Conquering Your Jericho - Pastor Jeff Schreve

i'm pastor jeff shreeve thanks for watching today we're in a series on joshua called rising to the challenge you know joshua took over for moses when moses died needless to say he had big shoes to fill and big fears and obstacles to overcome you and i can learn much from his faith especially during these trying times as we deal with the coronavirus and the economic and social problems that it's caused so grab your bible and follow along as we learn from joshua how to rise to the challenge [Music] [Music] i heard a story about three preachers they went on an out of town fishing trip and they're in the boat fishing and it's just kind of quiet and they're visiting with one another and then one of the guys said hey you know what the bible says it's good to confess your sins confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed and said guys i just think we ought to do that we ought to talk about the the sin that's just difficult for us and and that thing that just tends to be a stronghold in our lives and he said i'll go first he said you know i i have trouble i hate to say it but i have trouble with gambling and he said you know nobody really knows but when i go out of town when i'm at anywhere near a casino i just i just go to it and he said i gamble i know i shouldn't but i do and and that's that sin that's just so hard for me second preacher said well my problem is with alcohol he said i do good for a while but then i fall and and he said i keep it hidden in private but but just when the pressure comes i find myself going to that and they look over at the third guy and they said what about you he said well my problem is with gossip and i can't wait to get back to town everybody struggles with something we're in a series on the book of joshua we're we're calling this series rising to the challenge joshua is a book of conquests and today we want to talk about conquering your jericho one of the great old testament miracles was the uh battle and the conquest of jericho now just to get you up to speed deuteronomy the last book of the pentateuch the five books deuteronomy is the last one deuteronomy is a series of sermons three sermons that moses gives to the people moses dies at the end of deuteronomy he was the leader for 40 years led them out of egypt and god wanted them to go in the promised land but they didn't go in because of unbelief so they wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years even moses didn't get to go into the promised land god let him see it but he couldn't enter it and so moses is told by god joshua is going to take the baton from you and so moses anoints him as the leader and now joshua is the leader and the lord says to joshua in joshua chapter 1 have i not commanded you be strong and courageous do not tremble or be dismayed for the lord your god is with you wherever you go and joshua you're going to lead the people into the promised land and you're going to lead the people into battle to take the promised land remember the promised land is not a vacant piece of property people live there and people are going to fight to continue to live there and so they come across the jordan river miracle of god as he parts the jordan river similar to the miracle when god parted the red sea but god parts the jordan they come across and as we saw last week the very first thing god has them do is the men get circumcised and then they celebrate the passover kind of a strange way to do things when you enter into the land because you knock yourself out of battle for about 10 days while you're recovering from the circumcision but that's god's way and then god revealed himself to uh joshua in a christophany an old testament appearance of the lord jesus christ and remember joshua saw jesus by the city of jericho and he says are you for us or for our adversaries and he said no i come as captain of the host of the lord and joshua said what does my lord have to say to his servant and the lord said to joshua take your shoes off joshua for the place on which you're standing is holy and god was showing joshua that i'm the one in charge here i'm going to lead this battle i will fight this battle i am the captain here all you have to do is obey me and the very first place that they're going to encounter in battle is jericho jericho is a walled city it's not a big place it's about nine acres not big but very tall and seemingly impregnable in deuteronomy chapter 1 moses is recounting what the 10 faithless spy said when they first went to the land 40 years previous and he said this is what you guys told me the people are bigger and taller than we the cities are large and fortified to heaven fortified to heaven that's what they said about jericho now jericho is an interesting city it's one of the oldest cities in the world jericho was a double-walled city we have a picture on the screen to give you an idea of what jericho was like you had one outer wall that was probably that encompassed that nine acres and then you had 15 feet inward you had an inner wall and this is all uh corroborated through archaeology and things like that they've done a lot of digs at jericho and inside you had an inner wall and inside that inner wall was about six acres not very big but it was very tall and very fortified they had walls that reached to heaven so the archaeologists that did lots of work at jericho said this this is what they found you had this embankment this uh stone wall that was around you know jericho's up on a hill so you have this stone wall this embankment almost like a stone berm around the the base of jericho and that stone berm was about eight feet to 12 feet high it's a retaining wall and then on top of that you had mud brick and the mud brick was six feet thick and about 20 feet tall i have a picture of a cross section to give you an idea you have the soldiers there on ground level and that stone wall is that retaining wall and then on the top of the retaining wall you have the mud brick wall that goes up six feet wide 20 feet tall and then you have that 15 feet in between the other wall but it's going up it's ascending up and then you have another wall that that inner wall that's just like the outer wall it's going to be six feet thick it's going to be 20 feet high and from ground level when you look at the top of that inner wall it's about 66 feet up it's like looking up at a seven story building see they said that the cities in the promised land namely jericho the walls are fortified and they reach up to the heavens they weren't just making that up that's what it looked like to them so jericho's a picture of a type of sin something in your life something in my life that is tough it's difficult it's it's a stronghold it's a fortress it's got walls that seemingly go up and up and up everybody has a jericho everybody has some sin that is just a tough sin for them you know it's said of superman way back when when they did the superman show with uh the first superman who looked like he needed to diet and go to the gym but that first guy uh weissmuller i think was his name the swimmer uh he sure didn't look like the the you know the superman's today but uh it said in the credits in the opening credits that he superman he is faster than a speeding bullet he's more powerful than a locomotive he's able to leap tall buildings in a single bound but even superman had his kryptonite and superman might have been able to do all sorts of things but if you get him next to kryptonite he was weak as a kitten he couldn't handle kryptonite everybody's got kryptonite as a believer in the lord jesus christ there's something that is very very difficult for you so here's the question what's your kryptonite what's your kryptonite what's your jericho what's the thing that is difficult for you that always seems to pop up that seems to have these high walls that you say man i have victory over this and this and this but then i hit jericho and it's like ugh it's got me again maybe it's anger many people have trouble with anger they just can't control their anger for whatever reason maybe it's lust we talk about lust a lot at man up on thursdays at lunch because many men that's their jericho that's their kryptonite is with uh sexual uh temptation maybe it's for you it's greed lots of people struggle with greed the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil the bible says and and maybe your kryptonite your jericho's greed maybe it's it's uh insecurity maybe it's fear maybe it's unforgiveness you have a real difficult time forgiving people who hurt you who wrong you hey whatever your jericho is whatever that fortress is whatever that high wall is god wants to bring it down in your life and he can do that the scripture says in second corinthians chapter 10 for though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses for the tearing down of strongholds for the the taking the walls of jericho so to speak and pulling them down so god gives us a beautiful picture in joshua chapter six of how to conquer our jericho it says in joshua six beginning in verse one now jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of israel no one went out and no one came in they were ready for the siege because they just shut the gates and it's like what are you going to do how are you going to get in here we have this wall and it's been harvest time so we have lots of grain stored up and there's a spring in jericho and so we have a water supply so how are you going to possibly hurt us it was tightly shut verse two and the lord said to joshua see i have given jericho into your hand with its king and the valiant warriors and you shall march around the city all the men of war circling the city once you shall do this for six days also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times and the priest shall blow the trumpets and it shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn and when you hear the sound of the trumpet all the people shall shout with a great shout and the wall of the city will fall down flat and the people will go up every man straight ahead three key truths for conquering your jericho you know jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free three key truths truth number one understand that you fight from victory not for victory you fight from victory you don't fight for victory the lord made it clear to joshua jericho has already been given to you he had told him in joshua chapter one every uh place on which the soul of your foot treads that land i have given to you as i spoke to moses the promised land is yours you just have to go get it jericho has already been given to you you're just going to have to go and get it look at verse 2 again and the lord said to joshua see i have given not i will give i have given jericho into your hand with its king and the valiant warriors we don't fight for victory we fight from victory the lord has already conquered the lord has already overcome when jesus met john on the island of patmos in revelation chapter 1 john who was so close to jesus john who laid his head on jesus breast at the lord's supper at the last supper uh john who had that tight relationship with jesus but he sees in john in revelation chapter one he sees the lord in all his beauty and all his glory and all his splendor he falls down at his feet like a dead man and the lord has to raise him up and he said i am the alpha and the omega the first and the last and i was dead and behold i'm alive forevermore and i have the keys of death and hell the lord has won the victory he has overcome he told them in john chapter 16 these things i have spoken to you that in me you may have peace in the world you have tribulation but take courage i have overcome the world now jesus won the victory when he died on the cross and rose again from the dead the last thing that he said was it is finished not i am finished but it is finished father into thy hand i commit my spirit and the lord breathed his last and the veil of the temple was torn into from top to bottom and the price was paid it is finished literally means paid in full he paid the price for your sin and my sin he rose again from the dead that's the exclamation point and that makes everything it pulls it all together and the lord has won the victory and as his followers he has given the victory to us so he's won it and he's given it to us the scripture says in second corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14 but thanks be to god who always leads us in his triumphant christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place he's given us the victory see no christian is a victim we're victors in the lord jesus christ we've already been given the victory the bible says that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ ephesians chapter one verse three it says in second peter chapter one and verse three seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us into a saving relationship into our relationship with the lord jesus christ so you have everything you need to walk in victory to tear down the walls of jericho the victory has already been given to you but in all these things it says in romans 8 37 we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us you're a super conqueror in jesus christ now the bible makes it clear romans chapter 6 colossians chapter 3 that a believer in jesus one who has true faith in the lord jesus christ i'm not talking about a make-believer i'm not talking about a pretender but someone who has really turned from sin and turned to the savior and has the holy spirit living inside that person the bible says is dead to sin you're dead to sin and you're alive to god so the the scripture says in romans 6 sin shall not have dominion over you for you're not under the law but under grace and knowing that our old man was crucified with him that the body of sin might be done away with that henceforth we should not serve sin and it tells us we're dead to sin and then it says this now that's on paper we are dead to sin as believers on paper but then there's practice paper and practice are two different things so it says on paper you're dead to sin but let's face it i don't feel like i'm dead to sin do you feel like you're dead to sin well maybe that person does uh you don't we don't feel like it but truth is not what you think it's not what you uh conjecture it's not what you feel truth is what god says he says you're dead to sin and then he goes on to say this romans chapter 6 verse 12. therefore consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to god in christ jesus so i am dead but i have to consider myself dead i am dead but i have to reckon myself dead warn where is be explains it this way he said you know you can believe the promises of god without reckoning the promises of god he said what's the difference he said if i write you a check and give you a check and you accept that check that's like believing the promises of god but reckoning the promises of god is endorsing the check taking the check to the bank endorsing the check and cashing the check and that's how you consider yourselves dead indeed unto sin but alive unto god and the scripture says that is desperately what you need to do and what i need to do the lord has given us the victory it's very interesting how the lord tells them what he tells them to do he has a lot of sevens in here you shall march around the city you and the men of war uh once every day for six days and then verse four and then seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of ram's horn before the ark and then on the seventh day you shall march seven times and the priests are going to blow the trumpet now in the life of the jews the lord gave them two trumpets they had the silver trumpet the silver trumpet was used for an alarm it was used as a call to war and then you had the shofar the rams horns and the ram's horns were used primarily to signal celebration now when the lord says that you are going to blow the priests are going to blow the trumpets he says it's a ram's horn it's not a call to to war it's not an alarm it's a a shout of victory it's a it's a blast of celebration the ramshorn was used on jubilee that 50th year where the debts were released and the slaves went free and it was a time of freedom and time of liberty and a time of celebration what did they blow they blew the ram's horn god is saying in this passage you blow the ram's horn why because you already have the victory and we're not going to uh blow the the trumpet for uh a call to arms we're going to blow the victory trumpet and the celebration trumpet because the battle is the lord's and he has already won it so first key truth understand that you fight from victory not for victory secondly understand that you overcome through faith and patience those two things are critical faith and patience the scripture says in hebrews chapter 6 that you may not be sluggish that you may not be lazy but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises faith and patience those two things are critical look what it says in verse six so god gives joshua the battle plan and it's a strange battle plan i mean we'd all agree we're gonna we're gonna circle around this city you could probably do it it's only nine acres so you probably walk around the city in a march and maybe take you 15-20 minutes it's not going to take you real long but you're going to do that once in the morning and then go back to camp and do it second day go back to camp and the priests are blowing the rams horn and then on the seventh day you're gonna do it seven times that would take you uh maybe a couple hours and then on the seventh time around then they're gonna blow a long blast on the ram's horn then you're going to shout and then the walls are coming down that's what god said and so you know it would have been easy for joshua to say lord i don't understand that that doesn't make sense to me but he doesn't one of the things you'll find when you read about joshua he doesn't argue with the lord i mean when the lord tells him something even if the though it doesn't compute in his mind he just says okay that's what you say yes lord yes lord verse six so joshua the son of nun called the priests and said to them take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests carry seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the lord just like god said then he said to the people go forward and march around the city and let the armed men go on before the ark of the lord and it was so that when joshua had spoken to the people the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the lord went forward and blew the trumpets and the ark of the covenant of the lord followed them and the armed men went before the priests who blew the trumpets and the rear guard came after the ark while they continued to blow the trumpets but joshua commanded the people saying you shall not shout nor let your voice be heard nor let a word proceed out of your mouth until the day i tell you shout then you shall shout so he had the ark of the lord taken around the city circling it once then they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp now joshua arose early in the morning and the priest took up the ark of the lord and the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the lord went on continually and blew the trumpets and the armed men went before them and the rear guard came after the ark of the lord while they continued to blow the trumpets thus the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp they did so for six days then it came about on the seventh day that they rose early in the dawn early at the dawning of the day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times only on that day they marched around the city seven times and it came about at the seventh time when the priest blew the trumpets joshua said to the people shout for the lord has given you the city joshua did exactly what the lord told him to do and the people obeyed and they did what the lord told them to do understand that you experience the victory the victory on paper is experienced on in practice through faith and patience this is the victory the bible says that has overcome the world our faith and who is the one who has overcome the world but he who believes that jesus is the son of god now it takes faith to do the things that god says to do it takes faith and god has us to operate that way because he wants us to trust him not trust ourselves now if the lord told you something to do that sounded reasonable to you you wouldn't need any faith to do that it'd be like yeah that sounds like a good plan god so god doesn't give you plans like that he gives you plans that sound ludicrous to you so that you have to say ah okay i guess i'll do it your way the bible says trust in the lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path he will make your way straight so i have to do what god says do even though it sounds crazy perhaps to me the scripture says in isaiah chapter 55 for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the lord for as high as the heavens are above the earth so far are my ways above your ways my thoughts above your thoughts i don't think like you do god says i don't do like you do my plans are different from yours so i'm going to tell you something to do that's not going to sound uh normal rational to you and then you're going to have a choice are you going to obey me or not are you going to do what i say or not now the bible makes it clear about faith romans 10 17 faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god that means that you've never had faith i've never had faith we've never had faith no one's ever had faith apart from the word of god because faith is linked to the word of god and when you see god do in your life when you see him bring down the walls of the city so to speak in your life that stronghold in your life the three parts to that there's first god's part he has to give the command he has to give the conditional promise he has to say this is what you do that's god's part we can't conjure that up that's why this idea of name it and claim it is ridiculous because you can only claim what god names because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of god it has to come from the word of god you have to find it in the word before you can step out on it so god gives a command he gives a conditional promise and then he says this is what you do and then we take a step of faith and we do it like joshua did like the people did we do it and then when we do what god says to do then god does his part and god tears down walls and god parts the rivers and god does miracles you've heard me say i shared this with the group at east texas baptist this week when i got to go there i said listen you mark it down god will not do what you can do and you cannot do what he can do god will not do what you can do and you cannot do what he can do and so they could march around the city god wasn't going to march around the city they could march around the city they couldn't just say well lord you know you're god so why don't you just take the ark of the covenant which is symbolizes your presence why don't you just miraculously take that around and we'll go play uh you know free cell we're just going to do something at the camp we're just going to go roast uh marshmallows who's do something no god's not going to do that you do your part and then god will do what you can't do and god's going to bring down the walls just like he said he was going to do it takes faith to do things god's way you know one of the things that so many people say no to when when god gives a command has to do with finances has to do with honoring the lord honor the lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce so that your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine the scripture says in the last book of the old testament the book of malachi return to me says the lord and i will return to you and the people said well how shall we return and the lord says shall a man rob god surely not a man wouldn't rob god but you are robbing me but you say how have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings he said you're cursed with a curse the whole nation of you because you're robbing me bring the whole tithe into the storehouse the lord says and test me now in this and see if i will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing so big that it overflows you can't contain it it's just gonna come upon you that's god's conditional promise and those who say okay lord i don't understand but i'm going to do what you say what do they experience they experience the blessings of god so big that they can't contain it but so many people who call themselves christians say i'm not going to do that i don't want to do that you know i told you about the two words last week two words that need to be on the lips of every christian yes lord yes lord so you either say yes lord you say no sir because you can't say no lord because the moment you say no he's not your lord and jesus said why do you call me lord lord and do not do the things that i say and that's a little thing adrian rogers used to say if you can't trust god 10 cents out of a dollar how are you going to trust him when you get cancer how are you going to trust him when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death see see giving it's just a little thing but it has huge implications and if you have a problem if your stronghold is greed giving breaks that down you start putting god's word into practice it may not make sense to you and you say jeff you don't understand i can't afford to do that no you don't understand you can't afford not to you can't afford not to because you desperately need god's blessing on your life and ninety percent with god's blessing goes way further than a hundred percent without it that's just an illustration that's just a little thing that many of us say no lord i'm not going to no sir i'm not going to do that the lord says do it my way and you're going to see me do great things in your life so it takes faith to do things god's way and it takes patience to wait on god's timing now that they may not be sluggish that you may not be sluggish but imitators of those hebrews 6 12 who through faith and patience inherit the promises so i have faith but then i have to be patient and so you see that in this story because why does god need them to walk around for seven days because seven is the number of completeness and god wanted them to wait on the victory so it would be like well god i think it would be better if we just walked around one time i mean if you like this marching thing lord we can walk around one time or we can walk around seven times in one day but then then let's go let's let's let's take jericho no we're going to do it my way and we're going to walk around once and then after 20 minutes then you're going to go back to camp and you're going to wake up the next morning you're going to do it again then you're going to wake up the third morning you're doing today fourth morning do it again fifth morning do it again hey listen you think about jericho that sin in your life that always seems to be there it always seems to stop you that you can't get around you can't bypass it's there and it's like ah that that again and maybe you've been one walking around that stronghold one day two days three days four days and you just said there's nothing happening i'm not seeing any victory i just keep walking around this i just i give up i quit i can't i can't win the lord says you keep going we're not at day seven we're not at the 13th time around jericho i told you to walk around it for 13 times once for six days one time for six days and then seven times on the seventh day and what happens to many of us we don't have patience abraham was told by god he was going to have a son he was in his early 70s when god told him that never had any kids well he didn't have isaac until he was a hundred he had to wait wait for the lord the bible says psalm 27 wait for the lord be strong and let your heart take courage just wait for the lord we have trouble waiting and god's way is waiting you know we have microwave ovens in our homes and i mean it's if sometimes you put something in there it's like man i had to i had to punch in more than a minute what's up with this this is a crummy microwave and i'll i'll put things in there all the time and i always just hit the the speed one is whatever you know it's like 30 seconds so i hit it a couple times it's like well that's a minute debbie's like you don't do it that way like that's the way i do it she goes no you put on a lower setting and you do it for like five minutes then it comes out good and so i get it it's cold and then i do it again it's cold i do it again it's boiling lava hot you know it comes out like that but but here's the thing we don't like to wait and god says through faith and patience you inherit the promises we go on his timetable not our timetable it's a good word to learn is the word yet you say nothing has happened i've been walking around this jericho situation in my life and nothing has happened nothing has happened yet wait for the lord be strong and let your heart take courage just wait for the lord and then thirdly understand that god is faithful and expects obedience god is faithful and god expects obedience now joshua told the people not a peep out of you all the time you're walking around this city don't say anything now remember it's not all the people in in the camp that we're walking around there it's the soldiers that are walking around along with the priests and an entourage of several thousand people but it's not it's not a million and a half people that are doing that and so joshua said nobody say a word you just beside you just wait on the lord and then when the lord says shout after the seventh time and there's a loud blast on the ram's horn then you shout god is faithful and expects obedience look what it says verse 17 and the city shall be under the ban it and all that is in it belongs to the lord only ray have the harlot and all who are with her in the house shall live because she hid the messengers whom we sent but as for you only keep yourselves from the things under the band lest you covet them and take some of the things under the ban so you would make the camp of israel accursed and bring trouble on it we're going to read next week about a man named aiken whose name means trouble who did just that he took some of the things that were dedicated to the lord and it brought destruction to him and to his family verse 19 but all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the lord they shall go into the treasury of the lord so the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpet and it came about when the people heard the sound of the trumpet that the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city every man straight ahead and they took the city and they utterly destroyed everything in this city both man and woman young and old and oxen sheep and donkey with the edge of the sword and joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land go into the harlot's house and bring the woman and all she has out of there as you have sworn to her so the young men who were spies went in and brought out rahab and her father and a mother and her brothers and all she had they also brought out all her relatives and placed them outside the camp of israel and they burned the city with fire and all that was in it only the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron they put into the treasury of the house of the lord however ray had the harlot and her father's household and all she had joshua spared and she has lived in the midst of israel to this day for she hid the messengers whom joshua sent to spy out jericho then joshua made them take an oath at that time saying cursed be the lord before the lord is the man who rises up and builds this city jericho with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation and with the loss of a youngest son he shall set up its gates so the lord was with joshua and his fame was in all the land god is faithful god is faithful god always keeps his word god always does what he says he's going to do in his timing the lord was faithful when they shouted to cause the wall to come down and this is what's so cool and this is the the neat thing about archaeology when you go and study archaeology when they look at these biblical places so the archaeologists that went into jericho i think it was in the 1950s this is what she found she found that at that stone wall that was like the embankment of the city there were a bunch of red bricks that had fallen down almost like making a rampart for the children of israel to come up god says that the wall was going to fall down flat literally it was going to fall beneath itself it was going to fall to the bottom and those walls those 20-foot high mud brick walls that's what they did they fell to the bottom to the base and they made a rampart for the children of israel the soldiers to come straight ahead and go up on that and attack the city i have a picture of it to give you an idea the mud wall is coming down that mud brick wall and so that they can come up that just shows a little section of it it all came down at once and that's what archaeology has found and you know what else they found so cool they found a section of the wall that didn't come down an eight-foot tall section of the wall that didn't come down because the wall fell down everywhere except rahab's house and you remember what the lord had said or the messengers had said from the lord told rahab you get everybody in your house your mother your father your brothers your family your relatives they have to be in your house if they're not in your house all bets are off but if they're in your house and you have that scarlet cord coming out your window she lived on the wall remember because the spies were able to get out her window she lived on the wall that part of the wall didn't fall down why because god is faithful god is faithful to save and if you take once we sing that song you take one step toward the savior my friend you'll find his arms open wide jericho was a wicked city it was an immoral city it was an idolatrous city and god was going to wipe it out but if anybody in jericho would put their faith and trust in yahweh god that person would be saved that's our god that's jericho's a picture of our world our world is destined for judgment because god is holy holy holy and our world is sinful sinful sinful and getting more depraved by the day and god says judgment is coming and there is coming a day when the lord will judge every single person and the lord says every idol word that man shall speak he'll give an account of it on the day of judgment but here's the thing it's almost like in noah's day he had an ark and so he preached for a hundred years hey god's bringing judgment he's raining down judgment on this earth but if you come into the ark you'll be saved and rahab could say judgment is coming but if you come into my house you'll be saved and god will save anyone who will put his faith and trust in him the bible says in hebrews 7 25 he's able to save to the uttermost those who come to him by faith in christ old preachers used to say he can save from the uttermo from the gutter most to the uttermost he can save the rahabs and he can save the religious folks like nicodemus you know between the rahabs and the religious folks you know who's harder to save the nicodemuses why rahab knows she's a sinner she knows that she doesn't deserve heaven she knows she's covered in the slimy fingerprints of sin the nicodemuses the church crowd the upstanding folks they feel like they're pretty good they they feel like well you know salvation is for for other people for the bad people but i'm a good person i don't really need that i'm a good person he saves from the gutter most to the uttermost the rahabs to the religious anyone who put his faith and trust in jesus and if you don't he's coming in and there's going to be destruction now some people don't like the idea that god judges well who who's god to judge well he's the judge of all the earth that's who he is to judge well for those people to kill all those those people i mean that's that's not right he shouldn't have done that god is god listen you have been given a loan on life and at any moment god can call your loan at any moment you don't know when it is i don't know when it is so you think well you know you say like the the person in the parable in luke chapter 12. i have many goods stored up for many years take my ease eat drink and be merry and god said to him you fool this very night your soul is required of you i'm calling up your loan and you're not ready you're not prepared you saved up everything for this life you have nothing in the next life you're not ready for the next life you're not ready to face the judgment the lord says the soul who sins shall die all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god and the wages of sin is death and those who lived in jericho heard about the lord just like rahab did but they rejected rahab responded god is faithful to save anyone who will respond to him god is faithful to forgive anyone who'll confess his sins and forsake his sins and come to him the bible says if you lord should mark in equity oh lord who could sin but there's forgiveness with you that you may be feared he's faithful to save he's faithful to forgive and he's faithful to judge and sometimes you hear people and they say well i had a lady tell me this once she said well i would never follow a god who would allow a whole city of people to be killed i'd never follow a god who would drown a whole civilization of people in noah's flood i said well okay god's not making you follow him but listen god is god he is who he is he's not who you want him to be and god is perfect in love he's perfect in goodness he's perfect in holiness he is not just holy god he is holy holy holy and what is mind-blowing is when people who are sinful sinful sinful point the finger of accusation in the face of holy god and say god you're not right god you're not fair boy if i were god i would do it so much better than you it's like hitler lecturing uh a group of kindergartners about morality god is god god does what he does he has every right to do what he does and as abraham said shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly and the answer is yes yes and at the great white throne when the lord judges every single unsaved person he'll say to them not my will but yours be done you didn't want me i died for you in agony and blood and you said no i'd rather have my sin than god's son so depart from me you who practice lawlessness not my will but yours be done god always keeps his word and god expects us to obey his word you know it's interesting it says in verse 26 after they they were supposed to give all that stuff over to the lord all the gold all the silver all the bronze all the metal the stuff that wouldn't burn that belonged to the lord everything else you burn with fire aiken is going to take some of that everything else bringing a lot of grief into his life but everything else you burn with fire god expects you to obey that if you don't obey that you're going to pay a price for that and then he says this about jericho never rebuild it again look again in verse 26 cursed before the lord is the man who rises up and builds this city jericho with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation and with the loss of his youngest son he shall set up its gates my bible has a note first kings 16 34 because a man named hael 500 years later rebuilt jericho and his firstborn died at the langha foundation and his youngest son died at the laying of the gates just like joshua said how does that relate to jericho listen when god gives you victory over your jericho when you see the walls come down on your stronghold don't ever rebuild it again if you have a bitterness problem and the lord gives you a breakthrough and you're able to forgive by god's grace and by god's power and by your obedience and don't ever say well i guess now that i can i can hold on to things because this person hurt me or that person hurt me i got over it over here but now there's a fresh wound and a fresh hurt and now i'm rebuilding this jericho this stronghold of bitterness and unforgiveness don't do that you know who gets hurt in that situation your kids your firstborn you rebuild jericho is gonna die your youngest is gonna die your kids are affected listen i had a seminary professor took a class from him when i was in seminary who liked this guy he was a good preacher he was a nice guy he was a lot of fun he was a good teacher i remember him saying something about cable tv and this was back in the day when cable first started coming out and he said you know he said i don't have cable tv i didn't have it for a long time because there were some other channels that came with basic cable that weren't good for me because his jericho was lost as so many guys have that problem and he said so i didn't have it for the longest time but then i he said you know i became a seminary professor and i thought you know what i should be able to have espn i should be able to have those channels and it shouldn't bother me i remembered him saying that fast forward 20 years just last year i found out that guy he had been having affairs with prostitutes he lost his job at the seminary he lost his ministry he lost his wife he lost his family last i heard he's working at an auto parts store he's got a phd god's hand was on the guy what happened to him he said well it's okay to rebuild a little bit of jericho i mean i can handle this i can i can have a few bricks there it's not gonna be any big deal jericho got rebuilt in his life higher than it ever was before and it wrecked and ruined his life his wife his kids god wants to give you victory but you have to be obedient and listen i'm speaking this message to myself to myself because it's easy to flirt around with sin and play around with sin here's the thing about sin you can't manage sin you have to murder sin you have to mortify sin we try and manage sin we think well i can handle this you can't you get rid of it you put it to death just like joshua and the people came up that those walls that had tumbled down and made a rampart they came straight up and they killed everything in the city and burned it all with fire that's what we do with sin hey this the chapter ends saying this so the lord was with joshua and his fame was in all the land what makes joshua such a great man one word obedience he obeyed the lord you can do the same thing you can be a great person of faith a great man a great woman a great boy a great girl for god if you will simply say yes lord and do what he says and god will bless you and you will walk in victory do you want to rise to the challenge it starts by giving your heart and life to jesus christ maybe you're watching and you know about jesus but you don't really know him today's the day for you pray this simple prayer with me lord jesus i need you i know that i'm a sinner and i'm lost and i can't save myself but jesus i believe that you are god in the flesh i believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead and right now i ask you to come into my life to forgive me of my sins to be my lord and my savior and i surrender all to you and i promise to follow you all the days of my life my friend if you'll pray that kind of prayer and mean it the lord will come in and your life will never be the same i'd love to hear from you to know that you're watching to know that god is using this broadcast to make a difference in your life to know that you just prayed that prayer to receive christ as savior and lord please take the time to call that toll-free number write me email me let me know what's going on and how we can pray for you you really are important to god and you're important to us and we're here for you from his heart is the viewer-supported broadcast ministry of dr jeff shreeve who believes that no matter how badly you may have messed up in life god still loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life you can find out more about that plan when you go to from his heart.org [Music] from

Channel: From His Heart Ministries

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Id: kaWd4X2ScXI

Length: 52min 31sec (3151 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020