Well, I hope you're growing to love the book of Joshua. I know I do. And we're going to finish off chapter 5 today. I'm reading from Joshua 5, beginning at verse 13. And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted 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 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? And 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. Father, we desire to be more and more like Joshua and more and more like the Jesus whom he foreshadowed and prefigured. And we come this morning to adore you in your word and to worship you as we receive your word. And I pray that you would enable me to faithfully preach it and each of us to hear it. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, one of the interesting contrasts that you will find in this book is the contrast seen when comparing chapters six and eight with chapters seven and nine. Okay, chapters six and eight give Israel remarkable victories, and chapters seven and nine show Israel having remarkable defeats, totally unexpected defeats, and the only things that make a difference, only factors that can really account for those differences are unseen factors. It wasn't the number of swords or the skill of the warriors or anything else that was visible, Instead, what looked like an easy, guaranteed victory at Ai turned into a remarkable defeat because of prayerlessness and sin. On the other hand, in chapter 6, Israel had a resounding victory over Jericho because of the spiritual dimensions that were involved. And if we, if God's blessing is to be upon our endeavors, or maybe another way of wording it, if we are going to succeed in our endeavors, we need the Lord's blessing upon what we are doing. And that's not just in the big events like Jericho, it's in the daily events that we experience every single day. How many times have I dived into work without seeking God's blessing, and the Lord shows me what I can achieve. Not very much. I find myself having all kinds of inefficiencies and interruptions and computer crashes, and one thing or another goes wrong. And yet during the times when I seek God's face, He shows me what He can accomplish through me, and I see that the Lord's enabled me to do far more than I thought was possible to get done, much more effective. And you would think, as many times as I have experienced those two different things that I would learn, but no, we need reminders. And this is one of the reasons why I have accountability partners, you know, to encourage and nudge me just as I encourage and nudge them to to prayer, and this sermon is kind of one of those nudges, okay? It's a reminder sermon that for the work that God calls you to, there must be 10 spiritual factors present if we are to succeed. Now, before we get into those 10 factors, let me give you a little bit of background. The book of Joshua is a book that concentrates on both the visible and the invisible conflict that occurred over cities. And there's actually a lot of lessons in the book of Joshua that just ordinary armies in a Christian state could learn from. I had read that Stonewall Jackson used to teach at his war college out of Joshua and out of Judges. At least a part of what he was teaching came from those two books. And there is a lot that can be learned, a lot of cool stuff. But Hebrews 4 makes clear that this book is also a type or a picture of the church's conquest, not with a physical sword, but with what Scripture calls the sword of the Spirit, the Bible. Okay, it's the conquest of the Great Commission. And the principles really do apply to both the physical as well as the spiritual. We're gonna be, not spiritual, the invisible, we're gonna be looking and concentrating on the latter. For example, there was a good reason why certain cities were burned later on in this book and other cities were left alone, they were not burned. Have you ever wondered why God had some of them burned and others not burned? Well, when I did research on this, I discovered that most of the cities that were burned were the library repository cities of that land. God did not want Israel being negatively influenced by the literature of Canaan. Interestingly, when nations conquer another nation and they get assimilated, many times that conquered nation completely undermines the worldview of the nation that conquered them. God did not want that to happen. Now, many Christians bristle or they are embarrassed when people accuse them of being censors or book burners. I'm proud to be a censor or a book burner, okay? Pornography needs to be censored. It needs to be burned. The occult books need to be censored. They need to be they need to be burned. Academics hate that idea. They don't want to lose any information in this world. All information is sacrosanct for the academics, you know, that I have studied with down through history. But Scripture indicates that this world needs to be rid of some information. I'll just give you one example. In Acts 19, verse 19, those who were converted to Christianity out of the occult burned the occult books that they had. And I think in part it was to prevent other people from being influenced by those books. And it says in Acts 19 that the value of the books was 50,000 pieces of silver. Now the drachma silver coin was 67.5 grains of silver, and so using this past Tuesday's silver spot price, what they were burning was $149,500 worth of books. And people might think, I mean, that money, they should have sold it and used that money for the church or for other ministry. That's a lot of money going up in flames. But for God, it was worthwhile destroying those books, okay? He was a book burner in the book of Acts, and he's a book burner in the book of Judges. And it's a good reason. I know more than one archaeologist who've actually expressed that they wished God had not burned those Canaanite cities. Because, you know, they're curious, what was going on there? There's actually been a few books. I feel bad that when I was at Covenant College, I actually read a couple of those Canaanite books that survived. And I have felt polluted. I have felt, it's horrible. There's a reason why God had those destroyed. But anyway, it's one of the issues I have with Torba and, what is it, Isker? His book on Christian nationalism, yeah. A great book for the most part. I really enjoyed reading through that. But toward the end of that, there's just a little section that he says that we want all Christians to be thoroughly familiar with the word, amen, and thoroughly schooled in Greek classics and Greek philosophy. And I say, no. You read in Daniel how God is going to make those former empires, including the Greek empire, ground to powder and the wind blows them away. There's no more memory of those things. That's what God wants. He wants a thoroughly Biblicist worldview to eventually dominate in the earth. And so the book of Joshua deals with those kind of issues, very practical issues like planning and strategy and triage, and we're not gonna deal with those today. But instead I wanna demonstrate how even the battles that Joshua fought were always won or lost based on the unseen realities found in the spirit world of angels and demons. Demons and angels know the strategic importance of cities and they battle over cities. Now let's dive into the passage. Let's look at 10 spiritual precursors to victory. What needs to be in place? And by the way, when I speak of victory, I'm talking about not just cultural victory, but I'm talking about victories in our own lives. Some of these precursors are missing from the church of Jesus Christ, and it is no puzzle to me whatsoever that the church has had zero impact upon American culture. In fact, the culture has impacted the church and why they are not finding individual victory. These are 10 essentials. Okay, verse 13 starts off where we spend most of our time, dealing with the visible, sizing up the workload, diving into that workload. This is not an impractical book that ignores the visible, it does not. So verse 13 begins with a simple statement, and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho. Now let's not move on too quickly from that phrase. I think we need to ask some questions. Why was Joshua right by Jericho? Well, God wanted him to conquer the city. Matthew Henry points out he was probably at a loss at how he was going to conquer that. God's mandated it, so he's going there to do what he can. He's casing out the city. And elsewhere in the book, we find that Joshua was in a habit of casing out the cities that he was going to go after. No doubt he was counting the number of ladders it would take to scale the walls, or if those walls were completely impenetrable, you know, he was thinking, well, maybe we're going to have to starve them out. What is the Lord wanting us to do? Maybe he's looking for weak points in that city that they can take advantage of. He knows God has commanded him to take the city, so he's casing it out. There's nothing wrong with that. This kind of reconnoitering was commanded by God throughout the book. God never depreciates the use of wisdom, strategy, counting the cost, financial statements, demographics, budgets, any of that kind of stuff. If you think conquering Canaan was an easy task for them, you haven't read the book of Joshua. It was hard, hard work. They didn't just pray and have the problems go away. And I think it's significant that God gives Joshua his guidance in chapter six, after Joshua began doing what he could. So the first principle is that God guides those who are already moving. A word picture that a friend of mine used when I was a teenager and asking questions about guidance is he said, a ship can only be steered when it's moving. You can move that rudder all you want, it's not going to steer the ship unless the ship is actually moving. And that when God gives partial guidance, we need to take partial steps, and many times clearer direction comes when we begin to take the steps that we've already been given by the Lord. When I was 23 years old, God laid on my heart a deep burden and a very clear call that I was going to play a little part, just a tiny little part, in bringing Reformation to family, church, and culture. I did not know how that was going to transpire, but I started taking the steps that God would open up, and then God would open up other doors. Now, I still don't know how on earth the Lord's going to accomplish everything that He's put upon my heart, but I know what He's called me to do this week, and I do it. And I know to some degree what He's calling us to do next year, and I'm beginning to take the steps to do that, okay? The point is, It is not biblical to wait until you know everything, until every T is crossed, every I is dotted, before you start obeying the Lord. God typically opens doors as we are walking. He typically answers as we are knocking. He typically gives to us as we are seeking. God has been leading many of you as well. And even though there is much that you do not know, I want to encourage you to remember that ships are steered best when they are moving. Gary and I believe that our theme for next year is service, service inside and outside the church, service to the family, service to our culture, imitating Jesus, who was called the servant of the Lord, actually Evangelist Michael. unwittingly gave a fantastic introduction to our next year's theme in last week's sermon. Wonderful, wonderful sermon. But whatever your call to service might be, it will likely involve some head scratching, puzzling through things, reconnoitering, trying to figure out what does the Lord want me to do? What can I do right now? It may involve positioning yourself before the walls of your part of the city, but you can trust that God does not make orders that he does not pay for. To me, that's an encouraging thought. And so the first precursor to victory is start taking steps into God's call upon your life. But second, God's guidance is sometimes sudden. It comes out of the blue, unexpectedly, after a time of waiting, and we need to be ready for that. Verse 13 says, And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him, with his sword drawn in his hand. Now the Hebrew suggests that this was a sudden appearance. We're going to be seeing shortly this man is no ordinary man. This was God the Son who came in a pre-incarnate theophany. I might as well deal with it here. What is a theophany? A theophany is an appearance, a pre-incarnate appearance of God the Son in some physical form. And prior to this time, there have been a number of different theophanies that have happened. God was walking with Adam and Eve in the garden. Okay, that's a theophany. He appeared to Abraham as a man. and then as an angel. He appeared to Moses as a fire in the burning bush, and it didn't consume the bush, and God's voice is coming out of there. It's kind of a physical appearance. For the past 40 years, he was with Israel as a a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire at nighttime. Sometimes he appeared in the form of an angel. For example, in Daniel, you know the story, the children's story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They're cast into the furnace, and it says, I thought there was three people cast in there. There's four people walking around. And it looks like a man, but then he says, but something different about that man. It looks like a son of God. And so there was something different here as well. Let me give you three clear hints in the context that this was no ordinary man or even an ordinary angel. This was a theophany, an appearance of God, the son and human appearance. First of all, look at Joshua's reaction in the second sentence of verse 14 and Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. And notice that this being not only accepts the worship, but insists, in verse 15, that Joshua go further and take off his shoes in his presence. That is utterly inconsistent with any angelic being. Angels refused worship. In fact, if somebody bowed down, they picked them up off the ground. They didn't want anybody bowing down to them. God alone is worshiped. So that's the first hint. Second, verse 15 shows that the presence of this person makes the very ground holy. This being who just suddenly appeared out of nowhere and yet looked like a man says, take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy. No angel has the power to make the ground holy. But God does. Actually, this is almost identical language to when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, right? So that's a second hint. Third, in chapter six, verse two, we have a very explicit statement. This being continues to speak, and Moses comments that it's Yehovah who is speaking. Verse two of chapter six says, and the Lord, that's all capital letters, and when you see Lord, all capital letters, that's Yehovah. Some people pronounce it Jehovah, some pronounce it Yahweh. But it's Yehoah said to Joshua. So those are three hints that we have a sudden appearing of the Lord in a theophany. Now we don't have time to look at it, but if you examine all of the theophanies in the Old Testament, look how the New Testament quotes them, you'll see this was a pre-incarnate manifestation of the Son of God, God the Son. Okay, the one who commands the angelic hosts here in this chapter said in Matthew chapter 26, verse 23, that if he wanted, he could have 10, 12 legions of angels at his disposal, just like that, just with a word. Okay, so Jesus continues to command angels in the service of his church. And he does so in chapter 6, but in this case, he's also giving guidance to Joshua. So here's the point related to this, that was a long rabbit trail, but sometimes we pray for a long time for guidance, and we continue to faithfully serve the Lord with the knowledge that we're receiving without getting any further guidance, and then suddenly, out of the blue, the Lord gives an assurance, or confidence, or sometimes much more explicit direction of what our next steps should be. We need to have faith that God can do this, and we need to be ready, we need to be available for that. But there's another thing that I see in these verses. I want you to notice something very encouraging about this person. He has his sword drawn. It is not sheathed in a scabbard. He has his sword drawn, okay? This means that God himself is ready for battle. God draws his sword before Joshua draws his sword because he's the one who's leading the battle, right? He takes the initiative. He's the initiator. And so the third precursor for victory is submitting to God's leadership. Forty years before this, the people charged into battle when God had explicitly told them not to go into battle, and they were resoundingly defeated. In chapter seven of Joshua, they do so again and they're defeated. We must follow God's leading. That's the only safe thing to do, even if God is leading you against a much smaller opposition or stronghold than Jericho. Pray for the pastors of the CPC. God has led many of them to take on their own Jerichos. God has burdened Pastor Stephen Morris with a heart to not only bring a reformation to the church, but to take on a brand new community that they have moved to, beautiful building too that God has given them, it's just amazing. But in a state that seems almost as impossible to take on as Canaan, Illinois, pretty tough state. And as they've been taking steps of faith, God's doing some pretty remarkable things. Ray Simmons is taking on a huge Jericho in his county. Pray that all of the CPC churches would be more and more characterized by these ten precursors to victory. Okay, fourth, there's more to it than just God's leading in battle. Joshua 6 says that Israel was marching around these walls for seven days with nothing visibly happening. Nothing. They're marching, doesn't seem like anything's happening, yet it's clear here that God's already drawn his sword and is ready for battle on day one. Why is this sword in use before any physical battles begin? Well, I believe it's because there is far more to victory than the walls and the people that we can see. Whether we're talking about Washington D.C. or the Omaha City Council, whether we're talking about liberal churches or conservative churches, there are demonic forces that we must contend with before we can have the victory. There was already war in the heavenlies and he had his sword drawn because if you look at verses 14 and 15, it calls him the commander of the Lord's army or the Lord's host. He's talking about this vast army of angels angelic army that had already been preparing the way for their physical battles. And by the way, this had been true even years before. Psalm 78 verse 49 says that God used angels to bring most of those plagues against Egypt. Angels brought those plagues. That's Psalm 78, 49. Back then he was preparing the way for an exodus, and here his withdrawn sword was an indication that the Lord's army was already in battle with the demonic hordes. We must never forget the fact that we wrestle not just with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers of evil. We're never gonna gain the victory if we do not take spiritual weapons of Ephesians 6 into account. Now the fifth point is that when God is ready, We need to be ready. And Joshua made sure that this was the case with the Israelites. The moment the Lord told him his directions in chapter six, and we'll look at that next week, that same day, he gets Israel to march. There's an immediate action that takes place. How ready are you for the Lord's leading? Sometimes God waits to lead us until we are prepared. You know, if he led us to do something, we'd be stumbling around trying quickly to get prepared. But sometimes he leads us waiting for our preparation. Are we prepared for his leading? How ready are you to move at a moment's notice if need be? One of the spiritual precursors to victory is readiness to do what God requires. And I think we need to have this attitude of availability. We must not be so tied down with the riches and the cares of this life that we cannot move at a moment's notice if God called us to. So availability, that's an absolutely essential precursor to victory. Sixth, we must have a passion for God's kingdom and God's glory. In verse 13 it says, And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us or for our adversaries? Now Joshua mistakenly asks this question, not realizing he is talking to God. But you know what? We sometimes deliberately ask the same inappropriate question of God in our prayers. We ask if he is for our plans. Isn't that true? We come up with the plans and the agendas and the kingdom work that needs to be done. We say, Lord, we've got it figured out. Would you now bless what we have planned to do? That's not the way that God works. The focus is not on what God wants in the situation, but whether people agree with us and support our cause, give us grief. And of course, we're pretty good at justifying what we're doing out of the Bible. Now it's true, Romans 8.31 says, if God is for us, who can be against us? But in context, the us are those who are sold out to God's cause. And let me prove that by summarizing the context of Romans 8.31. The us are those who are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, verse 13. Who are willing to suffer with Christ, verse 17. Who are driven by God's hope, verse 20. Who eagerly wait for the transformation of all things, verses 19 through 25. Who pray with groanings in the spirit for God's will to be done, verse 26. Who are led by God's will, verse 27. Who are being conformed to the image of God's Son, verse 29. In other words, the us are people who have a passion for God's kingdom. They are the ones who receive this victory, who all things work together for their good. Now I want you to notice that God completely reverses the focus of Joshua's question. He does so first by contradicting Joshua in verse 14 with a no. Now Joshua didn't ask for a yes or no answer. No, he just is asking God to pick sides. Whose side are you on, God? And God says, no, no, no, no, that's not the way it works. Wrong question. The question is not whether I am for you. The question is whether you are for me. And I would apply the same thing to us in our decision making. Is your decision making based on whether you are comfortable, whether it serves your needs, Or is it whether this is really what God wants and what God's kingdom needs? God says, I'm the commander around here. I'm not here to serve your needs, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. Are we willing to submit to his command and to his agendas? And because Joshua's heart was right, he falls down, he worships, he wants God's glory to be lifted up, God's kingdom to be built. God's commands to be followed. Now, I should mention, this is not just a one-time decision, you know, where we dedicate our lives to the Lord, because we keep finding ourselves backtracking on this. No, Jesus said we need to daily pick up our cross and follow after Christ. Okay? In the future, we'll see that this focus was present in the conquering of Jericho, but it was missing in the attack on Ai in chapter 7, and you know what happened there, right? Overconfident Israel in chapter 7 thought, hey, this is a tiny town. We can easily take this. Their focus was on themselves, what they could accomplish, what they wanted. And so this passage gives us one of the precursors to victory. We must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then Jesus says, hey, all of these things will be added to you. Another precursor to victory is worship. Now that may seem like a strange one, but let me explain this. I think this is something you'll see all through the book of Revelation. You'll see it in Psalms and in other places as well. But verse 14 goes on to say, Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. We already looked at this was a proof that this being was God, but it's also a precursor to victory because worship, true worship, so glorifies God and so humbles us that it routes demons. And the reason it routes demons is because James says that humility, you know, God, when we have humility, God gives us more grace. And so demons shudder at true worship. They don't mind sentimental, man-centered worship. But true worship is something that over and over Scripture says makes demons flee. Just read through the book of Revelation and you'll see over and over again that this is the case. It prepares our hearts to be right. Spirit-led singing and worship is a part of overcoming the enemy and enthroning God on our praises. And so if you are needing victory against your own personal demons and strongholds, I would encourage you to worship. Spend time singing the Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and adoring God and praising Him that He's sufficient for your Jerichos. He's sufficient for anything that you have. Meditate on His Word. The next precursor to victory is seen in verse 14. Joshua asks, what does my Lord say to His servant? He's asking for guidance. He was immediately brought to an attitude of seeking God's face in prayer, and then God answers in chapter 6, which we'll look at next week. Now, in my sermon on Revelation 8 some years ago, I showed how prayer unleashes angelic regiments to fight God's battles, but angels We're going to sing about this after the worship, but angels must wait till the church prays. God's ordained that to be. Angels are itching to get into the battle. They have their swords unsheathed. They have their trumpets ready to bring their legions of armies into manifestation. But Revelation 8 says there's silence in heaven until the prayers of the saints rise up, mixed together with the prayers of Jesus, and then lightnings and thunderings and earthquakes begin to happen on the earth because of what these angels are doing. And you see angelic army after angelic army going into battle as trumpet after trumpet sounds in the book of Revelation. The point of that chapter is that God has ordained for angelic battles to be synchronized with the church's prayers. Daniel chapter 10 does much the same. So just to make this practical, this is why prayer walking in your neighborhoods is such a good thing. If you want to reach out to your neighbors, start prayer walking and inviting God's angels to be a part of this place and praying against the demonic in that neighborhood. Okay, it invites an angelic presence to be at work in your neighborhood. This is why church prayer unleashes invisible forces to be at work on behalf of our church. And this is why Gary and I just keep harping and harping on how we need to be a praying church. When prayer meetings dwindle, it's not surprising that the church's success dwindles as well. Now we have official prayer meetings Monday noon, And Wednesday evening, those two can be joined by Zoom. We have, you know, once a month at the abortion clinic. Actually, it was too cold, so we met at the office yesterday. And there is a smaller team that goes to the abortion clinic much more regularly. But for those who have the guts to engage in hard core, imprecatory prayer that calls down God's curses on high things that have exalted themselves against the knowledge of God, contact me. That's a secret prayer meeting only for the select. No. No, really, honestly, it's an important prayer meeting. We do need to have these going on. Prayer, powerful precursor to victory. Exodus 17 gives a fascinating picture of this when Moses is holding up his hands, and I want to read it for you, and I'm going to begin. Exodus 17, verse 8. Now, Amalek came and fought with Israel at 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 in my hand. And 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. When he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands became heavy, so they took a stone, 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." I think that's such a cool image of the power of prayer. Such a cool image. But for our next point, I want to look at the character of this prayer in verse 14. I believe it shows a servant's heart. Joshua asks, what does my Lord say to his servant? So he not only calls himself a servant, but he talks like a servant. What does my Lord say to his servant? I want to do, Lord, whatever it is you want me to do. Just speak to me. What do you say to me? I want to follow your will. Most evangelical prayers do not sound like servant prayers. They sound like demanding prayers. Give me, give me prayers. One of the reasons Joshua was so successful in his ventures is he truly had a servant's heart, and when he asked for things, he was asking for God's glory. He wanted God's kingdom to be advanced. First verse of this book, remember we said, showed Moses to be an ordinary servant, the Hebrew was eved, and it shows Joshua to be Moses' servant, and it uses a different term, sharat, which means a menial servant. So Joshua was a servant's servant. When we are humbled enough where we are willing to serve everyone, we have one of the preconditions to lead everyone. Okay? Leaders nowadays have never been tested in servanthood, in a lot of churches anyway. I think it's an absolute essential. God delights in giving victory to those who pray with servant's heart. Do you have that condition for victory? And if not, then ask God to give you the grace of being servant-hearted. And that's gonna be a part of the theme of service for next year. I'm gonna end with one more precursor. It's point number 10. Final prerequisite that God reminds Joshua of is holiness. And I'll just preface this by saying, I think as sinners, we have a hard time fathoming how holy God is and how much he despises sin. I think we have a hard time, but God tried to get that point across in 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. One of the recurring themes that we're going to be seeing in this book is that God gave Israel victory when they obeyed God, and he gave them defeat when they disobeyed God. We must not only seek cleansing in the blood of Christ from our daily sins, but we need to be pursuing holiness. You know, there's put-offs, there's put-ons that we need to be practicing, and it takes practice, just like learning how to shoot, and learning how to use a sword, and learning how to wrestle. It takes practice, practice, practice. It takes practice to put off sins and to put on the opposite righteous habits. There are things you have to go through, right, to do that. I want you to turn with me to chapter 7, verses 10 through 13. And let's see how effective or ineffective our prayers are when we fail on this point. Chapter 7, beginning at verse 10. So the Lord said to Joshua, get up. Why do you lie thus on your face? Saying this is not the time for prayer. This is the time for repentance. You've got things you're not dealing with. So he says, get up. Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned. And they have also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things and have both stolen and deceived. And they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies but turned their backs before their enemies because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore unless you destroy the accursed from among you. Get up, sanctify the people and say, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord God of Israel, there is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. Hopefully just by reading that, I don't even need to give an exposition of it, you can see why the church in America has had almost no success in impacting this culture. They're not salt and light, they're carnal. It's become a carnal church. God refuses to fight on behalf of a disobedient church. So-called born-again believers number in the millions in America, and yet we have no impact because we are carnal. A carnal Christianity will never reclaim America. And we need to point the finger at ourselves. Anytime we point the finger outside, we've got three pointing back at us. And if the Holy Spirit has been convicting you of any sin, whatever it might be, it might be pride, Beautiful prayer on dealing with pride earlier, or gluttony, or it might be gossip or slander. Whatever the sin, if he has been convicting you and you just keep ignoring that conviction, what I want to say is you are missing out on a precondition for personal victory. And as we prepare for the future, one of the temptations is going to be to depend upon our own strength. But while there is planning and work, the keys to victory lie in spiritual preparation by the power of a sovereign God. I think Major Ian Thomas said it so well, and let me read from my notes taken. I tried to find this on the web. I forget now where I copied this down from, but he said this. What do we attempt to do? We put forth Herculean efforts, thinking of this method and that which will attract people to our churches. We plan exciting advertising, give away prizes, we spend vast sums of money to bring people under the sound of the gospel. And when it's all over, we retire from the fight, weary, baffled, disappointed, and perplexed. What can we do? We have put forth every effort under the sun. We have placarded our cities with advertisements and launched great campaigns, but apart from a few here and a few there, the results are tragically lacking. In this generation, Satan seems to be capturing millions for himself in comparison with the hundreds that come to Jesus Christ. God forgive us that we are attempting today to fight spiritual enemies by carnal means. It cannot be done. May He forgive us when we seem to think that by planning, publicity, advertising, campaigning, and working, we will attain something, whereas in point of fact, we achieve nothing. Have we not understood that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal? Joshua conquered Canaan not because he had superior numbers or weapons or chariots, he did not. He conquered Canaan because God had called him, he was obedient to that call, and his heart and the hearts of that whole generation of Israelites were prepared in these 10 areas. Let me list them for you one more time. They're already moving in the direction of God's call and God guides those who are moving. Or just to use a different analogy, God invests more in those who've already used the investments he's given wisely. Second, they were not overwhelmed with sudden guidance. They were available. They were ready for the Lord to give them new direction. In other words, they were flexible. They were open. Third, Joshua let God take the lead and he followed. This is not about God following Joshua and blessing Joshua's plans, he was captive to God's will. Fourth, Joshua took seriously the presence of spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. And until we start battling against principalities and powers that are holding our counties, our states, and our nation in bondage and spiritual blindness, we're not gonna turn them into Christian counties or Christian states. We will not be successful. Fifth, They were ready to move out when God was ready for them to move out. Instant obedience to God's direction ensured that God was willing to guide them further. Sixth, Joshua had a passion for God's kingdom and God's glory rather than his own. Seventh, Joshua worshiped God. He was passionate about God. He taught Israel to worship. Eighth, Joshua prayed. He taught Israel to pray. I mean, he knew where his help was coming from. His help was in the Lord. That's why he prayed. Ninth, Joshua had a servant's heart and he taught Israel to have a servant's heart. And then tenth, Joshua responded promptly to God's call for holiness. Didn't make him perfect, but his hunger was to be holy as God was holy. And in later chapters he taught Israel this imperative of holiness. So ask God to make all of us prepared to take the conquest of our own personal Jerichos as well as our cultural Jerichos in His strength and in His way. Amen. Father, I thank you for your Word. And as we sing our commitment to this passage of Scripture, as we sing about Revelation 8 and these spiritual armies that we are engaged with, I pray that you would hear our prayers and hear our commitment and that you would fill us full with your Holy Spirit and all that we need to take the kind of warfare and forward progress in our culture and even in our own personal lives that need to be taken. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.