It is good to be together again tonight, fellowshipping together. You know, it is a precious time when the Lord brings us together. I am especially thankful that I can fellowship with brothers and sisters who know something of this fullness.
We are talking about fullness—a burden to share on fullness in the church. It is wonderful to come to a meeting like this, where we sing songs together, pray together, and then have a brother like John share thoughts that add to the things I want to share. That is how we have fullness: not just one person sharing everything, but a sharing together in the life of Christ.
How much greater it is to have a number of people praying with the same burden, and indeed sharing the Word of God with the same burden as well. So I am glad to be in that context tonight.
For those of you who are here for the first time, I see the group is growing a little bit, so I hope you can sort of keep up with the train of thought. We are using the book of Joshua to picture for us the fullness that the Lord desires for His children—the fullness of church life: truly possessing our possessions, truly claiming our inheritance, truly standing in Christ in a full and wonderful way.
Tonight we are going to turn again to the book of Joshua and read an extended passage that deals with the Jordan River. I want to share tonight on the transition of the Jordan River in this matter of fullness.
We want to turn to Joshua 3, beginning in verse 7, and read through Joshua 4:7.
Now the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you.
You shall, moreover, command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’”Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, “Come here, and hear the words of the Lord your God.”
Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite.
Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan.
Now then take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe.
It shall come about when the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan will be cut off; and the waters which are flowing down from above will stand in one heap.”
So when the children set out from their tents to cross the Jordan with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant before the people, and when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water—for the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest—the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan. And those which were flowing down toward the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off. So the people crossed opposite Jericho.
And the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.
Now when all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, “Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from each tribe. Command them, saying, ‘Take up for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet are standing firm, and carry them over with you, and lay them down in the lodging place where you will lodge tonight.’”
So Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Cross again to the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel. Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ then you shall say to them, ‘Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”
Then, in Joshua 5:7-10:
Their children whom He raised up in their place, Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them along the way.
Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal, they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho.
Let us turn also to 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.
For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.
Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
Finally, Hebrews 4:1-2:
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.
For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
May the Lord help us understand His Word. Let us pray.
Father, we thank You tonight that we come with a burden for Your interests: how You desire to perfect Your church, to gather us together into a oneness under our Lord Jesus, where He can wash us and cleanse us with the washing of the water of the Word, and remove every spot and wrinkle in preparation for the wedding.
As we gather together tonight, give us all a like heart, having the same burden that You have for all Your people. O Lord, by Your Spirit, interpret to us, even in these last days, all these pictures in the Old Testament, that we may take them to our hearts, apply grace, and be found faithful in these last days.
O bring us into fullness, Lord, and into the reality of fullness, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
We are looking at the book of Joshua because in it there is a beautiful picture of God’s thought of fullness for His people. God purposed that the children of Israel should go into this land, and it would be their land. God would protect them, be with them, prosper them, and bless them. He had such a plan for them in the land.
Indeed, the children of Israel were so small, so self-absorbed, so fearful, so rebellious, and so unbelieving. God says, “Please, I have this land for you,” and yet they gave Him trouble all along the way. They simply did not understand God’s thought and God’s plans.
When you think of the book of Joshua, it is such a beautiful testimony of the positive side. In the end, that is God’s thought regarding His children. In Joshua, all enter into the promised land; all fight the spiritual warfare and win the victory; all possess their possessions; all inhabit the land; and all receive an inheritance. That is God’s thought.
Nobody gets left behind, you might say. Everybody goes in, finds their place, gains the victory, and possesses their land. Hallelujah! What a great picture that is.
In the letter to the Ephesians, we have something of the same. There is a correspondence between Joshua and Ephesians. When you open Ephesians, Paul is led by the Spirit into the heavenlies, where he describes this heavenly promised land, the blessings we have there, and our inheritance.
We already have the down payment. We are moving in. There is the measure of the fullness of Christ. We are already the body of Christ, His fullness. It is full of the Spirit, full of armor, and full of victory. It is a beautiful picture in Ephesians of the same thought God has for His children: fullness. He wants fullness for us.
But, as our brother John said tonight in the introduction, the Scriptures always have the balance. We have the warnings as well.
First Corinthians 10 is a warning. Paul says, “Listen, it is true. The children of Israel came through the Red Sea and came to Sinai. They were fed and cared for by the Lord. They were His people. They were on the way.”
But they gave Him such a tough time. God says, “I do not want you living in the wilderness. I want you in the promised land.” Some of the children of Israel were saying, “Let us go back to Egypt. It is easier there.” Others murmured, worshiped idols, became immoral, and tested the Lord.
These are examples. The Lord was not pleased with these people, and this is a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come.
Paul says this to the church of Corinth, which is a perfect example of what I was sharing on the first night. The Lord desires fullness, but the problem with us is our self-life. It is ourselves that get in the way and cause limitation from fullness.
The church of Corinth—you know, I gave this little saying the other night. I do not know if I can remember it, but I said, “It is the genius of natural man that he makes his little things large, thus rendering God’s large things little.”
Paul says at the beginning of the letter to the Corinthians, “You are not behind in knowledge.” They had some smart men. “You are not behind in gifts.” They had all nine listed in 1 Corinthians, and maybe some others. They were not behind in fellowship. Yet, despite all that had been given to them by the Lord through grace, they were so limited.
Men were fighting over who was most popular: Apollos, Paul, or Peter. They were limiting the fullness in the congregation in Corinth. What was the matter with them?
Some of them said, “We have a large view of things, so we tolerate these kinds of moral sins when they happen.” That is a large fleshly view that makes the testimony of the Lord very small. Because they were allowing a man to sleep with his father’s wife, the whole Corinthian church was coming into question morally as a house of God. They were tolerating it with their worldly largeness.
But worldly largeness is actually smallness. Fleshly largeness is actually smallness. All of their knowledge put together is a little pool in a cup of water compared to God’s wisdom.
Paul says, in effect, “Because you think you know everything, I cannot share with you God’s wisdom—things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have never entered into the heart of man. I cannot share these things with you because you think you know it all already, because you are whole and have need of nothing. How can I share with you?”
God gives them gifts of the Spirit, praise God, and they are fighting over the gifts. Who is going to share first? Who is going to stand up? It is causing such disarray. When they come together for the love feast, some get drunk while others starve. This is such a limitation. What are they doing?
Paul goes on and on, mentioning fleshly things that cause limitations. Then he comes to 1 Corinthians 10 and says, “Do you not realize you are doing what the children of Israel did?” Of course, when you come through the waters of baptism, pictured in the Red Sea, you are the church and the people of God. But it is like you are wandering in the wilderness because of your fleshliness.
God has a desire for us to enter into the promised land, but we cannot enter in as long as we are held down by this flesh—continual self, self, self, self. The leaders: self, self, self, self. The congregation full of self, self, self. That cannot come into the promised land.
The fullness pictured in Ephesians and in Joshua is a fullness that we should begin to experience in this lifetime.
In Ephesians 4, Paul says that we are to maintain the unity of the Spirit. Why? Because we are one together. We go through many things we do not understand, and we even go through conflicts together, but we stay together, holding fast to the Head, until we all attain to maturity—to one man—to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
There is something to be attained to. Paul says it is fullness, the fullness of Christ. There is something we are gaining, something we are working toward. As we understand and are drawn together, this unity of the Spirit becomes a unity of the faith, and we attain to a fullness.
This takes years. It takes so much dealing, understanding, long-suffering, forbearing, praying, loving, and forgiving. But through this process we come to a real, solid unity. We are drawn together and knit together, and God is doing something in fullness.
There are brothers with this gift and sisters with that gift. There is a fullness. There is diversity. Oh, this is God’s plan for us, and it is to be touched and experienced in this lifetime.
Fully, of course, when the Lord comes back. Only the Lord can put the topstone, by the grace of God, on this whole thing. But I am thankful—very thankful—that I am here tonight sharing with people, many of whom desire to see the church come into focus.
The book of Joshua is usually used to help us in our personal Christian life. I mentioned those two wonderful books: Ian Thomas’s The Saving Life of Christ, about the individual Christian life and how we come through salvation by the Red Sea and into victorious, full salvation through the Jordan River; and Alan Redpath’s Victorious Christian Living, which also uses Joshua to help us understand such things as what it means to be crucified with Christ.
Of course, you cannot talk about the corporate without dealing with the individual. We need to be full of the Spirit and full of Christ. Christ must dwell in our hearts. As we gather together, and as the Lord builds us together, there is a corporate fullness because we individually are growing that way.
But my burden in these times is to share on the corporate side: how we can come to this corporate fullness and begin to enter into it.
My burden last night was to share Joshua’s life as a testimony of one man, so that we could see that God takes forty years to prepare a man to become a son—a responsible, weight-bearing man of God: faithful, obedient, and fruitful.
It takes a long time for the Lord to build an assembly. It does not happen overnight. There is no instant church. There is a process. Fullness always involves time. Fullness always involves something more than just what we can see.
In every place where you gather together, it is not going to happen in two years, four years, or five years. Sometimes things in Christian circles are collected together very fast. They seem immediately united, immediately blessed, and immediately powerful, but you find that there is actually very little connection.
Sometimes I go to a church where there are two thousand people, and then I go to their prayer meeting and there are fourteen people. Now that says to me that they have not come to fullness. They may be gathered around some great preacher or something like that—I do not take that away from them—but you see the fullness in the size of the prayer meeting, just as an example. I throw that in for free. We will get to that a little later.
Fullness does not mean that you are perfect. In Joshua, the children of Israel come into the land, possess their possessions, and win victories, but they made mistakes too. They still had to learn about their flesh.
At Ai, what did they learn? They learned this lesson: one member of the body affects everyone.
When we come under fullness, sometimes we get a little group-oriented, and people think they can get away with things. But we cannot come to fullness when there is an Achan stealing things from the Lord. Achan was found out and killed—and we should do that in the body of Christ. No, no, it will never work.
But at least we can learn this lesson: I am affecting you, and you are affecting me. If you are here with a wrong attitude tonight, it makes it harder for me to share. If you are here and your heart is open, it makes it easier for me to share. If I share with the right attitude, it is easier for you to receive; if I share with the wrong attitude, it is tough for you to get past me to receive. You know what I mean? We affect one another.
May the Lord have mercy on us. At Ai, they learned that lesson.
Then there were the Gibeonites. You remember that tribe that came and pretended they had come from far away. They had old bread and so on. They tricked Israel into receiving them as servants, and then Israel found out it was not true.
The whole point is found in one verse: they received the Gibeonites and their gifts without consulting the Lord. Ah, how many times do we end up in compromise because we did not ask the Lord first? We just said, “This looks good. This must be good. Of course, you can be our servants. Free slaves—this is great!”
They did not ask the Lord, and they got entangled in something that later caused the potential for great problems. Yet the Lord was with them and taught them these lessons.
As they grew, they gained their portion. Every step they put with their foot, God gave them a mile. That is the story of Joshua. They took one step out to fight somebody, and God sent down bees or hailstones. The children of Israel took one step, and God took a mile.
The story is one of possessing by faith and victory. They gained their portion step by step, and the Lord was with them.
Behind all of this is this simple question: are we attaining to the measure of the fullness of Christ? Have we entered into that place where the Lord is our portion?
I love that little biographical section in Philippians where Paul is in jail, and yet it seems like he is surveying the mountains of Jesus. “I am running after the high calling. I have not attained yet, but I press on. I am surveying more of the land. I am in jail, of course, but still I am surveying more of Christ—more of Christ, more of Christ.”
This should be us corporately. We gather together: let us survey Christ. Let us see more of His boundaries. Let us taste more of His delicacies. When we gather together, this should be a real issue among us: this attaining, this putting our feet down, this discovery of Christ.
Fullness is the attaining and obtaining of Christ in reality and experience in our lives.
When we have the story of Joshua, all twelve tribes receive an inheritance. But actually, the picture for us, in terms of inheritance, is this: which tribe are we? You say Judah? Pick your tribe and you will be wrong—unless you say the Levites.
The Levites did not receive territory. The Lord was their portion. They lived in cities in the territories of the various tribes, but they had no territory of their own. They stood as a testimony to this: we are seeking a heavenly inheritance.
There are churches and Christians who have a theology—they are called dominion theologians or restorationists—and they believe that Christ wants us as the church to take the land literally: take over the United States, make it a Christian nation, take over the world, and gain all the ground of the actual earth.
But the truth is that the church has a heavenly calling. The church will always have a heavenly territory and a heavenly inheritance to gain. That is why, when we get too oriented toward taking a piece of property, it can become problematic for the church.
We are the Levites. We are saying, “You can have territory. My territory is in heaven.” Remember that passage from Hebrews 10: you willingly endured the seizure of your property, knowing that you have a better possession and an abiding one. Keep that confidence; it has great reward.
The writer of Hebrews was warning them to stay on that right track.
Tonight we want to look at Jordan because it is the key to the transition of slaves out of Egypt becoming a nation. It is true that they were constituted a nation at Mount Sinai—God’s peculiar people, His chosen ones whom He loved—but in another sense, they could not become a nation until they actually had ground.
As long as they wandered in the wilderness, they were like tribes. After crossing the Jordan, they became a nation because they entered into their inheritance. They needed to be a people possessing a land in order to be a nation, which would allow God to make it a kingdom, and so on.
The Jordan becomes very important. Of course, the Jordan speaks to us about the cross. It is the great transition from those arguing, murmuring people in the wilderness to those people exercising, understanding, coming into fullness, living in unity, and possessing their possessions.
The Jordan, as a picture of the cross, is the transition point in between. That is what we want to look at tonight.
Theologically, the first thing we have to note is this: the Red Sea and the Jordan are inseparably connected together, because all of it has to do with our salvation.
The Red Sea is a type of our baptism and our coming out of the world. The church is the ekklesia. Ekklesia means “called-out ones.” The first part of our salvation is to be called out of the world, called out of Egypt. That happens once. There is a one-way ticket through the Red Sea, and there is no passage back.
Once we come through the Red Sea and come out of Egypt, we have been saved. But the Jordan is also involved in our salvation. They are inseparable in this way: both are bodies of water, and both speak about transactions that lead us into what God wants.
In Deuteronomy 6:23, Moses is interpreting to the children of Israel all the mercy, love, and purposes of God behind His taking them, redeeming them, giving them the law, and bringing them into the land.
He brought us out from there in order to bring us in.
Sometimes we as Christians emphasize the bringing out, but we do not talk about the bringing in. This bringing in is a corporate matter once again.
It is true that we must be brought into a personal experience of the death of Christ and the personal experience of living by His life and not our own life. But truly, we have been brought out of the world to be brought into this community called the church. Our address is no longer the world; our address is in Christ.
I tell young people, when they go to school and are asked for their address, they should put, “In Christ.” They are no longer in the world. That is their new address. They live in Christ. We live in Christ.
The Lord brings us out in order to bring us in. It would be a shame to be brought out and merely be Christians. I fear too many Christians are wandering in the wilderness of self. They are saved, but they are murmuring and complaining—complaining about the food, not having enough money, not liking the bread, and so on.
All the time, the Lord says, “What are you complaining for? I did not mean for you to stay here. I brought you out to bring you in.”
But so many Christians fear this matter of living corporately—living with brothers and sisters, being knit together with them, and living that kind of life. That is the life of fullness, but it is also the life of much pressure and much dealing. It is a life that includes the Jordan River.
The church can only testify to fullness if it can say not only, “We have come out of the world,” but also, “We are coming into the fullness of Christ.”
Hebrews warns of falling short. We read that verse in Hebrews 4: “Let us fear, lest while we have received promises, anyone should seem to have come short of them.”
It is interesting that the exhortations in Hebrews are corporate exhortations. The writer of Hebrews is exhorting these Christians concerning their corporate experience.
I am always in this psychic conflict: should I go back to the King James Version? I use the New American Standard, but the King James Version does something so beautiful. Anybody here who is a King Jamesian and has the proper English Bible will realize this wonderful little corporate phrase: “Let us.”
How many times is “let us” used in Hebrews? Twelve times—one for each tribe.
“Let us go on to maturity.” “Let us fear, lest having received promises, we come short of them.” “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Let us, let us.
One preacher said Hebrews is a vegetable book, full of lettuce. Twelve times: “Let us.” Is that corporate or individual? Well, it is both, okay? I will grant you that. But there is a corporate exhortation there.
Will this really bother you if I tell you that you cannot come into fullness alone? I will make an exception: if you are alone in Siberia in a jail and have no Christian fellowship, I think you can come to fullness on your own.
But God’s purpose, why you live in California—the most Christian state in the union—is for you to live in fellowship and come to fullness in fellowship. In that sense, we have to go together. We have to learn together.
Last night we shared about Joshua. His greatest pain and suffering was that he could have gone in thirty-eight years before, but he had to wait thirty-eight years for the people in order to go in with them.
God has us knit together. When you are knit together with people, the grass is always greener in the other fellowship’s yard. You say, “Oh God, why did I get these people? I am going to die in the wilderness with this group. Of course, I am ready to go in, being perfect myself—but the rest of them!”
But we have been placed together, and that book says, “Let us.” That means we have to drag one another into the rest. We can be Christians, love the Lord, read the Bible, and have our morning devotions, but we cannot enter rest until we enter into rest with other brothers and sisters.
That is God’s plan for us: not merely a vertical people, but a vertical and horizontal people. We are bound together with brothers and sisters.
Some of you have been in the church for more than a year, so you know: God’s main tool for chiseling you is often your brothers and sisters. I do not mean chiseling—stealing—I mean the way He works on you. Up in New York, we do chisel each other, but down here it has to be different.
God works on us by one another. As soon as you are saved, you are a spiritual giant—until you meet those other brothers and sisters who drive you crazy: those who pray so long, those who are so sweet you could punch them, or those who seem so self-righteous that you hope they sin so you can laugh at them.
You get all kinds of bad thoughts about those people. It is often the people who are opposite of you. Actually, it is the people who are most like you that you cannot stand.
God says, “Ah, life—life through death. This is what I am looking for.” How we need one another.
There is nothing more precious than brothers who have been knit together, who have learned how to minister the Word together, who know they can depend upon one another to correct them when they are off track, encourage them when they feel they have failed, and help them learn.
There is nothing better. There is no seminary that can teach you how to be a minister of the Word of God as brothers and sisters can—by the amen, by their help, or just by their saying, “Do not stop your day job.”
Sometimes people feel called, but nobody else can see any calling to pulpit ministry in their life. I hope you have the grace to say, “Brother, you just do not have it. Sit down and find what other gifts you have.”
There is such fullness the Lord wants, but it comes in that corporate process where we are together and working together.
In Hebrews 3:12-13, we have the first exhortation, completely corporate:
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today.”
What is our antidote for getting an evil, unbelieving heart? Walking in the light day by day with brothers and sisters.
Those of you who know something of fellowship life know that when suddenly your brother stops coming to the meetings and begins hiding in the shadows, you already know something is wrong.
If we walk together day by day in the light, we can prevent an evil, unbelieving heart. If we do not have daily exposure and fellowship with brothers and sisters, there is nobody to say, “Wait, wait, wait. There is a shadow. There is a shadow.” That is important—very important.
Then, in Hebrews 10:25:
Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some.
Here is an exhortation: do not forsake the assembling together. Some Christians are so spiritual that they think they do not need the assembly. Well, they need the assembly if they want fullness.
Some people are such loners that they think they can make it on their own. Really, they are so full of pride and self-righteousness that they are judging everybody. They feel it is just them and the Lord. It is a deception, as John says in his epistle.
Then, in Hebrews 13:13, there is another “let us”:
So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
What does that mean? You heard our brother sharing this morning about the state of the church today. So much of it is man’s manufacture. I cannot speak for everybody. I know the Lord works sovereignly, and I believe there are overcomers in all kinds of church contexts around the world.
But all I can say is this: when I really saw what the Lord wanted, when I saw what the church was, I had to leave the camp—the regular concept of church, the usual concept out there—and find brothers and sisters who were looking for reality and not merely an outward form.
The writer is telling these Hebrew Christians, “I am sorry, but you have to leave the temple and synagogue life if you want to come to maturity.” Imagine being a Christian, believing Jesus is the Lamb of God Who washed your sins away, and yet offering a lamb every Passover. Is there something wrong with that? Yes.
Why are you still doing a shadow when you have the reality? You have the Passover Lamb now. Why are you still sacrificing?
The last weekend before I came down here, Fourth of July weekend, I met a wonderful couple. They loved the Lord and were recently saved. They lived in Georgia, but this brother was so confused.
He was going to a Black Pentecostal Bible school connected to Azusa Street, and meanwhile he was going to a Messianic fellowship. He was bar mitzvahing his children because they told him to, and they were celebrating all the feasts as though Jesus had not come yet.
When I began to talk to him, he said, “Wait, wait, no, no, wait. Yeah, you are right.” I talked to him from Hebrews. He loved the Lord so much that he was ready to come outside the camp right then, but where could he go? He could not leave the Pentecostal school, and the Messianic assembly wanted him to be a minister. Talk about outside the camp.
His whole life stood for ruin if he understood what the Bible said. Let us go out together outside the camp and say, “Lord, we want reality.”
You know what that means? It means you will always have a hard time explaining what this group is that you are part of. It will always be considered slightly illegal. People will always say, “Yes, yes, but who is really the pastor?”
But if you want reality, then you have to go outside the camp. And you go out together, thank God. You find brothers and sisters who are the same way.
My youngest son grew up outside the camp. He went to little groups of people who wanted the reality of the church. He did not know what was going on, and one day in fourth grade he was filling out one of those beginning-of-the-year forms.
In New York, you are either a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew. Those were his choices. He knew he was not Catholic. We had no idea where “Protestant” was, so he checked off “Jew.”
He was way outside the camp. Praise God, he did not know.
The exhortations in Hebrews are all corporate. It is a matter of, “Let us go on to maturity together. Let us go on together.” That is why we need to help one another. You cannot just leave people behind and say, “Oh well, they are having their usual little sissy fit. Leave them alone.”
No, you cannot do that. You have to go deal with that brother or that sister and get them back into corporate life. We are going on to maturity together.
In order to do that, we have to go through the Jordan. How are we going to get through the mighty Jordan?
In Joshua 3:15, there is that little parenthesis: the Jordan overflows all its banks all the days of harvest. That happened to be the time God told them to cross the Jordan.
They could have waited for the dry season, but in this season the water was overflowing its banks and the current was going so fast that you could not swim across or take boats across. God said, “Go across the Jordan.”
The people would say, “There is the current. I see trees going down the river. How are we ever going to get across that Jordan?” It may only have been a couple of hundred yards, but it was impossible for man—only possible with God.
It may be only a couple of hundred yards across that Jordan, but there is a whole different life: the life of the wilderness and the life in the promised land; the life of self and the life of Christ.
Geographically, they may be juxtaposed, but there is such a different quality of life. How can we get from here to there? I think all of us could testify: maybe we are here. How did the Lord get us there?
Of course, that is where books go into the individual matter of understanding that your old man is dead and that you now live by the life of Christ. All of that is very true. But how can we possibly make this application corporately?
In order for us to go through, two things are going to happen that will be lasting, as far as testimony goes.
First, on the other side, we will lay stones that came out of the bottom of the river—something that was dead—and lay them on the bank in the promised land, on resurrection ground.
Also, Joshua 4:9 says:
Then Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the feet of the priests who carried the ark of the covenant were standing; and they are there to this day.
For us to go through the Jordan, we are going to have to leave something behind: twelve stones down in that river. Of course, that speaks of death. If we are going through this Jordan, something is going to have to die and be left at the bottom of the river.
Something is also going to have to be brought up on the other side—lifted up out of death and placed on resurrection ground. Twelve stones there and twelve stones there speak of the twelve tribes. All of us somehow have to come to this Jordan, die, come up on the other side, and live by His life as a corporate assembly together in order to come into fullness.
The Lord is so gracious and gathers so many companies of believers together. A number of people here are old enough to remember that amazing season of gathering in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Lord’s Spirit was poured out all over the world, really, but certainly here in California. Many people were saved and gathered together. They had no idea what they were doing, but God’s grace was superabounding.
I remember that day. I was a young man, had long hair, played guitar, and sang Christian rock music. I had a band called the Charismatic Fats and the Jesus Brats. We would go around on a flatbed truck, park in a town, preach the gospel, and sing songs. Sometimes people got saved.
We went to New York, North Carolina, West Virginia, and other places on tour with my great band. My band stunk. I was a lousy preacher. But people got saved. People started gathering together.
Hippies gathered together. Flower children gathered together. People would gather together and find the Lord. They would worship Him all night and open the Word.
This young man, Chuck Smith, opened the Bible and said, “Let us start with Genesis 1:1.” “In the beginning…” Everybody went, “Whoa!” What an amazing time. God’s grace was upon everybody.
We could pray for another such revival. Oh, may the Lord do that.
But the Lord still gathers His children today. People gather together for this reason or that. Some have been dissatisfied in an old established church for years and want something more, so they gather. Somebody gathers a Bible study here; somebody leaves a church and goes there; some college group graduates and still gets together. There are all kinds of reasons for gathering.
But when God’s people are serious and gather together, the Lord meets them and blesses them with grace. Sometimes, because they gather and do not know what they are doing, they depend on the Lord, and the Lord blesses them.
Especially when you really say, “Lord, we do not know what we are doing. Lord, please help us,” He comes through.
But now we have to get to know the Lord. When you get to know the Lord, you discover what? He is so faithful. If people are serious about Him, He gets serious about them. Sooner or later, He starts to deal with things in their lives.
At that point, they start drawing near to the Jordan River, and one wonders whether they will make it through. The Spirit of God takes seriously people who say, “Lord, we want Your best. We want Your testimony. We want Your life.”
Some of you gathered on that basis years ago. Praise God.
Especially when we are young, we gather with great idealism. We do not see one another’s flesh too much because we gather with a fairly homogeneous group—or so we think.
But as the Lord begins to uncover us, we start to see one another as we really are. We begin to conflict with one another and go through all that. You know what? It is just the Spirit of the Lord bringing the cross into our lives through one another.
If a group that has come together is going to survive and find some measure of real life—indeed, if it is going to be born—the Lord has to do at least three things.
First, He has to reduce the foundation to just Jesus Christ. Many times people get together, but they have a background. I could leave the Baptist church, which I did, but still have Baptist in me. If I just go start something, I will start a Baptist thing without realizing it.
The Lord has to reduce the foundation to just Jesus Christ. There is some polishing off and some reducing that must go on.
Second, He begins overruling our fleshly plans. He keeps frustrating the group’s attempts to buy a building, do this, or do that. God overrules all their plans and holds them down.
Thank God, sometimes He gives them brothers who are the quintessential bottleneck. Anything you give those brothers will not get through. It goes into that bottleneck and just gets stuck. You ask them to make a decision, and they can never make a decision. People are murmuring, getting mad, and wanting to go back to Egypt.
Third, the Lord starts challenging the rulership. Whatever sort of de facto government you established—the two elders, the three deacons, and the five congregations, whatever you have done—the Lord often has to undo that whole thing.
If these brothers are serious, they say, “Lord, we just lay it all down before You. Whatever You want.” Then He starts dealing with those things.
Without the cross dealing with our flesh, we can never enter the promised land. Flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Things have got to die and be left in the river.
The Jordan is a summation of forty years of dealing with Israel. They left those stones down there. There were things the Lord had been doing throughout that whole time.
If that dying had not occurred, they would have gotten to the Jordan and split up—twelve tribes going twelve different ways. We never would have known Israel. Or they all would have stayed on the east side of the Jordan, like Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. They could not make it across unless they were willing to die.
Think of the twelve apostles. They were newly picked and waiting in Jerusalem. These twelve apostles were going to build the church. If the work of the cross by the Spirit had not worked in their lives, they would have split into twelve different denominations, because they were men of flesh who had to deny themselves and go through the cross in order to be one.
Do you not think those ten days in Jerusalem were times of travail, struggle, decision, waiting, and prayer? Otherwise, they would have split apart too.
Maybe you think the twelve apostles were the perfect assembly. They would not have thought so. Peter thought Andrew was a weaker brother. James and John did not always get along. James the Less did not like his name, and so on and so forth.
But the Lord dealt with them in such a way that, by the Spirit of God, they could be plunged through the Jordan and come out on the day of Pentecost as one living organism under the headship of Christ. What a tremendous miracle that was.
Our brother Stephen has a spiritual mathematical formula. I have never heard a better one. The church is not made up of Peter and Andrew and James and John and Bartholomew and Nathanael and so on. That is not the church, because the church is Christ.
So we say, “The church is Christ and Peter, Christ and Andrew, Christ and James, Christ and John.” Is that the church? Well, not quite.
Here is the formula:
Christ and Peter, minus Peter,
plus Christ and Andrew, minus Andrew,
plus Christ and James, minus James.
You get the vision. That is the church.
Sure, you have brothers together whose names are Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Sure, they are all filled with Christ. But people can be filled with Christ and full of other things, especially themselves.
Christ and Peter, minus Peter—now there is a building block. That is what the Lord has to do with all of us. How are we going to come into the fullness of an assembly? It has to be Christ and Dana, minus Dana; plus Christ and Joe, minus Joe. Ah, that can be the Jordan experience for us.
There is a dying. There are stones left at the bottom. There are stones brought up to the top. There is much dying that has to be done to come into something.
In the reality of church life, in some senses we are still in the wilderness, and in other senses we have found resurrection ground. A congregation can come to a point where the Lord’s life comes in a manifest way into that assembly, and they become an organism. Yet there are still some wilderness dealings to be done in that life. In other areas, we have taken resurrection ground.
The Jordan is this transition point, without which we will not know fullness. There are three positive things about going through the Jordan that I would like to finish with as an exhortation.
The first is this: if we are going to go through the Jordan, there is only one way to go through it. The ark has to lead the way.
The ark is a picture of the Lord, of course, but more than that, of the enthroned Lord. There is only one way an assembly will truly touch organic life: Jesus must factually and really be the functional Head of that group.
The ark must go before. God told them that the ark had to go about a half-mile ahead of the people so that they could see the distinction between themselves and the ark, follow it, and see where it was going.
The first thing we see in a group that comes into some realization of fullness and the obtaining of our precious inheritance in Christ is that the ark goes before us.
I want to make a distinction here, and I will put a caveat on it at the end. There is a difference between, when a congregation comes together, sensing the presence of the Lord and sensing His enthroned presence.
Many times Christians gather together and the Lord’s presence is sensed. His Spirit is there. There are congregations where, in the midst of worship, the presence of the Lord is there. There is anointed ministry. Thank God, there are many men of God whose ministry of the Word is anointed.
When people come, they touch the Lord and sense His presence. Sometimes people gather for a special time of prayer, and the Lord touches and blesses them. They sense God’s presence in a wonderful way.
These things are the inheritance of all God’s people when they gather two or three in the Lord’s name, because the Lord loves them. If they are faithful to the Word and their hearts are right, they know His rest.
But I think there is a difference between that and knowing His enthroned presence. What is that?
The enthroned presence is certainly the Holy Spirit upon us and a sense of the Lord being in the midst. But there are some interesting phenomena in the enthroned presence of the Lord.
There is actually a leading of the assembly by a living Word. That is to say, they are hearing a rhema from God and following it. They are asking the Lord and finding something living in their midst.
It is not just messages on the deeper life, how to be happy as a family, or this and that. There is actually a Word leading them in life. There is a sense of God’s leading by the Word.
The second thing is this: where God’s enthroned presence is pleased to dwell, you sense that the government of the assembly is the prayer meeting. They really gain God in prayer. They understand His will and know what to do because they have prayed together.
The prayer meeting is absolutely crucial to a living assembly. Without it, the government becomes an external bunch of men making decisions based on their best wisdom, and often natural wisdom.
If brothers are in responsibility and leading, and they feel some burden or have some sense, what do they do? They bring it to the prayer meeting and say, “Let us pray about this.” Maybe a sister has shared something; maybe I have felt something, or you have felt something. But we bring it before the assembly and pray: “Is this the Lord’s will? Is this the way to go?”
The prayer meeting is absolutely essential to a group that would know the enthroned presence.
The third thing that is part of such an assembly is godly conduct. His enthroned presence will not dwell upon people who are loose. He does not feel comfortable there.
I am not talking about rigid legalism or dress codes. I am talking about modesty, but I am not even primarily talking about dress. I am talking about godliness: people living their lives by the life of Christ within them and exercising themselves unto godliness.
The fourth thing is that God’s enthroned presence is often not an experience of great blessing, which is all we want. When assemblies gather for worship and say, “Oh, I feel God’s presence—hallelujah!” that is always a wonderful feeling. I never hear the opposite.
But when God’s enthroned presence is truly allowed to be—when He is really allowed to be Head and Lord of a group—sometimes they go through deep waters and tough times. The Lord may shut them down and bring heaviness upon them because He is grieved, quenched, or has an issue.
That is where I want to bring in the caveat. I am talking about something very subjective: this matter of enthroned presence and spiritual presence. What is the difference, and which group has which? As soon as we start going there, we have gone off.
People like to judge that sort of thing. They come in and say, “I am leaving this group. The presence of God just is not here.” I do not buy that at all. I do not think you can sense God’s presence like that in one meeting.
This matter of God’s serious lordship and serious presence is not always an easy road to walk, because sometimes He is really dealing with a group. But that does not mean He has left.
Some people are fair-weather Christians. When times get tough, they say, “The Lord is not here anymore,” and go over to another meeting where they get the blessing without the cross.
His enthroned presence is a costly presence. It is a presence that allows us to hold up the lampstand: testifying to Jesus, to His life, to His holiness, to His love, and to His truth. We hold that testimony only as long as we abide by His will, listen to His voice, and do not harden our hearts.
This is a very precious thing. To know His enthroned presence is to know, when we come together, that pervasive, restraining presence. It is such a treasure.
God bless you if you assemble with people who have this enthroned presence. God bless you through the tough times. You will get through if you say, “Lord, do not leave us.” Say like Moses, “Lord, do not let an angel lead us. We do not want some preacher to lead us into the promised land. We want Your presence to take us there.”
Hang on to His presence. Insist on His presence. Wait for His presence. Repent before Him, so that His throne can stay and the ark can continue to lead. If the ark does not lead us through, we do not want to go.
It is a serious thing to trifle with that which is wrong. If God has grown an assembly to the place that He has committed Himself, God help us if we take it loosely, take it lightly, fall back, stop listening to Him, become hard of heart, and simply do what we want.
If we lose that presence, we have lost something—I do not know what to say. I do not know if the Lord will ever give it back to us.
Now, here is the danger. I know I have said something, and I want to cover it with a warning, because we are subjective, like sparks fly upward. I do not want us to start analyzing our own group: “It is here; it is not here. We have the presence; we do not have the enthroned presence. We have semi-enthroned presence…”
I will tell you what to do. Let us gather together in the prayer meeting and say, “Oh Lord, would You reign over us? We want You truly to be our Head. We ask that Your throne would lead us. We want to know Your will and do Your will.”
“If You have to cut something off the foundation, cut it off. If You need to deal with our flesh, deal with it. But Lord, we want You enthroned over us.” If you pray that way, that enthroned presence will come sooner or later.
Do you desire that, or are you satisfied with blessing?
I have to confess to you that about once every six weeks, I go up to Times Square Church, where Dave Wilkerson is pastor. They have a choir, professional singers, and a thousand watts of worship. I go there and stick my finger in the plug. I love it.
I am still a charismaniac at heart. I go there and throw my arms up in the air. Nobody seems to care or look at me and say, “What is he doing?” because they are all doing it. They worship God. They love the Lord. David Wilkerson loves the Lord, praise God. I love to be there. I sense His presence. I do not know about His enthroned presence; I would not dare say.
There is a lot of difference between going somewhere where there is a blessing and going somewhere where His presence is enthroned.
That is the first thing: let the ark lead the way. The second thing is just as important and just as vital. There have to be priests carrying the ark.
The assembly can only be brought onto resurrection ground by the travail of praying people.
Brothers and dear sisters, most of the assemblies we are in, if God has given us His life, have been the result of people travailing, praying, and asking God.
I am learning late in life the value of prayer.
I suppose when we gather around the great table with our Lord, we are going to hear stories of those dear saints who prayed in the secret place, whom none of us even knew, and who brought in the sense of the Lord, kept the Lord over us, and prevented Him from fleeing away.
Those praying saints are the priests who carry that ark for us. If you have a heart to pray, dear sister, be a praying sister. Pray for the saints. Pray for the brothers.
There are assemblies where brothers are leading, do not get paid, work long hours, and then have to gather one or two nights a week to deal with problems. Yet nobody is praying for them. Oh, God forgive us.
It is not the brothers who carry that ark; it is the priests. I could say it is not the elders; it is the priests, however you want to look at it. I am simply saying that it needs prayer. If the brothers are praying, praise God—they need to be men of prayer. But I am saying, oh, we fall so short.
How much travail is necessary for the church to be born in any place? Only God knows.
There are many places where people begin gathering, and thank God there are older sisters or others who begin to pray. They get together, take hold of the Lord, and hold these young people before the Lord: “Lord, do not let them go. Lord, deal with them. Lord, keep them together. They are trying to split to smithereens; keep them together.”
They pray and travail, pray and travail, and God gives birth to something original and real over which He is Head. What a glorious thing whenever you see it: an organism bursts forth.
Whenever you see something burst forth, you know what has come out of the belly of travail and prayer. Somebody, somewhere, is praying. I cannot wait to hear those stories.
Some people testify that when one of those dear saints who has travailed goes on to be with the Lord, the spiritual atmosphere shifts. Those dear godly women we usually think of—and I am sure there are godly men as well—were part of it.
In Joshua 5:9, the Lord said to Joshua:
Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.
The name of the place is called Gilgal, which means “rolling.” The reproach of Egypt was rolled away. They had come out of Egypt, but now Egypt had been cut off from them.
That is where the twelve stones of resurrection testimony were placed. Joshua 4:20 says:
Those twelve stones which they had taken from the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal.
Gilgal is resurrection ground. There are our twelve stones. That is where we stand.
Gilgal is also the place where their hearts were circumcised away from the flesh and away from themselves. We start out on resurrection ground as we go to conquer the land.
We will deal with that a little more tomorrow as we talk about the spiritual warfare aspect of our life together.
Brothers and sisters, I know it is late, but I want us tonight to have a moment of silence. I am going to ask a few brothers or sisters to pray about this matter of the Lord helping us through onto resurrection ground tonight, before I close in prayer.
I know that when I close, we have announcements and all those things, but I just want us to take a couple of minutes to think about these things in our hearts before we leave tonight. Would we do that?
Let us bow our heads. I am going to ask that the Spirit would lead a brother or sister just to bring some of this back to the Lord, that the Lord’s enthroned presence could be experienced and known in our lives as a company of believers together. Let us pray.
Lord, we ask for Your mercy. We know that we should have died in the wilderness. We have been unfaithful in many ways and have not been aware of how precious this whole matter has been to You.
But as You have been apprehending us of late, and as You have been making us aware that our brothers and sisters around us are part of Your inheritance, and as You have opened our eyes, Lord Jesus, to Your desire for a bride, something in us even wills to do violence against ourselves and say, “O Lord, overrule us.”
Deal with our fleshliness. Deal with the strongholds that prevent Your fullness. Lead us, Lord, by Your presence, with a speaking voice. Make us people of prayer. O Lord, make our prayer meeting the light of our assembling together.
Grant us, Lord, to follow in the way of godliness and not compromise with anything that You show us in Your light. Lord, we know that Your standard is high and the cost is great, but Your Spirit is more than able.
As our sister said, He has started the work in us. Lord, we do not believe it will be frustrated. At least in Your intention, You desire for us to come to fullness.
O Lord, turn our hearts from discouragement. Turn our hearts from disappointment. Turn our hearts from those stones we have thrown in the river as hopeless, and bring us onto resurrection ground together, that we may taste the fullness of the Lord.
May we enjoy His presence, even when He is dealing with us. O Lord, we have spent too many years, and we have come too far. We have been grafted together, joined together, and dealt with together for too long not to come into the fruit of it all.
Lord, continue to do Your work, and give us grace to remain together until You parcel out the land and the kingdom comes. O give us this grace. Encourage our hearts that You love us and want to lead us in for all of the land.
Lord, we commit these matters unto Thee, in Jesus’ name.