Joshua 5, I'll begin this with
a little recap. God told Moses, and he represents
the law, God told Moses that he could not take the children
of Israel into his promised land because Moses struck God's rock
twice. And the law cannot strike Christ
or his people twice. That's good news, isn't it? Cannot
strike us twice. So God said, Moses, you cannot
take any of my people into the promised land. And that's the
truth. The law cannot take anyone into God's promised land. The law cannot lead anyone in. Joshua must do it. Jesus, Savior,
the Messiah, the Christ. He must do it. So God said, Joshua,
I commission you. You're going to lead them in.
So Joshua sent two men, two servants, to spy out the land. Those two
men represent God's mercy and God's grace. Grace before grace. It's grace that goes out and
makes a heart ready for grace. Righteousness and peace. I thought
about, you know what we need tonight? We need two servants. We need God's spirit and God's
message. We need them to come out to where
we are. His spirit and His message. But
those two men, they went into the land that Joshua was about
to conquer. And they went straight to a sinner
named Rahab. Straight into her house. And
they made a covenant with her. Mercy and Grace went in and made
a covenant with her. And they gave her a token of
life. They showed her the one and only
way of escape, that scarlet land. And then they went back to Joshua
and they said, it's true, God has given us the land. So Joshua
told the Levites, he said, I want you to lift up the ark. We're
about to take all of God's people across the Jordan River, across
the river of death. And when the ark of God's covenant
went into that river, God cut the rage off. He opened up the one and only
way, and God's ark stood firm. Every single soul made it across
safely. Every single soul, okay? Now
here we are at chapter 5. Verse 1 says, And it came to
pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side
of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which
were by the sea, it came to pass, when they heard that the Lord
had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel,
until we were passed over, that their heart melted Neither was
there spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel.
There was no more spirit in them. That reminds me of the Queen
of Sheba. The Queen of Sheba. She went
and saw Solomon. Solomon also is a type of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And when she finally saw his
greatness, when she finally saw his glory, When she saw him ascend
his throne, the glory of him ascending his throne, when she
saw him high and lifted up, it says there was no more spirit
in her. None. She was broken. She was broken. She came with all of her stuff,
all of her gifts, all of her pride. No more pride. No more self. No more self-worth. No more self-ability. It slayed her. Absolutely slayed
her. Now Solomon blessed her. Joshua
is about to kill them. What makes the difference? The
answer is the Jordan River. That river of death. Whoever
bows the knee and is humbled By the sight of the King of Kings,
whoever truly sees the King high and lifted up and is humbled
and bows before that river of death, they're going to be blessed
with Joshua. Whoever does not bow, whoever
is not humbled by the sight of God's King, whoever does not
lose all self-worth, all self-ability, and crosses that river, as soon
as they do that, they are going to see Him as He is. They are. They are going to see Him as
He is. They're going to see Him high
and lifted up, and there's going to be no more spirit in them.
But it's going to be too late. It'll be too late. Whoever crosses
that river, having not bowed and begged and pleaded for mercy
through the blood of Joshua, is going to be killed by Joshua. But whoever begs will have it.
Rahab is proof of that. Rahab begged. Before they came
over, she said, I need mercy. I need it today. She begged today. Every sinner who begs right now,
Rahab said right now, I'm going to go talk to these men right
now. Every sinner who begs today is going to have mercy. Today
is the day. Verse 1 says, It came to pass,
when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan
westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by
the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan
from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over that
their heart melted, neither was their spirit in them anymore
because of the children of Israel. At that time the Lord said unto
Joshua, Make these sharp knives and circumcise again the children
of Israel the second time. And Joshua made him sharp knives
and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of Forskins. And this is the cause why Joshua
did circumcise. All the people that came out
of Egypt that were males, even all the men of war, died in the
wilderness by the way after they came out of Egypt. Now all the
people that came out were circumcised, but all the people that were
born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of
Egypt, them they had not circumcised. For the children of Israel walked
forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were
men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed. Because
they obeyed not the voice of the Lord, unto whom the Lord
sware that He would not show them the land which the Lord
sware unto their fathers, that He would give us a land flowing
with milk and honey, And their children whom he raised up in
their stead, them Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised,
because they had not circumcised them by the way. And it came
to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode
in their places in the camp till they were whole. And the Lord
said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of
Egypt from all few, wherefore the name of the place is called
Gilgal unto this day. That makes sense, doesn't it?
Doesn't that make sense? The men came out of Egypt and
they were circumcised. All right? After they got out
into the wilderness, though, God told them, You're not going
in. You're not coming into My promised land. And why were they
not allowed to go in to the promised land? One reason. One reason only. Look with me
over at Hebrews 3. Hebrews 3 verse 15 says, While it is said today, if you
will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. That's what we were just talking
about. Bow the knee of this heart today. Do it today. Verse 16,
For some, when they had heard, did provoke, howbeit not all
that came out of Egypt by Moses, But with whom was he grieved
forty years? Was it not with them that had
sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom
swear he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them
that believed not? So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. They could not enter in because
of unbelief. That's the one reason. that God
said a man is not going to enter into that promised land. That's
the one reason. He said you're not coming in
because of unbelief. All manner of sin shall be forgiven. That is good news. That's good
news. Somebody has to think I've done
something that is unpardonable. That's an unpardonable sin. All manner of sin shall be forgiven
except unbelief. Unbelief. The sin of unbelief.
This word could not be clearer. This word could not be plainer. If this word could have been
clearer, God would have written it that way. He wrote this word
for babes. He wrote this for babes to understand. This is what he said. All have
sinned. That couldn't be clearer. I don't
know why people argue over sin. That could not be clearer. He
said, I have chosen. That couldn't be clearer. He
said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. That couldn't be
clearer. He said, I came not to call the
righteous, not the self-righteous, not the religious, but sinners
to repentance. That could not be clearer. Christ
did not come to save everybody. That couldn't be clearer. He
said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. God's grace is not resistible. It's not resistible. The gospel
is a declaration only. We are pleading with men, but
we're not asking them really to do anything. When we say come,
we acknowledge that God the Father must draw. When we say believe,
we acknowledge that God must send faith. When we say bow,
we acknowledge that it's not going to happen if God doesn't
break our knees and break this heart. Right? We're not asking
anybody to do anything. The choice is not ours. The decision is not ours to make. God is going to do what God is
going to do. Period. That could not be clearer. It just couldn't be clearer.
But men and women don't believe it. They don't believe it. And the reason is because God
has not been merciful in giving that faith. But men wrestle with
it, they question it, and they hate it. They hate it. That's the result of not having
that. They hate God's Word. They murmur and complain against
it. Whining and complaining. That's
why God said All the circumcised men. He said, you're not coming
in. Unbelief. Unbelief. Now that ought to teach us, that
ought to show us not to put our trust in ordinances. They were all circumcised. They were all circumcised, physically
circumcised. God said, you can't come in. We could never imagine, honestly,
never imagine how many people are in hell that have gone through
a water baptism. Just couldn't imagine. Cannot
imagine. It would absolutely shock us. Our hope is not in an ordinance. Our hope is in the one it represents,
right? We don't believe on the ordinance,
we believe on him. We believe on Him. God could
have told Joshua, I was thinking about this thing of Him telling
all of these young men, they came out of Egypt and they were
circumcised, but they didn't have any more circumcisions.
And all of these children were born over the course of 40 years,
and now you have all these young men who haven't been circumcised.
And last Wednesday night, we saw they crossed the Jordan River.
And we read, they're on the other side. And I thought about the
fact that God could have told Joshua, before you cross that
river, you go circumcise everybody. Before you cross it, you have
to be circumcised. But he didn't do that. They were
already over. Once it was all finished, once
they were in Canaan's land, he said, now, go circumcise them. That's what every single ordinance
is. It's a token of what has already
been done. That's what every ordinance is.
Look with me at Colossians 2. Colossians 2. Verse 10 says, You are complete in Him which
is the head of all principality and power. Now watch this. In
whom also you are circumcised. The word circumcised means cut
off, destroyed. So verse 11 says, In whom also
you are cut off. destroyed with the cutting off
the destruction made without hands in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the cutting off the destruction of
Christ. That's how. God said, you give
them that token that they were cut off in Christ. He was destroyed instead of them.
Give them that token. Now go with me back to Joshua
5. I pray our Lord would bless this. This is such a blessing. Joshua
5, verse 10 says, and the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal
and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at
Even in the plains of Jericho. In the plains of Jericho. Now
here they are in enemy territory. In the plains of Jericho. All of these kings, we read in
verse 1, all these kings are afraid. These kings have these
different nations within this land. They're all afraid. They now realize that Israel
is coming to take their land. They know what's going on. They
see it. They are going to go fight. We're
going to read about it as we keep going through this book.
They're going to go fight. So you would think that they would
all get together and say, let's nip this in the bud. Don't let them infiltrate our
lands. Let's stop them at the border. All the children of Israel, they're
just in the middle of the plains of Jericho. They crossed and
now here they are out in the wide open plains of Jericho. How easy would it be for them
to get ambushed? Attacked on all sides. What did God tell them to do
as soon as they crossed over? Now here they are. What did God
tell them to do? I want everybody to sharpen your swords. I want
everybody to draw your bow. I want you to start working on
some kind of wall. That's not what he said. He said,
I want every house to take a lamb. A lamb for a house. I want you
to kill it. In the evening, I want you to
roast it with fire. And I want everybody to sit down
and have a feast. That's what I want you to do. What? We just crossed into the danger
zone. We've been talking about this.
We've been spying this out. You just miraculously brought
us into the land. Hold your place. We're going
to come right back. Go to Psalm 23. Psalm 23. Verse 5 says, Thou preparest
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Isn't that wonderful? Now here we are in the presence
of our enemies. Danger all around. Fightings
within. The Apostle Paul talked about
that in Romans 7, a war within my members. Fightings without,
troubled on every side. A thousand fall at our side,
ten thousand at our right hand. But God said, it is not going
to come nigh you. It's not going to happen. He said, just sit down and enjoy
the Lamb. Just sit down and enjoy the Lamb. Right here in Psalm 23 verse
4 says, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy
staff, they comfort me. Has our God not made it clear
that the battle is His? The battle is His. He said, All
I want you to do is acknowledge what I've done, bow to it, and
give thanks for it. That's all I want you to do.
Go with me back over to Joshua. Joshua 5 verse 11 says, And they
did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the
Passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn in the selfsame
day. And the manna ceased on the morrow
after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had
the children of Israel manna anymore, but they did eat of
the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." For 40 years, God's
people wandered around in a dry, deserted, empty place. It reminds me of another place.
We're walking around in it now. There was nothing out there.
There was nothing out there. But God preserved them by giving
them manna. He fed them. He just dropped
it down from heaven for them. And they ate this manna, they
lived on, they were fed by manna. But as soon as they crossed Jordan
and entered into Canaan, the manna ceased. No more. That's exactly what our God is
doing for us right now. He feeds us and He keeps us by
sending faith. He just drops it down from heaven
for us. We need it every single day. We need His Spirit every single
day. We need His Word every single
day. But faith is going to give way
to sight. Once we see Him, we are not going
to need faith anymore. There He is. The apostle Paul
said, now we see through a glass darkly, but then it's going to
be face to face. Face to face. Right now, God
sustains his people in this desert land we live in. We're just sojourners. We're just travelers passing
through. And God sustains all of us, including me, by raising
up preachers to preach the gospel to us. That's how he sustains
us. But he said, in that day, as
soon as we cross into Jordan, as soon as we enter into our
eternal Canaan, we just looked at it last Sunday night. He said,
they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man
his brother, saying, know the Lord. Not going to do that anymore.
He said, they'll all know me. They'll all know me. Here on
this earth, nothing is more important than preaching and hearing the
gospel. When we start out in this life,
it is not on our list. It doesn't make the list of importance. And as God opens our eyes to
it, we start to realize this is kind of important. And the
longer we sit under it, the longer we're fed by it, the higher it
goes on our list. Until finally it's the top, buddy.
Nothing comes before hearing and preaching the gospel. Nothing. We can't live without it. We
cannot feed without it. How shall they hear without a
preacher? But as soon as we cross into
Canaan, the preaching of man is going to cease. There's no
more need for it. It's going to be over. We're
going to have the one we're preaching. We're going to have the message,
the object of the message. Solomon called him the preacher.
We're going to have the preacher, Christ himself. Verse 11 says,
They did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after
the Passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn in the selfsame
day. And the manna ceased on the morrow
after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had
the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of
the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. Now let me give you
this. This was so exciting to me. This
was, hope is expected anticipation. That's what hope is. It's not
I hope so, I hope so. Hope is it's going to happen.
Expected anticipation. Well, this ought to increase
our expected anticipation. It says they ate of the old corn
of the land and it says they ate the fruit of the land. Canaan,
we all know, we all understand this. I'm talking about it now.
Canaan represents our land of rest. Our glory. And our Lord describes this land
as a land flowing with milk and honey. And that just sounds so
delicious to me. Absolutely delicious. Now, we
know, we've seen that milk is the Word of God. Milk is the
Word of God. It's a land absolutely flowing
with milk. I mean, it's just flowing. You
know, you wonder, well, what's going to happen to this Word?
Is the Lord bringing it with us? He is the Word. This is just
what He says. It's just flowing with milk.
I could show you three, four, five, however many you want to
see, scriptures that illustrate honey to be the blood of Jesus
Christ. Have you ever heard of that scripture,
honey from the rock? Christ is our rock. What came
out of Him? That honey doesn't spoil. They
found honey in Egyptian tombs. Ancient Egyptian tombs are still
good. That's the blood of Christ. That's
the blood of Christ. Samson found honey in the carcass
of a lion. He killed the lion, and when
he came back through, there were bees all over that lion, and
he looked, and there was a honeycomb in there, and he ate it. Our Lord is called the Lion of
the tribe of Judah, and through His death, we have His blood,
His life-giving blood. Our promised land is a place
that is absolutely flowing. I mean, it's just flowing with
the Word of God and the blood of Christ. It's on everything
you see. It's on everything you touch. It is the conversation in everyone's
mouth. You're going to go from person
to person to person talking about the Word of God. It's just flowing. I mean, it's just flowing. Over
in Revelation, we're now going to turn. We could take the time
to go to Revelation 5, Revelation 7. We could go to all these places
and listen to conversations of saints around the throne. Who
are these that are arrayed in white robes? Sir, thou knowest. These are they which came out
of great tribulation and have washed their robes in the blood
of the Lamb and made them white as snow. That is the conversation
of glory. That's the song of glory. Our land of promise is absolutely
flowing with milk and honey. And the Apostle Paul said, I've
seen it. I have seen this land. It cannot
be described. I hath not seen, ear hath not
heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man. And I was going
to have us turn over there, but we're not going. If you want
to read it for yourself, it's in Numbers 13. But Moses sent
12 men to spy out Canaan before God told him, you're not going
in, before he struck the rock twice. He knew that's where they
were headed. So he sent 12 men to go spy out
the land. Joshua was one of them. And when
those men got into that land and saw what they saw, they brought
back the fruit of the land to show Moses. You've got to see
this. They cut down a cluster of grapes
and it was so big one man couldn't carry it. They had to shove a
beam through it and two men carried it on their shoulders. One cluster
of grapes the size of a man. That's a huge difference from
the manna we're having now. You know that. What we feast on now compared
to what we're going to feast on then, it cannot be described. It cannot be described. Now,
spiritually, you think about this. Here we are eating manna.
We are right now eating manna, the bread that God is dropping
down from heaven for us. The actual manna was a little
substance that the children of Israel said, they looked at it
and they said, what is it? That's what manna means. What
is it? It tasted like wafers dipped
in honey. Bread, that's the body of Christ,
dipped in honey, the blood of Christ. That's our manna. That's
what we feed on. That's what sustains us. That
token of the body of Christ dipped in the blood of Christ, that's
what we feed on. But it says, as soon as they
walked into Canaan, they ate of the fruit of the land that
year. I can see one of those men walking up to a cluster of
grapes and grabbing one grape the size of a basketball. How can you describe the difference
from what we have in the wilderness to what we're about to have in
Canaan? It cannot be described. I'm going to quit, I promise,
but I have to show you this. Verse 11 says, They did eat of
the old corn of the land. They had been in the wilderness. I'm trying to emphasize the wilderness. They'd been in the wilderness. Forty years they were in the
wilderness. Just on the other side of Jordan,
there were cities. There were suburbs, towns, villages. People lived right there on the
water. When Israel came up to cross
the Jordan River, we read and it says many times the people
were afraid. Rahab told the spies that. She said, all the inhabitants
of the land faint because of you. They're afraid. They're
so afraid. And now here they come. They're
crossing Jordan. Can't you see these people fleeing
for their life? Two million people crossing Jordan.
Can't you see the inhabitants of the land fleeing for their
life? They're about to take everything.
Well, Israel, as soon as they came up out of that river, they
looked around, and there were empty houses that somebody else
built. And they're taking the land.
This is ours now. So they just stepped into them.
They just moved in. Cabinets stocked full of food. Somebody else stocked. They just
moved right in. Fields were already planted months ago. Corn was already
standing there. They ate of the corn that somebody
else had already plowed and planted and watered. They just stepped
right in. They walked right over and just
started picking corn and eating it. Our Lord said, I go to prepare
a place for you. And when it's all finished, when
it's all ready, I'm coming back to get you. And he said, you're
going to step in and you're going to eat the fruit of the land.
You're going to step right in and you're just going to start
eating the fruit of the land. You are going to delight yourself
in fatness. You're going to buy wine and
you're going to buy milk without money and without price. And
he said, after that, you're just going to rest. You're just going
to rest. You're going to have a feast.
You're just going to sit there and enjoy the lamb. That's all
you're going to do. Sit right there and enjoy the
lamb forever. That's wonderful, isn't it? That's
wonderful. May God cause us to sit right
here and enjoy the lamb. That's what we're going to do
for all eternity. Why could we not start for 30
more years before eternity? May God cause us right now to
sit down and enjoy the Lamb. All right, let's all stand together.