Joshua 5 // First Things First

all right joshua chapter 5. that's where we're at let's pray before we get into it lord um you are good and you are powerful and uh you're the king overall and lord as we as we've been going through the book of joshua it's just so evident that that um you were there uh with the israelites as they were going into canaan and by extension lord you're there with us uh when we're going through the things that we go through the trials that we go through and uh specifically our battle against the flesh and the world and the devil you're you're in the middle of that battle you're the one who leads it you're the one who does the miracles lord and uh god was go as we go through this pastor or excuse me this chapter on um just first things first basically um having the right attitude and and uh getting our our lives squared away um so that you can bless lord we just pray that you'd be speaking to our hearts and uh lord that our focus would be just set on you we love you lord we thank you for the things that you've done for us and lord we're looking forward to the changes that you're going to make in us and we ask this all in your name amen okay joshua chapter five you remember joshua chapter three and four uh you have the crossing of the jordan river and the the jordan represents death and judgment basically and it's like the uh it's the it has the idea of um crossing over from basically the world from specifically wandering away from the lord and going into a place of victory whenever i think of the jordan river i think of baptism it's a it's a place where you die to yourself you know well it's a picture of that hopefully you've already died to yourself or begun that process but it's a it's a picture of where i left my old man i got i got dunked in the water he got buried there i came out i'm brand new that's that's the picture and so these guys are crossing over the jordan as soon as they cross over the jordan they're in enemy territory and one of the things that uh joshua specifically does actually god leads him to do this is takes stones out of the middle of the jordan river and places them on the banks and takes stones from the banks of the jordan river and puts them into the jordan river specifically setting up memorials and again the whole picture is that's where i've been this is where i am now i used to be there in a place of death and judgment and now i'm here in the promised land i'm here in the place that god has prepared for me and those are good memorials to have i remember i need to remember um what the world was like and i need to have a um a cognizant understanding of exactly what i was in when i was in the world one of the things that satan loves to do is he likes to glorify your past and so you you see that with the children of israel when they're in the book of numbers when they get hungry and they want some meat they go we remember the flesh pots of egypt and the leeks and the onions and the garlic and now all we have is this manna and manna was bred from heaven it was a miracle every day god was feeding these people with the bible says angel food in the book of psalms it's the first angel food cake he was feeding them with angel food and they were complaining about it and what they did was they remembered flesh pots um and it means meat pots and leeks and onions and garlic and all they remember is the food and they don't remember the slavery and they don't remember the mud pits and they don't remember the whips and they don't remember the bondage satan loves to do that with you he likes to take the take your time in the world and make it something awesome and something that you actually miss and he wants to take the time that you have in jesus and minimize that completely and so we need to have memorials and so you know like i'm not going to go through it again but i have these memorials of what i was like when i was in the world i have these little kind of vignettes in my in my life where i remember things that i were doing that i was doing and the consequences that came from those things and they're fresh in my mind i've been out out away from it for over 40 years they're still fresh in my mind because they're memorials and i don't want to go back there then on the other hand i have memorials of the conquests that god's given me down through the years i have these specific times that i remember when god did specific things and you've heard a lot of those things i use them all the time when i'm teaching and the reason i use them is because they are fresh in my mind i still remember the first time i pulled an envelope out of my mailbox at my apartment and it was unmarked except for my address and i opened it up and it had enough money in it to pay the bills that wouldn't get paid because i tithed and nobody knew that stuff i can still remember the envelope i can still remember how it was in my hand i could still remember opening it and finding a bunch of cash and looking into it and seeing this stuff and again it's a memorial of what god's done for me so i got memorials of where i was and i got memorials of the things that god's done on this side of the jordan river and so you have that and then you get to chapter 5 and it says in verse 1 so it was when all the kings of the amorites who were on the west side of the jordan and all the kings of the canaanites who were by the sea heard that the lord had dried up the waters of the jordan from before the children of israel until we had crossed over that their heart melted and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of israel at that time the lord said to joshua make flint knives for yourselves and circumcise the sons of israel again the second time so joshua made flint knights for himself knives for himself and circumcised the sons of israel at the hill of the foreskins and this is the reason why joshua circumcised them all the people who came out of egypt who were males all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way after they'd come out of egypt for all the people who came out had been circumcised but all the people born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of egypt had not been circumcised for the children of israel walked 40 years in the wilderness till all the people who were men of war who came out of egypt were consumed because they did not obey the voice of the lord to whom the lord swore that he would not show them the land which the lord had sworn to their fathers that he would give us land flowing with milk and honey then joshua circumcised their sons whom he raised up in their places for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way so it was when they had finished circumcising all the people that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed then the lord said to joshua this day i have rolled away the reproach of egypt from you therefore the name of the place is called gilgal to this day and you've probably read about gilgal in various places in the bible samuels connected with gilgal saul is connected with gilgal there's a number of bible stories that have that name in it and the the word itself means rolling it's and it's where all the children of israel were circumcised and it has to do with what you do when you circumcise a kid or when you circumcise a man you roll the skin back you cut it off and that's where it got got the name so every time that they would say the name gilgal that's what they're remembering the mass circumcision of the children of israel after they crossed over the jordan river now again what they're doing and and you got to get the geography i've already told you that jericho is up on the side of the hills there's these hills that are on the west side of the jordan river and you know when you're looking at a map it's on the left side of the jordan river those hills go up to jerusalem and and uh right on the uh the western uh the farthest western hill before jerusalem on the eastern side of jerusalem is the mount of olives okay and so you can get up on the mount of olives you can look down in the jordan valley and so jericho is kind of nestled up against those hills and so again the children of israel are on the other side of the jordan river and they cross the jordan river right across from jericho you can get on the walls of jericho you can still do it to this day there's a there's a ruin there where you can look to the east and you can look down into the jordan valley and you can see the jordan river as it goes down and goes into the dead sea and so they saw the encampment of israel on the other side of the jordan river and then they saw them coming up to the jordan river and it's at flood stage and then they saw the jordan river drying up and then they saw them coming out of the jordan river doing something with rocks or whatever it's far enough away that they wouldn't be able to see that without binoculars or something and obviously they didn't have those back then but they saw this whole event and saw over two million people crossing the jordan river and then they come on the jordan river riverside and go a little bit south of jericho and they camp there and that's what the people of jericho are seeing and so they see the jordan river drying up they see the jordan river coming right back down uh in in its bed as soon as they walk out of this place they see the whole thing and they start spreading the news and so that's in jericho and by the time that you get to this you know we're talking days here so they cross the jordan river on the 10th of nisan they're about to have passover right and so within that period of time within the period of time where they're about to go into the conquest everybody in canaan knows about what happened that's how quickly the news got around good news gets around bad news gets around faster right and so that's the situation there so here we go here we are we got over three million people who've crossed the the jericho they've done it in the sight of the kings of the amorites uh in jericho themse itself and they are absolutely demoralized so not only the king the king of jericho or the or the the city of jericho is demoralized all of them are and whether you're talking about the amorites or whether you're talking about the canaanites over on the coast this is a good probably about anywhere from 50 to 70 miles away everybody on the coastline is demoralized because of this event so they've heard of israel coming out of egypt the red sea parting the fact that these people have been wandering around around out there for 40 years heard about the fact that they took out ogg and zion and all of those guys on the other side of the jordan river now they've crossed the jordan river everybody's demoralized so what should we do let's circumcise all our men there is a there's a passage in genesis chapter 34 where um a couple of the sons of jacob uh decide that they're going to get back at a man who had raped their sister so he'd rape their sister he's a he's a prince of one of the canaanite uh cities he'd raped their sister and then he fell in love with her after he did the raping and he wanted to marry her and so they came up with a story for this guy and said it's not uh we cannot uh have our sister marry somebody who's uncircumcised this is levi and uh simeon that did this and so they talk to him and say yeah we'll let you marry our sister but you have to circumcise yourself and you have to circumcise everybody every man in your village and so he loves her and so he does it so he has himself circumcised and then he circumcises everybody in the village and three days later the bible says when they are hurting the most and um you know i that that's not something that i've experienced um i've known some guys who've been circumcised as adults i've never had the opportunity to ask them which day is worse after after it's been done but apparently third day is bad and so um basically they cross over on the fourth day before passover then that it looks like that day or the day after they circumcise everybody and so by the time that passover comes around they're going to be hurt in units right and what's wild about this whole thing is that instead of taking advantage of the situation where the kings of the amorites are demoralized what they do is they stop and do something that's going to act um absolutely um put their whole army in bed so that they can't fight because what happens at the end of that story with levi and simeon is when they when it comes to the day that they're um worst off they go walking into the village with a sword and they kill every one of the men in that village and they just wipe them out it's one of the reasons that later on jacob has some choice words for these guys as far as their anger and and and that kind of stuff and so um what they're what they're doing uh is taking their own army out of circulation basically is that a wise move you know this morning i was talking about the fact that we as christians when we're when we're looking at our obedience to god our obedience to god needs to be something that um circumvents what our flesh has to say there's all kinds of things that god tells me that my flesh does not want to do and so my flesh does not want to stop it doesn't want to stop my flesh does not want to submit doesn't want to my my flesh does not want to sweat doesn't want to doesn't want to work hard um my fl my flesh has all kinds of attitude and there are times when i need to submit there are times when i need to sweat there are times when when i need to uh do things that i don't want to do and so my spirit is supposed to be ruling over my flesh well it's the same thing with my with my brain the bible says a natural man cannot receive the things of the spirit the word the phrase natural man in first corinthians chapter 2 where that passage is written is a word that means the psychic man it's the sukicos man in greek and it's the idea of somebody who runs their life by their brain and so you have people who run their life by their flesh you have people who run their life by their minds and admittedly running your life by your mind is better than running your life by your flesh because at least if you're running your life by your mind you're going to be rational you run your life by your flesh you're going to be completely irrational making goofy arguments making choices that are just going to destroy you and destroy the people around you running your life by your mind that's a little bit better but you don't know everything and that's the problem and so what we're supposed to be doing is running our life by our spirit my spirit is supposed to control my mind my spirit is supposed to control my flesh and my spirit's supposed to be under the control of the holy spirit and i can't say that i'm under the control of the holy spirit and start doing things that are against what scripture says i cannot say that and so in this instance the rational the sukakos natural way to take advantage of verses 1 of verse 1 in this passage is to attack immediately you got them back on their heels because of what god's done here and you need to go in and just start taking them out and they'll you think they're demoralized now what's going to happen when you take out the you know the capital of the amorite kingdom jericho what's going to happen when you do that what's going to happen to these guys minds and you're gonna um you you would end up um on a natural perspective having a route of these people and that would be the the that was probably something that was on the minds of the leaders of the armies of israel including being on the minds of on the mind of the absolute leader of the army of israel which is joshua but what joshua does is he says actually god speaks to him and he says i want you to take knives and circumcise your army again not a good move if you're if you're somebody that that um is living by brain power basically and so what god does in this passage is he lets you know that before you're going to ever be able to um conquer you're going to have to have consecration consecration always precedes conquest and so what god tells joshua to do is get things right here i've done i've done a miracle for you in bringing you across the jordan before we go on and before we begin fighting the battles that i have for you there are some things that need to be done as far as the covenant that we have that you we have between you and i and the first thing that he talks about is circumcision spiritual comes first worship comes first god comes first and it's always got to be first things first in the life of a christian because he's not going to bless it any other way you know i i don't i don't need to get things done i don't need to get them done in the in the timely manner that i feel like i need to get them done um all kinds of things come up in my life that seem like they have like a time a time stamp on them and they need to happen quickly and my life is not run by the clock my my life is run by jesus and i'm not saying that you should be lazy or you don't do your responsibilities obviously you do but a lot of times we're making choices about where we live and what we do and the jobs that we have and those kinds of things and we think we think that they're time sensitive and they are not what they are is sensitive to the things of the spirit of god god has these things in control he knows the job that i need he knows the house that i need to be living in he knows the job that i need to have he knows all these things and he's got those things under his power and under his control he knows what's supposed to be happening in my family he knows what's supposed to be happening with my children he knows all of those things and he's in control of those things and what i needed to be doing is tapping in to the will of god in all these kinds of areas and that's going to take some prayer and the idea of prayer is the idea of coming before god and spending time with him you set yourself apart you set yourself aside and you get yourself right with the lord and you spend time with him and then he begins to guide that's what you're going to see in this chapter and so the first thing that they need to do is they need to circumcise their men because they haven't been circumcised for 40 years so they've been wandering in the wilderness and one of the things that took place before they came out in the wilderness is the fact that all of israel were was circumcised they were probably circumcised during the three days of darkness in egypt there's a good chance that that's when it took place and then after that they go into the wilderness first thing that they go do is go over to mount sinai and when you get to uh the story of israel over in mount sinai that whole trip from egypt to mount sinai where they get the law they build the tabernacle all of the implements all of that stuff and then they go up to kadesh barnia which is the southern entrance into the land of canaan where they were supposed to go in the first place that took two years and so you only have two years between those two events and you know what happened when they got to cades barnea what they did was they rebelled against god they rebelled against his plan they said that you're bringing us out here to kill out here to kill us there are giants in the land that whole thing and the the specific um indictment that they brought against god was that he was going to kill our children you're going to kill our children and that ticked god off and so god said to these people not only am i not going to kill your children um i and your children are the only ones who are going to go in and so everybody from 20 years old and above for people who died in the wilderness in the next 38 years and it was their children that went in there's a there's a passage in numbers 14 32-34 it says this but as for you this is god speaking to israel during that story he says but as for you your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and bear the brunt of your infidelity until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness according to the number of the days in which you spied out the land forty days for each day you shall bear your guilt one year namely forty years and you shall know my rejection and the point being is they rejected god and now god's saying i'm rejecting you and so one of the things that you have in in this situation uh in the wilderness is even though god is keeping his um promise to abraham and isaac and jacob we talked about this this this morning with the abrahamic covenant he's going to give them the land of canaan even though he's keeping that this generation has walked away from him and they're apostate god goes you rejected me now i've rejected you and your children are going to bear bear the brunt of your infidelity and one of one of the things that's that's interesting about this is the fact that their children were never circumcised so every time a child was born to an israeli a male child was born to an israeli on the eighth day after their birth they were to circumcise their children and so for 38 years these people hadn't been doing it and you don't have any reference in in the bible to moses saying why aren't you doing this there's a there's no there's nothing going on with that and so again basically when they're wandering in the wilderness it looks like what was happening is you had a bunch of apostate people who have no choices and they've they've aligned themselves with the god of israel and with the people who are actually going to go into the promised land which in this instance was their their children and they had nowhere else to go they couldn't go back to egypt because the egyptians would just put them back into slavery they couldn't go into canaan because they were too afraid and what they did was they wandered around in the wilderness until they died and they didn't serve and worship the lord and so they didn't do circumcision and again what happens is their children are bearing the brunt of that so god says to joshua what i want you to do is make flint knives for yourselves circumcise the sons of israel verse 2 against the second again the second time so joshua made flint knives for himself circumcised the sons of israel at the hill of the foreskins and then it goes through and talks about the the reasons and again the the fact that they'd been wandering in the wilderness and this had gone on um one of the things that's cool about this passage and you don't see it specifically in answer to the to uh to joshua but in verse 5 it says for all the people who came out had been circumcised from egypt and it talks about the children not being circumcised and down in verse 7 then joshua circumcised their sons whom he raised up in their place for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way so it was when they had finished circumcising all the people that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed and so all these guys who are men of war every single one of them is getting circumcised and they all submit to it joshua comes up and says we need to be you know we need to be circumcised so it actually says specifically you need to be circumcised because joshua was always already circumcised and again that picture of circumcision is a picture of cutting away the flesh the point that i'm making here is that's kind of an amazing thing because you have the men of war who are going to incapacitate themselves you have the generals of the people of israel who who are probably looking at this going i don't know if this is a great idea it's not a good tactical move and they submit to the whole thing and what they're doing is fulfilling their promise and the promise that they made is over in joshua chapter 1 verse 16 through 18. it says so the answer joshua's saying all that you command us we will do and wherever you you send us we will go just as we heeded moses in all things so we will heed you only the lord your god be with you as he was with moses whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words in all that you command him shall be put to death only be strong and of good courage the people speaking to joshua we want you to be you've told us to be strong and of good courage we want you to be strong and of good courage too and we will follow you and it's exactly what they did and what you can what you can see there is that their obedience is an indication that they're probably the greatest generation that israel ever had because they're on enemy territory and again they're willing to incapacitate themselves because the guy who is their leader who follows god and god himself has said i want you to do this and they're willing to do it right we've had generations that are like that we talk about the world war ii generation being the greatest generation generation with self-sacrifice that kind of thing or our nation is far away from that far away from that now not a whole lot of attitude where we should sacrifice ourselves in any case their obedience in this whole thing is a sign that they'd they'd return to the lord and what the lord does is he returns to them in a big way so already he's shown his favor towards them in the crossing of the jordan they realize he's real this stuff's really happening everything that we heard from our parents it happened and some of them would have actually been uh witnesses to that but basically they recognize that the lord's real and so the first thing the lord asks them to do is circumcise themselves and they're like okay i don't care if i'm into enemy territory i don't care if it's dangerous to me i'm willing to do this this is a sign of my covenant between me and god and again it's a it's a sign that that's exactly what it is it's a sign of the covenant so they take these stone knives not knives made out of metal knives are made out of stone and one one of the things that you see in the bible is this thing with with stone at times and specifically in the context of sacrifice so for example when they would set up an altar you never set up an altar that had been chiseled they never had altars that were set up that were um had a chiseled stone stone marked with man's workmanship what they did was they took regular rocks and put them up and that's what they made the altar from because the altar was supposed to represent something uh that pictured the sacrifice of christ and there was no hand of man in the sacrificial work of jesus except for the killing and the judgment it was all the work of god and so god takes stone knives and has these guys circumcised something that's not been worked by man take stone knives and and circumcises these guys when you get to the new testament uh paul makes the point that when you're talking about circumcision you're talking about a a spiritual um cutting away of the flesh romans 2 28-29 says this for he is not a jew who is one outwardly nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh but he is a jew who was one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit not in the letter whose praise is not from men but from god one of one of the things that that would happen with circumcision especially in the in the times that these guys are living in is it makes them different from anyone else it wasn't the norm in the ancient world and so it's specifically a jewish covenant a jewish sign and it made them different from any other man circumcision was specifically a sign that god picked because of the area that it takes place in and all of paganism and we've talked about this before all of paganism was wrapped up in sex and so when you're when you're talking about the ancient pagans they had temples and their temples were devoted to sexual perversion all the time and so doesn't you know the canaanites happen to be some of the worst that you have in ancient times so for example i told you that that with the canaanites you if you were a woman had to become a temple prostitute for a month every year if you were a man same thing a month every year that was that was the practice back at the time and it didn't matter if you were married where if you were in babylon and you were worshiping bell for example another another babylonian goddess if you were worshiping her you were allowed to opt out if you were married and so if you were a married woman they didn't make you go and be a prostitute but if you were an unmarried woman it was something that again was required and um actually i i'd have to go back and look at my notes but i believe that the prostitution to bell only occurred once in your life it was once in your life where the canaanites was every year and so you know that's way more moderate you only have to be a hooker for you know one month out of your whole life isn't that nice right and so canaanite practices and babylonian practices we're all wrapped up in sex when you get to new testament times there's a passage in first corinthians chapter 11 that talks about women and paul says that women shouldn't go around without a veil on not christian women you shouldn't go around without a veil on and he's not appealing to scripture when he's doing this he's appealing to cultural norms and in the in the passage what he's talking about is the fact that at corinth there was a a pro a temple and they had a thousand temple prostitutes who would come to come down into the city of corinth and the way that you knew them from a married woman or for from a woman who you know who was unmarried but was not a prostitute was the fact that they were going around unveiled and so walking around as a woman in first century corinth without a veil on you were dressing up like a prostitute and paul said don't do that it's not right that you pray with your head uncovered and so the veil included a cover that went over the top of their head and usually they would take something sheer and put it across across their face and it was that kind of thing and it was a symbol of modesty it was a symbol of having authority over you in the in with the idea that you had a father who was over you you who would take and bring retribution against anybody who dishonored you that's what the symbol was for you know i i got somebody who protects me there's a different culture and so we're not in a culture where women have to go around saying i've got somebody who protects me but pretty soon you're going to need that because we've been we've been abandoning god and when you abandon god you become a barbarian and you do all kinds of crazy things and we're starting to see the the beginnings of that kind of lifestyle and the people who always get trashed in those situations are children and women old people too but usually children and women first and so that's coming in any case it was a it was a sign of protection and obviously once you're married your husband protects you and again the sign the veil was a sign that that was the case in the situation if you were without a veil you were without a covering and so there's nobody to protect you and so it's a it would be a signal to a barbarian that you had there was nobody coming after you if you did something to this woman and it was a little bit more cultured than that but that's basically the the idea behind that whole thing and so paul lets them know don't do that that is that is not what's supposed to be happening and so um that is the culture in in pagan times and i you know i've been i've been pretty um over the years i've been uh pretty specific about it you know about the things that have taken place even some of the stuff that i've told you right now um it's way worse than anything i've told you the the paganism the stuff that they these guys did is bad enough that they won't put it in commentaries commentators state this we can't tell you everything that these people did because basically it's too awful i've read it over and over and over again these people were messed up and so when god gives the symbol of their consecration to him he specifically goes after the male part and he cuts away the flesh on the male part and it's a it's a symbol of the fact that we don't live by um what what is in between our legs we live differently than that and um we cut those things away in intimate it's the the symbol is put in intimate areas specifically as a statement against the paganism of the world and it's exactly the same thing with a christian our life is different than the world is and so the world it sex without any consequences sex without any kind of responsibility sex on every level that you can that you can come up with and anything that gets in the way of that is just shunted aside including babies and that's where our culture is and the bible teaches that we have no appearance of evil that's in first thessalonians chapter five and in your in your newer translations it will say abstain from every form of evil it is not every form of evil it's every appearance every outward appearance of evil nobody's supposed to be laying anything on me that looks evil from the outside and so i don't have the right to walk around going well you can't judge me because you don't know my heart what i'm supposed to be doing is having a lifestyle that is so free of that nonsense that nobody could bring it up in ephesians chapter 5 the bible says that sexual immorality is not even to be named among you as become saints that's the idea that nobody can come up and bring an accusation against me of sexual immorality that's how that's how pure my lifestyle is to be and so you have have those pictures in the new testament and again it's a it's a picture of the cutting away the flesh and usually when we're talking about the flesh i mean we could be talking about uh we can be talking about greed that's fleshy right and we can be talking about um pride and the whole idea of i need to get mine and leave you behind that whole thing ambition selfish ambition that's the flesh right but whenever you see a list of the flesh of the works of the flesh the first things that are always listed is sexual immorality because that's where the flesh goes it goes into sexual immorality and so as a um as a statement against that god circumcises his people right when you get to the new testament the bible talks about the fact that again we cut away the flesh too there's a passage in colossians 2 11 that says this in him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of christ and so when i become a christian i don't need to go out and physically get circumcised as a man because that circumcision has taken place in my heart where christ has come along and and um any any time that you're looking at the work of the holy spirit in a person's life it is not going to drive you to sexual immorality the work of the holy spirit does not drive you to sexual immorality it drives you away from that if it's not driving you away from that it's not the work of the holy spirit and again you have that romans chapter 6 is a is a great chapter on putting away the flesh it talks about the fact that i died when i became a christian one of the things that happened is i died and so we talked about this in the context of baptism when you're getting baptism baptized what you're saying is you died with jesus and in the same way that jesus died you died so you get buried and you get buried in water and then jesus rose from the dead and got a new life and in the same way you're rising from the dead and getting a new life and so in the passage it talks about not yielding your members to as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but yielding your members as instruments of righteousness to god right and the whole picture there is that i as a christian because i've died to my old nature and i'm now walking with christ i'm not willing to have my things my hands do the things that they used to do and i'm not willing to have my eyes do the things that i used to do i'm not willing to have my mouth do the things i used to do my ears my my feet and my other parts none of them are to do the things that i used to do because everything's been given over to the lord so don't yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness again to sin and he talks about the fact that people are slaves to sin we're no longer slaves we've died all that whole thing i don't have to be that way anymore romans 6 is a great chapter on getting out of sin and so it says in the passage reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin i'm really dead to sin and i need to think about the fact and understand the fact that that's where my life sits and if i don't do that then what's going to end up happening is i'm going to fall to these things and so in romans chapter 6 i died romans chapter 8 why don't you what's your turn well you know i'll just read it to you romans chapter 8 in verse 13. it says this for if you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live and again this whole picture of cutting away the flesh is a picture of dying to the flesh and the fact that i'm i'm i'm not bound by those things anymore i don't have to live that way and so the bible talks about when you and jesus says take up your cross and follow me you know a lot of times people have a misunderstanding of that and so people will say all kinds of silly things so like my cross is my husband my cross to bear is my husband you know he he's this and he's that and i have such a problem with him he's such a baby when he gets sick he had covet the other day what a whiner you know you know doing doing that kind of stuff and my cross to bear is my children my children have turned away from me and my children have turned away from the lord my cross to bear is my children or my cross to bear is my job or my or my boss or you know some hard thing that you're going through when you were walking down a road carrying a cross that's what jesus says take up your cross and follow me so when you when you saw a man walking down the road with a cross on his back what was going to happen to him yeah he's going to die they're going to take him they're going to nail him to it or they're going to tie him to it one or the other and so they're going to take him and they're going to tie him to it or they're going to nail him to it and he is going to die and that's the point that jesus was making i have to die to myself if i don't die to myself then i'm not going to get the life that god has for me i'm not going to be able to be the man or the woman that god wants me to be if i'm constantly putting myself on the throne instead of the lord himself and so again when you're when you're looking at what's happening in this passage what they're doing is they're doing something that is uncomfortable that's against the flesh that honors and glorifies god and makes a statement against where they came from the world and a statement against the world that they're about to go into and conquer and they're willing to do that even in the in the face of danger at the time this is a quote i like it's from uh a.w tozer he said this in every christian's heart there is a cross and a throne and the christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross if he refuses to the cross he remains on the throne perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today we want to be saved but we insist that christ do all the dying no cross for us no dethronement no dying we remain king within the little kingdom of man's soul and where our tinsel crown with all the pride of a caesar but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility there has to be a dying to yourself and so that's what circumcision represented that's what baptism represents that's what we're supposed to be doing as christians and when that's done it's a it's a symbol of honor and glory to god it's the it's the idea that i am i am giving myself holy and completely to god i'm not going to walk in the flesh and so again verse 9 it says and the lord said to josh joshua this day i have rolled away the reproach of egypt from you therefore the name of the place is called rolling to this day and again you guys know what circumcision is and you can you can imagine the the whole situation now it says that joshua did this joshua didn't go through and circumcised 800 000 men okay this is this is like in the new testament passage where it says uh in it's in john chapter 4 it says that jesus baptized more people than john and then it goes on to say although jesus didn't baptize his disciples did right and so joshua gets the credit for it because joshua gave the command but the people did this and so i i think that's a pretty cool thing it's a gutsy thing to do again to incapacitate yourself when you're in the enemy's country then the next thing that happens is they they celebrate the passover it says verse 10 now the children of israel camped in gilgal and kept the passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains of jericho and they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the passover unleavened bread and parched grain on the very same day then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land and the children of israel no longer had manna but they ate the food of the land of canaan that year and so the next thing that you see is that they keep the passover passover is a is a remembrance of delivery from slavery you know whenever the jews celebrate this that's what they're doing they're remembering the fact that they were slaves in egypt that god brought them out with the ten plagues they even have the ten plague they name the ten plagues drip wine on a cracker while they're doing it for each one of the plagues that kind of stuff and it's always looking back at the fact that god uh delivered these people in the same way again we as christians we look back at the fact that god delivered us and i already talked about that so i'm not going to go into it again but it's that whole idea of a memorial i'm recognizing that jesus saved me i'm recognizing what he saved me from i'm recognizing that i had a life full of bitterness and now i have a life full of sweetness these are these are things that they do in the passover celebration and um it's it's just a really cool thing it's also a foreshadowing of the sacrifice that was going to happen with jesus jesus is the lamb that the lamb of god that takes away the sins of the world and to a jew that would be to be token the passover um it was a lamb that was offered at passover and so you remember you know when we've talked about passover before that in in exodus chapter 12 god goes through and he says i want you to take a lamb and you're to bring it into your house on the 10th of nisan you're to keep it in your house for four days and then they he talks about the lamb you're to take the lamb you're to make sure that it's without spot without blemish and then he says that you're to take your lamb and you're to offer it as a sacrifice you're to take its blood and put it on the doorposts and of the of the house um where you're staying so that the uh the death angel will pass over you that's where the term passover came from but it says in the passage a lamb the lamb and your lamb and that's a process that people go through when they come into a relationship with christ first they recognize that jesus is a lamb he's a he's a he's a good moral teacher he's a good guy he's like the other moral teachers like moses and he's like you know uh muhammad if you wanted to call mohammed a good moral teacher i don't know about that but you know confucius and buddha and all these guys yeah he's like he's like one of those guys and then you find out that he's more than one of those guys in fact a lot of those guys quote from jesus so when you're talking about buddhists they like to quote jesus when you talk about hindus mahatma gandhi quoted jesus and he you know he's supposed to be a spiritual leader well if i got a spiritual leader who's quoting jesus using him as an authority maybe you had to go to jesus instead of you right and that kind that kind of thing in any in any case um he becomes more than a lamb he becomes the lamb and then at some point you have a personal relationship with him and now he's not a lamb and he's not just the lamb he's your lamb and he takes away your sin and he makes things right between you and god that kind of thing that's passover and so every time that they kept passover they remembered the fact that god delivered them out of bondage that's what we do when we're when we're doing communion we are doing a ceremony that comes from the end of the passover service and it's when they they took what was called the office coleman um and it was a piece of bread that was separated uh from the table at the beginning of the meal and so for you guys that don't know at the beginning of a passover seder they have three um we would call them crackers they look like saltine crackers but just big ones and so they're they're they're they would usually be round kind of like tortillas but they're crackers right and so they would take three crackers and they would put them in a napkin and the napkin had three compartments in it at the beginning of the meal the father the host would take out the middle piece and he would break it put one half of it back into that napkin and then he would take that piece wrap it up in linen and hide it somewhere and then at the end of the meal after they're done having the passover meal the youngest child would go in and and try to find this it's a game that they've been playing for thousands of years he would go and try to find this the officoman he would bring it back and the father would give him silver for it right and then they would take it and they would break it into pieces they even tell you the the the size of the pieces it's the size of an olive and so all you ushers when we crack and start doing the crackers again size of an olive we need to keep it biblical right i'm just joking that's not biblical this is just all their ceremony and so they would make it the size of an olive and they would pass it out and each person would take it and eat it and it was kind of like dessert and then they would drink from a cup of wine that was called the cup of redemption and uh and that was the end of the meal and they would do do a couple other things looking for elijah and that kind of stuff there was one more cup of wine after that that they would take and one more drink from their wine that they would take at that point but it's at that point in the meal that jesus holds up the piece of bread and he says this is my body which is broken for you do this in remembrance of me and so every time that we take passover or we take communion we're celebrating the one of the final acts that you have in the passover celebration and that is just really cool what's cool about it is jesus tells you what it means so this three com compartment napkin with the three pieces of bread now we know that the middle piece of bread that's been taken out and broken that represents jesus right so who are the other two yeah father son and the holy spirit they're all in one napkin it's called an it's called a unity and so they're all in one napkin at that point and and so now we know what the what the bread represents and jesus holds up the cup and he says this is this is the new covenant in my blood the cup of redemption the cup of buying back is literally what it means it's a cup that that um uh represented the the um redemption of the people of israel the fact that god bought them and the bible teaches that it's jesus's blood that redeems us from our sin we're not we're not redeemed with silver and gold we're not bought that's the term so we're not bought with silver and gold or anything that that is corruptable we're bought with the precious blood of jesus peter says you have that in first peter you also have it in revelation chapter 1 verse 5. and so we're bought with the blood of jesus and so that represents what christ has done for us and so we have a remembrance these guys are doing the remembrance they're remembering how god delivered them they're looking forward to the sacrifice that's to come the ultimate deliverance that's going to take place and it's on the same day at the feast of unleavened bread that they go from manna to wheat it says uh in verse 11 they ate the produce of the land on the day after the passover that's the first day of unleavened bread um unleavened bread and parched grain on the very same day then it says then the manna ceased on the day after they'd eaten the produce of the land and the children of israel had no longer had manna but they ate the food of the land of canaan that year and so they stopped eating manna which lets you know they cross over four days before passover and so they're on the other side of the river on the 10th of nyson passover starts the 14th of nisan wasn't until the 15th of nisan that the man that the manna stopped so the 11th the 12th well you could say the 10th even because manna would have dropped on that day too 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th five days jericho is watching these people they're on the plains of jericho jericho's watching these people and they're waking up in the morning and looking at all the israelis going out and gathering stuff off of stuff off the ground and they probably i don't know if they knew what it was but they're out there gathering all this stuff off the ground and they're taking it and they're cooking it and they're making dinner out of this stuff and so they see the provision of god and that stops on the day of after passover that's kind of interesting that um there there's there's there's also a symbol that goes on with unleavened bread where they purged their house the people of israel would go through and they would clean their house and for the feast of unleavened bread they went through a ceremony after they did the cleansing got all the unleavened bread out of their homes and anything that was filthy that kind of stuff and prepared it for the feast of unleavened bread and they did a ceremony where they would sprinkle pieces of unleavened bread little crumbs and they would go around with a wooden spoon and a feather and they would gather them together and then they would take those crumbs throw them into the fire and at that point they would pronounce the house clean for the passover and so again a whole symbol of cleansing there manna to wheat you know manna in the old testament is a picture of jesus come down from heaven jesus in john chapter 6 said your fathers ate manna in the wilderness i'm the bread that comes down from heaven and he lets him know that that was a symbol of him man in the wilderness was a picture of god's provision for our need and it comes from heaven so jesus is like manna right jesus also talked about the fact that he was like wheat jesus in john chapter 12 verse 23 through 25 said this but most assuredly are but but jesus answered them saying the hour has come that the son of man should be glorified most assuredly i say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone but if it dies it produces much ground grain and then it goes on and says he who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life and the whole picture of wheat that jesus used there is wheat is a picture of jesus raised in power so man is a picture of jesus come down from heaven wheat is a picture of jesus raised in power and so you have both those things taken place in that manner in that passage and then finally you have this appearance of the captain of the of the hosts of the lord it says in verse 13 it came to pass when joshua was by jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked and behold a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand and joshua went to him and said to him are you for us or for our adversaries and what he's saying is friend or foe whose side are you on he said no so you go to god and you pray and say god whose side are you on you know you on my side are you on their side some of you may have been praying that this weekend whose side are you on right and you expect god to go well i'm on yours and what god does is he goes no i like it when god does that i think it's pretty hilarious no but as commander of the army of the lord i've now come and joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him what does my lord say to his servant then the commander of the lord's army said to joshua take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy and joshua did so you know um i'm going to wrap this up i'm not going to i'll talk about this a little bit more next week but i want to make a few points here um we have the question is god on my side and that's not that's not a good question the question is am i on god's side that's the point that god's making here um joshua says friend or foe and god goes no i've come as commander of the lord's army captain of the lord's army is what it says in the king jimmy um one of one of the things that we have questions about is the whole issue of of why god isn't doing things for me and again it's that whole idea of why isn't god on my side why doesn't god talk to me why doesn't god move for me why doesn't the things i want done get done why are there no answers to my prayers and many times christians struggle with those things and you know the bible's clear on the fact that god has lots of things to say to us the real question is do you want to hear them that's the question do you want to hear them and lots of people want to hear all the good stuff i love you you know i want you with me forever those are good things you're my you're my work of art that's a good thing you're my workmanship created in christ jesus unto good works that's a good thing we would like to hear that kind of stuff but the stuff where god comes along and he goes yeah no that's not where we live that's not what we do that's not what you're supposed to be that's not how you're supposed to think what just came out of your mouth all of those things we don't want to hear those things and so i like i like the passages that speak about god's grace towards me and about his love towards me the passages that convict me not so much not so much and a lot of times god's got issues with you and he does want to bless you it's really clear in scripture he does want to bless you but he's not interested in leaving you the way that you are he's interested in changing you he's interested in making you more more like him he's interested in your life being something that's awesome and so for that to happen there's going to have to be change you know we do this with our kids our kids don't just get to grow up the way that they want and always hear mommy and daddy patting them on the on the head going oh you're just so wonderful you're so great you're so awesome if you have a have a parent that does that and never gives any correction to a kid you're going to have a monster on your hands right and so we've all grown up with people who had parents who were like that and did you like being around their children yeah no and you know sometimes you were that child and you couldn't figure out why people didn't want to be around you and obviously you know now because you've committed your life to jesus but there are a lot of things that that god wants to say to us and some of those things we just don't want to hear and so we're wondering why god's not answering my prayer he is answering he's just not talking to you about what you wanted to talk to about right that happens to me all the time god should i buy this thing you know god should i buy a new gun god should i buy a new you know car god should i buy a new you want to everybody's thinking about buying about buying guns right now that's why i'm saying that god should i buy this should i buy that and god's like i want to talk to you about this over here what's happening with you at work with your with your work mates that's what i want to talk to you about i'm not interested in your car at this point and you know should i buy a gun god to protect my family and and to watch over them under the you know the impending collapse of the united states should i do this and god's like i want to talk to you about how much you hate those people does that with me you know and it's not that i don't you know i don't pay attention to those things because i do pay attention to those things but god is constantly talking to me about my attitude you know before i was a christian i would be up in arms about stuff that's that's been going on and so in any case um god speaks to you it's just a question of whether or not you want to hear why doesn't he die why doesn't he guide me and sometimes the question is not why doesn't he guide me it's do you want to go where he leads you that's the question and so god's busy trying to change your mind on those issues and that's why you're not hearing anything you're not hearing anything you want to hear you're hearing other things right um you know when you're when you're praying it's not about my will in heaven getting my way in heaven that's not what what prayer is about it's about getting god's will on earth remember the lord's prayer jesus said when you pray you pray like this our father who art in heaven that means he's up there i'm down here he's got a perspective i don't have our father who art in heaven the father things there too i love him he loves me right our father who art in heaven hallowed be your name i want to make you famous it's not about me i want to make you famous your kingdom come i want your kingdom to come i want your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven and way too often when we're praying we're thinking i'm you know i want my will done in heaven and so we think that prayer is about twisting god's armor overcoming god's reluctance to bless me bless me bless me bless me and that's not what it's about prayer is about laying hold of god's willingness but you got to be in the place where god can bless you and that ta that takes place when uh you don't have to be perfect but you do have to be somebody who's listening to the correction of god in your life and in this case the issue is get your shoes off you're on holy ground he says to joshua and what what he's what he's telling him is you're not the captain here i'm the captain and you need to conform and that is something that needs to happen with us what what what the lord's telling joshua there and this i believe that's an appearance of jesus right there well the lord's telling joshua there is that you're part of the army bucky i'm the captain and the place where you're standing is holy get your shoes off and um you know and and get your your head straight in this whole thing and then finally there's an attitude of trust that needs to take place there he says take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy and joshua did so and then you have the battle of jericho and it looks like the battle plan for the battle of jericho came from this meeting right here and so joshua has to trust him and so all kinds of cool stuff that's that's going on but again you get you know practically speaking these these guys put themselves in a in a really iffy situation because they put the things of god long before they put tactics um in place it was god first and then the tactics actually came from god and god got them where they wanted to go and so something to keep in mind let's pray get you out of here thanks lord again for your word thank you for the blessing that you are to us thank you for the way that you work in us thank you for the way that you protect us thank you lord jesus for the way that you speak to us and lord we pray that you give us listening ears that our ears would be open to what you have to say to us bless these people and we just pray that you go with them and be with them this week god we pray that the week would be awesome that it would be a good time for sharing with the people who are around us a lot of people scared right now they're scared of kovid they're scared of what's going to happen because of the political unrest a lot of people scared and it's because they have their hope in this world we have our hope in you and we're not afraid we follow you and you're still in control lord so again we thank you for your love for us pray that you go with us and that you do this all in jesus name amen

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 602

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Truth, The Bible, Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities, Steve Whinery, Gosphel, God, Biblical Prophecy, Jesus, Evidence of A God, Bible teaching, Sermons, verse by verse bible teaching, Good bible teachers, Joshua, Old TESTEMENT

Id: dq8EIIRYNKs

Length: 66min 45sec (4005 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020