Tonight, we are talking about warfare in the land. One of the sections we will discuss is dealing with the giants. If you are going to fight the battle, you have got to deal with the giants.
What are the giants of our life? Our self-life.
I do not know who wrote this song. I have no idea how it goes, so I had to make up a tune. That is the way it goes, you see? Somebody probably knows the song and will be greatly offended. Please forgive me. But basically, the way I see it, since we have giants, you have got to go like this—something like this.
There is a foe whose hidden power
The Christian may well fear;
More subtle far than inbred sin,
And to the heart more dear.
It is the power of selfishness,
It is the wilful I;
And ere my Lord can live in me,
My very self must die.
O keep me from self-confidence,
Self-sufficiency;
Let me exchange my strength for Thine,
And lean alone on Thee.
O save me from self-seeking, Lord,
Deep in my inmost soul;
Lord, keep me ever from proud glory,
Save me from pride of praise and fame.
To Christ be all the honour given,
The glory be His name.
O Jesus, slay the self in me
By Thy consuming breath;
Show me Thy heart, Thy wound, Thy shame,
And love my soul to death.
When the Shekinah flame came down,
Moses could not stay;
So let Thy glory kill me now,
And self forever slay.
O Jesus, come and dwell in me;
Walk in my steps, I pray.
In all my life, in all my love,
In secret all I say;
And guide my thoughts and all my acts,
My very actions be;
So shall it be no longer I,
But Christ that lives in me.
Ah, there are giants. Let us turn back to the penultimate verse there—the second to the last.
Now, “O Jesus, slay the self in me by Thy consuming breath,” and, “self forever slay.” This fellow has a theology of the slaying of the soul, and that is not right.
As long as you are alive, you are going to have a self to deal with. You might put him down for a while, but this fellow was hoping he would go forever. If it goes forever, I am getting on my knees and praying for that tonight. But he finally keeps popping back up.
We believe that self comes under the power of the Holy Spirit. We can live a life in the Spirit even though our self-life is still alive. Thank God, it is part of you. But it has to be held by the Holy Spirit.
So, when we are dealing with our self-life, we are talking about giants. Self-life is not going to die, but we can mortify the deeds of the self. I just wanted to show you that so you do not get wacko on me, you know.
O Jesus, I just met a Saviour named Jesus,
And suddenly that Name will never be the same to me.O Jesus, I just felt a touch from my Jesus,
And suddenly I found how wonderful the sound can be.O Jesus, say it loud, and there is music playing;
Say it just when your spirit is free.
O Jesus, I will never stop singing,
Jesus, all the most beautiful sounds of the world in a single Name.
Every key to my heart, Lord Jesus,
Must be Thine; You see every secret.
So come in, with me promising,
Fill me with Your life and power.
Willingly I give You, Lord.
Lord, You know all hearts. Everybody here—You know every area of their lives and every key they hold. You do not force us to give up our lives, but every time we give You our key, You come in and fill us with Yourself. We experience greater liberty and freedom.
Oh, help us fight the good fight. Help us to be faithful in the great warfare of the perfecting work that You have begun and plan to finish. And You who make up Your mind to do such a thing—who are we to stand in the way?
O Lord, lead us in Thy truth. Teach us of Thy will. Even tonight, help us glean some lessons from the life of Joshua, as we come to be Your servants and Your soldiers. Place us on resurrection ground tonight, we pray, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Let us turn to the end of the book of Joshua, Chapter 23. I am going to read some verses here near the end of the conquering days.
Jim made a very perceptive comment when he said that our enemy, and the warfare we are in—our enemy is not going to die. There is going to be warfare in our lives until the Lord comes and settles the issues with His appearing and coming.
Here we find Joshua giving an exhortation to the children of Israel after they have basically gone in and conquered the land. Again, reading in Joshua 23:1:
Now it came about after many days when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies on every side, and Joshua was old, advanced in years, that Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and their heads and their judges and their officers, and said to them, “I am old, advanced in years.
“And you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations because of you, for the Lord your God is He who has been fighting for you.
“See, I have apportioned to you these nations which remain as an inheritance for your tribes, with all the nations which I have cut off, from the Jordan even to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun.
“The Lord your God, He will thrust them out from before you and drive them from before you; and you will possess their land, just as the Lord your God promised you.
“Be very firm, then, to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you may not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left.”
You notice how important it is in spiritual warfare that you keep abiding in the Word of God.
“So that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make anyone swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them.
“But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.
“For the Lord has driven out great and strong nations from before you; and as for you, no man has stood before you to this day.
“One of your men puts to flight a thousand, for the Lord your God is He who fights for you, just as He promised you.
“So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.”
—Joshua 23:7–13
Is this on? Can you hear me in the back all right? It is on, but it is not very loud. We can always do that. Now we have three microphones up here.
Last night we tried to look, in a sort of overview way, at the spiritual strategy of our warfare. We took Jericho because it was the war that set the standard and set the strategy in place.
We see that indeed our spiritual warfare is in the heavenly places. Now, I understand some discussion groups caused quite a bit of discussion about the heavenly places—just what it is.
I will only say a couple of things about the heavenly places. By faith, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places when we have spiritual vision to see things on earth according to the will of God. Do you understand that?
In other words, when you have been given eyes to see unseen things by revelation, you are seated with Christ in the heavens. A lot of things occur in your life and in the life of the fellowship you are part of, and our first temptation is always to assign it to human reason: “This has happened because this person did this to me.”
But when we come before the Lord, we say, “Lord, what is really going on?” Very often, it is not at all what we originally thought. There is a deeper issue, a deeper struggle—spiritual matters that are uncovering us or causing us to move away from the Lord.
The Lord makes these things known to us, and then we have to fight in this spiritual realm and stand in our position under the blood of the Lord Jesus, take hold of the promise, and all of that sort of thing.
First of all, we are seated there when we see by revelation the will of God in a situation as it truly is. We are also seated in the heavenly places when we go there seeking the Lord for a strategy to deal with specific spiritual warfare.
Whether in your personal life or in the life of the church, we come to blockades and impasses. It behooves us, as those who are true servants of His, to come before Him and say, “Lord, we need a strategy. How do we take this thing?” Wait and inquire for a word. This is what it means to be seated in the heavenly places.
The only third thing I would say about it is this: it is true that the principalities and powers and world rulers dwell in the heavens, but it is also true that Jesus is enthroned in the heavenly places, as it says in Ephesians 1:21, far above all these principalities and powers.
Although both Jesus’ throne and the spiritual forces are in the heavenly places—in that same realm—and there are still attacks and things going on there, the throne of the Lord Jesus is above all that. In other words, He puts His foot down on anything that we can see with eyes of faith and ask the Lord to put His foot down upon.
To make an example, the situation in Iraq was not a question of Saddam Hussein. It was a question of our Lord Jesus stepping on the spiritual power over Iraq. That is the real spiritual issue. I do not know if you believe that.
As soon as the Lord is able to step on that because we have asked Him to, then some things happen down here on earth that we think are very strange. “Wow, what a victory! So sudden. What happened?”
I do not want to get you spooked and get you into world politics by, you know, shaking the sky. But I just want to show you what I am saying.
According to the book of Revelation, one time very soon—and hopefully most of us will be out of the picture by then—Michael, an archangel in the heavenly places, is going to fight Satan in the heavenly places and throw him down onto the earth.
When that happens, suddenly things that were invisible are going to become quite visible. You do not want to be here for that. But you see, there is warfare going on up there now. One day the whole thing is going to be shaken right down to the earth so that the Lord can have His final kingdom and mastery here upon the earth.
In our spiritual warfare, realizing that we are really dealing with spiritual warfare, that is why it is so important for us to be standing properly spiritually. That is why I said our beginning point is Gilgal, where we stand upon the fact that we have been crucified with Christ and the life we now live is His life in us.
We stand and look at those resurrection stones. We stand and proclaim the finished work of Jesus Christ, victorious over the enemy before we even march on Jericho. It is already a done deal. Jericho has been taken.
We follow the Holy Spirit, pictured as that angel of the hosts of heaven, as He leads us through a strategy of warfare. We follow under the ark—that is, the throne of our Lord Jesus—as we go through and do battle.
As we are going, I mentioned the other great matter last night. It is so absolutely vital that we be in one accord. It is just like the defeat in Ai. The children of Israel were in one accord, and then one man sinned. There was no longer one accord, and there was defeat instead of victory.
Once the children of Israel got into the promised land and began to fight the fight, they still had a lot to learn. The Lord was leading them, but they had much to learn. They made mistakes, and they had to find a way through the mistakes they made. They learned lessons in everything they did.
Oh, may we be wise as we step forward now in the land of promise by His life and begin to serve Him.
We serve in a warfare, in a hidden warfare, in the hidden room, in the secret place. We serve in this warfare. It is important for us to understand what is going on.
As usual, since everything is in sevens in the book of Joshua, I have seven lessons we can learn. Here we go.
People will complain to me that I say, “Okay, number one, number two, number three,” then I say, “Now six.” People are going nuts, reshuffling their three-by-five cards. They are going back to the library, to the card catalogues. All right, I will try to say number one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—not skip it around. If I do, just say, “Oh, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa,” and I will try to go back.
Lesson number one, we learn from basically the end of Joshua 1, is this: if you straddle the Jordan, you lose your inheritance in the end.
If you straddle the Jordan—that is, live on one side and the other—in the end, you lose your inheritance.
In Joshua 1:12, Joshua has to deal with the two-and-a-half tribes that decided to stay on the other side of the Jordan: Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
How many Reubenites do we have here tonight? How many Gadites do we have? How many left-handed men of the half-tribe of Manasseh do we have here tonight? Okay, you see, now all of those tribes have been lost, and everybody who raised your hand, you are out of the box.
You know the story. These two-and-a-half tribes said, “We want to stay on the east side of the Jordan because, boy, these pastures are beautiful—just what our sheep want, just what our families want.”
Joshua said, “You cannot do that. Your inheritance is in the promised land.”
They said, “Well, okay, here is what we will do. We will fight with you in the promised land, but we will live on this side. Is that okay?”
Joshua said, “What, are you crazy? Okay, then come and fight with us, because we are all supposed to fight together. We are all in one accord. Yet you are going to live on this other side?”
They said, “Yes, this is what we want. This is what we are going to do.”
The two-and-a-half tribes fought bravely through the warfare. They sacrificed their lives. Probably some of them died in the fray. I mean, they were faithful in this kind of way.
But here is a picture of many Christians who have faith but no vision.
If they had any vision at all, they would know that the land of promise is where they belong. But they had faith and they did not have vision. What they were basically saying was, “We believe the Lord, but we believe we can build the church using Egypt’s stuff—Egypt’s forms, man’s institutions, man’s organizations. We can live on the east side of the Jordan and live in the will of God.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I always call the large house. This is the church of people who really believe in Jesus and even fight the battles, yet they live in a church built according to Egypt’s model.
Something is wrong with it. It is a tragedy.
You cannot use the world’s devices and still have the inheritance of the blessing. You cannot live on the other side of the Jordan, even if you fight in the promised land.
Do you know what happened to those two-and-a-half tribes? Nobody knows. They basically got assimilated into the people of the land out there—the Gileadites and other such tribes. They just got assimilated in, and after a while there was no more Reuben, no more Gad, no more half-tribe of Manasseh. They lost their inheritance. They lost their identity. They went into the world in the end.
What they did was build an altar. In Joshua 22, when the two-and-a-half tribes left and parted from Joshua, Joshua looked sadly as these soldiers and warriors went back across the Jordan.
Before they went back across, as a symbol of their idealism, they built an altar on the west side of the Jordan—the promised-land side—to say, “We worship the same God you worship. We are the same with you.”
But it was an altar that was not real. It was an altar that they did not go to. They were on the other side, but they built this altar just to say, “Oh, we are all one. We are all the same people. We are bone of your bones.”
Well, they were, but they were on the other side. Because they built that altar, it caused a lot of misunderstanding. The other nine-and-a-half tribes thought of going to war against them, thinking that they had already made an idolatrous altar.
It was just an altar of unreality. You cannot serve the Lord and then live on the wrong side of the Jordan and expect to inherit your inheritance. Straddling the Jordan, you will lose your inheritance.
There is a very sober lesson. All I am saying is: you are in—get all the way in. Do not be halfway.
There are people who basically live in the world and in the comforts of the world all week long. Then they come together on Sunday, worship God with everybody else, and go back home. You never see them again. They are out there across the Jordan, and then they come back in. You wonder why they are not built with everybody else.
Some Christians are kind of like the Egyptian way—the world’s ways—but they love the Lord too. So they try to straddle the Jordan. It just does not work, and it will not work for you.
I hope you become a famous doctor and make a million dollars a year—Canadian. That is about a hundred thousand U.S., is it not? Whatever. I do not know. I bought a coffee in there today, gave the girl two bucks, and she gave me a dollar-twenty in change. I do not know what is going on. Something is crazy.
But listen, I hope you are tremendously successful, and I hope you make a lot of money. But I hope you live on the promised-land side and are a steward of all of that for the Lord and for His purposes. Then you will be fulfilled.
Your inheritance is on the side with God’s people who are uncompromising in their ways as they follow the Holy Spirit.
Lesson number two: we turn to Joshua 7 and 8. Right after the defeat of Jericho, there is the battle for Ai—those two letters, A-I.
Here is the lesson they learned at Ai: you cannot conquer unless you are one.
Let us look at the corporate side first. In Joshua 7:2–3, Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai. Problem number one: they did not go back to Gilgal. Why? Because they had just been successful in Jericho.
What happens when you are successful in Jericho? “We can take it from here.”
Lesson learned: go back to Gilgal. Start with the fact that you are going to be led by the Lord, by His Spirit. You do not know what you are doing; you ask Him for wisdom.
But Joshua had won the battle, and now he thought he knew how to beat Ai too. Maybe he even thought the children of Israel had been the ones who defeated Jericho, and Ai should be a piece of cake.
Then Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” So the men went up and spied out Ai.
They returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not let all the people go up; only about two or three thousand men need go up to Ai. Do not make all the people toil up there, for they are few.”
—Joshua 7:2–3
So they did not go as one. They just sent a party out there, confident they could win.
Did they ask the Lord about this? No.
The men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of their men, and pursued them from the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them down on the descent, so the hearts of the people melted and became as water.
—Joshua 7:5
Look—one defeat, and Israel is like water. It is just like us. One victory, and we say, “Hey, we can handle Ai.” One defeat, and we say, “Ah!”—including Joshua.
Joshua tore his clothes, fell to the earth before the ark of the Lord, and stayed there until evening. The elders also put dust on their heads.
Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God, why did You ever bring this people over the Jordan? Now You are going to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites and destroy us. Oh, if only we had been willing to dwell beyond the Jordan!”
Oh, man. What a wimp.
The Lord said to Joshua:
“Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? Israel has sinned.”
—Joshua 7:10–11
That is the problem, dummy. Why did you not ask Me before you went to Ai? No, you just went on your own. You did not go altogether, did you?
After they asked forgiveness, we look at Joshua 8:1 and see that the Lord had a strategy for defeating Ai.
Now the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear or be dismayed. Take all the people of war with you, and arise, go up to Ai; see, I have given it into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land.”
—Joshua 8:1
The Lord gave him a strategy: set an ambush behind the city, draw the men out from the city, turn and run as they did before, and then the ambush comes around behind. Of course, they defeated Ai that way.
Joshua said, “Oh, the Lord did not desert us.”
What do we learn after the first victory in our Christian life? Ask the Lord, when the second battle comes up, what we should do.
If Joshua had asked the Lord before Ai happened, what would have happened? The Lord would have said, “There is sin in your camp. Do not go.”
The personal lesson is exactly this: personally speaking, hidden sin divides your heart, and you are not one.
Just like the children of Israel needed to be in one accord in fighting the battle, our hearts have to be united. Otherwise, what happens to faith? It trickles out, like you have a hole in your heart.
Because your sin has poked your conscience, you do not have faith, and you cannot stand in the contest of spiritual warfare. This is a very important principle.
In 1 Timothy 1:18–19, Paul speaks to Timothy about the good fight:
This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience.
—1 Timothy 1:18–19
That is the fight. Can you keep faith and a good conscience? They go together. If you have a bad conscience because of sin, faith goes out the window.
Now let us look at this in terms of the heart, where the conscience is, in 1 John 3:19–22:
We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
Here is what happens. When your conscience or your heart is condemned, you go to God and say, “Oh God, I want to pray against this problem. I am having a spiritual problem here at school. It seems like these kids are coming after me and persecuting me.”
Then you begin, “So I come to You in the name of Jesus—put me under the blood and keep me, because, Lord, I want to stand as a Christian for You, even though I have this unconfessed sin in my life. Even though You really should not do it because I am not really worthy of it. I am not even sure You are going to do it. I am not even sure if You are real. Maybe I better stop praying. I think I am just speaking words.”
What happened? The person’s faith leaked out because he got in touch with his heart. His heart condemned him, and faith went.
But if your heart does not condemn you, you have confidence with God to say, “God, do this, because I know You want us to glorify Your name,” and so on and so forth. Whenever you know your heart is pleasing to Him, your faith is very vibrant.
Faith and conscience go together, ladies and gentlemen. Sometimes, when we have a setback in our lives, there is a secret sin. We did not even know about it, but something was stirring in our hearts.
How many times have you gone to the Lord and said, “Lord, what is the matter? Why are we not on speaking terms right now?” You shuffle around a little bit, read a couple of Scriptures, wait a little while, and the Lord makes it clear that there is an issue there.
It is an issue of your heart. It is an issue: “Do you love Me?” It is an issue: “Who is this person in your life that you are thinking about? What is this secret lust or desire that you have?”
What was it that Achan stole, by the way? A garment—a beautiful ornate garment from Babylon.
Babylon had these religious garments that were very ornate. They had pictures of the moon goddess, the sun goddess, Ashtoreth, and all these kinds of things. That is what he stole.
Well, he was in Jericho, and there was a Babylonian garment. This fellow wanted to shop at Ralph Lauren.
You believe something as small as that could get in your heart? Some kind of coveting, some kind of complete distraction?
I would not be surprised, seeing the size of this group, if there were some kid here who was in a total fuss and a hissy fit with his parents because he could not go shopping for a new pair of jeans that looked old—or because he did not have the right wardrobe.
“I cannot go to the conference, Bobby. I would look like a jerk. Look, I have got this stuff, and this shirt is two months old. And my shoes—one of my sneakers is dirty.”
Then you give Mom a hard time. She has to take you out at the last moment, take you shopping, and buy you three hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of stuff. Then you come here wearing everything, looking like a jerk.
All I am saying is, forget it. Forget Ralph Lauren. This is not the problem. The problem is when there is sin in your life, and you try to do something for the Lord and are stopped absolutely short. Ask the Lord, “Lord, is there something?”
How do you remedy it?
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
—1 John 1:9
Then you can go and get the victory. If you are an honest Christian in honest dialogue with the Lord, keep your account short.
When you sin against God and are convicted of a sin, take it to Him. Ask Him to forgive you, and ask Him to cleanse you. Do not let it go on for days and weeks. A bad attitude just gets worse, and a secret sin gets more oppressive and obsessive in your life.
Get it out in the open, get it cleansed under the blood, and you can keep on walking and working and living with God.
So, the lessons of Ai: do not be presumptuous. Check with the Lord before you undertake any attack or assault.
Lesson number three is learned in Joshua 9 and 10. This is the story of the Gibeonites.
The Gibeonites were a local tribe of the Hivites in the land of Canaan. They were afraid because they saw what the Lord did with the children of Israel. So they put on old clothes. They took the clothes you left here at the conference last year and put them on. They took the food from last year—a bunch of old stale bread—and put dust all over the donkeys.
Then they showed up and said, “We traveled for miles to find you. We have come to be your servants. We have heard of the great God of yours. Could we be buddies? Hey, friends—how about it?”
They said, “Here, have some food. We have some stale bread. Please have some. The cheapest wine we could find—have some.”
What is the problem with the Gibeonites? There is a real lesson to be learned, and it is this: the enemy always tries to sneak into your life in all kinds of wily ways.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
—1 Peter 5:8
Your adversary prowls about all the time, looking for an inroad in your life. Just beware: the enemy is going to try to find a way to veil himself, to put on a costume like he is your friend.
The devil is not your friend, is what I am trying to say.
These Gibeonites were, quote, “friends” of Israel. But that is not the problem. The enemy will always try to do that. Here is the problem:
So the men of Israel took some of their provisions, and did not ask for the counsel of the Lord.
—Joshua 9:14
What are you doing? Getting unequally yoked with somebody who seems to be your friend. Then you get into a covenant with this person, as they did with the Gibeonites, and find out that they were Canaanites—the very people the Lord specifically said not to yoke yourselves with.
This is the problem with Christians when they go to college and get kind of broad-minded. They say, “Well, most of my friends are not Christians.”
I already get a little shaky when I hear that. Then they say, “But they are good people.”
The next thing you know, the dude finds somebody he falls in love with who is not a Christian. “But they are a good person.”
Then you bring them home to your family, and the person sees that your family is absolutely whacko Christian. They become a feigned Christian so they can marry you. Then you marry them, and guess what? They were just putting on a show.
They watched how you do it. You raise one hand if you are sort of worshipping, both hands if you are really worshipping. You learn the lingo of prayer a little bit. The next thing people say is, “Well, I guess that person is a Christian.”
More than one person has been duped into that kind of thing. But it is not just marriage we are talking about. We are talking about the fact that the world comes in through all kinds of sheep’s clothing and all kinds of friendship packages.
“Oh, look at the promotion we are going to give you. Now, you just have to live in the North Pole. We are going to give you two hundred thousand dollars a year. Oh, you have to work ninety hours a week up there because the sun never goes down from May till October. A couple of small things like that.”
Then the world buys your soul because you covenanted with them. The next thing you know, you are strapped and you are not serving the Lord.
I know it is hard to turn down an offer when you have been working at McDonald’s and suddenly they give you a hundred thousand dollars a year. But ask the Lord. Counsel the Lord. Every potential promotion is not from God. Do you believe that?
Do you believe the world has a way of enslaving you into it?
Some of you may even have parents who used to really love and serve the Lord, and they are totally off the chart today—absolutely taken up with business upon business upon business upon business. They got sucked into a trap. I am telling you, it is compromise, and it is the strategy of the world.
We have got to be smart. The whole key is: they did not seek counsel of the Lord.
Everybody in this room has memorized Proverbs 3:5–6:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
That is exactly what Joshua and Israel did not do. So they got yoked in this thing.
What was the harm? God had said to blot out all of these Canaanites, but what was the harm of taking in a tribe of Gibeonites?
When Israel found out the truth, they said, “Should we kill them?” Probably they should have, but they had made a covenant, and so they had to live by it. They made them slaves.
They said, “This is a pretty cool deal. All right, we did not wipe them out, and now we have free slaves. Hey, this is pretty cool. What could be wrong with that?”
So now they were slaves. While Israel was in the ascendancy, and when the people were obeying the Lord, they remained under as slaves.
But this is a heavenly spiritual warfare. Even though these people were slaves, do you know what they brought to Israel? Congratulations: they brought idols.
It is a spiritual warfare. It is not flesh and blood.
Mommy and Daddy, Zimri and Esther, had the nice little house. They had a little slave girl, and she had a statue of Ashtoreth. One day your child gets sick, and in the room there is a little incense going up. She is praying to her god.
You say, “What is going on?”
“She is praying to Ashtoreth your baby gets better.”
And do you not know your baby gets better? You say, “Hey, maybe we should pray. We believe in the Lord God, but maybe Ashtoreth has some power.”
The children of Israel went into idolatry because of this alliance.
Let us jump for just a second to Judges. In Judges 2, the angel of the Lord said:
“I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you.’
“And as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.” But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?
“Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.’”
—Judges 2:1–3
In Judges 1, we see the conclusion of the conquest. Judah did not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots. Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites. Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages. Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites. Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, but they made them forced labourers. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco. Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants either.
Do you see? There is a precedent here. They made them forced labourers. Then the Amorites forced the sons of Dan to move to another area.
What happened? As soon as you stop doing violence against those things that are attacking you, but instead accept them and take them in as a little compromise, the next thing you know all the tribes are compromising.
They had their territory, but they had some Canaanite tribe existing in their territory. Throughout the book of Judges, they had invaders from the outside causing great trouble, like the Philistines and Midianites. But they also had a lot of trouble from the Canaanites. When the children of Israel got weaker, the Canaanites became the lords and the children of Israel became the slaves.
It all started when they did not seek the Lord before making a decision.
Lesson number four is learned in Joshua 12 through 14, and it has to do with battling the giants, like the song we sang about.
This is Caleb. Only the Caleb in you can battle the giants in you.
Caleb came to Joshua and said, “Give me Hebron so I can attack the giants. I want that for my land.”
Here is Caleb’s statement in Joshua 14:11–13:
“I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in.
“Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out as the Lord has spoken.”
So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb.
The name Hebron means fellowship. In the song, there was a verse about how, before the loving fellowship of Hebron can be realized, the giants have to be driven out.
We find more about these giants in Joshua 15:13–14:
Now he gave Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the sons of Judah, according to the command of the Lord to Joshua, namely, Kiriath-arba, Arba being the father of Anak—that is, Hebron.
Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the children of Anak.
Hebron was formerly called Kiriath-arba. Arba means the strength of Baal—strength. This is a perfect picture, just by the name, of the strength of our flesh, our natural strength. That is the giant in our life.
The greatest enemy you have is yourself: your strong will, your natural self-life.
Arba was the father of Anak. Anak means neck—long neck. This is what you call somebody who is proud. It has to do with pride. Oh, Anak—the proud one. He stands tall. He is proud.
Self-life is always proud. Self-life is always about me.
The three sons of Anak are pictures for our instruction. Sheshai means free. That is our independence—a fleshly independence.
Ahiman means brother of man. He loves the world; he loves getting together with people. He is a people lover. Is that part of your flesh?
There are some Christians who really love the Lord, but they keep getting tripped up by romance. “Oh, I love You, Lord, but I also love Tiny Toots.” Then they are caught in this self-life that absolutely goes astray like a wild dog. All day long, all they are thinking about is Tiny Toots. They think about them and dream about them.
You say, “Study the Word,” and they study the Word. They always turn to Timothy 6:6.
The third brother is Talmai, which means bold. So you have free, lover of men, and bold—self-willed. Oh boy, there is self showing himself. How are we ever going to do anything about this?
How do we defeat ourselves?
We can butcher ourselves. We can flagellate ourselves. We can deny ourselves. But when you deny yourself, as our brother Lance Lambert is always showing us, it is like having one of those big air cushions that you put on an outside piece of patio furniture. If you sit down on the left side, the right side goes up. You sit down on that side, the other side goes up.
If you push yourself down by your own effort, you just come up in another place. Self, self, self is not going to die.
We have faced the giants. We got into the land. We got as far as the giants. Is it time to turn back and live on the other side of the Jordan in turkey land? No, no, no, no.
Here is the deal: there is a giant slayer.
Caleb was onto the giant slayer. He knew how to defeat these four fellows and take Hebron, because the giant slayer is none other than the Holy Spirit.
Do not try to defeat the self out of yourself. There are two things that the Holy Spirit does.
In Galatians 5:16, here is the deal, ladies and gentlemen: it all depends on where you are walking. Your position is what matters here.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
—Galatians 5:16
If you walk by the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of Anak, Arba, Sheshai, Talmai, and Ahiman.
If you do not walk by the Spirit, any one of these fellows can clip you and take over.
We are on resurrection ground, brothers and sisters. As Christians in the promised land, you do not live out of your own life. You do not attack yourself by your own strength. You are living by the Holy Spirit. You are walking by the Holy Spirit.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
—Galatians 5:24
The power of the Spirit, with your cooperation, can put down the self whenever it raises its ugly head and demands to be heard.
The most frequent enemy you will hear in your lifetime is yourself reacting in some way against spiritual discipline and other things.
Romans 8:13 further underscores this wonderful truth:
For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The Holy Spirit, in cooperation with you—you put to death, but it is by the Holy Spirit that it is enabled to happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must learn this lesson. Our best ally is the Spirit who lives inside us. He is the One who can gain the victory over the giants. Otherwise, we stand for defeat.
As soon as your self-life rears its head and gets its way, and you are walking by the flesh and not the Spirit, why is this a strategy of the enemy? Because when you walk by self-life, he has you targeted, because you are standing alone.
The enemy’s strategy is first to separate you from the saints and then to pick you off. He cannot pick you off in the flock.
You have seen enough of those Discovery Channel things about the herd of wildebeest. As long as they are together as a herd, the lions are running around, but they keep singing the Lion King songs and nothing happens. But if one of the wildebeests falls down or gets separated and isolated, wow—they all jump on him and mercilessly take hold of him.
That is what the enemy tries to do to you.
If you are walking in the Spirit, walking with brothers and sisters, and day by day fellowshipping with them so that no evil heart of unbelief begins to take over in your life, then the enemy comes around and snarls and growls. That is how you know you are in the will of God—the growl of the enemy walking around—but he cannot get you.
But if your self-life rears up and you are on your own, you get uncovered. The enemy has something to get at. He always tries to get you in an isolated situation.
That is why one of the most common feelings somebody has in the body of Christ is, “I do not belong here. I do not like this fellowship. I do not like my family. I wish I were somewhere else.”
Boy, yeah, the enemy would just love for you to take up a little bag, take four days’ supply of food from here, and go somewhere—just leave and get uncovered, where he can really have at you.
But this is the constant desire of the self-life: to rebel, because it loves independence. Its name is Sheshai. It loves independence. It hates to be shackled with responsibility, discipline, and all of that.
Talmai is so bold, so self-confident, so self-willed: “I know more than that stupid preacher up there in the front. I know the Bible better than he does. I am a better Christian. I am sick and tired of hearing the same old stuff.”
When you see somebody reared up like that, you know it is just all flesh.
If you live by the Spirit, that flesh is held down. It is just held down. When it rears up its head, you say, “No, no. I live by the Spirit. I deny myself. I live by the Spirit.”
It is not going to die, but it is held down. It is mortified. It is held down from action as long as you are following the Lord.
You wrestle by denying yourself and by believing the Word, just like Caleb did. He said, “I can go into the land. If the Lord is with me, He will grant me success.” He believed that the Lord would be with him.
Do you believe the Holy Spirit lives in you? Even when you do not feel it, do you believe it?
It is not just something you feel, like He is right under your tonsil and a little higher than your left lung. The Holy Spirit lives inside you.
Caleb believed. He said, “I am an old man, but I am still operating by the power of God. I am going up to Hebron to take care of those giants.”
It is all in where you stand as to what the giants can do to you.
Lesson number five: Joshua 18. The whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled at Shiloh, set up the tent of meeting there, and the land was subdued before them.
There remained among the sons of Israel seven tribes who had not divided their inheritance.
—Joshua 18:2
Joshua said to them:
“How long will you put off entering to take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?”
—Joshua 18:3
How long will you delay before possessing the land?
It is a very interesting thing that happens among the fighters, God’s kids. There are some who are fighters, but they are not possessors. They go into the land and fight in the land, but they do not know how to settle down.
It is amazing to me. There are strong Christians. They know the Word. They know how to pray. The only thing they cannot do is stand fellowship with people.
They have a hard time in every fellowship, church, or assembly they go to. They get in fights. They do not agree with this fellow and that fellow. They are just too independent. They are fighters, but they are not settlers.
They do not possess the land. They do not sit down. They do not spend time. They do not get to know the land. They do not even know the land that was their possession. Too busy fighting.
Maybe they felt unworthy; I do not know. Could be part of it. Maybe they were just busy people. They like to be busy. But this part of resting—they were in the land, but they were not resting.
“Where is your house?”
“Well, I have not picked it out yet. I am busy, I am busy.”
How about settling down with the saints? Getting to know the people of God, getting to know the Lord Himself. You see, the promised land is all about Christ Himself.
There are some people fighting for Jesus who do not even know Him. Oh, what a shame this is.
Joshua gave them orders. He said, “I want you to go take a look at the land. Take a careful look. I want you to survey the land. I want you to see everything about it.”
In other words, he said, “Enough of your fighting. It is time for you to settle down and abide in the Word, get to know the Lord Jesus, and get to know the people. Then settle in your house and settle in your inheritance.”
That is part of the fullness of this thing. You are not just meant to fight all your life and not enjoy the blessing of it.
We are not only fighters fighting a good fight, but you need to have a home. Oh, brothers and sisters, you need a home—a place where God is at home and you are at home, a place where you have friends who can pray with you, who understand you, who know you.
Do not just be one of those independent Lone Rangers in the body of Christ.
Lesson number six: you must keep on keeping on until the end.
Notice Joshua 23:1:
It came about after many days when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their enemies on every side.
The distinction is made in this chapter between rest and victory.
They had rest. Why? Because they were on top of the enemy. They were in the ascendancy. They were victorious. The enemy was on the run, hiding, and subservient.
So they had rest because they were in the ascendancy and they were in victory. But they had not won the victory yet.
Joshua said, “Now you need to go in and take possession of the land and drive them out thoroughly. Do a thorough job.” In Joshua 23:5 he says, “Thrust them out.” In verse 6, “Be very firm.” In verse 8, “Cling to the Lord.” In verse 11, “Be diligent.”
Be diligent until the job is done, until the fight is won.
The temptation after a few victories, and even when you get your own territory, is to sort of settle down and retire. I know some Christians who used to fight the good fight; now they are sort of retired.
You never retire.
You rest. You rest all your life, even while you are fighting, because you are resting in your position in the finished work, following the Lord. There is rest in walking by the Spirit, but you are not in victory yet, and the war will go on the rest of your life.
Does that not ring true in Hebrews 4:11?
Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.
Be diligent to enter that rest. How do you rest by diligence? You stay in that zone. You stay in that pocket. You stay under the precious blood. You stay in the finished work. You follow the Spirit and walk by the Spirit. You live by His life, not your life.
Look at Hebrews 4:10:
For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.
You enter that rest when you stop doing things out of your own strength. Now you are living by the power of God. You are living by the Holy Spirit. That is what it means to be diligent and enter into that rest.
Forget about spiritual laziness and carelessness. Forget about doing things partially, like the church of Sardis, which stopped completing things. Forget about being satisfied.
The thing about the promised land is that it is so big. Christ is so large. He is so wonderfully large that what you have, and where you are settled, you should never be satisfied, because right over the hill there is more of Christ.
Like Paul, even in jail as he wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was still running after Christ, running up into the mountains, discovering new things of Christ he had never seen before.
We are in this promised land, and it is endless, it is infinite, and it is all about Christ. We should never get to the place where we are satisfied, sort of settled down, no longer clinging to the Lord, and no longer loving Him with all our heart diligently.
The last one, number seven: with each victory, there must be a further consecration.
When you gain more ground, there is more to give to the Lord. After every victory, there is a necessity of consecration.
One of the great things about Joshua, to his credit as a transition man, is that every time they won a victory, he brought them to a place of commitment and a place of worship, where they acknowledged the Lord.
After they defeated Jericho, Joshua 6:26 says:
Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time.
It was regarding the ban. Spiritually speaking, it was regarding taking any glory to themselves. “All right, men, we are going to take an oath. God got this victory. It was not ours. We give all the glory to Him. We do not touch this glory. It was all God’s.”
Let us consecrate ourselves unto this God who won the victory for us.
After they defeated Ai by God’s way instead of their own, we find at the end of Joshua 8 that Joshua took the people up to Shechem, where there are two mountains: Ebal and Gerizim.
Then Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal.
—Joshua 8:30
He did three things there by way of worship and consecration. He built an altar, set the ark down in their midst, and made an oath to the Lord.
All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark.
—Joshua 8:33
Then afterward, he read all the words of the law—the blessing and the curse—according to all that was written in the book of the law. While the children of Israel stood there, fresh from the victory of Ai, Joshua read them Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers—perhaps even Deuteronomy. He read them the words of the law. They rehearsed them again.
It was as if they went back to Gilgal. As a matter of fact, after this they did go back to Gilgal—right back to the start.
What am I saying? When the Lord gains a victory in your life, we come and consecrate. We lay an altar there. We lay ourselves on the altar. “Thank You for the victory, Lord. We give it all to You, and ourselves as living sacrifices once again.”
At the very end, in Joshua 24, Joshua gathered the people together. He was one hundred and ten years old and ready to go home to be with the Lord.
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel and for their heads and their judges and their officers; and they presented themselves before God.
—Joshua 24:1
Joshua recited the history of God’s faithfulness—the history of God’s victories in his life. Then he brought them to two places. He asked them the question: “Will you serve the Lord?”
Now you have the whole land. You have conquered the land. Now what are you going to do?
You remember Deuteronomy. It says in the law, when you enter the land and take possession of the land, do not forget the Lord.
Joshua gave these wonderful words in Joshua 24:14–15:
“Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
“If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The people consecrated themselves:
The people answered and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods.”
—Joshua 24:16
But notice, interestingly, in verse 19, Joshua brings them back, as it were, to Gilgal.
Joshua said to the people, “You will not be able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God.”
—Joshua 24:19
He begins to tell them, “Remember this: you cannot serve the Lord out of yourself. Go back to Gilgal. Go back to the fact that the Lord is your strength and your life. If you do not love the Lord with all your heart, you will not succeed.”
After they had conquered, after they had basically taken the land, there was still work to do. Joshua gathered them at Shechem and said, “Once again, brothers and sisters, it is time to consecrate yourselves unto the Lord.”
Now that He has won the victory, give Him back the glory that is His right and His due.
We have heard messages all week long regarding the transition man and the preparation the Lord is doing in your life. I can see, as I talk and fellowship and get to know some of you, that the Lord is certainly preparing you.
It is very important in the years ahead. Some of you are just about to launch off into new things—launch off into college, launch off into a job, move somewhere. May the Lord make you this kind of transition person.
The Lord says, “If you will walk with Me, live by My life, you will overcome, even as I overcame.”
In this day, going swimming upstream against the tide of so many Christians who are just kind of drifting, there are precious servants of God who are living by a life not their own. They are living by the Lord’s life. They are overcomers. They are transition people. They are people of the land. They are people taking their inheritance.
Listen: Christ is yours, and victory in Christ is yours, if you are willing to listen and learn and follow the lessons before us.
I thought it would be appropriate for us tonight, perhaps, to go back to Gilgal one more time before we leave here this week. I wonder if we cannot—or if we do not want to—consecrate ourselves one more time.
Maybe the Lord has shown you something. Maybe you have gained some victory in your life even this week. Then we come back to the Lord and consecrate ourselves in a new way and a fresh way.
Maybe you realize that the giants really are strong. Do you fear the giants in your own life? How we need to be filled with the Spirit. Give ourselves to the Lord so He can fill us with His Spirit. Then we can walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
We can talk about this, and it all sounds so nice right now. But brothers and sisters, maybe before we go tonight, we can pile up some stones.
Let us bow our heads.
May the Lord circumcise our hearts. May we bring to the Lord an offering of consecration back unto Him.
My brothers and sisters, you have heard a lot this week about spiritual warfare, but it all starts back at the Jordan. It all starts back at the cross. It all starts back at the transition.
Have you seen the stones of your old life down in the river? Do you want to put them there right now?
Do you want to pile up those stones of resurrection life in Christ Jesus? Pile them up on the bank at Gilgal. No more the world. You have turned your back upon the world. Now you live by the life of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We come back there and acknowledge the work is finished. Even the battle through our lives—the battle is only to make us stronger. It is already won by the Lord, if we will follow in the way He asks us to go.
O Lord, would You consecrate Your people?
My brothers and sisters, I know there are a number of you who truly are living your life aflame before the Lord. You are consecrated before Him, and I am not asking you to respond tonight.
I wonder if there are some others here who really want to lay themselves upon the altar. You are getting ready for some transition in your life, and you just want to once again say, “Oh Lord, be everything in my life. I need You. I need Your Spirit to succeed and to learn the lessons. I need to be under the ark. I have wandered away and want to get back.”
Maybe tonight is a time for you to consecrate yourself afresh and anew, to make a living sacrifice unto the Lord: “Lord, I live by Your life now. I come to serve You.”
What a wonderful thing when we forget about ourselves, leave it down there in the Jordan, and live for the Lord and His great purpose in this day.
I am going to ask those who want to do that tonight to stand up where you are. Let us consecrate ourselves afresh and anew to the Lord.
Lord, receive the offering tonight of lives at the edge of the Jordan, on the resurrection side. Lord, receive the hearts of these, Your children. Strengthen them by Your might.
Praise God.
All right, brothers and sisters, I am going to pray a prayer. You just echo this prayer in your heart, adding any other kind of words you want to put in here.
Lord, we come to You, and at this crossroads of our life, we want to be on the altar as a sacrifice to You.
O Lord, what we have done wrong in the past, cleanse by Your precious blood, as we turn away from our sin and ourselves.
Lord, where we have tried and failed—honestly tried, honestly failed—we leave those stones at the bottom of the river. No condemnation.
Lord, we stand on resurrection ground. We no longer live, but Christ lives in us. We want to live by Your life, Lord, and we consecrate ourselves as a living sacrifice unto You tonight.
Lord, help us as we face the giants of our self-life. Oh, how used we are to the loud and boisterous, proud talk of ourselves. But Lord, we would rather walk by the Spirit, overcome, and live in a way that is pleasing to You.
O give us victory over our self-life by the power and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Lord, we consecrate ourselves anew tonight. Help us, Lord, in the road ahead. I especially pray for those who are standing tonight, and they have a real battle ahead of them. There is a Jericho just two miles away, and it is an impossible situation.
O Lord, we would inquire of You. Lord, what is Your way through? Lord, whether it is a family situation, a school situation, a moving situation, or whatever it is that stands as a great burden and problem, Lord, we give it to You.
We say, “Lord, help us to speak the word of faith and see the victory from the heavenly places as we stand before You tonight.”
Oh, thank You, Lord. Thank You for all those who have given their lives to You here afresh tonight, and those who have before. O Lord, it is such a privilege to be able to give You the right to these lives tonight.
Take this. Seal the work You are doing in their lives. Let them live by Your strength, like Joshua did. Bless them.
While you are just standing there, why do you not be seated? Thank you, brothers and sisters.
Just before I end tonight, I want to give an invitation to anybody who is in this room and has never joined the army.
You have been thinking about asking Jesus to be your Saviour. You must have thought about it, or you would not even be here this week. You have heard a lot of talk, a lot of spiritual stuff about a land and its implications. Maybe a lot of it did not make sense to you, but here is one thing that makes sense: Jesus loves you, and He died for you.
He crossed that Jordan and gave His life so that you could cross the Jordan too. You could live in the promised land forever if you will accept Him as your Lord, if you will follow Him, if you will be led by Him.
He will save you from your sins. You do not have to live with a feeling of being on the outside. You do not have to live with a great burden of sin. He forgives our sins. He comes into our lives, and He begins to transition us into servants of God.
If you are here tonight and you have never done that—never said, “Yes, Lord Jesus, I want to be a Christian. I want to serve the Lord. I want to live under His lordship”—and you want to do that tonight, while everybody is praying here, I would like you to lift your hand so I can see.
Is there anybody here tonight? Everybody be praying, please, because I do not know all of you. But I think somebody here may still be waiting to make that decision.
Are you ready? Would you raise your hand if that is you? Do you want to follow the Lord? Anybody here tonight?
Lift your hand up so I can see it. You are going to have to take that kind of step of faith.
Lord, we thank You for what You are doing in our midst. We do pray for everybody here. We do not want anybody to feel like they are left out.
O Lord, You are so merciful. You are always calling people into Your army.
Oh, bless us and help us to live for You tonight. Thank You, Lord, for what You are speaking to us. Make us good soldiers of Yours.
I thank You for these precious brothers and sisters. What a joy it is to be with them in these days. God bless them. Make this a generation of transition. Great opportunities are ahead.
May Thy will be done, and Thy kingdom come. We pray in Jesus’ precious name.