You see what I mean? Here you are, young people at a conference like this. Of course, there is a lot of diversity here—some people are very young. And here you are worshiping. You are taking some of the new, some of the old.
You are worshiping in a living way. I have to say, there are a lot of adult assemblies that have not come this far. You are an amazing generation—an amazing generation. I love you all.
I appreciate all that all of us have to share: the prayers tonight, the singing tonight. It is a wonderful time to be together.
I have asked Brother Hosea if he would come and share a brief word with us, because he is a brother I have been acquainted with for a number of years, and I have received a lot of help from him.
Sometimes I am staying in the same condo, villa—whatever it is—with him, and we get together and pray every morning. He has a very real burden for you young people. He has had that for years.
I know a lot of you call him Uncle Hosea. He comes here and stays in the background a lot, but his heart is really bumping, bumping, and bumping for you guys.
I asked him a couple of days ago, “Brother, could you just share some little thing that is on your heart?” He put it off, you know. But I think the Lord prevailed, and he said, “Well, okay, I am willing to share a little something.” So I have asked Hosea just to come up and share a word. Then I will share a further word tonight, okay, brother?
I will be very brief, so I do not think I will read the Scriptures that I have in mind. When you go back into your room, would you please read at least Ephesians 1? Okay? I want to share just two thoughts.
To me, these two thoughts are two very essential spiritual principles for all true believers who take God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God’s testimony in our generation seriously. Two principles. Okay?
I hope you take these two principles to heart and meditate on them. These two principles have been my help for many years, and I am still learning to make them real, living, and operative in my life—not only in my life and my family, but in our local church assembly.
The first principle is this: all that God has purposed for Himself in eternity past, which He wants to secure for eternity future, must be secured in time.
Take that seriously. All that God has determined to do in His heart in eternity past, which is for eternity future, He wants to have for Himself eternally. That which is precious in His sight, He secures right here and now in time.
That is why there is this burden: arise, alert, be diligent. Time is short. Take heed. Put on the whole armor. We are in evil days.
These are the days of grace, the dispensation of grace, and through grace God will secure what He wants in us. Right now is a very crucial time.
In the book of Hebrews there is a warning: they did not enter into His rest because of what? Unbelief.
Now, do you believe what our brothers have shared the last two days, and what they will share tonight and tomorrow? If we take it to heart, that means we had better get involved.
We are not here to be entertained. God wants us to participate fully in what He wants to secure for Himself. That is what we are called, chosen, and appointed for: that glorious destiny.
But unfortunately, it is possible—even though we are appointed—that we may miss it because we do not take heed. It is a very serious matter.
So that is the first principle. Remember it: all that God intends to do, and has determined to accomplish for Himself in eternity past, which He wants to secure for eternity future, is being secured now, right here in time.
I pray and hope that this conference will be a contribution to that which He wants to secure for Himself. Otherwise, it is wasted. So pray much.
The second thing is connected with this one: what is Christ trying to secure? When you have time, go back to your room and read Matthew 4.
You see what the Lord Jesus came to secure for God. The Lord Jesus came basically, really, for God. We are the byproducts of the Lord Jesus’ obedience to the Father, because in that purpose we are included.
After His baptism, He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and He went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But He stood there in the wilderness as Man.
This present world is nothing but a wilderness. The Lord Jesus, in the midst of wilderness, temptation, and trial, overcame. What did He overcome? He overcame for us, but He restored God’s rights in His people.
Let me take you back to Genesis 3. The fall of our first parents was because they ignored God’s rights. God’s right in the Garden of Eden was violated, and that is why all the disaster came.
When God’s right is restored, there is peace, life, fullness, and everything that God wants to give to us. But when His right is violated, we have nothing like this.
There are two things He restored for us. First is the absolute trustworthiness of God’s Word. He did not question; He simply obeyed.
Even though He was hungry for forty days and forty nights, and had a legitimate way to change a stone into bread to satisfy His need, He refused. He was not here to satisfy His needs; He was here to obey.
Through that obedience, His life was not only preserved, but He overcame Satan. That is a very important principle.
Then what did He restore? He restored God’s right to be worshiped and to be served.
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
That right is restored. That is what we were created for. Manhood, as God would have it, is restored. We are created to worship and to serve, and that is our glory.
Tonight I share these two very important principles: all that God intends to do, determined to do in past eternity, which He wants to secure for eternity to come, He wants to secure right now in this time.
We are very privileged. My young folks, do not miss it. Do not miss it. This conference, I pray and hope, will be a contribution to that which He wants to secure in us.
What He wants to secure is the right of God over His people. When God’s right over His people is restored, there is no place for Satan anymore. There is no place for the flesh, but blessing upon blessing upon blessing—and eternal enjoyment.
Can you beat that? Can you beat that? There is nothing better than that.
So take these two principles to heart, meditate on them, and apply these principles for the rest of your life, in your family, and in your local fellowship. May the Lord indeed truly bless you.
When you go, read these two chapters: Ephesians 1, concerning eternity past and eternity future, and what He will secure; and Matthew 4, when Christ came to secure for God His right. When that right is secured, we are in the good of it. Thank God for that, and the Lord bless you.
I like that preacher.
We are going to read a passage, beginning in Joshua 5. So let us turn there tonight.
I am sure that the Lord has been speaking to you in the fellowship groups, the discussion groups in the afternoon, or in these times of ministry. I hope everybody is receiving something from the Lord.
Do not give up. Some of you may be here for the first time, and it is a bit overwhelming. Do not give up.
Sometimes young kids pick up a book belonging to their dad, or something like that, and say, “What is this, Dad?” He says, “It is a book,” and they start to read it. They can read well, but it is way over their heads.
Some kids quit after page one: “I just quit that. It is too tough.” But a lot of kids plow on through it, start looking up words, and get something out of it.
That should be your attitude tonight. May the Lord help you to have a positive attitude and say, “I am going to get something here. I am going to get something from the Lord tonight.”
We have just crossed the Jordan River, and now we are talking about what happens after that. We are going to begin in Joshua 5:13 and read a number of verses. This is the taking of Jericho—another great transition.
This was the great transition battle that established the pattern for all the further battles. God wanted to be very clear about His strategies.
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a Man over against him with His sword drawn in His hand: and Joshua went unto Him, and said unto Him, Art Thou for us, or for our adversaries?
And He said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto Him, What saith my Lord unto His servant?
And the captain of the Lord’s host said unto Joshua, Put off thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.—Joshua 5:13-15
Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.—Joshua 6:1-2
And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, going about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.
And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets.
And it shall be, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him.—Joshua 6:3-5
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.
And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.—Joshua 6:15-16
So the people shouted, and the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
—Joshua 6:20
Oh, Lord, we come against great cities in our Christian life—great battles to be fought. Lord, we want to know how to live in this promised land.
You show us already that it is not a place of ease, a place of laziness, or a place of just floating on a cloud of grace. It is a place of service, warfare, growth, and victory.
Oh, Lord, give us the motivation in our lives to take the ground, to learn the lessons, to be Your children, and to be all that You want us to be in these days. Help us, Lord, by the Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This evening, we have crossed over and are in the promised land. So already we have left some people behind.
I have to say, in all honesty, that as we shared on the preparation of Joshua last night, I realized that, of course, that is where most of us are. The Lord has us in the preparatory stage.
You are going through various stages and learning various lessons. If you are honest, you will remember a time when you went to a conference and heard something about the holiness of God. You grasped a little bit of His holiness, and He began drawing you toward that.
Then, because of God’s grace in your life, you have been growing up in the tent of meeting, like Joshua was. You are learning the arrangement of things: how to worship, what is proper, how to live, how to pray—all these things necessary to your preparation.
Somewhere along the line, you got saved. Praise God for that. But the Lord did not stop there. He is showing you that He is a personal God.
You are becoming not just Hoshea, but Jehoshua. You are getting to know the Lord who saved you—getting to know your Savior, loving your Savior, and being captured by your Savior.
In the preparation time, it is absolutely essential that you be filled with the Holy Spirit; that you know the Spirit who dwells within, who has been given to you from the moment you were born again.
You must receive the Holy Spirit upon you, to equip you for the battle and for the life that is to come, so that you can live out of His life and not by your life, so that you can walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.
All preparatory—very important times.
Then we get to the big thing that I spoke about, and there I think I probably left most of us here today. I know this is a fact of life, and it is not something to condemn anybody about.
When young people are raised up, because of parental attention and all these kinds of things, to a large degree their experience is quite self-centered. We are pretty much completely possessed with what we are going to do, where we are going to go, who we are going to marry, and all those “I” questions that come out of a self-centered life.
But even as a Christian, the Lord has been challenging you in that self-centered life. Perhaps Joshua, even in serving Moses, had his own agenda and was self-centered, even while being a man of faith.
But, oh, how that self-centeredness was buried as he suffered thirty-eight years, waiting for his brothers and sisters to get ready to go into the promised land.
There comes a moment in our life—a crisis moment. It was seen as we looked at that Jordan River. That crisis moment has different forms; different people experience different crises that change their lives.
Some people talk about the time when they yielded their whole lives to God and were filled with a real power of the Holy Spirit. Some people talk about coming to God in absolute defeat and the Lord showing them that they have been crucified with Christ.
They began to live in freedom out of God’s life, like the missionary Hudson Taylor, whom we mentioned last night. He wrote a book called The Exchange Life.
Out there in China, he was already a servant of God. He was exhausted with all his duties, and he came to the end of himself. At the end of himself, he found God, and he found rest.
He kept on serving as a missionary—much more fruitful, with much less effort—because he had given it all to God, and God was living His life through Hudson Taylor. Some people have that kind of crisis in their life.
But in the end, one of the overriding characteristics of coming to the Jordan River at this moment of crisis is this: in some real way, you give up your life for the Lord’s sake and for His people. That is always included.
You give up your life. It is no longer yours. You are there at the river, and your own self-concerns are laid down.
If you want to see yourself as twelve stones, then those twelve stones of self-concern—“Who am I going to marry? What job am I going to have?”—are laid down at the bottom of the river. It is not my business anymore, Lord.
Then you take up twelve stones on the other side, in the promised land: “Lord, how can I please You? Lord, how can I live for You? Lord, what is Your pleasure? Lord, what do You want? Lord, how can I serve my brothers and sisters?”
Do not forget that when we see Joshua coming to this crisis moment, this great moment of transition at the Jordan River, it pictures the wonderful day that the Joshua we call Jesus came down to the river.
At thirty years old, it was as though He said, “My life is over. From now on, I live for God’s will.”
He came up out of that baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist with a cross on His shoulders. It was an unseen cross. It was no longer His will, but His Father’s will that was to be done from then on.
But, oh, what a transition Man He was. What a servant He was. It was all for God—none for Him.
The Lord brings all of us to that kind of crisis point. I do not know if you are there yet, so I am saying this: let the Lord continue to prepare your life.
Some of you are precious Christians, and you are growing. Maybe you are not yet at that place where you are willing to scrap it all. Some people say, “Well, Lord, help me get married first, then I will scrap it all.” Something like that.
Some men say, “Lord, just let me make a million, and I will scrap it all.” The Lord has His timing. But I know this: if your life is that wonderful seed, nourished and abiding alone, it does not bear any fruit except for yourself.
The Lord can lay that seed down in the right patch and accomplish that death in you which works life in others. You will be a transition man. Your life will count.
I am not talking about going into the ministry or being a missionary. That is the easy way out.
I am talking about the fact that even though you have a job and responsibilities, and you are married or have children and all these kinds of things, those things are not for you any longer. They are for the Lord.
You use your job as an opportunity for the Lord. You take your family as a stewardship from God. You raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
You take your little community around your home and use it as an opportunity to witness, share, and spread the gospel. Your life is not about yourself.
Of course, there are many things about our lives that involve self-effort. You have to brush your teeth in the morning and all kinds of things. You are not stupid. But you are not living for yourself.
There is the Jordan River. Jesus came up the other side. Listen, that is a small river to cross. He was baptized, but when He came up out of that Jordan River, there were stones down at the bottom of the river.
He could have had a career in carpentry. He could have been the best carpenter in the world. His possible marriage was right there at the bottom of the river. It was all for the Lord as He passed through Galilee and went to the cross.
That is the picture before us, brothers and sisters. I hope you will register it in your mind and realize that God has His way of getting you to that river and bringing you to that crisis.
In some sense, every crisis you have in your spiritual life has something to do with giving up your own life and letting God take over your life.
That crisis may be expressed in several ways. Very practically, here is the reality: those who have been through that crisis go on and live in the promised land, and you still have to deal with your self-life, as we will discover tomorrow night.
In the practical experience of the land of Canaan, you may find yourself sometimes back in the wilderness because you are full of self. Something goes wrong, and you collapse into self-pity. Then you find yourself on the wilderness side again.
It is not an irretrievable gulf. When you realize that you are crucified with Christ, that you no longer live but He lives in you, and you begin to live that way, all the Lord has to do is take you back to the river and say, “You see the stones down there? You remember.”
Meanwhile, He has to deal with us and work on our self-life. I realize you are in a transition and being prepared. Let the Lord prepare your heart.
The things Brother Hosea shared tonight will put you in the wilderness as well. Will you use your own natural skills? For Jesus, it was the miracle of turning a stone into bread. Will you use your own abilities for yourself, or yield them to God for His purpose and glory?
All of this lies ahead. In this preparation that Joshua went through in the wilderness, sometimes he felt as though he was wasting his time.
I bet a lot of you young people sort of wish, “I cannot wait until I grow up and finish college and everything, because I am going to go to some other fellowship. Man, I cannot stand where I am. I want to go somewhere where the Christians are cool.”
“I happen to be in the fellowship where the Christians are just the worst. I cannot wait to move.” Well, you see, that is a misunderstanding of things.
The Lord is preparing your heart. The Lord is making you wait. The Lord has you kind of pent up. “Why am I still living at home? I am real old. I am twenty years old, still living at home. Oh, this is going to go on forever.”
All that impatience. But if you can turn and see that there is a purpose in all this preparation, listen: you really need to be prepared.
Jim mentioned this morning a series called Band of Brothers. It was an HBO special in ten episodes. I saw them all this weekend before I came up here.
It was about the 101st paratroopers. This group was among the toughest. These were the guys who jumped out of planes back in those days, and they were sent to the toughest assignments.
Before D-Day, and before the men hit the beach on D-Day, they had already been dropped right in the middle of enemy territory, behind the beach, so that the guys coming onto the beach could find support coming from that direction.
It was the toughest situation. So many of them were killed. After that assignment, they were sent to another really tough assignment, where the Germans were overwhelming the whole situation.
They were told to stand their ground. They stood in the cold without food and without proper clothing. They had June D-Day clothes on, and they were in the middle of winter in Germany, sitting in little foxholes, shooting and holding the Germans back.
They had tough assignment after tough assignment after tough assignment. You know what? They were one of the best groups of soldiers in World War II. They were filled with heroes.
The whole story shows how it all went back to the beginning, down in Toccoa, Georgia, where they had a drillmaster who was the worst guy. He made them all run farther than anybody else had to run. He made them run at night when it was raining and cold.
Nobody else among the other troops was running when it was cold. He was so nasty to them and so tough on them. He gave them the toughest days. They thought about killing him. That is how bad this guy was.
Every weekend the other soldiers would get a weekend pass. He took everybody’s pass away on some trumped-up grounds. Oh man, they were tough.
He made them go on maneuvers where they did not have any food because he did not have time to get it together. Oh, he did. You know what? That is how they survived.
They were the toughest troop in World War II because they learned how to survive in their preparation and training.
So the Lord is training you. Even if you have a difficult life—and I know there are probably some people here who actually have what I could legitimately call a difficult life—I want to encourage you, dear brother and sister.
Some of the best servants of God ever have had difficult lives, difficult homes, difficult families, and difficult situations. But through that, rather than becoming bitter, they took God’s grace and learned how to become better soldiers.
The wonderful thing about being a human being is that you have a free will to respond to any situation. You can either turn it into yourself and become bitter and angry, or you can give it to God.
By His grace, He will do something in you to make you a better soldier. So be encouraged as you come to that crisis.
Paul came to the end of himself. Even after he was a Christian, he tried to serve God by his own wits. He had to put that stone down in the river.
He tried to serve God by his own righteousness—put that stone down in the river. He wanted to preach to the Jews—he had to put that stone down in the river.
His pedigree as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin—he had to throw that stone down in the river.
The stones he ended up piling up on the resurrection side were the visions the Lord showed him, the power of the Holy Spirit, the lessons he learned about Jesus, the Word of God that he knew, and God’s use of his anointed mind.
Oh man, he lived by resurrection life in the promised land. But there was still a stack of stones down in that river reminding him, “You cannot live by yourself.”
That finishes up what I wanted to share last night. There is a great transition and a great crisis where you give up. You realize, “Lord, You want my whole life—not just my sports prowess, not just my brain, not just my devotional time. You want my whole life, Lord.”
You come to the river, there is an exchange moment, and you start living by the Lord’s life.
Tonight I want to talk about spiritual warfare—actually, tonight and tomorrow night, Lord willing. I want to discuss spiritual warfare in two aspects.
Tonight, it is the strategy of spiritual warfare—the very nature of spiritual warfare itself. For some, this will be difficult, and I will explain why: it is all on resurrection ground.
Some of you may not understand it, but just take the notes down. Ten years from now, you will understand.
Tomorrow night, Lord willing, I want to talk about the actual battle on the land and the battle for the land, and the lessons we learn. You will be able to get into that a little more, since you guys are such aggressive people.
But tonight, understanding the nature of spiritual warfare is where we need to begin. We see this before us in the story of taking Jericho.
To understand this, we have to understand what it is all about for us in Ephesians 6. What is this spiritual warfare we are in? It is the putting on of the full armor—all these things Jim was spelling out to us this morning.
The first thing we need to understand is that the nature of our warfare is spiritual. Look in Ephesians 6:12.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
—Ephesians 6:12
Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. Paul is talking about spiritual warfare to the church in Ephesus.
If you recall Acts 19, that is where Paul went to Ephesus, and the Lord built the church there through the ministry of Paul and other brethren. In Ephesus we see, in a unique way, how much of the building work and what God was doing involved spiritual warfare.
In Acts 19:9, Paul had to wrestle against Jews who stood opposed to the gospel. At first the people were receptive and a number of Jews were saved. But then the Jews opposed them and kicked them out of the synagogue unceremoniously.
When that happened, Paul did not fight against the elders of the synagogue, because he knew there was a deeper spiritual warfare there. It was not about the elders or the Jews. It was a spirit of religion opposing the gospel.
Then, in Acts 19:12, evil spirits had to be cast out in the midst of that gospel ministry. That is spiritual warfare. Not only was healing going on, but evil spirits were being cast out.
In Acts 19:13-14, spiritual warfare came when some counterfeit exorcists entered the scene and said they could cast out demons by the name of Jesus whom Paul preached.
Those counterfeits could have led some Christians astray, but they stood firm. Those men were exposed and ran away, and the Lord had His way. They understood these dynamics of spiritual warfare.
Then, in Acts 19:19, those who practiced magic brought their books together and burned them. The witches were defeated, and that takes nothing less than spiritual warfare.
In Acts 19:24, we see Demetrius, a silversmith, speaking against Paul and getting the whole city enraged against him. But what was really going on?
It was not a battle against Demetrius at all. It was a battle against the spiritual principality over Ephesus. The name of that principality was Artemis, the goddess of the Ephesians.
Because Paul was preaching the gospel and people were getting saved, they were burning their idols of Artemis. The silversmith got mad and said, “We have to do something about this man.” But Paul knew it was not about Demetrius. It was about a principality over that city.
That principality was a great principality. As a matter of fact, Paul could not knock it down.
One of the more interesting apocryphal stories told about the apostle John is that when he later came to Ephesus, he went to the temple and commanded, in the name of Jesus, that the god Artemis be destroyed. The temple idol fell down and was smashed.
Now, whether that is true or not, we do not know. But one thing we do know is that they recognized spiritual warfare was going on, and it was not against men.
How many times in our young people’s groups do we think we have an opponent, a foe, or somebody who does not like us—an enemy—and we think it is a human-level thing?
How many times in our church groups do we have two men conflicting as leaders in the church, and we think it is about this man and that man? It is not flesh and blood.
When these things come up in the church, there is spiritual warfare over the top of the whole thing. That is one of the first things we need to realize about spiritual warfare.
This warfare takes place in a realm called the heavenly places. Notice what it says in Ephesians 6:12: our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against these various forces in the heavenly places.
Now, what are the heavenly places? The heavenly places are not heaven. The heavenly places are not earth. Well then, what are they?
The heavenly places are mentioned a number of times in Ephesians. It is impossible to understand what the church is all about unless you understand the heavenly places. The church finds its reality in the heavenly places. We have a heavenly calling.
If we think the church is just here on earth, coming together for church on Sunday, ah, we do not understand the church.
Paul says in Ephesians 1 that we receive all our spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. That is where you go together. Are you getting your supply today?
It says that when Jesus was raised up, He was seated in the heavenly places on the throne. Where was that? That is not heaven now.
It says that when we were quickened, raised up, and seated with Him in the heavenly places—what? You and I are seated in the heavenly places now, not merely when we get to heaven. Well, where is that?
In Ephesians 3, it talks about the church manifesting the wisdom of God to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Where is this realm? It is a unique place.
I will give you a hint: it is so near that you could see it right now if you had the eyes. It is not way up there above the clouds. It is right over our heads.
There are demons, angels, spiritual forces, powers, and principalities over major cities; lesser powers over smaller towns. There is a whole infernal network up there, and there are also angels.
But here is the deal: when Christ rose from the dead, He sat on His throne in the heavenly places, and He rules there. If we realize it and take the keys in the heavenly places, then things happen down here on earth.
It means we have to start seeing things that are unseen. The heavenly places are so close that there could be angels right here, if you could see.
As you know, in the history of the church, occasionally we are allowed to see. An angel shows up, and we see it in some great time of need. They were there all the time; we just could not see them.
But I do not want you watching the television show Angels and getting strange ideas. It is not as though one of the people in your youth group is actually an angel. We know they are all devils—no, we are not talking about that.
What we mean is that there is a true spiritual reality and a true spiritual realm. Jesus is truly Lord, if we could see it. But there is all kinds of activity in that realm going on right now.
There is actually warfare going on in that realm. There are spiritual beings hanging right over you, waiting for you to become uncovered and waiting for an opening so that they can attack.
Meanwhile, there are angels holding back those attacks. God is hedging you about, even though you cannot see it because you are walking around like an accident waiting to happen.
While the Lord is preparing us when we are young, He hedges us about. That is what the devil said about Job: “It is no fair. No wonder Job loves You. You have hedged him about. You put a hedge around him, so I cannot get to him.”
God said, “Okay, lift up the hedge.” And then Job had to learn warfare. You and I are living in a blissful paradise because we are hedged about, even in the heavenly places, because of the Lord’s grace.
I do not want you to be afraid, but I want you to understand that this warfare takes place in this realm.
Here is how we ultimately understand all of this: spiritual warfare was led by the great spiritual Warrior, Jesus.
How often did you see Him physically wrestling? A couple of times in His life, perhaps. He was virtually physically wrestling in the Garden of Gethsemane.
But wait a minute. Where do we see Him wrestling, fighting, scrapping? He was scrapping and fighting every day.
He was destroying. He was the One who came and bound the strong man and plundered the strong man’s house. How do you think people got healed? How do you think people were raised from the dead? How do you think people got saved?
Did that happen because Jesus was lucky, or because He was powerful? No. He walked in the will of God, and God, as it were, wedged open a way for Jesus to go.
Everywhere Jesus went, there was tremendous spiritual power and things happened.
When you look at the Gospels as reality, you see in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that even Galilee and Judea were full of demons and evil forces. These are the ones who plotted to crucify Jesus. They were all over the place.
But did you see Jesus wrestling with the flesh? No. He knew this heavenly place. He knew the heavenly places.
He knew this realm and was in constant contact and dialogue in this realm. He was overcoming in this realm, and He was living in such a way that this realm could not attack Him, because there was no opening they could get.
It was a very real struggle that Jesus had. But when you look, you realize that as He went around, He went around in unseen spiritual warfare.
Not only is it an unseen fight that you cannot see, but our weapons are unseen weapons. Look at 2 Corinthians 10.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds.
—2 Corinthians 10:3-4
What does that mean? He does not mean “flesh” in the spiritual sense. He means they are not human.
Though we walk as humans, we do not war as humans war. The weapons of our warfare are not human, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
God wants to equip us with keys, power, and weaponry for spiritual warfare, but it is not seen stuff. You saw some sort of facsimile this morning. I do not know; that sword I would not trust too far. But you know what I am saying.
These things are symbolic. We do not actually carry a sword. But if we do not know how to do the warfare, then we cannot get into the fight.
We have warfare to fight, but it is not earthly warfare. It is not done by our muscles or by earthly implements. How, then, do we do this spiritual warfare?
I am going to use Jericho and go through several points, because Jericho is such a primary example of what it means to wrestle and to do spiritual warfare.
When you are facing the enemy, the first thing you do is start from Gilgal.
When you are facing the enemy, the first thing you do is start from Gilgal. Let us go back to Joshua and look at some verses.
And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, did Joshua set up at Gilgal.
—Joshua 4:20
How do we fight spiritual warfare? The first thing we do is stand at Gilgal and look at the rocks.
What do I mean by that? We stand there and look at those twelve rocks of resurrection. We are on resurrection ground here.
We remember the twelve rocks that we cannot see, but we know are right down in the river. “Well, that is my old self right there.”
What am I trying to say? All successful spiritual warfare begins at the finished work of our Lord Jesus. That is where you have to start. That is where you have to plant your feet.
It is interesting to me that when they crossed into Gilgal, Gilgal was less than two miles from Jericho, which was a very daunting city—one of the largest cities in the whole region.
The Canaanites boasted of its walls, gardens, and fruitfulness. It was a very intimidating city. Here Joshua was, less than two miles from Jericho. He knew warfare was coming.
Here is what God says: “The first thing I want you to do when facing a Jericho is ignore Jericho. Do not give Jericho the credence of worrying about it. First, start at Gilgal. Look at the stones.”
Here is where we start: we start as one man. You are going to notice two things about this spiritual warfare that will become very apparent.
There are two absolute essentials to spiritual warfare. First, you are corporately in one accord. The transition man in the promised land is no longer merely a transition man; you are a transition vessel.
You do not do things alone in the promised land. Oh no. You are standing as one together with all the two million who have crossed over. You are standing at Gilgal as one man.
The second thing we are going to learn is that spiritual warfare is primarily prayer. What we are talking about tonight is corporate prayer, because that is how the victory is won.
I am glad that, in a beginning way, some dear brothers and sisters—the young people in Queens—decided to get together on prayer meeting night and have their own prayer meeting.
We are encouraging and hoping that they will continue to do that. May it be that they learn to have a prayer meeting that is not just a prayer meeting, but a taking-the-land meeting.
I want to tell you the truth, my dear brothers and sisters. Some of you other young people may get together and pray with other young people. I hope you really learn these lessons.
But we have to learn it all together, standing with brothers and sisters old and young, for it finally to take its full effect: standing in unity.
There is so much talk about spiritual warfare. So many Christians write books on spiritual warfare, and almost all of it is guerrilla warfare that you personally carry out.
You can win some victory, standing personally in your life on the finished work of Christ. But when we are dealing with big Jerichos, it does not work to stand alone.
You have to be standing with other people in absolute oneness, standing at Gilgal in the finished work, recognizing what has been done before we go in.
In Joshua 10, when the children of Israel were victorious in their battles, there was a common element: they started from Gilgal and returned to Gilgal.
So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor.
—Joshua 10:7
After the war was over, Joshua and all Israel with him returned to the camp at Gilgal.
So Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.
—Joshua 10:43
What is it about Gilgal that we have to return to? We have to return to where we began and to how we are living: “I am living by His resurrection life.”
Here are the stones to prove it. My old life is dead. The enemy cannot touch it because it is down in that river. We start in that place.
This is why it is so wonderful if you gather around the Lord’s table and remember the finished work of Christ—the starting point of spiritual victory.
Most people do it once a quarter because it is not convenient to have the Lord’s table; it interferes with preaching. God bless those saints who gather around and say, “We are standing where we belong.”
Look at Joshua 5:9. The children of Israel had to be circumcised. That was a testimony on the other side of the river.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.
—Joshua 5:9
Gilgal means “rolled away.” They said, “We no longer live in Egypt. We live in Christ. We no longer belong to Egypt. We are no longer slaves of Egypt. We are slaves of God in His land.”
What a confession to make. You know, the word ecclesia, the Greek word for church, means “the called-out ones.” We gather together at Gilgal and say, “We have been called out from Egypt. There is no more reproach.”
What is the one thing that conquers our self-life and our defeat? We try and try, lose and lose. Here is what eventually happens: the Jordan River represents the moment when Jesus’ perfections become more important to you than your imperfections.
Jesus’ victory becomes greater to you than your defeats.
I do not know if you can handle that. It comes to a place where you say, “Well, Lord, I am so unworthy, but I am going to stop focusing on my unworthiness because we gather together to focus on Your worthiness.”
You see? You have crossed the bridge there. You are coming into wonderful worship.
And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal; and they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.
—Joshua 5:10
Would you know that forty years earlier, to the day, they had the Passover in Egypt? Now they have the Passover in the promised land. This is a testimony of the breaking of bread and the finished work of Christ, and we do it together.
If you can do that with spiritual reality and understanding, you have already halfway won the battle. You are standing in the finished work and the wonderful victory.
And on the morrow after the passover, they did eat of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain, in the selfsame day.
And the manna ceased on the morrow, after they had eaten of the produce of the land.
—Joshua 5:11-12
Now they are eating the bread of the land. They do not need merely temporary provision, because they have found the reality of the bread of the land.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I am trying to say: we start from victory.
The enemy is knocking at our door. We see the big Jericho standing there, and here is what we say: “Well, the enemy is going to have to wait.”
We turn our backs on the enemy because he has nothing on us. We worship God, stand on resurrection ground, and break bread together. The enemy is going to have to wait.
God chooses the time we fight the enemy. The urgency of the enemy is not why we fight. We are standing on that ground.
In other words, brothers and sisters, the first key element in spiritual warfare is all about where you are standing. Are you standing in the victory? Is there nothing the enemy can get at in you?
So many people get stirred up and knocked out of their tree by some conflict or spiritual attack. They try to outflank, outfight, and outthink the enemy instead of taking that ground.
What did Jesus do when the enemy came at Him in the wilderness? He stood His ground. The enemy moved. He stared him down. The enemy blinked.
That is because He knew who He was. He knew what He was doing. He knew where He was standing. We do not know that, and the enemy already has us on the run.
Number two: absolutely essential in the strategy of warfare is to follow the Lord. It is expressed in two ways in this passage.
First, they followed the ark. The ark led them around the city. The ark took them around seven times. The trumpets were blown in relation to the ark, and the walls fell down because of the ark.
But they also followed this angel who showed up, which is a picture to us more of the Holy Spirit than of the Lord Jesus Himself. Follow the Holy Spirit.
In spiritual warfare, you have to follow the Holy Spirit under the ark. With Jesus enthroned over you, and following the Spirit forward, you will find the keys to deal with situations in spiritual warfare.
This is God’s divine strategy. God has a divine strategy. There is nothing ever set up against God that God does not have a strategy to defeat.
But we have to follow the Lord because it has to be His timing, His message, and His target. He knows just which target is vulnerable.
The Lord went into the whole land, and they took over all the promised land. He knew just where to go. Joshua had never been there, so how did he know whether to go north, south, east, or west first?
The Lord said, “Do not worry about it. Just stay under the ark, follow the Spirit.” The Spirit is all-wise. He knows how to defeat a country, and you do it by cutting it right down the middle.
The Spirit went into Jericho, the toughest city, for starters. When it was discombobulated, all the other cities went whoop, whoop, whoop—you know, did the curly thing. I cannot do that very well, but you know.
They went right through the middle of the country. They hit the heart first. That is what the Lord does: He attacks the heart.
Jericho, Jerusalem, Ai, Bethel—boom, boom, boom, boom. They went right down the heart of the country and split it in two.
Then the second strategy was to go down where the fortresses were in the south. There were five kings in the south, and God said, “Now it is time to take them.” They swooped down and took them out.
Then it was time to go north in a northern campaign that regained Galilee—the fruitful abundance of Galilee, where all the food was, where the milk and honey were.
This is God’s strategy, but we have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit under the ark. This captain of the host, this Man with the sword drawn, turns out to be an angel. This is the one they have to follow.
There is some readjustment involved in following the Holy Spirit. What is the readjustment? Listen to what He said in Joshua 5.
Joshua bravely says to this sword-drawn Man, “Are You for us or for our adversaries? Whose side are You on? My side, or theirs? Are You for the Boston Red Sox or the Yankees?”
And He says, “No. I am not for the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees. I am on the Lord’s side.”
“I am the Holy Spirit. I have the Lord’s interests in mind. I am the Holy Spirit advocate of the Lord’s interests. The Lord has an interest in this land, and I am here to do His bidding. Are you falling in with Me or not?”
Suddenly Joshua was no longer the leader. You see what I am saying? Who is the captain now?
Joshua fell down and said, “What would You have me do, Lord?” Because he wanted to align with the Lord’s side.
That is half the battle in many of our spiritual conflicts in our assemblies. People do not want to line up with the Lord. They have their own ideas. I tell you what: both sides are wrong.
People have to adjust to the Lord’s side and fall down before Him. The Lord has a way through every spiritual conflict, but it is not usually the way we want to go.
Joshua had to align with the way of this captain of the host and learn from him. It is interesting that the captain of the host met Joshua at Gilgal, at the place of the finished work.
At the beginning of Judges, in Judges 2:1, this same angel, the captain of the Lord’s host, comes up from Gilgal and says to the children of Israel, basically, “Why have you decided you can take the land by yourself?”
“Do you not know I have to fight with you? If you want to do it yourself, go ahead, and you will see—you will not be able to take the land. You have been unfaithful. You are not following the Holy Spirit.”
He is in charge of the host. He is the captain of the Lord’s host.
Now, what is that? There is a lot of controversy about it, but I know the right answer, so I am going to tell you. Just take it. Listen.
The captain of the Lord’s host is the captain of the invisible army of angels fighting along with Israel.
Now you say, “Paul, come on. Please.” It is absolutely right. Absolutely right.
Who do you think kicked down those walls? Do you think it was the trumpet?
Some people are so unbelieving that they are trying to figure out the acoustic dynamics of two million people shouting at the same time after a period of silence, to see if it could knock down walls. So far they have broken a champagne glass.
Why do you think the shout brought down the wall? The day they shouted, those angels kicked down the wall.
Maybe you do not believe it. I am going to show you a couple of passages here. Now we are wandering off into the Lord’s host, but that is the way it goes.
David believed in it. Look at 2 Samuel 5. You remember the name of the place: the Lord broke through.
And the Philistines came up yet again, and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.
And when David inquired of the Lord, He said, Thou shalt not go up: make a circuit behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees.
And it shall be, when thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then is the Lord gone out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines.—2 Samuel 5:22-24
What is that talking about? Is it some kind of bouncing sound of soldiers marching down in the valley? Absolutely not. You could hear the angels marching in the trees.
I told you, the heavenly places are right over you. When they heard that, David said, “There we go.” He blew the whistle, went down the hill, and by the time his soldiers got down there, the angels had pretty well whooped them up.
You guys do not believe that, huh? Here we go. Back to Joshua 10:9. Let us hear Joshua’s testimony.
Joshua was a great man of God, a great warrior, a great soldier. Oh, he defeated everybody, did he? Here is what Joshua says: the Lord defeated everybody.
So Joshua came upon them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all the night.
And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and smote them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah.
And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.—Joshua 10:9-11
As a matter of record, the Lord gave the cities, their kings, and their armies into the hands of Israel.
Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.
—Joshua 10:42
Still do not believe it? Look at Joshua 23, the testimony of Joshua in his last days.
And ye have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the Lord your God, He it is that hath fought for you.
—Joshua 23:3
One man of you shall chase a thousand; for the Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you, as He spake unto you.
—Joshua 23:10
One soldier, and a thousand enemies are running. Why? Because you have nine hundred ninety-nine invisible soldiers giving those guys the dickens.
The Lord’s army is ready to fight for those who are standing in the place where they need to stand. This is what Joshua learned, and that was Joshua’s testimony.
Here is the strange paradox. What did the Lord say in Joshua 1 about taking the land? How do you take it?
Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it.
—Joshua 1:3
Go ahead, go where you want. You want to go over there? Step over there by faith. “I have given it to you.” That is exactly what you are supposed to do: put your foot down. “I have given it to you.”
That is man’s free decision. But with man’s free decision, we also have this: Joshua did not go anywhere until the Lord told him to go.
Wait a minute. How do you explain that? “Every place you put your foot, I have given you,” but, “Do not go anywhere unless I tell you.” Let us look at some verses.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.
—Joshua 6:2
After the tragic first attempt at Ai, the Lord said to Joshua:
Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land.
—Joshua 8:1
In Joshua 10:8, when five kings of the south came up to attack, the Lord said, “Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands.”
In Joshua 11:6, in the northern campaign, the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow at this time I will deliver all of them slain before Israel.”
Here is what you do: you step, and where you step, you get it—but ask the Lord. The Lord says, “Now you can go there. I have given it to you.”
Listen: “I have given it to you. See, I have given it to you.” You cannot see anything.
Let us go back to Joshua 6 and Jericho so you can see some of the strategy.
Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor.—Joshua 6:1-2
All Joshua saw was the wall. The valiant warriors were still inside—famous, valiant warriors. Yet the Lord said, “See? I have given it to you.”
Here is the next principle in the divine strategy: you have to stand upon the rhema of the Lord.
You need to stand on the Word of the Lord. Here is what the Lord said: “I have given you Jericho.” Now, do you believe it?
That is a rhema—a living word for right now. But that living word, that rhema, is based on Joshua 1, where the Lord said, “Joshua, feast on the law of God. Read it day and night, and let it never go away from your mind.”
Read it day and night. Let that logos sink in, steep in, and soak into your life. Then I am going to give you a rhema.
The rhema you move on is based on the logos that you know. What was the promise Joshua moved on through the whole land? “I have given you the land. Nobody will be able to stand before you. Wherever you place your foot, I have given it to you.” That is God’s promise—that is the logos.
What you need is the rhema for the specific situation. For Jericho, when the Lord said, “I have given it to you,” Joshua believed the rhema.
Oh, brothers and sisters, more than anything else in our prayer meetings, when we are doing spiritual warfare, here is the first key we need: a word from the Lord about what to do in the situation.
My brother Lance challenged all of us this summer, at the summer conference in Richmond, concerning the keys. If you have not heard it, you can download the MP3s from ChristianTapeMinistry.com.
What he said is that we need to turn the keys. If the church has lost the keys, you cannot do spiritual warfare.
Here is one of the keys: we all have to come together in absolute one accord before the Lord, wait on Him, and say, “Lord, what is the word? What is the word about this? What do we do about Jericho?”
Then the rhema can come.
Here is another interesting thing about the faith position of rhema: “See, I have given Jericho into your hands”—already past tense. Done.
And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the Lord hath given you the city.
—Joshua 6:16
It is already done—finished, done. They proclaimed it. They stood on that word of faith.
But, ladies and gentlemen, we can only hear the rhema if we are seated in the heavenly places with Christ. The church finds its most powerful ministry in the prayer meeting, seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
Ladies and gentlemen, put that into your memory and keep it. I hope some of you young people, even though you are young, will attend a prayer meeting.
I hope you will help transform that prayer meeting from a listing of petitions to a coming into the heavenly places.
We need these words. We need every gift of the Holy Spirit given to the body of Christ. We need a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, and a word of prophecy.
But especially we need people who are soaked in the Word, whom the Lord can say, “Turn there to Nehemiah, such-and-such,” and they can find the word exactly right for that situation.
If we had that key, we could pray more effectively. Most of the time we just throw things up into the sky, hoping God hears us.
We do not have a word. There is Jericho: “Oh, Lord, it is such a big city. Oh, Lord, tackle it, please.” The Lord says, “You tackle it.”
But we do not have a word. We are not in the heavenly places. We are down here on earth, praying down here on earth rather than seated with Christ, finding His mind and finding His wisdom.
It is a supernatural thing. We are on supernatural ground. We are on resurrection ground. This is not just standard stuff.
First, we have to stand on the Word of God. Then, second, we have to follow under the ark—that is, under His lordship—as we begin to walk.
Again, I stress it: in one accord. Half of the battles the church never fights because we are not in one accord. We are standing in different places.
But that whole group had to go together behind that ark and walk in one accord.
Oh, listen, brothers and sisters. Do you know what happens when the church, a local assembly, finds true one accord? They have revival.
Historically, revivals—the Welsh Revival, the Hebrides Revival, the Indonesian Revival—are times when the church gets its act together, forgives one another, and drops old things held against one another.
The church becomes so one that people get saved. A revival is always when the church finds out oneness. It is the most elusive thing, and the enemy will do anything to keep us at odds.
“How should we deal with this Jericho?” “I think we should do that.” “I think we should do this.” “I think we should do nothing.” “I think it is already done.”
We do not have one accord, and nothing happens. I guarantee nothing will happen, especially with big Jerichos. You are not monkeying around with some little thing.
When we are dealing with real spiritual conflict, every fellowship faces a Jericho in front of it, just to see whether you can get your act together.
In one accord, we stand together. We have to fast and pray to clear our prejudices. If we have to get ourselves right with one another, if we are not talking to that brother or sister, we have to deal with all of that.
But if we sit in one accord, the Lord will speak a rhema to us, and that is the key to moving forward—in one accord.
It is interesting: as they moved, the next thing you notice about following the ark is that they had a testimony—a powerful testimony—of silence.
There is nothing that unnerves the people of Jericho more than a testimony of silence.
Oh, how the Lord uses that as a spiritual tool. There is no more debate, no more questioning, no more someone wondering about this, no more idea over there, no repetition: “Let us play this again and again and again.”
No. We believe it, and we walk silently until the moment of declaration.
They walked for seven days and did not say a thing. The people started looking over the wall. At first they probably laughed at them. Then they stopped. “How come they are silent? Do they know something we do not know?”
It began to work on their minds. Their hearts were melting in that city of Jericho. They knew they were in bad shape.
When you walk in silence, there is confidence and faith. But if you are jabbering, jabbering—“Oh, I hope, hope, hope. You got a little idea? Let us try this. Let us try that.”—there is no confidence.
If two million people are walking around, talking the whole time, the people say, “Well, they are just like us.”
They were disciplined to silence. “Shut up, or you are not…” Six days. The only thing I want them to hear is the shofar, the ram’s horn.
They had the ark in front of them. The ark is the throne of God. The trumpet is the trumpet of jubilee that calls God down to sit on His throne.
They were marching along, and the trumpet was saying, “God, come down on Your throne and reign.” People were getting spooked. “He is going to come down on that thing.”
That is all they heard: six days of that trumpet pronouncing and proclaiming that the King is coming on His throne.
Those people in Jericho—only Rahab, who was sitting there saying, “Praise God”—the rest of them were saying, “Oh man.”
Then came the day when they made that declaration. As we read in Joshua 6:16, they shouted, “For the Lord hath given you the city,” and the wall fell down flat.
You can go visit the dig at Jericho; it is still there today. If you look, you will see little angel boot marks on top of those stones. I am telling you.
Well, maybe Christian Chen would not agree with that, huh? Of course you are not going to see boot marks from angels. Maybe you will see some teeth marks—I do not know.
Of course you cannot see it. They do not leave their mark. The children of Israel were the ones everybody became terrified of in the whole area.
They were terrified of the children of Israel. They were fighting with a fish sandwich and a sword they never got out of its sheath, because the wall fell down, half the people died right then, and then they went in.
But they made that executive declaration.
Here is the thing, ladies and gentlemen: we are back to the theme of the conference—stand firm in one spirit. Stand firm in one spirit.
That is one accord. That is total agreement. That is all one together.
When they declared all together—two million people declaring that Jericho was defeated—the walls went down.
Oh, Lord, help us. We have spiritual conflict, and we are playing with darts.
I am thankful for Christians. Some are great guerrilla warfare warriors, standing on a word and doing this and that. But we cannot do the work of the church unless we are on that resurrection ground all together.
Start from Gilgal. Follow the ark. Follow the Spirit. Do what He says. What a strategy.
Is this a bozo strategy or what? March around six days, and on the seventh day shout. The trumpets are going to blow, and the walls will fall down. Yeah, right.
Joshua looked in the Egyptian book of commanders for a similar strategy. There was none to be found.
God has unique ways of doing things. What does it mean in the end? Here is the last point of this whole matter.
And the city shall be devoted, even it and all that is therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.
And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when ye have devoted it, ye take of the devoted thing; so would ye make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it.
But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.
—Joshua 6:17-19
This was set as a special example. As the children of Israel went to other cities and conquered them, they got to keep the cities and territories. They took over the silver, the treasury, and all those kinds of things. They became rich by taking possession of the land.
But here was a point to be made. When they got through, the walls fell down, and everything happened, nobody got anything out of it but God.
God got all the glory. That is what the ban was all about. God won the victory. God gets all the glory.
And guess what they did? They went back to Gilgal and remembered where they stood.
Ladies and gentlemen, when the Lord wins a victory for us, it is for Him to get all the glory.
When He has His way, He does it in such a way that you are only a fool if you think you did it.
Can you imagine them getting back to Gilgal and sitting down? “Man, that was great. Hey, Mel, you must have killed a hundred.” And Mel says, “With my daughter’s sandwiches?”
“Joe, I thought it was you. I could have sworn I saw you take off twelve heads with one stroke.” He says, “I had a razor blade.”
They would try to figure it out and tally it out: “How did we bring down the greatest city in Canaan? How did we do it?”
Then someone would say, “Maybe it was that guy out there in the desert that Joshua met. Did you hear the little angel wings while we were whomping on them?”
The Lord got the victory. The Lord got the glory. They went back to Gilgal and got ready for the next fight.
Next time we will look at some of the actual fights Joshua went through. But this strategy I am talking about is a strategy of prayer.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you where the promised land is going to be taken: it is going to be taken in the prayer meeting.
If you do not go to the prayer meeting, then you are not part of that resurrection-ground service going on.
I know that may be a sentence of death for you because you went to the prayer meeting one time. You had to go because your uncle was there and was keeping you. You heard the prayers, and even the people in the meeting were falling asleep.
We have come to a pitiful, pitiful place. The Lord has to recover the church in this thing.
This is probably the one area where the enemy can do so much damage in our church assemblies and lives, causing spiritual conflict to go unresolved.
Perhaps even in your own assembly there is an unresolved Jericho sitting right in front of the whole assembly, and everybody is turning their back on it and looking somewhere else.
They are saying, “Let us go to Ai. Let us go back across the river or somewhere.” But they are not dealing with that, because we are not learning the lessons.
Oh, may the Lord help us. I know I am sharing some things. Most of you do not even go to the regular prayer meeting, I am sure. Those of you who do, God bless you. Learn the lessons.
Some of you get together and pray—learn the lessons. You get together with ten young people, and you can do great things praying.
Still, it is when the church gathers together, all in one accord, that the mountains can move.
Pray for the church. Pray for the church where you are. Oh, how the Lord needs to recover the church.
I have been to some prayer meetings that were so pitiful it was all I could do to sit there in the seat and not just walk out in disgust.
The Lord help us find a living way in prayer. The prayer meeting should be the most exciting time.
That is one thing I will say for old Lance. Man, oh man. When I used to go to the prayer meetings while he was still living in England, and they had Halford House Assembly Fellowship, their most exciting meeting was their prayer meeting.
Those people were learning how to pray. They were binding and loosing, getting a word, and taking things. Man, there was real prayer going on there.
I hope that art is not lost. May the Lord help us recover it.
Thanks for listening to me. Let us be transition people, but it is going to take a heart of prayer—and prayer not for you, but for the land. That is right.
Oh, Lord, I know these are big things for people who are still on the other side of the river, still preparing and hearing big things. But, oh Lord, may it be that You could grip us with a vision of what it means to be a church seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
Give us to see things from a heavenly perspective and not just from this dusty earth. Give us to see the real issues and not just the fleshly surface issues.
Give us grace to stand and win the war because, at the beginning, we stood in the victory of Christ.
Oh, Lord, give us that kind of boldness and faith that comes from a real knowing of our position. Cover us by Thy precious blood.
I pray that nobody here would be open and uncovered, and thus a target of the enemy. Oh, God, cover us by Thy blood.
Teach us how to walk together in a covered way—under the ark, covered under Your throne, led by the Spirit, through the Word of God.
Give us grace to walk together, to walk in silence, and to make our declaration.
Oh, Lord, may You have us testify in silence and decrease all the unnecessary words in our meetings.
Give us to be those who can declare from a knowing, from deep within, from a conviction: “It is already done.”
Oh Lord, topple the giants. Break down those fortresses and strongholds, and begin in us. We pray in Jesus’ name.