Paul said to Timothy, No soldier gets entangled in these things. Be careful.
May none of us be entangled in the affairs of the world. Carry out the work of judgment on a corrupt and depraved people. That was their mission. Our mission is to carry out a work on a depraved people, not to destroy them with the sword but to save them with the sword. To use the word of God, to preach to them the truth of God, and I'm telling you it works best face to face.
It doesn't work instantly as a rule. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Joshua.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will begin a brand new message called To-Do List for War in Joshua chapter 5. Joshua chapter 5.
For a pastor, if he has a bad day in the pulpit, he looks forward to that next chance to make it right. Danger is doing it in the flesh. But I know this chapter so well.
No, I'm kidding. I am excited. This chapter 5 is the To-Do List before war, and everything about it is spiritual, not by accident. The drying of the waters, that's remembered in the first verse, but then we get to the rite of circumcision, the Passover, the manna stops, then the commander of the Lord's army appears.
Very spiritual. You might miss it in a casual reading, but that is true of much of the scripture. We look now at verse 1 of Joshua chapter 5. Again, a To-Do List for War.
Before they go to war, these things have to be dealt with. 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 Yahweh 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. The invasion is underway, and the devil knows it, and the devil knows that he is not invincible, though, of course, he tells us otherwise, if he can, if we'll listen to him, but these Canaanites, and again, using that phrase, not bringing it sort of like an umbrella, under it are all the peoples in the land, the Amorites, the Jebusites, all the other peoples, and we'll just say the Canaanites to cover them all. They were doing what God told Joshua not to do. They were trembling and quaking. God said to Joshua, be not dismayed nor afraid, that he was giving them the land. It's worth reading Joshua chapter 1 verse 9. Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage, do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Part I want to bring out of that is be strong, don't be afraid. They were, these Jewish people, this army of people, a juggernaut. Couldn't be stopped. The church has been that way even though she's not always felt that way. Even in the darkest days, the dark days of the medieval period, when Roman Catholicism silenced the Word of God, there were still remnants of true believers that Satan could not stop. And to the enemy, they were a juggernaut, even though they were a minority, a remnant, even though at times they were slaughtered. The people of the land said, they're headed this way, and they're still getting miracles. They knew about the miracles from Egypt and the ones out in the wilderness, but they also heard about the Jordan being rolled back.
They say it, and that frightens them. The presence of God was visible in their lives. And as a believer, you look at that and you say, I want that in my life as a believer. I want unbelievers, not necessarily to see me doing better than they are doing, though I wouldn't complain, but to just know that God is with me.
That happens, you know. There are times where unbelievers will come to a believer who's living the life, and they want some of what we have, and we are to give it to them. In verse 2, he continues, at that time, Yahweh said to Joshua, make flint knives for yourself and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time. Wouldn't it have been a better idea, Lord, cough, cough, to have done this on the other side of Jordan? We've now invaded the land. War is on.
Why now? The armies of Canaan, they will hear. If they hear about this, we've hobbled our army, following a religious rite, they will attack us. We're not ready. That would have been some of the unfortunate comeback of an inexperienced leader of God's people. Joshua, of course, does not push back at all. He doesn't say, but what will the lieutenants say when I tell them that we're going to incapacitate our fighting force with this religious rite?
Can it wait? He doesn't do that. He's more interested in what God has told him to do. We are not to fight, comes the lesson.
According to the principles of conventional war, we fight according to the rules of spiritual war. Wisdom of God is foolishness to the world, but it's not to God, because he knows what he has, what he can do, what he's going to do, what's going to happen. It's like being a passenger. If you're used to driving the car, you'll notice that the brake on the passenger side is inoperative. And the other person should brake way before they do, or maybe they brake too late in any way. They know what they have. You don't.
They can feel the brake, in most cases, of course, otherwise we have a situation. 1 Corinthians 1, and we all, I think, would know this verse. And it's good to hear it every now and then, because it is a verse that we also need.
1 Corinthians 1, verse 27 through 30. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And the base things of the world, and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things which are.
Pause there for a moment. They're despised by the world, but God is holy, and he has not chosen things that are despicable. He does not give us license to be fools, or to do things that are wrong.
We are to operate on a higher plane, and we know that. We get that throughout the New Testament. He continues, Paul, writing to these Corinthians, that no flesh should glory in his sight. Well, Joshua's not going to have much to glory about when God takes command of his army, and says, I want you to get this part of our relationship right, because everything going forward is going to be based on your response to me telling you to fix this that was neglected amongst my people. Paul goes on, he says, but of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.
Well, that makes it clear to me, as a New Testament Christian reading about this Old Testament story, that it's an illustration for me of how I'm to live in my Christian life today with Christ, that he gets the glory. God's school of ground warfare is different from man's school of ground warfare. Now, that does not mean that what humans do in war is foolish in and of itself, the strategies, the planning. But when it comes to spiritual war, we have a different commander, we have different orders, and we have a different plan of attack and defense. We fight differently. We'll come to that again from Corinthians, and at some point, we might as well do it now.
We all know this one, I hope. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They're not physical, that is. He continues, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to obedience of Christ. You want to win souls to Christ? You've got to get eye to eye. You have to get face to face.
You have to establish a perimeter, a battleground. You have to become one-on-one to engage people. They have to know you.
It works best this way. There are exceptions, yes, but overall, if you want to be used more and more to save souls, you've got to be around people. They've got to see you. It's a good thing to build up this trust for them to say, You know, I've been watching you.
You're not like one of those crazy ones, or you're not like one of the hypocrites, or you're a decent person, you're a hard worker. Those things open up for us conversation that allows us to share Christ. But if we're not ready, if we're too interested in becoming one of them, then it won't work as well because we have to remember the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not walk war according to the flesh. He says make knives, flint knives for yourselves here in verse 2. Now those things don't grow on trees. The people are going to have to go get the flint and then make the knives.
Someone has to do the work. Without these flint knives, the army would be in a state of disobedience. The nation would not be compliant with God.
They would be disobedient. This has to be done. It's going to take a little time, but it has to be done. He says make flint knives for yourselves and circumcise the sons of Israel. His first order, again, in the war zone, in the territory, in the promised land, was of course to get it right with God. We'll come back to that, but essentially to put all of your army in sickbay. Now it's likely that he did it in phases.
That would be the wise thing to do. But we're not told straight out. There's some suggestion in the language that he did not have all of the men submit to the right at the same time. But even if he did, God of course was protecting them. This order again would seem weird, or the way God conducts battle often seems weird. We get another dose of it in 2 Chronicles.
You might remember this one. When he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to Yahweh, who should sing praise, the beauty of holiness. As they went out before the army, they were singing praises to the Lord, for his mercy endures forever. In that case, they put the musicians at the front of the army. And of course we like to joke, or at least I do, because they were bad musicians and he wanted them eliminated by the enemy.
But of course that's not the case. They were singing praises to the Lord, but who fights that way? Well the British later would fight that way, right? But bagpipes ahead.
Anyhow, that would be the Scots. God's ways of fighting are not our ways. We need to be sensitive to that. That does not mean we should be foolish, but we need to be sensitive to how God conducts war. In that case, as in all the cases where God was permitted to lead and the people obeyed, there was victory. In the case from 2 Chronicles that I just read where they put the musicians up front singing praises to the Lord about the beauty of his holiness, not a sword had to be swung.
They won the battle miraculously. And so what we have come across here are the inhabitants of Canaan living in fear, then dying by the sword, and then being judged by a holy God for their wickedness while they were on earth. And the lesson comes to us. There's nothing light-hearted about hell. There's nothing funny about dressing up like a devil.
It is serious business. And these folks were being judged because of their iniquity. It was out of control had it continued as it was with Sodom and Gomorrah. It would have been even worse for humanity within that region of the world and perhaps engulfing all of it.
This is not the first time. This was the case in Noah's day also. Anyway, the circumcision, a sign of separation, a sign of agreement with God. We look back at it and we know it's a type of dealing with the flesh. The Old Testament is God's picture book.
And in this picture book, he teaches through type and illustration. For us in the New Testament, we look back and we see the pictures and we learn. Before attacking the enemy, God called for his people to turn the knives upon themselves.
What kind of lesson is there for me? What do I as a Christian get out of reading that God's army before engaging the enemy, before being his instruments in his hands, they were to turn sharp knives upon themselves. We look at that and we say the sharp knife of self-judgment. That's what I turn on myself before I can be used by God. Jesus said it this way. Or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye?
Hypocrite. First, remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. Let a man examine himself. Consider who you are in the presence of Christ, that you deal with the things that God tells you to deal with. Say you're struggling with some sin. You're struggling with it. You're fighting it.
But that's what you're doing. You're fighting it in Christ as opposed to dismissing it and encouraging it. Fundamental secret of Israel's success was Israel's God. And this right could no longer be neglected. It was neglected in the wilderness, but in the promised land, it had to be addressed.
Today, of course, we Christians are not obligated to follow this right at all. It characterized Judaism. It was a big thing for the Jew. Paul received stonings.
They were out. They hated him for preaching against the rights of Judaism and replacing it with the fulfillment of Messiah. And in his Galatian letter, he pointed out, said that system is dead. He did it in Romans. He did it, if you believe, he wrote the Hebrew letter and he does it in, as I mentioned, Galatians and Ephesians.
He addresses this very thing. He says God has set that on the side. Our relationship with him does not or is not established by this right of circumcision.
It's established by faith, by believing everything Jesus said about himself and about us and about his father. And if you engage in circumcision to gain favor with God, you fall from grace. Galatians 5, you have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace, end quote. What does that mean?
Who wants to find out? Raise your hand. Who wants to find out what it means to fall from grace? Because grace saves me.
Plunging into low level attempts to gain salvation by human effort. That's the law. And the Christian is warned against that. So we move on to the bottom of verse two.
He says again the second time. Now this does not mean that it was repeated on those who had already gone through it. This means the generation that had come out of Egypt were not circumcised. The males, of course. And those who were born in Egypt, they were.
And this is that second generation that is now having to face this. Verse three. So Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the four skins. Now this again is teaching us that worship comes before warfare. If you're out of fellowship with Christ, if you've not been worshiping Christ, why would you be expected to be used by him in a positive way?
He can use you in a negative way. We know that from Caiaphas. I quoted him a few weeks back. Caiaphas prophesied, it's expedient that one should die for the nation. He did not know what he was talking about. But John says, you know what? You just spoke a prophecy and you're too wicked to know you did it.
God overruled your folly. Who wants to be Caiaphas? I'd rather be a prophet of God.
I'd rather, and by that I mean a child of God that speaks God's word. We all prophesy when we speak God's word. That's one element of prophecy.
There are several. This predictive prophecy, of course, you sing songs, it's considered in scripture prophetic, in that God is very much involved and a part of it and you can't do it without him. You cannot genuinely worship God in song without God.
You can fake it, you can be an imposter, but you cannot be received in your worship without the Holy Spirit. A man must be born again, mankind that is. But this lesson here, so he made flint knives. Now, of course, he's not carrying out the circumcisions any more than Solomon. Solomon built the temple. Yeah, well, Solomon wasn't out there with a hard hat and gloves putting the stones in place.
Of course, it doesn't mean that. But this was physically painful. It would be more painful to sidestep what God is telling him. His troops, before they could be used as warriors, had to turn these knives upon themselves.
They had to submit to this. None of them were going to go kicking and screaming and still be part of this army. And while they healed, while they recovered, they would be mindful of the will of God, that they were in pain in God's will. They could have escaped the pain by staying outside of his will. Are there not lessons in that for all of us? Verse 4, and this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them.
I paused there. It's worded in an unabashed way. Here's why.
There's no walking this back. This is God's word. He says, 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 had come out of Egypt. Moses was the leader in the wilderness. He's a type of the law who could not bring the people into the Promised Land. Yeshua had to do that.
Joshua, he was, of course, representing Jesus as our Savior, taking us out of the law and into the land, the inheritance of God's people, the fuller inheritance. Well, Moses, this leader of the wilderness, he was negligent on this right. Were it not for his wife, God would have killed him.
How many of you men are like that? It's so reluctant to listen. Your wife's got to save you from God. That's the story of Moses, the shameful moment in his life. He wrote that. He put it into the record. He doesn't, he doesn't very, he did no, no trying to cover himself.
He writes down in his own way, I was a fool and I had a good wife. And God preserved the record for us to see it. Israel is now becoming a nation of soldiers. Is not the church supposed to be a royal priesthood? Paul said to Timothy, no soldier gets entangled in these things. Be careful.
May none of us be entangled in the affairs of the world. Carry out the work of judgment on a corrupt and depraved people. That was their mission. Our mission is to carry out a work on a depraved people, not to destroy them with the sword, but to save them with the sword. To use the word of God to preach to them the truth of God. And I'm telling you, it works best face to face. It doesn't work instantly as a rule. If you're going to be used to win souls, and Christians should be wanting this, it takes time, as I mentioned, it takes a relationship.
It takes them seeing you amongst the others in the office, and in the school, in the neighborhood, wherever you find yourself. Verse five, 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. This coming out of the wilderness, remember the stones we read about?
They put 12 stones in the Jordan River, they took 12 other stones out of the Jordan River, and they piled them up ultimately at Gilgal as a monument, symbolizing ownership, that they owned the land, and they could do with it as they pleased now as the owners. Circumcision by the Flintstones, and I don't mean anything humorous in that, Betty. Some of you may not have ever seen the Flintstones.
It's a cultural thing. The circumcision with the Flint, okay, I got to say it a different way. The circumcision with the stones of Flint symbolized God's ownership of the people. That's what the painful process was all about. What about the church?
What signs of ownership do we have? Because it's not circumcision. It is love. Agape love. Sometimes it's heavier than the stones.
Sometimes it's more painful than those knives of Flint. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Joshua. Cross Reference is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you're interested in more information about this ministry, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Joshua right here on Cross Reference Radio.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-28 07:24:03 / 2024-02-28 07:33:30 / 9