Joshua No.2 Entering the Promised Land

These narratives are known, I think, to many of you, so we can just take a little synopsis. Chapter two of Joshua. Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two spies from Shittim.

"'Go look over the land,' he said, especially Jericho.' So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, "'Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight "'to spy out the land.' So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab, "'Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house "'because they have come to spy out the whole land.' But the woman had taken two men and hidden them. She said, "'Yes, the men came to me, "'but I did not know where they had come from.'" Verse eight.

Before the spies laid down for the night, Rahab went up on the roof and said to them, "'I know that the Lord has given this land to you "'and that a great fear of you has fallen on us "'so that all who live in this country "'are melting in fear because of you. "'We have heard how the Lord dried up the water "'of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt "'and what you did to Sihon and Og, "'the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, "'whom you completely destroyed. "'When we heard of it, our hearts sank "'and everyone's courage failed because of you.

"'For the Lord your God is God in heaven above "'and on the earth below. "'Now then, please swear to me by the Lord "'that you will show kindness to my family "'because I have shown kindness to you. "'Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives "'of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, "'and all who belong to them, "'and that you will save us from death.'" To which they agreed, and by the sign of a scarlet rope being hung out of her window, the house presumably being part of the city wall, she was to indicate where her family lived and when the Hebrew army came round, they were spared.

Spies go back, tell Joshua what they found. Joshua encourages the Israelites to break camp after three days, verse two. Halfway through verse three, "'When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God "'and the priests who are Levites carrying it, "'you are to move from your positions and follow it.

"'Then you will know which way to go "'since you have never been this way before. "'But keep a distance of about 1,000 yards "'between you and the ark. "'Do not go near it.' Joshua told the people, "'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord "'will do amazing things among you.' "'Joshua said to the priests, "'Take up the ark of the covenant "'and pass it on ahead of the people.' "'So they took it up and went ahead of them.'" Verse 14, "'When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, "'the priests carrying the ark of the covenant "'went ahead of them.

"'Now the Jordan is in flood all during harvest. "'Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark "'reached the Jordan "'and their feet touched the water's edge, "'the water from upstream stopped flowing. "'It piled up in a heap in a great distance away "'at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, "'while the water flowing down to the sea of the Araba, "'the salt sea, was completely cut off.

"'So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.'" Chapter four, verse one, "'When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, "'the Lord said to Joshua, "'Choose 12 men from among the people, "'one from each tribe, "'and tell them to take up 12 stones "'from the middle of the Jordan, "'from right where the priests stood, "'and to carry them over with you "'and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.'" Verse eight, "'So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded. "'They took 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, "'according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, "'as the Lord had told Joshua, "'and they carried them over with them to their camp "'where they put them down. "'Joshua set up the 12 stones "'that had been in the middle of the Jordan "'at the spot where the priests "'who carried the Ark of the Covenant had stood, "'and they are there to this day.

"'Now the priests who carried the Ark "'remained standing in the middle of the Jordan "'until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua "'was done by the people, "'just as Moses had directed Joshua.'" Verse 14, "'That day the Lord exalted Joshua "'in the sight of all Israel, "'and they revered him all the days of his life, "'just as they had revered Moses.'" Verse 19, "'On the 10th day of the first month, "'the people went up from the Jordan "'and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho, "'and Joshua set up at Gilgal "'the 12 stones they had taken out of the Jordan. "'He said to the Israelites, "'In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, "'what do these stones mean, "'tell them Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground, "'for the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you "'until you had crossed over. "'The Lord your God did to the Jordan "'just what he had done to the Red Sea, "'when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.

"'He did this so that all the peoples of the earth "'might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful, "'so that you might always fear the Lord your God.'" Chapter five tells us how all the, at least representatives of the pagan kings and the citizens of Jericho were witnessing these things. Verse four, all those who came out of Egypt, all the men of military age, died in the desert on the way after leaving Egypt. As a result of this, the community was uncircumcised.

Verse five, all the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. Verse nine, then the Lord said to Joshua, "'Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you, "'so the place has been called Gilgal to this day. "'On the evening of the 14th day of the month, "'while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, "'the Israelites celebrated the Passover.'" Verse 12, "'The manna stopped the day "'after they ate this food from the land.

"'There was no longer any manna for the Israelites, "'but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.'" Verse 13, "'Now when Joshua was near Jericho, "'he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him "'with a drawn sword in his hand. "'Joshua went up to him and asked, "'Are you for us or for our enemies? "'Neither, he replied, but as commander "'of the army of the Lord, I have come down. "'Then Joshua fell down to the ground in reverence "'and asked him, what message does my Lord "'have for his servant? "'The commander of the Lord's army replied, "'Take off your sandals, for the place "'where you're standing is holy.' "'And Joshua did so.'" 1 Corinthians in chapter 10.

Never apologize for lengthy readings of Scripture. Paul tells Timothy to give himself to the public reading of Scripture, and I don't think we read Scripture publicly enough. The word of God is inspired.

The preacher's comments are not inspired in the same sense. 1 Corinthians 10, one, "'For I do not want you "'to be ignorant of the fight, brothers, "'that our forefathers were all under the cloud "'and they were all passed through the sea. "'They were all baptized into Moses "'in the cloud and in the sea.'" Verse five, "'Nevertheless, God was not pleased "'with most of them.

"'Their bodies were scattered over the desert.'" Verse six, "'Now these things occurred as examples "'to keep us from setting our hearts "'on evil things as they did.'" Verse 11, "'These things happened to them "'as examples and were written down as warnings for us "'on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.'" Well, why study Joshua? Well, the answer is discovered in those verses from 1 Corinthians. We are to cover Old Testament narrative because it has been written just as a record of God's intervention in history. We don't read the Old Testament for history itself.

Only a few peculiar people like me would probably do that. I love history. We read history in the Old Testament because encapsulated within the accounts is good example that enables us to understand New Testament doctrine.

There is nothing that excites me more than preaching doctrine through narrative. And these incidents in the Old Testament are recorded not just because of the historical interest, though there may be that, there will be that about it, but they are recorded so that you and I might learn something of the nature of the spiritual warfare that is ours in the 20th century and how we are to learn from the good and the bad examples of people who lived in Old Testament times. Now, Tim made it very clear last week that Joshua is a book that really has value for those who want to know a lot about spiritual conflict.

You see, here were these Hebrews. They've come out of Egypt. They've been in that corridor of land that the old authorized version describes as a waste, howling wilderness.

They were there for 40 years. It's not the sort of place you go and take a holiday for four weeks, let alone spend 40 years wandering around. And then from there, they moved into Canaan.

Canaan is not, despite what some of our hymn writers say, the equivalent of heaven. Canaan really represents the struggle that the Hebrew people had to possess the land that God gave Abraham centuries before Joshua was born. Now, there is a very real way in which the world in which we find ourselves and our own sojourn in it is equivalent to the possessing of the promised land.

You see, this earth, as my prayer reminded you, is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And when you push forward the frontiers of the kingdom of God, then you are saying, this man, this person, this group of people, they belong to God. Now, when Joshua and his men and women pitched up on the borders of Canaan, you didn't find all those primitive tribes immediately surrendering to Joshua and say, well, come on in, welcome, we'll move.

That would have been nice, but it didn't happen like that. You see, preventing Joshua fulfilling the purposes of God in Canaan yesteryear were those same evil forces who are present today frustrating the church of God wherever you go and attacking the lives of ordinary Christians. I would say this.

If you don't know anything about spiritual warfare, it is tantamount to suggesting you know very little about the reality of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesians says in Ephesians six, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. Why is it that you have such a struggle maintaining your spiritual credibility? The fact of the matter is that you're up against the opposing forces of God who want to destroy your integrity and stop the advance of the kingdom through you.

Now, in a very real sense you see how Joshua and the narratives here demonstrate this principle. So what I've done is to elicit, that is lift from the four chapters that are mine to examine this evening, four stepping stones that will help you in terms of Christian warfare. And I suggested that chapter two, and obviously you could have got more out of this or placed the emphasis elsewhere, but it seems to me that the dominant note in chapter two was the need that Joshua and his men had to make a reconnaissance, that is to enter into the territory of Canaan and to sniff it out.

The topography of Canaan is very interesting. That is the geographical lie of the land, the contours, the contrast in terrain and so on and so forth. Very few people here will have any knowledge of military strategy, but in this Old Testament picture, the major obstacle preventing the Hebrews from reoccupying the land God gave to Abraham was Jericho.

And any commander knows that in order to get your troops into position so that you can weaken the enemy and take the first battle in a victorious, make the first battle in a victorious fashion, you need to have information as to the lie of the land. And so for the second time in the history of the Hebrews, men are sent on a job of spying out the land. And these two men penetrate Jericho and their brief is having discovered something about Jericho and the psyche, the attitude of the people to come back and report to Joshua.

They skillfully infiltrate the city in order to gather the information that they require. Now let's take a sidestep here from the main subject matter that I suggested this chapter contains. God in most remarkable ways can convert people from the most unlikely background.

I say somewhat cheekily in my notes, if you dispute that, then ask why you're in the kingdom. Humility drove me to put, and why am I in the kingdom? And honesty. God will have his Ruth's.

God will have his Rahab's. Rahab is a woman whose character is very dissimilar from Ruth actually, but they have this in common. They're non Jewish ladies.

Rahab has been a cult prostitute. She's known in the city. And the men who are from Joshua's ranks are given hospitality and cover by Rahab.

Rahab becomes to the early church fathers, those are the leading theologians in the first three or four centuries, a great embarrassment. The embarrassing thing is this, that she was a prostitute and they did their level best with the Hebrew to squeeze the word into suggesting that she was an innkeeper. But they were frustrated not only with the Hebrew, but also with James 2.25 and Hebrews 15, Hebrews 11, they never did write chapter 15 of Hebrews, where she is referred to as a woman of low repute.

But it's amazing how this lady, if you sift through the words, if you sift the words that she makes from the eighth verse onwards, it's amazing how she comes to a theological understanding of the character of the God of the Hebrews. I know, halfway through verse eight, I know the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us. Verse 11, when we heard of it, our hearts sank and everyone's courage failed because of you.

For the Lord, your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There's nothing wrong with her theology there, is there? Now look, some of you read the Bible or have read the Bible so often that the shock has melted away years ago. You say, what do you mean? Well, why did none of the Hebrews who left Egypt with the exception of Caleb and Joshua make the promised land? The answer is they died in unbelief.

Go back to 1 Corinthians 10, I didn't read the whole of that chapter, but they heard and they saw and they died. Their carcasses were found in the wilderness, one little mound after another little mound until the mounds become not just one and two, but hundreds and thousands, mound after mound, mound after mound, an indication of what? Faithlessness. Faith comes by hearing and they heard, but they did not believe.

And as a result, God was angry with them and not one of that generation with the exceptions I've mentioned ever penetrated Canaan. Yet here is Rahab, she hears of this great God. She's not a Jew, she's not a Hebrew rather, she's a Gentile, but she responds.

Has it not been told you that John 3, verse 16 has anticipations in the Old Testament? God so loved the world, he brings Rahab into the redeemed community. Yes, Abraham's seed, his natural seed after the flesh, they are precious in the sight of God. The gospel is directed to them first, but this God loves the whole world.

And so here is the astonishing thing that when two spies from the Hebrews are in need, they find hospitality is given to them by Rahab. Oh, I know you can fault Rahab. The Bible does not condone her falsehood, but it does condone and congratulate the faith that she exercised.

And so she engages in conversation, these two men, and tries to ensure the preservation of her family. Instructions are given her as to how the family shall be preserved as instructions were given to Noah, how his family will be preserved. Obey the instructions and you're all right, but deny the instructions and you're in difficulty.

And that's the same with the gospel. Accept what the eternal God says and you'll be all right. Qualify it and you are in trouble.

You see how there are anticipations of the grace and the mercy of God at sort of gospel level in the Old Testament. Now, that shouldn't be a surprise. You'd expect it because he who inspired the old inspired the new.

As Augustine said, the new is in the old concealed. The old is in the new revealed. That's why I like to preach the New Testament from the pages of the old.

So this lady is told that a scarlet rope hung out of her window will ensure if she remains in her home with her loved ones, that when in an incredible fashion, the walls of Jericho are reduced to rubble, she and her family will not only be spared, but brought into the covenant of the redeemed. And these two men who've gone out on reconnaissance take her advice. They spend three days in the territory, then they go back.

Verse 23, they went down out of the hills, forded the river, came to Joshua son of Nun and told him everything that had happened to them. Men of faith, do you ever take a reconnaissance so to speak of the parameters of your own ministry? You know, one of the things that I did before accepting with my brother elders, the charge of the Maybridge Fellowship years ago was wander the streets of Maybridge. Literally, wandered or drove around asking God, should we get involved? What's your strategy? What are those people like? And I did a little sort of straw poll and came to the conclusion that about 1% if that of Maybridge attends church.

And so the whole of our strategy at Maybridge has to be directed towards a non-church going people who would no more than fly, come and listen to somebody preach from the Old Testament for 35 minutes on a Wednesday. See, we have to do reconnaissance. Dave and Irene and a friend from Zaire are going to be successful in the purposes of God in planting gospel churches, in achieving a ministry for him in the heart of Africa or out in Pakistan.

They have to do reconnaissance. They must know about Islam. They must know about the feelings of the people.

They must know about the culture and they must direct their message in such a fashion that it is understandable to these people and believe that amongst the Africans and the Muslims, there are the Rahabs who are longing for someone to confirm what they have begun to think in any case, that there is a greater revelation of God than they have discovered thus far in their culture. Move on. Engage in reconnaissance.

Chapter two, step out in faith. They hear, that is the old Hebrews, they hear the report of the two spies, 72 hours elapses and the people get ready and they are told that the guide will be the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. When that moves, carried by the priests, then the signal is to move out and to move on.

Guidance is always a bit of a problem. That's an understatement. Guidance is a mega problem.

Verse four, the Bible's solution. Then you will know which way to go. When? Well, when God moves forward in whatever stands for the Ark in New Testament terminology, since you have never been this way before, but keep a distance of about 1,000 yards between you, Freudian slip there, between you and the Ark, do not go near it.

I've been preaching on the phrase, let the church be the church for so long that they've asked me at the next Keister conference of the independent churches, not next year, the year after, to address the assembly for two or three nights on this theme. You see, when the church behaves as the church, then God goes forward and opens the way. Come back to that in a moment.

If David Attenborough had been around in this particular age, and he got his microphone and he was giving you a little bit of commentary on the topography and the flora and the fauna and the animals, and he'd get very close to, you know how he does it, very close to the microphone and he'd speak very, very softly about how the Jordan River winds like some inebriated serpent and so on and so forth. And he'd have had a field day. I mean, it really is a wonderful country to, at least a wonderful part of the country to do a sort of animal, vegetable and mineral broadcast.

You see, you drop down from Jerusalem and it's a pretty big drop to the Jordan Valley. You drop down something like 1200 feet very, very quickly. And as a result, it's one of the most extraordinary climate changes in the whole world, because obviously climate is affected not only by where you are, but the lay of the land, the depth of the land or the height of the land.

Well, when you drop down into the Jordan Valley, you find yourself in not only a low lying piece of land, but about a mile long is, or a mile wide is the valley through which the Jordan sometimes lumbers through in a very casual fashion. And then during the time when it floods, it just consumes the whole area. Now, two men on their own, I think they'd have had a ball getting across there.

I'm reminded to having a go myself actually. But can you imagine trying to get across the Jordan with all those thousands of elderly ladies and elderly men, as well as middle aged and young people and boys and girls and the animals and what have you. This was an amazing obstacle, not just Jericho, but the Red Sea, sorry, the Jordan.

Have you ever thought what must have been in the mind of John and Charles Wesley when they confronted England in all its permissiveness, for permissiveness is not a child of the 20th century, it was there in the 18th century, with the bawdy houses, with the gin houses in London, with all the obscenity and the damnable attitudes of the upper class towards the lower class. How impossible the situation was when George Whitfield came out of the Bell Inn in Gloucester, a man who was filled not with alcohol in terms of spirit, but with the spirit of God. He was confronting something equivalent to the Jordan, equivalent to Jericho.

How was it that these men felled their Jericho, crossed their Jordan? Well, the church started to act like the church as a result of their ministries. They saw God, so to speak, going forward, symbolized by the ark with a band of men like the priests who wanted to make an impact on society for the Lord. God has many ways to bring about the miraculous.

We're told that in this particular incident, as soon as the feet of the priests touched the banks, the waters of the Jordan, then the Jordan went back and they walked to the middle and the people bypassed them. That sort of thing has happened before incidentally. In the 12th century, an Arab writer made reference to exactly the same incident and also as late as 1920, you've got reference.

I'm not trying to explain miracles. Don't misunderstand me. But sometimes the miracle is more in the timing than in the actual mechanics of the event.

So these people go forward. They follow the priests. The priests stop, the people go on.

And when everyone is across dry shod, then the priests go to the other side of Jordan itself. And looking on in utter amazement with eyes wide are the people from Jericho and the pagan tribes. They have seen the sight of folk stepping out in faith.

Faith was tested yesteryear, 40 years ago, as far as the Hebrews were concerned in regard to their parents. And now the same test comes. And under the inspiration of Joshua, these people pass the test.

And the redeemed community, which is like, I love to describe the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints, they do valiantly in the name and in the power of God. So when you've made your reconnaissance, when you've stepped out in faith, when you have seen God move, then what do you do? Well, you erect memorials. We had a church treasurer back in the church that Rowena and I went to in London for three years before we got shipped out here for retirement.

And it's a very interesting chap. His name was Baker. He got, oh, I don't know how many children, but he certainly helped church growth.

Probably because he had so many kids, he had to build his own house. Generally called it hitherto. Now I've often thought of the postman.

This is his batch of letters in North London. And he sees this one addressed to Mr. F. Baker, hitherto. And there's the name of the lane.

Well, some of you are in on the secrets of the Bible, know that hitherto is actually the first word in a very lovely text in the Authorized Versions rendering, hitherto hath the Lord helped us. If you put it in the Hebrew, actually it sounds even more peculiar. It's Ebenezer.

You know that hymn, Here We Raise Our Ebenezer? Some of you have sung that. What did you think of Ebenezer when you were a Sunday school kid singing that hymn? Probably what I did, that he was a man with a beard like Abraham. Well, Ebenezer means hitherto.

Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And what these people are doing here, when they get over dry shod, the Jordan River, they take 12 stones on the direction of Joshua. And then under his supervision, these 12 stones are erected as a sort of cairn, as the Scots would call it, in a place called Gilgal.

And then in the very center of the river itself, another 12 stones standing for the 12 tribes are also erected. And it's the Hebrew way of constructing a memorial to the fact that hitherto our God has helped us. And on the basis of that help, we will go on from the Jordan to Jericho, from Jericho into the heart of the land and take it for him.

I do think that there's a sense in which the education of our kids is the responsibility of parents and cannot be abrogated, passed on to school teachers or Sunday school teachers for that matter. Verse 20, chapter four, Joshua sets up this pile of stones. He talks to the Israelites, in the future when your descendants ask your fathers, what do these stones mean? Tell them Israel crossed the Jordan on dry gown for the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you crossed over.

The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us. Have you noticed the significance in the word us? There are only two men who could say that, not so. Joshua and Caleb going down memory lane.

We've been this way before. The Israelites knew because it had been passed on from mouth to mouth. But here is Joshua recalling an earlier incident of deliverance and saying, look, when your kids ask about this pile of stones, then tell them, tell them what God has done.

When you take bread and wine, do you explain to your children why you're taking bread and wine? You see, there is a sense in which to talk about a professional ministry. It bankrupts the church of Christ. We're all called to communicate.

When the Jehovah's Witness knocks on the door, do you breathe a sigh of relief when you see a clean pair of heels? Or do you tell them what he told you to tell them? Every man should be able to articulate his faith, to tell others something, not in great theological concepts, perhaps, but at least a simple ABC of the gospel. When your children ask, you tell them, this is a memorial. Why do we need to be in at communion service? I think that the communion service is almost the most important thing, the most important grace that God has bestowed upon the redeemed community.

As a teenager in my late teens and in my early 20s, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of the communion service, Sunday by Sunday. It'd been a hard battle that week to retain moral and mental purity. You come back to the thought of Jesus dying on the cross of Calvary, His broken body, His shed blood, the fact that His blood cleanses you from all sin.

This is the memorial. This is why I tell you sometimes if there is not valid excuse, it breaks my heart to see people move away from a service before we've come around the table of the Lord. This is the memorial.

This speaks of a greater deliverance than the crossing of the Red Sea or the crossing of the Jordan. Tell your children, tell your neighbors, tell people that this mound, so to speak, declares the act of God as He moved towards you in redemption and salvation mercy. There's a mound that's exposed and there's a mound that's concealed.

Joshua verse nine, set up the 12 stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the Jordan, who carried the ark of the covenant had stood and they are there to this day. A hidden memorial, an exposed memorial. Is there a hidden memorial in your heart? Is there that about you that bespeaks of the grace and the glory of God? Perhaps you're unaware of it yourself, but other people become aware because, well, they discover there is something different about you.

My quote from Livingstone's Life Seals It, Stanley said of Livingstone, he made me a Christian without ever knowing he was doing it. Work at being different, chapter five. Well, we're called to be odd people.

The church is nothing if she's not a community of odd fellows and some churches are more populated than others. Was the denomination called the peculiar people in the 19th century. They're now taking a more sophisticated title.

I think it's the strict Baptist or something like that. Work at being different, well, yes, indeed, because you're the people of God, verse two. At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.

What do you know about circumcision? Well, it was the right that Abraham was instructed to apply to the males in his household and for every male child. It was an indication that the people of God were different. Now, this had fallen into misuse.

In fact, it had been neglected during the 40 odd years of the Sinai sojourn, verse four. This is why he did so. All those who came out of Egypt, all the men of military age, they died, verse five.

All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not. So you have got an uncircumcised people about to penetrate Canaan, and God blows the whistle and says, no, no, there's something to be done. New knives, not the old stuff from Egypt.

Drop that rubbish in the Jordan. Well, he didn't say that, but he did say that we want new knives. Make flint knives, uncircumcise the Israelites again.

Why? To enhance the fact that this is the beginning of something special. This is the rejuvenation of the church. Don't you see? The Old Testament is always speaking about the church.

It's rejuvenation, it's renewal. Here is a great possibility. Canaan is in front.

How will the people conquer Canaan? By showing that they are different from the ones who are in Canaan. How will we conquer the world? By showing that we are different from the people who are in the world. Circumcision stands for separation.

Not a physical separation, that's absurd. You can't be a successful evangelist and live on a desert island. It's a moral separation.

It's a philosophical separation. It's a behavioristic separation. It's a refusal to compromise to the spirit of the age.

So they're circumcised. And look at verse nine. Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.

If the church is ever to be the church, the reproach of Egypt needs to be rolled away. What does it mean? It means the unbelief. The constant looking over the shoulder, talking about life in Egypt and how superior it was.

You remember how Moses had a rough time from those old Hebrews. I've rolled it all away. All the sin, all the things that caused me to be angry with your parents, that has now been dealt with.

So the place was called Gilgal to this day. The Hebrew for roll. Now there's no time, but if you were to check Exodus 12, 43, you would see that no one who was uncircumcised could keep the Passover meal.

And yet the thing that commemorated the great deliverance from Egypt was the Passover. So for years, there has been no equivalent in the Old Testament to the spreading of the Lord's table in the New Testament. But after the right of circumcision has been applied, then Passover celebration is not just a necessity, it becomes a privilege.

And the people remember the great redemption of 40 years ago and the great redemption of just a day or so ago. And verse 12 says, the manner that supplied them and kept them going in the wilderness now stops. Why? Because they're in Canaan.

They can enter into their own inheritance and start to live from the fruit of the land. As God has given the church an inheritance for her to live on and to know sustenance down the decades and the centuries until Christ returns. Work at being different.

But you know the greatest need, the greatest need of all is that the church of God knows the person of God. And so you get this theophany, this appearance of God in those last few verses, Joshua suddenly jumps up when he sees a man standing in front of him like with a drawn sword. And Joshua is perfectly human, says, are you for us? Are you one of ours or are you against us? You can't help but smile at Joshua's humanity.

I'd like a photograph of his face when he got the response, neither. Now, this is of course, extremely solemn when you sift the essence. What is being said to Joshua is this, that none other than the commander of the whole universe is in the presence of Joshua.

What is gonna happen is not so important as Joshua recognizing who is with him. The message is, and the military strategy is inferior to knowing that the person of God has been disclosed to Joshua in a fashion, if not unique, is unusual and experienced only by men like Abraham and Joseph and Moses. What message does my Lord have for his servant, the commander of the Lord's army? Reply, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy.

And Joshua did so. Joshua, it's not a question of getting him on your side. It's a question of submitting to his sovereignty of appreciating the fact that this is a holy war and that Canaan will be possessed, not by men being on your side, not by you knowing the strategy of others, but by you recognizing that you are involved in the unfurling of the purposes of God.

Before you can be a warrior, you have to be a worshiper. Before you can be a successful evangelist, you have to be a lover of God. Sometimes we place activity before worship and we're impoverished as a result.

I can give you many excuses why I should not pray. My life is so full. My diary, so many appointments.

I'm not exceptional, you're the same. It's easier to be an activist than what it is to stand or to kneel or to fall flat on your face before the living God. But unless you do that, you're not really equipped to cross Jordan or take Jericho or penetrate.

It's the worshipers, the holy men, the holy women. I don't mean that as a specialized sort of monastic or covenant or convent group of people. I mean the sort of people who will spend time before the Lord, bring the church locally, nationally, internationally before the Lord and say to Him, Lord, this I know.

The battle is yours and you are with us and I want to worship you. I want to take off my shoes from off my feet for the place on which I stand is holy. Lord, I want a mighty baptism of your power and I want something of your holiness and purity to be directed towards me.

For that, my brothers and sisters, is how the New Testament will tell you buttressed by the Old Testament. You are to cope with, deal with, approach the whole business of spiritual warfare. It's not just a question of doing.

Doing comes into it. Basically, it is a question of being. Being a man of God, being a child of God, standing in the presence of God and going on from your victory at Jordan and your victory in Jericho on to the rest of the battles, winning some, taking some knocks, retreating a little, then going forward, bloodied but unbowed, knowing some failure but knowing much success.

The principles are there, locked in the Old Testament, developed further and refined in the new, but the basic principle in being successful in Christian warfare is for the warrior to be a worshiper.