Please see Part One and Part Two.
6. You Must Sanctify Yourself
Joshua 3:5 And Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
Before crossing the Jordan and entering the Promised Land, Joshua commanded the people to sanctify themselves.
To sanctify means to be set apart for a purpose; to focus, to clear away extraneous clutter, to consecrate.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
A soldier engaged in active duty just doesn’t get involved in some things. It’s not that those things are wrong, it’s just that he has a different set of priorities.
Look at your schedule. Do you have it so full that God has to make an appointment to talk to you? If so, set up a daily appointment!
It’s about availability. “Lord, I can’t do that because I have this obligation.” Sometimes we may have to trim off a few things that are not necessary.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.
27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
The athlete must compete according to the rules, or be disqualified. There are many examples of ministers with great anointings, who ended up poorly. We do not discount their ministries because of that, but recognize that it is when a person becomes a big success that they are possibly more susceptible to temptation.
Look at what happened to David with Bathsheba, or Solomon after he had peace all around and became the richest man in the world. He started accumulating all those wives and concubines, and they led him into compromise with idol worship in his latter years.
The second reason Israel was told to sanctify themselves was because God’s presence was going to be in their midst to perform miracles. There is a certain level of purity that is necessary to maintain the presence of God; not that we must be absolutely perfect (or no one would qualify), but hidden sins of the heart grieve the Spirit of God and leave us vulnerable to the attack of Satan.
7. We Must Take A Step Of Faith
Joshua 3:10-13 10 And Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites:
11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan.
12 Now therefore, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe.
13 And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off, the waters that come down from upstream, and they shall stand as a heap.”
The supernatural crossing of bodies of water delineated the different phases that Israel was entering into.
- The crossing of the Red Sea separated them from their lives as slaves in Egypt, to be a free people entering the Wilderness
- The crossing of the Jordan separated them from their lives wandering in the wilderness, the training period, to enter the Promised Land in order to take possession of it
The fact that the crossings were supernatural was evidence that God was making the way for them.
Joshua 3:14-17 14 So it was, when the people set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people,
15 and as those who bore the ark came to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water (for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest),
16 that the waters which came down from upstream stood still, and rose in a heap very far away at Adam, the city that is beside Zaretan. So the waters that went down into the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed, and were cut off; and the people crossed over opposite Jericho.
17 Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.
In the case of the Jordan, the priests had to take a step of faith into the river. Notice it didn’t say that the waters parted and it was like a wall on the side, and then they crossed. When they stepped into the Jordan, the waters piled up in a heap very far away at Adam, which was about 27 miles away. Although any more water was cut off from flowing, it still would take a while for the water that was already there to flow the 27 miles past the point where Israel was. So there was a period of time once the priests stepped into the Jordan that it looked like nothing was happening.
So it is in our lives. There are many times when God will give a command, we act on it, and at first it looks like nothing is happening – although, unknown to us, God has already performed a miracle. We have to stand our ground until that miracle is fully manifested.
Ephesians 6:13-14 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore….
8. We Must Hear God And Discover His Strategy For Taking The Land
Joshua 6:1-5 1 Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in.
2 The Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors.
3 “You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.
4 “Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.
5 “It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.”
You may know God’s purpose for your life for a particular thing He wants you to do, but you must also have His Plan of how to go about doing it. And this is where a lot of Christians miss it.
God told Joshua, “I want you to take the city of Jericho”. Now he could have gone about it in the natural way armies would take a fortified, walled city like Jericho, which is to surround it, cut off all its supplies, and basically starve them out. And depending on how much provision Jericho had stored up, it could take a long, long time.
With God’s plan, it only took a week. Following God’s plan, you get supernatural help that gives you great favor, cuts through red tape, brings you into contact with the right people at the right time.
Here’s another example where following God’s plan instead of what would normally be done in the natural produced supernatural results:
Genesis 26:1-6 1 There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar.
2 Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you.
3 Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.
4 And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
6 So Isaac dwelt in Gerar.
Genesis 26:12-14 12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him.
13 The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous;
14 for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him.
Famine in the land – in that area, it meant there was drought. The typical thing to do in those cases was to go down to Egypt, where the fields were irrigated by the Nile River, and there was food – that you paid for.
But God told Isaac to remain in that land – that was in the middle of a famine. He sowed in that land, and reaped a hundredfold bumper crop. There must have been no rain anywhere except on Isaac’s fields.
And notice the next verse says he began to prosper. The bumper crop was the source of that prosperity – people around him had no food and he had a surplus, so he sold it. Following the world’s plan Isaac would have been depending on someone else and shelling out money to have his needs met, but following God’s plan he was blessed with an abundance, and people came to him and paid him money.
Proverbs 11:26 The people will curse him who withholds grain, But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.
Some might say, “He should have given those excess crops away”. To the poor who could not afford it and would have starved otherwise, maybe so. But look at this verse – if Isaac had hoarded his excess crops for himself, that would have been wrong. But blessed is he who sells it.
9. We Must Fully Obey The Instructions Of The Lord
After God pronounced the judgment on Israel that the generation 20 years old and upward were going to die in the wilderness, they decided to cross over and fight. It was not because they had suddenly developed faith in God’s promise, it was because they were more afraid of what God said He would do to them than they were of the Canaanites.
Moses warned them not to go, that the Lord was not with them, but they didn’t listen. Now their decision to go up was disobedience. And they were routed, and many died in battle. (Numbers 14:39-45)
It is not just hearing the instructions that God gives us that puts us over, we must act on them.
Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
Hearing the word of the Lord gives you the power to do it, and doing the word gives you the success.
James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
I’ve heard it said that the people of Jericho wondered what in the world Israel was doing marching around the city, and ridiculed them. I disagree – Jericho was terrified of Israel. Remember we learned that from the testimony of Rahab in Joshua 2:9-11.
Joshua 2:9-11 9 and said to the men: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.
10 For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
11 And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.
Each day when Israel marched around the city in silence, the inhabitants would think, “This is it! They’re coming! This is the end!” And then nothing would happen. Their fear would build and build, until when Israel finally did come in, they had no heart left within them to fight.
The other instruction that the Lord gave Israel, was that there was a ban on the spoil – that the spoils of Jericho were a first fruits that belonged to the Lord. But a man named Achan found some gold and some real nice clothes, took them, and hid them in a hole underneath his tent.
The result was that there was another small town called Ai, where Joshua sent a smaller contingent to battle with – and they got the snot beat out of them. Joshua goes before God and starts asking God why – complaining, really. God replies, “Get up! Why do you lie on your face? There is sin in the camp.” (Joshua 7:2-11).
Beware of compromise, especially after a great victory.
10. Shout And Rejoice That The Lord Has Given You The Land
Notice they shouted before the walls came down. Faith rejoices and praises God for the fulfillment of the promise, the result, before you actually see it.
Words are very important. It was their mouths that got Israel into trouble in the wilderness, time and time again.
Matthew 12:31-37 31 “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.
32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Today’s English Version: For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Faith has two components: what you believe in your heart, and what you say with your mouth.
It’s easy to speak good things when things are going well. It’s when you’re under pressure that what’s deep in your heart comes out. Like a tube of toothpaste when you squeeze it, what comes out is what it’s full of.
Mark 11:22-24 22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.
23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.
24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
There is both a positive and a negative aspect to words. Israel was a good example of what not to do with your mouth: complaining, voicing your fears, blaming your circumstances on God. In the end, they got what they said, and were judged out of the words of their own mouth.
That is why I believe Joshua had the army of Israel keep silent as they marched around Jericho – he didn’t want them to mess things up with their words again.
There is also a positive aspect of words – voicing God’s promise, expressing faith in what you can do through Him, giving thanks and rejoicing for the fulfillment of the promise even before you see the results.
11. Possessing The Land Is Progressive
Exodus 23:25-30 25 So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.
27 “I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.
28 And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you.
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field become too numerous for you.
30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land.
God told Israel that there were not going to take the whole of the Promised Land all at once – they would not be able to handle it, they would be spread too thin. What and how much we receive from God always has more to do with our capacity than God’s ability.
In the same way, we will not step into our ultimate purpose and destiny right away, because we couldn’t handle it. We have to grow into it. Now in that growth, it is God’s will that we go from victory to victory, from glory to glory.
Look at the promises leading up to the statement that He would not drive out the inhabitants all at once:
- I will bless your bread and your water – a promise for daily provision.
- I will take sickness from your midst, and the number of your days I will fulfill. A promise that you will not be incapacitated by weakness, or taken out of this life before you can take your promised land. Like Caleb at 85 years old.
- No one will suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land – a promise that they would increase in numbers, a baby boom. It wasn’t just about taking the land, it was about holding it and working it. This required more people than they had.
God is interested in numbers, because they represent men’s souls. He is interested in new births.
Greater numbers bring greater resources, and higher quality of resources. There are more laborers for the harvest. And that means a bigger harvest. There is always more to reap than we have the laborers to do the reaping. That’s why Jesus told us to pray for more laborers, rather than to pray to increase the size of the harvest.
Luke 10:2 Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
