laid his hand on him.
And so the children of Israel heeded him,
and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
But since then there has not arisen in
Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face
to face.
And all the signs and wonders which the
Lord sent him to do in the land
of Egypt before Pharaoh, before all of his
servants, and in all his land.
And by all his mighty power and the
great terror which Moses performed in the sight
of all Israel.
Now Joshua chapter 1.
And 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's assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is
dead.
Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you
and all of the people, to the land
which I am giving them, and the children
of Israel.
Every place that the sole of your foot
will tread upon, I have given you, as
I said to Moses.
From the wilderness of this Lebanon, under the
great river, the river Euphrates, and all the
land of the Hittites, and the great sea
towards the going down of the sun, should
be your territory.
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 or forsake you.
Be strong and of good courage, for this
people you shall divide as an inheritance the
land which I swore to their fathers to
give them.
Only be strong and very courageous, that you
may observe to do according to all the
law of which Moses, my servant, commanded you.
Do not turn to it from the right
hand or to the left, that you may
prosper wherever you go.
The book of the law shall not depart
from your mouth, that you shall meditate in
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 I not commanded you?
Be strong and of good courage.
Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for
the Lord your God is with you wherever
you go.
Father, we thank you for your word, and
we ask that as we look at it
this evening, and as we wait upon you,
Lord, that you would bring a message to
us.
Lord, I don't know what you would want
to say to anyone here particularly, but in
general, Lord, we ask that this great land,
this great promised land of blessing, that you
long to bring us all into in our
lives, in our ministries, our fellowships into.
Lord, that we would be drawn as we
look at it tonight, the things that you
would say to us as we would choose
to lead them there, that you would speak
to us.
Father, we ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, certainly there's no more wonderful place or
concept in all the world to be than
in the will of God.
And I'm sure that as we gather together
this evening as servants of the Lord, our
lives have been separated, set aside for the
things of the kingdom, for the ministry, for
the service of the Lord.
Therefore, obviously, that's not a hard sell to
any of us.
It shouldn't be anything other than each one
of us knows that the most wonderful place
is God's will.
Nothing more exciting, nothing more exhilarating, nothing more
thrilling is there anything in all the world
than to be in God's will, and to
be in that promised land, in a sense,
of what he calls us to, just like
he called the children of Israel into a
land that there is no greater place in
the world for them to be, no more
wonderful place in the world for them to
be.
But it's also a place that, by the
way, of course, comes with no higher price.
You kind of get what you pay for,
I suppose, as people oftentimes say.
And in one sense, that's also true in
the Christian life.
There's a great inheritance that God has.
But there's also, according to the price that
we're willing oftentimes to pay, is the degree
of the inheritance that we'll know, that we'll
enter into.
We want to look tonight, I suppose, a
little bit of the cost, what that means.
But essentially here, when you would look at
God's desire for us to be in that
land, that promised land, and here is Joshua
gives us here kind of a geographical world,
of course, a land of Canaan.
But there's also another world that each one
of us, that God longs for us, not
a physical world, necessarily, but a spiritual world.
This is real in the kingdom of heaven,
in our lives today, as Canaan was to
the children of Israel.
A land flowing with milk and honey, a
land of blessing, a land there filled with
houses we didn't build, wells we didn't dig,
olive yards and vineyards we didn't plant, fields
widened to harvest, the shelves stocked to the
brim, that God wants to give, in a
sense, spiritually and metaphorically, in a sense, to
each and every one of us.
But here, the interesting thing is, we look
at Joshua, and we look at this man,
and watching him want himself to come in,
of course, and then to lead the nation
of Israel into this land.
You hear it, I've entitled my own notes
on this, true courage.
And as in this section of Joshua, and
these verses that we're looking at here.
But here's there's some things that I think
the true courage requires of somebody, the requirements
of courage, what they really are all about,
and some of the things that have to
happen for real courage to be defined and
to come into existence.
And I suppose the very first thing that
has to happen for personal courage to come
to the forefront within our own life, is
that I suppose the first thing that has
to happen is all of our former or
outside sufficiency has to die.
Now in this case, it was Moses.
Here the children of Israel, one of the
critical things amazingly, that they all in a
sense almost had to happen within them as
Moses had to die.
And here with the death of Moses, when
you stop to realize a little bit about
Moses and what he meant to the children
of Israel, when Moses died, the children of
Israel were immediately thrown into essentially entirely uncharted
territory.
They were now all of a sudden with
the death of Moses in a place that
absolutely would kind of freeze the soul, extend
fear upon anyone, their deliverer was dead.
Their magnificent deliverer was dead.
The champion was gone.
The sorrow had to be great.
I mean, we've all known what it is
to lose loved ones and lose people that
have had great participation in our lives in
one way or another, but nobody ever lost
anybody like the children of Israel had lost
when they lost Moses.
For he was far more than that.
He was their sustainer.
Because of Moses, manna came out of heaven.
Water came out of rocks.
Enemies were destroyed.
Every battle that they ever fought and victory
they'd known was directly related to Moses's leadership
and presence within their life.
Wherever they were now, it was something that
it was entirely attributed to Moses.
He wasn't just a loved man and a
dear man, but it was something that literally
their spiritual intermediator between them and God it
was cut off.
It was gone.
And for them, the thought of taking Moses
away was to take away all blessing in
every sense of the word.
They were out in the middle, literally of
nowhere, all the sustenance, the power of the
deliverance, the hope that they'd ever known through
every attack, every trial, every difficulty, every hunger
pain.
It was always coming somehow another through Moses.
Everything they knew of God had come from
the hand of Moses, the five books of
Moses, the Pentateuch written by, of course, Moses.
Everything they knew of an understanding of God,
the tabernacle, Moses, the priesthood, Moses, civil law,
Moses, ceremonial law, Moses, sacrificial law, Moses.
How do you come before God?
How do you get right before God?
How do you live?
How do you walk?
How do you deal with anything in virtually
all of life?
It was all Moses.
Every aspect of their life, somehow or another,
you could trace it right back to Moses.
And now Moses, who'd given them the tabernacle,
given them the high priest, given them the
sacrifice, give them ever whatever relief of guilt
they'd ever known.
It was Moses through which all of this
had come.
But you see, one of the things that
God, when he wants to bring you and
he wants to bring me, he wants to
bring us into real personal revival, real personal
Canaan, real personal fullness and blessing.
God sometimes has to remove all of these
external forms of sufficiency, all of these other
dependencies, as wonderful as they've been, as glorious
as they've been, as great of a service
as they've been.
The interesting thing is, is you can take
people in massive numbers out of Canaan, but
out of the wilderness, but they come into
Canaan one at a time.
They come into Canaan essentially in a whole
new dimension where each one has learned ultimately
there were all the services and the blessings
that men have helped them with.
That can get you into the wilderness, but
it won't get you out of the wilderness
and into the promised land.
For one of the fundamental keys, you might
say, a blessing and a real spiritual maturity
and a fullness within life is that somebody
has come into an entirely greater dimension of
dependence and fullness and power of life in
the Lord than they've ever known before.
And sometimes though, in order for that to
happen, God has to take away everything that
he's given us to get us as far
as he's gotten us.
He's got to remove it from our heart,
to remove it from our hopes.
And I'll sometimes almost just isolate us out
there in utter emptiness and loneliness or hopelessness
for him to be able to bring us
to a place where he says, now I
can begin to bring you into the promised
land.
So often at the time, though, immediately all
we know is sorrow.
It tells us in Deuteronomy 34 that for
30 days they wept and they mourned.
I'm sure they did.
I'm sure they did day after day when
they woke up in the morning and then
they realized once again, Moses was not there.
Where will we go?
What will we do?
Who will tell us what to do or
how to do it?
Who is going to judge?
Who's going to lead?
Who's going to fight the battles?
Who is going to get us anywhere?
And immediately the hopelessness and the sorrow that
would just sweep over the camp.
Maybe tonight we'll go to bed and we'll
wake up and there'll be some fresh hope
tomorrow.
There'll be some new thing, some greater sense
of something.
But here it goes on for 30 days
where the people find themselves weeping and mourning
and hopelessness as the great deliverer was dead.
But here was something that so often God,
who will never compete with anybody, finds himself
actually competing with the very vessels and manners
and processes that he used to bring us.
You know, as far as he's got, he
sometimes has to remove it.
I'm sure we've all heard and maybe many
of us use the illustration of the Antonio
Stradivarius violin.
And the great story, if there's one of
you that doesn't know it, I'm going to
say it for that one.
But this, you know, the Antonio Stradivarius, this
capacity, this man seemed to have historically to
be able to do with his oils and
preparation and woods and how he could fabricate
and put together a violin.
It gave it a beauty, not just a
physical beauty, but a musical beauty, a tone
that came out of it unlike any other
violin.
And the Antonio Stradivarius violin, supposedly the greatest
of all that were ever made by him,
and no one ever knew quite how he
did it.
But as time went on, anybody could ever
play and have, I mean, the greatest violinist
in the world would always, if they could
get their hands on a Stradivarius, they had
one.
But the tragic thing that also happened for
the greatest of violinists is when they had
one, people oftentimes attributed his music to the
violin.
And one particular violinist, very famous as he
had, you know, done so beautifully and people
loved hearing him and in such a talented
violinist.
But then he found himself competing with his
violin at the accolades at the end.
People would stand and they would rave his
name, but also the Stradivarius.
And he ended up getting jealous of his
own violin, jealous of the own tones that
came out of the thing is people look
there and he felt I'm doing it.
And finally, one night out of frustration, when
the crowd stood in applause, clapping and shouting,
and they're hearing his name, but also the
Stradivarius name echoed all the way through.
Out of their frustration, he reaches up and
he lifts his hands high and he comes
crashing down and he hits that Stradivarius and
it turns to splinters before their eyes.
And they're devastated.
They can't believe what they have just seen.
But then the violinist, he walks over to
violin case that sat next to him all
the way through his concert that evening, he
opened up the violin case and he pulled
out and he lifted up a violin and
he said, ladies and gentlemen, this is the
Stradivarius.
That was a $20 violin.
I played the music on tonight.
But sometimes God has got to come into
where something happens to where we actually have
this human capacity that the music we've heard,
the way we've heard it, the tones that
came out of it, the whole aroma of
it, the way it was just there.
There was something there that collectively, oh, we
attributed much to God as, as have participated
in somehow or another, but there was a
process or there was a way or there
was somebody or there was something else in
it that somehow or another, it was the
two of them together that made it work.
That can get you out of, out of
the wilderness or out of Egypt and in
the wilderness, but it will not get you
into Canaan.
God will not share his glory with any
man in here.
God has got to bring it.
It is so often a person that the
personal hopelessness sometimes, if he's ever going to
bring them into great and personal and deep
victory and hear the children of Israel or
specifically Joshua with them, I suppose as well,
had to realize there that yes, God says
to them, the past is over.
And, uh, in a sense there, and he's,
he's telling him now, he says, well, it's
time to move on.
And sometimes there, God has got to remove
in a sense, all other thought or hope
or dream of blessing until something happens in
our own heart where they get truly cries
out, God, if I'll ever get into blessing,
if I'll ever get into the land now,
if I'll ever know the milk and honey,
if I'll ever drink of a well there,
if I'll ever eat of the vineyards, you
will have to do it alone.
You will have to take me the rest
of the way.
And God has to bring us to that.
It's the most wonderful thing in process.
It won't get you there in and of
itself by any means, but as part of
it, it's at the, it's at the foundation
of it.
It's it there at the core of it.
That to me, anytime I've ever found people
that I looked at, that I had a
great sense of what God had done within
them and, uh, you know, within, you know,
what he had taught them and how, and
the rest and the power and the victory
and the triumph that I so looked at
their life and found myself amazed by.
I was never anything I could attribute it.
The man looked there and he had something
other than God and his power and his
indwelling that had done it for him.
There may have been many friends of which
there always are along the way, many encouragers,
many blessings, many events that they'd been at,
all sorts of other things that kind of
participate along the way.
But in the final analysis, it was the
spirit of God that had brought them into
this all by himself.
And they had come to this place of
a loneliness from everything else and a desire
for God that brought them in and ushered
them into a whole new personal spiritual dimension
within their own life.
That's at the foundation.
I think of getting into the land, the
children of Israel had to have this happen,
but it wasn't that alone for once a
second aspect, I believe of, of, of courage
in a sense that courage not only has
to have the outside and other sufficiencies die,
but now secondly, the word of God must
become supreme, truly supreme.
As he says in verse seven of chapter
one, he says, 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 to it from the
right hand or to the left, that you
may prosper wherever you go.
The book of the law shall not depart
from your mouth, but you shall meditate in
a day and night and you that you
may observe to do according to all that
is written it for them.
I will make your way prosperous.
And then you will have good success here.
There's something where now what has to happen
is the place that all of the other
sufficiencies once had, the place that all of
the other voices came from, the place that
all the people or events or other things
that may be once there, they're all now
replaced by the word of God.
Now, you know, God takes Moses away from
Joshua, but then he turns to Joshua and
he says, now, Moses, I don't know, Joshua,
I'm giving you the word of God.
As I was with Moses, I'll be with
you.
And here there was something there that Joshua,
I suppose, had to truly learn the very
simple fact that Moses never in himself ever
did anything, ever did a thing.
I mean, as wonderful of a man is
his history in the Bible, you know, you
know, can associate with him that ought to
be attributed to him.
But in the final analysis, he never did
a thing.
He never opened a river.
He never destroyed one enemy.
He never brought one crumble a cracker out
of the sky.
He never got one stinking drop of water
out of Iraq.
He never did his thing.
All he did was speak what he was
told.
That's all he did.
God was the one that did every bit
of it.
God was the one that opened the river.
God was the one that the water, the
water came out of the rock.
God was the one that brought the man
of God was the one that opened the
earth and sucked them in.
God was the one that destroyed the enemies.
Moses just simply opened his mouth and said
what he was told to do.
He observed to do what God put within
his heart.
That was it.
That's all he did.
He was no different than any other man.
If anything, as the Bible says, Moses, when
it goes, there was Moses that said it,
but I don't think he's lying.
I think he met it with all of
his heart.
But he said that Moses was the meekest
of all men on the face of the
earth.
I believe he was.
I truly believe Moses was the meekest man.
Well, everybody else would maybe think he would
by nature be very proud or easily be
arrogant or easily be somewhat self-sufficient or
something other than what he the meekness.
I believe the things that actually happened around
Moses and the things that when God spoke
to him and then Moses went and did
it.
If that is truly what is happening within
somebody's heart, they will always produce meekness, not
pride, not when they really understand what's going
on.
And here, Moses, you know, God tells him,
he says, I want you to go speak
to Pharaoh.
And here in the plague is going to
come.
I mean, Moses here, I mean, and then
he tells him whether frogs are going to
come or lice are going to come as
if he knew lice's name.
OK, lice, all you little fellas, listen to
me, you know, as if they knew his
voice and they could respond, jump to it,
you know, or hear froggy, you know, something
leap, you know, or whatever Moses knew, he
never talked to a frog in his life.
And no, no lice knew his name, no
disease, no plague knew his name.
He just stood there and said these things
that came out of his mouth as God
told him to say it and had to
think this is insane.
In one sense, humanly, when here he ends
up there just doing what he's told, putting
a foot where he's told, opening his mouth
and saying what he's told.
And Moses is actually doing these things.
And then he's going through the processes of
it and then watching them materialize.
And, you know, I think Moses, on one
hand, you see this guy, he leads the
children of Israel and they finally get out
because of the plagues.
They have the Passover.
They go on down and here all of
a sudden there they are at the Red
Sea mountain range in the side.
God put a hooks in a hook in
Pharaoh's jaw, brings him down to come after
them.
And Moses is just, I'm sure, looking like
everybody else when they're looking at Moses.
You brought us out here to kill us.
And yet Moses is looking there just like
I'm sure his heart by beating and thinking,
looks that way, doesn't it?
You know, sort of a thing, I guess.
So, you know, and waiting for the next
word that might be contrary.
Is there any other thing?
Is this what it is?
I haven't got any more things to say
yet.
I'm just here, you know, waiting for the
next step.
And yet here then God tells him, stretch
forth your hand that rod over in here
as he goes and he stretches it out
and then it opens and they all walk
through on dry land.
Oh, maybe all the other people would look
there and think, wow, he's somebody.
But I think if you would have interviewed
Moses at any point and as Moses, you
know, and CNN, ABC, NBC, all of them
there, Moses, that was really something.
How'd you do it?
He probably said, I am the faintest.
I was as scared as the rest of
you.
He said, stretch it out.
Okay.
You know, my heart was beat like anybody
else's.
I was just told to do it though.
I did it in here.
God.
Now he looks at Joshua and he says,
Joshua, as it was with Moses, I'll be
with you.
It'll be no different.
Only now you've got it in writing.
Now you take, you know, and you've now
got to put within your heart.
The place that Moses once had now is
to be replaced with my word, but the
things that are written in it, where you
truly believe it, you truly surrender to it.
You will truly follow it and you will
truly obey it, Joshua.
That is what I expect of you, Joshua.
And here, Joshua there.
I mean, not only the old sufficiency has
to die, there has got to become something
that happens within God's servant, God's child.
If he's ever going to get into the
land that he has come into such a
sense of the authority and the power and
the conviction of God's word, that he looks
at his word and realizes what it is
and how magnificent it is, how wonderful it
is, how powerfully is.
And he has an absolute respect for it
like nothing else in the world.
It's set into an entire galaxy of its
own, of authority and conviction and power and
wonder.
And here is the Lord says to me,
he says, not only Joshua, you'll take my
word and that you will meditate on it
day and night.
But he says also, Joshua, he says, may
you make quite sure that you don't go
to the right or the left.
You don't stray from it.
You stay right on line and in focus
with it.
And, you know, I think there's two great
disasters that are through the years of ministry
and through the decades.
Now, as I look back, being around in
ministry in the 60s and in the 70s,
in the 80s, in the 90s, and now
into the whatever, what did the 2000s or
what?
I don't know what you call these, whatever
we're in after the 90s, whatever comes the
hundreds or something.
But at any rate, it's something in being
around.
I don't know how many people I've watched
essentially the great disasters.
You have people there that one sometimes had
a vital love for the word, but somehow
or another, they went to the right or
to the left of it.
And one of the things that's in so
easily happen, I think sometimes the first one
of the thing, you know, you can go
to the right.
You can just simply go to the right
of the word.
And that is what that that's the one
you just simply subscribe to it.
You believe it.
You'll argue it.
You'll defend it.
You'll preach it in a sense.
So it's true.
And it's God's word.
It's inerrant, inspired of the spirit.
And you'll stand by it hook, line and
sinker with your whole heart in a sense.
But it's something there that you can very
easily become very pharisaical about it.
You can be very, in a sense, dogmatic
about it.
You can be very profound about it.
But at the same time, you just simply
believe it and believe it and make sure
you have a congregation that believes it.
You can lead an entire body of people
into a pharisaical sense of snub this will
destroy them.
Many years ago, when I had first become
a Christian, when I met Jean and fell
in love with her, her father, he was
although he was not in ministry, he had
a great heart for ministry.
He was a surgeon.
He was a doctor.
And he had four men.
He was right.
Love being around godly men.
And he had four men that he met
with weekly who were all seminary professors.
One of them was Harold John Ockengate, president
of Fuller Seminary at the time.
Another fellow named Gleason Archer, another Harold Lenzel,
another named Wilbur Smith.
Billy Graham once said about Wilbur Smith, he'd
never met a man in the world that
knew the Bible like Wilbur Smith.
He had 30 some odd thousand volumes, personal,
largest personal of all library.
And I believe Wilbur read them all.
He wrote a lot of them do.
But it's something that here, I'm just a
brilliant man in the word.
And my father-in-law so concerned when
Jean brought me home and I'm a new
Christian and he's thinking, we raised her for
better things than this.
He was just paralyzed.
The fact that his dog, his daughter was
falling in love with some sort of a
mongrel, you know, sort of a thing and
realize this guy doesn't know anything.
He's, he's zealous for Christ maybe.
And he's a new Christian, but he didn't
grounded in what he's got.
And he began to talk to me about
the word.
And what do I believe about the word?
I'll never forget one time.
And so he had, he sent me over
to Wilbur and he no doubt, all these
guys are so wonderful to me, but they
took me and they talked to me.
And so we'll run.
I'd go meet with him on Saturday mornings.
And he'd set up these things where he
just kind of talk and ask me things,
pray with me, share with me things.
And he talked to me one time about
liberals.
And I thought all I knew is a
liberal.
That's, isn't that a Democrat?
That's all.
I honestly had no idea.
No, I mean, and he started telling me
there are people that don't believe the Bible.
Christians.
Yes.
And they, they, they are, they, they don't
believe it and wanted to know if I
believe this, of course I believe it.
I'm a Christian, you know, but I, I
was so ignorant, so simple, but he used
to talk to me about all sorts of
things, neo-Orthodox things, all sorts of other
things.
Where do I stand with the word of
God?
And I was always so intimidated every time
I get around him because he was so
brilliant.
And I'd come over and oftentimes during the
week, I tried to think of a question
I could ask him that would make him
think this guy's a thinker.
And, uh, I never did come up with
one that I think fooled him, but at
any rate, oftentimes I'd ask him questions and
I think of them, what do I want
to ask this guy?
And so I remember one time I came
over and I asked him a question.
I don't even remember the question now, but
I remember I asked him some smart question.
I thought, and he looks at me for
a moment.
He says, come with me.
We got out.
He walked down the hall, go get in
the elevator, go upstairs, go down a bunch
of racks of love books, all his.
And we walked down an aisle and he's
a short man and he gets a little
chair.
There's a stepping thing, looks up there, pulls
out a book, opens this thing at the
book up to a certain page, goes around.
And then he turns around, puts in front
of me, says, there's your answer.
I forgot the question by then, you know,
they realized, I mean, what do you do
with all these books?
You know?
And I realized he really read them, but
one time I'll never forget.
I'm in his house and I asked him,
what did he believe the greatest enemy of
the church was?
And before I even got the question out,
he says, there is no enemy of the
church.
The church has no enemies.
The gates of hell can't prevail against it.
There is nothing that can ever overpower the
church.
The church has, but one enemy itself and
simply put his dead orthodoxy.
The day that the church stops believing what
it thinks it believes the day it stops
carrying it out in its own life.
The day that there's things that we subscribe
to that we no longer follow and obey.
That'll be the death of the church.
The day that we lose it with, from
within and within our own personal heart.
And we just simply believe things, but don't
live them.
That's the enemy of the church.
And I believe here is Joshua, God speaking
to Joshua.
He looked at him.
He says, Joshua, don't ever wake up.
And you straight off to the right.
You got it.
All right.
You get all the answers.
I remember this by not long after this,
I came to Christ when I was a
junior in college and I was actually Wilbur
Smith literally sent a letter to Trinity evangelical
divinity school in Deerfield, Illinois.
I got in one envelope.
I got a, uh, uh, uh, application to
fill out and a letter of acceptance and
the same thing.
That was how influential he was.
And they asked me if I'd please fill
out the paperwork.
I was already accepted, but they needed the
detail.
But a few weeks before I was to
go, I'd read, met Alan Redpath sometime before,
and he'd invited us to come to England.
I realized I wanted to know the word
more than I didn't even know how, what
pneumatology and, you know, and all the different,
I couldn't pronounce half of the words in
the, you know, the catalog, you know, in
the, for the, for seminary.
But as I, as I looked there and
realized I need this.
So we went over, we spent a year
there and then we came back and I
felt I needed to do something.
So, but all the time I'd, you know,
always ask Alan what he thought of this
school or that school.
And while I was over there, I got
a letter from a fellow named Charles Feinberg,
who at the time was the Dean of
Students at a place called Talbot.
And once again, I got, I got invited
to the school.
I hadn't applied, asked me if I'd like
to come, that I'd be accepted there.
I didn't know what in the world was
going on.
I had never heard of the fellow.
It wasn't until a long time later, I
realized that my, my father-in-law, again,
he was always trying to do everything he
could to help this poor dog, you know,
inbreed that now had his wife, his daughter,
things.
But at any rate here, my father-in
-law was his surgeon and he had told
him, he says, please help him.
And, but don't wrench in me, you know,
and stuff.
And so I get, and so Charles Feinberg
writes me this letter, invites me to the
school.
And I, and so I came back and
decided, well, I need to do that.
And after when, when we returned, but Charles,
he really was a wonderful man.
He took me under his wing in many
ways.
He just, I think because my father-in
-law would never charge people in ministry.
And, and so I was kind of the
payment process, I suppose, a little bit or
something to take the, take the kid and
show the doctor thanks or something.
But at any rate, he was, he was
quite wonderful to me, but it was something
there that while I was in seminary and
I'm going through this, I'd oftentimes, I mean,
everything was just doctrine, doctrine, doctrine.
In fact, as I went through the catalog.
In fact, if you do, you can do
this yourself.
If you want to go get the catalogs
of Dallas seminary, Trinity, Western Baptist, Denver, virtually
all the major seminaries in the country today.
If you look at them, they'll all, all
your, your required courses are pretty much the
same.
They all require Genesis.
And the reason they do that is they
want to make sure that you have their
view on creation.
They'll all require Ezekiel and Daniel and Thessalonians
and revelations.
So you make, they make sure you have
their eschatology.
You will have the book of acts as
required.
So you have their pneumatology.
You'll have all of their various doctrinal courses
because then when you get the courses, they're
all doctrinal.
And here I'd been in Bible school for
a year, five hours a day, the Bible.
And it's just this thrilling, powerful, wonderful book.
When I was in England, I'd come back
and it's all doctrine.
I wanted to make sure that I understand
all their views on all of these, you
know, aspects of doctrine.
And these drive me crazy.
One time I'm walking down the hall and
Feinberg would always have me in his office.
Always wonderful to me.
But how are you a young man?
You bring me in, how are things going?
And I'd come in, I said, I don't
understand.
I was frustrated.
I remember one time I asked, what's dispensationalism?
I've been a Christian while I was meant
to Bible college in England for a year
and never hardly heard the word.
And now it's all over the place here.
I didn't realize that was his baby.
He loved dispensationalism like nothing in the world.
That was wonderful to him.
That was the key to the Bible.
And, but I asked him the wrong question
because I looked at him.
He said, what?
And I said, Dr. Feinberg, what is dispensationalism?
What's so important about it?
Well, he looked at me.
I'll never forget.
I just watched his face just turn right
before my eyes, his blood red as everything
just started pulsing and he little fella, but
he reams up on his desk and he
almost came right over the top of his
desk, right into his face, right up to
mine as they sit across from me.
And he says, young man, yes, I've got
one question for you.
Yes, sir.
What's the question?
How long has it been since you sacrificed
a lamb for your sins?
And here he is right in my face.
He, why?
And I, I said, that's been a long
time.
That's dispensationalism.
That's why, you know, you're in another dispensation.
And I said, well, I guess so.
Now I understand, you know, or something made
it quite clear to me, you know, or
something.
I don't know.
I've been only that one alone.
And I remember another time I'm walking down
the hall, you know, when it is troubled
with all this whole presentation of the Bible,
it's all doctrinal seemed.
And I'm walking down the hall.
He walks right out just right next to
me as we're going to chapel.
And he goes, young man, he was always
quite wonderful in that way.
Started off good anyway, but he, how are
you today?
He said, how are you today?
And I said, you know, Dr. Feinberg, I
don't know.
He says, why, what's wrong?
I said, you know, one day I became
Christian.
That was the most wonderful day of my
life.
Okay.
I still believe.
I remember how wonderful that was.
And I said, but then as I began
to grow, I realized the need to become
a conservative Christian because I found out there's
liberals out there.
So I became a conservative.
And then I found out even among the
conservatives that when you had to be more
than that, you had to be a fundamental
Christian.
So I became a conservative, fundamental Christian.
And then the need though, to share your
faith with people.
And so I became a conservative, fundamental evangelical
Christian.
And I said, now you're, I'm a seminary
and I'm a conservative, fundamental evangelical pre-millennial
dispensational Calvinist.
And I think I'm a Christian, but I'm
not as sure as I was at the
beginning.
We did have a lot of wonderful times
in between those together, but it was very
easy.
Some are another for me to be Frank.
And I almost enjoyed watching his face when
these things would happen, but there's a terrible
danger that can happen when I find myself
one day believing everything subscribing to all of
it, making sure I want everybody to know
and understand because I'm convicted, convicted.
It's true.
And convinced it's true.
Passionate is true, but it's just, but you
can easily be right and be wrong.
And here is the Lord speaks to Joshua.
He says, don't you turn off to the
right.
Also don't turn off to the left.
You can go off to the left.
And that's something that anybody, if any of
us that have been around since the sixties
in this, in a wonderful outpouring of the
spirit that happened, not just the Jesus movement,
the West coast, it happened virtually anywhere in
the country that people really fervently preaching the
gospel and making a difference, whether you're Presbyterian
and assembly of God, Baptist president, you know,
whoever, anybody that took the name of Christ
in the sixties and preached it all, God
blessed it.
Churches exploded.
And, uh, and here is all this happening,
but you watch the things that have gone
on ever since.
And not only God poured out his spirit,
I believe that the enemy is all support
out all sorts of stuff off to the
left.
Now, a lot, not to the right to
where you're rightly dividing the word of God,
maybe, but off to the left where you're
just messing with it.
You're toying with it and tinkering with it.
We began hearing things like it back in
the late sixties, early seventies of shepherding.
Maybe some of you around, maybe some of
you were even in God had his will
always given to the shepherd and the shepherd.
And then you had it over the elders
and the elders had it over and on
down to the little teeny and newest sheep.
But you all had, you found out God's
will for your life by going to your,
your shepherd over you, whoever it was shepherding
doctrine.
But then also a long time when that,
when that, you know, we're trying to deal
with that as a, just some off to
the left sort of a thing, weird sort
of a thing, but it, it take its
toll and take a bunch of people into
it.
Then there was the manifested sons of God,
theology, children of God.
For if you're around for some of those
things on how it times like this, you
know, people say, well, the Lord's coming and
he's coming soon and Jesus is about to
appear, but he can't come until his bride
is perfected herself.
She's dirty now and she, and she's got
to get herself together.
We got to be the perfected sons of
the living God.
And so we had to clean ourself up
and everybody had to get perfect.
And as soon as the church was perfect,
Jesus was going to come for his bride.
He can't come for a dirty bride.
And I mean, essentially that's what it was.
And thousands of people got into it.
And then when people couldn't get their life
together, another doctrine that just kind of fit
right into this was Christians being demon possessed.
Because now when you couldn't get your life
together and you, you know, man, you, I
mean, then next, you know, here, you've got
demons.
You can't, you got the demon in nicotine.
You got the demon of alcohol.
You've got the demon of marijuana, or you've
got the demon of lust, or you've got
the chocolate demon or whatever.
My wife actually wanted that one cast into
her, but the, but something to where if
there was a problem in your life at
all, there was some demonic thing that kept
you from being perfected there as God wanted
you.
And you need to have a cast out.
And again, with the, the, how this whittled
away and wounded and attacked the body Christ,
it took its toll off to another thing
off to the left.
And then the, you know, power, but the
positive confession, God wants you rich and he
wants you healthy.
And he has given you authority to speak
his word.
And if you will speak his word and
that you will, you know, and confess his
word and speak it out of your health,
even though you're not healthy, you speak health
and it'll take power over the, you know,
the world around you and the unhealthy world
and the poor world around you and the
problems.
And you'll be rich and you'll be healthy
and you'll be blessed.
And they'd always find a few verses that
you put all their theology together, but it's
always off to the left, always off into
some sort of a weird thing that came.
And then with the, you know, the, the,
the power ministry, you know, kind of a
thing that came on and the Merlin, the
miracles, you know, sort of a thing and
some other, you know, things that just seem
to come and could grasp people.
One of my personal greatest heartaches is there's
a man who spent a year with money
with me and John Wimber.
I banged him.
I don't tell that too much.
I mean, I love John and I loved
him to the end, but he could never
get in the word.
You always had trials over all of these
other things and, you know, and, and these
longing, you know, to have some thing out
there, something he was trying to always fabricate
and put together.
I said, John, you don't need it.
You got the word.
But on how, you know, there is, he
kind of found a new little niche and
a new little thing that he called it
the third wave, a fresh outpouring of God's
spirit.
I'd never before.
It's the last and final one.
He was going to head it up in
the healing ministry and all these things.
There's a, what's John and his son both
wither away, die in cancer, you know, and
the whole process, but how these things come
and then they go, they're here and then
they're gone, but they always have some sort
of a devastating way of having an effect
that they do upon the church and upon
the body of Christ as, as they go.
And now, you know, one of the latest
now is the emergent church.
It's just another thing to the left, another
thing, just off to just another fantasy.
Somebody's trying to put it together as if
there isn't enough, you know, but yeah, but
dynamic of just the word itself.
What's more?
What has ever been more thrilling than this?
More magnificent.
But you see, when I get tired of
the of the obedience and the surrender and
the following next thing I know, most people
either go off to the right or they
go off to the left, dead orthodoxy.
Or else they go off into weirdness, but
either one mobilizes, immobilizes their soul.
Either one of them will keep him out
of the land, keep him out of blessing,
keep him out of where it is.
But when somebody discovers that what they really
want with above all else is the word
of God and here God tells Joshua, he
says, everything that Moses ever was to you.
Now my word is.
Here it is, Joshua, and you take it
and every place that the soul of your
foot shall tread upon, I will give you.
It will require you as it did Moses.
He had to go and open his mouth,
put his soul, the soul of his foot
into Pharaoh's house and open his mouth and
say things that as they came out of
his mouth, the most awesome things of human
being could actually hear with his ears as
they're saying.
But where you believe it.
That's what Moses, if you can imagine Moses's
struggles of having been so more often, you
know, all the time he had to say
things before his own eyes had ever seen
them.
But wherefore he, he didn't get to experience
in them before the children of Israel did
like, I'll tell you what God, how about,
you know, I'm going to say something and
just have a few frogs run.
I mean, just give me a little frog
run, you know, just a little bit.
So I got a little confidence when I
go before Pharaoh and I say frogs are
coming, buddy, that I can say, and I've
seen them, you know, already they're on their
way, you know, or something or lice are
coming or there's a plague coming, but no,
he had this.
God looked at him and he said, no,
you go and you'll say it and believe
it.
Because I said it to you and that's
all you need.
That's why you'll get into the land because
the land isn't geographical.
Moses, the land is spiritual.
It's a place where somebody comes with an
absolute conviction that God has got in heaven
above and earth below and whatever he says
is all I need.
And therefore I will risk my life on
it.
That's what Moses did.
Every time he opened his mouth, he put
his foot out and God gave it to
him.
I'm sure you've all heard the story, the
Baptist minister and the Catholic priest and the
Jewish rabbi, these friends on Mondays, they'd go
out fishing together.
And, uh, you know, one Monday there, they
get out there and they're in the boat,
but after they'd been there, you know, sitting
there a little while Jewish rabbi looks over
and he says, you know, something, I can't
believe it.
I bought some bait and then I left
it sitting right in there in the bait
shop.
I got to go get my bait.
And with that, he just stands up and
he steps right out of the boat and
he walks on the water to the bait
shop.
And here this Baptist preacher, when he sees
this, I mean, obviously his heart was about
to blow out of his chest.
He can't believe it, but he looks over
while this is happening, this traumatic, unbelievable experience.
He looks at the Catholic priest.
He doesn't even look up, doesn't pay attention,
just looks over and go back baiting his
hook.
With that, then a few minutes later, you
know, the Jewish rabbi comes walking back out,
got a little bait thing, little bait box
there with him and sits down in the
boat.
And this guy's just sitting there.
Wait, that's a Jewish rabbi.
Hi, this is sick.
He's not, he's the guy's a heretic.
He hasn't learned a thing in 2000 years.
What is going on here?
That God, how did you let this happen?
And then a few minutes later, the Catholic
priest, he looks there and he says, you
know, I'm hungry.
I saw there in that little cafe in
there, in the snack shop there, they'd had
the best looking turkey sandwich I think I've
seen.
He said, I think I want one.
With that, he steps up, walks out, walks
in the water, just walks right in the
water, into shore, gone for a few minutes,
comes back with a little sack, sits down.
He's got this great, big, beautiful turkey sandwich.
Meantime, I mean, this Baptist minister, it's just
theologically going through turmoil.
Everything's hard in his life.
He cannot believe what the world's going on.
And he said to that, I'm not going
to be outdone by these guys.
No way.
I mean, God, if you would do that
for them, you will certainly do that for
me.
And so he finds himself there just praying
and up a storm and just knowing God,
your God, never above your Lord of Lords.
You're the King of Kings.
I know you guys died for me.
My name's in the Lamb's will go white.
And these.
Heretics, you know, or whatever are not going
to win out this one.
And he gets the faith and finally just
turns.
He says, you know, that does look like
a good looking turkey sandwich.
I think I'm going to get one for
myself.
And he steps up and with all the
faith in the world, he steps right out.
And sinks right now, just like that.
And there is he comes back up and
after the bubbles and he looks at those
guys are going on baiting their thing and
climbs back in the most, most humiliated man
you ever saw in the world sits there
for a moment.
Neither one of them say anything.
Nobody does.
And now he just, I got nothing to
lose now.
I'm nothing.
And he looks there and he says, I'm
getting that turkey sandwich.
Yes, sir.
God bless you, man.
I'll be right back.
And he takes another step out.
Down he goes.
They end up pulling him back in.
He sits down there with just dripping, just
wondering, I mean, his world crushed.
With that, the Jewish rabbi looks over the
Catholic priest and he says, do you suppose
we ought to tell him where the stumps
are?
Well, you know, the word of God is
where the stumps are.
And, you know, and when somebody there knows
the word of God, if they will put
their foot where the word of God says
they will walk on water, they will do
miraculous things.
If with a conviction, they will step out
of the boat onto the word.
And if they step out of the boat
on presumption, if they step out of the
boat on any other thing, they will go
down.
But when they step out on the word
of God, now you've got the most awesome
combination that God loves to see a man
now believing his word.
And when you can get two of those
two combinations together, you've got Canaan.
You've got victory.
That's the key to houses you didn't build,
wells you didn't dig, vineyards you didn't plant,
olive oils you didn't plant, fields white unto
harvest, cupboards you didn't fill.
Here it's something there when somebody begins to
realize, as I would step out and put
my trust in God and realize that.
As we know, and we preach so often,
the word of God is quick and powerful
and sharper than any two edged sword, able
to divide in the son of the soul
and spirit, joint marrow, thoughts in the heart.
Do I believe it's true?
Do I believe it says here is a
miraculous life, an overcoming life, a life beyond
all the sciences of the world in terms
of its hope or its peace or its
joy, its strength, its victory.
And when somebody knows that, like when David,
you know, turns, he says, oh, how happy
blessed is the man that walketh not in
the council of the ungodly, nor stands in
the way of sinners, nor sits at the
feet of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of
the Lord.
And in his law, he meditates day and
night.
He's there.
He just looks and he realizes who cares
what the world thinks and the ungodly thing.
And all the counselors out there in the
world think I've got the word of God
and he meditates in a day and night.
And here is David looks at this and
knows this, he says, you'll be like a
tree planted by rivers of water.
His leaf also shall not wither and wither
and whatsoever he doeth will prosper.
David looked back there and he was a
man that he realized something through the years.
He realized, you know, when somebody there looks
at the word of God and God says
something in his word and that man is
willing to meditate on it and then do
something about what he read, do it.
Whatsoever he doeth will prosper.
One of the only major differences between David
and the whole rest of the nation is
a time when it was filled with cowards.
David is a man there.
He looked there and he believed the word
of God.
And when he sent out with a bunch
of cheeses one day to go check on
his brothers and see how the war is
coming, he looks over and though to everybody
else's eyes, a giant of a man steps
out and mocks the children of God.
Am I not a Philistine?
Is this not your land?
Choose out a man and send him out.
If he can defeat me, will your service.
But if I defeat him, you'll be ours.
David looks at this.
There, I mean, just realizing blessed is a
man that walketh not on the counsel of
the ungodly, stands in the way of sinners,
sits in the feast corner, his delights in
the law of the Lord.
He loves the law.
And David sits there and looks at it.
He says, do you realize what that guy
just said?
Do you realize that guy just sat there
and mocked the living God?
He just made an absolute mockery of that.
What do you say?
He is the enemy.
He is on our territory.
It is ours.
How do you know that God's word said
it?
And then David not only meditated and knew
it, he acted upon it.
He looks and he's not taking it.
I'm not afraid of this uncircumcised Philistine.
There is David.
Look, he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine?
As he looks there, the certain marker of
circumcision, the mark of consecration.
Who is this man entirely unconsecrated to God?
Knows nothing of the power and the glory
and the strength and the magnificence of God
at all in a Philistine, an uncircumcised Philistine.
Who does he think he is to divide
the armies of the living God?
David finds himself, I'll do this and nothing.
What's going on here?
What's happened is he's perhaps looking around at
everybody else sitting around there and off to
the right or off to the left.
And David just walks in and he says,
this is crazy.
This is insane.
Do you hear what I hear?
What's going on?
Are you on a different planet?
What's that guy doing?
And here, you know, and here's Saul.
Everybody is cowards.
Finally, David gets brought before him and he
looks at him.
He says, oh, I just say, oh, son,
I didn't realize the volunteer was a, you
know, you're but a youth.
This man's been a warrior since he said,
I don't care.
God's been with me all the days of
my life.
I took on the lion, took on the
bear, this uncircumcised Philistine would be nothing.
And he looks at him and he sees
a man who's in Canaan.
He sees a man there who's walking in
power and walking in victory.
He's walking in another world and all he
can but do is just say, go get
him.
And not only did he go get him,
he was so anxious.
First, he puts on his armor and he
can't do it.
He said he probably couldn't walk around there,
probably try to move.
He said, hey, sorry, would you lift my
leg?
I can't move it, you know, or whatever.
I just got to do it my own
way.
And he goes out there with just that
little sling.
And first, he didn't even know I, you
know, he only knew is this is terrible.
He goes down, he collects five smooth stones
from where the river breath and most river
breads are at the bottom of the valley.
A lot of them don't run at the
top where everybody's hiding, which means David didn't
even have any ammunition till he got all
the way down.
He was fully committed.
Fully committed.
And he gets down there into the valley
where the creek is.
And there he picks up the stones.
We're finding, oh, yeah, I might need something
to kill this guy with for God.
But then this is this guy looks at
him.
He says, what am I that you come
to me with a like a dog and
sticks?
Am I a dog?
You crazy.
You send a little kid out here.
And he looks at him.
He says, I'm going to feed you the
foul of the air, which is basically that
was just old.
Whatever Philistine language or world language for your
birdseed, your chicken feed, your I'm just I'm
feeding you to the birds.
That's all you are.
They said birdseed out to me.
Well, you chicken feed.
I'm a warrior.
I don't want to fight you.
And David looked at him.
He said, you know, you come to me
with all your stuff.
I come to you in the name of
the Lord, whom you have defied this day.
Goliath, of all the days you ever got
up, this one shouldn't have been it.
This had nothing to do with you and
me.
This has to do with God and his
promise and his word.
And you've defied it and you've mocked it.
Do you realize what you've done?
You know that we would have such a
holy attitude towards the word of God within
our own hearts and such a respect for
it that we could look and realize the
magnificence and the glory and the power of
it and hold it so high that we'd
realize what weapon could ever destroy it, what
has ever been formed against it that can
do anything about it at all.
And when somebody realizes its magnificence here, David,
though, or here, you know, Joshua, he had
to learn this where God looks at him.
He said, Joshua, the old sufficiency has to
die.
The word of God has got to become
something to you that is the most powerful
thing in the world.
Most exciting thing in the world.
But he says it's also something he tells
him, you know, a couple of times here,
he says, you will observe to do it,
Joshua.
That's what he tells him.
Verse six, be strong and of good courage.
You'll divide.
You'll do it.
I will use you to divide their the
inheritance, which had sworn to their fathers only
be strong and of good courage that you
may observe to do according to all the
law, which Moses, my servant.
Joshua, I'm telling you, not just you believe
it and you just preach it, but you
will do it.
You will do whatever it says.
And then in verse eight, the book of
the law should not depart from your mouth,
but you shall meditate in a day and
night that you may observe to do according
to all that is written for them.
Then under those terms, you will make your
way prosperous and then you have great success.
That you look there and with all your
heart, you are going to do the word
of God.
You're going to put one foot in front
of another.
You're going to begin to step out.
And if you want that land.
And you want to lead them into that
land.
Then this is what you will do.
And the day you can't do it is
the day we'll find somebody else, just as
I found somebody else in Moses's place, I
suppose.
But here it's one, you know, I think
on one hand, when we can look at
how many areas of our life, how many
of us stand on one side of Jordan
in one sense, look over to the other
and dream of it.
Land flowing with milk and honey.
Wells, we didn't dig all of years, we
didn't plant cities, we didn't build fields right
into harvest houses, we didn't build.
Oh, and yet at the same time, also
in that land is an untamed enemy.
In our own lives, how many of us
have areas of peaceful coexistence that we live
in fear?
That we like the children of Israel look
there, you know, and have a battle raging
back and forth.
And the fear that goes on as we
look at this of really, truly stepping out
and trusting and believing the word.
This is the struggle.
Everyone that has ever come in, everyone, everyone
that's ever come into Canaan, they all have
fear.
Moses had fear.
Joshua had fear.
David had his fears.
You read his songs, Elijah, his fears, everyone
that ever, you know, that it is the
most common enemy of all the fear, you
know, in a sense of the enemy, the
fear of being able to step out.
And they're looking at the battles that we've
been so defeated by over and over and
over again of saying never again.
How many of us live in areas in
our own homes or marriages in our thought
life?
We enemies got it.
And there's a superficial hypocrisy where we fail
to God says you can preach all you
want to, but until you will put your
foot in the you want a victorious marriage,
you can preach about all you want, but
the whole congregation knows what you have.
It knows what side of Jordan you're always
preaching from.
They know whether they're listening to a pastor
who's preaching from the wilderness or whether he's
listening, they're listening to somebody that lives in
Canaan and loves it.
They know whether they're talking, they're listening to
somebody that truly eats the grapes of the
kingdom and drinks from its wells and eats
of its harvest and rests in its strength
or whether they're looking at somebody as desperate
as they are dreaming about what they don't
have.
And the difference is, is that one of
them has stepped out and put his foot
out.
And he said, God, it, I'm afraid, I'm
scared.
Of course we are.
The only difference to me between Joshua and
anybody else around Joshua had the fears.
Oh, he had the fears.
The only difference is, is Joshua feared God
more than he feared man.
He feared failure more than, you know, than,
than anything.
He feared not pleasing God, though he had
all the other fears.
And obviously Adam, look at what God says
to him.
Verse nine, have I not commanded thee only
be strong, be of good courage, be not
afraid, neither be dismayed over and over.
You know, I'm commanding you.
He says, be strong, be of good courage.
Don't be afraid.
Don't be dismayed four times.
Who do you, what kind of a person
you say this stuff to?
Somebody that has no fears.
Could you imagine if tonight you walked into
some big arena and there's some big yelling
and shouting going on in the thing.
And if you walk into the place you
want, and as you come in, there's an
arena packed with thousands of people and down
in the middle of it, there's a boxing
ring and you look there and walk in.
And just as you kind of come in,
you know, a microphone comes down to follow
with a tuxedo steps up into the middle.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the heavyweight championship
of the world.
You know, or whatever the whole place is.
And, you know, an uncontested heavyweight champion of
all time or whatever.
And last guy remembers Muhammad Ali.
I'm a little rusty on my heavyweight.
Evander Holyfield or whatever.
And over here, Evander Holyfield, undefeated, unanimous king
of boxing world, you know, 3000 KOs, 1000
killed in the first 15 seconds.
And there's this rippling mass of muscles sitting
over there in the corner, just waiting there
to get up.
And then you walk in and you look
over here in the other corner and there
I am.
Why are you laughing?
Over here in the other corner, the only
contender that even was stupid enough to climb
into the ring at 59 years old, blind
in one eye, one lung gone in a
recent hip replacement here.
Which guy would you go to and say,
only be strong, good courage.
Don't be dismayed.
Be not afraid.
Would you go to Evander and say, he'd
look at you and say, flick you off
and knock you down.
This is what you bother in me.
No, you come over to me.
Only be strong.
You idiot.
And a good courage.
Listen here in a few seconds, you're going
to hear a bell.
And then in about five more seconds, you'll
hear harps and angels will be singing to
you.
You'll be home.
It'd be quite wonderful.
You look at me, but here, Joshua, God's
looking at Joshua.
Of course you're afraid, Joshua.
But you know, you only got one run
around in life.
You only have one go through.
And the tragic thing is the average human
being, the average overwhelming percentage of human beings
never know courage.
They live in the twilight of spiritual power
their entire life, never, ever knowing Canaan.
And, you know, we're the weirdest people because
we preach week after week, fearlessly.
Christ died for me.
My name's in the Lamb's Book of Life.
Live as Christ, die as gain, absent from
the body, present with the Lord.
And we're rock solid on it, totally convinced
of it.
We'll argue it to the death and even
some of us willingly, happily give our life
for it.
But, you know, I mean, we literally say,
that's OK, I don't mind dying and dying
at the end of it.
You just take me thrown in a box,
bury me, throw me down six feet deep.
Hallelujah.
And we're absolutely peace about it.
I mean, that's you know, that's the most
awesome thing.
We believe the most awesome, unbelievable thing in
the world.
And yet the average Christian, when you also
look at it and say, by the way,
that's kind of a great trust in God.
Wouldn't you like to kind of test him
out a little bit before the ultimate box
comes?
You know, well, you're kind of thrown in
the thing for the to find out for
sure.
If it's really true.
And the average Christian never really knows if
it's true.
Because they live their life in the wilderness.
And I believe the whole world is simply
looking for somebody in Canaan that goes in.
That's the you know, we're oftentimes again, like
Chuck mentioned today, people are looking for programs
are looking for this or looking for that.
They're looking for somebody with a series of
messages, 10 basic steps to this, you know,
some way to victory.
Here's the whole way that you preach this,
you do this, you learn this.
The world is going to open up to
your feet.
Let me tell you, there's never been anything
in all the world like a man or
a woman that stands on the shores on
the other side of Jordan and opens his
mouth and preaches.
And until that happens, everybody's running around in
the wilderness looking for these silly things.
Instead of finding their God, take my life
and bring me into power and bring me
into blessing and bring me into victory.
I want to know how real you are.
And I want to know now.
And, you know, when we find ourself there,
just looking and crying out in a sense
to God for that.
That's when I believe the ultimate blessings really
come when we finally experience it.
And when we know that.
One of the things that I think is
just funny about me, I don't know, I
guess, I don't, it wouldn't seem funny, but
it seems so weird to everybody else, I
guess.
Well, it must be weird.
But back after I'd been at Calvary and
Costa Mesa for a few years, and I
just wanted to leave.
I didn't know where I wanted to go,
but I wanted to do a school or
this or that.
And here I was, assistant at Costa Mesa,
did Sunday services when Chuck is gone, did
all sorts of radio, TV, magazine interviews.
And here I come to Chuck said, Chuck,
I got to go.
I want to go do school.
OK, why?
I don't know.
I just got to.
And then when we got to school up
and going, the Bible college in Calvary of
Lake Arrowhead, as I looked around, there was
people, you want to run the school?
You like it?
You think you can do it?
Yeah.
You want the church?
Yeah.
Why?
I got to go where?
I don't know yet.
I just know I got to go.
Well, what do you mean you don't have
a plate?
No.
I ended up waiting on the Lord, I
just knew he's just saying go.
And next thing you know, I feel like
the Lord has me going down to Redlands.
So I went down the hill to Redlands,
but I went down there.
I everything was closed and done and gone
before I even went down and held a
Bible study.
I didn't know if anybody come and anything
happened.
And I was scared again all the time.
It's funny.
I mean, each time people ask you, what
do you what are you going to do?
Are people going to come?
I don't know.
Are you in sports?
I don't know.
Find a job.
I don't know.
I just got to go to what God
wants.
And then when Redlands is up and going,
thousands of people, I should tell the board
I got to go.
What do you mean you got to go?
I just got to go where you go.
I don't know.
God's just speaking to my heart.
And then one day I'm up, you know,
flying someplace with Chuck on the thing and
told him I said, Chuck, I got to
go.
He says, well, we're on a plane, you
can't go right now.
No, but.
But it's and and he looks at me,
he says, you are an adventure.
But to me, the thrill of it.
Thrill of it.
And he told me, he said, well, there's
a church in San Jose, and you've heard
that story, maybe.
We went off expecting there maybe be a
few months before we had support or could
have things.
It was three years.
But yet watching God provide, watching him miraculously
do the most unbelievable things to where our
kids need dental bills and we're having to
go to the dentist, there's a bill come.
We didn't have a penny.
And yet watching God provide do these most
unbelievable ways that he would bring things through.
And the thrill of it all.
The thrill of, you know, to me, we
spend our life preaching and just so often
wondering, what do you suppose it was like
for Abraham or Moses to stand there at
the Red Sea and stretch out that rod?
We preach it to everybody.
But I'll tell you, far more wonderful than
preaching is feeling it.
Standing there, what was like for Jeffrey Elijah
to stand there before 450 prophets of Baal
and say, if the Lord be God, follow
him.
And if they'll be God, follow him.
You wonder what it's like.
You just think of these people that said
and did these unbelievable things.
What was like for David to look at
Goliath and run at him?
I don't want to preach about it.
I want to know.
And the thrill of it is that watching
God do the most miraculous and wonderful things
when you just put one foot out in
front of another with absolute conviction, it's true.
And if it isn't true, like Paul says,
we're of all men, most miserable.
But therefore, because it is true, the world
ought to be looking at us and not
just simply our cleverness or our awareness of
the world around us and how contemporary we
are or with the flow of people or
the magic we seem to know about something.
They look at somebody and they live in
Canaan and they come before the people week
by week and open the word of God
and they tell them how to get there
if they want to go.
And the people believe them, not because they're
cute, because it's true.
And in their heart, the spirit of God
bears witness with it.
It says it's true.
Amen.
Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for your love.
Thank you, Lord, for your goodness to us.
Thank you, Lord, the price you paid to
adopt us, to write our name down in
your book of life, to promise, Lord, to
come for us, to conform us into your
image and in between now and then to
live every day presenting this faultless interceding for
us.
And Lord, I just pray that in the
process, something would break our hearts where we
would look at you and no other and
say, with a God like that, is there
anything you want me to do or say?
Is there someplace you want me to put
my foot?
One step at a time.
Lord, I just pray for the marriages here.
I pray for the homes.
I pray for the area that each one
of us, Lord, the fears that we all
have and there's no man that's ever entered
into Canaan that doesn't.
No woman.
But Lord, that when we fear you more
than anything, when we fear disappointing you, when
we fear the thought of one day looking
back at our life and saying it was
wasted.
Oh, that I had tried his word once.
Oh, that I had stepped out.
Lord, may we know the thrill.
May the secret of what we are as
individuals, as a people, as a congregation, where
we want to lead them, Jesus, may we
be ones that say, Jesus, bring them into
the land.
But you must bring me first or they'll
know.
I've never ate a grape.
I've never drank from its wells.
I've never eaten from its tables.
Known it's all of yours.
Lord, first feed me and help me with
my own fears.
Each and every one of us, Lord.
May you do this as you take away
every other dependence, all other sufficiencies.
May they die in our life to where
we find ourself standing naked before you and
say, what do you say to me?
I will do it.
Oh, the fear, but oh, the joy in
our spirit when we realize that's how you
work.
Teach us and help us and strengthen us
in these days.
In Jesus name we ask it.
Amen.