Joshua Chapter 5:1-9

It's humbling to consider God wants to partner with us to reach the world. What an amazing thing.

Notice something that goes together. The battle and the blessings. The blessings of the Promised Land and the battle that follows it.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. God desires to break down our walls and to change our life. But as Christians, battles and blessings go together.

David McGee has more on this today as he continues in the book of Joshua chapter five. But before we join Pastor David, have you ever experienced the time when you felt spiritually drained? Well, the Bible holds the cure that will bring joy and vitality back into your life. That's why we want to send you a copy of Pastor David McGee's video message, A Checkup from the Neck Up. In this inspiring teaching, you'll find biblical truths that can restore your spiritual health. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life.

So please visit crossthebridge.com to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up. Now here's David McGee with part three of his teaching, Obstacles and Walls. Turn with me to Joshua chapter five, verse seven. Then Joshua circumcised their sons whom he raised up in the 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. 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 Gagal to this day. Verse 10. Now the children of Israel camped in Gagal and kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. Notice they kept the Passover after they were circumcised.

Why? Because you couldn't have Passover if you were uncircumcised. Exodus chapter 12, verse 48 says, and when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, but all his males be circumcised and then let him come near it and keep it and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. Then again, there's a picture of dying to ourself and living for the Lord and experiencing freedom of Passover.

Verse 11. And they ate of the produce of the land 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.

God took good care of them. Whenever they had a need for manna, God was there with manna. But there came a time when they were supposed to eat from the promises of the land. And I think here again, you can see this as a young believer, God will just pour manna out on you as long as, well, while you need it.

But there comes a time when you make the transition from manna to the fruit of the land. Let's read on verse 13. And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up 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 adversary? That's an interesting answer.

An interesting question. Joshua's standing here and get the picture, guys. Joshua's standing here by Jericho, probably looking at the walls and probably as a good military man, he's trying to figure out what he's going to do.

What kind of ladders it's going to take to scale these walls and how he's going to approach it and what he's going to do. But notice something. Did Joshua know beforehand how he's going to take Jericho? No. Did Joshua know before he crossed the Jordan what was going to happen at Jericho? No. Did Joshua know after he crossed the Jordan what was going to happen at Jericho?

No. You know why? Because as we follow the Lord, we are kept on a need-to-know basis.

It's an old military term, right? A need-to-know basis. Joshua didn't need to know how they were going to take Jericho down. He was just needed to be obedient to what God had told him to do. The next life lesson is obedience should not be dependent on what we know but who we know. Obedience should not be dependent on what we know but who we know. See, if you sit there and you go, okay, God, I want the whole plan, A to Z, what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, how you're going to do it, man, forget that.

That ain't going to happen. And maybe you're sitting there going, well, I can't believe I'm not at Z yet. Well, God's still kind of waiting for you to go from A to B. And then he's going to show you where C is.

But he's not usually going to show you where F is while you're still at B. God will call you to take small steps of obedience. And as you take small steps of obedience, guess what? Your faith gets built.

Your faith is now tested and tried. And you can step out in bigger steps of faith. But I've never gotten the full picture of what God is doing around the corner. He just reveals one step at a time.

And you know the crazy thing? He expects me to take that step one step at a time without revealing the whole plan. And I think maybe it's because if I knew the whole plan, I'd try to help and I'd get in the way, you know, instead of just following the Lord. Verse 14, Joshua says, are you for us or for our adversaries? So he said, no, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have 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? Now, let me point out something.

And you may not be aware of this. When you see the word Lord in capital letters, and you may have to look close because the New King James, the three O-R-D are actually in their smaller case, but their capitals, you can tell by the R and the D. When it's in capital letters, what that means is that is that's Yahweh in the Hebrew. That is, I am that I am. That is the eternally existent one. Okay. When you see Lord spelled with O-R-D in smaller case letters, that is Adonai. Okay.

When you see Lord God and you see God in G, big O, big D, that's usually Adonai Yahweh. So why is that important? Because whenever you see that word and it's in capitals, it's important to note that. It's important to note that.

And it's certainly important to note here. Now, let me mention, and we're going to get deeper into this as we get deeper into Joshua. Let me mention just a couple of parallels between Joshua and the book of Revelation. Number one, in both books, both lands are lands that belong to God, but have been taken over by pagan idolaters. The earth at the end of the book and in Joshua, the promised land. In both cases, the armies that possess the land in the beginning will be driven off by battles they cannot win. And the armies of God will not lose.

And, and there's a lot more to it, but there is just three. Both armies of God are led by someone named Yeshua. If you remember, Jesus' Hebrew name was Yeshua.

Joshua, that's a kind of an English version of the Hebrew word Yeshua. And in both cases, guess who wins? The armies of God. Now that's just a few of the parallels. We'll get more into that later.

We've got some other stuff to dig in here. Joshua fell on his face on the earth and worshiped. And notice this angel receives the worship. That tells us something.

You know why? Because angels don't receive worship. Angels do not receive worship. You may remember in Revelation chapter 22 verse 8 and 9, it says, Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Then he said to me, see that you do not do that, for I am your fellow servant of your brethren, the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book, worship God. Now, why would angels be sensitive about people worshiping them? Because one third of the angels got cast down from heaven in the angelic rebellion or the angel wars, if you want to call them that. And so they're very sensitive about somebody worshiping them.

And yet this angel receives the worship of Joshua. Now that tells us something. That tells us something. And it's important for us to know this kind of stuff. It's important for us to know the Bible. I love, there's still a story. I love this story. This pastor wants to go into Sunday school to kind of see how things are going and making sure the kids are, you know, learning the Bible.

And I'm kind of giving away what we're going to do next week too. But he goes in there and he goes, guys, who tore down the walls of Jericho? And they all kind of looked at each other. And then this one little boy said, I didn't do it. So the pastor's like, oh, this is not good, you know?

So he waits till after class and all the students are gone. He gets the teacher off to his side and he goes, you know, I can't believe I asked him who tore down the walls of Jericho and that little boy, Johnny, he looked at me and he said, he didn't do it. And the teacher said, well, pastor, if Johnny said he didn't do it, I believe him.

He's a good boy. And the pastor's like, oh, this is not good. So he thinks, well, I'm going to bring it up at the deacon and elder meeting. So he comes in there and he goes, guys, I'm a little concerned about the church because I went in the Sunday school class and I asked him who tore down the walls of Jericho. And this one little kid, Johnny, he said he didn't do it. And one of the elders stood up and said, you know, pastor, I know Johnny's family. And if he said he didn't do it, I'll stand for him. I don't think he did it. And the pastor's getting even more concerned. Then a deacon stands up and he goes, you know what? Let's just forget all this talk about who tore the wall down.

Let's just allocate the funds to fix the thing. Okay. Need to know the Bible. So this angel receives the worship that tells us something. And what it tells us is that this is not just an angel. It's Jesus Christ. It's what we call a Christophany. What that means is that it's an appearance of Jesus in the Hebrew scriptures or the Old Testament. And again, we know this because he's receiving the worship of Joshua. Now there's another key here in that the commander of the army or captain of the whole commander of the army, new King James captain of the host in the King James. But the Hebrew word is sar, which comes from sarar, which actually is translated a little closer as prince, which is what the amplified version uses. I like that.

Wow. What's a prince? It's the son of a King.

That's probably getting a little closer to being accurate. Now, again, we're kind of, I'm going to tie this up a little bit with, with chapter six next week right now, because what happens is he's there for what? He's there to tear down the walls of Jericho.

Why? They're in the way. They're in the way of what God wants to do in this people group.

Why is that important? Because that's what God wants to do in your life. That's what God wants to do in my life.

That's what God wants to do in this people, this community, this church. We all have our own little walls that we've built between one another. And I understand that you can get to feeling pretty safe behind those walls, but you know what? That's not the way God intended for you to live. Because you know what?

Let's be honest. It gets really lonely behind those walls. And the Lord desires to tear down those walls. But there's also a picture here, and that's an interesting picture because there's another wall that scripture speaks of. It's a wall that was spoken of in Ephesians 2 14.

It says, for he, speaking of Jesus, is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Understand something, as a non-Jewish person, as a Gentile, if we would have gone to the temple at Jerusalem, we could not have gone in. We could have gone to this place that was called the court of Gentiles and proceeded no further. And actually there was a warning sign that archaeologists have discovered. This was up in the temple.

And basically it says, if you're a Gentile and you go past this place, you'll be executed. Guys, we had no access. We had no access to God.

We had no access to God. There was a wall between us that needed to be dealt with. Oh, and it was much bigger than just the wall that was on the temple mount. It was the wall of our sin, the wall of our unfaithfulness, the wall of everything that we've ever done wrong in between us and God. And we couldn't get around that. There was no way. Oh, some of us tried to tear it down with our good works or, you know, maybe new age stuff or whatever, and it couldn't do it.

It didn't do it. That wall to us seemed insurmountable, but it wasn't to Jesus. And Jesus tore down that wall for you to have access. The amazing thing is that some people, even after the wall has been torn down and access has been given, won't walk in it.

Maybe they go to church, Easter, Christmas, a couple of times in between, but they're not walking in the victorious life. And that's sad because Jesus went through so much trouble to tear this wall down for us, to give us access. And yet even as a believer, I know that I take it for granted sometimes. That to tear down that wall, Jesus had to die for my sins. Jesus had to die for your sins.

And we should never take that for granted. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, your enemy, the devil, doesn't want you to experience the life giving truths of God's Word. He wants to rob you of the full life God wants for you.

But you can overcome his attacks because there is supernatural power in the Word of God. That's why we want to send you Pastor David McGee's video message called A Checkup from the Neck Up. This powerful resource will show you how to revitalize your spiritual health and grow in your faith daily by meditating on God's powerful Word. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So please visit crossthebridge.com now to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up. This is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge.

You know, I want to thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge. I also want to tell you about an exciting website. The website is lostlovedones.org and it works very simply like this. You go to the website and you put the first names of up to 10 people that we begin praying that they get saved. Now it takes two things to get saved, presentation and prayer. And what we're offering is prayer and also there's different tools there to help you present the gospel to them. So we're there with you, helping you with the presentation, helping you with the prayer. There's over 920 people that belong to the prayer team on Lost Loved Ones and you can join the prayer team as well and help us to pray for others who don't yet know Jesus and together we can see a huge revival starting with your lost loved ones.

Now back to today's message. Verse 15. 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. Again, the angel not only receives the worship, but check this out guys, your attention please. He declares this place as a holy place. Angels can't do that.

Man can't do that. Only God can declare a place to be holy. Now sometimes he tells man that he's declaring a place to be holy, but that's something that the Lord does. And notice again, what's this guy holding? He's holding a sword.

Well, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? We've talked about the sword of the Lord and what is that? It's the word of God. Jesus is getting ready to go into the battle with the sword of the Lord. Now, and then here's the shoes off. Now when's the last time we heard about shoes off?

It was in the burning bush with Moses. Remember to take your shoes off. What's the deal with the shoes? Well, shoes can represent the things of the world. And there's a couple of places where they're told to take their shoes off, the things of the old nature to take them off. And what's interesting, are we ever told to put shoes on?

You betcha. It's in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 6, 15 says, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Let me help you out if you don't have horses or know about horses. Shod is putting a shoe on.

Okay. That's why in the New Living Translation, it says for shoes, put on the peace that comes from the good news so that you will be fully prepared. See, this is the deal, guys. The Lord wants to use us to minister to others. The Lord wants to use us to minister others.

Now, I myself have thought I've spent some time thinking of some other plan, you know, because there seems to be a flaw in that plan because there's a flaw in us, but that's God's plan. As the story goes, an angel after Jesus is resurrected said, what's the plan for reaching everybody else? And he goes, you see those 11 guys? He says, yeah, that's the plan.

And the angel said, what's plan B? And Jesus said, there's no other plan. God desires to use us to reach others. He desires to use us to reach into our communities and to our workplaces with the good news of Jesus Christ. It's humbling to consider God wants to partner with us to reach the world.

What an amazing thing. And that's part of breaking down your walls. The third life lesson, God desires to break down our walls and to change our life. Notice something that goes together, the battle and the blessings, the blessings of the promised land and the battle that follows it. See as Christians, as believers, those two things will always go together, blessings and battles. It will be the rare exception that you experience a blessing without a battle.

And usually it means the battle's coming after the blessing, but it's coming in there somewhere. And so what we're supposed to be doing is we're supposed to be preparing ourselves, dying to ourselves and living for the Lord to prepare ourselves for the battle because it's waging all around us. And guys, this isn't just not a way to victory. This is the way to victory. There's no other way to victory. There's no other way to live a victorious life except to live for him and to die to ourselves. That's something that the church, a lot of people aren't talking about this, but this is a necessary thing.

Why? Because if you want victory, you got to have it by the way of the cross. And if you want to be used by God, you can only be used to the depth by which you're willing to die.

You can only be used by the depth, which you're willing to die. If you're really willing to die to self, God will use you in incredible ways. Joshua's learning something as a leader that is not the leader. He's a leader.

Who's the leader, the commander of the host, the captain of the host, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. See, and if you think about it as Christians, final life lesson, being a Christian is just a grown up game of follow the leader. Being a Christian is a grown up game of follow the leader. You follow Jesus to where? The cross and you die to yourself. You die to the concept of you earning your forgiveness. Then you're resurrected out of the tomb.

And ultimately you go to the right hand of the father. See, when we have the word of God filled with the spirit of God and are following God, this is a dangerous army. God changed the world with 11 people. We've got more than 11 people here tonight.

Do you realize the potential impact we could have all over the world? If we're willing to lay down our lives and live for him, this is an army. Perhaps there's a lady here who goes to the office, sits in the office, prays for me, prays for staff, prays for leadership. She's connected to the army of God.

Maybe there's a guy working in a factory, working on a construction site in dark place, but he's a light and he shares the love of the Lord by not partaking in all those things. He's part of the army. Perhaps there's a children's ministry teacher in children's ministry tonight. She's having a hard time or he's having a hard time because it's been a long day and all of a sudden they feel re-energized.

Why? Because somebody's praying for him. They're part of the army. Maybe there's a businessman who God has trained in certain ways and now he's brought him to this church to help him. Maybe there's a man who God has trained in certain ways and now he's brought him to this church to help be a spiritual leader. He's part of the army. Perhaps there's a lady here whose husband won't join with her in spiritual things.

And she's found a family here that loves her more perhaps than her earthly family. She's part of the army. But in an army, you can't have people just running off in every way.

It doesn't work like that. You have to be following the leader. The leader here is Jesus. That's the leader. God wants to give you the promises.

No doubt about it. Are you willing to lay down your life for him? You're not laying down your life for me. I'm not worthy for anybody in here to lay down their life.

I'm just the messenger. But are you willing to lay down your life? Are you willing to let go of what you think your life should be, of what you think your future should be? Because as good a picture as you can paint, let me tell you, that doesn't hold a candle to what God actually wants to do in your life. And some of you have experienced pain. Some of you have experienced horrible things. And might I suggest it's because you're not following the leader. You've been following yourself and you've been suffering for it.

And I'm sorry that you've been suffering for it, but I have the remedy. Don't follow yourself anymore. Follow Jesus. Because Jesus is worthy to be followed. And some of you may have never asked him to forgive you of your sins.

Tonight you can do that. But perhaps you did that a long time ago and you've still been trying to run your life. At some point, guys, you got to realize that's not going to work. He doesn't want to just be Savior. He wants to be Savior.

He wants to be Lord. And you get to choose. Victimized by the flesh or victorious in Christ Jesus. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been forgiven. You've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Modern life just keeps getting busier and busier by the day. As a result, a lot of Christians are missing out on the life-giving nourishment of daily time in God's Word. That's why Pastor David McGee wants to help revitalize your spiritual health by sending you his video message titled, A Checkup from the Neck Up. This resource shows you how to meditate daily on God's Word so that His truth can transform your life. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So please visit crossthebridge.com now to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up.

You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com and be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.