We're going to read in Joshua 3. I just want to remind you that the reading of God's Word is not just a formality that goes before preaching. There is a special blessing that comes from listening to the Word read in faith. And so, approach God's Word with fear and trembling. Joshua 3, beginning at verse 1. "'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 "'and 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 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. 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, I thank you for your Word, and as we approach this Word with fear and trembling, we pray that your Spirit would quicken it to our hearts, we would grow, we would be drawn close to you, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, before we start, I want to make a correction to something that I said last week. I said that the definition of the supernatural gift of faith that I quoted was a standard definition. But my son pointed out to me afterward that he saw different definitions online. He was wondering if there are differences of opinion on that. And sure enough, when I went online and looked at my books, I found Two authors, at least, D.A. Carson and Sam Storms, that actually contradicted my definition, both believe that the supernatural gift of faith claims things from God that it cannot claim from any promises in Scripture. They very explicitly and emphatically distance it from the Word of God. Now, I still very strongly disagree with that. But I wanted to at least make it clear that calling it a standard definition is probably not correct. It's one definition. But then secondly, three people said that they were still confused in what I meant by that gift, especially by saying that the gift of faith is always in some way linked to and springs from the Word of God. One person pointed out that some of George Mueller's prayers just, they don't seem to be connected to any specific verse, such as his praying that the fog would lift when he was on a ship, and God, the captain was totally dumbfounded that God immediately lifted that fog, because he thought they were gonna be late. Or praying for a key, where are you gonna find it in the scripture, you know? Claim if you lose a key, you're gonna find it, you know? And yet, Mueller himself insisted that every single time that the Lord gave this surge of faith within him, it was directly connected to Scripture. Now, there wasn't a verse that talked about those things, but it was still, the Spirit would quicken to his heart. Sometimes it was as tangential as a Scripture, concerning the kindness and the generosity of God, that God would say, here's going to be a manifestation of that in your life. But it was the Scripture, he said, that gave him this faith. And I want to start by giving three short quotes that hopefully explain what I wanted to say, and I think do so much better than I did. Sinclair Ferguson said, the result of the Spirit working with and through the Word of God to illumine and transform our thinking is the development of a godly instinct that operates in sometimes surprising ways. In a well-taught, Spirit-illumined believer, the revelation of Scripture becomes so much a part of his or her mindset that the will of God frequently seems to become clear instinctively, and in that sense, immediately. Just as a well-trained and experienced musical ear recognizes whether a piece of music is played well or badly, so spiritual exercise in the Word of God creates discernment. See Hebrews 5, 11-14. This may help to explain why well-meaning Christians have sometimes mistaken illumination for revelation. Confusing the labels sometimes can lead to potentially unhappy practical consequences. John Murray said something similar. He said, And he goes on to say, in effect, well then, why don't we sometimes have a verse that's specifically there when this happens? And his answer is the same as Sinclair Ferguson's. He said that the Spirit of God uses what he calls the sum total of our Scripture-saturated thinking about God, His generosity, His acts and attributes, as a vehicle for those sudden times when our faith and certainty surges up over a brand-new issue. It's a brand-new issue not mentioned in the Scripture, but it's in some way the Spirit uses that Scripture. And then he goes on in his extended essay on guidance to say that Scripture and subjective guidance must always be tied together, and when they are not, we can end up in dangerous waters. George Mueller has said the same thing about his miraculous faith experience. He had thousands of times when there would just be this mysterious surge of confidence or faith that God was going to do something. And he says that God would use a Scripture to convey that certainty. Sometimes the Scripture seemed tangential, just related to God's character or kindness, but the Spirit applied that Scripture to a new situation to produce faith. And so George Mueller's recommendation for people who wanted to live a life of faith like he had been doing is immerse yourself in the Scripture. He says, if God has become known to us through prayer and meditation on His own Word, He will lead us, in general at least, with a measure of confidence to rely upon Him, and thus meditation on the Word of God will be one special means to strengthen our faith. And the point is that the Holy Spirit loves to give faith to those who are immersed in His Word. And I won't say more on that, lest I add further confusion to their well-articulated statements. But what I want to do today, and it's kind of building on what we talked about last week, is I want to look at 10 factors that undergirded their faith-driven desire to conquer the land of Canaan for the glory of God. And the more these 10 things are present in our lives, the more likely we will begin to be more and more characterized by their faith. So you can think of these 10 things, and if I was to redo the outline, I'd probably title it that way, but you can think of these 10 things as fertilizer for your faith, okay? They are the context in which God loves to cause faith to grow. And I think last week I did at least very clearly demonstrate that they did have faith, a faith that led to action. Now, the first factor that undergirded their faith was an eager expectation that God was at work and He was about to do something more. Verse 1 says, 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. Now there are two things that happened early in this verse that showed a sense of eagerness and anticipation of what God was about to do. The first is that Joshua got up early. And this is not the first time, or the only time, that Joshua gets up early. He gets up early in the morning in chapter 6 verse 12 6 15 7 16 8 10 over and over he gets up early to meet with God and He was a man who always started his day with God It's hard not to get up early when you were excited about something, you know kids. What do they do on Christmas morning? They're up before the parents are right? They get up early a couple of weeks ago when I was doing my first smoked brisket I had a hard time staying in bed. I got up early because I was very excited for my first smoked brisket. Now, some of you just cannot identify with that, I'm sure, but there is probably something that will get you going early in the morning. And how much more so should this be the case when we have an excitement about the new things that God is actively guiding us into? Every morning in the Word gives new insights, new guidance from the Lord. And the more you experience that in your devotions, the more you will anticipate it. Now, the second thing that showed eager expectation and anticipation is that Israel went to the Jordan River, and verse 2 indicates they went three days early. You know the expression, early is on time, on time is late, and you don't want to know what late is, right? This is the way it was with them. Throughout this book, you see an eagerness to enter into God's will. Israel does not want to miss out on anything. And if you develop the sense of eagerness and anticipation of what God is about to do, it will often be the precursor to faith arising in your heart. And God loves to pour out faith into our hearts when we have this. It's a fertilizer for faith. Second, daily learn to submit to God's lordship and live by His grace. And I think both sides of that are beautifully illustrated by the symbolism in the Ark of the Covenant. It demonstrates God's lordship and His grace And the more we are convinced of the truth of both sides of that equation, the more likely we are to have the Spirit sovereignly give us this faith. Let's read verses 2 through 4 first. 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. Now, the Ark of the Covenant was not usually visible to anyone. It was hidden in the tabernacle behind a curtain in the Holy of Holies, and it was only seen by the high priest, and he could usually only see it once a year. But when they were traveling, they took it out, and even here, though, there is this sense of awe and reverence. They were to stay separated from it by 2,000 cubits, which is about 1,000 yards. So God was revered, he was feared as an awesome king, and the point is that the fear of the Lord is not just the beginning of wisdom, it is many times the precursor to faith. Let me describe the ark, because I think understanding what it symbolized will help. It was a box about 3 feet 9 inches long and about 2 feet 3 inches high and wide. Douglas Mangum describes it this way. The cover of the Ark of the Covenant was adorned with solid gold cherubim. The wings of the cherubim met in the center, forming the seat of Yahweh's throne. Exodus 37.9. The Caporette formed the throne itself while the Ark functioned as its footstool. Now on the day of atonement, the high priest would go in, he'd take some of the blood from the bull that had been slain, he sprinkles that blood to atone for his sins, and he sprinkles some of the blood from the goat to atone for the sins of the people. Inside the ark are the two tablets of stone on which are written the Ten Commandments. And then there's the bowl of manna, which somehow God miraculously kept. fresh. And then there's Aaron's rod. And then on the side of the ark is where they stored the first five books of the Bible that was there. So it's a beautiful symbol of Christ and His kingdom. And actually Hebrews says very explicitly it is a symbol itself of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's just go through a couple of the parts here. The wood of the ark symbolizes, and I won't get into the acacia and all that, but the wood symbolizes His humanity. The gold that covered the wood symbolizes His divinity. The throne symbolizes His kingdom and His sovereign rule. The bowl of manna inside symbolizes the provision of God for His people, but especially the communion that we are ushered into through the blood of Christ. The Ten Commandments symbolizes His kingdom and the law of the kingdom. You don't have a kingdom if you don't have law. And so Christ said, do not think I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. So even though the law of God, when it was given on Mount Sinai, engendered fear and terror in the eyes of the people, when that same law was put inside of the Ark of the Covenant under the blood of sprinkling, it symbolizes the gospel. The gospel is not anti-law. The gospel is the good news that we are now at peace with the law and by Christ's grace we can live out that law. And then the rod represents Christ's leadership. So when you actually study, you could take a whole hour studying the Ark of the Covenant. It's just marvelous symbolism. But notice that they were to follow this ark that had God's throne. Makes sense, right? If it's God's throne, if it's representing the king, and you know, in the Ark of the Covenant, that glory cloud representing God's presence sat on that ark and went soaring up into the sky above that. So if they were to be following this ark, it's symbolic of the following of God's lordship. and submitting to His Lordship, and following and living by His grace, what the Old Testament spoke of as the mercy seat, and what Hebrews 4.16 calls the throne of grace. Here's the point. It's impossible to grow in faith if we are not following God's direction daily. And I love how Revelation 7.17 applies this to Jesus. It says, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, how could He be in the midst of the throne? Well, He's in, on, under, over. He is the throne itself, you know. He's in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. In other words, you can't go wrong submitting to Christ and following Him all your days. With a knowledge of the shepherd king like that who has your best interests in mind, it is automatically going to begin to elicit faith and expectation that blessings are going to flow from this throne on your behalf. Yet another thing that undergirds their faith-driven desire to conquer Canaan was a willingness to set themselves apart from the Lord. We sometimes call this consecration. Verse five, Joshua said to the people, sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. Now literally, it's the Lord will do amazing things among you. Do you wish God would do amazing things in your life? Do you wish you had answer after answer to prayer like George Mueller did? Well, George Mueller says anybody can have answers to prayer just like he did. By the way, he kept a journal of every prayer request that he ever offered up and the answers to those prayers. He was a very detail-oriented guy. And after his death, somebody went through his journal and counted approximately 30,000 amazing answers to prayer. But I was reading this past week in his biography, and he said, hey, anybody can have this faith. But he adds, if you will devote yourself to God, follow Him and trust Him. James 4.8 says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. We want that, right? We want Him drawing near to us. We want His presence. We want Him working in our lives. But that verse goes on to give a condition. It says, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. So when we daily cast our sins at the cross of Christ, and ask God to cleanse us and make us holy, God delights in drawing near to us and beginning to do amazing things in our lives. But usually our consecration is half-hearted. It lacks integrity. It's not real consecration. We're willing to consecrate a whole bunch, maybe most of the things in our lives, but there are things we close our ears to that the Holy Spirit is convicting us of, little corners of our life. And A.T. Pearson used an illustration of a farm to show what happens. He said, suppose you had a thousand acre farm and someone offered to buy it. You agree to sell the land, except for one acre, right in the center, which you want to keep for yourself. Did you know in some areas that the law would allow you to have access to that one lone spot, and that you would have the right to build a road across the surrounding property in order to get to it? So it is. with us as Christians, if we make less than 100% surrender to God, we can be sure that the devil will take advantage of any inroad to reach that uncommitted area of our lives. Now, in contrast to that, Jonathan Edwards wrote, I claim no right to myself, no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me. Neither do I have any right to this body or its members, no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears, or eyes. I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own. I have been to God this morning and told Him that I've given myself wholly to Him. I have given every power so that for the future I claim no right to myself in any respect. I have expressly promised Him, for by His grace I will not fail. I take Him as my whole portion in felicity, looking upon nothing else as any part of my happiness. His law is the constant rule of my obedience. I will fight with all my might against the world, the flesh, and the devil to the end of my life. I will adhere to the faith of the gospel, however hazardous and difficult a profession and practice of it may be. I pray God for the sake of others to look on this as self-dedication. Henceforth, I am not to act in any respect as my own. I shall act as my own if I ever make use of any of my powers to do anything that is not to the glory of God or to fail to make the glorifying of Him my whole and entire business. If I murmur in the least at affliction, if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or admit anything because it is a great denial, if I trust myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God's, but I purpose to be absolutely His. Now, if I stop there, I might give the false impression that if you made a consecration like this today to the Lord, that the rest of your life would be clear sailing. And this could lead to one of two extremes. The first extreme is to lower the standards of God's law and to embrace some form of perfectionism like A.T. Pearson did. I just quoted him earlier. And he, it was a milder form of perfectionism called the Higher Life Movement, but he believed he now lived above any known sin. He didn't deny he had sinned, but he lived above any known sin. There's other kinds of perfectionism. So that's one extreme you could go to. The other extreme is despair. It's like, it's hopeless. You just throw up your hands. And Jonathan Edwards avoided both extremes. I started this section by saying that we need to daily cast our sins at the feet of the cross. It's not a one-time consecration where it leads to some kind of perfection. No, it's a daily asking God to cleanse us and to make us holy in every corner of our lives. Now, just think about it this way. Canaan was not conquered overnight. It took a lot of fighting, and even after they won Canaan, there were times where they lost territory, and then they regained territory. It was not something that happened overnight. And in the same way, our consecration to the Lord and our pursuit of holiness is not won overnight. So yes, it's good to make an unreserved consecration to God at some point in our lives, But every day we must take our watch. Jonathan Edwards followed this initial consecration very early in his life with his resolutions, his daily resolutions. And I love resolution number 56. It said, resolve never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be. Okay, he knew he wasn't going to be perfect, but he resolved, I'm going to fight on every quarter. I am not going to stop fighting. That was his point. There was a young teenager named Deborah Hathaway who wrote to Edwards for advice. She was from a neighboring town, not a member of his church. But he was the kind of person that answered these kinds of letters, and he wrote a long letter. She was asking, how do I live this Christian life more successfully? So he wrote 19 points, encouraging her to do these as resolutions. And he ended the letter by saying, in all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ's hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on his hand and side. And in Joshua, this is beautifully symbolized with the ark. The command here is not to focus on yourself. That would be extremely discouraging, very depressing. The command is to focus on the ark, follow the ark, follow the grace of God, which is in Christ Jesus, and that then will give you this confidence that daily you can consecrate yourself to the Lord and not grow depressed. Daniel 11.32 says, the people who know their God shall stand firm and do great exploits. So consecration is one of the essentials that undergirds a lifetime of faith. Next, be willing to follow the God-ordained leadership if they are willing to follow God. Don't follow them if they refuse to live out what they preach, at least in any area that they refuse to live out what they preach. Verse 6 says, Then Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, cross over before the people. So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before their people. There is nothing that kills faith as quickly as a church that is satisfied with the status quo. And this is true even if the clergy are challenging the people to grow, but they themselves are not practicing what they preach. Obviously, this book will illustrate that there is a division of labor. There are different callings, different giftings. Not everybody's going to act in exactly the same way, but everyone is a call to be totally sold out to the Lord. And when the leadership are, then follow them. So how do you know that the leadership has faith? Confidence alone means nothing. Claims to faith mean nothing. You can measure their faith by Scripture, and there are key things believed and lived out by the leadership that can enliven the faith of the people, such as a faith-filled eschatology, a faith-filled confidence in the sufficiency of Scripture, a faith-filled confidence in the power of God's grace to transform any life. anyone of faith-filled confidence that God's biblical blueprints can give us success. You see, when the leaders have faith that provides a context of faith for the people to grow. Now, no leader is going to be perfect. As Kevin Swanson says, you know, you're going to look, what direction are the leaders going? If they're going the right direction, that's great. It's direction, not perfection. Next, determine that God alone will receive the glory through you. And this is so, so important. Now, when I read verse seven, it's gonna look like it says the exact opposite of what this point says. After all, isn't it Joshua who's going to be exalted? Yes, it is. But if you see why he is exalted and how he is exalted, you will see that it definitely supports this principle. Verse seven. 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. What kind of exaltation was it? Was it an exaltation where people could see how wonderful Joshua was? No, it was an exaltation that enabled people to see how great God was. They were going to see God was with them. just as God had been with Moses. And by the way, Scripture says that Moses was the most humble person upon the face of the earth at that time. And what does Scripture say God does with the humble? Ezekiel 21-26 says, exalt the humble and humble the exalted. Matthew 23-12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. He who humbles himself will be exalted. 1 Peter 5, 5-6, likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time." It was precisely because Moses was such a humble man that God shined through him so much. And as we saw in chapter 1, it was precisely because Joshua was willing to be a servant's servant, serving Moses for so many years, that God trusted Joshua to be exalted. He knew that when he exalted Joshua into leadership, people would see God at work in him. not Joshua at work in Joshua, okay? So if you want to see God's mighty hand at work in your life as it was at work in Joshua's life, at work in George Mueller's life, hey, start doing some of the humble things that George Mueller did, right? And be passionate that God alone receive the glory. That is a precursor to genuine faith. Verse 8 shows yet another context in which faith continues to grow. Step out in obedience before you see the answer, and keep doing that over and over. Verse 8 says, 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. Now, last week we saw that the Jordan was at full flood stage, probably a mile across at this point, maybe even broader. But these priests were asked to walk into the river and to stand in its middle. And the word for stand means to hold your position. as the way some translate it, hold your position. Well, you get to chapter 4, you discover where they held their position. It was smack dab in the middle of the river. And here's the thing, God hadn't parted the waters yet when they stepped into the river. And in chapter 4 we see that once they got to the middle and they stood their ground there while all the rest of Israel went around them, they're standing still, standing their ground. It would have taken courage because there's a building up of this heap of water to their right. And yet they took God at His word. They stepped out in what Romans calls the obedience of faith. Now, God had actually been preparing them for this in the wilderness by making them take smaller steps of faith. Scripture indicates we grow from faith to faith. When we went through the book of Numbers, we saw that this was God's boot camp training ground. And as their faith was tested, and they passed that test, and God would give them another test, and they would pass that one, and they kept growing and growing in their faith. And so here's the application. The more times you take the step of faith, the more it reinforces your faith and makes it stronger. George Mueller's faith was much stronger toward the end of his life than it was when he was at the beginning of his Christian walk. Verse 9 gives another important factor. that undergirded their faith, and this is something that men of faith down through the centuries have emphasized over and over again. This precondition to faith is that we must come under the influence of God's inspired revelation. That's actually where we started, wasn't it? So Joshua said to the children of Israel, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God. The inspired revelation of God is what keeps our subjective guidance from going off the rails. And having leaders who are grounded in God's word, I think, is critical to the success of the church. If you look at Israel's history, you will see that leaders who were not grounded in the word so quickly led a faith-filled Israel into less and less until they began to compromise very, very quickly. As Kathy mentioned to me, just because people have confidence or faith does not mean it's a genuine confidence or a genuine faith. And a case in point is a pastor who thought, you know, that God was going to raise this boy that had died from the dead. and day after day kept praying, and when it didn't happen, blamed the parents for lack of faith. Being Scripture-anchored helps us to not treat our subjective leading as infallible. There can be confidence that is ill-founded. But I've met people who have said that they're more interested in hearing from God subjectively than they are in immersing themselves in the Scripture. And one pastor told me, hey, I'm just following George Mueller in this. Well, I'm sorry, George Mueller has spent hours in the Word of God. In fact, George Mueller was so intent on really understanding what God meant that he studied the Hebrew, and he became fluent in Hebrew, in Chaldean, in modern Hebrew, Yiddish, and German, And I don't know why he needed Yiddish, but anyway, I guess he was learning from the Hebrews of that time. He memorized large portions of the Old Testament in Hebrew, as well as larger sections in English. He read through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, almost 200 times. as his close friend said, and that close friend also credited every single occurrence of his faith to receive things as being grounded in the Word of God. Speaking at his funeral, this friend said of Mueller, one chief feature of that faith was that it was based upon God's written revelation, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. For every item of our beloved departed one's faith, he had a warrant, the inspired Word of God. He reckoned revelation to be God's choicest gift next to the gift of the Holy Spirit. So if you want to grow in faith like George Mueller did, immerse yourself in the Word of God. Read the Word of God. Memorize the Word of God. Meditate upon it. Pray it. Believe it. Apply it. It's got to be your anchor. In verses 10 through 11, we see yet another essential. for taking your Canaan, we must commit ourselves to following God in His opposition to the world. We call this antithesis. Antithesis is standing for something at the same time as we are standing against something, starting at 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 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. To follow God is automatically to be at war with the world because our God is at war with the world. You can't follow a God of war without going to war yourself. Now, just as a side note, some people falsely think that they're trying to maintain a balance between following God and doing their duties, as if those were two different things. But that is a mistake. If God is among you, He is among you in your duties. Following Him ensures that all your duties are done in His strength rather than your own strength. But back to the main point, when God guides you in your duties, you're not going to be doing your schooling, work, pleasure, entertainment, sex, entertainment, drinking, or anything else in imitation of the Canaanites. God's goal is to drive out the Canaanites, to completely replace their culture with a Scripture-saturated culture. That was the goal of God's vision given in Daniel 2 of the Messianic kingdom. It was to completely replace the kingdoms of this world, like Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, so thoroughly with Christ's kingdom that even the dust of those kingdoms is removed. Even the memory of those kingdoms is removed. So why on earth are homeschoolers resurrecting pagan literature of the Greeks and the Romans and the Babylonians into their classical education? It makes no sense whatsoever. Now, Christian classics, yes, but even there, We want to keep pressing into more and more consistently biblical worldview. But the bottom line is that when we are committed to this kind of antithesis, we will begin having faith in every area of our lives, just like Mueller did. There won't be any secular-sacred divide. Every moment of every day will be lived before the Lord and will stand in stark contrast to the thinking and the actions of the Canaanites. And again, each of these points is the context in which faith flourishes. Each of these points is fertilizer in which faith grows. Now, there are two more essentials. for faith-driven conquest, the first is to plan ahead for memorials of victory. The thought that is started in verse 12 doesn't get finished until later. Verse 12 says, now therefore take for yourselves 12 men from the tribes of Israel, one man from every tribe, and then he passes on to another subject. It's like, okay, where do these 12 men go to? And then in chapter 4, you realize, oh, okay, later He's going to use those 12 men to take stones out of the middle of the river to make a memorial on the other side, then to take some other stones, put those into the middle of the river as a memorial right there. So, by selecting them this early, Joshua's already anticipating that the river will be crossed. Those stones will need to be carried by those 12 men. He is anticipating God's miracle. He is counting on God's miracle. He's already acting as if the miracle will take place. And this too is a way to encourage and strengthen our faith in the Lord. And if somebody could bring me a Kleenex, that would be awesome. So, there are various ways that we can pick out our 12 men, so to speak. For example, when we're going out doing evangelistic work, thank you, sir. when we're going out and doing evangelistic work, and we're anticipating that the Lord's going to answer our prayers, and we're going to have some converts, we need to already have a curriculum in place to disciple those people into, right? It's an anticipating the answer to our prayers, sort of like the African church. I heard a story when I was growing up that they called for a prayer meeting, To end the drought and to pray for rain and everybody showed up with an umbrella except for the missionary talk about embarrassing But those nationals were expecting that God was going to of course answer their prayers. So they brought an umbrella Okay, so that's anticipating the results before the results come in now this Step is so closely connected to faith that sometimes It is the evidence of faith. It comes after faith. Sometimes it is the prelude to faith, but we're getting very, very close to the expression of faith itself. Now, I hate to use one person as an illustration so frequently, but I'm gonna use another one from George Mueller because it fits this point so well. And there's gonna be a longer quote from Janet and Jeff Benge's biography. I hate to bother you, Mr. Mueller," began the matron, but it's happened. The children are all ready for breakfast, and there's not a thing in the house to eat. What shall I tell them? Now, I'll just interject here that George Mueller's friend's daughter, Abigail, was at the house playing, and he just thought, you know, why don't you come with me, Abigail? He was going to give her a teaching lesson. And he went into the dining room, and the biography goes on, inside they found 300 children standing in neat rows behind their chairs. Set on the table in front of each child was a plate, a mug, and a knife, fork, and spoon. So obviously, the matron was taking the actions of expectation that George Mueller had modeled to her previously. She was, as it were, selecting her 12 men to remove the stones when God answers the prayer, right? Or to use another analogy, she was preparing the field for rain, preparing for God to provide. Or to use the analogy of the African church, she was bringing an umbrella while she was praying for God to provide. Anyway, the story goes on. But there was no food whatsoever to be seen. George watched as Abigail's eyes grew wide with astonishment, and Abigail's his friend's daughter. But where's the food? Abigail asked in a whisper. God will supply, George told her quietly before he turned to address the children. There's not much time. I don't want any of you to be late for school, so let's pray, he announced. As the children bowed their heads, George simply prayed. Dear God, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat. By the way, Thanksgiving is another prelude to faith. We thank you for what you're going to give us to eat. Amen. George looked up and smiled at the children. You may be seated, he said. He had no idea at all where the food he had just prayed for would come from or how it would get to the orphanage. He just knew God would not fail the children. A thunderous din filled the room as 300 chairs scuffed across the wooden floor. Soon all 300 children sat obediently in front of their empty plates. No sooner had the noise in the dining room subsided than there was a knock at the door. George walked over and opened the door. In the doorway stood the baker holding a huge tray of delicious smelling bread. Mr. Mueller began that the baker, I couldn't sleep last night. I kept thinking that somehow you would need bread this morning that I was supposed to get up and bake it for you. So I got up at two o'clock this morning and made three batches for you. I hope you can use it. George smiled broadly. God has blessed us through you this morning, he said, as he took the tray of bread from the baker. There's two more trays out on the cart, said the baker. I'll fetch them. Within minutes, the children were all eating freshly baked bread. As they were enjoying it, there was a second knock at the door. This time it was the milkman who took off his hat and addressed George saying I'm needing a little help if you could sir The wheel on my cart has broken right outside you Right outside your establishment I'll have to lighten my load before I can fix it. There's ten full cans of milk on it. Could you use them? Oh Then looking at the orphans sitting in neat rows, he added, free of charge, of course, just send someone out to get them. I'll never fix this cart with all that weight on it. Now, how did the matron prepare the fields or select her 12 men? She set her table and got the children ready to eat. Now, in the movie, facing the Giants, a football coach was discouraged by the way things were going. And another teacher came up to him to give him some encouragement. And the teacher said this, there were two farmers who desperately needed rain, and both of them prayed for rain. But only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it. Which one do you think trusted God to send the rain? Goats replied, the one who prepared his fields for it. Then the question was asked, which one are you? God will send the rain when he is ready. You need to prepare your field to receive it. And, brethren and sisters, some of you pray for things that you're not yet prepared for God to answer right away. If God answered, you'd be scrambling. You're not prepared for the answer. You wouldn't know what to do. We pray that God would convert entire nations, but is the Church of Jesus Christ ready to disciple nations to think biblically in civics, math, science, in every area of life? This is one of the passions that keeps me researching and writing for long hours after I've put in my 50 hours for the church, because I am wanting to prepare my 12 men to remove stones from the river when God converts nations. I am wanting to prepare the field for rain. I believe God will indeed convert nations as nations, and I want to start preparing materials for people to see in every area of life God's Word is sufficient. And I need more time, and I'm going to be asking the congregation if I could have an extra two weeks of study time next year. If you don't grant it to me, I'll just trust God on that. But it's my way of preparing the fields for rain. Now, each of you has your own calling. And I'd encourage you to prepare your own fields for rain. Select your own 12 men to immediately be ready to remove the stones from the river when God answers. If we're going to be a congregation of faith, we need to begin implementing all 10 of these principles more consistently. These all really act as either fertilizer for faith, or if faith is already present, it's encouraging more faith. It causes faith to continue to be present. Now, the last principle is the most obvious one. Trust God to do what he said he would do and move forward in faith. Now, there is so much packed into verses 13 through 17, and I've decided to reserve those verses for next week. But I want to at least end by reading this remarkable miracle one more time. beginning at 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 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 Zeriton." And there's actually two ways of translating that, but anyway, we'll get to that next week. So, the waters that went down into the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, failed and were cut off and the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 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." Now, I'll hasten to say that we do not need a repeat of old miracles. Not at all. We need God's power afresh in our midst. We need the Spirit to grow faith in our midst. And so it's my prayer that these ten points become so pervasive among God's people as fertilizer for faith, that our faith grows strong, strong enough to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we desire that our lives would be more and more characterized by it, immersed in it. Help us, Father, to live by Your Scriptures. Thank You for this, Your people, and whatever a stage of strength any given one is at. I pray that you would remove all discouragement and just enable people to keep pressing forward to take the next step that you have given to them and to see their faith growing and strengthening. And we commit them to you and to your loving care and pray this in Jesus name. Amen.