Alright brethren, let's turn
to Joshua chapter 3. Joshua chapter 3. I was preparing a message from
Joshua 3 and 4. And as I usually do when I got
finished, I began to edit and try to take out things that I
thought weren't important or as important. Just everything
in it seemed important, so I just cut it in half. And we're going
to take part of it in this hour and look at the rest of it in
the next hour. So, we'll begin here in Joshua chapter 3. Let
me read the first verse. And Joshua rose up, rose early
in the morning, and they were moved from Shittim and came to
Jordan. He and all the children of Israel
and lodged there before they passed over. I've titled this
Prepared to Behold Christ. That's what's taking place here.
They're being prepared to behold Christ. The old preachers years
ago might have called this Provenient Grace. Grace preparing you for
grace. And this is something God does
in His people. Justification is what God does
for His people when Christ fulfilled the law for His people, justifying
us from our sins. Sanctification is what God does
in His people when Christ Jesus is formed in the new heart and
Christ is made unto us all. Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
and redemption. And by our work of grace in the
heart, God puts this true godly reverence in the heart so that
we believe on Christ and we follow Him in humble faith. But before
we can move forward, and this is what we'll see throughout
both of these chapters, before we can move forward, we have
to be sanctified by having Christ magnified in our hearts. Have Him sanctified in our hearts
so that we're brought low and He's exalted so that we're persuaded
to follow Him where He'll go, where He's going, we follow Him
by faith. And it's impossible for us to
be used of God until we've been sanctified, until we've been
set apart for that use and to reverence Him truly in faith.
And now the first thing we see here is God begins this work
within us by separating His child from our false way, by separating
us from our false way. It says there Joshua rose up
early in the morning. Now Joshua is a picture of Christ
throughout these two chapters. Moses was a picture of the law.
Moses has died. He can't take the people into
the land of Canaan because Moses represents the law, and the law
can't bring us to God. Joshua, whose name is Jesus,
Savior, is a picture of Christ. He's going to bring his people
into Canaan through Joshua. So he's moving everything in
the camp. They've been sitting here for a few days where they
are and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan. He and all
the children of Israel and lodged there before they passed over. Now where they came from and
where they went to is significant. Joshua was eager because he knew
what God was doing. He knew what God was doing. He
told them Back in Joshua 1.11, he said, Pass through the host
and command the people, saying, Prepare you vigils, for within
three days you shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess
the land which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.
So he rose early and they removed from Shittim. But when they removed
from Shittim, this is what I thought about when they left that place.
You know what happened in that place? This is the place where
Israel was ensnared by that evil counsel that Balaam gave so that
they fell down and began to join themselves in Baal worship, worshiping
false gods. Numbers 25, it says there in
verse 1, Israel abode in Shittim and the people began to commit
whoredom with the daughters of Moab. This is reminding us of
where we repent from when God sanctifies us from our former
way. They went there and they began
to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. Moab is the son of Lot
of his incestuous relationship with his daughter. And Moab's
daughters were attractive. And Balaam's counsel was, use
these daughters to get the sons of Israel here. You can attract
them here with his daughters. And that's what they did. And
so this false religion, this Baal worship, they used these
daughters to seduce the sons of Israel to commit whoredom. And then that made it easier
for them then to persuade them to bow down and worship their
gods and join themselves with their gods. And that's what they
did. That's what false religion does. False religion is described
in scripture as a harlot. As a harlot. And what false religion
does is uses worldly attractions to allure men and women to visit. To just visit because they have
so much to offer. All these different programs
and different things for everybody there. And then once they get
them there and they butter them up real good, it's easier to
persuade them then to make their decision for their idol God. and to bow down to their idol
God and join themselves with their idol God. And that's exactly
what happened in Shittim. They called the people unto the
sacrifices of their gods and the people did eat and bowed
down to their gods and Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor,
that's an idol God, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel. I wish folks could see that there's
no difference in false religion in our day. I'm talking about
folks who put salvation to be in the hands of a man and call
it Christianity. There's no difference in that
than what was taking place right there in Baal Peor. No difference
whatsoever. Verse 4 of Numbers 25 says, The
Lord said unto Moses... Remember Moses represents the
law. The Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord against the sun that the fierce
anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. God commanded... These were those ones that wouldn't
go in when they came to the promised land the first time. These were
the old fellas in Israel. And they wouldn't believe God,
but they bowed down to these false gods and were worshiping
them. And God had told them, you're
not going into the promised land. They were not going to go into
the promised land. because they didn't believe God. And so God
tells Moses, picture of the law, he tells him, slay these old
men, slay them, hang their heads up, hang them up. And that's
what Moses did. He went through and he slew them.
In the day that God begins this work of sanctifying his child,
The Spirit of God applies the law to our heart. And when He
does, sin revives, and He makes us to see our sin, and the law
slays our old man of sin. That's what happens. And when
He does, God makes us to leave Shittim behind. To leave that
place behind. And that's what they did. Now
when God does this, look back at our text there in Joshua 3,
when God does this, He brings His child down. Look at verse
1, it says, They rose up early in the morning, and they removed
from Shittim and came to Jordan. He and all the children of Israel
enlarged there before they passed over. They stayed there before
they passed over. Jordan means descent. It means
to come down. It means subdued. It means prostrate. That's what Jordan means. So,
in the process of turning us from our former sin and our former
false way, God brings His child down. He brings us down and He
makes us lodge there. He makes us lodge there. You
know what the Jordan River pictured? The Jordan River pictured sin
and death. That's what it pictured. They
pictured death. They sat there looking at that
Jordan River for three days. And you know what that Jordan
River was doing at the time they were there? This was harvest
season and it was overflowing its banks. It was flooded from
hill to hill and out of its banks. And they're sitting there looking
at that thinking, there's no way we can cross that. There's
no way we can cross that. And that's a picture of our sin
and our death. God brings us down. We're proud,
we're hard-hearted, we're arrogant by nature, we can do anything.
God turns us from our false way and brings us down to see our
sin and our death and he makes us to lodge there for a little
while until he's completely humbled us. And he doesn't do that. He does that with believers still.
He can do that. If we get to be too high-minded
and stiffen up our neck at what we know to be true, he'll just
show us our sin again and bring us down and bring us till we
are left low. That's what he did with Apostle
Paul. He didn't know God. He was going around serving his
false God, the works of his hands. And God knocked him off his high
horse down into the dirt And he heard a voice speaking and
saying, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It's hard for you to
kick against the pricks, against the goads. And the scripture
says in Acts 9, and he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what
will you have me to do? That's where we got to be brought
to. What would you have me to do? That's where we got to be
brought. And so that's the first thing
we see. God brings us from our false way, from Shittim, and
He brings us down to see our sin and our death. Here's the
second thing. God uses His ministers with the
gospel. Look at verse 2. And it came
to pass after three days that the officers went through the
host. Now you see there it was after three days. Throughout
the Scripture, God repeatedly manifests His glory on the third
day. Repeatedly throughout the Scriptures.
It's because Christ was raised from the dead on the third day
and Christ is the glory of God. You see the glory of God in Christ.
He's the express image of God. The fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And so throughout Scripture, you find when God's going to
do something magnificent and manifest His glory, time and
time again, He does it on the third day. So Joshua, he had
told them that they were going to go across this river, but
he didn't tell them how they were going to go across it. God forces us to walk by faith. That's what He does. He forces
us to do it. Faith, if it's going to be strengthened, it's got
to be exercised. And so God brings us right here
where he brought them and forces us to walk by faith. Remember
Abraham? God told Abraham to offer up
his only son Isaac and he had to wait three days. Three days
he journeyed to that mountain. And the whole time he went there,
you know what Abraham was determined he was going to do? He was going
to kill his son because God told him to. He didn't reason with
God, he didn't try to reason out of it, he didn't try to He was going to do it, because
he believed that God was able to raise him from the dead. So
after three days, then came these messengers through the host with
a message. God sends his messenger. Here they come, verse 3, And
they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing
it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Now
this was their message. When you see the Ark of the Covenant
of the Lord your God, through the Gospel, God gives spiritual
sight to His child so that we can see Christ, so that we can
behold Christ. See, God's preparing them to
see Christ. And Christ is pictured, He's
typified in the Ark as well as Joshua. You know, the Ark is
called here the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God. Because
all the promises of God in Christ are yes and in Him are amen unto
the glory of God. Everything God's going to do
for His people, He's going to do it by the work of Christ,
by what Christ did. Inside that ark was manna. Christ
is the bread. He's the bread come down from
heaven. Jesus said unto them, I'm the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Inside the ark was the law. Christ is the fulfillment
of the law. He is the believer's righteousness. He is our obedience to the law. That's who Christ is. When Christ
is formed within us, we become sanctified, set apart, given
eyes to see, and when we see Christ, then we believe that
He is indeed our all. He is our righteousness and He
is our sanctification. and He becomes the end of the
law to us. That's what the law was for.
It was to bring us to this one, to Christ, and shut us up in
Him. And then inside that ark was
Aaron's rod that budded. That was a rod that looked like
it was lifeless, like it had no life in it, and then it produced
fruit. It sprouted and produced fruit. That's Christ. He is life. He
is regeneration. Living children of God are produced
by Christ, the rod of God. He is Aaron's rod that budded. And then over the ark was the
mercy seat. Everything about this ark pictures
Christ. The mercy seat is propitiation.
This is where God will meet with His people, where that blood
was sprinkled over that broken law. Herein is love, not that
we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be propitiation
for our sin. That means Christ accomplished
the redemption of his people so that God will meet with his
elect in Christ. He is the propitiation. So the
message that the messengers come with when God's turned us from
our false way and he's brought us down to see our sin and made
us lodge there for a while, the message his messengers come with
is when you see Christ, And you see Christ. Now what is it we
do when we see Christ? Well, one more thing, verse 3.
And he said, And the priests, the Levites bearing it. When
you see Christ and you see the priests, the Levites bearing
it. Christ makes all of his people priests unto God. And his ministers
are priests unto God. And his preachers simply hold
up Christ like we will see these priests hold up the ark here
a little later. That's all they do. Christ's
preachers is hold up Christ before the people. Believers learn the
way by looking to Christ the way as He's held up in the preaching
of the Gospel. When God sanctifies the Word
to your heart, you sit here, you'll be listening, nothing.
When He sanctifies the Word to your heart, it'll stop being
the words of a man, it'll become the words of God. You'll hear
God speaking then. And verse 3 says, And then when
you see Christ, then you shall remove from your place and go
after it. You will remove from your place
and go after it. Now sinner, listen to this carefully. When
you see Christ, when you behold Christ, when you see Christ,
remove from your place. Your place is self-righteousness. Your place is self-wisdom. Your place is self-worth. Remove
from your place when you see Christ. Immediately. Don't tarry. Don't tarry. Immediately. Go
after Him in faith. That doesn't mean you walk an
aisle. That doesn't mean you... It means you go... In your heart,
you go after Him. You go after Him, beseeching
Him to save you. That's what you'll do. You'll
go after Him, beseeching Him to have mercy on you, to save
you by His grace. He's already saved you by His
grace when you do that. But you'll go... He'll have you
ask Him to do it. And you'll go after Him, asking
Him to do it. And if you don't go after Him, asking Him to do
it, and He sees that He prevails not with you, He'll cut your
thigh and make it out of joint so that you'll just cling to
Him and beg Him to have mercy on you. But He'll make you beg
Him to have mercy on you. And then for us too, brethren,
in our trials, Whenever we come into our trials, and God's bringing
us down to see that we can't go forward without Him, we can't
do anything without Him, and He brings us down to see that.
Well, when you see Christ, go after Him. Go after Him right
away. Remember the word that Ananias
brought to Paul? He said, Why tarryest thou? Arise
and be baptized. What are you waiting on? You
believe Him? will then arise and be baptized.
That's what he told him. All right, next, God gives us
some very important instruction. Now look at Joshua 3 verse 4. He says, yet there shall be a
space between you and it, between you and the ark, between you
and Christ, about 2,000 cubits by measure. That's about a half
a mile. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by
which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore. Now the only way we know is Christ
the way. That's the only way the believer
knows is Christ the way. And the only way that we can
walk through this life is by keeping our eye of faith on Christ. That's the only way. So they're
commanded to keep a distance and not get too close to the
priest bearing the ark for then they're going to lose sight of
Christ. Now obviously, literally, they've got you know, a large
number of people. And so in order for them to be
able to see Christ, see the Ark, they got to be back at least
a half a mile to see it. Literally they do. But there's
a spiritual lesson in this too for us. Under the New Covenant,
believers can draw near to Christ. We can come near to Him because
of His blood. He says, come near and find grace
to help in time of need. We can draw near to Him. We must
never take the blessings of Christ for granted. Never take them
for granted. We must not become familiar with
Christ in such a way that we regard Him in a flippant, careless
manner. The same is true of His ministers.
If we become too familiar with Christ's preachers, then we'll
cease remembering that it's God speaking to me when the gospel
is preached. You remember when Christ came
into His own country? He came into His own country
and the reason they couldn't hear what He taught was because
they were too close to Him. They were too familiar with Him.
They considered themselves wiser than Christ because they knew
Him. They lived with Him. They saw Him grow up. They knew
His mother and father were. And so, they were offended at
what He told them. It was the truth, but they were
offended at it. And if that can happen with Christ, it can certainly
happen with Christ's ministers. He said, a prophet's not without
honor save in his own country and in his own house. And he
did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Everything
God's doing in this text and in the next chapter is a picture
of God magnifying Christ in the hearts of His people so that
we reference Christ with a good kind of fear, a reverential fear.
And so they're told not to draw near in such a way so as to lose
sight of who it is they're to be looking to. You understand
what I'm saying? You get that? Alright, now here's
why we need to keep a reverential eye upon Christ. Look at the
next line. For you have not passed this
way heretofore. You have not passed this way
heretofore. I don't care how long somebody's
been in the faith. I don't care how wise one might
truly be that's in the faith. This is true of the oldest to
the youngest in the faith. You have not passed this way
heretofore. Christ constantly leads us in
a path that we have not traveled. He does it on purpose. God does
it on purpose. Because we have to walk by faith,
not by sight. We have to. They were crossing
a flooded river. A flooded river. Do you think
they obeyed? Of course they did. Because they
saw the river. They saw it. And they were made
to understand the consequences. If they didn't obey, that river
would take them. Well, that river is our sin.
That river is our flesh. And it will take us. It will
overcome us and drown us if we don't follow Christ. We got to
walk by faith. We got to keep our eye on Christ.
We got to keep looking to Him. God makes it so everything that
a believer does is beyond our ability. Everything is beyond
our ability. Now and again He shows it to
us so we're reminded that everything is beyond our ability. We get
to thinking You know, we're the one that's actually making the
money. We're the one that's actually, you know, keeping the house together.
We're the one that's actually, you know, managing our affairs.
And then God just lets a... throws a monkey wrench in the
whole thing and it comes undone. We realize we ain't the one keeping
it all together. So, He does that to make us walk
by faith rather than our fleshly strength. What's Christ about
to do this afternoon? Can anybody tell me? I don't
know. So we need to walk by faith,
don't we? What's he going to do tonight? I don't have any
idea. So we need to walk with our eye
of faith on him, don't we? Trusting him, looking to him.
No matter where we are in this walk of faith, we're in unfamiliar
territory. You have not passed this way
here before. Lamentations 3.26 says, It's good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. That
means quietly walk by faith, trust in Christ. All right now,
let's go on to the next verse. Furthermore, believers have got
to prepare our hearts in order to behold the wonders of our
Lord among us. Look at verse 5. And Joshua said
unto the people, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do
wonders among you. Now I like this right here. These
officers had gone through the host and they're talking. We
got a picture here of Christ's ministers going throughout the
camp where his churches are. They're going about preaching.
And while they're doing that, all of a sudden, Joshua speaks.
And Joshua says something. Joshua says, sanctify yourselves. He's a picture of Christ. And
what we have here is, as Christ's preachers are preaching, Then
Christ suddenly speaks into the heart of His child. And that's
how we're removed from our false way. That's how we're brought
down to see our sin. What's happened is God's already
sanctified us. He's already separated us. He's
already turned us and brought us out of darkness into His light.
When He speaks into our heart then and says, now sanctify yourself. Sanctify yourself. Until Christ
has sanctified us, we only hear a man speak. And when we only
hear a man speak, a preacher speaking, we'll act like our
unregenerate children act toward us when they hear us telling
them something. And most of the time it's not
pretty, but that's how we'll act when we hear the gospel.
Until Christ has sanctified us, and then he says, now you sanctify
yourself, then we'll render obeisance to Christ. It says here, sanctify
yourselves. It means make clean, consecrate
yourselves, prepare yourselves, purify yourselves from all worldly
cares. It's simply this. It's not saying
that we can somehow make ourselves holy. That's not what it's talking
about. Only God can regenerate us. Only God can take us out
of the realm of darkness and put us in Christ and make Christ
unto us sanctification. He alone can do that. What this
is simply talking about is God won't share our attention with
this world. He just won't do that. God won't
allow us to have half a mind to trust Him and the other half
a mind to keep our hand on the work. What He's saying to us
here is God's going to have your full confidence and your full
focus. He's saying, draw nigh to God
and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded." He's saying the day before, a
whole day before, he's telling them, separate yourselves from
every thought, every person, every thing, every action that's
going to keep you from beholding what the Lord's going to do among
you tomorrow morning. That's what he said. Separate
yourself from everything that's going to keep you from beholding
what the Lord's going to do tomorrow. The whole day before, Christ
commanded them to do this a day in advance. He's telling them,
get a good night's sleep. He's telling them, be ready,
be ready to rise up early, be ready to give your full undivided
attention. Here's what he's telling them.
Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily
beset us and let us run with patience the race set before
us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our fate. That's
what he's telling them. Alright, next we have a word
to the preacher. You see the Holy Spirit's instructing
each person involved here Christ is, through the Spirit, to follow
Christ. Verse 6 says, Joshua spake unto
the priest, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass
over before the people. And they took up the ark of the
covenant, and went before the people. Now Joshua gave this
command to the priest. It's Christ who gives his preachers
their orders, just as he does his people. Joshua is a picture
of Christ. He gave him these these priests,
these orders. And it's Christ who tells his
preachers where to go and what to do and what to say and what
to preach. His preachers are to take up Christ themselves.
He says, take up the ark. We're to take up Christ ourselves.
We're to believe on Christ ourselves. We're to look to Christ ourselves.
We're to feed upon Christ ourselves. Because you can't lead God's
people preaching the gospel if you're not feeding on Christ
yourself and partaking of Him yourself and strengthened by
Christ yourself. And then he says, we're to pass over before
the people. Before the people, he's saying,
go before the people and hold up the ark, hold up Christ, preaching
Christ in whom crucified. Go before the people declaring
Christ is God in human flesh. Go before the people declaring
that Christ is the first elect whom God has chosen, and He's
chosen all His elect people in Him, so that Christ has the preeminence. He's the servant of God who's
going to present His people to Christ. Tell them everything
you can about Him and how lovely He is to get all their attention
focused on Christ. Hold Christ up before them all.
Tell them Christ has put an end to the transgression and made
an end of sins for His people so that there is no sins anymore
for His people. Now Christ is risen. Tell them
He's risen. Tell them He's reigning. Tell
them He's, just like Joshua's going through this camp and He's
directing His priests and His officers From God to Joshua to
the people. That's what it is. Through His
messengers. You got from God to Christ to His preachers to
His people. And Christ, the head of the church,
is directing the whole thing. He's moving the whole thing.
He's orchestrating the whole thing. And everybody's doing
what His will is because He's just that powerful to bring it
about. He has all power in heaven and
earth and He's filling all in all. Whatever needs to be filled,
Christ is filling it. All in all. He's filling everything. That's how Christ is working.
So, and Christ gets all the glory. The scripture says, He shall
not fail till He has set judgment in the earth. So this is what... Everybody's got their marching
order, so to speak, from Christ the head. Here's the third thing.
The purpose for which God is working all things right here
in all things in this earth, is to magnify Christ in the hearts
of His people. Look at verse 7. And the Lord
said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the
sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses,
so I will be with thee. You see, God's working everything
in this text and He's working everything around us today in
our day, all things. to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Joshua, our Savior. And he's doing it in the hearts
of his people. Moses, I told you before, he could not take
them into the land of Canaan because he's a pitcher of the
law and no sinner shall enter God's Canaan, God's promised
land, by the law of Moses. We know what things whoever the
law saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before
God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh
be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin. That was Moses' job. That's what he pictured. The
law. And he did that job. Now, the Lord is pleased. He's going to magnify Joshua. Now, He said, I'm going to begin
this day to magnify Joshua in the eyes of the people. Everything
that took place up to this point was to prepare them to behold
the Lord Jesus Christ. So you see there's grace that
goes before that grace of giving us that sight of Christ, whereby
that fear enters into our heart. And that's what we see here going
on. I pray the Lord will be pleased to magnify the Lord Jesus today
in your sight. To magnify Him. That you might
know that God was in Christ, reconciling the world of His
elect unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. and
has committed unto us the word of reconciliation." What's the
word of reconciliation? Remove from the cursed falsehood
of Shittim. Leave your false way. You say,
well, how do I know if I'm in a false way? If it's your way,
it's false. Well, I thought it's false. This
is the true way. What it says right here is the
true way. Anything else is false. This is the word of reconciliation. Come down to Jordan, come down
and behold, you're just a sinner. That's all you are. You've never
had a thought that wasn't sinful. You've never batted your eye
except you batted your eye in sin. Never took a breath except
for sin was mixed with it. Lay aside everything that will
hinder you and be ready to behold the Lord do wonders among you.
What's hindering you? What's keeping you from just
simply looking to Christ? What's keeping you? What's hindering
you? Lay it aside. Whatever it is,
lay it aside. And when you see Christ, when
you behold Him, when you begin to know He's being magnified
in your heart, and you'll know it, you'll know it, then go after
Him. Believe on Him. Lay hold of Him.
Lay hold of Him. And do so with reverence. Do
so quietly waiting on the Lord and following Him. Don't start
commanding God to do things. Don't start flippantly speaking
of God. Don't get familiar with Him.
Don't come that close to Him. Draw near to Him. Oh yeah, draw
near and hug up on Him. And depend upon Him to carry
you. But don't become careless with
Him. And take for granted what He's
given you. that you might know the hand of the Lord, that it
is mighty, and that you might fear the Lord your God forever.
Now this is the beginning. This is the beginning of true
separation from this world and true delight in Christ. These
are the first elementary things that God begins to do in a person's
heart, right here. And I pray that He'll do that.
I want Him, I pray He'll sanctify the Word to your heart and begin
to prepare you to behold Christ. All right, amen.