STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE RIVER
TEXT: Joshua 3:1-6
Joshua 3:1-6 -- “And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.” “And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host;” “And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it.” “Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” “And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” “And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people.”
I. INTRODUCTION -- STANDING AT THE EDGE OF THE PRESIDENCY
In early 1975, Jimmy Carter, the ex-governor of Georgia, began campaigning in Iowa, the site of the first statewide contest in the race for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Carter knew almost no one in the state, and his first piece of business was to introduce himself. He set up in a hotel suite in Des Moines with soft drinks, crackers and cheese. Then he waited. And waited. Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours, three hours. . . no one came to his reception, not a single person. Embarrassed but undeterred, Carter 50, and Jody Powell, his press secretary left the room and roamed the streets looking for voters. Anyone with a notebook or tape recorder sent them into exhilaration.
With a persistent attitude (sometimes that is what it takes), they took their cheese crackers and soft drinks and started stumping in the small towns of Iowa. One of the things that Carter told the people was this: “I will never lie to you.” When he said this, he noted a stirring in the small audiences. They perked up and began to pay attention to him. People were still stinging from the Watergate problems. The appeal of that single statement was the power that Jimmy Carter would ride into the Whitehouse. In retrospect, Jimmy Carter will never be considered a great president. In all probability, he was one of the most “common” presidents that the United States has had in the last century. He was a farmer who really was out of place with the political machine that runs this country.
Yet, in all of this there is one single aspect that should be found in this. When no one showed up at his hotel meeting in the early stages of his running for the Presidency, he refused to allow the obstacles to overwhelm him. He knew that he wanted to be President and was willing to make the necessary adjustments to become that man.
-Whether you are running for the White House, or trying to influence others for Jesus Christ, or trying to live victoriously in this life over sin and temptation, or trying to reach lost men, or trying to cross a Jordan River at flood stage, one thing is for certain. That is, you must come to the edge of the obstacle and face it down and allow God to work with you and through you to accomplish His purpose.
II. THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
-When you initially look at the book of Joshua, it can be outlined:
Joshua 1-5 -- Entering the Land of Canaan
Joshua 6-12 -- Overcoming the Land of Canaan
Joshua 13-24 -- Occupying the Land of Canaan
-The land of Canaan is going to be a place of challenge and a place of spiritual struggle. This fact is given when we look at Deuteronomy 7:1-6. Moses gave some important principles there to assist men in overcoming the enemy.
1. The land must be possessed and the enemy must be destroyed -- 7:1
2. No compromise can be made with those who are in the land -- 7:2-4
3. The altars of Canaan had to be destroyed, the idols eradicated, and the groves cleansed -- 7:6
-The crossing of the river Jordan and the taking of Canaan has always been the call for the people of God. The walled cities, the numerous gods, and temples had to be removed. Some of these things were not just spiritual actions but physical actions.
-Some would express that they desire to have a walk with God, have a hunger for revival, long for lost men to be saved, and expect God overnight to change them on the inside. But I must tell you this that all changes do not occur at the altar.
-The majority of people are converted at an altar at a church but it is what happens when they leave that altar that makes all the difference in the world. Get expects radical change when He empowers men with the Spirit. Once I walk away from the altar there will be a spiritual obligation to fulfill but there are some physical things that I am responsible for also.
Let your attitude change.
Let your reading habits change.
Let your associations all change.
Let your thought life change.
Let your influences change.
Destroy the walled cities, the idolatrous temples, break down the gods of this world.
III. THE SETTING OF THE TEXT
-Joshua and the children of Israel now stand at the edge of the Jordan looking into a land that would have already been conquered except that doubt had ruled their fathers.
-The position that Israel now finds itself in is very similar to the one that Moses had faced at the Red Sea. Now Joshua has a group of people who have weathered the desert. It has toughened them. It has brought discipline to their lives. Joshua possessed a powerful instrument that was much more suitable for accomplishing the purposes of God.
Never despise your deserts of tribulation.
Never despise your deserts of spiritual dryness (not lukewarmness and there is a difference).
Never despise your deserts of small things.
Never despise your deserts of spiritual barrenness.
Never despise your deserts of emptiness.
Never despise your deserts of struggle.
Never despise your deserts of ineffectiveness.
Never despise your deserts of isolation.
Never despise your deserts of temptation.
Never despise your deserts of defeat.
-For it is the desert that God uses to make his greatest weapons. Deserts have a way of making men prayer warriors and deserts initiate a hunger from God that is often unprecedented.
-The actual crossing of the Jordan River is found in Joshua 3-4. Joshua had some very special reasons for crossing the Jordan at the lower fords across from Jericho. He could have went further north and crossed into a plain of ease because there were no walled cities there. Or he could have crossed further south from Jericho but that would have taken them back into the desert where they had came out of.
-Not only did they face Jericho, the walled city, they also faced the Jordan River at a flood stage. Quite a challenge for the children of Israel. But allow me to let you in on something, you never, never, never, ever, ever, want a leader who does not challenge you. You want a pastor who will challenge your heart, who will challenge your thinking, who will challenge your life, because a leader who is not challenging those he serves really is not effecting change.
-We face a gaggle of challenges in this hour. We live and work with people who need a revival. Most of these people we come into contact with are “Christians” and yet it has little effect on how they live their lives. They go to church on Sundays at 11 o’clock sharp and leave at 12 o’clock dull.
Worldliness is seldom mentioned.
Modesty and separation is never mentioned.
They go to the same movies that the world goes to.
They rent the same DVDs that the world rents.
They do everything that the world does and calls it Christianity.
So the old riddle became prophetic: What is the difference between the church the world? About ten years, perhaps even less. . . . may it never be so here.
-So we face not only the challenges of bringing a revival to the world but also the challenges of praying a revival into what I would loosely call the “church.”
-You do not want a pastor who will not challenge you. We are standing just at the edge of the Rapture. We must work while it is still day. There must be no hesitation, no excuse-making mentality, and no resistance to moving forward.
A. The Symbolic Use of Rivers
-No ordinary programs or ordinary methods will get us across the river. The thing that takes us across the river will be accomplished by following the manifest presence of God. Stepping into a river at flood stage is not the normal way to cross a river.
It poses danger.
It raises fear.
It brings about the leaving of the security of the banks.
-But we must trust God. We set out. We let go. We wade into the water.
-Scripture uses rivers to be symbolic of God’s presence.
Psalm 1 mentions a stable man who is by the river.
John 7:37-39 mentions that rivers of living water will flow from a man’s life.
Revelation 22:1 mentions that river will flow out of the river of God.
-The River of God is found in the following places:
The Garden of Eden.
In Ezekiel’s Temple.
In the Believer.
In the new city of God.
-Revival rivers are first a river of death to self, to pride, and to our own feelings of religiosity. Religion is not relationship. Once a man crosses a revival river it will bring death to human carnality. It will bring death to our own feelings of ability. It will place an emphasis on what God can do through the man who is willing to go the distance.
B. Namaan’s Response to the Jordan
-2 Kings 5 gives to us the story of a man by the name of Namaan. He had leprosy and was commanded by an absent prophet to dip in the river Jordan seven times for his own healing. That simple message brought a furious response from Namaan.
-He wanted to go back to Damascus and dip in the rivers that were an alternative to the muddy Jordan. He wanted to be healed but he really did not want to be healed. We will always be challenged to dip into rivers that are not of our own making and not of our choosing. But it will be those exact rivers that bring healing and restoration back to our lives.
III. CONCLUSION -- CROSSING THE JORDAN
-There lodged Joshua and the people. The river had to be crossed before vision could change into possession. There was a barrier between the desert and the Promised Land. There will always be barriers between what we desire from God and where we physically are.
-There are critical hours in every life. Almost every experience has it’s share of calamities and turning points. There are single moments and actions that act as rudders and steer us in the direction of the goal or the direction of misfortune.
Years ago a friend called me and told me that Bro. Kilgore had just preached their sectional conference on the Friday night before. He said that Bro. Kilgore had preached about things that attempt to steal your vision and crush your spirit. One of the points of emphasis was that this will always be a fight that we are involved in. He told the story of when Bro. Daniel Calk was near the end of his fight with multiple myeloma. Bro. Kilgore had left Methodist Hospital in Houston and driven home. He hadn’t been home very long before he was called by Sis. Kilgore who told him that they thought that Bro. Calk was near death and that if he wanted to see him alive one last time that he needed to come back to the hospital.
Bro. Kilgore went back to the hospital and went into Bro. Calk’s room, who was also his son-in-law and co-pastor of Life Tabernacle, and sensed that Bro. Calk was about to die. He crawled up under Bro. Calk’s bed and began to cry out, praying that God would spare his life. People all up and down the hall on that floor could hear Bro. Kilgore praying and pleading for God to heal Bro. Calk. Over the course of about an hour, the praying went on before Bro. Calk died.
Bro. Kilgore said that it was one of the longest walks that he had ever taken going down the hall and walking several blocks to his car in one of the parking garages. On his way back to his car, Bro. Kilgore said that it seemed as if the devil himself was talking to him. He started mocking Bro. Kilgore about praying for others to be healed. He asked him if he still believed in divine healing. Bro. Kilgore said that he fought through his grief and wiped the tears from his eyes and spoke very sharply to the devil and told him that he still believed in divine healing. He told him that if he had to pray for a thousand people before one of them was healed that he knew that God was more powerful than disease. Furthermore, he said, not only does God still heal and deliver, but He will continue to raise up a great church in that city.
-Somewhere between your desert and your Promised Land there will seemingly be insurmountable odds and great barriers. You must determine that it may be Friday now but Sunday is coming. Fight on, struggle on, and allow God to see you through the difficulties.
-There is something about the fact when you start going after the things that God has for you. You will defeat the devil when you break into a new level of the anointing.
I am coming out of my desert of tribulation.
I am coming out of my desert of spiritual dryness (not lukewarmness and there is a difference).
I am coming out of my desert of small things.
I am coming out of my desert of spiritual barrenness.
I am coming out of my desert of emptiness.
I am coming out of my desert of struggle.
I am coming out of my desert of ineffectiveness.
I am coming out of my desert of isolation.
I am coming out of my desert of temptation.
I am coming out of my desert of defeat.
I am coming out of my desert of humiliation.
-And I am going into the Promised Land
The Promised Land of perpetual blessing.
The Promised Land of spiritual victory.
The Promised Land of divine power.
The Promised Land of God-centered focus.
The Promised Land of revival and restoration.
The Promised Land of healing and deliverance.
January 16, 2009
Philip Harrelson
