So Rusty wanted me to talk about leadership and what kind of leader does it take in order to see interposition enacted here in America. And so I could simply say we need men who love and fear God and be done with it. But I'm going to try to expand on that a little bit. And I wanted to look at leadership through the life of Joshua. So why don't we stand up and we'll read verses 1 through 7. of chapter one of Joshua. Scripture reads, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for this people you shall divide as an inheritance, the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. Let's bow our heads and pray. Lord, we thank you for this time to look at your word and to understand leadership and what means good leadership and how to see it fleshed out in the earth of God. Father, I just ask and pray that you would continue to work in each of our lives and that you would continue to build your kingdom in us. May we be faithful to you, I pray. And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You can be seated. The making of a leader is not instantaneous. It commonly takes decades to make a man a seasoned, balanced leader in the kingdom of God. Many who had potential to be such fall away along the way. Some because of sin, sexual sin, or the cares of the world are big in that regard, to see men fall. Some become bitter and therefore unuseful to the Lord, but some actually make it. They persevere, they go through the school of hard knocks, they go through the seasons of tribulation and persecution, of realizing they weren't the legends in their own minds that they thought they were. The suffering they endure, the wisdom they gain over the years, the understanding of the nature of man that is observed, All this becomes useful. This is what makes seasoned, balanced leaders. The suffering they endure, the wisdom they gain over the years, the understanding of the nature of man that is observed, both in the lives of others and in their own self. So Joshua didn't just BAM! become a leader here in Joshua 1. Much was done during decades of living to prepare him to be the leader the Lord needed. Moses has died, as our text states here. The generation of Joshua and Caleb had died off. For 40 years they died off. Joshua is now the new leader, leading a new generation of people. But he wasn't just randomly picked by the Lord. There were years of preparation under a seasoned leader, namely Moses. And no leader is perfect, and Moses wasn't perfect either. And he didn't get to enter the promised land because of it. So to begin this sermon, I want to share with you a few things we see Joshua learn in his preparation as the leader of the Israelites. As he would come to be known, the title of honor, the servant of the Lord. The very first time you see Joshua in scripture is found in Exodus chapter 17. So let's turn there. The book of Exodus chapter 17. And I want to read verses 8 through 13. It says, now Amalek came and fought with Israel, Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God at my hand. So here we see Joshua already possesses some leadership ability and a leadership position. So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed, but Moses' hands became heavy. So they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands one on one side and the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. What Joshua learned from this is that ultimately the battle belongs to the Lord. He is the one who defeats his enemies. You see that? Will Moses' arms raised or not? Yes, one has to fight. Don't take the position of the pietist and say, well, whatever will be, will be. Que sera, sera. We will just pray and we won't act. No, one has to fight, one has to be a good general as Joshua was here, but ultimately it's the Lord who brings the victory. And this is what I learned outside the death camps of Milwaukee. Each time one of those places of death would shut down, I would fall on my face before God and give praise to Him, because I knew the only reason to shut down was ultimately because of Him. We are finite as men. We have our role, we have our function, but ultimately the battle is in the Lord's hands. Another of the great lessons that Joshua learned is found in Exodus chapter 32. Let's turn there, Exodus chapter 32. Remember the story about the golden calf? Let's read verses 17 through 19 of Exodus 32. It says, and when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp. But he said, it is not the noise of the shout of victory, nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing I hear. So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. What Joshua learned here was actually two great lessons. The first lesson Joshua learned here is the awful price of sin. the terrible consequences of sin upon people, how it destroys them, and how God judges it. Remember the calf was melted down and they all had to drink it? 3,000 men died in the camp. There's a price for sin, there's awful consequences, and Joshua saw that with his own eyes, a huge impact on him. And this leads to the second great lesson Joshua learned. Not only did he learn in this situation the awful consequence of sin upon people, but he saw that there is a place for anger towards sin and evil. He learned to have a hatred for evil. All of God's people are to hate evil. Psalm 97 verse 10 says plainly, you who love the Lord hate evil. And when you see evil enacted through law or court opinion, when you see the Lord impugned by the governments of men, it causes you to hate evil. When you see what it does to people, what it does to nations from God's perspective, it causes you to hate evil. Now there's too little of such hate amongst God's people in our day. Let me tell you, you can hate evil without being self-righteous, without being unduly harsh or arrogant. Hatred for evil should be in our hearts. Because of our love for the Lord, and because of our love for our neighbor, we hate evil. We must speak against it, we must act against it, we must not indulge our indifference or our apathy with pietistic slogans like, I just expect sinners to act like sinners. People often look at me, who are fellow Christians, and think that there's, why do you hate evil so badly? Because it needs to be hated. It's something that God's put within me. It's part of our expression of our love for Him, actually. I'm wondering why someone could feel okay standing by while the governments of men impugn the Lord's law and word. and feel fine saying nothing, doing nothing. That's what stuns me. Another of the great lessons Joshua learned is found in Numbers 11. Let's turn there. And we'll read verses 25 through 29. The book of Numbers, chapter 11. And we'll read verses 25 through 29. It says, then the Lord came down in the clouds and spoke to him and took the spirit that was upon him and placed the same upon the seventy elders. And it happened when the spirit rested upon them that they prophesied although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not yet gone out to the tabernacle, yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses and said, hell dead and me dead are prophesied in the camp. So Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, Moses, my lord, forbid thou. Look what Moses said in verse 29. Then Moses said to him, are you zealous for my sake? Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them. Again, two great lessons learned here. First, a leader should not feel threatened when the Lord uses others. Way too much of that in American Christianity. And there's been a problem with ecclesiastical tyranny in churches across the country, where pastors feel threatened when the gift of God is evident in other men's lives. And so they try to suppress the gift of God in the other men's lives, or throw a wet blanket over it. A good leader is not threatened in that way. So the first lesson is, they're not threatened when the Lord uses others. So many leaders are territorial. A mark of a good leader is one who is not threatened and enjoys watching and actually helping other men when they're gifted. Extremely important. The second great lesson Joshua learned here is that we should never glorify men, only the Lord. Look what Moses says in verse 29. Then Moses said to him, are you zealous for my sake? Moses was a tremendous leader, but he would not tolerate Joshua glorifying him. He wouldn't tolerate it. One of the oddest positions a leader is always put in is when someone talks nice about them. Because we know we're just men. We're just measly men. And so we don't want to be rude and say, oh, don't do that. Only worship God. So we feel like in this quandary. And what I learned over the years is just to simply say, thank you. Thank you. A good leader never uplifts himself, nor is his head inflated by the praises or honor of others. A seasoned leader has had the snap beat out of him so many times, he does not get a big head that way. A seasoned leader also knows that someone's admiration of him is often short-lived, as men are fickle. And this brings us to a third great lesson Joshua learned from Moses in this regard. It's found in Numbers chapter 12. So turn there, the very next chapter, verses one through three. It says, then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married, for he had married an Ethiopian woman. So they said, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us? And the Lord heard it. This is what often men do, what Miriam and Aaron did here. They see something in a leader and they want to seize upon it in order to bring the leader down and raise themselves up. It's an awful thing. But notice what Moses' condition was. Look at verse three. Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all the men who are on the face of the earth. Humility is something all of us as Christians are to be clothed in. Being humble is massively important when you're a leader. It's something that should be a characteristic of our lives. This is a huge shortcoming in many leaders, and even many great leaders, a lack of humility. And being humble does not mean avoiding being noticed. Living off in a corner somewhere, that can be false humility. doing things that are pointless, while real things need to be accomplished. You know, well, I'm just lousy, lousy, woo-woo. This little guy over here. It's a false humility. A good leader can pound hard, yet be humble. He can still possess humility. All Christian men are to close themselves in it. Peter told us this in 1 Peter 5.5. Being humble does not mean you're a little milquetoast individual. Therefore, as a Christian, you can't be a leader. That's false spirituality. Being humble means having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance. It means you have a true perception and understanding of your status and station in life and in the world, that you know your limitations, that you understand your utter dependence upon Christ, for being anything. The Bible says in James 4.1 that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Being humble is an important part of leadership, and it's noted here in chapter 12 of Numbers regarding Moses. Another important lesson Joshua learned is found in Numbers 13. Numbers seems to be loaded with these, right? Spying out the lad, Only Joshua and Caleb came back with good reports. But despite their exhortation, the people went with the majority report. Remember that? Joshua here saw the nature of man. He learned an important lesson here. He saw the nature of man, which is to conform, to herd like cattle, to go along with the majority. It's just so much easier. The people rebelled against the Lord and went with the majority report, the mainline thinking, the prevalent thought of the hour or times. The great lesson Joshua learned here in his preparation to be a leader was that even when the majority was totally against him, he had to be willing to stand with God. Amen. That is a huge, important duty. of a true leader. I've seen men stand with God on some silly thing, mostly they just want to be noticed. But I have also seen men stand with God nobly, because a stand needed to be made, and at great sacrifice the stand was made. And Christian history is full of such examples. Joshua learned here that the majority report is not always right. In this case, it was actually wrong. Notice verse 10 of Numbers 13, or pardon me, Numbers 14, I believe it is. Can you hear it in my notes? Yes. Numbers 14, we'll start in verse six. It says, but Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the congregation, children of Israel, saying, the land we had passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them." And look at verse 10. And all the Kyriacans said, to stone them with stones. If you want to be a leader, you must be willing to suffer. You must be willing to be a man of sorrow. You see things others don't see. You have to deal with things others have the convenience of ignoring. Isaiah 53 verse 3 says that Jesus was a man despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Most men cannot handle the sorrow of being rejected by men. It is a difficult sorrow. Our desire as men is to be liked, to be spoken ill of, to be hated, to be despised, and all the sorrow and suffering that comes with it, most men have no stomach for that. It's one of the reasons that the pastorate is one of the biggest revolving door professions in America. Because good men have their heart ripped out of their chest by fellow Christians, thrown on the counter, and they can't take it. And they quit. And unfortunately, often it's the most unprincipled, nefarious sort of men who remain in the pulpit. Oh, man. Gloria. All the best of men leave. There are things you must be willing to embrace if you want to serve and lead. Leaders are servants. Any other kind of leader is just a tyrant or a life coach. The final great lesson Joshua learned in preparation to become the leader the Lord wanted And neither. To replace Moses is found in Deuteronomy chapter 34. Let's turn there. Deuteronomy chapter 34. And we'll look at verses 7 and 8. It says, Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyes were not dim, nor his natural vigor diminished. So this guy could still see you and have an awesome rational conversation with you up till his final day. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days. So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended. Moses has died. He's now gone. His time on earth is over. Joshua learned here the great lesson that no man is indispensable. All men can be replaced. The work of the kingdom moves on and forward. And yet, though no man is indispensable, yet all men are unique. Francis Schaeffer spoke well of this matter. Schaeffer writes, no man is indispensable, but we must not forget Deuteronomy 34, verse 10, the passage here. But since then, there was not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Here, Moses' uniqueness is emphasized. So we can say at the same time, without being contradictory, no man is indispensable, but every man is unique. Men are indispensable, but this does not mean that one man fills another man's place in the same way as a person would remove one concrete block and put another concrete block in its place. In the final analysis, nobody takes the place of anybody else. This is the wonder of personality and the wonder of God using personality and gifting and emphasis in leadership. That's good. It's important stuff to understand. Too often when there's a change in an organization or there's a change in a church and leadership, people, well, you're not like the last leader. They're not meant to be. They're not meant to be a cookie cutter of the last person. God uses men. He raises them up in leadership. They have different personalities. They have different emphases, different giftings. And God uses them in that regard. Joshua is now the leader. Verse seven says, be strong and have a good courage. 1 Corinthians 16, 13, the apostle Paul says to us, watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Very important. So to summarize, a good leader must, number one, understand the Lord, understand the battle belongs to the Lord. Number two, they must hate evil. Number three, they must not feel threatened by other men and must glorify, must never glorify men, including yourself. Number four, they must be humble. Number five, even when the majority is against him, he must be willing to stand for the Lord. Number six, he needs to understand no man is indispensable, yet all men are unique. And let me add one more, actually three more. Number one is this. It says in 2 Samuel 2, 23, he who rules over men must be just in the fear of God. Good leaders can only be such because they fear God, not man. Once you fear man, you're in a messed up situation. Number two, you must be willing to be maligned and spoken evil of. That comes with the territory. You must be willing to be maligned and spoken evil of. Even Daniel, where they could find nothing on except it was their god. It had something to do with his god. They spoke evil of him. They twist things. And number three, they should govern their homes. They should love their wife and their children. Ultimately, you can drive yourself crazy Because when you're a leader, you have people who don't like you or are nipping at the edges constantly. And if you want to respond to all that, that's what you'll spend your whole life doing is responding to all that. And so you have to come to a place where you're willing to be viewed as an awful person, as a crumb by others. You have to accept that's part of life. And what you have to come to the conclusion of is what matters is simply this. I know he knows. And secondly, I know my family knows. All the rest of the people on the planet, you know, wicked men and religious men want to take you and define you by one little thing. It doesn't matter what all your life is consumed by, all what you've done, all what you've produced, They want to nitpick and find something that they can hang to define you by. It can drive you crazy. That's wrong for people to do that, number one. And both wicked people and Christian people do it all too often. And there's been many good men who've left the field of battle because they couldn't take it here. It's extremely important that you come to the conclusion it doesn't matter about that. What matters is what he knows. What matters is what my family knows. I want my family intact. I want all my sons and daughters to love Jesus. That's what's important. Those are the types of men you want to look for. Who love their wives, who love their children. who understand their duty in the sight of God and fear him and love him and want to see him glorified in the earth. And we aim to do that as we go out into the mission field, into the magistrates, and we declare the truth of God's word. Do you know that my magistrate, my legislator, my assemblyman just died three weeks ago? 58 years old. I have met with him. He was a firebrand. He was all for the bill of abolition. He told me, he said, I cannot wait until this bill is introduced. He said it would be a line in the ground. He said, no longer will my colleagues be able to pay lip service to the pre-born and get away with it. They'll be exposed for what they are. No longer will these pro-life groups and pro-family group here in the state be able to play The little game they've been, that's what he said. The little game they've been playing forever. He's dead now. 58 years old. I talked with him about his duty in the sight of God. He looked at me and he said, you're a minister and you're meeting with me? He said, ministers don't meet with us. He said, there's a line of wicked people out our door all day long. I can't find a minister to talk to. We had a great conversation. He deepened his walk over the last year of his life, left the mainline denomination he was a part of, was attending a Bible-believing church. Last time we talked, we talked about the things God was doing in his life, in his heart. And the Lord saw fit to take him. But we find good men as we go along the way. And they need to hear from us, brothers and sisters. You cannot ignore the magistrates. Just go over, meet with them, make sure you got a knife to your throat. Why? Because the Bible says, have a knife to your throat. You sit down with the king. Is there something that happens to people when they do that, where the power and the wealth and prestige just kind of makes them go, ooh. and they can lose total sight of Whitehaven. They lose sight, not necessarily that first day, but as they go along. Extremely important that we love him. You have to love Christ first. That's the only way you can truly love your neighbor. That's right. It's extremely important to understand. So in the days ahead, we'll see wicked men say things and attack us. Because that's what wicked men do. That's what religious men do. They make mountains out of molehills, the religious men. The wicked declare that which is evil to be good and that which is good to be evil. Look what they did to Judge Roy Moore. Have you seen some of the attack ads on him? Do you see some of the news coverage of him? Like he's the worst thing that's ever stepped on the planet because he believes the law of God supersedes even the U.S. Constitution. You know, that's just... That's what all Christian men believe. That's what Western man believed for 1,500 years. That's all he's saying. These people are so wicked. And they say it with their hushed tones. Like this is like he's doing something sinister. The wicked flea that no man pursues. May we continue to pursue Christ. Thank you for your time. God bless you.