Alright. Alright, let's turn to Joshua
chapter 7. Joshua chapter 7. The Lord had delivered Jericho,
that mighty city, into the hand of Joshua and the children of
Israel. And right after that, Joshua
sent spies to Ai. And they came back and they said,
it's not a very big place. We only need to send two to three
thousand men to Ai. So they did. But Ai defeated
Israel and put those two to three thousand men to chase. Ran them
out of there. and killed 36 of Israel's men. And when this happened, Joshua
and elders of Israel began to pray. And we find here in Joshua
7, verse 6, it says, And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to
the earth upon his face. That's sorrow, repentance, humility. That's what that is an outward
symbol of. And he did this before the ark
of the Lord until the evening tide. Picture being before Christ
and praying long till the evening. He and the elders of Israel. And they put dust upon their
heads. Another outward symbol of helplessness
and strengthlessness. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord
God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan
to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Would to God we had been content
and dwelt on the other side of Jordan. In spite of what God
had done for them. God had delivered them over Jordan.
God had delivered Jericho into their hand. And now, like a double-minded
man, Joshua prays here and says, after you've done all this deliverance,
it'd been better if we'd have just stayed where we were, if
we'd have just been content with what we had. You've just brought
us over here to destroy us, Lord. And he says in verse 8, O Lord,
what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their
enemies? For the Canaanites and all the
inhabitants of the land shall hear of this, and they shall
environ us round, and cut off our name from the earth. And
what wilt thou do unto thy great name? Now that's the very thing
to be concerned about, is our enemies not blaspheming the name
of God. Now that's something to be concerned
about. That's something to be concerned about. Especially by
our enemies. Verse 10. And the Lord said unto
Joshua. Now here is God's question. And
this is a question as we've seen in these questions that God asks
to sinners. This is a question not for information. It's a question to convict us
of our sin. And to show us something of God's
glory. This is His question. He says,
get thee up. Wherefore liest thou thus upon
thy face? Now God answered his prayer.
He answered his prayer. Men are always praying and asking
God to answer their prayer. He answered his prayer. And the
answer to his prayer was, get up off your face and quit praying. Get up off your face and quit
praying. Why are you laying here like
this before me? You see, just like it is usually
when God asks a question to a sinner, the problem's not with God, the
problem's with us. Verse 11, God said, Israel hath
sinned. There's the problem. Israel hath
sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded
them. For they have even taken of the
accursed thing, the thing consecrated to God, and have also stolen
They stole that which belonged to God. And they dissembled also. That means they feigned to believe
God. They pretended they believed
God when all along they were stealing from God. And they have
put it even among their own stuff. They took the glory that belongs
to God and put it where their stuff was. They gave themselves
the glory. Now when God had given them the
victory over Jordan, He gave them the... I mean over Jericho.
When He gave them the victory over Jericho, as He was sending
them in there, God gave them an express command. And He said,
the whole city is accursed. That means it's separated, it's
consecrated, it's devoted to God. Part of it was to be destroyed. But all the riches and everything
that was in Jericho was to be brought out and consecrated,
separated for God's holy use, just for God. And his treasury,
it was for God. Well, that's a type, Jericho's
a type of our salvation. It's a type of the salvation
that God gives freely to his people. And we're the first fruits,
as those treasures were the first fruits. And we're to give ourselves
to God. And everything God gives us,
we give to God and we glorify God for it. Well, the riches
that they consecrated for the Lord's use, with that they were
acknowledging the glory for this victory went to God. That's what
they were acknowledging by giving those treasures to God. It was
by the Lord's power, it was by the Lord's wisdom, it was by
the Lord's hand, it was by the Lord's grace, it was by the Lord
that they had this victory. And that's what they were acknowledging.
And it was also an acknowledgement that it was all the gift of God.
God gave it freely. And it was a mortification of
their flesh. It was an acknowledgement we
did not, by our own hand, win this victory. And it was an acknowledgement
of their faith in their obedience to God. That's what it was to
dedicate, to give, to consecrate all these riches to the Lord.
If we ever attempt to take any of that for ourselves, to take
God's glory for ourselves, then we do what Achan did. If we try
to take God's glory in our salvation, spiritually and temporally, we're
constantly being saved by God, spiritually and temporally. And
if we take that glory to ourselves, we do what Achan did. Now look
what Achan did, Joshua 7, back up Joshua 7 verse 1. But the
children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. For Achan, the son of Carmi,
the son of Zapdi, the son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah,
took of the accursed thing. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against the children of Israel. He just took a couple
of things. That's all he took. That's all
he took. But when he took it, what he
was saying is, he depended on himself to save him. When he
took it, he was saying he deserved glory for this victory. When
he took it, he was saying that he would provide for himself
on a daily basis rather than God providing for himself. Now,
do you hear that part? He said he would provide for
himself on a daily basis rather than God providing for him. That's
what he was saying by taking this stuff he took. And so his
offense affected not only himself, It affected everybody in Israel.
Now look at verse 12, Joshua 7, 12. God is speaking, He says,
Therefore, because Israel sinned in this thing, therefore the
children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but
turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed. Neither will I be with you anymore. Not in worship, not in your daily
battles you fight, neither will I be with you anymore, God said,
except, now watch this, except you destroy the accursed from
among you. And again, God says up. He told
Joshua the first time, up, get off your faith. Why are you laying
here on your face like this? He says it again. He's saying
this is not a time for prayer, this is a time for action. Now
watch this, verse 13. Up! Sanctify the people. And say, sanctify yourselves
against tomorrow. He said, Joshua, you take these
people and you separate them. You separate them out. You sanctify
them out. And then you tell them, separate
you. Cleanse you. Cleanse you. Prepare your hearts. Prepare
your families. Get ready to come before the
Holy Presence of the Holy God. That's what He's telling them.
Now look at this, verse 13, For thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel.
Now listen to this, Thou canst not stand before thine enemies
until you take away the accursed thing from among you. And the
next day God started whittling them down. There they all were
standing before God. First He whittled them down to
the first tribe. And then out of that tribe, he
whittled it down to just one family. And then out of that
family, he whittled it down to one household. And then out of
that household, he whittled it down to one man. And in verse
15, he says, And it shall be that he, the man that is taken
with the accursed thing, shall be burnt with fire, he and all
that he hath, because he hath transgressed the covenant of
the Lord, and because he hath wrought folly in Israel. And
so they did. They did what Joshua had said. Now it comes to Achan, the man
who did it, and here's Achan's response. And I don't think Achan
responded in humility. I might be wrong about that,
but it doesn't... I don't think he responded in humility. I think
Achan was responding with brazen defiance in what he said. Let
me show you verse 20. And Achan answered Joshua and
said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus
and thus have I done. Now notice the object that he
stole typifies Christ's glory in our salvation. This object
he stole typifies Christ's glory. He likes stealing Christ's glory.
Now here's what he stole, verse 21, "...when I saw among the
spoils a goodly Babylonian garment." Christ's righteousness is a garment.
It's a garment He wove when He lived and walked here and went
to the cross here in this Babylon in which we live. And look, he
says, and I saw 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of
50 shekels weight. Christ's blood, by which He redeemed
us, is more precious than gold. That's what we see pictured here.
He said, I saw it, then I coveted them, and I took them. Sinners see, and then they covet,
and then they take the glory that belongs to the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. spiritually and temporally. And
behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and
the silver is under it. Sinners pretend faith in Christ,
while they secretly are really trusting in the work of their
own hands and their own will, which is hidden away in their
earthly, fleshly heart, just like this was hidden away in
his tent. And it says, now that's stealing, that's dissembling.
When you pretend to believe God, but you're hiding away what you're
truly dependent on, truly trusting in somewhere else. That's dissembling,
that's what God called it. Look at verse 22. So Joshua sent
messengers, and they ran unto the tent, and behold, it was
hid in his tent, and the silver was under it. And by the same
way, Christ is going to discover the hidden secrets of men's hearts
in the Day of Judgment. He said, verse 23, And they took
them out of the midst of the tent, and they brought them unto
Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel, and they laid them
out before the Lord. God's going to have what's His.
He's going to have the glory that belongs to Him. It's going
to be given to Him. It was all laid out. Verse 25,
Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee
this day. What's going to become of glory
stealing sinners? He said, all Israel stoned him
with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned him
with stones. Verse 26, And they raised over
him a great heap of stones unto this day. You know what Achan
became? Achan became a monument to God's
justice. It became a monument to the fact
God will by no means spare the guilty. And it says, And so the
Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger, because the accursed
thing was destroyed. He turned away. Now every sinner
with false faith that meets God outside of Christ, they're going
to have to suffer that fierce anger that Achan suffered. Outside
of Christ, without Christ, that's what they're going to have to
suffer. He says then there, he says, Wherefore the name of that
place was called the Valley of Achor unto this day. It means
the Valley of Trouble, the Valley of Disturbance. So, we see why
the Lord said to Joshua, Get thee up. We see why he asked
this question, Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Now
here's the point I want us to see in the message tonight. Though
believers ought always to pray, We ought always to pray. Our
life is a life of continual dependence upon God. We pray constantly. But there is a time to examine
ourselves whether or not we're trusting. Trusting God and giving
God all the glory that belongs to Him alone. There's a time
to pray and there's a time to make sure that I'm giving God
the glory by trusting Him and obeying Him. Now, first of all,
I want to show you we must give God the glory in our spiritual
salvation. And number two, we must give
God the glory in our temporal salvation. And number three,
faith or a lack of faith. Faith or a lack of faith will
affect us and everybody around us. But God will make sure that
His child believes Him. He'll make sure that old man
of unbelief is mortified. Alright, first of all, God must
receive the glory for our spiritual salvation. God must receive the
glory for our spiritual salvation. Now, I'm not talking about we
have two salvations. I'm just talking about it's one
salvation, but there's a spiritual aspect of it, and there's a temporal
aspect of it. Right now, I'm talking about
the spiritual aspect of it. When they came up against Jericho,
there was no possible way whatsoever they could defeat Jericho. There's
no possible way they were going to defeat Jericho. And Jericho
stands before us as a picture of our salvation. There's no
way you and I could defeat sin. There's no way we could overcome
death. There's no way we could overcome hell. You and I could
not do that. It's an impossibility, as impossible
as it was for them to conquer Jericho. It could not be done.
It could not be done. Jericho was walled up to heaven,
the scripture says. You picture a little old Joshua
standing there looking at that big giant city walled up like
that, thinking, here we are. A bunch of nobodies with no equipment,
nothing. How are we going to overcome
that? We can't. There's no way. And brethren,
we stand before God and there's no way we can... we can't climb
up and keep the law. And that's what we have to do.
A man has to keep the law. There's no possible way we can
do it. A man's got to keep the law perfectly. A man's got to
keep the law absolutely perfectly. And the end of the man that keeps
the law perfectly will be perfection. It'll be eternal life, righteousness,
holiness. That'll be the end of the man
who keeps the law perfectly. The psalmist said, I've seen
an end of all perfection. I've seen it. I've seen the law. It's perfection. It's perfection. But Thy commandment is exceeding
broad. It's exceeding broad. The Holy
Law is a magnificent steed, too many hands high for me to mount
and ride to glory, no matter how I try. It's way exceeding
broad. Yet if we obtain the perfection
of the law, if we just obtain the perfection of the law, we'll
conquer all. We'll conquer the whole Jericho of salvation if
we can just fulfill the law. Job said, I know it's so of a
truth, but how should a man be just with God? If he'll contend
with Him, he cannot answer Him one of a thousand. Who can bring
a clean thing out of a clean thing? Can you? I challenge anybody
here. You take a dishcloth tomorrow
and you go and you dip it in oil, in black oil, and you try
to make it clean. You can't bring a... Don't use
anything else but that dishcloth. You can't bring a clean thing
out of it. It's impossible. You can wring it out, wring it
out. It's going to be dirty. And you and I can't bring a clean
thing out of this sinful flesh. It's impossible. It's impossible. How then can a man be justified
with God or how can he be clean that's born of a woman? Righteousness
is by Christ alone. Righteousness is Christ alone.
Is Christ alone. The Lord Jesus appeared to Joshua
back up there in chapter 6, in verse 13, and he had a sword
in his hand. He had a sword in his hand. Let me see here. Where did I
see that? I'm sorry, Joshua 5, 13. He had a sword in his hand.
And then he said in verse 14, Joshua said, Are you for us or
for our adversaries? And he said, Neither, 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 to his servant? The Lord came with a sword in
his hand. He just appeared out of nowhere
with a sword. And he said, I came as captain
of the host of the Lord. That's how he appeared. Look
over with me now at 1 John 3. Christ appeared at the end of
the world. He just appeared at the end of the world. And look
at this. He appeared for this reason.
He appeared to put away sin. 1 John 3 verse 5 says this. You know that He was manifested. That means He just appeared,
just like He did over there to Joshua. He was manifested to
take away our sins. Did He succeed? And in Him is
no sin. Look at Hebrews 9 verse 26. Hebrews
9 verse 26. Now once in the end of the world
hath He appeared, just like He appeared to Joshua, He appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Now that's what He
came for, brethren. He came to put away sin. He didn't
come to try to or to try to make His people acceptable. He came
to put away the sin of His people. He either did that or He failed
at that. Now if he did it, we're safe.
If he failed, we're damned. Did he fail or did he succeed?
Look here. He came to put away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself, and as it is appointed unto men once
to die, but after this the judgment, so Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many. It was appointed to Him in the
covenant of grace to bear the sins of many. Now what's the
judgment? What's the result of Him bearing
the sins of many? And unto them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time, just like He did to Joshua, without
sin. unto salvation. That means He
put sin away. He completely put sin away. And
so the victory, the righteousness, the forgiveness of sin, the eternal
life is ours freely, given by the Lord Jesus. Look back at
Joshua 6 and verse 2. The Lord said to Joshua, See,
I have given into thy hand Jericho. I've given it, He said. and the
king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. I've given it all
into your hand, the Lord said to Joshua. And so it is in our
salvation. Long before we experienced it,
Joshua hadn't experienced it yet, and long before we experienced
it, the Lord gave us the victory. when he put us in Christ and
turned the battle over to the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave the
victory then. That's why the scripture says
we have hope of eternal life. We have a good hope and it's
a hope of eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised
before the world began. Just like Christ stood there
and promised Joshua before he ever went into the battle. He
said, I've given you the victory. And before the world was made,
God promised Christ, I've given you the victory. And Christ comes
to His people in time and He regenerates us and He promises
us, I've given you the victory. And He makes us to see it's because
He laid down His life. He shed His blood. And now, it's
not by our works, it's a gift. It's a free gift of God. The wages of sin, they're a wage. We earn it. What's the wages
we earn by our sin and our rebellion? Death. Eternal death. Death that never dies. But the
gift of God, the gift of God, the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Look at Romans 5.7. I want you
to see this. Romans 5.7. I'm sorry, Romans 5.17, If by
one man's offense death reign by one, did Adam make us sinnable? He made us sinners. He made us
sinners. He made us sinners. Christ didn't
make us savable. He made us righteous. Look at
this. Much more, they which receive abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ."
Christ Himself said, I give unto them eternal life. I give it
to them. I give them eternal life. and
no one or no thing will ever pluck them out of my hand." He
prayed to the Father and he said, Father, You've given me power
over all flesh to give, to give eternal life to as many as Thou
has given to me. So this thing's a gift through
the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so then, just like they went
to Jericho and the walls fell and they conquered it, We have
this victory over Satan, sin, death, and hell now because Christ
accomplished the victory. Now what are we going to do?
Are we going to take the spoils from that victory and take them
away and hide them for ourselves and give ourselves the glory?
Are we going to take the spoils? God puts them into our hands.
What are we going to do with them? Well, one of the spoils
of victory is spiritual discernment. God gives us that gold and that
silver of spiritual discernment. He puts it into our hands. And
so when He does, He gives us spiritual discernment. You know
what we do? We glorify God because we have the mind of Christ. Christ has been made unto us
wisdom. And now we behold, like 1 Corinthians
2 says, now we behold by the Spirit of God, we behold the
things that are freely given to us of God. Freely given to
us of God. Another spoil of that victory
is, He gives us faith and He gives us righteousness through
faith. We're going to take that and pat ourselves on the back
and say, we accomplished that? Like Achan? No, we're going to
glory in Christ who is our righteousness. That's what faith does. Faith
turns around and glories in Christ through whom I've been made the
righteousness of God. Another spoil of that victory
is that He sanctifies us, He brings us out, He makes us holy,
He gives us a new heart. And He brings us to truly be
honest with God about our sin, be honest with God that we need
the righteousness of Christ, and He makes us to see Christ
is all our sanctification. Christ has been formed in you.
We're going to glory in ourselves and hide away that treasure and
say that's something that we've hid away in our earthly tent
and it's of us? No. We glory in Christ who's
made sanctification unto us. And then another spoil of this
fixture is, is He constrains us by His love to obey Him, to
want to walk before Him so that we don't have to have a legal
constraint anymore. You don't have to stand up for
God's people and threaten them with the law and threaten them
with punishment and put them on church watch and do all those
things. And you don't have to dangle a carrot before Him to
get them to do things. They do it because God's love
for them, free love for them that saved them by His blood,
constrains them to do it. And so they glory in God by the
free constraint of His love, by their obedience. They glory
in Christ as their redemption. You know what? That's what we
do by our obedience. When we obey God simply from the constraint
of His love, we're glorying and glorifying Christ, saying, He's
my redemption. He's my freedom from the law.
He's my liberty from the law. I don't have to have the law
to constrain me anymore. It's Christ that does it. It's
Christ that does it. He's my redemption. And in all
of this, we're declaring, not unto us, not unto us, but unto
Thy name give glory for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake. We're
giving Him all the glory for this. But now, if a man takes
even the least glory to himself, if a man, if he's like Achan,
and he takes any little bit of this spoil of victory that God's
given freely, and he says, that's mine, that's mine right there,
that comes from my earthly tent right there. If he does that,
he says, I saw that goodly raiment, and I coveted it, and I took
it. That man's going to be accursed. They're going to be separated.
He's going to be stoned by the judgment of God. We don't ever
look on Christ's glory and covet it for ourselves. It's His alone.
God the Father purposed our salvation. God the Son purchased our salvation. And God the Holy Spirit makes
it effectual in our heart and preserves us in it. It's all
of God's. That's what salvation is of the
Lord means. A to Z, it's of God. That's the first thing. Secondly,
God must receive the glory for our temporal salvation. And by
temporal salvation, I mean our day-to-day provision in this
life. And everything we do in this
world, it's God that's providing everything for us. Every breath,
every step, every piece of bread, every piece of clothing, everything
we have, God's providing it. God's doing it. Now, this is
a place we have problems. And you know what we really act
as if is, we act like it's harder for God to do the lesser than
it is for God to do the greater. We just looked at the greater.
That was the hard thing. God gave His only Son. This right
here is the lesser. To put bread on your table, put
clothes on your back, put a board over your head, that's nothing
for God to do. Nothing. When Achan took those
items, God said he stole. That's what God said. He stole
from me. What did Achan steal? What did he steal? He turned
from trusting God's hand and he turned to trusting his own
hand to provide him that garment that he had on. And that gold
and that silver whereby he could buy him a lot of things for that.
You reckon Achan felt more secure when he went in there to Jericho
with nothing in his hand Or do you reckon he felt more secure
when he walked out of there with that big ol' chunk of gold and
that big ol' chunk of silver under his hand? Which one? We'll
be sitting there thinking, oh, we're gonna starve, we can't
pay the bills, we can't do this, we can't do that. And all of
a sudden, we get some chunk of money from somewhere. And all
of a sudden, don't you feel good? Don't you just all of a sudden
feel like, oh, we can make it now? You know why? Because we
look at that as our salvation rather than the one who gave
it. That's why. That's exactly why. And we are
no more safe with that chunk of gold in our hand than we were
when we had God who gave it. God's our salvation. God's our
salvation. And then God said, by his pretending
to be faithful. He never stopped. He never acted
like he stole anything. You see, he stole God's glory
in God providing his daily necessities. That's what he stole. But then
he went on, then God said, and he disassembled. What that means
is, he pretended like, I trust God. God's going to provide my
clothing. God's going to provide me with
gold and silver. Whatever I need, when I need
it, God's going to do it. He's my hope. That's what was
coming out of here. But in his heart he knew, just
in case I got that gold hidden under my tent, I'm good. Just in case I got that goodly
Babylonian garment over there I can wear, that was his salvation. That's what he was hoping in.
And God said that's disassembling. That's to feign faith when your
heart's really set on that temporal thing that you think can save
you. And God said then he also put it among his stuff. And that's
probably the worst thing of all. By putting among his stuff, he
was saying, this is mine. And when we take God's glory
for providing for us, and we disassemble and say one thing
out of our mouth and have another thing in our heart, we're taking
God's glory that belongs to God, that ought to stay with God,
and the faith that ought to stay with God, and the separation
regarding Him as holy and sanctified that ought to stay with God,
and we're putting it in us. We're putting it with our stuff
and saying, that we're our salvation. We're stealing that glory and
we're taking it for ourselves. That's what Achan did. That's
what he did. We do these things when we say
we believe our sovereign God who saved us from our sins by
His grace, but then act as though everything we have in our daily
lives is gotten by our own hand rather than that same gift of
God's grace. The same God that gave us salvation,
brethren, has got to give us everything else. He's got to
open the door for the job. He's got to give the people at
the job a heart to want to hire you. He's got to give you the
ability to do the job. He's got to give you the timeliness
to go and be on time and do it right. He's got to keep you in
favor with them. He's got to keep the economy
good so you can have that job. He's doing everything in it.
So when we sit down at our tables and we eat, and somebody says,
Dad, thank you for bringing this home. Thank you for providing
this. Well, it's good to thank the one that the secondary calls.
It's good to be thanked. I never sit down and eat without
thanking my wife for cooking it. But you know who it is that
gives it? It's God that gives it. It's
God that provides it. And without Him, we'd have nothing.
I hope I get this one day. And I'm preaching to myself.
I hope I get this one day. God gave His only begotten Son. That's what it took to fulfill
the law. To uphold His justice. To save His people from our sins.
God gave His only begotten Son. And God gave His own blood. That's what Paul said in Acts.
He purchased the church with His own blood. Is there any possibility that
God will not provide somebody that He gave His Son for and
purchased with His blood? Is there any possibility that
He won't give them a loaf of bread or even a piece of bread? Any possibility of that? No. There's no possibility of that.
No possibility of that. Now, when God gives us the opportunity
to glorify Him by sacrificially giving God the very best first
fruits that He's given us. That's what He did there. He
gave them all of that and He gave them the opportunity now
to give all those first fruits to God. The first fruits we give
ourselves. He saved us by His own will,
James said. We're begotten again by the Word
of God, by the Word of Truth, that we should be a kind of first
fruits to God. A first fruit is that very best
fruit that comes forth off the vine, and the whole thing is
given to God. And we give our whole selves to God. We're consecrated. We're not our own. We're bought
with a price. That means we're His lock, stock, and barrel.
He owns us. He owns us. If you're not going to be the
servant of sin, you've got to be the servant of God. Because
He owns us. He bought us. And so, Achan had
the opportunity to give all that first fruit to Him. And God gives
us His opportunities from time to time to give the very best
first fruits. And He gave us those first fruits.
And He gives you the ability to give them then, an opportunity
to give them, to prove, brethren, that our faith is not just in
word only, but it's true. It's genuine. It's true. And He's going to give you an
opportunity to prove it. by a deed or a work that you do, He just
opens the door to do that. Let me give you an example. You
can be turning to James chapter 2. I'll give you an example. A man publicly professes to believe
Christ. He publicly professes he believes Christ. God saved
him. It's all salvation. It's entirely
of the Lord. And in time, God brings that
man To where he's got one coat and one piece of bread and he's
got no money to get any more. Hard times. That's all he's got. And then God sends a beggar to
his door. And all that beggar needs is
one coat and one piece of bread. That's it. You know, if it had come to him
when the business was thriving, the man would have given that
no problem. But now, now, he starts thinking, well, the believer,
Christ promised me, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added to you. That's what he
promised me. And the faithful inward man says,
this will honor Christ my King. Because Christ my King came here
where I am and laid down His whole life to give this beggar
a perfect garment of righteousness and to give me that eternal bread
from heaven, eternal life. This is going to glorify my King
right here. This is going to glorify my King. And all the
while that inward man of faith saying that, there's another
man there that's a fleshly man that's saying, you dummy, all
you've got is one coat and one piece of bread, and you don't
got any money. And if you give that away, you won't be able
to replace it. And you got a warfare going on. It goes on in all of
us. It's there. But by God's grace
and by God's grace only, that believer says, God promised it
and God's able. God promised it, God's able.
I'm going to seek Him and I'm going to seek His righteousness
first. I'm going to honor Him. I'm going to glorify Him. He's
going to be first in my heart. And so he gives that beggar no
No. He gives the Lord. He's one coat
and He's one piece of bread. He gives it to the Lord. Because
the Lord said, do it as unto the Lord. Everything you do,
do it as unto the Lord. He gives Him that one coat and
that one piece of bread. Now that man shows he not only
believes God with his mouth, but he showed by his work he
believes God. He believes God. Now James gives
us an example of a man in the very same situation. Another
man in the very same situation. James 2.15. If a brother or sister
be naked, destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto
them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding
you give them not those things which are needful to the body,
what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not
works, is dead, being alone. He's dead. We don't have faith
in our faith. We don't have faith just saying,
well, I believe there's a God. No, our faith says, true faith
says, I believe God. I believe He's given me His Son.
I believe He's given me everything else I have in this life. And
I believe He'll keep doing it. I believe He's going to save
me. Salvation is of Him. All of it. A to Z. A to Z. Let's ask the Lord to make us
faithful, make us trust Him, make us walk after Him, make
us honor Him in everything we do. Trust in Him with our temporal
salvation as much as we do with our spiritual salvation. Now
lastly, I'll be very quick. I'm going to get you out of here
in five minutes, I promise. Lastly, faith or a lack of faith
will affect our lives, our daily lives, as well as our spiritual
worship of God. It always will. It has to. Faith
or a lack of faith, whether we have it or we don't, it's going
to affect our lives and our worship. First of all, it's going to affect
our life. When they believed Christ and
they went in there to Jericho, they obeyed Him, they marched
around that city, they blew those trumpets, a picture of the gospel
going forth in the world, and the Lord broke those walls down
and gave them the victory. They believed God. He gave them
the victory. But when they didn't believe God, and they went to
a town smaller than that town, the low A.I., and they just took
two or three thousand men up there, because it wasn't that
big at all, they had to tuck tail and run home, because A.I.
whipped them. God said, they were set aside
for being. A.I. was to do it. To whip you
and send you home. God was whipping them and sending
them home. That's right. God's going to teach us that
we will only receive the victory through faith in the Lord Jesus.
He's going to show us that it's only Christ that can give us
the victory. And so He works everything in providence to show
us that. And He's going to show us that, brethren. You know,
it's hard to get our attention. It's hard to get our attention.
We got thick skulls and hard hearts by nature and you can't
get our attention. God's going to get it. If He's got to send
a nation against you, He'll get it. He's going to get your attention.
He's going to show you. Turn you to me. Turn you to Him
and show you, you got to trust Him. I trust Him. And then secondly,
a lack of faith is going to affect our worship. They came there
and they bowed down. It says, verse 5, the hearts
of the people melted and became as water, unstable as water. And you see it in their prayer.
They bowed down and they started praying. And Joshua, outwardly
they bowed. Outwardly they put dust on their
heads. Outwardly they rent their clothes. Outwardly they look
like they believe God. But in their heart, did you hear
his prayer? God, this is your fault. Why
did you bring us over here to kill us like this? We should
have just been content to stay in another place. They disassembled
in their worship. That's disassembling. That's
to feign faith outward. They went in your heart. You
don't believe. That's what they were doing.
And do you know who this man was praying? Do you know who
this man was praying? This is that same man who a long
time ago when he was a boy, and those spies came back spying
out the wilderness, and the whole camp of Israel said, we can't
go in there. They're going to kill us. Joshua
and Caleb stood up and said, boys, it's going to be like God
said it was. God's going to deliver them into
our hands. And they were strong in faith. This is that same man
now, on his face before God, acting like he believes God,
and saying, Lord, why'd you bring us over here to kill us? You
see what unbelief will do? It's like a cancer. Well, that
unbelief wasn't in Joshua. No, it was in Achan. But because
of Achan, it spread then to the whole camp of Israel, and Joshua,
who's leading them, now he's on his face, unstable as water
before God. That's what unbelief does. Yesterday,
we found this building, you know, we're looking at this building,
and I was just so excited and thrilled, we're going to do this,
we can do this, we can do this. Yesterday, I started looking
at financing and stuff like that, and I started getting discouraged.
And I looked at it some more, and I was getting more discouraged.
And by the end of the day, I was just on my face before the Lord,
thinking, Lord, why didn't you bring this house and show this
house to us? Just like this. He split the Red Sea one time.
He can do it again. He delivered them to Jericho. And worse than all that, He saved
us from our sin. Can God not do what He will?
Yes, He can. Yes, He can. So God then separated
them out, and what we see here in all that, Him taking Achan
and separating them apart is, you just look at this as an individual.
Look at Israel as an individual child of God. He's going to mortify
that old man of flesh. He's going to mortify that man
that says, I've got to take and get and save from myself. He's
going to mortify that man and his people, and stone that man
and his people, so that He can now raise up His children and
make us believe Him, and make us rest in Him, and trust Him
for the victory. That's what He's going to do.
Because you know why? Isaiah 65, I'm going to show you this.
Isaiah 65. Here's why he's going to do that.
Because in that same valley that's called Achan, that's a valley
of trouble for the unbeliever. It's going to be, because God's
going to make sure that the unbeliever, that fain-faith believer has
trouble, because he's disassembled from God. But for those that
trust him, look here, Isaiah 65, 10. He said, Sharon shall be a fold of flocks
and the valley of a core Shall be a place for the herds to lie
down in for my people that have sought me What did the Lord say
before he left? You're gonna have peace in me
In this world you have trouble, but you're gonna have peace with
me And while we're in the valley of a core in the midst of this
valley of trouble. He's gonna make sure you got
peace in me Because we're not going to be a monument of His
justice, we're going to be a monument of His grace. That's so. Amen. Alright, Eric.