Our lesson today will be taken
from Joshua chapter 3. Joshua chapter 3, verses 5 through
9. And my subject I've taken from these
verses is the beginning of wonders. The beginning of wonders. Let's
read this. text together. Joshua chapter
3, beginning with verse 5. And Joshua said unto the people,
Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among
you. And Joshua spake unto the priests,
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. 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. And thou shalt command the priests
that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When thou comest to the
brink of the water of Jordan, You shall stand still in Jordan. And Joshua said unto the children
of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God. Now, there are countless lessons
here. Just absolutely. The more I study
this, the bigger it gets. And the deeper it goes. There
are just countless lessons. And it's that way everywhere
in the Word of God. This is the Word of God. Infinite
God. We're not going to hit bottom.
We're not going to go to the depth of anything. And it is
a wonder that we know anything concerning His Word. So there's
many things taught in these verses, but I've tried to settle myself
on four. I've been all over the place
with it. I've got a book written at home laying on my desk just
about. But we've only got 30 minutes,
so I've had to settle on four things to accommodate our schedule.
I want to talk a little bit about the sanctification which Joshua
commands the people. It's really kind of an odd commandment
when you know anything at all about sanctification. He said,
sanctify yourselves. Now, we've been sanctified by
the Lord our God through the death of His Son once for all. Once for all, but that's not
the sanctification He's talking about. That would be impossible
for us. And then secondly, I want to
focus a little while concerning the Lord's wonders. I want us
to see what these wonders are. And then I want us to see what
place the priest and the arch have in this passing over Jordan. What part do they play? And lastly,
concerning the words of the Lord our God. He said, you come hither
and hear the words of the Lord our God. His words. Boy, it's
one thing when you hear me, it'd be another thing to know you
were hearing God's words, wouldn't you? So first of all, let's talk
about this sanctification that Joshua commands of the people. This is not the same sanctification
by which we're sanctified once for all. When Christ died on
that cross, he set us apart forever. He actually made us holy in him. And isn't that why God chose
us in him, that we might be holy? There's no other way to be holy,
is there? No, He chose us in Christ that we might be holy
and we were made holy. That is, our redemption shows
no flaw in the character of God. He's just in His justification
and He's righteous in His remission of sins. You can read about it
in Romans chapter 3. So this is not what took place
on the cross by which all God's elect are sanctified once for
all. And also, he goes on to say in
verse 14, that these that are sanctified, and this is why I
will not preach or even commend others to hear a progressive
sanctification. Because all those sanctified,
what does he say in verse 14, are perfected forever. So what am I going to progress
in? If I'm perfect in Him, then I'm not going to progress to
be perfect. I'm already perfect in Him. Not in myself, but in
Him. And this is not the same as something
common and ordinary being declared by God to be holy. God said this
tabernacle is holy. This group can go into the first
room, but they can't go into the second. This high priest
alone can go in, but he can only go in one time a year, and not
without blood. Why? Because it's holy. Now you
go against that, you've got to kill you. You go in to offer something
that's not your place to offer in that holy tabernacle because
it's a picture of Christ. This is symbolic of Christ. And there's a place to go in
and serve. But there's another place, and
that's all for him. That's just for the high priest
alone. And so it pictures Christ. And it's just common. It was
just wood. It was just gold. It was just certain skins and
all of these things. It was something common and ordinary,
but God said it's holy. He called the first place the
holy place, the second place the holy of holies. And you had
to be given permission of God to even walk in the place or
eat the bread or whatever it was that you were doing in service
to God. So he's not talking about that.
He's not talking about something common and ordinary that God
has declared to be holy. The sanctification is a separation
of mind and heart. Now let me show you that in Scripture.
Turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 3. We're talking about... He said this is something that
the believer can do. Something that people can do.
Well, what is it that they're... What are you able to do? You're
not able to sanctify yourself and make yourself holy or even
declare yourself holy. So what can you do? Well, let
me show you a plain example of what I'm talking about. 1 Peter
chapter 3 and verse 15. Now all down through this chapter,
he's talking about false prophets and he's talking about how they
appear to men and how enticing they are and all this stuff.
And here's what he says down in verse 15. But sanctify the
Lord God in your hearts. Well, how are you going to sanctify
God? God's the sanctifier. Well, that word here means To
separate it means to put things in their perspective. That's
what it means, this sanctification. And do it with meekness and fear.
This sanctification was a work they were commanded to do, and
the work is to set the true and living God apart in our hearts. He's going to do wonders. This
ain't about you, this is about Him. You can't part those waters
and you can't walk on the water. How are you going to get across
Jordan? God's going to have to do something. He's going to have to do something.
And don't mix Him with our worldly reasoning or this world's vain
philosophy, and don't mix Him with our natural tendencies of
fear and unbelief. Set Him apart in your mind and
heart. You remember, He cursed those
men that went over, those spies that went over early. And they
saw the giants, and they saw the walled cities, and they saw
the armies organized, ready to fight. And they come back and
they discouraged Israel. How did they do that? In their
hearts and minds. And these spies, when they come
back, they didn't discourage Israel. They said, let's go. Let's go. God's given us this whole land.
Let's go. See, these people are scared to death. They know God's
with us. So, here's what he's telling them. Get things straight
in your mind. Get things straight in your hearts.
John the Baptist was a forerunner of Christ, and his whole ministry
was to make straight the way of the Lord. What are we doing? We're doing the same thing. Trying
to make straight the way of the Lord. Put things in their proper
perspective. and using what things we've been
taught of God and expect to see great things. What has God ever
done that's not great? But we don't expect it. Why?
Because we don't have things put in the proper perspective. The most useless, wasteful thing
in this world is worry. Worry doesn't accomplish anything.
Worry is the fruit of fear. and perfect love casteth out
all fear." Get things straight in your mind. God's going to
do wonders. John said, fear hath torment,
and nothing will torment you like fear. He that feareth is not made perfect
in love. Sanctify yourselves. How come? He didn't tell them to do that
day before. He didn't tell them to do that
the day before that. But now He comes to them and Joshua says,
Sanctify yourselves. For, here's the reason, tomorrow
the Lord will do wonders among you. Let me ask you something. Did you think about this yesterday?
Huh? Yesterday evening, as your day
began to come to a close, tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among
you. Well, how do you know He's going
to do a wonder? Well, it's a wonder when God takes a few fishes and
loaves and feeds a multitude, isn't it? Isn't it a miracle? somebody as dumb as I am and
untalented as I am. I never had any history in public
speaking. Isn't it a wonder of God that
He gives me things to tell you that a lot of the commentators
never even entered into their heart? Take a few fishes and
a few loaves and feed His people until they can't eat anymore.
They can't eat anymore. And they wind up picking up the
scraps. You know, eat them later. Put
them in the basket. It's a wonder when God does these
things. Is it not a wonder to you that
nobody at any time in any place ever had an inkling of what you're
hearing and believing this morning? Is that not a wonder? I hath
not seen nor heard never entered into the heart of mankind the
things that God hath prepared for them that love him, but God
hath revealed them unto you. It's a wonder. Worship is a wonder. This whole world going around
here, ignorant of God, they're not worshiping God. This is not
worshiping God. We worship God in Christ. We
worship God through what we hear and what we know. We say, I love
to hear good music. I do too, but it's not worship.
Unless it has the words that magnify Christ. Now that hymn
that has those words, that psalm that has those words, now you
can worship God with the stringed instruments and all these other
things. I'm telling you, the Lord does wonders. How many preachers
are there in the world who can rightly divide the Word of God?
But in my experience, there are very few and far between who
can rightly divide, who can read something and tell you what it
says. And that didn't happen overnight. Listen to this. How shall you
hear without a preacher? And, oh, you mean there's something
else? Oh, yeah. How shall he preach if he's not sent? How are you going to preach?
How are you going to tell things that's never entered into the
heart of mankind if you've never heard? And how are you going
to hear that preaching? How in the world is he going
to preach if God don't send him? You know what our Lord told those
70 when he sent them out? He said, I'm going to send you
out whether I myself am going to come. It would be useless
if he don't attend the preaching. Wouldn't it? Sure. What good
are you going to do over Jericho? But when the Lord comes, in those
few words that you said, And he puts those things and presses
them home to the soul. Oh, now the work has a wonder
about it, don't it? You have to put things in
the proper perspective. And where to stop? We have to
live in this world. I have to deal with ungodly men
at the marketplace, when I have my car. take it over for an oil
change and have it serviced or whatever I have to deal with
ungodly men and everything in this world. But there comes a
time that we set apart for worship. And before you come in here,
sanctify yourselves. Set things in their proper perspective. Why am I going? What is my hope? What am I going to hear? What's
my hope? Well, I'm going to pray for somebody.
Maybe they'll hear. Well, do I know how to pray? Set things in their proper perspective. Do you not feel privileged this
morning just to be counted as God's people? Am I one of His elect? Oh, my
soul, He set apart so many. To me, they're like the stars
in the heaven and the sands of the seashore, but to Him, He
knows them all individually. He knows exactly how many there
are, what they are. He knows everything about them.
I know them. That's what he said. And I'll
tell you what God knows. He knows inside out. He knows. Don't you feel privileged this
morning just to be counted as His people? There was a whole
world surrounding Israel who would wake up and see nothing
they hadn't seen a hundred times over. They're going to see the
sunrise. They're going to see breakfast
served on the table. They're going to see this and
they're going to see that. They're going to be marrying
and giving in marriage just like it was before the flood. There's
a whole world. Israel's about to cross Jordan
the hard way, the narrow way. They're about to cross Jordan
through its deepest pool, and it's at flood stage. And there's
no bridge out there, and there's no raft out there, and there's
no ark out there. How are we going to cross that
river? God's going to be there. And he's going to do wonders.
He's going to do stuff you've never seen before. Isn't that
what he said? You watch for the priests now.
Watch for the arks. Because you haven't been this
way before. And you put some distance between you and the
ark. Because you haven't been this
way before. And when you see the ark, and
the priest carrying that ark, bearing that ark, go after the
ark. That's the only way you're ever gonna get across Jordan.
God's gonna do wonders. Israel. Wake up, all the world
around Israel, wake up, see nothing they hadn't seen a hundred times
over, but in this specific place where Israel was assembled. We're
assembled here this morning. God's people. Out. God's people. We're assembled.
God's going to do wonders. He never assembles his people
without doing wonders. Never. It was just another Sunday evening,
just another worship service. But on that particular day and
in that particular place, God was pleased to allow this poor
sinner to hear what he'd never heard
before. Huh? Was it a wonder? I wept with
joy for hours on end. Just drove around Lexington. I didn't know what else to do.
I just drove around and I couldn't quit sobbing. I was so happy.
I was so thrilled. I finally seen something about
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And I saw my
election in Him. I've told you all before that
this study is It's not about Israel crossing Jordan. This
is about God's kingdom being established in the hearts of
His people. That's what's going on. That's the picture. That's
the picture. And everything that God does
is a wonder. His name, when He comes, His
name shall be called Wonderful. Full of wonder. Doing wonders
among the people. His name shall be called Wonderful.
Now sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow God will do wonders
among the people. And if you're here this morning
and believe God's calling you into the ministry, Caleb and
Tom are the two that I know who are. That's your hope. Boy, I hope you haven't started
a ministry on your own. I hope you haven't just evolved
into the ministry. It's a good thing to want to
be in the ministry. It's another thing to be called.
So if you're here this morning and you believe God's calling
you into the ministry, there might be others here that I don't
know. What will you do to make your
ministry legitimate? What will you do? Will you spend
your days trying to convince folks of it or try to talk people
into supporting it. Now, I'm telling you from experience.
I'm not talking here out of my head or just had a thought in
my study. I'm trying to talk to you from
experience and from the Word of God. If God has called you,
he'll open the door. That's the first thing. This
whole world is a closed door until God opens it. I don't know
who his elect are, but nobody else is going to believe. I need
to wait on him to open the door, or else I'm just spitting in
the wind. I'm just out there, you know,
making motions with my hands and saying things, and folks
are going, uh-huh, or they're going, oh, no, no. Wound up. But nothing effectual is going
to happen. That's my point. Unless God sends
you. And if he sends you, you open
the door. Who will? God will. God will. Now you want to go out there
and just move your lips in the wind, you're free to go. But
nothing effective is going to happen unless he's seen you.
And if he's seen you, he'll open the door. Paul said, pray for
me. We're talking about an apostle.
Surely if anybody, anybody, could go out into the world and preach.
It would be an apostle. He holds the highest office in
the church. And Paul said, pray for me that the Lord would open
an effectual door. That's what I need. That's what
I need. Our God is almighty, is He not? Our God controls even the most
minute details in this life, does he not? The flight of an
insect, everything, he's in control. Nothing comes about apart from
the will of God. Do I want to know the will of
God in my ministry? Then I have to wait on him to
open the door. And when he opens the door, it's
affection. Now I can speak to God's people,
boy, and it rings a bell in their heart. That's what Brother Mahan
used to say, boy, you rang the bell tonight. That's what I want
to do. But you ain't going to ring anything unless God opens
that door. We need His power. We need His
presence. We need His Spirit. We need His
direction. Oh, my soul. He's all-wise, He's everywhere
present. What He does, He does sovereignly
and with purpose, and it's a wonder. That's my point. It's a wonder.
Well, what are we going to do? Sanctify yourselves. Set things
in perspective. Examine yourselves, whether you
be in the faith. Examine yourselves, whether God
calls you into the ministry. Look at it through His Word. I know people that's on the back,
they did me. Oh, here's a preacher here, he
can tell you the story, you know, and send you out, and I went
out and preached, I did all, and nothing happened but disaster.
It's gonna end in disaster, I'm telling you. He'll open the door, he'll make
full provision. You'll give whatever's necessary
to bring it to pass. I come down here to pastor this
little church, believing God had sent me. The church called
me, voted for me to come. As my understanding, it was 100%,
but whatever. They called me and I came. My
wife was diagnosed with brain cancer. Terminal, worst one,
junkyard dog of cancers. Had no money, had no insurance,
no way to get her treated. God took an old ignorant president
one that I didn't like very much, and made him come up with an
insurance for people who were pre-diagnosed with diseases and
covered. But do you really believe God
did that? Oh, with all my heart. He said, I gave nations for you
and people for you. We're looking at it through little
eyes. Sanctify yourselves. You see what I'm saying? Get
prepared to hear and see wonders. This book's full of wonders.
Is it not a wonder that God Almighty, holy, just, righteous God would
save four sinners? Isn't that a wonder? Now, I haven't
got over it yet. What shall we do? Sanctify yourself. Set things in perspective. Get
things straight in your head. What lies ahead is impossible
for men. But what's impossible for men
is possible with God. All things are possible with
God. Who then can be saved? Isn't
that what our Lord told us? With men it's impossible. Let me tell you something, if
God's not in it, it's going to fail. And it's going to be a
disaster and it's going to be something painful. I would spare
you the pain of it. Now here's my third point. The priest and the ark. The ark represents the glorified
Christ. In the tabernacle, which is a
picture of these things, where did the mercy seat go? Over the
ark. There's mercy in Christ. There's three arks. I was talking
to Tom and his wife, Mona, yesterday afternoon, and told them, I said,
this is one thing for my Sunday school lesson tomorrow. But there
was three arks. There was the Ark of Noah. It
was pitched with pitch. If you look up that word in the
original, it's kapar. It means atonement. It literally
means atonement. God's people were sealed in the
ark by his atonement. The second one was the Ark of
the Bull Rushes. They were going to destroy Moses. Now all the babies in Israel
about Moses' age, they wanted to get rid of the Redeemer. They
were going to get rid of this Deliverer, Moses. And they built an ark of the
bulrushes, a little basket of a thing, and they pitched it
with pitch, and that pitch was Kephar, atonement. He was sealed
in that thing, the law. He represents the law. The law
is sealed with the atonement of Christ. It's sealed. Pushed it down the river. He
made that king that was gonna kill that baby, he made that
king raise that boy. Made him raise the deliverer,
made his daughter fall in love with him. Oh, my soul. Wonders. Wonders. But the ark,
here's the ark, and inside it is the law. The only place the
law is of any value to you is in the ark. That's in Christ. Everywhere else it's your enemy.
Because it demands what you can't produce. So God puts it in the
ark. It's safe in the ark. Put the
law in there. It's fulfilled, exalted, honored
in there. The heavenly bread, where's it
at? It's in the ark. We're out here looking for it
everywhere. It ain't out there. It's in the ark. You want to
eat that heavenly bread except you eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood? You have no life in you. That
bread's in the ark. It's in Christ. It's my blood,
my flesh. And Aaron's rod that budded.
This is the priest. That's what was being determined
when God made that rod to bud. That Aaron was the priest. Where's
it at? It's in the ark. Huh? Here's
the priest. Here's the law, honored and exalted.
Here's the heavenly bread. It's all in there. So what's
he going to seal the ark with? Not pitch. Not pitch because
Christ is the atonement. He's not going to seal it with
pitch. He's going to seal it with pure gold. Pure gold. What's that mean? It means the
glorified Christ, that one seated at the right hand of God. What's the priest doing? They're
just holding the pole. Carrying the ark. Could have
been anybody, but God separated certain ones. And they carry
the ark. And you look in the morning when
you get up, you look. When you see the priest bearing
the ark, go after it. Go after it. Not going to be
a fiery pillar. That left when Moses left. Not
going to be a cloud. Not going to see Shekinah glory
like he did in the tabernacle. Moses was over on the mountain.
God buried him. He's dead. You're going to follow
Joshua. Well, how can I follow Joshua? Joshua said, when you
see the priest buried in the ark. I saw preachers. There's
no end to the preachers. He'd make me go to church over
at the Place over there in the worst part of town where they're
preaching to winos and drunks and thieves and murderers and
homeless people and they're over there preaching to them and I'm
sitting on a feed sack. I heard this preacher and that
preacher and this preacher and I saw those preachers but I never
saw the ark. One day I saw the priest with
the ark and it made a difference. All right, let me tell you something.
He said when that priest put his feet on the, now it's over
the banks, it's a flood stage, it's rivery. That priest gonna
put his foot on that water, and as soon as it touches that water,
that water gonna be cut off, it's gonna start going up in
the, I can't even imagine the water that piled up from a flooded
river. I don't care if it's like, The
river over here, the Red River, that's not a big river. I grew
up on the Ohio River. That's a big river. Mississippi
River's a big river. But even that river at flood
stage, if it can't run through and it starts to pile up, I can't
imagine the water. Now there's over a million people
that have to cross this river. And at least in the hundreds
of thousands of warriors, if they left their women and children
And now they're going to cross it. How long did that take? A
while. A while. That river just piled them up.
What made it pile up? That priest stuck his foot in
the water. When does that river of death,
that's what it stands for, this river of death, spiritual death,
when does that river start backing up when the priest bearing the
ark puts his foot in it? Huh? Oh let me tell you, Henry
Mayhem put his foot in that dam and spoke to me and I realized
that man was bearing the ark. He was carrying the ark. He was
10 foot tall to me because of what he was doing. He was carrying
the ark. And when I saw it, I saw it from
a great distance. Joshua said, a quarter of a mile.
Put a quarter of a mile between you and him. You're going to
see it at a distance. You're not going to be saying
me and Jesus got a good thing going. You ain't going to be
talking about the man upstairs. You're going to be way back here
looking. And if you didn't know who was carrying what and what
they were carrying, you'd never know the difference. But Joshua
said, you'll know the difference. And he said, here's why you're
going to do it, because you haven't been this way before. And none of us have. You know he uses the word, I'm
going to stop now, I'm way past my time. The word translate. He delivered
us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom
of God. It's such a wonder. It's such
a miracle. And do you know how long that
priest stayed down there? That priest just kept bearing
that up. And when he got to the center of the river, he stood
still. And as the people come, they got closer and closer and
closer until they could see every detail of the priest and the
altar. And they crossed over, and they just kept crossing over.
Just kept crossing over. How long did that priest stay
down there until every one of God's elect stepped up out of
that river into the Promised Land? Huh? Into the Kingdom of
God? Huh? How long are we going to
keep preaching until all Israel enter in? And there's a last
message, a last preacher, a last man, a last woman in the kingdom
of God. And when they step up out of
that river, when they cross that death, enter in, that's it. Mercy's gone. Grace is over. Ain't nothing left but judgment
now. Nothing left but judgment. Nobody's gonna survive this but
the elect of God. All those ungodly folks are gonna
fall by the wayside. Nothing left but the kingdom
of God when they get done.