Now, last week, we noted how
as Joshua was preparing to go to battle against Jericho, he
went near to Jericho himself, evidently by himself, probably
scouting out the area, getting an idea of how he would approach
it. And there, he was confronted by the Lord in the form of a
warrior. And the Lord was standing there
like a warrior with his sword drawn. And Joshua asked him,
are you for us or are you for our enemies? He evidently recognized
this person as someone of substance. But the Lord answered, no. And
he said, I am here as the captain of the host of the Lord or commander
of the army of the Lord. Then Joshua fell face down on
the ground in reverence and asked him, what message does my Lord
have for his servant? And he had this confrontation
with the Lord and it was to prepare him for the battle that was to
come. Now, interestingly, this is one
of those cases where a person stands both as an example of
the believer and then also as a picture of the Lord Jesus.
Now that should not surprise us, because the Bible says that
the Lord Jesus was a believer. As a human being, he believed
God. In the book of Hebrews, there
is a quote of an Old Testament scripture, and it's put in the
mouth of the Lord Jesus, and it says, behold, I have put my
trust in him. And you know, the last words
of our Lord, they were either the last or the next to last,
depending on how you want to line up the sayings of the Lord
from the cross. But as he was nearing death,
he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Now that
is an expression of faith, an expression of trust. So while
the Lord is God in a human form, As a human being, he was also
one who trusted God. Nonetheless, the man whom Joshua
saw, of course, is a picture of Christ, and then yet Joshua,
as he comes before him, the way he acts also pictures Christ
in this sense. Christ, as a man, was in utter
submission to God. And, you know, just as Joshua,
once Joshua found out who this being was, he worshipped him.
And our Lord worshipped God. And our Lord was ready to hear
and do anything His Father told Him. He said, I've not come here
to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Now, I think it's right to assume
now that as we start here in Joshua 6, that this is a continuance
of the same story. And it says, now Jericho was
tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and
no one came in. Now, if you'll recall when the
spies went into the land were in Jericho and they came into
contact with Rahab, she said, we are all terrified of you. Why? Because we have heard what
your God did for you. You know, you're no strangers
to us. We don't know you personally,
but we do know about you. We know the stories concerning
you and what God has done for you. And I didn't look it up. I don't know just how far Jericho
is from the Jordan River where they crossed. But it couldn't
have been all that far. And I'm sure that they had their
spies spying on the Jews. And they saw that they were amassed
there now on the western side of the Jordan River. They were
in the promised land. And so here's what made for a
rather sizable army. Plus it was obvious this army
had a God who was for all intents and purposes, you couldn't defeat
him, you couldn't stop him. So our Lord has spoken to Joshua
and he has, told him, you know, there in chapter five, take off
your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy. And
Joshua did so. And then we read this little historical tidbit that
even as the Lord was talking to Joshua, Jericho was already
tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went in and
no one came out. Now, the wars that Israel engaged
in as they laid hold of the promised land are picturing what we might
call the military exploits of the church in this world. Now,
the church does not do any natural, when we say military exploits,
we're talking about in the spiritual realm. You know, it was, well,
it actually wasn't until 250 years ago when our nation was
established that any people, any nation, any group of people,
you know, acknowledged that the church or the, you know, religion,
the power of religion, the authority of religion, and the authority
of human government were not to be connected. And even our brethren of the
past who were instrumental in bringing about the Reformation,
even they would appeal to the state to enforce their religious
views on others. Now that's just plain wrong.
It just shows you how far wrong a person can be even as they
hold to the gospel. You see, the gospel is a message. It's a principle. I mean, it
sets forth principles. But just because you have the
doctrines of the gospel in your mind and actually believe it,
it doesn't mean that the gospel has permeated all of your thinking
and made all of the changes necessary or, you know, all the changes
that would be expected from coming to terms with gospel truth. We as a church, we would never
think of taking up guns or knives or clubs or anything to make
other people join our church and say they believed like we
do. But we take it even further than
that because we understand at this point this gospel principle
that the things of the gospel are spiritual. Therefore, our
warfare is spiritual and our weapons are spiritual. Consequently,
we studiously avoid anything that might be considered a fleshly,
a fleshly weapon. We don't use fleshly means. Now, you know, well, no church
in the United States that I'm aware of would advocate setting up an
army and making people confess their doctrine at the point of
a sword or a point of a gun, but they'll use other things.
They'll bribe people. I remember in my teen years,
and this is when churches were going crazy having these bus
ministries, and they'd buy a fleet of used school buses and paint
them a different color, and then they'd go around town picking
people up and bringing them to church. And they would advertise
that there's a $20 bill under one of the seats on one of our
buses. Now, maybe you all didn't hear
it, but that happened. My church did it. And other churches did it. But
to get people to get on that bus and come to church. And they
would even do just like they do with you know, public school,
and even some who are now trying to advocate for year-round public
school, you know, they're trying to say, you know, let your kids
come to our Sunday school. They wouldn't say it out loud,
but what the parents understood is, hey, a couple hours of free
babysitting. Well, they knew they'd get people
on the bus and get kids to church and all that. We don't use those
means. Why? The Lord said, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is accomplished by
the strength and wisdom of the flesh will produce nothing but
fleshly results. The Lord went on to say, the
words which I speak to you are spirit and they are life. And so our reliance is entirely
on the preaching of the word. That doesn't mean that's all
we do, but that's all we do in an attempt to win people, an
attempt to convince people of the gospel. That's all we do
in an attempt to have them be a part of this congregation.
Now when we gather, we sing songs. And we sing songs not because
we think that will attract people. We sing songs because nearly
everybody enjoys singing. It's a way that God has given
us to praise him. But we don't put on a musical
show either. We don't attract people by saying,
come listen to how we can sing or listen to our 100-person choir. Of course, we don't have a 100-person
congregation, so 100-person choir is kind of out of the question. We have nothing other than the
gospel to appeal to people. Why? Number one, that's the only
thing that will work. And number two, it's all we need. The Lord said, my sheep hear
my voice. I know them and they follow me
and I give to them eternal life. Now admittedly, I can't speak
with the shepherd's voice, but I can, I can speak the shepherd's
words and pray that he puts his voice to it At any rate, all
these wars picture the church going forth preaching the gospel.
Paul described it as casting down strongholds. Every high
place, every argument that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God. You know, Paul often used military
imagery. casting down every stronghold.
That's what they're about to do with Jericho. That's a stronghold.
It's a walled city. And so as they approach Jericho
and the other walled cities of the land of promise, they are
casting down strongholds and they are confronting and destroying
every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God. That's what they were doing.
Of course, they were doing it in a typical military fashion
because the old covenant is a fleshly covenant. It's not a spiritual
covenant. I know that Paul said the law
is spiritual, but I am carnal. But another time he referred
to it as the carnal commandment. There is a spiritual aspect to
the law. But so far as the law is taken
as a covenant made with Israel, it was a fleshly thing. It had
fleshly promises attached to it, a piece of real estate. a nation that would grow in populace
and wealth. Those were the promises associated
in the covenant that God made with the nation Israel. He didn't
promise them that all Israelites would go to heaven when they
die. That wasn't what the promises were about. All of it pictured
the spiritual things to be revealed in full once Christ came. But they were going out, they
were on actual dirt, real dirt they were marching on, real cities
they were coming up against. And so they were using your typical
metal swords, shields and whatnot. But we, as the Church of the
Lord Jesus, do not strap on a metal sword, rather, Our sword is the
gospel. Paul says it's the word of God,
but that's what the phrase word of God means. Peter said, referring to the word of the
Lord that endures forever, and he says, and this is the word
which by the gospel was preached to you. And so the sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God, is not the Bible, though
the Bible is where we get our information. But there's a lot
of people that open this Bible, preach from it, and never preach
the Gospel. There's people that open this Bible, and what they
tell you so far as a description, I mean, they could tell you about
the Battle of Jericho, they could give you an accurate description
of it as it's described here, and never preach the gospel.
And no one, let's just say no strongholds
will be brought down by it. Rather, the sword which we fight
with is a spiritual sword. It's a sword made up of the truth
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And that sword that'll defend us from any attack,
and it slays God's enemies, and it's miraculous, not many swords
can do this, but some it cuts to kill, and others it cuts to
make alive. And like Paul says, who of us
is sufficient for that? All we know how to do is swing
the sword. God will determine whether it's a killing sword
or a life-giving sword. Anyway, now Jericho is tightly
shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came
in. And this world is tightly shut
up against the people of God and the message that they bring. Now, it's always that way in
the spiritual sense. And it always has been. The world
can tolerate religion. The world can tolerate legalism. Much of the world loves it. The world can tolerate morality,
tolerate all of that. It cannot tolerate the light
of Christ. Why? They are afraid of it. And that fear turns into anger
and hatred. You know, when you corner an
animal and it begins to attack you, you might say, that animal's
angry at me. That's true, but lying at the
base of his anger is the fear that you present to him. Well,
that's the way the world is. We confront the world in love. We speak the truth in love. Our
intention is not to destroy the world. Our Lord said, I did not
come to destroy the world, but that the world, or the Bible
says that Christ did not come into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And it is
not our purpose to condemn the world, even if we have to take
some time to point out that the world is worthy of being condemned.
because nobody's going to seek salvation if they don't see that
they have a need of it. But we're not condemning the
world because we want to see the world destroyed. We don't
condemn the things the world does because we hope God will
rain fire down on them when we do that and destroy them. We
preach that with the good news of Christ and Him crucified right
on the tail of it. We preach all of that in the
hope that they will be saved even as we have been saved. We're not an enemy to the world,
though that's how the world perceives us. But we are seeing more and more
in our country, in our day, it's becoming quite obvious that they
are shutting themselves up tight. in an attempt to keep God's people
from even having a voice in this world. Actually, what they want
us to do is shut ourselves up, and I don't mean shut up. They'd
like us to shut up, but I mean, our vice president was quoted
as saying that religion's what goes on inside churches, and
we're free to do that. What she was implying is once
we come outside, we're not free to express our religion out there. We're not free to say, that's
wrong. I'm glad that no church, including
ours, has the authority to go to Washington and tell the powers
that be there, you have to write this law, and then they'd be
under obligation to write that law. That's not a good idea.
Because, well, we can be sure of this, it would never be the
Church of the Lord Jesus that was in charge of the government.
It'd be some other religious outfit. But they don't want us to even
be able to get on the radio and say something's wrong. Or they
wouldn't even want us to say that Jesus Christ is the only
way to the Father. That's hate speech, you know. So whether you want it, they
want us to shut ourselves up tightly, not allowing anybody
in or anybody out. But what the truth is, is they're
shutting themselves up tightly out of fear. They know, they've heard of the
God we worship and what he can do. And they don't want us to win
the day. because they have it in their
minds that if we win the day, that we shall enforce a theocracy
upon them. No, we're not going to force
a theocracy upon them. God might. And I don't mean a
theocracy in Washington, D.C. Every one of us believers is
under a theocracy, aren't we? Yeah, we'll submit to the governments
of men all the way up to the point they require us to do something
contrary to what God has told us to do. Why? We count God to be a greater
authority than all the authorities of earth put together. So you and I do live in a theocracy,
but they're afraid we would come in and impose a human theocracy,
and I gotta admit, I don't blame them. Many have tried to do that. When
the religious right started to rise, it was back in the 70s,
but it really came into its own during the 80s, and you had the
moral majority, and you had these bigwigs in conservative religion
They were able to build a coalition. And it was strong enough that
certainly any conservative politician who didn't kiss their ring, so
to speak, was not likely to win. And they had lobbyists in Washington
and all that. You know, I understand the world
being afraid of that. Because they know what happens
when religious people get in charge. It's always been bloodshed,
always. Whenever religious people, and
I don't care what religion it is, but whenever they get hold
of the reins of human power, it corrupts them as much, or
brings out their corruption as much as with anybody else, and
they begin trying to enforce their religion at the point of
a sword. I can understand why the world
is afraid of Christians because there are many who call themselves
Christians who are really just politicians wrapped up in a religious
robe. And that's a scary thing to think
of. The church shouldn't involve
itself publicly in politics. As Americans, we have the right
to vote. We have the right to politic if they want, but you
know, I'm pretty scrupulous in avoiding
political controversy. And no matter how much I may
want someone to be president or congressman, I'll never put
their sign in the front yard. In fact, I had a guy come to
me here a couple of months ago. He was a volunteer for Ron DeSantis. And he came up, you know, and
did a little pitch for Ron DeSantis and wanted to know if he could
put a sign in the yard. And I said, I'd be okay with
the guy winning. I said, but I'm a pastor. I can't
put that in the yard. That's not what I'm about. And the interesting thing was,
he immediately understood what I meant. And I appreciated that
about him. that I was dealing with bigger
fish than Ron DeSantis, bigger issues than Ron DeSantis or any
other politician can deal with, and therefore, I've got to, as
much as possible, set my public face apart to the matters of
Christ, not the matters of politics. We avoid that. I've told my wife,
on election day, I'll go down there and I'll flip the thing
for the guy I want But if everything goes to law, nobody will know
who it was I voted for. And then whoever is inaugurated
to office, okay, that's the guy in charge, move on. Then the Lord said to Joshua,
verse two, see, I have delivered Jericho into your hands along
with its king and its fighting men. What a word of assurance
to the Church of the Lord Jesus. We, I shouldn't say we, because by
we I'm generally meaning, you know, larger Christendom. But
in our day here in the United States, those who claim to be
Christian, they see the world's obstacles that they're putting
up They see that as a reason to be afraid and they refer to
this as dark days and all of this kind of thing. Do you know
what it means? It means this, God has already
delivered them into our hands. He has struck Jericho with terror. you know, those old military
battles, and I guess it still happens to some degree, but it
was probably truer back then when you actually met your enemy
face-to-face on the battlefield up close. They would get up,
get out there, and they'd line up their forces, and of course
they had their banners and all this. They did everything they
could to look fierce and big and undefeatable, because bluff was a big part
of warfare, going out there and trying to dishearten the people,
the opposing side. I read about in the Civil War
what they referred to as the rebel yell. And both sides, I
mean, this was, you know, common in that kind of infantry and
horse cavalry-type fighting. When they'd charge, they'd let
up a yell, but they said the rebel yell was something. And
I've read some descriptions of it, but it made the Union Army
shake in their boots. They'd come charging across the
field, and that yell they would let up, it just sounded like
death was on its way in a flood. But what is Jericho doing? They
have locked up their gates. The king and the entire army
is inside, knees shaking. They've already been defeated. The Lord says, I have delivered
Jericho into your hands along with its king and its fighting
men. Now, sometimes it's hard for
us believers to see that truth as we're going through our day-to-day
lives, and we find our society crumbling as it is, and we're
gonna deal some with that in the morning message. We see it
looks like everything's going the wrong way. But that is because we're looking
at it with the eye of the flesh. When Noah and his family were
shut into that ark, and the great deep broke up,
and the windows of heaven were opened, it didn't look like things
were going the right way. But they were. They were going
exactly as they should. Doesn't mean it won't be difficult.
Doesn't mean we won't suffer trouble. But we know this, the more seriously
the world opposes us, the more we can be assured that
he who is called the God of this age is concerned, is afraid. and he's shutting things up so
that we can't get to what he claims to be his people. But
the gospel, as we preach it, simply, plainly, issuing no threats
from us, not striving to make any laws that grant special favor
to us, nothing like that. He's going to preach the gospel.
We know this. It'll kill everybody that needs
killing, and it'll save everybody that God intends to save. And not one enemy of the Lord
will ever wear a victor's crown. Not ever. All right, we'll stop
there.