Heavenly Father, bless this study,
make it an honor to your name and useful to those who have
gathered here this morning. In the name of Christ, we pray
it. Amen. All right, let's read the first
12 verses. Now, when all the Amorite kings
west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast
heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan River before the
Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted, and
they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. At that
time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise
the Israelites again. So Joshua made flint knives and
circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now, this
is why he did so. All those who came out of Egypt,
all men of military age, died in the desert on the way after
leaving Egypt. Now, we read here in our translation,
all the men of military age. I think that technically it says
all those 20 and above, because that was the age of military
service at that time. all the people that came out
had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert
during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved
about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of
military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not
obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them
that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised
their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So he raised up their sons in their place. And these were the
ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised
because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole
nation had been circumcised, They remained where they were
in camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua,
today, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. So
the place has been called Gilgal to this day. On the evening of
the 14th day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains
of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. The day after the
Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the
land, unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the
day after they ate this food from the land. There was no longer
any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the
produce of Canaan. Now, having crossed the Jordan,
the people are in the promised land. Now, that's an important
point to note in relation to the events, the four events that
take place after they've entered the promised land. Now, one indication
that crossing the Jordan and entering the promised land is
not a picture of the believer's personal death and entrance into
heaven. is the fact that even though
they were in the promised land, there were enemies to face. Now,
when we depart this life to be with Christ, there are no more
enemies to face. The only connection between crossing
the Jordan or being in the promised land, and heaven is the fact
that heaven is simply the perfection of what we already have. In a
sense, heaven is the promised land, but so is the life of a
believer the moment he believes. He is in the promised land, and
the experience of the Jews and driving out and dispossessing
their enemies is the experience of the life of a believer in
this world. And when they were perfectly
at rest, because all their enemies had been destroyed, that would
be more accurately a picture of heaven. But realize that spiritually
speaking, there will be no change in your essential spiritual condition. between now and when you stand
faultless and full of joy in his presence. All the difference
between the believer's life on earth and the believer's life
in the presence of God has to do with the destruction of the
flesh. The spirit has been reborn or
born again That is, the believer's spirit has been born again, and
anything that is born of God is faultless. There's nothing
more to do to it. So when we die, it's not like
our spiritual nature changes. It's just relieved of its attachment
to this corrupt, decaying, sinful, fleshly nature that we have.
And on the day of resurrection, it says that God will change
our vile bodies to be like His. Now, the Bible's not absolutely clear,
or as clear as maybe we would like it to be, about the condition
of those believers who have gone to glory before us. It's evident when Paul says,
I desire to depart and be with Christ. That's what I would prefer.
And he was comparing that or contrasting that with staying
here. And of course, if his own wishes
were all that had to be taken into account, he would have said,
let me out of here. I want to be with Christ. But
he says, however, knowing that there's work yet to do here,
then I'll stay, you know, and willingly and contentedly so.
But he was saying, indicating that when we depart this life,
we are immediately with Christ. And yet, it speaks of the resurrection
of believers at the last day. So do they presently exist as
merely spiritual beings, unseen? Or are they given a temporary
body? Or, as Seventh-day Adventists
believe, they experience soul sleep. In other words, the day
you die is not the day that you are in the presence of God. that you are unconscious until
the day of resurrection. Or as one brother I was talking
with, you know, he was trying to unravel all these things in
his mind, and he said, quite possibly, he said, maybe it's
that when a believer dies, he's immediately transported to the
last day. That there, so far as the believer's
experience after death, he really doesn't experience any time period
between his death and the day of the Lord when he returns,
and there's a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous.
But we do know this, that there is a resurrection of those, of
the bodies of those who have died when the Lord comes. And
Paul says that this resurrection is going to change our vile,
that is corrupt, decaying, dying, broken bodies, this flesh, to
be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I was pondering on this
a few days ago, and this thought crossed my mind. You know, if
you go to, if you were to dig up the tombs of many of the believers,
well, of anybody that's died a long time ago, the most you're
going to find of them is maybe some rich dirt. Everything has
returned to the earth, and it may be a little bit more fertile
than the other dirt around it. And so we think, my, what an
amazing miracle of God to reconstitute that completely decayed body
back into a living and glorious human being. Well, when our Lord
returns, there will be some believers yet living on the earth. And
I tell you this, it will take no less a miracle to change their
vile and dying bodies into a body like the Lord Jesus Christ. It
won't take any more of a miracle to do that than to gather the,
you know, dirt that was once a human being and make a human
being out of it. Remember, the very first human
being was made out of dirt. We're speaking here of the work
of God. He's the one who spoke, and it was, he commanded, and
it stood firm. That was the way the psalmist
described creation. He said, let there be light,
and there was light. And he didn't break a sweat when
he did that. Consequently, when our Lord returns, whether we
are alive or whether we have died and our bodies have completely
returned to the dust, or like some of the martyrs who were
burned at the stake and the molecules that made up their body are scattered
throughout the atmosphere, it doesn't matter to God. Did
not John say? God can raise up children of
Abraham from these stones. God doesn't need any help. His
word is sufficient to make a thing or a condition to exist. It needs nothing more than that.
But anyway, when we get to heaven, all we're going to see is that
it is the same promised land which we experienced on earth,
it's just a promised land with no enemies. A promised land with
no enemies, that is, there's none there who are opposed to
us, and at least from my perspective, the enemy that I will rejoice
most of all to see done is me. That is, in my flesh, Paul says,
in me, that is, in my flesh dwells nothing good, not a single thing. Won't you be glad to be rid of
that? There's nothing of the flesh worth saving. I'm really
terrible about finding things and I look at, oh, you know,
with a little bit of work, that could be, there's still something good
in there. I've got pieces of wood I've saved that, They've
had a tough life, but I think, well, you know, you can make
something out of that, but not out of our flesh you can't. There's
nothing there worth saving. It's going to require an entire
transformation. Our bodies will not be a part
of this old creation, which is in Adam, and therefore is dying. They will be part of the new
creation. And Paul says that the mortal
will put on immortality. So, at any rate, them being in
the promised land itself is not a picture of heaven as such.
It is simply a picture of the life that is given to every one
of God's elect because of their connection to Christ. And while we're still in this
flesh, there'll be enemies to deal with. As we go through this,
we're going to find out even in the promised land there are
successes, there's failures. But it doesn't change the fact
it's the promised land, and that God has promised to give it to
us. There are four things done before
the people engage in their very first battle. But before we zero
in on those four things, let's notice something here in verse
1. Now when all the Amorite kings
west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast
heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites
until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer
had the courage to face the Israelites. Now, verse 1 sets forth the truth
that before the church engages in its first battle, and when
I say church here, you can think of the church as a the entire
body of believers from all ages, or you can apply this to any
single individual believer. The principle remains the same.
Before the church or an individual believer engages its first battle,
her foes are already defeated. Now, we read this here. All the Amorite kings, and I
believe that they were just right there on the border of Jordan,
you know, just to the west of Jordan, and then it mentions
the Canaanite kings, and they would have been the ones more
towards the Mediterranean coast. Now, notice this. They did not
quake in their boots because of the Israelites. They didn't
say, look how big that group is. Look at how powerful their
fighting men are. It says, when they heard how
the Lord dried up the Jordan before the Israelites, it was
the Lord that terrified them. Now, when our Lord dried up the Jordan, made dry
land across the Jordan for his people, He did it in the season
when the Jordan flows highest, flood stage in the spring. You know, God most clearly demonstrates
his great and effective power in our behalf when he allows
things to look the most dismal they can. Now we all want and
desire and likely pray for an enjoyable life. We don't like
trials. And there's nothing wrong with
the fact that we don't like them. Because if we liked them, they
wouldn't be trials. Trials, by their very definition,
confront us with things other than the way we want them to
be. If it's a trial of illness, everybody wants to be healthy.
If it's a trial of finances, everybody would like to have
all the money they need and some more. So there's nothing wrong
with us not wanting trial. But here's the truth of it, there
is no such thing as a life of faith without trial. Trial's
from the outside, trial's on the inside. Trial's just a part
of it. And while we may say, well, yes,
I don't mind some trials, but boy, it just seems that God is
making things so very, very difficult. The things I'm facing look utterly
insurmountable to me. That's how they're supposed to
look. Because if it looks like a problem you can fix, you will
keep trying to fix it. But when God confronts us with
things utterly impossible for us to manage, and then comes
to our aid and our deliverance, then our faith is truly encouraged. I've been through a few things
in my life that, well, as I went through them,
I wondered, how am I going to get through this? And when I
look back on them, I think, how did I get through that? Well,
of course, I know the answer. The Lord sustains. His grace
is sufficient for us in all circumstances. So when the enemies that were
presently possessing the land, when they heard of what God did,
Now, of course, we said that crossing the Jordan is a picture
of the believer in Christ crossing death. Now, it's not a picture
of his personal death and laying aside this body. It's that he
died with Christ, was buried with Christ, and he was raised
with Christ. And that's illustrated by the
fact that the first thing in was that Ark of the Covenant,
and that's what or in the Ark of the Covenant, pictures God's
sovereignty, for it's His throne, and then the blood on the mercy
seat is a picture of God's grace and mercy. Christ having satisfied
the demands of the broken law in our behalf. And so it's a
picture of Christ. And so their passage through
the Jordan was a picture of us passing through God's judgment
and surviving. Or is that not what Christ experienced
as He poured out His soul unto death? He experienced the judgment
of Christ for us, and we were in Him when He did it. Thus,
we have experienced the judgment of God already. Why is there,
as Paul says, there's therefore now no condemnation to them who
are in Christ Jesus? Why is that true? They've already
been through condemnation. They were already condemned in
Him, punished in Him, and then raised again in Him. The deal's
done. God doesn't punish twice. So there they are. They're in the promised land.
But those people in the promised land were terrified when they
saw that the God of these people was able to stop the Jordan at
flood stage to give them passage into the promised land. And you
can imagine that they were saying, if because of their God, The
flooding Jordan was no obstacle to them. What will the walls
of our cities do for us? And you know the church, in all
these battles that the Jews went through, picture the church as it goes out preaching
the gospel. And by the gospel, it destroys
the enemies of God. By preaching the gospel, that
is. The enemies of God are destroyed, either by making friends out
of them, as is the case with Rahab, or simply the gospel brings
them into what we might consider a greater state of condemnation.
As it says, and this is the verdict, that light has come into the
world. Men love darkness rather than light. You know, whenever
we listen to the gospel, we should take that seriously because the
gospel never leaves a person unchanged in their condition. You're either better off or worse
off. And he that believes, of course,
is better off having heard the gospel. He that rejects it, what
does the Bible say? That he who after many reproofs
hardens his neck, stiffens his neck, shall be cut off, and that
suddenly. To sit and listen to the gospel
and not believe, it's, for lack of a better way to put it, a
little like increasing your own blindness. At any rate, as they
go out, The church goes out preaching the gospel. They do so fighting
an enemy that's already been defeated because the gospel is
the power of God unto salvation. And if there's one thing that
terrifies unbelievers, it's demonstrations of the power of God. Now, they
don't demonstrate their fear as fear. They demonstrate it
as anger. You know, long ago, what is today
is called, you know, anxiety, having an anxiety disorder. It
used to be called hysteria. And the reason it was called
hysteria is because they noted that this anxiety was more prevalent
among women, and they thought it had something to do with them
as women. The Greek word for uterus actually,
uterus is derived from the, our English word uterus is derived
from the Greek word for uterus, but it's hysteria or something
like that. And it became hysteria. They
actually thought that it was, caused by some problem with the
uterus. But what they learned over time
is that anxiety just looks different in men. It generally demonstrates
its face in anger. You find men that are angry all
the time? That's the way they express their
fear. And when people hear the gospel, since it shines the light into
the darkness in which they live, proving that all the self-righteousness
they have stored up is really just sin, it terrifies them. Now, they don't run from us.
They turn in anger. But the fact is, They've already
been defeated. Now, this is the condition of
the church in the world. You know, the story of David
and Goliath kind of proves this. David's a picture of Christ,
and he's the one that kills Goliath. I remember being told as a kid,
you know, when they told us that story and said, we should be
like David and go out and face Goliath. No. The point of that
story is Saul and his army, they represented God's people. They could not face Goliath.
He was too big for them. David did. The unlikely one did,
and Christ was an unlikely Messiah in the eyes of the people. But
he faced Goliath, and having destroyed Goliath, it completely
took all the bravado out of the Philistine army, And they turned
and ran. Well, then Saul and his army
came in and engaged the battle, so to speak. What was their battle?
Chase down those that were running, kill them, and take the spoils.
In other words, before Saul's army ever took the field, the
battle had already been won. And that's the point here. As
we go out into the world, understand this. We face opposition, but
the battle is already won. Our Lord Jesus Christ has crushed
the head of the serpent who is called the God, that is, the
great powerful leader of this world, but he's already been
destroyed. He has already been cast into
the pit and bound up with chains. Back in the 70s, There was a
fellow who became rather famous within broad Christendom. He wrote one book called The
Late Great Planet Earth, and then he also wrote one called
Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. And then I remember I
had to read a book on counseling, and it was written by someone
who understood God and his gospel better. And he says, Satan is
alive, but he's not well. People say, the devil made me
do it. And I keep saying, you don't need the devil's help to
sin. That's not really what the devil's primary work is anyway. The devil's primary work, and
that which is his greatest success, is to make people trust in their
own righteousness. So there's nothing he would like
to do better than to make you very good. It was the Pharisees,
those who were, outwardly speaking, the most upright people in the
days of the Lord. Those Pharisees, to them, the
Lord said, you're of your father the devil. And then what he does is, once
he's got people trusting in their own righteousness, then he may
tempt them to sin, and thus, suddenly their house comes crushing
down. And he comes even to believers.
and his work in us is not so much to make us to sin. Whatever
he tempts us to do and whatever success he has in tempting us
to some transgression is for this purpose to become our accuser
in the presence of God. But he's already been defeated.
by the blood of the lamb, by the gospel, he is cast out. The accuser of the brethren has
been cast out. He has no more standing in heaven's
court, because every sin which he causes one of God's people
to commit has already been paid for, covered in the blood, it's
gone, and when he makes the accusation, they say, well, let's look in
the books. Nope, it's not there. leave. Well, we'll pick up there
next week.