Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and they set out from Acacia Grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over. So it was, after three days, that the officers went through the camp, and they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about 2,000 cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.' And Joshua said to the people, "'Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.' Then Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, "'Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over before the people.' So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people. And the Lord said to Joshua, this day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. You shall command the priests who bear the Ark of the Covenant, saying, when you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan. So Joshua said to the children of Israel, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God. 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. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan. Now, therefore, take for yourselves 12 men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe, 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. 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. 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, 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 Ziratan. So the waters that went down into the sea of the Ereba, the salt sea, failed and were cut off, and the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 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. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our desire to not only understand it, but to live it out by the power of your Holy Spirit. I pray that you would anoint my feeble lips and enable me to faithfully preach your word and each one of us to hear it and receive it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, Lord willing, I want to go through this chapter verse by verse next week and show that this miracle was far more spectacular than many people make it out to be. A lot of Christians look at, you know, the modern river and they think, you know, it's a small river that's easy to wade over. And it is, especially nowadays, that so much irrigation has drained the river. But even now, during the time of flooding, it's a pretty extensive river. For example, at this precise spot, there are times even in recent history where the flooding stage has made this river a mile wide and over 10 feet deep. So it is a pretty significant river during the flooding stage. Back in 1854, there was an expert swimmer who wanted to see if he could swim the river, and it was at this precise time, this precise location. And he tried as hard as he could, but the current was so fast and the river so wide that he was not able to make it. all the way over the river. And then to have the bottom of the river instantly dry, all of the moisture sucked out of it, itself was a remarkable miracle. And there's other facets we're going to look at next week to show that this was a phenomenal thing that God was doing. So, Lord willing, we'll go through this verse by verse next week. But today I want to show how this is a perfect chapter to oppose some of the counterfeit views of faith that are being promoted in some circles. It is a marvelous example of faith in action. Or what Romans 16, verse 26, and a couple of other passages, the literal Greek says, is the obedience of faith. Faith steps out and obeys God's clear commands, even if it seems like it might be foolish to do so. Faith trusts if God commands us to do something, then when we appropriate His grace, He's going to enable us to do that. But because this chapter has been used to promote some pretty wacko weird ideas, I think I want to give an introductory sermon, first of all, to show what faith is not, and then what faith is, and hopefully it'll introduce next week's sermon a little bit better. Now let's go to Hebrews 11 verse 1 to correct the first counterfeit of faith. And most of you probably have this verse already memorized. One of my teachers in Bible school used to teach that faith was a blind leap in the dark. Little did he realize that this is actually a liberal definition of faith that was popularized by Soren Kierkegaard. It's not a biblical definition, but my teacher who was an evangelical, he said, well, it must be a blind leap in the dark because Hebrews 11.1 says that it's the evidence of things not seen. If we can't see it, we must be believing despite the fact that there's no evidence. We're believing against all evidence. And I will say the exact opposite from this verse here. Without evidence, without knowledge, there can be no faith. Faith is not irrational. This is so important to understand because there's a lot of people out there think it is irrational like Kierkegaard does. Faith is not irrational. Faith is founded on the best evidence that any person can have, God's testimony in the Bible, which is the only infallible thing that we have in life. And so in Hebrews 11, verse 1, there are two terms. of that are legal terms. The one translated as substance is hoopostasis, and the one translated as evidence is elinkos, and both are legal terms for proof or for evidence. First term, hoopostasis, is a Koine Greek term that's used in the secular literature to mean a title deed. Here is the dictionary definition. a guarantee of ownership, entitlement, or title deed. It's a guarantee of ownership. Now, when you buy a house, you may have put an offer in the house, and the other person has agreed to accept that offer. But until the title deed is signed over to you, you don't know for sure that you have it. You are hoping that you are going to get it. So that period up till the transfer of the title deed is the period of hope. And hope is a very important thing. It's a good thing. But until you get the title deed in hand, or maybe I should say the reverse, once you get the title deed in hand, you know that you have that house. Believe it or not, Kathy signed on to an agreement for our first house when she was in California. She had never seen the house. She trusts me a lot. Just based on the evidence I was presenting, she said, OK, we'll go ahead and get that. So she did it based on evidence presented to her that was not seen, really. With a title deed in hand, though, the house is yours even if people say that the house is not yours. Even if people contest your right in a court to live in that house, you have the house because you've got the title deed. So that's the nature of faith. It is a confidence of a title deed. This is why John Calvin said that confidence is of the essence of faith. So the dictionary definition of that term, again, it is a guarantee of ownership, entitlement, a title deed. The second Greek word that's used in Hebrews 11 verse 1 is a linkos, and it refers to evidence. Frequently, this is used to describe court evidence. It says, faith is the evidence of things not seen. Now, if you were a juror in a court, you maybe have heard all kinds of evidence against a person, accusations, but you weren't at the scene of the crime. So how in the world are you going to judge whether this person is guilty or not guilty? You didn't see it. You weren't there. The only way that you can make a binding decision is based upon evidence that's been presented to you of things you have not seen at all, okay? But it's evidence that is so convincing you're able to make a decision. And it's this word that makes the strong contrast between what the Scripture calls living by sight and living by faith. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. We're not living by sight. Now, let's apply those two words to Joshua. In Joshua 3, did the Jews have title deed to Canaan? Yes, they did. God had given them the land. Did they have evidence of things not seen? Yes, they did. In fact, it was far more convincing evidence than anything we will ever get in a human court of law. God Himself was a witness who promised that He would part the Jordan and that they would, without fail, dispossess the Canaanites. Now, they didn't see any change in the river, not yet. They didn't see any Canaanites falling. In fact, the Canaanites were going to contest their right to the land of Canaan. But it didn't matter. With this legal declaration of God, they had the evidence that they needed to act. And so this chapter is a beautiful illustration Of Hebrews 11 verse 1, I think it's a powerful overthrow of the liberal idea that faith is a blind leap in the dark against all evidence. A second counterfeit that is exposed in Hebrews 11 verse 1 and in Joshua 3 is presumption, and this is perhaps even more dangerous. of a counterfeit, because there are people out there who have confidence, and you're thinking, they should not be having confidence in what they're doing. They have no basis for confidence. They presume upon things that do not exist, and presumption is not faith. Let me illustrate an example of presumption, and the guy I'm gonna share about, even if he finds out about the sermon, he's not gonna mind, because he's repented of this long ago. But a friend of mine in South Carolina told me that he was believing God for a particular make of vehicle and a particular color of vehicle, and he was going to bring this vehicle into existence by praying in faith. He had read some Name It and Claim It book. And he says, yes, faith actually creates things. It brings things into existence. Well, it didn't take, you know, but a few weeks and months of his praying like this that he became very disheartened. Why? Because he does not have any creative powers. Only God can create things. Our faith does not create a thing. All it can do is lay hold of what God has said can exist. Hebrews 11, 1 again, faith is the title deed of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In the realm of the invisible eternal, there are things promised in the scripture, but also determined by God from eternity past that we can lay claim to and bring into space-time history. Like Ephesians 2.10 says, we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So why can we have confidence that we can overcome besetting sins? It's because God's given us promises, He's given us commands, and these are real things. He has determined from eternity past that we can walk in them. So we're laying claim to those things, both from Scripture and from God's eternal plan, and bringing them into history. Now, contrast that with presumption. If you stepped into the Jordan River right now saying, they did it, I can do it, this is going to part before me, you're just going to get wet. Why? Because God's not promised to part the Jordan River to you. He promised it to Joshua and that generation, and not to every generation of Jews that might exist. But here's the thing. What God has promised to you and what he has commanded you to do is equally as impossible as the parting of the Jordan River. And we can overcome by the same faith that caused them to not only go through the river, but to conquer the land of Canaan. For example, he's commanded you to bless those who curse you. You know, pray God's blessings upon people who are doing everything against you that deserves the opposite, right? How can I do that? He has commanded you to not be overcome by evil, to put off bitterness, anxiety, other negative emotions. He's commanded you to put off all addictions. And for some people, they think, that's impossible. I've tried, I've tried, I've tried, I can't do it. But faith ignores our weakness, lays claim to God's promise and what he has commanded us to do. And and and it finds a fulfillment. So faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Secondly, it's not presumption, but third faith is not manipulation. The concept of faith in some Christian circles. I believe is more akin to ancient magic than it is to biblical faith. Ancient magic really. really approached—they thought of God or a higher power or fate or something like that as something that could be manipulated if you said the right things, you did the right things, you said the right formulas, you cried out loud enough, you made the right sacrifices. And that's really not the way that true faith works. In fact, faith is so astounded by how great and awesome God and His kingship is, And in such submission to God, we wouldn't dare think of manipulating God. But if God says something, He's so great, we believe He will accomplish it. And this can be seen throughout the passage, this reverence for God. Look at verse 3. God sets the agenda in that verse, not man. The way some charismatic pastors in town here yell at God and command God to do certain things makes me shudder because I just cannot fathom anybody treating the God who made this universe the way they talk to Him. We don't set the agenda, God does. God wasn't there to follow Israel's wishes. Israel was commanded to follow God's presence in the Ark of the Covenant, which, by the way, is His throne room. They're just submitting to His Lordship. Verse 3 says, then you shall set out from your place and go after it." So, they followed God, not vice versa. A second, verse 4 says that they followed at a distance. Verse 4 says they were to have a space of 2,000 cubits between them and the ark. There's about 2 yards to a cubit. So, there's about 1,000 yards. By the way, the picture I put into your outlines, it's hard to find any clip art that's accurate. And so, that's a wrong picture. And I knew it when I put it in there, but I couldn't find any good picture. They're crowding around the ark. No, they were supposed to put a big distance between themselves and the ark. Why? Because this is the king of the universe. They are to have awe, respect, submission to him, no thought of manipulating this God. Third, verse 5 shows that they were called to sanctify themselves before the Lord. And you can go through the Scriptures and see there's many statements here that are utterly incompatible with the idea that if we do things right we can manipulate God into serving our wishes. We do not pray our will to be done. We pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So those are the three counterfeits of faith. In contrast, where there is true faith, there will be a convergence of three opposite things. God's promises, God's commands, and God's providential leading. Let's look first of all at the promises, and we'll start with verse 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. This was a promise that without fail they would be successful in their military conquest, without fail. So, they're going to get across the Jordan. Verse 11, "'Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan.'" So, here's a promise. He's going to lead them over the Jordan. They don't know how it's going to happen, but that promise alone would have been substantial enough for them to have faith to follow. But he gives more details in verse 13, and it shall come to pass, as soon as the souls 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. And so, it's really clear as you go through this chapter that what Hebrews describes is a generation that had faith unlike the previous generation. This was a faith that was founded upon the promises of the Scripture that they could lean upon. There can certainly be presumption without promises of God, but no genuine faith can truly exist unless there is a promise, an assurance from God in His Word. Now, remember what we said about the counterfeit of presumption. If these Israelites had stepped into the Jordan without God's promise to part the waters, they would have drowned. or gotten wet. Drownings happen all the time, whether God loves you or doesn't love you. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian. If you jump off of the tallest building downtown in Omaha, you're going to get hurt at the bottom. or you're going to die at the bottom. And so if you try to part the Missouri River and go across to the Iowa side without a promise from God that he's going to part that river, you're going to be disappointed. It's just not going to happen. Even if you say, I'm stepping out in faith. In verses 10 through 13, God gives the basis for their faith. So Joshua said to the children of Israel, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God. What does the New Testament say? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This is so important to emphasize. I challenge you to find any example in the Bible where there was faith expressed without a promise or an assurance from God. Now, I don't deny that there is a subjective side to faith when it comes to specific applications, because the Spirit of God takes the Word and applies it in our lives to specific situations. But there's always going to be a promise that we can claim either explicit or implied. Now, what practical difference does this make? I think it makes a huge difference. I have seen Christians, and even churches, take out loans far bigger than it was wise for them to be able to take out. And they felt a-okay about it because they prayed about it. And they said, we believe the Lord's leading us to do this, and we're stepping out in faith that God will somehow provide. Somehow, okay? No, that is not faith. That is presumption. I have seen Christians, and to my shame, I was one of them. who in a rash moment promised a vast sum of money for missions because of the emotion of the missions conference that I was attending at age 20. And I had no idea where this money would come from, but somehow I was just prompted, felt prompted to promise this vast amount of money that people needed in this missions thing. And that was presumption. It was not faith. And it took me years of hardship and hard, hard work to pay off that debt to the Lord, because I believe in keeping my vows, even if they are rash vows, right? But this is one of the reasons, one of several reasons why I'm opposed to the faith promise giving. Faith promise giving is a manipulative form of raising money in many churches, very popular. And it presumes upon the Lord and it seeks to bind His hand in some way that because I've made this promise God is now obligated to come through somehow and to provide this money that I've promised. the way it works. That is really no different than the name-it-and-claim-it theology that says you can ask God for anything, and if you believe, that's all it requires, God is obligated to come through on your behalf. Well, that's believing yourself. It's not believing God's Word. It's not founded on the Scripture. Without God's promise, there can be no true faith. And someone will respond, But yeah, but hasn't God promised to supply generously for us? Yes, of course he has. Just like he has promised to send his angels to bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. But what did Jesus reply to Satan when Satan took that verse out of context and said, hey, God has said you're not going to dash your foot against the stone. He's going to send his angels. Why don't you just test God, jump off of the temple, see if these angels come. And what did Jesus respond? You shall not tempt the Lord your God, right? So Satan had divorced the promise from the commands of God. And when you do that, you have presumption, not faith. God had not commanded Christ to cast himself off of that temple. This is the difference between faith and presumption. Faith rests in the Word of God. Presumption adds to God's Word. Faith links God's promises and His commands, and we'll look at that a little bit later, whereas presumption tears those two apart. So we've got to have all three, promise, command, and providential leading. I met a student at Covenant College who used the services of a doctor, a dentist, a barber, and a couple of others. I forget now what it was he used. And we asked, you can't afford to do this. And he wasn't planning to pay, but his excuse was, I'm living by faith. And my response is that disobedience to God's economic commands cannot possibly be faith because it is disobedience, okay? The Bible indicates in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, you don't mooch off of others and excuse it as faith. That is a counterfeit. And yet I see this counterfeit all throughout the Christian church, even in Reformed circles. We see people, you've seen people who have used this excuse. And some will say, well, there was an open door. This is God's guidance. And my response is, yeah, there was probably several open doors. Why did you go through the open door that led to irresponsibility and sin rather than going through the open door that would not have led to irresponsibility and sin? As I've said, there are some open doors that lead to dangerous elevator shafts. Didn't Jonah have an open door when he is running away from God? And he gets to Joppa, and it's like, wow, perfect providence, open door. There's a ship ready to sail to Sharshish, you know, the opposite direction of where God had commanded it. Now, obviously, because it's contrary to the command, it is not an open door he should have gone through, and he should have known that. Let me illustrate the danger of open door excuses. And people use this all the time. But Hebrews 11.29 says of the Israelites, by faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land. Okay, so there is an open door that God had promised they would get through and had commanded them to go through. But the verse goes on to say, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned. Okay, so for the Israelites to go through this open door was faith. Why? Because God promised they would get through it, and He commanded them to go through it. Whereas for the Egyptians to go through that same open door was presumption with disastrous consequences. And so here's the point, when you step out in faith, be sure you are doing so consistent with biblical principles rather than tempting God and his mercy and actually the mercy of other people. My parents had to bail out missionaries who were living by faith because they're going to starve to death if my parents didn't help them out. And again, it's a faulty view, I think, of faith. Don't go through the Jordan River unless God has made a promise to part it for you, which in our generation He has not. But let's deal with the opposite extreme. Before we move on to the commands of God, let me make it as clear as I can that everything I've just said is not a caution against embracing dangers or taking risks or hardships or taking on impossibilities. We're not saying faith only does what is reasonable to do. No, no, no, no. That is exactly the opposite of what I am saying. Faith has everything to do with impossibilities. In fact, in this chapter, God made sure that this was going to be an even greater impossibility, because He's having them cross the Jordan at its highest peak. When it's flooding, it's raging. There is all kinds of logs and things being swept down. These little kids, if they're going across, could be swept with it as well. I don't know if you've ever crossed a river. I have out in Ethiopia that's during flood season. It could be a scary thing. You can very easily die. The last phrase of verse 15 says, the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest. So it was flood stage, and impossibilities are precisely the time when faith begins to shine, because that's when we lay hold of God and God alone. We're not trusting our faith. Well, God has called us to be involved in all kinds of impossible things in Dominion Covenant Church. equally impossible to crossing the Jordan. And some of you have experienced personal victories in your own life, praise God, that previously you have told me you thought were impossible to achieve. And you have realized, wow, God's come through on my behalf. People have struggled with sexual temptations that seemed impossible to resist. And they would have given up if it had not been faith laying hold of God's promise to take them through their impossible situation. There are people in this congregation who are kind of shy, and they think, Ah, it terrifies me, the idea of witnessing to somebody. There's no way that I could do that. But as they have tested their faith, and they've said, Lord, you've got to come through on my behalf. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to deal with this. And they've stepped out. The Lord's come through for them, and they've gotten excited. Wow. But that's the way God works. He wants us to step out in the obedience of faith. with one man who told me he had struggled with anger so long he was convinced it was impossible to conquer. And I told him, it really doesn't matter what you think. What matters is what does the Bible say? And the Bible says if you depend upon God's grace and you use his blueprints, you can conquer your anger. And you don't need to guess who it is. He's not in our city anymore. But this man wrote to me sometime later and said, you're right. I've been following the blueprints that you've laid out, and I have not had a blow up in years. He can testify God's grace came through. Some people have given up on the salvation of loved ones because they seem like impossible cases. And I tell them, every salvation is impossible. Jesus said, with man this is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible. Now the next thing that is always present where there is genuine faith is the context of God's commands. Now I've already dealt with this. It's impossible not to you know, take these things completely apart. But let's look at it in the text. Did these Jews have commands which filled out God's promises? Yes, they did. Verse 3 says, And they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites bearing it, then you shall set out from your place, and go after it. So, these Israelites needed to know if they had been commanded to do what was promised. And we do as well. I have known women preachers who have claimed God's promises to ministers and God's power working through ministers on their behalf. And I'm thinking to myself, they think that they're entering into the ministry and they're engaging in ministry by faith, but it is a counterfeit faith by definition because they are in disobedience by even being in the ministry. Those promises were not made to women. Those promises were made to pastors. And so you can see that commands set the context of who, when, where, and why we are doing things. Verse six says that they were to have the ark of the covenant go first. What do you think would have happened if some of the people were eager beavers, and they said, oh, I want to be first, and they ran ahead of the priests? Well, they just would have gotten wet, because the priests were commanded to be the first ones to the edge of the water. It's a popular notion in today's Christianity to say that faith is the opposite of commands. It's the opposite of law. If you're living by faith, you don't need God's law at all. But listen to this. Paul says in Romans 3.31, do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. Or I love the King James, God forbid. No, it's the exact opposite. He says, on the contrary, we establish the law. Faith establishes the law. There can be no true faith without a command, and conversely, when God gives commands, it requires faith to be able to live out this command. The two go hand in hand. So, Would you have dared to go through the Jordan if God had commanded you, not commanded you, to do so? I wouldn't. It was God's command that brought such surety to their faith. And you can think of Peter in the boat. He sees Jesus walking on the water, and he knows based on Jesus walking on the water that Jesus was able to make him walk on the water. But he's not about to jump out of that boat unless Jesus wants him to jump out of the boat, unless Jesus commands him to jump out of the boat. And so he says in Matthew 14, 28, Peter answered and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Command me. If God gives a command, you know that his grace will enable you to fulfill even if it is an impossible thing. But he wanted to know if this was something commanded. And if God commands you to do something, it is never presumption to obey God. For example, when God calls for the tithe, it is an act of faith to obey that command. Now, some people think, no, it's going to be suicidal. This is totally unreasonable given my budget. It's impossible. Think of the widow with the mite. She's going to tithe, but she can't further subdivide that mite. It's the smallest coin that is there. And she's thinking, this is given to me. How do I tithe this? I guess I'll give it all to the Lord. That seems unreasonable to us. And yet, when you're living by faith, you realize to not tithe is the unreasonable thing. It's the sure way to lose out. Joel gave a whole bunch of evidences this past week of living by faith. But one of the things he mentioned is that Malachi 3.10 is it? Malachi 3.10 is the only place in the Bible that he was aware of where God actually commands us to test him. Usually testing God is not a good thing, but God invites us, test me and see. If you tithe in faith, just watch and see if I don't pour out blessings from heaven upon you. So it's not hoping that he will bless us. It's not seeing others blessed and say, OK, we want to say, no, we just trust God. We take him at his word. Faith steps out in obedience to his word. Now, here's another dimension to God's command. When did God part the waters in this chapter? It was not until there was action, right? Verse 15 says, 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, where the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest, that the waters which came down from upstream stood still and rose in a heap very far away at Adam. Now we think of faith as waiting for God to do something. And obviously faith does expect God to do something, but it's never passive, never passive. Scripture speaks of faith working through love. And actually if you read Hebrews 11, which is the chapter on faith that defines faith, you'll see action verbs strewn all through that chapter. Actions such as, by faith Abel offered a sacrifice, by faith Abraham obeyed, by faith he sojourned. Every example includes actions. We started by quoting Romans 16, verse, 24, 26, somewhere around there, Romans 16, 26, that speaks of the obedience of faith. James says that if you don't have a faith that has obedience, it's a fake faith. It's a dead faith. It's a useless faith. James, in effect, says, don't think you have faith if you've been praying up a storm asking God to bless this naked and hungry brother who's come to your house, and you have it in your power to feed that person. That's hypocrisy. That is not faith. And thus, it's not enough to believe a promise of God's provision and passively wait for it. If the Israelites had said, Lord, you promised to give us the land. We'll wait on the side of the river. You can add it to us on a silver platter. God would have rightly rebuked them. Why? Because it was unbelief. Faith doesn't just take the promises, it takes the whole Word of God. It embraces the commands. And God's commands, by the way, are just as impossible as His promises are. When God commands you to cease from anger, to flee from fornication, to put off addictions, whether tobacco, porn, whatever, to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, some people feel like, man, that's impossible. I don't know how I can do that. Only His grace can enable you to fulfill those commands. But the point is, until in our weakness we step out in the obedience of faith, in other words, we do the steps, the blueprints that God has laid out, nothing's going to happen. God didn't part the Jordan and then have them walk over. Notice in verse 13 what he says. It shall come to pass as soon as the souls 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 point is, God doesn't give grace until you need that grace, okay? It's as you trust his promises and you step out in obedience to his command that it comes to fulfillment. So if you're waiting for boldness before you go out and witness, you're probably not going to be successful. If you wait for God's strength before you start resisting some temptation, you're not approaching it right. I love the illustration of the man with the withered hand, and you're probably tired of my mentioning it, but Jesus commanded him, stretch forth your hand. And if he had responded to Jesus, What do you mean, stretch forth my hand? It's withered. You've got to heal it first, and then I'll stretch it forth. If He'd done that, there would have been no healing taking place. Jesus is waiting for the actions of faith. And so it was when He was willing to do the impossible, of course, at God's command, when he's willing to do the impossible, that God made the impossible happen. And that's really a principle of life. Without a command, it would be presumptuous for us to tackle the impossible. But without obedience to His commands, we don't even have faith. And without faith, it's impossible to please God. And so here is the pattern. If you feel like your faith needs to grow, then I would say just begin in the small places, knowing where God has commanded you to change your life. And as you claim His promises, by faith and without doubting, and then you begin to implement those commands in your life, his blueprints in your life, and you keep doing that, your faith is going to grow and grow and grow. But if you only look at the promises and commands of scripture without depending upon the spirit to apply them in specifics of your life, then you also have a problem. For example, God commands ministers to preach the gospel, but Unless you know that you're called to the ministry, that's not a promise that you can lay claim to, right? And so how do you know that you're called to the ministry, or how does a person know that he's already called to the ministry and he's going to be taking on a new venture that the Lord has called him to? There is a subjective application of the Word of God that the Spirit makes in our hearts. We call this guidance. Now, let me be clear that this guidance does not stand by itself. Some people might question everything I've said, and they say, well, there's an exception here, and that's in terms of the supernatural gift of faith. That doesn't need the Scripture. We just get a direct pipeline from God. I don't think that's the case, even with that supernatural gift. And let me give you the following standard definition of the gift of faith, and I think you'll find the issues we've been discussing to be present. The gift of faith is the mysterious surge of confidence which arises within a person as he claims God's word for a specific situation or need and becomes certain of God's answer. And so the Holy Spirit takes God's promises and commands And He applies them in new ways, in new situations, new specifics. How did God give specific leading in this chapter? It wasn't just the promise. It wasn't just the command. There was leading as well. I mean, they had already had the promise, and they had had the command for many years. They'd been standing for 40 years. But the timing was now, and even down to the day there was timing, because in verse 2 it says they had to wait for three days before they got the go-ahead from the Lord to go across the Jordan. So how does God lead us? How does He guide us? I'm not going to give you an exhaustive list here, but sometimes He leads through circumstances. sometimes through burdens that he places upon the heart of leaders. And we're going to see this actually several times in this book, such as Caleb's burden to take Hebron. It was a consuming burden God had given him. God gave an entirely different burden to his son-in-law, Othniel, to tackle Kirjoth Sefer. So sometimes God leads us through burdens that he places upon people's hearts. In verse 3, the leaders set the stage. So sometimes he guides us through leadership. Okay, verse four, there's something about the ark that allows the Israelites to know where to go. Do not come near it that you may know the way by which you must go for you have not passed this way before. In verse seven, we see God leading in the citizens lives by way of miracles. So there's a number of ways that God leads, but it is leading through the application of the word. Okay, I think enough on that. Lastly, I believe that unwavering faith brings God glory. God doesn't want people coming to Christians and saying, wow, I'm blown away by your faith. I'm blown away by all of the things, the cool things that you're able to do. No, what God wants is other people to see Him working through weak and struggling Christians to do amazing things so that people say, Lord, I want your strength in my life as well. You are awesome. I want that for me. Look at how this call to faith would glorify God in this chapter. Look at verse 10. Joshua said, This exercise of faith taught them that God was the one who would get the glory for the conquest. Verse 11. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over before you into the Jordan." So here is a visible reminder, it was God who was doing this. And I think chapter 4, 19 through 24 looks back on this time and shows how God alone received the glory for the things that were done. Let me read that. Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying, When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What are these stones? Then you shall let your children know, saying, Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had crossed over, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever. Now there is a real mission statement, that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. And so my last question to you is, do you have a faith that glorifies God, or a faith that glorifies you? Okay, that's another distinction between the real and the counterfeit. I'm gonna give you five summary conclusions that can help you to examine your heart, and if there are deficiencies, just ask God to strengthen your faith. First, don't step out in faith unless you're sure God has commanded you to do so and has promised His help. Some open doors lead to elevator shafts. Second, don't take your cues for faith from your impossible circumstances. Impossibilities are irrelevant in God's plan. If God commands something, and you step through those impossibilities in the obedience of faith, you just watch God come through. Third, never pit God's promises against His commands. I knew a minister who wanted to divorce his wife and wanted to marry another woman, he was taken out of the ministry, but he was confronted over his sin, and he just couldn't see that it was sin, because he had this subjective view of guidance. And he agreed, it was not scriptural, because he couldn't argue with us on that, but he said, it may not be God's perfect will, but God is leading me to do it, so it must be God's permissive will. God has promised me this lady. Wrong. God's promises never go against the commands of God, and his leading will never contradict his word. His faith in the rightness of that divorce was a counterfeit faith. Fourth, be open to being challenged subjectively to take hold of things that may be beyond your comfort zone. God is more interested in your growth than he is in your comfort. Be willing to do hard things. God many times put burden upon our hearts to do new challenges. Fifth, faith never leaves open in a sketch hat, hatch. If it's true faith, it burns its bridges behind it. That's what God did with the Israelites. Once they crossed over the river, and then the river started flowing again, they're now committed to conquest because they can't get back over to the east side of that river. They can only go forward. May God grant to each of us an unwavering faith in the face of difficult circumstances, and to Him be all the glory. Amen. Father God, we thank you for the testimonies of faith you have strewn all through the scriptures. And I pray next week, as we begin to go through and see other lessons, as we go through verse by verse, that we would see them through the lens of genuine faith in what it is that you have called us to. Bless this, your people, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.