We're going to read in God's Word just now from the Old Testament book of Joshua, chapter 5. We have given some attention already to the detail of this chapter, especially the early part of the chapter. We're coming now to the final section. And just so that we might get the connection here as we read from Joshua 5, we will break in at verse 10 and read through to the close of the chapter. Joshua chapter 5 and reading at verse 10. And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at Even in the plains of Jericho. And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the Passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year. And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him, with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay, But as the captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. The term Christophany is used by theologians to signify an appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. before His incarnation. That is to say, an appearance of the Savior on this earth before He was born as a babe in Bethlehem. One of the verses that we often refer to at this time of the year concerns the prophecy that was made of the place of the Savior's birth. That prophecy, of course, is found in the book of Micah, the chapter 5 and the verse 2. I will read it to you. It goes like this, But thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old. from everlasting. Of course, that verse is important not just because it identifies the place of the Savior's birth, but because it describes Him as the eternal God. And also because it refers to the fact that He showed Himself on various occasions before His incarnation. That's why Micah talks about His goings forth. His goings forth. When this happens, as it does on numerous occasions in the Old Testament, the Scripture often speaks of Christ as the angel of the Lord. When the angel of the Lord appeared unto Hagar, she spoke of Him as God. When the angel of the Lord addressed Jacob, he said, I am the God of Israel. The angel of the Lord can be no other but the second person of the Trinity. That is Christ Himself. Now as we come to the latter part of Joshua chapter 5, we find that God's servant has an encounter with one who calls himself Captain. of the host of the Lord. It is widely acknowledged by conservative Bible commentators that this is a further pre-incarnation appearance of Christ. And it will be admitted that there are good reasons for coming to this conclusion. Just think about what we have in front of us in Joshua chapter 5. Notice the title which this person takes to himself. That title is akin to one which we often find given to God in the Old Testament. He is the Lord of Hosts. And of course, the title that is given here is very similar. Once again, you will notice that this man claims to make the very place holy by his presence. He speaks to Joshua and he says, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And this is remarkably similar to the words spoken by the Lord to Moses many years before. Furthermore, you will see that Joshua's attitude is one of worship. It is an attitude of the utmost reverence. We are told in the middle of the verse 14 that he fell on his face to the earth and did worship. Joshua was not the man to behave in such a fashion before the face of a mere mortal. Nor is such behavior appropriate in those circumstances. And then finally, there is some justification for thinking that the interview continues into chapter 6. And if that is so, then this visitor is identified as the Lord. And he is invested with the power that belongs to the Lord. The second verse in chapter 6 says, And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor. One commentator puts it like this. Thus the first and the second Joshua met, the type and the anti-type, he who led Israel to victory over fierce and terrible foes, and he who leads the spiritual Israel to the conquest of the world, the flesh, and the devil. With this backdrop, We want to think about what is being played out here in the final few verses of chapter 5. And we want to draw some timeless lessons from this memorable meeting. First of all, I want you to notice this. The Lord reveals Himself to those who love Him and who walk with Him. The Lord reveals Himself to those who love Him and who walk with Him. Joshua as we have seen, had followed the will of God in performing the rite of circumcision. He had given leadership to the people in drawing near to the Lord by observing the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. These things were but further steps in the life of a man who had shown himself willing to follow the Lord, whatever that entailed. You will recall the promise that the Lord had given to Joshua, and we focused on that promise when we were considering the detail of the opening chapter in Joshua 1. And at the end of the verse 5, the Lord says, I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And at the end of the verse 9, the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. Joshua had known something of the reality of that promise already. The Lord had been with him. But now, this is of a different order. This is a special revelation of the Lord. And it is made to one who sought to be everything that God wanted him to be. That's the kind of man Joshua was. And of course, this is a pattern of Scripture. I say it again, the Lord reveals Himself to those who love Him and to those who strive to follow Him. Thus, the vision of the burning bush was for Moses and not for any of his companions. Think of Gideon, a godly man who was strengthened for the great battles that lay ahead when the angel of the Lord appeared unto him. Likewise, the form of the Son of Man seen in Babylon. He came to stand with the three young men who had not sold out to idolatry. The truth of the matter is that the Lord recognizes the spiritual life of His people. He reads the heart. And when any one of His children seeks to come close to Him, He delights to draw near to them. My friends, the promise of Scripture is that if we seek the Lord, we will find Him. He will draw near to us. I may be speaking, of course, to some in this gathering this morning, and if you are being honest, there has never really been that moment in your life when you have sought the Lord. You have been conscious of the responsibility to do that, the obligation that rests upon you from the teaching of Scripture, and yet you have never truly sought the Lord. Well, I say to you today, there is a special promise for you, for if you do seek Him, He will certainly receive you. He will manifest Himself to you, and you will be aware of His presence, His grace, and His mercy, as you have never known it before. For those of us who are seeking to follow Him, as we draw near to Him, as we seek after Him with all our hearts and with all our souls, the promise is that He will in turn draw near to us. Now, we may not experience the coming of the Savior in a visible sense, yet we must not think that His coming is any less actual and less real than it was of old. Just think of the experience of one of the apostles, the apostle Peter. You look at the detail that is given us concerning the life of Christ in the Gospel record, and it's hard to find any significant event in all of that record where we do not find the mention of Peter. Peter was right there with the Savior. He spent much time in the company of Christ. When Peter was sinking on a boisterous sea, the Lord took him by the hand and raised him up. When the Savior went up the mount to the glory of the transfiguration, Peter was with him. When drawing towards the end, he entered into the darkness of the garden of Gethsemane, he took Peter. Peter could reach out and touch his Master literally on all of these occasions and a thousand others. But do you suppose that he felt the Lord to be any less near when he stood up to preach on the day of Pentecost? He could not see Christ with the eye, but the Savior was as close to him as ever. We might even say closer than ever, as Peter was used to deliver that remarkable message. And the Lord worked in the hearts of thousands and brought men and women and young people to Christ. Think of what Peter says in the letter that he writes, the first letter to the church in 1 Peter. And in the opening chapter of that letter, he puts it like this. 1 Peter 1 and verse 8, he's referring here to Christ. 1 Peter 1 and verse 8, Whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." He is speaking here of course to those who are going through a very difficult time. These believers to whom Peter was writing at this moment were passing through a period of the most incredible persecution And here is Peter seeking to comfort them, seeking to encourage them. And what does he say? Though you cannot see Christ, though He is not visible to you with the eye, yet He is there. He is real. He is near you. You can trust Him. He is precious to you. He will not forsake you. My dear believer, we must learn that the Lord is with us when we in life and in spirit are with Him. can rob us of that blessed assurance. The old preacher put it like this. He said, if you desire to see Christ, you must grow to be like Him and labor to serve Him with heart and soul and strength. Bring yourselves by the power of the Spirit into union with Christ's desires and motives and plans of action and you are likely to see Him. you are likely to see Him. We cannot see those with our eyes who are far removed from us, beyond our field of vision. Is it just possible that we do not see Christ as He may be seen because we have wandered away from Him and He is no longer in our field of vision? The Lord reveals Himself to those who love Him and follow Him. Joshua experienced that in the passage before us here. But notice something else. Notice that the Lord reveals Himself when we need Him most. The Lord reveals Himself when we need Him most. If you reflect for a moment or two upon Joshua's situation, you will see very clearly the truth of that observation. Joshua was at this time at close proximity to the city of Jericho. We are told in the opening line of the verse 13, it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho. Or if you like, Joshua was beside Jericho. That's what it means. Perhaps he had gone forth alone to investigate what lay ahead. And as he stood gazing at that city, the city fortified against him and his people. The Lord appeared. What an encouragement it must have been. And I say to you, I ask you here today, isn't this how the Lord works? He reveals Himself when we need Him most. First of all, He reveals Himself when we have trials to face. When we have trials to face, we cannot be sure of what precisely was in the mind of Joshua at this time, but we can well imagine. We can well imagine. How could this great obstacle be removed? This wall sitting that stood directly in the path of Israel's advance. How could it be dealt with? How could the people of Israel get the victory? How could they go forward? It is at such times of testing and trial that the Lord steps in. That's why He stepped into the life and experience of Joshua at just this moment. And of course, this is nothing out of the ordinary as far as Christ is concerned. You want to find evidence of this, you have but to study the earthly ministry of Christ. Do you think it was by coincidence that He met with so many in affliction, so many who were at the point of despair, humanly speaking? What of the blind man who sat by the wayside, a beggar, and an outcast, Jesus came. What of the impotent man who had given up hope of ever being carried to the waters at Bethesda? Jesus came. What of the widow who walked at the head of her son's funeral procession in the city of Nain? Jesus came. My dear fellow believer, in this meeting this morning, You may find yourself at this very moment in the midst of trial. You may say that you have been put to the test. You will acknowledge your need of consolation. And perhaps if you are truthful, it is a consolation that no one seems able to give, those who are well-meant and well-intentioned. Yet, what they say to you and how they minister to you falls short. Well, I say to you, look to the Savior. Call upon Him. waiting to help. And the assurance of the Word is that He will not fail. Did He not say to Joshua at the outset of this great adventure, this great campaign, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee? Well, here's an example of that. When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples, what did He say? He said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. In context, of course, he's referring there to the gracious provision of God, the Holy Spirit. In the sense, of course, of what the Savior is saying there, He was about to take His leave of them. He was about to depart from them physically. He was to ascend again into heaven. But He would not leave them without comfort. The Holy Spirit would be provided. to represent Christ within the very frame of those who were seeking to follow Him. I will come to you, he says. And there are many, many times in our experience when we have known this to be so. Paul talks about one crisis in his own life and ministry and he refers to it in 2 Timothy 4 at the end of that letter almost, 2 Timothy 4. He tells us here in the verse 16, 2 Timothy 4, 16, "...at my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be led to their charge." This was not an unusual thing for Paul as he stood up and witnessed for Christ. He often found that those who might otherwise identify with him were nowhere to be seen. They were very quickly out of the picture. Notwithstanding, he says, verse 17, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. So there is the Lord standing with his servant. And what does that mean in his life? He says the Lord stands with me for strength. And the Lord stands with me for service. Look at the verse. And the Lord stands with me for safekeeping as well. He strengthened me. He helped me in my preaching. He delivered me out of the mouth of the lion. He spared my life and enabled me to go on and go forward for Him. The Lord reveals Himself when we have trials to face. And of course, He also reveals himself when we have tasks to fulfill. It was as Joshua went about his duty that the Lord met him. Oh, he may have had his concerns and his fears, but nevertheless, he was not going to sit down and do nothing. And that's why he was there, right by the city of Jericho, seeking to spy out the circumstances and to see something of what lay ahead. When we show ourselves ready and willing to do what God asks us to do, He will not leave us without help. He will come alongside us. He will sustain us. The Savior said, without Me, ye can do nothing. We know that to be true. Without Him, we can accomplish nothing. But where there is the acknowledgement of that on our part, The way is open for all the power and might and enablement of our Savior to work for us and to work through us. I wonder if you noticed just exactly how the Lord revealed Himself at this time. That is a point of some interest, for we read in verse 13, Behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand." And then, in the following verse, he identifies himself as captain of the host of the Lord. Now, just set that in context, if you will. Joshua has war on his mind. He has battles to fight. He must give leadership to Israel in the campaign, first against the city of Jericho and then on into the heart of Canaan. So with all of these thoughts, these musings floating around in his mind, Christ appears to him as an armed warrior. As an armed warrior. Surely Christ appears in that guise to encourage and strengthen His servant, the one who is rightly called the Prince of Peace manifests Himself with a sword in His hand. You see, the Lord has regard to whatever situation His people find themselves in. And as we need Christ, so He comes to us. Sometimes we need him as an armed warrior. Sometimes we need more of his compassion, more of his care. Sometimes we need one who will teach us and instruct us, one who will nurture us. Sometimes we need the shepherd who will lead us into the pastures and protect us against the enemy. But whatever our need, whatever our circumstances, whatever our burden, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who is able to address it. That is what moved Paul to say, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. He knew that in himself he was fit for nothing, really. But with the help of Christ, he would get through. And He proved that help over and over again. There is one final thought here as we think about the detail that is revealed, and it is this. The Lord reveals Himself so that we might remember that He is our Lord. He reveals Himself so that we might remember that He is our Lord. The Lord is reminding Joshua that another is really the captain for this great campaign. Remember the instructions that were given to Joshua at the outset of the book. Words of commission, we might say, near to the very beginning. And the Lord spoke right at the outset here to Joshua in The second verse of the book, he said, Moses my servant is dead, now therefore arise, go over this Jordan thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. In verse 6, Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. So Joshua was commissioned, I suppose if we're being honest, we would say he was recommissioned for the work of leading the people into the land of Canaan. What an onerous responsibility fell upon the shoulders of this man. But now he is being reminded that the battle is the Lord's. And though he himself, Joshua, was highly exalted in the nation, Nevertheless, in terms of all that was going to happen, he was but a follower. A follower. The leader is a follower. This is the lesson we must all learn about the Christian life. The Lord Jesus Christ is our captain. He is our captain. When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus and described The church, in the closing words of his opening chapter, the book of Ephesians 1, right at the end of that opening chapter, he says this, Ephesians 1 verse 22, He hath put all things under his feet, that is under the feet of Christ, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. What he's emphasizing there is the fact that Christ is the head of the church. We, as individual believers, are members in that body, but there is only one head, and that head is Christ. Christ is our captain. In every endeavor that we seek to pursue in this life, He is our head. And today, so many of our problems are the outcome of a failure to accept this truth. and a failure to live in the light of it. We do not give the Lord Jesus Christ His place. We may be grateful for His salvation, but we are not so ready to acknowledge His Lordship, to own the fact that He is our Captain. And so, as a consequence of that, we struggle on in our own strength. We seek to fulfill our own plans. We try to win spiritual battles with carnal weapons. And it will not work. It will not work. Is it any wonder that we know so little of the victory that God intends? I tell you this, before very long, Joshua would learn the truth of this. He would discover that he could not succeed unless the Lord directed every step and unless He followed every word of direction. We must crown Christ afresh. That's the only way to success and to blessing. And at this moment, the response that Joshua made was an exemplary response. For we are told in verse 14 that when the Saviour appeared in front of him, he fell on his face to the earth and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? You think about that. That's a remarkable question. What Joshua is saying there is simply this. What do you have to say to me? What is your message to me? What are you asking of me? What are you commanding me? He's resigned. He's receptive to what the Lord will say to him. And of course, we discover that the very simple advice is given here, "...loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy." And what do we read? Joshua did so. He didn't try to reason away the counsel or the command that he was given. He simply did what the Lord asked. He might not necessarily have understood it. He might not have known why the Lord was asking him to do this, but he obeyed. And that exemplary response is the kind of response we need to make ourselves as we go forward, as we seek to follow the One who reveals Himself to us. the One who is truly our Captain, and the One we must acknowledge every single day that we live in this world. May the Lord help us, and may He encourage us through these things today.